On 27Dec2021 0649, Alex Goodwin - alex.goodwin at multitel.com.au (via
tml list) wrote:
> I'll take a gameable abstraction, such as something I can implement in
> a fork of PyRoute.
>
> Maybe a distance penalty along affected links?  Relative price of X (X
> > 1) means links are (X - 1) pc longer.  A "cashtrographic" distance
> penalty, if you'll pardon the lame pun.
>
> For example, assume Teacup Station charges 3x the going rate for
> fuel.  Dismal to Kushuggi 2631 (when it gets developed) is 4 pc
> astrographically (via Teacup, at Kushuggi 2431), but a total of 8 pc
> cashtrographically (+2 pc penalty per link adjoining Teacup, 2 such
> links involved).
>
> Would trade volume be perfectly inelastic wrt fuel price?  (ie,
> completely unaffected)
>
> How about somewhat inelastic?  (Total fuel revenue increasing with price)
I think volume would tend to drop with increasing price, assuming that
the shippers can't pass the increased cost onto their customers.

However, just how it would vary is going to be tricky. For one thing,
fuel costs are only part of the transport costs - the ship doing the
carrying also has all those pesky crew wages, life support costs, port
fees, insurance premiums, and so on to pay, and they all add in.

Small increases in fuel costs might just be absorbed by the shippers,
especially if they're a big company and it's just along one route of
many, in which case smaller competitors will have the choice of matching
the price or dropping the route and overall trade volumes along that
route won't change. Larger increases will have to be passed along, but
if they aren't too big and most of the volume is in high demand goods
the end consumers will grumble a bit but pay up, and there'll be little
change. Then we get large increases on luxury goods that aren't 'must
have' items. They will drop off in trade volume, but how much will
depend on how desirable the item is, how much the increase per item is,
and so on.

I suspect that most interstellar trade in a Traveller universe is in
things people find nice to have, but not essential. The remainder will
be trade to those worlds that aren't self-sufficient and will be
high-tech components for their life support systems and industrial
plant. The former is going to be sensitive to shipping costs, the latter
not so much (until they're so high that the settlement is simply abandoned).

I don't think there is a definitive answer that doesn't consider the
individual case, and all the major flows through a place.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>