The Battlemech is the most advanced weapon of war in the Battletech universe. The HPG network allows coordinating interstellar empires in war and peace. However, it is the jumpships and dropships that predate both and are far more important to the survival of humanity on countless worlds. Trade is the lifeblood of any civilization and space travel has made this more important, not less. I would be remiss if I did not dedicate an article to the merchants and traders who keep the Inner Sphere running.
As any of you know who have followed my articles for long, I am a big numbers fan. If you are not, just disregard the parts in italics. Otherwise, I've included a system to determine a merchant's monthly income between game sessions. If a margin of success (MoS) is called for, roll against the given skill or attribute and then just follow the math. A failure should be considered a MoS of zero. Big deals and rich finds should be roleplayed, not relegated to a throw of the dice.
Major corporations and conglomerates dominate the space ways. The amount of resources it takes to buy, crew, outfit, and maintain a dropship is prohibitive. The amount it costs for a jumpship, or a fleet of ships is downright obscene. This hard economic fact is what results in companies either having the means to ship their own goods or companies that were started by one lucky free trader who made it big and built an actual trading fleet.
Salaried:
The most tightly bound to the company store, salaried merchants have little or no vested interest in making a sale. As long as the shipment arrives safe and on time, the salaried merchant has a pretty secure job. The result for the company is a great deal of control, but relative inflexibility in dealing with local conditions and taking advantage of potential profits.
Checks Required: None
Monthly Income in C-Bills: 1725
Commissioned:
Most companies offer commissions to their trader captains, encouraging some wheeling and dealing by returning a small percentage of a successful trade to the merchant. Although this involves slightly more risk for the parent company, the costs are offset somewhat by lower salaries and the fact that a highly unsuccessful employee will be fired.
Checks Required: Negotiation
Monthly Income in C-Bills: 1500 + 75 * MoS
Licensed:
The closest thing to a free agent that a company man can be is a licensed trader. The trader takes most of the risks for profit and loss. He then pays a small percentage or fixed rate for the priveledge of handling company deliveries, displaying the company logo, and getting support from the company when needed.
Checks Required: Negotiation
Monthly Income in C-Bills: 1000 + 200 * MoS
Although fewer in number than their corporate counterparts, there are many captains who make a living seeking profit and making deals on their own. If they're lucky, these merchants will own a dropship and be forced to book passage with corporate jumpships. If they're not lucky, they are in debt up to their eyeballs for their dropship, desperately trying to keep the loan collectors at bay.
Contracted:
Contracted free traders take the leftovers from the corporate tables. Although some corporations make it part of policy to use free traders, most corporations only farm out the most dangerous or most worthless deliveries. The work is fairly steady, but freedom is limited, even though the captain assumes most of the risk.
Checks Required: Negotiation
Monthly Income in C-Bills: 800 + 250 * MoS
Freelance:
Typical free traders follow the markets, seeing a potential need and striving to corner it before someone else snatches the opportunity away. Some set up their own small routes, but it's the flexibility of the free trader that offers him the most profit. If his intuition is wrong, though...
Checks Required: A) Negotiation & B) Scrounge
Monthly Income in C-Bills: 600 + (200 * MoS A) + (100 * MoS B)
Deep Periphery:
The deep periphery trader operates under the loosest restraints and thrives on that chaos. Although poor, many periphery worlds are desperate for off-world goods, guaranteeing a market for most things. The threat of pirates is higher outside the bounds of the Successor States, but there are rumors of magnificant treasures lost in the reaches of space and pristine planets waiting to be claimed.
Checks Required: A) Negotiation & B) Scrounge & C) Edge
Monthly Income in C-Bills: 200 + (150 * MoS A) + (150 * MoS B) + (100 * MoS C)
Note: If the player rolls a natural 20 on any of these checks, he finds a cache of gadgets or books or some other minor lostech worth 1D6 * 1000 C-Bills. Any major find should be roleplayed.
The first and most common type of goods to transport are raw materials. Raw materials often require little or no industry to produce, in most cases, and often the worlds with the industry do not have natural access to the materials.
Ores & Metals
Industrial grade ores and gems as well as pecious metals fall into this catagory. Little special equipment is required to transport them (except in the case of radioactive materials, where lined containers are needed). Examples include: Aluminum, Copper, Gold, Palladium, Platinum, Silver, Diamonds, Coal, Lead, Iron, Steel, Uranium, Plutonium, and Germanium
Fuels
Chemical fuels are still in common use despite the prevelance of nuclear power in military and space applications. Several of these are volitile or are kept under pressure to store in a liquid state. Typically special containers for these follow various rounded shapes. Examples include: Oil, Gasoline, Propane, Hydrogen
Water, Food & Organics
With the failure of many purification plants in the last three-hundred years, shipping water is a vital task. Almost as important are shipments of bulk grains. Planets that produce agricultural products have also been known to supply wood, which is still a preferred construction material in many places. While transporting live produce is fairly impractical in space, frozen meat is commonly shipped as an alternative. Several of the following require refridgeration, but most can be shipped with little extra equipmen. Examples include: Water, Quillar, Barley, Canola, Corn, Flaxseed, Oats, Peas, Rice, Soybeans, Wheat, Butter, Cocoa, Coffee, Cotton, Lumber, Milk, Orange Juice, Sugar, Beef, Pork
Many worlds do not have the industry required to build high tech or durable items, or are simply not recognized as producing quality items. When this is the case, industrialized worlds are more than happy to sell their goods to their less developed neighbors.
Technology:
Typically electronic goods, these items can range from the necessary to the superfluous. They tend to require padded storage and resonable temperature and humidity, but little else. Examples include: Computers, Medical Devices, Circuit Boards, Radios, Lasers, Optics
Machinery:
Heavy machinery is usually produced by industrialized planets and then sent to planets that harvest raw materials so that they can use these materials to produce more equipment. The larger of these items tend to take up a great deal of space because they tend to be awkwardly shaped. Some are shipped in components and assembled on site. Examples include: Automobiles, Hovercars, Tractors, Robots, Manufactoring Equipment, Agromechs, Loadermechs, Industrial Exoskeletons, Minermechs, Drilling Rigs
Luxury:
These items add to the pleasure or comfort of a populous, but are not stricly necessary for survival. Often these can be fine, rare, or high quality goods that would normally be considered another type of good, but because of their special properties are considered luxuries. You can bet that these items require special handling and packaging. Examples include: Specialty Foods, Kincha Fruit, Wines, Liquors, Jewelry, Designer Clothing, Spices
Transporting people is not usually the prime money maker for a dropship pilot. They often have berths for maybe a half a dozen people on a normal trip, while the hold is full of cargo. Of course, if the ship either has enough space to transport enough people, or the few people who travel are willing to pay through the nose, then it doesn't become a losing proposition.
Tourists:
This is the main cargo of ships like the Monarch, or any other converted light cargo ship. Granted, interstellar vacations aren't cheap, but there are always a small number of people willing to pay any price.
Couriers:
States and companies can often bring to bear the amount of wealth needed to divert a ship for the purposes of carrying one man. For a significantly lesser fee, a merchant will often be happy to deliver mail, encrypted messages, and other small items. The value of the item usually determines the fee requested. Examples include: Family Remains, Mail, Encrypted Messages, Intelligence Agents, Diplomats, Military Personel, Nobles
Often, the military doesn't have the transportation necessary to move everything it needs to, whether it be supplies or manpower. No ruler can impress civilian ships into state service very often without destroying his economy, so it is standard practice to pay well for the services of trader vessels. Additionally, many mercenary units do not have the organic elements needed to transport them on their missions. They, too, are willing (if not quite happy) to book transport on civilian dropships.
Parts & Supplies
The safest duty and most common is transporting military supplies or equipment. The contract will usually specify if the drop is "hot" (a combat zone) or not, and will pay accordingly. Although mechs, fighters, and vehicles can all be transported on unequipped ships in a pinch, it is preferred to use ships that have specially designed gantries. Examples include: Small Arms, Ammunition, Rations, Medical Supplies, Parts, Vehicles, Fighters, Mechs
Non-combat Transport
It is not uncommon to use civilian transport to do peace-time movements, such as relocating a garrison or dropping off new recruits. Also, non-combat transport can cover situations where the drop itself is "hot" but the merchant is then free to go. The price for such operations is much higher, of course.
Combat Transport
Few mechant ships are equipped for continuous combat operations, but there are a small number that are willing to take the risks. The dropship must remain in the theater of operations for a given duration, supporting the unit and often braving fire to do so. Dropships that do this regularly are either former military vessels or they tend to be equipped with additional armor and weapons after a few missions.
There are several reasons that ships carry unmarked or unlisted cargo. Sometimes the items in question are illegal (narcotics), are heavily taxed on import (foriegn vs. domestic goods), wish to remain discrete (passengers), or are being sold to an illegal market (military arms for civilians). Since it is a simple matter for ships to pass the "border" of any given realm, most planets have their own government customs post. Additionally, each planet may have their own laws, and thus their own inspectors. Needless to say, usually the more backwater the planet is, the more slack the state inspectors will tend to be. As always, the most common motivation for such questionable or illegal practices are the accompanying high profits.
Although this article offers a system for determining salaries, it is also a fairly decent source of plot hooks. Let me know if this was a help or gave you any ideas. As always, email with any suggestions.