The free-trading tramp starship is a standard element in Traveller,
but was never a part of the 2300AD setting. Mongoose's version does
suggest that it might now be a thing, though. Can their rules support
it?
Let's start witn an Anjou class cargo vessel, since we're told
this is the commonest model out there (book 2 p. 94). It costs
MLv70.37 with a quoted maintenance cost of Lv59.06/month (this seems
wildly low, I think Lv5,093 is more in keeping with the other ships in
the core books, Mongoose), can take ten passengers at Comfort +1
and 503.7 tons of cargo, and has a crew of 24. I'll assume full
regulatory compliance, so we'll have to pay a full crew roster.
How to breaking down that crew roster into standard salaried posts
isn't immediately obvious. Going by book 2 p. 49 Pilots, Engineers and
Medics are paid at Lv4,000 a month, Navigators, Sensor Ops and Remote
Pilot at Lv3,000, Gunners and Stewards at Lv2,000 and Cargo Handlers
at Lv1,000. (More for good ones, but that's way out of reach.) There's
no steward on the crew roster, but I'll assume that they take the slot
of one of the cargo handlers if needed.
I'll pay the Life Support Tech and Electronics Tech at Lv2,000, the
Administrator at Lv3,000, and the Captain and Bridge Officer at
Lv4,000. That gives a total pay bill of Lv77,000 per month, 78,000 if
you swap in a.steward but I'll assume we don't for now.
The Anjou is a 1,000-dton ship, so a week tied up at an orbital port
will cost Lv55,000 in the core, Lv80,000 on the frontier. Fuel
capacity is 240 dtons so that's Lv480,000 for a full refuel, but only
60,000 for one week of power-and-drive (the other week is paid as
berthside power and life support for only Lv5,000, which I've included
in the berthing cost above.). So two weeks, one in transit and one
alongside, costs Lv117,000/142,000 for the ship (I'm also rolling in
Lv2,000 for the ongoing ship maintenance), plus half the monthly
salary bill, for a total expense of Lv155,500/Lv180,500.
In that week of transit we can go 7.7 light years. All right, what
profit can we make? We can sell ten middle passages at Lv100 per light
year, plus 500 dtons of freight space at the same rate, s that'll
bring in Lv392,700. That's a profit of Lv273,200 in the core,
Lv212,200 on the frontier. That'll pay back the cost of the ship in
12-13 years which actually starts to seem vaguely plausible.
How about a smaller ship? We're told the Thorez courier is the
equivalent ship of the Traveller free trader. Eliding the details of
calculation, that's a crew of 20 and a monthly pay bill of Lv68,000.
This ship can land, and a week on planet will cost Lv5,000 in the
core, Lv3,000 on the frontier. The week of power supply fuel it used
in transit is Lv12,500. However, we need to spend 7 burns (Earth-sized
world, air-breathing thruster) to get back from the surface to where
we can kick in the stutterwarp, and that's a further Lv70,000 of fuel.
So that's a total cost per two weeks of Lv121,500/L119,500. In its
week of transit the Thorez can go 9.03 light years (assume we can
discharge en route), bringing in Lv61,500 from passengers and a full
cargo hold. No hope of a profit here even on the frontier.
But of course even those numbers assume a full hold at ideal distance,
which won't always happen. How can we increase profitability?
Going under-crewed and skimping maintenance will help a little, but
there's no scope for saving on fuel for the ship and docking fees, and
that's two-thirds of the expenses.
A crew member can buy cargo space at Lv500 per quarter ton (I assume
per month, like the salary numbers), so each one of those (on the
Anjou) will cut costs by Lv500 and income (from scheduled cargo) by
Lv385. That's less of a money saving measure and more of a cash
saving measure.
High Passage requires spin gravity of 0.2G, and we only generate 0.15
on the Anjou, none at all on the Thorez, so that's not on. (You
need a steward for that, not for Middle.)
Speculative Trade is probably the big one here. I assume there's a
speculative trading organisation which is a separate legal entity from
the ship, which pays the ship for cargo space and covers its own
costs. Assuming Earth-sized worlds and drop-pod cargo, each ton will
cost typically Lv1,600 to get to orbit and Lv120 to get down again,
and we're paying Lv1,000 for the hold rental (four quarter-tons × half
a month), so the speculative cargo has to make a profit of Lv2,720 per
ton to be worth carrying at all.
Is that doable? Yes, but not easily. In a perfect world you can buy at
15% nominal value and sell at 400% (MTrav2, p. 234) which would work
with a base cost of Lv750 or more (buy at Lv113, sell at Lv3,000). But
you don't get that perfect setup. More typically you'll get something
like a 30% margin, so the freight's base cost needs to be around
Lv10,000 (buy at Lv7,500, sell at Lv10,500). There are still common
trade items in that class, but it'll cut out a lot of the cheaper
ones. It's all a bit marginal but it should be possible.
The Thorez may do better here because it handles its own launch and
landing costs. It needs to make Lv58,000 to cover its cost shortfall,
but if the hold is fully rented out that's only a margin of about
Lv1,000 per ton. At normal margins we could go down to a Lv3,500 base
cost. (Though presumably the hold space rental costs the crew more, on
the basis that it costs the ship more; it has to be lugged back up
to orbit.)
Who actually owns the ship? Half a million Lv per ship share (book 1
p. 11) would need 140 of them for an Anjou, 52 for a Thorez. Even
if the whole crew chips in, that's not going to happen.
Of course historically tramp freighters were basically never owned by
their captains anyway; even if you'd started by working aboard, once
you'd made enough money to own a ship you generally moved ashore and
paid someone else to do the hard work. The Anjou might be regarded
as an investment opportunity; nobody's going to expect profits off a
Thorez if it's doing anything legal. At which point you're probably
down to eccentric billionaires and crime lords…