Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 001

"Duke" Springer is a child of the future...
 of the children of the 80s. Nice shirt, "Duke" 

Happy New Year!

Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I wanted relive my past and play it. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

Anyway, what I am doing for my 2020 series? Last year was 52 Weeks of Magic. 2020 brings Strictly (Duke) Springer. This series will be a day-by-day play through of the classic game Star Smuggler from the point of view of the fictional hero, "Duke". I'm not sure what his first name is, but it has to be better than the one in the quotation marks.

Here are the general rules for this series. "Strictly", means I won't flub rolls one way or another. Second, all commentary on the game itself will be in bold. Third, if Duke dies before all 52 weeks are up, I will simply carry on with a henchman designated as Duke's Heir. If there are no henchmen, I will start over.

Here we go.

Dear Diary,

It's day one of my criminal career. I'm not really good at this. I have an Antelope class starship, starship's guns, a 2 cubic unit status pod, a side arm, a ship's boat called a hopper, 15 fuel units and passion for trouble. I also have 750 secs, which is good because I owe 120,000 secs. for the ship. The interest only payment is 300 secs. A week. It was a better deal than college.

Obviously, I'm at the Spaceport, so I'm going to spend a few hours looking for hirelings... er, employees. My first four hours are wasted, but after that, I manage to hire a few people.

First, I hired on an Pilot/Navigator. I'm a pilot/navigator like her, but unlike her, I can fire the ship's guns. The two of us together can defend the ship. Her weekly pay is 25 secs., but she'll cut me a deal at 15 secs. because the cockpit is equipped with a status unit. She also needed a sign-on bonus of 20 secs., which wasn't too unreasonable. She... she... she...

"Are you looking at a book of baby names?" she asked.
"No, that would be totally demeaning... Emily?" I said.
"My name isn't Em... Ugh. Whatever, 'Duke'. "

With that all settled, I also hired an Engineer I named Ratchet and medic I'll be calling "Doc".

Doc looked sheepish. "I'm really not a doctor, I just have some battlefield experience..."
"Do you want the sign on bonus or what?" I asked. According to the rules, Medics don't get signing bonuses. Oops. 
"You're the boss," he said.

Ok. Having invested some good time with my new associates, I managed to waste most the rest of the day. I did purchase 25 repair units, which are instrumental to my plans. In the 9th hour, I made a 300 secs. interest payment on the ship early, so I don't have much to worry about for a while. The rules don't specify a specific payday except by the last day of week, so I accept early payment within the same week as acceptable. 

We take off and set course for the Ruins of Regari, just an hour away.

At the end of the 10 hour day, we're beat. Here are financials, crew status and assets at the end of day one:

1 Antelope starship,
1 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU in size,
25 Repair units,
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. Sign-on bonus of 20. Death pay to the family is 200. Let's not die, ok?
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. Sign-on bonus of 15. Death pay is 120.
Doc, weekly pay 10. No bonus which feels weird and death payment to family is 80.

Designated Heir: None, but I know it'll be Emily.

Death payments are meant to be a money drain, but there are light consequences for not paying it. 

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship, but paid 300 in interest early, which gives me almost 2 ten day weeks until the next payment. I have 350 secs in my pocket, which is only enough to cover basic expenses for another 29 days. At that point, the crew will walk unless I can use some cunning plus the ship will be up for repo. Cunning is a stat that only Duke has, it allows him to roll a die to trick people into doing things. I have a rating of 4 out of six, so I could theoretically keep the crew without pay so long as my luck holds out.