sideranautae said:
phavoc said:
Fuel pricing isn't related to reality.
Right. That is what my rules fixes. Anyplace with a Star port (thus high TL) and world is okay temp & Hydro 2+ (which is higher hydro than my area where water comes from) the price is ~Cr5/ton for unrefined. May vary by 100% higher on worlds without adequate hydro number.
Of course like you said if you land somewhere with a TL very low, it may cost a lot more. But, that precludes a real star port and thus, doesn't apply to this post or rule. If it has to be brought to the main world via ship THEN the price goes even higher than in Trav rules.
You've got a problem with your model here. A TL3 planet can have a Class A starport. A TL7 planet can have a Class D. TL of a planet <> starport levels.
Secondly if you are going to change the fuel model you'll need to have at least a two-tiered system. The cost for unrefined fuel pumped from the local sea might be 5Cr/Dton at the downport. But it will need to be much higher at the highport (if there is one) because you also have to factor in the cost of shuttle pilots, shuttles, storage and infrastructure. Then, if you want to proceed along your reality curve a player would have to determine if it's worth staying at the high port and saving the few hours it would take to land/liftoff. Or, if your high port was further out, say around the 100D mark, that's an even longer time to travel. What would be the ROI on paying the higher price in orbit?
To me it's not worth the hassle of trying to model all these other parameters. If it somehow added to the game then yeah, I'd be ok. I have created a hydrogen fueling system at the industrial scale that collects and ships tens of thousands of tons of fuel at a time. But I've not tried to put costs to it because it's a NPC industrial infrastructure environment and the PC's don't run around building multi-million Cr industrial facilities. The price of high tech gas just isn't that big of a deal to me. I would rather flesh out other areas of the game that help provide background and flavor. But that's just me.
rust said:
sideranautae said:
Life doesn't always work like that. You screw your econ lifeline long enough and it'll come back and cut your throat. That's why you don't see this in real world ports...
Real world ports have alternatives, the port of Los Angeles is not the only port on the West Coast of the USA and has to compete with other ports in the region. A starport is often the only port of the entire planet, there is often no legal alternative. As long as the fuel price is not high enough to
shut down a significant part of the planet's foreign trade, there is no other incentive to keep it low - and 100 Cr per ton is certainly not high enough to make foreign trade unattractive.
It's not that simple. The Los Angeles area has two major ports, then there is San Franciso, Portland and Seattle/Tacoma area to the north and San Diego to the south. The issues facing the west coast ports are one of infrastructure. Dropping off the containers isn't enough. They have to get to their final destinations (the south, middle america and the east coast). When the upgrade to the canal is done the larger container ships can travel directly through to ports along the gulf coast and eastern seaboard. A stack train leaving the port of los angeles might be 120-140 cars long, which is 280 containers - a mere pittance for the size of these ships. A ship delivering 5000 containers directly to New York or Houston, even with 3-5 days travel time can save hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) on just shipping costs from the port, let alone speed delivery of goods.
And planets have one Primary Imperial starport, but can have literally hundreds more spread all over the place. Balkanized planets are going to have the most, but smaller cities are going to have starports to handle smaller local haulers and private craft. The big boys might only call at the primary, or say a handful of local ports.
rust said:
sideranautae said:
No matter how much you want it to.
Actually I don't care. In my settings the traders have long term contracts with colony planets and there get the fuel free, as part of the starport serices covered by a single landing fee, which depends on the tonnage of the ship and the duration of the contract - the longer the contract, the lower the fee.
It makes sense that regularly scheduled freight has the price for fuel built into the delivery price. And if you are changing the cost of fuel from what's in the OTU there's no reason why you need to stay tied to the pricing models for berthing fees too.
Though economically speaking, having a longer-term contract doesn't do anything really for the price of a commodity such as fuel. Since it's just water you won't get any long-term effeciences in cost savings that you can potentially pass on. In fact, assuming you factor in depreciation, at some point there will need to be price increases as you have to start replacing equipment.
Otherwise you WOULD. But, you don't. That's the sanity check.
