The (N+1)th Discussion on Interstellar Traffic

[robject]

TL;DR (executive summary)

This discussion will get nowhere, because the N previous discussions didn't really get anywhere.



LONG VERSION

Free trade is the most widespread type of interstellar commerce.
- Traders & Gunboats, p18. 1980.

This blows me away.

On the same page, T&G earlier offhandedly mentions:

Interstellar trade and commerce may depend on hundred-thousand ton transports in some regions, [...]

And we know who owns those transports -- megacorporations.

Worlds regularly have millions and millions of people. Surely there's an interstellar market, right? But Traveller books through the 1980s seem to imply otherwise.

Exhibit B -- The Spinward Marches Campaign. I'm not going to bother with quotes and pages, because we all already know that Al Morai operates 53 World-class Transports, and that's sufficient for Al Morai for the Spinward Marches, apparently. Those ships are only 3,000 tons (or are they only 1,000 tons? The High Guard block surely must be a typo).

Hans would say something like "that's way too low". I've been thinking that those Jump-4 major routes between subsector capitals have 100,000 ton megacorporate freighters carrying loads of stuff around. It's so easy to think that, too -- look how many container ships we have circling our oceans. Space is just a big ocean, right?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

On the other hand GT Far Trader, p20 says:

Shipping Lines

The most visible players in the interstellar shipping business are the shipping lines. Whether they are Imperium-wide megacorporations or merely local subsector concerns, the companies that maintain scheduled freight and passenger service among the worlds of the Imperium are known as "shipping lines" or simple "liners".

Liners carry the vast majority of interstellar freight and passengers. These companies commit emourmous resources, in the form of ships and port-side personnel, to maintain an interlocking web of routes with scheduled arrivals and departures. ...

And (p21):

Tramp ships exist to fill the gaps in shipping supply left by the shipping lines. These gaps are left partly due to the nature of of the liner business and partly due to unexpected shifts in demand that the lines, with their sprawling interlocked routes, cannot easily respond to.

In the presence of contradicting canon you can safely select any version you like: You'll be just as right, and wrong, either way.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Reasoning from basics I would say interstellar shipping is rather cheap. If a Dt of cargo is 14 m³ without weight restrictions, that is about 40 000 cans of soda.

Shipping cans of soda would therefore cost in the order of Cr 1000 / 40000 ≈ 2.5¢ per can per parcek. Not something you would ship tens of parcek, but a parcek or two might work.

Small and expensive stuff, like computer chips, would be shipped far.

 

[robject]

It indeed must be cheap (for individuals to own and operate tramp traders!), and Traveller's basic presuppositions are that

(a) power is cheap
(b) gravitics can be powered by small power plants
(c) jump

Thus cost to orbit is, for all practical purposes, removed.

And the main cost to anywhere is (mortgages aside) time.

 

[Condottiere]

I've juggled the numbers on the smallest possible starship, under the current rules set.

In theory, interstellar travel should be a lot more expensive; in context of Traveller economics, while maintenance is dirt cheap, buying a hundred tonne starship is capital intensive.

 

[bookwyrm]

I'm sure it's been mentioned to the Nth degree, but I think most campaigns that either touch on or are focused on Trade, are at the Free Trade level. Then there are the few Trade focused campaigns that have the goal of starting their own multi ship merchant line. the Al Morai model is the goal usually strived for in this case, I would think. Of course, there are those rare campaigns that are going for the big bucks by starting a mega corporation to compete with the big sharks... um the big guys in business suits.

I took a look at Al Morai in the Traveller Wiki, and it has an interesting write up.

Then there is the question, how much risk to take to reach the desired rewards?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It indeed must be cheap (for individuals to own and operate tramp traders!), and Traveller's basic presuppositions are that

Freight is cheap, ships are not cheap.

In a worlds where a normal salary is something like kCr 10-20 p.a., a MCr 30 ship costing kCr ~100 per month to operate is not at all cheap. It can just shift quite a lot of soda cans per year...

The biggest cost is of course the capital cost over time, e.g. a mortgage.

 

[mike wightman]

I don't think free trade means carried out by 'free traders' (as in 200t ships crewed by ethically challenged merchants).

Subsidised trade is carried out by governments

Free trade means private enterprise and zero tariffs, or put another way speculative trade on a grand scale. If you are carrying freight it is because it is subsidised (a government is involved) or it is the trade goods of a private party that you are being payed to transport - the owner of the goods is expecting their resale value to cover the costs and make a profit.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I don't think free trade means carried out by 'free traders' (as in 200t ships crewed by ethically challenged merchants).

Unfortunately that is what S7 means:

CT S7, p18-19:
Free trade is the most widespread type of interstellar commerce. Individual starships purchase goods on a speculative basis, carrying them and absorbing freight costs until the goods are sold. Such free trade practices are even possible without a starship, but most are carried out by the small tramp ships that wander from system to system, theoretically buying goods at low prices and selling them at high prices. Those which buy high and sell low don't stay in business for very long.

 

[Dragoner]

In economics, free trade is usually in opposition to being centrally planned, which today seems du jour the way it is done, though it wasn't always that way, not when Traveller was first written.

 

[robject]

In economics, free trade is usually in opposition to being centrally planned, which today seems du jour the way it is done, though it wasn't always that way, not when Traveller was first written.

This. Even the quote from S7 simply says that speculation without a starship is possible, but mostly the speculation is done with a starship.

As for the quote that A.D. and I quoted from S7:

Free trade is the most widespread type of interstellar commerce.

Widespread doesn't have to mean the most volume. Perhaps it simply means it's ubiquitous, whereas the other types are more constrained.

Thus we can have a thousand Beowulfs doing their thing along the Spinward Main, but their total freight volume (80,000 tons) is exceeded by even just two or three 100,000 ton freighters moving along the major routes (assume: Jump-4 and 35,000 tons of cargo each).

 

[Condottiere]

Speculative trade can be done by partnership and shares, in that the risks and rewards will be spread.

The point being to move a specific cargo from one market to another, and offer it for sale, hopefully at a hefty profit.

This can also be done fourth dimensionally, in that the cargo stays put in the warehouse, and offered at a later date in the same market it was bought from.

 

[Dragoner]

This. Even the quote from S7 simply says that speculation without a starship is possible, but mostly the speculation is done with a starship.

As for the quote that A.D. and I quoted from S7:


Widespread doesn't have to mean the most volume. Perhaps it simply means it's ubiquitous, whereas the other types are more constrained.

Thus we can have a thousand Beowulfs doing their thing along the Spinward Main, but their total freight volume (80,000 tons) is exceeded by even just two or three 100,000 ton freighters moving along the major routes (assume: Jump-4 and 35,000 tons of cargo each).

Yes, and the big carriers are part of a supply chain that in the Imperium could be hundreds of years old.

 

[Spinward Flow]

LONG VERSION

Free trade is the most widespread type of interstellar commerce.
- Traders & Gunboats, p18. 1980.

This blows me away.

On the same page, T&G earlier offhandedly mentions:

Interstellar trade and commerce may depend on hundred-thousand ton transports in some regions, [...]

And we know who owns those transports -- megacorporations.

These two "facts" are not mutually exclusive like you are trying to intimate here.

At worst it means that there are different "tiers of volume of trade" with penny ante operators at the low end and megacorps on the high end. But the important thing to know is that the (proverbial) "hundred-thousand ton transports in some regions" does not mean that such ships are ubiquitous everywhere. It simply means that in SOME places, such enormous craft are economically viable due to the market demand for goods in such large volume quantities.

Where would such places be?
Well ... presumably where the high population worlds are ...

In other words, Not Everywhere™.

Likewise, if you're approaching the issue as being more like a "hub and spoke" operation, the (proverbial) "hundred-thousand ton transports in some regions" carry the BULK of shipping to distribution centers on selected worlds, leaving the "last parsecs problem" to the smaller operators, all the way down to the 200 ton Free Traders who are scooping up the table scraps dropped on the floor by the "big boys" in the megacorporations.

You're not looking at a One Size Fits All kind of universe.



Also, having "free trade everywhere" keeps things as simple as possible for Referees who already have more than enough bookkeeping to do in order to keep their Traveller Universe(s) running.

Even the quote from S7 simply says that speculation without a starship is possible, but mostly the speculation is done with a starship.

Trade speculation without a starship is perfectly possible (see: Travellers' Aid Society membership for how to do so "on the cheap") ... but without your own starship, as a speculator merchant you're kind of at the mercy of whoever pulls into port WITH a starship (and where they're planning to go next). Without your own starship, you're "at the mercy of the winds and tides in the sea of commerce" rather than being able to chart your own course and set your own destination(s).

With a starship the whole task of speculative trading becomes more of a "control your own destiny" proposition. You're not at the mercy of others (except maybe your bank mortgage) to determine where you want to go next. That then lends itself to a "hit the road" mentality that lies at the very heart of what it means to be a Traveller, rather than being a corporate drone slaving away in an office over a hot keyboard in the hopes of finding your next meal ticket (hopefully offworld).

Starships are simply the MEANS of travel ... and for a lot of Players and Referees, owning a stake in the logistics of that travel helps keep people invested in the story being told through the campaign.

Or to put it another way, it's that whole "wagon train to the stars" kind of deal that keeps people tuning in to next week's adventure.

 

[kilemall]

While we are at the yet another interstellar trade game thread, might as well raise my flag on the IND hill.

Given the cheapness of shipping, the more expensive the cargo per ton, the further it can travel.

For six digit and above cargoes, you can have a flow of high cost items that can flow from IND or say radioactive belts across a sector.

I use the speculative cargo mods for source worlds, figure out what the difference between max DM down and 90% of base, that amount divided by per parsec tells you how many parsecs it can go and undercut local production.

Another major point is the megacorps perspective. They want to make sure they maximize profits and squelch less then peer local competition.

We seem to think in terms of independent shipping lines risking their capital on servicing major customers like governments or megacorps. I’m thinking they aren’t going to accept risk like that.

Instead, before they even commission the architect to design the ship class, the lines are going to want a 20-year shipping contract to guarantee payoff and backend profit.

If they can’t get the guaranteed contract, they would insist on the megacorps paying to build the ship and operate on similar terms to a subsidized merchant. A standard route and profit sharing would ensue, the megacorps recouping part of their capital risk while ensuring first choice dedicated transport for their products.

The shipping line provides the crews, support services and gets speculative opportunity within the limits of agreed route service.

In both cases the ship class would be mass produced to gain standard ship type cost reduction, furthering profit vs capitalization.

 

[Condottiere]

There are three economic models that I'm thinking of now:

1. Real life, subject to the business cycle.

2. Honorverse, where I suppose the most expensive part of the operating cost are the crew salaries.

3. Point to point, when time is money.

4. And Dune, which I supposed is mostly scheduled shipping with Heighliners; and unscheduled when raiding.

 

[MichaelSTee]

Looking at the ATU realistically, while travel itself is relatively cheap, starships aren't. And I just can't see banks willing to float multi-million credit loans to a group of ex-service members (even with a business plan of "we're gonna buy low one place and sell high another place"). What I think Traveller rules should have contained were rules about buying older ships for less, more in the budget of that group of ex-service members. Instead we had rules for building a brand new ship from the keel up, and how much we had to pay for that.

 

[Condottiere]

How much is the scrap value of a well maintained starship?

How do you estimate depreciation and over what time scale?

 

[Dragoner]

Back in the day when I was getting my degree in business, becoming a Certified Financial Manager, I posited that it was better not to try to reconcile the player oriented arbitrage game with the overall economics of the 3I. I still believe that, as econ has its own complexity, on the level of statistics, or thermodynamics where people would just say no if they saw that in a supplement. Think of the players as space truckers in a OTC or spot market.

Specifically I made a tramp trader for my game, as I sort of use that as the example of the player's arbitrage "buy low - sell high" game.

 

[kilemall]

Back in the day when I was getting my degree in business, becoming a Certified Financial Manager, I posited that it was better not to try to reconcile the player oriented arbitrage game with the overall economics of the 3I. I still believe that, as econ has its own complexity, on the level of statistics, or thermodynamics where people would just say no if they saw that in a supplement. Think of the players as space truckers in a OTC or spot market.

Specifically I made a tramp trader for my game, as I sort of use that as the example of the player's arbitrage "buy low - sell high" game.

Chartering is sadly underutilized.