Hello SW RPGers,

Here is an Excel Sheet I put together to keep track of and calculate costs and profits. It's mainly for a group looking to make trade runs on the hyperspace lanes in the SW galaxy. UPDATE: A separate User Guide has been added.

Trade Route Economics Tool Version 1.4 (Kyla Mods)

Trade Route Economics Tool Version 1.2

TRE Tool User Guide Version 1.2

I've pooled information from several official SW RPG sources (WEG, WotC, FFG) and from fan-made material (namely Operational Costs and Speculative Trading). I started building this just to use in my own games that I play in and GM, but I figured other players might be interested in using something like this. If there is already something like this out there, I apologize for the repeat material and would love a reference to it. However, I haven't seen anything on the Compiled Resource List like this (though again I do pull a lot from Operational Costs and Speculative Trading).

The first tab is a User's Guide to help explain how to use the other sheets. There is a sheet just for Operational Costs, one for buying and selling different cargoes, and one for selling tickets to people for passage between planets. The fifth sheet includes some planet information that is used in the other sheets. The four major planet characteristics that I based this system on are the Population, Technology Level, Region, and Government, since I figured those are the biggest influences on a planet's economy. I can't stress enough though that a GM should tailor some of these rules to certain situations when using this tool in order to appropriately implement them into his/her game.

I've broken down some of my own house rules on how to determine difficulty of some Astrogation, Negotiation, and Streetwise checks. I also reference the Astrogation Computer that I found on this forum (though it is surprisingly not in the Compiled Resource List), which is used for calculating travel times between planets. If enough people are interested in using something like this, I'll continue to improve upon it and be sure to properly credit the official and fan-made materials I used to create it. Also, if anyone was interested in helping out with it, I might consider building an application around this concept, possibly in Python or some other programming language, but with a user friendly GUI. I'm decent at programming, but could definitely use some help if anyone out there is SQL or Database savvy, or just really good with Excel.

Any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated and I hope at least some of you find this useful.

Enjoy.

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Update: Version 1.1

- Changed the Technology Level to Spaceport Class to better represent Planet Information

- Added “Huge” Population level to Planet Information for planets with over 100 billion population

- Separated Regions in Planet Information into 8 categories instead of the original 5 categories

- Separated Government in Planet Information into 8 categories instead of the original 5 categories

- Added Region and Base Difficulty columns to the Astrogation Check Information chart on Operational Costs page

- Added Vendor Check Difficulty chart to Cargo Market page

- Changed information in the Advertising Check Information chart on Passenger Terminal page

- Changed rules for Ticket Price and Cost & Fees Total to the Passenger Terminal page to better represent those values based on both the Origin Planet and Destination Planet

- Added information on several planets in the Planet Data page

- Clarified that Flight Hours are for Combat only. Normal flight in space (cruising or patrolling) does not burn fuel.

Working Progress for Future Version Updates:

- Adding more planet information into the Planet Data page (can still use help with this)

- Drop down menus for Origin Planet and Destination Planet

- Auto filling Planet Information for all categories based on Population, Spaceport Class, Region, and Government chosen

- Drop down menu for Planet Information for Population, Spaceport Class, Region, and Government

- Auto filling Planet Information for Population, Spaceport Class, Region, and Government based on the Origin and Destination Planets chosen if in Planet Data page

- Separating and providing drop down menus for Cargo Class and Cargo Type and auto filling Cargo Information on Cargo Market page if chosen cargo is in the Common Cargoes chart

- Updating the User Guide to reflect changes made in Version Updates

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Update: Version 1.2

- Added additional Planet Information on the Planet Data tab

- Added drop down menus for Origin Planet and Destination

- Added VLOOKUP functions to auto-fill Planet Information

- Added Skill Check blocks with the appropriate dice and symbol icons for tracking dice pools and check results

- Reorganized and cleaned out cells from the charts to make them easier to fill out and understand

- Changed cell colors to aid in filling out tabs

- Updated the User Guide and moved it to a separate Word document

*Thank you to Kinnison for Planet Data on the Minos Cluster Planets.

Working Progress for Future Version Updates:

- Separating and providing drop down menus for Cargo Class and Cargo Type and auto filling Cargo Information on Cargo Market page if chosen cargo is in the Common Cargoes chart

- Add Black Market Tab for tracking smuggling information similar to the Cargo Market layout

- Adding Planet Data to auto calculate Estimated Travel Time

- Adding Ship Information to select from a drop down menu

- Adding multiple blocks to enter in more than one Cargo Type in the Cargo Market tab

- Hiding cells that don’t provide useful information and continue improving the charts

- Developing an application with a friendlier Graphic User Interface than Excel

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Oh. Wow.

I think that is _WAY_ more information than I ever wanted to know about Star Wars shipping and commerce.

I’m glad that this is something you’re doing and that you’re taking care of for your players, because whoo boy…. ;)

<-- Huge Nerd Here.

I agree its a bit much, but I like these sorts of details.

Someone requested I post the password to unlock the sheets so they could make some changes. It's on the first page in the Users Guide, but probably not noticeable enough, so I'll post it here.

starwars

It's all lower case and all one word. Post a reply if you like it or have recommendations/suggestions/questions. Thanks.

<-- Huge Nerd Here.

I agree its a bit much, but I like these sorts of details.

Someone requested I post the password to unlock the sheets so they could make some changes. It's on the first page in the Users Guide, but probably not noticeable enough, so I'll post it here.

starwars

It's all lower case and all one word. Post a reply if you like it or have recommendations/suggestions/questions. Thanks.

Yeah, that "someone" was me (also a huge nerd).

Question: Is the current formula for carried fuel cells (Silhouette cubed) assuming ships with 1 month's consumables? Or 2 months? Or some other value? Knowing the basis for this number will allow me to adjust that cell for vessels with much larger (or smaller) endurance than "average".

PS - Awesome work on the sheet. Seriously. Truly awesome. The amount of thought, effort, and care that you obviously put into it is staggering.

@ShadoWarrior - That is a good question and it took me awhile to come up with a good formula to use that would scale well from Sil 3 up to Sil 9 ships. With the Authors from Operational Costs, they put Sil 3 = 25 Fuel Cell Capacity, Sil 4 = 50 Fuel Cell Capacity, and Sil 5 = 100 Fuel Cell Capacity. They didn't say anything about larger ships since most games don't involve them, but I wanted to include them. That's where I got Silhouette^3 from since 3^3 = 27, 4^3 = 64, and 5^3 = 125, and those numbers are somewhat close to 25, 50, and 100. I think it is reasonable that a Sil 6 ship would only have 216 Fuel Cells, since Hours of Flight Time is just for Combat (which I admit I forgot to put in there, thank you for mentioning that and I'll add it to the next version).

These rules assume that if a ship is just cruising or patrolling at a normal speed, it is using a negligible amount of fuel and things like solar panels and other renewable energy sources are able to supply most of the ships "running energy". Its things like Taking Off, Landing, Jumping to Hyperspace, and Traveling in Hyperspace that really burn through the ship's fuel cells. Therefore, a ship that jumps into a system with half of its fuel cells empty, still doesn't need to land to refuel or restock Consumables if it has enough Consumables for another 2 months. Consumables Capacity is determined in the Spaceship Profile, not in these sheets. There isn't a Consumables Capacity in this Tool yet, because I'm assuming either the GM or someone in the Players' Group is keeping track of how many days they have gone "between trips" without restocking Consumables.

Much like some Real World Navy vessels, big ships need to dock more often because they need to refuel than because they are running low on food, especially if they are having to travel far at a fast speed (like "plaid"). That's why coaling stations used to be everywhere and these days there are refueling ships that go out to meet the aircraft carriers to refuel them. Big ships just burn fuel faster, even though people can have plenty of food to live on them for 1 year or 2 years, they still need to dock more often for Fuel than to restock on consumables.

So to answer your question, the Fuel Cell Capacity value has nothing to do with the Consumables. They are completely separate and have separate costs, fuel and food. Hope that clears some of the confusion up.

Also, thanks. I enjoy working on it, and will continue to put more work into it, so hopefully people can get more out of it.

Much like some Real World Navy vessels, big ships need to dock more often because they need to refuel than because they are running low on food, especially if they are having to travel far at a fast speed (like "plaid").

Then there are the “Nuclear Wessels” that can stay out for years, except for food and shore leave, etc….

Much like some Real World Navy vessels, big ships need to dock more often because they need to refuel than because they are running low on food, especially if they are having to travel far at a fast speed (like "plaid").

Then there are the “Nuclear Wessels” that can stay out for years, except for food and shore leave, etc….

"What the heck is a nuclear wessel???"

Gooogle...

Lol. I did not remember that at all!

So I think that astrogation tool may not be calculation everything correctly.

If Lipsec or Sump is used as the origin, then no matter what is used as destination, it is always 7-8 days.

However, if you use Endor (which is right next to it) as the starting destination it seems to work properly.

Separate question:

I see that if there is no established route between two systems, (e.g. Lipsec and Skye) the astrogation check is upgraded by 2. But what is the base and would the upgrade be for every jump between the system until a triumph is rolled?

And agree, the spreedsheet has A LOT of information.

So I think that astrogation tool may not be calculation everything correctly.

If Lipsec or Sump is used as the origin, then no matter what is used as destination, it is always 7-8 days.

However, if you use Endor (which is right next to it) as the starting destination it seems to work properly.

Separate question:

I see that if there is no established route between two systems, (e.g. Lipsec and Skye) the astrogation check is upgraded by 2. But what is the base and would the upgrade be for every jump between the system until a triumph is rolled?

And agree, the spreedsheet has A LOT of information.

Yeah, that Astrogation Computer doesn't work with every planet and not every planet is in it. I don't know the creator of it, but for most systems in its database, it works pretty well. At least the systems most players are going to want to transport cargoes between.

For the base Astrogation difficulty, look on page 5 under Planet Data. There is a column just for Astrogation Difficulty / Trade Routes. Look at both your origin and your destination difficulty, which ever one is higher, that's your base difficulty.

I've only put in the planet data for 30 planets so far. That is the part that is taking the longest. I hope to have another 30 planets filled out some time next week and will keep adding to it, at list until I fill out that list (there's 150 currently on the list). I'm using the planet descriptions in the FFG sources as well as Wookieepedia to fill out Import/Export, Trade Route, Government, Special, and Population data. For most planets, the GM is going to have to look that information up on Wookieepedia himself and determine the base difficulty until page 5 gets filled out more.

If anyone is willing to help fill out that Planet Data information and send it to me, that would be awesome, just let me know which planets your going to tackle/add to the list.

If the planets you are traveling to aren't on the list, I'd say have the GM determine the base difficulty. It really is a case by case kind of thing, but a good rule of thumb I've been using is Core / Colonies = Easy, Inner / Mid Rim = Average, Outer Rim / Wild Space = Hard, Unknown Regions = Daunting. Eventually I'll have more info on this though. Recommendations are welcome.

I like it! I've never been a big fan of xsl stuff, but I definitely see how it can be useful! Good work! I may actually look into it if my game becomes more starship orientated - and perhaps my GM (yes, I've got a GM now... I also play!!!) would like to look at this for the game he's running.

I'd love to see more of your house rules for negotiation, streetwise and more

The astrogation computer thing is impressive, but I have two issues: 1) travel times are too long (for my games/galaxy) and 2) it's missing some important pieces and planets that I need for my current campaign. Also, there's no way of adding in new stuff.

Now if we could somehow get hold of that database of his and create a small app to do the same offline that would be awesome! I can imagine a program with more or less the same features as the online verison, but additionally you should be able to add your own planets and adjust travel times according to how you play the game; I mean some people like days and months of travel times, other's prefer the speed-of-plot like in the films and tv-series where travel time and distance is rarely ever a concern (I can only recall episode 2 actually referencing distance and time to save Kenobi,) and then there's the inbetweeners, where you want travel to take time, but at the same time you'd rather not have too much time pass while travelling.

So, I have made some changes to the TRE Tool and I think it looks a little better now. At least it makes more sense numbers wise. I've listed the changes in the original post under Version Updates for Version 1.1 and updated the Link. Hope you guys like it.

Again if you have questions or comments about it, let me know.

@Jegergryte - I agree. I would love to get my hands on that database and the distance calculating algorithm source code he used for it. That is another project I would love to tackle at some point and do just what you suggest, make a stand alone program that people can download and use, plus have access to the data so that GM's can change things or add planets to the database.

Hello again everyone. I've just updated the links to the newest version 1.2 of the TRE Tool in the original post. Please check it out and let me know what you think. I've made very significant improvements and think it looks a lot better now. There is more planet data, but still isn't as full as I'd like it to be, so if anyone is willing to help out with that as well, please let me know. Thanks and I hope you enjoy.

Edit: Had a note for it in the list of updates, but wanted to mention it here. Thanks to kinnison for the Planet Data on the Minos Cluster. The more data the better.

Holy crap!

Again!!!

EDIT: Now I am starting to worry a little about our Monday night game.

Hiya Nevermind! I've got my own calculator that I've been using to monitor my groups runs that is 80% similar to this. The difference comes that I've worked the game mechanics into the calculations for hyperspace already.

To get travel time between systems, I used the Essential Atlas to give each system a final map coordinate. I then used the stated time that a ship using a x1 hyperdrive would take to cross the galaxy. I then took that information and divided it by the total distance the ship would have traveled to get a simple factor of distance on the atlas. I used that to create an absolute value of distance between any two planets using the map coordinates, and added in a variable deduction for location to a trade route to get a "standard" jump time. I used the assignment of Triumphs and Advantages discussed in the rulebook to allow a player to assign the appropriate deductions and viola! The time in hyperspace is finished!

The advantage of this is that I: a) have every planet in the essential atlas located and b) I can use an hour/fuel use ratio to give resupply costs for the ships. If you're interested, drop me a line and we can work on getting the data into your spreadsheet!

Yes, I am interested. I am still hoping to turn this into an application at some point, so additional features would be greatly helpful.

If anyone else is interested in joining in on this project, please let me know.

an app would be nice.

Looks a lot better the n1.1, and you really should try to create a drop-down list and restrict values in the cell when entering information. Example: The silhouette can only be whole numbers from 1-10

Just wanted to update folks that I am currently building an application based off this spread sheet. I'm planning on having a lot more functionality this way to include:

- A main window that tracks a players game based off a calendar and displays summary data for the ship, current trip being taken, and cargo in the hold

- A trip window that details everything seen in the Op Cost, Cargo, and Passenger Terminal tabs of this sheet. This info can be saved in its own file so that multiple trips can be saved, edited, or selected through the app instead of managing multiple versions of a full Excel doc.

- A ship window that allows the player to add a custom ship, edit an existing one, and select which ship to be the active ship for their current trip.

I'm building the app using Qt right now, but it will be my first app, so it won't look very fancy. It will be much easier to use than the spread sheet though (*cough* I hope *cough*). Anyone who'd like to help out that has programming experience would be a huge plus.

I won't be changing the user guide or detailing the version changes, but on the Original Post is a more current version of the spread sheet courtesy of Kyla.

Thanks Kyla for adding all of that info. It looks great!

Awesome news! I'm not familiar (at all) with Qt, but I do have extensive experience writing apps in C++, Java, and even Visual BASIC. I'd love to help somehow, even if just being a beta (or alpha) tester.

I have a partial app working. Some volunteers are about to start "Alpha" testing. Functionality that will be included in the app is:

- Fillable ship sheets that can be saved as individual files

- Fillable trip sheets that can be saved as individual files

- Automatic calculations for cost and profits

- Hiding of all unnecessary information

- Automatic calculation of estimated travel time between any of 4000+ systems

- Ability to easily add Planet Data or Cargo Types without opening a spread sheet

- User friendly display of all information within a main window

- Ability to purchase, load, and track multiple cargo types per trip

- Tracking of hyperspace trips by date on a custom calendar

- Tracking of fuel consumption, hull trauma, system strain, crew, passengers, and cargo across multiple trips

This list doesn't spell out everything, but that is the majority of what I'm in the process of implementing right now. The purpose of the app is to narrow the TRE Tool sheet down to only a few boxes that the players need to fill out. Should be fairly easy and give some very useful information while also helping players/GMs track information about the group and their ship. It is all coded in C++ using Qt Creator and should be ready for Beta testing in a month or two. Any recommendations for additional functionality are welcome. No guarantees though.

That's so awesome, I can't wait to try it !

I'm way late to this party but I LOVE this file. Any chance of an update to the planetary database? Is 1.4 the final? Wish I could get my hands on 1.2.

This makes me happy. I'm rolling up an exClone Logistics and Support character, and this is gonna make me legit sound like I know what I'm talking about. Thank you.

Awesome !

My party used to travel between worlds with various cargos and spent a lot of time doing calculation. That'll save a lot of time for everybody

How can I download a copy to use it offline ?? impossible to download...

Otherwise nice job