Starports

[ravells]

At Pollard: I guess in terms of scale I wanted it to be about as big as the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (about 400m) that means I'll shrink the scale of the windows (which look a little dark, I'll try to lighten them). I want the structure to look vaulting and huge.

Kaladorn: My pleasure re the pic without the sailing ship. I'll pm you with the address.

:Edit: Your mailbox is full, here is the address for it: http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c217/ravells/hydroportrender8.jpg

I think for my next effort I'm going to try to make a modular prefab starport. Re airports looking the same: I've just returned from Malaysia, and the new Airport there is amazing. It has two terminals linked by an aerotrain (which looks like it has come straight out of the opening scene of half-life 2. The satellite terminal has a huge glass self contained dome with a miniature rain forest inside it. The Indonesians are now getting in on the act and the airport in Bali is made to look like a Balinese temple. I think we'll find that in the future, airports will be built far more imaginatively than the utiliterian constructions which were made in the 60s and 70s (which is when I guess many of the airports in the States and Canada were built).

Mr Tek: When I've done the pre-fab modular starport I'll try to place it in an organically growing environment as you suggest - that should be fun. Thank you for your kind compliments, but I've got a long way to go before I get anywhere close to the skills and compositional abilities that Andrew, Scarecrow and Mikazoid have.

Cheers all!

Ravs

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by ravs:
At Pollard: I guess in terms of scale I wanted it to be about as big as the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (about 400m) that means I'll shrink the scale of the windows (which look a little dark, I'll try to lighten them). I want the structure to look vaulting and huge.

That is going to be a tough scale to convey – there are just so few objects of a known size that will be visible at that scale. With 130-200 stories, the windows will appear as little more than a surface texture. Usually you get a sense of scale for buildings that tall by seeing them as part of a skyline of normal size buildings. That would not be the case on a water world.

I had originally thought that the vehicle on the landing platform was one of the cars in the foreground. Given the scale you envision, it is probably a free trader. Does a fat trader (400dTon) have a recognizable silhouette? Perhaps one just taking off or landing could help set the scale. If it were small enough to not detract from the composition, the silhouette of a container ship near the port could also show how huge this thing is.

There was a nuclear powered container ship from the 1970's called the "Savannah" (I think) that had very modern looking lines.

 

[kafka47]

I don't know, perhaps, the better comparison with airports have to be small regional ones versus the international versus train stations versus bus stations versus public transit depots. Then we can truly appreciate the diversity of Starports in the Traveller universe.

 

[MR TEK]

That was a point I was trying to make. Even Ravs tower, has the feel of a starport, because the large flat areas indicate landing platforms.

A modular system can work just fine as long as the layout and relationship of those modules can vary.

Cram them all together in regimented rows and you have an entirely different port than if you arrange them more artistically, or throw them around in a more random fashion.

Scrunch them up tight, or spread them out. Add the color. Physical color, bright or muted. Shiny and new or old and grimy.

Lots of noise and lights and hectic, or carefully controlled and organized.

Is the staff friendly, helpful, chatty, lazy, indifferent? Overworked?

Is this a destination, or a hub? Every one of these situations could be constructed from modules.

In a high traffic universe, I would EXPECT most ports to look LIKE A PORT.

As was said by a couple of folks, moving masses of people require certain commonalties. And the flavor of the third Imperium is that conformity is paramount, so a certain similarity in most ports should be a design goal, not something to be avoided.

Then there are the worlds that are exceptions. The water worlds, worlds with corrosive atmospheres, unusual weather, high or low gravity, unusual mineral concentrations that make unusual building materials or colorations common.

The final point is yes, we should be aiming for the bulk of the system to be modular. A port is a port is a port. But no two ports should ever look the same, and they should be different enough in flavor to be distinctive.

I should be able to stand in any class A port, and KNOW I am in class A starport. The scale, the level of traffic, the level of maintenance, the presence of certain groups of businesses that carter to new ship construction and outfitting, the level and intensity of outworld and megacorp advertising, the sheer organization of moving bodies from point A to point B should all be hallmarks of the A class port. A B class port would show less of all of these things, and the Architects, and outfitters would be conspicuously rare.

A C class port would feel more like a regional or feeder port.

But in every single case, arrive at a port, I don’t care if you are in the flight crew and brought this ship in, or were frozen and revived with no clue what world you are on, walk around a couple of minutes. If you have ever been to this port before, you should recognize it, and know where most things are right away.
Find yourself in anew port, and the concession stands, TAS office, news outlets, Ground transport, etc. will be as easy to find as they all are in a modern airport, but they will always, always be in a different configuration from an other port.

Achieving that fell. That you can always find your way around, and always know you are in a port, and what class it is should be the goal of any starport design system. Similarly, it should never produce ports that are cookie cutter designs. No two ports should ever look the same.

Meet those two goals and you will have a functional starport design system. How easy it is to produce those results will determine how useful the system is.


Note clearly, that nowhere in this descrition is one word that even hints at a specific traveller era or rules set.

Those are irrelevant to getting a starport design, and would only come in to play to actually run a game traveling through the port.

 

[robject]

SWEET starport, Ravs!

Sounds like it may be worth it to describe several "standard" starport "spines", and provide a huge bag of general accessories to extend and tailor them.

 

[parmasson]

Keep in mind I am coming in late coming late....

Starports should be designed like starships.
Standard configurations, features, so much for hotels, parking etc.

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by atpollard:

I had originally thought that the vehicle on the landing platform was one of the cars in the foreground. Given the scale you envision, it is probably a free trader. Does a fat trader (400dTon) have a recognizable silhouette? Perhaps one just taking off or landing could help set the scale. If it were small enough to not detract from the composition, the silhouette of a container ship near the port could also show how huge this thing is.

A cruise ship might be ideal or a large hydrofoil....

Thanks for the render! My COTI mailbox may be full, but I'm sure my gmail account wasn't (and I'll check my COTI box and so something about that). :0)

I think you'll see both distinctive ports and common design for certain sorts of flow. Even in Bali or Malaysia, I'm sure you had a very familiar experience (with unfamiliar trimmings) at the airport. The tasking is very similar.

And in military ports, as close to absolute similarity as possible might be de rigeur as you'd not have much effort to familiarize someone. This was the case in many Roman temporary encampments and the logic works equally well for frontier spaceports and starports (especially the kind you might drop on a world that isn't normally habited, but where you want to stage some military forces for - think the equivalent of the big landing areas they used for the apaches and other choppers in the desert during Desert Storm).

Anyway, lots of different varieties can exist. There's about 6 Starport codes and 3 or 4 Spaceport codes and that doesn't even include highports and even within a similar code, there's probably lots of variance based on available local tech, planetary trade classes, planetary environment, etc. We could probably each design one starport complete with detail and we'd still not come close to the variety that are out there in the 3I...

(There's an interesting contest!)

 

[Mickazoid]

Here's a little snapshot of those highport starport modules in mid-construction...

 

[flykiller]

Not only functional but truly beautiful.

indeed. and I hate to ask killjoy questions, but ....

why is it out in the water when land is nearby? if there are storms then it might do better to put it on elevated land. it would certainly be cheaper on land, storms or no storms.

Here's a little snapshot of those highport starport modules in mid-construction....

looks great so far. how will the ships dock? fly into a bay? hard dock at an airlock or cargo bay? held in place by gravitic struts and connected via a flexible tube? will the ships dock directly to the station main body, or will they dock on access tubes that extend away from the station main body?

 

[kaladorn]

I'm not sure if the concept is that the ships can descend into storage inside the pads (depends on size of the pads - they look like they might be several stories thick if the whole thing is 120-140 stories tall or more.

If not, then the question becomes how they are secured versus foul weather? The first answer is gravity-assisted stabilization - using antigrav modules to help oppose weather effects. This is possible on higher tech worlds like the one we propose this starport be from.

At the same time, even high tech solutions have manual backups, and that could be some seriously heavy duty stainless (or ultra tech successor) cabling hooked to landing struts, anchor points, or possibly an alloy net draped right across the ship. These are an annoyance to install and remove, but they're a good fail safe against grav-assist stabilizer failures.

 

[Badbru]

Originally posted by Mr TeK:

A modular system can work just fine as long as the layout and relationship of those modules can vary.

Cram them all together in regimented rows and you have an entirely different port than if you arrange them more artistically, or throw them around in a more random fashion.

Scrunch them up tight, or spread them out. Add the color. Physical color, bright or muted. Shiny and new or old and grimy.

Lots of noise and lights and hectic, or carefully controlled and organized.

Is the staff friendly, helpful, chatty, lazy, indifferent? Overworked?

Is this a destination, or a hub? Every one of these situations could be constructed from modules.

In a high traffic universe, I would EXPECT most ports to look LIKE A PORT.

They're all questions I'd like to see answered easily in a Refs tool like a few tables to roll on, but I don't see how you're going to get answers to those types of questions from a quick glance at the UWP, and this is what I believe Liam is aiming for if you go back to page two and check his mission statement post. Utilise the one thing in common to all rules sets- The UWP's, or something like that.

As was said by a couple of folks, moving masses of people require certain commonalties. And the flavor of the third Imperium is that conformity is paramount, so a certain similarity in most ports should be a design goal, not something to be avoided.

Then there are the worlds that are exceptions. The water worlds, worlds with corrosive atmospheres, unusual weather, high or low gravity, unusual mineral concentrations that make unusual building materials or colorations common.

The final point is yes, we should be aiming for the bulk of the system to be modular. A port is a port is a port. But no two ports should ever look the same, and they should be different enough in flavor to be distinctive.

I should be able to stand in any class A port, and KNOW I am in class A starport. The scale, the level of traffic, the level of maintenance, the presence of certain groups of businesses that carter to new ship construction and outfitting, the level and intensity of outworld and megacorp advertising, the sheer organization of moving bodies from point A to point B should all be hallmarks of the A class port. A B class port would show less of all of these things, and the Architects, and outfitters would be conspicuously rare.

I aggree to a point, it's just that that doesn't sound like an A Class starport on a world with a UWP population digit of 3, or god forbid less, does it. How about those A Class starports with one or two people running them, or the B class example that Liam posted earlier (With a Naval base.

A C class port would feel more like a regional or feeder port.

In the TNE rules set atleast, everything required to fullfill the minimum specifications of a C Class starport can fit in a Modular Cutter module. Then again a C Class port could be a spawling complex covering as much or more as 10 square kilometers on some worlds.

But in every single case, arrive at a port, I don’t care if you are in the flight crew and brought this ship in, or were frozen and revived with no clue what world you are on, walk around a couple of minutes. If you have ever been to this port before, you should recognize it, and know where most things are right away.
Find yourself in anew port, and the concession stands, TAS office, news outlets, Ground transport, etc. will be as easy to find as they all are in a modern airport, but they will always, always be in a different configuration from an other port.

That is assuming the world is of sufficient population, Tech level, trade value, and on a trade route to have things like concession stands(concession for what I wonder?) TAS outlet, news outlet, (What's the government? Is there an extrality line? is it a painted line, a picket fence, or two meters thick crystal iron with ram grenade launchers in bunkers every 50 meters?

Achieving that fell. That you can always find your way around, and always know you are in a port, and what class it is should be the goal of any starport design system. Similarly, it should never produce ports that are cookie cutter designs. No two ports should ever look the same.

Meet those two goals and you will have a functional starport design system. How easy it is to produce those results will determine how useful the system is.

That's one way to do it and I'd like to see some of that kind of detail. It's not the only way and I'm not sure it's the way that is planned

Note clearly, that nowhere in this descrition is one word that even hints at a specific traveller era or rules set.

Yet the mission statement was, I believe, to create a means for referees to quickly determine the nature of a given starport base on the information that is universal amongst ALL Traveller rules sets, that of the planetary UWP.

Those are irrelevant to getting a starport design, and would only come in to play to actually run a game traveling through the port.

The rules set maybe, the UWP's definately not and in most cases when as a Ref you find your players wandering, reguardless of your rules set most often all you'll have are sets of UWPs to work off of.

Personally I suspect you'll end up needing a product that is a lot of d6 tables and qualifiers along the lines of; If Starport is A class and population is 3 or less and Tech Level is 0 to 6 roll d6 once on the available pads table to see number of berthing pads.
So I see it more like "System" generation rules for when you are detailing entire planetary systems. You could have as many or as few tables to roll on as the ref in question feels appropriate.

 

[ravells]

robject: Thanks for compliments. I like the idea of varying 'spines', but I'm close to finished with this concept now and want to move onto other ones.

atpollard / kaladorn: scale: Damn your eyes are good! Out of sheer laziness I used a copy of the skycar in the foreground on top of the deck thinking that it would be so fuzzy at that distance that one couldn't really tell what it was. I've deleted that now and have put in a dropship (I think that's what it is) - it's a tail sitter that looks like a plain sphere on stubby legs.

Kaladorn: I think you're right, the function of the starport decides its form to a large extent. To me that means being able to look at a structure and be able to say, yes, that's a starport. But in after that, everything's up for grabs in terms of variety.

Flykiller: I added that little spit of land just to give some compositional balance to the picture and to try (I think unsuccessfully) to provide clues for the scale of the structure. Let's say that the land you see is a small island made of coral and so completely unfit to be a starport! Oh, and it has lots of little rodents (which can't swim) which eat starship cabling (or something).

Storms: I guess one solution would be to have a kind of retractable nautilus shell arrangement to provide a cover over the entire landing pads during a storm? Like this maybe?

Mikazoid: Looking good!

Ravs

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Badbru:

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:

In only one instance was the port listed as 'orbital' (it was set in an asteroid belt B000000-D N Va Lo Ni 610 wherein our plucky merchanters HAD to stop and refuel at since there were NO gas giants, along this planned route. No brainer there, set in a belt after all, right?

No Brainer that it's "Orbital" yes, but write me a book that explains a B class starport at Tech Level 13 run buy only SIX people that builds Non Starships AND has an attached Naval base.

Explain to me how from B000000-D N Va Lo Ni 610, I can know at a glance how many landing platforms or berths, how many cargo dockloading berths, how many repair bay berths and how many ships in port allready from that, mmmn good luck boys.

Badbru:

The aforementioned gamer's Pbem GM described it thusly--"An Imperial Naval owned system, used often by them for wargames, missiles test ranges, firing solution and navigation courses using various parts of the belt, not utilized by the TL-D (semi-autonomous) robotic ice mining that was used at the Station. (Passage code green)-travellers were not forbidden use of the system, and generally were warned when parts of the belt were part of an IN training exercise. Fuel prices for refined were standard. the Six sophonts manning the station were "permanent party" port staff, and robot techs. (The system lying in a J1 main had however a migratory worker population of some 3,000 sophonts from the 1 parsec adjacent world D510558-A De Ni 312 ).)"
--the latter part was my gamer's pebem GM's explanation to the obvious "What, JUST 6-folks??"

I concur with you Badbru however, without further examining of where a system lies, such anomalies like this example will require extra imagination from all of us.

Likewise, without accepting a certain amount of automation (robots!) into the equation, then the definition of the "B-class" starport = has a spacecraft yard, refined fuel, TAS facilities (Guess the fembots and android valets and barkeeps are chatty here, eh?) is broke.

 

[Liam Devlin]

I aggree to a point, it's just that that doesn't sound like an A Class starport on a world with a UWP population digit of 3, or god forbid less, does it. How about those A Class starports with one or two people running them, or the B class example that Liam posted earlier (With a Naval base.

Well Badbru UWP pop 3, in reckoning the A-class-port = Starship manufacture facility/ Spacecraft yard, Major repairs, TAS facilities)
we have to see the TL of the world somewhat, and the TL of the world & the A-class port's population itself as possibly separate things, technology level notwithstanding...

Example: Lets look at Ridge (1210)/Libert/Diaspora: A77A112-F Ni Wa Lo 514
Starport -A-class port
Size -7-just smaller than Terra (8)
Atmo -7 (Standard but tainted)
Hyd -A Water world
Pop -10's with PPG digit 5 = 50 total
Govt. -1 corporation
Law level -2 Low
Tech level -15 3rd Imperial zenith of Grav, Jump, medical, & robotic technolgies

Trade Code-1 -Wa Water World
Trade Code 2 -Ni Non-Industrial
Trade Code-3 -Lo Low population < Pop 5

+Considering: All TU's see A-class as having starship/ spacecraft manufacturing facilities, Major repair yards, & TAS facilities for travellers, and sell refined fuel.

+Considering: In Most TU's, Jump drives occur at TL9 (J1),Although some editions state TL-A.

+Considering: In most TU's, Jump capable ships begin at 100dtns (The S-classes of fame come to mind, crews of 1 (up to 4)*.

+Considering: In most TU's, engineer mechanics come 2 to a vehicle, and in Civilian Starships 1 per 35dtns of engine system; and 1 to 70dtns of engine system, for Military ships.

1.) Ridge's Population is 50, a given in UWP.

2.) Ridge's planetary Govt. is Corporate (name me a Megacorp in spaceship manufacturing, repairs, robots, Non-industrial exports-mining in the Solomani Rim,& insert here)- So everything aside from possibly the starport is owned by theis corporation (yielding to general held view that the Imperial ownership rights of a starport and SPA, TAS, and so forth are Imperial-managed/ overseen entities).

Now, can we explain this as the 50x listed sophonts are at the Starport proper (SPA & TAS employees with a sprinkling of robotic help)? Or are they the sole sophonts on the world? Could they be the only ones the Corporate government claims on its Imperial tax rolls? Ya see where this is leading right?

3.) The Tech level is 15, meaning dumbots (TL9-11), semi-autonomous 'bots (TL-12-13), to fully autonomous robots (TL14-15) maybe present, and in this neck of the Imperium, not classified as "citizens", and not on the tax rolls as "employees" of the port, but prolley listed as property instead! the World is a water world, and so it would be the GM's choice whether it is a free-floating grav structure, a "floating structure, or a triphibian (TL-12+) Grav float-fly, submersible structure.

Now if the population were the sole definition of how many folks can build a starship, ala CT-era TCSand other sources, we have also by defined/ inferred reference how many can work/ repair on ship.

Minimum sized jump capable ship = 100dtns; so with a Corporate/ Civilian port that comes to Civilian mechanics: 2 for every 1 vessel + 1 Chief Engineer-mechanic per 35dtns/ 100dtns = 4.75 sophonts, call it 5 for round-up folks, or 4 for round-down folks' numbers.
So its 4-5 personnel per 100dtn hangar/ berth.

4.) Given the A-class Starport has at minimum 1-building/ 2-repair yards, and 3-refined fueling characteristics, and 4-TAS facilities, those 50 sophonts get stretched a long way..BUT:

+Considering: in Most TU's, robots have at least 4-day/ 96-hr batteries (the equivalent of of 12-working man 8hr days), we may estimate 12 robots per Sophont, some may wish to round down to 10 bots/ 1 sophont, or 500 robots perhaps; 600 tops.

5.) Trade code "Non-industrial"--here we define this for the world's resources, not by the tech level (15), and a fifth element to divide our sophont population by.

Done evenly:

SPA- 10x Sophonts +100 robots (Security, Luggage handling, medical)

TAS- 10x Sophonts + 100 robots = 1010 Man work days (Using the number of Steward's rules for Civilian Starships: 1 per 8 High Passage/ 1 per 16 Mid passengers)= 126x HP Single rooms & 252 MP dual accomodations. Given the Avg M-class 600dtn Passenger liner carries :26 HP/ 52 MP, I'd warrant the largest landing pad at 600dtns, total capacity of 3ktons of ships (5x 600dtn) divvied anyway the GNM saw fit.

Starship /Spacecraft Plant 10x Sophonts +100 robots (1,010 human man work days = 101/ round down to 100dtns SY size hulls.

Starship/ Spacecraft repairs- 10x sophonts + 100 robots (Mechanical repair/ electronical repair, dumbots for lifting & moving big pieces)- 1,010 Human work days, divided by 4 = 252 dton capacity. This can be 2x 100dtn bays, & 1x 50 dtn bay (50-10dtn spacecraft fixed here),or more efficiently, a single 200dtn bay (1x 100-200dt craft), and a single 50dt bay.

Ridge probably produces TL-F through TL-B Sulieman/ Seeker-class vessels. Being a water world, submersible undersea floor mining/or mineral mining is quite possible. The Tainted atmosphere can be from the Sea, or anything else the Gm wishes.

being a small A-class but high tech port, Much is automated to the fullest extent from the TAS Hotel (janibots, barkeepers, Housekeepers, valets), to the SPA (luggage handlers, Star Port Security Guard bots, Customs scanning dumbots, Medical Robots for this small SPA-Port medical facility (TL-F).

Water world, small TAS, a corporate Aruba setting possibly, the Corp's private getaway and test bed facility, and any other number of ideas come to mind.

This help explain some of this?

BTW, LSP, LIC. (Ling Standard Products, LIC. makes a perfect match for the owner of this world.

helpfully yours,

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
I'm not sure if the concept is that the ships can descend into storage inside the pads (depends on size of the pads - they look like they might be several stories thick if the whole thing is 120-140 stories tall or more.

If not, then the question becomes how they are secured versus foul weather? The first answer is gravity-assisted stabilization - using antigrav modules to help oppose weather effects. This is possible on higher tech worlds like the one we propose this starport be from.

At the same time, even high tech solutions have manual backups, and that could be some seriously heavy duty stainless (or ultra tech successor) cabling hooked to landing struts, anchor points, or possibly an alloy net draped right across the ship. These are an annoyance to install and remove, but they're a good fail safe against grav-assist stabilizer failures.

Modern cruise ships just sail away from port when a major storm approaches and travel to another port or avoid the storm in open water. Spacecraft could wait out the storm in orbit.

 

[Badbru]

Liam

Excellent breakdown of Ridge.

Now for those of us that don't have a complete Traveller library, such as TCS, or intricate knowledge of various shipbuilding rules that enable us to come up with numbers like 1 per 35 tonnes, and 1 per 70 tonnes, and requisit number of serving staff at the TAS hotel based on such obscure data, PLEASE, write us a book that enables us to replicate "EASILY" what you have done based on the UWP there, which also provides us similar justifications for all our decissions.

Incidentally, I probably would have described such a world similarly, indeed I'm sure most of us would have, I just don't have the ability to toss out numbers justifying my decission like you can, and it would be nice to get a similar level of depth without having to do as much work as I suspect you may have to get that result.
That writeup gave me everything I would need as a GM/Ref to describe it to my players and without the explanations of how you got there it would take up less than a page.

 

[kafka47]

Reading on of Elizabeth Moon's recent novels, she has a Highport configured in the same way as Christmas Tree. This got me to thinking perhaps the best design for a Highport could be a snowflake. Modular yet interconnected and always room for further expansion. Plus, very impressive when you see it.

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by atpollard:
Modern cruise ships just sail away from port when a major storm approaches and travel to another port or avoid the storm in open water. Spacecraft could wait out the storm in orbit.

Assume I'm in the middle of a PM cycle on my Free Trader, with the manouver drive open and the avionics stretched across the main cabin... and along comes a storm.

Or assume that there is some other reason I can't just sail away.

In those instances, some sort of solution is necessary. At high TL, the proposed nautilus shield would work quite well.

If, OTOH, you can lower the ships into the pad, then all but the biggest ships could be accomodated inside.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by kafka47:
Reading on of Elizabeth Moon's recent novels, she has a Highport configured in the same way as Christmas Tree. This got me to thinking perhaps the best design for a Highport could be a snowflake. Modular yet interconnected and always room for further expansion. Plus, very impressive when you see it.

If we get that type of Starport, do we get the justice system to go with it? Complete with the bandoliers and tree-leaves?

"Vattas War" Book 3 was nice. The characters would basically work in a Traveller setting. Desperatly waiting for book 4.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Badbru:
Excellent breakdown of Ridge.

Now for those of us that don't have a complete Traveller library, such as TCS, or intricate knowledge of various shipbuilding rules that enable us to come up with numbers like 1 per 35 tonnes, and 1 per 70 tonnes, and requisit number of serving staff at the TAS hotel based on such obscure data, PLEASE, write us a book that enables us to replicate "EASILY" what you have done based on the UWP there, which also provides us similar justifications for all our decissions.

Badbru:
Thank you sir!

based on fragmentary notes from the original "Starports" work, and items memorized in my head, I did that at work last night without any books at hand in about ten minutes.

Incidentally, I probably would have described such a world similarly, indeed I'm sure most of us would have, I just don't have the ability to toss out numbers justifying my decission like you can, and it would be nice to get a similar level of depth without having to do as much work as I suspect you may have to get that result.

It took me longer to type it (I'm slow). I did have a hand calculator for the division work to avoid leaving a paper trail of sticky notes about my work space.

That writeup gave me everything I would need as a GM/Ref to describe it to my players and without the explanations of how you got there it would take up less than a page.

From memory (from CT to T20 sources):

+The Knowledge of Megacorporations came from MT- Hard Times , which defined what major interests the Imperial Corporations had. LSP, LIC. fits the bill perfectly for mining, starship/ vehicle manufacture, robots, and sundry other user end products found at the starport/ planet).

+Solomani Rim attitudes towards robots came from the MT-Rebellion GM's Sourcebook (vis a vis the "Shudasham Accords", and Sylean-Vilani-Margaret's-Strephon's attitudes towards 'bots).

+HG-2, & T20's starship/ spacecraft/ vehicle crewing rules for # of engineers 1/35dt or 1/70dt + # of mechanics per vehicle (2) gave me basic common sense rules for minimal sophonts for work. works out to 4 to 5, I rounded down. Obscure? Only in my application of them sir!

+Planet's UWP govt. code told me this was not a military base, but corporative-owned, so more engineers/wrench-sophonts per 100dtns.

+Robots from CT-to TNE-to T20 generally had at minimum overall (Imperial conformity) 96 hour power cells. Robots also CT-MT-TNE-T20 generally conform to these tech levels: Human operated TL6-TL8; Human supervised only = TL9 TL-11 'dumbots'; TL-12 to TL-13 = semi-autonomous 'bots; to TL-14-15 = fully autonomous/ independent operating robots; TL-16 AI robots.

96-hours is either:
+12x man days of labor (Solomani 8hr work day)
+ 8x man hour days (Vilani 12hr work day)averaged /rounded down to 10 days with recharge/ maintenance time tossed in. Or 1 robot does the work of 10 Solomani-Humans. Hence with 50 people on the UWP pop. code 1 and PPG digit 5 I had 10-12 robots per person (500-600 total).

All work at a starport is equated into man-days of labor (SY, Repairs, SPA, TAS, and so on).

The formulae for the total Man-days of labor divided by the # of workers(mechanics + engineers) 4 gave me the port's tonnage maximum = 252dtns. CT, HG, T20 all have these numbers within them for minimum number of mechanics per vessel/vehicle (2), as well as crewing engineer per dtn of engines (Civilian/ Military). Hardly obscure, but my application of them is based off these.

Dividing the total Man-days of labor divided by the CT-TCS formulae on population per dtn output 10/1 ratio, gave us the 100dtn max sized vessel produced here.

Obviously, a world of lower technology, or say in a TNE-setting without robots, Shipyards require more actual manpower. But for 3rd Imperium era ports, this works.

+CT-through T20 Steward's rules per sophont for starships (per high passage/ Mid-passage) were turned into the man-days of labor for the TAS Hotel facility & their robots, or a place with 126 single rooms/ 252 dual rooms.

Here My reasoning was for small ship universe (M-class Liner's capacity), and the port's SPA-facility's sum total rooms. TU's with larger liners would probably not visit this port, but still, a landing field with 3kton (5x M-class 600dt Liner's worth of passengers) capacity could be divided by the GM any way he/she saw fit.

The use of stated canon references listed above all put together made the process simple for me.

helpfully yours,

Daniel W. Hammersley