OTU Only: Al Morai's World-class Ships

[robject]

GIVEN: Assume that Al Morai does indeed serve the majority of the Xboat route of the Spinward Marches, and assume that 51 ships (plus two rotated out for overhaul at any given time) is sufficient to make Al Morai a worthy competitor in the Marches.

ASSUME: Competitors include Tukera, Oberlindes, Baraccai Technum, McClellan Factors, and at least a dozen other sector-wide corporations. Two per subsector, for example, plus the megacorps. Or any other number you like to pick.

THEN:

Here's my thought. It's new to me, but not to some of you.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the World-class ships are not 3,000 tons, but actually 30,000 tons displacement. A typo, if you will.

Consider that this would not really change interstellar traffic levels one bit. Same number of ships. The ships are bigger, but the amount of cargo shipped is still pretty small compared to a world of people.

Right?

 

[rancke]

GIVEN: Assume that Al Morai does indeed serve the majority of the Xboat route of the Spinward Marches, and assume that 51 ships (plus two rotated out for overhaul at any given time) is sufficient to make Al Morai a worthy competitor in the Marches.

51 jump-4 ships should definitely be able to make a living in the Marches, though the large cargo capacity is a problem. It's probably easier to find passengers that are willing to pay a premium to get wherever they're going in half the time than to find shippers that will pay it for shipping freight in half the time. Not that I'm prepared to say that it's impossible.

ASSUME: Competitors include Tukera, Oberlindes, Baraccai Technum, McClellan Factors, and at least a dozen other sector-wide corporations. Two per subsector, for example, plus the megacorps. Or any other number you like to pick.

Oberlindes, BT, and MF are all subsector-wide companies. I don't think we know of any sector-wide companies other than Al Morai (and Al Morai, as portrayed, is not any bigger, asset-wise, than subsector-wide companies like Oberlindes and Akerut, just stretched out across more territory).

Perhaps, just perhaps, the World-class ships are not 3,000 tons, but actually 30,000 tons displacement. A typo, if you will.

I'm puzzled. How do you believe this would help?

Consider that this would not really change interstellar traffic levels one bit. Same number of ships. The ships are bigger, but the amount of cargo shipped is still pretty small compared to a world of people.

Since our information (especially CT information) about traffic volumes is so extremely vague and scanty, I don't see that as a concern. Whether Al Morai has 51 ships or several times as many doesn't make a whole lot of difference to the setting. Some difference, sure, but nothing significant.


Hans

 

[selunatic2397]

I Like It! I am easy to please though.

 

[aramis]

CT's encounter tables, when extrapolated, imply a rather healthy level of traffic. Since it takes about 7 hours at 1G to make it to a Size A world's jump limit, and we roll once upon entry and once upon exit... So, call it 8 hours just to allow a little slop.

2d for 6+ in an A port once per 8 hours... 78/36per day - 2 ships per day encountered.

Note that encounter range is probably less than sensor range - 1/2 light second for civil ships - but how much is important.

If we presume that departure and arrival points tend to cluster, there will be up to 54 discrete paths... we can get up to 100 ships per day this way with J4... but really, I'd use a factor of 6 because CT core rules merchants are all J1.

We get roughly a dozen ships per day that way.

If we instead look at even the J6 routes, then we can push that up to 273 ships per day; up to double if we work from the average rather than the maximum world size.

CT looks to presume fairly low trade flow volumes and shipping volumes in the mechanics.

 

[GypsyComet]

CT looks to presume fairly low trade flow volumes and shipping volumes in the mechanics.

Alternate interpretation: CT presumes a difficult trade environment for the Little Guy. There is a lot of trade going on, but very little of it drifts down to the level of the 200 ton Tramp.

 

[BlackBat242]

I always felt that CT merchant rules were indeed only for free traders/small-ship small lines (those PCs would be aboard).

I agree that over 95% of all trade (more like 99%+) would be carried in large ships (1,000+dt) under multi-year contracts (often multi-decade).

Only the fringes of trade ever go out under the kind of one-off/short-term contracts and speculation-trade that PCs engage in.

 

[Carlobrand]

Alternate interpretation: CT presumes a difficult trade environment for the Little Guy. There is a lot of trade going on, but very little of it drifts down to the level of the 200 ton Tramp.

Except that I think he's calculating off the encounter tables, not the trade tables. In other words, during an 8 hour period transiting from close orbit to jump point on a world with a class A starport, a merchant ship with a sensor range of a half light-second will see one other ship about 26 in 36 times, from which he calculates an average 2 ships per day - besides the player's ship, presumably. Then he tries to factor in differing paths; I'm not clear how he's arriving at that but he's pretty good with that sort of thing. At any rate, from a dozen to a hundred or so ships daily - which is actually pretty meager for worlds that might have millions to billions of people in their local economy, suggests the interstellar economy's a very tiny piece of a CT world's overall economy (which also might explain why so many worlds are content with very little in the way of a starport).

 

[robject]

It's a paradox. A high-pop star system must be self-sufficient to survive; therefore interstellar traffic may be significant but probably never equal to (for example) current world shipping volumes. And yet there's lots of money to be made in interstellar traffic.

The typical conclusion I reach is that critical technology and luxuries unique to a sourceworld are shipped.

 

[Carlobrand]

Ah, I get it; I'm a little slow some times. At jump-6, there are 126 neighboring parsecs that a ship might jump to, with a 3 in 6 probability of a system in any one of those, therefore 53 possible destinations. If one assumes it's calculated with the idea that the player's in a Free Trader or Scout (since that's what's rolled on character generation), then it represents what the player sees when he's jumping for one of the neighboring 3 (for a free trader) or 9 (for a scout) neighboring systems. The original encounter table included ships up to jump-3: the subsidized liner, patrol boat and merc cruiser. Ergo, when calculating traffic for a given world, one could assume the world regularly receives traffic from any of the neighboring 18 systems and calculate up accordingly. If the table calculates a 26 in 36 chance of you seeing a second ship during that time (at a class-A or -B port), then by extension there is a 26 in 36 chance of any one of those other ships seeing a second ship (you in that case, someone else at other times). Ergo, a 26 in 36 chance of there being TWO ships along any given route at any given time - and presumably 1 or fewer at other times. That would mean 4 or 5 ships travelling any given route per day, with an average of 18 routes within 3 parsecs, for a daily traffic rate of roughly 70-90 ships per day.

I guess if you want to get really fancy, you could look at the neighbors of any given world and come up with some rough guesses for who's going to what world, maybe estimate an approximate day-to-day shipping volume.

It's a paradox. A high-pop star system must be self-sufficient to survive; therefore interstellar traffic may be significant but probably never equal to (for example) current world shipping volumes.

The typical conclusion is that critical technology and luxuries unique to a sourceworld are shipped.

Not necessarily. Interstellar shipping costs are not insignificant, but at 1000 credits for 13.5 cubic meters of space they're not outrageous either. The week delay is the more significant obstacle, but a company could still find it more profitable to ship some routine thing in from offworld than to buy it from a local manufacturer. If it can be made cheap enough in another system - higher tech production facilities, better access to raw materials, cheaper labor costs, more favorable tax rates, whatever - that can offset the shipping cost and make even things like cheap plastic toys a viable import.

 

[rancke]

Except that I think he's calculating off the encounter tables, not the trade tables. In other words, during an 8 hour period transiting from close orbit to jump point on a world with a class A starport, a merchant ship with a sensor range of a half light-second will see one other ship about 26 in 36 times, from which he calculates an average 2 ships per day - besides the player's ship, presumably. Then he tries to factor in differing paths; I'm not clear how he's arriving at that but he's pretty good with that sort of thing.

The fudge factor is the definition of 'encounter'. The above calculations are only valid if any sighting counts as an encounter. If an encounter is an event that involves interaction of some kind, very little can be deduced from the frequencies (Except, of course, minimum numbers; you can't have an encounter with a ship that isn't there). For all we know a high-population system is swarming with megafreighters and big liners and navy ships and scout ships and system defense vessels and customs cutters that just don't encounter the PC's ship.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

The fudge factor is the definition of 'encounter'. The above calculations are only valid if any sighting counts as an encounter. If an encounter is an event that involves interaction of some kind, very little can be deduced from the frequencies (Except, of course, minimum numbers; you can't have an encounter with a ship that isn't there). For all we know a high-population system is swarming with megafreighters and big liners and navy ships and scout ships and system defense vessels and customs cutters that just don't encounter the PC's ship.


Hans

Maybe. The encounter table itself occurs in the same book that provides design details for construction of ships of the small-ship universe, with all of the 7 standard designs having a chance of being encountered. To the best of my knowledge, megafreighters and big liners weren't a part of the game at that point.

One can retroactively rationalize that they aren't counted as an "encounter" because they take no notice of their smaller cousins and aren't relevant to the smaller ship's activities, but that gets problematic when your encounter is that odd pirate at the class-C starport: why isn't the 20,000 ton freighter taking note of the fact that a 200 ton trader and a 400 ton pirate cruiser are dueling a hundred thousand kilometers off at the 1-o'clock position? If the little pirate's a match for the megafreighter, then the pirate has juicier prey at hand. If the megafreighter's armed enough to be too big a mouthful, then by the same token the mega can alter course and order the pirate to play nice or get carved up. I guess one could conceive of a universe where the small boys duke it out while the giants drift by and ignore them, but it seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Then too, the definition of "encounter" is fairly broad: "The referee should examine the specific type of ship involved and determine the precise nature of the encounter. Free traders may want to swap rumors and gossip; scouts may want information; patrol cruisers may want to inspect for smugglers." Why wouldn't a mega trade radio chatter with a passing munchkin?

Alternately, and more likely, one can assume the encounter table really isn't intended for a big-ship universe, in which case MegaTrav's encounter table is probably your next best bet. MegaTrav suggests one encounter per quarter day on a 7+, with three in 36 space encounters at a Class-A port being "no encounter", so roughly the same probability of an encounter as in the classic small ship universe. From there, the encounter is much more tightly scripted - but if the base probability doesn't change, then the actual numbers don't change, just the specifics about what ships are being encountered, how big they are and what their business is.

Interestingly, MegaTrav encounter table also paints a picture of a universe with only a relatively small number of ships (~70-90) going through a port on any given day - although some of the ships are quite big. However, in that instance a gamemaster has the easy option of painting a different picture by selecting a different interval and slapping modifiers on: "Well, let's see, this is Mora starport, so you're going to run encounter rolls every hour with a +4 chance of encounter."

 

[robject]

Interestingly, MegaTrav encounter table also paints a picture of a universe with only a relatively small number of ships (~70-90) going through a port on any given day - although some of the ships are quite big. However, in that instance a gamemaster has the easy option of painting a different picture by selecting a different interval and slapping modifiers on: "Well, let's see, this is Mora starport, so you're going to run encounter rolls every hour with a +4 chance of encounter."

Seems to fit how Marc uses "world importance" in Traveller5, as well.

 

[Travellerspud]

...but that gets problematic when your encounter is that odd pirate at the class-C starport: why isn't the 20,000 ton freighter taking note of the fact that a 200 ton trader and a 400 ton pirate cruiser are dueling a hundred thousand kilometers off at the 1-o'clock position? If the little pirate's a match for the megafreighter, then the pirate has juicier prey at hand. If the megafreighter's armed enough to be too big a mouthful, then by the same token the mega can alter course and order the pirate to play nice or get carved up. I guess one could conceive of a universe where the small boys duke it out while the giants drift by and ignore them, but it seems a bit of a stretch to me."

In today's shipping environment, Captains are paid bonuses for early arrival and assessed penalties for late arrivals....these leads to pressure to maintain a schedule (or make up for lost time). Then there are fuel bonuses/penalties...plus insurance considerations. I would think no Captain that wants to remain Captain would risk their command or delay their arrival to protect another vessel (potentially one that is a competitor). Now, if the vessel being attacked was a "sister" ship for the same company....

 

[Carlobrand]

In today's shipping environment, Captains are paid bonuses for early arrival and assessed penalties for late arrivals....these leads to pressure to maintain a schedule (or make up for lost time). Then there are fuel bonuses/penalties...plus insurance considerations. I would think no Captain that wants to remain Captain would risk their command or delay their arrival to protect another vessel (potentially one that is a competitor). Now, if the vessel being attacked was a "sister" ship for the same company....

And if a captain ignores a ship in distress in today's shipping environment? I understood that carried consequences of its own, and I'm finding it a stretch to believe it would be different in a culture with millennia of experience traversing the vacuum. I'm not sure how much risk is involved in a megafreighter turning batteries on a 400 dT ship, but certainly there could be compensations attaching to one who took damage coming to the rescue of another: the insurer could be afforded some legal right to seek compensation from the rescued shipowner. Seems like the kind of thing a culture with thousands of years in space might do if it wanted to encourage interstellar commerce and discourage piracy.

 

[rancke]

One can retroactively rationalize that they aren't counted as an "encounter" because they take no notice of their smaller cousins and aren't relevant to the smaller ship's activities, but that gets problematic when your encounter is that odd pirate at the class-C starport: why isn't the 20,000 ton freighter taking note of the fact that a 200 ton trader and a 400 ton pirate cruiser are dueling a hundred thousand kilometers off at the 1-o'clock position? If the little pirate's a match for the megafreighter, then the pirate has juicier prey at hand. If the megafreighter's armed enough to be too big a mouthful, then by the same token the mega can alter course and order the pirate to play nice or get carved up. I guess one could conceive of a universe where the small boys duke it out while the giants drift by and ignore them, but it seems a bit of a stretch to me.

For the same reason the system defenses are ignoring the piracy attempt: The rules writer didn't think think the ramifications through. Or the alternate explanation that is, alas, far too common: Because shut up!

Then too, the definition of "encounter" is fairly broad: "The referee should examine the specific type of ship involved and determine the precise nature of the encounter. Free traders may want to swap rumors and gossip; scouts may want information; patrol cruisers may want to inspect for smugglers." Why wouldn't a mega trade radio chatter with a passing munchkin?

Perhaps because there are scores or hundreds of ships in the system and the megafreighter has better things to do with its communications resources than to chatter with each and every one of them.

Interestingly, MegaTrav encounter table also paints a picture of a universe with only a relatively small number of ships (~70-90) going through a port on any given day - although some of the ships are quite big.

It's quite true that the rules imply a very low amount of starship traffic. But setting descriptions of starports on some worlds speak of hustle and bustle more akin to that of busy air traffic hubs. And the existence of startowns imply enough traffic to support the towns.

Finally, I ask you: Do we want stellar traffic to be so rare that only a few dedicated (and wealthy) people ever travel, or do we want interstellar traffic to include tourists, students, drifters, pilgrims, travelling salesmen, minor bureaucrats, telephone sanitizers and the whole panoply of a thriving, bustling interstellar civilization?




Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

... Or the alternate explanation that is, alas, far too common: Because shut up!...

:rofl:

... Perhaps because there are scores or hundreds of ships in the system and the megafreighter has better things to do with its communications resources than to chatter with each and every one of them...

Yes - and no. Nobody's going to say hi to every passerby, but 7-8 hours to jump is a long and boring time, even for a mega crew. You'd expect more than one chat in that time.

...It's quite true that the rules imply a very low amount of starship traffic. But setting descriptions of starports on some worlds speak of hustle and bustle more akin to that of busy air traffic hubs. And the existence of startowns imply enough traffic to support the towns....

Yup, more canon conflict. As you said, "The rules writer didn't think ... the ramifications through. " Or the alternate explanation. :rofl:

... Finally, I ask you: Do we want stellar traffic to be so rare that only a few dedicated (and wealthy) people ever travel, or do we want interstellar traffic to include tourists, students, drifters, pilgrims, travelling salesmen, minor bureaucrats, telephone sanitizers and the whole panoply of a thriving, bustling interstellar civilization? ...

Yes.

If you like it small and cozy, there it is. If you like more bustle, maybe introduce some modifiers for the world's pop or go to hourly rolls, maybe introduce some rationalization like, "Well, you've hailed about 4 ships so far, but this is the only guy that has anything more than routine by-the-book traffic com." The pirate situation still gets hard to explain - maybe you can assume the rolls reflect actual contacts for C ports and lower, and reserve the modifiers and rationalizations for the B and A ports.