How do you think trade is manifest over long distances? At the commercial level, not the "players will do whatever players do" Free Trader model.
If a cargo requires more than a single jump to arrive at a destination, do you think special routes are made that send the ship over several jumps, or that the cargo is unloaded and transferred to another ship, bouncing it's way to the destination?
Do you think most commercial freighters simply bounce back and forth between 2 systems?
Simply, ship arrives at a system, and unloads. It's now empty waiting for cargo.
Do you think that ship will take any practical cargo (this is commercial freight, these crews are paid salary, and just go where they're told), to any system? Or will they wait until there's cargo for their "home" system, or the next system on their route? Or would it simply return empty (like many of our modern container ships)?
If a cargo requires more than a single jump to arrive at a destination, do you think special routes are made that send the ship over several jumps, or that the cargo is unloaded and transferred to another ship, bouncing it's way to the destination?
Do you think most commercial freighters simply bounce back and forth between 2 systems?
Simply, ship arrives at a system, and unloads. It's now empty waiting for cargo.
Do you think that ship will take any practical cargo (this is commercial freight, these crews are paid salary, and just go where they're told), to any system? Or will they wait until there's cargo for their "home" system, or the next system on their route? Or would it simply return empty (like many of our modern container ships)?