This is something I was thinking about in the 1,000 ton trader thread, but it's complex enough to put in it's own thread.
Does anyone model the traffic patterns in their gaming universe. At it's most simple ships leave port A and arrive in port B. But in reality traffic and capacity planning are extremely complex and convoluted. And it's not just ships, it's all forms of transport where you are moving people and/or goods.
As I see it, there are two separate worlds - the one where ships travel between systems, and the one where ships remain within a system. For interstellar travel you'd probably see mostly point-to-point travel for ships. They arrive in system, drop off their cargo, refuel, pick up a new cargo and depart, either back to where they came from or the next part of their circuit. A lot would depend upon their circuit and just how much cargo and traffic was able to be generated to determine the optimum route. An alternative that seems to make sense on lesser routes would be to jump to a system, hit your first port, then travel in-system to one or two or however many were on your route, then jump out. That, too, really depends on the type of route and what places you are visiting. Jump ships are expensive, but if you can stay in a system making money it can be just as lucrative (and probably cheaper) to hit a new port or station every couple of days, and then jump out when you've made your rounds.
The other method is going to be in-system only. I would expect the bigger jump ships to drop off cargo, perhaps entire pods of cargo, and jump right back out. These ships would be higher jump, low-G maneuver because they don't visit main worlds, just cargo terminals on the 100D limit. They are expensive so there is a need to keep them going constantly. With a high-jump they can do the J-3/J-4 routes that some routes would require. But the insystem freighters are going to do all the local deliveries and collections of cargo to be transported elsewhere. A far-flung network of stations and colonies would require regular runs of mid-G ships to get to the destinations in a reasonable amount of time. Without the burden of jump fuel or jump drives you can make a high-G space ship much more economically than you can a star ship.
And that brings us back to route planning. Do you think there would be more point-to-point routes, more circular routes, or somehow a mix? Railroads use unit trains to quickly move cargo from point A to point Z, stopping only to refuel. But everything else gets put on a manifest freight and sorted every time it comes to a new railyard. UPS does much the same thing with it's package services. And aircraft use a mix of point-to-point and hub and spoke, depending upon traffic patterns as well as rivals.
So, does anyone else think about shit like this?
Does anyone model the traffic patterns in their gaming universe. At it's most simple ships leave port A and arrive in port B. But in reality traffic and capacity planning are extremely complex and convoluted. And it's not just ships, it's all forms of transport where you are moving people and/or goods.
As I see it, there are two separate worlds - the one where ships travel between systems, and the one where ships remain within a system. For interstellar travel you'd probably see mostly point-to-point travel for ships. They arrive in system, drop off their cargo, refuel, pick up a new cargo and depart, either back to where they came from or the next part of their circuit. A lot would depend upon their circuit and just how much cargo and traffic was able to be generated to determine the optimum route. An alternative that seems to make sense on lesser routes would be to jump to a system, hit your first port, then travel in-system to one or two or however many were on your route, then jump out. That, too, really depends on the type of route and what places you are visiting. Jump ships are expensive, but if you can stay in a system making money it can be just as lucrative (and probably cheaper) to hit a new port or station every couple of days, and then jump out when you've made your rounds.
The other method is going to be in-system only. I would expect the bigger jump ships to drop off cargo, perhaps entire pods of cargo, and jump right back out. These ships would be higher jump, low-G maneuver because they don't visit main worlds, just cargo terminals on the 100D limit. They are expensive so there is a need to keep them going constantly. With a high-jump they can do the J-3/J-4 routes that some routes would require. But the insystem freighters are going to do all the local deliveries and collections of cargo to be transported elsewhere. A far-flung network of stations and colonies would require regular runs of mid-G ships to get to the destinations in a reasonable amount of time. Without the burden of jump fuel or jump drives you can make a high-G space ship much more economically than you can a star ship.
And that brings us back to route planning. Do you think there would be more point-to-point routes, more circular routes, or somehow a mix? Railroads use unit trains to quickly move cargo from point A to point Z, stopping only to refuel. But everything else gets put on a manifest freight and sorted every time it comes to a new railyard. UPS does much the same thing with it's package services. And aircraft use a mix of point-to-point and hub and spoke, depending upon traffic patterns as well as rivals.
So, does anyone else think about shit like this?
