Canonical Shipyards

[robject]

I'll edit this post directly with changes.

I'm gathering info on Traveller shipyards that appear in print. I've given the ones I found arbitrary codes, but haven't located most of the yards. If anyone has this information at their fingertips, I'd appreciate the help.

All worlds with Class A starports have at least one shipyard. Many have multiple yards, some large, some small, some specialty, some reserved or navy/corporate-owned.

Capacity. The numbers stated in Adventure 1 Kinunir page 40 is, of course, too low for anything beyond Book 2.


Numbered Versus Named. The numbers are Imperium-wide. There is only one Yard 17, one Yard 11, and so on. Some might also have a name, but this is not a requirement and is certainly not true for all of them. Yard numbers are therefore part of an Imperial registration system, and are therefore related to Imperial interests, but it is not clear at this time what those interests are.

Three numbered yards (11, 16, 22) are important enough to produce Imperial warships, while one numbered yard (17) might only be regionally important in the navy's eyes (note that it was scheduled to produce a significant percentage of the Kinunirrin, more than Clan Severn on Rhylanor, so it's not a trivial yard).

At the same time, a number of named yards are just as important as the numbered yards -- Gashidda, for example.

Marches

AH  		AHG, AG             Strouden, TL13 (big ships)
BY  		Bilstein Yards 	    Glisten, TL15 (big ships)
CS  		Clan Severn 	    Rhylanor, TL15 (big ships)
GY  		General Shipyards   Regina, TL12 (big ships)
GYe 		General Shipyards   Efate, TL13 (big ships)
GYp 		General Shipyards   Pixie, TL13 (maintenance mostly)
GS  		GSB, AG             Tenalphi, TL14, et al
LS  		Ling Standard       Mora, TL15 (big ships)
MA  		Mars                Jewell, TL12 (big ships)
NA  		Naasirka 	    Aramis (maintenance mostly)
PB  		Piorabanti          Risek, TL10 (maintenance mostly)
SB  		Sabaald             Adabicci, TL11 (small ships)
17  		Yard 17             Trin, TL15 (big ships)
ZG  		Zagado              some non-important world
                                   Vilis, TL10 (big ships)
                                   Pallique, TL14 (big ships)
                                   Karin, TL12 (big ships)
                                   Iderati, TL12 (big ships)
                                   Mongo, TL10 (big ships)
                                   Tenalphi, TL14 (big ships)
                                   Lunion, TL13 (big ships)

All other class A starports in the Marches are most likely to
only do smaller starships, custom starships, and/or maintenance.

Elsewhere

AE  		Arshani, Etran      not the marches
CO  		Commonal            not the marches
DV  		Delvani             Solomani Rim
GA  		Gashidda Nos. 1-3   Gashidda
HL  		Highlans            not the marches
TK  		Tukera              not the marches
VL  	  	Vlandian Nos. 1-2   Vland
11  		Yard 11 No. 1       not in the marches??
16  		Yard 16 Nos. 1-4    not the marches (Markatch?)
22  		Yard 22 No. 1       not the marches

Diversified Dynamics Design and Shipyard (DDD&S): From High Passage 1 pg5, High Passage 2 page9
Established 1058 Located at Galiano/Jayne Old Expanses sector with production divisions at Serpila/Quinoid and L'steich/Sarid, producing small craft and large naval vessels.

And DDD&S's rival: Stone Dockyards located at Adrian/Nicosia, Also from High Passage 2, pg9

Yard 6 and Yard 7 from HP1g5 Produced Tral Wolf light cruisers

Magellan Orbital Yards (Stellar Reaches Fanzine 4 Pg19-20)
located Cooke/Hebrin 2030 A868837-9 procuces smallcraft and small ships

 

[Jame]

From what I recall of reading CT A1 Kinunir, General does have a yard at Regina, and while I think it is based out of there, I'm not sure.

As a semi-aside, I'm thinking that Regina (pronounced Reh GEE nah) should have a TL of 12 or 13 to befit its role as a builder of Kinunir-class vessels and subsector capital.

 

[E.D.Quibell]

Adventure 1 Kinunir page 40

"General Shipyards: The largest stanhip manufacturer in the Regina subsector,
with yards at Regina, Efate, and Pixie. Originally a military contractor, General
no longer produces ships for military use, instead concentrating on the more
lucrative commercial market. The yard at Regina is capable of producing ships up
to 5000 tons, while the subsidiary yards at Pixie and Efate are limited to 600 tons
per ship, and devote most of their attention to annual maintenances"

Regards,

Ewan

 

[robject]

From what I recall of reading CT A1 Kinunir, General does have a yard at Regina, and while I think it is based out of there, I'm not sure.

As a semi-aside, I'm thinking that Regina (pronounced Reh GEE nah) should have a TL of 12 or 13 to befit its role as a builder of Kinunir-class vessels and subsector capital.

I believe it is at TL12... well after Adventure 1 anyway. Call it a retcon, or a capital improvement grant, or something.

Adventure 1 Kinunir page 40

Thank you!

 

[E.D.Quibell]

As it looks like you pulled the list out of Supplement 5, I would guess that most of the yards are assosiated with world names.

Have you run the names over the sector data to see if any match?

Regards,

Ewan

 

[rancke]

I believe it is at TL12... well after Adventure 1 anyway. Call it a retcon, or a capital improvement grant, or something.

High Common TL of 12, making it perfectly reasonable that it could have a Space TL of 13, required for building jump-4 drives.

Incidentally, I have a theory that Efate (High common TL of 13) has a Space TL of 15. We know that Uakye does have HC13/space 15, and I propose that the Uakyan TL is so high because its economy is tightly bound to the Efatan economy. Just a suggestion.


Hans

 

[robject]

As it looks like you pulled the list out of Supplement 5, I would guess that most of the yards are assosiated with world names.

Have you run the names over the sector data to see if any match?

Regards,

Ewan

I know the sector data receptus somewhat, and I believe that none match world names. I also believe that they are mostly shipyards found in or near the Spinward Marches. I may be wrong on both counts.

Gashidda sounds promising, though... that could be a world or subsector name.

I believe that Highlans, Piorabanti, Sabaald, and Zagado (at least) are non-canonical inventions. If someone has a better name than Zagado, I might swap it out. It might be nice to have a name for most of the letters of the alphabet.

 

[Gadrin]

Here's an entry on Naasirka

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Traveller Adventure p33

The Naasirka Shipyards: Naasirka, a megacorporation involved
in communications equipment and small craft,
operates the shipyard facility at Aramis. Although the yard
is capable of building starships, its major occupation is the
overhaul of ships in order to meet their annual maintenance
requirements.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[rancke]

Gashidda sounds promising, though... that could be a world or subsector name.

It is. However, it's the name of a world that was firmly in the hands of the Solomani at the time the Azhantis were being build. There was a thread about that a while back.


Hans

 

[Gadrin]

Turned GREP loose on the HIWG cd-rom and got a zillion hits.

Some are named.

Don't know how canon it is of course -- so you are warned.

Among the landslide of data was:

HIWG CD/HIWG1/052_05.TXT:

Interstellar Economics 101...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starport ship capacity is given in millions of displacement tons.
        Shipyard Capacity formula: capacity = total pop * (GM = 1) / 1000

Don't recall if GURPS Far Trader or GURPS Starports dealt with anything
similar.

>

 

[robject]

Turned GREP loose on the HIWG cd-rom and got a zillion hits.
[...]Interstellar Economics 101...
[...]
Don't recall if GURPS Far Trader or GURPS Starports dealt with anything
similar.

(1) grep is awesome. All hail grep!
(2) Yes, GURPS Far Trader did interstellar economics, comprehensively.
(3) I'm vigorously avoiding interstellar economics here. My client's views on interstellar economics are directly opposite that of HIWG, GURPS F-T, and many other theories, perhaps including Trillion Credit Squadron, and I would not change his mind if I could.

 

[robject]

I'm starting to suspect that each yard has an official number within a sector boundary, and that only some of these yards have names.

For example, Yard 1, the first shipyard built for the Imperium in the Spinward Marches, could well be located on Mora (if it still exists that is).

Another example: Clan Severn on Rhylanor might be Yard 5.

It also seems like (for example) "Yard 16" is a single shipyard, with four (known) construction berths.

 

[Gadrin]

(1) grep is awesome. All hail grep!
(2) Yes, GURPS Far Trader did interstellar economics, comprehensively.

No, I mean Starship Shipyard Tonnage Numbers or something similar.

As for "Yard 1", etc, seems pretty generic.

Maybe it's shorthand for General Shipyards or something.

Ask Don M; he's got an unimpeachable canon source

Meanwhile I'll try Loren over on GURPS bbs.

>

 

[rancke]

Don't know how canon it is of course -- so you are warned.

Among the landslide of data was:

HIWG CD/HIWG1/052_05.TXT:

Interstellar Economics 101...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starport ship capacity is given in millions of displacement tons.
        Shipyard Capacity formula: capacity = total pop * (GM = 1) / 1000

Don't recall if GURPS Far Trader or GURPS Starports dealt with anything
similar.

It was canon. It comes from TCS. Since Marc Miller has decanonized TCS (without giving us anything to replace it), I suppose it's not strictly speaking canon any more. But be that as it may, even if it was still canon, it is a highly simplistic game feature rather than a reliable "real" life figure. At best, it gives us a ballpark figure, and a ballpark figure for small pocket empires surrounded by other pocket empires, not Imperial member worlds.[*]

[*] The average peace military budget of an Imperial member world is one third (3%) of the average peacetime military budget of a TCS pocket empire (10%). Does that not suggest that shipyard capacity for an Imperial world should only average one third as much? If not, why not?​

Obviously a shipyard doesn't scale its capacity to the population of the world it is on. It scales it to demand, which is a complex figure that is only somewhat related to population -- and to population of the world itself PLUS all nearby worlds without shipyards of their own.


Hans

 

[robject]

I've updated my table with lots more guesstimations: I've located the shipyards (about 30 worlds with class A starports, about 30 shipyard names, so....) and even tentatively numbered them. None of this is sure.

 

[Jame]

IGashidda sounds promising, though... that could be a world or subsector name.

I want to say that Gashidda is the name of a world in the Solomani Rim, at least according to GT:Rim of Fire (A well-written supplement if I do say so). But let me dig it out and check, which'll take a while.

 

[rancke]

I've updated my table with lots more guesstimations: I've located the shipyards (about 30 worlds with class A starports, about 30 shipyard names, so....) and even tentatively numbered them. None of this is sure.

There are going to be thousands, if not tens of thousands (high end thousands would be my guesstimate), of shipyards in the Imperium. The ones that were involved in building the Azhantis would be among the major players, but Bilstein Yards, for example, is a specialty firm and unlikely to be the only one in Glisten.

It's possible that there are no Yard 1, 2, 3, etc, but if we take the implication of those numbers at face value, there are at least 18 more Yard <number>s, quite possibly more. Let's say there are 24 in all. If the Azhantis were distributed among the named shipyards the way there were among the numbered ones, you're looking at around 60 more major shipyards in the Imperium. And fair enough, I say, since someone has to build the Tigresses and Kokkiraks too.

All told I'd say about 100 major shipyards for the entire Imperium is a reasonable guesstimate. Starting with Yard 1 to Yard 24 .


Hans

 

[rancke]

I've updated my table with lots more guesstimations: I've located the shipyards (about 30 worlds with class A starports, about 30 shipyard names, so....) and even tentatively numbered them. None of this is sure.

Why do you assume every Azhanti was built in the Marches? That sounds extremely unlikely to me. Also, I'm pretty sure I've seen a reference to a Delvani Lines that operated somewhere in the Solomani end of the Imperium. I can't recall where, though, so I could be wrong. But the history of Children of the Marches clearly implies that originally the Marches weren't going to get to build any of the Azhantis, so whatever portion of them were build there must have been a fairly small minority. I doubt if more than two or three of those shipyards are in the Marches.


Hans

 

[robject]

First this about starport numbers: the numbers are Imperium-wide. There is only one Yard 17, one Yard 11, and so on. Some might also have a name, but this is not a requirement and is certainly not true for all of them.

Why do you assume every Azhanti was built in the Marches? That sounds extremely unlikely to me. Also, I'm pretty sure I've seen a reference to a Delvani Lines that operated somewhere in the Solomani end of the Imperium.

You're very correct. I was far, far too hasty. I also forgot my sources.

(As an aside, I found this: the "Tail number" of the Empress Nicholle is 55927! Hooray, a datum! (JTAS 04, Gazelle, second or third paragraph)).

Sources: Lightning-Class Cruisers, Kinunir, Leviathan.

I suppose most class A starports have a shipyard, thus there's a named or numbered shipyard at every class A port.


Yard 17 built 9 of the Kinunir, so it must be in the Spinward Marches. These yards likewise are local to the Marches:

* Ling Standard (probably does have yards outside the Marches too)
* Mars
* General (Regina, Efate, Pixie)
* GSB, AG (probably has yards outside the Marches)
* Clan Severn (Rhylanor)
* Yard 17


Similarly, most of these are probably not in the Marches:

* Yard 11
* Yard 16
* Yard 22
* Vlandian (duh, probably at Vland)
* Gashidda (duh, probably at Gashidda)
* Delvani (Solomani would work)
* Highlans
* Arshani, Etran
* Commonal
* Tukera, et al

 

[WarriorKnight]

It was canon. It comes from TCS. Since Marc Miller has decanonized TCS (without giving us anything to replace it),


Hans

When did he do that?