Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
And this is where we run into Containerization vs CT rules disputes.In re cargo efficiency: containerizing always results in lost capacity, if only that occupied by the container itself.
LBB2 (and later, LBB7) specify that Major cargo lots are multiples of 10 tons and Minor cargo lots are multiples of 5 tons, with Incidental cargo being multiples of 1 ton.
- Major cargo: 1D x10 tons
- Minor cargo: 1D x5 tons
- Incidental cargo: 1D tons
But as soon as you start figuring standardized containerization rules (which, to be fair, would have been developed later than 1977) you start running into problems with standard containers "not wanting to be 1, 5 or 10 tons" in mass displacement.
In fact, the Standard Cargo Container sizes instead want to be 2, 4 or 8 tons each instead of 1, 5 or 10 tons each ... which makes A LOT more sense when you think about things in terms of deck plans and cargo volume spaces, instead of just wanting to do the "quick and easy" thing of multiples of 1/5/10 for sheer simplicity at the gaming table.
Also note that 2/4/8 tons maps very neatly onto Cabin/Stateroom sizes of 2 or 4 tons, while 1/5/10 does not except at specific multiples.
And, of course, Mail as 5 tons of dedicated cargo essentially equated to a single minimum size Minor cargo lot, so if you shrink Minor cargo lots from multiples of 5 down to multiples of 4 in tonnage, there ought to be a knock on effect in which Mail also shrinks from 5 dedicated tons down to 4 dedicated tons (but still at Cr5000 per ton to keep the revenue density per ton constant).
Powers of 2 make more sense for standardized cargo containerization than fractions of 10.
However, the flipside to that argument would be that 8 ton standard containers require "10 tons of cargo hold capacity" in order to account for needing to secure everything for shipment and flight, with that extra "25% waste tonnage" going towards starship design factors such as strengthening the floors for heavy loads (or just high gravity world environments) and environmental controls (so as to be able to put "almost anything" into the cargo bay), walk space/crawl space around the cargo for access during shipment, safety standards and so on and so forth. That way, the actual billing is still in fractions of 10 even though the actual contents being loaded are containerized in powers of 2.
In other words, handwavium can still work in YTU if you want it to with CT rules and standardized containerization of cargoes. You just need to get a little creative in how you think about such things.