How to address the problem of the numbers

[salochin999]

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.

So if those (5000 J1/J2 and 3000 J3) are the optimal ships in terms of cost/parsec under what situations wouldn't they be?

Looking at the Bk 2 Cargo rules trading from a pop 6, TL 8 planet to an identical one gets you D6+2 major cargo and D6+3 minor cargo which I think on average comes to around 300 tons.

So a 5000 dton merchant carrying 300 tons of cargo - would that make a profit?

I know there's more to it than that but it gives an idea of when a smaller ship might be more profitable - when the trade flows are too low for a larger one to operate at near capacity.

So the optimal size for a J1/J2 ship tramping around minor planets might be the size that could run at near full cargo capacity on the level of trade available between those planets.

If that's correct that might keep the lower TL shipyards in business.

#

So below optimal size might be competitive when trade flow is too low to support that size and above optimal jump drive might be competitive when it's *necessary* to reach a specific destination (and maybe in some cases when it reduces the total number of jumps).

#

Thinking of what would get traded

1) Tech, definitely - TL flowing downhill from higher to lower. The question is what can the minor planets pay for it with? (so both hub-hub and hinterland)

2) common raw materials - long distance this seems unlikely to me given a planet has a whole solar system to get it from and when it does happen then the nearest system seems like the place they'd get it (hinterland only?)

3) food - there's probably all sorts of ways to grow food but given the amount of land animals need compared to crops then i can imagine animal products being a plausible commodity for a minor planet to trade for tech with a maybe crowded higher tech one but again the nearest minor planets will do. (hinterland only?)

4) rare raw materials - handwavium for example. I think this will be a YTU thing. If it exists it will be traded and potentially very long distances if it's critical for something - dilithium crystals for example.

5) unique planetary goods - Wypoc pottery, Roup smoked Velk bacon, Regina Whiskey etc - stuff that has a unique reputation. This seems likely as a possibility. The only question is why not create fakes? (hinterland to hub and hub-hub?)


So if you decide in YTU that raw materials and food are short distance hinterland trade only then there's not much to generate hub-hub trade except tech and nothing for the lower tech planets to trade for it with other than uniques so no uniques = not much trade.

So if one of the Imperium's aims is to generate trade then I think they'd need to enforce uniques i.e. let planets trademark their uniques and then enforce it (at least along the main trade routes).

So a model that might work is each hub collects raw materials, food and uniques from its hinterland in exchange for tech, uses the food and raw materials itself and then trades tech and uniques with other hubs.

#

Next there's the question of the 1000cr / ton shipping cost. Now I assume this was originally just plucked out of the air but in the spirit of looking at the rules as written and then seeing if a logical explanation can be dreamed up how about....

Aramis has shown different ships can have a different cost/parsec so say there was a six parsec J-1 route and the Imperium built a shiny J-3 space station in the middle so a J-3 ship could do the trip in two jumps then if the cargo was time critical the J-3 ships could out compete the J-1 ships.

But if it wasn't time critical and the J-1 ship could physically make the journey then if their cost/parsec (cpp) was low enough it wouldn't matter if it took them six jumps versus two.

If the J-1 ship's cpp was 500 then the cost is 3000 (even if it takes six jumps to cross the six parsecs)

If the J-3 ship's cpp was 800 then it's total cost is 4800 (even if it only takes two jumps to cross the six parsecs)

So the J-1 ship could easily out compete the J-3 ship *if* it could undercut the shipping price. It could charge 4200 (700 per jump per ton) and undercut the J-3 ship's minimum break even.

If it could undercut the shipping cost.

If it couldn't because the Imperium stipulated a legal fixed price per ton per jump then that would effectively make hub-hub (or any multiple jump) trade priced by total jumps rather than per parsec. In this case the J-1 would have to charge 6000 per ton for the six jumps and the J-3 could charge 2000 for its two jumps and that would be that - no more competition.

So if the Imperium wanted to force all that lucrative hub-hub trade to use the shiny space stations they built along the main J-3 route where it was easy to tax then forcing a minimum shipping price per ton per jump would do it.

(I think anyway. I may have missed something obvious.)

#

So with rules as written it seems

1) Hinterland trade with standard Book 2 traders seems to work unless the optimal ships can make a profit when mostly empty (and maybe they can I haven't checked yet).

2) The optimal ships would still exist in the hinterlands as the most cost/effective option doing fixed contract runs e.g. ore ships, grain ships, when the quantity to be shipped suited their size but probably not as tramp traders if the volume is too low for their size.

3) With a fixed cost per ton per jump then multiple jump trade could be (I think) deliberately skewed to steer it towards higher jump ships along specific routes where it was easier to protect (tax).

4) hub-hinterland trade would occur without any assistance but long distance hub-hub trade might require enforcing a system of unique planetary goods to give lower tech planets something to trade for tech.

5) A lot of this may be wrong.

#

Not sure yet but this model might create a lot of criminal opportunities around smuggling.

 

[aramis]

Aramis has shown different ships can have a different cost/parsec so say there was a six parsec J-1 route and the Imperium built a shiny J-3 space station in the middle so a J-3 ship could do the trip in two jumps then if the cargo was time critical the J-3 ships could out compete the J-1 ships.

(All the below using Bk2-81, all armed for mail availability, but mail not included.)

At Cr1000/Pc, the 2000Td J3 is about Cr464/Td. This means that it needs just under 50% full, and it's about 1047Td of cargo. So that's about 530 tons to make a profit. The 3000 J3 (which is the same as the 3000 J4, save for the fixed fuel) is about 1550 Td @ about Cr480/pc. Again, about 50% is adequate.
Even at J2 hops, it needs only about 75% full. about 1000Td. A 1000-2000 Td cargo is plenty big for the smaller worlds to be hit only occasionally.

And your asked-about 2J2?
5000 Td hull, assume demountable tankage for the second J2. (It can shuttle back and forth if owned by a line.) 3289 Td cargo, Cr410/Pc in 1J2 mode; in 2J2 mode, 2289Td at Cr470/Pc, plus a share of the demountables cost.
(Keep in mind: the payment share for the 2Jx with the standard week downtime is 1.5x the standard rate; so also for salaries, PP Fuel, and LS; only fuel cost and parsecs double.)

For a J1 5Ktd... Drives ZWZ
3Pc crossing: 1308Td @ Cr763/Pc
2Pc Crossing: 2308Td @ Cr470/Pc
1Pc Crossing: 3308Td @ Cr410/Pc (standard ops)

The best I've been able to get Bk5 ships at J3 down to is Cr510/Td... at 50KTd and TL15...

 

[Carlobrand]

...(Keep in mind: the payment share for the 2Jx with the standard week downtime is 1.5x the standard rate; so also for salaries, PP Fuel, and LS; only fuel cost and parsecs double.)...

You mean two consecutive 1-week jumps with just time to refuel between them, followed by a week downtime after the second?

 

[aramis]

You mean two consecutive 1-week jumps with just time to refuel between them, followed by a week downtime after the second?

No. I mean loading up a J2 of cargo space with demountable tanks, jumping to empty space, pausing to transfer the fuel out of the demountables into the main tanks and to make the needed nav fixes, then jumping a second J2, then upon arrival, spending the normal week of downtime.

 

[salochin999]

To recap for my own benefit

(some of this may be wrong)

1) default ships

according to Aramis' calcs

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=27116&highlight=jump+cost+table

Book 2 costs (2E)

J-1: viable from 200 dtons to 5K dtons with cost/parsec declining with size so the 5K is optimal in those terms.

J-2: viable from 3K to 5K dtons with the 5K optimal

J-3: none viable but the 4K is closest

Book 2 costs (1E)
J-1: same
J-2: viable from 2K dtons up with a lot of the others very close to being so
J-3: none viable but 4K dtons very close

so going by rules as written then the most cost-efficient and therefore optimal ships would be

J-1: 5K dtons
J-2: 5K dtons

with all the viable J-1 ships cheaper than the most viable J-2 and the viability of the J-1 ships increasing with size.

So these would be the default ships unless there were other factors involved which tipped the balance.

#

2) Possible exceptions

a) volume of trade

If the cost/parsec (cpp) is based on a full cargo hold then if volume of trade was low enough for a larger ship to be under capacity a lot of the time then its cpp would be higher. This might make a smaller ship more viable on cost terms but even if didn't the return on investment (ROI) of a smaller ship would be higher if it more closely matched cargo space to volume of trade in a region.

This might also provide a neat explanation for the subsidized merchants in Book 2. In a region with a low volume of trade a 400 or 600 subsidized merchant might be only just above the viable size for a minor planet so it might only take a small subsidy from a planetary govt to ensure a regular link.

If you imagine systems divided into class A, B, C, D and E according to world stats and roughly match them to the cargo rules then trade between D and E type systems might only support the Free Trader size ships, C systems might be the same plus the subsidized merchant sizes and B systems might be where you first start to see 1000 tonners (operating as tramp steamers that is).

Trade involving regular shipments especially of large quantities would be contracted rather than pickup imo i.e. it wouldn't be a carrier per se so wouldn't need to make a profit on the shipping itself, and so could involve whatever size of ship / jump best suited the cargo which with cpp decreasing with size might mean a partially empty 4K might still be better than a full 3K.

So for example a C or D type world (low-middling pop, low-middling TL) with some copper mines might have a regular 5K ship from the mining company for the copper, a regular subsidized merchant for general cargo and passengers and a bunch of irregular free traders for the rest.

b) Imperial manipulation

If the 1000Cr/ton had a purpose then one possibility would be putting a floor on shipping costs to give higher jump ships an artificial advantage by effectively making the cost per jump rather than per parsec preventing the optimal ships from under cutting. This could be used to steer trade along certain avenues making it easier to protect/control/tax.

I like this idea as it ties in with what I wanted anyway - Imperial J-3 space station truck stop routes between the alpha planets - so it's kinda weird it (almost) works with the rules as written.

The least cost J-3 ships are the 4K ones but it seems they are still above the 1000Cr/ton limit however only by 142 or 97 credits (depending on edition) so if the space station routes shaves a day or so off the standard jump time that might be enough.

#

3) Conclusion

So I think this trade model is plausible and fits the rules

hinterland trade

J-1 ships:
potentially all sizes from 200 to 5K depending on volume of trade in a particular region (but using the cargo rules the volume of trade in the boonies seems to be suited to the traditional little Book 2 ships).

J-2 ships:
smaller ships (200 to 1000) would seem to rely on subsidy, speculative trade (or illegality) to be viable so 2K+ dtons would seem to be suggested unless low volume of trade made them not viable also.

so where J-2 is necessary it seems there would need to be either a high enough volume of trade to support 2K+ dton ships or a subsidy. Where it is not necessary then J-2 ships seem to imply either speculative trade or illegality. If speculative trade in the boonies was less risky in smaller ships then I think that implies J-2 ships in the hinterland regions will tend to be either Far Traders or 2K+ (where viable) and mostly subsidized if in between.

(Also given their lack of viability as a pure carrier (i.e. without speculative trade) and assuming the idea mentioned previously of enforced planetary trade marks on unique planetary goods I can definitely see Imperial law enforcement treating all Far Traders as suspected smugglers.)

hub-hub trade

Legal:
4K J-3 ships along the main routes

Illegal:
all J-1 ships from 200 to 5K could potentially undercut the legal floor if a J-1 route was possible with the 5K being able to undercut the most

J-2 ships of 2K+ or 3k+ could potentially undercut the legal floor if a J-2 route was possible

#

There could still be monster civilian ships for other purposes but not merchant ships making a living from carrying cargo

(by the CT rules anyway).

I quite like this model - particularly how it creates criminal and smuggling opportunities.

 

[Carlobrand]

No. I mean loading up a J2 of cargo space with demountable tanks, jumping to empty space, pausing to transfer the fuel out of the demountables into the main tanks and to make the needed nav fixes, then jumping a second J2, then upon arrival, spending the normal week of downtime.

Oh, right. Bridging gaps. I'm being a little dense lately, too much going on.

Did we ever establish whether drop tanks were or were not re-usable?

Add:
I think we established elsewhere that High Guard II pretty solidly grandfathered in Book 2 designs and drives.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=496466&postcount=9

That pretty well kills my thought about a High-Guard-only universe except maybe as an alternate non-canon universe, and it puts the Hercules and her cousins and variants at the top of the mercantile pecking order, near as I can tell.

So much for superfreighters.

 

[rancke]

Add:
I think we established elsewhere that High Guard II pretty solidly grandfathered in Book 2 designs and drives.

That it does.

That pretty well kills my thought about a High-Guard-only universe...

Not really. Not until the setting material supports the combined version with such things as hybrid designs and a lack of reference to superfreighters.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Wil's numbers were a bit of an eye-opener for me. On consideration, I wouldn't mind if interstellar travel was dominated by 3000T J3 ships and J6 shipping almost as cheap as anything else. But it seems abundantly clear to me that this question ("What is interstellar traffic really like in the Traveller Universe that is our CURRENT common reference frame") urgently require a command decision from Marc Miller. Until and unless he rules out this ship design system and gives his blessing to another (or to two of the others ), we're not getting any further.

So until further notice I'm going to stick to a HGish paradigm with bigger ships being more efficient than smaller ships (provided they can find enough passengers and freight) and J2 and J3 being cheaper per parsec than J1 and J4 more expensive than J2+J2, but viable for passengers in a hurry.

I acknowledge that this is not the only possible picture, but if TPTB wants me to paint a different one, they will have to tell me which one.

Mind you, I'm not going to be stubborn about it. If a decent majority of the Traveller community agrees on a different paradigm, rejecting all others, I'll go along with the majority and convert. :rofl:


Hans

 

[salochin999]

@Carlobrand

So much for superfreighters.

I was originally thinking superfreighters for the main routes at least as I was picturing Traveller trade like modern day earth with giant container ships and oil tankers etc but now I'm thinking more of that era in the age of sail where high value goods were traded in return for scraps of tech e.g. coffee and spices for umbrellas and steel pots.

Although I also want some monster ships as well just cos - naval ones of course but civilian ones also: orbital construction ships maybe, colony ships, temporary habitats etc something where a minimum size is a requirement.

I want that visual image of a 200 ton free trader docking at a space station next to a 200,000 ton behemoth.

 

[aramis]

I honestly prefer the Bk2 paradigm for Drives. But I think that the Bk3 limits should only apply to the Jump and (gravitic) Maneuver drives, not to (ostensibly) fusion power plants.

And Hans, I do believe the OTU is currently supposed to be "T5 driven"... the reason HG is the default for so many is multifold†, but ACS looks more like Bk2 than Bk5...

† To enumerate

• Many people adoped Bk5 as a sole design paradigm in the 80's.
• HG designs can be used unmodified in MT, even tho' the tonnages don't match up for internals
• T20 ship design was built off of Bk5
• TNE was largely a new player base; the grogs largely stuck to CT and/or MT
• T4 had little traction at all.
• GT is vaguely HG derived

 

[rancke]

And Hans, I do believe the OTU is currently supposed to be "T5 driven"...

Fine by me, as long as T5 ship design is self-consistent and Marc Miller commits to sticking to it from now on. But I'll need someone else to do the figuring, since I don't have T5 myself.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Fine by me, as long as T5 ship design is self-consistent and Marc Miller commits to sticking to it from now on. But I'll need someone else to do the figuring, since I don't have T5 myself.


Hans

I haven't been able to make much sense out of T5 ACS - in part, because I've no particular interest in switching over.

I will say that MGT and T5 ACS look to be closest together, and both are Book 2 derivatives but with different assumptions about fuel.

(My ATU uses MGT as a base, but goes heavily afield in terms of ship tech. I should run that again sometime.)

 

[salochin999]

Reversing a lot of what I was thinking earlier there's another way of looking at it which is perhaps more Travellerish.

If you assume there is lots of trade and assume it will be similar to modern earth i.e. proportional in some way to TL and population, then the semi-random OTU star port distribution from system gen make no sense.

Hence in my experimental version of Spinward Marches I changed all the star port letters to fit a "trade size" based on the planets population and TL and then plotted the trade routes based on that - which is nicely consistent and gives me what I wanted: a BSU along the trade routes with a SSU in the gaps in between.

However comments in these thread have made me wonder about that base assumption - lots of trade. Maybe there isn't? On earth there's a lot of raw materials for tech but if transporting high volume, low value goods is too expensive and given an alpha planet has a whole solar system to get raw materials from I wonder if the base assumption should actually be: low trade unless otherwise indicated.

In which case perhaps doing the traditional Traveller thing of accepting random die rolls at face value and then trying to come up with logical explanations might be a better way?

(Other people have probably been doing this sort of thing for years - if so ignore.)

So instead of trying to be logical about trade from the base up simply take the canon star ports being as the evidence for trade through that star port so
- higher grade star ports = more trade
- lower grade star ports = less
regardless of the world stats so if a high pop, high TL world has a low grade star port then they don't have much trade because a) they're mostly self-sufficient and b) nearby lower tech worlds who want the tech don't have enough to trade for it for there to be a big export market.

#

So taking a sub-sector - Rhylanor - and applying that logic to it.

There are seven A star ports, Porozlo has decent world stats and high pop, all the rest have too low a pop to be alpha planets imo and Rhylanor itself, although high pop has world stats that aren't that great.

So to me that reads as Porozlo was the alpha planet of the sub-sector with the trade network centered around it with Rhylanor expanding later as a result of becoming the government center.

The sub-sector trade network can then be easily laid out connecting the As and Bs to Porozlo.

The Natoko, Zivije and Bevey systems despite having large populations are assumed to be low trade because of their C and D star ports. This gives a clue to their nature - mostly self-sufficient but not producing much that an alpha planet wants.

Garrinczi although a B seems too far away from Porozlo so will be part of a different local network in the neighboring sub-sector.

The systems in the network which are furthest away from Porozlo like Gitosy and Cipatwe are assumed to have goods valuable enough to be traded long distance or those star ports wouldn't exist.

So in this version the sub-sector trade network would come out as something like this

https://gameystuff.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/rhylanor_canon_map.pdf

plus as a hub Porozlo-Rhylanor might also be connected to a separate hub-hub trade route later (maybe).

IMTU the BSU would exist along the trade routes and the SSU elsewhere.

#

If the star port class is treated as an indication of the relative quantity of trade going through the port then I'd make it on a power law e.g. 10 to the power of, so something like

star ports / trade ratio
E = 1, D = 10, C = 100, B = 1,000, A = 10,000

so an A class star port carries 10,000 times as much trade as an E class (by value or by volume) and you can judge the sort of ships operating in a region of space by the star port letters in the vicinity.

#

If you accept the economics discussed earlier in the thread regarding ship costs and distance then a planet's position on a network and its star port letter provides a clue to the type of goods that planet might supply.

For example on the Rhylanor map linked Jae Tallona is an A only one parsec from the hub Porozlo so could maybe be supplying high volume, low value goods whereas Margesi is six parsecs away and requires the less cost-effective J-2 ships as well so the goods it supplies would have to be more high value, low volume.

#

On reflection this feels like more of a Traveller-ish way of doing it: random rolls first, logic second.

 

[rancke]

However comments in these thread have made me wonder about that base assumption - lots of trade. Maybe there isn't? On earth there's a lot of raw materials for tech but if transporting high volume, low value goods is too expensive and given an alpha planet has a whole solar system to get raw materials from I wonder if the base assumption should actually be: low trade unless otherwise indicated.

The assumption IS low trade. A world with tens of billions of people having a BTN of 10 with another world will trade 1-5 million dT with that world. If it's 10 billion people and 5 million dT, it's an average of 0,0005 dT per person. That's 7 liters per person. Larger populations and/or less trade makes for even smaller averages.

In which case perhaps doing the traditional Traveller thing of accepting random die rolls at face value and then trying to come up with logical explanations might be a better way?

That can work for game purposes¹, but not for worldbuilding.

¹ Though not always. I'm still at a loss for an explanation why a world with a pop level of 4 was willing to pay 300% of base value for 69 million-credit computers and where they got the money to pay us.​

So instead of trying to be logical about trade from the base up simply take the canon star ports being as the evidence for trade through that star port so
- higher grade star ports = more trade
- lower grade star ports = less
regardless of the world stats so if a high pop, high TL world has a low grade star port then they don't have much trade because a) they're mostly self-sufficient and b) nearby lower tech worlds who want the tech don't have enough to trade for it for there to be a big export market.

The problem with that is that it begs the question. WHY does a high pop high TL world not have enough trade to support a Class C starport at the VERY least?!?

Incidentally, FT does, in fact, increase and lower the WTN of a world if the starport class is unexpectedly low or high.

On reflection this feels like more of a Traveller-ish way of doing it: random rolls first, logic second.

That's a great way to do world-building, as long as you don't forget the last step: change the random results when you find that logic doesn't support them. It's even in the rules. Sadly, GDW and its successors tended to forget that last, crucial step. So while it is quite true that it's the Traveller Way, it is one bit of the Traveller Way that I think should be changed and the sooner the better.


Hans

 

[Frankymole]

That can work for game purposes¹, but not for worldbuilding.

¹ Though not always. I'm still at a loss for an explanation why a world with a pop level of 4 was willing to pay 300% of base value for 69 million-credit computers and where they got the money to pay us.​

Onward trade perhaps - there may be a buyer that was only prepared to travel as far as the low-tech world, perhaps the end of a long or expensive logistics chain. Or maybe someone is setting up a clandestine hi-tech base in the system, with no public access.

 

[Carlobrand]

Onward trade perhaps - ...

We can make one-off arguments, but on average the low tech worlds seem to be printing money. Problem is the game assumes trade flows downhill. High tech goodies earn more on low tech worlds - and so do basic resources, and so does everything else. Aside from the quality of the starport, through-trade can't explain it because it's the nature of the world that attracts the business. Hard to explain unless maybe the Imperium is handing out major subsidies to low tech worlds.

And the numbers do trigger odd situations for low pop worlds. We should consider invoking some sort of cap based on GWP.

 

[rancke]

Onward trade perhaps - there may be a buyer that was only prepared to travel as far as the low-tech world, perhaps the end of a long or expensive logistics chain. Or maybe someone is setting up a clandestine hi-tech base in the system, with no public access.

I'm afraid my belief suspenders are not that strong.



Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Gonna toss a tidbit into the mix, for what it's worth. It's a JTAS news item (JTAS 8), so it's not worth much, but it does give a vague picture of the volume of trade in at least one small part of the Marches, as seen by whoever wrote the piece, and presumably as accepted by the editor at the time.

"Reports over the course of the last several weeks of a marked increase in piracy in the coreward reaches of the subsector have been substantiated by Navy officials in a routine press release. In today's weekly press briefing, a naval spokesman confirmed that an unusually large amount of shipping had failed to make scheduled planet-fall, and that no communications from the Kinorb Cluster had been received for over two months.

"When questioned further. Public Relations Officer Lieutenant Commander Vanderheydt hault-Josephson pointed out that fewer than ten ships had been scheduled to make the little-used Kinorb-Pixie run in that period, ..."

Pixie is our problem child: Class A starport on a world with 90 sapients. Only real benefit to the place vis-a-vis the Kinorb cluster is as a waypoint to Yres, assuming you'd rather do a jump-3 and then trans-ship to a jump-1 freighter rather than have a jump-4 freighter run a direct route. Otherwise, Boughene is the more likely candidate for a run to Kinorb. (And, why is there now an X beside Pixie on TravellerMap?)

Be that as it may, the news item suggests "fewer than ten ships" were expected from the Kinorb cluster over a 2 month period and implied that the numbers were low enough that an interruption, while noteworthy, was not yet a cause for alarm.

GURPS, at least as calculated in the Wiki, puts no significant traffic between Kinorb and Pixie but does put a green "intermediate" route between Kinorb and Boughene, implying an average ten ships per day entering or leaving port. One presumes "no communication" means ships haven't been appearing at Boughene either, and one also presumes that if more ships were failing to appear at Boughene, that would be the news instead. So, the news item at least is suggesting a level of traffic about 2% of what GURPS offers for that J-3 run. Based on my very (very, very, very) speculative math here:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=33575&page=6

it's in the ballpark with my estimate - about twice what I'd estimate for that J-3 route, but workable.

It's a long stretch - I don't believe for a moment anyone tried to guesstimate the traffic levels in the Marches before tossing those numbers into the news item - but it's a clue that the original view was for rather light traffic between the worlds.

 

[rancke]

Gonna toss a tidbit into the mix, for what it's worth. It's a JTAS news item (JTAS 8), so it's not worth much, but it does give a vague picture of the volume of trade in at least one small part of the Marches, as seen by whoever wrote the piece, and presumably as accepted by the editor at the time.

"Reports over the course of the last several weeks of a marked increase in piracy in the coreward reaches of the subsector have been substantiated by Navy officials in a routine press release. In today's weekly press briefing, a naval spokesman confirmed that an unusually large amount of shipping had failed to make scheduled planet-fall, and that no communications from the Kinorb Cluster had been received for over two months.

"When questioned further. Public Relations Officer Lieutenant Commander Vanderheydt hault-Josephson pointed out that fewer than ten ships had been scheduled to make the little-used Kinorb-Pixie run in that period, ..."

This is, IMO, just as plausible as the four Kinunir's being a significant amount of power in the Regina Subsector. That is to say, utterly im-.

Pixie is our problem child: Class A starport on a world with 90 sapients. Only real benefit to the place vis-a-vis the Kinorb cluster is as a waypoint to Yres, assuming you'd rather do a jump-3 and then trans-ship to a jump-1 freighter rather than have a jump-4 freighter run a direct route. Otherwise, Boughene is the more likely candidate for a run to Kinorb. (And, why is there now an X beside Pixie on TravellerMap?)

I shall say nothing at all...

Be that as it may, the news item suggests "fewer than ten ships" were expected from the Kinorb cluster over a 2 month period and implied that the numbers were low enough that an interruption, while noteworthy, was not yet a cause for alarm.

The non-appearance of the sheduled X-boats isn't enough to cause concern? And just how does a pirate go about intercepting an X-boat anyway?

It's a long stretch - I don't believe for a moment anyone tried to guesstimate the traffic levels in the Marches before tossing those numbers into the news item - but it's a clue that the original view was for rather light traffic between the worlds.

It was also written back before anyone had realized how much shipping billions of people can support. Or even mere tens of millions, as in the case of Heya (the cluster is called the Kinorb Cluster, but the economic powerhouse of the cluster is Heya -- the traffic between Kinorb and the rest of the subsector would be an order of magnitude lower than the traffic between Heya and the rest of the subsector).

This is one piece of canon that, I submit, has been superceded by later canon. You can't even redeem it by pointing out that it's viewpoint writing, because there's no plausible reason why anyone would write something like that. The Kinorb to Pixie run probably does have less than ten ships in two months. It's just that the Kinorb-Boughene run would have all the Heya-Efate traffic and the Heya-Beck's World run would have all the Heya-Regina traffic...

(I also have a substantial tourist traffic to and from Kinorb, but that's not canon (Just common sense )).


Hans

 

[salochin999]

So while it is quite true that it's the Traveller Way, it is one bit of the Traveller Way that I think should be changed and the sooner the better.

I dunno. My habit in games is to change rules and rejig things to suit myself and that will probably remain the case but trying to make sense of Traveller die rolls is an interesting exercise.

The assumption IS low trade.

Ah right. I missed that. In that case my new assumption of more self sufficiency and mostly high value, low volume trade (as opposed to my old assumption of mega freighters carrying ore and grain on the important routes and Free Traders feeding on the scraps in the boonies) is now more in line.

The problem with that is that it begs the question. WHY does a high pop high TL world not have enough trade to support a Class C starport at the VERY least?!?

Well that's the thing... can the "why" create an interesting hook or bit of flavor.

For example, my current experiment is taking the canon Spinward Marches data and changing all the routes to fit the current model i.e. find the most likely alpha planet (A class star port, high pop, high TL) in a sub sector and make them the hub and then connect all the other As and Bs to it.

The next step is going through them all and trying up plausible explanations for the ones that seem odd - either because their star port is higher than fits their world stats or lower.

For example in Rhylanor there's

2613 Fulacin A674210-D Lo An

Company planet, few hundred people and a star port that would probably need more people than that just to run the star port.

So...

planet houses some kind of plant that only fruits once a year and although there are facilities for the tens of thousands who get hired to harvest the crop when it's ripe the only people there permanently are a skeleton maintenance crew and security guards. The quality of the star port is so they can handle the huge quantity of fruit gathered during the harvest as it has to be done quickly before it rots.

As the planet has an ancients site possibly some genetic engineering involved - maybe the fruit has or is believed to have medicinal properties or something.

edit: I just noticed the tainted atmosphere - perhaps spores from all the genetically modified killer plants.


It doesn't entirely make sense but it's close.