[Traveller_TNE] Inter-Planet trade

--- 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."

T20	Twin traveller	Business traveller
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