Economics of cargo starships in 2300AD

Introduction

I have been looking at the economics of cargo transports and trade.

Basic Accounting Formulas:

• Net Income = Income - Expenses.
• A negative value for Net Income is really a Net Loss.

Income:

You only make money when flying cargo from system to system, so you want to minimize/eliminate any delay in system past the 40hr discharge time.

• The faster you travel, the more trips you make, the more cargo you haul, so the more money you receive.
• If you can take one load of cargo for a multi-system voyage ( especially with a contract for a full return load too), you will make more money.  You do not need to waste days/weeks of time ( beyond the time it takes to discharge your drive) in the intervening systems finding buyers/sellars, unloading, and loading so you can make more trips per year.

Expenses:

• Given two identical ships and crews, the yearly total salaries will be the same, but the ship that makes more voyages will be more profitable ( a smaller percent of each voyage's income is consumed by wages).
• There are no figures for maintenance in the game.  One way other way of doing maintenance would be to make it two parts:
  • Fixed percent of ship's cost to maintain it per year ( as a "yard queen").
  • Plus stutterwarp usage cost ( total stutter hours times some Lv rate).  Since stutterwarping very very slowly causes cumulative damage as previously spaceborne particles and atoms "appear" within the ship, crew and cargo over the course of a year's worth of drive operations.  The risks of a particle per single tunnel is very small, but you must remember that their are an "innumerable" number of stutterwarps cycles made over the course of a year.
• Processed hydrogen fuel at 100Lv/ton really starts to add up over a year.
  • A 1MW MHD uses 100 tons/week spent in stutterwarp ( assume solar power when in orbit).  That works out to 10,000 Lv / MW a week spent stuttering along.
  • A 1MW Fuel Cell uses 75 tons/week spent in stutterwarp.  That works out to 7,500 Lv / MW a week spent stuttering along.

Hudson-class example

Back in 1996, when I ran an earlier version of the following on a spreadsheet, I was surprised by the income remaining after paying for fuel and salaries:

For a fully loaded ( 3t/m3) Hudson-class transport ( in SotFA), traveling a total of 4 AU in both systems, with a two day layover for discharge, makes the following ( depending on LYs traveled) per trip and per year ( assuming she keeps making the identical voyage):

                                                                    Trips
    Total  Flight  Haul Fee  Fuel    Salary  Net Income  Net Inc    Per
LY  Days   Days    Income    Expense Expense per trip    Per Year   Year
1   13.39  11.39    162,855  48,814  32,576     81,465   2,220,661  27.26
2   14.97  12.97    325,710  55,586  36,420    233,704   5,698,190  24.38
3   16.55  14.55    488,565  62,357  40,264    385,944   8,511,753  22.05
4   18.14  16.14    651,420  69,171  44,132    538,117  10,827,595  20.12
4.5 18.93  16.93    732,848  72,557  46,054    614,236  11,843,433  19.28
5   19.72  17.72    814,275  75,943  47,976    690,356  12,777,881  18.51
6   21.3   19.30    977,130  82,714  51,820    842,596  14,438,847  17.14
7   22.88  20.88  1,139,985  89,486  55,664    994,835  15,870,398  15.95
7.7 23.99  21.99  1,253,984  94,243  58,365  1,101,376  16,757,072  15.21

On shorter LY distances, the insystem transit times will become the lion's share of the flight time ( and they don't count towards hauling fees, only the LYs do).

A Hudson would even have a profit if it had to wait 14 days in port between trips to unload a cargo and to completely fill up its hold.