CONSUMABLES COST

This is an optional House Rule. It is based on the calculations provided in Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters (the two different calculations in the 1E and 2E versions of the book), but it is adjusted for simple, 1E play.

Consumables: Provides the maximum amount of time a starship can operate before resupply is needed. Cost for consumables includes fuel, air, food, water, and other miscellaneous drive and lubricating fluids and coolants. This cost also covers replenishment of various life support gases, waste removal, food converter basic proteins, decontamination, landing gear stress checks, replacement air filters/gravitational disks/ablative heat shields. It covers the cost of a maintenance droid recalibrating the intake and firing cells of the ion engine plus any basic maintenance of the hyperdrive.

CONSUMABLES COST = BASE FEE X TOTAL OF CREW AND PASSENGERS X HOURS SPENT IN HYPERSPACE

Base Fee averages 10 credits. But, the fee can range as high as 35 credits.

Total of Crew and Passengers means to simply add together the number of beings using up ship resources during a hyperspace trip. How many crew and passengers are on the trip?

Hours Spent in Hyperspace is variable, depending on the trip and the Astrogator's plot.

GAME NOTES

Tramp freighter captains can easily figure the cost to run the ship per hour in hyperspace, per person. If the base fee is 10, then the Falcon costs 20 credits per hyperspace hour if just Han and Chewie are aboard. The base fee is the cost for a single person on a vessel per hyperspace hour.

This cost can add up. Some players may find favorite low cost stops where they like to get resupplied. A ship doesn't have to resupply each time it makes port (although this is a good habit). The Consumables rating on the ship lists the maximum number of days the ship can go before it runs dry of supplies.

Because the cost of running a vessel can begin to add up, players may be encouraged to increase their character's Astrogation skill in order to easily roll successfully on higher Astrogation difficulty numbers. The Astrogator can raise the target number for a trip to decrease the amount of time required for the trip, thereby saving the tramp freighter captain some credits on the trip.

Time is money, and faster ships will spend less time in hyperspace, therefore costing less to travel that distance. Faster hyperdrives for the vessel may be a player goal as well, for this same reason--it will save money in the long run.

Players will have to balance cost and safety when their characters make hyperspace trips as they adjust the Astrogation difficulty for the trip. Some destinations will be too costly to travel to directly.

The one thing about this, though, is that all ships pay the same cost, regardless of size. The cost per person is the same.

Maybe that's OK? Where only talking about "Starfighter" scale vessels, to use a 2E term. Still, there's a lot of difference--probably operating cost difference--between Luke's X-Wing and the Falcon.

Thoughts?

One idea is to take the Consumables rating, in days, and take 10% of it. Then multiply that against the Base Fee.

Thus, the Falcon has Consumables of two months, which is 60 days. Base Fee would be 10 x 6 = 60.

For Luke's X-Wing, the Consumables is one week. Base Fee would be 10 x 1 = 10. I dropped fractions, to a minimum of 1.

Given this, and the formula above:

The Falcon with Han and Chewie aboard on a 5 hour Hyperspace trip would cost: 10 x 6 x 2 x 5 = 600 credits.

Luke, in his X-Wing, making the same trip would cost: 10 x 1 x 1 x 5 = 50 credits.