Are fleets too Large in Traveller

[Gray Pennell]

We have all to often debated the size of individual ships. The result says the large ship version of the game reduces the number ships. Yet I have looked at the fleet sizes in 5FW and they are huge and the number of fleets is also huge. In my Traveller game I am for reducing the size of these fleets.

 

[rancke]

We have all to often debated the size of individual ships. The result says the large ship version of the game reduces the number ships. Yet I have looked at the fleet sizes in 5FW and they are huge and the number of fleets is also huge. In my Traveller game I am for reducing the size of these fleets.

Then you have to reduce the population levels. Or come up with some really expensive military features that civilian ships don't need, although that has implications for civilian ships defending themselves from pirates.

Some for of force field that increases in efficiency with ship size might work. It increases the cost of military ships by the cost of the force field generator and encourages the building of bigger (and thus fewer) warships.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Or just reduce the average income per capita considerably without changing the prices.

Note that TL9 has a typical GNP per capita, according to Striker, of KCr10... but can be up to KCr16.

Typical is 3% on defense, and 30% of that is Imperial, and probably 2/3 of that is navy ... 0.6 percent of that GNPpC... or about Cr56 per man at TL 9. and and about Cr11 more per TL.

A Pop 9 world at TL 9 is average GCr280... ranging from GCr56 to GCr560... and can probably support a fleet of about GCr2800 new construction cost using the old rule of thumb that a fleet's construction cost is about 10x the annual cost to keep it in operation. Really, it's just WAY too easy to fill that with GCr35 cruisers...

 

[rancke]

Or just reduce the average income per capita considerably without changing the prices.

This is effectively the same as making all aships more expensive, which affects the prices of civilian ships too. The fact that even an old clapped-out tramp freighter is worth ten million credits is already a problem. If you make them more expensive, you turn interstellar traffic into something only huge organizations can afford.


Hans

 

[mbrinkhues]

It is build for the military so let's start with double the price at least because the producer guarantees × years of spare parts availability by Keeping the line open after end of production / storing tools or whatever b... shit the sell the military

Nobles in charge so between corruption, bribes and inbreeding the system will easily waste half its income

Budget pays for more than ships [Bases, ground based defences etc]

Core sectors suck of some money for R&D

 

[rancke]

It is build for the military so let's start with double the price at least because the producer guarantees × years of spare parts availability by Keeping the line open after end of production / storing tools or whatever b... shit the sell the military.

That's a idea I've suggested several times. I call it the MISS factor. It stands for Military Inefficiency Spending Syndrome. It's a factor that all prices are increased by to account for everything from bureaucracy to corruption. It can be a s low as 1.0 for militaries that have been engaged in serious fighting for a long time and goes up in increments of 0.1. Factors that increase MISS is size of organization (measured by size of budget) and decades since last serious conflict (brushfires don't count), and goverment type. I had a suggestion typed up many years ago, but I don't seem to have the file any more.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

I think with the classic $500 hammers and $10,000 toilets as examples you might need more than a 0.1 increment Hans

* both figures from memory of scandal headlines in the heyday of military excess so I might be off

EDIT: I should also note I'm not sure those prices were ever "proven" either, though I do recall what seemed to be official explanations (excuses) for why they were that high (suggesting strongly that they were in fact that high), said explanations ranging through quite a wide degree of plausible bafflegab. From having to be up to mil spec ruggedness (combat ruggedized toilet seats?) through to oversight (installed the toilets last on a battleship and standard seats didn't fit, choice was rebuild the battleship or custom order narrower toilet seats) with lots of other dodges as well. Though again, most of those reported explanations seemed hard to track down and verify as fact.

I'm reminded of the best explanation I heard, from a movie actually so it's total fiction

Scene: A huge ultra secret military base...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000597/http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000597/President: I don't understand, where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002139/Civilian: You don't actually think they spend $20,000.00 on a hammer, $30,000.00 on a toilet seat do you?

...from Independence Day

 

[rancke]

I think with the classic $500 hammers and $10,000 toilets as examples you might need more than a 0.1 increment Hans

I didn't say how many increments, did I?


Hans

 

[Gray Pennell]

So we can increase the cost of navel wessels. Thats easy make big hauls, and military grade weapons, power plants etc cost more. We can also factor in upkeep and support.

There is the decrease the GDP of worlds so fleets cant be built. What about decreasing the amount of taxes intersteller empires collect, decrease what they spend on the navies. Maybe there is anti military and/or anti tax party in place. The US Republican party before the cold war. Maybe the core worlds dont send money to the navy because why should the support the Spinward Marchs/Rim Worlds in their wars.

Or we just make elements disappear no recon just make it so. Do you think the players will really notice. Will it increase piracy and mercenary and players with laser games? Sure but players want those.

 

[Dragoner]

It is build for the military so let's start with double the price at least because the producer guarantees × years of spare parts availability by Keeping the line open after end of production / storing tools or whatever b... shit the sell the military

Nobles in charge so between corruption, bribes and inbreeding the system will easily waste half its income

Budget pays for more than ships [Bases, ground based defences etc]

Core sectors suck of some money for R&D [or support of the emperors Vagr mistress]

Agreed, and tooth to tail considerations will put 90% or more of what is left over to "other than warships".

 

[mbrinkhues]

IRL example was /are the "VW 181 "Iltis" and the Mercedes G "Wolf" version of the Bundeswehr. They use a number of non - standard parts like 24 volt electrical system that drive up costs considerably even for privat users [Typ181are well liked ex-military vehicles] The BW later went a different way with the 2to Unimog and the non - offroad second gen trucks using standard trucks painted RAL6014 and risked that spares would run out before the typical 15 years betting that choosing mass produced vehicles would reduce the danger (worked)

 

[pendragonman]

The old R&D department, and the aforementioned Black Projects Departments, can easily become a black hole of a money pit. Letting you decide what percentage of that total available budget is actual, physical ships, bases, and battalions and what are phantom bits that exist only on someone's computer.

 

[Garyius2003]

Big Imperium, little fleet. Sure there are 8 Tigresses and a pile of 200k battle wagons in the Marches, but that don't mean there is one per system, and they usually go places in groups. Far better to have one cruiser show up to keep the peace or force the PCs to flee, and save Task Force 51.1.3 (One Tigress, three 200Kt, 8 50Kt cruisers, 2 carriers, 5 troop ships, 26 escorts) for when the PCs have fled back to the Imperium with the secret list of Zho involuntary reprogrammed slaves in 3I space, one-half hour ahead of the mind raper strike fleet...

 

[rancke]

So we can increase the cost of navel wessels. Thats easy make big hauls, and military grade weapons, power plants etc cost more. We can also factor in upkeep and support.

Upkeep and support is already factored in. And there's one kind of naval vessel we can't increase the cost of: patrol vessels about twice the size and armament of the usual PC ship.

There is the decrease the GDP of worlds so fleets cant be built.

Only by decreasing the size of the population. The percentage of gross product that a population can sustain in the long and the short run is quite well known from Real Life.

What about decreasing the amount of taxes intersteller empires collect, decrease what they spend on the navies.

That depends on the setting. If it's a peaceful universe with practically no interstellar warfare, you could assume (and with great justification) that military budgets were small. For a place like the Imperium, surrounded by hostile and unfriendly interstellar powers in its own weight class (even though it is the biggest in its class), the canonical 3% of GWP is already suspiciously low.

Maybe there is anti military and/or anti tax party in place. The US Republican party before the cold war. Maybe the core worlds dont send money to the navy because why should the support the Spinward Marchs/Rim Worlds in their wars.

The core worlds probably do spend less on the military than the border worlds. But the canonical 3% is an average. If the core worlds only spend 1% of GWP, the border worlds presumably spend correspondingly over the average.

Or we just make elements disappear no recon just make it so. Do you think the players will really notice. Will it increase piracy and mercenary and players with laser games? Sure but players want those.

What do you mean?


Hans

 

[far-trader]

...there's one kind of naval vessel we can't increase the cost of: patrol vessels about twice the size and armament of the usual PC ship.

I'm curious, why not?

In CT there was the dichotomy of ship prices being identical even though there was a split of military sensors vs civilian sensors and naval drives (using unrefined fuel with no problem) vs civilian drives. Seems to me those 2 differences alone should mean some price increase for said small patrol vessels. Unless one argues that since the prices ARE the same it must be a crew discipline or training difference, though that is not supported by the rules. Or is there another way out of that issue?

 

[rancke]

I'm curious, why not?

I waffled a bit between making it the same size or twice the size (to suggest that the military would still be able to whup a PC tramp), but essentially I mean that any government of a decent size will be able to overmatch a tramp freighter even if they're reduced to using civilian ships with civilian weapons. If it's not ships twice as big it'll be patrols of two or four or eight ships patrolling together.

Basically, if a bunch of scruffy adventurers can afford an armed tramp, a government should be able to afford lots and lots of armed patrol ships. Unless it's the government of a rather small population.

In CT there was the dichotomy of ship prices being identical even though there was a split of military sensors vs civilian sensors and naval drives (using unrefined fuel with no problem) vs civilian drives. Seems to me those 2 differences alone should mean some price increase for said small patrol vessels.

Granted. But how big a difference? Enough to matter? I seriously doubt it.


Hans

 

[Timerover51]

Of course they are too large, to the point of ridiculousness. The game system does not take into account where the money really goes in a defense establishment, and no, it is not your so-called $600 hammers and $10,000 toilets. It goes to pay for the following things: paying personnel, feeding personnel, housing personnel, moving personnel about, training personnel (which must be a very big item in the Imperial Navy given the tech levels involved), recruiting personnel, providing medical care for personnel (and dependents of said personnel), paying pensions of retired personnel, paying pensions of disabled personnel, maintenance on non-ship installations, building non-ship installations, and fuel for ships, along with all of the additional ships that are going to be required to support the Fleet.

The Tigress-class dreadnought on page 38 of Fighting Ships requires 190,000 TONS of liquid hydrogen fuel for operations. Do you think that 190,000 tons magically appears in orbit to fuel it? You need some very large tankers, hauling water into orbit (in a given volume, water has 56% more mass of Hydrogen than Liquid Hydrogen, plus you get the oxygen delivered too), electrolyzing it, liquifying the hydrogen, and then pumping it into the ship tanks. All those ships, which are not discussed at all, need to be maintained, crewed, and built. Does that show up as a fleet cost? No. Every time a Tigress-class jumps, it uses 125,000 tons of Liquid Hydrogen at 500 credits a ton, for 62.5 million credits of fuel per jump. (Must have some very large and really durable pumps to put that much near-Absolute Zero fuel into your power plant very quickly, but that is another issue entirely.) Consider the size of the tanker fleet needed to keep an orbiting naval base in fuel.

The Tigress-class has a crew of 4314. Based on the pay schedules in the Traveller Book, (the ones given in MegaTraveller are really ridiculous), a pilot gets 6,000 credits a month, or 72,000 credits a year. If you want to keep a Medic, you are going to pay him considerably more than 3,000 credits a month (that is where the pay scale if MegaTraveller gets totally bizarre, as a Gunner can get paid more than a Medic). So, figure your crew of the Tigress costs you in straight pay 50,000 credits per person, your crew costs you 215,700,000 credits per year. Really, you need to double that to account for those personnel who have rotated planet-side after a tour onboard. Then toss in 10% a year maintenance costs. The Tigress-class costs the sum of 362,721.366 Million Credits. That would be 36.272 Billion credits (and change) for maintenance every year. Hm, 30 of them would chew up your Trillion Credits for ship purchase every year.

Yes, the Tigress-class is the extreme example, but because of how the design process works, 500,000 tons of jump-4 ships is going to require about the same amount of fuel, with the crew and maintenance requirements somewhat scaling, depending on what ships you are looking at.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

A title, because I hate blank space.

As for your analysis of what it takes to run a large ship in the IN, that part I really liked. And one of those delightful gearheady bits that makes hanging out here so fun.

Sorry, FT, I was just coming back to fix the title too. You could give me a minute to fix things. I am after all human and sometimes I forget the little stuff. Like that I would need to change the title to reflect the edits.

FT/Mod - My bad I was thinking it was inaccessible to mere members Next time I'll give you a full minute :rofl:

 

[aramis]

This is effectively the same as making all aships more expensive, which affects the prices of civilian ships too. The fact that even an old clapped-out tramp freighter is worth ten million credits is already a problem. If you make them more expensive, you turn interstellar traffic into something only huge organizations can afford.


Hans

Not really.

If you change GDP, you also change the relationships of People and Guns, People and Vehicles, people and food...

If you change just ship costs, you still have the much higher, more 1970's-US-like populations.

Note that the TL baselines for TL5-7 seem to have been taken from US historical GDP figures - but US GDP for TL 6 & 7 was pretty much the highest in the world. TL7 is almost an exact fit for US 1977 GDP...

Personally, I'd rather lower GDP. Makes for a darker, more interesting setting.

@Timerover:
Those prices you're citing for salaries are merchant pay, not military. Military is in CT Bk 4, p 19... and are CONSIDERABLY lower...

E1 300
E2 400
E3 450
E4 500
E5 550
E6 600
E7 700
E8 800
E9 1000
O1 1000
O2 1200
O3 1400
O4 1600
O5 1800
O6 2000​

Even allowing for a 100% space pay bonus vs ground pounders, the captains are making less than even a civilian navigator. Your cost figures for salary are off by at least a third in this case.

If not giving a space duty bonus, then the salary costs are going to be well under a third of what you're figuring.

 

[rancke]

Of course they are too large, to the point of ridiculousness. The game system does not take into account where the money really goes in a defense establishment, and no, it is not your so-called $600 hammers and $10,000 toilets. It goes to pay for the following things: paying personnel, feeding personnel, housing personnel, moving personnel about, training personnel (which must be a very big item in the Imperial Navy given the tech levels involved), recruiting personnel, providing medical care for personnel (and dependents of said personnel), paying pensions of retired personnel, paying pensions of disabled personnel, maintenance on non-ship installations, building non-ship installations, and fuel for ships, along with all of the additional ships that are going to be required to support the Fleet

.

All accounted for in the maintenance figure.

The Tigress-class dreadnought on page 38 of Fighting Ships requires 190,000 TONS of liquid hydrogen fuel for operations. Do you think that 190,000 tons magically appears in orbit to fuel it? You need some very large tankers, hauling water into orbit (in a given volume, water has 56% more mass of Hydrogen than Liquid Hydrogen, plus you get the oxygen delivered too), electrolyzing it, liquifying the hydrogen, and then pumping it into the ship tanks. All those ships, which are not discussed at all, need to be maintained, crewed, and built.

Yes, logistics is subsumed in the maintenance figures for the navy's fighting ships. You don't really think it costs MCr36,272 per year to maintain just a Tigress, do you?

Does that show up as a fleet cost? No. Every time a Tigress-class jumps, it uses 125,000 tons of Liquid Hydrogen at 500 credits a ton, for 62.5 million credits of fuel per jump. (Must have some very large and really durable pumps to put that much near-Absolute Zero fuel into your power plant very quickly, but that is another issue entirely.) Consider the size of the tanker fleet needed to keep an orbiting naval base in fuel.

Well, any navy will, presumably, get its fuel at Cr100 a ton (if not even cheaper). But even if it paid Cr500 a ton, 62.5 million credits is less than 0.2 percent of the maintenance figure. If it jumps 35 times a year, it will account for 6% of maintenance. And I don't see any navy having its main battle units spending any more time in jump than absolutely necessary.

The Tigress-class has a crew of 4314. Based on the pay schedules in the Traveller Book, (the ones given in MegaTraveller are really ridiculous), a pilot gets 6,000 credits a month, or 72,000 credits a year. If you want to keep a Medic, you are going to pay him considerably more than 3,000 credits a month (that is where the pay scale if MegaTraveller gets totally bizarre, as a Gunner can get paid more than a Medic). So, figure your crew of the Tigress costs you in straight pay 50,000 credits per person, your crew costs you 215,700,000 credits per year. Really, you need to double that to account for those personnel who have rotated planet-side after a tour onboard.

By sheer coincidence, Cr100,000 per year is what I use to calculate the cost of one crew slot, although I arrive at that figure differently (I use the average of the salaries from Striker (Cr10,000, 20,000, 30,000, and 50,000 depending on quality (green, average, veteran, and elite) = Cr27,500) as the average cost and calculate with three navy members on the ground for every one in space, for Cr110,000, then rounded down to Cr25,000 for ease of calculation. )

The crew of 4,314 would cost MCr 431.4 per year. That is 1.1% of the maintenance figure of MCr36,272.

Then toss in 10% a year maintenance costs. The Tigress-class costs the sum of 362,721.366 Million Credits. That would be 36.272 Billion credits (and change) for maintenance every year.

That's the total cost of having a Tigress. This includes all auxiliariy vessels and all other logistical support.

I also believe it includes peacetime replacement of a vessel after 40 years for a quarter of the maintenance figure. (Battle repairs and combat losses are the only expenses not covered in TCS maintenance).

Hm, 30 of them would chew up your Trillion Credits for ship purchase every year.

The GWP of 15 trillion people is a lot of trillions.

Yes, the Tigress-class is the extreme example, but because of how the design process works, 500,000 tons of jump-4 ships is going to require about the same amount of fuel, with the crew and maintenance requirements somewhat scaling, depending on what ships you are looking at.

Yes, and if you take the average of the cost of the three battleships in FS as the average cost of a battleship and the average of the cruiser-sized vessels in FS as the average cost of a cruiser, calculate with an average of 7 combat vessels per squadron and an average of 9 squadrons per fleet, and a ratio of one BatRon to three CruRons[*], AND throw in a Cr5000T escort per combat vessel, you still only use up half the Imperial Navy's budget. To make it come out right, one is forced to assume that the actual maintenance figure is twice the TCS one. Which is perhaps justifiable in that TCS deals with pocket empires a few parsecs across for relatively uncomplicated logistics, while the Imperium's logistics problems would be a good deal more complex.

[*] Since I did these calculations, it has been pointed out to me that the ratio in the FFW countermix is 1:2, but I haven't gotten around to redoing the numbers.​

Hans