Long Distance Trade

[Condottiere]

Exterior Dimensions (in meters): 6.10m long x 2.44m wide x 2.59m high. Interior Dimensions (in feet): 19' 4” long x 7' 9” wide x 7' 10” high

Back on the topic of containers themselves, we could conveniently make them external dimensions of a tad short of three metres width and six metres length.

Height seems subjective, with nominal three hundred ten centimetres for spaceships, assuming fourteen cubic metres per tonne.

Minus off hull, deck and ceiling requirements, nominal, we could leave the height alone.

 

[tjoneslo]

GT:Far Trader, and several other sources, slightly adjusted the size of the cargo container to fit cleanly into the Traveller Tons. 3 meters high by 3 meters wide by 12 meters long is 8 tons (using the 13.5 m³tons). 6 meters long is 4 tons. This makes figuring the size of cargo fairly simple. Converting between the Traveller units to the Real world units is relatively possible.

 

[Spinward Flow]

GT:Far Trader, and several other sources, slightly adjusted the size of the cargo container to fit cleanly into the Traveller Tons. 3 meters high by 3 meters wide by 12 meters long is 8 tons (using the 13.5 m³tons). 6 meters long is 4 tons. This makes figuring the size of cargo fairly simple. Converting between the Traveller units to the Real world units is relatively possible.

Which then brings things back around to a 3 x 3 x 9 meter (81m³ equals 6 x 13.5m³ tons) container size. 6 tons of displacement is a useful size for a D6 foundation of cargo sizes.

 

[kilemall]

I've got 5-ton containers being the Traveller equivalent of the TEU and the 10-ton container being like a 40-foot one.



I worked out the 5-ton dimensions assuming 2 meters wide, 3.5 meters high and 10 meters long. The shorter width is assuming lower tech planets need to fit these on trains and ground trucks. 10-ton containers would therefore be same dimensions except 20 meters long.


I suppose that would make a 1-ton container 2x3.5x2.

 

[whartung]

Dispersed structures only really work with very large containers, not the individual ones we have today. You could make a meta-container that's, say, 500 dTons, climate controlled, have a local gravity field, perhaps local power so that it doesn't have to rely on ship power (but that's not absolutely necessary).

If you make climate control, atmosphere integrity etc. dependent on the individual containers, you end up having more space being used for that than just raw storage and structural integrity.

Modern containers are reasonably water tight, uninsulated, but travel on a "T-shirt" world more than not. I bet many don't get much below freezing, and during large parts of the year are guaranteed to not reach freezing.

Having a larger meta-container that solves that problem, and can be moved with a tug makes the loading and offloading of ships really efficient. Multiple meta-containers can be loaded simultaneously. The can be hard docked to a space port and have containers rolled on and off, loaded like a semi-trailer. Add in some grav compensation and however the items were stacked is how they arrive.

Imagine if someone docks one accidently upside down. They open it up and there's the piles of containers on the ceiling. "Frank, you want to seal that back up, undock it, and spin it around? And I want to speak to that tug pilot."

Basically this, with large enough containers, and each of those containers has their "down" pointing to the center of the ship.

https://en.battlestarwikiclone.org/wiki/File:Colonial_movers.jpg

 

[tjoneslo]

I've got 5-ton containers being the Traveller equivalent of the TEU and the 10-ton container being like a 40-foot one.



I worked out the 5-ton dimensions assuming 2 meters wide, 3.5 meters high and 10 meters long. The shorter width is assuming lower tech planets need to fit these on trains and ground trucks. 10-ton containers would therefore be same dimensions except 20 meters long.

Deciding if your "Standard" cargo container is 2 meters or 3 meters wide is one of those things that everyone adapts to. On civilized worlds containerized cargo would be transported by train or by grav truck, and not limited by a road system the way present day containers might be.

 

[kilemall]

Deciding if your "Standard" cargo container is 2 meters or 3 meters wide is one of those things that everyone adapts to. On civilized worlds containerized cargo would be transported by train or by grav truck, and not limited by a road system the way present day containers might be.

Of course grav frees up the constraints. But a trade standard has to fit in everywhere, and a three meter container driving similarly sized roads, rail gauges, landing zones, etc. is going to be just too much for a lot of planet systems.

 

[kilemall]

Dispersed structures only really work with very large containers, not the individual ones we have today. You could make a meta-container that's, say, 500 dTons, climate controlled, have a local gravity field, perhaps local power so that it doesn't have to rely on ship power (but that's not absolutely necessary).

If you make climate control, atmosphere integrity etc. dependent on the individual containers, you end up having more space being used for that than just raw storage and structural integrity.

Modern containers are reasonably water tight, uninsulated, but travel on a "T-shirt" world more than not. I bet many don't get much below freezing, and during large parts of the year are guaranteed to not reach freezing.

Having a larger meta-container that solves that problem, and can be moved with a tug makes the loading and offloading of ships really efficient. Multiple meta-containers can be loaded simultaneously. The can be hard docked to a space port and have containers rolled on and off, loaded like a semi-trailer. Add in some grav compensation and however the items were stacked is how they arrive.

Imagine if someone docks one accidently upside down. They open it up and there's the piles of containers on the ceiling. "Frank, you want to seal that back up, undock it, and spin it around? And I want to speak to that tug pilot."

Basically this, with large enough containers, and each of those containers has their "down" pointing to the center of the ship.

https://en.battlestarwikiclone.org/wiki/File:Colonial_movers.jpg

That makes sense for big interstellar players that can aggregate and save on starship hulls. However it's not that simple as the value proposition of containers in the first place is from production to distribution/industrial customer with no unpacking at all, coupled with delivery to several discrete end customers.



Among other things you have to load up and get that 500-ton piece on and off planet which gets you into a specialized hauler, or forego loading planetary-dependent cargoes on them, or have to have a big transload aggregator on station.



I see your proposal as more functional for dedicated runs for large scale operations, say an LSP branded ship run by one of the big lines carrying industrial products from a big IND planet to a dedicated distribution point for a subsector, and then hauling back raw materials already packed for the return trip.


Even then you're going to have problems, can't be hauling biomaterial in the same crate small or large that you haul radioactive in. I think it argues for smaller containers as a rule.


Speaking of which I actually broke down a whole container system which captains could get into as a potential source of profit/risk largely based on the cargo type. I'll see if I can find it.

 

[kilemall]

I want to get into the meat of long range trade, which is why I'm asking the OP which version and rate structure we are talking about. Different systems return different rewards.


As many of you may recall reading, my view is goods travel as far as a percentage of their value allows for profit, and therefore IND planets have a sector-wide reach. How that plays out depends VERY greatly on how much profit/cost per parsec works out to.


Another potential factor to consider but which our gameplay oriented systems don't highlight very well is velocity of goods. Some things do much better being delivered 3x as fast as the slow Main type 1 week/parsec speed. Other goods aren't worth the trouble. I will offer some options to simulate that, but I don't know that I would spend a lot of effort on 'simulating' this other then to drive a good story (say a future equivalent of a tea clipper race).

 

[Spinward Flow]

Some things do much better being delivered 3x as fast as the slow Main type 1 week/parsec speed.

The way I always figured it was that when the Referee is rolling dice to figure out how much cargo is available, they're basically randomizing how much cargo is "going where YOU are going" rather than it being a case of "here is all the cargo in the world, take it or leave it" type of thing. Everything then just naturally "sorts" itself by destination. Is the ship going where you need your cargo to go? If yes, then make it available for transport ... if no, well, then it isn't available for shipment THERE where you're going next.

This then results in a kind of "self sorting" where cargo that needs to be shipped 2 parsecs tends to favor being loaded onto Jump-2 ships going to the correct destination. As far as a world's cargo market for interstellar shipping is concerned, it's then a matter of "catch as catch can" for the fastest ride you can get Right Now™ as opposed to waiting a day or few for a faster starship. Even subsidized merchants running a regular route are not going to be arriving and leaving "like clockwork" simply due to the variability of jump durations (150-175 hours, per LBB5.80). So as a shipper waiting for a subsidized merchant to return for another load, you'll have a fair guess as to when a ship is "due" to arrive, but there are no guarantees of the Just In Time Delivery variety that the subsidized merchant will arrive at THIS time on THIS date ready to receive THIS cargo to be shipped THERE. Point being, there's going to be some squishiness around the timetables for even subsidized merchants.

So the dice rolls for cargo availability are really just for determining how much cargo is available on a "going my way?" basis for your starship, while all the other cargo going everywhere else simply isn't offered to you for transport. Being limited to only Jump-1 then necessarily limits where else the cargo available can be bound for (in one jump), as opposed to having Jump-2 or Jump-3 as options. I know the Rules As Written (RAW) don't make it seem like that's what's going on, but I figure that it's kind of baked into the assumptions of randomization the dice rolling for cargo offers. After all, the only segment of the market the Referee needs to be concerned with is the part of the market the PC's starship is relevant to (with the rest of the market conveniently ignored for Referee sanity and ease of gameplay).

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I want to get into the meat of long range trade, which is why I'm asking the OP which version and rate structure we are talking about. Different systems return different rewards.

:xh: Correct. :coffeesip:
If you are just using the original LBB 1-3 and only those, you have placed limits on the scope and size of large ships RAW (5000 dTons) and whittling down you can ultimately can determine your cargo containers which is what you are solving for. Also I believe there is no mention there of a highport/downport in the designation of Starport, in those three books.

If these are too small, you now have to start taking a look at Book 5 to design 500k dTon haulers which means different ship costs and such RAW.

Cepheus and T5 have their own constraints. MgT2 allows you to play with ship components to alter space, costs or efficiency. Here, I would particularly like the efficient Jump Engines which consume less fuel. Woo Hoo! More cargo space!

GURPS Traveller seems to have an answer as tjoneslo has pointed out.

I'm not too familiar with GT, other than Interstellar Wars. Is that standard good enough? If not, why not?

 

[kilemall]

Hmm, I can postulate several situations where shipping things via a Jump-4 vs. a series of Jump-1/2 hops is important enough to rate a higher per tonnage rate, which would directly feed into gameplay choices and/or story line.

So no I'm not looking to create a simulation of every crate moving in and out of a starport just so the miscellaneous pickup pieces ACS works in via the various version rules have nth more verisimilitude.

But I do think fast jumper ships should qualify for some juicy payoffs for getting cargo to target systems weeks ahead of 'regular' plodding Main locals as a payoff for sinking capital and lost tonnage opportunity costs into a 'faster' ship.


There are other values in getting certain cargo to destination faster-
* Less capital tied up in goods in transit
* Less shrinkage loss from same
* Making a contract deadline, giving enough slack time getting there early to allow for complications and delays thus building trust
* Extra profit for providing a service people need badly (example starship replacement drives so the customer can get back to earning, an extra Cr100000 to get them faster is small potatoes compared to the cost of sitting around more weeks)
* First reaction/service to a dynamic market
* Centralized distribution in a subsector with fast delivery is a tool for beating out/suppressing competitors from gaining market share

Not everything fits that criteria. Cheaper raw materials aren't going to 'travel well', several supply chains will work fine with the cheapest slow and steady feed of just a few tons coming in weekly, likely a lot of warehousing to build supply and weather delays will prove to be more profitable then increasing costs getting goods to market faster then people will pay for just like sailing ship days.

I imagine a lot of the speculation table is various factors and traders clearing out excess inventory cluttering their starport warehouses to make way for more profitable incoming goods and liberate tied up capital.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Also I believe there is no mention there of a highport/downport in the designation of Starport, in those three books.

Not true.

At any location with a class A, B, or C starport, shuttles routinely operate between orbit and world surface. Typical shuttle price is Cr 10 per ton and Cr20 to Cr120 per passenger.

Okay, it doesn't explicitly use the terms highport/downport, but it isn't that difficult to read between the lines to figure out that a highport/downport arrangement is what is being referred to.

 

[Condottiere]

Shipments weighing more than 500 kg becomes uneconomic to go by air freight. Ocean freight is around 50 cents/kg, and a China-US shipment will take around 30-40 days. At about $4 per kilo, a China-US shipment between 150 kg and 500 kg can economically go air freight and will take around 8-10 days. Express air freight is a few days quicker, but more expensive.

Packages that are lighter than 150 kg can economically go by courier (express freight). At about $6 per kilo, a China-US shipment will take around 3 days. For products with a high value of goods per tonne, use this chart instead, based on recent quotes and freight rates from the Freightos marketplace.

 

[Enoki]

Hmm, I can postulate several situations where shipping things via a Jump-4 vs. a series of Jump-1/2 hops is important enough to rate a higher per tonnage rate, which would directly feed into gameplay choices and/or story line.

So no I'm not looking to create a simulation of every crate moving in and out of a starport just so the miscellaneous pickup pieces ACS works in via the various version rules have nth more verisimilitude.

But I do think fast jumper ships should qualify for some juicy payoffs for getting cargo to target systems weeks ahead of 'regular' plodding Main locals as a payoff for sinking capital and lost tonnage opportunity costs into a 'faster' ship.


There are other values in getting certain cargo to destination faster-
* Less capital tied up in goods in transit
* Less shrinkage loss from same
* Making a contract deadline, giving enough slack time getting there early to allow for complications and delays thus building trust
* Extra profit for providing a service people need badly (example starship replacement drives so the customer can get back to earning, an extra Cr100000 to get them faster is small potatoes compared to the cost of sitting around more weeks)
* First reaction/service to a dynamic market
* Centralized distribution in a subsector with fast delivery is a tool for beating out/suppressing competitors from gaining market share

Not everything fits that criteria. Cheaper raw materials aren't going to 'travel well', several supply chains will work fine with the cheapest slow and steady feed of just a few tons coming in weekly, likely a lot of warehousing to build supply and weather delays will prove to be more profitable then increasing costs getting goods to market faster then people will pay for just like sailing ship days.

I imagine a lot of the speculation table is various factors and traders clearing out excess inventory cluttering their starport warehouses to make way for more profitable incoming goods and liberate tied up capital.

I can only see two conditions where a ship with a jump > 2 would be necessary due to the cost of building and operating one with a J 3+ system:

1. Access to worlds that are J3+ distant from any neighbor.
2. For goods and information that has what amounts to a short expiration date.

Outside of that, there really just isn't a need for getting things somewhere fast. For most goods and information, the flow would be steady with a shipment arriving on a fixed, known schedule.

Information and data in particular would need to be relatively fresh, hence an X-boat system to deliver it. This system would also deliver small packages and shipments that are date critical. This is why they are J4, a compromise between the cost and small cargo load a J6 ship would have and the lower speed of delivery a J 1 or 2 ship has.

 

[whartung]

Shipments weighing more than 500 kg becomes uneconomic to go by air freight. Ocean freight is around 50 cents/kg, and a China-US shipment will take around 30-40 days. At about $4 per kilo, a China-US shipment between 150 kg and 500 kg can economically go air freight and will take around 8-10 days. Express air freight is a few days quicker, but more expensive.

Packages that are lighter than 150 kg can economically go by courier (express freight). At about $6 per kilo, a China-US shipment will take around 3 days. For products with a high value of goods per tonne, use this chart instead, based on recent quotes and freight rates from the Freightos marketplace.

It's always interesting to visualize an iPhone launch in the US and visualize the planes gorged with iPhones flying across the Pacific.

A 747 will carry over 160,000 iPhones. With pre-orders of about 4M, that's 25 747s.

Likely a mere pinpoint on overall air cargo traffic each day out of China.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

Not true.



Okay, it doesn't explicitly use the terms highport/downport, but it isn't that difficult to read between the lines to figure out that a highport/downport arrangement is what is being referred to.

Unless it refers to lighterage

 

[Condottiere]

Time to market, which is more important when it deals with trends and fashions, considering the large margins that Apple enjoys.

Speaking of electronics, before cryptocurrency mining busts, it would make sense to charter a jet to deliver the discrete graphic cards.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I can only see two conditions where a ship with a jump > 2 would be necessary due to the cost of building and operating one with a J 3+ system:

1. Access to worlds that are J3+ distant from any neighbor.
2. For goods and information that has what amounts to a short expiration date.

Outside of that, there really just isn't a need for getting things somewhere fast. For most goods and information, the flow would be steady with a shipment arriving on a fixed, known schedule.

Information and data in particular would need to be relatively fresh, hence an X-boat system to deliver it. This system would also deliver small packages and shipments that are date critical. This is why they are J4, a compromise between the cost and small cargo load a J6 ship would have and the lower speed of delivery a J 1 or 2 ship has.

The main reason XBoats are J4 is that this is the most that would fit into the smallest hull (100Td) in LBB2 (and in '77, it fit into a standard hull at that). R.A.W. (rules as written) back then wouldn't allow it to have a maneuver drive because then it'd need an extra 24 tons of power plant and fuel, plus the 1 ton m-drive (these obviously wouldn't fit), and would lose the standard hull discount to boot. J5 needed a 200Td hull in LBB2 '77, far more than doubling the cost (and in '81, you'd probably need 400Td to do it, R.A.W.). Hmmn... maybe a Jump Drive C de-rated to Jump-5, plus 10 tons fuel? It'd fit, instead of the data banks and second stateroom. But that involves explaining the oversized jump drive, and lack of explicit data storage in the era before Moore's Law (rapidly increasing data storage density) started to kick in -- not really a viable handwave at the time.

In HG '80 an XBoat can be J5 at TL 14, costing about 27% more than the J4 version in that rule set. At TL 13 (minimum for J4) it could conceivably have had up to a 4G maneuver drive in HG -- but that wouldn't be an XBoat.

 

[kilemall]

I can only see two conditions where a ship with a jump > 2 would be necessary due to the cost of building and operating one with a J 3+ system:

1. Access to worlds that are J3+ distant from any neighbor.
2. For goods and information that has what amounts to a short expiration date.

Outside of that, there really just isn't a need for getting things somewhere fast. For most goods and information, the flow would be steady with a shipment arriving on a fixed, known schedule.

Information and data in particular would need to be relatively fresh, hence an X-boat system to deliver it. This system would also deliver small packages and shipments that are date critical. This is why they are J4, a compromise between the cost and small cargo load a J6 ship would have and the lower speed of delivery a J 1 or 2 ship has.

Good arguments,although I still maintain there are more scenarios and motivations then what you are allowing for.


However, it's important to identify which Traveller version we are working here.


Example, if we are doing CT, it is highly arguable that the RAW has Cr1000 and passage cost is the same at J-1 as J-4. If that is the case, then there has to be other motivations, fees or possibilities as to why that fee structure exists and ships operated that can service it.



And therein lies potential tales and conflicts.