Hey All,

My group just finished up the Beginner Game and an extended Long Arm of the Hutt adventure with some rather ingenious and memorable roleplaying. They have their ship, now renamed the Black Herring, and with a tidy profit in their hand, the group has decided to go into legitimate business for themselves.

At the moment, we are taking a 2 month hiatus to let another member of my group be the DM (D&D) for a little while. When we take up Edge of the Empire again, my intent is to have had about 5 months of time pass. They can use this time to tell some of their own stories, do some upgrades to the ship, and actually undertake some "routine" shipments in order to generate income. They had negotiated shipping rights with the independent Ryll mine at New Meen on Ryloth, but certainly don't feel limited to that.

What I'd like to do is create an interlude narrative of their activities with their input, but at the same time provide what would a reasonable level of income in the interlude. I have some of my own ideas on how to handle this, but I'd like to toss it out to the community for some collective wisdom.

Using Lords of Nal Hutta, I'm trying to figure out a reasonable rate for Ryll shipments, for example. They've stated their preference for where Ryll is used for its medicinal purposes, rather than as a narcotic. It's a grey-area spice in that regard...

Anyway, any ideas?

Of course, I also have to figure out where the story takes them when the interlude is over

Well, remember you don't need particularly detailed numbers for the interlude. You can, if you want, do a spreadsheet that has "realistic" incomes and expenses. That will be a lot of work I imagine, and may give you numbers that don't work for you in the game.

What I suggest is simply deciding how much money you are willing to give the players to spend. You don't want them coming back from a 5 month hiatus (30 days of real time) and going on a shopping spree with huge stacks of credits. Instead, just give them a reasonable amount of "profit" from their legit ventures. That profit might be negative, giving them some Obligation or an adventure hook or two to make a big score to even the balance sheet.

Remember, during that 5 months they're not only making cargo runs or Ryll or other items, but they're spending money on fuel, docking fees, gambling, that big dinner to celebrate someone's name-day, the new coveralls after the old ones got ruined by drive coolant, Tibanna gas replacements, required maintenance, Imperial fees or bribes, etc.

If you know of a key upgrade they're hoping for, make sure you give them less than they need, but perhaps a good start for it. The players should feel like they've earned their credits though good play and roleplaying rather then just downtime tedium. To me that's far more satisfying then simply being handed a pile of credits.

I hope to run a more Firefly type of campaign, where the players have to realistically choose between essential maintenance, new gear, and critical repairs. Giving away credits takes away that drama.

Just let them tell the story they want to tell, and you pick a number you are comfortable with them achieving in regards to profit. I don't think it needs to be more complicated then that.

At the end of the last adventure, they collectively chose to let the money they had acquired for countering their collective bounty to become investment capital for their business (can you tell I'm playing with 45 year olds?), I wanted to at least provide them with some sort of personal income. Looking at the guidelines in Far Horizons, I think a monthly "net" income of 1,000 credits per player is reasonable, and if they want to use that to buy/upgrade equipment in the interlude that's fine. I don't think 5,000 each is going to break the game as certain things will very much remain out of reach. It's more the business-end that I'm wondering about. They definitely want to use at least some of that investment capital to do some upgrades on the ship.

One of my guys is actually a CFO at a mining company, so this kind of detail is very much his thing. I know that someone had posted an awesome chart of docking/refueling/repairing expenses around here someplace, but I've not managed to find it yet. At least having those guidelines on hand will be helpful to show the operating costs of a ship.

I also have my own notes for what I wrote for Fly Casual which will become public hopefully in the next few weeks... but at the same time I want to keep my own guys hungry while at the same time having them feel like they have got their business under them. After all, Han Solo went nuts for a 17,000cr passenger job!

I know that someone had posted an awesome chart of docking/refueling/repairing expenses around here someplace, but I've not managed to find it yet. At least having those guidelines on hand will be helpful to show the operating costs of a ship.

You mean this: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/89479-starship-equipment-and-operating-costs/

That'll do! I know someone else did up a PDF with similar results... but this will do nicely Thanks!!

I know there's some differences between this and the attachment/modifications and what's listed there, but this gives me a good indicator of what those costs would be.