Ship Construction Times

[Grav_Moped]

To be fair ... no one is going to "pause the game" for months of real time while the ship gets built.
How long a ship takes to get built is a bookkeeping/accounting exercise that happens in the background (as setting), not a roleplaying one that happens in the foreground (as face time).

Of course, the same lack of attention to details applies to interstellar trade rules in Traveller (because the game isn't meant to be an economics simulator either).

QUOTED FOR TRUTH. But well-meaning gentlemen do disagree. I happen to agree.

Agree and disagree. The trade minigame can represent a world's entire trade volume (see A4, Leviathan) out in the boonies, but within reasonably-connected civilization it represents "the leftovers" after the out-of-PC-scope megacorps grab the rest.

In neither case is it a plausible economic model, It's only enough to provide a setting framework for PC-scale merchant RPG campaigns -- and for the most part, that's all it needs to be.

 

[Timerover51]

Look at the build time for boomers and nuclear carriers...

That is why I argue for different construction times for civilian and military ships. Military ships are going to take longer, in some cases, a lot longer.

 

[Condottiere]

That depends.

Name	Dreadnought
Ordered	1905
Builder	HM Dockyard, Portsmouth
Laid down	2 October 1905
Launched	10 February 1906
Commissioned	2 December 1906

Name	Mississippi
Namesake	State of Mississippi
Builder	William Cramp & Sons, Philadelphia
Laid down	12 May 1904
Launched	30 September 1905
Commissioned	1 February 1908

Name	Lusitania
Namesake	Lusitania
Owner	Cunard Line
Operator	Cunard Line
Port of registry	Liverpool
Route	Liverpool to New York City via Cherbourg, France and Cork, Ireland
Builder	John Brown & Co, Clydebank, Scotland
Yard number	367
Laid down	17 August 1904
Launched	7 June 1906[1]
Christened	Mary, Lady Inverclyde
Acquired	26 August 1907
Maiden voyage	7 September 1907

 

[robject]

That depends.

It's useful to talk about, but you're right, a lot of these things depend, in the end, on presuppositions that aren't in Traveller.

 

[Condottiere]

The vast majority of spacecraft components are off the shelf.

A lot of spacecraft are based on common templates.

In theory, only the hull and engineering tend to get customized, and those might be the same if mass produced.

 

[whartung]

Compare and contrast those with the EEE class container ships.

I don't know what the times are, but there's a dramatic difference between an aircraft carrier and a bulk container ship. A bulk container ship is a large hole in the water. An aircraft carrier is a large hole in the water filled with some very complicated systems and accommodations for 5000 people.

Simply, the raw tonnage is not a good benchmark for build time, you have to consider all of the internal systems as well.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Simply, the raw tonnage is not a good benchmark for build time, you have to consider all of the internal systems as well.

So ... some kind of formula that takes tonnage AND cost into account?
What is this witchcraft of spreadsheet daemonology that you speak of?

 

[robject]

So ... some kind of formula that takes tonnage AND cost into account?
What is this witchcraft of spreadsheet daemonology that you speak of?

"The more you spend, the faster we can get it done."

 

[whartung]

Well, if you want to base on anything, base it on mass, not volume.

Mind, we don't have much information on the mass of ship systems. (TNE does, but...)

How much mass in a stateroom?

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Grav_Moped]

"The more you spend, the faster we can get it done."

Get nine women pregnant right now, and you'll have your new baby in just one month!

 

[Condottiere]

I wouldn't want to give some billionaires ideas.

I would speculate if each womb grew specific body parts, it might be possible.

Some assembly required.

 

[aramis]

That is why I argue for different construction times for civilian and military ships. Military ships are going to take longer, in some cases, a lot longer.

But historically, the truth is that the speed of construction is based more upon fraction of yard capacity than whether military or civilian.
The available stats for the construction slips in Seward during WW II actually put the civilian ships taking about 2× the time of the naval auxiliaries for the same slips.

What isn't in the available data (because the Navy still hasn't transferred the surviving records to NARA, despite being more than the RRS guideline) is whether that's due to military priority, complexity, or other factors. (Seward's yards only built to about 120', and since the 70's, have been almost exclusively repairs.) The civilian craft being manufactured were fishing boats. The military were colliers and cargo transports.
What is available notes the yard was dependent upon external supply, since Alaska has no metal smelting. (Not even the copper mines - the ore is shipped to the lower 48 for processing.)
Now, colliers and small Underway Replenishment are less complex builds than trawlers, but the trawlers don't have the gun mounts...

I suspect the issue was a combination of military having priority, military having guaranteed supply, and civilian ships having slightly more complexity than the military auxiliaries in the WW II era.

 

[kilemall]

Hmm, well tying cost of ship to build time seems to be the way to go, along with TCS mitigating factors, class bonus (which can model reduced cost also reducing build time), maybe some time reduction for using alpha drives, and dirty shortcuts in builds which reduces cost/time but means it won’t be as robust/safe/take damage well.

 

[Timerover51]

The reason that the HMS Dreadnought was completed so rapidly was that the dockyard put twice the normal number of men into building it, so that it took one year instead of two, and they also used turrets intended for two other battleships being built to speed construction as well.

Aramis is correct that yard size and priority of building also can have major effects.

 

[RogerD]

If using QERBS it might be interesting to give penalties for faster construction times and bonuses for slower ones.

 

[Condottiere]

Dreadnought was the ultimate demonstration that a British shipyard under Admiralty control and competent manager could outachieve any private enterprise.

The advantage that the Royal Navy had were economies of scale, and in fact, might well have been the precursor of the Industrial Age.

Though the Carthaginian Navy seems to have been pretty well organized at that end, and the Romans and Athenians appear to make remarkable recoveries in reestablishing their fleets.

 

[kilemall]

I read somewhere that the basic factor for WW2 German warships was one ship worker

Dreadnought was the ultimate demonstration that a British shipyard under Admiralty control and competent manager could outachieve any private enterprise.

The advantage that the Royal Navy had were economies of scale, and in fact, might well have been the precursor of the Industrial Age.

Though the Carthaginian Navy seems to have been pretty well organized at that end, and the Romans and Athenians appear to make remarkable recoveries in reestablishing their fleets.

RN fans do love that claim, but the real mass producer was the Venetian Arsenal.

 

[Condottiere]

Infrastructure, supply chain, and institutional knowledge.

As I understand it, Versailles had subclauses that were added to destroy that.

Ironically, so did Washington.

 

[McPerth]

I guess working efficiency and speed at TL 15 should be quite different than current (or WWII, for what's worth) one...

I'd expect most of the work on starship building, mostly large ones, to be made by robots in orbit, and the time to be quite less than current one for seaships.