Cost of Shuttles

[kristof65]

I am fully aware of their scale, and in terms of the ship's they are analogs of they are dinky. Your average Free Trader is the equivalent of a Dhow.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you personally weren't aware of their size, only that many people really don't have a good idea of their true size.

I used to work on Natick class YTB tugboats, which are about the same length as a Type S scout - a bit over 100' long. Compared to commercial ships, those things are small, however compared to the types of boats most people are familiar with, they are much bigger than people expect them to be - particularly when a 100 ft pleasure yacht is considered "huge."

A Free Trader is right around the same length as a Boeing 767 - that little tidbit surprises a lot of people.

But cost versus size really isn't a good ratio.

Actually it is, the materials are pretty much gonna be a linear cost, and the labor costs go down somewhat as the size increases, but this is really in relation of the end function of the ship.

Yeah, I re-read this, and what I should of said is: "But cost vs size isn't the only ratio that's part of the equation."

Yes, and no. You are comparing cars that are largely built buy by machines to cars that are largely built by hand. That and they vastly different materials in both their construction and finishing. Yes part of that equation is the number produced, but Malibu's and Accord's don't have a complete second dash and woodwork completed for them at the time they where put together. (Rolls Royce stores these replacement parts for specific cars for decades, my uncle found this out when he was restoring a '48 rolls a few years ago).

I was deliberate in comparing hand-built cars to automated assembly line built ones. That's actually part of my whole point. There are many other things that drive up cost other than size, that being one of them.

When applied to starships, you do have to consider that the bulk of them are going to be "hand-built", one at a time. That makes them rather expensive. Only the smallest, most numerous ships will be built en-masse or in an automated factory.

Like you said, Traveller went more of the ship model of construction, where ships are typically built one at a time, rather than the airplane model, where the planes are built in production line fashion, despite both being relatively "hand-built." Personally, I feel that makes sense for the setting.

The price of some ships in Traveller should probably have more than the head nod consideration of "10% standard" given to that reality. Truly standard designs like a ship's boat and the modular cutter should really have their price reduced by as much as 50% to reflect those smaller ships that could truly be made on an assembly line, rather than laid down in a ship yard.

I believe we are in agreement here.

Yes. Kind of a half-full, half-empty disagreement. You're surprised that starships are so expensive, while I'm more surprised that common vessels like ship boats and shuttles aren't less expensive. Over all, both of our perspective is probably more along the lines that the ratios seem off when compared over the ration of sizes and types of ships that can be built.

Most of my point is the classic "tramp" steamer looks a lot more like 1000 tons than 200tons.

Keep in mind the development of modern shipping though. Today's super-tankers and large container ships haven't been around all that long in relationship to shipping in general. The cargo volumes of even the largest "Age of Sail" vessel's are nothing compared to today's ships, and yet at the time they were quite large.

 

[simonh]

Most of my point is the classic "tramp" steamer looks a lot more like 1000 tons than 200tons.

I think you may be getting Traveller displacement tons (hydrogen displacement) confused with seagoing vessel displacement tons (water displacement).

If the density of a Traveller starship is around 5 metric tons per displacement ton, which from memory has in the past been considered ball-park reasonable, that means a 200 dton traveller ship has a water displacement tonnage of around 1000 tons, still a little small for a tramp steamer but not too far off.

Simon Hibbs

 

[GypsyComet]

A Free Trader is right around the same length as a Boeing 767 - that little tidbit surprises a lot of people.

The Traveller Shuttle and the US Space Shuttles are very close to the same volume, though obviously different in shape.

A Boeing 747 is pretty close to the same volume as a Free Trader.

This puts the old 5000 ton limit on downport pads into some perspective. "Not that big" you think. TWENTY-FIVE times the size of a 747 says otherwise, especially as a flier.

 

[Infojunky]

Most of my point is the classic "tramp" steamer looks a lot more like 1000 tons than 200tons.

I think you may be getting Traveller displacement tons (hydrogen displacement) confused with seagoing vessel displacement tons (water displacement).

Nope my numbers are right on.

A thousand displacement ton ship isn't all that big.... In ship terms. In aircraft terms it's bloody huge.

But the real thing that brought me to this line of thought Is that I have been considering building some Models of starships in 1/100 scale (15mm squares basically).

Anyways I was looking for convenient sized boxes to start from, and well MountainDew 18 pack box works out to approx. 830 dTons, the 8 pack box came out at around 400 dTons in 1/100 scale. So have been spend some time pondering this.

 

[Dietrich hault-Rauln]

But the real thing that brought me to this line of thought Is that I have been considering building some Models of starships in 1/100 scale (15mm squares basically).

Anyways I was looking for convenient sized boxes to start from, and well MountainDew 18 pack box works out to approx. 830 dTons, the 8 pack box came out at around 400 dTons in 1/100 scale. So have been spend some time pondering this.

Cool! I'd like to see pictures if you get around to building the models. And finally, a use for MountainDew, or the packaging, anyway :twisted:

 

[simonh]

A Boeing 747 is pretty close to the same volume as a Free Trader.

This puts the old 5000 ton limit on downport pads into some perspective. "Not that big" you think. TWENTY-FIVE times the size of a 747 says otherwise, especially as a flier.

It's a fair point. I just did a bit of maths and if anything, a 747 fuselage is a fair bit bit smaller than 200 dtons. To me, ships over about 1000 dtons disappear into the background at a roleplaying level, they become more like a location like a town or spaceport rather than an object at the character level. Beyond a certain level you can't relate to the whole crew as individuals any more.

Simon Hibbs
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[GypsyComet]

A Boeing 747 is pretty close to the same volume as a Free Trader.

This puts the old 5000 ton limit on downport pads into some perspective. "Not that big" you think. TWENTY-FIVE times the size of a 747 says otherwise, especially as a flier.

It's a fair point. I just did a bit of maths and if anything, a 747 fuselage is a fair bit smaller than 200 dtons.

My estimate includes the wings and engines, and is also based on seeing the space shuttle perched on the back of one for transport. It isn't a perfect estimate, but it gets people to think in the right scale.

 

[kristof65]

But the real thing that brought me to this line of thought Is that I have been considering building some Models of starships in 1/100 scale (15mm squares basically).

Not 1/100th scale, but you might find this enjoyable:

http://chris.heismann.net/Scout_Ship.pdf

 

[Infojunky]

But the real thing that brought me to this line of thought Is that I have been considering building some Models of starships in 1/100 scale (15mm squares basically).

Not 1/100th scale, but you might find this enjoyable:

http://chris.heismann.net/Scout_Ship.pdf

Hey, anything is 1/100th if I get to print it....

Meaning I have rescaled at printing a lot of paper terrain over the years. Generally printing stuff that is 5ft to the inch at 60% is just the ticket.

I generally try to ball park 15mm to 16mm squares/hexes when I am creating floorplans etc...

 

[kristof65]

Hey, anything is 1/100th if I get to print it...

That's one of those that I figure those who know to scale it can; those that don't - well, I'm certainly not going to suggest it to them.

If you happen to have Campaign Cartographer and you're interested, I can provide the original file I created that with. PM me your email address if you would find that helpful.

As for printing it - my personal preference is printing this to photo paper which is what I optomized it for, but if you've done paper modelling, you probably have your own preferences.