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Drop-Point Delivery

Drop-point delivery is the standard way in which tramp freighters earn their living. In DPD, the freighter is hired to carry cargo from one place to another, in a specified amount of time for a specified fee. The profits are not tremendous, but often it's the only legitimate way for open to a tramp to make money.

It's also the easiest way for a gamemaster to control the flow of the game. You can send the characters anywhere you want them to go, simply by giving them a consignment headed in that direction. And you can determine how much money they have simply by paying them more or less for each trip.

Finding a Customer

Once again, it is difficulty as you want it to be for the traders to find someone who needs something transported. If you want them to go to a planet, let them find someone who has something he wants taken there.

If, on the other hand, you want the characters to have to roll for their DPDs, you can have them make streetwise or Perception rolls, their success levels determining how good and potentially profitable the run is:

Remember of course that you should use this table only between your designed adventures. That is, if you haven't got anything planned for them, or if you want to go through a lot of runs in a short period of time. Your adventure needs always supersede this -- or any other -- table.

Standard Fees for Drop-Point Delivery

The standard fee for Drop-Point Delivery is between five and 10 credits per ton per day. This is based on a x2 hyperdrive engine (the standard for tramp freighters), one day to load cargo and get out-system, and one day to get in-system at the destination planet and off-load the cargo.

That is, if a shipper needed 50 tons of cargo hauled to a planet which was 10 hours away and he was paying the 10 credit/ton rate, he'd offer the job for 1500 credits: 10 credits x 50 tons equals 500 credits per day; 500 credits times three days (one day to load and depart; one day in transit -- rounding up the ten hours to one day; one day to land and offload) equals 1500 credits. If the trip took longer than expected, the shipper wouldn't pay for the extra time: that's the freighter captain's lookout.

In addition to the standard fee, shippers might offer bonuses for quick delivery, penalties for slow delivery, and so forth. If the shipper has a smaller load but requires a quick turn-around, he's likely to pay more per ton, or simply hire the entire vessel for the trip (usually at from 300-600 credits per day).

Typically, shippers pay half the fee up front. They give the freighter captain a voucher for the other half. The voucher also lists any bonuses/penalties for early/late delivery, and so forth. The freighter captain is responsible for the condition of the goods: if they're damaged, the receiver may refuse to accept them, or pay less for them.

Insurance

The shippers might demand that the hauler take out insurance on the cargo; this usually runs between .01 percent and 10 percent of the cargo's value, depending on the trader's reputation, the riskiness of the trip, the fragility of the cargo, and so forth. If the trader can't get a reputable insurance agent to cover it, he can turn to a loan shark, or he can post his ship as collateral against the cargo. Both of these last two are quite risky, as you might imagine.

Repeat Business

The characters can make contact with a shipper who needs a lot of repeat business. The only way they can assure themselves of gaining such a job is by being cheap and reliable. Though they will tend not to make as much money on individual runs, over the long term, their income will be higher. Generally, if the characters get a long-term contract with, for example, a trading house, they'll have to accept a fee perhaps as much as five or 10 percent below standard. But they will get steady work, and there's a pretty good chance they'll also get bonuses for on-time delivery as well as breaks on ship-repair and upgrade fees.