I'd figure something of the sort.
If not, ISO containers don't take all that long to offload and load even at TL-7.5ish
Most Efficient Ship by TL for Cargo to X Parsecs
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If not, ISO containers don't take all that long to offload and load even at TL-7.5ish
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It doesn't matter if there is one designated Long Liner out there, it shows that your concept of Long Trader is a valid one. Going by your numbers it would be the TL15 3kt design.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Look at the design marvel that is the 400t subbie - you could be pushing cargo out the back door while the next cargo is being loaded via the front.
Passengers are transferred via the launch - you send off your passengers in your launch and the next lot of passengers arrive in their new launch.
Where TL-15 is available, of course. Part of what I'm trying to work out is the effect of available TL on cargo costs.
Thing is, in a LBB2 universe a polity's highest TL is available everywhere for maintenance, since maintenance isn't dependent on a world's TL, just the starport class. LBB5 ships may need a world with sufficient starport and TL, since the drives are not standardized. There are many places to get your Boeing 737 overhauled. There are a lot fewer that can handle an F-22.
That latter point, if valid, means that TL-15 J-1 ships might not go very far afield from their home ports since they'd lose too much time getting to and from their area of operation -- and the areas close to their home ports would have a lot of similar ships deadheading in or out for their annual overhauls, which wouldn't help profits any.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
But 1000kg is one displacement ton of cargo according to LBB2 trade rules
The trade rules says nothing about displacement. :CoW:
A mass of 1000 kg (1 ton) of luggage or shotguns is obviously not a volume of 14 m3 (1 displacement ton).
Are you arguing that each displacement ton (volume) of cargo hold can hold more than one ton (mass) of cargo? That would certainly revolutionise freight economy.
Prior art (well, contemporary art) : Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. Or any number of vehicle ferries.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
And yet a cargo 'ton' is 1000kg by mass.
You can't have it both ways.
Either a cargo (displacement) ton is mass rated as 1000kg, or it is a volume of 14 cubic metres which you can pack with 14 cubic metres of gold bars.
Proneutron
SOC-13
The rules have it two separate ways. One for cargo/freight and one for passenger luggage. The rules have volume for the former and mass for the latter. Write to Marc
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The rules as written clearly show in the trade chapter that a ton of cargo is 1000kg - that is mass not volume.
Perhaps your copy is missing this bit so here you are:
So the rules do not have it both ways as you claim, in point of fact the trade rules make no mention of volume, only mass and weight (which they confuse as to being the same but hey ho).
Perhaps your copy is missing this bit so here you are:
1 cargo ton = 1000kg which is then divided by 3.75kg to get the number of shotguns in one cargo ton.
So the rules do not have it both ways as you claim, in point of fact the trade rules make no mention of volume, only mass and weight (which they confuse as to being the same but hey ho).
To get really nitpicky, consider what happens to the cost when a steward has fewer than 8 passengers to assist -- that is, when not all (intended) high-passage staterooms have high passage passengers.
Assuming the ship's compliment of stewards is sized correctly for the expected high passenger volume, all of them except the last one will have 8 passengers to tend. The last one will have 1-8 passengers to tend; that is, an average of 4.5 with 3.5 passengers who are either not present or are not high. (If there weren't going to be any high passengers for that individual to care for, they wouldn't be needed; if there were more than 8, another steward would be hired and then they would be the last one.)
So, in theory the number of passengers per steward is ( ((number of stewards*8) -3.5) / number of stewards. ) rather than 8 per steward.
For 1 steward, this is 4.5 passengers per steward.
For 2, stewards it's 6.25 per.
For 3, it's 6.83 per.
For 4, it's 7.125
For 5, 7.2 passengers per steward (and we're talking 40 hi pax capacity here).
...
For 12, 7.71 (96 hi pax capacity)
And so on.
I'm not accounting for variations in passenger volume at each world, since that's covered by my assumption that there are the correct number of stewards.
This means larger passenger liners will have lower minimum high passage costs. They may not pass this along to the customers, though.
Proneutron
SOC-13
Hmm, okay let's stick to shipping popcycles instead of Medium or high passengers. Probably the most efficient and cost effective way to haul people betwix the stars.
I'll call my freighter the S.S. Good Humor
Corpsicles are cheaper to haul, yes.
When I get around to setting passenger fares based on the minimum cost, I'll probably add a 2Td/pax "economy" rate (double-occupancy) and a 1Td/pax "steerage" rate (basically double-occupancy small craft stateroom pax density but at starship-stateroom cost/ton for the fixtures). The latter shouldn't be used for multi-jump through-passage though -- someone's gonna go off and people are going to get hurt if you're packing them in like that for more than a week. They might flip out in less than a week, too.
Also, "economy" probably shouldn't be used for more than two through-passage jumps (same issues as with "steerage" for a single week). In other words, you can't sell a double-jump steerage ticket or a triple-jump economy ticket. If everyone disembarks and has a week to cool off, they can re-board then. Of course, the passengers themselves can book immediately for another low-rent ride in the same direction if it's available -- but that's on them, not the ship operator.
This math was basically to figure out what passenger fares should be, based on what it actually costs. The LBB2 rules are broken (not representative of the actual costs). They might be "close enough" for typical J-1 ships that PCs would be operating.
So, where was I?
Ah, yes...
Something to keep me busy this evening.
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Sorry, but life support is Cr 2000 per trip... LBB2'81 p7-8.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
The reason to carry a steward is to get two rolls for passengers, both mid and high. You'll fill your staterooms much more often that way.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
No, obviously not.
No, obviously not.
Mass exists, whether we bother with the details or not. CT spacecraft don't bother with the tiny detail of mass, but that does not mean it does not exist, just that is it simplified away.
In my game cargoes are measured in displacement tons, fitting in cargo holds measured in displacement tons. A displacement ton of cargo is presumably limited by volume and mass, just like a current cargo container, but I don't generally bother to go into that much detail, since CT ships don't bother with mass.
If we sneak a peek at MT where this is clearly resolved, cargo holds and cargoes are measured in volume, and a displacement ton of cargo is rated at a nominal 1000 kg/m3.
So, a displacement ton of cargo hold can carry a lot more than 1000 kg, but much less than 270000 kg (14 m3 of gold).
Just like a standard TEU container (33.2 m3≈2,4 Dt and 24000 kg) can hold a lot more than 2400 kg, but a lot less than 640000 kg (solid gold).
Proneutron
SOC-13
Just lie about the Steward and take the rolls. :devil:
Proneutron
SOC-13
Misread it as per month. <sigh>
Fixed in the post you quoted. .
Fortunately, I did read it correctly when doing my ship-builder spreadsheets to determine costs, so those don't need fixing.
That's the reason in the trade mini-game rules.
The reason in the ship construction rules is that you need one per eight high passengers. And that sets the cost of a High Passage passenger, once you know the cost of carrying a ton of cargo.
As I noted, it really should be slightly higher than that because there will very likely be fewer than 8 high passengers per steward.
One could either assume an average of 4.5 hi pax per steward (or as I theorized, 8 per steward, minus 3.5), or one could do a large number of iterations of the passenger-generation roll to get a reasonable statistical distribution of quantities of available high passengers for a given world. Then repeat it for many worlds. Then calculate the number of stewards needed.
I think the first method is reasonably accurate and definitely a simpler way to estimate the cost of a high passenger. It's probably only truly valid with regard to the mega-corp shipping market, rather than the passengers available to small Free Trader type ships that player characters operate (the latter may not even average 4.5 hi pax per steward).
Also there's the 1 medic per 120 pax requirement. I think that'll be a rounding error in ships that are committing nearly 500Td to staterooms. Might make a difference for double occupancy passengers, and possibly a bigger one for steerage passengers (but then again, I haven't worked out rules of engagement for them -- maybe they're on their own for medics...)
This is the cost to the ship operator, not necessarily the market price for tickets.
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Agreed.
If we look at the passenger volumes on the major trade routes calculated by GT Far Trader, we are looking at thousands of passengers per day, so worrying about not utilising the stewards fully is probably a minor problem.
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