Future Imperfect - Economics

One aspect of a science fiction universe is that the Heroes might find themselves hopping from planet to planet, buying, selling and stealing their way to glory. Each planet has its own economy, in fact, areas within a planet might have their own economies! Rather than attempting to develop a complex economic simulation model, we have instead created a simple to use and flexible model that will allow players to run a business of any size, be it a small trading sloop, a war-mongering mercenary company or a fleet of pirate vessels.

Small Group Economics

Unless the profits are exorbitant, if the Crew operates alone, without significant NPC help, they are likely to be able to use a standard RPG economic model. In other words, players can keep track of their cash and spend as they earn, or as they are able to find items which interest them. If this is how you envision your Crew, the rest of this section is unnecessary.

Economies of Scale

One of the most common economies of scale in a Sci-Fi setting is starship ownership. Starship are extremely complex, multi-million credit machines that require extensive maintenance and parts expenditure to keep spaceworthy.

In the real world, an endeavor such as that would require significant time expenditure from administrative members of the crew to ensure parts, fuel and maintenance are all balanced with the need for operating capital to make the purchases necessary to continue to be profitable, if not just make the monthly mortgage payments.

The intent of the economies of scale system is to make a game of larger scope not just possible, but also challenging and rewarding. Moreover, this should remain true without breaking the standard monetary system.

To wit, operating a merchant starship should see a monthly influx of capital in the hundreds of thousands of credits, if not millions of credits. No matter how high the mortgage and expense payments, players would be tempted, if not outright directed, to siphon off operating capital to purchase whatever equipment would make their upcoming adventure easier. What is 20,000 credits to a starship captain on a ship that is raking in 300,000 credits each month?

The answer is, of course, a heck of a lot more than it seems, and anyone who has ever run a business is well aware of this fact. Instead of creating a complex set of timing rules to prevent unrealistic expenditures, we have chosen to almost completely abstract the economic portion of the game, but also have the choices the players make be reflected in the mechanics. It should be possible to make it, but it should not be a given.

Income Shares

Income shares are the measure of cash flow for the vessel. These could be through legitimate commerce, piracy, smuggling or anything your Crew can devise. Income shares determine two things: how profitable the vessel is, and how much has the crew been paid.

Each profitable transaction the crew completes during a given time period will produce one income share per effect level generated. Each type of transaction has its own set of criteria to determine the difficulty of being profitable with that transaction. For example, carrying passengers is quite safe and easy to do, but they pay comparatively little and there is almost no chance of a windfall. Whereas piracy could be extremely profitable one month (when a ship is captured), but run net losses for months, or years, at a time when the IPA is vigilant.

At the end of each month, tally the total income shares the ship has produced. From this pool all expenditures must be paid. Some expenditures are mandatory, and are paid first. Some optional expenditures can be ignored and replaced with maintenance counters. Once all expenditures are dealt with, if any profit shares remain the captain has two choices: convert them to working capital or profit shares.

Working capital is added to the ship's credstick, and can be used for future expenditures or purchases. Each level of working capital is equivalent to one income share.

As long as the crew salary expenditure is paid each member of the crew is assumed to have enough money to use the standard purchasing system (see normal income below). If this expenditure is not paid, the size of "free" purchases is halved. If it is not paid for a second period consecutively, no purchases may be made "free", all NPC crew members also become disenchanted (see chapter XX: Psychology). For each extra profit share allocated to salary all characters collect their normal income.

Normal Income

Each character has a normal income amount listed which is dependent on a number of factors, in general this is 125 CR per wealth level. In Future Imperfect, edges are permanent parts of the Hero, so even edges that give seemingly ephemeral bonuses, such as wealth, carry over into the game.

Do not confuse normal income for total income. The normal income is the total amount of free cash the Hero has to add to his bank account after all expenditures are paid. As with starship economics above, the actual credit amounts may seem low, but this is indicative of the many expenses adventuring heroes find themselves confronted with each day. But hey, look on the bright side, no erasing numbers on your character sheet when you want to buy a space beer for your date!

Any item which costs less than 20% of the characters normal income need not be paid for. These purchases are assumed to come out of their standard expenditures. Any credits listed on the character sheet, even if it is just a few, are "extra" income, and may be used to purchase more expensive items. Characters may not combine their normal income to make "free" purchases, but may combine any credits listed on their character sheet as necessary.

Transaction Types

Each transaction type has a listed difficulty number which is the TN for the check that is made each transaction. These difficulty numbers are set based on the likelihood of profitability of the action, not the actual challenge. Some activities are capped, in that they can only create so much profit.

Passenger Service

Passenger service is the carrying of passengers between ports of call. This type of commerce is relatively low risk financially, and almost always delivers consistent results within a tight band. Finding passengers is a TN 3 merchant or bureaucracy check, with failure meaning no passengers are available that day. A critical fail means no passengers will be interested in this route at this time, no more checks are allowed. As soon as a single success is generated it is assumed passengers will continue to be attracted each day until the craft leaves port.

The number of low passage passengers found per day is determined by the passenger service effect level of 1d6. This level can be bumped, but the number of bumps is limited by the Mk value of the ship's entertainment programs plus the Mk value of the ship's cuisine program. High demand destinations provide +1 bump on top of any provided by amenities. Multiply the number of days of advertisement (since the first successful recruitment) by the effect number generated for total low passage purchases. The number of full low passage cabins must always exceed the number of middle passage cabins, which must always exceed the number of full high passage cabins. Once the low passage recruitment is complete, divide the number of cabins by 2 (truncate fractions) for middle passage, and do the same on middle to get high.

Income generated: Each full cabin generates one income share per 200 LY of travel. On an individual basis, high passage generates 1/200LY, middle 1/400LY and low 1/800LY. Always round .75 income share or greater up, drop anything .74 or less.

Regular Maintenance

For a starship to run properly it needs to be properly maintained. This requires space parts, expendable resources (such as lubricants, circuits/wire etc.)and good, old fashioned elbow grease. This is the role of the ship’s engineering team.

Engineering and maintenance are two different but related disciplines. One engineer might be excellent at keeping a ship running at peak efficiency, but useless when designing an upgrade or performing on the spot jury-rigging, while another is the exact opposite. In Future Imperfect, we strive to make both of those engineering types viable, and interesting, character archetypes.