On Fri, 3 Jun 2011, Onno Meyer wrote:
are you playing a space trading game? If so, the costs of interstellar transport will be a key question. Arguably, 200-dton Free Traders and Far Traders cannot operate at a profit, which forces their crews into all sorts of interesting adventures.
Yes it will be space trading.
* Stardrives are rated for volume, not mass, so running empty is almost as expensive as running fully loaded. If a freighter has a profitable cargo going from A to B, that would explain shipping almost anything back from B to A, instead of going empty -- including clean water or organic waste, if that is hard to find.
Thanks, I like the idea of using local garbage as low cost (likely just the cost of transporting it to the starport) speculative cargo. Playing the idea further, a trader who has some speculative garbage might, who finds something better for his hulls, before he can sell it, might even give it to an other speculator in exchange to have it transported out of his ship for free in a short time.
This can lead to some garbage being transported to and fro for quite some time.
* Within a system, getting stuff from asteroids may be cheaper than mining on the planet, because of the reduced transport costs. You can get a reactionless thruster and a fusion reactor (or solar cells) dirt cheap, and that will move kilotons or megatons within a few years of flight time.
I will have that. I use the old megatraveller extended system generation, and that gives me plenty of non mainworld planets and moons, with hostile enviroment, and a small population. (or no population but a spaceport) Mining operations happening there, is a good explaination for some of thoose.
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