star ship pricing

[Treebore]

"Trade"s not all that hard. It would still be very comparable to todays shipping. You have "X" amount of cargo that needs to go to any given port. A number that can be easily determined of "Freight carriers" will be needed to carry these known quantities of cargo. These Freight Carriers, by and large, will only accept contracts that allow them to ship the freight with a profit margin. This price varies somewhat, because various people/companies have varying levels of overhead and debt. However, a solid average can be obtained.

Anyways, the bottom line is, big freighters have much bigger costs, but since they carry much more, their profit margin covers it. But they will also be locked into only shipping lanes that require cargo of that volume.

Smaller ships exist because there are ports that require lesser amounts of "X" cargo, but smaller ships also have smaller costs, so can turn profits on these smaller volume cargoes.

That is the fundamentals of cargo shipping. Put the right size ship on the right volume shipping lane, and you make profits. Put too large a ship on too small a shipping lane and they fail. Small ships can't operate on large shipping lanes because they can't offer a per ton shipping price that beats what the large ships charge due to their volume.

So the small ships stay on the shipping lanes the large ships can't use, because there they can charge more per ton, and still cover their costs despite the much smaller volume.

So build planet side, using our real world shipping as your model, and then apply these fundamental principles to space lanes, and you will quickly see, and understand why, you will see large freighters on only certain lanes, and smaller freighters on others. The larger the population and wealth of the destination, the larger the freighters are going there. The smaller the wealth and population at the destination, the smaller the ships are that go there.

So yes, small cargo ships HAVE to operate along the smaller population and wealth shipping lanes, because in order to be successful you have to fill your cargo bays up, at a price that makes it profitable, yet still low enough to be competitive.

The real question is, does the campaign plans support the route along which the ship size the group has should take? Probably not. Only campaigns planned out to occur along low population and low wealth shipping lanes would work in any kind of "realistic" fashion.

But with a fundamental understanding of how it has to work, you can make it work. Close to realistic too.

 

[DFW]

But with a fundamental understanding of how it has to work, you can make it work. Close to realistic too.

Yes, but ONLY if you a realistic supply & demand pricing model for cargo shipping cost/price. Traveller's is SO far off the mark as to be comedic.

 

[BP]

IRL, not so long ago (late sail, early steam) large lines plied long routes. Tramps connected the shorter and also smaller ports. Most were PURE freighters, not spec. ...

Sure - and its not a bad analogy. But, 'Tramps' don't conjure the image of pristine new vessels majestically lifting from the docks... nor are like to have as much success as established large lines (unless they go into speculative trade or some other shenanigans...). Banks will make more margin to offset lower net and higher risk - a hefty percentage of repos being expected.

A Megacorp doesn't need to pay a bank a 40 mortgage and the same 'interest' as an independent trader... their margins for freight and speculative trade would be different as well. Just like Walmart isn't gonna pay the same price for 50,000 widgets that the local independent corner store pays for 5 units.

The core traveller mechanics don't really cover any of this in any great detail - heck, in most cases an item 'costs' the same regardless of TL or any other market variable at the player level - and the trade system is pretty abstract as well. Its purpose seems to deal exclusively with player level 'trade' and as a motivation to RP - which is as I'd expect it to be.

Now the rules in the MgT Merchant book may present a different, broader objective - not anything I'm interested in myself. Can't see that working out - but most of the posts I've seen are just about ships being 'profitable' for freight using the core rules and the assumption that everything is a level playing field (mortgages, volume trade agreements, regular spec hauled for a lower guaranteed cut that is higher than normal rates without the risk of spec, etc.) for completely different situations - i.e. the larger trade picture or economics of the 3I. Irregardless of anything else, this makes such extrapolation invalid.

 

[BP]

But with a fundamental understanding of how it has to work, you can make it work. Close to realistic too.

Yes, but ONLY if you a realistic supply & demand pricing model for cargo shipping cost/price. Traveller's is SO far off the mark as to be comedic.

Yeah - if one tries to extrapolate it to a larger scope than the player level.

At the player level it encourages creative activities.

 

[DFW]

Yeah - if one tries to extrapolate it to a larger scope than the player level.

At any level.

 

[DFW]

Sure - and its not a bad analogy. But, 'Tramps' don't conjure the image of pristine new vessels majestically lifting from the docks...

That subjective view isn't germane to the topic. "Tramp" refers to the route type, not ship condition.

 

[BP]

Named for the type of vessel commonly found on such... quite germane.

 

[DFW]

Named for the type of vessel commonly found on such... quite germane.

Named for the route type. Not the condition of the ship.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramp_trade

 

[BP]

Referring to tramp not route.

 

[locarno24]

On a Traveller ship, how many moving parts actually need to be maintained inside an engine compartment? Oiled, greased, replaced, etc...
Isn't it mostly high yield coils, futuristic "contra-grav" power conduits etc...?

high yield coils are going to have to be replaced regularly, though - you might not have metal sliding against metal, but you'll have electrical arcing, heat discharge, etc.

Computers get better by increasing the number of components in a given volume, but this process (a) increases the heat generated and (b) decreases a component's tolerance for it - meaning your systems will blow out more quickly.

Anything made out of ferromagnetic material in a magnetic field will perm up. Anything charged will leak charge. Anything bombarded with radiation will gradually embrittle. Anything under physical stress will experience creep.

Bear in mind that yes, if you spent enough, you could probably produce gear that will last indefinitely in terms of a traveller campaign. However; you aren't the Imperial Navy spending terracredits on stuff every year. Megacorporations will produce gear that is to the minimum quality that reliably meets all the design and safety codes for merchant shipping; they're fine with something being more capable (they can charge more for it) but making something more durable means they only get to sell it once.

For an example, see.....well....pretty much any personal electronics you've ever bought.

 

[rust]

Yes, but ONLY if you a realistic supply & demand pricing model for cargo shipping cost/price. Traveller's is SO far off the mark as to be comedic.

The best way to make it plausible is to describe it as a planned economy
without a market and with prices arbitrarily fixed by a mad bureaucracy.

 

[DFW]

The best way to make it plausible is to describe it as a planned economy without a market and with prices arbitrarily fixed by a mad bureaucracy.

:lol: SO true.

 

[DFW]

Computers get better by increasing the number of components in a given volume, but this process (a) increases the heat generated and (b) decreases a component's tolerance for it - meaning your systems will blow out more quickly.

Actually, quantum computing is getting very close to reality... This will blow away what you are just describing.

 

[locarno24]

Fully agreed. As is biochemical computing. Although since they remain simple and capable it's not impossible that 'classic' electronics will be used where more capable systems simply aren't needed - after all, how much processing power do you need to manage a door motor?

Equally, Murphy's Law says there are some engineering problems with the practical implementation of both of those that we haven't found yet*. Especially when you've got them within a few dozen metres of a hand-wavium-science major quantum event like a jump drive firing.

"Oh look we're dropping into a new pocket universe, it..aaargh stop messing with planck's constant..electron and photon energy levels changing...////out of cheese error///redo from start."

For that matter, the effects of spacial distortions in nipping off a bit of spacetime and re-attaching it might mess with calibration - a concept first mentioned in Arthur C Clarke's Superiority - granted, in his case the Exponential Field is more of a cloaking device, but the same effect might could well be something to watch out for with any process that actively distorts spacetime.


* Actually, I can think of one straight off one with the biochem ones. Nothing that's a problem in a sterile lab but whilst it's an awesome system in theory, in a ship's engineering spaces the odds of something unpleasantly biological not getting in at some point is depressingly low.

 

[DFW]

Fully agreed. As is biochemical computing. Although since they remain simple and capable it's not impossible that 'classic' electronics will be used where more capable systems simply aren't needed - after all, how much processing power do you need to manage a door motor?

Exactly. Also, for Trav ships to work there MUST be electrical & thermal superconductors. We are less than one lifetime into nuc power & electronics.

2 1/2 thousand years from now, these ships will have virtually NO moving parts and materials tech will be SO advanced that short of bad maintenance and/or collisions/combat damage, high tech star ships will last for centuries of use.

 

[rust]

2 1/2 thousand years from now, these ships will have virtually NO moving parts and materials tech will be SO advanced that short of bad maintenance and/or collisions/combat damage, high tech star ships will last for centuries of use.

This is for example an assumption in Brin's Uplift Universe, where some of
the technologically most advanced starships are still fully functional even
after millenia of use. They are almost indestructable, and the materials
used to build them are able to repair or heal themselves. Short of the
most massive damage, for example by "probability weapons" which alter
the laws of nature at the target area, those ships will always "reconfigure"
themselves to a state where they are "as good as new".

 

[locarno24]

2 1/2 thousand years from now, these ships will have virtually NO moving parts and materials tech will be SO advanced that short of bad maintenance and/or collisions/combat damage, high tech star ships will last for centuries of use.

It's that maintenance that kills you, though.
I agree with you absolutely on the grounds of technology, but (much as it offends my engineering mindset to do so) dispute this on the grounds of economics.

The design of a ship - especially in a corporately dominated environment like the third imperium - is what the management of said corporations say they are.

A chassis and core elements lasting for centuries of use is only sensible - it's the biggest, most awkward and least user benefit- and manufacturer profit-generating component in the whole shebang. That's the same reason you have military vehicle mothball yards - a tank chassis is very easy to remanufacture into a Mk II. Equally, assuming a legal system anything equivalent to contemporary international law today, you're going to be responsible for underwriting the design's safety case - which means that ultimately it's your neck on the block if you skimp on anything that could impact operational safety, which hull strength and fatigue resistance certainly does.

However, when dealing with a commercial vessel rather than a Naval/Govt ship*, it is in the unavoidable economic interest of the man designing the systems fitted to your ship that you are required to replace them on a regular basis. Since technological progression is slow at best in the Imperium - being more a matter of physical location and social/economic standing than time - he's not going to sell you "this year's shiny new model", hence he's only going to keep flogging Type S navigational control system elements if said elements have a limited operational life. It may not be a case of wear-induced structural failure in gears, but I assure you they'll find something.

* Since in those cases maintenance ends up straight back in your lap and on your budget - availability contracting is an increasingly common thing these days and there's no reason to assume it'll go away.

 

[DFW]

It's that maintenance that kills you, though.
I agree with you absolutely on the grounds of technology, but (much as it offends my engineering mindset to do so) dispute this on the grounds of economics.

Then, you need a few more econ classes. With the HUGE cost of a even small ship, NOT making them in this fashion would economically unfeasible. They'd have to last centuries for a company to finance at those costs.

 

[rust]

However, when dealing with a commercial vessel rather than a Naval/Govt ship*, it is in the unavoidable economic interest of the man designing the systems fitted to your ship that you are required to replace them on a regular basis.

True, but the definition of "on a regular basis" would most probably be
provided by some government authority, not by the megacorporation
which actually builds the starship. Depending on a government's ideas
of durability, endurance, safety and all that this could well be a rather
long time, even for consumer goods.

As a real world example, over here the producer of any kind of technolo-
gy has to guarantee that it will function for at least two years, otherwise
he has to take it back an compensate the customer. Now, this is for hair
dryers and similar simple consumer goods, the rules for (today) aircraft
and (in the future) starships are likely to be much more strict.

 

[locarno24]

Then, you need a few more econ classes. With the HUGE cost of a even small ship, NOT making them in this fashion would economically unfeasible. They'd have to last centuries for a company to finance at those costs.

I'm not talking about the ship as a whole.

An armoured, streamlined class 3 hull - at something like 15 million credits for what's basically a lump of machined metal - definitely.

A jump engine or fusion plant as a whole system - at nearly twice that - again, definitely.

but individual (non-structural) system and subsystem components?

Bear in mind that moving towards a disposable/modular component approach is something the industrialized world has been steadily doing for at least a century; precisely because they don't want to sell you the consumable bits only once. A Ling Standard Parts Fusion-F will stay in service for a century or more - fair enough, as you say you wouldn't invest megacredits if it didn't. But I'd maintain that a not insignificant portion of that will be 'grandfather's old axe' (five new handles and two new blades...) because otherwise you reach the situation of selling your system to people precisely once. Which is not a sustainable business model for a company which plans operations across the scale that megacorps do.

Now, this is for hair dryers and similar simple consumer goods, the rules for (today) aircraft and (in the future) starships are likely to be much more strict.

Not really.

The rules to ensure that it will last two years, yes, they're stricter - if a safety-critical component fails it's not a case of 'take it back and replace it', it's a case of 'drop your pants to allow the FAA easy access to your sensitive bits with a hot poker'.

However, the whilst the rules are strict in mandating that you absolutely cannot possibly ever under any circumstances fail within your stated operational life, they're not that much different from over-the-counter civilian stuff in terms of what that operational life actually is. A lot of industrial/commercial/military components have less than a two year life before you're required to pull and replace them.