On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 9:47 AM, Jeffrey Schwartz
<schwartz.jeffrey@gmail.com> wrote:
> But the 200kdt ship is only going to show up once a season?
> If you have a 10 parsec long "main", and it's doing the Jump for a
> week, and 3 days to load/unload/move to and from jump point... then
> you're looking at 100 days from System I to System X, and another 100
> back.

The whole point of a container ship is to streamline such operations.
On a high-volume run I'd expect all operations to happen outside the
jump limit. The ship arrives, cargo bound for that system is unloaded
onto tenders, cargo from that system is loaded from tenders, refueling
and crew changes occur, and the ship jumps out. The whole stop
probably takes less than a day.

Also, for most goods, what matters is the rate of arrival, not the
time in transit. If you have multiple ships working the route, they
can arrive at whatever frequency is optimal. It doesn't matter that
your pair of Nikes spent two months in the pipeline between some
factory in China and the shelf in your local store.

> Hell, let's just put a 20kdton ship in each system, and there's one
> every week...

There will always be cargoes that require special, near-immediate
shipping, and that's one niche where independents can successfully
operate. See http://www.intowine.com/beaujolais2.html for a charming
real-world example that's fairly bristling with adventure seeds. Of
course, there will be bonded, high-reputation, and very expensive
courier services operating along the main routes, and those will be
used by sufficiently wealthy individuals and organizations who are
shipping entirely legal goods. The tramp steamers will take a hit on
the price they can charge due to their unknown reliability; they are
left to compete on price and willingness to handle goods that the
majors would not carry.

--
Craig Berry (http://google.com/+CraigBerry)
"Eternity is in love with the productions of time." - William Blake