Most useful shape for a mobile shipyard?

[Sageryne]

Hi all,

I have decided my next ship design is going to be a TL12 5000-dTon mobile shipyard (capable of repairing, overhauling and building ships up to 1000-dTons). It is intended to be an standard (boxy) hull and completely enclosed (open to change).

Here is my question, what is the best shape for a shipyard?

I am currently looking at two (box) shapes: 21m High x 21m Wide x 63m Long (good for square or cylindrical ships), or 12m x 36m x 63m (better for wider than tall designs).

Or, is there a better size or shape?

Is there a minimum dimension I should be going for (in height, width or length)?

I am in the early design stage, so I am open to modifying it to something completely different.

Thoughts?

- Kerry

 

[Terry Mixon]

Hi all,

I have decided my next ship design is going to be a TL12 5000-dTon mobile shipyard (capable of repairing, overhauling and building ships up to 1000-dTons). It is intended to be an standard (boxy) hull and completely enclosed (open to change).

Here is my question, what is the best shape for a shipyard?

I am currently looking at two (box) shapes: 21m High x 21m Wide x 63m Long (good for square or cylindrical ships), or 12m x 36m x 63m (better for wider than tall designs).

Or, is there a better size or shape?

Is there a minimum dimension I should be going for (in height, width or length)?

I am in the early design stage, so I am open to modifying it to something completely different.

Thoughts?

- Kerry

I don't think a shipyard should use enclosed bays. It would be much more versatile with open bays that can construct whatever needs to be built. An open frame would be my suggestion.

 

[Sageryne]

I don't think a shipyard should use enclosed bays. It would be much more versatile with open bays that can construct whatever needs to be built. An open frame would be my suggestion.

Hi Terry,

If so, how do you calculate the tonnage of the construction bay and number of workers?

Also, if the ship expanded to encompass the ship under construction, it would not be moveable during the months the new vessel was under construction. That is not a show stopper. I could see a mobile shipyard travelling many jumps to a system with a lot of resources and then ‘unfolding’ and staying put for a long period.

I anticipate such a vessel would be accompanied by many mining ships to mine resources, refinery vessels to prepare the ore, and a large manufacturing vessel to manufacture the parts.

Kerry

 

[Terry Mixon]

Hi Terry,

If so, how do you calculate the tonnage of the construction bay and number of workers?

Also, if the ship expanded to encompass the ship under construction, it would not be moveable during the months the new vessel was under construction. That is not a show stopper. I could see a mobile shipyard travelling many jumps to a system with a lot of resources and then ‘unfolding’ and staying put for a long period.

I anticipate such a vessel would be accompanied by many mining ships to mine resources, refinery vessels to prepare the ore, and a large manufacturing vessel to manufacture the parts.

Kerry

You'd have to use the build rules for its limits. I suppose that would represent how far the frame could extend. You're right. It wouldn't be moveable.

 

[ottarrus]

Hi all,

I have decided my next ship design is going to be a TL12 5000-dTon mobile shipyard (capable of repairing, overhauling and building ships up to 1000-dTons). It is intended to be an standard (boxy) hull and completely enclosed (open to change).

Here is my question, what is the best shape for a shipyard?

I am currently looking at two (box) shapes: 21m High x 21m Wide x 63m Long (good for square or cylindrical ships), or 12m x 36m x 63m (better for wider than tall designs).

Or, is there a better size or shape?

Is there a minimum dimension I should be going for (in height, width or length)?

I am in the early design stage, so I am open to modifying it to something completely different.

Thoughts?

- Kerry

Ambitious. Good luck with the project.

I have a pretty extensive collection of sci-fi games, some of which include shipbuilding rules along naval [as opposed to 'adventurer-class'] lines. One of these games is the FASA version of Star Trek. It included mobile shipyards to provide moderate repairs to ships while on-deployment with a fleet. These ships had a design feature that might be hard to render in High Guard but makes a lot of sense:
The mobile yards were open framed and collapsible. The frame could collapse upon itself like an accordion and be moved in a flat configuration.

Now, such a ship would obviously need dedicated support from a cargo ship [or three] full of parts. Such a yard would be able to repair light to moderate damage, with major damage requiring Jump tugs to move ships to safer yard for extensive refit. Given the number of skilled shipwrights aboard, one specific workshop I would suggest is a dedicated vacc suit workshop. Those suits would likely get a lot use.
Modules could be included to put temporary repair bays so some repairs could be made in a 'shirtsleeve' environment on a case by case basis.
A fully staffed medical clinic should probably also be included... repair crews get hurt a lot and those injuries are rarely minor.

I've included an image from the FASA Star Trek Federation Ship Recognition Manual with the silhouettes of the ships covered in the book. If you look at the lower-right quarter you'll see a mobile shipyard in it's erected and operational mode.
Artist credits are Dana Knutson and Robert Oswald. The image is included as an illustration of my description and no profit is attached. No challenge to copyright is made or implied. Copyright FASA Inc. 1985

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Hi all,

I have decided my next ship design is going to be a TL12 5000-dTon mobile shipyard (capable of repairing, overhauling and building ships up to 1000-dTons). It is intended to be an standard (boxy) hull and completely enclosed (open to change).

High Guard 2022 Page 69 "A shipyard consumes 2 tons for every ton of the largest ship it is capable of building" So your shipyard can be 2000 tons to build a 1000 ton craft. Also mobile shipyards are pretty much what a construction bay is. So your job is a little easier now.

High Guard 2016 had the number at 5 to 1 so I assume that is your source.

 

[Condottiere]

Spherical, if you don't have a hull configuration for the smaller vessels, that you prefer.

I think spacestations requires triple tonnage for a specified capacity, which would allow sufficient leeway to move the ship components and construction equipment about.

The construction equipment can be attached to the walls, which gives them some stability.

What you want is for the spacecraft skeleton to remain in place, while the components are installed, otherwise, you could just as well do it in open space, with busy bee drones doing it on their own.

 

[Sageryne]

High Guard 2022 Page 69 "A shipyard consumes 2 tons for every ton of the largest ship it is capable of building" So your shipyard can be 2000 tons to build a 1000 ton craft. Also mobile shipyards are pretty much what a construction bay is. So your job is a little easier now.

High Guard 2016 had the number at 5 to 1 so I assume that is your source.

Hi,

Yes, I had planned a 2000-dTon space to build a 1000-dTon vessel. The other 3000-dTons accounted for the jump-2, manoeuvre-1, fuel, crew and shipyard worker accommodation, sub-craft, etc.

- Kerry

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

In that case be prepared to enlarge your ship.

 

[Sageryne]

Spherical, if you don't have a hull configuration for the smaller vessels, that you prefer.

I think spacestations requires triple tonnage for a specified capacity, which would allow sufficient leeway to move the ship components and construction equipment about.

The construction equipment can be attached to the walls, which gives them some stability.

What you want is for the spacecraft skeleton to remain in place, while the components are installed, otherwise, you could just as well do it in open space, with busy bee drones doing it on their own.

I am planning something big enough for a 1000-dTon ship (so a 2,000-dTon construction bay, as per High Guard).

A sphere is certainly the most efficient way to enclose a given space. If I made the construction bay spherical, it would be only be 18.61m in radius (37.22m in diameter). A 200-dTon yacht is about 43.5m long but only about 6m (+/-) high. A 400-dTon subsidized merchant is about 63m long and about 9m tall. A 600-dTon subsidized liner is about 60m long and 12m (+/-) tall.

The mercenary cruiser is spherical. It is about 30m in diameter, but with legs sticking out.

So, I don't think a sphere is the most efficient shape for the typical Traveller starship shape.

- Kerry

 

[MasterGwydion]

I am planning something big enough for a 1000-dTon ship (so a 2,000-dTon construction bay, as per High Guard).

A sphere is certainly the most efficient way to enclose a given space. If I made the construction bay spherical, it would be only be 18.61m in radius (37.22m in diameter). A 200-dTon yacht is about 43.5m long but only about 6m (+/-) high. A 400-dTon subsidized merchant is about 63m long and about 9m tall. A 600-dTon subsidized liner is about 60m long and 12m (+/-) tall.

The mercenary cruiser is spherical. It is about 30m in diameter, but with legs sticking out.

So, I don't think a sphere is the most efficient shape for the typical Traveller starship shape.

- Kerry

You can actually do it however you want. Rules-wise, it doesn't matter what shape your shipyard is because that is not covered in the rules anywhere. In Traveller, for one reason or another, dimensions and mass do not matter. Only volume matters. So, basically, you can just decide whichever way makes you feel best and be confident that you are still creating things within the rules.

 

[Sageryne]

Ambitious. Good luck with the project.

I have a pretty extensive collection of sci-fi games, some of which include shipbuilding rules along naval [as opposed to 'adventurer-class'] lines. One of these games is the FASA version of Star Trek. It included mobile shipyards to provide moderate repairs to ships while on-deployment with a fleet. These ships had a design feature that might be hard to render in High Guard but makes a lot of sense:
The mobile yards were open framed and collapsible. The frame could collapse upon itself like an accordion and be moved in a flat configuration.

Now, such a ship would obviously need dedicated support from a cargo ship [or three] full of parts. Such a yard would be able to repair light to moderate damage, with major damage requiring Jump tugs to move ships to safer yard for extensive refit. Given the number of skilled shipwrights aboard, one specific workshop I would suggest is a dedicated vacc suit workshop. Those suits would likely get a lot use.
Modules could be included to put temporary repair bays so some repairs could be made in a 'shirtsleeve' environment on a case by case basis.
A fully staffed medical clinic should probably also be included... repair crews get hurt a lot and those injuries are rarely minor.

I've included an image from the FASA Star Trek Federation Ship Recognition Manual with the silhouettes of the ships covered in the book. If you look at the lower-right quarter you'll see a mobile shipyard in it's erected and operational mode.
Artist credits are Dana Knutson and Robert Oswald. The image is included as an illustration of my description and no profit is attached. No challenge to copyright is made or implied. Copyright FASA Inc. 1985

A foldable mobile shipyard makes a lot of sense. Figuring out how to render it in High Guard is another question. I do like the idea of expanding to enclose a damaged ship. I am open to any suggestions of how to do that in High Guard.

I had planned to use a lot of workpods like this illustration by Robert Pearce. It closely resembles the pods in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think they would be preferable to being in a vaccsuit all day every day.

 

[Sageryne]

You can actually do it however you want. Rules-wise, it doesn't matter what shape your shipyard is because that is not covered in the rules anywhere. In Traveller, for one reason or another, dimensions and mass do not matter. Only volume matters. So, basically, you can just decide whichever way makes you feel best and be confident that you are still creating things within the rules.

Fair enough if you are just writing up specs, but I am planning to produce deck plans for the ship. That is why I asked.

 

[Jame Rowe]

My thought, and YMMV, is that it would work best as a dispersed structure, so that the ship being worked on can be held at any angle as needed for repairs.
If that doesn't appeal, then maybe a close structure with the yard at one end or in the center would work.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Fair enough if you are just writing up specs, but I am planning to produce deck plans for the ship. That is why I asked.

Ahhh... Yeah. I am useless for deckplans.

 

[Sageryne]

Just out of curiosity, I quickly measured the deck plans of the two 1000-dTon destroyer escorts in High Guard.

The Chrysanthemum was (roughly) 15m high x 56.25m wide x 90m long. A box 75,937.5m^3 or 5625-dTons.

The Fer-de-lance was roughly 15m high x 51m wide x 106.5m long. A box 81,472.5m^3 or 6035-dTons

I recognize they are not compact shapes, but rather have saucers and nacelles and a lot of voids in those dimensions. However, if such a ship was going into a shipyard, it would have to be large enough to accept that (with a fair amount of room all around).

The more I look into this, the more a shipyard like the frame around the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, seems more realistic.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Just out of curiosity, I quickly measured the deck plans of the two 1000-dTon destroyer escorts in High Guard.

The Chrysanthemum was (roughly) 15m high x 56.25m wide x 90m long. A box 75,937.5m^3 or 5625-dTons.

The Fer-de-lance was roughly 15m high x 51m wide x 106.5m long. A box 81,472.5m^3 or 6035-dTons

I recognize they are not compact shapes, but rather have saucers and nacelles and a lot of voids in those dimensions. However, if such a ship was going into a shipyard, it would have to be large enough to accept that (with a fair amount of room all around).

Yeah. This is a problem you are going to encounter with almost every kind of thing in Mongoose Traveller. Shipyards need to be twice the tonnage of the ship, dimensions don't matter, or you'd need a 11,250-ton shipyard to build Chrysanthemums. Same with Docking Spaces, Full Hangars, and Docking Facilities.

Edit - This method actually makes more sense to me and seems to have more realism than simply ignoring dimensions all together. As long as they give Us the dimensions of each ship, then We know what size shipyard or ship's berthing that they need. I would love this method.

The more I look into this, the more a shipyard like the frame around the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, seems more realistic.

The building frames from Star Trek always made more sense to me as well.

 

[ottarrus]

A foldable mobile shipyard makes a lot of sense. Figuring out how to render it in High Guard is another question. I do like the idea of expanding to enclose a damaged ship. I am open to any suggestions of how to do that in High Guard.

I had planned to use a lot of workpods like this illustration by Robert Pearce. It closely resembles the pods in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think they would be preferable to being in a vaccsuit all day every day.

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For moving large armor panels or other large pieces of equipment, certainly. But a lot of repairing takes fine work that a sophont can only do with hand tools. Work pods can handle most of the heavy lifting and they are safer than a vacc suit inasmuch as they are actually armored to an extent. But I personally think it would take both pods and suited up people to repair a ship. And, of course, all of that depends on the specific repairs needed. Every 'customer' of such a flotilla [the yard ship and her supply and fabrication ships] will be unique.

 

[ottarrus]

You know, @Sageryne , it would also be interesting to see a Major Fleet Unit Jump Tug sorted out stat-wise.
I presume that in order to move a heavily damaged, but still salvageable, dreadnought you'd need a Battle Rider Carrier. Possibly it would also need one of your Fleet Repair Vessels to make the wounded behemoth fit to be transported.
Now, it's possible or even likely that Battle Rider mother ship crews already train for this and have equipment to augment a damaged battleship's jump fields and so on. Such training would probably involve heading to the sector Depot system and rigging a mothballed ship for jump while conducting minor repairs and upgrades on the mothball as part of the training package. This seems likely to me.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Just out of curiosity, I quickly measured the deck plans of the two 1000-dTon destroyer escorts in High Guard.

The Chrysanthemum was (roughly) 15m high x 56.25m wide x 90m long. A box 75,937.5m^3 or 5625-dTons.

The Fer-de-lance was roughly 15m high x 51m wide x 106.5m long. A box 81,472.5m^3 or 6035-dTons

I recognize they are not compact shapes, but rather have saucers and nacelles and a lot of voids in those dimensions. However, if such a ship was going into a shipyard, it would have to be large enough to accept that (with a fair amount of room all around).

The more I look into this, the more a shipyard like the frame around the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, seems more realistic.

As you observe, very few Traveller deck plans are more than 5 decks tall. If you made your construction deck 18m tall, it would be sufficient for many vessels. The exact specifics depend on choices made at a particular table -- 'Small Ship' vs 'Large Ship' universes, and so on. I would tend to make the deck longer than it is wide; maybe 2x or 3x.

A 'Dispersed Structure' hull is a sensible choice, but I believe the 'Construction Deck' is a shirt-sleeve environment. I am not sure how a StarFleet-style Fleet Repair Dock similar to the first ST movie would be modeled in Traveller. You might start with an 'Interplanetary Jump Net' (pg 53; which is capable of moving cargo under several G of acceleration) and 'Collapsible Fuel Tanks' (pg 48; which can hold high pressure and regulate temperature in vacuum). Both occupy only 1% of their 'full' volume when not in use. 10 dTons of each would create 1000 dTons of temporary 'working space', especially if the work crews were okay with minor inconveniences like breather masks or vacc-suits.