I would urge caution using current day examples totally. There's no real equivalent to bulk ocean delivery between star systems (very slow and very cheap), but there is within a star system (goods launched into a transfer orbit). Going with star system = country, it's more like the only way to move from country to country is by air. Yes there can be some very large cargo aircraft... but you're not going to use that as a way to move resources unless there's no other option. If there's an in-system rock with the right elements, that's your source, not some belt three jumps away.
Mating Airlocks to Cargo Hatches
- Thread starter Terry Mixon
- Start date
Again, you can make that entirely reasonable assumption. I do think that makes sense and that is part of why I assume there is a lot of in system shipping. But the game assumes that, for whatever reason, there actually is resource trade between systems. They ship ores, petrochemicals, and lots of other goods. Since we don't actually know anything about the economics of the 57th century as it pertains to these things, it is reasonable to select any option in that range that suits you. There are lots of reasons why local mineral deposits might or might not be economical compared to interstellar transport. There's a lot that goes into what is economical in resource extraction besides the cost of shipping.
Interstellar shipping is more expensive than interplanetary shipping. But even at the rates charged for wandering vagabonds like the PCs, it isn't *that" much more expensive such that local conditions couldn't make imports competitive.
Interstellar shipping is more expensive than interplanetary shipping. But even at the rates charged for wandering vagabonds like the PCs, it isn't *that" much more expensive such that local conditions couldn't make imports competitive.
Petrochemicals are a good example of a product that might not be easily available in a given system. "Ores" aren't defined; they are, however, unlikely to be ones that are widely found or comprised of common elements (I'm fairly sure no one's shipping silicon dioxide ores by jump...). But yeah, there are going to be ones that are more economic to ship from one particular place to another. My point was mostly that there's a cost threshold there that needs to be low enough to justify interstellar freight. And yeah, shipping is only one of the costs, but in most cases the extraction costs are going to be similar. Robots level the playing field a bit.
That's true, but at the level of abstraction Traveller operates at, it doesn't really matter. Trade's happening and interstellar shipping isn't actually that expensive overall, especially if you are only going 1 or 2 parsecs. That's the default stance if you aren't deliberately changing it.
I'm certainly not going to be spending time determining how the oil's being extracted. Shallow on shore reserves? Deep Sea reserves? Fracking? Tar sands? They all have different price points where they become viable. It's just gonna be 'okay, they have petrochemicals for sale here. Unfortunately, the terrorists have blown up the pipeline to the starport. But if you fly your ship to the oilfields, they can fill you up directly. That's why the price you rolled is such a good deal.'
I'm certainly not going to be spending time determining how the oil's being extracted. Shallow on shore reserves? Deep Sea reserves? Fracking? Tar sands? They all have different price points where they become viable. It's just gonna be 'okay, they have petrochemicals for sale here. Unfortunately, the terrorists have blown up the pipeline to the starport. But if you fly your ship to the oilfields, they can fill you up directly. That's why the price you rolled is such a good deal.'
That's pretty cool. Sometimes I'm a lot more restrictive with what's common knowledge though. I'm always mindful of the old Leviathan trade map. The two big trade operations operating out of Pax Rulin knew basically nothing about the adjacent Egyrn subsector. This it the "common knowledge" map from the Imperial border to the adjacent subsector:
Set up at somewhere like Titan and just pump it directly from the lakes
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Methane is very common, probably quite cheap basically everywhere. But petrochemicals are mixtures, and some of the molecules are quite large & complex. The trouble I have with shipping petrochemicals around is that any TL high enough to move them cheaply can also turn methane (and water, nitrogen, sulfur, and trace amounts of a couple other elements) into basically anything you might find in petrochemicals even more inexpensively than whatever it costs to haul it between the stars.Set up at somewhere like Titan and just pump it directly from the lakes
That being said, there are some things which do make sense to move, There might be raw elements that are common in one region and rare in another. Considering that all gold on Terra comes from neutron star collisions and a rare form of super-novae, I find it difficult to believe that any element is particularly rare anywhere; but hey, every table is different. Wood though -- it is a complex bio-polymer, quite strong, light, and versatile; while life (like microbial mats) might be nearly ubiquitous in the universe, there is no reason to think that woody plants are common. Same goes for all sorts of natural fibers -- wool, linen, cotton, etc. Some of these have synthetic replacements, but others have resisted being made artificially.
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
If I recall, they evolved quite late on Terra. Younger than some of the dinosaurs?
Ultimately, we are talking about a society with pocket cold fusion, fabricators, advanced robotics, and cheap orbital, interplanetary, and interstellar travel. The fact that they are NOT post-scarcity is a plot hole. 
How you fill that hole is up to you.
It comes down to the fact that the setting of Charted Space assumes they are shipping a lot of stuff. It doesn't really matter what that stuff is. Probably lots of that stuff is stuff we've never heard of. The chart is filled with stuff we have heard of because it's a lot easier to make a plot players understand about barrels of oil than crates of unobtanium.
Shipping petrochemicals is no more silly than being able to fill your cargo hold with "Freight" on a TL0 planet with a Class E starport (aka a patch of rock). Presumably Ea-Nasir's shipping copper ingots to your destination because those local sods kept complaining to the Alik Tilmun about him and somehow someone on the next planet over heard about his copper business, but not about the complaints about it.
How you fill that hole is up to you.It comes down to the fact that the setting of Charted Space assumes they are shipping a lot of stuff. It doesn't really matter what that stuff is. Probably lots of that stuff is stuff we've never heard of. The chart is filled with stuff we have heard of because it's a lot easier to make a plot players understand about barrels of oil than crates of unobtanium.
Shipping petrochemicals is no more silly than being able to fill your cargo hold with "Freight" on a TL0 planet with a Class E starport (aka a patch of rock). Presumably Ea-Nasir's shipping copper ingots to your destination because those local sods kept complaining to the Alik Tilmun about him and somehow someone on the next planet over heard about his copper business, but not about the complaints about it.
Most things are, even if an ancestral form isn't. Some critter with a 5 year reproductive cycle is a million generations removed from a 5 million year old ancestor whose bones may look the same. But might be significantly different in important ways.
First known appearance in the fossil record doesn't lock it down much either.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Bottlenecks for starports would be less for physical docking space for any particular spacecraft, as for airports, but rather access to the requisite facilities, whether for passengers or cargo, in that you can taxi that from a spacecraft that's anchored offsite, not something most planes can do.
And unlike sea ports, you can stack them three dimensionally.
And unlike sea ports, you can stack them three dimensionally.
Trade is a two-way process. You can't sell something if the other party has nothing to buy it with. Even if it is cheaper to produce product X locally, it might be more economical to import it from somewhere else if that enables you to export something you can make even cheaper to them. Both parties benefit. Trade also has other benefits beyond the economic as it allows transfer of ideas.
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If you are not at the starport then you don't have access to the port facilities generally. You dock at the port to use the facilities, not because you need a parking slot.
If you are just going to park away from the main world (maybe refuelling at the gas giant) and just use small craft to shuttle goods and people to the main then you don't need a star port, a space port will do or, depending on the customs arrangements (or your own moral compass), you might be able to set down in a field somewhere.
Stacking 3 dimensionally is irrelevant. Someone still has to pay for that to be built. And they are not going to build more than they expect to use, because that's wasting money. After all, you can spend that money building orbital manufacturing or orbital habitats or shipyard or any number of other things. Not to mention the fact that you need a wide range of different types of berths, depending on the size and type of ship it is. Obviously, if money is infinite, you can have as much space as you want in space.
Real harbors keep a very small number of layberths (docking points for ships sitting around doing nothing) and maintain anchorages for ships that are hanging around with something to do, usually waiting to get in to load and unload (ships don't usually hang around after they get loaded up). A seaport typically only keeps a cargo ship docked for less than a day. Two if things are going poorly. Passenger liners will tend to stay a bit longer, but they have their own berths separate from the cargo ships.
PCs (and probably other indies) spend days getting gouged by berthing fees because they don't have any friends. So when they show up they have to spend time to find someone who is willing to trust them with freight. Or has something to sell that a better connected person hasn't bothered to buy. Because that's not pre-arranged and waiting for them. They have to R&R because they can't rotate crews. They have to run around various places getting all their forms stamped because they don't have a port agent or lawyer making that happen while they are approaching the starport. And they definitely don't have any priority treatment by the commercial staff at the starport.
The idea that you'd just park your ship at the highport is unlikely (again, unless you think there's functionally unlimited money for the starport). You'll be asked to go float out in the designated region of space. And hopefully have your own shuttle to run you in, drop you off, and return to your ship until you are ready to go. There are probably space taxis if the anchorage gets significant usage, but they probably aren't exclusive. More like an airport shuttle bus.
The downport probably has longer term "parking" for small ships, but I really doubt any highport does.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Traveller focuses on the main planet of a system.
This is great for planet of the week adventure, but doesn't stand up too well to close scrutiny.
A TL8 culture has access to grav tech, fusion, and thus can begin the industrialisation and colonisation of their entire system. By TL9 the maneuver drive makes travel within a system trivial.
Binary and higher star systems are common enough that short intrasystem jumps between them is likely to be faster than m-drive travel.
This is a subject for individual referees to consider for their setting.
A TL10 world may well have extensive resource exploitation, manufacturing, and colonisation across many of the planets and other bodies scattered across their star system, possibly including that binary neighbour.
Space ships will be flitting between destinations, with jump ships being used where it is more convenient, faster, or safer to do so.
Perhaps PCs could become involved in many an adventure with this as the background.
This is great for planet of the week adventure, but doesn't stand up too well to close scrutiny.
A TL8 culture has access to grav tech, fusion, and thus can begin the industrialisation and colonisation of their entire system. By TL9 the maneuver drive makes travel within a system trivial.
Binary and higher star systems are common enough that short intrasystem jumps between them is likely to be faster than m-drive travel.
This is a subject for individual referees to consider for their setting.
A TL10 world may well have extensive resource exploitation, manufacturing, and colonisation across many of the planets and other bodies scattered across their star system, possibly including that binary neighbour.
Space ships will be flitting between destinations, with jump ships being used where it is more convenient, faster, or safer to do so.
Perhaps PCs could become involved in many an adventure with this as the background.
