Real Life Tramp Freighters

[Grav_Moped]

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.

Except that in CT, you can't build them any cheaper at a higher TL. LBB2 lets you build bigger ones at higher TL, but doesn't make the smaller ones cheaper at lower TLs. LBB5 lets you build them with higher ratings, but it doesn't let you build them any cheaper at lower TLs for the same rating.

That's weird. It could have been an oversight (later rules do have TL effects), or it could have said something about how the authors thought about Jump Drives or Tech Levels at the time.

 

[mike wightman]

Or it could be you are supposed to use the higher TL purchasing rules from LBB4:

In general, prices will tend to drop by 5-15% at each tech level after the level of introduction of an item, with examples of the item sold at the regular base price generally incorporating improvements or representing deluxe models.

Note 5-15 is 2d+3

 

[vegas]

@Mike +1

and I would add, the JTAS 4 exchange rate rules, later edited into the better exchange rate rules in Striker (and if we leave CT the best rules are in GT:FT) as an alternative source of reduced cost lower tech goods.

IMTU, trailing-edge technology abounds in commercial settings because it is imported from a cheaper places, and only militaries, nobles, and other select Imperials from the Core use leading edge TL items.

 

[Condottiere]

Never quite understood the Striker conversion rate in context of the Imperium universal currency unit, the Credite Imperiale.

Or if it's equivalent to the Gold Coin, whose value varied dependent of the status of the giver and receiver.

If interstellar exchange rates can be controlled, global governments have the autonomy to manipulate rates, whether to prevent capital flight, encourage investment, or adjust trade flows.

 

[coliver988]

Going to agree with Mike there: explaining things will often ruin them.

And per Clark's rule about a sufficiently advanced technology. This is 5000 years from now. Explain to someone in 3000 BC how a computer works.

Nonetheless it is a great joy to read all this, so thank you all! Carry on

 

[Grav_Moped]

Or it could be you are supposed to use the higher TL purchasing rules from LBB4:

Note 5-15 is 2d+3

Not mentioned in any CT ship construction rules, nor in Trillion Credit Squadron. Not an unreasonable interpretation, but you'd think that they'd put it in LBB5 if it applied to starship components.

Still, it could apply... but so could the cargo cost modifiers from LBB2 and LBB7.

 

[Condottiere]

A technological level nine industrial base can manufacture jump drives, though limited to one parsec range.

Presumably with what's available in our solar system.

 

[mike wightman]

In CT77 a TL9 society can manufacture jump drives with a range of 6pc...

 

[whartung]

I'm always confused that people think that this should be like building a Volvo.

Because there are millions of these drives out there that work reliably with routine maintenance and have an excellent safety record.

Do you remember when Capitol City on Tenor 5 vanished in a bright light, with 4 million people missing, when the J-Drive factory running a routine test on a J3 had a malfunction?

Yea, I don't remember that either.

I don't remember how J-Drives can only be built in The Belt due to safety considerations. I also don't remember the ring of pirates smuggling contraband Zocchi crystals, worth 10's of MCr, getting caught in the Marches. Or the group forging tax stamps on the Warp Valves that all drives need, but are the part that's counted and taxed (heavily) by the Imperium.

See, that's just it. I've never heard anything about J-Drives, save for a rare tramp freighter that MAY have mis-jumped (we just never know, do we?). While there may be mystery about how they work, and cutting edge research being done to get to J-7, the actual capability of designing, building, maintaining, and using them appears to be "drama free".

No "Blood Lanthanum" stories.

J-Drives are PRESENTED as drag and drop technology, like a vacc suit or an air raft. About as exciting as a toaster oven.

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.)

I'm eager to hear folks justify the costs of a J-Drive.

I never questioned that they were expensive, I'm just curious as to why.

And per Clark's rule about a sufficiently advanced technology. This is 5000 years from now. Explain to someone in 3000 BC how a computer works.

They may be 5000 years from us, but it's not that way for the folks in the Imperium. It's 1000 year old, ubiquitous technology. We may look ahead in wonder, but they look back and take it for granted.

I always liked the scene in Alien when they're landing the ship. The routine-ness of the experience. We sit in wonder at the consoles, buttons, lights, the whirring chair as they land FROM SPACE on to an ALIEN WORLD with the barely conscious guy smoking a cigarette in it. To us it's Sci-Fi and amazing. To them, it's work, it's about shares, and getting home. All of this stuff is nothing to them. Like a customer yelling at a mobile phone store clerk that their phone is acting up without any consciousness of how honestly extraordinary that device really is.

Oh, wait, it's not extraordinary. They have them in hangar boxes at Target next to the gum for $20.

I don't have to understand how a Star Wars Hyperdrive works, as long and Han and Chewie do.

But I can't certainly deduce from what we see that Hyperdrives are common, small, and are controlled by small parts. And they can't be worth that much if folks are willing to just let them sit in the desert on a rotting ship vs selling the ship for parts and getting off some forsaken desert planet.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[vegas]

Never quite understood the Striker conversion rate in context of the Imperium universal currency unit, the Credite Imperiale.

I feel that the JTAS #4 article motivates it well enough. Something has to explain how a low tech system trades with a high tech Imperium. The answer is the same as in the real world: the price level changes with the terms of trade.

You can describe that as a different currency in the local system, or if you prefer every system uses the same currency then its a different price level. Whichever suits your fancy/fits your model of the Imperium. And you could have different systems can make different choices. (Just like in the real world where some polities have their own currency and some peg to another, usually the USD, and some just use another polities currency altogether.) The "exchange rate" in the rules just does the math of how terms of trade vary, and whether that is accomplished by different prices or different currencies the end result is the same.

If interstellar exchange rates can be controlled, global governments have the autonomy to manipulate rates, whether to prevent capital flight, encourage investment, or adjust trade flows.

Yes, they do, same as today, but only to a point. It is a fact of economics/accounting that a polity can control no more than 2 of their exchange rate, interest rate, and capital flows. So manipulate what you want, but the international accounts still have to balance in the end.

 

[Condottiere]

Everything must be paid for by (local) electronic currency; government controls exchange rate between local currency and the Credite Imperiale, and can limit, if not forbid, conversion from local currency to any other.

 

[HanleyTucks]

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).

Insurance must be rough, since a jet engine failure can kill a few hundred people and cause the recall of every model of aircraft using the system which failed.

The comparison with passenger aircraft is an interesting one, because - well, how much would air travel cost if you threw away the aircraft after each flight? We've tried to make reusable spacecraft but it's not easy, and even the most optimistic engineers don't imagine we'll end up with spacecraft which can do hundreds of flights, let alone the thousands modern passenger aircraft do.

Taking off from and landing on a planet with a decent gravity well and an atmosphere is just challenging on the systems of a craft. Things will wear out. These CT ships must be pretty tough!

Rather than a very high purchase cost and relatively cheap maintenance, it might be more reasonable to have a moderate purchase price but expensive maintenance.

Of course, you could make them both cheap, like real world cargo ships. You can get one for a million or two!

http://www.seaboats.net/container-multi-purpose-xidg45907.html

But then you have to crew it, and find a profitable run. In our modern world. the most profitable regular runs are all taken by big companies. You'd want to try to make your living plying somewhere more obscure, but that carries its own risks. So that's how I view the CT crew, they're not doing the London-New York route, they're wandering from southern Africa along up to the Persian Gulf and occasionally out to Singapore if they're lucky. I'm no mariner, but I suspect that the best crews with the shiniest, most well-maintained ships (see the link above - in a lot of the pics, nobody even bothered wiping down the galley table) aren't plying the coasts of Africa these days, and they're not making scads of cash. They're probably hoping for That One Big Deal that never comes...

A technological level nine industrial base can manufacture jump drives, though limited to one parsec range.

Yes! And I think it makes for an interesting game to confine things to TL9-10 with perhaps some variations to it (as in Alien/s, Outland and The Expanse), with lots of settled worlds at lower TLs. We could argue that either higher tech levels aren't actually possible, or that with all the energies of humanity going into expansion into new worlds, there's not much left for improving technology.

 

[coliver988]

...<snip>
Taking off from and landing on a planet with a decent gravity well and an atmosphere is just challenging on the systems of a craft. Things will wear out. These CT ships must be pretty tough!

Rather than a very high purchase cost and relatively cheap maintenance, it might be more reasonable to have a moderate purchase price but expensive maintenance.
...

hmm - this *could* be used to explain that high cost of life support: it is not just the stuff inside the ship for life support, but for other equipment inside & outside the ship needed to support that life support equipment.

Though we still have that high initial cost as well.

 

[Condottiere]

Going by current technology, life support, oxygen renewal, would cost the same as onboard submarines.

Which leaves climate control, food and water. Gravitation being optional.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

And per Clark's rule about a sufficiently advanced technology. This is 5000 years from now. Explain to someone in 3000 BC how a computer works.

Someone 5000 years ago is actually just as capable of understanding as we are...genetically we haven't changed. My 3-year old grandson was perfectly capable of working an I-Pad thanks!

If humans are capable of understanding J-Drives in 5000 years, we could understand them now. We might need to understand other things too in order to design/build them, but don't sell the human part short.

 

[BRover]

. . .
Taking off from and landing on a planet with a decent gravity well and an atmosphere is just challenging on the systems of a craft. Things will wear out. These CT ships must be pretty tough!
. . .

Of course, we are still at the stage of rocket propulsion, not grav and fusion, which sets some stringent limits. Delta-V needed means that only a few percent of your spacecraft is payload, and only a few more is available for the craft itself, and so, even more than airplanes, every pound is critical. That means less sturdy frames on spacecraft, and minimal equipment. Think, maybe, by analogy, a racing yacht vs. a cruising boat--the latter is expensive enough ("a hole in the water into which you throw money") but a racing yacht is even more so, because it's just that much closer to the stressed edge, and prone to breakdowns.

 

[coliver988]

Someone 5000 years ago is actually just as capable of understanding as we are...genetically we haven't changed. My 3-year old grandson was perfectly capable of working an I-Pad thanks!

If humans are capable of understanding J-Drives in 5000 years, we could understand them now. We might need to understand other things too in order to design/build them, but don't sell the human part short.

Did not say they could not understand: they are missing context and background. Yes, take a child from 5000 years ago & raise them now - there would be no difference in understanding. Take an adult, and, given enough years and education, they *may* be able to set aside their cultural and technological norms and understand. But information is rarely in a vacuum: it is encapsulated in society for context and interpretation.

What I was trying to say is there there may be large swathes of math and science that we have not uncovered yet, so would appear as magic as our current understanding of physics would preclude those very things.

Like a lot of the discussions here: sometimes we make assumptions based on our current understanding and historical context. We don't have the understanding and historical context of 5000 years from now other than as expressed in the game rules. So I am okay with "magical" heat radiators/absorbers/whatever, jump drives. As long as that universe is self-consistent, I can accept that we may have created some magical space armor that is resistant to hundreds and thousands of atmospheric launches and does not abrade with constant high speed collisions, and fusion power plants that don't parboil everyone in the ship.

 

[whartung]

Insurance must be rough, since a jet engine failure can kill a few hundred people and cause the recall of every model of aircraft using the system which failed.

Yea, insurance is certainly under-represented in the TU, don't see a lot of characters with Actuary skill. I think we all appreciate that "dealing with insurance" and "adventure" don't really belong in the same sentence. Or paragraph. Or book.

The comparison with passenger aircraft is an interesting one, because - well, how much would air travel cost if you threw away the aircraft after each flight? We've tried to make reusable spacecraft but it's not easy, and even the most optimistic engineers don't imagine we'll end up with spacecraft which can do hundreds of flights, let alone the thousands modern passenger aircraft do.

Taking off from and landing on a planet with a decent gravity well and an atmosphere is just challenging on the systems of a craft. Things will wear out. These CT ships must be pretty tough!

Don't forget that our current rockets go, literally, rocketing up in to the sky, on columns of flame from barely controlled explosions, at very high sustained G forces. Oh, and the rockets have to be made of the lightest materials possible.

Traveller ships don't suffer those problems. Sure, they can head off at high G, but it's not necessary. And the ships can be built much more stout, since weight is no longer a controlling factor for flight. And M-Drives are probably lot smoother than rough and tumble external combustion engines.

And, as an anecdote regarding high performance aircraft and maintenance, talking to an F-18 guy at an airshow once, they essentially remanufacture the aircraft are 2000 hours of flight. They completely disassemble it, inspect every piece, replace the bad ones, and then bolt it all back together again.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

Yea, insurance is certainly under-represented in the TU, don't see a lot of characters with Actuary skill.

They are the guys working quietly at the back, building tables of probability that the current mad-cap dash through the front door will go horribly wrong!

I'm not sure the equation "Actuary=Adventurer" is likely to be true.