Well, first off FF&S2 is NOT CT.

My major point is that MT 'folded, bent, spindled, & mutilated' CT in a way that was completely unnecessary as the system worked just fine except that, in this case, amongst many other changes DGP fomented, they found it desirable to 'pump up the volume' wrt trade.

The FF&S's were a gearheads dream but a nightmare of complication w/ all sorts of problems that were detailed on this very list many years ago. I don't doubt that FF&S will yield figures that support MegaTrav's 'MegaTrade' as I imagine that that was exactly what it was designed to do, amongst other things

I believe that 1000dT J2 merchantman could handle the trade from Oz'. About 280-300 trips/year. And w/ the increased flexibility that more ships would provide. Sending out a few monster loads a year does have disadvantages in that respect. Even if all that meat is going to just one destination? Which I would doubt.
And this volume could definitely be handled by larger merchantmen w/ even higher cargo cap.
And that's *If* such a trade could really be sustained in the TU, which I doubt as, unlike the Earth the TU is not bound by an upper TL limit of 8 or 9. Which I believe changes things quite a bit.
As I've said before the analog 'tween the TU & current conditions here on Earth is NOT, & in fact, can NOT, be exact.

p.s. hasn't OZ' become much more industrialized than it was 100 years ago? How about 150 or 200 years ago?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sun, 8/24/14, Ian Whitchurch <ian.whitchurch@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] expected ship traffic
 To: tml@simplelists.com
 Date: Sunday, August 24, 2014, 11:24 PM

 Phil,
 The fuel
 purifiers and scoops make roughly zero difference to the
 economics of the ship - they are within the 1%
 "slop" thats gone to self-defense and that doesnt
 really change the economics of the ship at all (plus here
 for Andrew Vallance's High Guard ship creation
 program).

 Yes, you have reservations
 about whether this ship is required, because you dont
 understand just how much volume of stuff worlds produce -
 lets take, for example, the Tasmanian beef
 industry.

 http://www.kingisland.tas.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/KIAFSG%20final%20report%2017%20Jun.pdf

 Lets assume that,
 somewhere, there are people with a taste for Tasmanain beef,
 and are willing to pay Imperial Credits to get it. One
 imperial credit per kilo, in fact. Call it 1000 kilos per
 m3, and call it KCr10 per dton.

 At least per FFS2, it's
 easily going to be cheaper to import meat at a Cr1 per kilo
 than it is to upgrade your life support system to produce
 meat. With CT, it's *handwave* *handwave* "life
 support costs" *handwave*.

 Now,Tasmanian cattle
 farmers are currently being paid roughly $4000/ton for their
 beef ... in local currency, which doesnt buy starships,
 hitech weaponery and all the other things a TL8 culture
 wants. Trust me, in Imperial Credits, you'd be paying
 Cr400 a ton, maximum, or KCr 4 a dton (and check the
 CT-canon exchange rates in Trillion Credit Squadron or
 Striker for some not-bad numbers).

 Tasmania exported 24
 kilotons of beef last year, plus 7 kilotons of sheep meat.
 Thats 31 kton, or call it 3100 dtons. Lets see, a 200dton
 Far Trader a week, moving 80 dtons or so, moves that with
 some space left over.

 On the other hand,
 Australia exported 1.4 megatons, or 140 000
 dtons.
 Remember, this
 is just beef and sheep meat going from an Ag planet to
 non-Ag planets. No minerals. No booze, No grain. Nothing
 else.

 From what we know of trade
 patterns now, just the meat trade, going from an Ag world to
 various worlds without biospheres, at a target price to the
 customer of ICr1 per kilo, will be enough to support
 multi-kiloton cargo ships.

 On Mon,
 Aug 25, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) <nobody@simplelists.com>
 wrote:

 This email was sent from yahoo.com which does not allow
 forwarding of emails via email lists. Therefore the
 sender's email address (philpugliese@yahoo.com)
 has been replaced with a dummy one. The original message
 follows:

 I don't think a 10kTon ship w/ 6kTon cargo is
 really in the same class as the immense bulk carriers I
 recall from MT.

 I certainly would NOT call it that.

 But, I think that it could qualify as a 'massive'
 commercial vessel.

 I also would have reservations about whether or not a
 commercial vessel this large would really be required.

 But, if it was, I don't think there'd be much need
 for an armed version as I would doubt that it would be
 needed to service anything other than established hi-pop
 worlds. I'd also dispense w/ the fuel scoops &
 purification plant.

 IMO, though, there would be more demand for passenger space
 & so I'd swap reduce cargo space accordingly &
 also have J2 & J3 versions.

 --------------------------------------------

 On Sun, 8/24/14, Ian Whitchurch
 <ian.whitchurch@gmail.com>
 wrote:

  Subject: Re: [TML] expected ship traffic

  To: tml@simplelists.com

  Date: Sunday, August 24, 2014, 8:32 PM

  One reason

  massive military starships exist in Classis Trav is
 because

  size is an important defense in High Guard, because of
 the

  "automatic criticals is size smaller than weapon

  factor" rule.

  Lets take, for example, this

  commercial starship

  Ship: Jacques

  CoeurClass: ConsignerType: Cargo

  HaulerArchitect: Iniigi TalanakaTech

  Level: 11

  USP       

   AK-K521243-070000-80007-0 MCr 4,220.919 10

  KTonsBat Bear                 5      

   1     1   Crew: 66Bat  
            

            5        1     1   TL: 11

  Cargo: 6,045 Passengers: 12

  Low: 30 Emergency Low: 80 Fuel: 2,200 EP: 200 Agility:
 1

  Shipboard Security Detail: 10Craft: 1 x 50T

  NoneFuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel

  Purification

  Backups: 1 x Model/4 Computer

  Architects Fee: MCr 42.209   Cost

  in Quantity: MCr 3,376.735

  It'll shrug off a lot of laser

  fire. On the other hand, it's fac 8 missile bay
 will

  break a small pirate in half - and thats only
 allocating

  about 1% of ship volume to defense, the equivalents of
 2

  turrets on a 200 dton ship.

  This ship is more-or-less

  self-escorting, and still comes in at 60% cargo by volume
 at

  jump-2, and has 1 crewman per 100 dtons of cargo ...
 while

  built at TL11.

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