Shipping in a Traveller Universe

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by hal

It took me a moment to realize what you meant by the 598.5 dTons of cargo space on trips back to Agraria...

You simply subtracted the outbound from Industria from the 600 dtons required to ship TO Industria (sorry - I was being dense).

The answer to your question is "There will be no 598.5 dtons of empty carrying capacity". A single Scout ship with 20 dtons of carrying capacity might be contracted to drop off 1.5 dtons of value to Agraria, but it couldn't survive on carrying only that much freight by itself - not without charging full price for the empty volume not used! Why would it be empty? If the Trade rules invoking the Gravity trade model is true, Industria will not send another shipment of crystals to Agraria until Agraria has paid for its previous shipment with 600 dTons of grain. So, the freight movers literally have to charge DOUBLE against the farmers of Agraria to ship their grains and still maintain a Industria <=> Agraria trade route. The shippers would also have to charge Industria for the revenue lost by not carrying anything else.

So the answer is that there is no actual grain for crystals trade between Agraria and Industria? Agraia just has to manage without crystals until someone figures out some triangle or more complicated trade with through Transhippia or Diversieconomia? Possibly involving multiple ships?

Now I am thinking that this is how a lot of planets lose tech or die off in the Long Night or the Rebellion. Not because of being nuked or all the trade starships being destroyed, but just because there just aren't any profitable trades involving their planet any more.