Merchant Marines

Merchant Marines

In the an age of an integrated galactic economy and cheap orbital lift, interstellar trade has become profitable like it international trade did on the oceans of Earth. However to be a part of the galatic economy, a nation must operate a merchant marine. Having a merchant marine opens up a nation's trade prospects and brings in more wealth.

Just how much wealth is generated through a merchant marine is governed by the Tonnage Ratio, which is the ratio of your merchant marine tonnage (total CP) divided by your GDP (Wealth infrastructure). This value can range from 0 (no merchant marine) to arbitrarily large. Of course as cargo ships are not all created equal, some modifiers apply.

Slow Ship (speed less than 2 TW): Effective CP is reduced by 33% Average Ship (speed is 2-3 TW): No modifier Fast Ship (speed greater than 3 TW): Effective CP is increased by 25% Non-Aerospace Ships/HLVs (if the nation does not have Access to Space: Effective CP is reduced by 50%.

As conveyors do not carry any cargo themselves, to calculate their tonnage simply use the CP values for whatever HLVs/cargo pods they are transporting - no more than 1 HLV/cargo pod per dock point please!

Once the total tonnage is calculated, a nation can now determine how much bonus wealth they recieve. Determine the Tonnage Ratio (total effective CP divided by wealth infrastructure) and then plug it into the following formula:

Tonnage ratio^(1/2) / 225
-or-
Square root(Tonnage Ratio) / 225

The resulting value is a bonus to individual wealth production - in other words, it's applied to every point of Wealth infrastructure. In practice, multiply this derived value by the total Wealth infrastructure to determine how much money is gained per month from the use of a merchant marine.

More crudely, the ratio can be cross-referenced on the following graph:

[1]

If you wish to work from the opposite direction, determining how much cargo is needed for a specific wealth bonus, apply the following calculation:

(wealth bonus x 225)^2

Ships in a Merchant Marine are not instantly available in case of conflict or emergency; 50% of the ships called back arrive in 1 full month, the remaining 50% in 2 full months. During this time they do not make any wealth, as they are running empty. Ships put into a merchant marine start making money the following month.

New Trait:

Access to Space: Variable cost Your world has one or more orbital elevators which allow for the rapid transfer of cargo from surface to orbit without the need to use clumsy HLVs. As most Second Stage worlds are heavily built up, they pay 10 SD for this advantage; non-SS powers pay 20 SD for it. Being sited on a Trade Catapult (ie, blue line) halves the cost of this trait. Nations that are Airless Rocks get it automatically.

Applying these rules

Anyone who wishes to buy a merchant marine may, as a one-time deal, trade out military and/or infrastructure for civilian shipping and/or the Access to Space trait. The specifics must be posted and OK'ed by the GM.