What does this paragraph mean to you?

[BetterThanLife]

Here is the paragraph.

"Difference in starship jump drive capacity have no specific effect on passage prices. A jump-3 starship charges the same passage price as a jump-1 starship. The difference is that a jump-3 ship can reach a destination in one jump, while the jump-1 ship would take three seperate jumps (through two intermediate destinations, and requiring three seperate tickets) to reach it. Higher jump numbers also make otherwise inaccessable destinations within reach. But for two ships of differening jump numbers going to the same destination in one jump, each would charge the same cargo or passage price." (Book 2 pg. 9 also copied directly into MT and T20 rules)

So what does this mean in terms of passage price?

 

[Evo Plurion]

I think it means that one jump costs as much as another jump, regardless of the distance involved. However, if a jump-1 ship is taking you to a destination 3 parsecs away, you'll be a passenger for 3 jumps. Therefore, your trip will require 3 tickets for a total of 3 times the cost than if you took the same trip on a jump-3 ship.

Another way to look at it is to measure the cost of a trip based on travel time instead of distance. The slower ship in the example above takes 3 times as long as the faster ship to reach its destination. Therefore, your fare must cover three times the ship owner's expense for upkeep, life support, accommodation, etc.

 

[Simone]

I have never been able to read that without seeing multiple interpretations.

 

[Malenfant]

I think it means that if you want to go to a world 1 pc away, then you take a J1 ship, because taking a ship with say J3 will not get you there any faster and also means that there's one ship that can't take anyone to a world 3 pc away in one week.

In other words, the expectation is that you'll take whatever ship can get you to your destination in one week, since getting there in a slower shop would (a) cost more and (b) take longer. So the J3 ship isn't competing with the J1 ship at all, since the assumption is that the J1 ship wouldn't be doing anything more than hopping in and out between systems 1 pc from the departure world.

Presumably, from the ship owner's point of view there's a lot of demand for travel that takes 1 week (plus however long it takes to get between the 100D limit and the starport) and not much demand for getting there more slowly.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Evo Plurion:
I think it means that one jump costs as much as another jump, regardless of the distance involved. However, if a jump-1 ship is taking you to a destination 3 parsecs away, you'll be a passenger for 3 jumps. Therefore, your trip will require 3 tickets for a total of 3 times the cost than if you took the same trip on a jump-3 ship.

Another way to look at it is to measure the cost of a trip based on travel time instead of distance. The slower ship in the example above takes 3 times as long as the faster ship to reach its destination. Therefore, your fare must cover three times the ship owner's expense for upkeep, life support, accommodation, etc.

But it says specifically that a Jump-3 charges the same as a Jump-1 ship, even though the Jump one ship makes two stops and requires three tickets.

Three tickets are defined as (for high Passage) Cr30,000.

So, according to that paragraph, the Jump 3 ship gets to charge the same as the Jump-1 ship to the same destination, in the above example that is Cr30,000. As does a Jump-2 ship making only one stop, requiring two tickets. (Instead of Cr20,000)

 

[Andrew Boulton]

It's a little poorly phrased (especially the first sentence), but it says one ticket pays for one jump. If you're going 2pc, and there's a J2+ ship going there, you can get there in a week for 1 ticket. If there's only a J1 ship available, it'll take 2 jumps each costing 1 ticket.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Andrew,
Read it in isolation without knowing that elsewhere it states that passage price is regardless of distance. Then tell me what it says about a Jump3 ship going three parsecs in one hop and the price.

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
It's a little poorly phrased (especially the first sentence), but it says one ticket pays for one jump. If you're going 2pc, and there's a J2+ ship going there, you can get there in a week for 1 ticket. If there's only a J1 ship available, it'll take 2 jumps each costing 1 ticket.

 

[daryen]

So what does this mean in terms of passage price?

It means that you pay 10KCr for a High Passage ticket. That ticket is good for a single jump, regardless of its distance.

That is what it means, and that is what it has always meant. To prove this, just look at the adventure with the long liner Ad Astra in it. (Adv 10, IIRC) It goes to great lengths to describe the economics of the long liner and it is very, very explicit that ticket prices are per jump.

Read it in isolation without knowing that elsewhere it states that passage price is regardless of distance. Then tell me what it says about a Jump3 ship going three parsecs in one hop and the price.

You can't read it in isolation. The other sentences in the quote give it context. It is saying that, regardless of the distance of the jump, you pay 10KCR for your high passage ticket.

Yes, that is stupid. Yes, that won't work economically. Yes, that makes any ship that is J-2 or higher a losing proposition. Yes, it is completely broken and desperately needs to be fixed. I grant all of that, but that is the rules.

These rules need to be fixed. Either they should be replaced with some kind of "per parsec" model (a la GT:FT) or economics needs to be completely eliminated from Traveller and just glossed over. The current setup simply sucks.

 

[mike wightman]

I agree, the per parsec model is the only sensible option.

 

[phil644441]

Obvious to me - passage price depends ONLY on how far you're going, not the type of ship you take - a J3 ship and a J1 ship going to the same destination charge the same, even though the J3 ship can get there in one jump if it's 3 parsecs and the J1 has to make three jumps.

AK

 

[Ben W Bell]

Originally posted by Aristotle Kzin:
Obvious to me - passage price depends ONLY on how far you're going, not the type of ship you take - a J3 ship and a J1 ship going to the same destination charge the same, even though the J3 ship can get there in one jump if it's 3 parsecs and the J1 has to make three jumps.

AK

But if that were the case then the jump 1 ship would go bankrupt very quickly as they wouldn't be able to cover their costs. A High passage ticket, in fact any ticket, in Traveller has always been good for one jump and one jump only irregardless of how large the jump is.

 

[Malenfant]

Instead of talking about what the paragraph means when it is very clearly broken, wouldn't it be better to come up with a solution that does work?

 

[far-trader]

You know I've always hated that a full house beats a straight in poker. Let's change those rules too while we're at it

 

[Border Reiver]

Sod the rule and let's make it the law. What if the Imperial government realised that a rampant free market would cripple interstellar commerce by allowing mercantile interests to effectively cripple a planet by not pricing the cost of shipping out of its reach and therefore instituted uniform pricing across the Imperium. As technology (& jump distance) increase the merchants would request an increase in the pricing but the bureaucratic dinosaur that is the Third Imperium would not budge and thus prices have ever remained the same. Hey it could even go back to the Vilani, we all know that was some command economy they had.

Just a theory.

 

[far-trader]

Yep that's pretty much the game reasoning I go with. And it is a game, not a simulation.

Sure some of us would like it to be more a simulation with far more realism (economics, stellar physics, energy physics, wound physics, etc.) but the more you go down that path the less playable it seems to become.

So yep, the mighty Imperium long ago decreed that is the way it is. Hence the bulk of trade is done by J-1 ships and the few higher jump ships are usually subsidized* by local or higher governments.

* much like the Concorde, as mentioned, is a faster ship that had to be heavily subsidized to operate even at the high ticket prices.

All that said I see no reason an independant couldn't try to haggle a little more (or less) out of a potential customer, especially on a non-imperial world.

And of course another aspect of the example of 1 J3 vs 3 J1. On that route there will probably be several J1 ships to book your passage on and you can make your trip in about 3 weeks (you don't have to travel on the same ship, just transfer at each port). Or you could wait for that J3 sub-liner to make the circuit, and hope it's not booked solid when it get's there. Assuming such a subsidzed route exists. I think the J1 will be a lot quicker.

 

[Malenfant]

That makes no sense though. Effectively, the Imperium is crippling itself by doing that - it basically forces most people to take the slowest route to get somewhere, unless they have lots of subsidised ships travelling on every route.

If we adapted Traveller logic to realworld airline flights, we'd have a situation where most passenger planes would be low capacity craft that were only capable of short hops only (thus massively extending travel time and expense as customers buy multiple tickets to get to their destination), and there'd be a few subsidised airbuses to take people to their destinations in one trip.

So you either pay through the nose to get to your destination in several trips that would take a couple of days probably, or you pay less to get there directly but would have to wait a few weeks for the next flight to do so.

I don't really see how that helps anyone at all, be they customer, pilot, or government.

 

[Border Reiver]

As the Vilani say " It's aye been that way and it should aye stay that way"....no wait that what the say here on The Scottish Marches. Anyhow if I remember rightly although the 3rd Imperium was dominated by Solomani nobility it is cuturally closer to the Vilani and if a decision to control shipping at jump 1 or 2 is made and it works there is no reason for them to change just because technology has moved on. The 3rd Imperium is a bureacratic nightmare. who says it makes sense.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
That makes no sense though. Effectively, the Imperium is crippling itself by doing that - it basically forces most people to take the slowest route to get somewhere, unless they have lots of subsidised ships travelling on every route.

Well the Imperium might want to limit offworld travel and exactly by making it so prohibitively expensive. It would be easier to control a vast empire if you keep traffic (civilian, that's what we're talking) limited.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
If we adapted Traveller logic to realworld airline flights, we'd have a situation where most passenger planes would be low capacity craft that were only capable of short hops only (thus massively extending travel time and expense as customers buy multiple tickets to get to their destination), and there'd be a few subsidised airbuses to take people to their destinations in one trip.

So you either pay through the nose to get to your destination in several trips that would take a couple of days probably, or you pay less to get there directly but would have to wait a few weeks for the next flight to do so.

I don't really see how that helps anyone at all, be they customer, pilot, or government.

Well air travel is an iffy analogy but in a way I see parallels.

It costs about the same to fly across country as it does to fly overseas. It takes longer to go cross country than overseas because you usually have to make connecting flights, sometimes with layovers, while flying transoceanic is non-stop.

More to the point flight passage is based mostly on fuel cost which is pretty level for the same size plane no matter how far you travel since the bulk of fuel is used just getting into the air and to altitude. That ties very closely to the starships costs being level at 1 week of life support and equal fuel for distance and size. Granted those costs are inconsequential to the cost of the ship which might be the way to fix the model.

I think I mentioned at one time (somewhere?) that a better fix might be lowering the price of the ships (say by a factor of 10) and increasing the costs of the expendables (by a large amount and mostly for fuel) so you worry less about jumping as fast as possible and more about filling the ship before you lift.

Then maybe an "adventure" could "pay" for the mortgage for a month (or more) allowing the players to just park. And those "ship" results on the muster tables don't look quite so monty-haul compared to weapon or whatever.

The one thing that would have to be done is eliminating wilderness (free) refueling, or just make it so risky as to be a last chance gamble of a desperate ship and crew facing certain doom. Make purifiers huge and expensive to explain the cost of fuel. Make some sense of wilderness refuelling, like needing to process a lot of gas to get the liquid H you need (days of loitering in a gas-giant exposed to hard rads is not healthy), while most settled worlds won't appreciate the ecological impact of you doing a similar thing with their planet's lifeblood. Make the final product of wilderness refuelling a very low performance and dangerous mix, maybe needing twice the volume for jump and a big chance of misjump and a certainty of rebuilding the jump drive IF you make it. Make the "real stuff" not only purified but enhaced/boosted for higher performance and cleaner "burn".

Anyway, just some thoughts, too much work.

 

[Ranger]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
That makes no sense though. Effectively, the Imperium is crippling itself by doing that - it basically forces most people to take the slowest route to get somewhere, unless they have lots of subsidised ships travelling on every route.

If we adapted Traveller logic to realworld airline flights, we'd have a situation where most passenger planes would be low capacity craft that were only capable of short hops only (thus massively extending travel time and expense as customers buy multiple tickets to get to their destination), and there'd be a few subsidised airbuses to take people to their destinations in one trip.

So you either pay through the nose to get to your destination in several trips that would take a couple of days probably, or you pay less to get there directly but would have to wait a few weeks for the next flight to do so.

I don't really see how that helps anyone at all, be they customer, pilot, or government.

Ok, cross post here from the Revised CT thread (with an extension)...

You're correct, the economic model in CT is inefficient, but that doesn't mean it is "broken". It's only broken if you think the system should be focused for maximum efficiency (a modern economic argument). But a sociologist would argue that any system will accept a certain amount of economic inefficiency in exchange for social control.

You’re correct, you can't run a system where you mandate low consumer prices, but you can run one where you mandate high consumer cost [this refers to the argument in the other thread about the economic inviability of price fixing]. That is how the airline industry was operated in the 60s and 70s. The government set minimum prices for each route. That locked out new carriers from building a customer base by offering lower fairs to compete with established carriers. The system worked fine but it restricted air travel to a very small part of society due to mandated high cost. The airlines liked it because it provided a constant relatively high cash flow and removed the threat of any new competitors in the market.

The Traveller system works the same way. It insures that those with power will retain control over what gives them that power, control of the shipping lanes and the rate at which information flows over those lanes.

If you look at the airline industry now, you see that all of the carriers who developed their buisness model (hub and spoke) under the regulated system are having trouble compeeting with the new airlines that have begun operating under deregulation, which all use a point to point model rather than the old model (which worked fine until you could offer cheap flights that connected the end points of the spokes).

 

[Captain Zoom]

Besides, all that slow-moving civilian traffic lets the Imperial government stay ahead of the news with it's J4 x-boat network!