Trader sizes

[rancke]

Except that speculation is (historically) the norm in cases where communication is limited to speed of travel. Freight only takes over dominance as the mode in the atlantic when telegraph cables went in.

Do we know anything at all about the regular freight business? (As opposed to the rules we have for the free trader business that touch on freight). Freight may be a very small part of the regular business.

On the other hand, if a company has a ship going regularily back and forth between two worlds, the shipping part of the business may be effectively the same as freight business. The company factors has to buy X tons of goods every 20 days and have it ready to load; they also receive X tons of goods every 20 days and have to sell that. The business the factors conduct may be speculative (though not necessarily always), but the ship earns the same for the shipping division no matter what.


Hans

 

[aramis]

What we have is that there is some regular freight...

1. Financial Utility to shipper: under the various rulesets, freight is anywhere from "Filling the voids we can't buy effective lots for" (Everything but Bk2+3 and GT) to "The baseline method of making your payments" (Bk2, GT*)
2. Volume: available lots ranges from much more than (Bk2+3, GT*) to roughly even with available freight lots (Bk5, MT, TNE, T4), but usually on par with.
3. Availability: ubiquitous on HiPop worlds; Trivial on smaller worlds (everything BUT GT)

In a "Late CT Analysis"... that is, Bk5 and Bk7 replacing the Bk2 ships and Bk3 trade in entirety, about half of the available lots are freight, but less than half of carried lots will be, since freight makes less per ton, and a Bk5 ship can't survive on KCr1/TdCargo unless it's TL15.

In a Bk2+7, you get more freight moving as a percentage, but still only half of the lots available will be freight. You get more moving tho', because you can make a profit at KCr1/Td even at J2... It's lower risk, and still a profit, so a LOT more should move.


*GT doesn't actually state this, but since speculation is explicitly not the majority in GT, it's axiomatic that the remainder must needs be freight.

 

[Timerover51]

Heck, we don't even have solid numbers for the movements of goods pre-1860...

Almost all reliable data available on trade is post Trans-Atlantic Cable. And from there, it rapidly falls into ship-on-demand as dominant. Yet, even into the 1950's, speculative traders in the Amazon and in Africa would buy at villages, transship via their own boats, and sell at the cities de rigueur... lack of communications results in speculation.

I finally have some numbers on pre-1860 ocean commerce, if you are interested in them. There appears to be several major factors at work in ocean commerce after 1815, the end of the Napoleonic Wars, one of which is the beginning of regular Trans-Atlantic mail packets, the beginning of ocean steamships, and Great Britain eliminating its Corn Laws. I have some data for the US colonial period too. I found the material online, so posting it does not require a massive amount of transcription.

 

[SpaceBadger]

I haven't been following this whole thread.

Last night I found more of my Traveller books, including Supp 7 Traders and Gunboats. There is an explicit statement at pp. 18-19 of the division of trade among bulk transport, subsidized trade, and free trade (speculation). Has that already been discussed in this thread, or would it be helpful for me to post it? It is only three paragraphs.

 

[Timerover51]

I haven't been following this whole thread.

Last night I found more of my Traveller books, including Supp 7 Traders and Gunboats. There is an explicit statement at pp. 18-19 of the division of trade among bulk transport, subsidized trade, and free trade (speculation). Has that already been discussed in this thread, or would it be helpful for me to post it? It is only three paragraphs.

You might want to PM Cryton as to posting that much. I would think summarizing the statement, as you have given the source would be adequate.

And for speculation profits, the Free Traders out there might want to take a look at the profit margins for the British East India Company on spices and textiles imported to Britain from India and China, circa 1621. That was when One Pound = 20 Shillings, and One Shilling = 12 Pence. The spices were bought and sold by the pound.

Mr. Munn also gives the annual importation of the principal Indian goods into England, by the East India Company, and the price each article sold for in England; according to this table, the quantity of pepper was 250,000 lbs., which, bought in India for twopence halfpenny, sold in England for one shilling and eightpence:--150,000 lbs. of cloves, which bought in India for ninepence, sold in England for six shillings:--150,000 lbs. of nutmegs, bought for four-pence, sold for two shillings and sixpence:--50,000 lbs. of mace, bought for eightpence, sold for six shillings:--200,000 lbs. of indigo, bought for one shilling and twopence, sold for five shillings:--107,140 lbs. of China raw silk, bought for seven shillings, sold for twenty shillings:--and 50,000 pieces of calico, bought for seven shillings a piece, sold for twenty-six shillings.

The data comes from the following source:

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Kerr's General History and
Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18, by William Stevenson

 

[Timerover51]

I came across the following comment in this book the Project Gutenberg eBook, Commercial Geography, by Jacques W. Redway, copyright 1907.

One important period of development began with the rise of American commerce. Just after the close of the War for Independence, it was found that deep-water ships could be built of New England timber for thirty-five dollars per ton, rated tonnage, while a vessel of the same burden built in Europe cost about forty-five dollars per unit of tonnage. [Emphasis added]

That got me to thinking that another item in interstellar commerce would be the ships themselves. Traveller has the standard ship cost uniform throughout the Imperium, but would they really be that uniform? Given the wide range of producing planets, I would imagine that some planets are going to build ships cheaper than others. I can also imagine that the Sword Worlders and Darrians might be willing to build ships at a lower cost than the Imperium simply to get more work for their shipyards. Another factor would be that as a Sword World or Darrian ship might have non-standard equipment, the resale value of a used ship might be significantly lower than that of a standard Imperium ship. Aside from making ships more affordable to players, making sure that you had the needed spare parts or suddenly finding out that getting a needed spare might take a couple of month would be a nice basis for some adventures.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

In MTU, different polities definitely price their ships differently, and have different quality and different design concepts. Of course, they also get built at different TLs (a max of TL12 IMTU), as well. I haven't placed any guidelines in the sector information, but would rely on the referee to work that out on their own - me, I just wing it.

 

[GypsyComet]

Do we know anything at all about the regular freight business? (As opposed to the rules we have for the free trader business that touch on freight). Freight may be a very small part of the regular business.

On the other hand, if a company has a ship going regularily back and forth between two worlds, the shipping part of the business may be effectively the same as freight business. The company factors has to buy X tons of goods every 20 days and have it ready to load; they also receive X tons of goods every 20 days and have to sell that. The business the factors conduct may be speculative (though not necessarily always), but the ship earns the same for the shipping division no matter what.


Hans

If the factor at the end has to sell something, you are really shipping "cargo" and being paid "freight" rates.

Freight is when Company A on World Z has an existing business relationship with Company B on World Y and ships 20 tons of widgets to them via Shipping Agent Q, who places the shipping containers with any and every open ship going that way. While it can be the case that there are brokers at one or both ends, they are at least as likely to be filling the roles of consolidator and distributor as that of speculator. A merchant who ships freight between two speculative brokers is being horribly used, because that is money *he* could be making.

 

[Dragoner]

If the factor at the end has to sell something, you are really shipping "cargo" and being paid "freight" rates.

Freight is when Company A on World Z has an existing business relationship with Company B on World Y and ships 20 tons of widgets to them via Shipping Agent Q, who places the shipping containers with any and every open ship going that way. While it can be the case that there are brokers at one or both ends, they are at least as likely to be filling the roles of consolidator and distributor as that of speculator. A merchant who ships freight between two speculative brokers is being horribly used, because that is money *he* could be making.

A good analogy for shipping is water, such as a river; you have the most volume in large freight carriers (such as railroads and pipelines) that are often "independent" but established by and partially owned by a strategic alliance of manufacturers. Second tier will be smaller carriers, diverting their little revenue stream by carrying overflow from the big haulers, these will be VAN's (Value Added Networks) such as medium sized trucking companies. Third tier will be 3rd party shippers, diverting an even smaller revenue stream such as the overflow of the overflow and JIT (Just In Time) shipments; at this point, these guys are involved in Traveller economics, hiring PC ships to haul freight. Then there will be the speculative market, tramp trade-ish, and then even the speculative speculative market where the PC's will actually engage in arbitrage themselves. Small of course, probably less than 1% of goods shipped, but plenty for the average Free Trader, especially in a frontier area such as the Spinward Marches.

 

[rancke]

If the factor at the end has to sell something, you are really shipping "cargo" and being paid "freight" rates.

As I said, effectively the same as freight.


Hans