A idea for a big ship universe
- Thread starter infojunky
- Start date
In general think about half that length... I.e. 60ish meters or so.
Geeze, that is a whole other can-o-worms... IMHO ships in Traveller in general are an order of magnitude too expensive, kinda. With that naval weaponry is often under priced in relation to the cost of the ship itself.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
A Ford class carrier is $13 billion (about 100,000 dt in Traveller terms), planes add to the cost.
A Columbia class boomer is $9 billion (for 20,000 dt)
A Columbia class boomer is $9 billion (for 20,000 dt)
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Do you know about the starship design requirements for K'kree designs?
You sure that’s right? The classic Freelance article has it more like 18000 dtons.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I just used the wikipedia dimensions to get a box estimate.
Ford class (333x78x88)/14 =163,000 and the multiplied by 2/3 to approximate shape ~100,000
The GRT conversion is more accurate at 20,000 dt.
I got 1600dt for the columbia as a simple cylinder, no idea why I posted 20,000.
A GRT is 100cubic feet or 2.8 cubic metres
A Traveller displacement ton is 500 cubic feet, 2.8 x5 = 14 cubic metres.
Ford class (333x78x88)/14 =163,000 and the multiplied by 2/3 to approximate shape ~100,000
The GRT conversion is more accurate at 20,000 dt.
I got 1600dt for the columbia as a simple cylinder, no idea why I posted 20,000.
A GRT is 100cubic feet or 2.8 cubic metres
A Traveller displacement ton is 500 cubic feet, 2.8 x5 = 14 cubic metres.
And the similarly sized cargo ship is in the $300 million ballpark.
See, both of your examples have a preponderance of military specific equipment in addition to the gross hull sizes.
I see the problem(s) with that. I'm guessing you added the draft (12m) and height (76m) to get the 88m, but most of the height only applies to the bridge tower which is a tiny percentage of the deck. When I was working out rough volumes for WW2 USN ships I just doubled the draft.
Also, you used the beam overall (78m) - it's probably better to use the beam at waterline (41m) due to the flaring out.
So, if you multiply the length (337m) by the waterline beam (41m) then by double the draft you get 331,608 m^3 = 23,686 dTons
Maersk's first generation Triple-E class ships are 194,849 GT which works out as 44,068 dTons, nearly double the size of the Ford class (converting the GRT/volume to GT gives a value of 100,281 GT), and cost $190 million in 2012. Commercial shipbuilding costs do fluctuate a lot depending on demand; I don't know how the market was in 2012, but at the moment prices are probably high due to demand, and we are also seeing a lot of container ships and tankers which were due for scrapping being kept in service a bit longer thanks to the situation in the Red Sea.
Citizen of the Galaxy
Robert A. Heinlein
There is a group of merchants that are crewed/owned by 'families', 100's or a few 1,000's ships total, with the crew of each ship around 30ish I think. They're mostly speculative cargo from what I see, but as long as it brings in profits... (not the main plot, but the main character spends time amongst them).
I've had thoughts of trying to incorporate this idea into the OTU, or at least MTU, starting with 1k to 2k dton ships, but not over 5k.
A 1k dton ship universe is a good idea if you have probably a 4-5 person minimum for a gaming group. Not to mention it changes the dynamics of a lot of things ship related.
Robert A. Heinlein
There is a group of merchants that are crewed/owned by 'families', 100's or a few 1,000's ships total, with the crew of each ship around 30ish I think. They're mostly speculative cargo from what I see, but as long as it brings in profits... (not the main plot, but the main character spends time amongst them).
I've had thoughts of trying to incorporate this idea into the OTU, or at least MTU, starting with 1k to 2k dton ships, but not over 5k.
A 1k dton ship universe is a good idea if you have probably a 4-5 person minimum for a gaming group. Not to mention it changes the dynamics of a lot of things ship related.
To be clear I was just ball-parking numbers from a number of sources for pricing. But my point is clear...
Ok, this actually gets closer to the genesis of this idea. Throw in C J Cherryh's CompanyWars/Merchanters universe as well...
Couple this to some of the Campaigns I have played in have been Troop Style games, with each play having multiple characters of various positions/power levels and a cloud of NPCs that players can drop into as needed.
Adding to the price comparisons, Icon of the Seas is 248,663 GT, cost $1.8 billion and took about 21 months to build.
Of course, it isn't as fast as a Ford-class carrier, nor does it have a nuclear reactor...
The point being that the complexity of a ship (reflected by the price) has a bigger effect on build-time than size does. The OECD uses a system called Compensated Gross Tonnage to compare shipbuilding output/capacity between shipyards, companies and nations.
en.wikipedia.org
There's a link on that Wikipedia page to the 2007 standard which includes the formula used and the factors for different types of merchant ships.
Of course, it isn't as fast as a Ford-class carrier, nor does it have a nuclear reactor...
The point being that the complexity of a ship (reflected by the price) has a bigger effect on build-time than size does. The OECD uses a system called Compensated Gross Tonnage to compare shipbuilding output/capacity between shipyards, companies and nations.
Compensated gross tonnage - Wikipedia
There's a link on that Wikipedia page to the 2007 standard which includes the formula used and the factors for different types of merchant ships.
But, look at all the one-off equipment on Cruise Ships, which circles around to fittings being the biggest driver of ship cost rather than gross tonnage.
You'd want to multiply the draught by 2.5 or even 3.
As you can (hopefully) see, she's got a lot more height to the flight deck than just equal to her draught.
The phrase used is 'steel is cheap'. The expensive part comes when the people funding the ship look at all that 'empty' and 'unused' space and demand the architect 'make use of it'.
This all brings up an interesting point- do starships need to be weight balanced?
Ships have to have buoyancy so limits of weight vs volume. Then of course not too much weight on one side or it capsizes, or too much forward or back or you get drag and possibly foundering.
Airplanes of course can’t be too heavy for lift overall and balance issues can greatly affect performance.
Given most of us are using some flavor of grav lift, do starships have weight limit for grav systems, more buoyancy then thrust, or need to be properly trimmed/balanced/ballasted?
Ships have to have buoyancy so limits of weight vs volume. Then of course not too much weight on one side or it capsizes, or too much forward or back or you get drag and possibly foundering.
Airplanes of course can’t be too heavy for lift overall and balance issues can greatly affect performance.
Given most of us are using some flavor of grav lift, do starships have weight limit for grav systems, more buoyancy then thrust, or need to be properly trimmed/balanced/ballasted?
