Leon logged in after having a hearty meal of…well ok it was more a poor man's meal of instant noodles, but it was a feast for him, for now.
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You have gained EXP for running a company.
Company assets and employees.
Owner: Starlight
Settlements: Kono Settlement (neutral)
You have reached level 14.
You gained EXP for Managing a planet.
Planets owned: 1 Kono System (neutral)
You have reached level 18.
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Today after logging in the EXP he earned all came in, while combat EXP or trade EXP came in when you did the action, most other EXP came in later after it was calculated. Still, going from level 8 to 18 was nice. He quickly put 2 points in CHA and 1 in INT, WIS, and DEX. For the Skill points, he put 3 in Management, unlocking Station Management, and then put 1 in each of Station Management and Planet Management. This would help with keeping them happy and happy settlements/stations led to better returns.
Starlight headed to the Market and negotiated for the sales of minerals and wood, selling 100 tons of minerals for 115k and 140 tons of Kono Dark Wood for a whopping 26 million. The wood was unique looking and very luxurious, plus the bonuses he got from Broker 3 and Material Broker 1 earned him a massive payday.
The payday for his crew was over a million each, and after their cut, he had 19 million to play with. That was a lot of credits, but not to the point of being rich in the real world. 100 credits were worth 1 dollar, so he had 190k dollars currently if he sold it for real money, but he wanted to make more so he needed to spend money to make money.
He went back to Ruthgar and bought a second ship for 15 million, refiner and extractor included. Then he went to the Fleet Recruitment Office and requested the profile of Captains that were available. The captains available ranged from level 1 to level 50, and the contract requirements were all over the place. One of the level 3 captains wanted 60% of the profits and also wanted the company to pay all payroll to the crew, supply the ship, and pay all fees. Then there was a captain that was level 50 that wanted to own the ship and take 20% of the profits. Both of those captains were bad choices, and the first was probably a player, the second was a veteran who wanted to work the contract and get out of paying the millions of credits for the ship he would use after the contract ended.
Leon found three captains that matched his requirements closely enough. They were levels 6, 10, and 12, and asked to negotiate their cut and were willing to take the terms they could get. He called in the three captains for an interview.
One captain was a standard human woman, level 10, the second captain was a pointed-eared male, level 6, and the last was a female with pointed ears and two short horns, level 12. The level 12 captain was a player and also had 5 levels of Merchant. It seems that she had used her Merchant class to level her Captain class.
"Hello, I am Starlight, may I have your names?"
"I am Hanna," the level 10 captain said.
"Jojo," the male said.
"Yuna," said the highest leveled one.
"Nice to meet you. I recently bought a second ship, and after I have made some more money I plan to buy more, starting a fleet, for my territory. Out of all the captains on the list, you three seemed the most reasonable. I will start by saying, the ship you will start with, will be owned by the company, and me, and your cut will reflect that. If you take your cut and buy your own ship during the contract time, you can increase the amount of your cut since you won't be flying company property."
Hanna raised her hand, "How much of a cut are we talking here? And do we have to pay crew out of the cut?"
"Good question, if you pay the crew out of your cut, then I am prepared to offer 36% of the profits, if you do not, then you will earn 10% of the profits."
Yuna raised her hand, "So, if we have friends to fill the roles of the crew who are willing to take less pay, then we can keep the extra in the 36%?"
Starlight nodded.
"Then how much would we earn if we owned the ship, both ways please."
"If you own the ship, then you will be responsible for paying your crew, and you would earn 40% of the profits."
Jojo raised his hand, "So, owning your own ship only gets you 4% more profits? That seems kind of low for the expense."
Starlight smiled, "Sure 4% seems low, but let me tell you how much I made in profit on the last trip I did…26 million, after paying my crew I made 19 million. The ship I bought before coming to hire a captain was a Y-300 Guarded Long Hauler, worth 15 million after installing a High-end Refiner and Extractor. Now, can you tell me what 4% of the profits amounts to in that situation?"
Yuna's eyes sparkled, "That would be around a million credits. So, the 40% would be around 10 million credits. That is some major profits."
Jojo nods in understanding, but then asked another question, "What will you do with the security of your territory? You will probably need a station and a defense fleet, right?"
Starlight nodded in agreement.
"That is true, and if one of you is willing, when I have built the station, I could assign you as the representative of the company and as fleet commander."
Jojo raised his hand again, "And how much would this person receive as pay?"
"I would pay them on two factors. First, their standard pay, 200k every 3 months, with raises available for good work. Second, for every time the defense fleet defends the territory, 300k plus 20% of the value of the salvaged materials from enemy vessels."
Jojo smiled widely, "I would like to volunteer for that position, I have never been much of a trader, so my profits there would be lower, but working on defense and managing a station would be right up my alley."
The two ladies both were traders, for the most part, so they had no complaint about this.
Hanna raised her hand, "Are there any other requirements?"
"Yes, there are nonstandard humans working for me, so I don't want any discrimination going on, while I know that two of you are also in that category, I still wanted to bring it up, just to be sure that everyone is on the right page."
The three nodded.
"Ok, then first I will have Yuna take the new ship and follow me to my territory. We will load up and return, hopefully making enough money to buy a ship for Hanna, and maybe enough for the blueprints for a station. If we are lucky, we might be able to buy a combat vessel for Jojo. If not, we should have enough on the following trip or two. Now, for the term of the contract. The standard contract is 3 years. If you want to join the company, then the contract is 9 years, but there will be benefits for joining after we have grown some."
Jojo decided to join the company since it made sense for the commander of the defense fleet to be part of the company he is defending, and Yuna accepted joining too, Starlight was the first to own a territory, and even if the contract was longer, she would make a ton of money by working for him. Hanna decided to wait and see, she said she would renew her contract if she decided to join.
Yuna called her friends to fill her crew, and Starlight went to get some general goods, to fill in some conveniences for his settlement. Soon, the two ships flew off to start making money. He had originally wanted to wait to get players in his company, but Yuna happened to be a famous player before, and he had a crush on her, so he bent the rule for her and her friends. Her friends turned out to be 2 girls she knew in real life and the rest were NPCs she made friends with, but they followed their leader, so they joined the company.
Starlight's crew also joined, after seeing the massive amount of money they made, they renewed their contract for 9 years after joining.
The trip to Kono was as fast as always, and both ships landed at the settlement. Starlight dropped off the supplies, earning a bump to his settlement's Happiness rating, and loaded up on the materials. They haven't taken any of the Tortum yet, since there were only a few tons of it so far, and they would need it for the station. The planet was mostly wooded areas, so the cargo holds held 300 tons of Kono Dark Wood and only around 50 tons of common metals. The harvesters of the wood were working on sustainability areas, so there would be wood available at most times. Enough even for several more ships worth of wood, sadly there was a lack of manpower, which would be fixed in a couple of months as many of the women were pregnant, and in the game, a woman would give birth one month after conception. The children would take around two years to reach adulthood but could start helping around town when they were only a month old, freeing up adults for more demanding tasks. This was designed into the game so that players could have children but not have to sit out of many months of pregnancy and then child-rearing.
The two ships quickly returned to Vidu and made their sales, earning 60 million from the wood on one ship alone and another 60k from metals. After all the deductions for pay, he made 82 million credits on this run.
Starlight headed over to the pioneer office and bought the blueprint for a standard Upgradeable Defense Station, and for 3 B-1 Pioneer Settler Packages for a total of 900 settlers. Which after Yuna and her crew bought their own ship, filled their passenger hold as well. She had seen the benefits of having a ship that can go such long distances and it was affordable. Ruthgar was happy that Starlight brought him a customer as well.
The cost of the station blueprint and the settlers was 54 million since he got construction drones with the blueprint. He bought an assault ship for 20 million, it would take more jumps to get to Kono but it would serve the defense for now.
Hanna and Jojo brought their crews along and they signed their contracts, then Jojo started his long 2-month journey, and the rest started their 3-day journey. Once he had the money, he needed to buy blueprints for both a dockyard and defensive ships, so he could build his fleet locally.
The release of credit exchange has come, and Leon needed to earn big, so he could live more comfortably. For now, though, he had to build his station, and upgrade his settlement's population.