Re: [Traveller_TNE] Inter-Planet trade

Hmmm, good points all round, this'll require some thought. "Colonies" back in the 1500-1700s

had what population? and What volume of shipping? I've not even a clue how to start finding the answers. Yet combine that with the 550million tons of "official shipping" in the UK recently and the estimated umpteen billion tons shipped globally. Me thinks that the mega frieghter at 10k tons is a tad light, maybe it's only a cargo lighter and not the main ship after all?

It's possible that a mega-freighter would take all or perhaps a large chunk outta the available goods but there was a solo game put out one time for traveller that dealt with trying to make a profit between the stars. anyone able to recall the name? If ID'd would it be legal to post it onto the site?

The ship sizes in Traveller is a limitation here, I could see a frieghter that full might push say 0.1 g and have j4-5-6 capability. Empty it'd be capable of quite a few g's simply because of the reduced mass however going around deadheading it, would likely see the company in arrears very quickly. But then that's likely true with any number of shipping companies even today...ever think what it costs to run one of those car carriers from Tokyo to the US? When in Panama I'd gotten to the point for awhile where I recognized quite a few of the ships that made regular runs. Car carriers would cycle (west-east and back east-west) about every month or so, those ships aren't slow by any means.

Tim

Tom <> wrote:

--- In , Peter Gray <emptiedboat@y...>
wrote:
> One thing I did find interesting while researching RL commercial
shipping: the amount of shipping
> required to support any significant interstellar economy seems to
have been significantly
> underestimated by a whole slew of Traveller writers and
publications. The ballpark mean average
> I've estimated is about 1 displacement ton per 100 persons
resident.

I really thing it is just a matter of focus. Since the game is
focused on the players. I have always guessed that the trade
mentioned is the "Free" trade - which is to say the trade left over
after all the multi-year contract arrangements have been taken thier
share.

Very large bulk traders ply the spacelanes and traderoutes - they get
most of the cargos. The the players can only get the leftovers -
made up of overages and odd lots (which accounts for the randomness
in the cargo generation rules.)

I have always said that 90% of the trade is taken by the big boys
with their 10000 ton bulk traders.

Imagine following a week behind one of the big traders. The players
might get one of these...

The port Broker says "Sorry we aren't intrested in your Cheese. We
got 5000 tons from the last ship."

The Broker says "BUY? Buy what? Everything on the planet is getting
loaded into that megafreighter over there. I am going on vacation
for 3 months while the factories build up some inventory."

Yahoo! for Good
Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

T20	Twin traveller	Business traveller
Role playing games	Online role playing games	Role playing games online