Trading routes

>Are there any good methods for determining major trading routes,
>other than just connecting all A and B starports?  I seem to
>remember that the rules are pretty vague about this.
>Suggestions?

That depends on which trading rules you are playing by. If you use "Merchant
Prince", the only decent trade routes are those with lots of A-class starports,
on Hi population planets, with roughly the same tech level. Try a tour of the
Vegan Autonomous district, in Solomani Rim sector. I have a ship doing so right
now, and it's about to emerge a multi-millionaire!

If you use the speculative rules in Book 2, you get much more satisfactory
conclusions. The obvious trade route is between Agricultural and Industrial
worlds, and this is rewarded in the Book 2 system. The only problem is, the
availability of cargoes is too random. You are quite likely to go to the
Agricultural world, only to find that the only cargo available is Machinery, or
something equally useless.

If you use the regular cargo and passenger tables from Book 2 or Merchant Prince
then again, stick to high population worlds. Starport class doesn't feature
here, but tech level may (I disregard TL modifiers for these charts, otherwise
I can never visit lower tech agro worlds).

Now for another question. Book 2 mentions mail briefly. Under "Revenues", it
says "Mail  Cr25000 (if fitted). How does an honest merchant get mail fitted?


"Keyboard? Tis quaint!" - M. Scott

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