Merchant ship Jump ratings

[Brian Smaller]

Morning all

This has been going around in my head since I woke up this morning - you can tell I have nothing better to do when I am away from home for work.

My thought - Why would you, at any tech level above TL11, build a merchant ship with anything more than Jump 2 drives? I get that there will be the odd world at 3 parsecs from somewhere, or that you have a need for a clipper type ship that gets cargo from A to B as quickly as possible - but the fuel requirements of higher jump ratings (and the associated cost in drive tonnage) so massively reduces available cargo space.

This has probably been discussed ad infinitum in the past but I am a newish newbie of sorts here.

Cheers
Brian

 

[JBRocky]

Just because there is a world that is within J2 does not mean it is the right world. While it might work for a J2 Far Trader that big Tukera liner that carries a lot of stuff will not want to make a stop at the world that is a wide spot in the road.

So if you have a cargo that goes from Terra to Aggida with J2 you have to go through Banard's Star but if you have J3 or higher you can do it in one jump. Now this does depend on which rules set you use but from someone that works in the Transportation field that my view on it.

 

[aramis]

Morning all

This has been going around in my head since I woke up this morning - you can tell I have nothing better to do when I am away from home for work.

My thought - Why would you, at any tech level above TL11, build a merchant ship with anything more than Jump 2 drives? I get that there will be the odd world at 3 parsecs from somewhere, or that you have a need for a clipper type ship that gets cargo from A to B as quickly as possible - but the fuel requirements of higher jump ratings (and the associated cost in drive tonnage) so massively reduces available cargo space.

This has probably been discussed ad infinitum in the past but I am a newish newbie of sorts here.

Cheers
Brian

Actually, it's one of the areas that hasn't been terribly beaten to a pulpy pile of horseflesh...

First: understand that your choice of ruleset is going to make a HUGE difference in what is profitable.

Second: not everything can take the extra time for the second jump.

Under CT 1E (1977-1980 printing dates) - J3 is only a hair more per parsec than J1, and both are only slightly more than J2 per parsec anyway, so speculators can run more cargo runs in a given time if the best sale point is j3 away by having a J3 ship. If you have a fuel regulator, you can even keep the J2 legs worth doing.

CT 2E, it's fiscally tighter - and harder to build a valid J3 design, too... and far less profitable - it's below break even to ship at KCr3 per trip expected profit, so the default trade flow is not happy.

CT Bk5 & 7 combined: J3 shipping is as fast as you can get, and many trade pairs under Bk 7 rules are viable J3 runs. Boring as hell, but 1J3 is twice as many runs a year as 2j2... so if you can reliably fill, it's THE way to go.

GT/GTFT - J3 is profitable under those rules. But they also pay more for longer runs.

MGT: You can only turn a profit on speculative cargoes anyway, and J3 is twice as many targets in range as J2. Make your predictions... Or fix the prices. (The method was right, the data fed in was wrong, so the table in the corebook is below operation costs.)

MT, TNE, T4: essentially the same trade as book 7... but with different shipping cost relationships. Under these, the costs for J3 per parsec are more comparable to J2 than in CT 2E... the Jump Drive doesn't require a matched PP.

T5: PP fuel is now pretty minimal. So, it's going to increase costs... but for priority or perishable cargoes it's still worthwhile. Remember: people generally are priority cargoes.

Essentially, it boils down to: can it wait two extra weeks? If it's alive and unfrozen, probably not. And, is it going to be worth it to ship it faster, at roughly 50% more cost.

Remember: shipping cost amortizes some parts over time taken (the payments and maintenane) while others are by distance (Jump Fuel)... J3 is preferable to 1J2+1J1 most of the time, because you're getting the product up to two weeks per leg faster, and also paying less of a share of the monthly expenses (1/2 a month of 25% more per month vs the hole month... that is 1/2*5/4=5/8 vs 1... but the fuel cost is the same either way, and fuel and payments are about equally big.

 

[flykiller]

Why would you, at any tech level above TL11, build a merchant ship with anything more than Jump 2 drives?

supply and demand, son, supply and demand. if it's in demand and people will pay, the ships will be built. drugs, the secret ingredient for coke or kentucky fried chicken, art, beanie babies, you name it. clipper ships are a perfect analogy - cash crop, limited timed availability, demand for instant access, bingo.

news. you'll see j6 ships for news organizations like the glisten galactic news service. "ggns - the imperium is watching!"

corporate comms. you'll see j6 ships for all the major megacorps to propagate corporate policies, pay data, and head office decisions.

legal. you'll see j6 ships for lawyers looking for big cases. you think we have ambulance chasers, just imagine an imperium with hundreds of billions of law cases just waiting.

private trillionaires with private j6 yachts. you think a man that rich is gonna tolerate spending weeks in jump space? no way, he's gonna pay to get there as soon as possible. think concorde on steroids.

 

[Brian Smaller]

All very true - I am thinking though of big freighters - 5,000 tons and up. The ones that carry bulk ore, grains, fish heads, 20,000 new air/Rafts or whatever.

 

[flykiller]

I am thinking though of big freighters - 5,000 tons and up. The ones that carry bulk ore, grains, fish heads

I ran one game, centered on leviathan, where a huge amount of naturally-grown agricultural goods moved from kydde/cyan/?/can'tRecall to glisten on a seasonal basis. it wasn't essential to the game but it provided a very significant backdrop. j6 would not have been effective there just because of the spacing of the ports but j4/5 would have been.

 

[Condottiere]

You probably have to skew the trade routes within sixteen parsecs of each planet.

 

[flykiller]

You probably have to skew the trade routes within sixteen parsecs of each planet.

"AIR CAV son! Air Mobile!" dude, it's jump. everybody just takes the cheapest route most convenient to them. think of it, not as a "route", but a weighted web.

 

[robject]

All very true - I am thinking though of big freighters - 5,000 tons and up. The ones that carry bulk ore, grains, fish heads, 20,000 new air/Rafts or whatever.

Hmmm, yes, air/rafts. Supposing we could box them up, disassembled, in 3 ton containers, say they're KCr 60 apiece resale, and jam them into a 400 ton cargo hold in a thousand-ton Oberlindes cargo freighter...

That's 133 of them, worth MCr 8, or KCr 20 per ton.

Assuming Oberlindes charges a premium to insure transport, they could get more than KCr 1 a ton for those vehicles.

But *ahem* that's a referee's ruling of course.

 

[Selandia]

Adventure Class Economic

The ACE (Adventure Class Economic, a T5 neologism of my own) is base on the statement in T5 master text, p 490

These tables reflect available levels
of goods and passengers appropriate
for Player-Characters. They do not reflect
overall economic demand.

It is absent from 5.09 but everything point to the same status in T5.09 p.486

The trade computation you are making are based on an ACE. It use terribly inefficient system intended for "frontier" Traveller, a universe of penny packet Subsidized merchant and Free trader. Nothing wrong with that of course.

The obvious solution for high volume trade were hinted at in CT.

T5 provide the detailed mecanic (I worked it also in GT) for Jump LASH (Sub hull, drop tank, quick release grapple and high speed transfer pump) Its fundamental is sumarized in:

The Three Laws of ZEN (Zumwalt, Engels, Neuart ) Shipping AG
(The contribution of Engels, the economist):
a) The jump drive is an large chunk of capital that remains iddle while in transit to and from planet.
b) Empty jump fuel tank are a waste of space that increase as increase the radius of the economic opportunity,
c) M-Drives are useless in Jump

(the contribution of Captain Zumwalt, the operation man)
a) So I use Manœuvre Tugs to push and load Lighters (barges or Pods) on a Jumper (Jump tug W/o M drive) and take the inbound load to port.
b) A self powered drop tank with replacement crews and supplies (Jump Tanker) comes along and connects to the Jumper
c) The Tanker pushes the fuel into the Jumper and "drops" away
d) Jumper Jump

Start again at the other end, optimum rotation is weekly, two set of Tanker & M-tugs and 2 jumper.

Zumwalt's corolary to Engels'law:
Engels' third law does not prohibit making sense of market segmentation or operationnal necessities, it simply means that you have to charge more..

It is conveneint to have Spaceships (Rather than barges) as Passenger Liner-Rider to speed up the delivery of sentien Cargo. Minimal M-drive on Jump-Tug may make them more flexible, dependent upon market segmentation and operationnal needs.

(contribution of Neuart, chief designer)

"I will have the designs tomorow... but then It is so simple...just be carefull of practical problems such as brackets...
lets see... Z Jump Drive, Z Power Plant no sweat fitting that, crew, PowP fuel and control into a 450 dtons Jumper, closed config, simply need the number of Brackets., lets reserve 130 dt
I can give you:
4800 dt Jump 1 with 4,200 dt of cargo, need to adjust Barges' brackets
2400 dt J-2 with 1,950 dt load
1,600 dt J-3 with 1,150 dt payload, with some spare brackets,
Good enough?
Wana J-5? ok 900dt yield 450 dt cargo, 550 when bracket arranged for a light load route

4 jumps per month

All of a sudden, the math are not fuel based but J-drive based Even the need to waste 3% on brackets on M tug, J tug and Barges + 1% of dropable fuel for pumps do not kill the math of Engel's 3 laws on long distance jumps.


have fun

Selandia

 

[wbyrd]

Considering the problems making money with a J-3 I'd see them as ships that are buit and sold to fill a specific niche in areas where a J3 drive would shorten the route significantly.

In one scenario I was running a J-2 ship which would needed to get from jewel to Regina.....family on Regina, base of operations for the ship I was running was Jewel...


the j-2 route is long an through a lot of unfriendly space...a j-3 route is shorter and safer....In the end it was worth it to buy a J-3 ship over a J-2 to replace the beat up far trader I started out with.... I had to negotiate a few contracts to carry "mail' yeah that's what it was.... between the two worlds to pay for the runs.

Now why the client was shipping mail between worlds by private courier and not a regular scheduled vessel...that's another story....one I will only tell under a strict immunity from prosecution agreement.

 

[whartung]

c) The Tanker pushes the fuel into the Jumper and "drops" away
d) Jumper Jump

Did T5 bring back the drop tank to make them useful like this? I got all yelled at when I suggested the idea of a (mostly) tankless jump ship supported by tenders. Mostly justified by "this obviously can't work since there's no evidence in canon that anyone is doing this".

 

[kilemall]

While I am not familiar with the mercantile systems past LBB2/7, I have to think that the game likely continues to not model a desirable rate fee for rapid delivery, the velocity of money part.

To wit- if I have 100 MCr of radioactives, computers, or other high end cargo being moved, if I can get it to it's destination 1-2 weeks earlier I can recoup that tied up investment/inventory/cash flow plus profit and roll it into the next batch of money making, whether covering costs or buying the next big speculation.

That is an entire week or more my 100 MCr is hanging out there in jumpspace rather then making me money on another run, or keeping cash flow costs more even to keep my factories/mines working.

This factoid of interstellar business given the Traveller tech creates an opportunity for dirty deals that the players can be facilitating or spoiling- rivals or takeover agents could interfere with shipments precisely to put cash flow sensitive target corps at risk for default and ruination or buyout.

Other situations can be a harvest time to get something moved before it spoils or is otherwise rendered valueless, the typical Amber Zone risky business, or holiday shipping, the future equivalent of the Christmas shipment rush.

Rapid turnaround for direct shipment should be more lucrative for such times, and should be built into any mercantile tables or ship design business model calcs.

 

[Selandia]

Did T5 bring back the drop tank to make them useful like this? I got all yelled at when I suggested the idea of a (mostly) tankless jump ship supported by tenders. Mostly justified by "this obviously can't work since there's no evidence in canon that anyone is doing this".

The drop tank idea date back to The Gazelle Close Escort. It was however provided with a crude rule and likely to upset the Economic of Free Trader play balance. So all kind of home rules were set-up (if you trust the talk here). Those that liked the idea made the tank reusable and easy to fit back, those that did not like it insisted that they had to be custom design, fitted in yards, (time and money).... By and large, there was no rules to play balance the advantage and that would upset the OTU.

T-5 make explicit at p. 370 the existence of jump tanks. There is no reasons to believe that drop tanks would need to be destroyed and not re-usable. If reusable hull, priced as "Real Hul" rather than plastic buble, why not fit them with engine and control as any other Riders?

In its definition of the use of transfer pump P 339 in Master Text: 1t of pump for each 100t of fuel to be instantly transfered from Drop tank provide the first design parameter.

Bracket, Grapple, Connectors and their definitions, along with sub-100 pods provide other design parameters.

Play balance is thus provided by imposing the use of costly pumps, subhulls or pods and the use of Bracket that will impose a minimum 7% penalty (3t per 100t on the carrier and 3t per 100 on the tanks + 1% for the pump)

So nothing that would destroy overnight the ACE of free traders. The use of purpose built Tanker designed to match a Jumper make the system beyond practical use of free trader. It may on the other hand explain how the Star trade system may work at 1000 cr a ton.

Have fun

Selandia

 

[mike wightman]

Law of unintended consequence yet again - this makes it possible to transfer fuel from a station or oiler.

If the cargo you are carrying is worth more than the machinery then it is a no brainer and changes the OTU - but then lots of T5 does that.

You may as well introduce jump gates...

 

[whartung]

The drop tank idea date back to The Gazelle Close Escort. It was however provided with a crude rule and likely to upset the Economic of Free Trader play balance. So all kind of home rules were set-up (if you trust the talk here). Those that liked the idea made the tank reusable and easy to fit back, those that did not like it insisted that they had to be custom design, fitted in yards, (time and money).... By and large, there was no rules to play balance the advantage and that would upset the OTU.

T-5 make explicit at p. 370 the existence of jump tanks. There is no reasons to believe that drop tanks would need to be destroyed and not re-usable. If reusable hull, priced as "Real Hul" rather than plastic buble, why not fit them with engine and control as any other Riders?

The turmoil was almost always surrounded by the lack of clarity about "when" the jump fuel is used. There was mumbling about it being used for the jump bubble and other things.

The use of the pump suggests that ALL of the fuel is used prior to jump. I like the idea of the pump, since all the amount of fuel that is consumed, and the speed at which it's consumed are quite interesting hydraulic problems.

So nothing that would destroy overnight the ACE of free traders. The use of purpose built Tanker designed to match a Jumper make the system beyond practical use of free trader. It may on the other hand explain how the Star trade system may work at 1000 cr a ton.

Yea, i would never expect this save in the most established trading firms and routes. The infrastructure may simply not be worth it for the smaller distances (J1, J2). But you can see value for for a large, "Imperium Express" J6 "Cross Galaxy" Pony Express route.

 

[wbyrd]

Yea, i would never expect this save in the most established trading firms and routes. The infrastructure may simply not be worth it for the smaller distances (J1, J2). But you can see value for for a large, "Imperium Express" J6 "Cross Galaxy" Pony Express route.

I think the most likely scenario is not the ship owners building the Jump Stations to provide fuel..but a private company building the stations and selling fuel with an added surcharge/service fee. Since the jump station would only need minimal power plant, sensors, and hardware for the fuel transfer, it would be fairly inexpensive to build and operate jump stations and in system tankers/processors.(compared to a starships)

at tech 12 you could build a jump 3 vessel to bridge those pesky 3 parsec gaps and avoid the cost effectiveness problems due to fuel requirements.

I know at least in the jewel-Regina route ( as an example) is long and risky due to the fact there are a couple of those dang gaps that force a ship to take a roundabout trip on j-2 drives. And most of the route is outside of Imperil Space.
building jump station at Nakage and Louzy would allow ships to take a shorter route without the need for jump tanks. a ship with enough internal feul for J-1 travel coud make the Jewel to Regina run in eight jumps using the station to jump fro Nakage to Jewel, or to Louzy, and back. Then use it's own internal feul to make the jumps to regina.

Building other stations at whanga and Hefry would allow a starship to make the Regina To Jewel run in 5 jumps

Regina to Hefry, Hefry to Whanga, Whanga to Louzy, Louzy to Nakage, Nakage to Jewel... Saving 3 weeks jump time, 6 weeks on a round trip.

If someone was willing to pay for a J-5 drive and a station was built on Lysen and Ruie then it's a 4 week jaunt from capital to capital. You could do it using J-3 drives but that would require a station at grant, a red coded world....

doing some quick mental calculations on reductions in cost and time,a station network could find itself in high demand by cutting the transit time almost in half fr high priority, or perishable cargoes and passengers.

now no doubt the big companies would quickly jump on the networks as a way to expand their market share. But smaller stations servicing adventure class ships...the market would still be viable enough for a company to establish its own secondary networks.

 

[Patron Zero]

No hijack intended but think a related issue needs to be addressed which may amend-resolve some matters brought up.

If it were possible to lessen the time spent in J-space, that might increase profit for merchants with time-sensitive cargoes or expedite itineraries of passengers carried on such vessels.

Yes I do understand the calculations regarding time spent in jump and how such are established, no argument there. What I bring up is that in all of the evolution of Traveller as a game, it's myriad of editions from the days of the LBBS, Jump space has remained a static-sedimentary point of contention.

Were there some alternates to the time spent in J-space, ways of either traveling greater distances or reducing the duration of jumps, such might be worthy of consideration.

My personal-IMTU house-rules define J-space as having depth like an ocean, deeper diving results in either faster travel or farther distances achieved but such done at risk.

Again, as in calmer waters offering a smoother, less-hazardous but time-consuming journey, navigating the ride-tides and deep-water currents of J-space come with potential peril for ships not equipped for said travel or not having experienced crews at the 'wheel'.

I don't see a radical reconstruction of the jump rules, more an amendment that would support standing J-travel as the 'safe route' whereas a ship has the option of running through rougher waters to gain speed-range regarding it's destination.

I see a lot of merchants might not risk their ships and cargoes to the unknown dangers of 'uncharted' seas of deeper travel through J-space, that said, those pressed to keep passenger service schedules and meet promised delivery of freight would brave such potential dangers.

 

[Selandia]

Law of unintended consequence yet again - this makes it possible to transfer fuel from a station or oiler.

If the cargo you are carrying is worth more than the machinery then it is a no brainer and changes the OTU - but then lots of T5 does that.

You may as well introduce jump gates...

Chief designer Neuart is working on that,

Jumper with a catenary array at one end of a coil
first stage of the coil is Gauss style Accelerator
second stage of coil is a a power grid
Turn the switch on... the capacitor of the jump drive release their charge when the jump slug is far enough of the gate.

Make even more sense than jump tanker, ZEN shipping has not yet introduced it on ground of cost effectiveness and various "details" to be solved by TL17 (Somehow, the literature of the Third Imperium about TL have not figured that it could happen...)

Have fun

Selandia

 

[rancke]

Actually, it's one of the areas that hasn't been terribly beaten to a pulpy pile of horseflesh...

My whip is in dire need of a cleaning.

First: understand that your choice of ruleset is going to make a HUGE difference in what is profitable.

Unfortunately.

Under CT 1E (1977-1980 printing dates) - J3 is only a hair more per parsec than J1, and both are only slightly more than J2 per parsec anyway, so speculators can run more cargo runs in a given time if the best sale point is j3 away by having a J3 ship. If you have a fuel regulator, you can even keep the J2 legs worth doing.

CT 2E, it's fiscally tighter - and harder to build a valid J3 design, too... and far less profitable - it's below break even to ship at KCr3 per trip expected profit, so the default trade flow is not happy.

CT Bk5 & 7 combined: J3 shipping is as fast as you can get, and many trade pairs under Bk 7 rules are viable J3 runs. Boring as hell, but 1J3 is twice as many runs a year as 2j2... so if you can reliably fill, it's THE way to go.

GT/GTFT - J3 is profitable under those rules. But they also pay more for longer runs.

MGT: You can only turn a profit on speculative cargoes anyway, and J3 is twice as many targets in range as J2. Make your predictions... Or fix the prices. (The method was right, the data fed in was wrong, so the table in the corebook is below operation costs.)

MT, TNE, T4: essentially the same trade as book 7... but with different shipping cost relationships. Under these, the costs for J3 per parsec are more comparable to J2 than in CT 2E... the Jump Drive doesn't require a matched PP.

T5: PP fuel is now pretty minimal. So, it's going to increase costs... but for priority or perishable cargoes it's still worthwhile. Remember: people generally are priority cargoes.

Something to keep in mind: No matter what the game rules say that free traders are allowed to charge (and there are canonical examples of people charging or asking for different amounts, so it's NOT an in-setting legal requirement but just a game artifact), what's important for regular shipping Companies is how much it pays out to operate the ship. One way or the other that's what the shipper will wind up paying (including a fair profit for the shipping line). For example, the shipper and the shipping company can be subsidiaries of the same holding company, so even if the law did restrict the ship to charge less than its operating costs, the shipper company simply pays its extra profit to the holding company which in turn use some of that to cover the ship's shortfall.


Hans