Big Ships/Small Ships

[aramis]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DrSkull:
You actually like the Broadsword? Why?

The double modular cutter deal just takes up too much room for the ship to be really useful.

I thought that the converted 600-ton Liner from "assignment: Vigilante" in MT was a much better ship for mercenary puproses.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I typically swap out the troop Staterooms for twice as many small staterooms, then hot bunk those (4x the troops!), and use it as a nail-mission inserter. Under MT, with the lower fuel tonnage, that allows more cargo, too, and even more staterooms. It's a solid design for a nail-mission for airless worlds, and has plenty of flexibility.

Another PC favorite im my gaames has been the Type T Patrol Cutter. Similar reasons and changes to crewing.


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-aramis
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Smith & Wesson: The Original Point and Click interface!

 

[Murph]

Yeah, the speculative trading rules are alright, but for bulk cargos the system breaks down completely. The merchant/trade system needs a little work. Once again, reduce prices by 25%, and change jump fuel to 5%xJn and all of a sudden Interstellar trade becomes really feasable.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
Unfotunately, if that were true, one of two things must be true.
1) Megaships are ceaper to operate for somr reason. If that is true, spare cabins and the odd corner of cargo holds will soon put the independents out of business, at least on Wealthy and Industial worlds. Even if some megacorps don't like it, others will do it for the Cr.
2) or Megacorps are willing to pay a premium to ship bulk cargoes. If this were true, some bright boy would split his cargoes between a hundred Free Traders and save his company megacredits. Soon, they would all be doing it.

It is stil one of lifes mysteries.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[aramis]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Murph:
Yeah, the speculative trading rules are alright, but for bulk cargos the system breaks down completely. The merchant/trade system needs a little work. Once again, reduce prices by 25%, and change jump fuel to 5%xJn and all of a sudden Interstellar trade becomes really feasable.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Functionally, I see the lines as doing the "Speculative Cargos", rather than the manufacturers. Who pays the shipping from the manufacturer to the Distributor's warehouse? The Distributor. Who pays the shipping from Distributor to Retailer? The Retailer. Through fees. On the scales needed to operate BIG ships, either there is a steady run of cargos, or you book in advance, or you and your neighbors book a ship (charter) to carry it... Many CT worlds will not be importing "Essentials", and shipping means a major risk with at least a 2 week lag before profit, and 3 weeks minimmum from market data; interstellar shipping on spec is unlikely IMHO, unless you are buying supplies you KNOW you have a steady market for. Tramps can and still do a significant ammount of trade in some parts of 1990's earth; places where the margins aren't big enough for Owning the ship and cargo, but where the cargos are essential. (Alaska riverine heating fuel carriage is still often done by tramps on spec or destnation contract).

Why would the big lines carry paid freight, rather than owned cargoes anyway? Fill that last bit of space. Tramps canonically have mail routes available; last minute purchasers of space.

One other thing: unless you drastically change the value of freight vs cargo in terms of Cr/ton profit capabilities from canonical rules, Volume discounts will benefit the purchasers FAR more than mere contract haulers. (Using Bk7/Merchant Prince/MT, the typical margin is Cr1300/ton in play; volume discounts of (log10(Tonnage)-2)min0% at either end will still leave even huge shipments making >Cr1000 per Td; the frieght rate. If we assume discounts for volume and early purchase, freight drops even faster.

On certain lucrative runs, under MT, I've had players score BIG on speculative trade, KCr3 per ton on a two jump run. That's Gross proceeds return (Sale price-purchase price, no other expenses figured). At KCr3 per cargo ton, that makes it almost better than full mid passage doubled in large staterooms (KCr14 Gross return per 4 tons, or KCr3.5 per ton). I've even had a few cases of luck rolls generate KCr5 per ton Gross.

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-aramis
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Smith & Wesson: The Original Point and Click interface!

 

[kafka47]

I would be interested to see what other Milieu, other than the Rebellion or FFW would use such large capital ships.

Fighting Ships remains my all time favorite supplement despite the illustrations. I would want to see instance in which the Navy is used more extensively. It seems that they exist as the glorified flyboys in Traveller.

 

[TheDS]

After seeing a cost analysis some one did of various traders, I went and did one for myself, based on the TNE rules. I only had the TNE and RSB ships to use (though I could've looked for a couple more) and found that a couple of the ships he said were losers were actually the best. The subsidized merchants (Petty and Fat Trader) pulled in the most money, while the Bastien Liner would hemorage money.

If I lowered the "Life support" costs from astronomical to reasonable, even the Far Trader could make a profit.

The big cost was the Monthly Payment, everything else was a pitance that added up to about 10%. (If using normal LS cost, though, that was a huge bite!) Fuel costs for jump didn't make much difference; 1% for each parsec.

When I looked at that guy's stuff again, I saw that he was dividing profit by number of parsecs jumped! WHY?!? There's nothing that says distance detracts from shipping costs.

Income came from freight and high-passengers and low-passengers only, in this analysis. High-passengers obviously were worth more than the others, but you could generally pack more cargo into a ship. Armed ships were allowed to carry mail.

Now if I were to figure out how to easily factor in income for speculative trading, I would see cargo hold being more important, but if you're in it for a quick buck, small staterooms are the big money maker.

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Happiness is a warm Meson Gun.

 

[Anthony]

If you want a sensible trade system, try GURPS Traveller: Far Trader. Written by a real economist. It has some design issues specific to GURPS Traveller (specifically, you'll need to change rates based on the relative costs of bulk traders in various rulesets), but generally has a realistic take on trade.