Re: Why Tradesman need large cargo space

In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Sun 04 Jun, DIABLO AMANOS wrote:
> Heres a question... what besides specialty materials will one ship
> from one sphere to another...
> Granted I could make a killing on Krynn selling steel and hell they
> can afford to pay for it with their abundance of gold. 
> But what about perishables foodstuffs that maybe considered delicays
> somewehre else. Creative spellcasting would be required for keeping
> perishables in good condition. 

Tea, coffee, chocolate, spices - look at what was valuable in a
medieval economy.  Iron ingots might be valuable enough to ship. 
Other metals pretty obvious.  China?  Glass?  Salt? (The origin
of the word 'salery'.)  Ornaments?  Artsworks?

Purify Food and Water sounds as though it will deal with a lot of
perishable problems.  A tun (large barrel) with this enchanted on
it so that it does the spell once per day on its contents might
be very useful!

Using that you could take 'fresh' cream cakes from one sphere to
another!

I suspect that priest of travel and trade gods would consider
this enchantment a worthy use of their powers!


> --- Dreamer <dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk> wrote:
> 
> > In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Sun 04 Jun, Rian A. McMurtry
> > wrote:
> > > Into space, bulk foods--grain, beans, etc.-- become important
> > > commodities. I'd expect a lot of tradesmen in such a basic trade.
> > 
> > Using the SJ rules I posted previously, SJ ships have 100 cubic
> > yards of volume per spacial ton, 2700 cubic feet (nautical ton is
> > 35cf, to 40cf).
> > 
> > You get enough water for 5.5 men per ton for four months - food
> > is not an issue and air is calculated on a four month basis
> > anyway.
> > 
> > A 100 cubic yards is 76.5 cubic metres, and a cubic metre of
> > water is a metric tonne.  If you assume most food stuffs are
> > about the same density as water, i.e. they will just about float;
> > then lose that is 76.5 tonnes of food per spelljamming spacial
> > ton of cargo.  Even in barrels or whatever wasting 50% of the
> > cargo volume that is still about 38 tonnes; about 42 (short)
> > tons.
> > 
> > A Tradesman is 25 spacial tons, so say that it has the maximum
> > number of 25 human-equivalents on board.  12.5 tons of cargo, as
> > the cargo space is half the tonnage.  Call it 5 tons for food and
> > water for the crew for a four month voyage.  That leaves 315
> > (short) tons of cargo; well packed-in, even more.
> > 
> > I would expect that a skilled merchant could make a reasonable
> > living with that sort of cargo capacity.  If it was all fine wine
> > at 10gp per 1.5lb bottle then that is 4.2 million gold pieces
> > worth!

-- 
Dreamer
dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/