Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
In my Traveller/Cepheus Engine Universe, pretty much everything is tramp/Free Trader for interstellar commerce. There are very few dedicated commercial lines. It all depends on your universe.
Real Life Tramp Freighters
- Thread starter pzmcgwire
- Start date
This is an interesting point.
Why is something as common as a Jump Drive so expensive.
It's a 1000 year old technology that by now has been refined to be as efficient as practical. Patents long since expired. Basic of operations long documented and explored. Drives reversed engineered and duplicated.
Learning to work on one should be available at any trade school.
There should be hundreds of YouTube videos available on tearing them apart and putting them back together again.
Suitable test equipment should be available on eBay, Craigslist, Harbor Freight, and the local NAPA parts store.
Labor is labor. If it takes 1000 hours to build a jump drive, so be it. But in Traveller Bucks (i.e. Credits roughly equal 1980-ish dollars), $100/hr is probably a high number. So, that's only 100,000Cr.
Is it the exotic elements required to manufacture them? Where is the market for those materials? Where are the Belters, miners, geographers hunting the exotic Mano Crystals used to empower Jump Drives?
Simply, if there is some exotic element, there's never been much discussion about it.
It's not the hull grid material (Lanthum? Something like that?). That's a separate part of the Jump drive. Maybe it's part of the cost. But then you'd think that the drive and hull are correlated. And that's not the case, especially in Book 2 where a Q, E, D, X, Y, Z drive can fit in multiple hull sizes, but cost the same.
So, anyway, just where does the money go when making a Jump Drive?
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
On the microscale, most player groups will have access to a starship, so it's more of a question how they plan to optimally use it.
At the macro end, how many antique scoutships have been lent out to semi retired scouts, or how many polities have sponsored mercantile ventures?
So, if you have to acquire capital to purchase a starship, to utilize it for tramp steamery, and you don't have a trust fund or rich friends, who're you gonna call?
At the macro end, how many antique scoutships have been lent out to semi retired scouts, or how many polities have sponsored mercantile ventures?
So, if you have to acquire capital to purchase a starship, to utilize it for tramp steamery, and you don't have a trust fund or rich friends, who're you gonna call?
who knows how long patents exist 5000 years from now. I would not be surprised if Disney still exists and still has copyright to everything.
Pretty sure most of this is purely game mechanics: in Star Wars (not sure about the RPGs) it seems ships are cheap and can go anywhere, from the smallest fighter to those multi-kilometer long behemoths.
For Traveller there is the push/pull of the game: why else would you try something speculative or perhaps not so above board? Those ships aren't going to pay for themselves (well, technically I suppose they really do). The huge upfront cost (and the huge monthly costs - really, Cr2000/person for life support a month IIRC?) are just mechanisms to keep players needing more credits, which is sort of the experience point / level system in Traveller.
At least that's my theory, based on a lot of reading of a lot of these threads, and one I've cribbed from several others on tis forum.
In the end, this is a game, not a simulation of life 5000 years from now. As long as we have fun (and discussing costs and reasons is fun: see - even the metagaming of Traveller is a game by itself!) all is well (which also explains my wat-too-much world building when I run games: it is fun even if the players barely glance or really care. I do it for me)
Great question: Jump drives are expensive. Why?
1st principles: there is either some kind of supply constraint keeping the price from being driven down, or there is limited demand for jump drives. We doubt the later so let's assume its the former. What might that supply constraint be?
Before beginning my own speculation, let me take issue with some of your premises:
Circling back to the question - what is the supply constraint that keeps J-drive costs high (and technology transfer low) - some natural answers come to mind, and IMTU it is ALL of them.
1) Tech mfg. is labor intensive of a scarce (skilled) labor
2) Tech mfg. is capital intensive of a scarce capital goods
3) Tech mfg. requires scarce raw (or intermediate) material inputs
4) Tech mfg. or assembly yields are low
Assuming 1) and 2) are the case helps explain why technology doesn't easily transfer. Just because you have a copy of a jump drive (or other tech) doesn't mean you have what it takes to build them.
Precisely because the OTU does have a lot of belters and different "resource" levels between systems, I assume there in fact is something that makes 3) the case. IMTU I usually claim it is the quantum/string/deep sub-atomic properties of what is being mined, rather than some exotic khyber crystal (or whatever), but the exact explanation is a matter of taste.
1) 2) and 3) also help explain why a Long Night might be possible when energy is cheap, and why the 3I cares so much about trade and expansion: perhaps keeping interstellar society going is hard and is not readily sustainable without the scale and resources of multiple systems. And once a system commits to the massive investment in efficient intersteller high-tech, that system needs to trade for other goods and attract labor to make that investment pay off.
I like 4) as an extra bonus to explain why construction times are so long and starship construction is only available at A-class starports. If the actual assembly of a drive in a ship is itself a low-yield proposition, then the cost of a drive installed can be higher and require considerable time and expertise to get built. I imagine a drive gets shipped with multiple replacement components that must be configured, tested, swapped out until a working drive goes online for the ship being built.
Of course, YMMV for any/all of these possibilities.
1st principles: there is either some kind of supply constraint keeping the price from being driven down, or there is limited demand for jump drives. We doubt the later so let's assume its the former. What might that supply constraint be?
Before beginning my own speculation, let me take issue with some of your premises:
In the OTU apparently, this is NOT the case. If it was, then TL would converge across systems and you wouldn't have such diversity as we see in the 2000 year old Imperium. For some reason technology does not transfer even over the span of millennium. This should probably be part of our explanation as to why J-drives remain expensive: capacity for building them is not easily duplicated.
Well, yes and no. Why can't the amount of labor involved be substantially higher? Maybe we aren't talking about assembly labor, but instead each drive requires teams of scarce scientific and engineering talent to even get it work? Perhaps each "standard" drive, is standard in output specification only, but is in fact a minor technological miracle to build in the first place.
Circling back to the question - what is the supply constraint that keeps J-drive costs high (and technology transfer low) - some natural answers come to mind, and IMTU it is ALL of them.
1) Tech mfg. is labor intensive of a scarce (skilled) labor
2) Tech mfg. is capital intensive of a scarce capital goods
3) Tech mfg. requires scarce raw (or intermediate) material inputs
4) Tech mfg. or assembly yields are low
Assuming 1) and 2) are the case helps explain why technology doesn't easily transfer. Just because you have a copy of a jump drive (or other tech) doesn't mean you have what it takes to build them.
Precisely because the OTU does have a lot of belters and different "resource" levels between systems, I assume there in fact is something that makes 3) the case. IMTU I usually claim it is the quantum/string/deep sub-atomic properties of what is being mined, rather than some exotic khyber crystal (or whatever), but the exact explanation is a matter of taste.
1) 2) and 3) also help explain why a Long Night might be possible when energy is cheap, and why the 3I cares so much about trade and expansion: perhaps keeping interstellar society going is hard and is not readily sustainable without the scale and resources of multiple systems. And once a system commits to the massive investment in efficient intersteller high-tech, that system needs to trade for other goods and attract labor to make that investment pay off.
I like 4) as an extra bonus to explain why construction times are so long and starship construction is only available at A-class starports. If the actual assembly of a drive in a ship is itself a low-yield proposition, then the cost of a drive installed can be higher and require considerable time and expertise to get built. I imagine a drive gets shipped with multiple replacement components that must be configured, tested, swapped out until a working drive goes online for the ship being built.
Of course, YMMV for any/all of these possibilities.
BackworldTraveller
SOC-13
I'd like to see the quality control process for a Jump Drive...Build, Take to test rig, switch on, wait a week, build another one because the first one never came back.
Or do you have to have someone with it when it first runs? How much pay do you need to be that test pilot?
Or do you have to have someone with it when it first runs? How much pay do you need to be that test pilot?
And the test rig is a starship in and of itself, by definition.
Run the test Jump, recalibrate, Jump back again. Bring a few extra Jumps worth of fuel, too, in case it doesn't quite go where you'd hoped. Oh, and food, too.
Probably bring spare parts and a repair crew to fix it if anything goes wrong. This raises the cost of catastrophic failure, but increases chances of recovery if failure isn't quite catastrophic. Heck, maybe install a known-good Jump Drive too as a backup.
Once you get back, remove the drive from the hull and put it in a big shipping container.
Repeat on installation in the ship it's going into.
Run the test Jump, recalibrate, Jump back again. Bring a few extra Jumps worth of fuel, too, in case it doesn't quite go where you'd hoped. Oh, and food, too.
Probably bring spare parts and a repair crew to fix it if anything goes wrong. This raises the cost of catastrophic failure, but increases chances of recovery if failure isn't quite catastrophic. Heck, maybe install a known-good Jump Drive too as a backup.
Once you get back, remove the drive from the hull and put it in a big shipping container.
Repeat on installation in the ship it's going into.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
How much does a jet engine cost?
Quick google gives a cost of $12-35 million for civilian jet engines.
I would imagine a jump drive to be more expensive than a jet engine...
Quick google gives a cost of $12-35 million for civilian jet engines.
I would imagine a jump drive to be more expensive than a jet engine...
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Matters of pricing and "what interstellar travel is like" also get complicated because the rules found in the original Traveller Books 1-3 imply one kind of setting, the expanded Books (especially with Book 5) suggest a different kind of setting, and the Third Imperium material assumes a different setting still, which in many ways contradicts the material found in Books 1-3.
The rules and prices in Books 1-3 that suggest interstellar travel is risky, expensive, dependent on independent contractors, often limited to routes by starport type (A & B) for refined fuel, small jump drives with limited range, and probably limited in number compared to the "Starships as the Airline Industry" model conjured by later Traveller products.
By the time we get to The Traveller Book we are told "Welcome to the universe of Traveller! In the distant future, when humanity has made the leap to the stars, interstellar travel will be as common as international travel is today."
But there is nothing in the rules or text found in The Traveller Book to support such a view. They are the same mechanics found in Books 1-3, and so star travel is still risky, very expensive, with finicky hyperdrives. The notion that the rules support a travel economy comparable to international travel in 1981 is, well, weird.
One of the strange tensions about Traveller (as rules and as a setting), is the original rules promise a rough and tumble, risky setting. Travellers (the folks who travel between the stars) are a unique kind of folk, are like folks who headed off to sea without certainty they'd be coming back. Meanwhile, some Third Imperium makes makes it sound like getting onto a starship is like hopping onto business class for quick vacation or business trip.
These two elements run counter to each other and, as far as I can tell, never squared.
Are jump drives "common"? That really depends on the type of universe one is imagining. Are jump drives easy to use and depend on? Again, different assumptions (and game mechanics) lead to different assumptions on that point. A lot of this comes down to what kind of setting one wants, and what rules one wants to stick with or re-write to make things square.
The rules and prices in Books 1-3 that suggest interstellar travel is risky, expensive, dependent on independent contractors, often limited to routes by starport type (A & B) for refined fuel, small jump drives with limited range, and probably limited in number compared to the "Starships as the Airline Industry" model conjured by later Traveller products.
- For "risky" see Book 2, with its list of dangers ranging from hijacking, piracy, and misjumsp. The jump drives, in particular, seem especially finicky, and make travel using them more more like getting on board a three masted ship to cross the Atlantic rather than getting on an airline with several decades of zero-tolerance engineering.
- For "expensive" compare the ticket prices to conclusions that can be drawn from the prices for Ordinary and High food and lodging. A trip of several jumps is going to cost most people several years of income. To travel the stars for most people is a huge investment and risk. Starships themselves are incredibly expensive, and thus most likely rare.
- For "limited" notice that technology across worlds ranges wildly, and averaged (per Book 3) well below the technology of an interstellar civilization. This suggest a very limited transfer of ideas and tech. This makes sense if travel is limited, and limited to one space port per world.
- For "finicky" note that Engineers are required on starships while traveling (not only for maintenance between trips), or the risk of drive failures. Despite a thousand years of use, it seems to be the technology implied by the rules isn't up to FAA standards, let alone the early decades of NASA.
By the time we get to The Traveller Book we are told "Welcome to the universe of Traveller! In the distant future, when humanity has made the leap to the stars, interstellar travel will be as common as international travel is today."
But there is nothing in the rules or text found in The Traveller Book to support such a view. They are the same mechanics found in Books 1-3, and so star travel is still risky, very expensive, with finicky hyperdrives. The notion that the rules support a travel economy comparable to international travel in 1981 is, well, weird.
One of the strange tensions about Traveller (as rules and as a setting), is the original rules promise a rough and tumble, risky setting. Travellers (the folks who travel between the stars) are a unique kind of folk, are like folks who headed off to sea without certainty they'd be coming back. Meanwhile, some Third Imperium makes makes it sound like getting onto a starship is like hopping onto business class for quick vacation or business trip.
These two elements run counter to each other and, as far as I can tell, never squared.
Are jump drives "common"? That really depends on the type of universe one is imagining. Are jump drives easy to use and depend on? Again, different assumptions (and game mechanics) lead to different assumptions on that point. A lot of this comes down to what kind of setting one wants, and what rules one wants to stick with or re-write to make things square.
Last edited:
Modern jet engines are not 1000 year old technology and part of the price is the recovery of capital invested in research, development, and tooling. Modern jet engines are still on the cusp of technological development.
A Honda Jet has 2 jet engines, and it's only $4.5M.
The Lear 85 is only $20.5M
In Credits (i.e. similar to 1980's dollars), a $100/hr in labor is a very high number. Nonetheless, 1000 hours is only $100,000. 10,000 man hours is $1M dollars.
Boeing made 800+ planes last year. If it takes 10,000 man hours to make an engine, and there are 2 on each plane, at even $200 per hour, that's 20,000 man hours per plane, at $4M, times 800 planes, that's 8000 people solely making jet engines.
Now, Boeing is a large company. 160k+ workers. They can very well have 8000 folks making parts and assembling jet engines (especially if you consider sub contractors).
But that's still only $2M in labor per engine.
And it very well may, but it's hard to imagine 5 man years of labor invested in a single engine in todays day and age of parts production and assembly. Maybe theres 1000 hours of testing on top of that per motor, but even that seems high in a world of advanced diagnostics, computer modeling, and interchangeable parts.
I'll just be cynical and think that the commercial jet engine market (being as there's pretty much only 2 vendors on the planet) has higher margins than other enterprises (even with, perhaps, govt subsidies).
@whartung +1
with one exception: while there are (effectively) only 2 jet manufacturers but there are 3 jet engine manufacturers. Nothing cynical about being skeptical of pricing in the presence of mon- or oligopoly, but in the presence of oligopsony it's not easy to predict ex ante wether rents will flow to the buyer or seller.
with one exception: while there are (effectively) only 2 jet manufacturers but there are 3 jet engine manufacturers. Nothing cynical about being skeptical of pricing in the presence of mon- or oligopoly, but in the presence of oligopsony it's not easy to predict ex ante wether rents will flow to the buyer or seller.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Origins and Popularity of the TFE731
The TFE731-1 engine design was supposed to power the 1971 seven-place Swearingen SA-28T Delta-Wing Business Jet (cancelled after Fairchild purchased Swearingen), and came as a ‘spin-off’ from the AiResearch ‘two spool’ TSCP700 Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) installed on the MD DC10 airliner.
The Low-Pressure Compressor from the GTCP660 APU used in the B747 replaced the smaller disc from the TSCP700, which initially resulted in a thrust output of 2,710lbs by the TFE731-1.
The 3,500lbs thrust TFE731-2-2B engine is the most prolific model available on the used engine marketplace today. Almost 300 units have come available over time, since the Learjet 35/35A/36/36A series began getting parted-out.
Honeywell TFE731-5 Jet Engine
Life Limited Components and Example Values
There are various ‘Life Limited’ components found inside a TFE731-2-2B engine, and following we have set these out with their approximate values.
Fan Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus Full-Life Value (FLV) = ~$12,500
High Pressure Compressor Impeller (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$15,000
Stage 1 Low Pressure Compressor Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$12,500
Stage 2 Low Pressure Compressor Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$12,500
Stage 3 Low Pressure Compressor Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$12,500
Stage 4 Low Pressure Compressor Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$12,500
High Pressure Turbine Disc (5,200 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$6,500
Stage 1 Low Pressure Turbine Disc (4,400 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$5,500
Stage 2 Low Pressure Turbine Disc (4,500 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$5,700
Stage 3 Low Pressure Turbine Disc (9,500 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$11,900
- Combined FLV of all Discs = ~$107,100
Engine component parts prices used to be stable with little variance; they conformed to the OEMs price list, which used to be available to all. Today, with so many engines that are now sitting in warehouses as removed or dismantled, prices are wildly variable which makes appraising engines extremely difficult.
It used to be as simple as ascertaining the List Price of each component and then determining the individual Disk/Shaft Component Values (i.e. List Price) divided by Cycle Life, to equal the Component Full Life Value per Cycle. That would be multiplied by Cycles Remaining, and the result would provide the Component Value.
The Dilemma Today…
In a recent interview, Jason Hedtke, General Manager for Marklyn Jet Spares spoke with me on engine component values and their availability, and his insight for engine appraisers is rather bleak. “There are no listed prices, you have to hunt them down yourself,” he said.
“There is even less sophistication when it comes to the actual parts pricing within the engines,” he continued.
“You literally have to either have the knowledge because you live in that marketplace [and] you have recently purchased or sold those parts, or [you have] recently purchased or sold that engine...The issue with tearing an engine down further from a core into parts is that there are no Honeywell Authorized shops that will put their tag on those parts, which means you don’t have a market to sell them (or highly limited).
“If the engine core was not properly preserved then none of the accessories will be viable unless they go through a further inspection or overhaul. As an example, if you had a Falcon 50 TFE731-3-1C engine that was not properly preserved, the Fuel Control Unit now needs to be overhauled/exchanged at a cost of $40k-$60k depending on what can be found and availability.
“The entire market is quite fluid - just because you understand the price today does not mean you will understand it tomorrow."
“The funniest misnomer in the market is that everyone thinks there are stacks and stacks of 731-2, 731-3 and 731-5 engines out there, but if you actually go looking for one it is very hard to find one that is properly pedigreed and has time remaining,” Hedtke concluded.
Hedtke’s point should highlight today’s dilemma facing aircraft appraisers tasked with providing a ‘part out’, or ‘salvage value’. But there’s worse to come. Let’s explore the issue of ‘proper storage’ for these surplus engines…
Probably applies to used jump drive components as well.
Top end turbines tend to have twenty four hour monitoring, at least Rolls Royce ones do.
I picked this example, since it's highly popular with the low cost operating crowd.
The TFE731-1 engine design was supposed to power the 1971 seven-place Swearingen SA-28T Delta-Wing Business Jet (cancelled after Fairchild purchased Swearingen), and came as a ‘spin-off’ from the AiResearch ‘two spool’ TSCP700 Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) installed on the MD DC10 airliner.
The Low-Pressure Compressor from the GTCP660 APU used in the B747 replaced the smaller disc from the TSCP700, which initially resulted in a thrust output of 2,710lbs by the TFE731-1.
The 3,500lbs thrust TFE731-2-2B engine is the most prolific model available on the used engine marketplace today. Almost 300 units have come available over time, since the Learjet 35/35A/36/36A series began getting parted-out.
Honeywell TFE731-5 Jet Engine
Life Limited Components and Example Values
There are various ‘Life Limited’ components found inside a TFE731-2-2B engine, and following we have set these out with their approximate values.
Fan Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus Full-Life Value (FLV) = ~$12,500
High Pressure Compressor Impeller (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$15,000
Stage 1 Low Pressure Compressor Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$12,500
Stage 2 Low Pressure Compressor Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$12,500
Stage 3 Low Pressure Compressor Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$12,500
Stage 4 Low Pressure Compressor Disc (10,000 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$12,500
High Pressure Turbine Disc (5,200 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$6,500
Stage 1 Low Pressure Turbine Disc (4,400 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$5,500
Stage 2 Low Pressure Turbine Disc (4,500 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$5,700
Stage 3 Low Pressure Turbine Disc (9,500 cycle-life) minus FLV = ~$11,900
- Combined FLV of all Discs = ~$107,100
Engine component parts prices used to be stable with little variance; they conformed to the OEMs price list, which used to be available to all. Today, with so many engines that are now sitting in warehouses as removed or dismantled, prices are wildly variable which makes appraising engines extremely difficult.
It used to be as simple as ascertaining the List Price of each component and then determining the individual Disk/Shaft Component Values (i.e. List Price) divided by Cycle Life, to equal the Component Full Life Value per Cycle. That would be multiplied by Cycles Remaining, and the result would provide the Component Value.
The Dilemma Today…
In a recent interview, Jason Hedtke, General Manager for Marklyn Jet Spares spoke with me on engine component values and their availability, and his insight for engine appraisers is rather bleak. “There are no listed prices, you have to hunt them down yourself,” he said.
“There is even less sophistication when it comes to the actual parts pricing within the engines,” he continued.
“You literally have to either have the knowledge because you live in that marketplace [and] you have recently purchased or sold those parts, or [you have] recently purchased or sold that engine...The issue with tearing an engine down further from a core into parts is that there are no Honeywell Authorized shops that will put their tag on those parts, which means you don’t have a market to sell them (or highly limited).
“If the engine core was not properly preserved then none of the accessories will be viable unless they go through a further inspection or overhaul. As an example, if you had a Falcon 50 TFE731-3-1C engine that was not properly preserved, the Fuel Control Unit now needs to be overhauled/exchanged at a cost of $40k-$60k depending on what can be found and availability.
“The entire market is quite fluid - just because you understand the price today does not mean you will understand it tomorrow."
“The funniest misnomer in the market is that everyone thinks there are stacks and stacks of 731-2, 731-3 and 731-5 engines out there, but if you actually go looking for one it is very hard to find one that is properly pedigreed and has time remaining,” Hedtke concluded.
Hedtke’s point should highlight today’s dilemma facing aircraft appraisers tasked with providing a ‘part out’, or ‘salvage value’. But there’s worse to come. Let’s explore the issue of ‘proper storage’ for these surplus engines…
Probably applies to used jump drive components as well.
Top end turbines tend to have twenty four hour monitoring, at least Rolls Royce ones do.
I picked this example, since it's highly popular with the low cost operating crowd.
Keep in mind that CT Cr1 is roughly 1977 US$1, not a modern one; Mongoose seems to have pegged at £3 per Cr1. Both lead to 2019US$5≅Cr1 So that $15M is more like MCr5.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
If I knew the internal engineering of a jump drive I could probably take a stab at explaining why they are so expensive even though they have been around for thousands of years.
What we know from CT canon:
a jump drive can contain the energy from what is effectively a thermonuclear bomb and convert it to opening a portal to the jump dimensions
a lanthanum coil is used in there somewhere
zuchai crystals are part of the focussing apparatus
you need to be TL9 to build it in the first place
experiments with artificial gravity lead to the Terran breakthrough
So we need advanced alloys, perfect crystals and various subassemblies, things that are expensive to make until you are in a post scarcity society (which the TL12+ cultures of the OTU would be if their economies were not being manipulated by an empire that wants to maintain its slice of the pie - gravitics, makers, fusion/fusion+ and the resources of whole systems generating wealth for the megacorporation shareholders and the nobility)
What we know from CT canon:
a jump drive can contain the energy from what is effectively a thermonuclear bomb and convert it to opening a portal to the jump dimensions
a lanthanum coil is used in there somewhere
zuchai crystals are part of the focussing apparatus
you need to be TL9 to build it in the first place
experiments with artificial gravity lead to the Terran breakthrough
So we need advanced alloys, perfect crystals and various subassemblies, things that are expensive to make until you are in a post scarcity society (which the TL12+ cultures of the OTU would be if their economies were not being manipulated by an empire that wants to maintain its slice of the pie - gravitics, makers, fusion/fusion+ and the resources of whole systems generating wealth for the megacorporation shareholders and the nobility)
Last edited:
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
One factored one budgeted increased size jump drive, constructed at technological level nine rated at two hundred parsec tonnes; totaling ten point five five tonnes costing 9.675 megabux [note seven].
five tonne increased size overhead costing 843.75 kilobux requiring one power point per ten parsec tonnes, five tonne increased size core costing 843.75 kilobux, five hundred fifty kilogrammes increased size capacitors costing 1.2375 megabux; totaling ten point five five tonnes costing 9.675 megabux.
High Guard, Mongoosed too, slightly extrapolated
five tonne increased size overhead costing 843.75 kilobux requiring one power point per ten parsec tonnes, five tonne increased size core costing 843.75 kilobux, five hundred fifty kilogrammes increased size capacitors costing 1.2375 megabux; totaling ten point five five tonnes costing 9.675 megabux.
High Guard, Mongoosed too, slightly extrapolated
If the empire has it's thumb on the scales, then sure, anything goes.
In that case you have a rigged market that can not be easily entered.
No doubt the barrier to entry to creating a new Jump Drive Factory is going to be a leap to get off the ground. If that barrier is simply base corruption (i.e. "regulatory"), them skies the limit.
But if not, then there's all sorts of room for optimization and efficiency to drive costs down. Every TL12 world will be shipping their crated drives to the lower TL worlds because they can make them cheaper than they can.
I know that while "everyone" complains about standards, certifications, permits, inspections, taxes etc. and the costs involved, for many cases, especially industrial, those costs are not a significant portion of the costs of the unit.
Ideally, a 10MCr Jump Drive is not 9MCr in fees.
And if it WAS 9MCr in fees, well, the J-Drive Black Market is two systems over that-a-way. I hope you can read Vargr.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
I'm always confused that people think that this should be like building a Volvo.
The Traveller rules have one core SF conceit -- the jump drive. If we brought in 10 SF writers worth their salt and gave them a month, they would produce 10,000 compelling means of making this conceit interesting within an SF setting. And by interesting, I mean full of color, complication, and details, and perhaps even a mystery that is never solved.
The rules never explain how Jump Drives work, and I always assumed it was left to the Referee to tease out how he or she wanted this core conceit to work for his or her setting. And given that Drive are expensive, each person's conceit should be unique and compelling, since clearly they aren't easy, cheap, and scalable off an assembly line. (And if an interstellar empire putting their thumbs on the scales to hold wealth and power is the explanation, then so be it.)
Jump Drive technology is weird in one way or another. ("opening a portal to the jump dimensions.") In my view that weirdness should be celebrated.
I understand that view is the minority view on these boards.
Last edited:
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I agree with you completely.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
I appreciate that!