Ship Managers (franchisors)

[janm.l]

Sometimes I am bored of always be forced to refuel and to choose the freight for all ships. Couldn't there be a market for a kind of ship managers or Franchisors who take care of the ships and who have different skills?

Manager: Taking care of entering ports, refueling and maintenance level of the ship. They should be available with a status of 10 in order to be able to program ships for some routes (i.e.: Go to Hamburg, then Housten then Auckland and transport reserved freights...)
Franchisor: Taking complete care of the ships, but also take the big part of the return. They just give you a certain amount of their created earnings. Could also fail and create losses and then leave you frustrated i.e. if they are not well qualified. These should be available from a status of 30 on. Consider, that there are guys playing with more then 100 ships! You could limit the number of franchisors via the market of those...

[maltonmanor]

My hope in the future is that a proper LINER Game will be implemented. Basically, players would choose a trade route. For instance.

New York-Boston-Halifax---Rotterdam-Antwerp-Hamburg-LeHavre---New York-Boston-etc.etc.

Then, the player would choose how many ships he would want to employ on the service. If he had 5 ships on the service, he could give a FIXED WEEKLY SAILING (for instance). With only 4 ships, he could have a 10-day rotation.

Then, the player would decide what rate levels he wants. This could probably best be done with a PERCENTAGE or INDEX. For instance, "100" would be break-even if the ship owner had 80% of the ships slots filled. "120", might yield more revenue, but his profits would increase by 10%.

Then, there would be other player, as well as computer generated players. They would act as competition, sometimes driving the rate levels down, sometimes pushing them up. Available cargo volumes would fluctuate. There would be a yearly cycle, as well as a 10 year cycle. As available volumes dropped, as as competition stiffened, the rate levels could decrease. If a competitor dropped out of the service, or cut back on the number or size of ships, there would be a lot of cargo not making onto the ships due to decreased space. Then the prices would go up.

Basically, once the vessel rotation, number of ships and rate level was established, the player would initiate the trade route and it would run itself. Any major fluctuations in the market would bring up a warning notice, so that the players could review the situation. If a ship was delayed due to storms, the player might have to change the port rotation on that cycle. If a ship sunk, or more likely, had to be pulled off the route for dry-docking, then the player could put a new ship on, or run awhile without it (although this could cause some customer dissatisfaction).

While perhaps 80% of a players fleet would be involved in this kind of liner business, the other 20% of the fleet would be worked on a charter basis, and would be much more hands on.

Just a suggestion, but much closer to reality, and seemingly, another completely new aspect to the game play.
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A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.

[McEagle]

Sorry, but to manage a the ship (freights, maintenance ...) is the goal of the game.

You're right that there should be some options which helps not to do every leaving or entering of a port the same thing (tug or not, speed).

If I hire a franchisor what will I do then in the game, because the game ist playing itself. I think if I own a fleet of 100 ships then I have to manage 100 ships.

[angem]

u play this game cause u want to do all stuff urself..

though.. if u have 100 ships.. hmm.. consider trying to get more mates playing with u :p
heh
well.. the game is to have ships, freights etc.. doin all urself..
_________________
-=angem=-

[horst_machete]

[maltonmanor]

Horst wrote:

[janm.l]

often, ships are financed via closed funds...

[maltonmanor]

Could you explain that Janm-l, I am not sure I understand.
_________________
A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.

[horst_machete]

I think what janm.l is referring to is the world-famous German "KG-System".

That is, a financing house works together with a ship operator. This operator orders the ship they think is in demand and negotiates a, favourably, long-term T/C. The financing house, which negotiated terms of payment with the yard, then starts selling shares of the ships to investors which get their return on investment according to the profitability of the ship. The selling of shares only takes place over a specified period of time, after which the fund will be closed. If it did not raise enough, the members have to supply the difference.
There is a lot of speculative buying because investors like this kind of investment to bring tax liability down. Now you now why Claus-Peter Offen orders containerships as if he was playing POC. He operates them only (well, he usually invests something, because he believes the ship is in demand, but still....).

It is called KG-System because every fund is it's own company, a KG (Kommanditgesellschaft).

I have more details, but I am too lazy now. Contact nos. are down there .
Cheers,
Horst

[janm.l]

here some german examples for Shipfunds...

http://www.mpc-capital.de/contell/server/site/kapitalanlagen/schiffe/index.cml

http://www.dr-peters.de/

[horst_machete]

and

http://www.conti-online.de/index.htm

and

http://www.lloydfonds.de/index.php

and

http://www.nordcapital.de/

and

http://www.hansatreuhand.de/index_html

You choose...
As I said, this is big at home, so if you have a minimum of 25.000€, try it . Just remember, this time it is real money

By the way, whose poll got off track up there?
Cheers,
Horst

[bobed35]

These look fascinating given my very limited German - are there any similar web sites in English?

Regards,
Robert Davis

[janm.l]

Babelfish translates these sites for you...

if some bitmap buttons are not translated, "Schiffsbeteiligungen" are "ship funds"

http://babelfish.altavista.com/