Say Theoretically...
- Thread starter The Hinterworlds Rambler
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mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
The decision on what to build depends on:
1) How fast do you want your initial investment back?
2) What are your customers looking for?
3) How stabel is your market, will the buyer come back for a second buy?
4) Are you already established or do you have to build a good reputation?
5) Why should your customers choose you?
IMHO you won't get the battleship contracts and it is unlikely the Navy will choose anything you design as the replacement of the Azanthi either. Your market most likely is local (Subsector/Sector) fleet and smaller entities. Maybe augmented by being sub-contracted by a mega to fulfil parts of a Domain-wide building contract the Mega got.
In the 3I a dual strategy of offering an Imperial-Data Package (IDP) based and mass-produced/demamdend standard craft as a solid-running pay-the-bill craft and a non-IDP special build or a less-demamded IDP design seems a solid option. And don't offer the ships, offer the package deal: Ship, small craft, spares, maintenance contract.
The base craft will bring in the customer base and keep the company in the green. Package deals should get you customers below your TL as they can reley on you for parts and maintenance. This should be something a subsector navy or even a planet with some off-world/off-system interests might buy. Rugged, well-armored, mid-low jump, mid-high accell, 2000dton or less, 100 crew or less, some small craft.
The second offer should make a logical complement to the first, similar to a destroyer leader/light cruiser. Same TL as the craft above, same subcrafts and if you can even similar layouts. Make it a logical choise along the Serves nicely as a flag-ship/carrier/backbone for a four to six ship (insert smaller craft) task force. Size can be up to 10000 dton, 20000 if you have some egomanic nobles in high positions.
Choose hulls and designs that can be used as a base for additional variants. Plan them ahead of time like using Cutters as the standard subcraft, hangars instead of custom-fit vehicle bays, localising engines/controls/quarters in dense clusters instead of all through the hull. Then pitch the Oilder/Collier based on our succesful heavy destroyer class and therefor having 75 percent spare parts in common and reducing crew-retraining necessary
Think about a Monitor/Large SDB variant of your crafts. Telling the local sub-sector duke that your Monitor is similar on the destroyer his forces use and therefor reserves called up could easily crew it while at the same time his mobile units share most parts WILL make him put pressure on the local systems to buy your SBD/Monitor so HE can grap parts from the local systems during a war.
Don't construct small craft, use IDP and offer custom fittings. It's unlikely you can beat the well-tested and cheap IDP's in performance by a large enough margin
1) How fast do you want your initial investment back?
2) What are your customers looking for?
3) How stabel is your market, will the buyer come back for a second buy?
4) Are you already established or do you have to build a good reputation?
5) Why should your customers choose you?
IMHO you won't get the battleship contracts and it is unlikely the Navy will choose anything you design as the replacement of the Azanthi either. Your market most likely is local (Subsector/Sector) fleet and smaller entities. Maybe augmented by being sub-contracted by a mega to fulfil parts of a Domain-wide building contract the Mega got.
In the 3I a dual strategy of offering an Imperial-Data Package (IDP) based and mass-produced/demamdend standard craft as a solid-running pay-the-bill craft and a non-IDP special build or a less-demamded IDP design seems a solid option. And don't offer the ships, offer the package deal: Ship, small craft, spares, maintenance contract.
The base craft will bring in the customer base and keep the company in the green. Package deals should get you customers below your TL as they can reley on you for parts and maintenance. This should be something a subsector navy or even a planet with some off-world/off-system interests might buy. Rugged, well-armored, mid-low jump, mid-high accell, 2000dton or less, 100 crew or less, some small craft.
The second offer should make a logical complement to the first, similar to a destroyer leader/light cruiser. Same TL as the craft above, same subcrafts and if you can even similar layouts. Make it a logical choise along the Serves nicely as a flag-ship/carrier/backbone for a four to six ship (insert smaller craft) task force. Size can be up to 10000 dton, 20000 if you have some egomanic nobles in high positions.
Choose hulls and designs that can be used as a base for additional variants. Plan them ahead of time like using Cutters as the standard subcraft, hangars instead of custom-fit vehicle bays, localising engines/controls/quarters in dense clusters instead of all through the hull. Then pitch the Oilder/Collier based on our succesful heavy destroyer class and therefor having 75 percent spare parts in common and reducing crew-retraining necessary
Think about a Monitor/Large SDB variant of your crafts. Telling the local sub-sector duke that your Monitor is similar on the destroyer his forces use and therefor reserves called up could easily crew it while at the same time his mobile units share most parts WILL make him put pressure on the local systems to buy your SBD/Monitor so HE can grap parts from the local systems during a war.
Don't construct small craft, use IDP and offer custom fittings. It's unlikely you can beat the well-tested and cheap IDP's in performance by a large enough margin
Toyota started out building very inexpensive cars, generated a following among first-time buyers, grew a reputation for quality, and expanded their product line as their customer base and reputation grew.
Could work for Starships (especially Merchant ships). A 100 dTon ship able to operate at a profit would have buyers lined around the block to purchase a "first ship". Later they would start looking for a Free Trader to expand business. Then a Fat Trader. Eventually, you might start to get requests for multi-thousand dTon merchant ships.
Could work for Starships (especially Merchant ships). A 100 dTon ship able to operate at a profit would have buyers lined around the block to purchase a "first ship". Later they would start looking for a Free Trader to expand business. Then a Fat Trader. Eventually, you might start to get requests for multi-thousand dTon merchant ships.
mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
Would the guy in the souped up, lowered to the ground GSBAG Typ A2 start gloating at his poor neighbour who has to make do with a blocky-looking BorderWarfts Typ A2 
Throughout all of human occupied space except the Zhodani Consulate (TP reeducation and all that).Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
Would the guy in the souped up, lowered to the ground GSBAG Typ A2 start gloating at his poor neighbour who has to make do with a blocky-looking BorderWarfts Typ A2
And the profits from the after-market industry could dwarf the profits from the actual shipyard.
mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
Actually I like the idea of the Border Worlds or Allied States yards starting out slow and maybe with a more rough design using older tech and some ideas of their own and then working their way up. Those "non standard" ships might be a scenario hook.
It's 0230 and i'm not gonna read all the replies
The REAL credits are in getting the government to foot the bill for R&D (just ask Boeing, Northrup, et al).
If Wal-Mart has taught us nothing else, it's that the best bet is smaller, cheaper "expendable" stuff that has to be replaced often. I'd go for the fighters. They aren't armored, screened or heavily armed and a lot of Admirals have a love affair with carriers.
Figure in any battle, a lot of fighter are lost compared to capital ships.
Also, the U.S. gov't has taught us that there's a lot of loot to be made in replacement parts. "Oh, that part's only Cr200 on the ship, but the replacement is Cr1800!" Sound familiar?
The REAL credits are in getting the government to foot the bill for R&D (just ask Boeing, Northrup, et al).
If Wal-Mart has taught us nothing else, it's that the best bet is smaller, cheaper "expendable" stuff that has to be replaced often. I'd go for the fighters. They aren't armored, screened or heavily armed and a lot of Admirals have a love affair with carriers.
Figure in any battle, a lot of fighter are lost compared to capital ships.
Also, the U.S. gov't has taught us that there's a lot of loot to be made in replacement parts. "Oh, that part's only Cr200 on the ship, but the replacement is Cr1800!" Sound familiar?
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
Continuing Duke's thought:
Losing a lot of fighters might seem extreme, but even losing 200 fighters to "sink" a 20,000 ton cruiser is an advantageous exchange. Fighters are cheap and quick to build. Cruisers are not. Further when you compare the lives lost, 200 pilots for a crew of ~400...
Losing a lot of fighters might seem extreme, but even losing 200 fighters to "sink" a 20,000 ton cruiser is an advantageous exchange. Fighters are cheap and quick to build. Cruisers are not. Further when you compare the lives lost, 200 pilots for a crew of ~400...
Captain Midnight
SOC-12
There are many factors involved here.
The construction time is going to be very important, too. You're looking to maximize the profit generated by each ton of yard space. if that ton of yard space generates 100,000 Cr of profit when working on a DN, but it takes 5 years to build it, it's only generating 20,000 Cr per year. If that ton can generate 30,000 Cr of profit when building a heavy fighter, but it only takes one year to complete, it just generated 30,000 Cr in one year. Repeat the process five times, and you're generating 150,000 Cr of profit building fighters versus 100,000 Cr of profit by building dreadnoughts.
(I'm making up these numbers for illustrative purposes -- I don't recall any specific costs per ton or any construction times off the top of my head, and it will obviously depend on the ruleset you're using to generate those numbers.)
Until you know what the procurement policy is (which is obviously a GM call), and you've finalized your designs for costs and times (also GM calls), you won't be able to give a definitive answer on this one. It's also going to depend on whether you can get enough repeat business on smaller craft to keep the yard generating income (and presumably profit) for as long as if you're building a big ship.
It's going to depend on your costs to produce each vessel. We don't get a lot of guidance about actual profit margins in canon material, nor do we get any guidance on IN procurement rules. If they give you a "cost-plus-percentage" deal, then you'll want to build the craft that has the highest cost per dton, which will probably be a heavily-armored craft. If the Navy pays "X credits plus cost" per dton, then you're going to be looking at whatever is going to get them out of your yard the quickest, and that's probably going to mean building fighters.
The construction time is going to be very important, too. You're looking to maximize the profit generated by each ton of yard space. if that ton of yard space generates 100,000 Cr of profit when working on a DN, but it takes 5 years to build it, it's only generating 20,000 Cr per year. If that ton can generate 30,000 Cr of profit when building a heavy fighter, but it only takes one year to complete, it just generated 30,000 Cr in one year. Repeat the process five times, and you're generating 150,000 Cr of profit building fighters versus 100,000 Cr of profit by building dreadnoughts.
(I'm making up these numbers for illustrative purposes -- I don't recall any specific costs per ton or any construction times off the top of my head, and it will obviously depend on the ruleset you're using to generate those numbers.)
Until you know what the procurement policy is (which is obviously a GM call), and you've finalized your designs for costs and times (also GM calls), you won't be able to give a definitive answer on this one. It's also going to depend on whether you can get enough repeat business on smaller craft to keep the yard generating income (and presumably profit) for as long as if you're building a big ship.
