Where are the monthly costs for Mercs?

[gigobyte]

I know where to find the costs of living and food.

But where do I find the cost of fuel for a Dropship (I see in the Tech manual where it talks about building a dropship)?

Where is the cost of routine maintenance for all the vehicles they own?

Storage for unused supplies and vehicles while they are out on missions?

Where is the cost for chartering a ship...it mentions in the Companion Book about how much a contract will pay towards a charter/own transport, but where does it mention how much it would cost to know how much you are going to receive as compensation and what not?

I get it if the GM has to make up these numbers on the fly, but if there are recommendations I haven't found them. I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction.

Thanks.

[Decoy]

I'd check out FM: Mercs revised or the Running a Unit beta document that was posted a while ago.

[guardiandashi]

much of this is derived information and not explicitly stated unfortunately.

some of it is frankly odd places like one I remember was for a tool kit.  basically you got a certain amount of "uses" before you had to restock the "generic commonly used parts" that are included for 10% of the cost.

there was also a resource that I can't remember where it is atm that listed the cost of "renting" the use of a dropship like a fortress, union etc, essentially it was ~1% of the cost of the dropship (in the case of the 400million fortress, it worked out to 4mil, which was about 5-10x the operational expense cost for the time period, If I remember right.

so if you consider that ~ratio to be reasonable the "maintenance cost" of something is ~0.1-0.5% of the "list cost"  of course some of that cost can be offset ie a lot of the "maintenance" costs may include tech (labor) expenses.

[Iracundus]

There are several systems covering maintenance.  For RPG purposes, the most detailed and if you want to play a mercenary accountant, refer to the Field Manual Mercenaries. 

Maintenance depends on what system you use.  In Interstellar Operations, it costs 0.1% per ton of Mech in generic spare parts at a cost of 10,000 C-bills per ton of spare parts.  That means a 100 ton Mech costs 1,000 C-bills per month.  It would also cost the salaries of 1 Tech and 6 AsTechs to maintain totaling 3,200 C-bills per month.  So in total 4,200 C-bills per month for a 100 ton Mech. 

In Field Manual Mercenaries, it is a weekly maintenance cost of 75 C-bills flat per Mech.  However maintenance is tracked by effective man-hours, with a 100 ton Mech needing 40 + tonnage/5, or 60 man-hours per week of maintenance.  However under these rules, 1 Tech needs 1 AsTech as assistant to perform at maximum efficiency, else they lose 15% productivity if working solo.  Together the 2 would generate 60 man-hours per week between them, just enough to maintain the 100 ton Mech, and their salaries would be 1,200 C-bills per month.  So under these rules, that Mech will cost 1,500 C-bills per month.  Why this divergence?  Because newer rules track by Tech teams (composed of 1 Tech and 6 AsTechs) and 1 Mech needs 1 team, whereas the older rules used man-hours, and the number of man-hours produced depended on the skill level.  Note I just covered technical maintenance.  Administrative maintenance costs and medical maintenance for the personnel are tracked separately and would push up costs.

The rates for chartering ships is given also in Field Manual Mercenaries.  The cost varies by the type of DropShip, ranging from 30,000 for a Fury to 8,400,00 for a Behemoth.  Then there is the cost for the actual Jumpship at a cost of 30,000 to 50,000 C-bills per DropShip per jump. 

Fuel costs for a DropShip are spread between Interstellar Operations and Strategic Operations.  The first gives peacetime consumption for a DropShip at 15 burn days per month.  So first you need to calculate out how many tons of hydrogen fuel is a burn day for your DropShip, then it is a cost of 15,000 C-bills per ton if you are buying and delivering to a forward base (costs vary if at peace, and hydrogen can be as low as 500/ton).  However, it says hydrogen fuel can also be manufactured (via water hydrolysis) by any unit with a fusion engine, at a rate of 10 tons per 8 working hours.