Universal Corporate Profile
UCP (Economics) Synopsis
The Universal Corporate Profile (UCP) is a method to describe companies and other corporate entities in Traveller.
Please see Megacorporation for more information.
UCP (Economics) Profile Description
It is represented by a string of hexidecimal digits as below:
- 111111-0000-000-0000-00000
Followed by a comments field to expand upon the raw UCP
The UCP is being developed as a part of the Imperial Ship Builders Association. And much of the discussion is taking place on the ISBA mailing list. Many of the concepts and ideas expressed here are from the fertile minds of the participants on that list and full credit must go to them.
UCP (Economics) Corporate Descriptive Datapoints
- 1. Basic Description (See below)
- 2. Nationality (Empire) (abstract number - see below)
- 3. Nature (abstract number - see below)
- 4. Range (abstract number - see below)
- 5. Employees (Log. scale)
- 6. Operating Budget in MCr (log scale)
- 7. Profit Margin (Straight scale)
- 8. Research & Development (See below)
- 9. Area of Operations (This section based on the real-world Standard Industrial Classifications, and is thanks to Tim Reynolds.
1. Basic Description
- Influence (abstract number - needs to be defined)
- Tradition (abstract number - needs to be defined)
- Public Relations (abstract number - needs to be defined)
- Company Politics (abstract number - needs to be defined)
- Corporate Paranoia (abstract number - needs to be defined)
- Research and Development (abstract number - see below)
2. Nationality (Empire)
- Imperial
- Vilani
- Solomani
- Zhodani
- Julian Protectorate
- Aslan
- Vargr
- Hiver
- K'kree
- Droyne
- Minor Human
- Minor Non-Human
3. Corporation Nature
This is the way the corporation is "owned."
These are some (my ideas):
- Public Listed Company
- Family Business
- Partnership
- Private non Limited Liability
- Mutual Company/Friendly Society
- Private Trust
- Employee Trust
- State Sponsored (semi state owned)
- State Owned Enterprise
- Self-owned
4. Corporate Range
This is how widely spread the companies operations are:
- Village
- Town
- City
- Large City/Province
- National
- Continental
- Single lo pop World
- Single mid pop (6-8) world
- Single hi pop world
- Multi World/Cluster
- Single Subsector
- Multi Subsectors
- Sector
- Domain
- Imperial
5. Employee Codes
This is how many employees (EE's) the company has working for it:
| Code | Description | Employees (where E is the employee quantity multiplier) |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Low | <10 (E) |
| 1 | Low | 10 to 100 (E0) |
| 2 | Low | 100 to 1,000 (E00) |
| 3 | Low | 1,000 to 10,000 (E,000) |
| 4 | Moderate | 10,000 to 100,000 (E0,000) |
| 5 | Moderate | 100,000 to 1,000,000 (E00,000) |
| 6 | Moderate | 1 Million to 10 Million (E,000,000) |
| 7 | Moderate | 10 Million to 100 Million (E0,000,000) |
| 8 | Moderate | 100 Million to 1 Billion (E00,000,000) |
| 9 | High | 1 Billion to 10 Billion (E,000,000,000) |
| A | High | 10 Billion to 100 Billion (E0,000,000,000) |
| B | High | 100 Billion to 1 Trillion (E00,000,000,000) |
6. Operating Budget
This is how many employees (EE's) the company has working for it:
| Code | Description | Budget (where MCr is the operating budget) |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Low | <10 (MCr) |
| 1 | Low | 10 to 100 (MCr0) |
| 2 | Low | 100 to 1,000 (MCr00) |
| 3 | Low | 1,000 to 10,000 (MCr,000) |
| 4 | Moderate | 10,000 to 100,000 (MCr0,000) |
| 5 | Moderate | 100,000 to 1,000,000 (MCr00,000) |
| 6 | Moderate | 1 Million to 10 Million (MCr,000,000) |
| 7 | Moderate | 10 Million to 100 Million (MCr0,000,000) |
| 8 | Moderate | 100 Million to 1 Billion (MCr00,000,000) |
| 9 | High | 1 Billion to 10 Billion (MCr,000,000,000) |
| A | High | 10 Billion to 100 Billion (MCr0,000,000,000) |
| B | High | 100 Billion to 1 Trillion (MCr00,000,000,000) |
7. Profit Margin
This is how many employees (EE's) the company has working for it:
| Code | Description | Budget (where MCr is the operating budget) |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Low | <10 (MCr) |
| 1 | Low | 10 to 100 (MCr0) |
| 2 | Low | 100 to 1,000 (MCr00) |
| 3 | Low | 1,000 to 10,000 (MCr,000) |
| 4 | Moderate | 10,000 to 100,000 (MCr0,000) |
| 5 | Moderate | 100,000 to 1,000,000 (MCr00,000) |
| 6 | Moderate | 1 Million to 10 Million (MCr,000,000) |
| 7 | Moderate | 10 Million to 100 Million (MCr0,000,000) |
| 8 | Moderate | 100 Million to 1 Billion (MCr00,000,000) |
| 9 | High | 1 Billion to 10 Billion (MCr,000,000,000) |
| A | High | 10 Billion to 100 Billion (MCr0,000,000,000) |
| B | High | 100 Billion to 1 Trillion (MCr00,000,000,000) |
8. Research & Development
- 1%
- 2%
- 3%
- 4%
- 5%
- 6%
- 7%
- 8%
- 9%
- 10%
- 15%
- 20%
- 25%
- 30%
- 40%
9. Area of Operations
And yes the real world does have eleven classifications, which fits nicely with a 1d12 roll)
- (1d12) 1. Agriculture
- (1d12) 2. Mining
- (1d12) 3. Construction
- (1d12) 4. Manufacturing
- (1d12) 5. Transpiration, Communications, Utilities (Power, gas, sanitation, etc.)
- (1d12) 6. Wholesale trade
- (1d12) 7. Retail Trade
- (1d12) 8. Finance, Insurance, Real Estate
- (1d12) 9. Service
- (1d12) 10. Public Administrative
- (1d12) 11. Non-classifiable (Other)
- (1d12) 12. Roll again (The company has multiple areas of operation)
UCP (Economics) Example
As an example I'll give Phoenix Corporation
- 11D548-0009-000-0100-D5794B
This gives a Publicly listed Imperial company, operating over a sector, with hundreds of thousand employees, turning over tens of billions of credits, returning 8%. The company is very heavily into manufacturing, with a minor interest in Service industry. Phoenix can exert a lot of influence, doesn't hold too much to tradition, has a large degree of internal infighting, is moderately paranoid, has good public relations and a heavy commitment to R&D.
The Comments field would include the information that the company's interests in manufacturing was mainly in shipbuilding with other capacity in power systems, electronics and small arms; and that its service industry interests was in the field of Chandler and Providor. It might go on to describe that it's R&D was focused on the unproven field of Stutterwarp Drives and that this is a cause of strife between the CEO and Board.
Obviously all this is **very** rough and still needs a lot of polishing (witness all those values still to be defined). But it is a start and I would really appreciate comments. The most obvious change likely in the final version is going to be that all the values will probably be ordered in a much more logical fashion.
..
- Author: Andrea Vallance
UCP (Economics) Reading Suggestion
Please see 101 Corporations for a reference with a similar premise.