Pay for a Job

[Jachra]

One question that often comes up for me - what is the payment for odd jobs?

A problem, of course, is that I don't really have a basis of comparison.

Specifically, right now, I'm looking for a good amount for an escort mission.

Factors:
Zaltin Cartel hiring for a convoy
Corvette ship
Crew is fairly untested and this is an exploratory offering, so it will be part of a larger convoy they can't rat out easily

I'm interested in what is a reasonable amount as a frame of reference, I can more comfortably adjust the numbers up and down by further circumstances or my needs.
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[vanir]

Extremely subjective. Class/size of craft involved, quality of crew, leadership, special individuals will want personal rates.

You could start with an overheads value. On something like a CEC Corvette you could be looking at a thousand credits just to restock the consumables and general maintenance costing for a 3 week operation. Add any berthing fees on the mission and additional costs surrounding the mission.
Then you have crew wages, dependent upon skill rating. Bridge crew and officers have much higher rates than enlisted and service personnel.
You have risk factor for the mission, danger pay for risking a multimillion dollar craft. Corvettes don't have backup hyperdrives so is at higher risk on paramilitary missions than genuine warships.
Accommodations and lost revenue is another consideration. Taking a mission to say scout a deepspace location could cost you a tidy sum transporting some planetary officials in style as a diplomatic shuttle. You have to give up one to do the other, the question is are you getting the most out of the type of craft you're using?

So say I wanted 1000 tons of cargo transported. I could hire a bulk freighter at a few thousand credits maybe, but it'll take a while to get there and is at high risk in contended space. Or I could hire a Corvette and get there much more safely and quickly, in pure luxury and style, but it might cost ten times what the bulk freighter would.

Then finally if there are PC party members running the Corvette, or otherwise full dice heroic characters, say a tough bounty hunter, and a tough smuggler, and a tough alien, with all cool equipment, they're probably worth several thousand apiece just to have on retainer for the mission.

So it's such a subjective question imho...

[garhkal]

It might also depend on where..

Core and inner rims might be higher paying than mid and outer.
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[thedemonapostle]

for your situation the "pay" is very subjective to whose hiring, whats being hauled, over head costs, duration of the job, locations, reputation of those being hired/of those doing the hiring, how dangerous it can get, the legality of it all, the negotiating skills of those being hired, and more.

in general:
whose hiring: good guy or bad guy. good guys dont pay as well but you generally dont expect to have the possibility of being shot to avoid being paid
whats being hauled: is it legal or illegal? is it valuable or cheap? is it rare or common? etc
over head costs: basically the cost of doing the job and the employers budget for the job. the jobs have to come in under budget.
duration of the job: how long will it take to do the job?
locations: where is it coming from and to where is it all going?
reputation of those being hired: better the rep the more costly it can get and vice versa. also those that are generally unknown arent usually high dollar employees
how dangerous it can get: hazard pay is always extra. hauling completely legal "bobble head toys" through pirate space can warrant hazard pay, etc.
the legality of it all: taking a 100% legal ship crew and cargo through restricted space is one quick way to run into trouble. but then again running illegal goods through normal spacing lanes is equally foolish
the negotiating skills of those being hired: letting the barabel do the negotiating might only earn you the "intimidating manner" bonus and might not necessarily get you the highest pay available. and as i recall the whole jedi mind trick thing wears off after awhile and is usually frowned upon by good characters.
and more: think about other things like this job pays crap but offers the chance for repeat business.
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[Raven Redstar]

I was going to run a Criminal Enterprises pbp on another board and I came up with a random table for job pay.

[Fallon Kell]

I tend to start by looking up real-world figures for this type of thing, but I can see how that would be hard in this case. GG6 Tramp Freighters probably has info on how much it costs to hire escorts. That could be a good starting point.
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[Jachra]

Took a while for me to get around to answering, I know, but lessee -

Yeah, it will vary significantly based on circumstances and subjective affairs, but the issue is that I don't really have a basis of comparison to start with - I can't tell if several thousand per day is advisable or tens of thousands or what. I can adjust up and down based on subjective qualities pretty well, that's really just a matter of weighing bonuses/penalties (Hazard pay, demand/supply, quality, so on.)

I had a look through Tramp Freighters and even Far Trader and GURPS Traveller (which are insane for detail on these sorts of things. I considered converting parts of Far Trader to Star Wars, but it's very daunting) and didn't see costs for hiring out spaceships for any purpose.

I think what we're looking for is, basically:

"What is the nominal cost to hire out a starship per pay period?"
Drop point freight gives an example, but only for certain volumes of freight over a given period.

I think one might expand that to:
"What is the nominal cost to hire people out per pay period?" but that might be getting a bit far ahead. After all, there will always be some jobs that are 'here's what you're getting, take it or leave it, adventurer types.' But if you're on the market, what're you looking at as reasonable?
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"Jumping through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy."

[DougRed4]

I've been really trying to establish something as well, and, unless I get better info, will likely use Raven's chart to start out.

All we really know from the films is that 10,000 credits for a particularly dangerous mission ("We can almost buy our own ship for that!")

I tried making heads or tails from the info given in Tramp Freighters, but me and my group (who I would wager could figure out just about anything) were left scratching our heads. There was info that just didn't make any sense, and we ended up giving up on trying to use it.

I've love to have something more solid. Our characters now have two ships, a freighter and a larger transport, and occasionally want to make freight runs from planet to planet.

[cheshire]

Somewhere around here I think I have a excel document where you can just plug in the values of the size of the shipment, number of days travel time, and a few other incidentals and it will crank out the gross pay for the job. I'll see if I can find it later.
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[DougRed4]

That would be awesome. Thanks, cheshire!!!

[Volar the Healer]

A good question!

It appeared to me a credit was worth about $10, so I paid any character who took a job Cr. 50 / die of skill. Twice that for an advanced skill. Seemed to work out well.
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[Whill]

[atgxtg]

I sorta got the feeling that prices in the RAW were loosely based on prices in the US circa 1977, with $1= 1 credit.

[jmanski]

That's what I go by. Simplicity is my thing.
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[Darth_Hilarious]

I remember reading something several years ago that also factored in if the cargo was contraband or not