Traffic through Class C starports?

[MR TEK]

Everyone who says that cargo is the better model is probably right.

Get numbers for gross tonnage into and out of say all primary ports, ship and air in the US, and as a rough guess, we either supply or consume maybe about 1/5 of the worlds commodities. ( I am sure I have heard that figure both in general and for specific commodities.) So multiply our cargo use by 5 to get a rough daily gross tonnage for the earth.

We are far and away the closest model available for a thriving international economy, so that would be a good model to work from.

Now the hand waving. As technology improves, and especially with massive advances in automation, and newer and ever more exotic materials, volumes of cargo can only increase, and massively so.

Very conservatively, to support the industrial capacity and needs of a space faring community spanning 1000's of worlds, let’s say multiply our current traffic by 10. Also that traffic is being generated by maybe 1/10th of the earths population as the other 90% are so marginal that they produce nothing to transport and cannot afford to consume significant amounts of goods compared to the US and Europe.

So once we have a gross cargo tonnage per day, and multiply that times 500, we have the basic cargo traveling through a type A port on a 6 Billion + industrial world PER DAY.

Guaranteed, using these numbers, there will be enough cargo capacity moving in and out of this system EVERY SINGLE DAY, plus spare in the form of free traders running less than full, and priority runs that don't wait for full loads.

Figure out that number, and you had better move enough ships in and out to account for that much cargo moving. Multiply by a factor to account for ships that are transiting but not loading or unloading, by 7 since that is average port time per canon, by another factor for civilian, military, private, and corporate traffic and we are talking about fleets of ships larger that most TU claim exist, simply to service one system on a given day JUST TO KEEP THE WORLD ALIVE AND HEALTHY.

that is 10s of THOUSANDS of ships, docking, undocking, or parked, IN ONE SYSTEM.

Once that number is in place, then we can start to calculate the smaller ports from there.

This means that on a system of any significant size, a free trader that can not find contracts for several times his capacity is either not trying, or has such a bad reputation that nobody will touch him.

I realize that some canon is in the way, and much Traveller tradition, but these numbers seem rock solid to me, and I can never understand discussions that talk about dozens of ships a day. There are going to be dozens of ships PER hour on every single jump route in and out of the system, 24/7 on even the smallest commercially viable ports.

Just the thoughts from mr tek.

 

[mike wightman]

This all assumes that worlds aren't self sufficient and need to trade resources or manufactured goods.

This is something that has always bugged me a little about trade in the Traveller Universe.

What does one world trade with another for?

How abundant are mass produced TL15 items on lower TL worlds?

 

[Pickles]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
What does one world trade with another for?

How abundant are mass produced TL15 items on lower TL worlds?

Again going by the RW example, it's more likely that mass-produced lower TL goods are exported by higher TL worlds. However, the main factor would be manufacturing (or growing) costs, so poor, high-pop worlds are likely to export to rich worlds (to pay for all those imports). I think the RW comparison stands up, in this case.

Without trade there would be very little reason for interstellar travel on a large scale, and hence no need for fancy starports.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

What does one world trade with another for?

Non-industrial worlds need manufactured goods, non-ag worlds need food, rich worlds need luxuries...

 

[Malenfant]

I think Trade as a whole needs to be re-examined. Is an Ni world really totally incapable of manufacturing anything on its own? It's a whole flippin' planet, and there isn't a single industry on it?

An Na world is just suicide. Who the heck would live on a world that cannot produce any of its own food at all? Money must be being sucked out of that world's economy (if it even has one) like no tomorrow - it can't possibly afford anything else other than food, unless somehow it was obscenely rich in other resources can sold those off.

And so on...

 

[mike wightman]

Exactly my point...

even if a Na world is rich in some other resource why pay to ship in food when they could ship in a TL15 food synthesis plant instead (and I don't mean some sort of ST replicator either - advanced hydroponics/fungi/algi and the like should do it, everything else is just chemistry and energy ).

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

Interesting takes on an old topic, good reading all around.

One note: Don't forget to toss population levels into the mix. Flynn original question featured a world with population in the thousands; a UWP pop stat of 3. What sort of differences in traffic would you expect between a Class C port on a world with 5000 sophonts and a Class C port on a world with a population of 5,000,000,000 sophonts?

Mr. TeK's examples of RW trade volumes are correct, but we need to take in applying them to the OTU. Analogies can only be stretched so far. Unlike in the RW with EU, Japanese, and US international trade volumes(1), the interstellar trade volumes of Hi-pop, Hi-tech worlds in the Imperium amount to a fraction of their GWP. The Hi-Hi worlds of the Imperium do not trade like the developed nations of Earth because they don't need to.

Examine what makes up the EU, Japan, and US' trade imports. Other than trinkets and various agroproducts out of season, the EU, Japan, and US only import those things that either they cannot to produce; i.e. low price consumer goods thanks to internal labor costs, or - very importantly - choose not to produce; i.e raw materials such as oil, ores, etc. (By way of example, while Japan and the EU must import oil, the US could meet domestic oil needs IF drilling occured in a number of protected regions and prices were not kept artificially low. Instead, the US prefers to 'export' the ecological dangers associated with oil production as long as it can 'import' the results.)

Now compare that to a Hi-Hi world in the OTU. They are, generally speaking, self-sufficient. They survived the Long Night with relatively minor losses in technology and they would have done the same in the Rebellion if Virus hadn't been pulled out of the hat. These worlds do not import energy sources. These worlds may import raw materials IF they choose not to produce those materials on their own. (As in the RW, the reluctance to produce the materials will be the result of many factors including labor costs and environmental concerns.)

So what will they regularly import? Luxuries and novelties mostly. Occasionally, there will be worlds that produce higher-tech goods than the Hi-Hi does and those will be imported as luxuries. There will be worlds that produce certain same TL items that are better than the Hi-Hi can build; think comparitive advantage, patents, etc., and those will be imported. There will be worlds that produce any number of luxuries and novelties; think different agroproducts, handicrafts, rare minerals, etc., and those will be imported. Finally, there will be worlds that produce those items that the Hi-Hi chooses not to produce and those items will be imported.

Trade simply isn't as important to them as it is to the developed RW nations. Smash the international trade system and I think only the US would have chance of maintaining anything close to it's original standard of living (even then it would be touch and go). Smash the interstellar trade system and the Hi-Hi worlds will go on pretty much undisturbed. They'll be some economic hiccups; no more Psydian fruits and Moran feetwarmers, and they'd have to start producing a few raw materials in-system, but everything would pretty much go on as before.

Naturally, all this is just IMHO. However, I do think you need to factor population levels into your shipping levels.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - Even those levels will drop substantially if you remove oil from the equation.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"Is an Ni world really totally incapable of manufacturing anything on its own? It's a whole flippin' planet, and there isn't a single industry on it?"

There may be some, just not a significant amount. Maybe there's not enough metal/oil/etc to make what they need, or there aren't enough people, or they don't have a high enough TL. Or maybe they have all this but it's simply cheaper to import everything.

 

[Flynn]

Gentlemen,

First let me address a few questions.

The reason that I am giving this a Starport C is because there are no spaceship or starship construction yards present. Spaceship construction yards are a requirement for Starport B+, and starship construction yards are a requirement for a Class A Starport.

The starport itself is a large space station, which will be described in the upcoming issue of Stellar Reaches. Such rift-based "starport" stations, aka Deep Space Stations, are maintained primarily by government subsidy, because they are too expensive to build and run otherwise. (Sadly, I'm not an accomplished naval architect, i.e. I don't do deckplans well, so unless I can find a volunteer to do them in under a week, we won't have deckplans to go along with the article.)

The station's personnel numbers in the lower thousands, of course. Given the position of the DSSs along a rift-route and the somewhat heightened costs of using them, I would assume that there's a slight reduction in traffic when compared to something like Babylon 5, of course. I actually ended up using GT's Starports as the source for my numbers, treating the route as a minor route since the concept of a Deep Space Station serving as a starport lies beyond their general traffic estimation methods.

I do hope that you guys enjoy what I've come up with, and I hope that it provides you with food for thought in your own games.

My only hope now is that I don't see such a convincing argument against my concept that I end up rewriting it before I finish the layout work on Issue #2. I am determined to have this next issue out within the next two-three weeks.

Thank you all for your enthusiastic responses,
Flynn

 

[MR TEK]

Cool.

But now that we have a discusson going, can we resolve it.

I gave my thoughts as to scaling our real world situation up to a starport. It is the only working model to build from.

The disgreement is over how much trade is needed.

I personnally believe it will scale up directly. Even if every world was tech 15 and had virtually unlimited resources, tradition alone would continue to dictate that each world would specalize. As a matter of fact if that were NOT the case, and every system could sustain itself, there would NOT be a 3rd Imperium. THERE WOULD BE NO NEED.

Now, we know that differnt worlds have differnt resources, differnt tech levels and differnt needs. Again, if these were minor and not a driving force in world economies, intersteller travle would be a rare luxury and not a basic fact of life, and the 3rd Imperium would not exist, but some other, MUCH looser and smaller scale treaty organization.

So, we have an intersteller community, and at least the majority of worlds require some amount of trade to support themselves fully, and a significant fraction appear to be wholly dependant on trade to even sustain any population at all.

That returns us to our current economic model, with tweaks as being as vaild as any to describe intersteller trade.

In my opinion that brings us right back to having 1000's of ships traveling most jump routes at any given moment, and even type c ports carring as much traffic as all of the US international ports combined. Type B and Type A will be even larger.

This means that smaller pop worlds, could easily have major portions of their populations just supporting the startport and the related transportation, distribution and support.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Sigg, you mean something like Soylent Green?!

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Mr. Whipsnade,
(BTW, I am NOT trying to start anything!

) Another thread plays into this a little: the one where we discussed the idea of evolution on different planets. I only bring it up to mention that if different systems can evolve significantly different flora and fauna (while maintaining some similarity like carbon-based, same amino acids, etc.), then trade could be robust. There might be different naturally-occurring compounds, exotic foods, sparkly baubles (if you want dark green sapphires, you HAVE to go to Thailand), etc.

If, on every planet, the tendency is to fill every ecological niche with the same animal (but, different color fur, etc.), then trade has a much lower overall occurrence.

BUT, there will always be a need to transport heavy metals to metal poor systems, fresh food to the mining colonies, icebergs (comets?) to the desert worlds, etc.

And, Mr TeK, is that an intelligent design argument for the Traveller trade system? It exists, so there must be a good reason why it works?

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
BTW, I am NOT trying to start anything!

Fritz,

Please...

There might be different naturally-occurring compounds, exotic foods, sparkly baubles (if you want dark green sapphires, you HAVE to go to Thailand), etc.

Sure, there will be different items available on different worlds. However what percentage of the world's total trade volume in taken up by Thai dark green sapphires? Or Edam cheeses? Or fruit out of season? Or any other luxury and/or novelty you can to name?

What I am suggesting - for Hi-pop, hi-tech worlds only - is that imports are primarily limited to those items they cannnot make; i.e. dark green sapphires, exotic fruits, patent protected items, etc., and those items they choose not to make; i.e. Revolta-3 makes socks cheaper than we do because they use slaves, Hellhole-8 produces ores without environmental concerns, etc.

What it all boils down to is that the nations of the Real World (with the barely possible exception of the US) cannot survive without trade, while the Hi-pop, Hi-tech of the OTU can survive without trade. That is a very different trade picture than the one found on present day Earth. ForEx: Remove fossil fuels from the equation and Mr. TeK's shipping volumes go way down.

BUT, there will always be a need to transport heavy metals to metal poor systems, fresh food to the mining colonies, icebergs (comets?) to the desert worlds, etc.

I'm not talking about those worlds, only Hi-pop, hi tech worlds. Plenty of worlds in the OTU must trade or die. I'm not talking about those. Because of their generally low populations, the shipping volumes Mr. TeK derives from US seaports; a 'world' with a population digit of 8 and a multiplier of 3 that imports over half of its energy supplies, can only be used in the most loose manner.

And, Mr TeK, is that an intelligent design argument for the Traveller trade system? It exists, so there must be a good reason why it works?

That's already been explained in this thread. The Traveller trade system is rigged to provide the GM with a 'hook' with which to control the PCs.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Flynn: Such rift-based "starport" stations, aka Deep Space Stations, are maintained primarily by government subsidy, because they are too expensive to build and run otherwise.

Flynn,

Cool! That explains a lot. Too bad you didn't reveal the information in your first post!

MTU has always had plenty of such stations for various reasons. One reason is to 'knit' together various jump1 mains (there is an empty hex in the Trin subsector that, if a DSS was placed there, can be used to link a good chunk of that subsector to the Spinward Main.) MTU's ideas about 'main knitting' foundered in the face of G:T's well thought out assertion that most Imperial trade is carried at jump2. (FWIW, I believe that assertion.)

Another reason for DSS placement IMTU is rift crossing, just like your article. I GMd a lenghty campaign in the Islands subsectors and part of the plot revolved around a consortium led by Sansterre attempting to establish either a jump3 or jump4 DSS network for shipping links with Verge.

I hope the editing goes well. The first issue of Stellar Reaches was very good.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[aramis]

Personally, I think Mr. Tek is dead wrong on the volume requirements.

It's not hard to take any breathable atmosphere world and turn it into a self-sufficient colony (TNE-WTH).

THerefore, there are only two reasons not to do so: political will or lack of habitable environment.

We know that bulk life support is 150 person weeks per ton at KCr150 (Beltstrike); non habitable worlds will need to have KCr365 per person in outflow to balance the LS inflow. So, roughly 2.4 tons per person per year of inflow on LS. this will be matched by out flow of resources of roughly 37 tons.

Now, since we've got a huge flow, most worlds will NOT be able to generate KCr360 in economic outflow per person... So, most worlds must build towards self-sufficiency, at least in Life Support. By taking the same money, but buying bulk food and gas, we could probably get KCr50 to 100 per person, for larger populations, and this would work; it works better if one doesn't need to add shipping to this.

That Being said, most worlds (IE, not AG nor IN) probably do most of their production for on-planet use; the shipping costs are way to high for otherwise.

I see the whole of Traveller's trade model as primarily a luxuries and some small essentials; it is almost always cheaper in the long run to get a continued need served from in-system. In system one can use low-fuel craft, and ion drives, etc, to generate in system flows at far lower costs than starships.

a Starship's most price dense items are the computer and jump drive. A starship's most volume eating system is the Jump Drive (Mostly in fuel). Even a J1 drive eats 12% of the hull for the drive, and 0.5-1% for the engineering crew (typically). J2 is 23% (18% under TNE and MT), plus 1% for crew needs... in-system costs are FAR lower.

I suspect the model should be two orders of magnitude less than an equivalent population's airports...

 

[GypsyComet]

The traffic through the port in this situation has (or can have) almost nothing to do with the world itself. The Tuscon example given up-topic is actually more relevant than was given credit. The port has a lot of ships and people going *through*, but nobody is really stopping.

This world is one that Free Traders won't typically get cargos for, and don't *want* large cargos for, because all the big guys funnel through this system, so inbound and outbound shipping capacity is most likely orders of magnitude above demand for this world as an endpoint. You really don't want to get stuck on this world looking for a paying cargo if you don't have connections...

Bluntly, this world is a transit hub. The only characteristic it has that matters is its position. The traffic volume through this world's port is a function of its neighbors. The world itself would need to be a Hi-Pop to have meaningful impact on the transit numbers.

 

[Michael Taylor]

cargo hauling is not a better deal in traveller. At Cr1000 per ton, a stateroom could be loaded with 4000Cr of cargo, or a Cr10,000 high passenger. Easy to see that a PAX is higher yield, even with the higher life support costs.
But if you are hauling priority/secure/hazardopus cargoes the balance swings back to cargo.
I dont see a Cr8000 mid passage as excessive. You are, after all, travelling a VERY long way for your money. Many people would never see any need to move out of a high pop high tech star system.

 

[whartung]

Better living through the Internet (I want to be the Internet when I grow up!).

Stumbled upon: http://amchouston.home.att.net/container.htm

First, container traffic is measured in TEU, which stands for Twenty foot Equivalent Unit. A 1 TEU container is 8'w x 8.5'h x 20'l. Containers can be longer (1.5 TEUs, 2 TEUs, etc.).

A TEU is ~2.75 DTons (14 Liter DTon).

In 2000, World TEU traffic was 200 Million TEUs, 550 MDtons. A 200 Ton Free Trader can carry ~20 TEUs, so that's 10M Free Trader trips.

From another link, Port Of Long Beach in July 2000 moved 410,000 TEUs. ~683 Free Traders per day, 28 per hour. Long Beach is ~2.5% total global TEUs.

Obviously, more than Free Traders fly the trade routes.

A Boeing 747-400 in freight configuration, is pretty close to the equivalent of a 200 Ton Free trader in terms of capacity. For cargo volume alone, LAX processes the equivalent of 45 747s per day. That doesn't include passenger traffic. Obviously, LAX funnels more that 45 flights per day.

So, hopefully that will give folks some idea of the traffic volumes that are taking place, and perhaps how to extrapolate that for higher and lower population worlds. For good or for ill, all of that traffic mentioned probably services 30-40% of our total population, and I don't know if the total TEU count includes freght packed in a container in Pittsburgh and shipped by train to Los Angeles, but I think it's just what's being moved by ship.

But it also tells me something else (as was noted before). If you're a Free Trader, there is a LOT of trade going on, so you should never be out of work (though it's a cut throat business...).

 

[far-trader]

OK, but...

Not 1 TEU of that is going offworld, all that freight is what is needed to keep the consumers of the planet happy. Personally I think interstellar export/import will be a tiny fraction of a worlds GDP. All these models are interesting and may offer some insight but I don't see them being any direct use in determining how much offworld trade there is. But hey whatever works for anyone's game is the way to go.

 

[Pickles]

I agree that there doesn't seem to be much of a reason for large volumes of interstellar trade in any TU. I can't really imagine much bulk cargo (ores, food, raw materials) that wouldn't be cheaper to aquire locally. A system would have to be pretty poor not to be self-sufficient in ores and energy, as a minimum. In fact, it would probably never have been colonised in the first place, although there are always exceptions.

But this does leave us with an OTU which has at least moderate amounts of trade, and a lot of very big and expensive starports (not to mention spaceports).

Flynn, your idea government subsidy is probably the way to go. Other forms of 'unfair trade' may also artificially inflate starport profitability. Should there be such a thing as a Worlds Trade Organisation in the Imperium? Maybe the Merchants' Guild fulfils a similar function.