[IW] The Economics of Crosstime Travel

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You have to have it contained with a physical structure (floor, walls, and roof) because the field is not a force field, it extends through the circuitry incorporated within the conveyor. Otherwise, you have a projector rather than a conveyor.

Okay, but that doesn't require 'supporting' the weight in any way more challenging than not crushing under compression. You don't need to hold open any substantial spaces under the load.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You have to have it contained with a physical structure (floor, walls, and roof) because the field is not a force field, it extends through the circuitry incorporated within the conveyor. Otherwise, you have a projector rather than a conveyor.

It doesn't have to be solid though. Open air conveyors are the norm in industrial use.

[AlexanderHowl]

There is no mention of open air conveyors from what I can see in Infinite Worlds. You might be thinking of the open-circuit projector in the experimental tech section.

I estimated the mass of the hull at 50% of the mass of a cargo container (considering that it would probably be built of aluminum or titanium), with the circuitry of the field generator throughout the hull. Of course, it you just want to do an aluminum foil hull like an early spacecraft, a 10 ton conveyor would have a hull that massed just 100 lbs. With an estimated volume of 50 cubic yards and an estimated area of 81 square yards, it would have an average weight of 1.23 pounds per square yard or 2.18 ounces per square foot [it would end up with an aluminum hull 1/100th of an inch thick]).

[(E)]

I could see some added costs as well.
- cargo transfer and transport costs on source world and destination world.
- quarantine and saftey expenses.
- duties and tax
- security
- Inventor royalties?
- compliance costs.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

There is no mention of open air conveyors from what I can see in Infinite Worlds. You might be thinking of the open-circuit projector in the experimental tech section.
.

Not that but it might be something from one of the 3e books.

[AlexanderHowl]

Either way, we are arguing over only 90 lbs per ton of mass capacity. At best, having an open conveyor would only reduce the cost by 9%, meaning that the company would just use the difference to make more profit. In any case, the main weight penalty is within the pulsed power generator, which takes up half of the mass capacity of the conveyor.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Either way, we are arguing over only 90 lbs per ton of mass capacity.

That's why I didn't bring it up the first time I saw your assumptions.

Even the quick look at the IW section in Campaigns I did turned up a reference to hulls potentially being as flimsy as tin foil.

[ericthered]

I've always advocated that industrial conveyors should have easily swapped pulsed power systems. If you can load a pre-charged power system and change your cargo in 10 minutes, you double your throughput. The cost of the extra pulsed power systems and the cranes to pull them in and out are under an extra million. The biggest loss in the system is that you probably need to spend some of your payload mass on containers to allow for speedy loading and unloading.

The point that you should consider a round trip rather than a one way is worthwhile: a world shipping oil in bulk is unlikely to be shipping any thing in similar quantities back home. So this doesn't actually change the $500 a ton price given in the OP. There are a few exemptions to this: Tourists travel both ways, so you calculate their costs as a round trip. If you can bring something back on your "empty" trip, that will help as well. Theoretically, you could run a circular route, but I suspect infinity is hesitant to issue those licenses.

If you can run a conveyor with an external pulsed system that doesn't travel with the conveyor, you can double your throughput again. You have to have another system waiting for you on the other side, but when shipping minerals between an empty world and homeline, that shouldn't be a big risk at all.

Also, running only 20 trips a day is a little wasteful. Do you need 4 hours a day of maintaince? you're taking 20 minutes to load and unload the conveyors? Time is burning! these things cost 110 Million each!

If you swap the capacitors and cargo out in 10 minutes, you can jump 65 times in a day and still have over two hours to do your inspections. Yes, I just added a bunch of equipment of payroll expenses. But given the initial investment, I think they'd be worth it.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by PTTG

You're right, most commodities can't be shipped profitably. But a little bit of gold or neodynium extracted from untouched alternate deposits makes lots of sense. Bioluminescent blue apples from the next world over, or a couple crates of Firefly Seasons 2-20 DVDs make even more.

But they do still ship iron ore and wheat from time to time. And the reason that's profitable is because of the sacks of Nose Candy brand premium cocaine, sourced from the Libertarian Confederacy of Utah, buried in the pile.

One thing I've imagine about the Miracle Workers* do is have conveyor ships or barges that they use to buy up cheap grain in timelines where there was a bumper crop year and then sell it on timelines where there was a crop failure.

This gets the profit in gold or whatever from the sales, and benefits both worlds by mitigating the effects of price swings.


*Or whatever the name of the do-gooder organization is.