Date: 6 December 1990, 10:50:59 EST
From: MKTESWX at GSUVM1
To: TRAVELLER at METOLIUS.WR.TEK.COM
Subject: Why Trade? Or, the Tail Wagging the Dog.
I'll try to keep this short (ha!). I have a major problem with the people who
keep posting messages telling me why trade won't work in Traveller (or TDR) and
therefore should be dropped. I assume you want to keep the "look and feel" of
Traveller (large interstellar governments, interstellar Travel, etc), and to do
that you *MUST* have trade.
If interstellar trade in impractical, there is no economic connection between
systems unless one is a captive colony of the other, and there is very little
reason for a system to have these colonies (barring Religious Destiny). There-
fore, no peaceful cooperation, no interstellar government, no passenger
traffic, etc. Traveller is now set in ONE highly developed star system. I
think we have a problem here ;).
Fortunately, we don't even have to change very much of MT to make interstellar
shipping a prosperous ongoing business. We just have to look at the numbers
from a new direction. First, let's look at the value (Man. Sug. Retail Pr) of
a "typical" cargo, say one ton of metalworking tools. A metalworking tool kit
displaces 50l and sells for 1500Cr. One tn=14 cub. m.=14000l. Assume packing
materials are incredibly inefficient and occupy 40% of available volume, you
still have 8400l of cargo space = 168 kits = 252000Cr. If shipping accounts
for only 5% of final cost (less than it does for most goods currently shipped
internationally) then a starship must be able to make a typical run for 12600
credits per ton of mean cargo carried. I haven't generated typical expenses
for a free trader or far trader, but somehow I don't think this will be a
problem <g,d,&r>.
Obviously, the only problem with making trade in MT profitable is that the
cargo and freight rates have been grossly underestimated. Perhaps noone ever
built a 14 cubic meter crate and filled it with trade goods?
BTW, the metalworking tool kit is NOT particularly high pr/vol item. Try
doing this with clothing, or vacc suits, or any other item on the equipment
lists. Even bulk chemicals, such as Water Dyes.
The best news is that the ship design folks seem to be on the verge of deciding
that fuel consumption is far too high unless most of that is tossed out the
back as reaction mass for the maneuver drive. This makes fuel cost for Jump
relatively small, increasing the relative profitability of interstellar trade
(not to mention making higher jump trading vessels more practical).
BTW, in case you haven't noticed, I'll be joining the Trade & Commerce SIG.
Everett