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** TRADE & COMMERCE DIGEST: Cargo, freight, and passenger issues. **
** All followups on this topic should be sent to **
** [email removed]. They will be edited for clarity **
** and resent to the Traveller Mailing List in a following digest. **
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Subjects in today's digest:
Welcome, and a call for input
Ideas for Speculative Trade
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From: James T. Perkins [email removed]
Subject: Welcome, and a call for input
Now we have a second digest -- the Trade & Commerce Digest. This also
grew out of the call for volunteers that I sent out a few weeks ago.
The topic coordinator for this discussion is GREG GIVLER, who has
graciously offered to to coordinate Starship Cargo, Freight, and
Passenger issues. Let's hear it for Greg!
The Trade and Commerce Digest will start by discussing a replacement for
the MegaTraveller/Merchant Prince system for generating and pricing
random cargo for Starship Trade. Greg will collect your contributions
on this topic (assuming you're one of the listees who's interested
enough in the topic to participate), edit them for clarity, and send
them out to the entire Traveller Mailing List in the Digest. He'll
attempt to lead the discussion and try to organize all the input into a
more cohesive whole.
As with the Star System Digest, Those of you uninterested in the topic
will be able to quickly recognize and delete the digests, and your mail
traffic will not be greatly increased, due to the digesting.
There has been a lot said about the "Trade Item Generation" tables in
the various editions of Traveller.
The original, rather simplistic model contained a table of items and
prices. Any cargo item was equally likely to occur. The costs/prices
were modified by die modifiers listed for each item. The profit margin
could fluctuate between 40 and 400% of the base price, depending on
player skill and luck of the die.
The Merchant Prince system, also used in MegaTraveller, contains a table
of items for each possible world trade class, so different items have
different likelihoods of appearing. It also contains an interesting
mechanism for classifying cargos as requiring "special handling", i.e.
it is flammable, alive, or corrosive.
However, many have voiced unhappiness about both systems. There are
those who would take this modular piece out of Traveller and replace it
with a new mechanism. Hence this digest. [As an aside, isn't it neat
how Traveller is designed very modularly in this instance?]
The following is the first digest, which I have done for Greg as an
example. Greg will start collecting your input for digest volume 2
immediately.
As a beginning, I'd like interested parties to LIST THE REASONS WHY YOU
LIKE AND DISLIKE THE TWO EXISTING METHODS of cargo generation, and SEND
THEM TO GREG. That way we can start to specify the requirements for a
new system. At the risk of jumping the gun, Mark Power has a partial
solution to the problem below. IMHO, I think we need to take a giant
step backward before we go forward.
Thanks again, Greg, for your contribution to this discussion.
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From: "MARK A. POWER" [email removed]
Subject: Ideas for Speculative Trade
PURCHASING
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1) Determine number of available cargos. Dependent on starport and
population?
2) Determine specific cargos. Involves a certain amount of searching
on the part of the players. Referee rolls on appropriate table for
trade class. If multiple classes, could be
1) Ref's choice
2) Player's choice
3) Random
Table would have base sale price for this trade class and amount
available. Neither 5 tons of grain nor 200 tons of lanthanum makes
a lot of sense. It might also be necessary to institure Tech Level
limitations at this point.
3) Determine base asking price. Roll on table to determine price, say
range of 50% to 150% of base. Add any other modifiers (TL,
population, etc.). This is a complexity I'd rather avoid, but its
probably necessary. Note that I'd like to make all modifiers
percentages, not die modifiers. A table that runs from 40% to 400%
is a bit much, and fixed amounts are simply ridiculous.
4) Contact owner (or agent) and haggle over price. This step could be
a lot of fun. If an especially choice item, you could institute a
bidding war for it at this point. If using MT, this is a negotiation
task. If using Traveller Classic, we'd have to come up for a rule
for this. Either way, the result would be a modifier in the range
of +/-30% or so.
5) Determine whether or not to buy. This can be postponed until this
point since the referee, not the players, have the table that has
the resale values. The players will know if they got a bargain
based on local prices, but not on an absolute basis.
6) Determine delivery date. Allow rush delivery at, say, 10% per day.
At this time, determine any special handling characteristics. I'd
allow them to look it up earlier, or ask during negotiations, but
this is where they find out if they don't think to ask.
SALE
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1) Find a buyer. Again, he's unlikely to come up and knock on the
airlock. How long it takes (and how many you find) is based on
starport and population.
2) Determine base offering price. Take base resale value from master
table, apply appropriate modifiers from master table, roll on
random value table (same table as in 3 above.)
3) Select buyer and negotiate price. See step 4 above.
4) Decide to sell or not.
5) Deliver as appropriate. (In step 3, you agreed to deliver, and he
just didn't mention he's in a war zone. Or the Teamsters are on
strike.)
(Note that I've gotten no direct feedback on most of this, so it may
not be what everyone is looking for.)
Passengers & Freight:
If someone wants to suggest something concrete, I'd love to hear them.
There was some discussion a few weeks ago, but I didn't follow it
closely, nor have I put much thought into this, as what we've got
seems to get us by.
Agricultural
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Item Base Cost Quantity Modifiers TL(?)
1. Grain Cr 300 4Dx10 - -
2. .
3. .
4. .
MASTER CARGO TABLE
---- Resale ----
Item Value Modifiers Source Worlds
Grain Cr500 Ag -30% Ag
Hi Pop +20%
Notes:
Generally shipped in bulk: cargo hold must be devoted to
grain, and have installed a special liner. Explosive:
Air in hold must be filtered to remove grain dust, or
replaced with an inert gas. Failure to do so will result
any spark or flame causing an explosion.
(I don't know, think I should pick a different example, or has this
one been covered so thoroughly that it *can't* cause anymore
discussion? :-)
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End of TRADE & COMMERCE DIGEST