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Classic Traveller Book 7: Merchant Prince describes on pages 34 through 42 a trade system focused on speculative cargoes. There are, however, a few references to carrying, rather than purchasing and reselling, cargo at a flat rate of 1,000 Cr per ton. Specifically the "Ship Revenue" and "Cargo" tables on page 39 appear to relate to this. I am unable to find any text related to the "Cargo" table, specifically, text describing what constitutes "major," "minor," and "incidental" cargoes.

What do these cargo categories represent, and if tonnage as one might infer, what tonnages do they equate to?

I'm comfortable inventing these for my game, but here I'm asking what has been written by the designers on this that I'm unable to find.

SevenSidedDie
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Tuorg
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2 Answers2

11

Book 2 Starships page 11

The table lists the number of major, minor and incidental cargoes available on a given world. The rules under Cargo on pages 8-9 detail how to use the table.

Basically, there are number of cargoes of the three different types available on any given world is proportional to the population digit of the planetary profile, with modifiers for the population of the destination and tech level difference between origin and destination.

KerrAvon2055
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The table for cargos is page 11 of Book 2 Starships. It lists the dice to throw for the number of each major, minor, and incidental cargo available.

Cargo hauled as freight is 1,000 Credits as noted.

In the text on page 8, the describe rolling one die for each cargo (after you used the table to determine how many cargos are available of each type). For Major cargos, 10 x your single die roll in dTons. For Minor, 5 x your single die roll in dTons. For incidental, 1 x your single die roll in dTons.

The Traveller SRD includes another useful piece of information:

"Failing to deliver cargo on time reduces the amount paid by 1d6+4 x 10%." (This is for freight - 1 KCr per ton - that you deliver late).

Not sure exactly what the criteria for "late" are, but 'I know it when I see it' perhaps.

I also checked the version 1.2 of the CT Consolidated Errata and found nothing germaine in the Book 7 errata, but there is a bunch of trade related errata for book 2 that you might want to have. Search for CT Condsolidated Errata. If you can't find it, try to ping me through my profile.

None of the errata for book 2 trade applies to the cargo sizes or weights, but if you are running a trading game, you might want the trade related errata.

KorvinStarmast
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user3055321
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  • Relevant meta: Don't signal your edits in text. Instead, you should edit your answer to read as if it were always the best version of itself; anyone interested in older versions can view the revision history. – V2Blast Apr 27 '20 at 05:27
  • Okay, thanks. I was mostly aiming at the OP as he may have read my first reply.

    What's the thinking re: edit of a post/answer vs. adding more follow up info in a comment to that post/answer?

    I do want to follow format, once I get it a bit more clearly.

     – user3055321 Apr 28 '20 at 06:26
  • Questions and answers are meant to stand the test of time. Usually, if it's information directly relevant to the question/answer, you should edit it into the answer. Comments are ephemeral, and may be deleted at any time; their primary purpose is for either suggesting improvements to the author (of the question or answer) or asking for clarification about the question/answer. Related meta: Why are site comments being deleted? If you have further questions on policy/best practices, you might want to ask on [meta] and/or hop into [chat] :) – V2Blast Apr 28 '20 at 06:37