Where can I find the rules for hiring/upgrading a crew for a ship?
And where I can find maintenance fees?
[RPG] What does crewing and maintaining a ship cost
pricingstar-wars-saga-edition
Related Solutions
Looking in the compendium, there do not seem to be rules for this. That said, if you're running Eberron, you might take a peek in the campaign book and see if there is something more specific to the setting. However, there are rules for pocket change and how much a major and minor purchase might cost that are pegged to the level of the character.
In general, I would consider hiring mercenaries (particularly a set who would make a difference fighting alongside adventurers) to be a major purchase, and probably a major purchase per PC. So if your characters are interested in hiring something like Level 1 mercenary thugs, I'd make that a Level 1 major purchase, 144gp.
The major/minor purchase table is in Mordenkainan's Magnificent Emporium, or can be found via DDI.
I don't have any T5 resources, but for what it's worth:
- In Traveller: The New Era, maintenance is expressed only in terms of hours, not credits (core book, page 241). For a Jayhawk, this is 89 man-hours per week; if a mechanic makes Cr1,000 per week, that's 0.2% of the vessel's purchase price per year for labor alone.
- In Mongoose Traveller, maintenance is 0.1% of a ship's purchase price per year (core book, page 137).
These rates seems pretty damn low. I'd compare Traveller spaceships to modern warships - loaded with tech, but not cutting-edge like the space shuttle is was. There are some figures out on the interwebs; someone with a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships can probably get better numbers.
Per a maintenance company, the annual operating costs for a small frigate is between 25% and 30% the construction cost, mostly in the form of fuel and crew; maintenance proper looks to be about 2% of the ship's price, per year.
Per a random defense web site, the USN's estimated total operating cost for the Littoral Combat Ship is about $40 M per year, or about 10% of purchase price (not relative to the class ships, which always cost more). That's everything-in, so if you're charging separately for fuel and crew then 1% of the purchase price is probably close.
Per a major Canadian newspaper, maintenance and operations for next-gen Canadian warships will be 8% of acquisition price, per year. This includes personnel and probably fuel, so maintenance proper is probably between 0.5% and 1.0% per year.
Also of interest, a paper from George Mason describes the annual cost of maintenance for the Arleigh Burke class of destroyer rising by 50% for parts and 100% for labor for routine maintenance (performed by the crew), and 250% for "intermediate" maintenance man-hours (performed at dock, not a shipyard), from a ship's first year to its 16th. So an older ship like the Millennium Falcon or Serenity can be presumed to take much more maintenance than a shiny new Heart of Gold, especially if the owners have skipped a couple of refits.
For a civilian perspective, a paper gives the operating cost for a Panamax cargo ship as $6,500 to $8,400 per day. If a typical bulk cargo Panamax ship costs $20 M, that's about 14% of purchase price per year. However, the point of the paper is that costs roughly doubled from 2000 to 2010, so it seems that this is a volatile factor. An academic page suggests that fuel is the main component here too, with maintenance again making up about 8% of operating costs. The main difference is that military ships have far larger crews; salaries are a small part of a tanker's costs.
For comparison, a modern car may cost $30,000 to buy, and as little as $300 a year to maintain (oil changes, tires, belts, but not gas), so 1% per year. An old beater may cost $1,000, compared to $20,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars when new, and another $1,000 a year as parts keep falling off, so 5%.
The real answer is "do whatever works for your campaign," if you even want to track these things at all - they never named numbers in Firefly, as being perpetually broke but still flying was simply the expectation; quantifying it was needless. If I was going to track this, I'd probably go with 1% of purchase price per year for a brand-new ship, up to an extreme of 10% for an old clunker - 10% of the original price, not what the players pay.
Best Answer
The quick answer, I'm afraid, is that you can't. Neither the Saga Edition nor its predecessor produced any rules for starship maintenance costs or crew recruitment/training (at least, none that I can find.)
My suggestion would be to handle it as a story element - the players announce their intention, and the GM comes up with a scenario to help them achieve it. For example: they want to hire new crew - turn it into an adventure where the characters visit a station and run into problems such as crew unions or a corporation trying to monopolize trained labor. Maybe a Hutt wants all the best-trained crew for his new venture, and is strong-arming anyone else who tries to hire them. The players deal with the situation, and they get their improved crew while the actual cost aspect is glossed over and sits in the background.
Maintenance can be handled in a similar manner - a good example here is from Episode I where the J-Type develops a fault and they end up having to barter, gamble, and help an NPC win a podrace in order to get the parts they need.
It's worth noting that there's also no trading rules, and that similar story-orientated methods could be used here too.
While this may not be the answer you were hoping for, it's something worth considering unless you want to develop your own tables of fees.
Alternatively - it costs whatever the GM wants it to cost at the time, depending on how affordable they want to make it for the players. Supply and demand can cause price fluctuations far above what we're used to when you're looking at it on the galactic level - the only available navigator on the planet can pretty much name their price, as can someone that's got the very last replacement drive unit - and maintenance costs are also driven by what happens to have broken recently (which again, tends to be a GM call.)
(Edit) A more thorough check turned up refuelling, consumable restocking, docking and repair fees in the "Scum and Villany" book, in the Spaceports and Shadowports section of Chapter 3: Fringe Campaigns. There's also prices for hiring mechanics in repair bays, but this still depends on some GM fiat to decide what needs repairing and how long it'll take, and seems more aimed at having modifications performed (so, adding in that smuggling compartment under the deck and fitting military-grade weapons to your cargo ship.)