CT Only: What One Thing Would You Change About Classic Traveller?

[Straybow]

Agreed, but, that said, per-parsec payment (while more plausible than per-jump) skews things too, but in a different direction.

Just dropping that change in without a thorough understanding of the knock-on effects can have unintended and perhaps undesirable effects.

As unrealistic (and IMO broken) as the normal interpretation of RAW is, it does work tolerably well within its limits, and shouldn't be discarded without a comprehensive replacement economic framework in place.

There is no "comprehensive economic framework." There is a set of arbitrary costs and fees.

If it worked, nobody would have to defend it from obvious, common sense readings of RAW that differ, nor from advocacy of "what should change" if an update were in the offering.

It only "works" because it's a game, and everyone is free to adhere to the rules or not as they see fit.

I say this because when my brothers and I got the game in 78, we read the rules and got per parsec as our common sense understanding of the vagueness in those rules. It never occured to me otherwise until I found online resources over 20 years later.

We didn't see it as a Rule Zero change at all. For that we adjusted jump time for distance (like half a day each pc less than Jn) and time in port (only a couple days normal maint, and variable time to find loads and passengers).

 

[Grav_Moped]

There is no "comprehensive economic framework." There is a set of arbitrary costs and fees.

If it worked, nobody would have to defend it from obvious, common sense readings of RAW that differ, nor from advocacy of "what should change" if an update were in the offering.

It only "works" because it's a game,

I'm not disagreeing here at all. Despite being arbitrary and only working within a limited scope of play -- and requiring some serious tweaks to shipbuilding (standard hull discount) and economics (subsidy mechanic) -- it does work within that scope.

I'm merely suggesting that any replacement for the consensus reading of the trade rules (per-jump) needs to be an improvement rather than causing a different and worse set of problems. Mind you, that's a VERY low bar to clear...

 

[mike wightman]

That is actually a slight oversimplification of the rule as written “The referee should determine all worlds accessible to the starship (depending on jump number)”.

If my Jump 1 ship has 20% jump fuel (enough for TWO consecutive Jump 1’s) then “all worlds accessible to the ship” includes all worlds 1 parsec away and all worlds 2 parsecs away. If we assume a typical straight line “main”, then that is 4 worlds “accessible” to that ship. Crossing empty hexes in a crowded part of the map there could be a LOT of worlds “accessible” (18 hexes worth if I counted correctly, 6 hexes at 1 parsec away and 12 more hexes at 2 parsecs away).

The price for 1 dTon of cargo is Cr 1000 from port of origin to port of destination.

It is an application of the rule as written, not an interpretation or simplification.

What is the jump number of your ship? Jump 1.
Once again the rule as written is:
worlds accessible (determined by jump number)

it is not worlds accessible (determined by jump range), so the amount of fuel you are carrying to allow for several jump 1s does not matter for determining cargo availability.

 

[mike wightman]

I disagree.

They are not the Rules as written, but they are not “wanting”.
Later editions adopted them so how terrible of an idea can they be?
Is it really the end of the world if a J3 ship does not operate at a loss shipping freight and passengers?

No, what happened was fanon. The core rules remained unchanged through many iterations. GT was the first to go against the rules as written because the folks involved in GT thought their fanon was better than the rules as written. If you buy into GT FT's economic model it is a great supplement, but if you don't agree with its core economic paradigms it is useless. being written by a real world economist is all well and good, I just don't think the base assumptions of the model used are correct for the Third Imperium.

 

[mike wightman]

It is not invalid to go with pay per parsec just because the rules say otherwise.

Rule Zero is the supreme rule and I think you are stepping over a line if you are arguing that no one should change the pay rules for their universe just because RAW, or they are wrong expressing a preference to see it changed for the putative one thing to change.

I am all in favour of referee's doing what they want in their game, but if you do not use the rules as written you are using house rules and we have no common points for discussion.

 

[mike wightman]

Now let's see if we can finally put to bed that passenger ticket example:

"The difference is that a jump-3 ship can reach a destination in one jump, while the
jump-1 ship would take three separate jumps (through two intermediate destinations,
and requiring three separate tickets)"

So far so good, the J1 ship requires three tickets, while the J3 ship requires just one, so the J3 ship is not charging per parsec they are charging per jump or port to port call it what you will. Note that the jump 3 ship charges one high or middle passage at the cost of a high or middle passage.

"But for two ships of differing jump numbers going to the same destination in one jump, each would
charge the same cargo or passage price."

In one jump a J1 ship can only travel 1 parsec, so a J1 to J6 ship making that 1 parsec trip all charge the same ticket price.

BUT - if the destination is 2 parsecs away then only a jump 2 higher ship can make that trip "in one jump" and yet all charge the same, one ticket. And so on for 3 or more parsecs.

Finally let's look at what we are first told:

"Interstellar travel is priced on the basis of accommodations; prices cover a trip
from starport to starport, encompassing one jump, regardless of length"

You plan a journey to a world 4 parsecs distant. You have a high passage to spend, it cost you Cr10,000.
Do you spend it on the free trader jump 1 journey and then wonder how you are going to make the rest of your trip?
Or do you spend it on the megacorp liner jump 4 that does the trip in one jump.

 

[Grav_Moped]

You plan a journey to a world 4 parsecs distant. You have a high passage to spend.
Do you spend it on the free trader jump 1 journey and then wonder how you are going to make the rest of your trip?
Or do you spend it on the megacorp liner jump 4 that does the trip in one jump.

Makes sense.

Problem is, that megacorp liner* incurs costs of Cr19,344 (not counting Steward salary) for that stateroom for that trip, but only charges Cr10,000 for the ticket.
Maybe they make it up in volume?

Which is to say, from the customer side, you're obviously right.
But, from the supplier (ship-owner) side it's simply absurd.

This fits the game though, as players will be buying passage with high jump-numbers but probably won't be selling them since they'll typically have J-1 Free Traders or Subsidized Merchants. (It's a hidden subsidy to player characters without ships.)


---------------
*Ship is 800Td, J4/1G. It's TL-14, with Jump and Power R, Maneuver D. Cost per payload ton at J4 is Cr4126. A 2000Td ship with Z drives (It's J6, btw) has only slightly higher costs even when loafing along at a mere J4.

 

[mike wightman]

Traveller in its simplest LBB1-3 form is mainly a game for PC scale things.

All the rules should be seen through the lens of how it affects the typical PC.

We know how passage works for the PC, we know how trade works at the PC scale of doing things.

What we don't know is how things change when the big boys do stuff.

What are the costs for the liner if it has no mortgage to pay off? How about if it always pays unrefined fuel cost for refined fuel since the megacorp can afford fuel purifiers on every world on the shipping lane? How about if it hold is filled with goods for market that cost 1000Cr to ship but will return a profit of Cr10000 per ton?

 

[kilemall]

Agreed, but, that said, per-parsec payment (while more plausible than per-jump) skews things too, but in a different direction.

Just dropping that change in without a thorough understanding of the knock-on effects can have unintended and perhaps undesirable effects.

As unrealistic (and IMO broken) as the normal interpretation of RAW is, it does work tolerably well within its limits, and shouldn't be discarded without a comprehensive replacement economic framework in place.

Such is the price of using Rule Zero- you play gamegod building your universe without building wisely, you reap the consequences of clever players.

I’m just not willing to stand idly by and see RAW as theological holiness particularly in a game that attracts and sometimes NEEDS such homeruling or diktat that a thread ABOUT potential rules changing somehow must not talk about RAW change.

 

[kilemall]

Traveller in its simplest LBB1-3 form is mainly a game for PC scale things.

All the rules should be seen through the lens of how it affects the typical PC.

We know how passage works for the PC, we know how trade works at the PC scale of doing things.

What we don't know is how things change when the big boys do stuff.

What are the costs for the liner if it has no mortgage to pay off? How about if it always pays unrefined fuel cost for refined fuel since the megacorp can afford fuel purifiers on every world on the shipping lane? How about if it hold is filled with goods for market that cost 1000Cr to ship but will return a profit of Cr10000 per ton?

I argued these points already as an exercise in plausibility for the RAW, which can be just as valid for universe building as per parsec. It’s ultimately preference for universe style, an entertainment choice and I don’t get the stridency on the topic for a thread that is about possible CT changes.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Traveller in its simplest LBB1-3 form is mainly a game for PC scale things.

All the rules should be seen through the lens of how it affects the typical PC.

We know how passage works for the PC, we know how trade works at the PC scale of doing things.

What we don't know is how things change when the big boys do stuff.

What are the costs for the liner if it has no mortgage to pay off? How about if it always pays unrefined fuel cost for refined fuel since the megacorp can afford fuel purifiers on every world on the shipping lane? How about if it hold is filled with goods for market that cost 1000Cr to ship but will return a profit of Cr10000 per ton?

Capital equipment depreciation happens (though it's not covered in CT). If you don't borrow the money, all you save is the interest on the loan.
Cuts Cr405,562 from monthly payment, reduces costs to Cr2632/Td/J4 (Cr10,528 opportunity cost for stateroom).

That plus shifting to unrefined fuel brings it down to Cr2019/Td/J4 (Cr8076 opportunity cost).

Plus Cr2000 life support, in your best case that's Cr10,076 cost for the stateroom against the Cr10,000 ticket revenue.

Higher revenue per cargo ton hurts the relative profit from passengers! If you're clearing Cr9000/Td on cargo, a stateroom with a high passenger means you made about Cr26,000 less than you could have from hauling four more tons of that highly-profitable cargo instead.


Which is to say, passenger fares for high Jns are broken -- but we knew that already.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Such is the price of using Rule Zero- you play gamegod building your universe without building wisely, you reap the consequences of clever players.

I’m just not willing to stand idly by and see RAW as theological holiness particularly in a game that attracts and sometimes NEEDS such homeruling or diktat that a thread ABOUT potential rules changing somehow must not talk about RAW change.

We might be in violent agreement here.

As I said upthread, it works adequately within its scope for its intended purpose, but outside of that scope it's badly dysfunctional and needs a nearly complete rewrite. Whether that's done through a formal rules revision or just as a set of house rules is a separate question.

And simple solutions stand a good chance of being merely a different kind of wrong. Maybe less wrong, and maybe even acceptably close to "right" (however you define that), though.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Which is to say, passenger fares for high Jns are broken -- but we knew that already.

The other side of this is that perhaps a 2000Td J6 liner bought for cash and with free fuel refining can break even on J4 high passages (but only high passages, not mid). If so, everyone else loses money on them!

So who's providing these discount fares when there isn't a big state-of-the-art liner in the area to drive the prices down?

 

[mike wightman]

If you assume:
the "speculative trade" model for megacorporations - they are shipping their own goods and making a profit after all
broker 4 available on megacorp payroll
never pay more than unrefined fuel

You build your transport ships out of the profits you make from your goods, the costs you allocate for freight and passengers and the revenue earned from the same are possibly regulated or more probably the bare minimum that you can charge.

Any start up has to match your prices or customers just go with you. They need to have a cheap source of start up transport ships - canonically Oberlindes managed to get IN war surplus transports.

Once a corporation or government or noble or scrooge mc duck private citizen has enough cash to buy a ship outright it is then just a matter of finding routes that will generate profit from speculative trade.

The PC way of things
start with a free trader with a mortgage - hope to get enough ready cash that you can speculatively trade the expensive high profit stuff and you get lucky with a few availability and broker rolls. Many if not most fail at this point (which is why more modern rules make it trivially easy to become stinking rich and thus ruin the game).

Pay off mortgage, start saving for a jump 2 ship. Get NPCs - or a new group of PCs - to continue running this ship.

A jump 2 ship grants you a much better chance to have a good speculative cargo available, since you are rolling for each world within your jump number. A jump 2 ship with no mortgage and plenty of speculative trade stake money can make a lot of money.

Repeat until you earn enough for a jump 3.

At some point you probably want to stop upgrading jump number in your new build, but if you have the cash and you want a jump 6 ship I'm sure you can find a way to make it pay a profit.

 

[Condottiere]

1. This concerns Classic rules.

2. In which case, if you (as the ship proprietor) are losing money, don't accept passengers.

3. Or game the system, and only do monojumps.

4. Or only accept charter flights, which I don't recall being regulated.

5. The jump governor was a game changer, and regulation has yet to catch up.

6. I recall freight having a flat rate as well.

7. Maybe subsidized includes making up the difference between the ticket price and operating loss.

 

[atpollard]

MODERATOR HAT ON:

THIS IS JUST A FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT THE TOPIC WAS “WHAT ONE THING THAT YOU WOULD CHANGE ABOUT CLASSIC TRAVELLER”. Let’s all step back from rude, condescending and insulting rhetoric of hashing out “Rules As Written Pricing”.

State your piece about how you WANT pricing to be, State it politely and Move on.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Me: Here's an opportunity to learn something about CT that may not have been recognized bef-
Others: HARD PASS.
Me:

MODERATOR HAT ON:

THIS IS JUST A FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT THE TOPIC WAS WHAT ONE THING THAT YOU WOULD CHANGE ABOUT CLASSIC TRAVELLER. Let’s all step back from rude, condescending and insulting rhetoric of hashing out “Rules As Written Pricing”.

State your piece about how you WANT pricing to be, State it politely and move on.

Clarify the CT trade rules to explicitly and clearly state that passenger tickets and cargo transport are uniformly billed as being from port of call to port of call (from origin to destination) and are not modified by distance (parsecs or number of jumps). Update the trade rules to include interplanetary origins and destinations (LBB6 expanded system generation) as well as interstellar destinations.

Include the text of customs rules (orbit to orbit, surface to surface) adjacent to the above update, stipulating that not all worlds have orbital facilities so arrangements to complete deliveries per customs rules must be made accordingly.

Include note that starships with 1G maneuver drives can:

• VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) on world size: 7- due to local gravity being less than 1G.
• CTOL (conventional take off and landing, requiring either a prepared runway or liquid surface for takeoff runs and landings/splashdowns) on world size: 8 with sufficient atmosphere: 4+ requires aerodynamic streamlining for aerodynamic lift flight due to local gravity being ~1G.
• Lack sufficient maneuver drive capacity to land or lift off safely from world size: 9+ due to local gravity exceeding 1G.

Starships with 2G maneuver drives can VTOL on almost all high gravity terrestrial worlds, although local gravity of 2G imposes the same VTOL/CTOL limitations as local gravity approaches or exceeds 2G.

Atmospheric flight within the cloud layers of Gas Giants will often times require 1-6G maneuver capacity in excess of local gravity if the craft needs to achieve escape velocity to reach orbit after a descent below orbital hydrogen fuel skimming altitude into the denser cloud layers. Orbital velocity high altitude hydrogen fuel skimming only requires partial streamlining and can be done with 1G maneuver drives at any Gas Giant, while entry into the denser cloud layers below requires aerodynamic streamlining of the hull and a maneuver drive capacity in excess of local gravity to achieve escape velocity and reach orbit.



Clarification of a starship's range get tricky, because there are edge cases involving the map that add nuance beyond simply using "whatever the jump number is" interpretations.

Take the Saurus . Tavonni . Lanth run between Vilis and Lanth subsectors in the Spinward Marches, for example.

A rules pedantic argument can be made that a 1J2 or a 2J1 starship can make the voyage from Saurus to Tavonni to Lanth (or the reverse) due to drive and fuel capacity. However, a more inclusive rule would permit a starship bound from Saurus to Lanth via Tavonni to sell passenger tickets and cargo space from Saurus to Lanth (port of call to port of call), even though there would necessarily be a refueling stop at Tavonni along the way (where there is zero population). Passengers and cargo would not necessarily be obliged to pay for 2 tickets (Saurus to Tavonni plus Tavonni to Lanth) since the passenger and cargo are not obliged to disembark and reembark aboard the ship at Tavonni (since the passengers and cargo are all continuing on to Lanth), so only a single ticket at a single destination price would be required.

So even though the distance between the two ports of call (Saurus and Lanth) is 4 parsecs and the starship in this example only has enough jump capacity and fuel fraction for 2 parsecs before needing to refuel, such a starship ought to be allowed to offer passage from Saurus to Lanth, because Lanth is "within reach" of the starship's capabilities from the starting point of Saurus (it's less economical than a 1J4 from Saurus to Lanth, but it's not "prohibited" by the lack of single jump capability).

By contrast, a 1J1 starship could not make such a voyage at all (and should really stick to the Vilis Trace in this example).

Point being that a starship's jump number (1-6) and parsec range determined by fuel is only part of the answer to determining which star systems are "within range" of a starship's capabilities to reach. Ensuring that multi-jump voyages are profitable for the ship is the responsibility of the owner/captain/executive of the ship involved, not of the trade rules as written to guarantee profits on every potential voyage.

Basically, using a starship's jump number (alone) is too simplistic and limiting for determining the range of star systems a starship can deliver passengers and cargo to (at all, profitably is a different question). Referees must take a larger view in which multiple jumps, including a need to refuel (from internal and/or external fuel sources), are taken into account as possible routes and courses of action. In all such cases, star maps should be consulted to determine "how far" a starship (and its crew) is willing to go on the price of a single ticket from port of call to port of call.

 

[Grav_Moped]

5. The jump governor was a game changer, and regulation has yet to catch up.

6. I recall freight having a flat rate as well.

7. Maybe subsidized includes making up the difference between the ticket price and operating loss.

5. Absolutely. Likewise with the rules (in fact, the rules never did).
6. Yes.
7. Yes (whether they meant for it to do so or not).

 

[whartung]

I agree that the intent of the rules (plural and in general) leans toward per jump, but insist that AS WRITTEN it leaves the door open for per parsec. AS WRITTEN gives a specific example of J1 booking and charging three parsecs away. LW wrote GURPS as per parsec, which lends further credence to the flexibility of interpretation.

GURPS Traveller, Page 78, side bar

Middle passage is a step up from low passage, and is substantially more expensive (Cr8,000 per jump, again regardless of the number of parsecs traveled).

GURPS ISW Page 179

The standard rates for passenger transport are $400 for a low ticket, $2,500 for a standard ticket, $3,500 for a first-class ticket, and $6,000 for a luxury ticket. Ticket prices are per jump rather than per parsec traveled.

Just to add kindling to the fire
Cepheus Engine SRD, Page 136:

High passage costs Cr10,000 and provides food and lodging for 1 person for a distance of 1 jump.

More important still is my point that per parsec pricing MAKES SENSE, while per jump does not. That is continually ignored by self-appointed apostles of per jump pricing.

RAW do not have to MAKE SENSE. There's a plethora of things that are RAW that don't MAKE SENSE. The games job is not to make J3 ships profitable, it's to provide simple mechanics to let players run about and find adventure.

 

[Grav_Moped]

RAW do not have to MAKE SENSE. There's a plethora of things that are RAW that don't MAKE SENSE. The games job is not to make J3 ships profitable, it's to provide simple mechanics to let players run about and find adventure.

That's a perfectly valid viewpoint. And in 1977 and 1981, the ways in which it didn't make sense actually helped the game work. If J3 ships aren't profitable, there's less reason for players to seek them out. And in the context of the time, they probably shouldn't have had them!

Consider what the typical referee had to work with at the time: just the UWP roll and their imagination (and/or ability to "borrow" worlds from SF media or history). You don't want the players to have the ability to go "off the edge of the map" because that vastly increases the referee's workload. The map has to be bigger if the players can cross it faster, and this results in the referee wasting effort in detailing worlds that players end up ignoring completely.

That was mitigated eventually with adventures, JTAS articles, and third-party products filling out the setting details for the OTU. And now there's the Wiki and Travellermap and TravellerWorlds -- you can drop a ship out of Jump almost anywhere in Charted Space and find at least a skeleton description of the destination; sometimes, there's even a fairly well fleshed-out description.

It's now "safer" to un-break the dysfunctional rules framwork that channeled players toward small and short-ranged ships. That said, play balance and consistency suggest keeping some limits, to prevent players from becoming unreasonably wealthy and/or powerful for the setting. Or, if the new rules don't mesh with the setting history, destabilizing it entirely...