General goods

[rancke]

Not sure which section this one belongs on.

I'm tinkering with a free trader adventure. The ship arrives on a backwater world with a lowish population (level 4 or 5, I think -- small enough to have only one sizable population center) with a cargo of general goods, if that's the correct term. The sort of goods you find in a general store.

What I need is the value of a dT of general goods and also a general idea of how many dT a community of so-and-so many people would need per year.


Hans

 

[Murphy]

Assuming their per-capita income as Cr5000 yearly, let's say they are willing to spend 5-10% of it on imported general goods.

So you get roughly Cr250-500, or 0,025-0,05 dt, per person per year. I am using MgT's "basic manufactured goods" as a guideline, taking the price as KCr10.

 

[rancke]

So if the main community is around 5000 people[*] can let the free trader have a load of 50 dT of general goods worth a total of Cr500,000 and it would be plausible that only the owner of the central general store would have the money[**] to buy the whole load. (The guy has gone missing, no one knows where).

[*] The population of the world can be bigger if the rest of the population are scattered in much smaller communities.

[**] Or rather, local products bought by the store owner and stored in a locked warehouse that he'll sell for Cr500,000 and will be worth Cr1,000,000 on the next world.​

Hans

 

[Timerover51]

On a planet like that, your trader is not very likely to be paid in cash, but much more likely to be paid in barter goods. On the US Frontier, where general stores flourished, a store keeper would get payment in anything from home-distilled whiskey to home-cured hams to sacks of flour and corn meal to muskrat pelts and home-made potash. He may even be offered the colony's undesirables as slaves.

More than likely, the colony, or principal settlement, would collectively purchase the cargo, and negotiate the barter exchange. Also, you would really need to take into account the Tech Level of the goods the trader is shipping. A population in the low thousands to tens of thousands is going to have a limited ability to produce higher Tech Level items.

 

[rancke]

I am using MgT's "basic manufactured goods" as a guideline, taking the price as KCr10.

So is that factory price or retail value? I have a vague idea that 'factory price = 50% of retail price' is a fairly decent rule of thumb.


Hans

 

[Murphy]

It's listed in the table for trade goods in context of speculative trade. I guess it's "average broker's price", higher than factory but definitely not retail.

 

[aramis]

It's listed in the table for trade goods in context of speculative trade. I guess it's "average broker's price", higher than factory but definitely not retail.

It's probably warehouse price. The only industry I've good numbers for is publishing: Retail is doublt wholesale, and wholesale is double publisher; cost of printing is often half cost from the publisher.

Broker price is probably based upon wholesale.

 

[grondak]

In the mid 90s, I worked in electronics manufacturing; in that field, the numbers were about 40% per level of channel distribution. I know nothing about current ratios.

Cost of parts to manufacturer
1.4 x Cost = Price to Distributor
1.4 x Distributor = Price to retail seller
1.4 x Seller = Price to consumer

1.4x1.4x1.4 = 2.7

 

[rancke]

So the Cr10,000 per dT is either what the PCs paid the manufacturer or what they can reasonably expect to sell it to the store owner for (Not taking any bargaining into account). I think it best to give the players the value of their cargo in terms of what they can expect to sell it for. Which would be either Cr10,000 per dT or Cr14,000 per dT. At the moment I'm inclined to go with the Cr10,000 per dT figure.


Hans

 

[GrayPennell]

A tale of cashews. A little while ago someone offered me a $1000 a ton of cashews I sold. They had 7 tons. Now logically you would sale by the ton but he planned to sale them by the pound. Thats nearly impossible. I tried to get him to sale them to whole sellers/distributors but he is in no way prepared to do this. His packaging was off, he didnt meet codes and rules. For example most places require you to carry $1 million in insurance.

I am writing this to point out that there are many barriers to entry that Traveller die rolling does not really take into count. In a merchant game though they should be encountered. So while it make look like those carbines might sale for for 14000 cr on paper in reality you might not even be able to unload them unless the role play.

 

[aramis]

So the Cr10,000 per dT is either what the PCs paid the manufacturer or what they can reasonably expect to sell it to the store owner for (Not taking any bargaining into account). I think it best to give the players the value of their cargo in terms of what they can expect to sell it for. Which would be either Cr10,000 per dT or Cr14,000 per dT. At the moment I'm inclined to go with the Cr10,000 per dT figure.


Hans

Sale is probably not to store owners - probably to warehousers.

Most retailers aren't going to be buying particular goods by the ton. And if they are, odds are good that they're going to be buying them themselves and shipping them, rather than paying for a multi-ton lot on the quays. (Tho' the local Wal-mart equivalent might, because they're their own warehouser).

 

[rancke]

Sale is probably not to store owners - probably to warehousers.

Most retailers aren't going to be buying particular goods by the ton. And if they are, odds are good that they're going to be buying them themselves and shipping them, rather than paying for a multi-ton lot on the quays. (Tho' the local Wal-mart equivalent might, because they're their own warehouser).

I'm trying to come up with a situation where for practical purposes there's only one potential buyer and he's missing, prompting the PCs to go looking for him (Though I do intend to provide some sub-optimal options for the PCs).

Here's the tentative intro I've come up with:

'Player briefing

"On your previous visit to Forboldn, you landed in the official starport and picked up a bit of freight and a handful of passengers, scarcely enough to break even on the jump to Regina. But one of the passengers gave you an interesting tip. He came from the Rubatj Plateau, a place almost directly opposite the main settlement and the starport, and due to the primitive means of transportation on Forboldn, it was difficult to get supplies. Several recent accidents had combined to make the Rubatj Plateau short of almost every sort of general goods, from cooking pots to garden tools. The shelves of the general store were half empty and everybody was having to make do with makeshifts.

So on Regina you invested in a cargo of general goods and jumped right back to Forboldn. But this time you're planning to land on the far side of the world from where everybody else lands..." '​

Hans

 

[aramis]

That's a patron encounter - and a general store like that should be picking up between 0.1 and 10 Td of goods per month, depending upon served population. (Stebbins and ambler, counting all dry goods, each were getting about 1Td/month, plus about 0.3 cu meters of mail....

If all you're supplying is durables, then those numbers are way too high. If it includes long-term shelf stable food items....

But note: A shipment to a remote site on-world via shuttle should be about Cr50 per ton...

I'd suggest having them contacted by him with a wish list, and 25% down, including some items unlikely to sell elsewhere. He's wanting to bypass the normal expediteur at the starport (who's been ripping off with a 100% markup, late delivery, and low quality)... So he's ordering some 30-40 Td, and they're looking at him paying base modified by the AVT with a "high average roll" and all applicable mods. So they just have to worry about getting it cheap to make a profit.

So, they have his special order, then they can't find him.

(High average roll: treat each die as rolling a 4, rather than actually rolling)

 

[rancke]

That's a patron encounter - and a general store like that should be picking up between 0.1 and 10 Td of goods per month, depending upon served population. (Stebbins and ambler, counting all dry goods, each were getting about 1Td/month, plus about 0.3 cu meters of mail....

That's one of the factors that worry me. If the affected population is too high, there would be multiple general stores. Fortunately I can tailor the population to my needs. I'm just not quite sure what my needs are. I do intend the general store to serve a greater number of people than the average general store does/did. The owner probably sells to the lesser general stores in the smaller villages.

Breaking up the shipment and selling to the smaller stores is one of the sub-optimal options, since all goods of a given kind is packed together. Repackaging for individual lots would be a time-consuming undertaking.

This is going to be a one-shot scenario, so I don't plan to explain how the PCs got the shipment, but I imagine that they got a 'colonist package' of some kind.

But note: A shipment to a remote site on-world via shuttle should be about Cr50 per ton...

Forboldn's TL is 4 and its starport is Class E. I don't see them having a shuttle.


Hans

 

[GrayPennell]

Couldnt it be the case of a "company store/wear house" situation where the patron is the director of the company/ wear house. They have the power to make all purchasing decisions. The 40dt is than split among several company stores. A company store actually fits the low population if you make company settlement too. With that much power the person also has enemies that would want to see them disappear.

 

[rancke]

Couldnt it be the case of a "company store/wear house" situation where the patron is the director of the company/ wear house. They have the power to make all purchasing decisions. The 40dt is than split among several company stores. A company store actually fits the low population if you make company settlement too. With that much power the person also has enemies that would want to see them disappear.

A company implies more contact with the rest of the universe than I like. The community's isolation is part of the setup. I'd like to set the adventure in Regina subsector or at least the Duchy of Regina, but as it happens, none of the worlds in the duchy have the right combination of population, technology, and lack of prior canonical description (Beck's World might have worked if it hadn't been for a prior writeup). I could have gone further afield in my search for a suitable venue, but instead I thought of Forboldn. It's already a backwater world, and with a TL of 4, the other side of the world from the starport is pretty isolated. Easy enough for a starship to visit if it wants to, but so far no one has thought about doing so. The Rubatj Plateau is out of sight and thus out of mind.

I see the community as having quite a lot in common with a remote Old West town.


Hans

 

[GrayPennell]

I guess than it really depends on what you plan to ship. I came up with two similar ideas. One the patron knows the colony is going to have another colony ship arrive in X time so they order extra supplies. You can also bring in goods for the colony to expand on its own. In both cases you can be looking at heavy machinery or tools. Picture a lot of tractors, generators etc. Since these weigh a lot there wouldn't be large number of items so the market wouldnt be over supplied.

 

[rancke]

I guess than it really depends on what you plan to ship. I came up with two similar ideas. One the patron knows the colony is going to have another colony ship arrive in X time so they order extra supplies. You can also bring in goods for the colony to expand on its own. In both cases you can be looking at heavy machinery or tools. Picture a lot of tractors, generators etc. Since these weigh a lot there wouldn't be large number of items so the market wouldnt be over supplied.

I posted the basic player knowledge in post #12 above.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Forboldn's TL is 4 and its starport is Class E. I don't see them having a shuttle.

Hans

They're close enough by to a higher TL world that an imported shuttle isn't too terribly unrealistic an import. It's only J2 from Regina.

A shuttle on a milk run with palettes could get a profit at Cr100 per Td per day, even after installing a fuel purification plant on the shuttle. Or a "retired" scout could turn a tidy by ferrying around the world - a syndicate of 3-4 with ships could make a decent living. All they need to do is be able to get their ships off to regina for annual maintenance... one jump away.

And, noting where it is, and the TL, it's highly likely that an infrastructure DOES exist - Either that, or someone will have a higher TL import solution to make up for it.

As a side note: it is on Travellermap.com as D893614-5 - I don't know the provenance of that entry - as MT and CT both show E893614-4.

 

[rancke]

They're close enough by to a higher TL world that an imported shuttle isn't too terribly unrealistic an import. It's only J2 from Regina.

Not too unrealistic, no. But not inevitable either. They just happen not to have any on Forboldn in 1105.

A shuttle on a milk run with palettes could get a profit at Cr100 per Td per day, even after installing a fuel purification plant on the shuttle. Or a "retired" scout could turn a tidy by ferrying around the world - a syndicate of 3-4 with ships could make a decent living. All they need to do is be able to get their ships off to regina for annual maintenance... one jump away.

What sort of credits? According to Striker, TL 4 credits are worthless offworld. TL5/Starport D credits are worth .02 Imperial credits. I had planned to a) gloss over that bit and b) let the locals pay in barter items (gathered and warehoused over a number of months by the store owner).

Also, would 2.5 million TL 4-5 people be able to keep a shuttle employed on a regular basis?

And, noting where it is, and the TL, it's highly likely that an infrastructure DOES exist - Either that, or someone will have a higher TL import solution to make up for it.

I envisage the infrastructure to be that a rare occasional ship pass by every once in a blue moon and sets down in the starport, whereupon goods going to the far side of the world goes first by rail until that runs out and then by riverboat and ocean barge and riverboat and cart.

As a side note: it is on Travellermap.com as D893614-5 - I don't know the provenance of that entry - as MT and CT both show E893614-4.

I'm interpreting that as Forboldn being borderline TL4/5 combined with the effects of the startup of the Forboldn Project.


Hans