Ships coming in for a landing...

far-trader said:
There is ample canonical >2 parsec big conglomerate trade that manages to make credits on volume and rapid turnover.


Not out amongst small pop frontier systems. Face it, RAW econ is as broken as a one wheeled bicycle.
 
DFW said:
far-trader said:
There is ample canonical >2 parsec big conglomerate trade that manages to make credits on volume and rapid turnover.


Not out amongst small pop frontier systems. Face it, RAW econ is as broken as a one wheeled bicycle.

You see broken, I see background :)

Your broken one wheeled bicycle is my unicycle, watch me ride ;)
 
DFW said:
Face it, RAW econ is as broken as a one wheeled bicycle.
Well, any trade system which uses randomized prices and freight and
passenger volumes instead of supply and demand was obviously never
intended to simulate any kind of sane economy. It is just a game me-
chanic designed to stand in for a model of a plausible economy, which
the authors probably considered too complex for game purposes. So,
in my view there is no RAW economy, only a game mechanic designed
to give trader characters a partially randomized income based upon
their skill levels.
 
far-trader said:
Also, don't get hung up on the "single" Starport issue. It can be huge, sprawling, even a full city in itself covering a large island or half a continent... and still be a "single" Starport. One doesn't have to create several Starports to handle the traffic of a bustling system, just make it bigger.

At the same time, a truly busy system may want multiple "international" ports, especially if multiple continents or worlds are high volume resource handlers. The port code in the UWP is simply the best *generally available* services in-system, which follows from long-established caveats such as Scout bases *always* being able to take care of their ships regardless of port type and the private services available to corporations (such as Al Morai).

Under prior editions only one world in a system would be rated as a STAR port, the point of Imperial (or whatever) presence, with other worlds in the system having SPACE ports. In practice, the difference is as much or as little as you like, based on how dark/controlling/bureaucratic you view the Imperium to be.
 
far-trader said:
Also, don't get hung up on the "single" Starport issue. It can be huge, sprawling, even a full city in itself covering a large island or half a continent... and still be a "single" Starport. One doesn't have to create several Starports to handle the traffic of a bustling system, just make it bigger.

That would be like the US having one, HUGE cargo ship port instead of many. Doesn't make business sense.
 
That said, if the population distribution on a world was very centered, and/or the world was in one of those trade hub spots that *everyone* goes through, I could see having fewer (or one) gigantic ports. It is one way of vaguely rationalizing the occasional A-port with a small Pop in the center of a really busy cluster; the pop is there because the port is there, not the (more typical) other way around. The port staff itself may be many times the size of the "native" populace because of the "uncounted transient" bias the IISS Surveys have been suspected of before.

Makes for some interesting 1248 "dungeon delving" scenarios. Come to a world with a 200-km diameter port, all now deserted, with a million-family arcology sitting on one flank, now devoid of the living. You'd think the world's civilization collapsed. But no. The *natives* live outside the port in TL9 splendor, their lives only slightly interrupted by the events of a century past.
 
GypsyComet said:
That said, if the population distribution on a world was very centered ...
This would be the typical early colony settlement pattern, with the port
at the core of the original settlement and all further, smaller settlements
in a growing circle around the port, until the radius of the circle has be-
come so big that building other ports on the outskirts of the circle beco-
mes more economic than transporting the goods all the way to and from
the original port.
 
I would suggest that, given how cheap some people claim it is (small craft can use unrefined fuel, since the only risk is to jumps), I'd suggest that most ports would be only small craft ports or larger-non-jump craft. Given how large ships need specialist facilities (landing pads under 1 degree off totally flat is mentioned in the Starports book), I would expect most countries just to use large cargo ships, aircraft or ground vehicles and have a specialist cargo transfer facility next to the main downport. After all, otherwise you'd need to be able to route your cargo to any other facility in case the buyer wasn't landed at your own facility - much better to centralise it.

In EVE Online (a good example of economic practices that tend to happen in a free economy), you tended to find sellers shipping cargo to a central hub for sale, in order to get the best possible price (totally through player-driven demand). I can see the exact same thing happening on a planet - if you keep to your own facility, you might be passed over for the best price just because the buyer now has to wait an additional 4 or 5 hours for you to deliver when the next best price is already waiting to be loaded on board their ship... given how cheap fuel is (according to some people here), I cannot see them taking that risk. It is also infinitely cheaper to operate massed surface cargo vehicles and to then share cargo lifting facilities whenever possible than to maintain your own fleet of craft. I could see a planetary company specialising in such cargo haulage, to be honest, being able to minimise downtime in their craft through shipping everyone's goods to and from orbit for a small profit. Much better to pay slightly over the odds for, say, 20% of the running costs of your own craft than to have your own craft sat on the tarmac most of the time.
 
BFalcon said:
I'd suggest that most ports would be only small craft ports or larger-non-jump craft. Given how large ships need specialist facilities (landing pads under 1 degree off totally flat is mentioned in the Starports book)

How large are they talking?
 
DFW said:
BFalcon said:
I'd suggest that most ports would be only small craft ports or larger-non-jump craft. Given how large ships need specialist facilities (landing pads under 1 degree off totally flat is mentioned in the Starports book)

How large are they talking?

In the book, you buy them in 100dt lots which can be combined (presumably most of the weight capacity being centred on where the skids would go) up to 1,000 dt. with each stage for an engineered pad being 50,000Cr each. An industrial pad costs 500,000Cr and can handle between 1,000dt and 5,000dt..

When designing the port, you do, as I said above, also need to expand for taxiways also and doing so vastly expands the size of the downport (an airbase is big enough... a spaceport would be several times bigger).
 
Hmm ... Imagine Earth had only one real starport, for example in
Wisconsin. A free trader arrives with a cargo for Mitsubonda Hea-
vy Industries, which has its logistics center and core factory near
Amagasaki. He has to land in Wisconsin, where the cargo is trans-
ferred to a grav vehicle which transports it to Amagasaki. Mitsu-
bonda has to pay the starport fee of Wisconsin Downport and the
cost of the transport from there to Japan.

I am convinced that it would not take long for Mitsubonda's direc-
tors to realize that they could build a small starport much closer to
Amagasaki, rent some of the facilities out to other Japanese, Kore-
an, Chinese, etc., corporations, earn the starport fees and the rents
instead of having to pay them, and would also avoid the cost and
the time lag of the long range transport from Wisconsin.

And the free trader would be happy, too, because for transporting
cargo for Mitsubonda he would receive preferential treatment at the
corporation's own starport.
 
BFalcon said:
How large are they talking?

In the book, you buy them in 100dt lots which can be combined (presumably most of the weight capacity being centred on where the skids would go) up to 1,000 dt. with each stage for an engineered pad being 50,000Cr each. An industrial pad costs 500,000Cr and can handle between 1,000dt and 5,000dt..

When designing the port, you do, as I said above, also need to expand for taxiways also and doing so vastly expands the size of the downport (an airbase is big enough... a spaceport would be several times bigger).[/quote]

No, how large of ships are they talking that need this 1 degree precision.

VTOL ships would take LESS room than airports that have aircraft requiring large runways. So, all else being equal, it would be a smaller facility.
 
But rust, you were one of those who said that the cost of unrefined fuel was nothing (just go and help yourself), weren't you? So the cost would be practically zero...

All they'd need is the maintenance cost of the grav vehicle (which could be massive for a low cost - most of the cost of the vehicles we designed seemed to be military systems) and the crew wages. A grav-vehicle would be much the same as a truck park is today, I'd guess... but with more safety equipment needed.

If they had their own port, they'd need to pay wages for all the downport staff, the cost of upkeep on the port, the upkeep on the port safety vehicles, the security costs (there's always some whackjob looking to get onto the orbital stations or onto the planet with a bomb and you'd be responsible for preventing it at your end), the fuel refining costs (the incoming ships would really like their fuel refined at some point, not all would want unrefined) and then provide the same repair facilities as the 3I downport a couple of continents away (and the same fuel costs).
 
DFW: I know - you still need taxiways to get from the pads to the hangers and to get their cargos from either to the warehousing... I didn't add in the runways too...

The 1 degree precision was for any "engineered pad" to give a +2DM to landings (presumably the author was thinking of vectored thrust principles at the time, where a slanted takeoff creates a sideways drift which would need to be corrected - not good in high winds. A "rudimentary" pad is less well engineered, but gives a -2DM to landings as a result. (Guess which is most commonly found in Class E ports...).

Incidently, a runway is twice the size of an industrial pad - I'm presuming that it's not a purely aerodynamic landing and that the runways will be shorter and wider than normal as a result.

Edit: BTW an error on your quote tags there... :)
 
BFalcon said:
The 1 degree precision was for any "engineered pad" to give a +2DM to landings (presumably the author was thinking of vectored thrust principles at the time, where a slanted takeoff creates a sideways drift which would need to be corrected - not good in high winds.


Okay, thanks. The author hasn't a clue about how starships in MGT take off and land. Stuck on present day jet technology.
 
BFalcon said:
But rust, you were one of those who said that the cost of unrefined fuel was nothing (just go and help yourself), weren't you? So the cost would be practically zero...
This is why I did not mention fuel at all in my post ^^. :)
 
Well, to be honest, I've always assumed thrusters at the very end of a landing or at the very start of a takeoff - while there's actually something to push off of. I didn't subscribe to the theory I saw (I think it was yours) of how grav drives work (I see them slightly differently) and I think they'd need thrusters to make that system work. The fact you always see the drives at the back of the ship would also seem to suggest that thrusters are needed, but that discussion is for another time. :)

Rust: Ah... but fuel would be most of the cost of the secondary cargo run, would it not? :)
 
BFalcon said:
A "rudimentary" pad is less well engineered, but gives a -2DM to landings as a result.
So starships landing "in the wilds" now have an automatic -2 DM ? :shock:
 
I see it as a mix of all this. Perfect for the ref to use to generate adventure plots.

As for delivery of cargo in the "wild"... hmmm... I'd have to say that really large ships (say 10k Dtons or over) would never set down anywhere but in prepared stations. Small ships like scouts and free traders are meant for rough areas, and therefore their landing gear is designed with lots of ability to compensate for bad terrain (within the ref's reason). But pure commercial vessels are designed to move people and/or cargo the most effecient way possible. So form would follow function, and I say that for deliveries would be handled by shuttles / cargo lighters to and from the surface.

Besides, I don't really see any mega-freighters actually landing on a planet. Though I honestly don't have a cutoff on what size freighter gets to be too large to actually land. I'm thinking around 10k Dtons is a good place to start... though I personally wouldn't classify that as a megafreighter.
 
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