Part 1 of 8
So, I've been thinking about trade and commerce in Traveller lately. :CoW: :nonono: The first thing that occurs to me is that we may be approaching this backwards. The second thing that occurs to me is we may need to throw out one or more of the core assumptions we have always used.![Eek! :eek: :eek:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
There have been a few long threads on these boards concerning the economic feasibility of interstellar trade given various Traveller rule sets. Here are two:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=21552
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=33575
The general result of these threads is that given the current trade rules, it isn't practical to run a trading ship at greater than jump-1 over a long period of time. This directly conflicts with established canon which tells us that the megacorps have ships that follow the xboat routes throughout the Imperium for long distance freight and passenger service. That says to me that at least some of the megacorps have a fleet of jump-4 traders. We also have established canon with a few cases of jump-5 freighters, though those may be relegated to bulk ore carriers within the Imperium and special use cases outside of the Imperium.
One of the standard tropes of science fiction is starting out with a tramp trader and earning enough money to establish a shipping company. In fact, Oberlindes lines is a canon example of where this happened. It is an ideal that we hold out to players who wish to have that type of campaign. Unfortunately, unless the players are willing to continuously speculate on cargos, the numbers don't really allow success outside of the jump-1 mains. If long distance interstellar trade isn't economically viable, then it is hard (for me) to accept the large amount of charted space that has been settled.
I am going to break this post up into several smaller posts since it is so large.
<to be continued>
Cheers,
Baron Ovka
So, I've been thinking about trade and commerce in Traveller lately. :CoW: :nonono: The first thing that occurs to me is that we may be approaching this backwards. The second thing that occurs to me is we may need to throw out one or more of the core assumptions we have always used.
There have been a few long threads on these boards concerning the economic feasibility of interstellar trade given various Traveller rule sets. Here are two:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=21552
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=33575
The general result of these threads is that given the current trade rules, it isn't practical to run a trading ship at greater than jump-1 over a long period of time. This directly conflicts with established canon which tells us that the megacorps have ships that follow the xboat routes throughout the Imperium for long distance freight and passenger service. That says to me that at least some of the megacorps have a fleet of jump-4 traders. We also have established canon with a few cases of jump-5 freighters, though those may be relegated to bulk ore carriers within the Imperium and special use cases outside of the Imperium.
One of the standard tropes of science fiction is starting out with a tramp trader and earning enough money to establish a shipping company. In fact, Oberlindes lines is a canon example of where this happened. It is an ideal that we hold out to players who wish to have that type of campaign. Unfortunately, unless the players are willing to continuously speculate on cargos, the numbers don't really allow success outside of the jump-1 mains. If long distance interstellar trade isn't economically viable, then it is hard (for me) to accept the large amount of charted space that has been settled.
I am going to break this post up into several smaller posts since it is so large.
<to be continued>
Cheers,
Baron Ovka