Federation Commander

My players, laden with their ill-gotten spoils of piracy, are beginning to ask awkward questions about how much it would cost to buy civilian starships in Prime Directive.

I know that a basic administrative shuttle is about $100,000, and the rulebook covers all the possible options and prices for various other sorts of shuttles, but I'm curious about how much a ship like the Free Trader would cost.

Does anybody have even a ballpark suggestion?

I don't think Gary Plana reads this board, but he'd be the most likely person to know (besides SVC). John Sickles might know, since he's doing PD Feds (but I don't think he's here either).

Sure enough, the topic about GURPS Prime Civilians on the old board had a lot of interesting discussion of the issue.

David Lang did up a list based on a set of formulae which were rather complicated, but therefore convincing

Taken from that list, a Free Trader would cost about $60M, a Large Freighter $5.3M, and a Small Freighter $2.6M.

Later on, the idea of one EPV translating to $1M was floated and seemed to be generally thought to be acceptable if it included the value of the cargo on freighters (which it isn't supposed to, I believe). This would make the Free Trader $70M, a Small Freighter $26M and a Large Freighter $61M. I don't know whether that seems more or less preferable.

The Free Trader I built with GURPS Spaceships worked out at being worth $131.8M but that seems too expensive for the SFU - the cost of the Free Trader's weak shields alone was $50M. The prices in GURPS Spaceships are, I feel, too generic to be used in Prime Directive.

I have a feeling I will end up on the 1 EPV = $1M ratio but I like the price range of $60 to $70M for a Free Trader.