Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
The big expense for merchant craft is return on investment, not fuel. Fuel can matter because of the large loss in cargo capacity, but outside of situations where you can't refuel regularly, that just caps practical jump number for merchant craft at 2-3 for most routes.
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Yes, to be even vaguely competitive if you reduce the number of trips per year by a factor of 4 you have to reduce the cost of both building and operating ships by the same number.
there's a little of that to be made back by the increased cargo capacity but probably not as much as you might have hoped.
<grabs book>
On p.97 of GT:Starships there is a 20,000 dTon Liverpool-class dispersed hull bulk freighter. It carries 14000 dTons of cargo and 4000 dTons of fuel. Reduce fuel use by 90% and you only increase cargo by 25%. you do save 1.25 Mcr per jump but this is with a 2.750 Mcr ship that probably has to make something like Mcr 150 per year in profits. It's not nearly enough to make up for the reduced number of jumps.