On 08Sept2023 0632, Christopher Sean Hilton - chris at vindaloo.com (via
tml list) wrote:
> The Traveller rules left out a lot of things that have become common
> today. In particular, containerized cargo was just becoming really
> big in the world in the 1970s and 1980s. My imagination says that
> those lessons aren't lost as we become a spacefaring society.

My assmuption is that trade between populous worlds in developed and
peaceful subsectors is dominated by huge modular ships that jump from
jump limit to jump limit, never moving 'down' to the worlds' orbits.
They are refuelled and maintained by stations sitting at the 100
diameter limit that also deal with supporting the tugs, lighters,
fuelers, etc. that this model requires.

The ships and stations are run and owned by megacorps like Tukera. As
the stations and jump ships are outside 100 diameters of any worlds,
they're in Imperial jurisdiction and local laws do not apply, but as
we're talking rich and powerful worlds and the sources of trade and fuel
*are* in local jurisdiction, don't think that the corp won't turn over
fugitives unless their administrators can see profit in not doing so.

In the inner Imperium Tukera had an effective monopoly on this sort of
trade, and for some worlds if you pissed off Tukera and didn't own your
own ship, you weren't going anywhere (of course in the Imperial
frontiers this happens too, because some corp just outright owns the place).

Off the main routes smaller ships move containerised freighto, or for
minor worlds and out in less settled regions, the 'loose' cargo and
freight that the *Traveller* rules generally deal with. For much of the
Imperial core these 'smaller' ships will still be quite large, and owned
by a megacorp or some 'not-quite-mega' corp (that quite possibly is
largely or wholly owned the locally dominant megacorp). These ships
would go directly to the worlds' orbits, rather than relying on a
massive extra-orbital infrastructure. Worlds without highports don't
rate this level of service, and have to rely on the small 'adventurer'
sized traders and haulers.

> Also, the revisions to the Traveller rules obsoleted a bunch of CT
> canon. In my opinion, the biggest loser here was book two designed
> ships. I cannot imagine that every ship in the Imperium doesn't have
> a jump-governor and a fuel purification plant. The economic value of
> these two pieces of equipment is just too high for them not to be
> cheap and thus common. Also, unless there's some hidden downside to
> Book 5 designed ships that makes them suitable for military use
> only, I can't imagine a Book 2 Type S holding it's value against the
> exact same ship designed to Book 5. I find this true for all of the
> Book 2 designs. Even then, the Navy has logistics problems. It's
> going to have a set of cargo hauler and courier designs that would be
> both vastly more profitable and more capable than their Book 2
> civilian equivalents. If the Navy ever decides to sell some of these
> designs as surplus, one can imagine them taking over the market.

Part of the problem here is a tendency to design everything at TL14-15
when using Book 5, when TL12 is probably a better reflection of the sort
of capability most Book 2 ships would have. That said, a fair number of
Book 2 ships don't work if you don't do this (while others end up
hilariously more capable). And this then led to MegaTraveller, where if
you didn't design many ships at TL15 they just didn't work, and even
TL15 ships that Book2 or Book 5 could comfortably design ended up
insanely tight.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>