Which is better - freighter only, or Far Trader?

[Hal]

As the topic asks, which is better in your opinion, a Freighter that is identical in all respects to a Far Trader but has all non-essential staterooms removed and dedicated towards a cargo bay, or a Far Trader outright?

Note: this is not an issue of "role playing opportunites" better, but better from the perspective of someone who wishes to make a living as a Ship owner of said freighter?

Just curious

 

[far-trader]

Depends on the rules of trade being used and your definition of a far-trader

Under CT (and any per jump rather than per parsec) rules far-traders (if you mean anything over J1) can't pay the standard 40 year 220% mortgage. Not on freight and reasonable passenger rates per the tables.

Under various per parsec rules generally any ship can make the payments if reasonably designed.

Under CT freight earns you the lowest return on your open tonnage. But it is easy to fill a ship on most runs and you don't need anti-hijack software or stewards.

If you want to make money running a freighter it's doable. Even under CT. But not at more than J1 (to reduce costs on everything to the minimum).

Actually istr having worked out a larger freighter that could pay it's way on J2 at per jump prices but the last time I tried to recreate it the numbers didn't work. And I couldn't figure out why. Should have kept the designs (original and attempted remake).

I'm tempted to look at it again since the apparently workable J2 design was posted in The Fleet recently, here:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=19501

 

[aramis]

Given that the average return on spec is about KCr1.5 per Td using just available brokerages, for a net DM difference of +1... given the mean price of KCr15/ton... one should be able to break even on spec if one picks a good route. (The March Harrier in TTA doesn't have a good route, but has a couple good legs on its route.)

If one has one's own broker-2, or a route where one is likely to get cargos one can resell with positive DM's, one can make more than that, pretty consistently averaging, in the long run, more than KCr3/Td/jump, but a lot of that is making +50% over purchase on lots of goods running KCr30+ per Td, and your capitalization to start should be at least KCr50/Td to pull it off.

Mid Passengers make about KCr1.5 per ton. If you don't have a broker of your own, you're making about the same.

If you're trying to run HP, forget it if you count that ton of cargo as a displacement ton rather than 1000kg... it takes 9 HP per steward to break even, and a steward only allows 8 hp...