On Tue, 10/28/14, Ian Whitchurch <ian.whitchurch@gmail.com> wrote:

[SNIP]

 A 200 dton merchant ship is 10% bridge. A 2000
 dton merchant ship is 1% bridge. Therefore, ten 200 dton
 merchant ships cannot carry as much cargo as one 2000 dton
 merchant ship, because they are collectively lugging around
 ten times as much Bridge.
 The 200 dton Far Trader isnt going to happen, in
 short. Trade will be done by bigger ships.

[SNIP]

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I prefer to work backwards wrt this;
ie: we know that Far Traders did & do actually happen, so, how come?

Now, of course there's always the 'Rule of Cool';
'Traders are 'cool', hence FarTraders are 'cool', hence, FarTraders happen.

For myself, I see them as filling a niche, 'tramp-steamer' style, where they service worlds where the volume of trade (remember, the way I see it, the TU has the lower volumes associated w/ CT rather than the much higher ones from MT) just doesn't work for a larger ship. Yeah, I know, you could have a larger ship visit less often but that's not desired for various & insundry  reasons. (You'll have to ask 'them' about that!)
Now, of course, if the volume increases enough then the 'Traders (all types) eventually get squeezed out but that's part & parcel of the background of the TU. 'Traders operate on the fringes. Scrounging whatever they can get.
It's more fun that way!

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