If you don't know who Andre Norton was don't feel too bad for an author who won every award Sci-Fi / Fantasy there is she is pretty unknown. I count myself fortunate to have found her when I did in what they now call my tweens. I believe that her relative obscurity may be due to her chosen audience of early teens. First and foremost she was a storyteller who made believable characters in interesting situations. Anyone playing Traveller can't go wrong reading her "Solar Queen" stories because you will see the influence they had on the Merchant career which is next up and why I am gushing in an embarrassing fashion. You will also see hints of the scouts as well.
Oddly my love of her stories directly ties to my failed efforts to run in the past. Although the common lie in RPG introductions that playing is like acting out a novel adds to it. I have never played or ran a session or campaign that was anything like a novel. Not that that is bad it is just that analogy should never be used. RPGs are much more like real life a chaotic mess of half baked ideas and bad decisions that are irritating and utterly fascinating. Anyways MTU Merchants will be nothing like the Free Traders of Ms. Norton because it is a government service with its manpower drawn through (partially at least) a draft.
I also felt the need to point out that the only starships in MTU are book 2 ones. There is no Book 5 extension to the construction system and I am still undecided about the expanded book 2 options out there as of yet.
I also view the rates for the various passages and freight services as government mandates. No one can charge more or less than the rates set in the rules. However there are two changes I will be making. Passage rates are per Parsec not per jump so there is a reason for commercial ships to have higher jump numbers. This is because of the huge volume jump fuel takes up. Why would the big companies make high jump number ships and only earn the passage rate once when if their ships could be jump one and make several passage fees for the same journey. Customers may think that would be a great idea but they still need to travel so I don't see companies feeling the pressure to provide that convenience. Much like rent companies will charge as much as they can not what people want to pay. It also adds to the Megacorp vs little guy vibe in that only the big guys can afford ships that can make jump 4 and the rich and famous can afford to pay 40,000 to take passage on them. This makes passages awarded at mustering out worth hanging onto as well. Yes you can cash them in for 80% of a 1 parsec journey or keep it in case you need to go along an xboat route and suddenly it is worth 4 times as much (not in cash though).
The other is the Merchant Prince change to cargo. Mostly this is because I am underwhelmed with there being only 36 items traded on the interstellar stage. If it becomes necessary to the story I can specify what the PCs are schlepping around other wise it is just as easy to know it is 3,700 cr / ton Ind TL 7 goods from Ruie.
Hopefully if you don't immediately understand some of the things I decide going through the Merchant service this post will provide some insight.
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