The Cold Equations

This is the fourth postal (PBM/PBeM) game of Star Trader GMed by Mike Dommett and published by Pevans in my postal games 'zine, To Win Just Once. This is the web version of the turn. Follow the link for an introduction to Star Trader.

Turn 6

Previous reports: Turn 5 Turn 4 Turn 3 Turn 2 Turn 1 Start-up

Sections: Report, Corporations Table, Press, GM Notes, Star map (separate page) PDF map (22k)

    "Look, there's a ship there."
    "Yes, we're close enough to burn through her ECM."
    "Can we lock on?"
    "Worth trying, but she can still evade."
The Gunnery Officer launched the missiles at the source of the disruption, while the other ships in the flotilla started to close at speed.

At Gamma Leporis MONOGRAM bought 7 Alloys for 1 HT each and was made a Dealer. MONOGRAM also bought Alloys on Epsilon Eridani: 2 at 9 HTs.

Tau Ceti saw GAMLEPCO returning to action, selling 6 Alloys for 15 HTs each and gaining a Dealership. MONOGRAM were also active, buying 10 Isotopes for 10 HTs apiece to get another Dealership

HOUSTON FEARLESS sold 3 Isotopes for 13 HTs each at Mu Herculis and EON FLASHCORP sold 5 Monopoles on Contract.

There was competition in Isotopes at Sigma Draconis as GAMLEPCO went to buy at 3 HTs and then realised that their ship had no spare storage and it went to waste. MONOGRAM bought 6 more for 1 HT each.

Beta Hydri sold 5 Monopoles for 17 HTs each at Beta Hydri.

But the big concern was MCRADIE. ARCHANGEL suffered first when their armed liner was captured by the Military Spear hull. Though ARCHANGEL sent their semi-military ship through the same flight path, they failed to locate anything. While they were pleased to hear that MCRADIE's ship had been driven to land on planet, they were upset that it wasn't their lost ship. Nor were their tempers improved with the claims from the loss of passengers on the missing ship and their grieving relatives besieging company offices and starting claims in Epsilon Eridani Courts. Then there were the passengers dumped when ARCHANGEL senior management decided to swop pods between two ships and send the new passenger ship to a different system than the passengers had expected to go to. "I saw the signs 'ship now boarding for Epsilon Eridani' and foolishly expected the ship to go there, rather than to Tau Ceti" said one passenger.

EON FLASHCORP landed their Corco Gamma Hull planetside at Tau Ceti and loaded the Flashbulb with 10 Units of Tempus (OP 19) and 2 units of Weapons (OP 3), benefiting from MCRADIE abandoning its blockade of the system just before 'Mr Dodgy' flew in.

MONOGRAM laid down a new ship, a Phoenix Hull at Tau Ceti, but ran out of money as they tried to equip it further.

GAMLEPCO renamed the Brass as Silver and increased their Political Connections to 4.

HOUSTON FEARLESS took OP 8 at Epsilon Eridani, loading the ambassador and his staff. They took out a large loan: 599 HTs over 4 quarters, at 28 HTs interest a turn. Part of this was spent trying and failing to increase Reputation, laying down a Phoenix Hull at Tau Ceti and increasing Political Connections. They retained a large amount of the loan as working capital.

Corporations Table

Corporation letter & name		Conn'n Levels Bus/Crim/Pol			Init Bid	Turn Order	Cash	Rep'n	Player
A	Archangel Lines	4	0	2	0	4th	138	40	Jerry Elsmore
B	Eon Flashcorp	4	8	8	0	5th	16	29	Paul Evans
D	Gates-Learjet	9	5	4	0	7th	156	28	Dominic Howlett
E	McRadie's Crew	5	9	0	10	3rd	70	0	Martin Jennings
F	Monogram Industries	10	0	7	36+4	2nd	41	40	Michael Martinkat
G	Houston Fearless	10	0	5	48	1st	580	32	Przemek Orwat
H	GamLepCo	5	0	4	0	6th	150	26	Gina Teh
'N' under Initiative Bid indicates No Move Received; ‘F’ indicates the Corp was floated

GM Notes

If you want to pick up passengers you must say where you want to pick them up from - de facto a Spaceport you have a ship with passenger pods in - and you must say where you want to take the passengers to. "Take 2 Passengers from SD to EE on the ship 'clarion call'", for example.

A ship which can take 6 pods does NOT count its augmented jump pod as part of that total. If you have a Phoenix hull with an Augmented Jump pod and 5 cargo pods, you can buy one more pod for the ship. Conversely if you have, say, a Piccolo hull, which can't carry any pods, you can still buy an Augmented Jump pod for it.

In the absence of any thing else in your orders, your ships will jump in order from the top of the sheet. As combat has now taken place, it might be sensible to put some orders in for combat, even if only to attempt an emergency hyperjump if intercepted.

Nice to see Gina back with us and welcome Przemek, who has taken over Houston Fearless.

There are two new News chits –shown in bold:
    Turn 7 B5, C2, C4
    Turn 8 P1
    Turn 9 B10
    Turn 10 C5

B5 means that there is a chit that needs Business Connections of Level 5 to read. You can therefore work out who else can see the chit.

OP 3 from Turn 7 and OP 19 from Turn 9 were taken by EON.

OP 8 from Turn 8 was taken by Houston.

OP 9 went in the News Phase of Turn 6 before anyone could take it in the Opportunity Phase.