hey, so, these large ships some of you have: can the game run them? Say, through a test flight between Mars and Jupiter? Just curious.
Edit:
I think I'll try something different, admittedly something that this system isn't quite designed to handle.
"The "End" of an Era", by Mark Jones
Lunar Products has recently announced that after nearly 80 years of uninterrupted production (yes the cataclysm was not in fact enough to stop production), the m60t Lunar "Spaceship" will no longer be produced by their lunar factory, citing shipping expenses from the moon and changing market forces. Those unfamiliar with the m60t might question why I put "spaceship" in quotation marks. Those familiar with this old "alleged spaceship" will need no explanation:
As a quick look at the vehicle and its stats should show anyone but the most ignorant, the m60t hardly qualifies as a proper "spaceship". Coming in under 60 tons fully loaded, barely 12 tons empty, possessing extremely limited delta-v, a very tiny crew and cargo space, and built-in landing legs (not shown in picture), it looks more like a glorified landing craft. Which would be, more or less, correct. The m60t traces its lineage to the specialized moon landers of the early days of moon colonization. With colonization of the moon and surrounding earth space accelerating, the need for a craft to move supplies between various moon and space settlements grew. And, rather than reinvent the wheel, Lunar Products decided to simply upscale one of their existing designs, and since it had enough delta-v to perform missions between stations in the earth area, their marketing decided to call it a spaceship, to try and gin up more sales. This created the near legendary "alleged spaceship", as the vehicle came to be called almost immediately, both with affection and derision, a "spaceship" with some rather unique features.
The crew and cargo compartment is located at the bottom of the ship, right above the engines with the fuel tanks located over them, rather than the more traditional placement at the top of the ship, as far from the engines as possible. This allows the crew hatch and loading area to be a mere 3-4 meters above the ground when landed, rather than the 17 meters up that a top mounted crew compartment would necessitate. It also allows the pilot to have a cockpit with a glass floor, letting him physically see exactly where he is landing. However, he will not be able to see forward, thanks to the large fuel tanks in the way. Its location also makes docking, an important activity for most spaceships, difficult. This somewhat unusual crew placement for a spaceship is only possible due to another thing missing from this alleged spaceship possessed by most others: nuclear engines. While the extra delta-v of nuclear engines is a must for most spaceships, the m60t makes due with simple methane/LOx chemical rockets. Like most parts of the m60t, this unusual feature makes it a good lander, helping improve safety when landing and making maintenance easier, but makes it a rather terrible spaceship.
So, after hearing me go on and on about all the ships flaws, the inquisitive might be wondering, well, why was this ship produced for nearly 80 years? That answer comes in three parts. First, it was a reasonably good low gravity lander. Second, it was a more or less adequate spaceship, as long as you didn't have to go too far or too fast. And finally, and most importantly, it was dirt cheap as spaceships go. Many of the great ships, such as the
Nostalgia for Infinity, are unique, individual creatures. There may be other members of their class, but the
Nostalgia for Infinity is unique: there was nothing exactly like it before, and there is unlikely to be any ship exactly like it again. The m60t was built
on a factory assembly line, and as long as it wasn't broke, Lunar Products didn't see much reason to change it. At its peek the Lunar factory was producing 2,500 m60ts a month. Lunar products is currently planning on shutting the line down once it produces its 1 millionth m60t.
That quantity produced a quality all on its own: Not only was the m60t cheap, a new one generally costing in the range of 400,000 credits, but ubiquitous, especially during the early days of colonization of the outer solar system. Anywhere you went in the system, you were likely to find an m60t, spare parts for m60ts, and at least someone who knew how to fly and maintain them. A man who knew the m60t on ceres could take those skills to Ganymede and fly m60ts there. When an m60t broke, the cheap could almost certainly find the part they were looking for in the local scrap yard from one of a multitude of old, worn out m60ts present.
All this helped make them a great starting spaceship: for many of those who got into the space hauling business from the ground floor, the m60t was often the first ship they had. I should know. I was one of them.
I was 24 at the time, living on my native Ceres. I had been kicked out of school at 16 for various, anti-social reasons, and since Ceresian culture abhors idle hands, I more or less immediately moved into work. And, after 8 years of work, I had stashed away around 30,000 credits in savings, initially with the intent of making the down payment for a place of my own. But, I was starting to get restless and my "anti-social" tendencies were starting to cause me to chafe at my relatively menial jobs. I got in into my head that the best thing to do would be to become a spaceship captain and fly around the solar system, a man with no master than myself. So, I decided to see what kind of ship I could get for 30,000. After being laughed out of the room, I came back to see what I could get with a 150,000 loan. My options were still fairly limited, especially once I realized the chance of someone with my background and position getting a license to operate a nuclear reactor was close to zero. Eventually though, I found a used m60t with under 5,000 flight hours that I could secure for 149,999 credits. Only 4 of the 6 engines worked, but that still gave plenty of power and redundancy for the low gravity of Ceres.
And so, I had my spacecraft. My first delivery was 8 tons of spare parts that a mine approximately 600 km away needed immediately. So, I launched my ship on a more or less ballistic trajectory, with a 1 km/s burn up and a 1 km/s break, letting me get to the mine in approximately 15 minutes. That first trip cost me 14,000 credits in fuel. I got paid 20,000 credits. I then took a much slower trip moving some personnel, 5 experts, to a second mining station, burning 5,000 credits worth of fuel (I remember feeling cheated that the mining station made me pay for the fuel to leave). And bringing in 7,000 credits. Then I ended the day by making a trip back to the primary space port, carrying some 11 tons of cargo for 6,000 credits and taking the trip nice and slow, only burning 4,000 credits worth of fuel. Overall, on that first day of space trucking, I made 33,000 credits in revenue, more than I had ever made in a year up to that point. But, I had spent nearly 25,000 in fuel alone. After getting back, the post-launch inspection that came with the hanger I was renting (for some 1,000 credits a day) showed that the vibrations had loosened some of the electronics, decalibrating the landing sensors (which explained a few hard landings I had had) which also likewise bent one of the landing legs out of alignment. This required buying some spare parts and worse, since I didn't know my ship all that well yet, paying some experts to come in and install them. Those repairs had cost me some 2,700 credits. Once I had my financial planning app include the insurance, debt payments, and other expenses, it turned out that my net income that day had been 15.60 credits, which I had already blown at the bar before getting home. It was at this point that I realized I was not going to get rich hauling equipment from one side of ceres to the other.
But, I figured out how to make it a living. I realized rent and an apartment were excessive,
unnecessary luxuries when I could just sleep in my ship. I figured out some inefficiencies with my fuel, steadily cutting down my needs, while also finding ways to increase how much cargo I could haul. I developed a list of clientele and routes, so that some days I would be making nearly 6 trips a day, transporting some 15 tons of cargo each trip. I finally got around to just stripping out the 3
unnecessary engines, removing nearly a half ton of excessive plumbing from the ship. The busyest times were 2-4 times a year one of the massive interstellar ships came in. Those ships had nearly 50,000 tons of cargo capacity and arrived like clockwork. moving cargo into orbit, down to orbit, and sometimes to the ship themselves aways produced a great deal of reliable work. And, for small, flexible ships like mine, there were always the people who seemed caught by surprise that the ship had arrived now, and who could be squeezed for some very lucrative "last minute" transport.
Looking through my records, during that first year I made nearly 545 trips, transporting 5,678 tons of cargo and 432 paying customers, charging an average of 700 credits per ton or passanger, for a revenue of 4.3 million credits. I also burned 4,905 tons of fuel at 650 credits a ton, for a total of 3.2 million credits, made repairs valued at 0.2 million credits, a 0.4 million credit docking fees, plus around 0.2 million in various other expenses like mandatory insurance, gave me a net income at the end of the year of 300,000 credits, a profitability of nearly 7%. It was a good first year, I figured.
The next year went less well, with an increase in the price of fuel increasing costs while lowering the demand, with more efficient ships than mine getting a greater share of the customers: my trips in the next year fell to barely 346 in total, with only 4,546 tons and 256 passengers moved for a revenue of 3.6 million at an average of nearly 800 credits per ton or passenger, while I burned 3,626 tons of fuel which cost me 3.2 million credits, or nearly 900 credits per ton. Combined with nearly .8 million in other expenses, I actually lost nearly 400,000 credits, despite having to raise my price by nearly 15%.
The next year was better, with fuel cost returning to more normal levels and my more incompetent or unlucky competitors going out of business. I was able to keep my costs from rising too much, only to about 850 credits per ton, while seeing activity rise again, making some 430 trips delivering 5,045 tons and 256 passengers, for a revenue of 4.5 million. I only needed to purchase some 4,128 tons of fuel at a more reasonable 800 credits per ton for a total cost of 3.3 million credits. Overall, I ended the year with a profit of 400,000 credits, getting me back into the black, barely.
I had weathered my first storm as a m60t captain, but the experience had convinced me that I wanted to do more with my life than scrape by as a the captain of an m60t on Ceres. While the freedom was enticing, the risks were much less so. Thus, while the year after that was overall calm and reasonably profitable, I began then to look for new career. But, that is a story for another time.