March Harrier Operating Expenses

Here's is an overview of the expenses of running a 400-displacement-ton Subsidized Merchant starship using the rules in GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars.

The single biggest expense is the subsidy payment.  In exchange for paying for the starship, the subsidy holder (a trust run by the Duke of Rhylanor) gets 50% of the ship's gross income.  Gross income consists of all passenger and freight income before expenses.  Note that if the crew decides to speculate on cargo, they have the option of leasing the cargo hold space at standard freight rates (half of which goes to the subsidy holder) and then keeping any profit made.  There is however a clause in the subsidy contract that the crew should not monopolize the cargo space for private purposes, so they should only do this with a small amount of the available cargo space, or when there is not other demand.  The good thing about the subsidy payment is that since it's a percentage of the gross, it's lower in months where there's not much money coming in.

The second largest expense is crew salaries.  The suggested formula for crew salaries is given on GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars (GTIW) page 175: Cr 600 + (Cr 900 * Merchant Rank) + (Cr 300 * best job skill), per month.  For the March Harrier's current crew of 6, this comes out to Cr 37500 per month, and that could go up if any crew members increase their rank or best job skill.  Note that some of the crew are owners of the ship and so might be willing to forego or defer their salaries if the ship operating account is short on funds.  Asking non-owners to do the same would be unlikely to go over well.

A relatively small expense is provisions.  Everyone on board the ship needs to eat, with crew meals included as a fringe benefit on top of their salaries, and (middle and high) passenger meals included in the cost of their ticket.  (Low passengers are unconscious in their low berths and thus don't need to eat during the trip.)  GTIW page 175 says that standard provisions cost Cr 6 per person per day.  As a house rule, the cost for high passengers is higher: Cr 20 per person per day, as high passengers demand high-quality fresh food, prepared well.  (Gani, the March Harrier's steward, has Cooking skill.)  A full ship with 6 crew and 14 middle passengers would cost Cr 120 per day just to feed.

Fuel is a variable expense.  GTIW 175 says that refined fuel costs Cr 350/dton and unrefined fuel costs Cr 80/dton.  The March Harrier now has 100 dtons of fuel tanks, so a complete fillup (sufficient for two Jump-1s) would cost KCr 35 refined or KCr 8 unrefined.  However, the March Harrier has fuel scoops and a processing plant capable of refining unrefined fuel, so the crew can often avoid paying for fuel, trading time for money.  If on a planet with sufficient water and sufficiently permissive local law, they can take water from a lake or ocean.  If in a system with a gas giant, they can scoop hydrogen from the gas giant.  In both cases, that costs time: from an hour or so to fuel from a nearby water source to days to travel to a gas giant and scoop fuel, plus time to process the fuel.  If there's no ocean and no gas giant, then buying fuel is the only option, but buying unrefined and refining it onboard is still a way to save money.  The fuel processors table on GTIW page 192 says that a 4-dton TL 10 processor can process 3.2 dtons/hour, so the March Harrier can process a complete load in 32 hours, or enough for a single jump in 16 hours.  (It's possible to jump with unrefined fuel, but that leads to increased chances of problems, so is typically only done in emergencies.)

Using a starport means paying berthing fees and starport administration fees.  These are detailed on GTIW page 175.  The berthing fee is typically Cr 20/dton (or Cr 8000 for the March Harrier) for the first 6 days then Cr 2/dton (Cr 800 for the March Harrier) per day afterward.  The starport administration fee is a flat Cr 500 per landing at all Imperial Starport Authority starports.  Both fees are unavoidable, except by landing away from the starport on a lawless planet.

Carrying freight can involve paying for freight handling.  The March Harrier's crew is capable of handling some cargo on their own, but for cargo that requires special equipment or that the crew doesn't have time to deal with, the cost is typically Cr 20 per dton of cargo, with a minimum cost of Cr 500.  Some cargo requires special handling, which adds a 50% surcharge.

The charge for shipping other people's freight is net of taxes, so customs duties on freight don't really affect the crew.  However, if the crew ships speculative cargo that they actually own, then they are responsible for any customs duty.  Customs duty is variable depending on the world and product, but averages about 4% of declared value.  Some crews have been known to smuggle cargo or lie about the value of cargo to avoid such duties, but that's risky.

The final major cost is the annual starship maintenance overhaul.  This only happens once per year rather than every week or month, but smart captains budget for it anyway, as it costs 0.1% of the base price of the ship.  For the March Harrier, a MCr 182 ship (as built using the GTIW rules), this is KCr 182.  It also means the ship is not making money for two weeks as it undergoes maintenance and the crew takes their vacation.