Interlude

As often happens when I’m working on a project, instead of continuing with the development of Gazolan Subsector I suddenly decided that I needed to re-examine the economics of the RimWorlds using GURPs Traveller: Far Trader. This then involved trying to beat the various GURPs economics formulae into a spreadsheet. After much swearing and Googling, I developed a semi-automatic method for generating the various World Trade Numbers, and then a manual method for linking them together to generate the Bilateral Trade Number.

Currently, I have worked up numbers for Lymethius Subsector and have just started moving out into Gamelea. I am starting to see the beginnings of trade routes, though the Far Trader rules demand relatively high values for routes.

Heaven and Earth would generate the trade routes for me, but it doesn’t seem to present all the World Trade Numbers. Also, I’m finding the exercise useful in getting me to see different patterns in my subsectors. I’m looking forward to extending the numbers up the Julnar Reach into Gazolan Subsector to see if the story I was beginning to create about the Reach in my last post is backed up by the economic data. Lastly, generating these numbers, while useful for the background of a trade game, will also give me a feel as to the true volume of shipping travelling the routes of the Subsector.