Sector Data (economic)

[Grav_Moped]

Main benefit of LASH setup is where there are multiple cargo destinations in a given system.

 

[Condottiere]

If they're close enough together.

Or what was that puzzle again about the least distance that a travelling salesman has to cover?

One consideration would be, that they could also pick up cargo, instead of coming back empty.

Or, it's external cargo, and they come back faster, carrying less volume.

If you add complexity, this might require local brokers to book all this months in advance.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Going to limit you to A/B/C starports though, right? Which isn’t a bad business/ship design thing for more settled areas.

This is where interstellar customs rules come into play.
LBB2.81, p9:

Goods taken on in orbit are delivered when placed in orbit around the destination. Goods taken on on a planetary surface are delivered when offloaded on the surface of the destination. This custom applies to cargo, passengers, and mail.
At any location with a class A, B, or C starport, shuttles routinely operate between orbit and world surface. Typical shuttle price is Cr10 per ton and Cr20 to Cr120 per passenger.

Pickup in orbit = deliver to orbit.
Pickup from surface = deliver to surface.
This means that as long as you stick to a route of A/B/C starports only, you can always do orbital pickups and deliveries.
It's only when you're dealing with D/E/X starports that you'll need to touch surface for unloading and loading (or bring your own shuttle service with you). Type E/X starports are (by definition) "austere landing sites" with next to no cargo handling infrastructure available (aside from what you bring with you).

However, if we're thinking adventure class types, they probably will on rough fields, keeping in mind ground pressure.

As a Referee, I would stipulate that streamlined hulls have superior ground field performance and are thus "better equipped" to handle especially austere landing site conditions (including water landings).

If you add complexity, this might require local brokers to book all this months in advance.

This is where charter services can enter the picture.
Basically, your ship sells its capacity for passengers and freight to a 3rd party (or multiple third parties) and then it's their responsibility to scare up enough passengers/cargo to fill up your manifests. Basically a Transport As a Service (TAS) business model. So long as your operations can turn a profit on charter ticket revenues, it's potentially profitable for everyone involved.

The third parties would be selling tickets at full price to customers, but paying 90% of those ticket revenues to the starship operation in charter fees ... keeping 10% of the ticket prices sold (assuming the charter party can fill the manifest completely). It's a way to "outsource" the flow of passengers and cargo freight to local businesses. Note that this business model works best when operating on a pre-planned schedule, rather than when working as a wandering tramp free trader. It CAN still be done as a tramp free trader, but the business relationships work on more of a "catch as catch can" sort of ad hoc basis, rather than being something more routine with a predictable timetable.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[whartung]

Main benefit of LASH setup is where there are multiple cargo destinations in a given system.

The primary benefit of a jump ship is jumping. Any minute not spent jumping is a waste of potential. Unload that stuff and let someone else move it around the system.

 

[TamsinP]

Mostly this is a sorting order problem, and not a huge time sink in the overall timing of the process.

However, the subsector/sector borders are entirely arbitrary. In working on another Traveller setting book I started looking at using circular (well hex shaped) "subsectors". No longer tied to the size and shape of a digest sized book, I have some interesting looking empires and a new view of how the worlds relate to each other.

Combining these I think what should be done is:
Start with the largest WTN worlds. For each draw the routes to every world within a short distance (jump 4 to 6) , in the BTN order as before. Then go back through the worlds again and do a medium distance (jump 12 to 24), again in BTN order. And then do the rest of the long distance routes. This would get the "local" routes more apparent driven by the large, industrial worlds, and delegate the long distance routes to following the local ones as the primary routes.

I discovered something today when I printed one of the trade maps - green (BTN=10+) routes which coincide with an X-boat/communication route don't show up very well, if at all. At A4 on my home inkjet printer at least.

Suggestion - if you ever do revisit the trade maps, perhaps change the X-boat/communication routes to grey.