> --- In , Peter Gray
> 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."
That's how I think of it as well. The free traders take the small
cargoes that a bigger freighter isn't interested in, or that are
urgent enough for the shipper to pay extra rather than wait for a
megafreighter to come by. They'll also ship the cargoes that
are "differently legal" which a megafreighter captain won't touch
because of the legal repercussions for his/her firm. And they'll ship
cargoes to worlds that are too small and too far off the main trade
routes to be worth visiting for a megafreighter.
Just one question. How often would this 1dT/100 people be needed? Is
that a daily/weekly/yearly average.
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