Well, our group finished Beyond the Rim this week and I sat them down for a conversation about what the group's goal would be. I shot out a few basic ideas to get them started and they seemed to like them all. So, the consensus was to eventually set up a criminal organization for smuggling. They want to build up a fleet of ships under their control and move goods around illegally while they have fun doing odd jobs.

I figure for the startup process they are going to have to make alliances with other organizations and set up trade routes while they build up enough capital to purchase ships. They also did well enough to stay on with ISO Tech which should give them something to do immediately.

I set up rules for hiring crew members, and started constructing them a beat up BFF-1 they can purchase to start up. I can post that information for review later if anyone is interested.

This is what I have come up with. I purposely kept the prices a little low since the players are required to pay the crew members every day they are highered for even if their position is not being used that day. For example, a Ground Troop is getting paid even when they are flying through space for days on end. It is also a little low because the crew is getting fed through the 'fueling the ship' rule below.

Support Crew Cost per day:
Cargo Master: 4
Co-pilot: dex 3
skill 2: 5
skill 3: 6
skill 4: 7
Deck Hand: 3
Fighter Pilot: dex 3
skill 2: 8
skill 3: 9
skill 4: 11
Ground Troop: dex 2, hp 8, soak 4, carbine
skill 2: 4
skill 3: 5
skill 4: 7
Gunner: dex 3
skill 2: 4
skill 3: 5
skill 4: 7
Mechanic: int 3
skill 2: 5
skill 3: 6
skill 4: 8
Pilot: dex 3
skill 2: 6
skill 3: 7
skill 4: 9

General Rules:
Minimum Crew: Each ship has a minimum crew compliment that must be met for it to operate. GM will give final decision of what this amount is as new ships become available.

Paying the Help: Payment to the crew members occurs on a daily basis. If there are no funds available for the day, the crew stops working and the ship stops operating. If the ship is in hyperspace, it continues on autopilot until its designated stopping point and then stops.

Fueling the Ship: Ship docking fees (50-200 per day) and daily operating costs apply per crew member(air/food/fuel/etc costs) as normal. As ships get larger their become more fuel effecient per crew member so the price is reduced in some cases.
- 1-2 silhouette: 12 x (passengers + crew) per day
- 3-4 silhouette : 10 x (passengers + crew) per day
- 5+ silhouette:
sub 25 crew: 9 x (passengers + crew) per day
sub 100 crew: 8 x (passengers + crew) per day
100+ crew: 7 x (passengers + crew) per day

Double Duty Crew Members: For the sake of tracking purposes, each crew member is used for a single task.

You might want to make a provision for droid (or slave) crew. Higher initial cost (but there are ways around that), but no daily wage might be attractive to some.

Do your players enjoy this level of micro-managing?

Aside from this they would also need to spend credits keeping the proper spaceport officials and law enforcement bribed where they operate. If they do like to micro-manage then this is another significant cost factor that will need attention.

If they are not into a spreadsheet game, perhaps they'd start out more along the lines of the Smuggler Baron on page 395 of the core book. Then they can have power and influence without doing accounting spreadsheets and you can all focus on the story complications that come with building a criminal empire from the ground up.

agree with liloki

as a GM, i personally like to think of all this microstuff outside of the game (keeps my mind busy between sessions), but my players would all be bored to tears and usurp me if i brought it to the table.

i have to boil everything down a bit (lot) for my players. if you do want some level of "rules" for managing crew, resources, etc. you could look into adapting other system's rules for this. apocalypse world has some very basic rules, as do a few other systems i can't for the life of me think of right now... i have even adapted the EotE rules by lifting some concepts from 'reign: enchiridion' and mixing them in (basically i give factions stats of Might, Resources, Influence, Territory, Cohesion, and Knowledge - I won't go into exactly how i am using these stats, but it basically uses reign's concepts, resolved by EotE's dice mechanics).