Money on ships

[Naz]

Hi to all...again!
This time I need info about the amount of Latinum on ships.
IIRC there is a manual telling this, and telling about the payment for StarFleet officer when they go on leave.
Any suggestion for Energy credit on Voyager?

Thanks in advance,
Naz

[Evan van Eyk]

Well first of all within the Federation there is no money, so officers generally do not get paid as such. However according to LUG's TNG book, officers can request latinum if they desire to buy products from foreign traders, however I do not think that a real "system" for that was established - and in fact I do not remember to have needed one in any Trek game I was part of. Generally I would suggest that if a players wants to buy something keep it in reasonable margins - no he cannot buy a Talarian palace - yes he can buy a Cardassian suit ( suit, not suite )
If for whatever reason you concentrate more on economical systems, I'd suggest to bind the available amount of money on the ship's size ( larger ships probably go more out of the federation than smaller vessels ) and the characters rank ( probably the promotion points costs, using the player's guide system; high ranking officers tend to spend much time in Starfleet and still should be able to gather personal stuff ). Since the crewmembers do not need to buy food, clothes, etc they probably get less money than our today counterparts.

According to the DS9 corebook a drink costs 5 Federation credits, one hour in a holosuit costs 100 and 100 credits are one slip of latinum. ( Generally I think one can say 1 credit is one dollar )
Taking one drink each day in a year and two visits in the holosuit would cost him 2000 credits ( 20 slips of latinum ), which I would take as basis for "payment". Nobody goes into a bar each day...
Taking that I would calculate the available money for a crewmember like the following ( measured per year, assuming that Starfleet makes it budget yearwise ).

2000 Cr + Ship's size x 100 + Rank ( Promotion Points costs ) x 100 + Department Head costs x 50

Crewman Noname of the USS Size 4 would get 2000 Cr + 400 + 0 + 0 = 2400 Cr

O'Brian ( on DS 9 ) would receive 2000 Cr + 400 Cr + 300 Cr + 200 Cr = 2900 Cr

Captain Picard would get 2000 Cr + 800 Cr + 1000 Cr + 200 Cr = 4000 Cr = 40 slips of gold pressed latinum


While certainly no fortune, the question is does he need more for his free time activities? Clothes, even fine clothes are available onboard ( if everything else fails there are the uniforms ) as is basically everything else. That money has the sole purpose of trading with foreigners. Since the UFP has a non-money based economy I would also suggest that you cannot save the money, at least not all of it. Meaning that after ten years Picard has no 40.000 credits - at least you should not get them paid out for example when leaving Starfleet.
Additionally you could grant extra funds for exemplary behaviour, or special duties etc. Also commendations could come along with some additional money.

Since Voyager no longer has contact with STarfleet it does not receive latinum or credits and latinum cannot be replicated ( that is the reason why it is worth so much ). So I would simply use that system in terms of energy units. One hour holodeck takes 100 units... However since all are in the same misery I would lower the differences between the ranks, maybe only grant 50 or 25 units for rank and department head points.

[Naz]

Thank you.
Any suggestion on amount of Federation Creadits on the ship's account?
Any suggestion on amount of latinum in UFP ship's safe? (IIRC Starfleet let an amount of latinum under the captain's responsibility for small expenses)

[Evan van Eyk]

That is difficult and mainly depends on the ship's size. The problem is this is hardly a linear equation since on a larger ship you probably have more high ranking personnel than on a smaller vessel where the CO can easily be a Lt. Cmdr. Do you have somethng special in mind?

Well it obviously also goes along with the ship's crew size. Thus I would assume an average of around 3000-3500 credits of salary per crewmember, something like that:

3000 - size 3-4
3250 - size 5-6
3500 - size 7-8

And then simply multiply it with the ship's crew size. Thus a Galaxy-Class with 1000 crewmembers would get 3.500.000 credits per year. However due to the restrictions of the UFP's economy I would hardly assume that more than half of that amount would be onboard in form of latinum, thus you would only have 1.250.000 credits in form of latinum, thus having 12.500 slips of latinum onboard.
Ships of staitionary fleets or assignments would have less I assume, while those which are mobile or far from UFP territory get more. Addtionally large starbases with lots of trade relations would also hold more I think.
Something like DS9 ( in times of peace ) could have 200.000 slips of gold presses latinum onboard.

[Tobian]

I suspect that most ships would not carry currency at all, even a 'universal' standard such as Latinum. other than the Ferengi (which is why this is a widelly used currency) most societies seem to use some sort of electronic credit based transfer. Within their own borders, and even without, in places where the Federation carries favour, the Credit has worth, however yes, for something like Voyager, they are too far away to have any meaning.. when will the Federation make good on that deal!

Especially by the 24th cenury things which would have value would be things most people could not get or have access too. Yes a Replicator might be a common item, but Starships would have Industrial replicators ..... You can't exactly produce a floor beam from a small hole in the wall Starships also seem to have large supplies of spares, items of art, quantities of rare chemical compounds and other such things which mean they have allot to trade.

In a situation like a Starship visting DS9, from the interior, the crew would simply report to the stations' Quartermaster / Bursor, for some cash to spend, and the Starship would be credited. There's no need for them to actually carry any cash with them. Quark would probably accept any form of legal tender he could get to be honest, especially the Credit, because as well he can go to the stations quartermaster, and claim his earnings in exchange for the Federation credits, or simply use them to pay for his energy allotment from the station (he pays ground rent and bills to the station).Of course if Quark pays in gold pressed latinum, then that means DS9 has a supply again, which is exactly how international money markets work today !

From the few examples we've seen of trade on a galactic level, such as the negotiations for the Barzan Wormhole, large exchange agreements seem to be the order of the day.. you pay me in food, mineral ores and starship repairs and I allow you to have a starbase in my sector etc. The Federation setting up a replicator network and an array of energy production facilities would likelly to be more payment for a service than anything!

[Owen E Oulton]

If for whatever reason you concentrate more on economical systems, I'd suggest to bind the available amount of money on the ship's size ( larger ships probably go more out of the federation than smaller vessels ) and the characters rank ( probably the promotion points costs, using the player's guide system; high ranking officers tend to spend much time in Starfleet and still should be able to gather personal stuff ). Since the crewmembers do not need to buy food, clothes, etc they probably get less money than our today counterparts.

I rather think that approach would conflict with the whole post-scarcity economy concept operative in the fictional Federation. The Federation credit, at least as I see it, is an advanced cryptocurrency. Introducing that type of bookkeeping into a game completely destroys the suspension of disbelief. Unless you're dealing with an actually scarce commodity, like the unreplicatable latinum, which as has been pointed out is mostly used by the Ferengi and those civilisations who deal with them, just assume by fiat that the Federation deals with all economic interactions with other planets behind the scenes. If a society uses currency or certain culturally valuable materials (gold or whatever) the Prime Directive would frown on, say, just replicating such things on any scale. If, for instance, you're dealing with a culture using primitive paper banknotes and Starfleet personnel suddenly start passing perfect money, it will be discovered at some point when some banker suddenly discovers indistinguishable duplicate money in the till. Such an occurrence could cause a panic and disrupt an entire region's economy - just imagine if the Nazis had succeeded in flooding Great Britain with phoney pound notes, or imagine if the US Treasury Department suddenly started finding duplicate $20.00 bills in any quantity. Using valuable minerals like gold would have a far lower effect on small scales but will inevitably alter the value of gold in the long run on a micro scale. Sure, you could hand-wave all that away, but let's face it, gamers are pretty smart people and many who have an interest in Star Trek consider this sort of thing and won't be shy about bringing it up (like I just did).

For a canon example, look no farther than the pilot for Star Trek the Next Generation. When Beverly purchases the cloth in the marketplace, she charged it to the ship's account. Below the surface, the gears of the Federation's dealings with the Bandi go to work. Deneb IV is in the initial stages of opening up to the Federation, but it's barely dealt with story-wise because the post-scarcity Federation economy is not at this point any more than window-dressing even though it later becomes a distinguishing characteristic of 24th century Star Trek.

A precursor to this concept is to be found in TOS: the Trouble With Tribbles where the eponymous Tribbles go from a scarce commodity goes to a glut on the system, if only on a tiny scale...

[WaveMan]

wealth is dealt with on page 91 DS-9 RPG core game book, it is an advantage, wealth +1 to +6 and is bought like any other advantage.

Wealth +1 advantage gives an annual income to the character of 1-500 bars of gold pressed latinum
wealth +6 advantage gives an annual income to the character of 500,000+ of gold pressed latinum

as others have said the Federation has progressed beyond material wealth (to a point, they still have a credit system AFAIK) and I think any advanced society would eventually go over to some power (as in watt/hour) based currency as a matter of course, but many other societies do still have currency based systems in place in the Trek universe.
Wealth won't really help much in most area's of the Federation (though I think there would be some parts that would still accept gold pressed latinum) and obviously there would be lots of places that have to accept Federation credits.
Though as shown replicators basically makes currency redundant, as long as you have power.


As far as buying starships, Spacedock deals with that, page 18, How much for the USS Prometheus? Again buy the advantage Vessel +2 to +5 and Resources +0 to +3 and they suggest combining these two advantages with the wealth advantage (so the character has the ability to support the upkeep of the vessel)