On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 06:48:22PM +0000, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) wrote:
> I've seen 'official' stats for up to 10,000DT's & have heard of
> others up to 20,000DT's.
>
> Would that be enough to run the CT 3I?

Yes, certainly.  Economies of scale in the construction and operation
rules in most versions start being fairly negligible around the 3k-10k
dton range.  You would just need more of them to support the trade
volumes than you would of 100k dton ships, at about the same total
cost.

The difference between moderate and tiny trade Imperiums isn't really
in the expected size of starships, but in their numbers.  Obviously a
tiny trade Imperium can't support huge freighters at all, but they're
not especially useful even in an Imperium with greater trade volume.

(I use the terms "moderate" and "tiny" since there's also the
possibility of a large trade Imperium, where average trade volume is a
sizeable fraction of gross world products, but I don't think anyone
has been advocating that)

- Tim