Cargo and tech modifiers

[moout_diablo]

For my next question about cargos.

In the cargo modifiers, the instructions are to add or subtract the difference of technology levels between origination and destination worlds. It doesn't specify in the text how the direction (add or subtract) is determined

The example given seems to inicate that as tech level decreases, you add to the cargo roll. It does not specify if the reverse is true in the tech level increases from source to destination.

Thanks!

 

[RainOfSteel]

My understanding is from THB p.356

Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
Add or subtract the difference between the TL of the originating world and the TL destination world.

I interpret this to mean:

TO = TL Origin
TD = TL Destination
TLM = TL Modifier

TO - TD = TLM

I dislike the phrase "add or subtract". The TLM is always added. If it is positive, the result goes up. If it is negative, the result goes down.

Example

Shipping from Lunion to Ianic

Lunion TL 13
Ianic TL 5

13 - 5 = 8

Shipping from Ianic to Lunion

5 - 13 = -8

It's just that simple.

------------------

Yes, this does mean that going from lo-tech to high-tech worlds is very, very unprofitable.

This is, IMO, a design flaw in the system itself, as players would find themselves going broke continually.

Although it isn't really a model of the real world, the corollary is that NPCs shipping things on tramp freighters will also be continually going broke.

 

[far-trader]

I think you're mixing up the Freight and Speculative cargo there RoS.

The TL difference modifier is just for the amount of Freight available for shipping between any two worlds and doesn't impact the actual value of said shipment.

In Speculative trade there is no TL modifier to the costs of buying or selling. (edit, ok, except that there is CT B7 Merchant Prince

)

So it doesn't mean anyone goes broke, just that more of the cargo shipping between certain worlds is probably already spoken for leaving less for the Free-Trader to scrounge up.

The wording is definitely poor, worse so in T20 than CT but not by much. In CT the same pharse put the "or subtract" in brackets.

The best clue to the correct interpretation may be from the CT expansion Merchant Prince which states (and has TL cost effects for speculative cargo) that High TL sources and Low TL destinations are advantageous and the reverse is disadvantageous.

So you have it right in my opinion RoS. TL Origin - TL Destination. That means more stuff is shipping from High TL to Low TL because it is more profitable.

Hope that helps confirm and clarify MtD.

It is curious that T20 didn't include the TL modifier for speculative trade value, or did I miss it?

 

[far-trader]

The trick to filling the hold when forced to go from a very low TL to a very high TL is to make sure there are other advantages of course. Like high population and good skills. If it's not there avoid trading, or rather trying to trade as you'll not find much to trade.

 

[Lochlaber]

When my players roll on the speculative cargo table, I have hidden modifiers, some related to tech and others not.

1. If there is a +2 modifier on the price table, the cargo (even when rolled) is not available on this planet. Why would there be any cargo of such a type be available when they are so desperate (my interpretaion of the plus) that you get a price advantage.

2. Unless I rule that another trading ship is here, a cargo of 2 or more tech levels is not available. So a tech 11 planet will not have autodocs, robots or similar items for sale, again partially due to rule 1.

3. The type of planet/system is also applicable. An asteroid belt is not likely to have lots of agricultural products on hand and a low population agricultural planet, regardless of tech level, is not likely to have lots of high tech material for sale either.

4. The sale of a cargo on the same planet that it was purchased on is forbidden. Local merchants would be more likely to have found this cargo in advance of the merchant ship arriving and kept their money local, even if they had to buy hrough a secondary buyer.


5. Finally, I do not generally allow the players to purchase any cargo they might have just sold, especially of materials not affected by the tech level such as gold, jewels, etc.. If the material is technically higher here, why would they have bought lesser materials. Made the mistake of not paying attention in a trading session, when my merchant player sold 5 tons of gold at 400%, then turned around and bought 6 tons of gold at 30%. He liked making 160 million from selling 5 tons, then paying 7.2 million to buy 6 tons, all at the same time. I made him give up the 6 tons of gold.

 

[moout_diablo]

OK, I read that right then. It's an almost counter intuitive approach to trading for me since the US (high TL) imports far more from our low TL trading partners than we export to them. I guess that's why I thought I might be misreading the text.

It's odd that there are no modifiers for rich and poor planets. I think I feel a house rule coming on. A rich planet should be importing quite a bit more than a poor planet.

 

[Valarian]

Surely the high TL worlds would import low cost foodstuffs and raw materials from lower TL worlds. Then sell on refined and value added goods at higher prices.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by MtD:
OK, I read that right then. It's an almost counter intuitive approach to trading for me since the US (high TL) imports far more from our low TL trading partners than we export to them.

Ah, but I think the trade issue there is not so much imports from low TL to high TL as imports from Poor to Rich. The Rich have more buying power while the Poor have less. The TLs are pretty close but check the standards of living.

Which ties in nicely with your idea for Ri and Po modifiers, not just for freight but also passengers. Everybody always wants to immigrate to the Rich places for a better life.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Valarian:
Surely the high TL worlds would import low cost foodstuffs and raw materials from lower TL worlds. Then sell on refined and value added goods at higher prices.

Not necessarily. High TL worlds may have no problem feeding themselves or providing raw resources locally, and low TL worlds may have no need or ability to buy the refined or value added goods.

But again the modifier doesn't mean there is no such trade, only that the typical Free-Trader won't find much waiting at the port. It could be that the bulk of the trade in such a situation is already handled by a subsidized shipper. Such big operations will be optimized to run full both ways, meaning there may be more for the Free-Trader to find going one way than the other. That's all the table is meant to model I believe.

 

[far-trader]

Interesting, not sure I'd agree with all of it but certainly some of that makes good sense.

Originally posted by Lochlaber:

1. If there is a +2 modifier on the price table, the cargo (even when rolled) is not available on this planet. Why would there be any cargo of such a type be available when they are so desperate (my interpretaion of the plus) that you get a price advantage.

This is the only one I don't really agree with. The plus modifiers are what drive trade. It could be the difference between the wholesale price and retail. Or maybe it's last years model at a deep discount but still worth the old retail in a distant system. I can think of a lot of reasons to find a great deal.

Originally posted by Lochlaber:
2. Unless I rule that another trading ship is here, a cargo of 2 or more tech levels is not available. So a tech 11 planet will not have autodocs, robots or similar items for sale, again partially due to rule 1.

That seems very reasonable, maybe too reasonable

I've always tried to match the cargo to the local system. No more than 1 TL either way is available. I don't see the tie in to rule 1, maybe only because I don't agree with rule 1.

Originally posted by Lochlaber:
3. The type of planet/system is also applicable. An asteroid belt is not likely to have lots of agricultural products on hand and a low population agricultural planet, regardless of tech level, is not likely to have lots of high tech material for sale either.

Also reasonable, to a point. Though the sizes of speculative cargo lots are such that I don't think I'd apply this rule.

An asteroid belt may have the best mushrooms in the subsector as part of their native supplies, to the point that they export a few tons of each harvest for gourmets.

And a low pop ag planet may make the best high tech robotic harvesters in the sector, using most of them locally but selling a few to other operators that can afford them to earn some extra credits between harvests.

Originally posted by Lochlaber:
4. The sale of a cargo on the same planet that it was purchased on is forbidden. Local merchants would be more likely to have found this cargo in advance of the merchant ship arriving and kept their money local, even if they had to buy hrough a secondary buyer.

Absolutely. I figure all freight and any cargo purchased is already stamped "For Export Only". Customs won't allow it back through the doors without an import stamp from another system. You can wharehouse it locally as long as you want but it can't be sold back to the system. Maybe you could resell it to another speculative buyer, but they'll have the same DMs and probably expect another DM -1 (at least) for dealing outside proper channels.

Originally posted by Lochlaber:
5. Finally, I do not generally allow the players to purchase any cargo they might have just sold, especially of materials not affected by the tech level such as gold, jewels, etc.. If the material is technically higher here, why would they have bought lesser materials. Made the mistake of not paying attention in a trading session, when my merchant player sold 5 tons of gold at 400%, then turned around and bought 6 tons of gold at 30%. He liked making 160 million from selling 5 tons, then paying 7.2 million to buy 6 tons, all at the same time. I made him give up the 6 tons of gold.

Well, it shouldn't happen often if you're rolling random. I probably wouldn't have worried about it and have let the character get away with it. Right place right time kinda thing. At least once. The next time it happened I might arrange a visit by the equivalent of the SEC looking into the matter. Detaining the character and his ship for a few weeks (or months, or...) while they investigate. Oh he'll be found innocent eventually and the real crooks will be locked up. Meantime all that windfall profit is gone to lawyers or mortgage payments and dock fees and crew salaries. Hopefully the character will have learned their lesson and the next time such a deal too good to be true comes along they'll wisely pass and look for something that doesn't smell so corrupt

 

[BetterThanLife]

I am surprised that the tables from T20 for Spec trade is based on CT LBB3, not LBB7.

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by Lochlaber:
2. Unless I rule that another trading ship is here, a cargo of 2 or more tech levels is not available. So a tech 11 planet will not have autodocs, robots or similar items for sale, again partially due to rule 1.

Counterpoint: A Starport represents both an extrality zone and perhaps an island of high tech on a low tech planet (the type A starport on the TL-3 planet, for instance).

Thus, it is quite imaginable that a low tech planet could have high tech goods available occasionally in small batches. Reasons could include a break in a longer shipment chain, necessitating trans-shipment at this particular location (prior shipper doesn't ship further, ship had troubles, company went bankrupt, astrogator got in bar right and was thrown in jail, etc).

Also, it could represent goods brought in from offworld on other ships as speculative cargo or even as freight for a buyer who didn't complete the transaction (went bankrupt, disappeared, was arrested, found the goods in some way not as initially described so refused payment, etc).

All sorts of good adventure grist here and an opportunity to saddle your characters with an odd (and perhaps encumbered legally or otherwise) cargo. So I would not rule this case out. I may however, make some sort of scarcity roll since this should (admittedly) not occur very often.

 

[Lochlaber]

I don't allow a cargo which has a +2 modifier on the to sell roll or higher to be available on that world. The basic idea is that if they are willing to pay extra for that item, it is unlikely they would be willing to sell it to you.

As far as the amounts, while the high tech items are generally available in smaller amounts,the agricultural stuff is usually available in much larger lots, say 5d6 instead of a single 1d6. As such, they are again, less likely to be selling these items on.

I also put the rule of not selling a cargo on a planet, then buying it there because of the internal market rule. If the item is there already, it is unlikely they would have been so interested in buying the cargo in the first place. Local merchants would tend to want to keep as much of the profits for themselves, rather than seeing it go offworld, which most spec cargo profits do.

Basically I am trying to play the local merchants with some smarts. It is highly unlikely that they are so willing to send on tl materials that they could use on their own home world, to both enrich and better it and themselves. Why should they sell that 10 tons of higher tech computers when they could use them to both reverse engineer and force develop their own computer development programs. Or sell something on that they could use to upgrade their own systems dramatically. This is true for most of the high tech level equipment.

The same idea is behind the idea of refusing to have cargoes sold and bought on the same planet. being local, they would know that Merchant Andrews had 6 tons of gold to sell and they would be more likely to come to a deal with him, than somebody they didn't know that just came in system. Or why Merchant Andrews would sell that 6 tons of gold to this stranger for less than a 1/10th of what his fellow local merchants were willing to buy it for.

Transhipping is a possibilty when the planet in question is on a normalized trade route. However MTU is 3I about 50 years into the rebirth and we do a lot more exploring, often acting as the first recontact to some of the planets we visit. This doesn't affect bulk cargo of course, it could be tl20 and it wouldn't matter because it isn't the players to deal with. And if you don't think I can come up with scenario's for bulk cargo, such as hidden warbots, cold sleep capsules embedded inside or dozens of other potential problems, to keep my players going, why bother withthe spec cargoes.

As far as the transhipment idea, that might occur,

 

[BetterThanLife]

Where does it state anything in the rules about the Tech Level of the cargo? The World has a Tech Level and those act as modifiers, but there is nothing that says anything specific about Cargo Tech Levels. So just because you are on a TL16 world doesn't mean your cargo isn't normal TL6 dishes. What is the Tech level of Grain or Iron Ore?

 

[Lochlaber]

The original question had to deal with how tech levels affected bulk cargo and moved on. I just gave some of MTU rules where TL difference affects what cargoes are available in the speculative cargo field.

Cargo has a tech level in and of itself, generally set at the same level of the world, if it was manufactured there which is pretty much how we handle cargo. Thus we can keep from selling tl equipment too high for the locals to keep up, even with tools and maintainence (IIRC you can work with stuff 2 tech levels above yours and keep it working if you have the parts)

I also have the rule of course that you don't find cargo above the general TL of the area. Thus if the area is tl 12 for the entire sector, no finding autodocs which are tl13 or anti-matter power plants, etc., at least generally.

 

[atpollard]

I hope that this isn’t too far off topic, but I just read a report from the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics on the next 10 year projection for the US Textile Industry. It screamed Traveller possibilities to me.

The gist of the report is that clothes manufacturing (generally a low TL industry) is so labor intensive and cost of labor sensitive that without protectionism, virtually all US clothing manufacture will move overseas where labor is cheaper. In Traveller, there are rules which suggest that goods cost less on a lower TL world than a higher TL world.

If we apply the US textile lessons to Traveller TL 12 hand computers, Labor and Materials are cheaper on a low TL world than a high TL world and shipping is only 1000 credits per dTon across interstellar distances. A TL 13 Company wants to sell “Hand Computers”, so they manufacture a few critical TL 13 parts (like the interface screen) and contract a TL 12 world to produce the bulk of the electronics. Then both the TL 13 and TL 12 parts are shipped to a TL 7 world where they are assembled with cheaper local labor and using locally produced TL 7 plastic cases. These finished TL 13 hand computers are then shipped back to the TL 13 corporation to sell to the local population for 10 percent less than the locally manufactured hand computers (while generating a 10 percent greater profit per unit to the stockholders since the corporation only passed on half of the savings to the consumers) – everybody wins.

So what does this mean to a Free Trader? There is very little speculative cargo going from low TL worlds to high TL ones, but there should be a lot of general freight going both to and from the low TL world in the form of pre-ordered parts and finished products. [Game Note: apply TL modifiers to speculative cargo but not to bulk freight.]

This assumes that each TL produces the best goods it can and sells them at a high price so they can afford to import the lower TL goods for less than they could produce them for themselves. If dishes and pots are TL 4, then the cheapest place to produce them is a TL 4 world. A TL 12 world could use advanced manufacturing techniques to produce a pot, but the same piece of TL 12 equipment could have produced a Jump Drive Fuel Injector. Which do you think would be more profitable to a TL 12 manufacturer? Pots or Jump Drive Fuel Injectors?

Just some food for thought.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Lochlaber:
The original question had to deal with how tech levels affected bulk cargo and moved on. I just gave some of MTU rules where TL difference affects what cargoes are available in the speculative cargo field.

Cargo has a tech level in and of itself, generally set at the same level of the world, if it was manufactured there which is pretty much how we handle cargo. Thus we can keep from selling tl equipment too high for the locals to keep up, even with tools and maintainence (IIRC you can work with stuff 2 tech levels above yours and keep it working if you have the parts)

I also have the rule of course that you don't find cargo above the general TL of the area. Thus if the area is tl 12 for the entire sector, no finding autodocs which are tl13 or anti-matter power plants, etc., at least generally.

For carriage rates, the TL of the Cargo is unimportant. For Spec Trade, again the TL of the cargo and the TL of the world need not have any real connection.

For example Glisten is a TL 15 system. The primary exports are apparently ore, and starships. There will probably be some refined metal leaving as well. But is the TL of Ore really anything above 0? Is the TL of steel, regardless of where it was actually refined really above about 3 or 4? Just because starships can be manufactured at TL15, and there are advantages to having a TL15 starship, there are also disadvantages to it as well. (Ease of maintenance and availability of spare parts, being big disadvantages.) So just because they can manufacture TL15 Far Traders at Glisten, does that mean they also can't manufacture TL12 Far Traders?

Further Glisten, having no Terrestrial Standard World is going to need to import some Agri products. (TL1-3 tops.)

A TL15 world like Trin or Mora isn't going to produce Agri Products for export? (TL 1 or 2?)

 

[Lochlaber]

The problem with applying this RL sequence to Traveller is that our world is a single tech level. This isn't to say that the entire world is actually at the same level but it isn't as vastly different as a TL 4 world vs a TL 12 world.

First, most of the differential in manufacturing in a Third World country comes from the labor costs, not the materials. Most of these factories actually import the fabrics and other materials from more technically advanced mills, etc. and simply put them together, which is where the labor costs really occur.

Second, you can easily have advanced plants working to manufacture things for the rest of the world even in equitorial Africa. If a part breaks, you can order it over the internet and have it overnighted to you, along with technicians to install it. In Traveller, you have a minimum of 2 weeks before the home office can do anything to get the plant back on line. Most long distance commercial empires such as England's mercantile Empire, rarely installed modern machinery past the ability of locals to fix and repair.

While a tl-4 world is able to produce pottery, it really cannot compete with what a tl-12 can produce. The TL-12 world can produce tons of pottery with the same equipment as would have to be imported to the 4 world, without transport costs, without having to be far away from parts, repairs and maintainence and without transport costs to be sold. While worker costs might be higher, it is equally less costly to move around.

So while it might be cheaper to manufacture things in a third world country, that doesn't equate out to the same in Traveller. In fact, the same tl dichotomies on our world will be found pretty much everywhere even on a tl-12 world, depending a bit upon population density.