Space - the final frontier. These are the voyages of a fully paid off laboratory ship. Its short-term mission: To explore profitable sellers markets. To seek out new brokers and new buyers. To boldly go into price regions where no seller of a laboratory ship has ever gone before!
After studying the subsector map (https://files.catbox.moe/qpvrfx.png) and extensively consulting your economicaly trained crew member Hans Gallager, you have identified Quarhe (0503) as such a seller's market, with Rhezho (0602) just one parsec away as a perfect buyer's market to acquire a new, better and more affordable space ship for actual travelling.
But in front of excellence the Ancients have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it, and rough at first. For now you are orbiting the gas giant of the Prefova (0404) system on your last fumes, and will need to refuel there before you can make the final Jump-2 to Quarhe.
You are left at 8/88 tons of fuel after your jump to the gas giant. With a successful Pilot check, you may refuel at the gas giant within 1d6 hours. Jumping to Quarhe requires 80 tons of fuel.
Also take a look at the deck plan at Ohm Sweet Ohm (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=19064.0), and decide how you will divvy up cabins and other spaces within the lab ship.
Holtz deftly maneuvers the ship to start refueling from the gas giant, he can't wait for them to have a real ship and not a flying laboratory.
Pilot: 11 (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=19035.msg344130#msg344130)
My wife and I are on the quarterdeck, because I'm assuming that's what the little tiny stateroom level is.
The hydrogen-powered bubble encompasses the lab ship just in time as it enters jump space. The instrument readings show nothing off, promising a safe journey for the following week in jump space.
Over the course of the week, you notice your nails and body hair growing slightly faster, your hunger and thirst becoming slightly more frequent, your sleep and wake phases becoming sightly shorter, and your metabolism generally speeding up slightly. It is not bad enough to affect you in a negative way, and only really noticeable when you pay attention to it, but you recognize the early signs of anagathics withdrawal.
You will need to find and consume a dose of anagathics by day 61, or you will physically age by 4 years.
You enter the hundred diameter space around Quarhe on day 32, year 1005 of the imperial calendar. By 0700 of standard time, you have reached the standard orbit of the planet. Through the view windows that have in the meantime been unblinded again by your stewardess Dr. Hayden, you can see a blue water planet with only a few green and brown islands providing a change of pace from the monotony.
Providing just an average starport, the world lacks a highport able to service your non-athmospheric ship. It will be up to you how to get down, and how to get the ship refuelled.
After deciding that Director Jayral and Dr. Lizbeth Hayden stay up to look after the ship, the latter uses the radio to peruse available services for orbit-to-surface taxis:
- Chuzu-Che Service of His Imperial Majesty - 200Cr per Launch. Reliable transportation as approved and monopolized by the Empire of Leng.
- Bunko's Bargain Barges - 5Cr per passenger1, 2, 3. Orbit-to-Air and Air-to-Orbit launch every Tuday4, 5.
- Golden Star Flights - 300Cr per passenger. Only the best is good enough for customers who can afford us. System defense boat escort, live music and tour guides are included with the fee, with extra services available at a humble mark-up at your request.
- Johannson's Valkyries - 150Cr per Launch. Flown by the finest veterans of the Noorthman Confederacy marine flyers, for the most bang per buck.
You may roll Carouse, Steward, Broker, Pilot (Small Craft) and/or other applicable skills if you want to know more about each offer than the advertisement.
"Amazing to think that a planet with so much water nevertheless has a cold war going on. What is there to fight over?" Evestireni states, before volunteering to be the one actually performing the sale, citing her prior administrative experience as valuable for negotiating such large sales.
It doesn't seem like she's terribly off target, on finding a local broker willing to assist for a generous cut of the profits.
Roll is 21+, so we sell the ship for 400% its base value, and have to pay the broker 15% of the sale. This leaves us with 340% of the base price--427,291,600 Cr.