Sector Data (economic)

[Spinward Flow]

By 1975, most new large cargo ships were container-ships.

True.
But there were still plenty of older ships in the inventory and it took a while for the age out/replace process of rolling over into new ships to replace the vast majority of the inventory of ships. Containerization REALLY took off when the older ship designs aged out of service and got replaced with the new container ships getting built around the world in shipyards.

Substantially the same phenomenon is happening right now in the light passenger vehicle market (and is also about to start happening in commercial trucking) due to the economic advantages of electrification and the mass production of battery electric vehicles (BEV). Towards the end of this decade (by 2030) there will be only a fraction of the market for new cars and trucks being built with internal combustion engines (ICE) simply because the BEV option will disrupt demand to the point where economies of scale for ICE go into reverse, making those vehicles uneconomical to manufacture and sell into a MUCH smaller market.

So there's a sort of "overhang" effect involved in displacing/replacing paradigms in the transportation sector, where it takes time before the inventory of legacy vehicles age out of service to be replaced by the newer paradigm models ... creating a transition period before the changeover becomes (more) complete and the economies of scale turn virtuous for everyone who adopts the new paradigm of operations ... until the NEXT technological disruption comes along.

Leaded vs Unleaded petroleum fuel.
Combustion vs Batteries for power plants on land, water and in the sky.
Breakbulk vs Containerization in high volume shipping.
Snail Mail vs Email.
Phone Calls vs Text Messages (and Discord).
Terrestrial Broadcast vs Cable vs Satellite.

I could keep going, but I'd like to think I've demonstrated where I'm coming from with my assertions adequately enough for people to get the gist of why there's a delay from when new standards get promulgated until they finally come into such widespread use as to be ubiquitous. Even if adoption rates follow an S-curve, it still takes time for the transition to play out.

 

[Grav_Moped]

CHeck your sources. COntainerization starts in US Road and Rail in the late 1950's (from a 1956 standard), and was in mostly US use until the early 1970's, when the 1968 ISO standard was officially adopted. By 1975, most new large cargo ships were container-ships.

The History of the Shipping Container created in 1956

Learn how the creation of the shipping container in 1956 became the catalyst for global trade around the world.

incodocs.com

The history of container shipping - Container News

Container transportation is the most popular way of cargo movement and a critical pillar of the global economy, but back in the 1950s, it was just a t

container-news.com

The Shipping Container: History, Facts, Benefits & More | foodcircle

Explore the shipping container’s evolution, benefits, laws, facts, acronyms and more • foodcircle Magazine

www.foodcircle.com

The History of the Shipping Container - Denholm Good Logistics

Humans have been shipping goods across the seas for thousands of years. But when did they start using shipping containers? Read this post to find out.

goodlogisticsgroup.com

A Brief History of the Shipping Container

Take a look around you.Perhaps youre snacking on a banana, sipping some coffee or sitting in front o...

maritime-executive.com

What are Container Ships - History, Types And Design

Marine Insight - The maritime industry guide.

www.marineinsight.com

Indeed. The existing fleet at that time likely wasn't yet predominantly container ships though (as @SF noted).

More to the point, it's not something that had made much inroads into the SciFi that the game was based on, as of the time the game was written (a lot of which was written long before!)

 

[kilemall]

True.
But there were still plenty of older ships in the inventory and it took a while for the age out/replace process of rolling over into new ships to replace the vast majority of the inventory of ships. Containerization REALLY took off when the older ship designs aged out of service and got replaced with the new container ships getting built around the world in shipyards.

Substantially the same phenomenon is happening right now in the light passenger vehicle market (and is also about to start happening in commercial trucking) due to the economic advantages of electrification and the mass production of battery electric vehicles (BEV). Towards the end of this decade (by 2030) there will be only a fraction of the market for new cars and trucks being built with internal combustion engines (ICE) simply because the BEV option will disrupt demand to the point where economies of scale for ICE go into reverse, making those vehicles uneconomical to manufacture and sell into a MUCH smaller market.

So there's a sort of "overhang" effect involved in displacing/replacing paradigms in the transportation sector, where it takes time before the inventory of legacy vehicles age out of service to be replaced by the newer paradigm models ... creating a transition period before the changeover becomes (more) complete and the economies of scale turn virtuous for everyone who adopts the new paradigm of operations ... until the NEXT technological disruption comes along.

Leaded vs Unleaded petroleum fuel.
Combustion vs Batteries for power plants on land, water and in the sky.
Breakbulk vs Containerization in high volume shipping.
Snail Mail vs Email.
Phone Calls vs Text Messages (and Discord).
Terrestrial Broadcast vs Cable vs Satellite.

I could keep going, but I'd like to think I've demonstrated where I'm coming from with my assertions adequately enough for people to get the gist of why there's a delay from when new standards get promulgated until they finally come into such widespread use as to be ubiquitous. Even if adoption rates follow an S-curve, it still takes time for the transition to play out.

Steam to diesel electric. The postwar to 1960 timeframe in US is known as the transition era where both steam and first generation diesels coexisted.

Some roads even wanted to keep using steam with all the coal fuel available and technology worked out to mitigate the operational cost problems, particularly the Norfolk & Western.

Even the N&W had to throw in the towel because specialized parts were no longer made.

 

[Condottiere]

Incentivization tends to be the driving force of adoption.

Europe might become a fully electrified transport network due to population density, North America seems headed for the hybrid compromise.

Both require subsidies and government policies.

China appears to have run out of money, and trade barriers are being established to prevent dumping for excess electrical vehicles.

Africa seems ripe for air/rafts.

 

[TamsinP]

Indeed. The existing fleet at that time likely wasn't yet predominantly container ships though (as @SF noted).

It still isn't predominantly container ships. I've only just obtained the 2020 world fleet stats from equasis and haven't had a chance to analyse them yet, so the following percentages are from the 2020 stats (2021 was an odd year, due to Covid).

[Ship Type], [% by Gross Tonnage], [% by numbers]

General Cargo, 4.2%, 18.5%
Specialised Cargo, 0.3%, 0.5%
Container, 17.8%, 8.3%
RoRo Cargo, 3.4%, 2.2%
Bulk Carriers, 34.2%, 18.9%
Oil & Chem Tankers, 25.6%, 18.9%
Gas Tankers, 6.1%, 3.2%
Other Tankers, 0.2%, 1.1%
Passenger Ships, 2.9%, 5.2%
Offshore Vessels, 3.9%, 8.5%
Service Ships, 0.8%, 4.5%
Tugs, 0.1%, 0.5%
Fishing Vessels, 0.5%, 8.7%

Those percentages are for vessels of 500 GT and above (which make up 54% of the total fleet by numbers, 99.7% by Gross Tonnage).

Although container ships aren't predominant by gross tonnage or numbers, they are predominant (by a very large margin) in terms of the value of goods transported (around 80%, I seem to recall). They also punch above their size in terms of tonnes of cargo transported due to higher cruising speeds and faster cargo handling than other cargo ship types.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Although container ships aren't predominant by gross tonnage or numbers, they are predominant (by a very large margin) in terms of the value of goods transported (around 80%, I seem to recall). They also punch above their size in terms of tonnes of cargo transported due to higher cruising speeds and faster cargo handling than other cargo ship types.

Meaning that container ships are a more lucrative choice for owners and operators.
In the Merchant Prince context, that makes a difference in business models.

 

[kilemall]

Meaning that container ships are a more lucrative choice for owners and operators.
In the Merchant Prince context, that makes a difference in business models.

Cargo velocity value is not captured in most Traveller merchant models. If we are to take Traveller shipping as an analogy of sailing pre steam no radio/cable comms, there is no provision for tea clippers.

 

[TamsinP]

Meaning that container ships are a more lucrative choice for owners and operators.
In the Merchant Prince context, that makes a difference in business models.

Not exactly. Shipping companies don't own the goods, so their value isn't that important to them. Taking into account the higher build costs and faster depreciation (due to shorter working lives) of container ships, the freight rates per tonne aren't much different to those of other cargo ships.

 

[TamsinP]

I've been checking the data for Aramis subsector against my copy of GURPS Far Trader - there is definitely something wrong with the way annual Trade and Passengers is calculated. For example, Corfu has annual trade of MCr 22 which implies the BTN is 1.0 but the passenger number is 13,220 which puts the effective BTN as 9.5 . Given that the effective BTN for passenger numbers is (BTN + modifiers) and the maximum modifier is +3 (if both worlds are Sector capitals and Rich worlds), Corfu's figures are massively off - there are four other worlds with the same discrepancy (Dhian, Nasemin, Pysadi and Towers). I suspect in those five cases that the issue is a miscalculation of the BTN for trade.

The other 8 systems with values for Trade and Passengers also show a discrepancy, but less extreme - +2 (Aramanx, Junidy, Lablon) and +2.5 (Aramis, L'oeuil d'Dieu, Patinir, Rugbord, Yebab).


I'll have a look at a few other subsectors to see if there are similar issues there.

D'oh!! It looks like I've been a blithering idiot - those 5 worlds were all trade BTN = 7.0, not 1.0; that puts them in the same discrepancy range between trade BTN and passenger BTN as the other 8.


I've looked at a few other subsectors (Alun/Daibei, Ameros/Core, Akkula Worlds/Ilelish, Annari/Massilia and Aelluekh/Gvurrdon) and the same discrepancies are present (range = +1.5 to +3.0). I'm guessing that it is a consistent error in the calculations.

The only potential extreme discrepancy is for two worlds in Aelluek/Gvurrdon - Gnurs and Ourkan - which have less than MCr 1 trade (BTN = 0-6) and an effective BTN for passengers = 7.5; however, if the actual trade BTN is 4.5 or higher, it would put the discrepancy in the same range.

@tjoneslo As it seems that the thread has been taken over by more general discussions, I thought it might be an idea to ping you with the above in case anyone decides to update the economic data.

 

[tjoneslo]

Be very aware that the WTN shown in the table on the wiki is twice the WTN you would calculate from Far Trader. For example: Gnurs as show in the data says WTN is 7, but it should be WTN 3.5 (per the Far Trader Rules). That is explained in the map key but isn't obvious otherwise. The BTN values shown map and data have been similarly doubled. The original version of the code did this to keep the calculations as integers and it was kept in the new versions of the software.

The other side of the industrial worlds trading at 200 parsecs is every world, even very small ones, have several or many trade partners, and the data presented in the wiki doesn't have enough information to let you isolate the trade partners.

So the two things to watch out for are medium to small worlds surrounded by larger worlds. These will have much larger trade than expected with one world. The trade is split between the several larger ones and accumulated to a much higher extent than the rules seem to imply.

The other is "trade station" worlds. An example is Uughrae in Corridor sector. The world itself has a population of 2,000 lonely souls. But economic data says there are 426,235 SPA personnel running the Class A starport. This is the major trade route running goods from the high population worlds in Deneb and the Marches into the Vland and the Imperial core.

 

[TamsinP]

Be very aware that the WTN shown in the table on the wiki is twice the WTN you would calculate from Far Trader. For example: Gnurs as show in the data says WTN is 7, but it should be WTN 3.5 (per the Far Trader Rules). That is explained in the map key but isn't obvious otherwise. The BTN values shown map and data have been similarly doubled. The original version of the code did this to keep the calculations as integers and it was kept in the new versions of the software.

I had taken the doubling of the WTN into account. However, the BTN is not doubled as that value is the sum of the two partner systems' WTNs adjusted by modifiers for trade classifications (Ag to Na; In to Ni), differign allegiance and distance; I'm assuming that fractions are rounded down (eg. BTN 10.5 becomes BTN 10).

Effective BTN for passenger numbers is BTN plus modifiers for Ri worlds and capitals (subsector and sector). The maximum modifier would be +3 if both worlds are Ri (2 x 0.5) and sector capitals (2 x 1.0).

The other side of the industrial worlds trading at 200 parsecs is every world, even very small ones, have several or many trade partners, and the data presented in the wiki doesn't have enough information to let you isolate the trade partners.

So the two things to watch out for are medium to small worlds surrounded by larger worlds. These will have much larger trade than expected with one world. The trade is split between the several larger ones and accumulated to a much higher extent than the rules seem to imply.

So, the economic data is an aggregate of all the trade and passenger partnerings? I can see that being the case for passengers (which would explain the BTN discrepancies I've noted), but doesn't seem to be the case for trade where the values match that of the highest BTN partnership. If it aggregated all potential partnerships, I suspect it would be much higher (Junidy would be a good example - if even the few BTNs I've calculated were aggregated, the trade BTN would be at least 11, and I only included trade in Aramis and along the shortest routes to Pretoria and Rhylanor).

By my calculations, there should be a yellow feeder route between Rhylanor (WTN 11; Hi) and Junidy (WTN 11; Hi):

BTN = [(WTN1 + WTN2)/2]* + WTCM -Distance Modifier

WTCN = 0
Distance Modifier = -2 (18 parsecs)

BTN = [(11 + 11)/2] + 0 -2 = 11 -2 = 9


* to take account of the doubling

The other is "trade station" worlds. An example is Uughrae in Corridor sector. The world itself has a population of 2,000 lonely souls. But economic data says there are 426,235 SPA personnel running the Class A starport. This is the major trade route running goods from the high population worlds in Deneb and the Marches into the Vland and the Imperial core.

I'm guessing the total cargo and passengers used to calculate the number of SPA employees is calculated from the values obtained from the BTN rather than the values from port size on GURPS: Starports p59 (Uughrae is a size 7* port and the maximum number of employees based on the p59 table is 81,660).

* natural size is 5 (WTN 7/2 = 3.5 + 1.5 as nearest system is 1 parsec away); I'm assuming the actual size of 7 is the minimum size for being on a blue major trade route (BTN 12). That means 1% system traffic, 99% transient.

 

[tjoneslo]

I'm assuming that fractions are rounded down (eg. BTN 10.5 becomes BTN 10).

Actually no. The trade values are converted to their credit equivalent (p. GT:FT 16). then summed across the trade routes. So if a world has 5 BTN 6 routes coming into it, it would look like a BTN 6.5, or 10 BTN 6 routes become a BTN 7 for the trade values.

At the bottom of page 15 there is a note about large worlds trading with small ones (in terms of WTN). And I have an errata note that says the formula should be BTN not to exceed smaller WTN * 2 + 1 (vs. smaller WTN + 5)

By my calculations, there should be a yellow feeder route between Rhylanor (WTN 11; Hi) and Junidy (WTN 11; Hi):

This is one of the repeated complaints about these maps. The system works by starting with the largest (BTN 26) and shortest routes. As the system works to find the smaller and smaller routes it heavily biases sending cargo along the routes established by the larger, shorter routes. Even if that means sending the cargo the long way around.

So the cago would go:

Rhylanor -> Belizo -> Bevey -> Daumier (Deneb sector) -> Coreward 4 jumps to Magash -> 5 jumps to Carthage -> Junidy (13 jumps, ~ 26 weeks)

I keep alternating between wanting to shut that feature off for the next run (letting the routes proliferate badly) and explaining (again) it seems to be cheaper to send the volume of BTN 9 cargo along the existing BTN 10/11/12 routes to keep the ships full rather than establishing another route (and maintaining another set of ships).

I'm guessing the total cargo and passengers used to calculate the number of SPA employees is calculated from the values obtained from the BTN rather than the values from port size on GURPS: Starports p59

Correct. Since I have actual trade and passenger numbers I calculate the income for the port, the derive the number of employees. I also use the sum of traffic to determine the port size as well.

 

[TamsinP]

Thanks for the detailed response!

Actually no. The trade values are converted to their credit equivalent (p. GT:FT 16). then summed across the trade routes. So if a world has 5 BTN 6 routes coming into it, it would look like a BTN 6.5, or 10 BTN 6 routes become a BTN 7 for the trade values.

At the bottom of page 15 there is a note about large worlds trading with small ones (in terms of WTN). And I have an errata note that says the formula should be BTN not to exceed smaller WTN * 2 + 1 (vs. smaller WTN + 5)

That explains a lot. I was aware of the large to small world footnote, but not of the errata note. The errata note formula makes sense - the example in GURPS Far Trader of Efate (WTN 5.5) and Pixie (WTN 2.5) didn't make sense; their BTN would be 7, which is less than the maximum (7.5) from the original formula.

This is one of the repeated complaints about these maps. The system works by starting with the largest (BTN 26) and shortest routes. As the system works to find the smaller and smaller routes it heavily biases sending cargo along the routes established by the larger, shorter routes. Even if that means sending the cargo the long way around.

I'm assuming the BTN =26 is doubled, and then halved when assigning trade routes (the GURPS values give a maximum BTN of 13 for two adjacent Pop=10, TL15+ worlds).

Question - when calculating the BTN does it use the distance of the distance "as the crow flies, the shortest route available, or the actual route if it gets added to higher BTN routes?

So the cago would go:

Rhylanor -> Belizo -> Bevey -> Daumier (Deneb sector) -> Coreward 4 jumps to Magash -> 5 jumps to Carthage -> Junidy (13 jumps, ~ 26 weeks)

I keep alternating between wanting to shut that feature off for the next run (letting the routes proliferate badly) and explaining (again) it seems to be cheaper to send the volume of BTN 9 cargo along the existing BTN 10/11/12 routes to keep the ships full rather than establishing another route (and maintaining another set of ships).

I can see how that would make a certain sense. Thinking about it a bit more, the lack of an "official" trade route between Rhylanor and Junidy does leave things open for a local shipping line to try to open up their own route: "Psst! You want to get your goods to Junidy in just 7 jumps? Have I got some ships for you!"

Correct. Since I have actual trade and passenger numbers I calculate the income for the port, the derive the number of employees. I also use the sum of traffic to determine the port size as well.

I can understand why you'd need some software to do all the calculations - just trying to do one subsector in Excel took ages.

 

[tjoneslo]

Question - when calculating the BTN does it use the distance of the distance "as the crow flies, the shortest route available, or the actual route if it gets added to higher BTN routes?

The initial determination uses a straight line distance calculation. At the point making the determination there are no routes to follow. It may be interesting to reduce the trade value based on the actual distance rather than the pre-route distances.

 

[TamsinP]

So the cago would go:

Rhylanor -> Belizo -> Bevey -> Daumier (Deneb sector) -> Coreward 4 jumps to Magash -> 5 jumps to Carthage -> Junidy (13 jumps, ~ 26 weeks)

I've just looked at the trade route maps and spotted that it goes direct from Bevey to Magash - the Cyan BTN=11 route going into Daumier is from Mora. That makes it a 9-jump, 24-parsec route compared to the 7-jump, 16-parsec "direct" route (Rhylanor>Porozlo>Zivije>L'oeul d'Dieu>Pysadi>Aramanx>Nasemin>Junidy).

 

[Spinward Flow]

This is where actual maps to determine the actual routes complicates the oversimplification of just counting parsecs between points A and B.

 

[TamsinP]

I've just looked at the trade route maps and spotted that it goes direct from Bevey to Magash - the Cyan BTN=11 route going into Daumier is from Mora. That makes it a 9-jump, 24-parsec route compared to the 7-jump, 16-parsec "direct" route (Rhylanor>Porozlo>Zivije>L'oeul d'Dieu>Pysadi>Aramanx>Nasemin>Junidy).

I've calculated the trade flows for just that 7-jump route (using average values of trade for each BTN); interestingly Rhylanor and Porozlo both have the same trade flows to each of the systems along the route (and huge amounts with each other - but that's only to be expected when you have two adjacent WTN=12 worlds). Adding all the (average) trade values for each stage I got the following:

Rhylanor > Porozlo - BTN 12 (passenger BTN 12.5)
Porozlo > Zivije - BTN 10.5 (passenger BTN 11.0)
Zivije > L'oeul d'Dieu - BTN 10 (passenger BTN 10.5)
L'oeul d'Dieu > Pysadi - BTN 10 (passenger BTN 10.5)
Pysadi > Aramanx - BTN 10 (passenger BTN 10.5)
Aramanx > Nasemin - BTN 10 (passenger BTN 10.5)
Nasemin > Junidy - BTN 10 (passenger BTN 10.5)

Interestingly, even if you only look at the trade flows from Rhylanor to Aramanx, you get:

Rhylanor > Porozlo - BTN 12
Porozlo > Zivije - BTN 10
Zivije > L'oeul d'Dieu - BTN 10
L'oeul d'Dieu > Pysadi - BTN 9.5
Pysadi > Aramanx - BTN 9.5

That's a 5-jump, 12-parsec route compared to an 11-jump, 20-parsec one, which is definitely worth a trade route. And if a trade route is added from Rhylanor to Aramanx, it makes sense to take it all the way to Junidy - there's more than enough freight to justify adding ships to your fleet to cover that (or diverting some from the longer route through Magash).

I didn't do passengers, but suspect it would be +0.5 for all of them thanks to Rhylanor being a subsector capital.

Looking in more detail at trade within Aramis subsector (not including trade beyond the subsector), which was my original project, using the canonical routes in The Traveller Adventure for the different shipping lines there probably would be enough trade for Akerut to justify having a fleet of about 50 Hercules class freighters... if Oberlindes Lines and Imperiallines weren't also operating in the subsector. As things stand, it looks very much like they need to change their fleet composition up - J1 5k dTon hulks are fine for the Towers Cluster, but elsewhere they are almost certainly losing out to the smaller J2 and J3 capable ships of their competitors. The sensible solution would be to replace them with second-hand J4 3k dTon Prosperity class freighters from the Tukera fleet and maybe some Type RT liners with part of their passenger space converted to cargo holds for lower-volume routes (removing de-mountable fuel tanks as appropriate for the route to increase available cargo space). Some of the remaining Hercules freighters could be upgraded to J2 for the high volume Junidy/Aramanx route

 

[Spinward Flow]

Is it just me, or is this kind of trade route computation "more interesting" when you start piecing together things using actual maps?

One simplification that might make "too much sense" would be to work out the "backbone" routes between Population: 9-A worlds within a sector, since those are going to be the most heavily trafficked and highest volume trade demand routes.

Where things get interesting is that such a network of routes would then be used to inform understanding on longer distance linkages of "the major rivers of trade" sense. Once you've generated such a primary routes map, that then makes apparent which High Population worlds (or clusters, such as Rhylanor+Porozolo) become the major network hubs through which trade goods flow through (kind of like looking at XBoat Routes on the map).

From that primary trade routes information, you can then start to derive the divisions of trade into the lower rungs that distribute trade goods outwards from the primary routes.

Quite the different "network mapping" challenge, but the results will yield some surprising insights ... such as your analysis of Rhylanor <> Junidy that you were examining above.

 

[TamsinP]

Is it just me, or is this kind of trade route computation "more interesting" when you start piecing together things using actual maps?

One simplification that might make "too much sense" would be to work out the "backbone" routes between Population: 9-A worlds within a sector, since those are going to be the most heavily trafficked and highest volume trade demand routes.

Where things get interesting is that such a network of routes would then be used to inform understanding on longer distance linkages of "the major rivers of trade" sense. Once you've generated such a primary routes map, that then makes apparent which High Population worlds (or clusters, such as Rhylanor+Porozolo) become the major network hubs through which trade goods flow through (kind of like looking at XBoat Routes on the map).

From that primary trade routes information, you can then start to derive the divisions of trade into the lower rungs that distribute trade goods outwards from the primary routes.

Quite the different "network mapping" challenge, but the results will yield some surprising insights ... such as your analysis of Rhylanor <> Junidy that you were examining above.

Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. The method used to generate the sector trade maps on the Wiki allows (in theory) all possible trade to be calculated and routes of different importance to be drawn, but it can produce some very odd results when you look at the map, Rhylanor to Aramanx (and on to Junidy) being a good example. Patinir to Aramanx is another - it could have a J3 BTN8 "minor" route (and another 2 x J2 to Junidy), but because it already has a BTN9* route to Kretikaa in Deneb that trade is forced to take an 8-jump, 19-parsec (6-jumps, 15 parsecs for Junidy) route though Deneb.

*I'm assuming that BTN9 is based on an aggregate of all trade flowing to/from Patinir.

BTW, the calculations do take into account all of the factors you listed. The WTN for each world is based on the population modified by TL and starport; the BTN uses the average of the two WTNs modified by distance, trade codes (Ag to Na; In to Ni) and allegiance (negative modifier if different). The routes get assigned based on the BTN values, with BTN8 (or 7.5, rounding up?) being the minimum to justify a regular service; BTN9 encompasses feeder routes; BTN 10+ are the main routes.

I decided, out of curiosity, to follow the BTN12 major route from Mora to see how far it would take me within the Third Imperium. A very long way is the answer, more specifically to Langelos in Solomani Rim. It's not always the most direct route - you'd get there a lot quicker if you switched to lower BTN routes at various points.

For passengers, the base WTN gets positive DMs for each of the two worlds that is Ri or a capital.


Just looking at the maps along with the UWP and trade codes can be quicker for a small region, but misses out on the detail of trade flows to areas beyond.

 

[TamsinP]

I keep alternating between wanting to shut that feature off for the next run (letting the routes proliferate badly) and explaining (again) it seems to be cheaper to send the volume of BTN 9 cargo along the existing BTN 10/11/12 routes to keep the ships full rather than establishing another route (and maintaining another set of ships).

I've been thinking about this and how it might be "improved". After running all of the calculations, when it begins drawing the trade routes instead of considering Charted Space as a whole from the start, it might make sense to work up in geographical size, ie. subsector, sector, (domain), (larger), Charted Space. You'd still begin with the highest BTN at each stage. The downside is that it would take quite a bit longer to process.