On 23Sep2021 1627, Cian Witherspoon - amber.narilka at gmail.com (via
tml list) wrote:
>
> I'm going to keep harping on this: CT77 is a Mass Based system, and this is
> backed up by the trade chapter in Book 3, in the section dealing with
> cargos made up of items found in the equipment chapter - the guidelines are
> based on both price and mass. It's why the shipbuilding system from just
> about every edition afterwards has Luxuries taking up one ton, because they
> might not take up more volume, but they definitely weigh more (imagine a
> granite kitchen counter on a sailboat if that helps, or the mass difference
> between leather and polyester)
CT 1977 talks about 'mass displacement' a lot in the design rules. Thus
it's a volume-based construction system, it just doesn't say what a 'ton
mass displacement' is, exactly. However, the small craft rules say "All
non-starships consume fuel at the rate of 10 kilograms (1/100th of a
ton) for each G of acceleration for ten minutes, regardless of mass or
cargo carried.", which hints that a tonm of liquid hydrogen might also
be a mass displacement' ton of liquid hydrogen. That is later made
offical and explicit.
>> (Snipped)
>>
>> As an aside, I noticed whilst flipping through the texts that spaceships
>> in TNE cost 25-50% or so more than they did in CT and MT. The same
>> things in MgT - 25-50% extra. T5 doubles the cost, or more.
>>
> Price inflation keeps happening because developers don't want to write
> limitations into the trade rules - honestly you should roll with penalties
> to find cargos on repeated visits, which really smacked me in the face when
> I saw it in GURPS Spaceships 2. Of course Free Traders are catching
> overflow cargos, why didn't I realize this obvious fact?
Except that it's not consistent over editions. GT spaceships cost about
the same as CT ones.

The problem with the trade rules is that 1) a lucky score can unbalance
the whole thing, and 2) groups tended to ignore one very important part
of the original CT rules - that you roll ONCE per visit to see what the
'best' available cargo is, with one reroll each week extra you stay. If
that means that the best cargo on a rich world is radioactives (+5 to
the price roll), too bad.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>