Starship Cost

[az_gamer]

A starship represents a large technological and economic asset that would be very difficult for a singular individual to own or purchase. However, it does raise the question about how one might acquire one. For space fleet officers, and their adversarial counterparts, the ship is a government resource that is entrusted to those serving on the vessel. For merchants the ship may be owned by a corporation, a union, or a group of investors. But what about the independent operator... how might they acquire or purchase such a powerful commodity? And what might such a thing cost?

While the currency of the game "the unit" does not represent a specific monetary unit it more abstractly represents a character's reputation, influence / connections, and resources. All of which are needed to acquire such high-end value items from communicators to beam guns. A system could be devised to determine an actual "credit" value for this statistic as the character may be able to cash in their resources in terms of "Units" converting them to local cash or credits. (I would like to see if anyone uses a similar concept). But it would have to be large amount... say 1 unit = 10,000 credits as a high tech item like a beam pistol would not be cheap or easy to get a hold of. Thus Units would represent a persons influence / connections as well as tangible resources in order to obtain such items.

I have considered one possible formula for calculating a starships cost or the cost to construct a starship

command crew compliment size x power pile base = starship construction cost. Here would be some examples. It should definitely not be an amount that would be easy to obtain by anyone character at one time but something they would either have to have investors or a loan to obtain. Now obviously most characters should not be able to buy a dreadnaught as this would be a prized government flagship but its good to know what it would cost if they could or wanted to construct something of a similar size.

Runabout Class 3 x 25 ppb = 75 Units
Scout Class (Small) 5 x 50 ppb = 250 Units
Scout Class (Large) 10 x 50 ppb = 500 Units
Frigate Class 10 x 50 ppb = 500 Units
Destroyer Class 20 x 100 ppb = 2,000 Units
Cruiser Class 50 x 200 ppb = 10,000 Units
Battle Cruiser Class 100 x 300 ppb = 30,000 Units
Dreadnaught Class 150 x 400 ppb = 60,000 Units

In most cases, characters would not own a ship themselves but may lease one from a company or work on one. Most characters enter the game with 2 or more units to spend so it may take a while to work their way up to building a ship or leasing one. I will work on a leasing cost table at another time after I see what the community thinks about the formula above.

what do you think?