HSVU vs LSVU

[whartung]

it doesn't replicate the OTU as described.

As if any system can replicate the OTU as described. Considering the OTU is, literally, random, with perhaps a few tweaks, trying to lever any economic system on top of it is likely futile.

It's like trying to find patterns in the white noise of the television and apply chaos theory to it.

Despite it's assumptions, GT:FT is at least more "rational" than most anything else which deals with solely the micro scale of the market (i.e. getting 10 tons of something shoved in a hold on a players ship). I mean, heck, at least GT:FT HAS assumptions.

And when viewed in the macro, then individual micro-transactions can indeed appear little more than "random". Which is why the generic Traveller trade systems "works at all".

 

[kilemall]

That is why I use the many spaceports to explain traffic.

There is no sense having a freighter from Apha Centaury making Earth's orbit to land at Los Angeles Down to have containers shipped to Yokohama amd roaded to Tokyo when it may as easily go to Tokyo Down.

I can think of several reasons NOT to have starports everywhere, among other things the flight patterns of the kind of tonnages you are envisioning would make the sky dark with starships coming and going, whether booming in on a multimach reentry or whispering in grav drive, that is a LOT of tonnage in flight that many people may not want directly landing, but would be happy with planetary grav/nautical delivery.

Other arguments include limiting extrality and/or 'off-world influence', desirable real estate, pollution/noise control (a big one in my ecodisaster theme of Earth, Mars and Alpha Centauri, everything HAS to have grav drive to be allowed to land), customs enforcement, plague/biohazard risk limitation, and general fussy high law level control issues.

Which is not to say no big pop planet should have more then one starport, merely that some will have many and some will not, and it should not be forced one way or another to allow for different flavors of enviornment and adventure/trade challenges.

Could be the interstellar polity has a universal law saying there is one 'port of entry' into space beyond 10D for member planets. That's again IMTU territory.

"Beaching a container ship" was the idea behind the original LASH system, where containers were loaded on barges that would be lowered in the harbor's road to await unloading while the ship would load returns and be on its was fast.

Kind of skipping over the part where the ships had to be rigged that way along with their containers, and that the world moved on from that system apart from military sealift.

Which is what operating a huge tonnage through an E starport would be, a barren rock military basing type 'spacehead' specialized ships with a starLASH system built in picking up and dropping things off with their own integral cargo handling either in the container or the ship design.

Costly in specialized equipment and time compared to commercial operations, trying to do a Long Beach/LA container type setup in a Somalian harbor, especially with financing and building ships for such a trade without variable fees covering the greater costs in having ships that lose profitable tonnage for a specific planetary trade's non-existent facilities.

They are crucial, that is why the former lord Rethe hoped to favor the Cartel's private spaceports by making the public starport disfunctionnal.

I really don't care about the distinction of public vs. private starports. You have a private starport that is effectively B or C and everyone does business through there, then in my book the UWP gets a B or C rating with an asterisk saying 'private, normal fees and public rules do not apply'. Most mercantile lines are not going to make special investments in rough field operations unless the profit in bypassing the private starport is worth it.

Adventurers however have exactly that kind of craft and they have the time to pick up extra business. But again, 1000 Free Traders landing a day without traffic control?

BTW you do not need an orbital structure called Highport to have High operations. Unloading into shuttles from orbit is akind to E class dirthside berthing for your free trader. You dump your cargo onto local transport without the assistance of port's cargo handling apparatus. It is conform to the traditionnal operations of wet lighters. From high there, the shuttle may land in any dirtside airport like the bumboat of old were landing on the beach.

For the kind of tonnages you are throwing around, you darn well need big cheap open structure 10-100,000 ton super freighters hauling in that kind of load, which yes requires a highport. But even if we are talking dumping and going, it's sheer madness to think a Berlin Starlift operation is going to work without traffic control.

E starport. NO facilities. No tower.

Remember, a specific orbit is a mooring buoy in the huge Orbital Roadstead Anchorage of the Highport. The definition of a class of starport involve the MINIMUM capability. So E does not mean nothing more than a beacon, it means at least a beacon. High port are compulsory for higher classification at high Pop level, but nothing prevent a good orbital srafic control station for a port short of berths supplied with sewage treatment, power and fresh water, as well as devoid of accessible workshops, yards or chandlers services and thus rated E.

I don't know what part of no facilities means some facilities. Your IMTU interpretation of making a scenario work, not the rule and not sole justification for defining high volume wherever big pop is no matter what.

I just don't buy this need to make sure there are millions of tons going to a pop A world that is being strangled by a power weasel as justification for changing the whole trade system or what a starport means.

You also seem to be ignoring the crowded skies aspect of this sort of tonnage as standard, or what that practically means in terms of how many ships are coming and going. It sure isn't CT encounter levels, and it won't be CT sized ships either, a LOT of big boats to make that happen.

Is that the environmental effect you want on gameplay? I don't, but if you do well then more power to you. It just should be consistent if you are going to the trouble of defining millions of tons per week (and many more for a well off planet).

 

[rancke]

Just reread the E classification. It's quite specific. NO facilities whatsoever. So this is your IMTU definition, which is fine, I certainly go off the reservation for things that make sense to me, but I don't think that just because it makes sense to you makes it 'more canon'.

Your interpretation opens the door for starports that does not fit any classification. Take a starport where someone has invested in a small fuel purifier plant and sells refined fuel but no other services are available. What starport class is it? According to you, it's not a class E, because it has a facility. It's not a class D, because it does not have any repair facilities. It's not a class C, B, or A either.

No, the only reasonable interpretation is that a starport needs certain facilities to qualify for a given starport rating, and if it lacks one or more of those facilities, then it's not of that classification. But a class E starport doesn't need any facilities. So if a starport has everything except repair facilities, it's a class E, because in order to qualify for any of the higher classifications, it needs to offer repair facilities.

Obvious to you. It's equally obvious to me that the place is the equivalent of an Alaskan bush slab of runway and nothing else, place likely sees nothing bigger then a 400-ton ship on a subsector subsidized mail run every week.

An interpretation that Zila's starport contradicts.

Besides, if you cut off most people from employment, who will buy your stuff, and what will you do to avoid making them feckless rebellious trouble?

Economically sound autofactories would increase the GWP of worlds with sufficient technology to build such factories to levels far above what the economic rules allow.

As for pop to tonnage ratio, who is to say that is all planetary production/consumption? A starship yard alone could consume a lot of that, and you can have transshipment points, where the tonnage is being reshuffled/redirected to break up a larger cargo into smaller lots for local J-1/2 delivery runs.

Production is proportionate to population. Wealth is proportionate to production. Trade is proportionate to wealth. The more a population produces, the more it can afford to buy.

I highly disagree, productivity, market desire and usage will be as individual as each planet.

But always strongly correlated to population size.

If you go with the OP's tonnage, and the likely multiples for better off planets, are you prepared for that many ships in the lanes as a logical result for your gameplay?

Yes.

The sort of adventures that requires backwater planets can be placed on backwater worlds. I can't place them on Mora or Rhylanor, but so what? I can always place them on Forboldn or Heya or Kinorb.


Hans

 

[kilemall]

Your interpretation opens the door for starports that does not fit any classification. Take a starport where someone has invested in a small fuel purifier plant and sells refined fuel but no other services are available. What starport class is it? According to you, it's not a class E, because it has a facility. It's not a class D, because it does not have any repair facilities. It's not a class C, B, or A either.

Actually, D says no repair facilities, unrefined fuel only, scout base maybe (T5 may be different). So D with a special asterisk in my book.

No, the only reasonable interpretation is that a starport needs certain facilities to qualify for a given starport rating, and if it lacks one or more of those facilities, then it's not of that classification. But a class E starport doesn't need any facilities. So if a starport has everything except repair facilities, it's a class E, because in order to qualify for any of the higher classifications, it needs to offer repair facilities.

Perhaps in T5, not CT or any other reference I've seen so far (which is not extensive or thorough).

An interpretation that Zila's starport contradicts.

Which I care not a fig about. To me one off adventures do not contradict or undo a basic rule. Your mileage and canonmongering may vary.

Economically sound autofactories would increase the GWP of worlds with sufficient technology to build such factories to levels far above what the economic rules allow.

What economic rules? Some RU calc in T5? Or the always highly questionable 10% valuation per TL difference?

And what if we did have tremendous productivity? Why would it matter to our Travellers, who are not inclined to stick around for the typical gravcommute job and FutureIkea hab anyway?

Production is proportional to population. Wealth is proportionate to production. Trade is proportionate to wealth. The more a population produces, the more it can afford to buy.

In general, a major factor, but NOT a definitive trade per capita ratio.

Germany has 82 million in population and 1.5 trillion US$ in exports. Russia has 149 million in population and 152 billion US$.

Lets throw China and the US in there. PRC 2.8 trillion in US$, but that's against a 1.3 billion population. US 1.62 trillion, against a population of 321 million.

Germany export per capita- $18,292
Russia export per capita- $1,020
China export per capita- $2,153
US export per capita- $5,046

So, depending, up to an 18:1 discrepancy in per capita earning per person, and that's just our small terrestrial data sample. Against the wide backdrop of 1000s of planets with a vast range of TL and cultures and opportunities, the ratios are likely to be wider.

So yes you CAN have a population of 82 million punch in the same weight class as a 1.3 billion economy.

That's just a small sample. I can show quite readily that population size does NOT correspond to per capita wealth. The per capita may be the same in a 100 million nation to a 10 million nation and therefore the 100 million nation has ten times the activity and internal wealth, but that does not mean the 100 million nation is at the same level of productivity as other 100 million nations.

I can also show that external trade is not proportionate to an economy as a whole consistently.

For instance, Germany's trade is 2.7 trillion against a total GDP of 3.915 trillion, a fantastic trade ratio of 68% of the German economy.

The US' trade is 4 trillion against an economy of 18 trillion for a ratio of 22% of the economy.

So for a shipper looking to figure out what business to go after, Germany has comparable tonnages to the US overall, but the US population is 4x that of Germany, showing a huge internal economy and comparable to my point about how you absolutely cannot go with some hard ratio of pop to tonnage and claim 'realism'.

Yes.

Great, then that's all you need be concerned with ultimately.

 

[whartung]

Economically sound autofactories would increase the GWP of worlds with sufficient technology to build such factories to levels far above what the economic rules allow.

Economically sound auto factories don't need a local sufficient technology to be built. All of that can be imported. The equipment, the workers, the whole kit.

Those all affect to a degree the economic viability, but if it's mostly automated, then the supporting, trained, imported staff is likely quite low. Just need to ship them in and feed them, and give them bonus checks to watch robots build stuff on a remote rock.

Of course this all plays in to "how much automation is in fact prevalent in the Imperium". Who is prime manufacture of automated farming equipment (auto-plower, auto-seeder, auto-harvesters, plus the $14.99 Rain Bird(™) sprinkler timer to keep everything suitably wet).

"Attention Bovine Unit 1-4-3-4-2. *bzzt *clik* Please exit feeding cell 2-7-4 *zort* *ping* and proceed down chute to Slaughter Unit 1-3-4 for initial processing. *whir* *zt* Thank you."

 

[rancke]

Actually, D says no repair facilities, unrefined fuel only, scout base maybe (T5 may be different).

No, you're right. I misremembered. D is 'only unrefined fuel available'. So it's not a class E, because it has fuel available, and it's not a class D, because it has refined fuel available, and it's not a class C or B or A either.

So D with a special asterisk in my book.

And the aforementioned class E starport would be a class E with an asterisk. And as the asterisk does not affect the calculations, we can ignore it.

Which I care not a fig about. To me one off adventures do not contradict or undo a basic rule. Your mileage and canonmongering may vary.

It most certainly varies. A Traveller universe is supposed to be every bit as complicated as the Real Universe, so all or almost all rules will reflect a simplification of reality to some degree or other. The realism or at least verisimilitude of a setting should never be subordinated to a rule. To me a rule never supercedes common sense. A starport that consists of a marked spot of bedrock with no fuel or facilities on any world with more economic activity than a bucolic low-population world makes very little sense.

For preference, I'd persuade Marc Miller to introduce a minimum starport type for various population levels, but as that doesn't seem to be working, I'm faced with the choice between accepting non-frontier worlds with frontier starports or interpreting class E to be, at least potentially, something more. An easy choice to make.

What economic rules? Some RU calc in T5? Or the always highly questionable 10% valuation per TL difference?

They're in Striker and various other books. It established the basic per capita income for increasing tech levels. Each TL increases pci by 2000 credits.

And what if we did have tremendous productivity? Why would it matter to our Travellers, who are not inclined to stick around for the typical gravcommute job and FutureIkea hab anyway?

For one thing, such worlds would be able to maintain much bigger fleets.

In general, a major factor, but NOT a definitive trade per capita ratio.

Of course not, but a much bigger factor than one point per population level.

So, depending, up to an 18:1 discrepancy in per capita earning per person, and that's just our small terrestrial data sample. Against the wide backdrop of 1000s of planets with a vast range of TL and cultures and opportunities, the ratios are likely to be wider.

How much wider? Your table allows for a difference of one billion to one. That's quite a bit more than 18:1.

I can assure you that if your rule didn't allow for a ratio of more than 18:1 I would not quibble at all. Well... perhaps I'd suggest a slightly greater possible ratio.

I've suggested an order of magnitude either way, which would allow for a difference of 100:1, which comfortably encompasses your Real World examples.

So yes you CAN have a population of 82 million punch in the same weight class as a 1.3 billion economy.

But you can't have a population of 10 punch in a weight class only one order of magnitude below a population of 10 billion.

So for a shipper looking to figure out what business to go after, Germany has comparable tonnages to the US overall, but the US population is 4x that of Germany, showing a huge internal economy and comparable to my point about how you absolutely cannot go with some hard ratio of pop to tonnage and claim 'realism'.

But then, I never insisted on a hard ratio. Just a soft, reasonable one.


Hans

 

[aramis]

An E-Port is simply a convention that people expect landings at location ___ and will do business with them, and that passengers will wait for transit off at that same location.

It may have customs. It may have a chandlery. It may even have ATC and GTC. What it doesn't have is the requirement for a D-port - someone SELLING fuel, and a level 1 broker operating for merchants.

 

[rancke]

Economically sound auto factories don't need a local sufficient technology to be built. All of that can be imported. The equipment, the workers, the whole kit.

All true, though you do need to explain who is willing pay for such a cost-increasing setup and especially for the defensive force necessary to deter thieves from stealing everything that isn't nailed down and dismantling everything that is. But that's not the big problem. The big problem is the autofactories that would be built on the populated worlds, making the populations much, much richer than implied by the economic rules.


Hans

 

[Selandia]

I can think of several reasons NOT to have starports everywhere, among other things the flight patterns of the kind of tonnages you are envisioning would make the sky dark with starships coming and going, whether booming in on a multimach reentry or whispering in grav drive, that is a LOT of tonnage in flight that many people may not want directly landing, but would be happy with planetary grav/nautical delivery.).

Given the air traffic currently controlled, Id say it is quite manageable. O,Hare (Chicago) alone processed June 2015 76,026 flights with 7,012,037 passengers (their site stats)

IOther arguments include limiting extrality and/or 'off-world influence', desirable real estate, pollution/noise control (a big one in my ecodisaster theme of Earth, Mars and Alpha Centauri, everything HAS to have grav drive to be allowed to land), customs enforcement, plague/biohazard risk limitation, and general fussy high law level control issues.).

You enter the realm of Starport's Mission, and I agree that this non UWP parameter is likely a dominant one. It is also the potential source of role playing and explanation for odd things.

As to quarantine, custom, extrality transit zone, etc, if all inbound Starships are processed at the Highport's Orbital Roadstead Anchorage, there are few remaining dirtside issue, except the usual ones involved with local air traffic (see above) and one or two dirtside extrality zone. Again, DS9 style Highport is a great role playing venue.

Which is not to say no big pop planet should have more then one starport, merely that some will have many and some will not, and it should not be forced one way or another to allow for different flavors of enviornment and adventure/trade challenges. ).

Indeed

Could be the interstellar polity has a universal law saying there is one 'port of entry' into space beyond 10D for member planets. That's again IMTU territory. ).

Universal law... pushing too hard. Of course, it is quite possible, even reasonnable for a polity to have that rule. On a planet with a small settlement, that is one port. On a large planet with large pop, that function is best taken care of by an "orbital hub" high port

Kind of skipping over the part where the ships had to be rigged that way along with their containers, and that the world moved on from that system apart from military sealift.

Which is what operating a huge tonnage through an E starport would be, a barren rock military basing type 'spacehead' specialized ships with a starLASH system built in picking up and dropping things off with their own integral cargo handling either in the container or the ship design.

Costly in specialized equipment and time compared to commercial operations, trying to do a Long Beach/LA container type setup in a Somalian harbor, especially with financing and building ships for such a trade without variable fees covering the greater costs in having ships that lose profitable tonnage for a specific planetary trade's non-existent facilities.

Right, old Lord Rethe made the same calculation when he wanted to be a nuisance. It just happen that the "filty rich" have the money to pay the high cost of inefficient practices. Remember, a E class starport in a A pop is an odity that require retcon or some creativity.

I really don't care about the distinction of public vs. private starports. You have a private starport that is effectively B or C and everyone does business through there, then in my book the UWP gets a B or C rating with an asterisk saying 'private, normal fees and public rules do not apply'. Most mercantile lines are not going to make special investments in rough field operations unless the profit in bypassing the private starport is worth it. .

Wish the UWP would be that sophisticated.... see the arguments as to the meaning of X

While waiting for T6, you are free to presume a free market economic making pop A Straport E possible. Again, my explaination (I do not pretend it is the universal one, just mine for Rethe, Hans as another of more general application) the Cartel Members are not allowing non member in their private spaceport "I make more money carrying the cargo your ship would carry than I do repairing it and allowing you to compete with me on freight". They corrupted old lord Rethe to make sure the administration would not allow a full service starport for every commer. Other explaination linked to planetary politic tampering with free trade are doubtless possible.

Adventurers however have exactly that kind of craft and they have the time to pick up extra business. But again, 1000 Free Traders landing a day without traffic control?


For the kind of tonnages you are throwing around, you darn well need big cheap open structure 10-100,000 ton super freighters hauling in that kind of load, which yes requires a highport. But even if we are talking dumping and going, it's sheer madness to think a Berlin Starlift operation is going to work without traffic control.

E starport. NO facilities. No tower.

I don't know what part of no facilities means some facilities. Your IMTU interpretation of making a scenario work, not the rule and not sole justification for defining high volume wherever big pop is no matter what.

Who says no traffic control?

E. Frontier Starport. With no facilities, the installation
is little more than a flat expanse of bedrock and a sign. This
designation effectively means there is no starport, but there
have been previous landings and that location is indicated in
astrogation records. (T5.9 p.267)

in the incremental progression toward D, there is a point where some component of that D get put up at the known location (basic requirement for E: beadrock, beacon at known location, see table p 268), then some more get put up, then there is a point where all you need to be D, and maybe some of what you need to get C, are up and running and you get the D grade by the classification powers.


And yes it is why that trade is likely going on with large ships

I just don't buy this need to make sure there are millions of tons going to a pop A world that is being strangled by a power weasel as justification for changing the whole trade system or what a starport means.

You also seem to be ignoring the crowded skies aspect of this sort of tonnage as standard, or what that practically means in terms of how many ships are coming and going. It sure isn't CT encounter levels, and it won't be CT sized ships either, a LOT of big boats to make that happen.

Is that the environmental effect you want on gameplay? I don't, but if you do well then more power to you. It just should be consistent if you are going to the trouble of defining millions of tons per week (and many more for a well off planet).

You are right, this is no CT encounter level, it is posted in T5 for a reason.

I do not need millions of tons to move about, I need to be logical and it is logical that High Pop world would get that kind of volume for reasons demonstrated.

Crowded sky was treated above

I am not changing the trade system, I cannot because there is no macro economic trade system defined in T5 that I could change. I try to figure a system that make some sense for background purpose given what we know (including new ships' design rules). I asked who think high volume, who for low volume? I register your vote for low, thanks. I believe both coexist given the circumstances. I can't see a UWP based magic formula emerging yet from this interesting discussion.

As to the gaming explanation, I could just shrug Rethe as a UWP missroll. I took up the creative challenge, knowing that nothing I say is canonical but trying to test my ideas against whatever we know of the OTU.

As to consistency, I am glad to see that we are many trying to figure a system that acheives it. Adventure Class Economic tables are explicitly ruled out as general tables. It does not mean that interstellar trade must be high, just that we are on our own to figure it.

have fun

Selandia

 

[Selandia]

just to give an idea of what high volume realy is and cargo handling potential when money is to be made:

Los Angeles 176.5 Million Metric Revenue Tons 2014; 8.3 millions TEU in 2014

Does not even make the top 10

Rotterdam (largest european) 440, Million tons; 12,2 millions TEU, 12,426ha, stretched over 42 Km of shore line.

Shangai (largest in the world) 744 million tons, 32.5 millions TEU claim 3,619 KM2 surface.

Singapore, (second largest world wide) 537 millions tons, 30 million TEU, 140,000 vessels call in a year (yes, 380+ a day), not all big stuff, but all to be safely routed

There might be some good reason why High Startrade Volume is impossible even on high demand world, but I do not buy the impossible overcrowding at few hundreds millions of tons, even if I accept that overcrowding may degrade a starport effective rating.

have fun

Selandia

 

[SanDragon]

Light bulb!

Isn't this just a large ship vs. small ship universe argument in different clothes?

 

[kilemall]

Light bulb!

Isn't this just a large ship vs. small ship universe argument in different clothes?

To me it's many large ships/small ships vs. fewer ships, and under what circumstances a main trade route supporting a lot of large ships/J4+ ships are in supportable service vs. the smaller traffic levels, which would support fewer big ships.

But even a single big daily ship service could do the work of several smaller tramp/entrepreneurial ships and potentially impinge on the players' cash flow, thus immediately bringing the nature of interstellar trade into very sharp and personal focus.

And the traffic is also a referee handling thing and an enviornmental/nature of potential combat thing. You have these tonnages around, most pirates are not going to be able to operate in the mutual support freighter captains could offer each other in these overall higher densities.

 

[kilemall]

An E-Port is simply a convention that people expect landings at location ___ and will do business with them, and that passengers will wait for transit off at that same location.

It may have customs. It may have a chandlery. It may even have ATC and GTC. What it doesn't have is the requirement for a D-port - someone SELLING fuel, and a level 1 broker operating for merchants.

Somewhere, somehow, no facilities means something different then I think it does. Traffic control is a facility, even if it's housed in a star container with portable fuel cells powering the radio.

I must be using the wrong language.

And, another point for my 'volume/profit implies starport level' point, you get higher brokers because there is more profitable work that would support higher skilled brokers.

 

[rancke]

Somewhere, somehow, no facilities means something different then I think it does. Traffic control is a facility, even if it's housed in a star container with portable fuel cells powering the radio.

So the starport beacon is a facility?

Anyway, 'no facilities' does mean no facilities. It's just that that is the lowest number of facilities (not counting the beacon and the surface capable of supporting starships) that a starport can have and still get the E rating -- namely none.

(Without the beacon and the surface it doesn't get any rating at all).


Hans

 

[kilemall]

No, you're right. I misremembered. D is 'only unrefined fuel available'. So it's not a class E, because it has fuel available, and it's not a class D, because it has refined fuel available, and it's not a class C or B or A either.

Shrug. Like I said, D+. But you have to have something that says bare field, and something that is nothing at all, and that's E and X. Everything on up is D or better.

And the aforementioned class E starport would be a class E with an asterisk. And as the asterisk does not affect the calculations, we can ignore it.

Again, you can ignore it. I can't, being very much a fan of transportation in general and just how costly effort and skill (and military traffic control) it takes to do something like airlift to Afghanistan, much less starlift to billions.

It most certainly varies. A Traveller universe is supposed to be every bit as complicated as the Real Universe, so all or almost all rules will reflect a simplification of reality to some degree or other. The realism or at least verisimilitude of a setting should never be subordinated to a rule. To me a rule never supercedes common sense. A starport that consists of a marked spot of bedrock with no fuel or facilities on any world with more economic activity than a bucolic low-population world makes very little sense.

Then change the damn starport code to what HAS to be there to make interstellar commerce work, not come up with bizarre open field tonnage ports.

C at lower TL + pop of billions because the world is underperforming or has too much pop for economical support, ok I can see that working.

For preference, I'd persuade Marc Miller to introduce a minimum starport type for various population levels, but as that doesn't seem to be working, I'm faced with the choice between accepting non-frontier worlds with frontier starports or interpreting class E to be, at least potentially, something more. An easy choice to make.

Yep. Isolated world without interstellar trade. Easy.

They're in Striker and various other books. It established the basic per capita income for increasing tech levels. Each TL increases pci by 2000 credits.

I really don't remember that one, I have some homework to do, I'm not sure where my copy is. Assuming that's right and I have no reason to doubt it, it's more 10% incremental stuff, when actually that's not what happens economically when we have jumped TLs, you get more of a bump and far different results on governmental, business management and environmental realities.

But this feeds into an issue I have with the whole TL setup, seems like we have these grand TL adjustments that change civilization and multiply tools/transport/energy near exponentially from TL1-11, then 12-15 are just increments of 11.

For one thing, such worlds would be able to maintain much bigger fleets.

Ref manageable, start charging for personnel, training, pensions, shrinkage, ammunition, plain screwups, trust me any military can soak up any amount of money you are willing to blow.

How much wider? Your table allows for a difference of one billion to one. That's quite a bit more than 18:1.

You seem to keep focusing on the pop difference alone, and confusingly quoting a billion to one numbers when I've been doing A to 1, or in the newer formula pop squared, which yields a 100 to 1 pop ratio.

And I am focusing on trade tonnage in that formula. My point in bringing per capita export up is to refute the idea that economic activity, success and tonnage generated to ship is a flat ratio to population, and it's just NOT so. It can be wildly different, on a planet with a general TL rating, and with interstellar regions with greatly different pops, TLs and governments, it will be wider differences and VERY individual.

I've suggested an order of magnitude either way, which would allow for a difference of 100:1, which comfortably encompasses your Real World examples.

Which is fine, but the part we seem to be differing on is how the starport level reflects/supports how much import/export there is and how that should be a major factor at least on par with pop, if not more so as I have it.

You also seem to consistently gloss over the pop squared LL squared revised formula, which does have a wider pop swing, and keep referencing the original. At least acknowledge it even if it is 'wrong' from your perspective.

But you can't have a population of 10 punch in a weight class only one order of magnitude below a population of 10 billion.

I think you can, but it should be a rare exception.

And again, old formula/new formula.

But then, I never insisted on a hard ratio. Just a soft, reasonable one.

Sounded that way to me, so if I had that wrong then I'm wrong.

If you do have a system or even a general feel for what levels you want to generate under what conditions, then perhaps you can post it for the OP. You seem to be closer to what he deems reasonable then I am.

 

[kilemall]

So the starport beacon is a facility?

Anyway, 'no facilities' does mean no facilities. It's just that that is the lowest number of facilities (not counting the beacon and the surface capable of supporting starships) that a starport can have and still get the E rating -- namely none.

(Without the beacon and the surface it doesn't get any rating at all).


Hans

Shrug, I can deal with a beacon as a qualifier vs. X for nothing, still not the same thing as a tower/station.

 

[kilemall]

Given the air traffic currently controlled, Id say it is quite manageable. O,Hare (Chicago) alone processed June 2015 76,026 flights with 7,012,037 passengers (their site stats)

Yes, for airplanes.

This is more like 76,000 flights with supertanker sized ships coming and going. Which again I have no problem with as a starport A B or even C, but E, nope.

A lot more clearance needed and airspace for these larger ships, toting around fusion reactors and potentially explosive L-Hyd tanks in atmo, the aerial safety footprint of a starport is just going to be absolutely huge, and I can see some people on some planets saying NIMBY (not in my back yard).

Others will welcome the sight of ships and the sounds of Mach 5 aerobraking because it means business and jobs. It smells like money and so they will welcome it and not worry about the poni herd bolting.

You enter the realm of Starport's Mission, and I agree that this non UWP parameter is likely a dominant one. It is also the potential source of role playing and explanation for odd things.

Sure, I'm a big fan of referee expository for weird, therein lies a tale.

As to quarantine, custom, extrality transit zone, etc, if all inbound Starships are processed at the Highport's Orbital Roadstead Anchorage, there are few remaining dirtside issue, except the usual ones involved with local air traffic (see above) and one or two dirtside extrality zone. Again, DS9 style Highport is a great role playing venue.

Sure, but if you are pulling into the highport, then you are going to run through customs and unload there anyway, not dock, get inspected/customs check, then land on the dozen starport fields below.

As I always understood it, the custom was you drop off as you picked up, so planetary pickup means planetary landing and highport to highport otherwise (unless the destination has no highport, then it might be highport to landing).

Most planets would crave the transloading/landing business and job generation, so direct landing to me would be an exception.

Except for this Rethe million ton abomination example.

Universal law... pushing too hard. Of course, it is quite possible, even reasonnable for a polity to have that rule. On a planet with a small settlement, that is one port. On a large planet with large pop, that function is best taken care of by an "orbital hub" high port

Well that's what I had in mind hence the 10D qualifier.

I'm not pushing anything, it's just an IMTU option I am noting.

Right, old Lord Rethe made the same calculation when he wanted to be a nuisance. It just happen that the "filty rich" have the money to pay the high cost of inefficient practices. Remember, a E class starport in a A pop is an odity that require retcon or some creativity.

Joke would be on him as the planet becomes more self sufficient, meaner, and whatever imports there are that is not critical pharma/food import is TL upgrade plant, and they just build their way out of jerkport.

A billion plus focused pissed off people are not to be trifled with.

While waiting for T6, you are free to presume a free market economic making pop A Straport E possible. Again, my explaination (I do not pretend it is the universal one, just mine for Rethe, Hans as another of more general application) the Cartel Members are not allowing non member in their private spaceport "I make more money carrying the cargo your ship would carry than I do repairing it and allowing you to compete with me on freight". They corrupted old lord Rethe to make sure the administration would not allow a full service starport for every commer. Other explaination linked to planetary politic tampering with free trade are doubtless possible.

Well, this gets into other areas of the whole trade model issue, namely this customary freight fee/ticket per jump thing, which smells very Vilani stability first rather then capturing actual costs and savings and competition.

One of the subthemes of IMTU is how there is this entire underground economy/transport that serves the needs of the economically indigent or outlaw culture and manipulating governments/corps that quietly work the territory, based on stolen and mortgage skipped ships and backplanet facilities, at cutrate prices and safety. So you can ship at 100Cr per ton/parsec, but you may wish for civilized transport before you are done.

in the incremental progression toward D, there is a point where some component of that D get put up at the known location (basic requirement for E: beadrock, beacon at known location, see table p 268), then some more get put up, then there is a point where all you need to be D, and maybe some of what you need to get C, are up and running and you get the D grade by the classification powers.

Uh huh, in which case it becomes a D. May be a delay to make all the TAS/Scout maps/guides, but not years.

ESPECIALLY if there are millions of tons coming and going as you postulate.

And yes it is why that trade is likely going on with large ships.

Which is peachy fine by me as an IMTU choice. Except for empty slabs with beacons.

I do not need millions of tons to move about, I need to be logical and it is logical that High Pop world would get that kind of volume for reasons demonstrated.

Hmm, well that's a choice for traffic count, and it has big implications for the sort of action that can occur between planet and 100D. Sure knocks the old Starport E encounter table on it's back end. Need to have a pop driven table in that case. Probably also a different qualifier of what constitutes base locations then starport, or at least planetary bases for big traffic like this one.

I am not changing the trade system, I cannot because there is no macro economic trade system defined in T5 that I could change. I try to figure a system that make some sense for background purpose given what we know (including new ships' design rules). I asked who think high volume, who for low volume? I register your vote for low, thanks. I believe both coexist given the circumstances. I can't see a UWP based magic formula emerging yet from this interesting discussion.

It's cause we aren't thinking this through hard enough, including me.

Among other issues, actual tonnage throughput per week must not just be about UWP, it's also trade lanes for tonnage passing through on the way elsewhere. That's not casual to figure out.

As to consistency, I am glad to see that we are many trying to figure a system that acheives it. Adventure Class Economic tables are explicitly ruled out as general tables. It does not mean that interstellar trade must be high, just that we are on our own to figure it.

Amen to that, no one should confuse any such chart for anything beyond small lot unscheduled tramp freighter scraps off the Big Trade table that is good enough to get in trouble and keep er flying.

 

[aramis]

So the starport beacon is a facility?

Anyway, 'no facilities' does mean no facilities. It's just that that is the lowest number of facilities (not counting the beacon and the surface capable of supporting starships) that a starport can have and still get the E rating -- namely none.

(Without the beacon and the surface it doesn't get any rating at all).


Hans

Facilities is defined in TTB with...

Starport: The various starport types are intended to
provide a variety of facilities for use in trade or survey
missions. Starports provide fuel or construction yards.
(TTB 82)​

The trade tables note a minimum available broker skill by type.
TAS maintains a separate facility at all A&B ports. Some C ports have TAS, as well, based upon adventures.
In practice, it refers only to: Construction, Repair, Maintenance, Fuel, Broker, TAS.

Since X-mail can be sent to any world with a starport in the imperium, at the very least, the E-port provides a customary interface location for local post and X-mail.

An X is anything less than a beacon and a surface capable of landing at least one ship. The implications of the Bk2 and Bk5 trade systems are that an X-port is also not part of interstellar commerce in a regular way.

An E-port has (explicitly) a beacon and a landing area, and explicitly lacks fuel, maintenance, construction and repair facilities.
An E-Port, due to the trade rules, is part of interstellar commerce, has passengers, cargo, and freight available.
It lacks also a requirement for a brokerage.

A D-Port has fuel, a beacon, a broker, and some method to acquire passengers, cargo, and freight.

A C-port has minor repair capabilities, plus all the stuff at a D port, and access to paying your interstellar mortgage. And it has a better brokerage minimum.

A B-Port adds large craft construction and repairs. It also has a TAS facility adjacent to or included in the port complex. Even better brokerages, too, plus refined fuel.

An A-Port adds jump capable ship construction, and still better brokers (+4)

Canonical adventures show these to be minimums.

 

[kilemall]

just to give an idea of what high volume realy is and cargo handling potential when money is to be made:

Los Angeles 176.5 Million Metric Revenue Tons 2014; 8.3 millions TEU in 2014

Does not even make the top 10

Right, that's a shocker for most Americans who assume we are #1 in everything.

But it captures that the US does a lot more internal traffic with trucks and rail then the sort of coastal/intracontinental/superexport traffic your other examples are about. LA/LB is all about the Asian import.

Rotterdam (largest european) 440, Million tons; 12,2 millions TEU, 12,426ha, stretched over 42 Km of shore line.

Shangai (largest in the world) 744 million tons, 32.5 millions TEU claim 3,619 KM2 surface.

Singapore, (second largest world wide) 537 millions tons, 30 million TEU, 140,000 vessels call in a year (yes, 380+ a day), not all big stuff, but all to be safely routed

To give you a rail example, Kansas City is the Rail King from a total rail tonnage perspective- KC rails see 1 billion tons per year. That's 400 trains, 150-200 or so local interchange/customer switching and the rest largely through trains (intermodal and coal). A lot of those TEUs from LA/LB are going through there.

This is what crazy busy freight train junctions look like there-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNpoMi3CKF8

So I am certainly aware of the large tonnages of modern freight.

But I am also aware of how much Traveller rates are more like air freight rather then bulk cargo/container traffic.

Here, try this website on for size, keeping in mind a TEU is approximately 37 cubic meters making it 2.64 Traveller tons, and so a 40 foot container, the standard seagoing container, is 5.28 Traveller tons.

http://worldfreightrates.com/freight

Generally speaking most containers from China to Chicago via rail work out to about $4500 per 40 foot container, or $852 per Traveller ton. Even less for break bulk.

IF we accept the 3:1 ratio of pricing to today's dollar from the 1977 Traveller credit, then a Traveller ton-jump rate of 1000 Cr equals $3000 today, several times the above cost, although not quite like air rates.

That's just one jump- multiple jumps WOULD get us into air freight rate territory.

And every $100 more means less marginal goods that are profitable to ship vs. locally made.

Certainly air freight is profitable and big business, but its not millions of tons per week.

So I would see perhaps bigger tonnage then my admittedly referee/gameplay effect model has it, but less then modern day container traffic, not without dropping Traveller shipping costs anyway.

There might be some good reason why High Startrade Volume is impossible even on high demand world, but I do not buy the impossible overcrowding at few hundreds millions of tons, even if I accept that overcrowding may degrade a starport effective rating.

Aerial footprint waaaaaay bigger, land use/NIMBY issues.

 

[rancke]

It's a question which of these are needed for a given classification and which are consequential. For example, is it:

1st TAS guy: "Did you hear? The Scouts just upped Heya's starport class to B."

2nd TAS guy: "Guess we'd better set up a TAS office there p.d.q.."​

Or is it:

1st Scout guy: "Did you hear? The TAS just opened an office in Yori's starport."

2nd Scout guy: "That means it now qualifies for a B classification."​

I'm especially doubtful about the brokers. How would anyone figure out the in-setting difference between a broker with Broker-3 and one with Broker-4?


Hans