Re: (1648) Vehicle Designs, Part 19.1

Rob Dean writes about an armed merchant, a type of ship near and dear to
my heart -

>This armed merchant vessel is produced by LSP of Lunion, and is increasing
>in popularity due to the current troubles afflicting the Imperium.  Since
>a quick economic analysis of the cargo/passenger capacity and the routine
>monthly payments of a standard starship mortgage shows that there is no way
>for this vessel to pay for itself, most of the examples presently flying are
>under government subsidies.
[...]
>A privately owned packet would find it necessary to constantly engage
in profitable
>speculative trade to make ends meet, and there would be every temptation
>to resort to smuggling or outright piracy.

Captain Grant, my merchant character in Metlay's game, could make a profit
with it legally (at least in the Solomani Rim.)  The key here is to constantly
engage in spec trade - take on whatever passengers happen by, but don't
let the hope of carrying a full load of passengers influence where you go next.
Don't even think about freight, it isn't worth it.

Some quick sample numbers:
Monthly payment is price/240 = Cr785,583

>Passengers=16, LowPassengers=20, Staterooms=25, LowBerths=20
>Cargo=1077kl (79t)

Assume an average of 10 high or mid passages and ignore low berths
for the moment - Life support = ~80,000 per month (2 jumps)
Crew Salaries ~30,000; Layaway for annual maint ~20,000
Docking is cheap, and fuel is free.
So total expenses per month = ~916,000 Credits

For trade, find a route with good trade mods and many cargos -
example: 2 Starport A, Hi pop worlds 1 jump apart (such as Suliman and
Vanefa in Concord/Solomani Rim) You also need someone with
Broker (so he can consult the cargo table twice), and Trader (to
determine the first die on the sale price table in advance).

Now 79 tons is small enough that on High pop worlds with 2 rolls on the
table you can usually fill most of your hold with cargo that has a prerolled
"6" on the sale table, giving an average multiplier of 270% with a Broker-4
= 216% after fees.  For these worlds, the buy price is 3,500/ton, and the
base sale price is 6,000 * 2.16 = 12,960 - 3,500 = 9460/ton net * 79 tons
* 2 trips per month = 1,494,680 Credits. An average of 10 Middle passages
adds another 160,000 Credits/month for a total of ~1,655,000 per month
giving a comfortable margin of ~739,000 credits profit per month if all goes
well.  There is enough slack to be able to survive some non-optimal trips,
so things would have to get pretty bad before a skilled merchant would
be forced to break the law just to meet payments.  Of course, these days
many areas have gotten pretty bad, but hey, thats what adventurers are
for...

>However,
>has anybody given any serious thought to the fact that the current game
freight
>and passenger rates are an artifact of Imperial regulation?

The current game freight and passenger rates are an artifact of the old
Traveller
book 2, which was written without any real comprehension of economics.  For
some insane reason, they didn't change them in MT, so that you pay the same
price for a Jump-1 as a Jump-6 passage.  What this means is if you use them,
you should only sell passages on Jump-1 ships, and only buy them on Jump-6
ships...:-)  I have been thinking about trying to rework the economic
rules (in my
copious free time), so one of these weeks I'll probably send in some of
my ideas
to see how they float.
	Anyway, I like the ship.  Have fun,

					W. Dow Rieder

 	When the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems
start to look like nails...