Space Trucking

Star Wars and Firefly both have what we all need and want: space trucking. I am of course referring to flying a freighter, finding some cargo, and moving that weight. I really like the Stars Without Number way of handling trading but that procedure only applies to buying and selling cargo -- not moving it for somebody else.

So I had to create my own. With the help of a friend (and player in my Lightspeed D6 campaign) who owns a sprint hauling business, I came up with the rules found below.

This lifestyle could be yours at last

HYPERSPACE TRUCKING . . . AND YOU

Buying low and selling high is a rich man's game -- hauling goods from A to B is far less risky. Most spaceports have a Load Board that a hyperspace trucker can check, rolling 1d6 for the number of hauling jobs, with a bonus for the class of starport (+1 for standard, 2+ for stellar). Roll to generate the details of each hauling job using the table below. Subtract the planet's Friction score (see SWN Suns of Gold) and add any bonuses for the size of the planet's starport. 

2d6	CARGO SIZE	Cr/TON
< 2	Incidental. 1d6 tons	5
2-3	Incidental. 1d6 x 5 tons	6
4-5	Minor. 1d6 x 10 tons	7
6-7	Minor. 1d6 x 10 tons	8
8-9	Major. 2d6 x 10 tons	9
10-12	Major. 2d6 x 10 tons	10
> 12	Special. Reroll to find cargo size, but w/ accessorial (1-2: extra stop; 3-4: specialized equipment; 5-6 white glove delivery). Adds additional 10% to pay	Reroll +10%

A player may reroll the search on the Load Board if they wait a full week, but doing so adds 1 Friction to their next Load Board or Trade roll. 

To decide the hauling destination, I roll 1d10 (my setting has 10 systems, which works well) and reroll if I land on the planet the PCs are currently on. 

DETAILS, DETAILS

PCs hauling goods are paid by credit, per ton, per day. Each hauling job anticipates a day loading cargo, a day unloading cargo, and however many days at a hyperdrive speed of 2x it takes to go between systems. 

Failure to deliver goods on time can lead to penalties such as docked pay or no pay at all -- early delivery warrants a bonus. Additionally, shipping brokers pay for docking fees (though not fuel).

If the PCs are smuggling (either illicit goods such as spice or like real life smuggling, untaxed goods) the payout is 3x - 5x more than the above board stuff -- but the GM should come up with complications that fit the circumstances of the job.

INSURANCE

Nobody is dumb enough to trust their valuable goods to a bunch of greasy spacers without some form of collateral. PCs hauling goods must put up 2d6% of the value of the cargo as insurance.

 

This implies, of course, that you know either the specific goods and values thereof, or have a value of cargo in mind. Naturally, this will probably far eclipse the pocket change of the party, forcing them to take a rather usurious loan from a Hutt loan shark...

HAULING HURDLES

Space truckin' ain't all sunshine and roses. Every time the PCs take a hauling job, (you, reader-GM) roll 1d6. If you the result is a 1, then something happens to harass or harangue the haulers. When that happens, roll on the table below:

ROLL	HAULING COMPLICATION
1	Hyperdrive breaks down, TN 20 to fix, 1d6 hours
2	Inspection by Imperial Customs
3	Loading/unloading delay
4	Timing issue re: holidays, unable to unload on landing day
5	Pirates show up and attempt to steal/hijack/extort
6	Given false info – cargo bound for wrong planet or crates empty
7	Double brokered – broker gets paid for delivery, PCs don’t & get ghosted
8	Illegal cargo – cargo is restricted on target planet/smugglers secretly hid spices on ship
9	Incorrect labeling – cargo turns out to be something else that is hazardous/refrigerated
10	Hitchhiker/stowaway – someone has snuck aboard ship either willingly or unwillingly

FOR EXAMPLE

The crew of the Two for Flinching, a YT-1300 freighter, are perusing the Load Board at a spaceport on Khoraj. The spaceport is Standard class (giving a +1 to the roll) and the Friction score for Khoraj is 2. The captain rolls 1d6-1 and the result is 1 job.

So they roll 2d6 twice basic details -- landing 4 and 9. This is a minor job, 40 tons (4 on a 1d6x10), worth 9cr per ton. We know we are on Khoraj, so they roll 1d6 on Khoraj's cargo list to see what they are hauling: Atmospheric Filtration Systems (base value of 5,000cr). They roll 2d6 to determine how much they need to insure: 7%.

The GM rolls 1d10 to determine what planet they must take the cargo to: 3, Ensello III. Consulting the map of the Kord Pria Cluster, we know that Ensello III is 12 hours away from Khoraj at a 1x hyperdrive speed. That means that at the 2x speed the job anticipates (which matches the very standard 2x hyperdrive equipped on their ship), the crew of the Two for Flinching can expect this trip to take approximately 24 hours at a standard speed. 

With 40 tons of Atmospheric Filtration Systems at 5,000cr per ton, the crew of the Two for Flinching must insure 7% of 200,000cr for a grand total of 14,000cr as an insurance premium. This being a three-day trip (one to load, one to travel, one to unload) the expected payout is 40cr x 9cr x 3 days, for a grand total of 1,080cr for the trip. 

They decide to go ahead and take the job. The GM rolls to see if there's a complication -- getting a 1 on the 1d6 roll, the GM rolls 1d10 on the Hauling Complication table. With a result of 4, it turns out that the day they are supposed to unload is the Ensellan Geyser Equinox, a day where just about everyone has the day off. If the crew of the Two for Flinching learn this ahead of time, they will likely feel pressured to take some hyperspace shortcuts...

CONCLUSION

So folks, there you have it. I cobbled this together from Stars Without Number and Classic Traveler, with plenty of real world information thrown in too. A canny observer would note that this kind of work pays peanuts in comparison to the risk and insurance costs; that canny observer would be right. 

Upon realizing this, I very nearly went back to the drawing board on the payouts. However, I had an epiphany: this is all working as intended. Being a trucker in space is not the path to exponential financial growth just as it isn't in real life -- the real big bux comes from the buying low and selling high.

This system does little more than cover the costs of traveling between systems, but does so in a way that injects some excitement in the form of hauling complications, new connections with NPCs, introduction of new plot hooks, etc.

It also dovetails nicely into my rules for hyperspace travel, which allow navigators to chart a faster path at a higher risk of failure, provoking a roll on a hyperspace mishaps table, potentially making what would be a fairly mundane activity very, very interesting.