CT Only: What One Thing Would You Change About Classic Traveller?

[Condottiere]

You could segment components into cutting edge and easy maintenance, which is easier with electronics as they don't take up much space, so you could have a lower teched backup, in case the more advanced one gets short circuited.

With engineering, backup takes up a lot of volume, and tends to be the component that keeps you alive, so you may go for the easier to maintain item, rather than the variant that is so highly technologized and securitized you need to send for a licensed franchised engineer to read the diagnostics.

 

[Drew]

It COULD ... but doing that begs the question of why anyone WOULD want to offer such a service.

Theoretically speaking, it is perfectly "possible" to offer transport services from Trin/Trin's Veil to Jewell/Jewell in the Spinward Marches (for example) ... but doing so would require charging Cr1000 per ton for cargo on that trip, Cr10,000 per high passenger, Cr8000 per middle passenger and Cr1000 per low passenger.

The PROBLEM with offering such transportation from Trin/Trin's Veil to Jewell/Jewell in the Spinward Marches at those prices would be finding a way to much such a transit economical. Even with "perfect misjumps" (yeah, right!) from Trin/Trin's Veil to Bevey/Rhylanor (19 parsecs in a straight line) and then from Bevey/Rhylanor to Jewell/Jewell (21 parsecs in a straight line again) you're still looking at a minimum of 2 (perfect mis)jumps between Trin and Jewell ... setting aside the somewhat literally astronomical odds against successfully achieving this feat even once (let alone reliably as a repeatable business model ). Without that fast transit option, the path to economic viability for such tickets just isn't there given the economic realities of jump travel "the normal way" from Trin to Jewell.

Usually, the next port of call is going to be 1 or sometimes even 2 jumps away.
In extreme cases it can even be 3 or 4 jumps away (L-Hyd drop tanks and/or fuel caches are usually required for this kind of range performance).

That's not an abuse.
That's literally how a Jump-2 starship can transit from Saurus/Vilis to Lanth/Lanth and back in the Spinward Marches.
You buy a "standard ticket" at Saurus for transport to Lanth (or vice-versa).
The fact that there's a wilderness refueling stop at Tavonni (population: 0) along the way does not factor into the ticket price whatsoever.

Origin: Saurus
Destination: Lanth
... or ...
Origin: Lanth
Destination: Saurus

HOW the starship gets from A to B is a problem for the captain and crew to solve, not for the people buying the tickets. Once the tickets are sold, the starship is contractually obligated to go to the destination. How long it takes the starship to accomplish that feat (and therefore how much expense will be incurred while doing so) is a problem for the captain (and the accounting department) to solve.

In other words, you can "hopscotch" you way to destinations beyond your immediate jump range ... it's just more expensive/less profitable to do so on the starship operations side of the ledger. At a certain point (which varies widely in different contexts), the expenses outweigh the revenues and it simply isn't profitable to make the journey to sufficiently far away "next" destinations for the price of a single ticket. That's where the fundamentals of starship economics limit the useful range of starship destination choices ... but you have to "run the numbers" for each starship based on expenses to figure out where that break even point is beyond which there is no profit to be had even with a full load.

There is something to be said of a premium ticket value. Just think how Southwest Airlines and some of the smaller carriers operate. The bounce between two or three smaller regional airports before going into a hub such Minneapolis. Would you pay for the convenience of a direct flight to a major hub or take the Greyhound to multiple locations before arriving at your final destination?

 

[whartung]

I see that more people are starting to come around to this notion that bleeding edge high tech can become a "burden" on the logistics needed to keep extremely high tech stuff operational beyond its first year in service.

Sure its a burden, but it's mitigated by the supply chain, and that's the nut.

The question in a galactic spanning empire with VAST resources, what are the limits? Can a Navy depot on a TL10 world support TL15 ships?

Sure, if they have the parts made available. And how much of a problem is that? How many jump drives need to be replaced each year?

I mean, let's take my Jeep. 8.5 years old. It's needed fluids, tires, brake pads, a gasket seal I think, a couple of piece of trim, an air conditioning leak, and something with the rear differential locking sensor.

All of these were basic maintenance. Not something I could do, but I struggle with light bulbs. But competent mechanics could do it, with the proper parts. Given a shop manual, I think they were all fixable by any experienced mechanic, not even necessarily a Jeep trained mechanic.

Meanwhile, it has some crazy "high tech" stuff. 8 speed transmission out of Germany. Sophisticated drive control system to manage the drive train and air suspension consisting of sensors, cpus, and software. The "infotainment" system. I don't know if AAMCO can rebuild the transmission or not. At the time, an 8 Speed automatic was a novelty. Nowadays, not so much. I don't know if there was some tech advancement that gave us 8, 10, 11 speed transmissions or simply we never "needed" then before. Did we need better automated machine tools to make them efficiently? No idea.

The point being that most of the service on that Jeep can probably be done at a Jiffy Lube.

Is the Imperial Navy that tapped for expertise and parts that they can't service their fleet wherever they deign to want to? I like to think not.

But perhaps its a hollow shell. Perhaps it's an absolutely corrupt core that can't get anything done. Sure they have parts. Sure they have ship and techs. They just can't execute on it because of a host of long standing organizational issues.

But you'd like think they have enough of their stuff together to pull it off.

 

[kilemall]

I see that more people are starting to come around to this notion that bleeding edge high tech can become a "burden" on the logistics needed to keep extremely high tech stuff operational beyond its first year in service.

After all, if you can't maintain or service something, you had better start thinking of it in terms of being a short life disposable that you can't fix after it (inevitably) breaks down within a year or few ... rather than as a "durable goods" type of item that you can keep using for a generation or two (or few).

We tend to prefer thinking about our starships as being "durable goods" that ought to last at least 40 years (or until meeting a scrapyard, whichever comes first). Most starship economics will not support the notion of starships being high turnover "disposables" where you just get a new one every year and throw the old one onto the scrap heap. There are (of course) some edge cases where that is possible to do ... but those are pretty extreme (and a lot of them involve piracy in some form or fashion for some reason ).

The merc ops aspect of build your own to be fiscally functional is at the core of the CT Striker economics system. You can show up with the high tech stuff but it’s going to cost- the impetus is to pick just a few key items to tech up on and equip mostly on sustainable local gear.

I would expand the metaphor to tech level encounter outside the battlefield in general.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Can a Navy depot on a TL10 world support TL15 ships?

Simple answer: yes.

A(n imperial) Navy Base means that at that world navy ships have access to TL=15 starport A resources for the purposes of ship support.
The world is still TL=10, in your example, but the TL=15 supplies are pre-positioned there by regular navy supply runs.
Basically, the presence of the navy base "overrides" the local world tech level to TL=15 in terms of support for purely military purposes ... non-military and commercial operations are still stuck with the local TL=10 supply base. That's because the navy base is a logistics and supply hub/stockpile.

For the Zhodani Navy, it's same deal ... except they're limited to TL=14 instead (as are the Aslan, if memory serves) as a culture ... but the principle is still the same.

Scout Bases are "paramilitary" installations that are more of a "live off the land" kind of arrangement. Scout Bases will usually mean maintenance and supplies are available for scout ships regardless of local starport or tech level. However, since most scout ships are built for the TL=10-11 standards this is not as much of a "bump" in support capacity as navy bases in most circumstances. Scout services tend to have slimmer budgets than the navy and therefore "need to do more with less" on the budget ledger. Fortunately, scout ships are usually low tech enough to not need extensive supply chain logistics reaching all the way back to TL=15 starport A worlds for supplies and logistics (while the navy does need that).

 

[Drew]

You could segment components into cutting edge and easy maintenance, which is easier with electronics as they don't take up much space, so you could have a lower teched backup, in case the more advanced one gets short circuited.

With engineering, backup takes up a lot of volume, and tends to be the component that keeps you alive, so you may go for the easier to maintain item, rather than the variant that is so highly technologized and securitized you need to send for a licensed franchised engineer to read the diagnostics.

The Airforce identifies those components as LRUs. One thing that is not thought of is the role of 3D printing. The Army is already putting that type of equipment into the budget for future purchases. Think how much it would save on components or electronics; put in the diagram; add the necessary ingredients and hit the on button.

 

[Vargr Breath]

I would think a Low Tech. Starship would be somewhat like an old VW Beetle. You could go just about any place in the world and find parts and people who know how to work on them. Drop a brand-new Corvette or Mercedes in some other continent you may find someone who could maybe fix them if they had the parts?

 

[Condottiere]

And then you operate a just in time inventory system.

 

[Grav_Moped]

And then you operate a just in time inventory system.

This works if you can forecast demand. IN probably can, or close enough.

 

[aramis]

This works if you can forecast demand. IN probably can, or close enough.

If it's anything like the US or UK navies, it's going to involve overages at supply, not going to be Just-in-time, and will be paying 3× to 10× fair market value...

edit: Note that the USN and RN are both more temporally predictable about travel times than is the 3I IN...

 

[Dragoner]

IMTU, ideally there are three ships for each station: one on station, one in training, and one in the dock or mothballs. If one gets banged up, the training vessel is moved up, its crew salted with the best vets of the previous on station vessel, and that one goes back to the dock for repairs, while the mothballs, or new refurbished vessel now moves up to training, and is crewed by the first, former "on station" vessels crew, plus replacements. That way there is always a pipeline of crews, and ships; however in practice it is closer to 60% of the listed strength.

 

[Condottiere]

At two weeks per annum maintenance requirement, that formula falls through.

 

[HanleyTucks]

I like the idea of a TL X ship requiring a shipyard at a world of at least TL X. I'm thinking of for example the USS Cole being taken back to the US after being damaged - and that ship wasn't even transported by the USN, but by a Dutch ship.

If we had this rule, it'd put a different spin on some of the sector maps - whether the official or randomly-generated ones - and the idea of a "frontier" (by definition, lower-tech than the "core"), with the higher-tech ships wanting to stick around nearish the higher-tech systems. It'd also give salvage and rescue ships a lot more work.

 

[Dragoner]

At two weeks per annum maintenance requirement, that formula falls through.

No it doesn't.

 

[Dragoner]

I like the idea of a TL X ship requiring a shipyard at a world of at least TL X.

I have always done it this way, I mean one could probably get a system repaired, if it were a lower TL system, or if it were so, a negative on the roll to find the shop capable. There was a good Delaney story about starship repair shops.

 

[Spinward Flow]

If we had this rule, it'd put a different spin on some of the sector maps - whether the official or randomly-generated ones - and the idea of a "frontier" (by definition, lower-tech than the "core"), with the higher-tech ships wanting to stick around nearish the higher-tech systems. It'd also give salvage and rescue ships a lot more work.

The real benefit is that such a notion (implemented properly) gives entire regions of space more "texture" and variety of detail. It also helps curb the desire for "All The Bestest Stuffs™" which by definition wind up being maximum tech at all times (with everything else below that just being vendor bait drops that are considered otherwise "worthless").

Helping to keep every place from being interchangeable with every other place on the map goes a long way towards making life "interesting" in games.

At two weeks per annum maintenance requirement, that formula falls through.

No it doesn't.

When you can perform maintenance on 20-25 ships per year in a single yard berth (2 weeks per ship, plus some vacation time for the yard crew), you aren't necessarily stuck with a 1 on station, 1 in training workup, 1 in maintenance cycle for ships.

Why?
Because you can have 10 on station, 10 in training and 1 in maintenance at any given time.
Or if you want to be more generous with your duty cycles ... 7 on station, 7 in training, 7 on leave and 1 in maintenance at any given time during the year.

More to the point, Training is a 1 year assignment in the expanded character generation used in LBB4-7 (1 of 4 such assignments per 4 year term of service).

We're not talking about USN CVNs that spend most of a year in drydock undergoing yard maintenance.

 

[whartung]

When you can perform maintenance on 20-25 ships per year in a single yard berth

What would you think an orbital yard berth would look like?

A couple things come to mind.

First off, is the obvious "cage" style ala Star Trek. Whole thing is open to space, but you have a rigid, open "enclosure" used for anchoring tools, small vehicles, supplies, etc. with the ship in the middle, perhaps tethered, or hard docked to the structure.

Next is a fully enclosed bay, yet in orbit, with a floor, gravity, ideally pressurized. The ship "lands" on the deck, like a trader would on a surface.

The natural extension is a planet based area / building, just like a plane hangar today. The key distinction of a planet based berth is, unlike a sea going ship, it doesn't have to be flooded. So it's not really some hole in the ground with lock. Can just be a hangar.

Finally, it's just a ship in a parking orbit near the shipyard. I envision this being not just the ship. I think stable orbits are a little bit of a myth. That is I think it's quite difficult to keep a large object in perfect orbit without a nudge here and again. So, I'm think that there would be station keeping modules that mount to the ship that are powered and provide adequate station keeper thrusts as necessary, this way the ship can be completely powered down.

Mind, there's nothing stopping putting something in to a parking orbit, someplace far and away from others, where even if the orbit were to start to decay, it would take so long (weeks, months) before it became a problem, the yard could send out a tug to put it back in its place occasionally.

When the ships are in close, the active station provided by the modules becomes more important. Obviously a ship with an operational drive wouldn't need these.

The latter is handy because the modules don't have to be very big, so there's not some large amount of infrastucture being consumed while the ship waits. What not becomes the limiting factor is simply labor to do the job.

 

[Dragoner]

The real benefit is that such a notion (implemented properly) gives entire regions of space more "texture" and variety of detail. It also helps curb the desire for "All The Bestest Stuffs™" which by definition wind up being maximum tech at all times (with everything else below that just being vendor bait drops that are considered otherwise "worthless").

Helping to keep every place from being interchangeable with every other place on the map goes a long way towards making life "interesting" in games.

When you can perform maintenance on 20-25 ships per year in a single yard berth (2 weeks per ship, plus some vacation time for the yard crew), you aren't necessarily stuck with a 1 on station, 1 in training workup, 1 in maintenance cycle for ships.

Why?
Because you can have 10 on station, 10 in training and 1 in maintenance at any given time.
Or if you want to be more generous with your duty cycles ... 7 on station, 7 in training, 7 on leave and 1 in maintenance at any given time during the year.

More to the point, Training is a 1 year assignment in the expanded character generation used in LBB4-7 (1 of 4 such assignments per 4 year term of service).

We're not talking about USN CVNs that spend most of a year in drydock undergoing yard maintenance.

They can have a hundred on station, and the same numbers in training, and maintenance or mothballs, that is how ratios work.

 

[Dragoner]

What would you think an orbital yard berth would look like?

A couple things come to mind.

First off, is the obvious "cage" style ala Star Trek. Whole thing is open to space, but you have a rigid, open "enclosure" used for anchoring tools, small vehicles, supplies, etc. with the ship in the middle, perhaps tethered, or hard docked to the structure.

Next is a fully enclosed bay, yet in orbit, with a floor, gravity, ideally pressurized. The ship "lands" on the deck, like a trader would on a surface.

The natural extension is a planet based area / building, just like a plane hangar today. The key distinction of a planet based berth is, unlike a sea going ship, it doesn't have to be flooded. So it's not really some hole in the ground with lock. Can just be a hangar.

Finally, it's just a ship in a parking orbit near the shipyard. I envision this being not just the ship. I think stable orbits are a little bit of a myth. That is I think it's quite difficult to keep a large object in perfect orbit without a nudge here and again. So, I'm think that there would be station keeping modules that mount to the ship that are powered and provide adequate station keeper thrusts as necessary, this way the ship can be completely powered down.

Mind, there's nothing stopping putting something in to a parking orbit, someplace far and away from others, where even if the orbit were to start to decay, it would take so long (weeks, months) before it became a problem, the yard could send out a tug to put it back in its place occasionally.

When the ships are in close, the active station provided by the modules becomes more important. Obviously a ship with an operational drive wouldn't need these.

The latter is handy because the modules don't have to be very big, so there's not some large amount of infrastucture being consumed while the ship waits. What not becomes the limiting factor is simply labor to do the job.

I have thought about it some, and open is probably the way one wants to go, I mean in Star Trek the ship coming out of the space dock looks awesome, except I don't know how realistic it is. When one watches people working inside the ISS, they usually just let their tool float near them, while in EVA, people have lanyards. Maybe one could have a tarp to catch tools, the entire big floating frame seems too clumsy, however.

 

[Spinward Flow]

What would you think an orbital yard berth would look like?

Depends on the work that needs to be done.

1. Spacedock
2. Airdock

A spacedock is a dispersed structure open mesh "cage" surrounding the worksite for a ship (ala Star Trek: The Motion Picture) as a zero-G vacuum environment.

An airdock would be a pressurized enclosed environment where a 0-1G "shirtsleeves" habitable environment can be maintained around the ship within the containment bulkheads of the shipyard for the convenience of the shipyard work crews.

Both have their uses, and depending on the level of "teardown" needed by a ship undergoing repairs/maintenance, either or both may be necessary to complete work contracts.