Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Something that I was thinking about today while contemplating the turnaround time tempo for routine operations across jump distances was the how speculative cargo slows everything down.
Re-reading LBB2.81 more closely than I usually do, I noticed that it's basically a case of first checking ALL cargo already at the starport awaiting starships to transport it to various destinations ... the only limiting factor is a ship's jump capacity for what destinations are considered "in range" for specific ships.
Once a ship captain decides on a destination (so cargo can begin loading), passengers going to that destination begin to present themselves.
LBB2.81 plays very fast and loose with all of this with regards to transporting "other people's cargo for a fee" and passenger services. There isn't anything at all in LBB2.81 regarding the timing of how quickly cargo already at the starport waiting to be loaded takes to get onboard, how quickly passengers present themselves ... none of that has any time frames.
The closest you get to a time frame is the Speculative Cargo section at the end of LBB2.81 ... but even then the only thing you're told is that there is one roll for speculative cargoes per week.
LBB7 p42 adds that merchants are allowed 4 days to deliver goods to a waiting starship, and that this can be accelerated by 1 day at a 10% premium cost for advance delivery. But LBB7 made such a hash of its trade rules (normalizing everything into unwanted bland) that it's just hard to back port that into LBB2.81. Just about the only way it makes sense is for speculative cargoes to require 4 days to arrive after purchase by a captain ... but that's a speculative cargo ONLY kind of deal.
TTB doesn't add any useful text beyond what LBB2.81 had to say about cargo and passenger transport, nor with respect to the timing of speculative cargo.
So ... what I'm thinking here is that we may have the operational tempo of starship merchant operations "Wrong" as a matter of understanding the routine.
Think of airline planes at airports.
The planes don't fly in, unload their passengers/baggage/cargo and then spend the next several days sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off.
The name of the game for airline service is that planes which aren't in the air aren't earning money.
Planes that are sitting on the ground are COSTING money (maintenance, parts and spares, salaries, etc.).
The same economic principle(s) ought to apply to starships ... they just fly longer distances (and take longer than a few hours to do so).
So here's my current thinking on how CT market simulation of cargo and passengers ought to be handled.
First, there's the matter of speculative cargo.
Second, there's the consideration for refueling and drive maintenance.
So if a Ship's Admin declines to buy the speculative cargo on the market, once the starship is refueled and drive maintenance is completed it can announce its destination and begin loading cargo and taking on passengers bound for that destination. Assume this takes another day to complete.
If a Ship's Admin decides to buy the speculative cargo on the market, once the starship is refueled and drive maintenance is completed it will usually take another 2-4 days (depending on variables) before the speculative cargo arrives, so crew can take a couple days of local R&R before needing to report back to the ship for departure. During this time, the starship's destination can be announced so that cargo and passengers (and speculative cargo) can all be loaded in preparation for departure.
Point being that without a speculative cargo, turnaround time can be as little as 36-48 hours (1.5-2 days) in port, even with a wilderness refueling ... but with a speculative cargo deal in play, that time in port can expand to 96-144 hours (4-6 days) quite easily.
Once everything is loaded with everyone onboard, the starship departs the starport.
The point I'm getting at here is that operational tempo WITHOUT speculative cargo is probably a 2-4 days FASTER turnaround time between jumps than an operational tempo WITH speculative cargo involved.
To put that into perspective:
In our (admittedly crude) modeling of starship economics, we're always assuming that tramp merchants jump "once every 2 weeks" ... and that is true if they're dealing in speculative cargoes (where the REAL MONEY is to be found!) ... but a tramp merchant that buys EVERY speculative cargo on offer, regardless of price to buy, is going to wing up bankrupt in far too many circumstances for comfort.
Likewise, a passenger liner that NEVER speculates on cargoes ought to be operating at a far faster tempo closer to 35 jumps per year, rather than the 25 jumps per year of the PURE speculative tramp freighter. That kind of operational tempo "advantage" to never speculating on cargoes ought to be factored into our calculus of just how profitable passenger services are relative to cargo transport services.
In other words, speculative cargo needs to be worth Cr1400+ per ton after arbitrage of buy low/sell high in order to "break even" relative to the revenue value of just shipping somebody else's cargo for a fee due to the delay in operational tempo that engaging in speculation ought to bring.
In other words, pure passenger liners ought to be more profitable over time (by jumping more often) than we've been giving them credit for if they aren't engaging any any cargo speculation at all relative to tramps that are speculating every time, everywhere they go.
Re-reading LBB2.81 more closely than I usually do, I noticed that it's basically a case of first checking ALL cargo already at the starport awaiting starships to transport it to various destinations ... the only limiting factor is a ship's jump capacity for what destinations are considered "in range" for specific ships.
Once a ship captain decides on a destination (so cargo can begin loading), passengers going to that destination begin to present themselves.
LBB2.81 plays very fast and loose with all of this with regards to transporting "other people's cargo for a fee" and passenger services. There isn't anything at all in LBB2.81 regarding the timing of how quickly cargo already at the starport waiting to be loaded takes to get onboard, how quickly passengers present themselves ... none of that has any time frames.
The closest you get to a time frame is the Speculative Cargo section at the end of LBB2.81 ... but even then the only thing you're told is that there is one roll for speculative cargoes per week.
LBB7 p42 adds that merchants are allowed 4 days to deliver goods to a waiting starship, and that this can be accelerated by 1 day at a 10% premium cost for advance delivery. But LBB7 made such a hash of its trade rules (normalizing everything into unwanted bland) that it's just hard to back port that into LBB2.81. Just about the only way it makes sense is for speculative cargoes to require 4 days to arrive after purchase by a captain ... but that's a speculative cargo ONLY kind of deal.
TTB doesn't add any useful text beyond what LBB2.81 had to say about cargo and passenger transport, nor with respect to the timing of speculative cargo.
So ... what I'm thinking here is that we may have the operational tempo of starship merchant operations "Wrong" as a matter of understanding the routine.
Think of airline planes at airports.
The planes don't fly in, unload their passengers/baggage/cargo and then spend the next several days sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off.
The name of the game for airline service is that planes which aren't in the air aren't earning money.
Planes that are sitting on the ground are COSTING money (maintenance, parts and spares, salaries, etc.).
The same economic principle(s) ought to apply to starships ... they just fly longer distances (and take longer than a few hours to do so).
So here's my current thinking on how CT market simulation of cargo and passengers ought to be handled.
- Jump (150-175 hours)
- Breakout at Jump Point
- Maneuver (time varies) to starport (highport or downport)
- Craft Encounters (if any)
- Berth starship at starport
- Unload cargo and passengers (time varies)
- Ship's Admin begins checking cargo lists for all destinations from world
- Roll for speculative cargo, determine asking price to buy (this would NOT be a hidden value)
First, there's the matter of speculative cargo.
If the speculative cargo on offer is being sold at a price point the Ship's Admin declines to buy at (this price should NOT be a secret before committing to buy!), then the starship doesn't need to "keep waiting longer" to prepare for departure after refueling.
However, if the Ship's Admin decides to go ahead and buy the speculative cargo on offer, it's going to take another 4 days for that speculative cargo to be delivered to the starport (LBB7 p42).
A decision on whether to buy/decline a price on a speculative cargo lot ought to be something that can be done within a couple of hours after arriving at the starport (or even before arrival if communications while inbound are not a security risk).
Second, there's the consideration for refueling and drive maintenance.
A starship can either buy fuel (refined or unrefined) from a starport (Cr500 or Cr100 per ton) ... OR ... the starship can depart its berth (temporarily) for a wilderness refueling.
If there's a water ocean on the world, scooping water fuel could take up to an hour for a suborbital "hop" to the ocean and an hour or few to fill the fuel tanks with unrefined fuel (depending on quantity, of course). Fuel purification of water requires 10 minutes per ton, so 60 tons of water takes 10 hours to refine/purify (and that refining is probably best done while on the ocean).
If the nearest unrefined fuel is a gas giant (local orbit or other planetary orbit in the system) then it could take 6+ hours just to transit to the gas giant for an orbital skimming run. Fuel skimmed from a gas giant takes only 1 minute per ton to purify, so for large enough quantities of fuel it can sometimes take less time to make a long transit and a quick purification cycle run via gas giant rather than make a short transit and a long purification cycle run via a water ocean for a wilderness refueling run.
The starship also, ostensibly ought to spend 16 hours on routine drive maintenance after jump (LBB5.80 p17). I figure this will usually be undertaken while the starship is berthed at the starport with the drives powered down (where it is safe to do so). That way, the drive routine drive checks can be made while the drives are not operating under load.
Point being that under most nominal circumstances, a starship will usually "take a day" (or more) after unloading before it is ready to begin loading fresh cargo and passengers.
So if a Ship's Admin declines to buy the speculative cargo on the market, once the starship is refueled and drive maintenance is completed it can announce its destination and begin loading cargo and taking on passengers bound for that destination. Assume this takes another day to complete.
If a Ship's Admin decides to buy the speculative cargo on the market, once the starship is refueled and drive maintenance is completed it will usually take another 2-4 days (depending on variables) before the speculative cargo arrives, so crew can take a couple days of local R&R before needing to report back to the ship for departure. During this time, the starship's destination can be announced so that cargo and passengers (and speculative cargo) can all be loaded in preparation for departure.
Point being that without a speculative cargo, turnaround time can be as little as 36-48 hours (1.5-2 days) in port, even with a wilderness refueling ... but with a speculative cargo deal in play, that time in port can expand to 96-144 hours (4-6 days) quite easily.
Once everything is loaded with everyone onboard, the starship departs the starport.
- Maneuver to Jump Point (time varies)
- Craft Encounters (if any)
- Prepare to Jump
The point I'm getting at here is that operational tempo WITHOUT speculative cargo is probably a 2-4 days FASTER turnaround time between jumps than an operational tempo WITH speculative cargo involved.
To put that into perspective:
- Speculative Cargo NAY: 9-10 day turnaround
- Speculative Cargo AYE: 12-14 day turnaround
- 350 operational days per year / ~10 day turnaround = up to 35 jumps per year
- 350 operational days per year / ~14 day turnaround = up to 25 jumps per year
In our (admittedly crude) modeling of starship economics, we're always assuming that tramp merchants jump "once every 2 weeks" ... and that is true if they're dealing in speculative cargoes (where the REAL MONEY is to be found!) ... but a tramp merchant that buys EVERY speculative cargo on offer, regardless of price to buy, is going to wing up bankrupt in far too many circumstances for comfort.
Likewise, a passenger liner that NEVER speculates on cargoes ought to be operating at a far faster tempo closer to 35 jumps per year, rather than the 25 jumps per year of the PURE speculative tramp freighter. That kind of operational tempo "advantage" to never speculating on cargoes ought to be factored into our calculus of just how profitable passenger services are relative to cargo transport services.
In other words, speculative cargo needs to be worth Cr1400+ per ton after arbitrage of buy low/sell high in order to "break even" relative to the revenue value of just shipping somebody else's cargo for a fee due to the delay in operational tempo that engaging in speculation ought to bring.
In other words, pure passenger liners ought to be more profitable over time (by jumping more often) than we've been giving them credit for if they aren't engaging any any cargo speculation at all relative to tramps that are speculating every time, everywhere they go.
