Ship Types:

There are 19 types of ships in the TW Universe, and all are 
different. The most important concern is trading efficency, but 
there are various things to consider.

There is the "gross trading capacity" which is the number of 
holds divided by the number of turns it takes to move to the next 
sector. This is a rough idea of how good a trader a particular 
ship type is, but it does not cover several questions of overhead.

Some considerations:

1) Turns used at the beginning of each session, traveling to the 
first trading port.

2) Turns used to move to a new trading pair, when you've drained 
a particular pair of ports. Ships with many holds, lose some of 
their efficiency because they trade out the ports in only a few 
round trips and must move on to another pair much more often, 
thereby wasting a greater percentage of their total turns, just 
moving from one area to another.

3) Turns used to travel back home from the last trading pair of 
the day. T-warp ships gain a small advantage here.

4) The ISS and Corp.Flag have a possible advantage at certain 
stages of active games, when most adjacent trading port pairs 
are badly traded out, so twarp-trading can give them an 
advantage when other ships cannot find decent trading pairs.

These items of overhead vary widely on various ship types, and 
penalize slower ships that take more turns to move. Large ships 
suffer the other penalty of draining ports quickly and having to 
move on more often.

My calculations show that while the Freighter wastes perhaps 14% 
of it's turns this way...the Colonial transport wastes a full 59% 
of it's turns like that! That's why a Freighter will earn you 
2/3rds more money per day than a Colonial Transport will!

I spent quite a few hours computing a spreadsheet that calculates 
the efficiency of the various ship types, taking all the overhead 
factors into consideration. The following chart shows general data 
on each ship type, including the "T.E." factor 
(Trading Efficiency).

Each individual game's universe varies greatly from all others, so
"your mileage may vary. If you find yourself earning 500,000 
credits a day in the Cruiser that you started with and you think 
that's good...then just take a Freighter's T.E. and divide it by 
your Cruiser's T.E. and multiply by what you're earning now:  
100/72*500,000 and see you could be earning almost 700,000 credits 
a day...not bad?

Here's a chart showing all the ship types, with some handy data, 
and on the far right column is my "T.E." Trading Efficiency Factor.

Ship Specifications:

                |       | Max  |   Max    |  Max  |Combat|      |
 # Ship Type    | Turns |Holds | Fighters |Shields| Odds |  T.E.|
----------------+-------+------+----------+-------+------+------+
 0 Escape Pod        6      5        50       50     .7      2

 1 Merc              3     75     2,500      400    1.0     72

 2 Scout             2     25       150      100    2.0     41

 3 Missile Frig      3     60     5,000      400    1.3     59

 4 BattleShip        4     80    10,000      750    1.6     55

 5 Corp Flag         3     85    20,000    1,500    1.2     84

 6 ColT              6    250       200      500     .6     61

 7 CargoTran         4    125       400    1,000     .8     78

 8 MerF              2     65       300      500     .8    100

 9 Imp StarShip      4    150    50,000    2,000    1.5     93

10 Havoc Gunstar     3     50    10,000    3,000    1.2     52

11 Starmaster        3     73     5,000    2,000    1.4     71

12 Constellation     3     80     5,000      750    1.4     76

13 T'Kasi Orion      2     60       750      750    1.1     93

14 Tholian Sentinal  4     50     2,500    4,000    1.0     36

15 Taurean Mule      4    150       300      600     .5     88

16 Int  Cruiser     15     40   100,000    4,000    1.2      5

17 Ferr Assault T    2     50     3,000      200    1.0     79

18 Ferr Battle C     3     75     8,000      800    1.2     72

19 Ferr Dread        4    100    15,000    1,000    1.4     66

=====================

                 | Teleport |      | Genesis |  Safety |  Total |
 # Ship Type     |  Range   | Mines| Torpedo |  Rating |   Cost |
-----------------+----------+------+---------+---------+--------+
 0 Escape Pod          -         -       -         70      N/A

 1 Merc                5        50       5      2,900    131,695

 2 Scout Marauder      -         -       -        500     27,785

 3 Missile Frigate     2         5       -      7,020    146,832

 4 BattleShip          8        25       1     17,200    190,236

 5 Corp FlagShip      10       100      10     25,800    352,285

 6 ColT                7         -       5        420    711,400

 7 CargoTran           5         1       2      1,120    226,125

 8 MerF                5         2       2        640    100,015

 9 Imp StarShip       10       125      10     78,000    669,290

10 Havoc Gunstar       6         5       1     15,600    216,642

11 Starmaster          3        50       5      9,800    364,899

12 Constellation       6        25       2      8,050    171,840

13 T'Kasi Orion        3         5       1      1,650     79,420

14 Tholian Sentinal    3        50       1     26,000    106,060

15 Taurean Mule        5         -       1        450    312,500

16 Int Cruiser        20       200      20    124,800    586,170

17 Ferr Assault T      -        10       -      3,200      N/A

18 Ferr Battle C       2        25       3     10,560      N/A

19 Ferr Dread          5        50       6     22,400      N/A


The listing under "Safety Rating" is the total fighters plus 
shields, multiplied by the ship's odds. This is the number of 
fighters it will take to kill a fully loaded ship of this type, 
assuming an attacking ship with 1:1 odds. Please note that the 
Tholian Sentinel's rating would be only 6,500 if if it had no 
planet in the sector.

The Cost figures shown above include full holds, and HoloScan if
available, Density Scanner if not, and none for those ships that 
can't accept them. T-warp (type 2) is included, where available. 
Shields and fighters would be additional. Cost of Ferrengi ships 
is not shown, because they can't be purchased, only captured.
