Colonizing Ships and Colonies There Of

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by atpollard:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by shadowdragon:
btw i am not using "trekkie" biology. i never said the local flora and fauna was edible, more likely it wont be. we will be lucky if local soil will grow terran foodstuffs. and if it isnt edible, it cant eat the colonists either.

I am of the opinion that the concept of "Alien" ecosystems and biology being so radically different is a logically unfounded assumption. Carbon chemistry is carbon chemistry everywhere. All attempts to produce anything even remotely suggestive of "life" using a copper or silicon base have yielded no positive results that I am aware of. Genetics and biology have shown that even the most radically different lifeforms on Earth are more similar than different at the cellular and genetic level.

Alien life could easily look very different. Some of it could easily contain toxic compounds and elements. It is, however, my opinion that if the air is breathable and the water is drinkable, then an earthlike carbon based ecosystem is likely. New species (and classes and orders) are likely, but protien is protien and sugars are sugar - some of it will probably be edible and some of it could find US delicious.

The planets (like Venus) that are possible candidates for completely toxic ecosystems, are unlikely choices for colonization. And if you did want to colonize a toxic world, it would probably be easier to alter the 1000 colonists than to create and sustain Earth-like plants and animals on the hostile world.

Just my 2 cents. </font>[/QUOTE]Some very minor problems with huge effects:

+ Ammino Acids come in two varieties (Left and right turning). One is useable by humans, the other is not. This is likely due to a slightly higher number of the L-type in earth biochemistry. Otherwise both are equal in function so another planet using the D-type could exist resulting in foodstuffs being useless for direct human consumption

+ Vitamin B12 can not be synthesized by humans but is needed to stay mentally healthy. An other eco-system might be able to do without, resulting in a otherwise edible plant/animal life that after 6-12 years will drive the colonists insane(1)

+ Some earth animals can digest foodstuff that is posenous to humans (i.e Belladonna), others can take considerable ammounts of heavy metals.

(1) The body can and does store B12, that is how non-supplementing Vegans survive for quite some time. At least one Vegan from my study days (9 years ago) HAS ended in a mental institute by now.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
And the other extreme is this HUGE sublight coloniser vessel...

...generation ships towards new stars.

...seeking worlds "beyond the jump-range", worlds so far out that J-Drives would break down before reaching them.

I'm not familiar with GT but what is the fuel endurance of this behemoth? I note the 1G performance with empty tanks, presumably it can't do anywhere near that with the full tanks required for a sub-light trip of generations. The only time it will be able to do 1G will be near the end of the trip once it has exhausted nearly all it's fuel slowing down after the mid-flight flip.

As for "seeking worlds so far out that J-Drives would break down before reaching them." How is it that J-Drives are so fragile compared to the rest of the ship systems? It all requires the same routine and annual maintenance doesn't it? And if you can include facilities to do one then surely you could do the other as well.

With J1 I can travel 52 parsecs in one year. But let's be conservative and figure a week of routine maintenance between each jump. That's still 26 parsecs in a year before I need an annual maintenance layover. How far can you get with your sub-light thrusters in one year?

I'm not saying there's no place for such a ship. There could be rifts that would require too huge an investment in fuel caches to cross where sublight makes some sense to those who want to leave it all behind.

I'm just trying to get a sense of your reasoning and offer some constructive critique to that end.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by far-trader:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
And the other extreme is this HUGE sublight coloniser vessel...

...generation ships towards new stars.

...seeking worlds "beyond the jump-range", worlds so far out that J-Drives would break down before reaching them.

I'm not familiar with GT but what is the fuel endurance of this behemoth? I note the 1G performance with empty tanks, presumably it can't do anywhere near that with the full tanks required for a sub-light trip of generations. The only time it will be able to do 1G will be near the end of the trip once it has exhausted nearly all it's fuel slowing down after the mid-flight flip.

As for "seeking worlds so far out that J-Drives would break down before reaching them." How is it that J-Drives are so fragile compared to the rest of the ship systems? It all requires the same routine and annual maintenance doesn't it? And if you can include facilities to do one then surely you could do the other as well.

With J1 I can travel 52 parsecs in one year. But let's be conservative and figure a week of routine maintenance between each jump. That's still 26 parsecs in a year before I need an annual maintenance layover. How far can you get with your sub-light thrusters in one year?

I'm not saying there's no place for such a ship. There could be rifts that would require too huge an investment in fuel caches to cross where sublight makes some sense to those who want to leave it all behind.

I'm just trying to get a sense of your reasoning and offer some constructive critique to that end. </font>[/QUOTE]Sorry, always forget this:

GT has no power plant/M-Drive fuel in external tanks, the "empty tank" in GMV refers to the (non-existing) jump fuel. The power plant directly powers the "thruster plates" (to use the MT term) and has a duration of > 100 years (200 years according to G:Interstellar Wars) from an integral fuel supply.

In one year this craft can make between 0.2 and 0.99 Lightyears, depending on "how high" you want to push the speed.

The Jump-Ship is faster as long as it lasts and for setting up a colony within Imperial space I would definitly use J-Ships. Maintenance is always close enough. I originally designed this as a Jumper but between fuel tanks and time to refuel (or the number of oilers needed) it got too large. The main space consumption in the sublight craft is in the passenger/life support/factory modules and those where a "want to have" from the start. And crew got awfully big as well as the costs going through the roof.

So I designed this along the "go into empty quarters/where no civilisation is" lines assuming a group of wealthy eccentrics or a religious group/minority group (Like the Gypsies/Roma/Sinti/Whatever they call themselfs(1)) gets this ship build (In GURPS this is doable by liquidation once assets) and sets out for the stars.

And the factories on-board can refurbish a fusion plant (no special crystals needed) so the ship could go even longer than 200 years.

(1) Actually there are groups in that populace that prefer Gypsie to Rom/Roma since they are NOT of that group

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by atpollard:
I am of the opinion that the concept of "Alien" ecosystems and biology being so radically different is a logically unfounded assumption. Carbon chemistry is carbon chemistry everywhere.

AT,

We've got "alien" ecosystems here on Earth already and all of them 'only' use carbon chemistry.

Google up the tube worms that live along mid-ocean rift black smokers. The ecosystem there does not rely on photosynthesis in any manner at all, not even as scavengers. The biomes there are wholly "alien" from anything we knew about on Earth prior to their discovery. They've even forced us to add a new kingdom to our classification diagram.

Just on Earth, we've got life that lives in hot pools, life that lives in geysers, life miles down at the bottom of drill rigs, life at the edge of space in the atmosphere, the list gets weirder every year with every discovery.

Do you know biologists are beginning to describe as clouds as ecosystems? All that moist dust up there - those fluffy white puffs we enjoy to watch while laying on our backs and enjoying the sun - all that dust is teeming with bacteria and larger lifeforms. It is also strongly believed that some lifeforms have evolved to take advantage of clouds.

Genetics and biology have shown that even the most radically different lifeforms on Earth are more similar than different at the cellular and genetic level.

Agreed.

It is, however, my opinion that if the air is breathable and the water is drinkable, then an earthlike carbon based ecosystem is likely.

Seeing just how weird Earth's own carbon based ecosystem really is, I don't think anyoe is going to argue with you. However, we need to remember that life uses what works and a lot of things work. After all, the red kangaroo is Australia's version of antelope.

... but protien is protien and sugars are sugar...

Google 'lefthand' and 'righthand' proteins. Things can get very weird very quick and the more weird the less chance they'll 'work' together.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[sid6.7]

okay reality break back to "fantasy"

in the "imperium" that we love and know
alot of the science worry stuff we can throw
out the window as we can see there are
1000's of planets that can be "colonized"
by "humankind"...

reality break back to "reality"....

i doubt most colonies would go in blind
without some kinda survey of the planet
and its ecosystem i dont say it would
be easy but it would be livable, high
death rate from "unknown" things? sure.
you can even use plymouth's death rate
if you want it was like 60%+ so 1000
colonists = 300 survivors...send
2000? maybe 600 survivors...on the bad end...


as to going with out major equipment is completely
possible and doable by "private efforts" a
gov't effort would probably NOT do that but
a ship with a few hundred people associated
with each other for whatever reason could
come up with something workable. will "private's"
take along 1 tractor? maybe so...one for each
farmer? maybe not...1 air raft? probably.
1 air raft per family? probably not...so
fairly primitive in nature as compared to
where they came from...

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by sid6.7:
in the "imperium" that we love and know
alot of the science stuff we can throw
out the window as we can see there are
1000's of planets that can be "colonized"
by "humankind"...

Sid,

That's true, but we also tend to forget just how old things are in the OTU.

The OTU currnet date is (very) roughly 5700 AD. Relatively speaking, the Third Imperium is the new kid on the block and it is 1,100 years old. The Sword Worlds were settled before the 3I was founded and the Darrian worlds were settled well before the Sword Worlds. The First Imperium was at it's height around 476 AD and the Vilani were colonizing worlds thousands of years before that. Many worlds in Chartered Space have been settled for thousands of years. Most of those left have been settled 'only' for centuries.

The depth of time in the OTU is something we all have trouble grasping.

About colonization, we also tend to forget that all those hardy souls during Earth Eras of Exploration and Colonization went place wear humans already lived. They explored were people already lived. They settled where people already lived(1). Antarctica is the only exception to this and you'll notice a distinct lack of colonies there. You can't say the same two things about interstellar colonization.

Alan's suggestion that science missions spend decades studying potential colony sites and that infrastructure 'seabees' work for years before any colonists arrive is a far more accurate model of OTU colonization than the "Big Ship All Alone Goes To Virgin Planet" model. Not as much fun perhaps, but far more plausible.

In the OTU colonization efforts like the Islands mission and the Sword Worlds pioneers(2) are the exception and not the rule in interstellar colonization. The Sword Worlds' neighbors, the Darrians, were colonized by an even earlier fleet but, as with Earth, there were people already there!

Now, that model doesn't preclude a colonization attempt that occurs after the original one. A planet is a big place. While Get-Away-From-It-All types will not have the time and money a successful 'virgin' colony effort will require, they very well may be able to swing a secondary colony effort on an already-surveyed planet at some spot distant to the initial colony.

This also allows for all sorts of monkey business which is the stuff of adventures!


Have fun,
Bill

1 - Even on a planet as 'benign' as Earth saw colonization attempts succeed or fail due to the ecological compatibility of the colonists agricultural 'package' to its new surroundings. Let me refer you to a classic book on the subject titled Ecological Imperialism

2 - And even the Sword Worlds pioneers had somewhat 'local' assistance in the form of Aslan clans.

 

[whartung]

I agree.

In the 3I there's no reason for any population to flee blindly in to a new planet. If a 5 year mission by a small well equipped, and well supported, research crew is the difference between colony success and colony failure, then there's few reasons why anyone would not simply choose to do that. The money and lives at risk make the prep work worth the investment.

In the 3I you simply don't show up at a new wild planet with a 1000 random colonists and plonk them down in a jungle to learn about new carnivores and viruses.

No, rather you go out with a minimal scouting/science expedition followed by a larger infrastructure/construction crew.

The construction crew starts building the base camp and creating other infrastructure. By the time a colony is scheduled to be cast off, the science crew will know most everything necessary to prepare the colonists, and the construction crew will have eaten the wrong things, been attacked at the wrong time, and built whatever defenses necessary to support the colony (electric fences perhaps? Night watch towers? etc.)

Or, they'll all die miserably and horribly.

But the point is that the initial group doesn't need to be a self sustaining population, rather it can be a skilled team practiced in the arts of taming new and alien lands.

Only when the colony is reasonably assured and the world proven suitable for human life will the bulk of the people start showing up.

I do think it would be an interesting campaign idea tho. Rather than being traders or mercenaries, you're part of a private colony development firm, with, say, a 1, 2 or 4 year contract to make some chunk of wilderness somewhere suitable for a new development.

Lots of skillsets needed, lots of adventure to be had.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by far-trader:
That's still 26 parsecs in a year before I need an annual maintenance layover.

Dan,

Annual maintenance is not a problem. CT allows ship crews to perform the procedure with a certain credit amount of parts/stores and at a certain time penalty. So a ship can have it's annual maintenance done anywhere.

This came to light 'ct-starships' while discussion the Julian Protectorate. The Julian's only TL15 Class A port is far enough from the Imperial border as to prevent any ships stationed there for maintenance purposes from reaching the border before it would have to return home for maintenance.

We were stuck until the CT loophole was found.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by alanb:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by atpollard:
It worked for the pilgrims coming to North America. Compare the first year at Plymouth (a religious settlement) to the first year at Jamestown (a commercial venture).

Sure. But there is simply no comparison between settling in an already inhabited region of Earth and settling on an uninhabited alien world. </font>[/QUOTE]What would you compare settling on an uninhabited alien world with? As far as I know there is actually zero hard evidence to go by. The Human race has no experience in this area.

However, both the Plymouth and Jamestown colonies were attempted under similar conditions using similar technology. The settlement for God was located in a harsher climate but experienced a lower mortality rate than the settlement for profit. So the expectation of divine favor is not completely unfounded - it happened once, it could happen again.

[EDIT FOR SPECIFICS: Plymouth lost about 50% of the population in the first year. Jamestown followed 18 previous complete failures at colonization and survived only because of constant replacement of the dying colonists at less than 1 year intervals.]

 

[sid6.7]

okay i made a mistake, i assumed you knew i meant
the very first space/imp colonies not just the
3I...were not talking about "already colonized
worlds" we ARE talking about virgin planets. at
least thats what i assumed... i dont
remember any CT stuff that talks about "re-
colonizing" a system even after the fall/virus
thing...that was all "re-conquering, re-contact"
stuff not
"re-colonizing"..of course i dont have every
booklet though...maybe you have one that mentions
this? whoever gets there first is what were
talking about yes? at least thats what i thought
the thread implied...

i think if you re-read my post you'll
see i mentioned an initial survey prior
to ANY colony arriving...so we are
on the same page there "i think"...like
i said i dont think anyone would go in blind
without a survey even one the the "referenced
cults" would find out about where they are
going at least as much as possible that
was available at whatever time prior to
takeing off...

i'll read that book "Ecological Imperialism"
it looks like its more about the deisease thingy
then about colonization though?

 

[sid6.7]

i'm not so sure we can seperate this "group"
that goes in first before the main bulk arrives
thingy thats being suggested...more people
arriving later is a given in any colony. if the
first group is only 100-150 people then THEY are
the colonists and the 1000 that come later are
just the re-supply effort....

true most may go VS stay of the first 150
but for all intents and purposes THEY
are the colony while setting it up.
is there ANY canon booklet on colonization?
did they detail before,during and after the
main bulk arrives in the imperium or whatever
empire? if there is not or it doesnt go into any
detail then its a guess at best right? the skys
the limit?

even better maybe its a robotic/remote ship that
goes in first its basically an small apt building
cafeteria, store, hydroponic thingy..it goes
in lands at the best spot..pops open like a
transformer starts generating power, basic hydro-
ponics...even air or whatever...couple little
robot tractors go out plow up a small field
build a road....and she's ready to go when the
1000 colonists arrive a few weeks later...then
like mentioned above somewhere, they un-freeze
20 or so per week and rotate them in and out
of the apt. part and into small homes made
from local timber/rock/dirt...or pop up tents
babing babang..shake n bake colony..

you can make it a bare bones colony ship or
the PERFECT colony ship...

 

[shadowdragon]

1st off, mr. cameron- if you want to slam heinlein thats your baliwick- just spell the name right please.

so, i am at a loss here. why not send children? if you are colonizing, then you are planning on HAVING children. old enough to work is much better than needing 100% of every need and whim to be supplied by those trying to build a colony. and limiting a colony venture to singles or couples w/o children is ludicrous.

second- a colony does not NEED heavy industry, and beyond what minimal medium industry it does need, once refined metals become available it can be BUILT THERE. knowledge will be one of the things brought along, notice the ship has a massive computer for its slow speed. why haul an aircar menufacturing facility with you when in a few years you can build your own. planets get colonized because of population pressure, if you are there just to explore, it is an outpost, not a colony. whether or not the pop pressure is real or imagined is irrelevent.

third- lots of reserve food supplies are there to allow for 1- exploration, and 2- getting either open air farming going, failing that bio-dome type, or at worst hydroponics. the basic assumtion was the new colony is outside of j1 range, but not extremely difficult to reach. i thought that was obvious. and then the fail safe of packing it all in and heading home is an option as well, but hardly an easy option.

low tech colonies will be a curious mixture of high and low tech stuff- like the OTU worlds.
but imho k.i.s.s. is always best. part of the reason for keeping things low tech is you do not want your colony to die off because the supply ships didnt arrive on time. low tech is easier to sustain.

 

[shadowdragon]

[No message]

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by shadowdragon:
so, i am at a loss here. why not send children?

Shadowdragon,

First, because it is dangerous. Look over the child mortality rates of European colonies if you need the figures. Burying dead children on a regular basis is going to lead to a morale problem. European colonists could partially shrug off high child death rates because their parent cultures also had high child death rates. People coming from a high-tech society are going to be less enured to the death of children.

Second, because child consume resources out of proportion to their numbers and out of proportion to their input to resource production via labor. Children must be fed and educated. Children require more medical care than adults. Children must be watched over. Older children can help with the labor part of the equation but adults are still needed. Every man-hour spent on child care is a man-hour lost to getting your colony up and operating.

if you are colonizing, then you are planning on HAVING children.

Of course you are. You're planning on having them when the colony is better situated, when it is SAFER and LESS COSTLY to have children. We're talking about humans here and not Moties. We can control when we get pregnant. You aren't going have part of your already tiny workforce laid up by pregnancies on a world whose biospheric effects on human pregnancies are not fully known.

and limiting a colony venture to singles or couples w/o children is ludicrous.

No one is saying that. What we're suggesting is that the colonists will initially control their procreation so that their colony has a better chance of succeeding.

a colony does not NEED heavy industry, and beyond what minimal medium industry it does need, once refined metals become available it can be BUILT THERE.

I guess you didn't get the memo. Producing things like ores and refined metals IS HEAVY INDUSTRY. That's what we mean by heavy industry, producing basic industrial resources. Building air/rafts is merely manufacturing. Producing all the precursor materials air/raft manufacturing requires is HEAVY INDUSTRY.

A colony is going to want to make it's own metals, ceramics, and all the other materials needed for construction and manufacturing as soon as practical. Finished goods will fall into three broad catagories; those you must import, those you can do without, and those you can build by hand or in cottage industries with the resources your HEAVY INDUSTRIES provide.

Sheet steel, piping, wiring, corrugated iron, concrete, bricks, masonry, fasteners, all of it are going to be items your colony will be begging for and items your colony's heavy industrial infrastructure will provide. You aren't going to be building a River Rouge, but you will have a 'pocket' steel mill.

low tech colonies will be a curious mixture of high and low tech stuff- like the OTU worlds.

The OTU is going to have over six thousand years of experience with this. Organizations like the IISS will have lists of what things are really needed and reports about what worked and what didn't. Corporations will be making all sorts of equipment that can be used in these situations, not just for new colonies but also for sale on low-tech worlds that can't maintain such equipment.

Beyond the setting, this is a much discussed topic on any number of Travller fora. It's been hashed over, looked at, taken apart, put together, and debated for over a decade. I've lost track of how many of these discussions I've participated in. Believe me when I say that nothing you've suggested is new and even the mistakes you've made are old.

This is well worn ground. Some of us have been over and over and over it for years.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[sid6.7]

ummmm in plymouth more children survived then
adults when the next ships arrived if i remember
right...maybe not?...i think of the 50 survivors
like 30 were children?

one can only wonder though at the psychological
effect it might have on a childless colony getting
setup. even with the as little as 150 people, only
1 teacher would be needed for say 10-15 children
of varying ages monday thru friday(equivlanet)...

gov't sanctioned colonies may go childless at
first but again i think some of the more private
ones would/could not...not all colonies are going
to run numbers on a few kids esp. some of the more
remote ones...

 

[flykiller]

speaking of going from high to low tech ....

what if it's a step up? many people from some high population tech 2 planet with bad air and little water might leap at a chance to colonize a world with decent air and water, at any tech level. if the parent government wants to get rid of dissidents or criminals or simple excess, or if the archduke has been informed by his long-term demographic statisticians that there's a strategic need, or some megacorp has calculated that low- to mid-tech populations are sufficient to generate profits, or if some local underpopulated world or nation has decided it needs to build up its political heft by means of imports, this seems sufficient to drive quite a bit of low-tech colonization, not just of brand new worlds but also worlds and areas that are simply uninhabited.

also, colonies need not be intended as such. if the imperial navy or scout service decides it needs a forward or connecting base on some previously ignored system, and plunks down a base with a thousand men and families, that's a colony too. maybe a little more supported and regimented than usual, but a colony none-the-less.

 

[atpollard]

I like the street lights and chemically enhanced lawns of suburbia, but my relatives in rural North Carolina still belong to the "if you can see the smoke from your neighbor's fire, then you are too close" school of thinking. Many would-be colonists might just be looking for a little growing room. (TL 2 ain't so bad once you get used to it - and there are no taxes, corporations or government telling you what to do and how to think).

 

[shadowdragon]

since when does danger make a bit of difference on what humans decide to do? anyone who sends their children out of reach and sight is putting the child in danger. And a significant cause of colonial child mortality was malnutrition and sickness, not danger. i would think a starfareing civilization would have more medical knowledge and better food than colonial america, but i could be wrong.....

People who are afraid of being in danger are not likely to be first or even fourth wave colonists. people like that are content to complain about the known problems rather than face unknown ones. people who are going to colonize are going to minimize the danger, and face it squarely and as far as child care and education, that happens right along side all the hard work, or in the evening . i have yet to see anyone raised on a farm that was not capable of learning (some i have seen not willing, but fully capable). city folk aint gonna be as likely to jump to a new rock until the resturaunts are at least 3 star....

personally i would not join any colony venture that didnt want any children along. mainly because i would not be separated from my family until it was "safe" to bring them along. i can protect them better if we are all facing the same dangers, not abandoning them to someone else to raise while i am trying not to get killed on the mysteriously hi tech but still exceedingly dangerous colony world that is being populated

as far as heavy industry, i am refering more to the manufacturing end than the ores and refined metals. sorry about the misunderstanding.
the equipment for manufacturing hi tech devices is rather bulky after all, once you get to plastic forming, circuit board manufacturing etc...

i was postulating a scenario not in the OTU, there is not 6000 years experience in colonizing new homes and the infrastructure is in its infancy.
while on retrospect i realize any culture with j1 is prolly more than capable to set up regular delivery routes, so my initial assessments are rather unlikely to occur. dropping the j drive leads to long trip times on the order i was thinking of at the colony end, but skipped over designing the ship and cargo... silly me

but, no offence bill, Until you have set up an offworld colony or two, or failing that ANYONE has, its all just mental baseball. i for one would fire the planner trying to ship concrete blocks or masonry of any kind, and beyond a small stock on hand to get started, everything else can be manufactured locally in time. we didnt jump from building swords over an open forge to building the titanic over night- industry had to develop first. we are in luck that all we need to make those crucial steps is a starting point, rather than breakthroughs. gimme a small field forge and a good supply of clay and in 10 years i will have the ability to smelt a couple of tons of ore a day if not more.

i guess its all in the perspective. i for one do not feel that a colony will need to ship anything more than the vitals, because its expensive and time consuming. given long travel times, a 20cr iron anvil i can get in two weeks that is forged thirty km away versus the cost+1000cr/jump(or parsec) anvil made of superdense metal is much more sensible.

 

[Pickles]

I think people are confusing colonists with town planners. Colonists go out there to make a new life for themselves and settle down in new land. Town planners design and build new places for people to move into.

Of course colonists will go (with their families) into the unknown and, therefore, into danger. Otherwise they wouldn't be colonists. They'd be Expats.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by shadowdragon:
personally i would not join any colony venture that didnt want any children along. mainly because i would not be separated from my family until it was "safe" to bring them along.

Good on you. It is actually quite normal for people working overseas to leave the kids at home. Either that or do that kind of work before they have kids, or after they have left home. Or to not have kids.

i was postulating a scenario not in the OTU, there is not 6000 years experience in colonizing new homes and the infrastructure is in its infancy.

Yes, and you can specify that your way of doing things is "how things are done". But it is equally likely that less experienced colonisers are going to be the most cautious.

i guess its all in the perspective. i for one do not feel that a colony will need to ship anything more than the vitals, because its expensive and time consuming. given long travel times, a 20cr iron anvil i can get in two weeks that is forged thirty km away versus the cost+1000cr/jump(or parsec) anvil made of superdense metal is much more sensible.

Funnily enough, Australia has always imported a lot of its industrial machinery from other countries.

Of course that was offset by exports from fairly early on. Is your colony going to be exporting to its homeworld? If not, your colonists had better get used to their new low tech lifestyle. If so, they had better be exporting something that it is useful to produce with the equipment available to them.