How much Hydrogen does a Trillion Credit Squadron need?

[Nelphine]

It's (generating life on gas giants) part of RTT world generation. If the system is above a certain age, roll a d6 for each gas giant, on a 6, there's life. Roll 2d6 to determine complexity of life, with 12 being sophonts.

I find this generates life a little too often on gas giants for my taste, so I change that first 1d6 Roll.

 

[ottarrus]

That is how many known sentient species there are. It was my impression that since detecting technologically primitive gas-giant intelligent life would be so difficult that the Scout Service has decided to restrict gas giant refueling from every gas giant with any multi-cellular life, just in case.

I thought that there was some note of this somewhere in CT canon, maybe a throw of X on Xd6 to see if refueling at a particular gas giant was restricted, although part of me suspects that this rule was more to stop players from always going for gas-giant refueling, needing less money, and then turning down all the jobs the Referee offers.

Well, the IISS isn't that proactive, it's more reactive. If life is proven to exist in this spot, then they investigate. But to ban the use of all GGs based on a 'what if' or a 'it's possible' with no proof would do far more harm than good. For one thing it would put a severe dent in the economy.
Consider: Refined fuel costs Cr 500 per ton at list price. It's more expensive the farther off the main trade routes you get. The average Type A2 Far Trader takes 41 tons of fuel. That's an additional CR 205k per planetfall that these captains would have to absorb. And this would put most trader captains out of business in a heartbeat. And while those free traders do not serve the majority of the population of the Third Imperium, they do serve most of the worlds. The free trader system is an absolutely vital link for those worlds off the main trade routes.

 

[Vormaerin]

Free Traders didn't use to have refineries aboard. And, in most cases, they lose more money by going to a gas giant than they do paying for fuel. If you have to go visit Jupiter before or after you go to Earth to trade, you'll cut down on the number of jumps you make in a financially ruinous way.

The CT trope was that using unrefined fuel was a false economy that led to misjumps and breakdowns. But they gutted those rules and now anyone who buys refined fuel is an idiot or in a desperate rush, because every ship should have a fuel purifier, so at worst you buy unrefined fuel.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Free Traders didn't use to have refineries aboard. And, in most cases, they lose more money by going to a gas giant than they do paying for fuel. If you have to go visit Jupiter before or after you go to Earth to trade, you'll cut down on the number of jumps you make in a financially ruinous way.

The CT trope was that using unrefined fuel was a false economy that led to misjumps and breakdowns. But they gutted those rules and now anyone who buys refined fuel is an idiot or in a desperate rush, because every ship should have a fuel purifier, so at worst you buy unrefined fuel.

Unrefined fuel isn't available at A and B starports. It is part of the scam. Don't offer the cheap stuff so people have to buy the expensive stuff.

 

[Nelphine]

W

Well, the IISS isn't that proactive, it's more reactive. If life is proven to exist in this spot, then they investigate. But to ban the use of all GGs based on a 'what if' or a 'it's possible' with no proof would do far more harm than good. For one thing it would put a severe dent in the economy.
Consider: Refined fuel costs Cr 500 per ton at list price. It's more expensive the farther off the main trade routes you get. The average Type A2 Far Trader takes 41 tons of fuel. That's an additional CR 205k per planetfall that these captains would have to absorb. And this would put most trader captains out of business in a heartbeat. And while those free traders do not serve the majority of the population of the Third Imperium, they do serve most of the worlds. The free trader system is an absolutely vital link for those worlds off the main trade routes.

While I get the point of this argument, there are two things I want to mention.

Unrefined fuel is still 100cr per dton, so it costs the free trader 400 cr per dton to buy refined [compared to unrefined].

400 x41 is 16,400 credits per planetfall. Your post is off by a factor of 10.

16k isn't going to make or break any free trader. Given mortgage costs, 16k is minor. Noticeable, but minor. Assuming the 2 per month rule, that's, what, 15% of the free trader mortgage? Sure, it's possible a free trader can't swing that, but that's a poor month, not the norm.

 

[MasterGwydion]

W

While I get the point of this argument, there are two things I want to mention.

Unrefined fuel is still 100cr per dton, so it costs the free trader 400 cr per dton to buy refined [compared to unrefined].

400 x41 is 16,400 credits per planetfall. Your post is off by a factor of 10.

16k isn't going to make or break any free trader. Given mortgage costs, 16k is minor. Noticeable, but minor. Assuming the 2 per month rule, that's, what, 15% of the free trader mortgage? Sure, it's possible a free trader can't swing that, but that's a poor month, not the norm.

Given the rules as they are now, if you can't make money as a Free Trader, find a different line of work. It's like a casino. "Only an idiot can go bankrupt running a casino." It is basically a license to print money in the current ruleset.

 

[agentwigggles]

Way less than one Saturn worth of gas.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Way less than one Saturn worth of gas.

You'll run out of minerals for your industries before you run out of fuel from a gas giant. lol

 

[Anstett]

Unrefined fuel isn't available at A and B starports. It is part of the scam. Don't offer the cheap stuff so people have to buy the expensive stuff.

Highlighting this part to go along with the idea of life in the gas giants.

Where does the unrefined fuel come from to go into the refinery in the first place? The local gas giants. Where the new lifeforms are that are being protected by not allowing random ships to skim for fuel. But the large fuel tankers do skim to bring back to the refiners.

Granted many systems will have multiple gas giants so there will hopefully be options. But that might be a cause for concern.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Highlighting this part to go along with the idea of life in the gas giants.

Where does the unrefined fuel come from to go into the refinery in the first place? The local gas giants. Where the new lifeforms are that are being protected by not allowing random ships to skim for fuel. But the large fuel tankers do skim to bring back to the refiners.

Granted many systems will have multiple gas giants so there will hopefully be options. But that might be a cause for concern.

Skimming will also take place at relatively high altitudes, so might not effect beings living deeper in the atmosphere.

 

[ottarrus]

W

While I get the point of this argument, there are two things I want to mention.

Unrefined fuel is still 100cr per dton, so it costs the free trader 400 cr per dton to buy refined [compared to unrefined].

400 x41 is 16,400 credits per planetfall. Your post is off by a factor of 10.

16k isn't going to make or break any free trader. Given mortgage costs, 16k is minor. Noticeable, but minor. Assuming the 2 per month rule, that's, what, 15% of the free trader mortgage? Sure, it's possible a free trader can't swing that, but that's a poor month, not the norm.

Sorry about the math error. It was 3am

The MgT Core rules [pg 154] has refined fuel at Cr 500 per ton. That's Cr 20,500 per planetfall or Cr 41k a month. That's on top of mortgage, salaries, maintenance, l/s costs, docking fees, brokerage fees, and so on. Yes, crews can cheapen that up some. Unrefined fuel is Cr 100 per ton, a lucky crew might have a broker aboard etc. But fueling costs can be wildly flexible, with the 500/100 figures being the base minimum cost. Mongoose has published adventures were refined fuel is Cr. 1000 per ton and unrefined is 500. And all of those figures replace the 'Free' price of GG refueling. The Traveller economy as published [and again, YTUMV] relies of free fuel from gas giants to offset operating costs.

In addition, there has been only ONE sophont GG dwelling species in the entirety of 10,000 years of Human spaceflight. Yes, that figure will go up to a whopping 2 sophont GG dwellers in a few years, but the VAST majority of gas giants in human-explored space are as barren as Luna. And of those few GGs that have live, the vast majority is in the single-cell chemical definition of 'life' rather like the seas of Kimanjano in the 2300 milieu. With odds this low it just makes no sense to interdict every gas giant 'just in case', especially when Humaniti specifically targets exoworlds that have life for human colonization.

 

[Nelphine]

Yup I agree with that. And honestly, even if there's life there, it's no different to a wilderness refuel in an ocean. You simply aren't likely to cause any problems.


But.. normally a GG takes a lot of time to get to, and usually is more expensive (in terms of lost time that could have been spent trading) to visit it than to just buy the fuel even if it's refined.

 

[Vormaerin]

Jupiter is about 5 AU from Earth on Average (varies between 4.2 and a 6.2 IIRC). A typical free, far, or fat trader has 1G acceleration. So that's like 6 days?

So now your 7 day jump + 1 day skimming + 6 days travelling + 7 days trading, R&R, maintenance (on average, some stops are more, some are less). So now you are getting 17 port visits a year instead of 25. That's a quite substantial loss of revenue.

 

[ottarrus]

@Nelphine @Vormaerin Yeah the time skimming is figured into the 'week in port'.
Most Free Traders haul freight... that is, 'move this many tons for this much money'. Contracts like this are the easy ones for a captain to get. There's always something that has to be delivered to someplace out of the way.
The real work in the business of trading is finding speculative cargoes where the ship, if very very lucky, can make their big scores. Captains looking for this work are gonna have to hit the ground hard, running down rumors and leads, checking price reports, and then finding that one cargo that will fit the bill on the next work on the schedule. Some of this can be done in transit. You can chat with captains over the coms to get the latest rumors, download and review the trade news while you're spending 'x' days getting to the world, etc. This stuff is as automatic to a trader captain as breathing and most referees assume this is being done in the same way they presume that somebody is changing the light emitters as part of maintenance.
My point here is that wilderness refueling doesn't take up as much of a captain's trading time as one might think.

 

[Nelphine]

Eh, I've never assumed travel to a GG is part of the standard week in port. Considering values mentioned above, that would be literally your entire week with no time to offload, load, schmooze, r&r, repairs or shopping. I normally assume all of those things take 4ish days, leaving 3ish days for job of the week + refueling (which isn't enough time to get to a GG.)

YTUMV.

 

[ottarrus]

Eh, I've never assumed travel to a GG is part of the standard week in port. Considering values mentioned above, that would be literally your entire week with no time to offload, load, schmooze, r&r, repairs or shopping. I normally assume all of those things take 4ish days, leaving 3ish days for job of the week + refueling (which isn't enough time to get to a GG.)

YTUMV.

Depends on the star system. I mean, the planet Regina is actually a moon of a gas giant so refueling is a snap there.
But all this is a known quantity to ship captains. The planets, their orbits, and estimated travel times are all well known, and with LESS variation than maritime charts because there aren't any hurricanes to bugger up the transit lanes.
What's more if a GG is in a REALLY inconvenient spot, it would behoove the the main world to set up refueling in a more convenient spot. This is where some worlds have a chain of fueling lighters constantly running back and forth to the GG in the outer system and depositing the unrefined fuel at an orbital fuel tanking station.

 

[Vormaerin]

I do believe it is illegal to refuel in Assinoboia, but that's just a quibble.

It is possible that the gas giant is much more convenient. But it is definitely not 'as written' that skimming is part of the week in port. Obviously, you can do it that way.

I'm all in favor of refueling operations. I just don't know why they'd sell unrefined fuel instead of refined fuel. But the subject of refined/unrefined fuel has a high risk of provoking an outbreak of grognardism on my part, so I'll just leave that alone.

 

[Condottiere]

Once you installed that fuel processor unit, a visit to the local gas giant was on the cards.

Until you started looking at it from a cost accounting perspective, and realized that time was money, and that oil economics would tend ensure that vested interests would likely discourage wilderness refuelling.

 

[Vormaerin]

There are plenty of examples of places outlawing or otherwise punishing people who "wilderness refuel". I think my favorite was the town where basically you got flagged in the system if your ship didn't refuel at the port, so every shopkeeper and service provider just charged you more. Though probably phrased as a 'port refueling discount"

Not to mention if you have a planet with D port or something, they may just not patrol the gas giants and leave it to the pirates. Who probably pay off the port authorities to leave it that way.

High Guard is named after the necessity of having ships flying security when wilderness refueling is going on, after all.

 

[Condottiere]