Re: Imperial Economics

OK, I'm going to try to clarify the analysis I did on the Imperium last
week, but first I have some more data to throw into the mix.

The Feb 1992 issue of Railfan and Railroad has an article on the Duluth,
Missabe, and Iron Range railroad.  The DM&IR has been around (in one form
or another) for over 100 years, and makes its living doing one thing: hauling
iron ore down from the Minnesota mountains (the Missabe and Iron Range mountains
to be exact) to the Lake Superior ore docks at Duluth and Two Harbors.  In its
worst year (1932, during the Great Depression) the DM&IR carried 1,500,000 tons
of ore.  Ten years later, in 1942, its peak wartime haulage was 42,788,199
tons.  The all-time high occurred in 1953, during the post-war boom, and was
a record 49,317,625 tons of ore.  Current traffic is around 20,000,000 tons.
Iron ore (at first, soft iron ore; but recently taconite pellets) is a good
bit more dense than the MegaTraveller "average" of 1 ton per cubic meter.

Assuming a number of mines, a good mining planet should be able to produce
ore exports of this magnitude (let's say about a million tons a week).  Most
planets would probably pre-process the ore to some degree (taconite pellets
are the end-result of pre-processing low-grade iron ore; the DM&IR's
customers started shipping this when the soft iron ore played out in the
late 50's and 60's).  Assuming that taconite is about two metric tons
to the cubic meter (and I actually have no idea what its density is), then
about 80 of my "standard" shiploads are generated each week for the ore
trade.

Now to get on to those questions.  First off, what about my starport
traffic breakdowns?  In particular, why do Class A ports handle so much of
the load?  Isn't the major distinction between a Class A and B port the
presence of starship building capability?

Well, yes.  The difference between a Class A and a Class B port is, by
definition, that the A port can build starships and the B cannot.  However,
we need to answer the question "Why doesn't every TL-9+ planet have a
starship construction capability?  After all, they have the technical
knowledge".  In the vast majority of cases, the answer has to be that it is
not economically feasable; in other words, such a yard would not make a
profit, given the expense of setting up and running one.  OK, so why can't
it make a profit?  Because there is a low demand for new ships.  One good
reason for this is that the yard is far enough off of the most important
and heavilly travelled trade lanes to make buyers hesitate.

Reversing the above argument, starship construction facilities are located
where the demand for new ships is highest.  Since I assumed that 90% of the
demand for new ships is to replace old ships, it follows that the highest
demand is where the largest numbers of ships are.  The largest number of
ships is likely to be at major producers or consumers of goods (generally
high population, high tech worlds) or at trade junction points, where
long-distance trade converges or crosses.

Therefore, Class A ports probably have the highest trade activity, too.

The logic for Class B ports is similar; they are located where the demand for
starship overhauls is high, but where the demand for new ships is not as
high.  These worlds are probably on trade routes, or are important enough
that many ships call, but not as much as the Class A ports.

Class B ports are ones that "almost" make Class A, but for some factor.
Trade activity is high, but not as high as that around a Class A port.

I decided that Class C ports were "average" (and this category probably
exhibits the largest variation in trade level of any of the categories).
Not enought traffic to justify construction of Class B or A shipyards, but
enough trade that all of the basics are present.

As Class B ports are to Class A, so are Class D to Class C.  For one reason
or another, these ports just don't measure up.

Class E are substandard; presumably there is not enough trade to justify the
expense of installing anything but the most minimal of facilities.  Remeber
that a Class E port is as low as it can get and still be considered a
functional port.

Class X indicates no port present.  I probably set the traffic level way too
high.  Alternatively, you can assume that these ships are "just passing
through" on their way to another destination, and have stopped for wilderness
refueling or as a midpoing layover on a double jump.

You can play around with the numbers; I think I provided enough information
that anyone can set some trade percentages and come up with some new traffic
levels.  The major point to remember is that Starports exist to support a
level of trade; they will be as large and comprehensive (and expensive) as
the customer base can support.

It bears pointing out that the levels of trade vary dramatically from one
region to another.  For example, the Solomani Rim sector has 25% of the
starship construction capacity in mapped space.  Old Expanses is next with
14%, while the Spinward Marches is somewhere around the middle with 2%.
Zarushag is at the bottom with 0.12%.  For reference, Core is about even with
the Marches (2%) while Vland is slightly better (3%), and Deneb is near the
bottom with 0.35%.  The tech level distribution also varies widely; although
the Massilia sector has only 4% of the starship construction capacity, it has
35% of the TL-16 Class A ports.

The Imperial tax rate came from some information given in Striker Book 2.
On page 38, it mentions that "The average expenditure of a nation or world
on its military is 3% of its GNP", and later mentioned that "On Imperial
worlds, roughly 30% of the total military budget goes to the Imperium for
maintenance of the Imperial military".  From my feelings about the way
the Imperium worked, I decided that the Imperial budget was mainly
defense spending, and created a budget accordingly.  I *DID* warn you that
it was made up out entirely out of my own head, didn't I?  I got the 1% figure
from 0.9% (military spending; actually 0.8856% as of the last budget) and
about 0.1% (non-military programs; actually 0.1144% in the budget).

"Local Credits" were converted to "Imperial Standard Credits" using the table
on page 39 of Striker (a matrix of TL and Starport type; no, I'm not going
to type it in right now, its already late).  Imperial Credits were assumed to
be based on a TL-15, Port A standard.

The Gross Planetary Products were created using the same rules (Page 38 of
Striker Book 2).  A base per-capita GPP is given (2kCr at TL-5, +2kCr per
TL over TL-5) on a table, and multiplied by the population of the world.
Six multipliers applied, depending on the trade status of the world (for
example, multiply the GPP of "Rich" worlds by 1.6).

In general, I thought the GPP rules to be reasonable.  The taxation rule is
a little over-simplified, but not bad.  If these rules are ever revised,
more multipliers might not be a bad idea, and taxation modifiers for
government type would also be a good ting.

The starport capacity figures are taken from Trillion Credit Squadron, where
they were created for an entirely different purpose.  (Actually, I am quite
shure that the TCS starport capacity figures were never meant to apply to
civillian shipping, and are *QUITE*WRONG* the way I have used them).  On the
other hand, they are also the only things available.

A table is given of government types and multipliers.  To figure the port
capacity, multiply the world population by the multiplier, and divide by
1000 (TCS, page 33).

On the other hand, I believe the construction time table given on the same
page is probably still accurate.

By the way, the analysis I originally posted, along with three statistical
abstracts of the data I used (basic frequency tables, sector statistics, and
starport/tech breakdowns) are currently stored in files here in my account.
Given these files, just about anyone with a spreadsheet program could do the
kind of speculation I have been doing.

Unfortunately, I do not have FTP access from here.  Does anybody want to
have me E-Mail them there, so you can put them up on a FTP server?

Wildstar

"... I'll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon!" -- Pink Floyd