CT Only: What One Thing Would You Change About Classic Traveller?
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MP was sadcakes, the only good part was the racial desirability modifier.
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
In 1977 Book 2, p. 5, the financed price is shown as 220% of the cash price rather than 240%. Perhaps you were thinking of the monthly payment of 1⁄240 of the cash price?
The financed price is perhaps more readily comparable to a fixed-rate mortgage; for example, the financing of 80% of the cost of a Type A free trader is comparable to a fixed-rate 40-year 5.575% mortgage. At this writing, the US prime rate is 8.5%, and from 1979 to 1982 it varied between 11% and 21.5%, so 5.575% doesn’t quite have the same scariness.
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
By my calculations, at a fixed rate of 5.575% compounded 12 times per year (the rate being analogous to the standard 40-year loan), the payments would look like this:
| Term | Payment |
|---|---|
| 30 years (360 payments) | CR 169,828 |
| 20 years (240 payments) | CR 205,314 |
| 10 years (120 payments) | CR 323,036 |
(In each case, the final payment would be a bit less.)
One thing I would change in CT is Starports, as follows:
1) Move it to after the rest of the UWP (other than TL) have been determined
2) Break it into 2 parts:
a) Size (which would incorporate presence) based on a roll with DMs for Pop and Ag/In and NA/NI trade codes; maybe DMs for Naval and Scout bases as well (edit to note - that would involve a modifier after the quality has been determined)
b) Quality - based on die roll with DMs for Ri/Po trade codes
3) Availability of refined fuel - given the cost of fuel processors, there is no reason why a system with a gas giant or where the mainworld (or any other world in the system) has a decent hydrographics code wouldn't have refined fuel available.
1) Move it to after the rest of the UWP (other than TL) have been determined
2) Break it into 2 parts:
a) Size (which would incorporate presence) based on a roll with DMs for Pop and Ag/In and NA/NI trade codes; maybe DMs for Naval and Scout bases as well (edit to note - that would involve a modifier after the quality has been determined)
b) Quality - based on die roll with DMs for Ri/Po trade codes
3) Availability of refined fuel - given the cost of fuel processors, there is no reason why a system with a gas giant or where the mainworld (or any other world in the system) has a decent hydrographics code wouldn't have refined fuel available.
MichaelSTee
SOC-12
I haven't put anything in this thread before because there's so much I would change if making my own house rules document, but that's to match my own setting. Since I found Traveller in the mid 80s, I've always looked at it as less of a game per se and more of a "basis for a simulation". So the thing that bugs me most is the unrealistic results of the world gen system. Book 6 went some of the way to fixing this, and I really like the streamlining of that in MGT Ref's Manual.
MichaelSTee
SOC-12
Oh definitely. You'll notice I said "basis for a simulation", not necessarily a realistic sim. But in the stories I like to read, or create, I like things to make sense. And while most of the rules are fairly believable, or can be explained away with advanced tech, some of the world-building rules are just don't make sense.
Mind you, Traveller is still my favorite game! It just needs some nudging to get to the setting I want.
Hard sci-fi is just as much a genre as scenery chewing space opera or cyberpunk.Oh definitely. You'll notice I said "basis for a simulation", not necessarily a realistic sim. But in the stories I like to read, or create, I like things to make sense. And while most of the rules are fairly believable, or can be explained away with advanced tech, some of the world-building rules are just don't make sense.
Mind you, Traveller is still my favorite game! It just needs some nudging to get to the setting I want.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
You haven't heard me try to do math.
Rewinding the discussion a bit (OK, almost 2 years...) some people were talking about container ships and I felt the need to correct or explain a few things.
@Grav_Moped (in comment #267 on p14) was suggesting that the big container ships we have these days are equivalent to about 5,000 Td. I hate to say that his maths is wrong and that size is out by about a factor of 10. A 221,000 Gross Tonnage (not Gross Register Tonnage - that measure hasn't been used officially for a dew decades) container ship would have a moulded volume of 697,446 m^3 (51,663 Td @13.5 m^3; 49,818 Td @14 m^3). And that measure doesn't include the volume of the containers carried above-deck.
There was some discussion about small ports being able to handle containers. A lot of small ports can, but the ships serving them are "geared" (ie have their own cranes); shore-side they don't even need cranes, there are a number of high-loader vehicles that they can use instead. I believe it was @Spinward Flow who suggested that Class D starports wouldn't be able to handle containers. As availability of cargo lots is based on Population, rather than starport class, if the world is able to produce minor and major cargo lots I'd say it can handle containers (assuming there is a starport as that will be at least at TL9, even if the world isn't).
It was definitely @Spinward Flow who posted a photo of Maersk McKinney-Moller (comment #324 on p17),first ship of the first generation of their Triple-E class and raised the issue of external cargo. I don't see any reason for not having/allowing external cargo, but the ship can't be streamlined if it does. After all, in Supplement 9 there is the Jump Shuttle; Battle Riders would also be external cargo for their tenders. For external container transport, the ship would need to have external racking similar to the lashing bridges (those red-oxide painted structures you can see in the gaps between containers and at the end of each section in the photo) to secure them.
Out of interest, that ship can carry a total of 18,270 TEU by volume, of which a maximum of 9,494 (52%) will be above deck; the remaining 8,776 (48%) will be in holds below deck, about 40% of those will actually be below the waterline. The 18.270 figure is never achieved as it is based on a weight of about 11 tonnes per TEU but actual weights tend to average about 14 tonnes per TEU. The containers you can see in the photo are 40' ones but the angle makes them look short enough to be 20' ones.
It's certainly true that in 1977 Marc & co. couldn't have foreseen how big containerised shipping would become, both in terms of the number of ships and their size. Mind you, even then the size of the largest purpose-built container ships had more than doubled (1968 - 1,530 tEU; 1972 - 2,950 TEU; 1980 - 4,100 TEU). However, I doubt that anyone would have predicted that from 2005 to 2020 the number of container ships increased by 80% and their total gross tonnage tripled. I'm not sure how big the bulk carriers and tankers were getting at that time but both are still increasing in numbers if not size (I suspect that the current Capesize ships are at the limit given current shipbuilding capability and ability of ports to accept them; for container ships Suezmax is the realistic limit for now).
By deadweight tonnage container shipping only accounts for about 20% of cargo. That being said, by value of the cargo it accounts about 80%. The bulk of cargo by deadweight is still carried by bulk carriers.
Container shipping facts:
The top 30 container lines control 94% of the market with 84% of the ships. The remaining 6% of the market is accounted for by 16% of the ships, averaging about 1,700 TEU (a ship that size would be about 4,725 Td). In 2020 there were 20 registered container ships in the 100-500 Gross Tons range.
@Grav_Moped (in comment #267 on p14) was suggesting that the big container ships we have these days are equivalent to about 5,000 Td. I hate to say that his maths is wrong and that size is out by about a factor of 10. A 221,000 Gross Tonnage (not Gross Register Tonnage - that measure hasn't been used officially for a dew decades) container ship would have a moulded volume of 697,446 m^3 (51,663 Td @13.5 m^3; 49,818 Td @14 m^3). And that measure doesn't include the volume of the containers carried above-deck.
There was some discussion about small ports being able to handle containers. A lot of small ports can, but the ships serving them are "geared" (ie have their own cranes); shore-side they don't even need cranes, there are a number of high-loader vehicles that they can use instead. I believe it was @Spinward Flow who suggested that Class D starports wouldn't be able to handle containers. As availability of cargo lots is based on Population, rather than starport class, if the world is able to produce minor and major cargo lots I'd say it can handle containers (assuming there is a starport as that will be at least at TL9, even if the world isn't).
It was definitely @Spinward Flow who posted a photo of Maersk McKinney-Moller (comment #324 on p17),first ship of the first generation of their Triple-E class and raised the issue of external cargo. I don't see any reason for not having/allowing external cargo, but the ship can't be streamlined if it does. After all, in Supplement 9 there is the Jump Shuttle; Battle Riders would also be external cargo for their tenders. For external container transport, the ship would need to have external racking similar to the lashing bridges (those red-oxide painted structures you can see in the gaps between containers and at the end of each section in the photo) to secure them.
Out of interest, that ship can carry a total of 18,270 TEU by volume, of which a maximum of 9,494 (52%) will be above deck; the remaining 8,776 (48%) will be in holds below deck, about 40% of those will actually be below the waterline. The 18.270 figure is never achieved as it is based on a weight of about 11 tonnes per TEU but actual weights tend to average about 14 tonnes per TEU. The containers you can see in the photo are 40' ones but the angle makes them look short enough to be 20' ones.
It's certainly true that in 1977 Marc & co. couldn't have foreseen how big containerised shipping would become, both in terms of the number of ships and their size. Mind you, even then the size of the largest purpose-built container ships had more than doubled (1968 - 1,530 tEU; 1972 - 2,950 TEU; 1980 - 4,100 TEU). However, I doubt that anyone would have predicted that from 2005 to 2020 the number of container ships increased by 80% and their total gross tonnage tripled. I'm not sure how big the bulk carriers and tankers were getting at that time but both are still increasing in numbers if not size (I suspect that the current Capesize ships are at the limit given current shipbuilding capability and ability of ports to accept them; for container ships Suezmax is the realistic limit for now).
By deadweight tonnage container shipping only accounts for about 20% of cargo. That being said, by value of the cargo it accounts about 80%. The bulk of cargo by deadweight is still carried by bulk carriers.
Container shipping facts:
The top 30 container lines control 94% of the market with 84% of the ships. The remaining 6% of the market is accounted for by 16% of the ships, averaging about 1,700 TEU (a ship that size would be about 4,725 Td). In 2020 there were 20 registered container ships in the 100-500 Gross Tons range.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Economics and physics are probably the limiting factors.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
The way I approached the issue was that external cargo containers could be offloaded just fine in orbit, but that requires highport facilities to deliver to ... and type D starports are usually downside only.
The other factor is that lower grades of starports will have "insufficient infrastructure" for the rapid loading/unloading of cargoes. My notion is that A/B/C/D/E/X starports take 1/2/3/4/5/10 minutes per cargo ton to unload and load (x2 that amount if working in zero G conditions) ... so loading and unloading takes longer at lower grades of starports with less personnel and support infrastructure to go around.
Agreed.
The same rule applies for External Demountable Fuel Tanks, by the way.
L-Hyd Drop Tanks built for a craft will match the hull streamlining though. (LBB A5)
Well, if they ever deepen and widen the Suez canal, sizes (and TEU capacity) would go up as the ships could have deeper drafts and wider beams (and possibly be slightly longer). But that would take a significant investment and the demand for it is probably not there. It would also need the destination ports to invest in even bigger gantry cranes to reach the farthest containers and dredge the harbours for deeper draft vessels.
Given the recent situation with the Panama Canal and over the past couple of years at Long Beach, I think there will be an increase in the number of Neopanamax container ships plying the Asia to US East Coast route.
Too late to edit my big post, but I've just realised that the average tonnage of the 16% of ships covering 6% of the market would be lower than 1,700 TEU as some of that market will also be taken by RoRo and general cargo ships.
Ok, back of the envelope calc on the largest container ships is in the range of 100,000 to 150,000 dtons.
Remember though those largest above ships only have around 21 ports that can handle their traffic.
Note Handysized vessels make up the bulk of cargo shipping which generally will drop into the 8,000 to 20,000 dtons.
Consider this, external containers will look a lot like Small Craft hulls, in that the have to have the resilience withstand the rigors of Jump and Vacuum. With all that it starts to make Lighter Abourd Ship sorts of merchants attractive and/or larger Containers for your standard intermodal containers...
Note, Note there are 4 times as many General Cargo Ships than there are Container ships. Heck there is twice as many Bulk and Tankers each as well.
Well, yes. The bulk cargo ships are the ones hauling from resource and agricultural worlds, while the container ships are moving your finished goods.
Not quite. The largest container ship class (by Gross Tonnage) is the CMA CGM Jacques Saade class at 236,583 GT which works out to 55,205 Td (using 13.5 m^3) but it's only 10th by TEU capacity.
True.
Supramax ships are up to 60,000 DWT; the nearest example I can (quickly) find to that is MV Bright Field with a GT of 36,120 which works out as 8,843.5 Td (@13.5 m^3).
Agreed (if I have understood what you're saying correctly).
According to the 2020 world fleet stats from Equasis:
General Cargo: 11,988 ships totaling 60,838,000 GT, mostly in the [500 to <25,000 GT] range, with about 250 in the [25,000 to <60,000 GT] range; average size is 5075 GT = 1318 Td
Container: 5,370 ships totaling 256,713,000 GT; average size is 47805 GT = 11651 Td
Bulk Carriers: 12,229 ships totaling 493,169,000 GT; average size is 40328 GT = 9875 Td
Tankers: 13,201 ships totaling 458,510,000 GT; average size is 34733 GT = 8541 Td
Exactly.
Note my numbers were based on a TEU being around 4 dTons and added healthy slice for the rest of the ship. To be accurate I would actually have to design said beasties...
Historical note, the assumed tonnage of the average largish cargo was 10,000 dtons from conversations on the TML and early days here.
To absolutely clear I am taking real world loads of cargo and building Traveller ships around those.
With all of that Traveller's stated Cargo/Trade system from CT and on is based on the J1/2 tramp trade (i.e. Free/Far Traders). Thus is problematic when trying to model real world shipping.
A further note, the traditional Book2 Traders are more like semi trucks or island traders in that the bulk of what they move is probably palletized rather than Containers. Or really more like the containers they use with Air Cargo rather than your standard TEU. Though to note it is note beyond the realm of possibility to get a TEU full of aircraft load units.
Fair point. A standard TEU actually works out as about 2.83 Td; for the largest container ships it is probably about 55% of capacity stored above deck. Taking that as a 24,000 TEU (slightly smaller than the largest capacity) 55% is 13,200 TEU; if we round up to 3Td per TEU, that adds 39,600 Td to the ship bringing it to about 80,000 Td. You'd then need to add some for the drives and fuel.
Crew requirements would be much higher than for our current "wet" merchant ships whether you use Book 2 or Book 5, so extra accommodation would be needed. The biggest "wet" cargo ships have about 27 crew (plus deck and engine cadets); tankers tend to have larger crews.
I missed all of those conversations - I only joined CoTI a week or so ago.
I think we both are; my original comment was in response to some earlier ones.
Agreed - it's definitely what's left over after the big boys have filled up.
They're definitely in the island traders and coasters category of merchant ship. For the Type S, I'd say it's somewhat akin to Cutter's Goose from tales of the Gold Monkey - small cargo/passenger capacity but quicker than the small trading ships.
ps - good to meet another shipping nerd
I really liked that show.Fair point. A standard TEU actually works out as about 2.83 Td; for the largest container ships it is probably about 55% of capacity stored above deck. Taking that as a 24,000 TEU (slightly smaller than the largest capacity) 55% is 13,200 TEU; if we round up to 3Td per TEU, that adds 39,600 Td to the ship bringing it to about 80,000 Td. You'd then need to add some for the drives and fuel.
Crew requirements would be much higher than for our current "wet" merchant ships whether you use Book 2 or Book 5, so extra accommodation would be needed. The biggest "wet" cargo ships have about 27 crew (plus deck and engine cadets); tankers tend to have larger crews.
I missed all of those conversations - I only joined CoTI a week or so ago.
I think we both are; my original comment was in response to some earlier ones.
Agreed - it's definitely what's left over after the big boys have filled up.
They're definitely in the island traders and coasters category of merchant ship. For the Type S, I'd say it's somewhat akin to Cutter's Goose from tales of the Gold Monkey - small cargo/passenger capacity but quicker than the small trading ships.
ps - good to meet another shipping nerd
Tales of the Gold Monkey - Wikipedia
I would think that a Type S would be more like a UPS/Fed-Ex type. The Type A more like a Tramp Cargo Ship- LTS, (less than Shipload).
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