I've always thought that most interstellar shipping, like most shipping today, would be done by large, scheduled container ships. Small independents in their free/far/fat traders would fill in gaps -- whether that means visiting a system without regular freight service (for whatever reason), or getting an urgent cargo delivered ahead of the usual schedule, or carrying something the regulars won't touch for legal or other reasons. A free trader trying to compete head to head against the big guys is doomed; they can't beat the economies of scale. Nor will most honest business-sophonts do business with a shady tramp freighter's crew when the fully bonded, easily sued megacorp is an option.

For shipping volume calculations, I recommend Far Trader ( http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/fartrader/ ); from what I recall, it produced very reasonable figures. (The worked example calculating the traffic between the two main Vegan worlds made my head spin.)

On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 11:59 AM, 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:

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 8/22/14, Timothy Collinson <timothy.collinson@port.ac.uk> wrote:

Subject: [TML] expected ship traffic
To: "tml@simplelists.com" <tml@simplelists.com>
Date: Friday, August 22, 2014, 9:53 AM

Hi there,

Am I reading
this correctly?
page 435 of the T5 core
rules give a figure for 'expected ship traffic' -
the expected interstellar ship traffic for a
starport.

S = 10^Ix /
H
where:S = total
ships per week

Ix = Importance H = Average Cargo Hold Capacity = 100 for most
worlds
OK, so I'm looking at
Neala in Ilelish Sector whose importance = 1

So I make that a total of 1
ship every 10 weeks. And a B class
starport!
Is that right or am I
missing something?

Nearby Gypsy has an
Importance of 2 so it manages 1 ship per week. (And again
a B class starport).
Is traffic really this
low?

cheers
tc

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If that's NOT a typo then it so long to MT's interpretation of what 'maritime' (post-container cargo 20th century Earth) means.

However, even under the original CT definition (17th century Earth), it seems a little 'light'.

BTW, how much cargo can the CT Free,Far, & 'Fat'Trader carry?

p.s. I would argue that whether not not a world is on a J1 'Main' should also factor in as otherwise the ubiquitous FreeTrader can't go there.

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Craig Berry (http://google.com/+CraigBerry)
"Eternity is in love with the productions of time." - William Blake