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Jump 1 ships are pretty useless

@Rancke

I'm ignoring you.
I'm sorry to hear that, but not sorry enough to pretend to agree with something that I believe is fallacious.

The Traveller analogy here would be larger, higher Jn ships as the equivalent of the express trains and smaller, J1 Free Traders as the equivalent of the slow trains.
And so it would be if J1 was cheaper than J2 (over two parsecs, that is). But as it is not, the analogy is false. I'm sorry if pointing that out affronts you, but no amount of umbrage will make your claim any more correct.

The key thing is the idea of a truck stop system i.e. not all colonies need to have a purpose as a colony so they don't need a cool back story - all they need is a gas/petrol pump and a dude with a screwdriver and spare tyres.
They also need to make sense in the current Year of the Imperium. If the through traffic is hundreds of dT per year, a gas/petrol stand analogy makes sense; if the through traffic is millions of dT per year, a huge mega-truckstop is needed. Regardless of the system's history.


Hans
 
OK - you ever run the numbers for HG1?

'Fraid not.

And now that I think about it, I'm not at all sure that I'm interested in discussing Traveller universe settings based on HG2 (I am sure I don't give a toss for HG1, since it was superceded by HG2 and is thus moot as far as I am concerned).

I really got involved in this thread to talk about how to make J1 ships useful for PC adventurers, not for setting developers. For setting development I prefer some of the more recent rules sets. QSDS1.5 is the ship design system that I consider closest to "reality". GT:FT has some useful (albeit flawed) rules for determining trade volumes.

Strictly speaking I supposed that I ought to use either MGT or T5 for my basic "facts", but as I really don't think many Traveller authors are going to pay any attention to the new ramifications (they never did to the old ones), I don't feel much incentive to learn and work with a new set of premises.

Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood because it seems that I've inadvertently managed to nark off another CotI member. Maybe I'll look at it differently in the morning. But right now I feel rather down in the dumps and don't much feel like discussing anything.


Hans
 
@Hans:

If I am reading your posts correctly, you are saying that a trade route from Regina to Ruie a J2 boat will be more profitable that a J1 boat? Noting that we have equivalent boats (say, 200 dtons?)
 
'Fraid not.

And now that I think about it, I'm not at all sure that I'm interested in discussing Traveller universe settings based on HG2 (I am sure I don't give a toss for HG1, since it was superceded by HG2 and is thus moot as far as I am concerned).

I really got involved in this thread to talk about how to make J1 ships useful for PC adventurers, not for setting developers. For setting development I prefer some of the more recent rules sets. QSDS1.5 is the ship design system that I consider closest to "reality". GT:FT has some useful (albeit flawed) rules for determining trade volumes.

Strictly speaking I supposed that I ought to use either MGT or T5 for my basic "facts", but as I really don't think many Traveller authors are going to pay any attention to the new ramifications (they never did to the old ones), I don't feel much incentive to learn and work with a new set of premises.

Perhaps I'm just in a bad mood because it seems that I've inadvertently managed to nark off another CotI member. Maybe I'll look at it differently in the morning. But right now I feel rather down in the dumps and don't much feel like discussing anything.


Hans

As I said, my solution ATM is EVERYTHING is J1, and either Oort clouds (which is ice extending up to 2 LY away from Sol) or fueling stations make the J2+ routes possible.



HG drop tanks can also be fitted, as apparently the jump fuel is used first thing (which upon rereading HG made me reimage what jump is like). That can increase costs if you throw away the tanks everytime, perhaps a larger mercantile company has a recovery shuttle to pick a collapsible version and take them back to base, or someone has that as a service.

Assuming otherwise something like good ol 3I stuff, another factor to consider is bigger engineering staffs for the larger drives, with life support as an additional cost. But set that against double the transit time for the J1 ships.

Also, how you can contract for cargo is a factor. If it is per parsec you could contract for several systems ahead of time and keep that J1 Free Trader hull full. If it is per jump no one is going to buy double or triple fee shipments to go the same distance, except out of desperation (which may be on a low pop backwater world unable to attract regular service).

Let's say I am a businessman and I had a cargo going 2 parsecs which under the per parsec rate model I have to pay 2000 cr per, no matter what. In that case, the J2 ship sounds like a better deal because I get my cargo to it's destination 1-2 weeks earlier, and therefore get PAID earlier (so it is a cash flow thing). Even with Xboat delays for updating my accounts receivable, 1-2 weeks earlier means a lot.

I would tend to model that by perhaps adjusting the cargo available to give more to faster ships and less to 'slower' ships, and put in a desperation factor for C and D and X starports willing to ship out on ANYTHING that shows up.

A related value issue awaits the passenger trade, which is a big part of the free trader 'business model'. If you go per parsec, the free trader may pull in 20,000 CR per 2 parsec trip, but pays more in life support since the same passenger is taking twice as long to be 'shipped'.


So really, to make your J1 shipping more attractive, I think the way to go is price em per TL and reduce those payments and maintenance cycles (with concomitant 'quirks' for not being perfectly reliable high tech equipment or requiring more manual 'babying').
 
And so it would be if J1 was cheaper than J2 (over two parsecs, that is).

The context is what happens along a J1 route when higher Jn engines are developed (as otherwise J1 ships would be irrelevant) so the primary argument is whether a J1 ship is more cost-effective than a J2 ship *if constrained to* a J1 route i.e. if the J2 ship is only doing J1 jumps.

If J2+ engines are larger than J1 engines then by definition a J2+ ship of the same size *constrained to* a J1 route must have less cargo space per jump.

This is what creates the possibility of two layer trade along J1 mains: a J1 layer servicing the old J1 truck stops that developed into towns and a top layer between the prime systems using higher Jn ships which bypass a lot of the old truck stops.

In this argument you're saying that J2+ ships are more cost-effective *if constrained to J1 jumps* and so there's no reason for J1 ships - which is clearly wrong.

#

The second argument (which distracts from the main one so I want to avoid it) is are J1 ships more cost-effective over longer distances than higher Jn ships (where J1 is physically possible as an option).

My recollection is Aramis' calcs said yes to that but it doesn't matter to me personally as I hand wave that away anyway by treating boonie trade and prime trade as two separate trade systems.

#

They also need to make sense in the current Year of the Imperium.

True, like I said it's different for a long-existing setting that has had many layers of civilization laid over the top.

However it's useful for a home-brewed "explorer" type setting like the example I used, take Vland as a home world and roll forward a 100 or so years at J1, then add J2 and imagine which systems would be by-passed, then add J3 etc.

(You could even code it by star port class as a memory aide e.g. A as home world, B as prime colony, C as current truck stop, D as ex truck stop, E as never truck stop.)

However even in the OTU the crucial idea is the same. If the bulk of trade is between prime systems then as Jn increases the systems that get bypassed will make up a second layer of lower Jn trade.

If the through traffic is hundreds of dT per year, a gas/petrol stand analogy makes sense; if the through traffic is millions of dT per year, a huge mega-truckstop is needed. Regardless of the system's history.

Yes, those systems which are *current* truck stops on the route between prime systems in the OTU will be big truck stops - it's more the ex truck stops that have been bypassed that make up the boonie layer.

#

Anyway the scenery points I want to make based on the OP are (imo)

1) J1 trader ships servicing the boonie systems along the mains makes perfect sense imo and if you want a campaign where the players *bump into* adventure as they travel then J1 trader ships work fine.

2) You could treat the type S in the same way. If there's a J1 boonie layer then the type S could be the scout version of the Free Trader i.e. it's role is to patrol along the old J1 part of the mains doing stuff like fixing navigation buoys and reporting problems while the separate J3-J6 layer does its own thing.

3) For an away team type game where players are sent on missions far away then a higher Jn ship does make more sense imo. This is easy enough to do - in a scout game for example a 200 dton J3 away team scout ship could be a promotion for a team that has successfully completed some type S J1 runs from say Regina to Lunion or Lunion to Mora.

4) Separately the truck stop idea - current and ex - is a useful way to hand wave away a lot of detail you don't need at the time while allowing you to go back to it later if you have an idea. This may be a useful idea for people who look at the OTU and balk at the number of systems to describe.

#

edit: the reason for all this is to create more wilderness *inside* the OTU i.e. as well as systems that were never part of the big ship universe you can have systems that were part of the big ship universe when they were truck stops but slipped back into wilderness when they were by-passed by improved jump tech.
 
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The context is what happens along a J1 route (as otherwise J1 ships would be irrelevant) when higher Jn engines are developed so the primary argument is whether a J1 ship is more cost-effective than a J2 ship *if constrained to* a J1 route i.e. if the J2 ship is only doing J1 jumps.
Of course a J2 ship is less cost-effective than a J1 ship across one parsec. That has never been the issue. The issue is that when your J1 ship has brought a cargo from System A to System B, it is more likely to take another cargo back from B to its home port A than to take a cargo from B to System C. The cargo going from B to C will most likely be going by another J1 ship jumping back and forth between B and C. The only exception is if there so little trade that there isn't enough to keep two ship employed. And even if you have a situation like that, your J1 ship is still not going to wend its way up and down a route dozens of systems long.

If J2+ engines are larger than J1 engines then by definition a J2+ ship of the same size *constrained to* a J1 route must have less cargo space per jump.
Incontestably. The trade that a J2 ship will steal from J1 ships is the one going between A and C.

This is what creates the possibility of two layer trade along J1 mains: a J1 layer servicing the old J1 truck stops that developed into towns and a top layer between the prime systems using higher Jn ships which bypass a lot of the old truck stops.
Sure, if you happen to have worlds with very small amounts of freight and passengers, you may get one J1 ship carrying it all.

In this argument you're saying that J2+ ships are more cost-effective *if constrained to J1 jumps* and so there's no reason for J1 ships - which is clearly wrong.
No, I was saying that J2 ships were more cost-effective than J1 ships except across distances of (up to) one parsec so there's no reason for J1 ships to do anything other than jump back and forth between the same pair of systems lying one parsec apart.

The second argument (which distracts from the main one so I want to avoid it) is are J1 ships more cost-effective over longer distances than higher Jn ships (where J1 is physically possible as an option).
Which Wil's calculations show is not even the case with Book 2 designs.

However even in the OTU the crucial idea is the same. If the bulk of trade is between prime systems then as Jn increases the systems that get bypassed will make up a second layer of lower Jn trade.
Sure. Secondary J1 trade across one parsec routes, secondary J2/J31 trade across longer routes, and a limited amount of secondary J4 passenger trade (more expensive than J2 liners, but faster).
1 Note that Wil's calculations do indeed show that J3 is more expensive than J1 (making J2+J1 the cheapest way to cross three parsecs), but HG designs make the difference so small that J3 is probably about the same effectively and definitely faster.

1) J1 trader ships servicing the boonie systems along the mains makes perfect sense imo and if you want a campaign where the players *bump into* adventure as they travel then J1 trader ships work fine.
You don't need a boonie trade network to give free traders scope. You're conflating two very different business models, regular trade and free trade. The regular trade is the one that carries 99+% of all the trade. Between Rhylanor and Porozlo multi-thousand ton ships will be jumping back and forth on regular shedules. Between Uakye and Alell a company may have a sheduled ship jumping back and forth 6 times a year; the rest of the time that ship would have sheduled jumps back and forth to Efate.

Free traders operate in the cracks between the regular trade. They live on the bits and pieces that don't fit into the shedule. And they can find those bits and pieces anywhere (although they are likelier to find it on worlds with a lot of trade).


Hans
 
The CT trade rules are set up so you make money by speculation. You do not know ahead of time what goods will be available.

So you start on world A and find a cargo that has a good chance of resale profit when you jump to system B. Once at system B the goods you find may have a potential higher resale (better trade mods) at system C so you make that jump. Depending on the goods you roll on the speculation table you may find yourself moving along the main rather than just jumping between two worlds.

Which leads to adventure.

You also may only roll for goods once per week, you may find you can't afford the rolled lot and be forced to spend another week on the world looking for a cargo you can afford.

Which means you have time for adventuring on the world.

Jump 1 ships are designed to allow for PCs to interact with the worlds they are visiting and have adventures.
 
The CT trade rules are set up so you make money by speculation. You do not know ahead of time what goods will be available.
They also have some glaring inconsistencies.

So you start on world A and find a cargo that has a good chance of resale profit when you jump to system B.
If you're lucky. If the next world you plan to visit is an industrial one and the dice decides that the best bargain you can find this week is electronics parts at 170% of base price, you can't decide to buy agricultural goods at 100% even though you're on an agricultural world.

Once at system B the goods you find may have a potential higher resale (better trade mods) at system C so you make that jump. Depending on the goods you roll on the speculation table you may find yourself moving along the main rather than just jumping between two worlds.
Yes. That's the free trader model. The regular trader model has your ship sheduled to jump back and forth for the next umpteen months carrying stuff that you've contracted to carry or someone has contracted to sell to you.

You also may only roll for goods once per week, you may find you can't afford the rolled lot and be forced to spend another week on the world looking for a cargo you can afford.
No you can't, because the first thing you do after unloading freight and passengers is to decide on a destination to jump for in five days' time and start to sell tickets and accept freight. When the day come you have to jump whether you got any speculative cargo or not.

Which means you have time for adventuring on the world.
But only if you don't get any cargo and passengers the first week. Bank payments are such a big part of operating expenses that you can't afford to miss making money when you can.

Jump 1 ships are designed to allow for PCs to interact with the worlds they are visiting and have adventures.
On the meta-level, maybe, although I think it's free traders (of any jump capacity) that are designed to allow PCs to have adventures. In-universe J1 ships are designed to jump from one world to another world one parsec away.


Hans
 
In-universe J1 ships are designed to jump from one world to another world one parsec away.
Or as the saying goes, location, location, location.

A J1 ship is pretty useless if there are no worlds at all within range.

A J3 ship is pretty wasteful if their are a enough worlds with ample business opportunities in a J1 cluster.
 
Or as the saying goes, location, location, location.

A J1 ship is pretty useless if there are no worlds at all within range.

A J3 ship is pretty wasteful if their are a enough worlds with ample business opportunities in a J1 cluster.

hencefort, NPC J1, J2, J3 or J4 will exist in accordance with when and where there is an optimum economic opportunity for them. Unless in a Merchant Prince campaign, ACS exist for adventuring, not profit. Cash flow from ACS is not a goal but the mean to have self sustaining adventuring.

Profit driven shipping investments should be called something like ICS: Investment Class Ship, large or small, J1 to J4, they exist how when and where they could turn an adequate return on investment, often using a subsidy to do so. They are the ships that populate the background of the shipping lanes.

have fun

Selandia
 
A J1 ship is pretty useless if there are no worlds at all within range.
True, but range is pretty big. A J1 ship can cross a six-parsec gap, if necessary. It just isn't necessary if higher-jump ships are available.

A J3 ship is pretty wasteful if their are a enough worlds with ample business opportunities in a J1 cluster.
If any of the worlds lie three parsecs from each other (and generate sufficient mutual trade) J3 is useful. Only very small J1 clusters won't have such pairs of worlds.


Hans
 
Sorry totally off topic, but what is QSDS1.5 ?
It's a fan-created "T4 Ship Design Done Right" ship design system (QSDS stands for Quick Ship Design System). It's an attempt to make a system akin to the Book 2 system based on Fire, Fusion, and Steel.

It is available for download at B.I.T.S..


Hans
 
It's a fan-created "T4 Ship Design Done Right" ship design system (QSDS stands for Quick Ship Design System). It's an attempt to make a system akin to the Book 2 system based on Fire, Fusion, and Steel.

It is available for download at B.I.T.S..

I believe it is also on the T4 CD from FFE.
 
Again Camry vs Model A, if you look at the times J-1 ships are pretty much 400-600 years out of date, and I doubt any starship will be running after 400 years of use.
 
Again Camry vs Model A, if you look at the times J-1 ships are pretty much 400-600 years out of date, and I doubt any starship will be running after 400 years of use.

If there's a J1 route then for any given volume of trade the optimal ship will be J1 as they'll have smaller, cheaper engines meaning more cargo space and lower monthly repayments.

#

edit: there's a separate argument about what is the best kind of ship for players but logically J1 ships are optimal for trade between two systems that are J1 apart.
 
Here's a question:

What prevents a free trader crew that plans to go to an industrial world, but doesn't find an appropriate cargo, from seeing where the cargoes it does find would make a profit if taken and is nearby?

Also this is an excellent point for the Referee to have a SPECIAL cargo... :devil:
 
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