Future of 1977 -vs- Future of 2010?

[PFVA63]

Hi

With regards to humaniform robots, I'd suspect that form would follow function to some degree. Specifically if I want a robot to be able to do only certain specific tasks then I would expect its form to be closely optimized to that function. As such, I would think that if you want a speciallized item then a human form might not be most efficient.

However, if you want something with a great deal of flexibility, capable of interfacing with any tool, or piece of equipment that a human might use then a human-like form would seem advantageous.

Specifically;

• if I want a robot that can go all the places I go, then I'd suspect that it will have to be reasonably similar in size (+ or - a certain amount) to a person
• if I want it to be able to use the same tools as me, including anything from high tech weapons to simple hand tools, then having at least a pair of hands similar in function to a human would seem most useful, and a set of visual sensors in near proximity to the same location as human eyes (so that the robot can use to same scopes, or other visual aids as a human) would also make sense
• additionally, while there might be better modes of travel than legs, in order for a robot to be able toat least go over the same terrain as a human while also being able to pilot the same craft as a man (such as a ship a plane, or a space ship) which will probably be arranged to be piloted by a person potentially using both arms and legs for controls, then a robot with both arms and legs (in more or less similar locations to a humnans) would seem most useful.

As such, if a robot is meant to be multifunction and interface with all (or many) of the same items that a human does, making it relatively humanform would seem to me to be the best way to have its form follow its function. Or for other species, having a multifunction robot similar to there own form, would also seem to make sense to me.

[Edit]
I guess one way to look at it would be if I were playing in a universe that allows robots and I wanted one to assist with piloting my starship. If a robot was only needed to pilot then in general, I guess it probably wouldn't need to look like a robot at all, as you could just have a box with an artificial brain or computer which you could hardwire into your sensors and controls. As such it would be very simple and wouldn't have to be humanform. However, it also probably wouldn't be of any use in doing anything else on the ship (such as repairing machinery or life support and plumbing systems, assisting in attending the passengers, or assisting in loading/unloading cargo, etc), when not needed for piloting.

To do that you would need other robots or crew members and some of these tasks (such as preparing food or repairing machinery & systems) might best be handled by a robot or person capable of handling the same tools as a human, so that there is no need to have two completely different sets of tools or interfaces. Additionally, since a single multi-purpose robot would likely need to be able to travel throughout a ship, in order to perform these varied functions, it would probably make sense to have it of a similar size to a human (+ or - a certain amount), so that it could fit through the same accesses and passageways.

Similarly on modern ships and aircraft etc, it is not uncommon to use audio and visual alarms to alert the passengers and crew to dangers. As such, even if the robot has sensors for picking up stuff that humans can't (such as high pitched or low pitched noises or infrared light, etc) it will probably also need to be able to pick up signals in the same spectra as humans as well to ensure that it can recognize these alarms.

As such, for such a multi-purpose robot, something human form might not be such a bad idea as it could easily fit within the pilot seat using existing controls when needed as a pilot, but it could also maneuver through the ship in the same way that a human would if needed to perform a duty elsewhere, and it could use existing human tools and or interfaces when repairing faulty plumbing, unclogging pipes, changing filters, inspecting systems, and/or serving food to the passengers and cleaning up after them, etc.

[End Edit]

Just some thoughts.

Regards

PF

 

[BlackBat242]

I completely agree.



That makes perfect sense to me & I see no contradiction - I assume that in CT & MT, they are talking about PCs & not the norm. I'd estimate that in the Imperium 90% of interstellar cargo trade is bulk carriers carrying large amounts of freight from on populous star system (typically with a class A or B starport) to another such system. These ships are corporate owned ships piloted by NPCs. PCs do the remaining 10% - speculative cargoes, freight shipments to or from (or to & from) less populous worlds with lower end starports. PCs aren't carrying cargoes from Regina to Rhylanor. PCs in a 200-400 ton ship won't get a contract for that (except perhaps smuggling), because the contracts for such choice (but dull) cargo runs are held by large corporations that send 5,000 ton (or larger) ships to carry those cargoes. PC merchants are by their nature out on the fringes - doing smuggling, speculative cargoes, and small freight runs that aren't large enough, reliable enough or profitable enough for the large corporations. This is as it should be, because the last thing PC merchant campaigns should be is dull & routine.

For examples, Andre Norton's Solar Queen novels are perfect examples and include the same distinction between dull but profitable corporate cargo runs and interesting, economically riskier, & sometimes dangerous free trader cargo runs.

But isn't GTFT supposed to be about PC Free Traders? Then it also should be modeling speculative trade.

I don't have the book, but the discussion here seems to indicate that GTFT is applying the mass-market commercial-order contract-freight model to the PCs, right?

 

[aramis]

But isn't GTFT supposed to be about PC Free Traders? Then it also should be modeling speculative trade.

I don't have the book, but the discussion here seems to indicate that GTFT is applying the mass-market commercial-order contract-freight model to the PCs, right?

Not exactly. It explicitly says that PC traders are picking up the crumbs and filling the tiny gaps left unfilled by the big lines; both with speculation and with unscheduled passenger and freight services.

In short, PC scale ships' shipping functionally is immaterial to the vast majority of worlds in the TU of GTFT.

 

[Whipsnade]

The only reason I can think of for using humaniform 'bots is their ability to use human-intended tools and vehicles without modification. It can sit down in a jeep, drive to a location, grab the tool kit in the back, and do the job. Is that 'generalism' valuable enough to offset the lower cost of a purpose-built mechanic-bot? No. But it probably offsets the cost of a series of purpose-built mechanic-bots and chef-bots and agro-bots and...

Zutroi,

You and too many others are making the same mistake all those 19th Century engravers who depicted "automobiles" made: You are assuming that "domestic infrastructure" will remain the same that it is now.

They forecast that the mechanical horse would pull a buggy because real horses pulled buggies, they forecast that the driver would control the mechanical horse with reins because drivers controlled real horse with reins, and you're forecasting that a domestic robot will push a vacuum cleaner because a domestic servant pushes a vacuum cleaner.

In actuality, a domestic robot will be a vacuum cleaner or, more accurately, part of a domestic robot will be a vacuum cleaner. Furthermore, it will be difficult to even find a vacuum cleaner that can be operated by a human.

This same paradigm will hold true for your other examples and the examples that routinely get raised. Robots that drive jeeps will be vanishingly rare while robots that are jeeps will be so commonplace as to be unnoticed. Maintenance/repair tool kits that can be used by humans will be rare because maintenance/repair robots will have their own integral tools. The automobile didn't "fit" into the preexisting horse & buggy "domestic infrastructure", instead the automobile created it's own new "domestic infrastructure" and robots will most certainly do the same.

I often use the example of a 57th Century apartment/condo/flat to get this point across. You and too many others examine the myriad of "domestic" jobs that need to be done daily in any human domicile and think of those jobs separately out of habit because we currently perform them separately. Hence your example of a chef-bot or mechanic-bot. In reality all those jobs are simply part of a whole.

You've seen an example of this is your lifetime as your television, computer, and DVR have slowly "grown together", just as your phone, PDA, and laptop have done and your stereo, computer, transistor radio have done. The same thing is going to happen with robots.

A 57th Century apartment/condo/flat is not going to contain a separate chef-bot, valet-bot, maid-bot, laundress-bot, and all the rest. A 57th Century apartment/condo/flat is going to be a seamless chef-bot, valet-bot, maid-bot, laundress-bot, and all the rest. In fact, the building which contains that 57th Century apartment/condo/flat and hundreds of other is going to be that multi-purpose robot.

Naturally, this "robot permeated" existence will not be found on all the worlds of the 57th Century. Only those worlds which can develop, produce, and maintain the systems required will have it and, as the canonical Society for the Sovereignty of Man over Machine explicitly suggest, there will be worlds which flatly choose not to do so. However, the inhabitants of any planet of sufficient wealth and tech level will live in the "robot permeated" world I've described. What's more, they won't even notice just how often they interact with robots in their daily lives.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

SImply put, Jim, Blue, and Chris have all stated they don't believe speculation significantly different from freight.

They are, respectfully, woefully ignorant of the historical modes of shipping before the telegraph; the majority of materials shipped by sea were high value consumer goods, and almost no staples of life. Food would rot in the trans-atlantic, trans pacific, and asia-europe trade flows; it did not go.
[Snip a lot more.]

That's a very impressive argument. I meant that literally. I'm very impressed with it and find myself unable to refute it.

The only thing that gives me pause is that "woefully ignorant" bit. Why would Jim and Chris be ignorant of the factors you're mentioning? I'd be very interested in hearing their side of the story.

Meanwhile, I'll assume that you're right and that the model in FT is wrong. That leads me to two questions:

First of all, do you have a better idea? If FT is wrong, what is the right way to do it?

If you do have a better idea, just skip the second question; there's no justification needed for choosing the more correct of two models.

But if not, tell me what's wrong wrong with FT. Does it lead to obvious contradictions of some kind? Because that would be bad. But does it? That is to say, if I use FT to figure out how many passengers travel back and forth between Forboldn and Knorbes in order to figure out how long the PCs can expect to wait before they can get from one to the other, and conclude that there is no regular trade between the two and that the few score tons of freight and half a dozen passengers per year has to rely on the occasional free trader, how can you tell that I'm mistaken? Or, to take an example that is less vulerable to random factors, if I work out the number of passengers between Regina and Rhylanor, presumably the number I'll get will be wrong, since I'm using a faulty model, but how can you tell? And if another author decides to work out the number of passengers between Rhylanor and Mora, isn't it better that he uses the same model that I do, so that at least we'll both be wrong the same way? Using Jim's model we may be getting nothing more than SWAGs, but without it, all we'd be getting would be WAGs, which would, I submit, be worse.


Hans

 

[jappel]

Aramis - in that one post you have very concisely made clear the things that have bothered me about GTFT since I first read it, but have been unable to clearly express beyond a sense that the authors were assuming current terrestrial communication models and times as opposed to the long travel & communication time inherent in Traveller (and the 3I).

 

[robject]

In actuality, a domestic robot will be a vacuum cleaner or, more accurately, part of a domestic robot will be a vacuum cleaner. Furthermore, it will be difficult to even find a vacuum cleaner that can be operated by a human.

This fits the OTU, with "invisible" robots "behind the scenes" engineered for specific duties (e.g. domestic) in specific forms.

Robots that drive jeeps will be vanishingly rare while robots that are jeeps will be so commonplace as to be unnoticed. Maintenance/repair tool kits that can be used by humans will be rare because maintenance/repair robots will have their own integral tools.

Put another way, vehicles will have brains, and maybe the vehicle mechanic robot has a "welding torch arm", for example. The agricultural research robot certainly won't be walking out to its remote site, and won't be carrying a toolbox with it: it will be on lifters, and carry its own tools like the Mars Rovers.

Put yet another way: the Kinunir was a robot starship. Insane, but still a robot starship (that opens up an interesting facet for Traveller roboticists).

A 57th Century apartment/condo/flat is not going to contain a separate chef-bot, valet-bot, maid-bot, laundress-bot, and all the rest. A 57th Century apartment/condo/flat is going to be a seamless chef-bot, valet-bot, maid-bot, laundress-bot, and all the rest.

Absolutely. The washing machine will probably not only have a brain, but also remote collectors which gathers dirty laundry (if laundry gets dirty or doesn't get recycled) and later distributes them to their cabinets. And so on. You probably won't even know where the washing machine is.

[...]the inhabitants of any planet of sufficient wealth and tech level will live in the "robot permeated" world I've described. What's more, they won't even notice just how often they interact with robots in their daily lives.

Absolutely.

One potential exception is where the robot's function approximates a person exercising people-skills. Most service industries don't require this, but some niches could use the sophont form because the robot is likely to interact with people in the way in which people interact with each other. I.E. an ultimate example of a purpose-designed robot is the robot who is designed for the purpose of working with humans as a human would.

So, while you can have a self-automated starship with a brain, you could also have a regular, dumb starship, whose astrogator is an android robot. Why you'd pick one over the other depends on lots of things, I suppose.

For that matter, you could have a chef-bot, even though this might be seen as quaint, quirky, or just bad taste. "Why have one of those things taking up space in your apartment?" Starting to sound like an episode of Seinfeld... but really, all this means is that the robot is not really a chef-bot, but rather a companion robot which also knows how to cook.

 

[jappel]

For that matter, you could have a chef-bot, even though this might be seen as quaint, quirky, or just bad taste. "Why have one of those things taking up space in your apartment?" Starting to sound like an episode of Seinfeld... but really, all this means is that the robot is not really a chef-bot, but rather a companion robot which also knows how to cook.

Or perhaps the standard apartment chef functions aren't up to the demanding palates of a serious foodie, or capable of handling the needs of sophont who aren't normally present on the world in question. Or even simply a marketing-driven fad. (See automated bread-makers.)

Nevertheless, Bill's point is well-taken, and examples like this would seem to fall into the realm of exceptional circumstances.

 

[Shonner]

I read through GURPS Traveller Far Trader last night and enjoyed the amount of detail put into it. The article about the Gravity Model is a 2-page GURPS sidebar in the book. Far Trader goes thick into describing what caused the collapse of the Rule of Man and what fixes were then needed in order to give the Third Imperium its great start.

Far "Free" Trading is not even discussed at this point. This is all explaination of commerical trading at 1 and 2% safe (low-risk) profit. Far Traders are more interested in high profit trading, so the book gets very involved in fleshing out how that is done exactly for the PC's. It describes the procedures for determining the trade value of items between worlds and their TL's and then the steps for jumping, orbiting, starport docking, unloading-loading to do it.

It even delves into hiring a crew (collecting working passengers, also), how to deal with alien traders and how they deal with traders of their own race, disasters and risks from transporting the different types of cargo detailed in the book, trading with plenty communication, trading with no communication (Frontier worlds), pretty much all the world types are listed on a trade chart, the Spinward Marches sector is included at the end of the book.

I see any player taking as much or as little as they want from the book. It's a great source book also for non-GURPS and non-Traveller players who are interested in adding some free trading to their SF RPG. Thus the high price of the book on Amazon one Far Trader is asking for.

I see the title coming back strong some day once it's released as PDF. Just bug SJGames to see that it is on their to-do list.

 

[aramis]

Hans:

Fixing it really requires redoing the base assumptions of how to figure WTN. Further, it's reliance upon fixed formulae basically means that one port of TL8 Pop 9 SP E is identical to every other... and Wypoc, Lanth generates a stead flow with a spot of rock and a beacon, in a corrosive atmosphere that makes loading and unloading high risk.

Fixing it is harder.

It doesn't just support large ship universes, it practically requires them. Either regina is getting 200+ type A/A2/A3 a day, or 1/3 as many with an equal number of Type R/R2/R3... or bigger ships are the norm. But the setting material tells us the Type A and Type R are the primary movers of cargo, and that 1000Td to 3000Td ships are the major liners. Well, Regina is pushing one of those Akerut/Oberlindes 3000 tonners every 3 hours... or something bigger still daily.

 

[Brian Smaller]

I think some of you missed the whole point of why the X-Boat network even exists. It exists to give a rational for every scout character to get an automatic Pilot-1 skill.

 

[rancke]

Fixing it is harder.

I'd rather have something that works after a fashion than nothing at all.

It doesn't just support large ship universes, it practically requires them. Either Regina is getting 200+ type A/A2/A3 a day, or 1/3 as many with an equal number of Type R/R2/R3... or bigger ships are the norm.

But that's not FT's fault. It's a logical ramification of the population sizes. Trade with limited communication may involve more speculative cargo than freight, but the speculators are still going to have 700 million customers on Regina to buy their speculative goods.

But the setting material tells us the Type A and Type R are the primary movers of cargo, and that 1000Td to 3000Td ships are the major liners.

It does? Where? The early material may imply that (or it may just imply that the ships that PCs are most likely to become involved with are Type As and Type Rs) but I'm unaware of any setting material that explicitly tells us anything like that.

Well, Regina is pushing one of those Akerut/Oberlindes 3000 tonners every 3 hours... or something bigger still daily.

Akerut used 5000 tonners. with those it would only be every 5 hours .

But I still don't see what's wrong with having a 25,000 T ship jump from Regina to Roup once a day with a couple of thousand passengers. Sure, we've never seen anything that big in any adventures to date, but then, one could write thick books about all the bits of the Traveller Universe that we haven't seen so far. Would the existence of such a monster liner ruin any canonical adventures? I don't think so. Would it ruin any canonical setting? I don't think so. Would it ruin anything? Not that I can spot. Would it, contrariwise, provided the same sort of potential for adventures that an ocean liner does? I do believe it might.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

This fits the OTU, with "invisible" robots "behind the scenes" engineered for specific duties (e.g. domestic) in specific forms.

Robject,

Exactly. This explains what some believe is the "lack" of robots in Traveller.

It's not that robots are rare. It's that only rare robots get noticed.

For that matter, you could have a chef-bot, even though this might be seen as quaint, quirky, or just bad taste.

Again, exactly. John's chef-bot example is an excellent one by the way.

Imagine Eneri and Gami chatting about how eccentric Uncle Larsen is for keeping a chef-bot while they enjoy a breakfast prepared by their apartment. They're eating a meal prepared by a robot but, because it is so very humdrum for your apartment to prepare meals, only Uncle Larsen's "stand alone" chef-bot get's talked about.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

I think some of you missed the whole point of why the X-Boat network even exists. It exists to give a rational for every scout character to get an automatic Pilot-1 skill.

No one is denying the existence of the X-boat network. Some of us just doubt its utility is all it's cracked up to be.


Hans

 

[aramis]

No one is denying the existence of the X-boat network. Some of us just doubt its utility is all it's cracked up to be.


Hans

It can't do what it is claimed to do, and what it can do, it could do FAR better.

As for FT, Hans, because they went in assuming what they did about the relationships of interstellar trade to on-world trade, FT's volumes are a foregone conclusion of their initial choices. (Much to Jim's public consternation; he was always a small ship universe man prior to working on GTFT.) So, yes, those ramifications are in fact part of the FT frame, caused by the initial assumptions leading to a choice of simulation that, at best, can only work "after a fashion" if one doesn't agree whole cloth with the frame assumptions.

A simple approximation of a fix:
1) limit trade between worlds by using the lower BTN rather than the sum of BTNs to determine the trade value of a pair.*
2) Reduce WTN by distance by 2x the factors given.
3) add a random factor to WTN. (2dF works nicely)

*More realistically, the local BTN should set the upper limit of all trade of the local world... not the lower bound.

AS for the Type A and R being the staples of trade:

Free trade is the most widespread type of interstellar commerce. Individual starships purchase goods on a speculative basis, carrying them and absorbing freight costs until the goods are sold. Such free trade practices are even possible without a starship, but most are carried out by the small tramp ships that wander from system to system, theoretically buying goods at low prices and selling them at high prices. Those which buy high and sell low don't stay in business for very long.
(CT S07 T&G, p18-19)​

In fact, GTFT asserts the exact opposite on both counts: nature of most common trade (Spec vs Cargo) and nature of carriers.

S7 p 18 also notes that long term supply trade uses ships up to hundreds of thousands of tons, but that that is almost exclusively established contract shipments (the implication is that these monstrous flows are megacorporate assets moving in-house on schedules).

As for low numbers of ships in port in CT: Speculation Without A Starship (BoJTAS 2, p3) shows 2d6-n where n is based upon starport type (A: 0; B: -1 ; C -2; D-4; E -6, X: -8). The Encounter Tables (TTB 75) give a 2/3 chance of an encouter in an A port system, of which more than half are merchants of type A or R (and smaller fraction are type M.)
In fact, 1/6 of all legs have encounters with Type R, 1/6 with type S, and 1/6 with type A; 5/36 are type M; 1/12 are yachts (Ty Y). Given that this is a 1-7 hour window, we'll use an average world (size 5) of 2 (M6) to 5 (M1) hours. Since the majority are M1, 5 hours. 5 windows per day. We should see in an A port 1 Type A/A2 enter/leave per 6 windows... in short, about 1 per day. Or about 7 in port in a week.

Under GTFT, Wypoc/lanth has that with an E-port

Those bulk freighters seem to be (per S7 and TTA) long haul of specialized resources, like bulk metal from asteroid belts to industrial worlds, and parts back.

They are rare enough not to happen on the encounter table (IE, less than 1/36 chance per leg).

 

[rancke]

As for FT, Hans, because they went in assuming what they did about the relationships of interstellar trade to on-world trade, FT's volumes are a foregone conclusion of their initial choices.

That may be, but I submit that the assumption it's a foregone conclusion of is 'people buy stuff, many people buy a LOT of stuff'. You're simply not going to get around the fact that Regina has 700 million potential customers, which implies a lot of imports.

So, yes, those ramifications are in fact part of the FT frame, caused by the initial assumptions leading to a choice of simulation that, at best, can only work "after a fashion" if one doesn't agree whole cloth with the frame assumptions.

You're wrong about this. Whatever simulation you chose would have to account for the existence of huge markets on high-population worlds.

AS for the Type A and R being the staples of trade:

Free trade is the most widespread type of interstellar commerce. Individual starships purchase goods on a speculative basis, carrying them and absorbing freight costs until the goods are sold. Such free trade practices are even possible without a starship, but most are carried out by the small tramp ships that wander from system to system, theoretically buying goods at low prices and selling them at high prices. Those which buy high and sell low don't stay in business for very long.
(CT S07 T&G, p18-19)​

As far as I'm aware, "widespread" denotes geographical (or in this case, astrographical) extent, not volume. Which conforms perfectly with a picture of free traders nosing into backwaters that corporations don't bother with and Big Business sticking to the trade routes. Early Traveller simply didn't deal very much with common trade. When it did (As in TA), it featured a feeder line with fifty 5000T freighters.

In fact, GTFT asserts the exact opposite on both counts: nature of most common trade (Spec vs Cargo) and nature of carriers.

The piece you quote can be interpreted to deal with uncommon trade (i.e. free trade as opposed to regularly sheduled freight). And as for spec vs. cargo, the CT trade system implies differently. If you visit medium or high population worlds, you get somewhere between 2 and 20 lots of freight but only one lot of speculative cargo.

It's true that if you visit low-population worlds, you sometimes don't get any freight at all but you always get one (and only one) lot of speculative cargo offered, even on zero-population worlds, but I think that's a bug, not a feature. (As, to be fair, is the rule ensuring that you only have one choice of cargo even on high-population worlds).

S7 p 18 also notes...

I can't find it. My copy of MP is a first edition; maybe that's why. Can you tell me the chapter heading and paragraph?

...that long term supply trade uses ships up to hundreds of thousands of tons, but that that is almost exclusively established contract shipments (the implication is that these monstrous flows are megacorporate assets moving in-house on schedules).

Well, what did you expect tens and hundreds of thousands of tons of freight to be carried by, if not by corporate assets carrying almost exclusively established contract shipments?

Now I'd like to direct your attention to the specific assignment tables of the character generation system (p. 23 in my copy). Assuming those assignments are roughly proportional to the volume of shipping devoted to each category, and ignoring results of 'Transfer Down', 'Charter', 'Special Duty', 'No business', 'Smuggling', and 'Piracy', we find that for Large Lines, 83% are engaged on an established route, 10% are engaged in speculative trade and 7% are engaged in exploratory trade. For Small Lines it's 50% established routes, 32% speculative trade and 18% exploratory. And for Free Traders it's 60% established routes, 15% speculative trade, and 25% exploratory.

So even free traders deal more with established routes than with speculative trade.

As for low numbers of ships in port in CT: Speculation Without A Starship (BoJTAS 2, p3) shows 2d6-n where n is based upon starport type (A: 0; B: -1 ; C -2; D-4; E -6, X: -8). The Encounter Tables (TTB 75) give a 2/3 chance of an encouter in an A port system, of which more than half are merchants of type A or R (and smaller fraction are type M.)
In fact, 1/6 of all legs have encounters with Type R, 1/6 with type S, and 1/6 with type A; 5/36 are type M; 1/12 are yachts (Ty Y). Given that this is a 1-7 hour window, we'll use an average world (size 5) of 2 (M6) to 5 (M1) hours. Since the majority are M1, 5 hours. 5 windows per day. We should see in an A port 1 Type A/A2 enter/leave per 6 windows... in short, about 1 per day. Or about 7 in port in a week.

What's an encounter? Is it merely spotting a ship or is it interacting with it in some significant way? I think it's the second.

Those bulk freighters seem to be (per S7 and TTA) long haul of specialized resources, like bulk metal from asteroid belts to industrial worlds, and parts back.

Seems? How do you figure that?

They are rare enough not to happen on the encounter table (IE, less than 1/36 chance per leg).

How often does a company ship even bother to acknowledge the existence of a free trader, let alone interact with it in any significant manner?

Nevertheless, I do agree that those encounter table could do with a revision.


Hans

 

[John Snead]

Not exactly. It explicitly says that PC traders are picking up the crumbs and filling the tiny gaps left unfilled by the big lines; both with speculation and with unscheduled passenger and freight services.

In short, PC scale ships' shipping functionally is immaterial to the vast majority of worlds in the TU of GTFT.

Which is true, regardless of whether you believe that most trade is speculative or not. The fact remains that typical PC ships range from 100 to (at most) 400 tons, with most PC merchants using 200 ton ships. In vivid contrast, the Imperium is a place where there are lots of large ships, and where the economics of constructing and powering a large ship are significantly cheaper per ton than for constructing and powering small PC-size ships. I suspect (but don't know) that many freighters are 20,000+ tons, but we know that there are lots of 1,000-5,000 ton ships and I'm absolutely certain that this is the low end for corporate freighters. In our world, the largest freighter carrying ships are the equivilent of 60,000 Dtons, I'm betting that the average Traveller freighter (which is going from one high-pop world to another) would be at least 10,000 Dtons. It's also fairly clear that a large amount of trade will be within a single Subsector and almost all trade will be within a single Sector.

In any case, on this scale, PC trade is utterly irrelevant, which is should be. By their nature PC merchants are not working routine jobs, and you can bet that most trade is highly routine.

 

[aramis]

John,
as Hans pointed out, Bk5 Character Generation says you're wrong in your assumptions about free traders' typical role.

S7 says you're wrong about the importance of free traders. See the above quote, copied right out of the PDF from the CDRom. The OTU.

Also, PC scale ships range up to 1000 tons, not just 400. The Type C is 800. 1000 Td is capable of (under 1J1) hitting about 800 Td cargo. Keep in mind that can be up to abut 8000 metric tons, or 112000 cubic meters, or 4000 register tons. 4000 register tons is a large merchant by naval standards.

1000 080.0 hull FlSph SL
0020 005.0 bridge
0010 015.0 MD 1G
0020 080.0 JD j1
0030 090.0 PP1 TL 9
0001 002.0 Model 1
0001 003.5 Trip Turret (to meet mail req.)
0024 003.0 6SR crew: PNEEMS
0100 000.0 JFuel
0010 000.0 PFuel
0784 000.0 784Td Cargo
0000 0278.5 totals

Hans:
being on route and being engaged in speculation are not exclusive. In such cases, speculation determines WHAT you buy, and how much, not where you have to be. It is, however, true that a tramp can often make more per unit time than a route-worker, this doesn't mean a route worker isn't capable of speculation.

Historically, the most strongly speculative trades were actually routed by order of their owners: the triangle trade routes of the 1700's. It was the captain's job to return on the investment over the course of his run (usually using someone else's ship, no less!), by buying locally, going to port A, and making a trade there for something in port B, to buy a port B item that is desired locally, and yet isn't easily traded directly due to B not wanting what home has or by being hard to reach due to prevailing winds.

As for large markets: Regina's largest market supplier pretty much has to be Regina itself. Given the rapid communications, anything which one needs either needs to arrive by happenstance (read: speculation), by long standing contract (which, by common sense, will almost always be far less than the market wants, so as to keep the price highly profitable even in periods of low demand) or will be local production. Demand order of goods with a minimum 2-week turn-around (probably 3 week) sight unseen and with little effective recourse is not good business practice. And that's ONE jump away. 2 jumps away, it's 4-5 weeks.

Given the size & tech, she's fuly capable of being totally self supporting.

Wypoc is, too. So are Jenghe and Ruie; heck, Ruie is a garden world! None of them exceed MSP except wypoc; Wypoc is TL8, and, barring violence, probably able to support itself locally... with an E port, it's almost a sure thing it isn't a major importer/exporter...

Wypoc should, logically, have better than an E-port, given the proximity to so many trade partners... IMTU, it aquires a high port due to investors (of a PC nature), and a functional downport for the same reason. (Really, because my tech-heads discovered TNE's World Tamer's Handbook had colony building rules, and had made a killing on tramping in a type R. Not that they had a subsidy; they built it cash straight up based upon having made a bundle tramping with a Type A. 4000% ROI is possible under Merchant Prince... buy at 1200, sell at 20,000, and fill 96 tons... and you have MCr1 cleared. Still, more moderate rolls with a +4 broker generate a wicked benefit.

 

[rancke]

being on route and being engaged in speculation are not exclusive.

True, just as being engaged in speculative trading manifestly doesn't preclude carrying freight. The CT trade system has free traders carrying much more freight than cargo (or so I judge from the tables; I haven't played in a Free Trader campaign for 25 years).

In such cases, speculation determines WHAT you buy, and how much, not where you have to be. It is, however, true that a tramp can often make more per unit time than a route-worker, this doesn't mean a route worker isn't capable of speculation.

No, but the table doesn't indicate ships, it indicates assignments. if a crewman serves on a route-worker that is engaged in speculation, his assignment would logically be 'Speculative Trade', not 'Route'. Otherwise, why have the distinction at all?

Not that it's all either/or. If you know for a fact that there's a huge steady market for grain on Roup, is it really speculation within the meaning of the word as used in MP to buy grain and ship it there? What if you have a contract to supply X tons of grain every Y weeks? You'd still be using company money to buy the grain, but is it really speculation?

As for large markets: Regina's largest market supplier pretty much has to be Regina itself.

Well, I should hope so. The paltry few million dTons of goods that the FT tables indicate that Regina receives per year would scarcely be enough to keep 700 million people in necessities, let alone comfortables and luxuries.

Given the [non-rapid] communications, anything which one needs either needs to arrive by happenstance (read: speculation), by long standing contract (which, by common sense, will almost always be far less than the market wants, so as to keep the price highly profitable even in periods of low demand)...

By common sense, any long-standing contract that involves starving the market to keep up prices will have rival companies importing and underbidding you.

Given the size & tech, she's fully capable of being totally self supporting.

No argument there. But comparative advantage is going to work in favor of her not actually being totally self-supporting. Isn't that supposed to be a major reason why the Hard Times were so hard?


Hans

 

[robject]

Merchant Prince, I believe, does offhandedly state that there are 100,000 ton freighters in the Imperium. So even trade is a Big Ship concept, even though CT also implies that Small Ships are Important and Significant, at least to the sector level.

So while a squadron of 100kt freighters could easily consume the lion's share of all long-haul trade on a route, leaving scraps for small ships, it seems rather that small starships are more feasible in many typical routes. At the extreme end of this view, the need for 100kt freighters is very small, but the need is still there.

Hans, Bil and I tried to drill further down into the details in a few earlier threads here on COTI (I made some provocative statements), but beyond occasionally semi-contradictory source materials, there's a lot of supposition going on, and quite likely there was a subconscious tug-of-war between the GDW staff on the concept. Marc himself, while having a preference, still seems reluctant to write down that preference, remaining agnostic in print.