Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Over in the LBB 3 Tech level thread, @atpollard posed the following question (4 days ago).
Some of the scenarios for starship class design have been the "all in one" traditional starship design, where you put big drives in the starship (for decent maneuver performance) and you arm the starship itself with a turret and a decent computer in order to be "combat capable" (as opposed to being "combat helpless" when the shooting starts). The alternative to that is the line of thinking that I've been working on throughout this thread of setting aside some tonnage for a small craft escort fighter to provide (shoot to mission kill) defense.
Both approaches have their merits and demerits associated with them.
Ultimately, however, I'm thinking of angling towards a 184 ton starship, which can externally tow a 16 ton Escort Fighter (TL=9) for a combined 200 tons in terms of drive performance. The starship would mount LBB2.81 B/B/B drives (25 tons), yielding a performance profile of J2/2G/PP2 @ 200 combined tons displacement (and J1/1G/PP1 @ 201-400 tons combined displacement).
184 ton custom hull (configuration: 2, streamlined)
25 tons for B/B/B drives (code: 2/2/2, TL=9, civilian)
56.8 tons for J2 @ 184 tons fuel + 20 tons power plant fuel
9 tons for fuel purification plant (TL=9)
20 tons for bridge
1 ton for model/1bis computer
8 tons for 2x single occupancy crew staterooms (pilot, ship's boat/gunner)
0.2 tons for cargo hold (intended for life support consumables reserves)
Crew salaries would calculate like so, per 4 weeks:
Add on Cr2000 per person every 2 weeks for life support expenses, plus Cr100 for 6 days of berthing fees per destination ... and assume wilderness refueling and fuel purification ... and the total overhead expenses per month (2 jump commercial tempo) totals out to Cr19,975 (not including annual overhead maintenance expenses).
Operated as an "interstellar packet delivery courier" delivering mail only under subsidy (and no additional cargo) would yield Cr25,000 per month on 2 deliveries to destinations during 1 month after the 50% revenue rake for being subsidized.
Napkin math analysis of the construction costs of the starship (only, no sub-craft) details yields a single production (100%) construction cost of MCr70.926.
The Escort Fighter in single production (100%) adds another MCr35.288 to the bill total.
Cargo Boxes in single production (100%) have a construction cost of MCr1.152 each.
Single production (100%) construction costs:
The break even profit point then becomes 340,133/12 = Cr28,420 in ticket revenues per month to pay for ALL operating expenses (except a bank loan mortgage).
Anything that an operator can transport beyond those minimums ... is profit ... unless if you've got a mortgage to pay off.
A mortgage on a volume production copy of the class would demand 88,657,600/240 = Cr369,407 per month for 480 months. (LBB2.81, p23)
Suffice it to say, if you've got bank loan financing, you had better get into the speculative goods arbitrage business in a hurry!
And even if you don't have bank loan financing, you're still going to want to dabble in speculative goods arbitrage whenever the odds are in your favor with this class.
Note that this napkin analysis is of a 184 ton starship + escort fighter + 4x Cargo Boxes ... and the "credits density" of volume production construction costs comes out at MCr88.6576 for 184+16*5=264 tons of hulls. That's a credits density of MCr0.33582424 per ton of hull(s) ... and you've got a crew of 2 plus 0 passenger capacity (with standard life support overhead expenses) and 64 tons of cargo capacity. No additional cargo load can be moved to the exterior while retaining J2/2G/PP2 drive performance.
Compare and contrast that with a 236 ton starship + escort fighter + 2x Stateroom Boxes + 1x Laboratory Box (Type: V-c) + 1x Environment Box + 1x Cargo Box ... and the "credits density" of volume production comes out at MCr124.4724 for 236+16*6=332 tons of hulls. That's a credits density of MCr0.37491687 per ton of hull(s) ... and you've got a crew of 5 plus 3 high passengers capacity (with life support expenses waived by the Laboratory Box) and 32 tons of cargo capacity (16 tons environmentally controlled, the rest are not). 4x Boxes can be moved to the starship's outer hull for external towing, increasing internal cargo capacity from 32 tons to 64 tons inside the internal hangar bay, when necessary (increasing overall cargo transport capacity to 96 tons) while retaining J2/2G/PP2 drive performance.
The 236 ton design IS more expensive ... but it is also a lot more FLEXIBLE and capable (overall), making it (in my opinion) the superior option when looking for J2 and/or J2+2 capability for merchant operations.
Since then, I've been "crunching numbers" (off and on) trying to work out an "optimal fit" for a sub-200 ton microtrader, while "borrowing" from all of my extensive research during the course of this thread here.
Some of the scenarios for starship class design have been the "all in one" traditional starship design, where you put big drives in the starship (for decent maneuver performance) and you arm the starship itself with a turret and a decent computer in order to be "combat capable" (as opposed to being "combat helpless" when the shooting starts). The alternative to that is the line of thinking that I've been working on throughout this thread of setting aside some tonnage for a small craft escort fighter to provide (shoot to mission kill) defense.
Both approaches have their merits and demerits associated with them.
Ultimately, however, I'm thinking of angling towards a 184 ton starship, which can externally tow a 16 ton Escort Fighter (TL=9) for a combined 200 tons in terms of drive performance. The starship would mount LBB2.81 B/B/B drives (25 tons), yielding a performance profile of J2/2G/PP2 @ 200 combined tons displacement (and J1/1G/PP1 @ 201-400 tons combined displacement).
184 ton custom hull (configuration: 2, streamlined)
25 tons for B/B/B drives (code: 2/2/2, TL=9, civilian)
56.8 tons for J2 @ 184 tons fuel + 20 tons power plant fuel
9 tons for fuel purification plant (TL=9)
20 tons for bridge
1 ton for model/1bis computer
8 tons for 2x single occupancy crew staterooms (pilot, ship's boat/gunner)
0.2 tons for cargo hold (intended for life support consumables reserves)
- 0.2 tons for 30 person/weeks of life support consumables
- 16 ton Cargo/Environment Box
- 16 ton Cargo/Environment Box
- 16 ton Cargo/Environment Box
- 16 ton Cargo/Environment Box
- Escort Fighter (16 tons)
Crew salaries would calculate like so, per 4 weeks:
- Pilot-1 = Cr6000
- Ship's Boat-2/Gunnery-2 = ((6000*1.1)+(1000*1.1))*0.75 = Cr5775
Operated as an "interstellar packet delivery courier" delivering mail only under subsidy (and no additional cargo) would yield Cr25,000 per month on 2 deliveries to destinations during 1 month after the 50% revenue rake for being subsidized.
Napkin math analysis of the construction costs of the starship (only, no sub-craft) details yields a single production (100%) construction cost of MCr70.926.
The Escort Fighter in single production (100%) adds another MCr35.288 to the bill total.
Cargo Boxes in single production (100%) have a construction cost of MCr1.152 each.
Single production (100%) construction costs:
- Starship + Escort Fighter + 4x Cargo Boxes = 70.926+35.288+(1.152+0.9216*3) = MCr110.1308
- Annual overhaul maintenance = Cr110,131 per year ... divide by 12 months (out of 13) per year of operations = Cr9178 per month
- Starship + Escort Fighter + 4x Cargo Boxes = 56.7408+28.2304+(0.9216*4) = MCr88.6576
- Annual overhaul maintenance = Cr88,658 per year ... divide by 12 months (out of 13) per year of operations = Cr7389 per month
The break even profit point then becomes 340,133/12 = Cr28,420 in ticket revenues per month to pay for ALL operating expenses (except a bank loan mortgage).
Anything that an operator can transport beyond those minimums ... is profit ... unless if you've got a mortgage to pay off.
A mortgage on a volume production copy of the class would demand 88,657,600/240 = Cr369,407 per month for 480 months. (LBB2.81, p23)
Suffice it to say, if you've got bank loan financing, you had better get into the speculative goods arbitrage business in a hurry!
And even if you don't have bank loan financing, you're still going to want to dabble in speculative goods arbitrage whenever the odds are in your favor with this class.
Note that this napkin analysis is of a 184 ton starship + escort fighter + 4x Cargo Boxes ... and the "credits density" of volume production construction costs comes out at MCr88.6576 for 184+16*5=264 tons of hulls. That's a credits density of MCr0.33582424 per ton of hull(s) ... and you've got a crew of 2 plus 0 passenger capacity (with standard life support overhead expenses) and 64 tons of cargo capacity. No additional cargo load can be moved to the exterior while retaining J2/2G/PP2 drive performance.
Compare and contrast that with a 236 ton starship + escort fighter + 2x Stateroom Boxes + 1x Laboratory Box (Type: V-c) + 1x Environment Box + 1x Cargo Box ... and the "credits density" of volume production comes out at MCr124.4724 for 236+16*6=332 tons of hulls. That's a credits density of MCr0.37491687 per ton of hull(s) ... and you've got a crew of 5 plus 3 high passengers capacity (with life support expenses waived by the Laboratory Box) and 32 tons of cargo capacity (16 tons environmentally controlled, the rest are not). 4x Boxes can be moved to the starship's outer hull for external towing, increasing internal cargo capacity from 32 tons to 64 tons inside the internal hangar bay, when necessary (increasing overall cargo transport capacity to 96 tons) while retaining J2/2G/PP2 drive performance.
The 236 ton design IS more expensive ... but it is also a lot more FLEXIBLE and capable (overall), making it (in my opinion) the superior option when looking for J2 and/or J2+2 capability for merchant operations.
as an ACS that Travellers could use as their livelihood/base of operations and get up to all sorts of interesting adventures with while still keeping things "small scale enough" for a Referee to manage reasonably well (particularly if the Referee is well familiarized with the details of the 3 Rule of Man classes of merchant starships and their modularized 16 ton Box system of containerization). Best of all, the specifics of the designs are not "so unique" as to only "work" for a single polity or jump faring species. Any of the branches of humaniti, clans of Aslan or even Vargr would be able to "copy" the design features of the 3 classes with relatively little effort, since TL=9-10 merchant starships built using LBB2.81 standard drives don't contain a whole lot of military secrets that can be kept from prying eyes. The "genius" of the Rule of Man classes is in the systems integration, their design and the application ... not in the tech level of the construction.
