So. Having been afforded a glimpse of the Logos, I’ve sussed out all my issues and have greatly expanded the Merchant Ships & Caravans Table.
Behold, spreadsheet (openoffice for now):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1-umWQYrM_KTXR1S0tkVmlTRUk/view?usp=sharing
Please review, critique, etc. This does still need some optimization in presentation, I’ll certainly admit - I’d rather do this as a web-based script but I haven’t a host quite yet.
Some explanation:
The “Distance Between Markets” is the main cell to edit - that’s distance in miles. Everything else falls from that.
As you scroll down, you’ll see I take the 6 entries from MS&C, add a few of my own, and calculate the transit times and expected average profits for each size of market.
I then do that same thing two more times, once for staying in-market only 2 weeks, the second for 1 week (thereby getting to interact with only a subset of available merchants, contracts, or passengers).
Note that for merchant types whose cargo capacities are vastly outstripped by the market size, I’ve made some guesses as to where to adjust numbers in order to fill available space. I’ve made some light attempt to systemize the choices I’ve made, but not always.
As it’s entirely possible that a trip between two markets can be measured to take less than a day, I’ve made the minimum travel time 1 day.
Note that barges are most likely one-way trips if it’s not an extremely slow river or lake. I make no attempt to compensate for current for any of the rowed vessels.
The Small Galley’s speed assumes a split between rowing and sailing.
The Monthly Income is normalized against a 28-day month, not the length of the trip. It’s assumed these things are either in market or in travel, so the costs/profits are set against that. Daily Income is per day of 28-day month, not day per trip length.
One thing I do see is that there’s not a lot of compelling reasons to stay in-market for the full 3 weeks - whipping back and forth between to 500-mile distant Class Is, for example, only getting half of what is available by spending a week in-market is extremely profitable.
And for the smaller markets that are closer together, staying less than 3 weeks is almost required to get enough transactions in to overcome your fixed costs.
Pretending the straight-line distance between Spain and Bahamas is sailable at 4,070 miles, that’s a pretty good income for a Large Sailing Ship.
I’ll come back later and explain how I kitted out the barges and smaller wagon trains.