Finally caught up on the record keeping for my Traveller game. In session I was focusing on adventures, the normal buy and sell I put off for a few months.
I’ve been using the T5 speculative trade prices, and very rarely is it not a net positive to buy at one system and sell at the next, although there was once where I held the cargo. After 200 days, 11 jumps, 7 systems they made ~½MCr.
1/2
But one thing I noticed about the T5 rules is while pop code is used when looking for passengers, it isn’t for determining availability of speculative cargo.
One world they visited has a population of 60, I determined it was a mostly automated factory creating TL 13 Vargr Battle Suits. So I figured they could easily figure out supplies to sell there. But available trade goods? Probably not.