			    TRAVELLER Digest 94

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) The economics of starships: Vilani vs. Solomani tech	by alvin plummera <plummera@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>
  2) Re: Articles for Challenge (TRAVELLER digest 91)	by George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
  3) Re: Gov codes vs. population	by Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
  4) 	by Shalom Zaidfeld <cs911408@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca>

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

Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 15:41:53 -0500 (EST)
From: alvin plummera <plummera@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: The economics of starships: Vilani vs. Solomani tech
Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.1.9411061553.A25157-f101000@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>

--0-1987806567-784154647:#25157
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


Even more rummaging in ftp.engrg.uwo.ca TML archives... this time from 1991.

Alvin Plummer
(Remember the 'scrounging' Vargr skill?)
--0-1987806567-784154647:#25157
Content-Type: APPLICATION/octet-stream; name="bun214.mod"
Content-ID: <Pine.3.05.1.9411061507.B25157@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>
Content-Description: 


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

Archive-Message-Number: 2617
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 91 15:41:57 CDT
From: Cynthia Higginbotham <cynthia@CS.MsState.Edu>
Subject: starship prices & economics

<snip>

Scott Kellogg: 

>2) About, Price of components dropping.  Well, I see your point, but
>I don't quite agree.  At TL6 hard steel is first used, maybe a TL15 corp
>can produce it cheaper, but that money would probably go into a higher
>profit margin for the manufacturer.  After all, The consumer is willing to
>pay the extra at TL6, so we fix the price and rake in more cash!
>   The thing that will really make prices drop is if the company can
>make a lot of a certain unit,  Increased volume, decreased cost.
>ie.  The one millionth grav unit produced is going to cost less than the
>second the company produced.  On the other hand, that cash is again
>probably not going to be passed on to the consumer.

    Hmmm, well, I tend to feel that is dependent on the economic situation,
and is not something that should be hardcoded into the design sequence.  Let
me put it this way: what you say holds true if the supplier has monopoly; in
a competitive situation, prices will lower as production costs lower.
Compare the prices of a PC today with the price of an IBM PC at date of introduction
in 1981, or worse yet, with that of CP/M machines (Gawd, I'm dating myself!)
a couple years before that.  Not only that, compare the capabilities of 
a "standard" PC (386SX, 1 meg memory, 40 meg HD, VGA) with that of a "standard"
PC then (8088, 64-128K memory, 1 360K floppy (actually introduced with 1 
128K floppy), and monochrome text-only).  Capability has gone up and prices 
have gone down!  In a purely market-driven, competitive situation, this is
what will happen.  Personally, I think either prices are fixed due to collusion
between the megacorps and the Imperium, in which case small yards will offer
better deals just to get a slice of the action, or free market conditions
rule, in which case prices should probably be figured as they are for Vargr
worlds -- different each place.  You could calculate them randomly, or 
somebody could modify them for trade classes, etc.  However, given that we
want some baseline "book value" for our starships, said "book value" should
at least represent the actual change in value of things due to technological
improvement in the item itself, and in the production process.

Scott Kellogg:
>Personally My feeling is that ships are too cheap.  Look at the cost of a
>single TL8-9 radar evading bomber:  approx 500 million$, if rate of
>exchange is approx 1Cr=1$, then the B-2 cost much more than a lot of starships!

    There are various bizarre reasons why the price of American military
equipment is artificially high.  These have to do with the high R&D costs to
secure a government contract, and the need to recover those costs even if
Congress or the Pentagon decides to cut off the production run after 1
plane/ship/tank has rolled out of the factory; the often very short production
runs (how many Kennedy class aircraft carriers are we building?) that 
disallow any of the advantages of mass production; and so on.  Perhaps
you could represent these factors by disallowing the 80% discount from any
military craft that aren't produced by the thousands.  Or, you could rule
that my modifications do not apply to military production.
    I tend to look at ship design from the point of view of building civilian
and Scout service vehicles, rather than Navy/Army/Marine stuff.  From the 
non-military point of view, the pricing is completely cock-eyed.  You compared
the cost of a B-2 to a starship; compare the cost of a small Great Lakes
freighter to a starship.  A long time ago, you all discussed the fact that
a Free Trader can barely make bank payments, let alone enough to let the
owner retire in comfort.  No real conclusion was reached.  Let me point out
that in the real world, people don't start businesses that they don't expect
to make money at; and if they fail, 100 other people don't immediately follow
in their footsteps in the same business.  For the MT universe to function as
depicted, starships must be profitable to own and operate, or there will be
no interstellar trade.  The problem is, as written, the profitability of a
merchant ship DROPS as size increases.  I now turn this post over to Steve,
who has been sitting in a corner quietly running numbers through a  calculator.

Steve Higginbotham:

Cynthia mis-states the basic problem - profitability decreases as PERFORMANCE
increases.  A free trader (jump-1, 1-G) will be MARGINALLY profitable even if
your free trader is 5000 displacement tons.
HOWEVER, let's look at the basic unit of passenger transport in the Imperium -
the Tukera long-liner (why is it the basic unit?? because the various published
information about Tukera over the years all say so.  In the Core, there are no
other passenger ships.)

A Tukera long liner (Type RT) costs 247.08MCr.  Therefore it requires an
initial investment of 49.4 MCr.  Note that if this money were deposited into a
bank at 4.5% per annum, it would earn the owner MCr 2.223 per year.
The starship owner must make the following payments (per year) : 

               ship payments : MCr 12.354
               maintenance   : MCr  0.247
               crew salaries : MCr  0.144 (approximately - this is the most
                                   variable part - salaries are a function of
                                   skill levels, among other things)
               life support  : MCr  2.500 (this cost requirement is silly,
but
                                   the rules use them, so I will, too)
               insurance     : MCr ??? (let's ignore this, or subsume it into
                                   the ship's payments - too many variables)

               total         : MCr 15.245

The ship's revenues are as follows (with various loading assumptions listed)

               passengers : (100%) : MCr  8.400
                            ( 90%) : MCr  7.650
                            ( 75%) : MCr  6.250
                            ( 60%) : MCr  5.100

               freight    : (100%) : MCr  3.247
                            ( 90%) : MCr  2.922
                            ( 75%) : MCr  2.435
                            ( 60%) : MCr  1.948

               Totals     : (100%) : MCr 11.647
                            ( 90%) : MCr 10.572
                            ( 75%) : MCr  8.685
                            ( 60%) : MCr  7.048


Notice that the best case assumption produces losses of MCr 3.598 per annum.
I personally disbelieve in the 100% assumption.  I prefer the 90% assumption,
since I believe that there would be more ships running the route if there was a
higher demand, and I disbelieve that the ship was created with the EXACT size
to move the people that want to be moved all the time.  However, I digress.

Using the 100% assumption, at the end of the mortgage period, the ship-owner is
in debt to the tune of MCr 193.32.  With the ship payments removed, that debt
will be cleared in 22 more years.

So, at the end of 62 years, your starship will BEGIN to make money for you. 
Note that this discounts the need to amortize the debt induced over the years. 
If that assumption is made, the ship will break even after 75+ years.

After that, the ship will make the owner MCr 8.755 per year.  Since the
effective life span of a ship is about 100 years (source : old Traveller),
the ship will make the owner MCr 332.7 over it's lifetime (IF he has a full
load EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE 2500 FLIGHTS.

Over the same period, the owner would have made MCr 3981.073 by putting the
initial investment in the bank at 4.5%.

I have never heard of an investor getting rich by putting his money in a
savings account.  I have also never heard of an investor getting rich on an
investment with a LOWER return than a bank (by a factor of SEVEN).  I can't
even recall ever hearing of an investor who MADE an investment like that
twice.  I suspect that they are all collecting Welfare now.

In fact, that analysis can be applied to EVERY merchant ship ever designed for
MT.  Virtually all J-3 ships will tend to suck up money for generations. MOST
J-2 ships will also.  Given that the J-2 ships are primarily passenger ships,
with adequate stewards, they can come out slightly ahead.  They don't come out
ahead of the savings account, but that is someone else's problem.  J-1 ships
will mostly make a little money.  They even make more money than a savings
account.  Not quite so much as most Money Market accounts, but, again someone
else's problem.

Note that fuel costs were ignored in this discussion.  It can be demonstrated
that it is more cost-effective to buy fuel at a starport than to use wilderness
refueling.  Therefore the profits indicated will never actually be achieved by
a ship.  ALAS!

Cynthia has just suggested that passenger/freight fees could be raised. 
Possibly.  In a normal economy, doing so would encourage local development of
resources, rather than interstellar trade.  More people would stay home, and
ships would be in worse shape than ever.  Besides, there are indications that
the Imperium regulates passenger/freight fees to the existing levels.

As to the suggestion that the starships operate by spec trade rather than
freight consignment, this IS possible.  It is also possible (probable, in fact)
that the smart investor will buy the stuff up WITHOUT pouring money into a
starship, and ship it as freight.  Let some other fool lose money by buying a
ship.  There will always be idiots who go broke doing this, who can be milked
by an alert investor.  Note that in the case of a subsidized route, the
government is the idiot in question, and the populace is the entity being
milked by the alert investor.

Therefore, most investors will NOT invest in a starship, which will lose them
gobs of money, but rather make use of someone else's starship (so someone else
can lose gobs of money, while you MAKE gobs of money).  There is every
indication (from the tables) that only a small ship (400 tons or less) can make
any significant amount of money by spec trade.  Significant in terms of
starship payments.  If there was that much money to be made, Tukera would get
an exclusive contract, and the profit to a starship owner would vanish.  

The upshot is that no ship will ever make enough money to convince the buyer to
buy it.  So either there are NO ships, or the government buys and runs them
all, to the detriment of the private sector (read: PCs).  Or we lower ship
costs.  Which we did.

Notice that in the Vargr Extants, ship prices can be as much as 30% lower than
normal.  This might lead one to suspect that virtually all ships are made in
the Extants, or that there is a major black-market in Vargr ships (if the
Imperium tries to control ship prices at that arbitrarily high level).


					--- Steve & Cynthia Higginbotham


P.S. Does anybody remember the cheap "standard" hulls from Old Traveller Book
2?  And the cheap A & B jump drives?  Where did those go?  And why?

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

Archive-Message-Number: 2618
Date:    Wed, 17 Jul 91 08:39 EDT
From: "D. Jay Newman 863-1555" <DN5@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: Starship economics.

>A long time ago, you all discussed the fact that
>a Free Trader can barely make bank payments, let alone enough to let the
>owner retire in comfort.  No real conclusion was reached.  Let me point out
>that in the real world, people don't start businesses that they don't expect
>to make money at; and if they fail, 100 other people don't immediately
follow
>in their footsteps in the same business.

Actually, in the real world, roughly 2/3 of all small businesses fold
within three years, because they weren't profitable.  I've been told
that the single biggest reason for this is that they expected to make
a profit too quickly, and hence didn't have enough starting capital.

>The problem is, as written, the profitability of a
>merchant ship DROPS as size [Jay: actually performance] increases.

Actually, this was a problem that I saw back in the original Traveller,
and have corrected every time I was GM (and in most games I wasn't).
Basically, it would be more consistant to charger freight and
passengers for distance, rather than jumps!  In the real world airlines,
the cost of a ticket is related to the fuel used by the planes.
Real world freight charges are for distance.  In special cases, fast
delivery costs MUCH extra.

In the traveller case, a ship that goes Jump-6 distance should get
the same base rate if the ship is Jump-1 capable or Jump-6 capable.
Actually, the Jump-6 ship should get a premium for certain types of
cargo (anything which is time-specific); even without the premium,
it has fewer expenses and can make more distance during a year than
a Jump-1 capable ship.

I haven't run the numbers, but even with this system (but without
a premium for faster delivery), I'm not sure that a J-6 ship would
be the most profitable.  It would have much less cargo space, due
to increased fuel and engine sizes.  I have the feeling that the
most profitable merchant ship would be around J-3 or 4, but that
is mostly guesswork.

[Please forgive me if I am wrong about how freight charges work; the
GM who ran the only MegaTraveller game I was in told me this was
the way things worked, and he had never seen the original Traveller.
I figure if he thought it worked this way, he read it in the rules.
I do know that it worked this way in the original rules, and I thought
it was stupid then.  Please email any flames.]

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
D. Jay Newman          ! Fate: it protects fools, little children,
dn5@psuvm.psu.edu      ! and ships named Enterprise... (Cmdr. Riker)
CBEL--Teaching and Learning Technologies Group

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

Archive-Message-Number: 2619
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 91 08:59:25 -0700
From: Brian G. Vaughan <bvaughan@ocf.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: re:  Stable Tech vs. Stale Tech


There are several things that have been missed in the discussions of the
levels of technology in the Imperium.

First, and most important, is that you must always bear in mind that the
Imperium has an extremely diverse range of cultures.  I have been considering
writing an article about it, but I'll summarize my ideas here.  We know that
there are forty-two branches of the human race, each of which possesses several
cultural strains within it, which have their roots in their pre-stellar
histories.  These cultural elements, in most cases, have not completely died
out, and many human cultures continue to develop and thrive.  Most such
cultures are dominant on only a handful of worlds each.  Some minor human races,
the Darrians, for example, have a wider influence.  The two most widespread
human cultural traditions are, of course, those of the Solomani and the
Vilani.

Now, each of these cultural traditions carries with it a complex of attitudes
toward the nature and purposes of technology.  The Imperium has developed
a super-culture, which is what we generally think of when we talk about the
Imperium, but this super-culture is participated in by a relatively small
number of Imperial citizens:  the nobility, officials of the Imperial
government, members of Imperial services (the Scouts, especially), and
merchants.  Most others do not have the need or resources to participate in
this super-culture.  But I'm digressing.

The Imperial super-culture is made up of many disparate cultural elements, but
especially of Solomani and Vilani elements.  And we know how radically different
the Solomani and Vilani attitudes towards technology are.  The Solomani tend
to believe that technological advancement is inherently good.  The Vilani tend
to be much more suspicious of technology.

You can see the effects of these disparate attitudes manifested in many ways
in the Imperium.  There are High Stellar worlds distributed throughout the
Imperium.  But most TL 16 worlds are in Massilia sector--the rimward side of
the Imperial core.  Old Expanses sector has, if I remember correctly, more
TL 15 worlds than any other Imperial sector.  Vland sector, on the other hand,
has a wider distribution of technology levels, and several subsector capitals
aren't even in the High Stellar range, though Vland sector is the longest-
settled sector in the Imperium.

The difference between Solomani and Vilani attitudes is even more striking if
you look at worlds in the Solomani Confederation.  MOST WORLDS IN THE
SOLOMANI CONFEDERATION ARE HIGH STELLAR!

According to the World Builder's Handbook, by Tech Level 10, it is possible to
create cities in ANY environment.  Thus, in a sense, there is no need for
technology more advanced than TL 10.  Thus, I think, the Imperial attitude,
growing out of the Vilani attitude, is that it is a waste of effort to raise
the level of technology on a world above that required to meet the conditions
of that world.  That technology does continue to advance is due to the
neccesity of possessing the latest military technology, and the universal
desire for better medical care, as well as the Solomani tendency to love tech
for its own sake.

BTW, I suspect that an additional consideration is that worlds in the Imperium
tend to desire considerable autonomy and self-sufficiency.  The Solomani 
Confederation is willing to sacrifice self-sufficiency for nearly universal
high levels of technology.  This, I believe, made it relatively easy for the
Imperium to reconquer the Solomani Rim in the Solomani Rim war, and relatively
difficult for the Solomani to seize Imperial worlds in the Rebellion.

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

End of TML Bundle
*****************


--0-1987806567-784154647:#25157--


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

Date: Sun, 06 Nov 1994 16:08:11 -0800
From: George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Cc: gherbert@crl.com
Subject: Re: Articles for Challenge (TRAVELLER digest 91)
Message-ID: <199411070008.AA21103@mail.crl.com>


From: alvin plummera <plummera@hubble.sheridanc.on.ca>
>Well, now Mr. Wiseman has said that writers aren't going to be paid for
>their stories, at least not anytime soon.
>Sigh.

I am personally extremely concerned that the industry has sunk
as far as this, especially a company whose products I like so much.
However, the ongoing spin that I get from GDW in the letter
(which I got) and talking a bit to Loren Wiseman about it is
that they're going to do whatever it may take to stay in
business, and this is part of it.  That attitude says a lot.
They may not be doing great, but they intend to keep doing
what they're doing.  I wish GDW the best of luck, and will
forgo the 2 cents per word if it will help keep Traveller alive.

>Well, regardless, does anyone here plan to write a article for Challange? 
>We seem to have the talent and interest to write at least a few
>(especially all you B.S and PhD techies out there ;).

Quite a few of us have (and continue to) write stuff up,
for GDW or for the other magazines.  I have a TNE article
in the Challenge pipeline right now, for example, and
"Inheiritance Blues" was in Challenge 74...

>And while I'm on the subject, is the tne-pocket group operating (I KNOW I
>asked this question before, but I don't recall the answer...).  If so, how
>are you doing?  Is GDW going to publish your work, or has interest flagged?

Yes, we're doing fine.  GDW is too busy to publish it, basically 
(this is my impression, you'd have to ask Loren or Dave Nilsen for
their official reasons) but it is being published on an ongoing basis
in the Traveller Chronicle magazine by Sword of the Knight Publications.
Issue #6 had 5 articles in or about the Pocket, about half the issue.
There's a lot more out there to be published (heck, Pendang hasn't
hit print yet, there has to be more stuff published ;-).  

-george william herbert
gherbert@crl.com


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

Date: 06 Nov 1994 21:19:27 GMT
From: Rob_Prior@nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca (Rob Prior)
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Gov codes vs. population
Message-ID: <3269709757.127117083@nynet.nynet.nybe.north-york.on.ca>

>IMHO, Marc Miller must've been on a Rousseau binge when he designed
>the world generation rules - specifically, the secion of _The Social
>Contract_ which claims that the best government is inversely
>porportional in size to the governed population (democracies for small
>states, republics for medium-sized, and monarchies for large ones.)

Actually, Traveller doesn't relate the _quality_ of government to the
population, just the _type_ of government.  (Of course, this distinction is
moot if you automatically assume one type of governmental structure is better
than another.)

Leaving all political debate aside, keep in mind that the Traveller
government code represents the effective style of government as it affects
the players and the general population.  This is quite distinct from the
formal structure of the government.  Three examples to illustrate this:

1) My department at work is theoretically a dictatorship: we have a single individual in charge
   of the entire department.  In practice it is a participatory democracy: my department head
   doesn't make decisions until we have a concensus and everyone agrees.

2) Canada is officially a representative democracy.  However, in practice I usually contact the
   civil service, not my member of parliament.  (He is a last resort if the civil service screws
   up).  Thus, as it affects me Canada is a civil service bureaucracy.

3) The school board here is elected, too.  But if you try to get anything done you have to deal
   with a bureaucracy loaded with special interest groups and private kingdoms.  Very hard to
   get anything done, and the kids' welfare often seems to lag behind empire-building and
   budget maintenance.  IMHO, definately an impersonal bureaucracy.


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

Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 21:47:02 -0500 (EST)
From: Shalom Zaidfeld <cs911408@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca>
To: TNE Mailing List <traveller@MPGN.COM>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.90.941106214525.549A-100000@blue>


Here is something I found at a Traveller FTP Site:

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

Howdy,
 
since the TML is down, I thought I'd post this to you all and see what
you thought. It's a random table for bits & pieces that you might find
in a starship stateroom in a derelict ship or a living space that's been
deserted.
 
Feedback would be really cool.
 
d100    d20     
1-17    1-2     clothing - jumpsuit
        3-4     clothing - soft shoes
        5       clothing - shoes with hard (magnetic) soles
        6-9     clothing - shirts/blouses
        10-13   clothing - pants/skirts
        14-20   clothing - underware
                
18-20   1-16    wrist watch (chronometer)
        17-19   small clock (chronometer)
        20      wall clock (chronometer)
                
21-24   1-4     mechanical camera
        5-13    electronic camera
        14-18   digital camera
        19-20   holo camera
                
35-30   1       poster frame & poster
        2-6     photo's (2D flat on paper)
        7-9     photo's (encased in box - multiple pictures)
        10-16   digital photoviewer
        17      holographs (flat on paper)
        18      holographs (glass/plexiglass plate)
        19-20   holograph viewer & crystals
                
31      1-4     holovideo (hand)
        5-20    holovideo (set)
                
32-34   1-8     holoviewer (disk)
        9-20    holoviewer (crystal)
                
35-38   1-12    television (hand)
        13-20   television (set)
                
39-40   1-2     video camera
        3-9     video-player (tape)
        10-16   video-player (disk)
        17-20   video-player (crystal)
                
41-51   1-11    books
        12-14   bookreader (tape)
        15-17   bookreader (disk)
        18-20   bookreader (crystal)
                
52-57   1-8     sound diskette player
        9-16    sound tape player
        17-20   sound crystal player
                
58-62           electric printer & polyvellum
                
63-66   1-8     pens
        9-11    notebooks
        12      sketchpads
        13      stapler
        14-16   binders
        17-18   clips
        19      rulers & forms
        20      paint & brushes
                
67-75   1-5     calculator
        6-15    personal phone
        16-20   communications link (radio)
                
76-80   1-11    hand computer
        12-19   laptop computer
        20      desktop computer
                
81-83           batteries
                
84-87   1       VR set (holovid, hand motion sensors)
        2-5     VR set (goggles, gloves)
        6-20    electronic games (i.e. nintendo, sega)
                
88-90           board games, marbles, dice, small figures
                
91-95   1       atheltic equipment - racket
        2       atheltic equipment - bat/club/stick
        3       atheltic equipment - helmet
        4-5     atheltic equipment - gloves
        6       atheltic equipment - goggles
        7-9     atheltic equipment - shoes
        10-11   atheltic equipment - jumpsuit
        12      atheltic equipment - boots
        13      atheltic equipment - ball (hard rubber)
        14-15   atheltic equipment - ball (rubber, inflatable)
        16-17   atheltic equipment - ball (cloth covered)
        18      atheltic equipment - rope
        19      small metalworking toolchest & tools (jewelers)
        20      small electronic tool chest & tools
                
96-100  1-4     dry foodstuffs
        5-8     bottles (alcoholic)
        9-15    bottles (non-alcoholic)
        16-19   drugs (medicinal)
        20      drugs (recreational)
 
-- 
 joe                          (314) 882-5000
 ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu    University of Missouri - Columbia  
 "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and
 imprenetrable fog!" -- Calvin
 <A HREF="http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe">ccjoe</A>


	-Shalom Zaidfeld
	-Toronto, Canada

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

End of TRAVELLER Digest 94
**************************
