[Skill] Freight Handling/TL IQ-A, B197
 

The Basic Set (p. B197) says that Freight Handling reduces the time it takes to load or unload freight by 20%. GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars (p. 175) says that a single crewman can load or unload 250 dtons of freight.

How long does it take that single crewman to unload 250 dtons of freight though?

Re: [Skill] Freight Handling/TL IQ-A, B197
 

Not Traveller, but GURPS Spaceships gives 1 man-hour per 100 tons with access to port machinery, 1 man-hour per 10 tons otherwise. It appears to change the function of Freight Handling, making it be about stowing things properly - a failed Freight Handling roll when initially loading up cargo doubles the time to unload later (in SS2, it's also used to see if fragile cargo was loaded well enough to avoid damage in the case of a collision or sudden acceleration).

Given those numbers, I can't see the 2500 tons taking less than a full work day (8 hours). Indeed, the numbers are about right for a full day, not just a work day (SS would give 2400 tons for 24 man-hours of work), but Traveller may be working under different assumptions (of note, SS rates don't appear to change regardless of if you're at TL7 or TL12). Note I'm assuming the nomenclature "dtons" is "decatons," not "decitons;" if it's meant to be the latter (which seems rather unlikely), under SS rules 25 tons would take 15 man-minutes with machinery, 2.5 man-hours otherwise.

Re: [Skill] Freight Handling/TL IQ-A, B197
 

This isn't a changed function of the skill: "Also roll against Freight Handling skill any time there is doubt as to whether an item of cargo was lost or damaged; on a success, it made the journey intact." It just adds some detail about how long loading and unloading take.

Re: [Skill] Freight Handling/TL IQ-A, B197
 

Perfect. Thank you!

I checked GURPS Spaceships 2, but not GURPS Spaceships.

Re: [Skill] Freight Handling/TL IQ-A, B197
 

I was referring more to the bit about a failed roll when initially loading causing it to take twice as long to unload, with nary a mention of the 20% reduction. I suppose you could do it as two separate rolls - one for speed (success gives the 20% reduction, failure gives normal rate) and once for proper loading (success means no change, failure means the next time you need to transfer that cargo, it takes twice as long; this can be reduced to 1.6x - might just round that down to 1.5x - with a successful Freight Handling roll when you do the transfer).

No problem. I actually checked SS2 first, and one line (SS2:38) at the end of the section on buying speculative cargo referenced where in SS1 the rules would be found. Certainly easy to miss.

Re: [Skill] Freight Handling/TL IQ-A, B197
 

From the "Units and Abbreviations" sidebar on p. 188 of GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars:

"dton: A 'displacement ton,' a measure of hull volume. One dton is
equal to 500 cubic feet."

Re: [Skill] Freight Handling/TL IQ-A, B197
 

Traveller "dtons" are displacement tons, a measure of volume. They are based on the density of liquid hydrogen (0.070 metric ton per m3), theoretically because so much of a ship's volume is consumed with liquid hydrogen tankage. Most versions round this to 1 dton = 14 m3; GURPS Traveller uses 500 cf instead.

This usage hadn't stabilized when classic Traveller was written, however, and so one can find places where "tons" clearly means "metric tons" rather than "displacement tons."

Re: [Skill] Freight Handling/TL IQ-A, B197
 

I believe that dTon is tons displacement.

Re: [Skill] Freight Handling/TL IQ-A, B197
 

That's problematic for making the comparison, as it makes it difficult to compare the two systems. In Spaceships, 250 tons would take 2.5 man-hours with machinery (25 man-hours without), regardless of if it's a tank of liquid hydrogen or a pile of lead ingots. From the sound of it, in Traveller, 250 tons of liquid hydrogen and around 1220 tons of lead ingots would take the same amount of (undefined) time. If you have to pick one, I'd go with Spaceships - while volume does matter, I think weight is more of a rate limiter, and Spaceships has the advantage of actually giving you a time frame.