Well, let's say I severely paraphrased it.
Isn't it true that shipping prices are the very
foundation of interstellar trade?
No, it's not.
The
costs of shipping are, but the
prices are not. (In econ, the two words are not synonyms. Costs are what you pay; prices are what you charge. Your prices are someone else's costs.)
It doesn't matter how much you want to charge me for passage whether or not you can make money by buying and selling goods.
What matters for that is cost of shipping and the median income. If the median income is below the costs of shipping, then you don't make any money.
The median DM on trades results in a 5% difference per +1, and a 5% difference just by incidental function of table formatting vs 3d6. Given that there are almost always lots valued at KCr10 available, ranging from 10-60 tons, with a broker 1, one can expect to exceed the Cr650-ish median & average cost per ton on that lot. Now, the ability to fill a larger vessel might require multiple suppliers... and that's doable, too.
Note that, unlike CT Bk2 or T20, having a trade code guarantees a lot of relevant materials is available, and most of those have bonuses of +2, and many have base values over KCr10. Moreover, a merchant ship will likely have a Broker 1 or better. That means a +3 average on purchase (for a median of 90% base to buy) and if one has a +1 on sale, and isn't buying stuff with penalties for the destination world, one can expect to sell about 110% of base, for a nice profit of 20% of base. Also, since you can add a stat mod, 9-11 Soc or Int adds another 10% differential.
So what's the median? for a ship with a competent Broker (Int 9-B, Broker 1), Cr200 per KCr of base value. For a super broker (Int F, Broker 4), his DM+7 means a whopping 70%, or Cr700 per KCr base value, and even given the 1:46656 3,3 pair, no losses.
Here's the rub: as with real speculation, it's the Law of Averages and the theory of Reduced Risk over Many Trials that makes the above work. Any given transaction might go south, but, in general, in the long term, it will work out to those numbers. Individual merchants, however, might not be able to survive the temporary downturn.
It's not a detailed simulation of markets; it's a workable simulation of the choices present for a merchantman in the size ranges available.
Also note that the CRB lacks a prediction skill for the 1st die. Predicting 2 dice was way too powerful; predicting 1 is reasonable but a good bit weaker than in CT. Still, knowing a die or two before committing is one element I hope shows in MGT-MP.
