Merchant Prince trading

[skyth]

One thing that never set right with me in the Merchant Prince trading system is the lack of raw materials...Anything you get is effected by Tech Level. I would think that the high tech industrial worlds would be craving raw materials (easily gotten from low tech worlds), but it's useless to send buy stuff at a low tech world to sell at a high tech world.

The other trading system (from the main book) isn't any better really at making sense...A whole world/starport and all you can find is one thing?


I've toyed with the idea of being able to buy items that are not affected by tech level when selling. (But still are when buying - Raw material would be more expensive due to higher demand on high tech worlds).

Anyone have any ideas/feedback/are annoyed at the actual trading system?

 

[far-trader]

I disliked the Merchant Prince approach. Why should some nobody transient free-trader have any connections to a world to allow them to plug into the local markets equal or better than the natives? The whole wide array and volume of speculative goods and allowing Broker skill made an already iffy trade system worse.

I thought MP did have raw materials but then I've not looked at it in ages for several reasons. And merchants are my favorite character

I was sorely disappointed after the treatment the other careers got with their advanced gen books.

...

The other trading system (from the main book) isn't any better really at making sense...A whole world/starport and all you can find is one thing?

No, it's a whole world, and JUST one week of spare time to hunt down someone who can't ship their own speculative find to make a killing and is willing to sell it cheap just to make something and be rid of it. That's what the tramp traders find. And IF they're lucky it is something they can actually make some creds on. You'd be lucky if you can find one thing

Face it, if they could come up with the measely Cr1000 per ton to ship it offworld they'd make a lot more on it, just like you hope to do. The only way you'll find a speculative cargo is when the local speculators are having a hard time shipping off world.

Anyone have any ideas/feedback/are annoyed at the actual trading system?

There are some neat trade cards in the file library here on CotI that you might find interesting.

Trade Cards

 

[samuelvss]

No, it's a whole world, and JUST one week of spare time to hunt down someone who can't ship their own speculative find to make a killing and is willing to sell it cheap just to make something and be rid of it.

That's the best deal. It may be horrible. In my experience, one trade in 5 will make you twice the 5, if you have the flexibility to go to the better market.

 

[Gadrin]

I would think that the high tech industrial worlds would be craving raw materials (easily gotten from low tech worlds), but it's useless to send buy stuff at a low tech world to sell at a high tech world.

Give it a reality check.

I have several Adventure Scenarios that revolve around the low-tech to high-tech funneling of raw materials:

1. Resource Plunderers -- they do an orbital assessment of a world then go down to the surface and do another. I use 728-907 in the Vilis Subsector for this, where they get tons of lumber free, and sell it any market that will buy it. "Trees Company" is the name of the scenario, where a company doing research discovers several square miles of flattened forest (cut down by TDX) and a "Loggerheads" (from JTAS) type of mobile base hidden in the wilds.

2. Using District 268 (but will also work in Reaver's Deep) I have LSP doing a market analysis and finding that the Uranium market's supply in D-268 has jumped but it's not being brought in by regular "players" in the biz. They assign people to find out where the extra tonnage is coming from (a researcher who hires the PCs) and they track the incoming to Arkesh Spacers who have used a "hostile takeover" to grab the supply away from free-traders and make millions of credits taking ore from Flexos to market in Mertactor (the best prices). LSP is the only player big enough to be able to do this type of research, since they're B-I-G in mining, so they're the only ones who know about it.

I think the Milieu Zero book also touches on your topic in one form or another. In fact that's the whole point of the teachings at the Zhunastu Merchant Academy, find a place that can supply you with a significant amount of SOMETHING cheaply and make a killing off it, locking them into you on the way. It usually involves smaller, high-ticket (price) cargo, but whatever works -- works -- right ?

>

 

[Imperial Planetologist]

. . . JUST one week of spare time to hunt down someone who can't ship their own speculative find to make a killing and is willing to sell it cheap just to make something and be rid of it. That's what the tramp traders find. And IF they're lucky it is something they can actually make some creds on. You'd be lucky if you can find one thing

The rules for speculating without a starship in JTAS allow you to make three rolls for speculative cargo each week, not one. A ship's captain is a busy sophont; a factor can take the time to work the market.

Designate your best trader to stay on an In world, buy and warehouse cargo until the ship returns to carry its next load to nearby Ag and Ni worlds. If your ship follows a four-jump trade route (In to three Ag and/or Ni worlds), that's seven weeks; the factor may have as many as twenty-one lots of speculative cargo ready to go when the ship return. All you need is the capital for the factor to purchase cargo.

That's how you become a merchant prince.

 

[far-trader]

Still catching up on my rereading of all the JTAS goodness

The rules for speculating without a starship in JTAS allow...

That's how you become a merchant prince.

I can get on board with that type of set up, totally! Thanks for the summation and hint at forgotten treasures I've yet to rediscover

 

[Imperial Planetologist]

Still catching up on my rereading of all the JTAS goodness

The articles "Speculation without a Starship" (JTAS 5-34) and "High Finance" (JTAS 13-44) are particularly useful; the latter describes how to raise the capital your factor will need to purchase all those cargos while the rest of the crew is off a-merchanting.