[I thought I sent this, but I didn't see it on the list. Apologies if
this is a duplicate]
>> Finally, has anyone come up with a pricing scheme that prices cargoes on
>> distance as well as tonnage (and tried it out?) ?
>
>When the Royal Mail was first set up by the Victorians, a study was done
>(famous chap, can't remember the name), that discovered that, due to the
>statistics of distance letter were sent, a single flat rate could be
>applied reguardless of distance. You gained on short distance mail, but
>lost on the long distance stuff.
The problem is; a) The same companies aren't shipping short and long
distance, b) In shipping (which costs alot more than simple mail)
people who ship short distances are going to be ill inclined to
subsidize the long distance shippers.
>
>In Traveller Cargo is shifted at Cr1000/ton per Jump. If fuel costs are
>ignored, then the overheads are the same if you do a jump-1 or a jump-6!
First of all, you can't igore fuel costs (yes you can get if for free
at a gas giant, but you spend more in playing the crew to get out there
than you save, and that doesn't take into account costs of streamlining
and purification). Second of all, the biggest cost in shipping is paying
off the cost of the ship and maintianing it (by a big margain) and these
are certainly not going to be the same.
The biggest problem I have with the way things are set up is , the rich
corporations are going to be the ones making the short jumps while
the ones making longer jumps are the ones just scrapping by. This
is the opposite of how things are described.