General Thoughts on Travellers earning CrImps on the side.

[Enoki]

How long to you think that you can do this before the local engineers whose business you are damaging start to hiring people to beat your crewmen to a pulp as soon as they are out of the Star Port fencing, and also start demolishing the businesses using your services? Locals being shown up by locals is one thing, but you are an outsider showing off. Plus, you are not around all of the time, so that businesses who benefit from your services are in trouble as soon as you vanish.

You are thinking that there might be no reaction to what you are doing, whereas there is very likely going to be.

Probably forever. If the local "engineers" can't make the part, it isn't hurting their business. It isn't as if a starship comes and starts selling nails and screws to the locals. There isn't much money in making one-off parts either unless you can do it with a minimum of labor and time. A CAD 3D machining center could do that.
The locals, knowing that ships come and make and sell the high end parts simply focus on mass producing simpler ones that are in demand.

So, the local rich guy who has some high tech vehicle but needs, say a precision bearing for it, gets one from the passing starship. He still buys staple machined goods from the locals. Everybody wins.

In one case I had an engineer that wanted to see the local blacksmith's shop on a very low tech planet. While there the engineer offered to make a gear the blacksmith was having difficulty copying. Took the ship's machine shop just a few minutes to make what was going to take a week or more for the blacksmith to make and made it better.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Probably forever. If the local "engineers" can't make the part, it isn't hurting their business. It isn't as if a starship comes and starts selling nails and screws to the locals. There isn't much money in making one-off parts either unless you can do it with a minimum of labor and time. A CAD 3D machining center could do that.
The locals, knowing that ships come and make and sell the high end parts simply focus on mass producing simpler ones that are in demand.

So, the local rich guy who has some high tech vehicle but needs, say a precision bearing for it, gets one from the passing starship. He still buys staple machined goods from the locals. Everybody wins.

In one case I had an engineer that wanted to see the local blacksmith's shop on a very low tech planet. While there the engineer offered to make a gear the blacksmith was having difficulty copying. Took the ship's machine shop just a few minutes to make what was going to take a week or more for the blacksmith to make and made it better.

Exploiting comparative advantage on a micro scale. I like it.

 

[Enoki]

Exploiting comparative advantage on a micro scale. I like it.

Well, it did lead to getting wrangled into looking for his missing daughter that had left the planet to find something better-- then a drug deal-- then a gunfight-- then a--

Well, you get the picture. o:

 

[kilemall]

How long to you think that you can do this before the local engineers whose business you are damaging start to hiring people to beat your crewmen to a pulp as soon as they are out of the Star Port fencing, and also start demolishing the businesses using your services? Locals being shown up by locals is one thing, but you are an outsider showing off. Plus, you are not around all of the time, so that businesses who benefit from your services are in trouble as soon as you vanish.

You are thinking that there might be no reaction to what you are doing, whereas there is very likely going to be.

Which of course is a big reason why there is traditionally an extrality zone around the starport allowing for warehousing and cross trade headed for other systems, and almost certainly import limits coming off the starport onto the planet.


The locals taking customs matters into their own hands are going to be happening at E and X 'starports'.

 

[epicenter00]

I have a character whose entire schtick is doing this.

He was initially a medical doctor who had a cushy job being a personal physician to nobles on Mora. Eventually however, he was caught being a supplier of anagathics to some of these nobles as well as providing them with drugs that made them look like they were aging normally.

Because he was getting the anagathics from Vargr pirates (they were smuggling them in), he was in breach of Imperial law as well as being a violator of Imperial custom (no anagathics for nobility). However, his noble friends got him out of being sent to a prison planet for the rest of his life. Instead, he had to serve in the Imperial Navy for 20 years as a corpsman.

Now that he's out, he's pretty much blackballed from being on doctor on any higher tech Imperial planet. So he hired on as a physician on a tramp freighter serving the backwater worlds of the Imperium. When they arrive on various very low tech worlds or worlds with very limited professional populations, he provides his services and high TL medicine as a doctor for money, usually for the local wealthy and nobility. Then he sees whatever less wealthy people he can fit in before his ship leaves for gratis.

Similarly, you don't really need some high-tech Maker to make money with machining skills. You can assume many low-tech worlds have a lot of higher-tech machinery they're using - not enough to change the world's TL, but enough so that someone with a TL8 machine shop can make brisk business fixing the TL5 roadsters and steam engines on some TL3 world with proper TL5 quality steels instead of the iron and crude steels they're using on TL3 worlds.

 

[dalthor]

One biggie I see missing here - education.

You don't have to teach everything, but what about things they can benefit from without the need for drastic change and/or tech?

What about patching "gaps" in their existing methods? Or simple automation or the assembly line? What about chemistry or metallurgy?

There are a HUGE number of teaching and training opportunities you could come up with, and most wouldn't require much more than time.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Just when I thought this was a dying thread...

One biggie I see missing here - education.

You don't have to teach everything, but what about things they can benefit from without the need for drastic change and/or tech?

What about patching "gaps" in their existing methods? Or simple automation or the assembly line? What about chemistry or metallurgy?

There are a HUGE number of teaching and training opportunities you could come up with, and most wouldn't require much more than time.

OOoo, this is great idea, especially if you have teaching machines like CJ Cherryh's Union azi tapes. Nice!

Again thank you all for your contributions. Chuffed as can be, you all rock, well most of the time.

Seriously thanks for all the input I am pleased to see that I can still learn things.

 

[DangerousThing]

I think a better way would be to have a 3D machining center on board. Like a 3D printer, it can make any part from either powdered material or out of a block of material. You might have other equipment aboard for this purpose like advanced testing gear so you can test, repair, or make vacuum tubes.

Imagine landing on a backward planet where technology is late 19th to early 20th Century, but there is some more advanced stuff imported too. Your ship can make repair parts for everything in a matter of minutes to hours instead of days to weeks, it's far superior in quality, and you can make stuff the locals have to try to import. Keeping their stuff running would be a major money maker. You'd be like a traveling blacksmith shop.

How about a high-tech tinker's wagon? With some sort of small CAD factory, a small merchant ship could produce a huge array of items to sell to a low-tech village. Perhaps even disguise an ATV as the tinker's wagon.

It might not make a large number of credits, but it could make for an interesting cover. And it could be profitable if there is something on the low-tech planet that is valuable off world. Sell to the villagers to get local credits, buy the stuff, sell off-world for real money.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Tinkers...

How about a high-tech tinker's wagon? With some sort of small CAD factory, a small merchant ship could produce a huge array of items to sell to a low-tech village. Perhaps even disguise an ATV as the tinker's wagon.

It might not make a large number of credits, but it could make for an interesting cover. And it could be profitable if there is something on the low-tech planet that is valuable off world. Sell to the villagers to get local credits, buy the stuff, sell off-world for real money.

Well, this is a cool idea as well.

 

[Condottiere]

Software as a service.

The ship's computer is hardly doing any heavy lifting while grounded, so the computer technician could set up a temporary cloud computing web service.

Or a dark web.

 

[wellis]

Software as a service.

The ship's computer is hardly doing any heavy lifting while grounded, so the computer technician could set up a temporary cloud computing web service.[/b)

Or a dark web.

So what happens when it has to leave? Because all those files are still there.

 

[Condottiere]

He could be honest, and state exactly when the service terminates.

Or he may have neglected to mention it.

Or just rent out the capacity to a data broker, who'll have to juggle capacity across multiple servers.

 

[jawillroy]

So what happens when it has to leave? Because all those files are still there.

ADVENTURE happens.

Because along with all the other data the ship was managing for pin money, someone uploaded a Macguffin.

 

[Sir Brad]

on the Medicine thing, if a ship (and it's Doctor) visit regularly local General Practitioners may make Referrals like they would any other specialist. or perhaps their are Medical Brokers, your GP writes you a Referral and you take it to the Broker who makes a deal with any interested ship.

for Trades & Crafts, well there is lots of "I Know a Guy" going on even today with Tradies, the Tech qualified crew just become just an other one of the "Guys", or the "guy" your mechanic (or whatever tradesman) knows is a Tech Services Broker who hooks customers up with visiting ships.

the more of a regular rout you keep to and less shenanigans you get up to the more side work you will be able to drum up from regular contacts, but we are talking Travllers hear Free Roaming Shenanigans is their Bag.

 

[kilemall]

on the Medicine thing, if a ship (and it's Doctor) visit regularly local General Practitioners may make Referrals like they would any other specialist. or perhaps their are Medical Brokers, your GP writes you a Referral and you take it to the Broker who makes a deal with any interested ship.

for Trades & Crafts, well there is lots of "I Know a Guy" going on even today with Tradies, the Tech qualified crew just become just an other one of the "Guys", or the "guy" your mechanic (or whatever tradesman) knows is a Tech Services Broker who hooks customers up with visiting ships.

the more of a regular rout you keep to and less shenanigans you get up to the more side work you will be able to drum up from regular contacts, but we are talking Travllers hear Free Roaming Shenanigans is their Bag.

Or a bunch of medical lawsuits are waiting for them upon return, legit or bogus, and summary judgements, and a bounty hunter contract to retrieve and force payment.


I'd temper that sort of ref shenanigan with the majority of patients being grateful quality of life/life saving, and benefits not counted in credits with help coming from they or their relatives in Patrons, Rumors, Contacts and Allies.