I've been working for a while on some house rules to flesh out consumables since RAW doesn't even suggest a price to restock them. My rough draft has gone through many variations (it started way, way too detailed for this narrative system), but is getting closer to something I like that is as simple as it can get (in my opinion) while retaining some realism (final cost determined not just by silhouette, but by occupancy of the vehicle). BUT, I'm worried about the cost of restocking for a PC party. What is too much? What is not enough? I started with the base assumption that 1 day of consumables for a silhouette 2 single occupancy vehicle (1 pilot) would cost 10 credits. For long duration vehicles (they have a consumables rating) that includes nourishment, life support, and fuel for a day considering the vehicle will not always be flying about, engaged in combat, but sometimes even idling on a landing pad sometimes. I had it at 20 originally, but I think it was too much when I ran numbers for large ships, so I cut it in half. Using that as a base, here are a couple examples:

A YT-1300 has silhouette 4, crew 2, passenger capacity 6, two months of consumables, and a new ship costs 100,000 credits. Each month of consumables in my system costs 1,000 credits. This amount could be altered if the ship is just being lived in, sitting on a landing pad, versus flying about the Galaxy while double bunked (I have multipliers to this base).

An Imperial-I Star Destroyer has silhouette 8, crew 37,085, passenger capacity 9,700, two years of consumables, and a new ship costs 150 million credits. Each year of consumables costs 200,000 credits.

I liked the numbers I came up with. Imagine what it would cost to fly about the Galaxy in a transport for a month while replenishing life support (air), nourishment (food), and fuel. That's around the cost of a new blaster rifle and might actually be too cheap? But, would your players balk at paying 1,000 credits monthly during their travels?

It costs roughly $1.5 billion annually to maintain a carrier strike group on station. Should be able to eyeball that roughly to shoehorn a cost.

There was a thread wherein someone compiled the list from WEG Tramp Freighters & WEG Galaxy Guide - it was some time ago so I don't have the link handy. It seems to be right in line with what you're looking for. I don't think it's gone completely down the path you're treading, but it might help pave the way.

Since I can't find the original thread from November of 2013, here's what I captured for my notes, for which I take zero credit and will gladly attribute the proper author:

Since about once a week we get a post asking "How much does X cost on a starship", I thought I'd type out all the ship based costs from Galaxy Guide 6 and present them here. Also, seriously - go track down a copy of that book. You wont regret it!

MUNDANE COSTS:

Docking fees

These vary from spaceport to spaceport, but most spaceport Standard class or larger charge 50 credits per day. A busy Imperial Class spaceport might charge 150 credits a day

Standard Maintenance and restocking:

Standard restock includes replenishment for all fluids - water, lubricants, coolants and oxygen. Also included are basic proteins for autochefs, but not luxury items like fresh food or liquor.

Cost is a flat fee depending on the total crew and passenger capacity of the ship times the "consumables" in days (10 x Total capacity x Consumables)

Fuel

Spaceports can equipped with fusion generators that recharge fuel cells. At the slowest rate of charge, this costs next to nothing, but if called upon to recharge quickly, the costs increase rapidly. The following costs reflects most Standard Class star ports. It is likely to be cheaper at better class ports and more expensive at more primitive ports:

Charging Rate - Cost per cell

Trickle (1 cell/day) - 5 credits

Standard (1 cell/hour) - 10 credits

Fast (4 cells/hour) - 50 credits

Emergency (20 cells/hour) - 500 credits

Most stock light freighters are equipped with 50 fuel cells. Additional Fuel Cells: 500 credits each. One cell of fuel is used for:

* Entering Hyperspace

* Six hours in Hyperspace

* One month realspace operation

* One hour combat maneuvers

* One hour atmospheric flight

EQUIPMENT

Hyperdrive

1/2 - Not available to civilian ships, 30,000 on the black market plus 2,000 instillation costs

x1 - cost: 15,000 Credits.

x2 - cost: 10,000 Credits.

x3 - cost: 7,000 Credits.

x4 - cost: 4,000 Credits.

x5 - cost: 2,500 Credits.

It is possible to remove the backup hyperdrive and sell it (price: 800 credits), gaining additional cargo space

After every twenty hyperspace jumps, the ship should have a complete overhaul and tune-up, with certain components replaced. Cost: 1,000 credits (GM discretion as to what effects failure to maintain the engines might be, perhaps a 3% chance of hyperdrive malfunction for every subsequent jump)

Sensors

Electro-Photo receptors: 300 credits

Full spectrum transceivers: 500 credits

Dedicated energy receptors: 600 credits

Crystal Gravefield Traps: 3,000 credits

Hyperwave Signal Interceptors: 2,000 credits

Life Form Indicators: 800 credits

Sensor Jammer - 1,500 credits

Sensor Decoys - 1,000 credits

Weapons

Blaster cannon - 1,000 credits

Laser canon - 1,500 credits

Heavy Laser canon: 3,000 credits

Turbolasers: 9,000 credits

Light Ion Canons: 1,000 credits

Medium Ion Canons: 1,500 credits

Heavy Ion Canons: 3,000 credits

Proton Torpedoes

Firing system: 2,500 credits

Torpedo load: 800 credits each

Concussion missiles:

Firing system: 3,500 credits

Missile load: 500 credits each

Fuel converters:

Solid Fuel Converter: 8,000 credits

Fuel Scoop: 15,000 credits

Solar Converter: 12,000credits

Miscellaneous

Concealed Cargo compartments: 200 credits per five ton capacity

Hidden Cargo compartments: 400 credits per five ton capacity

Scanner Resistant Cargo compartments: 1,000 credits per ton of cargo capacity

Automatic Cargo Jettison: 1,000 credits

Tractor Beam: 8,000 credits

Passenger conversion: 400 credits per additional passenger added

Refrigeration Equipment: 100 credits per ton converted

Escape equipment: 1,200 credits per pod

Replacement Navigation Computer: 2,000 credits

Environmental Converters: 4,000 credits

Some of what was done above (consumables don't include fuel, keeping track of units of fuel) is actually pretty close with what I started with. When I was done I realized keeping track of all of that was way too much detail for the narrative style of this game. So, I went with the idea of having fuel be part of consumables and not keeping track of each little thing the ship was doing to deplete supplies. Travelled a few times throughout the month? One month of consumables used. Sat on a landing pad for a month with the party living out of the ship? Only half a month of consumables were used.

I'm most concerned of what players would think was a good cost to run their PC ship. The example YT-1300 came in at 1,000 credits for typical use per month, 500 credits for sitting on the ground being lived out of. Is that too high or too low?

Is all this bookkeeping and number crunching going to benefit a space-fantasy narrative game? It sounds like hacking Traveller - which I've seen done for Star Wars - might be a much better fit for your GM style.

3 minutes ago, Concise Locket said:

Is all this bookkeeping and number crunching going to benefit a space-fantasy narrative game? It sounds like hacking Traveller - which I've seen done for Star Wars - might be a much better fit for your GM style.

I can see where an attempt to keep everyone hungry would require this level of bookkeeping - I think the trick is how to do it without it becoming Edge of Excel. Seems like the perfect thing to delegate to a player for a pittance of xp!

The book does suggest food costs anywhere between a couple of credits a meal and many thousand for a banquet. But it's a nice system you have started for games that need it.

We have a detailed system for trading in RAW including smuggling, rarity of items, finding items, negotiation of prices. I don't think that makes it Traveller even if it's in place for one when you want that detail over just making a purchase at book price.

I've kept it pretty simple with no record keeping other then noting how much of the consumables have been used up. That's something already implied by RAW if you are going to use the consumables ratings. What wasn't covered in RAW is what to do when the consumables are used up? I've answered the questions of where to get consumables for different sized ships, how much does it cost, how long does it take to load up on the consumables (only if in a hurry for some reason), and what happens if you run out and can't restock. I tried to make the last one fun.

The intention is to have something in place if PCs start smuggling, taking on paying passengers, or just engaging in speculative trading. If there are no expenses to do these things then it would be just a money grab (I've had players want to grab a smuggling job or some cargo when moving from point A to B where a new adventure is waiting). Or perhaps the PCs are given a scout vessel and told to go explore some wilds area of space with few civilized places to restock. Keeping track of consumables suddenly becomes important. At the same time, if you don't wish to worry much, applying something like "1,000 credits per month" to operate the YT-1300 isn't game breaking note taking at all. And, if there are more details to be had in place for when needed, they are already consistent with the costs you have been applying.

IIRC, @RebelDave has an “Operational Costs” expansion that he was working on updating.

I have a suggestion but it's just a suggestion. (Even though this is how I'd do it in a campaign I run).

And yeah, I'm ripping this straight out of SJ Games Traveller.

The "consumable" costs of a ship is 10% of the sales cost, per year.

SW RPG tells you the quantity of consumable that can be carried at any point

So a YT-1300 (retails for Cr120,000) would require Cr33 in consumables per day. (Yeah you could round it up to 35 for ease of calculation).

The raw math for that calculation was: Cr120,000 x.10 = Cr12,000. Divide that by 360 (days per year) for the result Cr33.333.

Simple no?

If you don't want the added detail, I think that could be a very quick and easy method. Traveller used such a method, but that was more for paying the debt off for the ship if I recall correctly. Or was it annual maintenance? I think Traveller had both. Even so, you still had a large cost to refuel after each trip, which varied by ship.

The only problem I can think of is if you start comparing ships of nearly the same price. What if one carries lots of passengers (think passenger liner) while the other carries only cargo. So imagine both have a crew of 4, one carries cargo and the other carries 50 passengers. They shouldn't use the same amount of consumables each month.

Even so, it could work fine if you don't want the added detail at all. You would just have to ignore a few strange comparisons like the one above?

Something to think about.

Maybe there is heavy use of food/water/air recyclers on board most passenger ships, to reduce the typical consumables costs? On a luxury ship, of course the consumables would be higher and of course the ship itself is higher cost.

Dammit guys I was pretty happy with what I had. Now I'm going back to the drawing board since I don't like it as much anymore.

I'm considering a 1% per month, but not sure about having to pull out calculators. I guess it would only be a one time thing when the PCs get a new ship. After looking at several ships of like pricing but different amounts of passengers, I suppose I could come up with some sort of adjustment? Perhaps keep the 1% per month, but double the consumption rate if carrying a large amount of passengers? No that would effectively reduce the consumables rating for ships intended to carry passengers. Perhaps increase the % cost of resupply a bit based on number of passengers? Then, reduce the consumption rate if not actually carrying any? That way the % doesn't have to be adjusted each time you pick up passengers, you just divide the consumption in 1/2 or something if you aren't carrying any at all? Trying to keep it calculator free once you do the setup math for the ship.

I think I'm going to look into some more details of using 1% then compare it to what I already have and see what I like better?

Well, after flipping through pages and considering a change, I'm back to what I last came up with. It's good for me, may not be for others? I will still later share when I'm done in case someone else might like it. The way I worked it you, after you do the original simple math after obtaining a new ship, you shouldn't have to do any more (or even look at a table?) once you get the hang of it. Doesn't take much during play time which was my goal.

Sturn,

The 1% of the gross vehicle cost per month of consumables works great too and keep in mind that passengers aren't going to produce the expensive consumables for a long range vessel.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the type of consumable will be different every month. One month it might be a POL lube for the drive, or a spare flexer valve for the reactor, or next month you may need to top off the coolant tank, and the month after, it's time to refresh the galley with foodstuffs, and a month after that, you may need to recharge the EVA suits and grab spare DC patches, etc. ad-nauseum .

The SW RPG is designed to keep things simple and if you and the players are up for this level of granularity (or if you want to flavor the text a bit) you're certainly free to do so.

But, I'd recommend that you Keep It Simpler, Silly (KISS).

I finally have something I like. Thanks for the input.

In the end I have a simple table (call it table 1) that compares silhouette to number of occupants the vehicle was designed for (crew + passengers). This gives simply a multiplier that is used when needed to restock consumables. I have another table (call it table 2) that expresses the base cost (before multiplier) of consumables of 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year. The same table has encumbrance values and restock time if this becomes important (you want to shove extra supplies in a cargo hold or want to load up quickly and take off due to the Hutt's goons coming your way).

After getting a new ship, simply use table 1 to compare occupants to silhouette. Write this multiplier down on the sheet for future use if more detail is needed. Then, do the multiplication for a restock of a unit of standard consumables for the ship. Write that down on the vehicle sheet also.

YT-1300 
Consumables: Two months (x6 / 1,200 credits per month)

That's it. And the multiplier is there if you later need to know how much only a week costs, or how much 2 weeks take up in the cargo hold, or how long it takes to restock a month, etc.

I went through my books looking at various ships and came up with what I preferred to be the multipliers for different sized ships and occupants. When I post it, if it's too expensive or too cheap for someone who wants to use it, simply adjust the multiplier by 1/2 or double perhaps.