On 21/04/2026 09:58, James Catchpole - jlcatchpole at googlemail.com
(via tml list) wrote:
> The 10-years' payment was in the first edition, specifically for Free
> Traders - but the only other ship benefit in that was the Scout.
>
> The Safari ship, Lab ship and Corsair turned up in Supplement 4, the latter
> two had different strings attached (ship on loan to character and ship
> illegal and likely wanted by authorities), but the safari ship didn't say
> anything.
>
> Given all that, I'd say a version of the free trader mortgage would be
> reasonable. Since it's unlikely to make the kind of income that the free
> trader mortgage posits, but the total mortgage is 40 years, I'd suggest
> that each roll of a safari ship benefit gives the character 25% ownership.
> The remainder is then owned by a silent (?) partner who may make
> requests/demands or otherwise cause complications, and maybe get a slice of
> any profits, rather than needing to be paid like a bank.

*None* of the ships listed in /Supplement 4/ have any mention of a
mortgage attached to them.

I would rule that a lab ship belongs to some foundation or university,
and while the character has no need to make repayments on it, they can't
sell it, and they must pay all running costs (get working on those grant
applications...).

A corsair, no repayments, but probably 'hot'.

A yacht would be owned by the character's family, so no selling of it,
and free fuel and maintenance on certain worlds where their family's
name is good (but of course that means their family can track their
movements, etc.).

A belter gets their seeker free and clear - if they rolled that I'd
assume they hit a major strike.

The safari ship is the hard one. A hunter doesn't seem likely to get a
jackpot, and nor do they have an obvious patron the way a noble or
scientist does. But slapping a great big mortgage on them seems rough,
because it's not a ship that's particularly good at making money, and
nor is a player who rolled a hunter probably super-interested in playing
merchant trading games.

Pages 6 and 8 both state that extra rolls of a ship mean the character
gets nothing for that roll.

/MegaTraveller's/ authors, in their infinite wisdom, slapped mortgages
on everything except the scout and the corsair, and only the trader
really has any way of making money on the scale servicing a mortgage
requires. How is a lab ship going to generate Cr300,000 a month (after
running costs)?

An interesting feature of the corsair in both CT and MT is that it's
unstreamlined and has no sub-craft. So you can only operate off airless
worlds and high ports, and up close I don't think all those deceptive
features would work well, so that's a risk anyway. Stealing something to
use as a fuel barge and cargo shuttle would be a priority.

--

Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>