Canonical Ships and their Shipyard

[robject]

I'm thinking up places where some of our canonical ships could be built. I'm looking at print sources of course (for the Kinuniriin and Leviathans, for example), but I'm also making some educated guesses.

What are your thoughts about this?

For example:

Safari ships, Far Traders, Lab ships, and Yachts can be built at any number of A-class starports with good-enough tech levels. Lanth, Vilis, Frenzie, Porozlo, Risek, for example.

Oberlindes has a number of made-to-order ships, and probably built them in the Regina subsector: Regina, perhaps, or Boughene, or Pixie.

Small cruisers (Mercenary and Patrol) and small escorts (i.e. Gazelle) are probably built at higher-tech worlds. Efate, Boughene, Pixie, Rhylanor, Lunion.

Larger escorts -- Fer-de-lance, Chrysanthemum, and the like -- are probably built at the biggest and highest-tech ports, along with the Really Big warships. Mora, Efate, Rhylanor, Glisten, Strouden.

 

[far-trader]

I'm thinking some, the very largest ones, say 100ktons and over, would only be built at Depot systems.

EDIT: And possibly the large (say 10ktons and up, or the over 5kton break from B2) Naval ships are only built in systems with Navy Bases.

EDIT II: Maybe the IISS only procures ships in systems with a Scout Base or Way Station?

 

[robject]

EDIT II: Maybe the IISS only procures ships in systems with a Scout Base or Way Station?

I like that one.

I'm focusing on smaller starships, though your thought about Depots driving military construction is reasonable.

So anyway, examples:

Low TL (TL9-10)
Type A (Free Trader; Beowulf)
Type J (Prospector)
Type R (Merchant)
Type S (Scout/Courier)

Lower middle TL (TL10-11)
Type A2 (Far Trader; Empress Marava)
Type P (Corsair)

Middle TL (TL12-ish)
Type M (Liner)
Type MC (Merchant Cruiser; Leviathan)
Type S variant (Serpent)

Type T (Patrol cruiser) ?

I don't know where to put the Type T. It suggests a TL12 design (Jump-3), but it's more or less a military ship. Without going into whether or not it should be called a cruiser, it seems to be a common design used for routine recon, escort, and enforcement duties, rather than frontline stuff. Though I don't know all of the text about it.

Upper middle TL (TL13-ish)
Type C (Mercenary Cruiser; Broadsword et al)

Broadsword was built on X (Adv 7 probably tells me this). What I like the best are the construction lists given in the early adventures. That's nice color that can also spark some imagination.

Type K (Safari ship; Tarkine Centaur, Kraken Huntress et al)
Type L (Lab ship)
Type X (Xboat, Xboat Tender)

High TL (TL14 and 15)
Type CE (Close Escort; Gazelle, Fiery)
Type Y

 

[far-trader]

What I like the best are the construction lists given in the early adventures. That's nice color that can also spark some imagination.

Agreed. And this thread/idea is great for that reason. Expanding on those lists would be good. My thoughts above are more along the idea of "rules of thumb" for choosing said worlds. There should be exceptions, all the more fun, of course.

 

[kafka47]

I would garner a wager that the Imperium would also not want all shipyards to have the capacity to build Capital Ships (given that weaponry & defences are at the bleeding edge). Therefore, may I propose that all Capital ships be built in the Core Sector as a defensive posture. It would also lend credience to the Black War ships manufactured by Lucan in the late Rebellion era. Naturally, as some tech (ie Repulsors) becomes more mainstream, they might contract those out to the frontier.

I see the Marches very much on the Frontier and the scattered High Tech worlds (other than the Darrians) just oasis in a wide rolling frontier with lots of space for adventure.

 

[robject]

And this thread/idea is great for that reason. Expanding on those lists would be good.

Yes. I did this once for a custom ship design. For common designs, it might be fun to draw up lists of a specific class constructed at a specific yard. Hmmm.....

 

[flykiller]

imtu the major yards - mora, trin, fornice, porozlo, junidy, glisten, rhylanor, palique, efate, lunion, strouden, jewell, and vilis, are all occupied with military/scout/noble construction. this results in a fleet that is barely able to cover the spinward marches. civilian ships are constructed at those yards only on a space-available basis, meaning seldom. most civilian shiping is built in the lesser yards scattered about the marches, with a facility turning out anywhere from one to one hundred of a class at a time. some are good, some ... have character. few rise above tech 12, but occasionally parts are available from higher-tech worlds. "the maus-class scout ship run on strouden was cancelled, and we obtained all their left-over power plants at a discount."

 

[robject]

[...] ...we obtained all their left-over power plants at a discount."

Nice hook, there.

Here's the documented Broadsword-class Mercenary cruisers, probably in order of construction. It's possible (or even likely) that this is a non-exhaustive list. And it's clear enough that the "Type C" design has been around "a long time", so the Type C encompasses designs other than the Broadsword-class.

I can only guess the construction date of the Broadsword to be from the 1050s to 1099, and more likely after the Fourth Frontier war -- for example, shortly after the Battle of Two Suns (that makes a handy milestone). That yields better than two per year, which might seem low, depending on your views.

It seems like a good percentage of these will be scrapped, destroyed, or missing. Many are owned and operated by the Imperial Navy as well.

1084 Broadsword
1085 Blade
1085 Cutlass
1085 Dagger - destroyed 1107 via sabotage (I know, the scenario doesn't say that)
1086 Foil
1086 Rapier
1087 Sabre
1087 Tulawar
1088 Claymore
1088 Flamberge
1089 Gladius
1089 Zwiehander
1090 Kukri

Fleet of Ten - bought in a bloc by New Frontier Trading Partners in the Sword Worlds -- obviously before the 5th Frontier War then.
???? Orcrist
???? Excalibur
???? Sacnoth
???? Tyrfing
???? Dyrnwyn
???? Durendal
???? Hofud
???? Gram
???? Tizon
???? Hrunting

1091 Kris
1092 Scimitar
1092 Scramasax
1093 Bowie
1094 Pugio
1095 Misericord
1096 Spatha
1097 Clayberg
1097 Mace
1098 Glave
1098 Francisca
1099 Chemin-de-fer
1100 Morning Star
1100 Oxtongue
1101 Battle Ax
???? Sickle - sold to Aslan, renamed Dewclaw
1102 Scythe
1102 Pilum
1103 Javelin
1104 Hasta
1105 Lancea
1105 Framea
1105 Assegai
1106 Halberd
1106 Pike
1106 Kontos
1107 War Spear

 

[robject]

Many ship designs, such as the Scout/Courier and Traders, can't be enumerated concisely. There's just been too many of them, and the effort reduces to a plain list. In these cases, it may be useful to have a portion of a list for construction from a single yard for a single class of ship.

So for example, ten Free Traders produced between 1065 and 1075 at the Regina shipyards, including of course the Beowulf.

(Although, I wonder now if Beowulf was a Sword Worlds ship...)


Beowulf
La Mancha
Cuchulainn
Rhydderch
Pendragon
...

 

[Icosahedron]

I agree with FT and Kafka, they won't build warships where a bunch of mercs or hostile polity could hijack them. Only delivery time would provide a rationale for building outside of the core, and even then they'd be in a heavily defended depot system.

Dunno what happens in RL, but I'd imagine all warships would be built in naval bases rather than commercial yards.

 

[far-trader]

Somebody will put me right on this but iirc in the US the same yards build both civilian and military ships. The only exception might be (and I'm not sure but seem to recall something on it) nuclear subs being built at exclusively military and high security yards. But then that's submarines, not a lot of commercial submarine contracts.

 

[far-trader]

Found an article that may enlighten on the subject of US Naval shipyards. I've only skimmed it myself so I can't comment much...

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/intro-shipyard.htm

 

[veltyen]

Dunno what happens in RL, but I'd imagine all warships would be built in naval bases rather than commercial yards.

Depends on the country and on the ship.

Some (probably most) of the fitting would be done in a naval yard at least, but the hull might not have any secrets not immediately identifiable from an external scan. I was thinking of things like the converted Victory ships.

That said, a lot of ship building from go to whoa is now fully outsourced to military contractors, so in a sense entirely done in commercial yards.

 

[atpollard]

I agree with FT and Kafka, they won't build warships where a bunch of mercs or hostile polity could hijack them. Only delivery time would provide a rationale for building outside of the core, and even then they'd be in a heavily defended depot system.

Dunno what happens in RL, but I'd imagine all warships would be built in naval bases rather than commercial yards.

You could deliver the hull, drives and crew quarters from a commercial yard to a Navy Depot, where weapons, sensors and computers are added as the final step before activation to service.

 

[Nick Bradbeer]

I have a paper on doing just that in real life, actually. [Bricknell D J & Vedlog P, Capturing the Commercial Cost Base in Delivering Naval Auxiliaries, WARSHIP 2007 - The Affordable Warship, RINA, London 2007]

In summary, it doesn't get done a lot since in the past the same yards tended to build merchant and warships. But since modern yards tend to be heavily optimised, you can save a lot of money by having the simple bits done at a commercial yard and then adding the military-specific stuff later. IF you designed it carefully, that is. If you didn't, then it'll be much more expensive as you can't necessarily build things in the logical order.

 

[robject]

Back to Traveller, then...

Reference: this discussion about the Gazelle. This is just the sort of thing I'm looking for.

 

[Antony]

Can't remember where I read it, but it was along the lines of Depot systems will build cutting edge warship prototypes but usually not actual production vessels.

A couple of the designs, the type R Fat Trader for example was of Vilani origin. I've always felt that the original type T was derived from a Rule of Man or pre first Solomani Rim war design and is of Terran origin. Basically short fat and ugly Vilani, long slender and elegant Solomani

 

[Starviking]

Dunno what happens in RL, but I'd imagine all warships would be built in naval bases rather than commercial yards.

In the UK all warships are built in commercial yards. In the past there were Royal Naval Dockyards that also built warships - but even when these were operational they never approached one tenth of the output of the commercial yards.

 

[Blue Ghost]

'Just read through this thread. A few observations; there seems to be a supposition that military vessels are larger than commercial vessels. This really isn't the case today, nor even historically. Merchants and military vessels, class depending, can be similar in size, but typically the commercial vessel, if it's a bulk carrier, is built for size and capacity.

Historically one clearly sees this in Roman merchants verse a galley/trireme. Similarly a man of war wasn't much larger than a merchant in the age of sail. During fleet week one clearly sees that a Nimitz Class CVN is no where near as large as a supertanker, nor as bulky as a cargo vessel.

I think the same would, and should, hold true with the 57th century equivalents. As big as a Sylean class BB or a AZHL "frontier cruiser" are, there's got to be cargo ships that perhaps one-and-a-half to maybe two-times as large as those vessels.

This being so, I would think that military vessels (unless they're highly classified, as per the sub example) would probably be built in the same yards as commercial vessels.

MTU (many years back), military hulls could be contracted and built up to a certain size and limit, and with certain legal stipulations and so forth. This and combat were probably the two areas where our group went "by the book" so to speak. Then again, our group didn't do too much space oriented stuff

 

[aramis]

Monster freighters would suck up large portions of an entire world's monthly trade with a partner, or more. There are not many trade pairs that could make it worth filling a 1MTd ship and keep it busy.