Originally Posted by kilemall View Post
The relevant question to ask is not RAW trade and resultant ship design, although it is a useful exercise in rules consequences- the relevant question is what do you want it to be, then true up your rules to make it that way.
Not a bad approach.
I'd come at it from a slightly different angle. Make it match the implications of LBB2 trade in those rules' scope, then expand to include desired characteristics.
In other words, everything that's canon should work as written. Type As can scrape by on cargo, Type Rs can't without a subsidy (but could if they weren't designed to fail). Type A2s should almost be able to if they only ever do J-2*, Type R2 Big Far Traders can get by if they do J-2 most of the time.
Type Ms are far enough outside usual PC scope that they can be left unprofitable without breaking suspension of disbelief, but a 600Td Jump-3 stripped-down freighter ought to be able to cover its costs on selected routes.
Anything bigger starts to be a license to print money if there's enough cargo to go around, but the megacorps own most of the money machines.
*loans get written under the premise that the ships will stick to profitable routes to guarantee return on investment. Oddly, not all that many actually do. The rest chase speculative cargo and often do quite well, but the bank would never make those loans if they expected them to be high-risk.
Some basic assumptions, based on cost per jump per payload ton for LBB2 ships:
- LBB2 cargo rules (Cr1000/Jump, available cargo) are valid enough. They support Jump-1 shipping in hulls up to 600Td (with passengers filling out the payload space not used by cargo).
- These rules make shipping generic cargo at higher than Jump-1 unprofitable. Therefore, the vast majority of such shipping is conducted at Jump-1.
- Roughly, the cost of transporting a ton of payload to X parsecs in a single Jump is proportional to the distance.
Code:
Cost of Jump-n instead of lowest-cost method to n parsecs:
Dist TL-9 TL-10 TL-11 TL-12 TL-13 TL-14 TL-15
1 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
2 1.01 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
3 3.04 1.09 1.35 1.22 1.14 1.14 1.00
4 x 3.07 3.21 2.16 2.16 1.83 1.08
5 x x 31.83 31.83 5.14 5.14 3.03
6 x x x x x x 5.37
x indicates that Jump-n is not available at that Tech Level
Note that the TL9 J3 ship is 200Td, the TL10 J-4 ship is 400Td, and the TL-11 J-5 ship is also 400Td (but has only 7 tons(!) payload). This strongly suggests that these early ships (especially the TL11 J5 one) are not going to be independently economically viable under any plausible generic cargo rules.
Also, these numbers are for for the largest possible ship for that Jump Number at that Tech Level. I'll re-attack this with ships benchmarked at about 250Td payload (cargo plus passengers) which should support an average world's (no +/-DMs) cargo volume.
Implications:
- The default cost of shipping becomes Cr1000/parsec, comprised of multiple Jump-1 legs to reach destinations beyond 1 parsec.
- The cargo volumes generated by LBB2 reflect the under-pricing of longer-jump shipping. That is, with per-jump pricing, Jump-2 costs Cr500/ton/parsec, Jump-3 costs Cr333/ton/parsec, and so on. They do
not reflect the volumes available when the cost of shipping is per-parsec.
- Additionally, the cargo rates do not reflect the value of time saved in transit by higher-jump ships.
Secondary Implications:
- Cargo is available for ships to distances beyond their Jump rating, in reduced quantities reflecting the increased shipping costs.
- Cargo is available for higher-Jump ships in the reduced quantities noted above, at rates high enough to cover the operational cost difference. This will affect the benchmark cargo capacity for higher-Jump ships.
- Higher-Jump ships (J-4 and J-5) may be justified (I'm conflicted on this) in charging more than Cr1000/ton/parsec because of the value of the time saved in transit, without further adjustment to quantity of available cargo due to distance. This will require me to do some calculations and make some subjective decisions.
