The number of low-population worlds is irrelevant. What counts is the number of high-population worlds.
Where did you read that?
I disagree.
Hans
How big is General Shipyards?
- Thread starter rancke
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The number of low-population worlds is irrelevant. What counts is the number of high-population worlds.
Where did you read that?
I disagree.
Hans
It's relevant to the traders flying those routes. Of the 439 March worlds, a grand total of 80 have populations in the hundred millions or better, while almost half have populations from the hundred-thousands to the tens of millions. Doesn't leave a lot of per capita income for import and export, especially when you chop it up among 52 weeks or 365 days or whatever prefered pattern you have for port activity. A port receiving just one 5000-dTonner daily can take in close to a million dTons annually - that's 5 or 6 metric tons per person per annum for a million-pop world. Would seem to be quite enough.
http://traveller.wikia.com/wiki/File:Spinward_Marches_Sector.pdf
Some clever soul programmed up a trade route map based on GURPS Far Trader. Some of the assumptions may be off, but the basic thrust of it's sound: there'll be more trade between high pop worlds, less between lower pop worlds. However you look at it, there are only a relative handful of high pop worlds, and they tend to be concentrated in a few subsectors. For the bulk of the Marches, if there's any trade going on, it's not enough to support big freighters and liners.
Duly noted. It's an interesting conflict: something like 80% of the trade routes are between lower pop worlds that can't support a megafreighter, but 99% of the sector's population - and therefore 99% of the trade volume, involves the 80 high pop worlds. Even if we look only at the 42 worlds with the billion-plus populations, that's 93% of the sector's trade. The 11 biggest worlds account for half the volume of trade by themselves. There are many times more small ships than large ships, but in terms of constructed tonnage, it's anywhere from 12:1 to 100:1 in favor of the big boys. Inasmuch as I would count "largest" by the tonnage of shipping produced, I am obliged to retract my statement.
Yes, but the traders flying those routes are irrelevant because there isn't very much trade between the low-population worlds, so they are going to be small.
I go with 35 jumps per year for regular freighters and liners and 25 jumps per year for free traders.
For a port to average a 5000 dtonner per day, you need 20 of them servicing the route.
I'm not sure how accurate that map is. Where are the BTN 9 routes between Regina and respectively Alell and Efate? Where are the BTN 10 passenger routes between Regina and respectively Alell, Efate, and Jewell? (Regina, being a Rich world and a subsector capital gets two +½ modifiers to its BTN numbers; Jewell gets another +½). These passenger routes from Regina are definitely missing, since there is no green connection all the way from Regina to Alell, Efate, and Jewell.
But taking the map at face value, we have 17 green BTN 10 routes and one cyan BTN 11 route. That's an average of 3.7 million dtons of cargo and 54,000 passengers per week.
I'm only looking at the trade between worlds in the Regina subsector (plus a few adjacent to worlds in the Regina subsector, like Louzy).
Hans
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
But, their numbers would have to be fairly substancial to service that many planets. That would indicate that a large number of smaller shipyards would be required for this traffic.
Wouldn't that depend largely on their size and the regularity of freight and passenger traffic?
But, that would be horribly inefficent. I'd think a 35,000 ton to 50,000 ton freighter a week with 3 or 4 in service would suffice. Port space would only be required for say, two at any given time at most.
Any irregular traffic could be handled by small ships given their abundance as some of these would likely be passing through at any point picking up a cargo to deliver to smaller population worlds. So, the port would be busy but mostly with smaller cargos.
The other thing that would be present in at least some systems would be tankers and a refinery ship or two. These would be necessary to collect and move fuel from a gas giant to the main world in stuations where the later is present and the main world has no fuel source.
Example: The system has several gas giants. The main world is say, size 2 and atmosphere 1 with 0 hydrographics. That would require a steady stream of fuel being moved to the world from a gas giant. Let's give it a population of say 8. Now you need several fairly large tankers moving from the gas giant to the world and back delivering fuel not just for ships but for everything.
In this situation having several, say a minimum of 4 or 5 in service would be preferable to having one or two very large ships to cover situations like a loss or maintenance requirements. It would also cut the size of the refinery ship necessary (or, if a convienent satellite is available it might be there) to process the fuel.
Again, this all points to a few larger yards making ships well under 100,000 tons and many yards that are making stuff of 1,000 tons or less.
GURPS traveller has several large ship designs in the 10-20ktn range and the rebellion sourcebook has that 30ktn common imperial transport. I image that is the max size of most commercial shipping in the marches. Supp 9 has a comment about the movement of a 50ktn monitor which had to be shippedby the IN as there are no commercial ships in the marches capable of moving it. That seems to tie in with a max size of about 30ktn.
It seems reasonable that the class A ports on major worlds on the Xboat routes would have shipyards big enough to build, repair and maintain such ships.
Supp 9 also says the navy gets its ships build at civilian yards. Navy cruisers are usually between 30ktn and 100ktn and I would imagine that general products would try and get some of that trade.
So max size of berth at GP yard on regina - 100ktn (probably only 1 or 2), several big shipyard berths at 30ktn (2-4 in number) + other smaller berths up to 5ktn to build Tukera long liners and Oberlindes cargo carriers etc.
Total yard capacity 200-250ktn does not seem unreasonable
It seems reasonable that the class A ports on major worlds on the Xboat routes would have shipyards big enough to build, repair and maintain such ships.
Supp 9 also says the navy gets its ships build at civilian yards. Navy cruisers are usually between 30ktn and 100ktn and I would imagine that general products would try and get some of that trade.
So max size of berth at GP yard on regina - 100ktn (probably only 1 or 2), several big shipyard berths at 30ktn (2-4 in number) + other smaller berths up to 5ktn to build Tukera long liners and Oberlindes cargo carriers etc.
Total yard capacity 200-250ktn does not seem unreasonable
Just as an alternative thought, if there is indeed a demand for a large number of Type A2 free traders (as an example) then there is an opportunity to set up an assembly line to mass produce a single class of ship ... like the Brunswick Boat Group ["Sea Ray, Bayliner, Maxum, Hatteras Yachts, Meridian and Sealine pleasure boats from 16 to 100 feet; Boston Whaler, Cabo Yachts and Trophy offshore fishing boats from 13 to 52 feet; and Crestliner, Harris, Kayot, Lowe Boats, Lund, Princecraft and Triton fishing, deck and pontoon boats from 10 to 26 feet. Brunswick is one of the largest boat makers in Europe, with such brands as Arvor, Örnvik, Quicksilver, Uttern and Valiant boats. In New Zealand, Brunswick also owns the Rayglass boat brand."].
Mass production almost always increases efficiency and lowers unit costs ... numbers reflected in the Classic Traveller Hull costs (LBB2) with greater discounts for small 'standard' hulls.
I just point out that a large shipyard could specialize in mass produced small ships.
I'm talking about total volume of construction, and even a fairly substantial number of small ships don't amount to a lot in total. No doubt there are a number of smaller ship manufacturers, but how does that affect the size of the large ones?
Incidentally, there can't be all THAT many small ships, because bigger ships are more economical, and if you have enough freight or passengers to keep two ships in business, you could do it cheaper with one twice the size. There are countervailing considerations, not the least that the traffic probably will be split between several competing companies, but you won't see many companies running scores of ships on a single link in a route. And passenger traffic is more likely to be split among several ships in order to provide more frequent connections.
The regularity is assumed; that's why I call it regular freighters. I don't see how the size affects frequency.
It was you who talked about daily departures.
If it's any consolation, I have changed my mind about the volume of commercial traffic after looking a bit at the FT BTN numbers for Regina subsector. I think it's higher than you think, but a good deal lower than I originally assumed.
Hans
Just a statistic to throw into the grinder, the US ports currently handle about 0.5 dTons (0.4963 dT) of TEU cargo per person per year in the US - roughly half import and half export.
Applying that to Traveller populations for an order-of-magnitude first approximation yields:
Pop 1 = 5 dT/yr = 0.4 dT/month = 0.1 dT/wk
Pop 2 = 50 dT/yr = 4 dT/month = 1 dT/wk
Pop 3 = 500 dT/yr = 42 dT/month = 10 dT/wk
Pop 4 = 5 thousand dT/yr = 417 dT/month = 100 dT/wk
Pop 5 = 50 thousand dT/yr = 4 thousand dT/month = 1 thousand dT/wk
Pop 6 = 500 thousand dT/yr = 42 thousand dT/month = 10 thousand dT/wk
Pop 7 = 5 million dT/yr = 417 thousand dT/month = 100 thousand dT/wk
Pop 8 = 50 million dT/yr = 4 million dT/month = 1 million dT/wk
Pop 9 = 500 million dT/yr = 42 million dT/month = 10 million dT/wk
Pop 10 = 5 billion dT/yr = 417 million dT/month = 100 million dT/wk
Applying that to Traveller populations for an order-of-magnitude first approximation yields:
Pop 1 = 5 dT/yr = 0.4 dT/month = 0.1 dT/wk
Pop 2 = 50 dT/yr = 4 dT/month = 1 dT/wk
Pop 3 = 500 dT/yr = 42 dT/month = 10 dT/wk
Pop 4 = 5 thousand dT/yr = 417 dT/month = 100 dT/wk
Pop 5 = 50 thousand dT/yr = 4 thousand dT/month = 1 thousand dT/wk
Pop 6 = 500 thousand dT/yr = 42 thousand dT/month = 10 thousand dT/wk
Pop 7 = 5 million dT/yr = 417 thousand dT/month = 100 thousand dT/wk
Pop 8 = 50 million dT/yr = 4 million dT/month = 1 million dT/wk
Pop 9 = 500 million dT/yr = 42 million dT/month = 10 million dT/wk
Pop 10 = 5 billion dT/yr = 417 million dT/month = 100 million dT/wk
As this is written, it seems that a pop 4 system (to give just an example) could build a Scout (100 dton) in a week, or work on 5 of them to have them finished in 5 weeks, or build a a Free Trader (200 dton) in 2 weeks, or so on...
I think what is important is the tonnage it can work on simultaneously, and keeping the times of construction as shown in CT/HG/TCS.
I was unclear ... those are the total cargo volumes for those worlds (50% will be imported cargo and 50% will be export cargo) ... to help with the discussion of how many ships and what size are required to serve a world/trade-link/region.
So a pop 4 world will see 100 dT of cargo per week pass through its starport - 50 dTons of imports and 50 dTons of exports ... not a good candidate for a 5000 dT freighter.
... on the other hand, a Pop 10 world needs to move 100,000,000 dTons of cargo per week ... That would take an awful lot of Free Traders and Subsidized Merchants.
Heck it would take nearly 17,000 freighters per week at 5000 dT (assumed cargo capacity = 3000 dT) ... over 2000 freighters per day arriving and another 2000 freighters departing with 6000 to 12,000 ships just waiting in port (to load/unload/seek cargo/refuel).
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I was unclear ... those are the total cargo volumes for those worlds (50% will be imported cargo and 50% will be export cargo) ... to help with the discussion of how many ships and what size are required to serve a world/trade-link/region.
So a pop 4 world will see 100 dT of cargo per week pass through its starport - 50 dTons of imports and 50 dTons of exports ... not a good candidate for a 5000 dT freighter.
Sorry, I read you wrong, I read it as building capacity (how ashamed...)
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
If this is correct and you use 50,000 ton ships at 6 per world that amounts to 480 distributed through the Marches at any given time. If you assume that the companies operating these replace them 18 years on average and the construction time is 18 months then if General on Regina built half of these they would be manufacturing 15 per year but would have no capacity per se to build anything bigger than a 50,000 or so ton ship but would be producing 7.5 million tons of shipping a year. They would also only need about 12 slips, give or take to do this as each ship is completed and a new one laid down after the last is launched. So their capacity for this type of ship would be about 6 million tons physically.
So, their total build capacity would be fairly impressive in this situation but their capacity to build a single ship would be limited to a mere 50,000 tons or so as there is little demand for larger ships.
If there were demand then one or two slips might be bigger, say as much as maybe 75,000 tons but still well short of being able to build a battleship.
Garyius2003
SOC-13
However, assembly in orbit means any size ship may be made. Bath Iron and Newport News make superlifts, and those are assembled using fixtures. Their limits on overall size are based on drydocks (Newport) and launching platform (Bath). Without that factor, the limit becomes annual total tonnage based on the ability to make the superlifts, not a max per ship.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
I wouldn't see it that way. The yard has no drives larger than those needed for a 50,000 ton ship. The power plants, maneuver drives etc., are the same way. I can't see that ship's engines are simply some modular thing that you can simply tack more on and get the necessary power. Instead, I see them as something integrally designed to the ship.
That is, two jump 2 50,000 ton ship engines cannot be substituted for one jump 2 drive for a 100,000 ton ship any more than you could install more spinal mount and get a more powerful spinal mount as a result.
You install one of the right size for the ship.
The same goes for lots and lots of other parts on the ship. Just because you can build a bigger hull doesn't equate into you being able to build a bigger ship.
I would also think that whether you build in orbit or on the planet that there are external structures in use that don't scale up well. So, I see some need for something like a drydock or building slip still being necessary as the ship is assembled.
Occurs to me belatedly that, as we're discussing, "(t)he largest starship manufacturer in the Regina subsector," I'm looking at worlds and trade routes that have nothing to do with the Regina subsector. Sorry folks, my bad.
Regina subsector is, interestingly, the most populated in the Marches, as it includes Efate, Menorb, Ruie, Roup, Enope, and Rethe. Trade between Regina and Ruie is especially promising despite the amber zone, as is trade between Efate and Menorb, between Efate and Louzy, and between Roup and Feri. With these worlds having pops in the hundreds of millions and billions, volume between them is likely to be enough to demand pretty sizeable ships.
Only thing that puzzles me is that the shipyards at Efate should be pretty large as well. That's a world of 8 billion, high tech at D, trading with two neighboring worlds of 3 billion and 10 billion, ideal location for a major ship construction facility. If anything, the Efate facilities should be larger.
Regina subsector is, interestingly, the most populated in the Marches, as it includes Efate, Menorb, Ruie, Roup, Enope, and Rethe. Trade between Regina and Ruie is especially promising despite the amber zone, as is trade between Efate and Menorb, between Efate and Louzy, and between Roup and Feri. With these worlds having pops in the hundreds of millions and billions, volume between them is likely to be enough to demand pretty sizeable ships.
Only thing that puzzles me is that the shipyards at Efate should be pretty large as well. That's a world of 8 billion, high tech at D, trading with two neighboring worlds of 3 billion and 10 billion, ideal location for a major ship construction facility. If anything, the Efate facilities should be larger.
mirc
SOC-8
It's a dated thread, but I share my humble 50 cents anyway.
IMTU it's all about story and not about numbers. If the story says "the largest shipyard", than it's capabilities scale upwards with the rest of the universe when going from a small ship universe to a large ship universe. It simply stays - as the story tells - the largest in the marches.
In some cases however the story changes, and the importance of defined story elements change too. So it happens that I contradict myself from time to time.
Cheers
IMTU it's all about story and not about numbers. If the story says "the largest shipyard", than it's capabilities scale upwards with the rest of the universe when going from a small ship universe to a large ship universe. It simply stays - as the story tells - the largest in the marches.
In some cases however the story changes, and the importance of defined story elements change too. So it happens that I contradict myself from time to time.
Cheers
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