Its the monster of freight/passengers rules again. First of all the
rules were written for old Traveller and definitely should be
redone. My interpretation of the rules is that it cost 1000Cr/t for
freight, Cr10000 per High passenger, Cr 8000 per Middle pass etc
only for a Jump-1 in any direction. For longer distances I use a
sliding scale of (0.5*Jump distance) * J-1 + J-1 cost. So a J-2
freight costs twice as much as J-1 , while J-3 costs 2.5 times J-1,
while J-4 costs 3 times J-1 and so on. The TAS high passage
compensates you for only the first Cr10,000 of your journey.
Consider it a frequent traveller support service instead of a
freebie. It makes more sense to me that way.
Again consider the charge rates a guideline and players could
charge within +/-50% and could be given a +/- modifier in the
amount of passengers/freight they generate. It makes trade a little
more profitable and sensible. I also use the passengers rules
differently. I assume that a middle passenger will have to share
his stateroom with another middle passenger. It makes more sense in
that how would you undo a High passage room to a Mid Passage?
Besides a Stateroom is capable of holding two people so it makes
sense in that a High Pass is travelling 1st Class while Mid Pass is
travelling a little cramped in Business Class. Low is well...
Economy.
Looked at this way a J-4 ship gets to a location 4 parsecs away
atleast 4 times as faster as a J-1 ship and costs 3/4 of what a J-1
ship would charge. Thus there is some economic sense to upgrading
jump drives from the shippers point of view.
Ameer