No, the assumption is that the stuff from Regina that hits Terra is worth the same as the stuff from Terra that hits Regina. It's a simplification, no argument there, but not an unreasonable one.
Hans
How to address the problem of the numbers
- Thread starter rancke
- Start date
Hans
Luxury goods are different from staples. Genuine Terran Cigars are shipped offworld as a luxury item only. They are sold to speculators who can take deep headers for cost plus a reasonable profit. That's what the Terrans get -- cost plus profit.
Once they leave Terra, the cost of shipping factors in at every stage. The further a shipping container goes, the more the cigars inside cost. That is a simple equation; each jump will cost something, when we add the partial values of ships, expenses, crews, security, transfer costs, and so on.
When one cargo container gets to Regina, the speculators THERE must sell the product for ALL of that previous cost, plus the new costs of getting the cigars down, "advertising," and so on. This is then divided by the unit of sale.
I have neither the math nor the background in Traveller economics to come up with the REAL number. However, I would venture to guess that a single genuine Terran cigar (low quality, the Old Phillies my grandfather used to smoke) will cost Cr 1,000.00. Or whatever you math whizzes tell me it should cost.
I come back to the practical question: when all is said and done, roughly how many jumps will the product require? Assuming large, long-distance haulers with an average of Jump-3 per leg (or whatever the math says), what's a REASONABLE model for the cost per ton?
This is another version of a question I asked earlier in the discussion: What's the PRACTICAL result of all of this for the average PC and referee? That's the answer I feel is important -- because it gives an important and SUPPORTED reason for the cigars to figure into the adventure. Whether it's a hijacked ton of rancid old Phillies (being treated as the finest Cubans by Norris) or a villain who offers them to the PCs (an expensive and showy gift) or just a way to prove that an NPC is wealthy enough to make good on a promise, it is good to have some basis to say, "You were just offered a Cr 2000 Old Philly."
salochin999
SOC-13
Some random related thoughts
1) Fashion. I recall reading about Paris fashions up to the Victorian era hitting London a few years later and say Australia ten years later.
2) Part of the point of luxury goods is that they are ridiculously over-priced as it says "I can afford this and you can't." People have been making money from status display since eagle feathers.
3) I wonder if the trade arrangements between alpha worlds (say tens of billions of people and TL12+) might be different from the minor worlds and boondocks.
3a) Trade between the alpha worlds being more formally organized.
3b) Trade in the boondocks being more speculative but not entirely so i.e. a trader might know that minor planets generally have a demand for x, y and z but not whether another free trader arrived a week earlier with those goods. so the planet's *current* demand fluctuates in an unknowable way - along with the current price.
If you think about 3rd world countries now the markets are full of local produce plus a seemingly random collection of detritus from the 1st world: tshirts, music systems, games, software, vehicles etc. I can picture a free trader turning up at a minor planet with a cargo container of random junk - the crumbs from the alpha planets - and selling it high or low depending on how recently another ship brought the same stuff.
1) Fashion. I recall reading about Paris fashions up to the Victorian era hitting London a few years later and say Australia ten years later.
2) Part of the point of luxury goods is that they are ridiculously over-priced as it says "I can afford this and you can't." People have been making money from status display since eagle feathers.
3) I wonder if the trade arrangements between alpha worlds (say tens of billions of people and TL12+) might be different from the minor worlds and boondocks.
3a) Trade between the alpha worlds being more formally organized.
3b) Trade in the boondocks being more speculative but not entirely so i.e. a trader might know that minor planets generally have a demand for x, y and z but not whether another free trader arrived a week earlier with those goods. so the planet's *current* demand fluctuates in an unknowable way - along with the current price.
If you think about 3rd world countries now the markets are full of local produce plus a seemingly random collection of detritus from the 1st world: tshirts, music systems, games, software, vehicles etc. I can picture a free trader turning up at a minor planet with a cargo container of random junk - the crumbs from the alpha planets - and selling it high or low depending on how recently another ship brought the same stuff.
Insist is such a strong word. I just think that some worlds will have atypically high or low trade for one reason or another, and that it would be nice if we had a system that could take that into account.
How about this: You figure out how much the difference is from the average (and note that trade can also be atypically low -- xenophobic populations spring to mind as a not unlikely example). If it's less than a step on the WTN scale, you ignore it. If it's more than a step, you note it in the comments: 'T+2' for trade being two steps higher, 'P-1' for passenger numbers being one step lower, etc..
And, on a related note, I can understand why the authors used steps of 1-5 and 5-10, lest they overtax the brains of their intended audience, but for worldbuilding purposes -- our worldbuilding purposes, I mean -- I would like to recommend that we use steps of 1-3.3 and 3.4-10 instead. Since we are not incapable of understanding the intricacies of logarithmic scales.
(Well, I used to understand them and some dim memories still remain.
)Hans
Last edited:
As the punch-line of an old Lone Ranger joke goes, "What you mean, 'WE,' Kimosabee?"
Hans, you have a math error... √10≅3.16227 not 3.3.And, on a related note, I can understand why the authors used steps of 1-5 and 5-10, lest they overtax the brains of their intended audience, but for worldbuilding purposes -- our worldbuilding purposes, I mean -- I would like to recommend that we use steps of 1-3.3 and 3.4-10 instead. Since we are not incapable of understanding the intricacies of logarithmic scales.
(Well, I used to understand them and some dim memories still remain.
Hans
(3.3^2 = 10.89. 3.16^2=9.9856)
Oops.
Thanks for correcting me. I appreciate it.
Hans
Logarithms are fun! (If I hadn't done the math just yesterday, I'd not have caught it.)
There are math symbols in this thing???
salochin999
SOC-13
Tinkering with the Spinward Marches to create my B&SSU (big and small ship universe) it seems to me that given the orders of magnitude difference in system stats the alpha planets are going to be far and away the main drivers of trade.
(In my current experimenting I'm designating systems that are pop 9+ and TL12+ as the alpha planets.)
This seems to me to suggest that the most plausible trade model for the majority of the systems in a sector (but not the majority of the trade by value) is a hub and spoke model around each alpha planet.
So each alpha planet might have a hinterland of minor planets around it where the trade flows are mostly to and from the nearest alpha system with mostly raw materials and unique planetary goods flowing from the minor planets to the hub and high TL goods flowing from the hub to the minor planets.
It seems to me this would fit the Book 2 type trade model quite well with Free and Far Traders mixed in with some subsidized merchants.
The big trade, the trade that would make up the vast majority by value and pay for the navy (i'm guessing here based solely on the world stats) would then be the interhub trade.
#
The crucial difference between the hinterland trade and the interhub trade is that interhub trade would be multiple jump by definition whereas the core rules just dealt with planet to planet. It would make sense therefore to have a separate set of rules for the interhub trade - only really relevant as background or for large scale military or corporation type campaigns - but for now looking at the interhub trade purely in terms of the basic rules for simplicity and consistency then:
1) the demand for cargo and passengers between two hubs would be based on the stats of the two hubs not the stats of the intervening truck stop systems along the route. Alternatively it could be the sum total of the jumps along the route so if the route was hub1 to truckstop1 to truckstop2 to hub2 then the cargo and passengers available at hub1 would be the sum total of three rolls: hub1 to truckstops1, hub1 to truckstop2 and hub1 to hub2.
2) The standard cargo and passenger fee is per jump so if someone wants a hub to hub cargo delivered three jumps away then they are paying the standard fee three times, once for hub1 to truckstops1, once for truckstop1 to truckstop2 and once for truckstop2 to hub2.
3) The hub to hub ships on long distance routes have no need to visit an intermediary truck stop system's planet. The truck stop systems can have a space station around an outer gas giant with refueling, warehouses, bars etc possibly creating a three jump a month network for J-3 ships. Assuming these stations are expensive to build and maintain that would explain their only being built along the main routes.
#
So I wonder if this model would simplify things while staying simple and canonical
1) a Book 2 style SSU hinterland trade around each hub
2) a J-3 interhub route between the alpha hub systems based on the total trade value of the hub and its associated hinterland systems with an outer ring space station around a gas giant in each of the intermediary truck stop systems along the interhub route to allow three jumps per month to J-3+ ships along that route
leading to a BSU along the interhub trade routes and an SSU in the hub hinterlands.
(In my current experimenting I'm designating systems that are pop 9+ and TL12+ as the alpha planets.)
This seems to me to suggest that the most plausible trade model for the majority of the systems in a sector (but not the majority of the trade by value) is a hub and spoke model around each alpha planet.
So each alpha planet might have a hinterland of minor planets around it where the trade flows are mostly to and from the nearest alpha system with mostly raw materials and unique planetary goods flowing from the minor planets to the hub and high TL goods flowing from the hub to the minor planets.
It seems to me this would fit the Book 2 type trade model quite well with Free and Far Traders mixed in with some subsidized merchants.
The big trade, the trade that would make up the vast majority by value and pay for the navy (i'm guessing here based solely on the world stats) would then be the interhub trade.
#
The crucial difference between the hinterland trade and the interhub trade is that interhub trade would be multiple jump by definition whereas the core rules just dealt with planet to planet. It would make sense therefore to have a separate set of rules for the interhub trade - only really relevant as background or for large scale military or corporation type campaigns - but for now looking at the interhub trade purely in terms of the basic rules for simplicity and consistency then:
1) the demand for cargo and passengers between two hubs would be based on the stats of the two hubs not the stats of the intervening truck stop systems along the route. Alternatively it could be the sum total of the jumps along the route so if the route was hub1 to truckstop1 to truckstop2 to hub2 then the cargo and passengers available at hub1 would be the sum total of three rolls: hub1 to truckstops1, hub1 to truckstop2 and hub1 to hub2.
2) The standard cargo and passenger fee is per jump so if someone wants a hub to hub cargo delivered three jumps away then they are paying the standard fee three times, once for hub1 to truckstops1, once for truckstop1 to truckstop2 and once for truckstop2 to hub2.
3) The hub to hub ships on long distance routes have no need to visit an intermediary truck stop system's planet. The truck stop systems can have a space station around an outer gas giant with refueling, warehouses, bars etc possibly creating a three jump a month network for J-3 ships. Assuming these stations are expensive to build and maintain that would explain their only being built along the main routes.
#
So I wonder if this model would simplify things while staying simple and canonical
1) a Book 2 style SSU hinterland trade around each hub
2) a J-3 interhub route between the alpha hub systems based on the total trade value of the hub and its associated hinterland systems with an outer ring space station around a gas giant in each of the intermediary truck stop systems along the interhub route to allow three jumps per month to J-3+ ships along that route
leading to a BSU along the interhub trade routes and an SSU in the hub hinterlands.
Salochin, assuming you're using CT, unless you change the design systems, small ships can haul for as low as Cr358/Pc (that's J3 on a J3 4KTd)... while under Bk5, 50KTd is over Cr600/Pc, at TL15 it's Cr613/Pc - more than the cost per Td per Pc than a 5KTd Bk2 design. Bk5 ships in the same tonnage range as Bk2 are more expensive than that.
So, your big ships as merchantmen cannot compete.
If you have a pure Bk5 universe, or MgT, or any other edition, in general, bigger J2 or J3 ships will dominate trade. Anything along the line between alpha worlds won't have room for the smaller ships; the larger ships will bring all they need in their spare space, and be able to lower prices to outcompete.
In order to not have the long distance traders dominate, you'll need to tweak the basic methodology of FT, or of the design system.
So, your big ships as merchantmen cannot compete.
If you have a pure Bk5 universe, or MgT, or any other edition, in general, bigger J2 or J3 ships will dominate trade. Anything along the line between alpha worlds won't have room for the smaller ships; the larger ships will bring all they need in their spare space, and be able to lower prices to outcompete.
In order to not have the long distance traders dominate, you'll need to tweak the basic methodology of FT, or of the design system.
Without getting into the numbers or the system, and without defining "big" ships (is 5000 "big?" 10,000?) the trade mode described in the preceding text is the most like the real-world expectations. It seems to me that this is a matter of the number of big ships plying the routes.
I certainly don't believe that Tukera operates a bazillion subsidized merchants to move trade goods from one subsector or sector to another. As I previously noted, though, I suspect that such routes would tend to handle somewhat rare/unique products. Simpler raw materials (e.g., steel, petroleum) would tend to move only within sector ranges
If one system alone can't work, perhaps it is worth designing a new system consistent with T5 and Mongoose that would work realistically?
5000Td is the top end of "Small" - because it's the biggest thing buildable with Bk2. It's also the absolutely cheapest thing under 1,000,000Td.
Raw Materials aren't going to go even a whole sector. There are just too many closer sources in a standard sector.
We know that canonically, Steel has a base value per ton of Cr500. It costs more per ton to ship it a parsec than its median value. And iron and carbon are readily available in most systems. Therefore, it's not likely to move more than a parsec or two; it's almost always going to be cheaper to mine locally than to buy outsystem.
Aluminum can move a couple parsecs.
Grain is a loss-reduction, not a profit. Most of the time, when it moves, it moves as demand goods.
salochin999
SOC-13
(I think we may have different definitions of small and large here but leaving that aside for the moment.)
Yes, but what is the cost per parsec of a J-1 ship when there isn't a J-1 connection?
Or if the J-1 route has to go a long way round taking 12 jumps in total while a direct J-3 route only takes 3 jumps?
In hub to hub trade the total number of jumps needed is critical also.
I think I understand what you've been saying on these threads (I've read a few now) but I'm coming at this from the opposite direction in that I took the Marches data from Travellermap (great site btw if they ever read this), picked out what I thought would be the alpha systems and then picked the fastest J-3 routes between them to see what it looked like.
If you do that you see there are many of these routes where J-1 and to a large extent J-2 ships can't travel at all or where they have to take a long way round involving more jumps.
For example in my experiment Jewell, Efate and Regina are alphas. Jewell-Efate requires 2 x J-3, there is no J-1 or J-2 route (actually there is a J-2 but it takes 12 x J-2 jumps through non-Imperial space). Efate-Regina has a J-1 route of six jumps, a J-2 of three and a J-3 taking two. Rhylanor-Regina is 4 x J-3, 6 x J-2 and J-1 not possible etc.
So the cost of delivering cargo or passengers hub to hub depends on the number of jumps required.
So as long as at least some sizes of J-3 ship are profitable on a per jump basis assuming they were at full capacity (or 80% or whatever cut off point you choose) then they can compete on at least some of those routes where lower jump ships either can't reach the destination at all or must take more jumps to do so.
My understanding from your posts (I could have got it wrong) was that even if a J-3 ship could out compete a J-1 or J-2 on the basis of total number of jumps hub to hub - simply because the layout of systems created shortcuts only available to higher jump ships - then some / most / all sizes still weren't viable on a per jump basis because of fuel / mortgage costs.
If that last part is right then I was thinking if the Imperium set up a network of fastest J-3 routes between the alpha planets (by building truck stop space stations by gas giants in the systems along the fastest routes) and those stations shaved a day or so off total jump time - say 12 days instead of 14 - then that might make some or some more J-3 ships viable on those routes (and only those routes).
(Basically Roman roads in space.)
I may well have misunderstood your calcs of course.
(On sizes basically I'd like the standard Book 2 small ships (200-600 td) to be viable in the hub to spoke hinterland trade and as big as possible J-3 ships to dominate the hub to hub trade. If the max viable is 4K td then fine but if the space station idea could shave a day or two off I'd imagine that could bump the max size up a bit?)
Last edited:
salochin999
SOC-13
"There are just too many closer sources in a standard sector."
I think this is a critical point. On earth trade is mostly higher TL to lower TL in one direction and raw materials in the other direction but when you have a whole solar system to mine I wonder how likely that is? And then another whole solar system one jump away?
This is what makes me think the hub to spoke trade might be quite limited in quantity with the minor planets mostly selling rare materials or goods unique to that system to the alpha planet and buying scraps of tech from the alpha planet in return.
I wouldn't go that far. A small ship competing with big ships in a Book-5-only universe earns less income per parsec, but the base cost is still lower than the shipping charge. That changes the nature of small ships but does not eliminate them. A small company with a large volume of regular trade could, for example, buy a ship so that it can reduce its shipping costs to - I get ~Cr793/dTon of cargo for a 200 dT 1G/J1 freighter with 135 dTons of cargo space. That represents a savings of more than 726 thousand credits annually and could give its products a price edge over competitors relying on the conventional shipping model.
In fact, the big ship's major threat may be large, old manufacturers with steady trade taking themselves out of the shipping market by buying their own big ships to ship their merchandise. The cargo available may be limited to that produced by companies that can't or won't buy their own ships.
It's definitely not the traditional Free Trader model, though.
You can't really guess at what the system looks like without looking at the numbers, not unless the plan is to impose a desired system and then create numbers that make that system work (for example by adjusting cargo prices, fuel costs or design prices.)
You've got it backwards... the cheapest cost per parsec is the 5000Td for J1-2, and 3000Td for J3-6. On the J6, it's an order of magnitude cheaper to use the Bk2 J6 than to use a bk5 J6 of any size.
The Bk2 Subbie is about as efficient as a Bk5 TL15 800Td in terms of operational cost, and beats ANY AND ALL Bk5 TL13 or TL9 designs.
Until you have a steady supply of TL15 designs, your basic Bk2 ships from 400Td up are ALL better cost per parsec.
Now, using strict Bk2-bk3 design... the 5000Td is a TL15 design... due to the drive letters. The 2000Td is TL11 at J1, and TL15 at all other Jump ratings. And properly, in a mixed Bk2 Bk5 universe, the letter drives remain limited by TL.
And to be blunt, I couldn't care less what your definition is for "small ship" - mine's based upon design system. When I say "Big Ship" I mean a ship that is beyond Bk2 design limits.
All of this begs the question...what replaces all of this confusion and angst to create a unified, functional system that makes sense, models a likely economy, and accepts that big ships will be part of the system, as will little ships? Is it in T5?
Hmmmm, maybe I wasn't clear. First, I wasn't talking about Book-2; I was specific about a book-5-only universe. Second, I was talking about a company buying a ship that suited the company's import/export needs in order to reduce its import/export costs, not about which ship was the most efficient. Larger might be more efficient, but it may well exceed the needs or budget of a given company.
Third:
That was quite uncharacteristically rude. Have I given offense in some manner? If so, I apologize.
Similar threads
