Several years ago I was working on a alternate jump technology Traveller setting using this guy’s rules and real stars with a 3D map:

Though as I dug into it, a couple issues started to bug me:

1. With the 30 parsec max jump, most of the setting is at a range we haven’t necessarily discovered all the G stars. With the number of stars you get to choose from, it seemed unlikely anyone would settle in the system of a non-G star, especially not in any of the more interesting stars. So the program I wrote to generate my setting from a database of real stars would invent G stars. Soon, I realized the setting really was using mostly invented stars (and I would name polities based on the nearest real star of significance).

2. I started thinking about the trade problem…

3. Well 3… I’ve always started to go gear crazy in SFRPG games, and trying to extrapolate technology and then finding that sometimes current day would get ahead, or the extrapolation got ridiculous.

Then I started reading Christopher Kubasik’s blog in depth.

And I realized the simple solution to all my grief… Run 1977 Classic Traveller as written (well, ok, maybe a FEW tweaks) and use the technology implications in the game (and try and channel 1977 views of future technology). I did decide to add smart phones, but they explicitly do not do anything better than the Book 3 computers and communications devices (other than local comms when near a star port or within urban areas on worlds with TL 7/8+, and MAYBE more extensive use on higher population worlds of TL 7/8+). Ok, the hand calculator is rendered obsolete, but it had no real in game mechanical effect.

Beyond dispensing with all my vexing issues, it opened things up to using published deck plans and adventures and other supplements without having to constantly monitor for assumptions broken by the different star ship technology.

So now I assume Book 2 trade works. I don’t have 3D printers in my universe. BTW, star ship fuel is unspecified and is only available refined or unrefined at appropriate star ports, or via gas giant skimming. No extracting hydrogen from water or ice… Since almost all the deck plans are based on the 1 dTon equals the volume of 1 ton of LHyd, I stick with that volume, but who knows what my fuel actually is, I don’t care, it follows the mechanics as presented in 1977 Traveller…

Frank

From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com [mailto:xxxxxx@simplelists.com]
Sent: Friday, January 4, 2019 12:48 AM
To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Subject: Re: [TML] J3

At Traveller's TL's I believe it actually would be cheaper to just grow more tomatoes just about anywhere you wanted rather than expend the enormous amounts of energy required to move their mass over distances measured in LY's.

Surely a smaller amount of energy would yield the product at the destination.

Now, as far as 'Luxury Goods' go, well I imagine that'll be quite different.

From: Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net>
To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Sent: Thursday, January 3, 2019 9:33 PM
Subject: Re: [TML] J3

On Thu, Jan 03, 2019 at 09:11:02PM -0500, Kurt Feltenberger wrote:
> as I was watching the videos I started to think about the immense
> amount of materials in one solar system and how all it takes is the
> ability to reach them to be able to recover them.

Pretty much. Even without space travel, cheap energy opens up immense
opportunities for using and recycling resources that would otherwise
be uneconomical. Nearly all of the "resource" shortages on Earth
today are really just disguised energy shortages.

> Then, since being able to build large space structures is doable,
> the next question was why don't they move to agricultural stations
> using hydro- and aeroponics?

The usual answer is cost. It would almost certainly be cheaper,
safer, and more productive to build them on a planet's surface anyway,
at least up to the point where you run out of planetary surface.
Space structures will be expensive for more reasons than just the cost
of getting stuff there, especially if they have to reliably keep
things and people alive.

> Now, dragging this back to Traveller and trade, it comes back to my
> original question; just how much would be moved between systems?

This is going to depend very strongly upon cost. If space transport
were free, then even a tiny difference in supply and demand would make
it worthwhile to ship huge amounts of goods and people. The published
costs of freight compared with living costs in Traveller make it
comparable to surface transport on Earth today. That is, cheaper to
ship tomatoes halfway around the world from Mexico to Australia than
to grow more tomatoes in Australia.

At these prices, imports and exports seem to be in the range 10-20% of
GDP for a large number of countries. The costs of goods in Traveller
do not appear to be markedly lesser or greater as a proportion of
average incomes than in the real world, so it seems likely that a
similar percentage would hold there.

Of course, the real question hiding behind that is whether goods
should be cheaper. My personal view is that the advanced technology
should make almost all of them radically cheaper, but then that might
depart too much from Traveller for many people.

- Tim

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