Buying mothballed ships

[Tikon]

I have a question about purchasing old capital ships.

Something I noticed while looking through the Pirates of Drinax campaign. Where background says there's a planet with retired navy personnel and old ships looking for someone to use them. And while looking at my T20 fleet books: Fighting ships and Solomani.

How do you go about buying mothballed ships? Say you make a deal with the Imperium or Solomani to buy old ships for the Drinax Star Guard. (well pirates would most likely steal them )

Now the T20 vessels are hundreds of years old. But mothballing is supposed to preserve them in good shape. I've seen depreciation values for ships over 50 years old is 50%. But are mothballed ships subject to this?

What's the resale value on these vessels?

 

[Condottiere]

It depends on the degree of mothballing.

If they remove critical ship and weapon systems, what you have is a hull.

In real life, ours tend to require extensive coating to prevent deterioration and corrosion, but usually aren't worth the effort to restore them, since electronics are really sensitive, and machinery gets obsolete real fast.

The exception may be the boneyard in Arizona, where climatic conditions conspire to preserve the aircraft dumped there.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Mothballing is a formality. Usually a boss wants it done so that his higher ups can promote him to the next thing that needs closing down.

After a year or two, when everyone has left the site, the thing becomes unmothballed and left to rot in the desert sun because no one wants to scrap it, or there is too much red tape involved with scrapping it. But the building it was housed in is scheduled for demo.

See ships, trains, planes, linear induction motor hovercraft, etc.

 

[mike wightman]

There are rules for mothballing in TCS:

Ordinary: Ships may be placed in ordinary; they are decommissioned and are no
longer in service, but are stored away and may be returned to service at a later date.
Ships in ordinary cost one tenth their normal maintenance. The recommissioning
cost is one tenth the ship's cost and requires full shipyard capacity for one tenth
construction time. All time modifiers found in the shipbuilding rule may be used.

There was a DGP Traveller's Digest adventure in an Imperial mothballing facility where someone was stealing ships - there are more rules in there IIRC.

 

[Gray Lensman]

There are rules for mothballing in TCS:

There was a DGP Traveller's Digest adventure in an Imperial mothballing facility where someone was stealing ships - there are more rules in there IIRC.

Would you happen to know what issue it was in?

 

[Timerover51]

I have a question about purchasing old capital ships.

Something I noticed while looking through the Pirates of Drinax campaign. Where background says there's a planet with retired navy personnel and old ships looking for someone to use them. And while looking at my T20 fleet books: Fighting ships and Solomani.

How do you go about buying mothballed ships? Say you make a deal with the Imperium or Solomani to buy old ships for the Drinax Star Guard. (well pirates would most likely steal them )

Now the T20 vessels are hundreds of years old. But mothballing is supposed to preserve them in good shape. I've seen depreciation values for ships over 50 years old is 50%. But are mothballed ships subject to this?

What's the resale value on these vessels?

If the ships are in space, as I assume that they are, and the mothballing was on par with how the US Navy does it, you will probably spend about 10% of the original cost of the ship getting them ready to operate, and as they are warships, they might run anywhere from "you fix them, you have them" to 20% of the original cost. If hundreds of years old, most likely "you fix them, you have them."

 

[nobby-w]

I have a question about purchasing old capital ships.

[ . . . ]

What's the resale value on these vessels?

The purchase price of a refurbished vessel taken out of mothballs could potentially be a small fraction of the new price. Per TCS, refurbishment costs 10% of the purchase price of the ship, so the sale price will reflect that plus however much the supplying government wants to charge or subsidise the sale. This could be anywhere from 0% to maybe 30% of the new price.

There would be some substantial additional costs for supplying parts and logistics to support the ships. How much this is could be up to the referee, as I haven't seen any rules on it.

The closest analogy I can think of would be fighter jets. As an example, Indonesia recently bought a couple of squadrons of refurbished F16s at about $30m each for the total package. I've seen figures of around $50m for a new F16 with parts and support package. This suggests that the package is a significant fraction of the total cost.

You could reasonably put the cost of a refurbished ship + package at somewhere about 50% of the new cost of the ship. If the customer already had ships of that class and the means to support them then the cost might be quite a bit lower, although you might still be flogging extra parts to go with the ship.

If the parts were put in long-term storage then they might be saleable for just the cost of refurbishment (10% of the new value per TCS). If you had to crank up production to make the parts then they might be closer to the new value of the parts.

 

[Tikon]

I read that issue. I think issue #7.
There the article said how ships are mothballed. Critical components are covered in xeroplastic to preserve them. Also the process of shutting down and revving up mothballed vessels. It was a good article and adventure, but it didn't cover someone legitimately buying one.
So that's what I was looking for. Thanks for the info

 

[Tikon]

Also, the other idea was upgrading them. Which could be done a bit at a time. But Drinax has TL 16 in its Scholar's Tower.
most ships in T20 were TL12 I believe. TL14 otherwise. So old ships could be bought, but then with enough resources, an old Destroyer could get upgraded with better and smaller power plants, drives, and even new armor?

 

[Ex_Pendable]

Really, the idea behind mothballing ships is to be able to replace ships faster than it would take to build them, giving your navy a chance to recover during the interim.

When the Space Shuttle took over putting satellites into orbit, the Air Force was ordered to wind down their satellite launching program - but after they canceled the rocket contract, rather than use up their inventory, they simply stockpiled them. Following the Challenger disaster, the Air Force was able to quickly bring their satellite launching program back into service and continue launching satellites into orbit using their stockpiled rockets while a new rocket contract was being negotiated.

It's also handy for selling off ships to other friendly nations - in which case, it doesn't matter if the ship's systems are a little obsolete.

Curiously enough, one advantage that the WW2 battleships had over the modern navy was their armor belt. Modern missiles designed to penetrate the thinner armor backed by Kevlar panels just bounce off. It's very likely, despite the added expense of fuel it takes to run them, that if it hadn't have been for the Iowa's turret explosion that they'd still be in service today, instead of returned to mothballs or retired as museum ships.

However, when it comes to capital ships, I find it very unlikely that the Imperium would sell them to private individuals unless it was to scrap them - or for use as a museum ship, like the USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor. And almost certainly critical components of the ship's firing systems would be removed. If you're intending to go pirate, say under Imperium sanctioned privateer letters of marque and reprisal or your star guard, they'd more likely provide the smaller ships, say destroyers or frigates. Nobody wants to have some major asset turned against them.

Really, the only way you'd get a capital ship is if you stole it, removing it from a Mothball site / orbit or by liberating a museum ship. Or had official support - which usually means strings attached.

If your intention is to turn pirate, you may be better off building yourself a Q-ship using an older cargo ship.

Reactivating a mothballed ship, however, will still be cheaper than building a new one, even with repairs needed, so I'd expect there would be some savings.

 

[savage]

Well issue 7 is about all there is. MgT might have something updated.
One should assume that only corps and governments buy capital vessels.
There is a storyline about one of the AHL ships being sold to a corp and they forgot to demilitarize it.

So, 100s of years is reasonable if its sitting in space. However, probably not operable. I put my own overhaul/financial rules together for doing it in my TNE campaign. Essentially, you have major and minor overhauls. A major would be required. Also, keep in mind the ships mothballed may not be in the best shape. The wiring would be inplace but many systems might require test and repair. In the adventure the enemy was making the drives useable for many weeks and the main battery on a couple dozen ships before the heist.

 

[Tikon]

Well the Drinax Star Guard could sell itself as a friendly client state. Out to pacify pirates (*ahem* those other guys? We don't know them) and most importantly be right next to Aslan hostiles. Since Drinax is right on their path.
Which is what the retired navy officers were alluding to. Either have the Imperium find a use for them, or give them to allied powers.

 

[Tikon]

Obsolete ships that they think wouldn't cause the modern navy much trouble. But do deter hostiles. Hell, maybe they could only get one cruiser out of the deal. Which maybe they wouldn't see as that much of a problem.
That is until, the improvements
Also for a game set in the Trojan Reach. How hard would it be to get Solomani designs?
Since it would tweak the Imperium, Aslan, Etc. And the Drinax king seems to prefer Solomani over Villani.
Get a nice Airframed Yarmouth Cruiser, patrol cruiser, or monitor?

 

[Condottiere]

I get the impression that the Solomani have few qualms selling ground forces military equipment, and their military and Solomani Party happen to be shareholders.

Technology level twelve ships are probably not an issue, thirteen might be more restricted; fourteen is cutting edge for the Solomani.

 

[epicenter00]

How do you go about buying mothballed ships?

Most nations have some equivalent of "foreign military sales" they use to do just this.

A nation typically won't sell you just anything - they need to make sure that it is in their interests to sell you the hardware, or at least not harming their interests.

It's likely in the vast interstellar nations of the Traveller Universe you don't actually need to talk to the Emperor or someone to buy stuff, but you might have to talk to the local Duke, wait a while while he or she examines the situation, mulls it over, then decides to sell you the stuff or not.

Obviously, the more corrupt those you're dealing with, the less they'll care who they sell to as long as the money (or compensation) is good. For instance, instead of just ponying up with credits, you're more likely to get ships if you, say, can offer some influential Imperial megacorporation unlimited mining rights on some proven lode of precious industrial metals or something similar in exchange for a few destroyers. Perhaps more to the Drinax angle, if your players can prove to some Imperial megacorp (for instance) they've been destroying the local pirate problem and acting as a stabilizing force on the region and things will only become more stable and business-friendly to international trade if they support you with military hardware, your players might see quite a bit of it show up.

 

[savage]

Capital ships vs Pirate ships = ineffective.

Corridor Sector Fleet deploys mass quantities of capital ships along border regions as a show of force vs the vast number of Vargr corsairs. This in OTU many make an unclear statement.

That being said, a 1000-2000 dt ship might pass as a heavy merchant (tenders, etc) and would make the best platform for neutralizing pirate activity. Cost of operation is probably the key factor. Killing 400dt pirate corsairs with a 100kdt cruiser would be silly, like Star Wars' Star Destroyers chasing the Milenium Falcon.

 

[agorski]

There is a storyline about one of the AHL ships being sold to a corp and they forgot to demilitarize it.

That would be Oberlindes Lines buying an Azhanti High Lightning class ship with its particle accelerator for use on trade expeditions in Vargr space.

 

[Condottiere]

Vargr respect big sticks.

 

[Barrel]

I had thought that there might be some details about mothballing and de-mothballing in Arrival Vengeance, but no, all it says is that the ship had been refurbished in secret, with no details.

 

[Carlobrand]

I've never understood how they mothball ships. I mean, how do you even find the things. Moths are so small.

If we're talking centuries-old ships, I'd set minimum price as the value of the hull. That's the MCr0.3+0.1a per ton value from High Guard, where a was the armor value.