Designer's Notes:

This ship design is, we freely admit, a brutally minimaxed effort to manipulate the fixed rates for passenger and freight traffic.  By using small staterooms for middle passage, the gross income is just under Cr 4000 per displacement ton of passenger space.  Even subtracting the Cr 2000 for life support, plus the requirement for galley, food storage, and baggage space, that still leaves nearly Cr 3000 per dton.  This is 50% greater than the default value for speculative trade. Additionally, since staterooms require much less mass per dton, the F21-2 requires smaller thruster and CG drives than most ships of its size.  Smaller maneuver drives allow a smaller power plant, both of which allow for a less-expensive vessel.  These factors make the F21-2 profitable, using standard T4 assumptions, even when operated at only 50% capacity.  At 80% capacity, the F21-2 can make an annual profit sufficient to pay off the down payment in approximately two standard years.

By concentrating on the middle passage traffic, a line operating these ships can fill a market niche similar to coach-only airlines on modern Terra.  While passengers travel in less comfort than high passage allows, middle passengers have two incentives to travel on such ships:  while the stateroom is small, it _is_ private; and there is no possibility of a high passenger bumping a middle passenger off the manifest at the last minute.

AuricTech Shipyards has [IMTU], as of 1103 IE, contracted to sell 20 of these ships to Thermopylae Lines, a cargo and passenger line operating primarily in the Vilis subsector of the Spinward Marches.

[IMTU note:  Thermopylae Lines was founded by my main PC's wife, who, as noted in previous posts, came into obscene amounts of money under, shall we say, "interesting" circumstances.]