A couple of interestng (and perhaps non-obvious) things follow from my analysis
of the shipbuilding capacity of the Imperium. The most important is that
the volume of shipping is *INVERSELY* dependent on the size of the ships used
to carry it. This is because larger ships require more of a shipyard's
capacity, in addition to taking longer to construct! When I calculated my
shipping volume, I assumed an "average" mix of ships, taking the same amount
of starship resources as one 10,000 ton vessel, and yeilding 1 ship per
million ton-weeks of shipbuilding capacity, with an average displacement of
6,250 tons per vessel (and presumably about 3,125 tons of cargo capacity).
Recomputing with 200-ton traders would result in over 3.3 times the total
volume of shipping (and presumably a similar increase in cargo capacity).
The Trillion Credit Squadron rules I used were probably never meant to apply
to civillian, merchant shipbuilding capacity; I used them because they were
the only ones available. Better rules should include multipliers to the
capacity based on Tech Level and trade categories, as well as for Population
and Government Type. Similarly, the trade through a port should be dependent
on the world's population, government type, law level, tech level, and trade
categories, and astrographic location, as well as its starport type.
Nevertheless, let us proceed boldly into the fray. I computed an "average"
Class A port as handling 27.3 million tons of shipping in a week. This would
include all imports, exports, and trans-shipments. Halving this number gives
an estimate of the total *CARGO* volume (remember, I was using the total volume
of the ships involved): 13.65 million tons a week. For simplicity's sake,
I will assume that 50% of this is imports, with the balance being exports and
trans-shipments; this gives us a final figure of 6.8 million tons of imports
per week. For comparison, US imports of 31.5 million tons works out to about
0.6 million tons per week (I've been working in Displacement Tons all along).
If the US is taken to be an "average" Class A world, the Traveller shipyards
can maintain this level of trade (in terms of constructing and maintaining
the starships) even if the ships are as large as an average of 50,000 tons.
However, if the US is taken to be an "average" TL-7/8 world (and therefore
much more probably a Class B or even Class C port), then the major Imperial
worlds (with tech levels in the 14 to 15 range, and Class A starports) could be
doing 10 to 20 *TIMES* the trade of the US.
While these volumes of trade are not enough to supply a world with the staples
of life, it is more than enough to make a massive difference in the tech level
and quality of life (excercise: look around and mentally "remove" everything
that has been imported from overseas; remember that some components that you
take for granted may be imported - like the DRAM in your computer).
Major gaming effects:
o Worlds (small outposts and stations excepted) is probably self-sufficent
in terms of staples (air, water, basic foods, fuel) although the production
or distribution of these may involve imported equipment or skills.
o A majority of the available consumer goods are likely to be imported (or
produced primarily for the export market, depending on whether the world
is primarily an importer, like the US, or an exporter, like Japan).
o A busy port will have many hundreds, up to thousands, of ships operating
around it; probably at a large number of separate facilities (the World
Builder's Handbook provides quite nicely for this). A port is likely to
be as busy as a major US airport, with vessels arriving and departing
every two to fifteen minutes.
o Even the sleepiest of ports will have a flow of traffic; anywhere from a
ship a day to one every couple of weeks.
Rebellion effects:
o Destruction of shipbuilding capacity has a long-term effect; if the yard
is not rebuilt, the effect becomes cumulative as worn-out ships are not
replaced. The average starship will become older and less reliable, as
ships are kept in service due to a lack of replacements.
o Destruction of ships has an immediate effect; even if all shipyards are
left intact, because of the long time needed to construct any ship.
Replacements are likely to be smaller ships, because they can be built
faster, and with fewer shipyard resources.
Wildstar
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