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Financial/Security Details of Shipping Cargo

Teh easiest thing to do when reading industry terms in regrds to shipping industry is who holds the risk.

Thats it. That is the whole premise behind the shipping industry (well all industries actually) assumption of risk.

This can be an awesome campaign tool when it comes to a party with a mortgage too pay way out in the boonies and no work.
 
Originally posted by kaladorn:
Another interesting point of interstellar commerce:

Why are all passages of equivalent cost?
In Far Trader, it's not. However, even the basic level of passage is expensive enough that it's likely to rather well-appointed (if small); you're paying thousands for the room for a week, making it look nice is a relatively small cost.
 
Originally posted by kaladorn:
Another interesting point of interstellar commerce:

Why are all passages of equivalent cost? What about differing levels of service, internal appointments of the ship, speed of delivery, etc.? And since it costs more to board a J4 ship (the J4 ship cost more to build and more to operate in fuel and upkeep), why should a high passage on such a vessel cost the same as on a tramp freighter with J1?

Passenger trade is as badly broken as other forms of trade.
I'm working on passenger travel costs, but its a fairly complicated issue. It involves multiple product offerings (variance by major passenger line, plus generalities of tramp travel, plus differeing accomodations, quality of accomodations, quality of service, meal plans, entertainment plan, time of travel by regions, etc.), so it's bending my poor little brain a bit.


The standard 4-dTon Cabin is hardly the only type of travel accomodation, here's an excerpt of what I'm working on, the highest of the high end passenger accomodation:


Imperial: At least twenty staff members are permanently assigned to this suite per guest, each available around the clock, with a medley of expert skills from bath assistant/scrubber, hair dresser, fashion advisor, multiple tailors, pedicurist, masseuse, doctor, financial advisor, lawyer, workout coach, combat instructor, entertainment scheduler, personal staff liaison/manger (who directs the others), etc. None of these personnel are ever out for their first time, they are veterans, and they are paid the most of all those crew directly serving passengers aboard a super liner. This means that as many as 80 crew members are assigned to a single Imperial Suite.
Every need of the occupants (maximum of 4 per Imperial Suite, 2 in each bedroom) is met instantly. The Staff Liaison will make every effort to politely discover and meet every preference of the guest, and repeat meeting those preferences throughout the voyage.
The accommodations are staggering, including main entry, primary and secondary sitting rooms, conference room, master bedroom (with large dressing and clothes storage areas), master bath (including plenty of space for the many assistants mentioned above), secondary master bed and bath, private dining room, total surround entertainment theater, live play theater, g-weighted swimming pool, zero-g swimming pool, exercise machine room, general workout room, lockers rooms for the aforementioned with separate shower and cleaning facilities, the list goes on. Everything throughout the giant super suite is decorate in the finest materials brought together from across space. Two smaller suites are always provided (20 dtons each) adjoining. Each Imperial Suite is it's own unique assembly, even if a hundred were installed aboard a ship, each would be different, both in layout and in equipage. Such a facility requires a 300 dton investment in space (plus a 95 MCr cost) by the liner providing it, not to mention mandating crew staterooms for up to 80 staffers who go along with the suite (passengers in the two adjoining 20 dton junior suites are aided by only 10 staff, each, not the 20 assigned to the main suite per occupant). In addition, the presence of Imperial Suites aboard a vessel additionally requires the presence of one or more Ultra Class lounges, those which allow only Imperial Suite passages inside.
Imperial Suites are usually only installed aboard super liners. Super liners themselves are, of course, creations of luxury and beauty, and are ideal vessels to carry a collection of Imperial Suites. A typical install will be 20-40 such suites (including the necessary 1600-3200 crew dedicated solely to these rooms, plus the crew dedicated to serving the small adjoining rooms (10 each), 400-800 crew, total of 2400 to 4000 crew whose sole job it is to handle Imperial Suite passengers).
Imperial Passage costs 2 MCr/Jump, plus 100 KCr per Jump Point above 1 (Superliners jump between key worlds, usually 3 or 4 parsecs, but in central areas this can be less), plus 200 KCr per occupant above 1, plus 50 KCr per Jump Point above 1 per each extra occupant. The wealthy elite who can travel this way do so as a matter of course, thumbing their noses at all who cannot.
In many cases, the wealthiest business people assemble their staffs, embark on a lengthy voyage aboard a super liner (keeping their staff in lower-quality rooms), and then power broker the biggest deals in the Imperium over drinks in the private side-rooms of the Ultra Class lounges available aboard such vessels.



The wealthy, of course, are not the mere billionaires of today, but the trillionaires (and a few ultra-elite quadrillionaires) of several thousand years from now.
 
Teh easiest thing to do when reading industry terms in regrds to shipping industry is who holds the risk.

Thats it. That is the whole premise behind the shipping industry (well all industries actually) assumption of risk.

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BluWolf has really cut to the heart of the matter. Who bears the risk of loss hovers over all transcations whether by ship, rail, truck, birthday party pony, or starship.

IMTU I have created a Lloyds rip off [everything IMTU is a rip off of something. [hangs head in shame]] to help sort things out and it actually works well. IN the past one player lost his shirt playing the Lloyds market. He cried into his coffee.
 
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Secret Agent, you know I think you do some great work
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Thanks K. I try to make things IMTU make sense so that the more improbable parts...e.g certain aliens like talking bipedal cats and dogs...seem reasonable. But that's a whole other issue.
 
Heck, I wrote Lloyd's itself into GT: Far Trader. They're too good at what they do to simply vanish, even after 36 centuries. I also have the TAS make a lot of its money on the side, providing similar services.
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Ok. Thrash, I'm going to go hunt down GT: Far Trader this weekend and have a look at it. It sounds like you have covered a lot of territory and done a first rate job.

Back in the late 1980's to the mid 1990's it looked like Lloyd's was going down the tubes but they managed to pull a lot out of the fire.
 
Originally posted by Anthony:
In Far Trader, it's not. However, even the basic level of passage is expensive enough that it's likely to rather well-appointed (if small); you're paying thousands for the room for a week, making it look nice is a relatively small cost.
Waiting for the inestimable Mr. Miller to finish his shipping to get my copy


Now, two points:
1. Costs of cargo movement and that of passenger movement should account for transport availability. There will be little or no choice of passengers on a backwater world, but they may expect to pay through the nose since there is similarly little or no choice of ships. On a major type A Starport on a major world, there should be lots of choice for who to ship with and what to ship (including which passengers) thus driving prices down.
2. If you're on said backwater.... and you need to get from A to B.... if the merchant captain says "I don't have a steward.... and the rations come out of a packet.... but we'll get you there on time....", the passenger may still be well willing to pay the amount in question.

My players, cash strapped, haven't even had time to fix some major ship quirks (77 Quirks, an excellent article I think I picked up from MADDog's sight) let alone refurbish the galley and the staterooms. The air system is disturbingly noisy. The food is... rations. But the ship is quick and it is willing to discount fairs a bit to get a passenger or two. And it offers far safer passage (fast, heavily armed, EM Masked, etc) than most other normal merchant lines.

But at the moment, rules (I have at hand) don't cover things like costing of cargo/passengers wrt ship costs and wrt scarcity of transport in an area (or lack thereof!). Seems to me you have two competing issues - the cost of running a ship (counting paying it off, ongoing costs, contingencies, plus profits) versus the market value of the transport (based on the level of trade at the pickup port and destination port, the required level of service (higher jump number, higher M drive, more security, posher accomodation, etc)).
 
Originally posted by thrash:
For general cargo, one ton usually requires about 100 cubic feet (2.8 m3); in fact, this is the origin of the "register ton" of the same volume. Thus one dTon = five register tons. GURPS, to its credit, assumes this rate for most cargo hold space.

One factor which is seldom taken into account is "broken stowage": the odd corners of cargo space that can't be filled because of structural elements (columns, ribs, etc.) or because the unit cargo size is only so small. In contemporary shipping, broken stowage averages 10-15% for general cargo. (GT:FT accounts for this by basing the freight costs on a 65% fill rate.)

Bulk cargos -- liquids, gases, grains, and ores, mostly -- ship at very nearly their actual density, with just a little space (3-5%) lost at the top of the tank, or as leftovers (ullage).

I have a whole book on the subject (Modern Ship Stowage, US Dept. of Commerce) if anyone needs more detail.
I really liked PP's Merchants and Merchandise having the Cargo Handling Skill (I've now added it to my advanced merchant generation, along with Sensor Ops, a skill Merchants can't currently acquire in MT generation). I've written up tasks for stewards to load, secure, and later unload cargo and passengers thus giving a reason to have Cargo Handling and Steward (fail your securing roll (uncertain) and then hit the high G combat manouver.... and watch the cargo shift....).

Also higher cargo handling (now that you mention it) might give you a better ability to pack to a higher density.

Also more expensive cargo stowage systems and containment systems may ease packing. There may also be some IDP's on container packaging for standardized shipping at major ports. Thus holds may be built to accomodate such standardized containers.

Plus advanced containment systems may change the register ton to dTon ratio a bit (either way, depending on what they are containing).

I'd like a full citation for that book (ISBN, copyright, publisher, etc) thus I can go look for a copy since this does seem like a useful reference.
 
Originally posted by secretagent:
Thanks K. I try to make things IMTU make sense so that the more improbable parts...e.g certain aliens like talking bipedal cats and dogs...seem reasonable. But that's a whole other issue.
Well, anyone who was a Japanese comic fan knows that it should have been Samurai RABBITS.....

:cool:

Ref: Usagi Yojimbo.... an anime comic that didn't have the characters behave like it was anime - pretty well done, IMO, and I don't read comics but it had(has?) some pretty good stories....
 
http://www.magma.ca/~kaladorn/ad_astra_per_aspera/knowledge_base/commerce/101_passengers.html

The links at the bottom of the page won't work yet (haven't finished all the examples I'm working on since each is a generated character with some description/motivation, etc), but the system for generating the nature of the passengers seems workable (used it a few times so far).

Once I have any criticisms or enhancements, I should write a small utility, mabye a java applet or something, that will crank out passenger lists with this info generated.

Let me know what you think. (The one thing I have not accounted for is 'retinues' that travel with some of the richer passengers). Once I get GT, my idea of how many passengers want to move between any two worlds may be refined too.... but this was principally focused on the questions:

1. Who is my passenger?
2. Why is he travelling?
3. How does he behave?

Note I also provide a task to help the purser sort out the seedier sort who may be refused passage...
Or at least to know who to keep an eye on!
 
Yojimbo....
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The 1962 Samurai movie...I have ripped that off too. Um. Well paid homage [French for "rip off"]
to in an adventure. Ditto Seven Samurai, Zulu, Ten Little Indians, etc etc.

This actually might be the source for a whole new thread...
 
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