Does removing modules allow longer jumps

Goes all the way back to Classic Traveller. While Tukera is the only one for whom freight is the main focus, they all do it. Here is the description in Merchant Prince (Bk 7).

Megacorporations: The long-haul transportation companies of the star lanes are the megacorporations. Only megacorporations, with their support bases and establishments spread over great distances, can provide long-distance passenger and freight service. Megacorporations, with their large capitalization and their great manpower, can and do have ships with luxurious appointments and high jump capabilities. Travellers can book passage for great distances on one ship; they are relieved of the need to change ships or to make travel arrangements for themselves. Megacorporations are naturally favored by the government; they receive the majority of the lucrative mail contracts and most of the military equipment shipment franchises; they carry diplomatic personnel. Megacorporations use their own equipment and available space to transport corporate personnel, often on a space available basis. Megacorporations may strike convenient reciprocal arrangements with other ,
megacorporations for service to areas they do not serve.
So Megacorps are all transportation companies first and production companies second. That actually makes a lot of sense.
 
It's more like this. All the megas ships their own goods on their own hulls because they have the infrastructure and resources to afford to run the more expensive high jump vessels. So SuSAG factory on planet A is shipping to SuSAG distribution center on planet B, even if that's j5 or whatever. They will carry other folks' stuff on that route on a space available basis, though they may also carry government, military, or other large trustworthy entities' stuff on the regular too.

Tukera is specifically in the business of shipping. They have some other businesses, but their main thing is shipping. So they ship everyone's stuff. Rather than making much of their own stuff, they'll corner markets on other peoples' goods. An example in The Traveller Adventure is Zila. Zila's an ag world with a very good wine analogue. Tukera essentially bought out the entire wine output of that world to ship and resell themselves. And they run shipping to basically any world they can profitably make arrangements to keep their ships full.

Smaller lines take up the rest of the business and the smaller, less profitable worlds.
 
The Confederation has only one megacorporation, and it deals primarily in transportation.

However, since it's basically a Solomani Party institution, that limitation could be due to political considerations.

Imperium megacorporations are so large, that while they may specialize in some specific fields, they could have any number of subsidiaries that cover other aspects of the market.
 
It's more like this. All the megas ships their own goods on their own hulls because they have the infrastructure and resources to afford to run the more expensive high jump vessels. So SuSAG factory on planet A is shipping to SuSAG distribution center on planet B, even if that's j5 or whatever. They will carry other folks' stuff on that route on a space available basis, though they may also carry government, military, or other large trustworthy entities' stuff on the regular too.

Tukera is specifically in the business of shipping. They have some other businesses, but their main thing is shipping. So they ship everyone's stuff. Rather than making much of their own stuff, they'll corner markets on other peoples' goods. An example in The Traveller Adventure is Zila. Zila's an ag world with a very good wine analogue. Tukera essentially bought out the entire wine output of that world to ship and resell themselves. And they run shipping to basically any world they can profitably make arrangements to keep their ships full.

Smaller lines take up the rest of the business and the smaller, less profitable worlds.
So how does this apply to large corps that are not megacorps? I am starting to get the feeling that megacorps are more conglomerates that have their fingers in a bit of everything and non-megacorps are the specialized corporations. Ford builds automobiles. Kraft makes food products. The Pyramid Corporation is into everything.
 
As I see it, megacorps are sometimes conglomerates with multiple fingers in many things and sometimes (somewhat) specialized in specific industries. In ye olde days we had the East India Company that controlled trade and later politics in India, or Hudson Bay company in Canada. In the US you had the various Trust companies, or the grand-daddy vertically and horizontally integrated Standard Oil. We've often heard of coal companies having "company towns" where they were the only real employer and retailer (and land owner/slum lord/etc). Shadowrun has a similar idea (and also, in a very Traveller-esque manner these companies sometimes engage in armed combat with one another).

In more modern industries you had companies like GE or GM, that have ebbed and flowed as conglomerates across many industries. The books describe Imperium-wide companies like this, and then sector and sub-sector wide (the Tukera lines and Al Morai). The Imperial-sized ones are so big that they really don't do much at the player level. Smaller-sized ones still are quite big from a PC perspective. Since Traveller is mostly an RPG game, these kinds of companies are really come off as just set-dressing. It's hard to RPG with a megacorp setting.

I think when (some at least) of the game designers sat down they went more for cool factor, or "this sounds cool" and worried less about whether or not these companies would work - and how much they may match historical models and/or realistic ones. For some players the cool factor is more than enough and they'll go from there. Others find it requires too much hand wavium.

Personally I like to find a middle-ground that matches something that makes logical sense, is interesting background, and isn't so detailed that it requires me to use a spreadsheet on an hourly basis. And discussions with like-minded people on boards like this help are good sources of different viewpoints.

Plus nobody has devolved into neener-neener mode... which makes for a pleasant conversation. :)
 
So how does this apply to large corps that are not megacorps? I am starting to get the feeling that megacorps are more conglomerates that have their fingers in a bit of everything and non-megacorps are the specialized corporations. Ford builds automobiles. Kraft makes food products. The Pyramid Corporation is into everything.
Megacorporations are conglomerates. They have a core business that is what they are "about" and generally do in their own name, but they own lots of smaller companies. Let's look at SuSAG, for instance. It has 7 divisions that operate under the SuSAG brand. Pharmaceuticals, Biomedical Engineering, Industrial Chemicals, Geneering, ChemBio Weapons, Research, and Extra Imperial Ops.

It also owns a lot of companies. For instance, it owns SeaHarvester, Inc which is a company that does resource gathering on ocean worlds. It probably owns shipping companies rather than has a SUSAG SHIPPING.

As far as other companies go, they are widely varied. What makes them not megacorps is that their business is almost always limited to a single sector, subsector, or planet.

For shipping specifically, Merchant Prince mentions Sector wide lines, subsector lines, Interface lines (cross border shippers), and "fledgling" lines (that are basically tramps that own multiple ships). If you want to ship something from Rhylanor to Deneb, you are probably not going to have much choice other than Tukera, but a sector line like Al Morai might have service if you are just going over the sector border.

A sample Sector Wide line is Al Morai. It runs its main routes between the capitals of the subsectors of the Spinward Marches following the major trade routes. It has some penetration into Deneb and the Trojan Reaches, but generally hands off passengers and cargo to another line at that point. It also runs feeder routes to all the planets in the Mora subsector, connecting them to the main trade routes.
 
It actually states it is not uncommon for different branches of the same megacorporation accidentally finding themselves in competition.
The bosses would say this is healthy for the bottom line since it weeds out the weak.
 
As I see it, megacorps are sometimes conglomerates with multiple fingers in many things and sometimes (somewhat) specialized in specific industries. In ye olde days we had the East India Company that controlled trade and later politics in India, or Hudson Bay company in Canada. In the US you had the various Trust companies, or the grand-daddy vertically and horizontally integrated Standard Oil. We've often heard of coal companies having "company towns" where they were the only real employer and retailer (and land owner/slum lord/etc). Shadowrun has a similar idea (and also, in a very Traveller-esque manner these companies sometimes engage in armed combat with one another).

In more modern industries you had companies like GE or GM, that have ebbed and flowed as conglomerates across many industries. The books describe Imperium-wide companies like this, and then sector and sub-sector wide (the Tukera lines and Al Morai). The Imperial-sized ones are so big that they really don't do much at the player level. Smaller-sized ones still are quite big from a PC perspective. Since Traveller is mostly an RPG game, these kinds of companies are really come off as just set-dressing. It's hard to RPG with a megacorp setting.

I think when (some at least) of the game designers sat down they went more for cool factor, or "this sounds cool" and worried less about whether or not these companies would work - and how much they may match historical models and/or realistic ones. For some players the cool factor is more than enough and they'll go from there. Others find it requires too much hand wavium.

Personally I like to find a middle-ground that matches something that makes logical sense, is interesting background, and isn't so detailed that it requires me to use a spreadsheet on an hourly basis. And discussions with like-minded people on boards like this help are good sources of different viewpoints.

Plus nobody has devolved into neener-neener mode... which makes for a pleasant conversation. :)
I am good for a middle ground, because I have more spreadsheets than I want at the moment anyhow. lol. My problem is I can't figure out how to make a coherent middle-ground. I love the rule of cool, but I always try and find a way to do it within the rules. The problem that I have is that there are no rules that cover corps and megacorps. The only thing that really exists is a bunch of writers' descriptive text written over almost 50 years and a million editions that, regardless of if they even make economic sense or not, were never intended to be more than fluff. (Hence the not having any rules). The rule that has become MOARN, makes worldbuilding impossible without 90% handwavium, because the rule systems were never designed to cover these areas, because MOARN.

So as a Referee who spends literally thousands of hours, over years of time, worldbuilding as well as designing scenarios for future campaign arcs, it is important for Me to not only know how the rules of the universe work but also how they function when connected all together into a coherent whole. From sophont-scale all of the way up to Interstellar Polity-scale.

Of course, I am one of those people for whom rules of a game are like the laws of physics for the universe. The stories must always fit within the rules, not the other way around. I find them unplayable otherwise. If I drop a pencil in 1G, physics says that it will always do the same thing. If it doesn't, than to Me, that is something that PCs should be curious about. It says something that you don't know made something behave in a way you do not think that is should behave. What ways could this be accomplished? air resistance? hidden grav generator? psionic telekinesis? It could be either of those three of none of them. I have rules for each of those to be or not to be what is going on. My point is that without rules, written in advance, preferably in a published book, do My players have anyway of know what is even possible.

For example, in Traveller, in the OTU, as a player, My mind would never jump to thinking, "Hey! That ship has a Hyperdrive Engine!" Why not? Because according to the rules of Traveller in the OTU, Hyperdrive Engines are not a thing. The players have no way of knowing that without rules.

Personally, I hate MOARN. MOARN says to only be creative when you are forced to by your players. Personally, as a Referee, I prefer to know what is out there before My players even think about it, then again, I am a sandbox-only style Referee.


I apologize for this rant. It kind of got away from Me. :(
 
Megacorporations are conglomerates. They have a core business that is what they are "about" and generally do in their own name, but they own lots of smaller companies. Let's look at SuSAG, for instance. It has 7 divisions that operate under the SuSAG brand. Pharmaceuticals, Biomedical Engineering, Industrial Chemicals, Geneering, ChemBio Weapons, Research, and Extra Imperial Ops.

It also owns a lot of companies. For instance, it owns SeaHarvester, Inc which is a company that does resource gathering on ocean worlds. It probably owns shipping companies rather than has a SUSAG SHIPPING.

As far as other companies go, they are widely varied. What makes them not megacorps is that their business is almost always limited to a single sector, subsector, or planet.

For shipping specifically, Merchant Prince mentions Sector wide lines, subsector lines, Interface lines (cross border shippers), and "fledgling" lines (that are basically tramps that own multiple ships). If you want to ship something from Rhylanor to Deneb, you are probably not going to have much choice other than Tukera, but a sector line like Al Morai might have service if you are just going over the sector border.

A sample Sector Wide line is Al Morai. It runs its main routes between the capitals of the subsectors of the Spinward Marches following the major trade routes. It has some penetration into Deneb and the Trojan Reaches, but generally hands off passengers and cargo to another line at that point. It also runs feeder routes to all the planets in the Mora subsector, connecting them to the main trade routes.
You know something, My head hurts! lol. I am starting to think that thinking of Megacorps and other corps as Aslan Clans makes more sense. Whereas the Aslan Clans each control different areas of Land from part of one planet to a member of the 29 which controls Land across multiple sectors. Human Corporations seem to do the same but with business, up to and including Vassal Clans, such as GeDeCo in the Trojan Reach versus GeDeCo in Deneb.
 
I think you have fallen into the trap many of us did :)

Don't overthink it, don't want every detail covered by an "official" rule.

What do player characters see? What do they do?

Traveller is not the Third Imperium. The Third Imperium is just an example of a setting.

Traveller is not 126 supplements, 86 adventures, 62 core rulebooks.

Traveller is not describing every bolt on a Tigress.

Traveller is 3 little black books - Characters, Combat, Starships, Worlds.

Traveller is using your imagination to create a universe for you and your players to have fun in.

Traveller is what you decide the player characters encounter.

Traveller is what the players do in those encounters.

Mongoose is a company that want to make money.

New core rule books make the most money.
 
I think you have fallen into the trap many of us did :)

Don't overthink it, don't want every detail covered by an "official" rule.

What do player characters see? What do they do?

They see whatever is there.
Traveller is not the Third Imperium. The Third Imperium is just an example of a setting.
Third Imperium is only a setting because it was defined.
Traveller is not 126 supplements, 86 adventures, 62 core rulebooks.
Traveller is these things as well.
Traveller is not describing every bolt on a Tigress.
No, but I would like to know how long it takes to build a Tigress depending on the size of the shipyard so I can make My own parts of space and populate it with things that make sense.
Traveller is 3 little black books - Characters, Combat, Starships, Worlds.
It was, but then again, are you using an abacus to do math? Things evolve.
Traveller is using your imagination to create a universe for you and your players to have fun in.
Yes it is, within a ruleset. Without a ruleset, it is just a bunch of people telling stories around a campfire. (which is fun for Me as well. :) )
Traveller is what you decide the player characters encounter.
Within the ruleset, yes.
Traveller is what the players do in those encounters.
Again, within the ruleset, yes.
Mongoose is a company that want to make money.
All companies do. Popular setting books make tons of money too and more of them can be written then Core books. Although, wouldn't a book on trade and business with all of the relevant rules be considered a "Core" book in the same vein as the Robot Handbook or Geir's new Worldbuilder book?
New core rule books make the most money.
 
If there is a game that actually meets that standard, I don't think I've ever encountered it. Maybe something based on a long TV series like Star Trek would have that kind of detail, because literally thousands of people have put time and effort into it.

Anyway, I don't think I'm going to be much help for you, because I'm pretty much the exact opposite. I like the world to suggest things so that I can go research stuff on my own and flavor it myself. And I have tons of fun talking about the four or five major possibilities for how big picture trade might look. Even with the people who think they know the exact way space trade will work 30+ centuries from now :P
 
If there is a game that actually meets that standard, I don't think I've ever encountered it. Maybe something based on a long TV series like Star Trek would have that kind of detail, because literally thousands of people have put time and effort into it.

Anyway, I don't think I'm going to be much help for you, because I'm pretty much the exact opposite. I like the world to suggest things so that I can go research stuff on my own and flavor it myself. And I have tons of fun talking about the four or five major possibilities for how big picture trade might look. Even with the people who think they know the exact way space trade will work 30+ centuries from now :p
I have no idea how it will work for real, but I still need a ruleset that includes something functional to be able to build a trade empire.
 
Stars Without Number's sourcebook "Suns of Gold" has a lot of detail on actually playing merchants for the purpose of merchanting as opposed to just Firefly style 'reason we are where the adventure is'. It's pretty system agnostic, but it does tend to assume you are in some under developed region like the Reaches or the Beyond or playing Milieu 0 where trade pioneering is the norm. You can grow your trade empire because Tukera isn't around to apply their boot your backside. :D
 
Megacorporations, probably have different cultures, or even subcultures in their business divisions.

Could even be institutionally paramilitary, and whole families and clans might have spent generations exclusively working for them.

I would say one thing they do have, that the Imperium would actively restrict it's aristocratic clans from having, is Imperium wide reach.

You might even say, it's the modern church.
 
Stars Without Number's sourcebook "Suns of Gold" has a lot of detail on actually playing merchants for the purpose of merchanting as opposed to just Firefly style 'reason we are where the adventure is'. It's pretty system agnostic, but it does tend to assume you are in some under developed region like the Reaches or the Beyond or playing Milieu 0 where trade pioneering is the norm. You can grow your trade empire because Tukera isn't around to apply their boot your backside. :D
I'm a big fan of the Trojan Reach, so this would work for Me.
 
Back
Top