How to address the problem of the numbers

[rancke]

Now as I recall, before the music changed, the song was, "How to address the problem of the numbers," which was sung to the tune of, "Just how many ships are out here anyway?"

As I said, GURPS offers some data, but it does not apply easily outside of GURPS since their trade picture is a little different: they aren't faced with the Cr1000/dTon cap on cargo fees regardless of jump range.

Neither is anyone else. There are several examples in official CT material that have NPCs asking the PCs for discounts and offering bonusses. Most of them are in The Traveller Adventure, but there's at least one other in Alien Realms (that one runs a truck through the accomodation regulations too). The Cr1000 price is a game artifact. So are the passage prices, although it is possible to explain them away with only a modicum of handwaving.

There are also some other little differences that may play a role, and I recall other issues coming up the last time they came up. Still it might give us a ballpark to work with, which we don't now have.

Sadly, GT world economics is, indeed, different from CT world economics, but since no CT material deals with the macro-scale effects, I agree that GT figures are good enough for big, broad, sweeping generalizations.

There are four dark blue "major" routes, I think 56 aqua "main" routes, about 260 green "intermediate" routes, about as many yellow "feeder" routes (they're hard to see), and about 173 red "minor" routes. (I might be off by a couple here or there.) Makes it roughly 50 to 100 million dTons weekly traffic.

Unfortunately, the trade route maps suffer from one fatal flaw. They only account for trade between neighboring worlds. If you take two big worlds lying six parsecs apart with a small backwater world in between, you get minor routes between each of the big worlds and the intermediate world. But you don't get the bigger route between the two big worlds. So passengers and trade, and the ships to carry them/it, would be seriously underestimated.

So for the GURPS Marches, and with a lot of assumptions, we're guessing around 16,000-17,000 free traders, maybe as many 4-600 dTonners, about 31,000 large freighters of from 2000 dTons to maybe 10,000 dTons, and a bit less than a thousand megafreighters. Big numbers, but it seems to be where GURPS leans and might explain why the IN feels its worth putting several hundred capital ships in the sector.

By free traders I hope you mean ships the size of free traders run by regular companies, because I just don't see actual tramp-type free traders survive the competition from regular companies except on the fringes of commerce. Certainly not 16,000 of them in one sector. Canonical nine out of ten fledgeling lines go out of business within a decade and nine out of ten of those that survive just make ends meet. We don't have the figures for free traders, but I submit that they're unlikely to by better than those for fledgeling lines.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Actually, Hans, if you look at the maps by Anthony Jackson, posted on the SJG site...
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/maps.html ...
Those are NOT all single jump routes. the darker lines are in fact major flows along which trade does flow... at least per GTFT.

Under GTFT, there's significant trade on Regina with Mora, Deneb, and several dozen world 20-40 Pc away.

In fact, one can, with automation including route finding algorithms, find every world in the imperium. Note that 60+ Pc is not enough to stop any two 4+ from having some direct trade...

The trade flows of Regina are high... It puts too much trade for even GT's own fluff-text. And GT's fluff implies much more active trade than does CT or MT (especially Hard Times). One of the authors was a die-hard small-ship guy until he applied the numbers based upon their assumptions.

One of the key differences is that the GT $ is NOT equal in value to the CrImp. (CrImps appear to be roughly 1977 or 1976 US dollars. GURPS explicitly based them upon 1985 US dollars... so there's a disconnect there, of about a factor of x1.5. CrImp=1.5*G$

I don't know if GURPS 4e revised the G$... I've only seen the light version baked into Vorkosigan.

Further, the assumptions of TL improvements in economy are baked into GURPS core rules. And they're a different curve from Traveller's. Traveller seems to assume a much lower GDP per capita growth with tech level. (See Striker, TCS, World Tamer's Handbook.)

we know that the GURPS TL issue also is a problem. Above TL6, the scales make different assumptions.

So, those trade flows are probably not all that reflective of the "realities" of the OTU.

They're probably not route-wise wrong, but the amount of trade is probably off by a good bit.

Comparing the TL's

Per Capita incomes before trade code modifiers

GTL	Per Capita G$	CT TL	Per Capita CT CrLocal	Per Capita CT CrImps
13	G$24,400.	16	(24,000)	24,000-26,400
12:	G$15,000	15	22,000	19,800-22,000
11:	G$9,375	14	20,000	14,000-18,000
10:	G$5860	12-13	18,000 16,000	10,800-14,400 8,000-11,200
9:	G$3660	9-11	14,000 12,000 10,000	5,600-8,400 3,600-6,000 2,000-4,000
8:	G$2290	8	8,000	800-3,200
7:	G$1430	7	6,000	300-1,200

The Traveller GDP per capita varies more widely. Striker is the only one that gives them...
Note that Traveller GDP per capita is much lower gains... and is variable by starport type, unlike GT.

The currency conversion in Striker is canon; the GDP numbers have been decanonized, but are similar enough to WTH and the upkeep rules that it's still useful.

It has been suggest by some that that table should be used as straight CrImp, but expenses figured in CrLocal...

Also note: Base level labor at any Traveller TL makes CrLocal $4 or so per hour; base upkeep is CrLocal 1200*soc per annum (per T5, p 52).
This does mean that below TL5, the average soc should be effectively 0-1...serfs and such.

When trying to make sense of the numbers, those baseline differences are a problem.

 

[rancke]

Actually, Hans, if you look at the maps by Anthony Jackson, posted on the SJG site...
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/maps.html ...
Those are NOT all single jump routes. the darker lines are in fact major flows along which trade does flow... at least per GTFT.

Perhaps so, but they certainly aren't all there. Want me to present a couple of examples?

Under GTFT, there's significant trade on Regina with Mora, Deneb, and several dozen world 20-40 Pc away.

In fact, one can, with automation including route finding algorithms, find every world in the imperium. Note that 60+ Pc is not enough to stop any two 4+ from having some direct trade...

I believe you. What I'm doubtful about is that all the trade is accounted for on the trade maps.

The trade flows of Regina are high... It puts too much trade for even GT's own fluff-text. And GT's fluff implies much more active trade than does CT or MT (especially Hard Times). One of the authors was a die-hard small-ship guy until he applied the numbers based upon their assumptions.

Again, I believe you. The fluff text is just that, fluff text.

One of the key differences is that the GT $ is NOT equal in value to the CrImp. (CrImps appear to be roughly 1977 or 1976 US dollars. GURPS explicitly based them upon 1985 US dollars... so there's a disconnect there, of about a factor of x1.5. CrImp=1.5*G$

Also, the CrImp is based on a TL of 15, the GT $ is based on a GTTL of 12.

Further, the assumptions of TL improvements in economy are baked into GURPS core rules. And they're a different curve from Traveller's. Traveller seems to assume a much lower GDP per capita growth with tech level. (See Striker, TCS, World Tamer's Handbook.)

I agree with everything you say. However, GT's are the only figures we have. Someone come up with a sound substitute and I'll switch in a heartbeat. But until then I can either like the GT figures enough to use them or I can do the other thing. I choose the first option.

we know that the GURPS TL issue also is a problem. Above TL6, the scales make different assumptions.

So, those trade flows are probably not all that reflective of the "realities" of the OTU.

They're probably not route-wise wrong, but the amount of trade is probably off by a good bit.

Which is why I speak of using them mostly for big, broad, sweeping generalizations.

The Traveller GDP per capita varies more widely. Striker is the only one that gives them...

Note that Traveller GDP per capita is much lower gains... and is variable by starport type, unlike GT.

Note that both GT and Traveller are gross simplifications. Neither of them are likely to be "realistic".

Also note: Base level labor at any Traveller TL makes CrLocal $4 or so per hour; base upkeep is CrLocal 1200*soc per annum (per T5, p 52).
This does mean that below TL5, the average soc should be effectively 0-1...serfs and such.

What it means is that the upkeep rules that, among other bits of silliness, makes Soc 2 pay twice as much as Soc 1 are completely stuffed up.

When trying to make sense of the numbers, those baseline differences are a problem.

I wouldn't dream of denying it. Let none of us imagine that any conclusions we come up with based on the available data is Holy Writ.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Neither is anyone else. ...

Of course not, and many of us bend canon to allow economic forces to come into play, but for the purpose of a forum discussion on macro-scale issues I am obliged to assume canon rules.

...By free traders I hope you mean ships the size of free traders run by regular companies, ...

For the larger routes, yes. There might be a few tramps in there trying to squeeze themselves in, but I'm thinking most of the small ships are in branches or subsidiaries of the big freight lines tapping into special-needs markets and ground-based corporations that rent or buy their own ships to meet their own needs. I think the tramps would mostly be on the red and yellow routes.

...The trade flows of Regina are high... It puts too much trade for even GT's own fluff-text. ... So, those trade flows are probably not all that reflective of the "realities" of the OTU.

They're probably not route-wise wrong, but the amount of trade is probably off by a good bit.
...

Agreed. The GURPS info is useful for getting a ballpark, but translating them into CT is a nightmare. Trade could be half, could be lower by an order of magnitude. I take a clue from the fact that the Imperium fields a naval force of several hundred ships out here to protect them. That's a couple trillion credits annually for new ships and maintenance, not to mention the cost of crew, bases, and other supports. Suggests a significant volume of trade worth defending, but of course that only gives us a vague idea of scale.

...Also note: Base level labor at any Traveller TL makes CrLocal $4 or so per hour; base upkeep is CrLocal 1200*soc per annum (per T5, p 52).
This does mean that below TL5, the average soc should be effectively 0-1...serfs and such. ...

Not so much a problem in the pre-industrial tech levels as you can assume that most of the economy is agrarian, therefore with a large "invisible" segment: farm hands for whom a substantial fraction of their compensation is food and shelter, farmers paying millers and others in produce rather than coin, etc.

Of course, a farm hand's social status is low, but at least he's well fed.

 

[rancke]

Of course not, and many of us bend canon to allow economic forces to come into play, but for the purpose of a forum discussion on macro-scale issues I am obliged to assume canon rules.

No, I mean that no one in the Traveller Universe is faced with that requirement (other than player characters in a campaign run by the book). It's a game artifact, not a setting detail.

(Used to be that I'd argue that it might very well be a game artifact, that there's no evidence that it isn't a game artifact, and that there are good reasons why enforcing such a requirement would require a level of enforcement that just isn't plausible. But after I became aware of the canonical examples I refer to, I've changed to claiming that it IS a game artifact.)

Agreed. The GURPS info is useful for getting a ballpark, but translating them into CT is a nightmare. Trade could be half, could be lower by an order of magnitude.

There's the reverse consideration to take into account. If we arrive at a figure by using GT, there's no way to say that it isn't the right result, because the CT information is too vague to prove anything. So why not assume it just happens to work out that way?

I take a clue from the fact that the Imperium fields a naval force of several hundred ships out here to protect them. That's a couple trillion credits annually for new ships and maintenance, not to mention the cost of crew, bases, and other supports. Suggests a significant volume of trade worth defending, but of course that only gives us a vague idea of scale.

There was an old supplement to Chivalry & Sorcery called Bireme & Galley. It established a country's civilian ship tonnage as twice the country's military tonnage. I've used the same assumption for some of my Traveller setting calculations. IIRC the results didn't seem unreasonable. (It was back in the days of writing notes on paper, so I can't be any clearer than that).

Not so much a problem in the pre-industrial tech levels as you can assume that most of the economy is agrarian, therefore with a large "invisible" segment: farm hands for whom a substantial fraction of their compensation is food and shelter, farmers paying millers and others in produce rather than coin, etc.

Tech levels 4 and 5 are Industrial technology.


Hans

 

[tjoneslo]

Actually, Hans, if you look at the maps by Anthony Jackson, posted on the SJG site...
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/maps.html ...
Those are NOT all single jump routes. the darker lines are in fact major flows along which trade does flow... at least per GTFT.

Under GTFT, there's significant trade on Regina with Mora, Deneb, and several dozen world 20-40 Pc away.

Perhaps so, but they certainly aren't all there. Want me to present a couple of examples?

I believe you. What I'm doubtful about is that all the trade is accounted for on the trade maps.

Since I've spend a lot of time making sure the trade maps are updated with all the information possible, can you point out where the trade flows are missing on the maps posted to the wiki. I know the program insists on tracking potential trade out to 200pc, well beyond the distance where it would make a difference in the overall trade flows.

 

[Carlobrand]

No, I mean that no one in the Traveller Universe is faced with that requirement (other than player characters in a campaign run by the book). It's a game artifact, not a setting detail.

(Used to be that I'd argue that it might very well be a game artifact, that there's no evidence that it isn't a game artifact, and that there are good reasons why enforcing such a requirement would require a level of enforcement that just isn't plausible. But after I became aware of the canonical examples I refer to, I've changed to claiming that it IS a game artifact.) ...

Kayo. Thanks for salvaging the thread, by the way.

...There's the reverse consideration to take into account. If we arrive at a figure by using GT, there's no way to say that it isn't the right result, because the CT information is too vague to prove anything. So why not assume it just happens to work out that way? ...

No reason at all. It's just that from past discussions, I know there are elements of the community who aren't comfortable with GURPS or the scale of the economy they imply, so I point out that there's a good deal of wiggle room in my estimate if they want to use it.

Me, I'm honestly a bit intimidated by the scale, but I can't see a way around it given the numbers. 300-some billion people are going to make a rather big economy.

...Tech levels 4 and 5 are Industrial technology. ...

In CT/MT/etc., yes. Agricultural tech at TL4 - that's, what, roughly Civil War era? - is still low enough that most of the society is agrarian. I understand it went up quite a bit in the late 19th-early 20th century.

 

[rancke]

Since I've spend a lot of time making sure the trade maps are updated with all the information possible, can you point out where the trade flows are missing on the maps posted to the wiki. I know the program insists on tracking potential trade out to 200pc, well beyond the distance where it would make a difference in the overall trade flows.

Regina has a WTN of 5.0. Efate has a WTN of 5.5. They lie six parsecs apart. Their BTN is 5.0+5.5-1.5 = 9. That should show up on the trade route map as a J3 feeder route connecting Regina with Efate via Knorbes. It doesn't.

Regina and Roup has a BTN of 8.5. That's just a minor route, so for some unexplained reason J3 ships are not allowed to bridge the 3-parsec gap between them. But Feri and Regina has a BTN of 9.0 and Extolay and Roup also has a BTN of 9.0. That gives two feeder routes and a largish minor route between Regina and Roup. So at the very least there should be a feeder route marked between the two; if you allow the BTN 7.5 route between Dinomn and Roup via Regina to add its little bit, it even arguably adds up to a main route.

Rhylanor and Regina has a BTN of 9.0 and Porozlo and Regina has one of 9.5. Apparently they both connect to Regina via Yori. But Yori and Regina has a BTN of 9.0. That's three feeder routes going between Yori and Regina, so should be upgraded to a main route.

There's enough traffic for a minor route between Inthe and Regina (BTN 8.5) and between Inthe and Yori. For some unexplained reason that doesn't warrant marking a route on the map because there's a 3-parsec gap involved. But marked or not, the trade still takes place and the ships to carry that trade must exist. So if we rely only on the trade routes marked on the map, we fail to account for the existence of those ships.

Finally, we're completely overlooking passenger traffic.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Since I've spend a lot of time making sure the trade maps are updated with all the information possible, can you point out where the trade flows are missing on the maps posted to the wiki. I know the program insists on tracking potential trade out to 200pc, well beyond the distance where it would make a difference in the overall trade flows.

While I have you here, I noticed that there were some changes between a version I downloaded some years back and the current one. There are a couple of changed UPPs, but most of the changes involve worlds that have not had a change in UPP. Utoland, for example, is now at the heart of four yellow routes where it once had no routes. What changed?

Also, I noted in my original post (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?p=495676#post495676) that there were instances where the volume went up an order of magnitude but the shipping, as described in the guidance, seemed to only go up by a factor of 5. Where did we get info on what ships were being used, and why isn't it matching the volume?

 

[aramis]

There's the reverse consideration to take into account. If we arrive at a figure by using GT, there's no way to say that it isn't the right result, because the CT information is too vague to prove anything. So why not assume it just happens to work out that way?

We can say that, because of the difference in fundamental assumptions about the relationship of wealth and tech level, it cannot be accurate. GURPS TL is a roughly base 1.6 logarithm of economic growth. Traveller TL is a non-log relationship; it's linear from TL5 up in local credits; the CrImp is a TL15 Class A starport credit value. (The Class C TL15 CrLocal is worth 10% less.)

we've got a disconnect there.

The average value of cargo per ton is another disconnect. In CT, it's long tailed, but works out to an average cargo being worth about KCr5 per ton under bk 2. It's about the same under book 7. Under GTFT, it assumes values of $10K to $50K. And the Gurps $ is about CrImp1.4 ... so 3 to 14 times the value per ton...

this is another HUGE disconnect, and a clear "Let's ignore Canon" element.

Then, there appears to be a presumption of CT and MT that larger population worlds are more self sufficient; in GTFT, there's an almost explicit statement to the effect that larger pop worlds are LESS self sufficient, relying more upon trade than internal capability.

We know that, in the US, Canada, Australia, and the Spanish colonies, as the colonies increased in population, trade per capita dropped, even tho trade overall climbed. Traveller fluff includes some elements of this, especially in terms of individual world histories.

Then there's the different cost of operation under GT and GTFT... GTFT has unique-to-itself pricing. GT core uses CT prices directly as G$... which is a bad choice... GTFT explicitly makes life support (including algae paste) free... and high passage quality foods only $6 per person-day. GT power plants have 200 years of fuel. maintenance costs are 1% per annum, or 0.08% per month. Refined fuel is $350/Td... but only needed for jump. So, jump fuel costs about the same, maintenance is 10x as much, but life support and power plant fuel are absent, and usually exceed the increase in maintenance. The Akigush has a cost per month of roghly $46K in maintenance, $20K in salaries, and $28K in fuel, for 146Td cargo 2 jumps costing about KCr79.8, or $546 per ton, ot $273 per ton-parsec.

In CT, life support costs some KCr29, Maintenance KCr4, fuel KCr25, Salaries kCr12.5, all per trip. This runs KCr70 per trip, carrying 200Td, for about Cr352 per ton-parsec. Using the same 1.4:1 correction, it works out to about $251/ton-parsec.

Neither of these include the mortgage. The GT ship is $57.2M and has a payment cost of 1/240th that.. the CT one is MCr101 with a cost of 1/240th that, for about $72M... or about 1.5* the cost.

 

[rancke]

We can say that, because of the difference in fundamental assumptions about the relationship of wealth and tech level, it cannot be accurate.

But we can't say that it doesn't just happen, by an amazing coincidence, to be right anyway.

Everything you say may be 100% correct, but since there are various fundamental factors that we know sod-all about, we can't be sure how all those factors would play out.

And, frankly, there are a lot of the things you mention that are pretty iffy. I won't go into detail, because it really doesn't matter, but some of them are pretty darn unlikely to be "realistic". At best they are gross simplifications; at worst they are likely to be way off.

But the capper is that we don't have anything else to base estimates off. You may prefer to do nothing until someone provides us with the tools we need to get a picture you like better, but I want to fiddle with the setting right now.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

...But the capper is that we don't have anything else to base estimates off. ...

Hans has a point, Aramis. GURPS made the attempt, whatever flaws they might have. CT - well, the closest approximation to an attempt was slapped down as an oversimplification intended to serve a wargame. We got nuthin', and there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in giving us something we can use for this.

GURPS isn't CT, but it's not a venture into Star Trek's Fluidic Space, either. They made an effort to study and introduce basic theories of economics into their model. We can use it as a starting point, look at some of those disconnects and make a rough guess as to how different things might be in the CT universe versus the GURPS universe. Okay, so maybe there are half as many ships as I calculated, but the exercise was to find a ballpark, not to identify an exact count, and 350 billion-some people across several hundred systems connected by a week's transport at reasonable cost are going to build a pretty big interstellar economy, even if we say those rules didn't quite capture it right.

GURPS trade volumes run by orders of magnitude, but the GURPS base world trade number population modifier flows by half the order of magnitude. Am I saying that right? Increase the population by a hundred fold, trade only increases ten-fold. Thus, if we assume the little pop-2 world's economy is dominated by interstellar trade and the need to bring in credits to pay for the things they can't do themselves, the pop 8's world's economy has evolved to the point where interstellar trade is about 1/10 of 1% of their economy, before adding in tech level and other considerations. Mathematically, that's not a picture of reduced self-sufficiency, whatever the book might say otherwise.

I'm getting an average cargo value of Cr4148 per dTon, based on the Origin Price Table in Far Trader. I look on the map and see Glisten - the subject of our original inquiry - as one end-point of a trade route handling up to 10 million dTons weekly: up to 2 trillion credits annually, based on the Cr4148 figure. I look at Glisten - TL12 by GURPS? - and it has a per capita income of Cr15,000 over a population in the tens of billions: GWP of 120 trillion credits (assuming GURPS pop is same as CT). That trade volume is less than two percent of their economy, and that because they have an eager next-door neighbor. Maybe 2% after you add in the other routes. Trin: about 1%. Mora: maybe 2%. Regina, with about 1/10 Glisten's pop, makes do with one green route and several yellow: around 150 thousand dTons, maybe 30 billion credits on a GWP of 4 trillion credits, about 0.7% of the GWP.

As to Trav's linear-by-tech-level model of economic growth, that's a Striker artifact. If Striker is not canon as a source of CT/MT milieu economics, I can't see using it as a tool to criticize the GURPS milieu economics. GURPS tech levels can be translated into CT/MT, the breakpoints seem to correspond with certain breakthroughs that would be likely to result in productivity improvements, and if there IS no other canon economic model, then it is by default the only remaining canon economic model. Anyone ever feels like rescinding the decanonization of Striker, I'll be glad to reconsider.

That leaves the question of the cost of ship operations. There are clear differences, but it's also clear that ships in both universes are operating profitably. I'll have to study that, but it seems like the kind of thing that would result in a percentage difference in trade volume - 10, 20, 30% - based on differing costs and profit margins for the companies having to pay to get their cargoes shipped. The numbers at a glance don't seem like they'd trigger order-of-magnitude differences across a variety of products sector wide.

 

[rancke]

If GT tells us that there are people who are willing to pay Cr500 per dT to transport one million dT of stuff from one world to another, and Traveller tells us that it costs Cr1000 per dT to ship stuff, then it's simplicity itself to assume that there are people who are willing to pay Cr1000 per dT to transport one million dT of stuff from that one world to the other. We don't HAVE to assume that the trade volume is any different in the second case than in the first case, because the numbers are pretty arbitrary to begin with. If we double the cost we just halve the fudge factor.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Hans has a point, Aramis. GURPS made the attempt, whatever flaws they might have. CT - well, the closest approximation to an attempt was slapped down as an oversimplification intended to serve a wargame. We got nuthin', and there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in giving us something we can use for this.

GURPS isn't CT, but it's not a venture into Star Trek's Fluidic Space, either. They made an effort to study and introduce basic theories of economics into their model. We can use it as a starting point, look at some of those disconnects and make a rough guess as to how different things might be in the CT universe versus the GURPS universe. Okay, so maybe there are half as many ships as I calculated, but the exercise was to find a ballpark, not to identify an exact count, and 350 billion-some people across several hundred systems connected by a week's transport at reasonable cost are going to build a pretty big interstellar economy, even if we say those rules didn't quite capture it right.

GURPS trade volumes run by orders of magnitude, but the GURPS base world trade number population modifier flows by half the order of magnitude. Am I saying that right? Increase the population by a hundred fold, trade only increases ten-fold. Thus, if we assume the little pop-2 world's economy is dominated by interstellar trade and the need to bring in credits to pay for the things they can't do themselves, the pop 8's world's economy has evolved to the point where interstellar trade is about 1/10 of 1% of their economy, before adding in tech level and other considerations. Mathematically, that's not a picture of reduced self-sufficiency, whatever the book might say otherwise.

I'm getting an average cargo value of Cr4148 per dTon, based on the Origin Price Table in Far Trader. I look on the map and see Glisten - the subject of our original inquiry - as one end-point of a trade route handling up to 10 million dTons weekly: up to 2 trillion credits annually, based on the Cr4148 figure. I look at Glisten - TL12 by GURPS? - and it has a per capita income of Cr15,000 over a population in the tens of billions: GWP of 120 trillion credits (assuming GURPS pop is same as CT). That trade volume is less than two percent of their economy, and that because they have an eager next-door neighbor. Maybe 2% after you add in the other routes. Trin: about 1%. Mora: maybe 2%. Regina, with about 1/10 Glisten's pop, makes do with one green route and several yellow: around 150 thousand dTons, maybe 30 billion credits on a GWP of 4 trillion credits, about 0.7% of the GWP.

As to Trav's linear-by-tech-level model of economic growth, that's a Striker artifact.

While it's not canon, it's the basis for the various ones which ARE canon: TNE's WTH and T4's PE, and the forces tables in MT. More correctly, using them to determine the Imperial budgets has been decanonized, but T5 looks to be based upon similar assumptions.

Further, Striker is only non-canon for one part - namely, the base GDP/capita; those are, however, paralleled elsewhere in canon, so, essentially, they're canon. Namely, in MT, the expected military force tables, which is canon. It's less strongly decanonized than the tables in Adv5 TCS... which are explicitly only for wargaming, not the OTU.

The relative values of various local credits and the basis for the CT Credit ARE a direct match to CT, and the same in MT, TNE, and T4. Further, they weren't decanonized until AFTER GTFT was written.

After accounting for being in local credits, the values in CrImps work out to be a base 1.1 logarithm, versus GURPS base 1.6.

Aramis/Aramis has (I worked it out in detail to 10pc once, using floor values) a total of about 8.5... using median values, about 1/3 of the economy.

As for the GTFT value per ton, for the volume conversion, look on GTFT page 16, 2nd actual paragraph (as opposed to lines of table gloss). If you use the actual CT conversions and then divide to get G$, you should have much more tonnage per MCr than GTFT assumes.

Oh, and CT5000/ton is roughly G$3500/ton...

Their assumptions (I've asked) include that:
1) almost all trade is by demand shipping, not speculation
2) all flows are highest between larger nations
3) that the late 20th century macroeconomic model is both valid ....
4) and will hold true
5) that the pre-1900 evidence to the contrary is non-existent.

Because a of certain flaw, the trade flows table isn't actually a base 10 log... it should be, but isn't quite.

BTN	Should be	is in book
1-3.16 * 10^X	1-5 * 10^X
X.5	3.16-10 * 10^X	5-10 * 10^X

[tr]X.0[/td]

But that's just a quibble.

An alternate way to read it, and one consistent with CT uses, but mathematically buggered, is X.Y = (0.Y)*10^(X+1)... which allows us to keep the extant breakpoints, but smooth the data...

Edit:As for the half function; each -0.5 BTN from distance is roughly 3-10x the worlds...

1 Pc= 6 hexes
2 Pc= 12 hexes, -0.5 BTN
3-5 Pc = 72 Hexes, -1 BTN
6-9 Pc = 180 hexes, -1.5 BTN
10-19 = 870 hexes, -2 BTN


Also T5 has an implicit economic model, one Hans has railed against...

The RU. A world with a negative RU must-needs be a colony, maintained for reasons other than raw economic profit. (Like Alaska in the 1950's, or Hawaii in the 1940's.) Net economic drains, but obviously providing some other non-economic need. On a subsector level, these must be receiving allocations of aid...

 

[tjoneslo]

While I have you here, I noticed that there were some changes between a version I downloaded some years back and the current one. There are a couple of changed UPPs, but most of the changes involve worlds that have not had a change in UPP. Utoland, for example, is now at the heart of four yellow routes where it once had no routes. What changed?

The underlying code used to generate maps went through a complete re-write. The original in C was no longer capable of being upgraded, which I needed to do to alter the parser for the new T5 sectors layout. So I re-wrote it in Python, and added some options. This changed some of the routing assumptions and options to generate the routes. I've added some options to the code to tweak how the routes are generated, and adjusted them to make cleaner maps.

Also, I noted in my original post (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?p=495676#post495676) that there were instances where the volume went up an order of magnitude but the shipping, as described in the guidance, seemed to only go up by a factor of 5. Where did we get info on what ships were being used, and why isn't it matching the volume?

The assumption is cargo is 10KCr to 50KCr per dton.

The minimum values for the actual trade routes are:

BTN 8 (red) -> 0.1GCr / year or 2MCr / week ~ 0.2 KDtons / week
BTN 9 (yellow) -> 1GCr / year or 20MCr / week ~ 2 kDtons / week
BTN A (green) -> 10GCr / year or 200MCr / week ~ 20 kDtons / week
BTN B (cyan) -> 100GCr / year or 2GCr / week ~ 200 kDtons / week
BTN C (blue) -> 1 TCr / year or 20 GCr / week ~ 2 mDtons / week

So mapping a route between two worlds on a BTN 8 route would be 200 to 1000 DTons per week. Divide this into however many ships, of whatever size, will carry the cargo.

The challenge of determining how may ships are needed to carry the cargo has too many variables to exactly define. While a J3 liner or cargo ship may be the most efficient, in general, cargo carrier it's entirely possible that on some routes special build large, short range cargo ships.

For example, Porozlo - Rhylanor (A BTN C route) may well be serviced by one or more of these large (100Kton) short range (J1) ships simply because there is enough cargo to support them.

 

[tjoneslo]

Regina has a WTN of 5.0. Efate has a WTN of 5.5. They lie six parsecs apart. Their BTN is 5.0+5.5-1.5 = 9. That should show up on the trade route map as a J3 feeder route connecting Regina with Efate via Knorbes. It doesn't.

This, along with most of the other problems you note, are a consequence of decisions made by the routing program.

Knorbes has a class E starport, the definition of a poor starport. So anyone creating a routes between Regina and Efate would avoid Knorbes.

Regina and Roup has a BTN of 8.5. That's just a minor route, so for some unexplained reason J3 ships are not allowed to bridge the 3-parsec gap between them. But Feri and Regina has a BTN of 9.0 and Extolay and Roup also has a BTN of 9.0. That gives two feeder routes and a largish minor route between Regina and Roup. So at the very least there should be a feeder route marked between the two; if you allow the BTN 7.5 route between Dinomn and Roup via Regina to add its little bit, it even arguably adds up to a main route.

This is the harder one. Following the description of the route drawing advice, start with the highest WTN worlds. In the local area this is Efate and Porozlo. So a (somewhat) efficient route is drawn between these two worlds.

Then as other worlds are considered (Alell, Regina, Feri) their routes prefer to use the "existing" routes as established by the larger worlds.

The system is more aggressively pushing trade to existing routes (i.e. ones drawn for the higher WTN worlds) than you are assuming. Part of this is for mapping purposes. Having every single possible route on the map makes it impossible to read.

The in game explanation is it is logistically simpler (therefor cheaper) to put shipping container on ship already going to your destination than maintain a ship to go another way.

Rhylanor and Regina has a BTN of 9.0 and Porozlo and Regina has one of 9.5. Apparently they both connect to Regina via Yori. But Yori and Regina has a BTN of 9.0. That's three feeder routes going between Yori and Regina, so should be upgraded to a main route.

The code calculates the actual value of the underlying trade, adding them together rather than estimating the route size. Based upon the 3 small routes = 1 large route would cause many of the routes to expand beyond all recognition. Some of these worlds have thousands of routes drawn to them. Mora, for example, probably has a trade route to every Imperial world in the Spinward Marches, Deneb, Trojan Reaches, and the spinward side of Reft sector.

There's enough traffic for a minor route between Inthe and Regina (BTN 8.5) and between Inthe and Yori. For some unexplained reason that doesn't warrant marking a route on the map because there's a 3-parsec gap involved. But marked or not, the trade still takes place and the ships to carry that trade must exist. So if we rely only on the trade routes marked on the map, we fail to account for the existence of those ships.

Per the suggestion of the map generation rules and preferring Jump 2 routes over Jump 3, the trade goes Inthe-Treece-Yori-Regina, with the trade for Inthe-Yori going along the same route.

Finally, we're completely overlooking passenger traffic.

The data file for each sector includes passenger traffic, if you're interested in exact numbers.

A BTN 8 route generates about 500 passengers per year. At 4 dtons each (the usual stateroom), this is 2,000 dTons of passengers per year along the route, which supports 10,000 to 50,000 dTons of cargo per year. Based upon the rest of the table on p. 17, the passengers adding about 20% to the trade, puts it almost but not quite into rounding error territory.

 

[Carlobrand]

While it's not canon, it's the basis for the various ones which ARE canon: TNE's WTH and T4's PE, and the forces tables in MT. ...

Okay, you're going Greek on me. WTH? PE? I don't have any T4 and not enough of TNE to be able to make sense of it. Where is the MT forces table?

As to when and to what extent things were decanonized: I need a break here. I tried to work on something based on the Striker model months ago and got it shot down as being based on a wargame. Now I work from GURPS and Striker's brought up as "less strongly decanonized" and similar to something T5 is using, so it stands as ammunition against the GURPS work. It's hard to come up with something when the ground shifts while I'm doing it.

I'm hearing a lot of criticism for why this or that won't work and not much help for ways that might work instead. So, what exactly is T5 doing, and if I try to use that am I going to be told it's wrong because it wasn't intended for that use?

... After accounting for being in local credits, the values in CrImps work out to be a base 1.1 logarithm, versus GURPS base 1.6. ...

The values of what? Are we talking about the GDP per tech level? Is this from a source I can use or from a source that's "less strongly decanonized."

...Aramis/Aramis has (I worked it out in detail to 10pc once, using floor values) a total of about 8.5... using median values, about 1/3 of the economy. ...

8.5? BTN? We're talking about Aramis, pop 700,000, shows with four red minor routes. 1/3 of the economy is bad for that size world?

...As for the GTFT value per ton, for the volume conversion, look on GTFT page 16, 2nd actual paragraph (as opposed to lines of table gloss). If you use the actual CT conversions and then divide to get G$, you should have much more tonnage per MCr than GTFT assumes. ...

Right, I'd forgotten that table. That gets me a 10K average. Curious that it ends up twice what the players can access, as reflected by that other table. So, double average value of cargo as compared to CT means - ummmm - they're shipping more expensive stuff? That affects the percentage of the economy involved in interstellar trade, but how does it affect tonnage? I understood shipping costs were actually lower in GURPS; I would have expected that to play a bigger role in tonnage shipped.

50k's from - you assuming potential for the lowest tonnage to match up with the highest credit value?

...Oh, and CT5000/ton is roughly G$3500/ton...

The 1.4 thing. I'm still evaluating that. It tells me there's a difference in pricing, but if it's across the board, then I don't see how it changes trade volume. The key that I see is that GURPS is shipping Cr10,000/dTon shipments at Cr450-700 for a parsec while CT is shipping Cr5000/dTon shipments at Cr1000 for a parsec. I don't see how it matters that the GURPS Cr10,000 is Cr14,000 CT if all other costs are similarly increased. I do see that there's a big difference between an economy in which an item's cost is 20% higher because of shipping fees and one in which that item's cost is only increased 5-7%. I'm just not sure how to factor that in yet.

... Also T5 has an implicit economic model, one Hans has railed against...

And one of which I am ignorant, being constrained to live on a budget. Lacking the data, I am obliged to do the best I can with the tools I have. So far, there's no one mining T5 rules to produce this kind of information, or at least they aren't bringing it here. Are you able to share details so I can factor that in?

...The RU. A world with a negative RU must-needs be a colony, maintained for reasons other than raw economic profit. (Like Alaska in the 1950's, or Hawaii in the 1940's.) Net economic drains, but obviously providing some other non-economic need. On a subsector level, these must be receiving allocations of aid...

That's - not really enough to do anything with.

At the moment I have one useful datum: shipping costs as a percentage of the cargo's value are higher in CT/MT than in GURPS. This acts in a manner analogous to tariffs, increasing the cost of goods shipped from system to system and making local-made products more attractive to buyers - when such products exist. Trade will still occur where there is no local-made products or where is insufficient supply to meet demand; it doesn't matter if the local aluminum is cheaper if you can't get any. Now if I can figure the extent to which that would impact trade, I'd be on to something.

Apropos of nothing in particular, when did Hawaii become a colony, or an economic drain? It was a kingdom taken forcibly from the Hawaiian people and ... well, that delves deep into politics, but I know it had a thriving sugar cane and pineapple industry that was very profitable for the corporations involved, also a thriving fishing industry, but I'm not sure how much of that was for export. Can't recall whether their cattle ranching was active then or started up later. Are you referring to the cost of the naval installation versus the value of the local economy?

 

[rancke]

This, along with most of the other problems you note, are a consequence of decisions made by the routing program.

Knorbes has a class E starport, the definition of a poor starport. So anyone creating a routes between Regina and Efate would avoid Knorbes.

But the trade still takes place. If it doesn't go Regina-Knorbes-Efate (and I can completely accept that suggestion -- it's one I go with myself IMTU) or Regina-Forboldn-Whanga-Efate, then it goes Regina-Roup-Efate (yes, a 4-parsec link between Roup and Efate beats three 2-parsec links from Roup to Efate via Feri and Boughene). Or arguably Roup-Alell-Efate, though that costs more and takes twice as long. The trade doesn't evaporate into thin air; the people on Efate don't just decide not to import Reginan porker hams and copperfish garum.

This is the harder one. Following the description of the route drawing advice, start with the highest WTN worlds. In the local area this is Efate and Porozlo. So a (somewhat) efficient route is drawn between these two worlds.

I'm not saying the routes drawn doesn't conform to the rules for drawing routes¹. I'm saying they don't represent the trade adequately for Carlobrand's purpose of estimating the total number of ships in the Marches.

¹ Though I happened to spot one that doesn't yesterday: Lunion and Strouden have a BTN of 11.0, so they should have a big major route between them, presumably via Sharrip.​

Then as other worlds are considered (Alell, Regina, Feri) their routes prefer to use the "existing" routes as established by the larger worlds.

Why? Does that make sense to you? Because it doesn't make sense to me. Why are existing routes existing instead of non-existing routes that would be cheaper?

The system is more aggressively pushing trade to existing routes (i.e. ones drawn for the higher WTN worlds) than you are assuming. Part of this is for mapping purposes. Having every single possible route on the map makes it impossible to read.

I'm not saying the routes drawn doesn't conform to the rules for drawing routes. I'm saying they don't represent the trade adequately.

The in game explanation is it is logistically simpler (therefor cheaper) to put shipping container on ship already going to your destination than maintain a ship to go another way.

That might get you a route that goes Regina-Roup-Efate instead of Regina-Knorbes-Efate, but it wouldn't make the trade between Regina and Efate go away. It most certaily wouldn't be cheaper going Regina-Yori-Roup (a jump-2 AND a jump-3) instead of going Regina-Roup (a jump-3 without the jump-2 on top). Besides, the explanation begs the question: Why isn't there a ship being maintained on the potentially cheaper route?

The code calculates the actual value of the underlying trade, adding them together rather than estimating the route size. Based upon the 3 small routes = 1 large route would cause many of the routes to expand beyond all recognition. Some of these worlds have thousands of routes drawn to them. Mora, for example, probably has a trade route to every Imperial world in the Spinward Marches, Deneb, Trojan Reaches, and the spinward side of Reft sector.

Mora would have a minor route from Capital. But, once again, I'm not claiming the rules for mapping trade routes are being broken; I'm claiming that they're inadequate.

Per the suggestion of the map generation rules and preferring Jump 2 routes over Jump 3, the trade goes Inthe-Treece-Yori-Regina, with the trade for Inthe-Yori going along the same route.

That preferrence is odd, though. One jump-2 plus one jump-1 costs more than one jump-3 and takes twice as long. But either way, once again, it involves trade that is unaccounted for.

The data file for each sector includes passenger traffic, if you're interested in exact numbers.

A BTN 8 route generates about 500 passengers per year.

That's not right. A BTN 8 route generates between 500 and 1000 passengers per year, for an average of 750 passengers. Moreover, half (or is it more or less than half?) the minor routes are BTN 8.5, and BTN 8.5 routes generate between 1000 and 5000 passengers per year for an average of 3000 passengers per year. The average of minor routes would therefore be 1875 passengers per year, which is more than three times more than your 500, pushing it well above rounding error territory.

At 4 dtons each (the usual stateroom), this is 2,000 dTons of passengers per year along the route, which supports 10,000 to 50,000 dTons of cargo per year. Based upon the rest of the table on p. 17, the passengers adding about 20% to the trade, puts it almost but not quite into rounding error territory.

Does that calculation assume each passenger represents a return trip or just a single?

Also, a 20% rounding error that always rounds down is again a strong bias towards underestimating the traffic.

Be that as it may, a BTN 8 route to and from a rich world or a subsector capital acts as if the BTN is one step higher. Regina, being a rich world AND a subsector capital, has passengers based on BTN 9 on each of its BTN 8 routes and similar for its other routes.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Your routing belies another problem, Thom.

I've hinted at it above...

But, when using the methodology of GTFT, there's no difference between 3, 4, or 5 Pc routes, while, at the level of individual demand trade flows, the difference is profound, and the cost difference is considerable in either time or price. (It's more profound under HG than Bk2, and Bk2-81 than Bk2-77.)

Likewise, GTFT fails to distinguish between 6 Pc and 9 Pc...

It's a granularity issue. By using only half-values, it's limited itself to modifiers that are unreasonably large.

Doing it properly would entail massive amounts of data... and that's to look at all the "local" trade flows - the J1's and J2's (because above that, the pricing makes for costs per parsec that are only good for people and perishables), and figuring the trade there, for the entire sector, then layering the larger trade routes across that. It's processing intensive, and a memory hog, and pretty much exponential memory growth with considered area...

But, by GTFT rules as written, Terra/Sol is going to be WTN 6.5, Glisten is WTN 6.0, and they're about -5 for around 300 Pc... for a Trade Flow between them of about BTN 7.5! The actual volume is a 6.5... 10-50 Td per week.
A similar case with Lunion/Lunion, Porozlo/Rhylanor, Rhylanor/Rhylanor,
And Mora is a WTN 6.5, for an 8.... 50-100 tons per week. Roughly triple...

In fact, just about every world in the marches trades with Terra. And Capital. and half of the subsector capitals.

Any world with a WTN 6+ is trading at least halfway across the imperium under the GTFT model; a 6.5 is trading across the imperium - at worst, BTN = WTN + 1, possibly up to WTN + 2...

And there are lots of Pop 9+ GTL 10+ Class IV-V worlds... worlds with populations big enough to have trade flows across the Imperium. And those all trade significant amounts with each other...

Oh, and the cost per Td from Earth to Glisten? at least 150 jumps... and a demand model... so roughly +150KCr/Td.... which means there needs to be no nearer source.

 

[rancke]

But, when using the methodology of GTFT, there's no difference between 3, 4, or 5 Pc routes, while, at the level of individual demand trade flows, the difference is profound, and the cost difference is considerable in either time or price. (It's more profound under HG than Bk2, and Bk2-81 than Bk2-77.)

Likewise, GTFT fails to distinguish between 6 Pc and 9 Pc...

It's a granularity issue. By using only half-values, it's limited itself to modifiers that are unreasonably large.

On that point I agree with Wil. I deal with it manually by taking that into account when I apply the entirely referee-guided decision on where in the indicated range from 10-50 or from 50-100 the actual figure lies.

(Incidentally, I also agree with Wil that the ranges should be 10-33 and 34-100).


Hans