General Construction time - why so long?

[Redcap]

It struck me, as I was working on the design of the Relay class Armed packet, that it took over a year to build those ships, which were only 300 tons in size.

Space and star ship design is well established in the universe of Traveller; it is, by any standard, a mature and well-tried technology. Thus, once the design of a new ship is finalised, and the assembly line constructed and tooled up, surely the construction of a new ship class should take no longer than, say, building a Boeing 747, once the components are assembled? Alternatively, is it more akin to the construction of a submarine? Again, limited productions lines can mean that construction, once all components are assembled, might take a couple of months, at best?

Any ideas?

 

[Condottiere]

Depends from which point of the manufacturing process you start off from.

Presumably the Scout Service have regular orders so that a production line is always hundred percent occupied, much like an assembly line, which has an accumulated stock of materials that need only be processed and fixed together, in which case the production cost and time is a great deal less than the nominal ten percent savings from building the same spaceship.

You're paying for the expertise in assembling a starship, that won't fall apart while you're in the middle of another dimension, because I'm pretty sure you could probably source individual components cheaper, given enough time and brokerage.

 

[Redcap]

Depends from which point of the manufacturing process you start off from.

OK, yes, fair point

Presumably the Scout Service have regular orders so that a production line is always hundred percent occupied, much like an assembly line, which has an accumulated stock of materials that need only be processed and fixed together, in which case the production cost and time is a great deal less than the nominal ten percent savings from building the same spaceship.

Granted, but we're (Humans) building modular ships these days too, from subs to surface combatants, the US Zumwalt, and UK Astute & Dreadnaught classes being prime examples. There's a fairly length and involved publication on the topic over at The Rand Corporation (right click and save as, it's a PDF), but the short version is multiple yards producing specific components, all transported to a central assembly facility. This shortens the time to construct by several orders of magnitude, and results in a plug and play vessel, for all intents and purposes. I can't see why this approach wouldn't work in a mature and evolved starship production system in the Traveller universe? ("General Products, effeicient, effective, reliable modularly constructed ships from one source in a third the time of our (several) competitors!").

You're paying for the expertise in assembling a starship, that won't fall apart while you're in the middle of another dimension, because I'm pretty sure you could probably source individual components cheaper, given enough time and brokerage.

True, but see the above

Counter-argument? More ideas? Let's see 'em

 

[whartung]

Well, anecdotally, I found a 20m fiberglass commercial fishing boat, displacing 20t (not traveller dtons), built in China.

And they quote 5-6 months of build time. It costs $420K. I imagine it's a commodity vessel for the builder, even though its "build to order", I'm sure there's some flexibility on kitting it out.

Just a dart on the board.

 

[Redcap]

Well, anecdotally, I found a 20m fiberglass commercial fishing boat, displacing 20t (not traveller dtons), built in China.

And they quote 5-6 months of build time. It costs $420K. I imagine it's a commodity vessel for the builder, even though its "build to order", I'm sure there's some flexibility on kitting it out.

Just a dart on the board.

My cousin runs a small craft (sail boats and smaller pleasure craft/yachts) repair shop, and deals with GRP & fibreglass a lot; I can well imagine a custom shop taking that long for a GRP or fibreglass shell; they're generally manpower-intensive to lay down correctly.

Which brings up an interesting thought: Starships in Traveller have a Lanthanum grid built into the hull sections; could part of the time to construct these ships be due to having to wait for the lanthanum grid to fully solidify and cool down within the matrix of the surrounding crystaliron (or other) hull material?

 

[Cryton]

I imagine that the time includes: Getting all the parts in one place for assembly, waiting for a construction slip to open (what, you think they drop EVERYTHING to make your ship? Get in line!), the time it takes to be built, followed by inspections on EVERYTHING, fixing what needs fixing before being inspected again, and again and again.



Really, for a ship that has an expected time in service of OVER 40 years, and who's general use specifications includes a lanthanum hull grid, rad shielding, being shoved into another universe, literally every-other-week, while carrying a nuclear plant, passengers, and probably munitions, all the while going through the stresses of entering/leaving atmospheres twice as often as it's shoved into another reality, a starship is definitely built on to more rigorous standards than any mere dirt/water-side ship. Really, all those months is not bad at all, all that considered.

Also, IIRC, if you buy a "Standard" hull design you get a 20% cut off both time and cost!

 

[Redcap]

I imagine that the time includes: Getting all the parts in one place for assembly, waiting for a construction slip to open (what, you think they drop EVERYTHING to make your ship? Get in line!),

snorfl :rofl:

the time it takes to be built, followed by inspections on EVERYTHING, fixing what needs fixing before being inspected again, and again and again.

Yes, fair points all

Really, for a ship that has an expected time in service of OVER 40 years, and who's general use specifications includes a lanthanum hull grid, rad shielding, being shoved into another universe, literally every-other-week, while carrying a nuclear plant, passengers, and probably munitions, all the while going through the stresses of entering/leaving atmospheres twice as often as it's shoved into another reality, a starship is definitely built on to more rigorous standards than any mere dirt/water-side ship. Really, all those months is not bad at all, all that considered.

Nodding. Yup, good points as well

Also, IIRC, if you buy a "Standard" hull design you get a 20% cut off both time and cost!

:rofl: For something like a Type S scout, I'd expect a damn sight more'n 20%, given how many of them they make in "How many variants!?"

However, I take the point as well.

So, I guess 57 weeks was the construction time for the duration of the Relay Class contract, then. Oh well. So much for Henry Ford, then

 

[Cryton]

So, I guess 57 weeks was the construction time for the duration of the Relay Class contract, then. Oh well. So much for Henry Ford, then

Not bad at all, Imagine the time for construction of some 500K Dton ship.

Also, I forgot one important thing, the seals on liquid hydrogen fuel tanks. Insidious stuff, hydrogen, and to carry Dtons(!) of the stuff safely is a task all by itself! Super-cooled to a liquid no less, through all the hoops a starship jumps through too!


......Starships, bloody deathtraps if ya ask me. It's a wonder Travellers travel at all.

 

[Redcap]

Not bad at all, Imagine the time for construction of some 500K Dton ship.

Also, I forgot one important thing, the seals on liquid hydrogen fuel tanks. Insidious stuff, hydrogen, and to carry Dtons(!) of the stuff safely is a task all by itself! Super-cooled to a liquid no less, through all the hoops a starship jumps through too!


......Starships, bloody deathtraps if ya ask me. It's a wonder Travellers travel at all.

:rofl:

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

just a point to consider, but a quick peak at real life naval build times for dreadnought battleships shows they mostly took 2-3 years form keel laying to commissioning, sometimes going up to 4 years.

bear in mind their might be certain "long lead" items that simply cant be built quickly and that fix the timeline form order to building. for example, the main guns on battleships took over a year each to make, and given the limited demand for them, the construction supply for them was quite limited, which put something of a bottleneck on production (HMS Dreadnought was build in just over a year but they did that by stealing guns assigned to other warships already in production, pushing those ships back by years until new guns could be made).

it might be the case in the OTU as well. maybe parts like the jump drives are equally hard to build, and it simply takes months for such a complex and high tolerance part to be built, and demand is not high enough and constant enough to justify pre-emptive construction?

So much for Henry Ford, then

bear in mind a production line achieves its high though rate by having dozens or even hundreds of cars on the go at once, thus increasing thoughput by widespread parallelisation, but the time to build one car stays the same, or nearly so.

Not bad at all, Imagine the time for construction of some 500K Dton ship.

MgT (both 1e and 2e) puts it at one day per Mcr of cost "in the average commercial yard", but that really breaks down with the capital ships, so they put a bodge in that says big ships are build with parallelisation that cuts build times by 90%.

 

[Redcap]

just a point to consider, but a quick peak at real life naval build times for dreadnought battleships shows they mostly took 2-3 years form keel laying to commissioning, sometimes going up to 4 years.

A typical FFG of current times, for instance the USS Oliver Hazard Perry, masses 4,100 displacement tons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oliver_Hazard_Perry). That's a fair bit bigger than a 300 ton starship hull, and thus yes, it should take longer to construct.

bear in mind their might be certain "long lead" items that simply cant be built quickly and that fix the timeline form order to building. for example, the main guns on battleships took over a year each to make, and given the limited demand for them, the construction supply for them was quite limited, which put something of a bottleneck on production (HMS Dreadnought was build in just over a year but they did that by stealing guns assigned to other warships already in production, pushing those ships back by years until new guns could be made).

Which HMS Dreadnaught? The last and next ones were/will be a submarine (SSBN).

it might be the case in the OTU as well. maybe parts like the jump drives are equally hard to build, and it simply takes months for such a complex and high tolerance part to be built, and demand is not high enough and constant enough to justify pre-emptive construction?

I could accept that for a one-off build, not for a production line, where one contractor might outsource additional production to other trusted companies, in order to maintain production levels.

bear in mind a production line achieves its high though rate by having dozens or even hundreds of cars on the go at once, thus increasing thoughput by widespread parallelisation, but the time to build one car stays the same, or nearly so.

It's the overall throughput level that I'm on about, but yes, I get the point.

MgT (both 1e and 2e) puts it at one day per Mcr of cost "in the average commercial yard", but that really breaks down with the capital ships, so they put a bodge in that says big ships are build with parallelisation that cuts build times by 90%.

I'd say any mass production line would work, and when you're talking contracts for the IISS to outfit an entire fleet of ships that likely numbers in the thousands, yes, I'd expect fairly high levels of throughput once the lines get going properly, following the tooling of the preproduction prototyping stages.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

I was on about the 1906 HMS Dreadnought*, the one that gave us "dreadnought" as a ship type.

A typical FFG of current times, for instance the USS Oliver Hazard Perry, masses 4,100 displacement tons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oliver_Hazard_Perry). That's a fair bit bigger than a 300 ton starship hull, and thus yes, it should take longer to construct.

I'd point out that a real life water displacement ton and a traveller LHyd Displacement ton are two different units with significantly different sizes. a traveller D-ton is 14m³, whereas a ton of seawater is slightly less 1m³ (1025Kg/m³).

so a 9,100 ton submarine (submerged displacement of USS Seawolf, according to Wikipedia) would have a traveller displacement of roughly 650 traveller D-tons. your 4,100 ton OHP displaces a bit less than 300 tons, but thats just the volume below the waterline, so its actual traveller displacement would be 3 or 4 times that. call it 1200 tons as a total guess.

I could accept that for a one-off build, not for a production line, where one contractor might outsource additional production to other trusted companies, in order to maintain production levels.

well, as far as i can tell, the rules as written are about you going to a shipyard, dropping suitcase full of Mcr bills and doing a one-off or limited run order, rather than the startship version of Ford's Chicago Assembly plant.

I'd say any mass production line would work, and when you're talking contracts for the IISS to outfit an entire fleet of ships that likely numbers in the thousands, yes, I'd expect fairly high levels of throughput once the lines get going properly, following the tooling of the preproduction prototyping stages.

well, yes, but again, assuming they build to order, it might still take a long time between you placing the order and the ship being ready for pickup. if your working out how to supply a fleet with a large number of ships in a reasonable time frame, then I'd point out they would be working in parallel with multiple ships on the go at once. nothing in the rules says you cant do that.


*minor point, but its "nought", not "naught". one of those UK/US variant spellings, apparently.

 

[Condottiere]

There was the alphabet range of off the shelf commercial ship components, including hulls.

 

[Redcap]

I was on about the 1906 HMS Dreadnought*, the one that gave us "dreadnought" as a ship type.

Right, that's the one I thought you meant, I just wanted to check

I'd point out that a real life water displacement ton and a traveller LHyd Displacement ton are two different units with significantly different sizes. a traveller D-ton is 14m³, whereas a ton of seawater is slightly less 1m³ (1025Kg/m³).

Very good point. Pity they don't measure them both in m³, for ease of use

so a 9,100 ton submarine (submerged displacement of USS Seawolf, according to Wikipedia) would have a traveller displacement of roughly 650 traveller D-tons. your 4,100 ton OHP displaces a bit less than 300 tons, but thats just the volume below the waterline, so its actual traveller displacement would be 3 or 4 times that. call it 1200 tons as a total guess.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

well, as far as i can tell, the rules as written are about you going to a shipyard, dropping suitcase full of Mcr bills and doing a one-off or limited run order, rather than the startship version of Ford's Chicago Assembly plant.

Hmm. I think you're right.

well, yes, but again, assuming they build to order, it might still take a long time between you placing the order and the ship being ready for pickup. if your working out how to supply a fleet with a large number of ships in a reasonable time frame, then I'd point out they would be working in parallel with multiple ships on the go at once. nothing in the rules says you cant do that.

True; and an order of this kind would likely be spread across many sectors, likely with GP, LSP, et al getting a slice of the pie (porkbelly contracts?), thus easing the delivery chain a bit, too.

*minor point, but its "nought", not "naught". one of those UK/US variant spellings, apparently.

Heh. Potato, "potahtoe"

 

[Redcap]

There was the alphabet range of off the shelf commercial ship components, including hulls.

Sorry, the do what?

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

Sorry, the do what?

in some versions of traveller, the certain compoments (namely, the Manuver, jump and power plant) were given available in a set of standard sizes, which were given letter names. their was a table that told you size vs proformance (so, for example. a "B" sized M drive could a 200 ton ship at 1G, or a 100 ton ship at 2G, or a "D" sized jump drive could give you a 100 ton J4 or a 400 ton J1).

its present in the original Classic traveller ship building system, and a few other editions have kept it (I know the 1st edition of mongoose traveller had it). the engine systems of the classic scout/courier and the free trader were explicitly the same drive systems installed onto a bigger hull.

 

[Redcap]

in some versions of traveller, the certain compoments (namely, the Manuver, jump and power plant) were given available in a set of standard sizes, which were given letter names. their was a table that told you size vs proformance (so, for example. a "B" sized M drive could a 200 ton ship at 1G, or a 100 ton ship at 2G, or a "D" sized jump drive could give you a 100 ton J4 or a 400 ton J1).

its present in the original Classic traveller ship building system, and a few other editions have kept it (I know the 1st edition of mongoose traveller had it). the engine systems of the classic scout/courier and the free trader were explicitly the same drive systems installed onto a bigger hull.

Ah, right, yes. Never heard it called that before, and I've been playing the game on and off since the eighties

 

[flykiller]

Any ideas?

imperial unions. "the imperium owns the space between the stars."

 

[Redcap]

imperial unions. "the imperium owns the space between the stars."

Can you expand on this, please, as I'm not sure where you were going with this?

 

[Condottiere]

If there's a large enough demand for a particular family of spacecraft, it's probably worthwhile for a shipyard to make it modular and use assembly line production, and the modules could be built to a common standard, that allows performance variations on a plug and play platform.

Except for smaller jump drives, my spacecraft designs engineering tends to be highly modular, with an upper limit of nine; I assume Tee Five still permits nine bundles of nine ganged up drives.