Game in the Brain

Simple Rule – you start out with all the necessary equipment and consumables as long as they don’t add up to more than 10% of the ship. The only catch is that you have to take the effort to list it down, the reward is you get it as part of the “Ship Package deal” and the return is that you take the stuff and list them down Ideally in an Asset Spreadsheet (another sheet in the Crews Spreadsheet).

This does not include

• Weapons that was not indicated in the basic ship package/stat block. 
• Turrets (heavy or light)
• Fighters (if the ship is converted into a carrier)
• Modifications (adding power plants, drives, quarters, additional etc.)

This may include (note ideally this does not exceed 10% of the ship’s total value):

• Non-Combat Small-Craft (also the essential supplies also here)
• Vehicles
• Heavy Equipment (Heavy Exo-skeletons; Robots)
• Basic Equipment (Powered Suits; Tech Bots; repiar tools)
• Software and AI 
• Missiles (HE warheads only; $25k each), Sand, 
• 6 months of supplies equal to the ship’s Life Support. 

All the equipment if I did a serious accounting of them, added up to 17M of my 288M Frontier Merchant.

Notes about Expenses?

• Does an HT8 ship (with 20% the cost) have lower expenses than an HT10 of the ship or an HT12 of the ship? To simplify Yes, but I think if you continuously use sub par replaceable parts at 1/5 the cost of what is a reasonably small overhead expense then  you should incur some penalties from -1 to -3 mechanic or eletronics repair checks or checks in the basic use of these tools like piloting or operations checks. 
• Upgrade Expenses (not just from TL10 to 11, but HT upgrades; I’m on the inclination to use the rugged rules for tougher parts are just double the cost + or – the merchant’s price roll and ability to negotiate or find the best price), its better to organize the upgrades in sections: Power, Drives, Lifesupport, Hull, Sensors, Computers, Quarters, etc.. 

Updated Expenses and Profitability Spreadsheet in light of the Standard Operating Procedure I developed in my other Post.

Finally Profitability… but the margins are pretty slim. this assumes purely 80% efficiency (getting only 80% of hold and passengers filled; room for speculative trade to increase profits).