A Hidden Pirate Base.....

[Xerxeskingofking]

What's the cost per T of a yard? And how many people are necessary to produce all the subcomponents, from digging up the ore to the finished components? And how many people do you need to produce the food and perform all the tertiary jobs?


Hans

0.5mcr/ton. the rules kinda assume your running a legit shipyard and can buy in the required components. their are rules for running manufacturing plants (which includes agriculture) and mining rigs, but they don't really tie in with the shipyard rules, as they assume these would be done in separate, dedicated stations.

 

[rancke]

0.5mcr/ton. the rules kinda assume your running a legit shipyard and can buy in the required components. their are rules for running manufacturing plants (which includes agriculture) and mining rigs, but they don't really tie in with the shipyard rules, as they assume these would be done in separate, dedicated stations.

So to have a starport B type boatyard (capable of building non-starship vessels of up to 5000T), our pirate chief would have had to invest a minimum of MCr5,000 (that's assuming no extra costs to build a clandestine one)? That doesn't really sound plausible to me.

So what starport rating would you assign a world with a small shipyard capable of building, say, one 1000T starship (or any combination of ships totalling no more than 1000T) at a time? Using the MgT definitions, I mean?


Hans

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

personnaly? I would still give it a B rating.

the standard for C is able to make smallcraft (ie 100Dtons or less). for the average free trader, the fact that the port can overhaul their 200 ton free trader or a scout/courier is more important than the fact it cant overhaul a 2,000 ton frigate or heavy freighter.

and, in my opinion, 5 billion credits for a yard able to build Destroyers for the navy seems quite reasonable,

 

[rancke]

personnaly? I would still give it a B rating.

Still? I said ships, not boats. This starport can build starships. Just not as many dT at a time as MgT's definition says.

Did you misunderstand me or are you knocking off a rating for too low capacity?

the standard for C is able to make smallcraft (ie 100Dtons or less). for the average free trader, the fact that the port can overhaul their 200 ton free trader or a scout/courier is more important than the fact it can't overhaul a 2,000 ton frigate or heavy freighter.

That may be more important to a free trader captain, but it would be of great importance to a company sheduling annual maintenance for its ships.

You're touching on an important issue here. Who assigns starport ratings and for what purpose?

A meta-game purpose is easy to see, but these seem to be in-game ratings.

and, in my opinion, 5 billion credits for a yard able to build Destroyers for the navy seems quite reasonable,

The implausibility is a pirate spending 5 billion+ credits on something that won't be amortized for decades.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

The implausibility is a pirate spending 5 billion+ credits on something that won't be amortized for decades.
Hans

Rereading MgT Starports book section on Shipyards mentions that that BCr 5 shipyard can produce 500 dTons of starship per week. Reasonable for a commercial shipyard, but a little high for a pirate fleet.
Would it be reasonable to posit that a 'Pirate Starship Yard' might be 1/10 the size, capacity and cost of a commercial shipyard?

Pirate Starship Yard: Cost = MCr 500; Builds spacecraft up to 500 dTons; produces 50 dTons per week.

 

[atpollard]

Under MgT Starport rules, I see no reason why the shipyard would NEED to be part of a starport of any class.

What prevents me from building a shipyard next to my house and a Class E spaceport (an outcropping of bedrock with a switchable landing beacon and no SPA registry)?

The ships are built with fuel purifiers installed and a well provides a full tank of water.

 

[rancke]

Rereading MgT Starports book section on Shipyards mentions that that BCr 5 shipyard can produce 500 dTons of starship per week. Reasonable for a commercial shipyard, but a little high for a pirate fleet.

But if it's a class B starport, it's not a shipyard, it's a boatyard. And it's not 500T a week, it's able to work on 500T a week. If that work is on a 500T ship that takes one year to build (I haven't checked the construction times), then it would be 500T of ship -- sorry, boat -- per year.

I don't know what the cost difference between shipyards, boatyards, maintenance facilities, and repair facilities are, if there are any (as seems reasonable).


Hans

 

[atpollard]

From MgT Starports (pg 51):

[M;]Edited to avoid copiright violation[/m;]

From this, I take it that starship/boat/small craft construction capability is potentially independent of Starport Class.

A Shipyard (Spacecraft) (the smallest facility to build Starships) costs 5 billion credits, constructs 500 dTons of craft per week (26,000 dTons of starships per year), and can build anything up to, but not over 5000 dTons (which would require 10 weeks of the yards full capacity to build.

**********

I had simply posited that a pirate might not need 5000 dTon maximum ship size or 26,000 dTons per year production capacity ... and might build a hypothetical 1/10 scale "Pirate" Shipyard (Spacecraft) at a cost of 500 million credits, a maximum ship size of 500 dTons and a 50 dTon per week (2,600 dTon per year) production capacity.

 

[rancke]

From MgT Starports (pg 51):

Wow! That's a massive retcon. Especially the change from so-and-so-many T of ship produced in many months or even years to so-and-so-many dT produced in a single week.

OK, so I buy myself a shipyard module (spacecraft) for MCr5000 and start building ships. MCr25 per 100T seems a fairly average price for starships, so I can produce MCr125 worth of ship per week. Assuming a profit of 3% on each ship, that makes a rate of return of 4% p.a.. Well, that seems to work (as long as you can find customers to keep your shipyard busy).

I had simply posited that a pirate might not need 5000 dTon maximum ship size or 26,000 dTons per year production capacity ... and might build a hypothetical 1/10 scale "Pirate" Shipyard (Spacecraft) at a cost of 500 million credits, a maximum ship size of 500 dTons and a 50 dTon per week (2,600 dTon per year) production capacity.

500 million credits is still a lot of money for something you will have to abandon when you retire. And if I was a pirate king, I wouldn't plan on retiring 40 years down the road.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

From MgT Starports (pg 51):

[M;]Edited to avoid copiright violation[/m;]

From this, I take it that starship/boat/small craft construction capability is potentially independent of Starport Class.

A Shipyard (Spacecraft) (the smallest facility to build Starships) costs 5 billion credits, constructs 500 dTons of craft per week (26,000 dTons of starships per year), and can build anything up to, but not over 5000 dTons (which would require 10 weeks of the yards full capacity to build.

**********

I had simply posited that a pirate might not need 5000 dTon maximum ship size or 26,000 dTons per year production capacity ... and might build a hypothetical 1/10 scale "Pirate" Shipyard (Spacecraft) at a cost of 500 million credits, a maximum ship size of 500 dTons and a 50 dTon per week (2,600 dTon per year) production capacity.

Object lesson:
I self-reported a post that I was unsure of.
I was wrong in my copyright assumptions.
An Administrator fixed it.

So without quoting, I can still paraphrase important ideas:
Based on the MgT Starports book, there are three different 'modular shipyards' that can be purchased.

Shipyard (Small Craft) is typically found at Class C starports, costs 2 billion credits to construct, can build non-starships up to 100 dTons and can construct 100 dTons of ship per week (5200 dTons per year).

Shipyard (Spacecraft) is typically found at Class B starports, costs 5 billion credits to construct, can build starships up to 5000 dTons and can construct 500 dTons of ship per week (26,000 dTons per year).

Shipyard (Capital Ship) is typically found at Class A starports, costs 20 billion credits to construct, can build starships of any size and can construct 1000 dTons of ship per week (52,000 dTons per year).

Useful reference data for this conversation.
[and now completely legal]

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

Still? I said ships, not boats. This starport can build starships. Just not as many dT at a time as MgT's definition says.

Did you misunderstand me or are you knocking off a rating for too low capacity?


That may be more important to a free trader captain, but it would be of great importance to a company sheduling annual maintenance for its ships.

You're touching on an important issue here. Who assigns starport ratings and for what purpose?

A meta-game purpose is easy to see, but these seem to be in-game ratings.


The implausibility is a pirate spending 5 billion+ credits on something that won't be amortized for decades.


Hans

as others have pointed out, in MgT, a class B can build sup capital starships, not just smallcraft.

on the "who is starport info for" thing, my take, informed by the idea that the free traders take up "the slack in the system", is that a larger "bulk" haulers would be tied to fixed or semi-fixed routes, with their routine overhauls planned out and arranged months in advance and often with the same shipyard with a slight discount, on a repeat custom basis. Whereas a free trader is normally chasing the money, and going wherever his goods need to go, so hes going much more likey to be in unfamiliar territory when his annual overhaul is due.

thus, the free trader is the one that will be consulting a starmap to work out which system he needs to end up at in 3 weeks time for his overhaul, not a heavy freighter. Also, the trade codes and such are more important to a free trader who might be doing a little speculative trading, whereas the bigger ships would tend to stick to pre planned and established routes.

and I agree that a pirate having his own, hidden shipyard that only he uses is a very uneconomical idea. my suggested take was the "normal yard that does work on the side" angle I mentioned in my first post.

 

[flykiller]

a pirate does not need the capability to build entire ships (though I am sure they would love it!)

if they could build entire ships then there's no need for them to be pirates. furthermore 1) a b port of any description in any ruleset brings them very close to the threshold of going legit, and 2) the volume of stolen/resold goods necessary to support such a b port would attract the law enforcement attention of an entire subsector.

 

[rancke]

as others have pointed out, in MgT, a class B can build sup capital starships, not just smallcraft.

And not just spaceboats. As I said, a drastic retcon. Before getting invested in the worldview it represents, I'd very much like to know if T5 will preserve it. And note that this discussion is not in the MgT forum but in the Lone Star forum where we don't automatically consider the MgT rules to be gospel.

on the "who is starport info for" thing, my take, informed by the idea that the free traders take up "the slack in the system", is that a larger "bulk" haulers would be tied to fixed or semi-fixed routes, with their routine overhauls planned out and arranged months in advance and often with the same shipyard with a slight discount, on a repeat custom basis. Whereas a free trader is normally chasing the money, and going wherever his goods need to go, so hes going much more likey to be in unfamiliar territory when his annual overhaul is due.

But why then distinguish between class A and class B? Why would a free trader care about the shipyard capacity of a starport? All he cares about is whether he can get his ship repaired and maintained. To him there's no practical difference between a class A or a class B starport (And if the class C starport can now build small ships, not much difference between those and the higher classes either¹). Furthermore, who assigns these ratings and why do they care about small tramp traders?

¹ Mind you, I'm all in favor of allowing any place that has the ability to repair starships to also have the ability to perform annual maintenance.​

That really is a problem I've had with the starport ratings for a long time. Prior to MgT, the only difference between Class A and Class B starports is that one builds starships and the other only spaceboats. Every other facility, including anything a visiting starship captain would be interested to know, is the same. The only ones who would really find the difference interesting are wargames referees.

Note that I'm not objecting to starport classifications. They're plausible enough. I object to some of the specific details.

and I agree that a pirate having his own, hidden shipyard that only he uses is a very uneconomical idea. my suggested take was the "normal yard that does work on the side" angle I mentioned in my first post.

I understood from the OP that this world does not have an official class B starport rating. It's the concept of a stealth shipyard that I find a little hard to believe in.


Hans

 

[whulorigan]

And not just spaceboats. As I said, a drastic retcon. Before getting invested in the worldview it represents, I'd very much like to know if T5 will preserve it.

Unfortunately, both T5.00 and T5.09 do not follow this Starport paradigm; it appears to be unique to MgT. I would be all in favor of advocating that something close to the MgT rating system be implemented for T5 ^*, but I am not sure how "flexible" Marc would be with that piece of setting-detail. Perhaps Robject, DonM, or someone else closely involved with Marc in producing T5.1 could bring it up?

_{* - I agree with you that the Class-B port has always been something of an oddity. Perhaps for T5.1, the cut-off could be 2500 dtons for B-Ports, since in T5 that is the dividing line between "Adventure-Class" Starships and "Battle-Class" starships?}​

 

[atpollard]

I understood from the OP that this world does not have an official class B starport rating. It's the concept of a stealth shipyard that I find a little hard to believe in.

Hans

How elaborate do Chop Shops get?
At the end of the day, they need maintenance, repair and major modification capabilities more than the ability to mass produce ships from the keel up. Since the ships being chopped, repaired and modified are probably Starships in the 100 to 5000 dTon range, Class B is the MgT Starport rating closest to what they do ... bigger than 'Small Craft' and smaller than 'Capital Ships'.

In the real world, a Body/Repair shop for cars and trucks would be a lot smaller and cheaper than a Ford Assembly Line, but able to disassemble, repair or modify anything the Assembly Line could produce.
(Not a prefect example, I know, but the best I could think of on a moment's notice.)

 

[rancke]

How elaborate do Chop Shops get?

How close to a car factory is a chop shop?

At the end of the day, they need maintenance, repair and major modification capabilities more than the ability to mass produce ships from the keel up.

So that's what the adventure should have said was there.

Since the ships being chopped, repaired and modified are probably Starships in the 100 to 5000 dTon range, Class B is the MgT Starport rating closest to what they do ... bigger than 'Small Craft' and smaller than 'Capital Ships'.

No, it's not anywhere near close to a starport rating of B. It's a <whatever rating that world has> with a hidden starship chop shop. Not the same thing at all, nor anywhere near the capacity implied by a Class B rating.


Hans

 

[flykiller]

In the real world, a Body/Repair shop for cars and trucks would be a lot smaller and cheaper than a Ford Assembly Line, but able to disassemble, repair or modify anything the Assembly Line could produce.

disappearing cars are one thing. disappearing starships are another. and where will they sell the starship parts? "psst, hey, you lookin' for a power plant? I gots one right over here, sells new for 20MCr, I'll let it go for 5MCr, come on, it's a deal. hey, I got's triple turrets too, a little dinged up but they's good, you need some?"

 

[atpollard]

and where will they sell the starship parts?

Funny post ... but to answer the question: on the internet.
Seriously, you sell stolen starship parts the same way you sell stolen auto parts ... which is right alongside legitimate used parts.

Quasi-legitimate ships transport the recovered parts to worlds with starship salvage yards that sell to the Repair Facilities at legitimate Class C and Class B Starports to install in all those Adventure Class ships looking for a bargain.

 

[Quint]

How elaborate do Chop Shops get?

I think that the plethora of "Monster Vehicle" shows on the TV (plus my own observations of people wrenching stuff in their own garages) is that a Chop Shop could potentially build a starship from the ground up, including an amazing amount of customization and innovative design work - what they lack is the ability to do it as an assembly line, in volume. Plus, while some components can be manufactured on-site, many need to be purchased and installed by the crew of the chop shop.

Each vehicle that comes out is essentially bespoke, with all the bonuses and downsides that come with that.

In my mind eye I actually see the Pirate Shipyard generally being "old school" in that it uses sophonts rather than automation as the primary labor source, along with a combination of purchased, stolen, salvaged, and bespoke components. There is probably a limit of 5Kdtons or so for construction, but repair, maintenance, and limited retrofitting probably has a higher dton limit.

D.

 

[flykiller]

Quasi-legitimate ships transport the recovered parts to worlds with starship salvage yards that sell to the Repair Facilities at legitimate Class C and Class B Starports to install in all those Adventure Class ships looking for a bargain.

then that's (one place) where law enforcement will focus.

"ok, where's this computer from?" "how should I know, got it from a guy on planet dingo 01." "look, if I get investigated I have to tell them something. where's it from?" "an A2 crashed, it's salvage, that's all I know. just tryin' t'make a livin' here." "hull number, incident report number, insurance investigation number?" "should be coming in on the next x-boat. geez, look, I'll give it to you for 10% of what it's worth, ok?" "ok, but if they come after me I'm pointing right at you." "gimme the cash."

two years later. scout swat team shows up, thundering through the door in full combat armor. "who? or we're confiscating this whole ..." "don't shoot it wasn't me it was benny fuzzball he runs the ics scowbucket through here twice a year here's his picture." "where?" "should be showing up on planet pinko 02 in two weeks he has a girlfriend there don't shoot I got kids." "you'll be getting an assessment notification in a few weeks, I suggest you pay it." they thunder out.