Sector and Subsector-wide Merchant Lines

[Condottiere]

Good example.

That makes me wonder though...

Has there ever been much discussion about long range Low Passage travel?

You'd think that many people looking at a year long journey might prefer to just go cryo and wake up tomorrow where they are going to. If the Low Berth apparatus is designed to be modular and portable, which seems doable, the passenger just stays frozen and is unloaded and loaded between ships as required. Maybe require a Medic roll to oversee a transfer, but it wouldn't be as hard as reviving.

Yes.

Pragmatically, you'd want that done by a large organized institution, like the Navy, or a megacorporation spaceline that doesn't squeeze their profit margins to the point of safety shortcuts.

 

[boggo2300]

Making the ship significantly more expensive. Doesn't change the time but the price/dTon should rise significantly.

makes sense thats how it works IRL, you pay more for express shipping, that's probably something to be added to the shipping tables in the rulebooks, should be price per ton/jump/week rather than just ton/jump

 

[Condottiere]

I suppose you could low berth the black forest ice cream cake.

 

[boggo2300]

I suppose you could low berth the black forest ice cream cake.

seems like a more expensive option than a refrigerated cake box to me, plus it doesn't seem likely to me that a low berth would actually work by freezing, considering the tissue damage that causes

 

[Condottiere]

But, it shouldn't age, and therefore be fresh on delivery.

 

[boggo2300]

But, it shouldn't age, and therefore be fresh on delivery.

call me squeamish, but I prefer my cakes to not be alive

 

[Condottiere]

There's always steak.

Schrodinger's cow - dead and alive.

 

[rinku]

Huh.

Because the required power points for a J-Drive are 10% hull times Jn, they're the same as the one jump feul tankage. So divide the fuel requirement by the PP per ton of plant to get the tonnage of power plant required. Simpler than I thought.

 

[rinku]

Aright. Roughed out comparisons for a 2000 ton hull are:

J-2 requires 531 tons of drives, fuel and engineer accommodation (73% available for other things)
J-3 requires 795 tons of drives, fuel and engineer accommodation (60% available for other things)
J-4 requires 1059 tons of drives, fuel and engineer accommodation (47% available for other things)
J-6 requires 1585 tons of drives, fuel and engineer accommodation (20% available for other things)

It's clear even from this rough comparison that payload delivery generally becomes less efficient with Jump number. Assuming a six hex main, a J-6 ship making two jumps there and back, a J-3 ship that makes four jumps in the same time will have processed more payload than the J-6 one. Higher passenger and freight charges defray this a little, but it's fairly clear you will need those premium charges to compete.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Aright. Roughed out comparisons for a 2000 ton hull are:

J-2 requires 531 tons of drives, fuel and engineer accommodation (73% available for other things)
J-3 requires 795 tons of drives, fuel and engineer accommodation (60% available for other things)
J-4 requires 1059 tons of drives, fuel and engineer accommodation (47% available for other things)
J-6 requires 1585 tons of drives, fuel and engineer accommodation (20% available for other things)

It's clear even from this rough comparison that payload delivery generally becomes less efficient with Jump number. Assuming a six hex main, a J-6 ship making two jumps there and back, a J-3 ship that makes four jumps in the same time will have processed more payload than the J-6 one. Higher passenger and freight charges defray this a little, but it's fairly clear you will need those premium charges to compete.

I may be too tired, but check your math. The J-6s are 1-month round-trip. The J-3s are a 2-month round-trip. So, you have to double the cargo being carried by the J-6s to account for two trips versus one trip for the J-3s. So, the J-6s are also getting paid twice versus the J-3s only getting paid once in the same 2-month timeframe.

5,200Cr/ton for 6 parsecs at J-3
32,000Cr/ton for 6 parsecs at J-6.

So, J-3 makes 10,400Cr/ton every 2 months. J-3 carries 3 times the cargo, so call it 31,200Cr every 2 months.

The J-6 makes 128,000Cr/ton every 2 months.

Somebody will have to check My math. I am pretty tired.

 

[rinku]

Those are very rough figures; you do need to knock off the other common tonnage usages like bridge, M-drives, fuel for the power plant (which I forgot about) and other crew accommodations. Those should come out to under 100 tons on a 2000 ton ship, though.

I was only working out the payload figures. The extreme markup for J-6 carriage does make up for the reduced percentage payload, indeed.

Assuming you can find customers willing to pay for it.

It works both ways - if I have 100 tons of widgets I need shipped 6 parsecs and have a choice of 7 day delivery for MCr3.2, or 2-3 week delivery at a cost of MCr0.52... yeah, the J-3 option makes a lot more sense. And is probably worth paying more than the J-2 cost of MCr0.48