This. (Pretty much, but I can quibble about the details.)
OTU Only: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way from Collace
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Megacorporations charge 1000Cr per jump per ton - a free trader has to match that.
Megacorporations charge for high, middle and low passages per jump - a free trader has to match that.
Perfect economic sense.
Remember the trade game is for a free trader Traveller, not an in depth economic model of every sci fi setting imaginable.
Remember also that a megacorporation doesn't need to worry about mortgages, the price they charge for all their products has the cost of building the transport ships and the cost of transportation already figured in.
Megacorporations charge for high, middle and low passages per jump - a free trader has to match that.
Perfect economic sense.
Remember the trade game is for a free trader Traveller, not an in depth economic model of every sci fi setting imaginable.
Remember also that a megacorporation doesn't need to worry about mortgages, the price they charge for all their products has the cost of building the transport ships and the cost of transportation already figured in.
Krikkitone
SOC-12
If the Megacorp charges per jump, then Megacorps should only operate J1 ships for maximum profit. (most cargo tonnage, and least expensive ship)
If you want to keep the 1000 per jump, then a J2 ship should get a bonus to getting freight if the destination world is two+ parsecs away. (ie if you are charging less than the megacorps 4 tickets for going 4 parsecs, so shipping with you will be cheaper).
So Bonus based on the smaller of Destination world distance and the Jump rating of the ship.
(A J2 ship going 2 parsecs will fill up much faster than a J1 ship going to the same world)
Otherwise the only ship that makes sense to operate is a J1 (possibly with a fuel bladder to double/triple jump at times)
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Yes and no.
Yes, they can set prices where they run.
Yes, they can run at an apparent loss (and break even or better because they're transporting Zuchai Crystals on a just-in-time basis).
No, this only applies where they operate. Core Subsector? Sure! District 268? Maybe not...
Yes, they can set prices where they run.
Yes, they can run at an apparent loss (and break even or better because they're transporting Zuchai Crystals on a just-in-time basis).
No, this only applies where they operate. Core Subsector? Sure! District 268? Maybe not...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Control.
In the early days of the Third Imperium jump 3 was maximum, it's fine for your megacorps to be chugging along at jump 1 but the military and the comms boats need jump 3. The worlds on the jump 2-3 network become more important with time as comms stations and military bases, the trade lanes follow. Some of those worlds can only be reached by jump 2 or jump 3 without jump 1 worlds for your traders. So empty hex jumps and carry extra fuel, build deep space refueling stations, or just invest in some jump 2 or jump 3 transportation.
The nobility, megacorp upper management, and military will want the fastest transport they can get.
If there is a major world 3pc distant, my competitor uses jump 1 ship it takes them 3-4 weeks to find out the up to date trade requirements, and then 3-4 weeks to send them the goods.
With jump 3 I can do the whole thing in just over a fortnight. I can also respond more quickly to market changes.
This is why you don't have an xboat network with every link jump 4 for efficiency. The trade routes still follow the jump1->3 trade network, and the xboat network was built on top of it.
In the early days of the Third Imperium jump 3 was maximum, it's fine for your megacorps to be chugging along at jump 1 but the military and the comms boats need jump 3. The worlds on the jump 2-3 network become more important with time as comms stations and military bases, the trade lanes follow. Some of those worlds can only be reached by jump 2 or jump 3 without jump 1 worlds for your traders. So empty hex jumps and carry extra fuel, build deep space refueling stations, or just invest in some jump 2 or jump 3 transportation.
The nobility, megacorp upper management, and military will want the fastest transport they can get.
If there is a major world 3pc distant, my competitor uses jump 1 ship it takes them 3-4 weeks to find out the up to date trade requirements, and then 3-4 weeks to send them the goods.
With jump 3 I can do the whole thing in just over a fortnight. I can also respond more quickly to market changes.
This is why you don't have an xboat network with every link jump 4 for efficiency. The trade routes still follow the jump1->3 trade network, and the xboat network was built on top of it.
Krikkitone
SOC-12
Which is why a ship with J3 capabilities in a per jump pricing environment will fill up faster than a J1 ship (“You mean I can Send my package to Zorfin for 1000 cr instead of 3000 cr and it’ll only take a couple weeks…get me on that ship ASAP”)
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Exactly, so to compete the jump 1 trader would have to cut costs to 333Cr per jump, take three time longer to get there, have three weeks of life support and crew salary to pay...
let's see you pay off the mortgage with your revenue reduced by over a third.
let's see you pay off the mortgage with your revenue reduced by over a third.
Problem in a nutshell is we're trying to defend a canon practice against the reality that it just doesn't work unless something weird is going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. We're talking about whole planets and sector-wide economies, worlds with ten billion people and worlds with ten thousand, giant corporations that per canon own freighters of a thousand tons or more and fight clandestine little wars with each other using them while independent little tramp freighters run by retirees try to survive by picking up scraps and doing speculative trades. And we're saying no one, nowhere is willing to charge or pay extra for the privilege of getting stuff shipped farther faster? That only happens if someone very powerful with eyes everywhere is enforcing a requirement. And the result is no one buys ships of greater than jump-1 unless they're transporting their own goods or making some arrangement that falls outside of the scope of the regulation, such as an annual contract to deliver X tons of goods from A to D weekly for the annual payment of Y dollars.
I haven't seen anything in canon that suggests an enforcement mechanism for this requirement, just that it's "The Way". Is there anything in canon enforcing this other than GM fiat?
I haven't seen anything in canon that suggests an enforcement mechanism for this requirement, just that it's "The Way". Is there anything in canon enforcing this other than GM fiat?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The Nobility of the Third Imperium run the protection racket, they make money from the megacorporations and world taxes. The megacorporations fix the prices, the Imperium enforces the rules on trade, including the price fixing. If a company wants to compete they may face a trade war. If a world wants to compete they may face interdiction.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Overly broad assertion.
Evidence REQUIRED.
That would be a "patron bonus tip" for the shipment, rather than a "standard operating procedure" expectation that ought to be true in all circumstances and contexts.
That's exactly what happens. If another ship can get the freight there faster for less cost, then that specific shipment of freight is not going to be solicited to you for delivery. A competitor will get it, so you don't.
From the perspective of the starship operator, the "offer" to buy a ticket for that specific load just doesn't come to YOU ... it goes to someone else. You lose a ticket sale, someone else gets that ticket sale. It's not a case of "only MY starship moves freight" in the Traveller universe(s).
As for making the economics of the situation "work FOR you" @ J2+ ... that's a starship design and a business model problem. It's not something that the customers have to "solve" for the starship operators.
The market for transport services, in effect, dictates what kinds of starship designs are economical to service that demand as individual operators. Furthermore, the arrangement of stars (and trade codes for mainworlds) on the map becomes critically important. LBB2 passenger, freight and speculative goods rules merely concern themselves with the "slice of the pie" relevant to YOUR starship, rather than trying to model EVERYTHING and then determine how thin your slice of that overall pie is going to be.
J1 Free Traders are "more economical" to construct, own and operate than J2 Far Traders (just look at the sticker prices if you don't believe me). However, in a true case of "you get what you pay for" ... those J1 Free Traders are heavily dependent upon the outsourcing of security (system defense, refined fuel, etc.) in order to make ends meet. However, the J2 Far Traders "have more range to work with" which then affords them greater opportunities in the speculative goods arbitrage market than is available to the J1 Free Traders.
Remember, ticket revenues (passenger and freight) are simply there to provide supplemental income between windfall profits earned on speculative goods arbitrage wins. Merchant starships that rely EXCLUSIVELY on ticket sales to pay for their operating expenses (such as Free Traders and Fat Traders) depend on ticket sales in volume to make their profits. Far Traders start getting into the "wheeling and dealing" business of moving speculative goods for arbitrage, which can easily exceed the Cr1000 per ton per jump ticket revenue yield for freight. Far Traders can also enter world markets that are otherwise "unavailable" to Free Traders and Fat Traders (because, off main, need 2+ parsec range to reach).
Which is a long winded way of saying that as jump numbers go up, reliance on ticket sales to generate revenues in order to break even goes down. That's why starships with higher jump numbers become increasingly reliant on speculative goods arbitrage in order to "pay their bills" rather than relying on ticket sales as their primary source of income.
See, that's the only argument I can come up with too. Imperium sets a rule ostensibly to promote trade but actually intended to favor large corporate interests over startups. They're the only ones offering higher jumps and they profit by offering long term contracts or other arrangements like offering low cost shipping in exchange for a percentage ownership interest and share of profits.
I could attach the spreadsheet I constructed that has the most-efficient ships by TL for LBB2'81, perhaps. But here are the threads where I worked it out:
(Final tables in first thread start at post #87)
Most Efficient Ship by TL for Cargo to X Parsecs
EDIT: TABLES IN ALL BUT THE MOST RECENT POST BY ME IN THIS THREAD MAY BE SLIGHTLY INACCURATE (I'm catching errors as I go, but I fear that the edit window on the earliest posts may expire before I'm done.) Anyhow... I'm running spreadsheets to figure out baseline minimum cargo costs per...
www.travellerrpg.com
CT Only: - Most Efficient Ship Intermediate Conclusions
1. My “LBB2 most efficient ships by TL” research has accomplished a few things so far: a. Set a price floor on payload rates (Cr614-684, varying by TL/ship size), though this may only apply to megacorp shipping outside of the trade minigame. b. Established that only per-parsec rates make...
www.travellerrpg.com
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Except that a market needs both demand and supply. If I'm running a J2 ship and shippers are willing to pay Cr1k/Td/jump twice to move their stuff two parsecs, why shouldn't I exploit that? Don't discount the cost, just skim off the shipments that want to save a week of transit time, and pocket the change.
It works out that multiple J-1s are cheaper for odd-numbered distances, and multiple J-2s are cheaper for even numbered distances. The single J-1 by a J-2 ship that's necessary to round out the string, bumps the average cost per payload ton above doing the whole trip as J-1s.
J3s and up are only viable if shippers are willing to pay more than a flat per-parsec rate to get the cargo there faster.
And in the context of the original intent of this thread, that 600Td J-5 merchant (Shugushaag) basically needs to make Cr16-18,000 per payload ton (includes staterooms!) per jump to turn a profit. Or to put it another way, they ain't lighting off that jump drive for you without you handing 'em darn near a megacredit first! (Cr987,754 for a Jump-5). I mean, if you're hauling a Size G Jump Drive on spec, that's only 1.5% (it costs 70MCr) of the cost so it's not totally impossible if you picked it up on an Industrial world at a discount...
(Yeah, there's the cost of dead-heading it back to your high-tech homeworld for another run like that, plus the cost of downtime waiting for opportunities. Still, it can work if you've got a source of very-high value-density cargoes that need to get off the edge of the map on a regular basis.)
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Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
As intended, that J5/2G design "works" as a proof of concept (can it be done) while completely "failing" as a proof of mercantile viability (should it be done). It's both an engineering masterpiece and a commercial flop at the same time, which is quite an impressive achievement.
The only way to "make ends meet" with the expenses that the design entails is to rely (heavily!) on speculative goods arbitrage, which is something the design is going to be VERY GOOD at doing. But if you're looking to "survive" on ticket revenues ... you've brought the wrong tool for the job.
I would assert that's the wrong interpretation to have.
J3+ starships aren't "really" in the business of making their profits off ticket revenues. Most of their profit margins are going to come from being able to RAPIDLY move speculative goods lots in ways that optimize the opportunities for arbitrage (buy low/sell high). Passenger accommodations and freight shipping basically become "sideshows" at that point, used to "reduce the red" in between windfalls from wheeling and dealing in speculative goods.
When you can earn MCr1+ profit on 40 tons of speculative cargo, you DON'T CARE that the standard shipping rate is Cr1000 per ton per jump.
Why?
Because that one (hypothetical) MCr1 profit on 40 tons of speculative cargo was earning you Cr25,000 per ton, once it was bought, delivered and sold. When you can make profits like that "hand over fist" on speculative goods arbitrage, it doesn't make sense anymore to try and keep yourself afloat using the "tiddly-winks" revenues you can earn on passenger and cargo freight tickets (which are Cr1000-2000 per revenue ton per jump, at best).
The knock on interesting thing is that for a more "dedicated" speculative goods tramp trader design, you WANT the more powerful jump drive AND you want to have a "reasonable" amount of cargo capacity in case you run across an opportunity to buy up a load of speculative goods.
I would personally consider 40 tons of cargo capacity to be a "minimum" needed for a speculative goods tramp design.
60 tons of cargo capacity would be closer to ideal.
80 tons of cargo capacity is "nice to have" but not necessary in order to be economically successful as a speculative goods tramp.
100+ tons will start to feel "excessive to needs" for most "one load at a time" trading in speculative goods. However, being able to carry 2+ loads of speculative goods simultaneously, intended for different destinations has its merits.
Not a bad assessment. That said, it means that the supply of Cr1k/Td/jump cargo space for farther than J-1 is going to be quite small and very irregular. If you're flying a Far Trader, you probably don't have to accept cargo for a J2 at Cr1000/Td on that jump. They'll pay more.
Yep. The key to making it with a Shugushaag is a really big bankroll so you can do starship drives and (really small) small-craft as spec cargo.
(Or hidden subsidies, so your benefactor gets some visibility into who's willing to spend a megacredit per jump to move stuff at Jump-5, and what it is they're moving.)
I still like them.
Shugushaag deck plans and stuff here (first link in that thread to deck plans got killed in the forum software upgrade though):
OTU Only: - Shugushaag (600Td J5 Freighter, LBB2 2nd Ed.)
This is a re-visit of one of the “Book 2 Loophole” ships I’d posted a while back. Basically, this is the “Prize in the Starship Category” awarded for achieving TL-13 under LBB2. (TL-12 enables Jump-5 in a 400Td hull, but with no significant payload.) The Shugushaag (Vilani: “Logistics...
www.travellerrpg.com
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Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
I have my moments.
The key point is that what "works" for J1 is one type of paradigm, while what "works" for J3+ is a different paradigm, when it comes to business models and operations. The respective starship range capabilities optimize for different purposes (ticket revenues vs speculative goods arbitrage). So while each can "dabble" in the world of the other, the respective paradigms more or less "keep to their own lanes" as their primary source of revenues to defray operational expenses and generate profits.
If you can swing it, that's a useful service to provide.
The main question is one of "demand signal" for such a service. Without the necessary demand for such a specialized transport service, the J5/2G design "can't survive" on ticket sales alone. It turns into a liability dragging its owner towards bankruptcy, rather than an asset generating profits (for somebody). It's a FEAST or FAMINE situation.
The "demand signal" gets worked out ahead of time.I have my moments.
The key point is that what "works" for J1 is one type of paradigm, while what "works" for J3+ is a different paradigm, when it comes to business models and operations. The respective starship range capabilities optimize for different purposes (ticket revenues vs speculative goods arbitrage). So while each can "dabble" in the world of the other, the respective paradigms more or less "keep to their own lanes" as their primary source of revenues to defray operational expenses and generate profits.
If you can swing it, that's a useful service to provide.
The main question is one of "demand signal" for such a service. Without the necessary demand for such a specialized transport service, the J5/2G design "can't survive" on ticket sales alone. It turns into a liability dragging its owner towards bankruptcy, rather than an asset generating profits (for somebody). It's a FEAST or FAMINE situation.
"Hey, you've got a Class A starport here, but you're only TL-9? How about I bring you guys some better drives from over at Glisten/Glisten every few months? They can build 'em for cheap, and won't have your funds tied up for long. Deal?"
And if on one of the runs they aren't buying since the last ship they built on spec is still waiting for a buyer, you've got Jump-5 to go shopping that set of drives around to other starports.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
So ... basically ... a unique arrangement that is "not the norm" for any kind of tramp trading regime.
It's certainly something that can be "replicated" in multiple locations, but it's still something of a niche market ... rather than being something ubiquitous and common.
Yes. Which means you're not going to reliably tag along on that run with your cheap freight -- that's where your supply of Cr1k/jump freight space would have come from.
