Shipyard Production
- Thread starter Garnfellow
- Start date
Axiomatically, yes, a higher population world is itself more diverse.
But that is a VERY weak axiom.
Many of the cultures we think of as high law are also highly conformal cultures - non-conformity is not acceptable, and is often enforced by the legal systems. Russian culture is less diverse than the US, for example, despite 5x the population. Why? Because Russian Society was more unified by (1) a single religion, (2) a more moralistic society, (3) a strong history of authoritarian governments imposing cultural norms by law, (4) highly effective internal secret police networks, but most importantly, (5) a cultural norm of "Conform or die, damnit!" Russian culture is imperialistic, in that the Russian Culture believes it's the greatest ever, and imposes itself on every other group it can, and has no qualms about crushing subcultures without mercy. And the USSR only rated about an 8 law level...
The thing is that each world is also axiomatically at least one subculture.
Now, if a single world is 95% of a subsector's population (unlikely, but not impossible - average subsector is 80 cells, with a 33% or 50% occupancy rate)... from the imperial standpoint either the others may as well not exist, or the others may have more of their drawn tribute be people rather than materials. But, at the same time, those minor worlds are more likely to be culturally derived from that major population, as well. At which point, you want to treat the whole subsector as a problem for the sector navy...
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Agreed, finding a single rule for 11000 worlds settled by 100s of different human and non-human races, many of them then put through the Long Night, would probably be difficult.
5 times the population? Are you thinking about China?
The Russian Empire was and is a multi-ethnic empire, certainly with the Russians as masters, but with many tolerated minorities. While the Russians have not been shy about their culture or promoting it, I have been given the impression that forced Russification was mostly a Stalinist thing? Aggressively imperialistic I would agree with.
Perhaps Japan would be a better example of a conformist society?
See Apge in Core sector.
It's only a problem if they are disaffected or rebellious. If they are I guess the Imperium would recruit elsewhere...
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=510688&postcount=1
The T5 rules state every Imperial world has one or more members of the nobility. The T5 Second Survey data exactly specifies their number and rank. So I simply added them up.
Perhaps, but then of course we are stripping away people from those other industries when we ramp up production. Point is, they're not a dime a dozen.
If we assume there are megaton bulk haulers then this conveniently creates a demand for a lot more yard capacity.
Absent that demand, one suggestion this thread raises for me is that big naval ships with six figure tonnages could exist only as the consequence of an arms race.
exactly what happened in china over the last decade. their steel industry was expanded beyond all measure, which drove a need for raw ore, which drove a need for bulk ore carriers, which drove a need for steel ....
but there is a limit to such drive and the end result is now apparent. for example it is cheaper for container ships offloading in america to simply dump their steel cargo containers rather than make any attempt to retrieve them. containers are piling up here so fast that one may buy one or several dozen steel cargo containers for a few hundred dollars, delivered. and in fact the point is being reached that container ships are worth more as scrap than as operating ships.
given how much territory and population has been lost to the zhodani one may presume that arms race to be in progress.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
In the Real World, there are a few ways to determine production capacity in certain industries.
For a long time in nautical construction, it was assumed that in a shipyard, reasonably well equipped, the output per year per worker was 10 displacement tons of ship. That rule of thumb worked reasonably well for both wooden and metal commercial ship production. Mass produced ships like the WW2 Liberty class would be built at about twice that rate, although it was possible to rush them through very quickly for publicity purposes. Military ship building times could vary enormously, depending on material priority and how much electronics was being included in the design. Electronics tended to slow building times quite a bit.
In the aircraft industry, the assumption prior to WW2 was about one pound of airframe weight per worker per day, and for engines, about 1 horsepower of engine per hour of work. That was boosted quite a bit in mass-production in WW2, but you are thinking of thousands of aircraft being built. The aircraft airframe weight DID NOT include the engine weight, which is why I show a separate figure for the engines. Electronics changed those figures quite a bit, along with the more complex high-pressure axial jet engines.
Lastly, you can use value-added per worker as a basis, or displacement ton assembled per worker. Remember, a commercial Traveller ship is primary a combination of drives (jump and maneuver), power plant, accommodations, and electronics and controls contained in a hull. The drives and power plant may be produced elsewhere along with the electronics and controls, while the accommodations may be mass-produced and stockpiled until needed. A very large shipyard may be able to produce everything on site, while a smaller shipyard would bring some items in, such as drives and power plants, while all yards would be bringing in the electronics and controls.
As Traveller, at least as far as I know, has no provision for differing costs of living at different Tech Levels, a simple approach to how many workers would it take to produce a ship in a given period of time would be to decide on the likely average pay for a shipyard worker, then double that to determine the value the worker could produce in one year. Personally, I would double the building costs if done in orbit, along with doubling the building time. If you allow for shift work to speed things up, typically, the production rate of the second and third shift is about 80% of a day shift.
From that you work up the likely population of the starport and world and go from there. Again, my view is that the minimum population of a world to totally build a starship from scratch, to include all components, is 10 million and up, regardless of Tech Level. To assemble components shipped in into a finished ship, I assume a minimum population of a million, with the million pushing the limit pretty closely.
As for the difference between A and B class spaceports, I figure that A-class ports can build from scratch, B-class ports import some items, but can still build starships, C-class ports have some repair capability and can build the odd ship or two, while D-class and E-class are not in the running.
For a long time in nautical construction, it was assumed that in a shipyard, reasonably well equipped, the output per year per worker was 10 displacement tons of ship. That rule of thumb worked reasonably well for both wooden and metal commercial ship production. Mass produced ships like the WW2 Liberty class would be built at about twice that rate, although it was possible to rush them through very quickly for publicity purposes. Military ship building times could vary enormously, depending on material priority and how much electronics was being included in the design. Electronics tended to slow building times quite a bit.
In the aircraft industry, the assumption prior to WW2 was about one pound of airframe weight per worker per day, and for engines, about 1 horsepower of engine per hour of work. That was boosted quite a bit in mass-production in WW2, but you are thinking of thousands of aircraft being built. The aircraft airframe weight DID NOT include the engine weight, which is why I show a separate figure for the engines. Electronics changed those figures quite a bit, along with the more complex high-pressure axial jet engines.
Lastly, you can use value-added per worker as a basis, or displacement ton assembled per worker. Remember, a commercial Traveller ship is primary a combination of drives (jump and maneuver), power plant, accommodations, and electronics and controls contained in a hull. The drives and power plant may be produced elsewhere along with the electronics and controls, while the accommodations may be mass-produced and stockpiled until needed. A very large shipyard may be able to produce everything on site, while a smaller shipyard would bring some items in, such as drives and power plants, while all yards would be bringing in the electronics and controls.
As Traveller, at least as far as I know, has no provision for differing costs of living at different Tech Levels, a simple approach to how many workers would it take to produce a ship in a given period of time would be to decide on the likely average pay for a shipyard worker, then double that to determine the value the worker could produce in one year. Personally, I would double the building costs if done in orbit, along with doubling the building time. If you allow for shift work to speed things up, typically, the production rate of the second and third shift is about 80% of a day shift.
From that you work up the likely population of the starport and world and go from there. Again, my view is that the minimum population of a world to totally build a starship from scratch, to include all components, is 10 million and up, regardless of Tech Level. To assemble components shipped in into a finished ship, I assume a minimum population of a million, with the million pushing the limit pretty closely.
As for the difference between A and B class spaceports, I figure that A-class ports can build from scratch, B-class ports import some items, but can still build starships, C-class ports have some repair capability and can build the odd ship or two, while D-class and E-class are not in the running.
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Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
If we assume there are megaton bulk haulers then this conveniently creates a demand for a lot more yard capacity.
I would disagree with that, as a bulk carrier is primarily going to be hull steel (or whatever the hull is made from), with drives, power plant, accommodations, computer, and bridge representing a smaller and smaller fraction of the hull as the size increases. All a yard would need is room for the larger hull. For a bulk carrier, the building time for a 5,000 dTon hull and a 25,000 dTon hull should not be that different. Most of the hull is empty space.
BINGO!
't's how I do it. calculated all the construction dtonnage available in the spinward marches, determined how many hulls, maneuver drives, jump drives, etc, could be built most efficiently in the various yards, then added it all up. the fleet is all j4 so almost all the jump drives are built at efate/lunion/strouden/palique, etc.
does "worker" include "robot"? production machines can work 24/7 at 100% without error ....
No territory or lives have been lost to the Zhodani, because the Zhodani are fictional.
My point isn't related to the OTU. It's just that massive naval ships in a universe of small merchant ships make sense only in the context of an arms race.
Agreed that a bulk carrier is less complex to build than a warship. But those very large hulls still require more yard capacity than small hulls and so they help to justify big naval ships. If we first assume megaton bulk carriers, then the big dreadnaughts follow. But if we assume a universe of small merchants, then the massive dreadnaughts can only be explained by an arms race.
Hi Whartung,
I'm not sure what specifically you're looking for in the over all picture of things, but I did a search on the net for any possible previous posts of mine on this, and found the following:
5 Jovian Diver class boats with a 3.3 G acceleration carrying 220 dtons of fuel tanks.
2 Automated 145 dton Plecostomus fuel skimmers
1 Refinery class 400 dton hull with jump-1, fuel tankage enough for 7 jumps, and a .3 G maneuver drive.
I went so far as to find threads that I started, and had to go back to 2004 to find things, but these are the relevant threads:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=1716
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=3469
Posts 1 and 25 contain the bulk information of what I was planning on running for the scenario I had envisioned, as far as the planetary information (orbits etc) went.
While I no longer have the spread sheet that I had originally used for my analysis - it shouldn't be too hard to figure it out again from scratch. All of the information I used for this were contained within GURPS TRAVELLER FAR TRADER, GURPS TRAVELLER STARPORTS, and GURPS TRAVELLER STARSHIPS.
All of the information from Wages (GURPS TRAVELLER 2nd edition) to vehicles required to transport and pump fuel, to underground fuel tanks, etc - are available in the books I mentioned above. Then I had a couple of NPC's I built to handle the initial stock offering, and rolled to see if the Ianica Fuel Corporation could raise the necessary capital to build the fleet of roughly 8 craft.
What Follows below is a reprint from an earlier post from 2004. In rereading it now, I realize I made a couple of minor errors. I took into account the need for maintenance on the five Jovian Oiler class hulls, but neglected to take into account the base station needing maintenance as well as the two automated Plecostomus class ships. So, I goofed there.
The spreadsheet I had created a long time ago and nearly three computers later - contained the wages for the personnel necessary to run the operation at the ground level, as well as the costs for the vehicle fleet (ground tankers) etc. It also included a buffer of 1.5 MCr for unallocated expenses (based on my previous posts to the threads).
So, the trick would be to retrace my steps to rebuild this again. Question is - would it be worth it for you?
(As a side note: One of the things I regret CT not doing that GURPS TRAVELLER did do, was the creation of other "furnishings" or specialized "things" that could have been included - things like:
Brigs, Swimming pools, Ship's galley, conference rooms, theaters, battlesuit morgue, as well as specialized sensors to increase sensor ranges etc.
Begin Oldie post information:
5 Jovian Diver class boats with a 3.3 G acceleration carrying 220 dtons of fuel tanks.
2 Automated 145 dton Plecostomus fuel skimmers
1 Refinery class 400 dton hull with jump-1, fuel tankage enough for 7 jumps, and a .3 G maneuver drive.
Jovian Dancers are unstreamlined ships that can make the 3.5 AU run between the mainworld and its gas giant in just under 72 hours. Fuel transfers from the Refinery class hull can be done in under 2 hours for one ship. Fuel Refinery holds can be filled by 1 Pleco skimmer in under 24 hours.
All in all, this little arrangement can fulfill the needs of a single mainworld for up to 853 dtons of fuel per week. This is based on using only 4 hulls per week - with the fifth hull or crew being used for time off rotations. The reason for 5 hulls is because the yearly maintenance will take 4 weeks per hull or 20 weeks total.
Any ships that desire to do their own "wilderness" refueling operations will have to spend roughly 5 days in transit to the local gas giant at only 1 G acceleration. For some, it might be worth it. For others, a loss of 5 days transit in order to save money will cost them money.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I would suggest you take a look at the size of some current bulk carriers and also the very large cruise ships, and compare them to current military ship building. The yards building the very large commercial ships are not building military ships, and the military ship yards are not building commercial ships. The requirements for each are far too different. For commercial ships, cost verses revenue generation is the major factor. For military ships, cost is a factor, but only one of many, and not always the decisive one.
There is also the problem of too many eggs in one basket. Big dreadnoughts are nice, but if you only have a couple of them, the loss of any one becomes quite massive, and your admirals are going to be cautious. Then there is this thing called maintaining and crewing the ship. Traveller is quite cavalier regarding maintenance costs when compared to the Real World. Ten per cent of the original ship cost per year would not be out of line for a military ship, two to five per cent per year for a big bulk carrier, and five per cent per year for a large passenger ship. Put those costs into the equation, and your massive dreadnoughts begin to bankrupt you.
Typical peace time spending in the Real World, without a nasty opponent right next door is around 1 per cent or so of the gross domestic product. Take a look at the CIA World Factbook for some examples. At the 10 per cent level, it begins to distort your economy, while much over 15 per cent indicates a Cool to Warm War status. Twenty-five per cent or higher means a Hot War is in progress.
Edit Note: The current CIA World Factbook estimates that in the year 2012, the World military spending was 2.42% of the Gross World Product. The 2012 military spending of the US was 4.35% of Gross Domestic Product.
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Rough estimate:
(CT:HG) Using a 10000 dT hull with M-3 at TL12 we can skim and process 7300 dT fuel in 6 days, craft cost MCr 4000 in bulk.
Deducting a month for we can do 55 trips per year
We deliver 55 * 7300 dT = 400 000 dT refined fuel to mainworld orbit.
Cost is dominated by capital cost estimated with the mortgage MCr 4000 / 240 *12 = MCr 200, add another MCr 100 to cover crew(s) salaries, life support, and maintenance.
We have delivered 400 000 dT fuel for operating cost MCr 300, or Cr 750 / dT.
I think we are going broke rather quickly...
(CT:HG) Using a 10000 dT hull with M-1 at TL12 we can skim and process 8500 dT fuel in 12 days, craft cost MCr 1700 in bulk.
Deducting a month for we can do 27 trips per year
We deliver 27 * 8500 dT = 230 000 dT refined fuel to mainworld orbit.
Cost is dominated by capital cost estimated with the mortgage MCr 1700 / 240 *12 = MCr 85, add another MCr 50 to cover crew(s) salaries, life support, and maintenance.
We have delivered 230 000 dT fuel for operating cost MCr 135, or Cr 590 / dT.
Broke.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
(MgT2) Ocean fuel skimmer.
The ocean on the world is much closer than a distant gas giant. So we skim locally.
58000 dT, skims 41500 dT fuel. MCr 6600 in bulk.
M-2
Built at TL12 for ease of maintenance.
Designed to skim, process, and offload the fuel in 8h.
Economic cost estimate:
Assume three skimming trips per day, 350 days per year.
Bulk cost: MCr 6600.
Mortgage yearly: 6600 / 240 * 12 = MCr 330
Maintenance year: 6600 * 0,1% = MCr 7
Life Support year: (384) * Cr 4000 * 12 = MCr 19
Salaries: ( 200 * 3000 ) * 12 * 600% = MCr 43 (assume 600% crew, since three shifts, extra weekend shifts, etc)
Fuel, year: 0 = MCr 0 we skim our own fuel.
Yearly operating expense: MCr 330 + 7 + 19 + 43 + 0 = MCr 400.
We have skimmed and processed 350 * 3 * 41500 = 43 575 000 dT fuel for an average cost of Cr 9,2 per dT refined fuel.
If we triple that cost to cover berthing, admin, and a healthy profit margin we can sell the refined fuel for Cr 30 per dT in orbit.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Quick, very non-canon, estimate of trade volume:
China, pop 1.5 billion, exports about 30 million TEUs per year or about 100 million dT per year.
A 50 billion pop A world with the same ratio would export ~3000 million dT per year.
If we assume the average export range is 5 Pc a Free Trader takes 2 * 5 * 9 + 10 = ~100 days round trip, or 3.5 trips / year, carrying 80 dT each trip, e.i. 280 dT / year.
We would require 3 000 000 000 / 280 ≈ 11 million Free Traders to handle that volume.
This is why I do not assume a small ship universe.
China, pop 1.5 billion, exports about 30 million TEUs per year or about 100 million dT per year.
A 50 billion pop A world with the same ratio would export ~3000 million dT per year.
If we assume the average export range is 5 Pc a Free Trader takes 2 * 5 * 9 + 10 = ~100 days round trip, or 3.5 trips / year, carrying 80 dT each trip, e.i. 280 dT / year.
We would require 3 000 000 000 / 280 ≈ 11 million Free Traders to handle that volume.
This is why I do not assume a small ship universe.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
True for blue navy battleships.
In Traveller the size of an efficient warship is controlled by the size of spinals. An arms race would lead to more warships, not bigger warships.
Except:
Not a problem for the Imperium.
TCS uses 10% / year for warship operation. It seems you agree.
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Agreed. Also quite cavalier regarding getting into expensive wars that squander this investment.
Unless we take the perspective that spinals themselves exist as a consequence of an arms race.
Here's a design challenge for you:
A cubic mile of ice is about 310,000,000 dtons. Have a specially designed rig jump out to the inner oort cloud and attach to one of the many large chunks of ice floating around. Using thrusters (or conventional rockets using water as propellant) generating a few hundredths to a tenth of a G. Drive the large block of ice into orbit around your planet. Refine fuel from block of ice.
If you really are pulling a cubic mile of water off your primary world every seven years. It won't be too long before someone notices the climate change.
I presume that is why GURPS TRAVELLER STARPORTS notes that some worlds with hydrographic values of 4 or less, routinely forbid or heavily regulate on world refueling. When I mentioned this once before, people were NOT happy.
I just found an interesting tidbit in GURPS TRAVELLER STARPORTS regarding extrality locations that I will be posting in my thread in the area In My Traveller Universe, regarding nobles... Should prove to be an interesting "bomb". Granted, a lot of people don't bother using GURPS TRAVELLER stuff for their campaigns, but for those who do, should be fun.
Another thought that goes through my mind...
Lets suppose you have a single world that you as the GM are concentrating upon. Further suppose, that you take the time to determine (per GURPS TRAVELLER FAR TRADER) not only how many trade partners that world does trade with, but also the volumes of trade with each of the world trade partner. Then you rationalize that in order for that trade to occur, there has to be sufficient tonnage to transport said volume. So you build the BIG ships to handle bulk trade transportation, and a few smaller ships to handle the stuff that falls between the cracks (aka the free trader volumes).
Then you decide "hmm, lets build that commercial fleet for ALL of the trade volumes being generated for all of the worlds." Since this is largely determined to be "per week" volumes, you could then determine to set up a cycle of 52 weeks worth of ships carrying freight to and from the worlds in question.
Why would you do all of that? Now you have the trade volume requirements for just ONE World determined - you also have the ship hull determinations for just one trade world, now you can estimate just how many displacement tons of fuel that are being used by that one world ALONE. Granted, you've effectively built the commercial fleet that services two worlds, but if you treated each "trade relationship" for every world, eventually, you'd build up the entire minimum fleet required to handle all commercial trade relationships for all of the main worlds.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the volume of hydrogen being used on a frequent basis would prove to be interesting.
