How Much to charge for Long-haul Freight?

[Vormaerin]

Because it is a game and designed around creating a certain level of profitability for PCs operating said ship, not around making real world sense.

IRL, speed is not that important to most businesses. They want reliability. Sure, there are things like passengers and certain kinds of priority shipments (especially information) that rely on speed. But the lesson in real life is that, unless the difference in huge, businesses would rather order a week or two earlier than pay a premium to get their product faster. Premium shipping in business usually means someone screwed up.

Consumers like fast shipping, but they also don't like paying for it. Which is why businesses try to disguise it with subscription plans or ameliorate it with minimum orders (the amount of people who buy more to meet the minimum benefits the business more than the shipping costs hurt them, presumably).

With jump drives, the first question is "What is the lowest jump drive that can even get there?" There's no amount of jump 1 traffic to or from Earth. The nearest system is Jump 2 away.

The second is cost per freight ton for whatever the baseline freighter is. A Jump 4 freighter has 40 to 50% of the cargo space of a Jump 1 freighter. You absolutely don't want to use it on anything other than long jumps, because the cost per freight ton on a jump 1 route is more than double a J1 freighter's would be. However, for a long distance jump, the timing costs (mortgage, maintenance, life support) are less for a Jump 4 than for 4 x Jump 1. So you have to look at whether those savings outweigh the reduced freight capacity. Fuel cost per freight ton is still gonna be substantially higher because the same amount of fuel is moving less cargo.

Third would be how much cargo is going where. Is there enough cargo going from Planet A to Planet E to fill a Jump 4 freighter reliably with things they can't get from a closer planet? A jump 4 ship isn't going to want to make shorter jumps. It isn't competitive at shorter distances.

The short version is that there's too much we don't know about how a proper business (rather than a gaggle of PCs in an old space tub) would operate. So we just have to make it up. And my understanding is that MgT2e made it up to make PC ships at those numbers "work" without any larger framework.

 

[Geir]

And my understanding is that MgT2e made it up to make PC ships at those numbers "work" without any larger framework.

I have to take blame here, since that's exactly what I did to suggest the numbers that were included in the Core update. Supply and demand does imply that the person setting the price has to both cover costs and beat the competition's price or the ship wouldn't stay in business. Yes, it is a sort of tautological argument: "The Price Is What The Price Is", but that ignores a bunch of other factors. First of all, we assume the person paying for freight is willing to pay that price, and then it gets more complicated after that... (yup, I once got me one of them MBAs, but that was more than a third of a century ago, and I only spent a year as a financial analyst before I snuck into the computer industry).

It could be reasoned that the numbers are the "Standard Shipping rate" going all the way back to First Imperium times (when only the Vilani and the Bwaps had jump 2).
Or, if you want to make it more complicated, you could use the Modified Price table on p. 243 with whatever modifiers you think would be relevant for freight, or even passengers.
Or, to make it less complicated (as in: "I'm not here to play accountant, I just want to shoot things") then you can just assume you carry enough stuff between worlds to cover operating expenses.

Classic/Original (not picking sides in that discussion) Traveller only had a flat rate for cargo and passage, so that's why it worked to have High or Middle or Low passage as a mustering-out benefit, plus a periodic High passage benefit for TAS. Doesn't translate well to the current version.

 

[Vormaerin]

I don't think "blame" is needed to be taken. I think that's the exact right approach for a game. Games should be about playable material, not theoretical simulations.

Add on: My thesis has always been that the GM should decide the kind of results they want and work backwards from there. I like to discuss the factors that would be involved in various different outcomes. But I've never been an advocate of putting economic simulations ahead of gameplay. If I were to complain about the Traveller trade mechanics, it would be the lack of support for turning them into adventures because 1) adventures are the point of the game IMHO and 2) without obstacles beyond picking the right place to roll dice, it's too easy to become wealthy.

But most of my campaigns that involve mercantile activity by the players just do space trucking. "You find these contracts that'll cover your expenses" Players: "Hmm, do we want to take the wild horses to the ranch planet or the machine parts to the hell world?"

 

[phavoc]

Woah, a recent thread that is about a topic I was thinking about! Forgive me for hijacking the thread with my own question, but I'm preparing to run a mini-campaign around Islands in the Rift, and bulk freight mechanics are a little bit on my mind.

For people who don't remember Islands in the Rift off the top of their head, the ship the Travellers get access to is a Fat Trader with a J1 drive that can fill up a modified cargo hold with fuel to potentially make up to five consecutive J1 jumps (one from it's regular fuel stores, four from it's modified cargo bay).



I think this answers my question, but just to rephrase it with an example, if the Travellers are on New Home (1925) and poke around for bulk freight to be shipped to Colchis (2026), that would involve two J1 jumps over two(ish) weeks for their spaceship and thus the price should be Cr2000 (2 X Cr1000) per ton? This is opposed to Cr1600 per ton the Passenger and Freight chart on page 239 of the Core Rule Book would indicate be charged "two" parsecs travelled.

I guess... I have thoughts and follow up questions if I'm understanding that correctly.

• Is there any documentation or rules about what the timelines for freight delivery are? I see the rules on page 241 about late delivery, which can reduce payment between 50% to 100%(!) if the bulk freight is late. Makes sense to me, but what determines if the delivery is late to begin with?
• This is half a question and half me just thinking out loud: why are 2 and 3 parsecs travelled less expensive per parsec than just 1 parsec travelled? From the thread I think I understand why 4 parsecs and higher command increasingly higher prices, and it makes sense to me that you'd pay a premium to have a ship with a J4 or higher drive deliver freight in one jump when a ship with "lesser" jump drive would take multiple jumps and multiple weeks. I just don't understand why the same premium (if to a lesser degree) wouldn't apply to J2 and J3 drives?

Logistically, historically and economically speaking, nearly all merchants are willing to have their cargos go slower as long as its cheaper. The obvious exceptions are high-value items, perishable and those items being rushed to a market for whatever reason. Otherwise merchants are happy to pay for slow boats to save a few credits.

But to properly answer your question, since the standard jump distance from Colchis to New Home is J-2, cargo rates should be standardized for J-2. The exception would be for any ship that would be willing to jump into the black at J-1, refuel from onboard tanks, and jump again. PC's would do such a thing, but most merchants should be hesitant to book with such a freight line because of the risks. And cost-wise it would be about the same. For that specific route, the J-2 freighters would be taking on the bulk of shipping.

Other than that, for costs you have to look at ship maintenance costs vs. crew costs to really answer your question about why some longer jumps might be cheaper than the standard J-1. If you want to factor reality into it you'd also need to consider the worlds on the intervals and whether or not it would make economic sense for ships to do successive J-1, unload cargo and take on new cargo , and then jump again. The game doesn't look at markets and demand, just very basic costs.

It also doesn't really consider how regular large merchant lines will dominate point to point shipping for major hubs. Secondary routes will be handled by smaller corps and ships, while the smaller loads and direct port-to-port transport will be the niche that PC's and smaller ships like free traders will have the natural advantage.

 

[Vormaerin]

One of the oddities of the Islands is that, since they were used to sublight exploration until fairly recently (a century or so), they are said to have a lot of ships willing to do 2x Jump 1 to cover Jump 2 gaps.

It sounds cool in theory, but I don't see how it works in practice. Even if you ignore the various texts that jumping into the black is sketch, you have the issue that it doesn't really save money. Maybe if all the Jump 1 vessels has a Fuel/Cargo container for a 2nd jump so that when they were on the Jump 1 stretches they carried more cargo than a pure J2 ship did? But otherwise, the additional costs in wages, maintenance, mortgages, life support, and other such expenses would push the cost per ton up over that of the J2 vessel. A J1 x 2 vessel is making 17 port calls a year vs 26 for the J2 vessel, if operating anywhere except the Elysee-New Colchis J1 "Main".

I would tend to think there would need to be an additional impetus, such as a shortage of Jump 2 engines. But that's not in evidence, especially since all the shipyards in the Islands are TL11-13.

 

[CordwainerFish]

I would tend to think there would need to be an additional impetus, such as a shortage of Jump 2 engines.

Paucity of surveyed lanthanum deposits, perhaps. If I click my heels three times, I can almost consider that plausible enough for gaming.

 

[agentwigggles]

Spoiler

Mind I might still need to know longer-jump costs considering it's a Hop drive.

Not sure why its in spoilers. It further questions unrelated to the frieght. Like if the PC are in unique ownership of it, then it doesnt matter what they carry. The ancient device would have to be some sorta Ancient Ai that is fully working and fully willing to explain how ancient tech works to be more worthwhile then what the PC are in unique ownership of.
If they are not in unique ownership of it, and its owned by others and is not a secret, then we'd need to know what you've been charging for such thing the PC have been using openly.

 

[Vormaerin]

I think the thing they are transporting is the spoiler and he was wondering in case it later came into use.

 

[agentwigggles]

That was in the spoiler tag, though?

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes? I gather his players don't know what the thing is yet.

 

[agentwigggles]

Then my questions remain. Depending if its thing in their traveller universe, or if its not a thing.
Also if its meant to shield their players from it, I suggest they edit it to state that. If I was player, Id click it absently.

 

[Sigtrygg]

There are a lot of players out there that never visit this site or Coti for that matter.

 

[Hootenheimer]

But to properly answer your question, since the standard jump distance from Colchis to New Home is J-2, cargo rates should be standardized for J-2. The exception would be for any ship that would be willing to jump into the black at J-1, refuel from onboard tanks, and jump again. PC's would do such a thing, but most merchants should be hesitant to book with such a freight line because of the risks. And cost-wise it would be about the same. For that specific route, the J-2 freighters would be taking on the bulk of shipping.

This very much makes sense (to me, at least!), that the numbers on the "parsecs travelled" rate chart can be handwaved with a combination of both what the market will bear, what historical shipping routes look like, and operating costs for ships.

Or, to make it less complicated (as in: "I'm not here to play accountant, I just want to shoot things") then you can just assume you carry enough stuff between worlds to cover operating expenses.

This is 100% how I'm running my Tuesday night game.

For everyone else, thank you so much for the answers! I don't know if it'll come up in play, but I think I have enough to come up with an answer if any of the players in my new group really want to go down that rabbit hole!

 

[J. L. Brown]

Numbers are approximate; I know I made some silly mistakes due to haste.

So, just for fun -- I created a Medium Freighter. 2500 dTons, TL 15, carries a number of Geir's standard 10 dTon freight containers in standardized 5x5 'mini-cubes' of 250 dTons per mini-cube. The big freight lines run Mega-Freighters, and those are bigger -- but this little guy is pretty good on the main-routes out on the frontiers. Also for fun, I gave it Jump-6 Man-1, and 1 parsec (250 dTons) of Jump-fuel. There is 250 dTons of dedicated cargo space, and five fuel/cargo spaces that hold either a mini-cube OR 1 parsec of jump fuel. No passengers.

This version of the freighter (the Flexi6) can carry 250 dTons of cargo J-6, or 1500 dTons J-1. The exact same ship, so comparisons are somewhat easier -- and then I built a Flexi5 (with a J-5 drive), a Flexi4 (with a J-4) and so on. The volume saved on drives, crew members, fuel efficiency modifications, and so on all went to (a small volume of fuel and) cargo.

Basically -- banks suck. The Flexi6 on a J-1 run with 1500 dTons of cargo needs to clear 2735 Cr per dTon if it jumps (full) once per pay period; 1353 Cr per dTon if it jumps (full) twice per pay period; and 912 Cr per dTon if it jumps (full) three times per pay period. Once the mortgage is paid off, costs drop dramatically. A (full) J-1 pays one per pay-period pays off if the freighter clears ~142 Cr per dTon.

A J-2 route with 1250 dTons of cargo is very similar; 2526 Cr/dTon (to make the mortgage) vs 135 Cr/dTon (to just pay the bills). More jumps per pay-period divide these.

J-3: 4075 Cr/dTon vs 210 Cr/dTon; J-4 5401 Cr/dTon vs 278 Cr/dTon; J-5 8008 Cr/dTon vs 412 Cr/dTon; J-6 15477 Cr/dTon vs 796 Cr/dTon -- divide these by number of (full cargo hold) jumps per pay period. The other versions (Flexi5 and so on) were surprisingly similar.

A well-managed freight line with dedicated brokers, warehousing, lighters, and fresh crews standing by, could manage 3 Jumps per four-week period -- and at that rate, the ship would be economical on J-1 and J-2 routes. J-3 and J-4 routes are economical with only two (full cargo holds) jumps per pay period; J-5 and J-6 routes are viable at only one jump per pay period. Obviously, big lines prefer to pay cash-up-front for their ships.

 

[IanBruntlett]

When preparing for a future gaming session, I wanted to include a bit of trading. But I use the 2016 edition of the Core Rulebook (aka CRB) and felt that the tables were scattered over the pages of the Trade chapter and I wanted to be able to look things up at-a-glance. So I came up with the attached PDF.

I looked closely at the numbers I am no economics / freight / etc expert but I thought that some of the numbers for the Passage and Freight table (Page 207) were a little dubious. So I checked with later PDFs of the CRB. The numbers in its Passage and Freight table seem more plausible.

I'll have a think about using the numbers from CRB 2022, printed and pasted into my CRB 2016. Any thoughts?

 

[MonsterX]

Justifying long distance trade means going beyond a few dice tables, which really only work for shorter distance trade. For running a trading game in Traveller on a week to week basis, this is fine. It is obviously not complete, but going further requires the referee to decide on things that go beyond what the rule system can do.

I'd say you can run your game just fine relying on the RAW, but just say "there are other things going on too", and drop those in when you need them for adventure hooks, or as backdrop to give the impression of a complex universe going on behind the curtain. For consistency as a world builder, to have a more developed trading system, you'll want to make sure your trading system makes sense, and also does not interfere too much with the tramp trader system in the rules. For this, you need to think about what kind of trade justifies the expense of a ship moving several jumps. IRL, ships sometimes take weeks to travel to their destinations, and in earlier centuries, traders sometimes traveled many months, so it is not unrealistic to think they might do this in Traveller too. In Traveller, star systems contain whole planets, usually several of them, and often have fully developed ecologies containing complex high tech economies that don't necessarily need external trade at all; they may want it for reasons of accessing diverse goods, and price, however. On the other hand, many systems don't have complex economies and ecologies and would need trade to exist - perhaps not producing sufficient food, and requiring external markets to justify their basic economic activities (such as mining colonies - there's no point unless they send those minerals somewhere).

Trade always looks for price arbitrage opportunities. These are not static - they depend on fluctuations in demand, which depend on a lot of factors. This can be fashion (fur hats of a certain type require furs from a certain planet; imitations exist, but clearly are lower status), changing circumstances (there's a war in the boondocks, and suddenly howitzer ammunition is needed - they will pay what they have to to get it shipped from two subsectors away, because that is the nearest place where there is a supplier with low enough ethical standards to sell to them) , technological development (a shipyard is now using parts that aren't produced locally yet - until the new factory opens, they'll need to get them from TL 13 planets nearby), or many other factors. Obviously a trade table can't give you this. But as a referee it is fine to look at the map, and think up possibilities.

For consistency, always consider "why don't they buy it closer"? There may be a good reason you can think of. There might not be: if not you might want to rethink the kind of good it is, or develop the situation in ways that makes it into a good reason. However, in certain cases, the buyer will pay whatever is needed and will commission ships to do the transporting at whatever it costs, plus enough profit to interest the shippers. So the freight rate has to 1) exceed the cost of running the ship 2) meet or exceed what the ship could earn in alternative employment 3) there may also be a risk premium, or discount for assured employment over an extended period, depending on the situation.

Trade relations, when you figure them out, can be rewarding in and of themselves in terms of providing context and motives for players. They provide numerous adventure hooks, not just in themselves, but because they impact the societies which have them in possibly disruptive ways. The fur hat craze might produce wars between primitive tribes, seeking to satisfy the demand, which give them access to the foreign currency to purchase off world high tech luxuries and guns, for example. The disruption to the society causes losing tribe members to flee their planet, and make up little migrant enclaves on nearby worlds; their work in their new homes, which are higher tech and wealthier societies gives them political influence and money to build a force, or maybe pay mercenary PCs to help them take their homeland back. The point is, it pays to think beyond the trading tables which treat every world as a one-off, and go into the details of relationships between planetary societies, which provide a lot of possible adventure hooks. No need to do this is every case, or even most cases, but once in a while.

The point is, referees should not feel constrained by the per parsec freight rates or trade spec tables, but rather if you have a reason to have a certain kind of trade going on, just do back of the napkin costing and an evaluation of the overall intersteller trade situation, and figure out some kind of trading system which fits the needs of the adventure plot and what makes sense to you .

 

[Condottiere]

Freight usually doesn't need life support, so your operating costs would be principally labour, maintenance and mortgage.

 

[Galadrion]

Freight usually doesn't need life support, so your operating costs would be principally labour, maintenance and mortgage.

It may usually not need life support, but it frequently needs environmental control - exposure to raw space is detrimental to a great many materials. For many trade goods, a profit-motivated merchant will go ahead and pay for air, heat, and radiation control... which more or less adds up to "life support".

 

[Condottiere]

Since they aren't usually towed along in nets, they tend to be stored in containers and/or cargo holds.

You can pump in them the residual heat and air.

 

[MonsterX]

Freight usually doesn't need life support, so your operating costs would be principally labour, maintenance and mortgage.

Generally not, but the crew does need life support, though some cargoes might well be live animals. One hopes the shipping company will spring for life support for the crew.