The Standard 'classic' Traveller cargo charts have basically every cargo known
to man. I have the feeling that this is not realistic. In my opinion, it
seems like the only reason for shipping X from point A to point B is because X
is not economically available at point B. Either it just isn't available, or
you can produce X at point A and ship it to point B cheaper then you can
produce it at point B.
How much does it cost to ship X? This is what will determine whether if you
can produce X at both places, but for different costs, whether it's feasible to
ship X from point A to point B.
Think about it... Why ship something when you can produce it where you need
it? Why carry bauxite from system A to system B when you can mine it in system
B? I have a hard time believing that there will be a lot of this type of
shipping going on. I think it's more likely that only rare refined alloys
would be shipped. In general, it's better to ship finished products, rather
then raw materials which in general abound.
Let's think about the real world... plenty of bannannas are shipped from SA to
NA. Why? Because we can't grow bannannas here. Why do people eat bannannas?
Beats me! Mostly because they are cheap food, and they taste good. Why are
they cheap, because they can grow them cheap and ship them cheap. But it's not
something people "needed" to have, and thus ordered, it was probably a market
that had to be developed.
Another example... Cars. We make cars in the US, why do we ship them from
Japan to the US? Because Japan can make them cheaper and better then we can,
and ship them to us and *still* have them be cheap (and better).
Some more examples of raw materials... Oil, steel, ores... Today all these
materials are shipped all across the world, mostly from areas which have a lot
of these materials to areas which don't have them. And industrial areas have
to import materials which they don't have locally which they need for their
products, but the imported raw materials should be a small portion of the total
raw materials used. Japan, for instance imports a lot of raw materials because
they have very little "raw material" there.
However, these activities are all taking place on a global scale, where these
raw materials do exist only in certain places in the world. I have a hard time
believing that the same circumstances will hold when you are shipping between
planets or systems. I would think *somewhere* on a planet or system there
would be a quantity of X. It may be produced in one place in a system, and
used in another place in system, but I doubt much would be shipped outsystem.
Various levels of development also have an effect on shipping. A colony
system, traditionally imports all it's manufactured goods, and can pay for them
only with raw materials; a colony will not have developed all it's resources
and industries. A developed system will probably be able to have developed
resources and industries and be relitively self sufficient, and will be
exporting manufactured goods. A system that has been settled for a *long*
time, like Terra, may have squandered all it's resources, and *have* to import
raw materials, like Japan does, and will have to be able to add sufficient
value to make it worthwhile.
Can we take this into account on shipping charts?
Jim Baranski