Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
Would multiple ports make sense? Assuming a world with a decend population (Code 5 and above - 100000 and more) and outside contact
Case a) Low tech world up to TL4
Traffic is likely low due to lack of important export goods. Those worlds can mostly offer food and basic metals/minerals.
On-planet transport is complex up to TL3 since the only major routes are by water. It gets better at TL4 with railroads.
My suggestiong: Multiple low-grade (Class D) starports near the production centers since the locals can not support a repair facility. If the production is very high, there might be a C-class highport for orbital transfers between shuttles and larger ships. This will only happen in a few systems since highports generally produce maintenance problems needing outside spare parts
If the world has a native populace, the starports are likely co-located with harbortowns due to ease of landing, contact to trade routes and the existence of facilities for transient populations.
This is a problem point with the starport classes One would assume the orbital station has refined fuel but no repair capacity rather than the other way round.
Presuming TL below TL8 (TL7 thru TL0) the starport(s) would be located
planet side in my judgement.
Likewise TL4 is where mechanics tools become available, hence it is my target level of bottom TL for a D-class port, earliest forms of electricty, and coal/steam powered machinery (large, crude, but effective) are also found here.
Fuel present is a matter of UWP Hydropshere, and the PPG for belts & Gas Giants. Systems with a PPG of (0-9)-0-0, means the planet's Hydrosphere will tell all since there's no use looking far system for fuel source.
Case b) Mid tech, TL5 to TL8
With easier mass transports due to advanced rail systems and combustion engines the number of downports can be reduced. At the same time we slowly make the switch from raw materials to processed goods. Again we get the fuel vs. maintenance problem since the locals will be capabel of generating LHyd far earlier than spare parts. I'd upgrade the groundside ports to Class C but reduce their number to one per continent(two for large ones like Afrika or Asia). Late in this period one yard might make the transition to class B for producing local shuttles. Highport remains as above due to the still common maintenance problems. Very late in this phase we might get a Class-D equivalent High Port (Think ISS) more as a prestige object.
The same logic can also be applied to *increasing* the number of downports directly to the resource sites, MB, as tech of transportation increases in efficiency.
The Size of the
population, and the
world size in the UWP will matter of course. On a smaller world (Sizes 1-6) a decrease would be in order due to speed to which Downside ports stuff moves to. Larger worlds (Sizes 7-A).
Pop 5 or less worlds; with TL7 or less; with no other bases (N, S, A, or B, will probably have but a single downport, unless they are balkanized.
Case c) Low Stellar Tech, Level 9-11
With Gravitics and extremly fast trains availabel and star travelle getting possibel, most systems will get a singel Class B port at this phase to reduce the off-world cash flow. Depending on the planetary layout minor sub-ports might exist on the other continents. This is likely a ground base installation at first due to lower setup costs. At this phase an orbital station, likely starting from a Class C (again the fuel vs. maintenance problem)
A ground based Class A might exists on a world with a large population and interesting export goods. Those same systems might upgrade the Highport to Class B.
Mag-Lev Highspeed trains begin at TL9, quite true. This too can decrease the number of ports planetside. Space orbital shuttles need not be built but can in the Imperium be purchased elsewhere, so a D-class (equivalent to H-class spaceport) port suffices for orbital lift of goods to orbit and an orbital station.
In the UWp again we find that Mag-lev technology beginning in TL8 and a Mag-lev projector built to hurl cargo containers into orbit on low gravity worlds defeats the need for shuttles from surface, and only shuttles in orbit at orbital station to catch and gather for passing freighters to carry off.
Lastly, we have already done examples of small populated world A-class ports from those existing in canon UWPs here. Your model is using Pop5+ still I presume.
Which leads me to ask: if you have an A-downport, and a B-orbital, which one is listed in the UWP? Or is listing the *actual class* or the *average of the classes* of the number of ports in system?
Special cases
Balkanised Worlds will likely have a port per nation but likely at a lower level than normal. They will have a better highport, possibly orbiting a moon or an L-Point for political reasons
I'd caveat that to *Superpowers* only and locations along equator where launch to orbit is easier, using Terra/Sol present-day as a model. Talking with my secret-squirrel rocket scientist pal at KSC, NASA, there are six launch sites:
+Russia's land site-Kazakhistan
+China's Launch site
+French Guiana
+India's site
+USA had two (Vendenberg AFB, closed in 90's), and KSC in Florida, which has repair and build facilities for the Space Shuttles (Small B-class equivalent base).
Industrial Colonies, most likely Belts, will likely have a Class B port for maintenance reasons
Especially those without gas giants! But I see fuel refining as a matter of tech level & are the rsources there for it. A Starship's fuel LHyd purification unit begins at TL9, ya see?
But without gas giants there would exist that class of Belters some call 'Cutters' who mine the ice asteroids for the fuel, refined or otherwise.
Class X ports only exist on worlds without external contact.
Class E ports are early contact facilities or those used every blue moon due to lack of any useful goods. As soon as any regular trade has established, some base facilities (Harbortown) will spring up
ZEELAND/Libert/Diaspora E989AA8-E Hi C:4 604 Im defies this idea somewhat, MB.
In existence since the 2nd Imperium as a settled world, with an Extreme High Population (A-Tens of billions), 40% of which are Chirpers/ 60% Humanity (24 Billion Chirpers & 36 Billion Humans & Other Imperial sentient citizens).
Other data from the region showed that ZEELAND's merchant fleet did their maintenace elsewhere in their cluster--owned here, flagged under another planet's yards for registry port of repair base?
Kind of like using Liberia to flag a tanker, but its owned by a corporation elsewhere..
Zeeland has TL-14 good & services, & lifestyle for majority of the population there, but not for starships apparently. Their apparent unwillingness to build better, even though they have a long history since first settlement points towards an obvious insular attitude towards offworlders--bring your trade, yes, settle here, bringing ideas and starships--"well thank you, we own ours, and even don't care to know how to fix them--we pay someone else to do that".
Like some insular oil-rich Southwest-Asian nations that rely heavily on cheap outside immigrant labor (or in this case unpaid Chirper labor).
Generalizing all E-class ports are the same as Frontier or reasource poor might not always be the case as we see in Zeeland's TL portion of its UWP, hence we cannot discount it as "Frontier" or at that TL, "resource poor".