No so much the pay, rather the optimal cargo hold size, and optimal passenger allotment. With more of any eye to a tramp freighter than a merchant.
This ... is where the possibilities EXPLODE exponentially ... and is actually the target of my
Pondering Starship Evolution thread (that I've had going for a year now), albeit from the other end of the equation (starship design rather than market modeling).
If you're looking for being able to survive (by making a profit) on ticket revenues ONLY, but operating as a tramp, budgets for revenue minus expenses start getting TIGHT really fast. I did an analysis (in Post
#559 in the thread) via formula of where the break even point is in revenues for J1 Free Traders and J2 Far Traders ... just to see what would pop out of the statistical math.
Short answer:
- Under subsidy, J1 Free Traders and J2 Far Traders can both be profitable on ticket sales alone
- Paid Off/non-subsidy, J1 Free Traders can be dramatically more profitable than J2 Far Traders on ticket sales alone
- Bank Financed, J1 Free Traders can still be profitable (with full manifests), but J2 Far Traders are going to go bankrupt if they can't supplement their revenues with (successful) speculative goods arbitrage from time to time
The key finding though was that both J1 Free Traders and J2 Far Traders don't have a whole lot of "margin" to work with if they can't keep their manifests full of passengers and freight tickets. The amount of revenue they HAVE TO bring in for them to remain profitable is pretty close to their passenger and cargo transport capacity, so going places where there isn't enough demand for their services can wind up being a net loss on the voyage. This in turn means that on the interstellar maps, there are going to be "financial deserts" where low end free trader merchants risk bankruptcy if they venture there, simply because there won't be enough ticket revenues to offset their costs of operations while in those regions.
Clusters of low population worlds (4-) have particularly low passenger and freight ticket revenue opportunities, so needing to move through "several of them" to get to locations "on the other side" can be hazardous to bottom lines for merchant operators who need to shave every credit that passes through their hands. In the Lanth and Rhylanor subsectors of the Spinward Marches, there are TWO such "backwater stretches" along the Spinward Main, which can be problematic to move through on a "one and done" manifest basis as a tramp, where there is no "future planning" of destinations beyond the (immediate) next.
However ...
Things get a LOT more interesting (financially) for merchant operators if they can plot 2+ destinations in advance, because you know where you're trying to get to beyond the next jump.
This will make a lot more sense if you use my
portolan chart
re-interpretation of the map of the
Spinward Marches with updated colors and text font to convey additional information. The colors give you all the trade code information and the font gives you population information that is relevant, at a glance, to a merchant operator.
If you look at the Lanth subsector, there are 3 worlds in a row along the main that are Population: 4- (as indicated by world names in
underlined italics) ... K'Kirka, Echiste and Pirema. If you're only doing single jump destination declarations, moving through these worlds at J1 is going to be costly to bottom lines and annual profits.
The Rhylanor subsector has a stretch that's even worse.
Gileden, Fulacin, Macene, Kinorb and Keanou are 5 worlds in a row on the Spinward Main that are all Population: 4-.
Opportunities for ticket revenues through this stretch of the map are going to be ... meager.
So what to do if you need to move through those "backwater" stretches?
Simple.
You declare multiple destinations and gather up the tickets for all of them.
Let's use the the Lanth subsector example (because it's shorter and therefore simpler).
Let's say that you're a J1 Free Trader operator and you're currently at Rech/Lanth (2112). For
whatever reason {insert reason here} you've decided you want to get away from the Regina/Regina region and head down the Spinward Main towards Equus/Lanth ... but in order to get there, you have to get past the "ticket wasteland" of K'Kirka, Echiste and Pirema.
If you declare them, individually, one at a time, to be your ONLY destination (1 at a time) upon arrival, you're going to be getting almost no ticket buyers. Low population origin to low population destination makes for very few passengers and freight tickets to be sold.
So what you do is you declare all of them as your next destinations and pick up passengers and freight bound for all of them.
When you're at Rech/Lanth ... you declare that your next FOUR destinations are K'Kirka, Echiste, Pirema and Tureded.
Roll dice for passengers and freight bound for Tureded from Rech.
If any manifest capacity remains unused, roll for passengers and freight bound for Pirema from Rech.
Then Echiste.
Then K'Kirka.
The reason why you roll for tickets in a "longest first" manner is because anyone who wants passage from Rech to Tureded (past the low population backwater) is going to need to buy FOUR tickets ... (from Rech) to K'Kirka, Echiste, Pirema and Tureded in order to reach Tureded. Those passengers "won't be getting off" while you are jumping through the low population region that is unlikely to have passengers and freight waiting to depart. This then helps to keep your manifest "full" while transiting through this region.
So from an operator end of the ledger, trade between Rech and K'Kirka (1 parsec away) only really matters for starships that are doing a "round trip" rather than a "one way beyond" type of jump plot.
In other words, it is
possible for free traders to make profits "passing through" low population regions (to get to the other side, basically), but it's difficult to remain profitable if you're "stuck" in a low population region of space if you're dependent upon ticket revenues alone.
At which point, the (often times, subsidized) mail carrier enters the picture.
With the guaranteed revenue of mail deliveries (Cr25,000 upon arrival at destination) it is possible for extremely low end merchant ships (with minimal crews and overhead expenses) to actually turn a profit on the guaranteed revenues of mail delivery exclusively. In subsidized service (with a 50% revenue rake) this basically puts a hard limit of Cr12,500 in operating expenses per 2 weeks (for crew salaries, life support, annual overhead maintenance allowance, berthing fees, fuel ... the lot), which in turn puts some pretty EXTREME constraints on the design of starships capable of this kind of work.
After all, 1 pilot plus 1 gunner cost Cr3500 in crew salary per 2 weeks and an additional Cr4000 in life support expenses per 2 weeks. Add in berthing fees of Cr100 per 2 weeks and you're down to Cr4900 in profit every 2 weeks in a sub-200 ton starship design ... because a 200 ton starship would require a medic (Cr1000 per 2 weeks) who would increase the life support expenses (by another Cr2000 per 2 weeks), at which point you're down to a Cr1900 in profit every 2 weeks on mail deliveries alone (no passengers, no freight). You would need to have an onboard fuel purification plant, because Cr4900 in profits will only buy 9.8 tons of refined fuel at type A/B starports ... and you don't want to misjump, do you (
do you?)?
For such low end merchant tramps, the need to avoid the expenses associated with a medic (stateroom tonnage, crew salary, life support overhead) means that such starships can't carry passengers, since 1 medic is required per 120 passengers. This means that these types of "mail couriers" can spend whatever tonnage they have spare on exclusively cargo hold capacity ... and because their operating expenses are lower than the revenue generated from delivering mail, if they jump with an empty cargo hold (but a full mail vault) the starship will STILL make a profit wherever it goes. Consequently, the cargo hold capacity can be used for speculative goods arbitrage and freight tickets "and it's ALL GRAVY" no matter where you need to go (although, obviously, some destinations are better than others when dealing in speculative goods).
.
