Mail drum is 5 tons?

[DanDare2050]

The core clearly says we are talking about data, not parcels, so the data from one planet to another is going to be maybe 100 data wafers. After all today, in pre jump tech reality, I can fit almost the whole internet onto a bunch of USB sticks if all I am doing is saving it.

So the cargo would be 1D 1kg wallets of data wafers.

The wafers can be self routing so at each star port they can be registered. Some will be for that planet, others will want to be taken on further. Pay for carrying the wafers would be based on the 1 jump and then they can be picked up again if you are still "going their way".

 

[phavoc]

This is a holdover from CT. Mail containers were 5 tons then too.

"Mail" should be broken down in two ways - electronic and physical. I suspect even in the future people will mail physical items. How else is grandma gonna get you that hand-knitted sweater when you are 10 parsecs away?

Electronic mail could still be in a "drum" of some sort. But the data itself is a teeny portion of that. The rest is all about making it super hard to get access to the data. If you think about it, being able to modify electronic files like that could provide all kinds of nefarious ways to scam entire planets. So I would suspect cracking the physical security and data encryptions would be a formidable task.

 

[-Daniel-]

So the cargo would be 1D 1kg wallets of data wafers.

I am going to have to say I don't buy this model. It feels like me saying I transfer my email by floppy disk.

I imagine the electronic mail will be in a very secure computer capable of interfacing with the planet system and doing a merge/purge type process. I agree with phavoc, I imagine that a large amount of the "volume" will be dedicated to protections and security.

I also agree that there will still be some sort of small package delivery service that could be outsourced to small cargo ships, especially on the fringes of the imperium.

So with that in mind, I really do not have any problem with a standardized size mail "pod" or drum that is designed to both house the electronic system and carry small parcels. The cargo carrier signs for it but it is sealed and then dropped off at the next planet.

Today, we use a similar system for freight sea containers. They are sealed at the dock or at the factory and the ship that carries them to the next port is just that, carrying a standard sized container regardless of what is in it.

Or at least this is how I thought of it over the years. 8)

 

[DanDare2050]

Sorry guys, there is no way security requirements will make mail take up 5 tons. My suspension of disbelief is killed by that. Quantum computing will make data encryption and security more powerful on smaller and smaller substrates. There is no need to have data mail be physical mass. The fee for carrying is the cost of jump and security care and profit. The mail just goes in the ship safe if its loose data wafers or the ship has secure mail server built in at a mass cost of about 500g. This isn't steam punk.

 

[AndrewW]

Just think of it as space reserved. All of that space may or may not be used depending on what is being shipped.

 

[-Daniel-]

Sorry guys, there is no way security requirements will make mail take up 5 tons. My suspension of disbelief is killed by that. Quantum computing will make data encryption and security more powerful on smaller and smaller substrates. There is no need to have data mail be physical mass. The fee for carrying is the cost of jump and security care and profit. The mail just goes in the ship safe if its loose data wafers or the ship has secure mail server built in at a mass cost of about 500g. This isn't steam punk.

DanDare, you are correct, The 5 ton volume is for the whole box, not just the computer for electronic mail. And I do not see the physical mail as "letters" or "SPAM offers". Rather I see it as small parcel delivery.

I find it hard to believe in the "every box is a different size" model that seems to fill many of the scifi drawings. I see no reason to think the advantages of fixed container sizes will go away in the future. So the mail container, in my mind, will always be a fixed size. I picture things like a sea container.


Now if you need to make it smaller in your game to allow you to accept it, I say go for it. But it still should then match some standard used in your game IMO.

 

[-Daniel-]

Just think of it as space reserved. All of that space may or may not be used depending on what is being shipped.

I can say I have seen many aircraft cargo cans go out 2/3rds full. They still take up the full volume, just weigh less. 8)

 

[phavoc]

It would be more easily fixed to simply fix the explanation of mail contracts. For one thing PC's only get the side routes, not main ones. And there would be two kinds of mail - electronic and physical. 5 Dtons of physical mail is nothing to sneeze at - it's the equivalent of multiple full-sized air-freight containers. Electronic mail would be about the size of a 55gal drum, and with the computer rules as they exist, could easily contain all the mail a planet could choke on, plus news reports, ezines, etc, etc. So basically a ship would take on the contract to deliver the drum and it essentially takes up no cargo space. Most of the bulk of the container is physical security. I'd also see the TL of it being 15 (or whatever the highest is for your Imperium) to enhance the security.

Physical mail should probably be dropped to 1 dton lots, so you can easily scale it up or down. If you used today's containers (airfreight) as examples, you'll find that the belly containers on regular aircraft would be about 1/2 dton, while the much larger ones would be about 2 dtons. Expounding upon mail containers and all the things inherent in delivering mail really belongs in a side explanation and not the CRB.

 

[AndrewW]

Physical mail should probably be dropped to 1 dton lots, so you can easily scale it up or down. If you used today's containers (airfreight) as examples, you'll find that the belly containers on regular aircraft would be about 1/2 dton, while the much larger ones would be about 2 dtons. Expounding upon mail containers and all the things inherent in delivering mail really belongs in a side explanation and not the CRB.

Though in this case you are dealing with the mail from an entire planet (which may or may not be much), not just something going from say one one geographic spot on the planet to another on the same planet. No, not everyone will be all mailing something to another planet at the same time, but then neither are everyone in the geographic area on the same planet doing that to that specific region the aircraft is going to.

 

[phavoc]

Physical mail should probably be dropped to 1 dton lots, so you can easily scale it up or down. If you used today's containers (airfreight) as examples, you'll find that the belly containers on regular aircraft would be about 1/2 dton, while the much larger ones would be about 2 dtons. Expounding upon mail containers and all the things inherent in delivering mail really belongs in a side explanation and not the CRB.

Though in this case you are dealing with the mail from an entire planet (which may or may not be much), not just something going from say one one geographic spot on the planet to another on the same planet. No, not everyone will be all mailing something to another planet at the same time, but then neither are everyone in the geographic area on the same planet doing that to that specific region the aircraft is going to.

That's true. Without knowing the frequency of ships going to/from a destination the amount of mail would be unknown. Perhaps the cost of shipping is prohibitive. Not to mention that the primary starport of a system would, generally, be the primary drop-off point for all mail entering or leaving the system, thus the amount of mail going TO/FROM it would increase greatly. All the other planets and stations within the system would be serviced from it, with the exception for planets/stations that have large enough populations to justify direct runs. That's how distribution systems work, in previous centuries, in ours, and in the future.

A PC should never be able to get anything that is of any value. Regular established cargo couriers will pick up the decent ones, leaving the side runs / too small for a regular company to be interested in, thus you have a hook for PC's Plus the volume that a PC-run ship can carry (cargo, mail, otherwise) is far too tiny to be of any use to an entire planet. The tagline in the manual about subsidized traders being able "to meet the trading needs of clusters of worlds" is waaaay off. It doesn't have the capacity, period. Not in any realistic universe that is. 200 tons of cargo would be the rough equivalent of 20 modern ocean-going containers.

 

[-Daniel-]

A PC should never be able to get anything that is of any value. Regular established cargo couriers will pick up the decent ones, leaving the side runs / too small for a regular company to be interested in, thus you have a hook for PC's Plus the volume that a PC-run ship can carry (cargo, mail, otherwise) is far too tiny to be of any use to an entire planet. The tagline in the manual about subsidized traders being able "to meet the trading needs of clusters of worlds" is waaaay off. It doesn't have the capacity, period. Not in any realistic universe that is. 200 tons of cargo would be the rough equivalent of 20 modern ocean-going containers.

I always thought of the small cargo ship sort of like the small planes that haul stuff out to the outback of Australia or to the remote villages in Northern Canada. I always thought of them as the last leg on a wide distribution chain. The final small volume haulers.

Once I began to work in freight I realized the far trader was a 20 ft bobtail. Not meant to haul large volume long hauls. Rather to help pass out to the local systems what arrived in the main hub aboard the huge corporate cargo ships.

It fit into a logical format for me. I agree, the whole supply chain could not be based on small ships with only 200 tons of cargo at a time.

 

[Condottiere]

Most interstellar newspapers and magazines probably have planetary distributors, so only one copy is usually necessary, unless there is censorship involved, in which case, you may have to smuggle in your current edition of Playsophont.

Crew can accept payment to unofficially deliver mail and packages; this may be frowned upon by upper management and their Captain. Live cargo in this classification would commonly be termed stowaway.

The mail box would be reinforced to prevent anything explosive or corrosive from breaching it.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

"Electronic Mail" should be a peripheral module for the ship's computer. Mail would be continuously broadcast on a known, standard, encrypted comms channel, and any ship in range long enough to receive a full encrypted mail message receives it. The first ship to deliver the relevant messages receives full pay for them; duplicates may (or may not) receive pay, particularly if that system is encouraging redundant traffic, to better guarantee regular delivery. The carrying of the mail module of the computer is subsidized; ships are paid on a regular basis if their mail module hasn't been compromised and is actively travelling, which gives long-term crew an incentive to not be the ones to crack it. There's an open reward system for reporting mail modules that have been cracked; if the mail module was cracked and the mail looked at, the crew is investigated, and if cleared, they get a new mail unit; if the mail module was cracked by the crew, but they didn't look at the mail, and give a full explanation of the exploit they used, they get rewarded for defeating the security as well, but don't get a new mail unit; if, however, the crew gets caught cracking their mail system and reading the contents, punishment!

This also gives computer hacker players something real to do while they're training up their computers skill. If they're real lucky, they'll be able to read the mail without getting caught!

Finally, physical mail is just Government Freight. There is literally no difference, except for the client. As such, a "special container" is just ridiculous. It should be no different than any other secure container.