Far Trader cargo/Freight manifest questions

[rancke]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
Possibly. Just not the way it came out.

You claimed that the canonical statement made more sense than trying for tighter shedules. I disputed that and claimed that it made more sense to try to increase your profits by 50%. I don't quite see how I could have expressed that more clearly.

Doesn't really matter though unless you are running a Pony Express operation and rotating crews through the ships and the people you ship for are going to accept things going really off schedule more than two jumps a month consistently doesn't really work without FTL communication.

And you know this for a fact, because...?


If you can rely on jumps not taking more than 8 days at the most (and canon says that absent misjumps you can rely on that), then it is perfectly feasible to scedule ships to do a jump every 10 days. 10 days per jump means that your ship can consistently do jumps that take a full 8 days each for years on end without getting behind schedule.

In fact, if your passengers are willing to accept that their departure date may vary by up to 24 hours each way (with an advance warning of no less than 12 hours' notice), you can easily manage one jump every 9 days. Such a schedule would require that the duration of the jumps evened out over time.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> "in general Commercial ships manage 2 jumps per month."

I've always assumed this statement applies to the large shipping firms and megacorps which don't have to worry about ridiculous ship mortgage payments, they can effectively loan the money to themselves at a much reduced interest rate or buy outright like government navies.

Small traders will have to jump as often as they can manage to stay ahead of the game. </font>[/QUOTE]Actually, I think it's the other way around. Companies can organize things with local factors, warehouses, ticket agents, etc., so they can manage to have cargo and passengers lined up to load/embark as soon as the incoming ship has unloaded/disembarked. A tramp arrives at the starport and has to spend days scrounging up a new cargo and waiting for passengers to show up. I have no trouble believing that they'd need 4 or 5 days to gather a new load.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

You know something Ranke, you're probably right.
In the Traveller "real" world the Tukeras and their like have all the infrastructure in place to have their 1000-5000t liners and freighters jumping every nine to ten days.

What's more, they probably have several ships per day arriving and departing from important trade route worlds. That would make it worth their while to employ engineers and mechanics dirtside since they are going to be busy most days.

I wonder how much bulk trade is actually shifted from one world to another along trade routes?

Free Traders could then try to fill in the gaps and try to find lucrative contracts off the trade routes. Not too lucrative mind you or the big boys would move in .

I've also read something recently about charging more for freight delivered to amber and red zoned planets but I can't remember where. I'll try to dig it out.

 

[BetterThanLife]

You can rely on jumps running about the same over time. It isn't the jump time that will force a mess into your schedule. It is a Maintanence Failure, an over eager Customs Officer with a "Hot Tip" taking your ship apart piece by piece (Ooops incorrect amount of Squeeze found in your Manifest.

, it is a run in with a Pirate, a temporary quarantine on a planet you were scheduled to stop at, a Naval Exercise, a local war, an Interstellar war. Those are the things that mess up your schedule. (And any of those are likely to take more than a week.) The stuff adventures are made of but they happen to everyone. Once you get off schedule, especially with a schedule that tight it will easily domino. You will have cargo sitting around, people getting ansy about their flight and taking another

If you are only hopping around along a Main with only 3-4 planets on your schedule then sure it will work. Triangle Trade style. But the larger the scale you are talking about the messier it gets. If your schedule is projected out for a year it will have to be revised. The problem is that news only travels as fast as a ship from point A to point B. Your next stop doesn't know when you are going to arrive until you do. Which is the major reason why, IMHO, there is the week between jumps. That way you get everything together when you get there for the next stop. Because you know once you arrive when you are leaving. But before you arrive nobody really knows when you will arrive so have no idea when you are leaving. Back and forth between a small cluster of planets would work under this scheme but you will lose the occasional load and have to deadhead to the next stop. Or if there is simply nothing available going where you are going and you are shipping empty again. With that turn around and schedule you are pretty much forced to ship empty or with less than optimal loads occasionally. If you go where the load goes and minimize your overhead you can't run that kind of schedule. With modern Trucking they run tight schedules. But they also can pick up a phone or a Sat radio and tell Dispatch that they are held up at a Weight Station because a Dog Alerted. Then the schedule can be shifted for other things. And other Trucks brought in without messing up the schedule and making changes onthe fly. If they didn't know the truck had brake problems before it arrived then the load would have to sit and everything down the line is screwed. (And someone is going to have to pay for that load of rotting fruit.)

Originally posted by rancke:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
Possibly. Just not the way it came out.

You claimed that the canonical statement made more sense than trying for tighter shedules. I disputed that and claimed that it made more sense to try to increase your profits by 50%. I don't quite see how I could have expressed that more clearly.

Doesn't really matter though unless you are running a Pony Express operation and rotating crews through the ships and the people you ship for are going to accept things going really off schedule more than two jumps a month consistently doesn't really work without FTL communication.

And you know this for a fact, because...?


If you can rely on jumps not taking more than 8 days at the most (and canon says that absent misjumps you can rely on that), then it is perfectly feasible to scedule ships to do a jump every 10 days. 10 days per jump means that your ship can consistently do jumps that take a full 8 days each for years on end without getting behind schedule.

In fact, if your passengers are willing to accept that their departure date may vary by up to 24 hours each way (with an advance warning of no less than 12 hours' notice), you can easily manage one jump every 9 days. Such a schedule would require that the duration of the jumps evened out over time.


Hans </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
If you are only hopping around along a Main with only 3-4 planets on your schedule then sure it will work. Triangle Trade style. But the larger the scale you are talking about the messier it gets. If your schedule is projected out for a year it will have to be revised.

Yeah, well, 99% of the trade of the Imperium involves ships that only visit a very small number of worlds, over and over again. Also, most trade is carried on fleet ships, which means a company doesn't guarantee 'ship X will be at location Y at time Z', it guarantees 'a ship will be at location Y at time Z'.

 

[BetterThanLife]

The larger carriers will have more trouble with this than a small carrier. They are over a larger distance. They are by definition not staying within a cluster of close planets. Not knowing which ship should take which cargo when it arrives would be a nightmare for the company. You would have one sitting empty if they both arrived at the same time. One option is to run a shipping company strictly along X-Boat routes. Only problem with that is that a J4 Cargo ship isn't economically viable.

At least that way you have a reliable means of letting the next planet know when you arrive at the destination before theirs.

Just a thought.

Originally posted by Anthony:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
If you are only hopping around along a Main with only 3-4 planets on your schedule then sure it will work. Triangle Trade style. But the larger the scale you are talking about the messier it gets. If your schedule is projected out for a year it will have to be revised.

Yeah, well, 99% of the trade of the Imperium involves ships that only visit a very small number of worlds, over and over again. Also, most trade is carried on fleet ships, which means a company doesn't guarantee 'ship X will be at location Y at time Z', it guarantees 'a ship will be at location Y at time Z'. </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
The larger carriers will have more trouble with this than a small carrier. They are over a larger distance. They are by definition not staying within a cluster of close planets.

Um..the larger carriers don't carry cargo over any greater distances than the smaller carriers, they just operate on the higher volume routes. While it's true that a megacorp may have assets all over the Imperium, any given ship will tend to stay within a small area unless there's a persistent shift in trade patterns, in which case shipping will be transferred in or out of the area as required, or unless there's a predicable cyclic pattern to trade, in which case additional ships will be shifted in when needed.

 

[BetterThanLife]

That does seem to make sense. Though your schedule will still have the aforementioned problems you could probably manage an extra few jumps a year. To think you can get much more than 30 a year, IMHO is a bit optimistic. (Taking the ship offline 1 week for annual maintenance.) The max jumps in a year would be around 35. You are getting (at max) an extra 10 jumps a year. Given the fact that you are restricted to a certain group of planets and in a set order, and the gods of fate, You won't be typically as full as a ship that isn't restricetd to a schedule. I don't see how your profit margin will be that much higher, but I'll actually have to work the tables. I guess if you have a nice cluster of high pop, high tech worlds it would be better than typical Spinward Marches Clusters. (And you would be in direct competetion with the big boys in that case.) I am not sure the additional jumps equals the additional overhead cost and the additional wear and tear on the ship. It is well thought out and I know I seem to be poking holes at it, it sounds good in theory, I'll just have to crunch the numbers and see where it would work.

Bruce

Originally posted by Anthony:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
The larger carriers will have more trouble with this than a small carrier. They are over a larger distance. They are by definition not staying within a cluster of close planets.

Um..the larger carriers don't carry cargo over any greater distances than the smaller carriers, they just operate on the higher volume routes. While it's true that a megacorp may have assets all over the Imperium, any given ship will tend to stay within a small area unless there's a persistent shift in trade patterns, in which case shipping will be transferred in or out of the area as required, or unless there's a predicable cyclic pattern to trade, in which case additional ships will be shifted in when needed. </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
That does seem to make sense. Though your schedule will still have the aforementioned problems you could probably manage an extra few jumps a year. To think you can get much more than 30 a year, IMHO is a bit optimistic. (Taking the ship offline 1 week for annual maintenance.) The max jumps in a year would be around 35. You are getting (at max) an extra 10 jumps a year. Given the fact that you are restricted to a certain group of planets and in a set order, and the gods of fate, You won't be typically as full as a ship that isn't restricetd to a schedule.

Actually, on average you'll have a fuller ship than a ship that isn't restricted by schedule. Shippers like knowing ahead of time that there will be a ship available to carry their cargo.

 

[mike wightman]

Bhoins said

One option is to run a shipping company strictly along X-Boat routes.

In the 1st edition of CT Book3 you generate trade routes between the planets, they even gave you a table to do it. In 2nd edition this has mysteriously changed to communication routes and no table is given.
Go back to working out tade routes. Your X-boat system can then be mapped over and can carry that vital shipping data from one world to the next, ahead of the trade ships. This is one of the most important uses for the civilian X-boat system and could also explain why x-boat routes aren't all jump 4 direct links between sub-sector capitals.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
It isn't the jump time that will force a mess into your schedule. It is a Maintanence Failure, an over eager Customs Officer with a "Hot Tip" taking your ship apart piece by piece (Ooops incorrect amount of Squeeze found in your Manifest.

, it is a run in with a Pirate, a temporary quarantine on a planet you were scheduled to stop at, a Naval Exercise, a local war, an Interstellar war. Those are the things that mess up your schedule. (And any of those are likely to take more than a week.)

(Well, if they take more than half a week, they'll mess up a one-jump-per-two-week schedule too. )

Anyway, these things happen, yes, but how often? I'm talking about established companies with the infrastructure to support quick turnarounds. Their ships get proper maintenance, they are on friendly terms with the local authorities, they don't service backwater worlds, so they never get to meet any pirates, navies don't schedule exercises near populous mainworlds, wars aren't that common, and when they occur, that's what 'act of God' provisions in freight contracts are for.

If you are only hopping around along a Main with only 3-4 planets on your schedule then sure it will work.

Sure. And how many stops do you imagine that most scheduled ships service? Do you think that a Tukera passenger ship will set off from Terra, wend its way to Muan Gwi, on to Capital, on to Deneb, Mora, Rhylanor, and Regina to Jewell where it turns around and returns to Terra? I sure don't. Terra to Muan Gwi and back, and if you want to go to Capital, you'll have to change eight or ten times along the way, that's how I think it will be. I believe most scheduled ships go from one sizable world to another sizable world, with stops at one or two worlds in between if necessary. Most sheduled ships will go back and forth between two systems only.

Back and forth between a small cluster of planets would work under this scheme but you will lose the occasional load and have to deadhead to the next stop. Or if there is simply nothing available going where you are going and you are shipping empty again. With that turn around and schedule you are pretty much forced to ship empty or with less than optimal loads occasionally.

That's the whole point of having a factor at each stop. It's his job to make sure that there are passengers and freight waiting for the ship when it arrives. And it takes a hell of a lot of less than optimal loads to offset the extra 50% of earning potential you get from doing 50% more trips.


Hans

 

[BetterThanLife]

If you are on a one week in jump and one dirtside you don't need a schedule. You spend your week dirtside with R&R getting your load and etc. And performing routine maintenance. (And routine maintenance under your schedule gets skimped.) You don't have to have a load waiting. So while it will put you off it isn't going to do anything to long term situation besides slow down your earnings a little. (Put you a week behind.) With everything so closely timed your schedule gets off in one place and that dominos to the rest of your schedule.

They will happen with established companies about as often as they happen to the tramp trader. You can scrupously maintain your vehicle, you can follow all the preventive maintenance steps but you can still have your Transmission wear out. Or have a Tire blow out. Same thing with starships. As for Navies not scheduling excercises near population centers? Why not. It is part of showing the flag. Wars happen all the time. Civil Wars can spring up suddenly and be very violent and disruptive. How about a palace Coup that doesn't go quite as planned. Here is one for you from recent history. Iraq, a fairly stable but nasty dictartoship runs afoul of a President that actually expects people to live up to agreements. Or A country that is quite stable, has been for over 70 years, has some economic problems and collapses from its own weight. (The former Soviet Union.) Yes your routine stops are going to go smoothly, you pay your bribes. Your competetion pays a bigger bribe to slow you down. A routine, proforma stop alerts a dog because that guy you brought on with a working passage brought aboard some good Coke. As for Act of God provisions, that is fine for the load that you are carrying, what about the one sitting idle 2 stops from here, and the one after that....

At best with the short turn around you are getting in 35 jumps a year. (THough I do believe that anything more than 30 is wishful thinking.) Compared to 25 jumps a year, I am not sure the extra wear and tear, the cost of setting up wharehousing and employees on each stop, and the fact that you will be forced to occasionally deadhead or carry less than optimal loads due to your requirement to go to only one destination will realize significant additional profits.

Oh, just to nitpick

it is only 40% additional provided you ship with the same percentages of full and you actually get in 35 jumps a year.

Like I said in my last post it sounds good but I don't believe it works as well as it sounds. It sounds more feasable than I believe that the rules will actually allow. Though I will do some testing of it.

Originally posted by rancke:

Anyway, these things happen, yes, but how often? I'm talking about established companies with the infrastructure to support quick turnarounds. Their ships get proper maintenance, they are on friendly terms with the local authorities, they don't service backwater worlds, so they never get to meet any pirates, navies don't schedule exercises near populous mainworlds, wars aren't that common, and when they occur, that's what 'act of God' provisions in freight contracts are for.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />If you are only hopping around along a Main with only 3-4 planets on your schedule then sure it will work.

Sure. And how many stops do you imagine that most scheduled ships service? Do you think that a Tukera passenger ship will set off from Terra, wend its way to Muan Gwi, on to Capital, on to Deneb, Mora, Rhylanor, and Regina to Jewell where it turns around and returns to Terra? I sure don't. Terra to Muan Gwi and back, and if you want to go to Capital, you'll have to change eight or ten times along the way, that's how I think it will be. I believe most scheduled ships go from one sizable world to another sizable world, with stops at one or two worlds in between if necessary. Most sheduled ships will go back and forth between two systems only.

Back and forth between a small cluster of planets would work under this scheme but you will lose the occasional load and have to deadhead to the next stop. Or if there is simply nothing available going where you are going and you are shipping empty again. With that turn around and schedule you are pretty much forced to ship empty or with less than optimal loads occasionally.

That's the whole point of having a factor at each stop. It's his job to make sure that there are passengers and freight waiting for the ship when it arrives. And it takes a hell of a lot of less than optimal loads to offset the extra 50% of earning potential you get from doing 50% more trips.


Hans [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
If you are on a one week in jump and one dirtside you don't need a schedule. You spend your week dirtside with R&R getting your load and etc. And performing routine maintenance. (And routine maintenance under your schedule gets skimped.)

Why? The only routine maintenance you can't perform in jump is patching the hull.

You don't have to have a load waiting. So while it will put you off it isn't going to do anything to long term situation besides slow down your earnings a little.

That's really the big point. It slows your earnings down quite a bit more than a little. And if your business rival is offering your product 40% cheaper than you, it will slow your earnings down to the point where you're facing bankruptcy.

(Put you a week behind.) With everything so closely timed your schedule gets off in one place and that dominos to the rest of your schedule.

You still haven't shown that these delays will be common enough to be a major factor. And, again, the cheaper prices will make up for a lot. At the discounts you can offer, standby passengers will be lined up. As for cargo, what do you think a manufacturer will prefer? A fixed date with the slight possibility of a couple of days' delay at a hefty discount or a fixed date with no discount?

[Delays] will happen with established companies about as often as they happen to the tramp trader. You can scrupously maintain your vehicle, you can follow all the preventive maintenance steps but you can still have your Transmission wear out. Or have a Tire blow out. Same thing with starships.

There you go again, stating as a fact something for which there is no rules to support your opinion. Delays will happen, yes, but I beg leave to doubt that they will happen as often as with tramp traders. There has to be some reason why 40 year old ships are worth far less than spanking new ships. My guess is that the big reason is an increased risk of breakdowns.

As for Navies not scheduling excercises near population centers? Why not. It is part of showing the flag.

How often does the American Navy hold exercises that disrupts the traffic in the port of New York?

Wars happen all the time.

No they don't.

Civil Wars can spring up suddenly and be very violent and disruptive.

Yup, happens every 500 years or so.

Yes your routine stops are going to go smoothly, you pay your bribes. Your competetion pays a bigger bribe to slow you down. A routine, proforma stop alerts a dog because that guy you brought on with a working passage brought aboard some good Coke. As for Act of God provisions, that is fine for the load that you are carrying, what about the one sitting idle 2 stops from here, and the one after that....

As Anthony told you, most shipping companies have more than one ship and can shift things around. I'd say (and this is, I know, merely an opinion) that all your objections provide a good reason why ships don't try for a 9 day turnaround. A 10 day turnaround and a score of ships would allow a shipping line to adapt to most disruptions.

Like I said in my last post it sounds good but I don't believe it works as well as it sounds. It sounds more feasable than I believe that the rules will actually allow. Though I will do some testing of it.

Oh, the rules allow it, all right. What might concievably throw a spanner into the scheme are those factors (such as maintenance and breakdowns) that isn't covered by the rules. But I don't think so.


Hans

 

[pennshome723]

Also remember too, as any good captain might do...send a Communication on to the delivery clients of the cargo at each system that has a starpoint. Now this could be built into your fees/costs...aka...shipping and handling. Now by reporting into your client as to your progress, thus if you have some unschedualed delay...matters or issues might be able to be worked out. Now this all depends on the level and depth a GM wishes to take this matter. Also this is one way to get deeper into roleplaying and building ties between PCs and NPCs if that is something the GM cares to have within their campaign. These are things I perfer to haver within my game and always seek to foster this type of interaction.

 

[kaladorn]

One tiny nitpick.

Originally posted by rancke:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />As for Navies not scheduling excercises near population centers? Why not. It is part of showing the flag.

How often does the American Navy hold exercises that disrupts the traffic in the port of New York?
</font>[/QUOTE]Not all that often. However, they disrupt *OTHER PEOPLE's* ports often enough. I have friends in NZ who relate this fascinating story: Since I think the Cole Incident, the US lets no vessel approach closer than 300m without a challenge/response. Which is funny when the ferry dock is within 100m of where the ship is docked. After the challenge boomed out for the 10th time in 5 days, one of my friend's coworkers (whose office opens onto the port and was disrupted by the US loudhailings of the same standard scheduled ferry) got a megaphone, opened it up and said something to the effect 'it's the same bloody ferry that's been coming and going for the past 5 days and for the past N years before that!'. The US Navy, ever understanding of local sensibilities, rotated a gun installation to point at his office window (obviously he was a threat.... that loudhailer is dangerous). Now, I'm sure that the US crew was only following SOPs. However, this just shows how the Navy *can* disrupt a port just by being there.

And, as someone who has friends involved in the whole port defence thing up here, I can say that we *have* run excercises. They try to schedule them so as not to disturb traffic, etc. too much, but their are some impacts here and there.

And we're in nowhere near the state of continual conflict that seems to happen in 3I - we don't have masses of piracy within our borders, f'r instance.

 

[BetterThanLife]

The Powerplant and Jump drive are both online and required to be running to maintain your ship in Jump space. You can do maintenance on a running powerplant? You can take the Life Support system offline while you flush it while you are in Jump space? I guarantee they don't do maintenance on a Sub's reactor besides just looking over the exterior while the ship is underwater. Go ahead and change the oil on your car while the engine is running. Or the Spark plugs. Don't blame me if you get hurt or damage the car while you are doing it though.

I have seen cars with "regular maintenance" lose the transmission at 36,000 miles. It does say you aren't required to do routine maintenance during the year in the rules. It is just cheaper if you do.

As for the US Navy disrupting NY Harbor. First of all New York doesn't have a Government that the Federal Government wants to keep in line, it also doesn't happen to have a Naval Base, and third New York Harbor hasn't seen Pirate activity since the war of 1812. But since I lived in New York from 1962 through 1979, (And was too young to remember the 60s.) I do remember the US Navy disrupting New York harbour twice. (And they did it again in 2001.)

I'll bet you would have had an awful time trying to get a delivery and pick up through NY harbour on 9/12/01. Or gotten things taken care ofin New York Harbour last fall during that wonderful power failure. Or your arrival date happens to be on day 359 of the year.

Civil wars happen much more often that 500 years. Big ones happened on this continent 4 times in the last 230 years. (In this country twice.) Not counting the Islands of the Caribean or the Banana republics of Central America. And we are a "stable country."

Non-Civil wars affect this country about once a Generation. (Sometimes more often.) On average about 10 years apart. The longest gap in recent years is between WWI and WII (23 years) The second longest gap is the time between Vietnam and Desert Storm. (21 years, though Grenada neatly fits in there ten years between them.)

As for my competetion offering things at 40% of what I am? There definitely isn't anywhere where you said taking those extra 9 jumps a year you are doing it for less than standard rates. But if you want to undercut the rates between a couple of systems and can take up all the loads there then I can always go someplace else. What would kill your scheme is if a couple of Tramp Traders undercut your rates substantially. Then all your infrastructure goes hungry while you scramble for new markets. that is the most economical reason for not having a schedule that tight. You take the load where the load is going. If all the loads to point B are gone you can always go to point C. Or if you can only get half a load to point B you can go to point C. Or I am here now, he can ship it, maybe in 4 days and it will be there in around 12 days, if he arrives on time. I can get it there in less than 8 days from now!


And I don't think your profit margin will be that much higher, though I will do the math with the rules and see. Just because you are making more jumps with a higher overhead and serious restrictions on your load where to maintain your schedule you will be forced, by the very nature of the tables, to jump with less than optimal loads you might make a little more profit but I don't believe the math will hold for that much of a profit difference.

As for the rules allowing it, make sure you properly use the encounter tables at each stop. (Which is where everything but the maintenance failures come from.) I will admit that the only maintenance failures in the rules is in misjumps. Battle damage failures on the other hand....

Originally posted by rancke:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
If you are on a one week in jump and one dirtside you don't need a schedule. You spend your week dirtside with R&R getting your load and etc. And performing routine maintenance. (And routine maintenance under your schedule gets skimped.)

Why? The only routine maintenance you can't perform in jump is patching the hull.

You don't have to have a load waiting. So while it will put you off it isn't going to do anything to long term situation besides slow down your earnings a little.

That's really the big point. It slows your earnings down quite a bit more than a little. And if your business rival is offering your product 40% cheaper than you, it will slow your earnings down to the point where you're facing bankruptcy.

(Put you a week behind.) With everything so closely timed your schedule gets off in one place and that dominos to the rest of your schedule.

You still haven't shown that these delays will be common enough to be a major factor. And, again, the cheaper prices will make up for a lot. At the discounts you can offer, standby passengers will be lined up. As for cargo, what do you think a manufacturer will prefer? A fixed date with the slight possibility of a couple of days' delay at a hefty discount or a fixed date with no discount?

[Delays] will happen with established companies about as often as they happen to the tramp trader. You can scrupously maintain your vehicle, you can follow all the preventive maintenance steps but you can still have your Transmission wear out. Or have a Tire blow out. Same thing with starships.

There you go again, stating as a fact something for which there is no rules to support your opinion. Delays will happen, yes, but I beg leave to doubt that they will happen as often as with tramp traders. There has to be some reason why 40 year old ships are worth far less than spanking new ships. My guess is that the big reason is an increased risk of breakdowns.

As for Navies not scheduling excercises near population centers? Why not. It is part of showing the flag.

How often does the American Navy hold exercises that disrupts the traffic in the port of New York?

Wars happen all the time.

No they don't.

Civil Wars can spring up suddenly and be very violent and disruptive.

Yup, happens every 500 years or so.

Yes your routine stops are going to go smoothly, you pay your bribes. Your competetion pays a bigger bribe to slow you down. A routine, proforma stop alerts a dog because that guy you brought on with a working passage brought aboard some good Coke. As for Act of God provisions, that is fine for the load that you are carrying, what about the one sitting idle 2 stops from here, and the one after that....

As Anthony told you, most shipping companies have more than one ship and can shift things around. I'd say (and this is, I know, merely an opinion) that all your objections provide a good reason why ships don't try for a 9 day turnaround. A 10 day turnaround and a score of ships would allow a shipping line to adapt to most disruptions.

Like I said in my last post it sounds good but I don't believe it works as well as it sounds. It sounds more feasable than I believe that the rules will actually allow. Though I will do some testing of it.

Oh, the rules allow it, all right. What might concievably throw a spanner into the scheme are those factors (such as maintenance and breakdowns) that isn't covered by the rules. But I don't think so.


Hans </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[BetterThanLife]

I agree. The problem being that communication is only at the speed of ships. With FTS (Faster than ship) communication the system would be absolutely the right choice. But since you are running flat out and turning around as fast as you can in general the message will arrive a day or two before you at best and you might even beat it there.

Originally posted by Penn Eckert:
Also remember too, as any good captain might do...send a Communication on to the delivery clients of the cargo at each system that has a starpoint. Now this could be built into your fees/costs...aka...shipping and handling. Now by reporting into your client as to your progress, thus if you have some unschedualed delay...matters or issues might be able to be worked out. Now this all depends on the level and depth a GM wishes to take this matter. Also this is one way to get deeper into roleplaying and building ties between PCs and NPCs if that is something the GM cares to have within their campaign. These are things I perfer to haver within my game and always seek to foster this type of interaction.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
The Powerplant and Jump drive are both online and required to be running to maintain your ship in Jump space. You can do maintenance on a running powerplant?

The power plant, yes, the jump drive, no. The jump drive is only used for the twenty minutes it takes to get the ship into jumpspace. As for the power plant, it is off line at least one day every 10 if it is a single power plant. If, as is a much safer concept, it is actually several separate power plants, they can be taken off line one at a time even in jump.

The same apply to the life support system. The rules doesn't state how much maintenance it requires. I will say that if it takes five days out of every 14 to flush it, it would be economic to have two separate systems and use them alternately. Jump drives are the one really expensive part of a ship. Keeping a jump drive in real space one minute longer than absolutely necessary is wasteful. Shpping lines will come up with all sorts of dodges to minimize it.

As for the US Navy disrupting NY Harbor. First of all New York doesn't have a Government that the Federal Government wants to keep in line, it also doesn't happen to have a Naval Base, and third New York Harbor hasn't seen Pirate activity since the war of 1812.

Well, if you believe that pirates would really operate in any system large enough to maintain a system defense force, go ahead. I don't. I barely manage to swallow them operating in backwater systems, mostly because pirates are fun. Realistic they ain't.

As for naval exercises, a system is a big place, you know. Naval bases don't have to be physically co-located with starports, and the massed Imperial Navy could schedule exercises in a single system without having to get within range of the mainworld.

Civil wars happen much more often that 500 years. Big ones happened on this continent 4 times in the last 230 years. (In this country twice.) Not counting the Islands of the Caribean or the Banana republics of Central America. And we are a "stable country."

Oh, you were thinking about dirtside civil wars. I don't count anything that doesn't actually affect high orbit.

As for my competetion offering things at 40% of what I am? There definitely isn't anywhere where you said taking those extra 9 jumps a year you are doing it for less than standard rates.

That's because I don't believe in standard rates if you're talking about the flat per-jump rates. But I did make a mistake when I said that the company will earn 40% more. It can't both earn 40% more and undercut the competition by 40%. But it can do one or the other (or more likely, a bit of both), and either will allow it to outperform its 25-jumps-per-year competition.

But if you want to undercut the rates between a couple of systems and can take up all the loads there then I can always go someplace else. What would kill your scheme is if a couple of Tramp Traders undercut your rates substantially.

If a tramp could do that to me, it would be even better able to undercut a line that only jumped 25 times per year.

And I don't think your profit margin will be that much higher, though I will do the math with the rules and see. Just because you are making more jumps with a higher overhead and serious restrictions on your load where to maintain your schedule you will be forced, by the very nature of the tables, to jump with less than optimal loads you might make a little more profit but I don't believe the math will hold for that much of a profit difference.

True. I was wrong there. My profit won't be that much higher. But I can outcompete you (I'm going to use 'you' as shorthand for 'any competition that only jumps 25 times per year'). You see, more than half our overhead is the cost of the ship. By jumping 35 times a year I spread that out over more jumps, which lowers my per-jump overhead substantially.

As for less than optimal loads, the whole point of having a factor is to ensure that my loads will be a lot closer to optimal that the random ones you can scrounge up in five days.

As for the rules allowing it, make sure you properly use the encounter tables at each stop.

I'm going to stick to servicing worlds with proper system defenses. Hence I'm not going to use encounter tables geared to 200 T Free Traders roaming haphazardly around universe having way more adventurous encounters than the average ship would have.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
And we're in nowhere near the state of continual conflict that seems to happen in 3I - we don't have masses of piracy within our borders, f'r instance.

Neither, I submit, does the Imperium. I don't really believe that all Imperial shipping everywhere is subject to the encounter frequencies in the rules. Just as I don't believe that the character generation rules accurate reflect the composition of Imperial populations (There are no shoe salesmen or telephone sanitizers in the tables, you know). The ship encounter tables are geared to player charcter run ships., not regular freighters and liners.


Hans

 

[Anthony]

We can, from the loan terms granted by banks in Traveller, safely conclude that the odds of an incident causing total loss of a ship are no more than 1/1000 per jump; anything above that and banks don't make money. This means piracy is darned rare; anything above 1/216 is ridiculous.