Fire Mining

Netbooks: Economics of Barsaive

Assume that a fire mining airship has a crew of 50, paying an average of 50 per day. So they pay 2,500 in wages per day. Assume that the ship can collect at least 10 times that amount in one successful day of fire mining over Death's Sea (in order to qualify for the description of 'enormous profits').

Assume the price of True Fire kernels at 50 silver each. So a fire mining airship collects 500 kernels per day of mining, or a value of 25,000. Assume that the ships have large orichalcum containers to hold the kernels, say valued at 100,000. Assume that the orichalcum laced nets are worth about 100,000. Assume that the True Water used to throw into Death's Sea yields a return of about 1 to 10. (Some of them are harvested without the use of true water).

Assume that fire mining ship goes on 10 day expeditions, and gets about 5 days of successful mining in that time. So a ship leaves with 250 kernels of water and comes back with 2,500 kernels of fire every 10 days.

Fire Mining Profits

Say the ship makes 30 trips each year, of 10 days each trip, and harvests 5 days worth of fire each trip. (The other 65 days in the year would be spent recuperating or making repairs.) Making a bunch of assumptions about average repairs, etc, we get the total profit per year:


Crew wages - 750,000
Repairs and upkeep - 100,000
True water bought - 375,000 (7,500 kernels)
True fire sold + 3,750,000 (75,000 kernels)
Gross (before tax) 2,525,000
Tax - 757,500 (30% tax on profits)
TOTAL 1,767,500


So a fire mining company could make between 1.5 and 2 million silvers profit off each ship per year, assuming that the ship was not destroyed.

Rates of Ship Destruction

Assume that Barsaivians make a total of 10 airships each year, and since the number of airships is said to be fairly stable we get 10 destroyed also. Assume that on average they are destroyed by:


Fire mining 5
Storms or disasters 2
Horrors/monsters 2
Pirates/Raiders 1 (mostly they board and loot, not destroy)


Assume the number of airships mining over Death's Sea is 20:


Independant Barsaivians 5
Crystal Raiders 5
Therans 10


So given this rate of destruction, you could randomize the profit made by a particular ship by rolling a step 30 to calculate the number of successful trips it makes before it is destroyed. Technically it could last indefinitely (by rolling lots of maximums), but eventually it is going to have to retire or be destroyed.

A fire mining company would make a profit of about 60,000 per 10 day trip (after tax) with an outlay of about 400,000 every time the ship is destroyed and must be replaced. Thus a ship pays for itself after about 2 months of mining, and after that starts raking in the cash. So it's still a lucrative business, just dangerous for the crews. The Therans can make more money if they use slaves to do most of the rowing and the mining, because crew wages are one of the major expenditures.

Fire Mining Piracy

Obviously laden fire mining ships are great things to pirate. However smart pirates (and crystal raiders) do not destroy the ships, they just board and loot them. They could carry off about 225,000 worth in true fire and orichalcum for each successful raid on a laden ship.

Assume that pirates only consider it worthwhile raiding if they can get enough money for 25 silvers per crewman per day. Assume pirate ships have about 100 crew (which should easily allow them to swamp the 50 crew of a fire mining ship). So they want 2500 per day. So a pirate ship would have to raid a laden fire mining ship every 90 days, or about 4 successful raids per year. The rest of the year they sit around enjoying their wealth and telling tall stories.

Assuming that there are about 20 fire mining ships out there to be raided, then if there were 5 pirate/raider vessels raiding fire mining ships exclusively, then each fire mining ship would get raided about once per year. Each successful raid on a ship sets the company back by 2 trips (one full load of fire kernels, and one trip to pay for the lost orichalcum containers). The companies would be willing to put up with this sort of losses, as long as the piracy did not escalate and the pirates did not start killing crews or destroying ships.

So smart fire mining companies would instruct their captains to flee from pirates, but if the pirates catch them they would be under orders to surrender immediately. The pirates then walk in, thank the captain for being a reasonable man, and walk out with the orichalcum containers full of true fire. Only a stupid captain would fight the pirates, because there is too much chance of being killed and/or having the ship destroyed.

Copyright © 1997-8 All Rights Reserved
David Bradshaw
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