Re: Interstellar Trade

 In message 1913, [email removed] (Adrian Hurt) writes:
 >
 >One thing I haven't seen in Traveller is any equivalent to the old
 >clippers.  Their function was to get tea from China to Britain as fast
 >as possible, to get the best prices.

     Probably due to differing circumstances.  Back in the last century,
there were good economic reasons for having some ships travel from A to
B as quickly as possible while others were able to take more time
reaching their destinations (presumably, things are still that way--I
don't know, since what I know about ocean travel is primarily military).

     In deep space, however...  In one of Larry Niven's Known Space
stories (I *think* it's "Borderland of Sol"--one with Beowulf Shaeffer,
anyway), the protagonist makes the comment that hyperdrive has only
one speed, and *there is never any reason to dawdle in space*.  Human
beings can adapt to a wider range of environments than most people
would think, but vacuum is notoriously low in vitamin content.  ;-)

     The same factors obtain in the Traveller universe.  There are
different distances that individual jump drives can traverse, but as
far as the ship is concerned, they all move at the same speed:  one
jump per week (assuming quick refueling and a need to get somewhere
in a hurry).  Half that if the ship in question wants to spend some
time in port for trading, laying in supplies, performing simple
repairs, and whatnot.

     There *could* be the equivalent of clipper ships, but that form of
travel would be so ruinously expensive (since the ship won't be making
any money along the way) that the cargo had better be *extremely*
valuable (possibly more valuable than I can imagine, and, like Han Solo,
I can imagine a *lot*.  :-) ).

     Actually, now that I think about it a little bit, there *is* (well,
at least *was*) something like a clipper route in the Imperium.  The
IISS operates an _Azhanti_High_Lightning_ class cruiser to do nothing
but carry wine from Earth to Capital for the Emperor's table (I'm told
that tokay is very good, but *really*...).  Note that it takes a *large*
agency of a major government to be able to afford this.

     Now the question becomes "Is there a commodity valuable enough to
justify special multi-jump dedicated shipping?"


- - --
     Brent

INTERNET:  [email removed]
[address removed]
PHONE:  [phone removed] (voice)

Operating System: HP-UX A.B7.00 U
Organization: AT&T-BL, Red Hill System Administration Group (HRSAG)
Location: HR 2C119
Phone: [phone removed]
Return-receipt:
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL5]

*|
*| One thing I haven't seen in Traveller is any equivalent to the old clippers.
*| Their function was to get tea from China to Britain as fast as possible, to
*| get the best prices.
*|

One of the campaigns I ran several years ago was tailor made for
someone who wanted to run characters that were the equivilant of
the owners of the China Clippers.  I had (thanks to one of my
players) a ship design that became very popular within my campaigns
that was a rough analogy to it.  Unfortunately the breifcase that
the design (and its copies) was in turned up missing one fine day
and I lost a lot of good designs as a result.


- - --
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
" Peter L. Berghold  " INTERNET: [email removed] "+1[phone removed] "
" System Adminstrator" BIX     : peteb              """"""""""""""""""""
" AT&T, HRSAG        " DELPHI  : berghold """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Brent L. Woods [email removed] writes:
>  In message 1913, [email removed] (Adrian Hurt) writes:
>  >
>  >One thing I haven't seen in Traveller is any equivalent to the old
>  >clippers.  Their function was to get tea from China to Britain as fast
>  >as possible, to get the best prices.
>
>							There are
> different distances that individual jump drives can traverse, but as
> far as the ship is concerned, they all move at the same speed:  one
> jump per week (assuming quick refueling and a need to get somewhere
> in a hurry).  Half that if the ship in question wants to spend some
> time in port for trading, laying in supplies, performing simple
> repairs, and whatnot.

It's the different jump sizes that will make the difference.  A jump to a
system 1 parsec away takes one week; a jump to a system 3 parsecs away
takes 1 week for a jump-3 ship, at least 2 weeks for a jump-2 ship, and at
least 3 weeks for a jump-1 ship.  "At least", because if there isn't a
system in between to allow refuelling, or the ship isn't carrying extra
fuel, it will have to go the long way round.  There may not even be a long
way round; this is especially a problem for jump-1 ships.

>      There *could* be the equivalent of clipper ships, but that form of
> travel would be so ruinously expensive (since the ship won't be making
> any money along the way) that the cargo had better be *extremely*
> valuable (possibly more valuable than I can imagine, and, like Han Solo,
> I can imagine a *lot*.  :-) ).

A fast ship (i.e. one with a large jump number) won't need to make money
along the way, because it won't come out of jump-space along the way.  But
the cargo will need to be very valuable (like tea was to the British
Empire :-) in order to be profitable, because a high jump factor means a
lot of fuel, which means a lower proportion of the ship is cargo space.

>      Actually, now that I think about it a little bit, there *is* (well,
> at least *was*) something like a clipper route in the Imperium.  The
> IISS operates an _Azhanti_High_Lightning_ class cruiser to do nothing
> but carry wine from Earth to Capital for the Emperor's table (I'm told
> that tokay is very good, but *really*...).  Note that it takes a *large*
> agency of a major government to be able to afford this.

Or a large megacorporation.  Several Lightning class cruisers had their
main weapons removed (i.e. all but the turrets) and were sold for use as
big merchant ships.  One kept its main weapons, because the company in
question had good lawyers and found a loop-hole, and now trades with the
Vargr.

- - --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]