ACS Zero: "Standard" hulls missing

[Condottiere]

Ticky tack houses evolve, as the owners individually renovate them to their taste, or even expand them. They may even be stripped and essentially completed rebuilt.

The same will happen to starship hulls over forty or a hundred years, to greater or lesser degrees, but the plumbing and electronics will tend to be manufactured to a common standard.

If you take the example of the F-35 and the A-10 controversy, the A-10 isn't manufactured anymore, and the Air Force claims it just takes too much effort and costs too much to maintain them, whereas the F-35 being the current aircraft that will be mass produced in at least three thousand examples, would essentially be easier for them to train for and maintain, though not necessarily cheaper.

The Iranians have been able to keep their F-14s flying, despite a concerted campaign by the Americans to ensure that no parts, new or used, become available.

I still think that the personal computer case is the correct analogue.

 

[whartung]

We can consider cars.

We have millions and millions of cars. Built from a short list (respectively) of options.

But even then, a Ford is not a Porsche is not a Hyundai.

They mostly have motors, 4 wheels, a steering thing, and a transmission.

There are routine maintenance tasks that have some commonality across cars.

But even today, particularly with all of the electronics, mechanics are having to specialize on particular makes.

Then, of course, there's the issue of getting the specialized parts for each model.

Consider the infamous cars of Cuba. Cars with zero official supply chain, where the local mechanics and engineers have had to contrive and fabricate custom solutions to what we would consider a mundane problem.

And these are mass market products.

All that said, as a child I recall going in to a Sears with my Dad to get a battery. Heck a battery is a battery, mostly. Big block with a bunch of electrons pumped in to it. So, it wasn't a surprise that the Sears Auto Center had a compatible battery.

But was truly amazed me, was that his car also needed a starter. And they actually had the starter for my Dads car. Of the bazillion distinct car parts in the country, they happened to have a starter for my Dad's car. That just amazed me.

Now, he had a Chevrolet, with it's 350 V8. Of which there are simply millions and millions of these. So, in hindsight, with the commonality of that motor, and it's use in several GM vehicles, for several years, yea, it's no surprise that they had a starter for that motor.

But, as a child, when you don't quite realize that detail of the supply chain, it was pretty amazing.

In contrast, while driving to Los Angeles in a car my Mother had just bought from someone else, the clutch went out at 2am in Bishop, California. Bishop is located in the "middle of nowhere", in eastern California. Not only that, the car was a Mercury Capri, which, while a a Mercury, was actually a european import from Ford Europe.

Amazingly, that car got to sit in Bishop for 4 weeks waiting for parts. We took a bus home.

Thankfully, the repair was straight forward. I can guarantee that the mechanics had likely never repaired a Capri in their lives. But, either through getting a repair manual from Ford, or simply applying general mechanic principles, they were able to muddle through the process and get everything back in place, ideally with few screws remaining.

For that group, that was a custom repair. Unfamiliar parts, with unfamiliar process, using prefabricated parts. But that's their skill. Sound engineering processes, engineering patterns, "mechanical know how", etc. "It's a clutch, how hard can it be."

So, I would not be afraid of "everything is a custom repair", because in many cases, even here, everything IS a custom repair. But everything needs to "do the same thing", so there are typically only "so many ways" it is commonly done. Wide experience helps handle the multitude of situations the experts in repair encounter.

The problem is when the ALIEN equipment shows up -- then, there's a problem.

 

[Condottiere]

For the Vargr, likely everything is bespoke and a custom job.

We do have to ask, are there millions of starships out there in the Imperium?

 

[robject]

Now that is an interesting question.

Assume ten small ships visit every mainworld each week. That puts the number over 100,000.

Then add in long-haul freighters: assume 50 ships per sector per big corporation jumping each week - probably a low estimate - and you get another 100,000 ships.

Then add in the Navy and colonial fleets for another 100,000.

Yeah, it could get into millions of ships. Especially if your Imperium is "busy" (mine isn't).

 

[jcrocker]

Amazingly, that car got to sit in Bishop for 4 weeks waiting for parts. We took a bus home.

That's from companies on the same planet, with the order for the part taking a day or so to get to destination, not weeks in travel time needed for both directions.

If you suppose that was a small-ship trading company, ie player characters, it would probably take longer to get parts depending upon where they were, and unless they'd been doing well and had a reserve fund, could easily bankrupt the company.

Which, frankly, is just chock-full-o role playing potential. But if the PCs had liked having their own ship up until that moment, it likely wouldn't be remembered fondly.

 

[whartung]

That's from companies on the same planet, with the order for the part taking a day or so to get to destination, not weeks in travel time needed for both directions.

If you suppose that was a small-ship trading company, ie player characters, it would probably take longer to get parts depending upon where they were, and unless they'd been doing well and had a reserve fund, could easily bankrupt the company.

Which, frankly, is just chock-full-o role playing potential. But if the PCs had liked having their own ship up until that moment, it likely wouldn't be remembered fondly.

Well, just more motivation to make a point of buying common components when you buy your ship.

When I bought my Ford Explorer, a point on the decision process was that I had a pretty solid chance of being able to find parts, being as it was one of the more popular vehicles in the country at the time. Learning from my experience at Sears, there's value in commodity parts.