Traveller space craft are astonishingly cheap!!

[simonh]

What's the tonnage for a Boeing 747?

Quick estimate - assume it's a cylinder about 19m diameter by 70m long, and that the wings are a flat metre-thick block about 560m square.

You've massively overestimates the cylindrical diameter. That 19m is from the ground under the wheels to the topmost tip of the tail. The fuselage diameter is more like 7m. That would give it a volume of about 2700 cubic metres for the fuselage, for a total of around 3300 cubic metres, which is 227 displacement tons. I may be underestimating a little, but it's definitely under 300 displacement tons.

About the same as a free trader, but with a lot more sticky-out bits.

Simon Hibbs

 

[simonh]

There's gotta be an error there. A 737-900 can carry 150 people, plus cargo, plus fuel, 3 restrooms and crew.

...

Traveller ships are intended to carry people for journeys of at least a week in length, so their accommodation space requirements is more akin to a seagoing cruise liner than a passenger jet.

There's a thread about this subject from a few weeks ago, the Gurps Traveller module you referred to is also intended for short journeys measured in hours rather than days or weeks.

Imaging being trapped on a Boeing with hundreds of other people for a week. It'd be like the black hole of Calcutta. Believe me, the 10 hour trip from London to Beijing is bad enough, especially with small children.

Simon Hibbs

 

[GamerDude]

If anyone remembers the movies "Alien" and "Aliens"... the Nostromo cost 37 Million dollars.. MILLION... for a deep space mining and refining ship. My friends and I laughed quite a bit at that remarking "damm the Dollar must have been revalued a couple of dozen times by then for it to cost that little."

Don't think of Traveller costs as modern day Earth in the 20th/21st century costs. Think of it as being 30 centuries or so from now and money as been so revalued so many times we don't have an honest clue about whatever conversion factor is between the two in terms of how much a Buck/Cred can buy.

 

[rust]

... we don't have an honest clue about whatever conversion factor is between the two in terms of how much a Buck/Cred can buy.

Since the MGT core rules state that a fastfood burger costs 2 to 3 credits,
a normal meal about 20 credits, an average rifle 200 credits, a ground
car 6,000 credits, and so on, it does not seem that difficult to estimate
what a credit compared to a US-dollar can buy.

 

[hdan]

Since the MGT core rules state that a fastfood burger costs 2 to 3 credits, a normal meal about 20 credits, an average rifle 200 credits, a ground car 6,000 credits, and so on, it does not seem that difficult to estimate
what a credit compared to a US-dollar can buy.

That's only true if those items hold the same relative values in the Far Future(tm), which depends a lot on resource availability, etc. I suspect food on an Ag world is much cheaper than food on a barren asteroid.

That being said, it really does look like 1CrImp is meant to be around $2usd, except that Traveller characters seem to buy much nicer normal meals than I do.

 

[DFW]

a ground car 6,000 credits, and so on, it does not seem that difficult to estimate what a credit compared to a US-dollar can buy.

~3cr to 1 USD.

 

[rust]

That's only true if those items hold the same relative values in the Far Future(tm), which depends a lot on resource availability, etc. I suspect food on an Ag world is much cheaper than food on a barren asteroid.

True, but as far as I know Mongoose Traveller only considers this where it
comes to the prices of trade goods, not the prices of personal equipment.
For example, the artificial gill seems to have the same price on a poor TL
8 desert world and on a rich TL 15 water world.

 

[AndrewW]

Too hard to pin it down, exchange rates fluctuate all the time. One day 3Cr might get you $1 USD, the next that same 3Cr might get you $6 USD...

 

[rust]

Too hard to pin it down, exchange rates fluctuate all the time. One day 3Cr might get you $1 USD, the next that same 3Cr might get you $6 USD...

Yep, one never knows whether China will buy or sell Credits.

 

[GamerDude]

The Free Trader, Far Trader and Fat Trader economics work so long as most months you make two jumps each month, with a pretty much full cargo bay and most of your berths full of paying customers.

And if I may add... the cargo is either paid for in advance or, if speculative, goes for a higher price than what was paid for it.

 

[zero]

Hm, going on the costs overleaf I'd say the rough average for a credit to fellow Brits is £2 to 3 creds (or divide the credits by 1.5 to find the cost in pounds :wink: ).

Again, I realise trade and the value of a cred is continually fluctuating. Plus my conversion goes on modern British costs, not '70s American costs.

£20million for a 30MCr ship is cheap for the actual ship, but pulling in around £89k a month if I work my ass off to make the months costs sets things in perspective (it also kinda makes me want to do self-employed space freight myself, even if I do have to shell out a few hundred each time I berth and have little after myself! :lol: )

 

[rust]

£20million for a 30MCr ship is cheap for the actual ship ...

Take a look at this beauty, to be had for only ca. 20 million Euros:
http://commercial.apolloduck.com/feature.phtml?id=125737

 

[phavoc]

There's gotta be an error there. A 737-900 can carry 150 people, plus cargo, plus fuel, 3 restrooms and crew.

...

Traveller ships are intended to carry people for journeys of at least a week in length, so their accommodation space requirements is more akin to a seagoing cruise liner than a passenger jet.

There's a thread about this subject from a few weeks ago, the Gurps Traveller module you referred to is also intended for short journeys measured in hours rather than days or weeks.

Imaging being trapped on a Boeing with hundreds of other people for a week. It'd be like the black hole of Calcutta. Believe me, the 10 hour trip from London to Beijing is bad enough, especially with small children.

Simon Hibbs

I'd say that Interplanetary journeys of less than 20hrs you would use seats (though you might have some more roomier ones for 'high passage'. But more than say 20hrs, you would have more of a train style bunking system. Think of it like how people used to cross the continent in a few days, where they had cabins to retire to, or bunks if you were in train steerage. That was for a few days journey. For longer journeys they probably would travel in more of a cruise ship type compartment.

I've been crammed on a Boeing for 14hrs in coach. Not the most pleasant experience, but tolerable. I doubt the future will hold much more comfort for steerage, err, tourist class for starships.

 

[zero]

Ha, awesome :lol:

I guess having even a £17million (the equivalent from dollars to pounds) ship makes you one kewl dude and my guys got a £20million one! :lol:

 

[gloomhound]

I doubt the future will hold much more comfort for steerage, err, tourist class for starships.

Would that not be "Low Berth" passengers?

 

[phavoc]

I doubt the future will hold much more comfort for steerage, err, tourist class for starships.

Would that not be "Low Berth" passengers?

Low berth would be preferable to steerage. At least you sleep through the whole journey.

 

[SSWarlock]

Take a look at this beauty, to be had for only ca. 20 million Euros:
http://commercial.apolloduck.com/feature.phtml?id=125737

You know...this would make a great Q-ship off the coast of Sudan. :lol:

 

[zero]

^ Lol :lol:

I cant see how low berthing would be preferable to steerage when theres a chance that you wont survive the thaw. Just hope you have a high constitu... I mean endurance, when you wake up. :roll:

Naw, best to shell out for Middle Class if you dont want to go High passage, at least you know you'll (probably) get to where you want to go without dying in your sleep or being brought back wrong by an incompetent steward playing Medic :roll:

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

I doubt the future will hold much more comfort for steerage, err, tourist class for starships.

Would that not be "Low Berth" passengers?

Low berth would be preferable to steerage. At least you sleep through the whole journey.

And about 40% of the time carry on sleeping forever more!

Egil

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Take a look at this beauty, to be had for only ca. 20 million Euros:
http://commercial.apolloduck.com/feature.phtml?id=125737

You know...this would make a great Q-ship off the coast of Sudan. :lol:

You do mean Somalia, don't you?

Wouldn't make any difference, the problem with the Somali pirates is a lack of international will to bang heads together, not the capacity to do so. Most European navies seem to be concerned that if they arrest anyone, the pirates will just claim political asylum when they get to Europe. And after Blackhawk down the US want to pretend that Somalia doesn't really exist.

Egil