Real world subsidized liners?

[phavoc]

The LA times has an interesting image article related to ships that are half cargo / half cruise ships. It kind of fits with the idea of the subsidized liner rather than the subsidized merchant or free trader, since it has aspects of both comfortable passenger accomodations and cargo space.

http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-freighter-20170129-story.html

 

[Condottiere]

The British subsidized fast passenger liners, to have hardpoints integrated during construction, in order to easily install deck guns and convert them into armed merchant cruisers.

Turns out, large fast passenger liners are better suited as large fast troop transports, than trying to chase down commerce raiders, or conduct commerce warfare.

 

[phavoc]

They don't even need deck guns to kill cruisers. The Queen Mary ran over a light cruiser and sliced her in two.

 

[Condottiere]

They come equipped with torpedoes, the icebergs of armaments.

 

[Infojunky]

In the early 20th century various trade routes were established by the American Maritime authority, shipping lines could apply for a Operation offset Subsidy serving the ports on said trade route. Generally is one line per trade route.

Now remember this the age of Steam, everything moved by ship

 

[phavoc]

In the early 20th century various trade routes were established by the American Maritime authority, shipping lines could apply for a Operation offset Subsidy serving the ports on said trade route. Generally is one line per trade route.

Now remember this the age of Steam, everything moved by ship

That could easily be worked into the game... a tramp freighter sets up regular cargo runs to a port/planet another line considers 'theirs' -"look we've got a certificate and everything!". So a minor trade war/skirmish naturally occurs.

 

[locarno24]

Not only possible, but quite likely. A natural point of contact between the feudal Imperial nobility and the corporate shipping megacorps is granting "licenses to trade" along specific routes - either by mutual agreements of the lesser nobles responsible for the planets at either end, or by grant of the more senior noble through whose "space" the trade route passes.

Corporations, after all, like exclusive franchises (as long as they're the ones granted them!).

How far out in the sticks they'd bother to seek them is a different matter, but if a major shipping line suddenly took an interest in securing exclusive rights to a trade route, I could well imagine a few skirmishes.

 

[phavoc]

I recall seeing a relatively detailed writeup of (I think) Tukera lines that operated in the Marches. It was for CT, but it had a lot of information regarding the company, etc. Though I'm not 100% sure I got the line name right. It could easily be another.

But this dovetails into another point - the size of the ships in the sourcebooks is woefully inadequate for the amount of passenger traffic in the Imperium. Heck, there's no way the ships could be handling a populated star system. The three major airports serving the NYC area had 126 million passengers in 2015. Now that counts arrivals AND departures. So assuming we cut that in half that's still 63 million people either arriving or departing. The airports have a relatively wide catchment area, around 20-30million people.

Subsidized liners would only be serving smaller worlds and stations. True passenger liners would start in the 10,000 Dton range and go up from there. We've seen some official designs of larger warships, but really nothing in the civilian market. Granted PC's won't be flying them, but they might be adventuring on them or encountering them while adventuring.

Does anybody design ships of that size? On the boards all we pretty much see are warships.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I recall seeing a relatively detailed writeup of (I think) Tukera lines that operated in the Marches. It was for CT, but it had a lot of information regarding the company, etc.

The Traveller Adventure has some information about Tukera and Akerut.

But this dovetails into another point - the size of the ships in the sourcebooks is woefully inadequate for the amount of passenger traffic in the Imperium.

The Imperium is poorer than the current industrialised world and interstellar travel is much more expensive than air travel, hence starports serve much fewer passengers. If we believe the information from GURPS in the wiki a medium system such as Regina serves ~100 000 passengers per year. A bunch of smaller ships on with a daily departure schedule would be preferable to a large ship with a weekly of monthly schedule?

Does anybody design ships of that size? On the boards all we pretty much see are warships.

I have done it, but the difference between a 5000 dT liner and a 500 000 dT liner is just a bunch of zeros. Warships are more interesting to tinker with.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

The largest passenger liner I've seen in Traveller is the Shakarkha from Supplement 10: Merchants and Cruisers. At 2,000 dtons it has 100 passenger cabins. Attempting to design a 10,000 dton liner sounds like a fun challenge! How far would it need to reach? Jump 3 like the Sub Liner? Enough passenger shuttles docked to transfer... All? Half? of the passengers per trip? Some cargo space might be a good idea too... And of course some larger staterooms, for high passage customers.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Token medium liner

10 000 dT, TL 12, J-3, M-1, Crew: 50, MCr 2 135
750 Passengers, 500 Low passengers, 100 dT cargo.
20 First Class staterooms, 80 Business Class staterooms, 650 Economy staterooms, 50 Crew staterooms.
870 dT (25%) Common Areas, 1600 escape capsules.

TL 12             Hull 3 600                                                2 371,8    
                                       Desired    ∆TL    Rat    #    dTon    Cost    Power
Hull                                    10000                      10 000            2 000
Config            Sphere                    3             3                   300    
Hull strength     Light                     1             1                
Repair Drones                               1             1           100      20    
                                
JumpD             Budget, EneIneff          3     -0      3     1     755     849    3 900
ManœuvreD         High Technology, Size     1      3      1     1      70     210    1 000
PowerP   (TL8)    High Technology, Size            3            1     250     188    3 571
    Emergency Power                         1                   1      25      19    
Batteries         2400 Power               40                  40      40       8    
                                
Fuel, Jump                                  3             3     1   3 000        
Fuel, Power                                 4           4 w     1      25        
Fuel Purification                        48 h          48 h     1      75       4       75
                                
Bridge                                      1                   1      60      50    
    Holographic                             1                   1              13    
Comp              CORE/40                   8            40     1              45    
    Backup Comp   m/20                      7            20     1               5    

Sensors           Improved                  9             3     1       3       4        4
Array             Distributed               9             3     1       6       9    
Signal Processing Improved                  9             1     1       1       4        1
                                
Staterooms, Luxury                         20                  20     200      30    
Staterooms, High                           80                  80     480      64    
Staterooms                               100%           797   700   2 800     350    
Low Berths                                500           500     1     250      25       50

Escape Capsules                             1                1600     800      32    
Common Areas                              25%           25%     1     870      87    
Briefing Room                                
Library                                    10                  10      40      40    
Medical Bay       5% of crew                1                   8      32      16    
Armoury                                     1                   2       2       1    
Brig                                        2                   2       8       1    

Cargo                                                                 108        
   
   
                                   
                                
Crew                    47                        
    Command              6                        
    Bridge               2                        
        Pilot                  1                    
        Astrogator             1                    
        Sensor & EW        
    Engineer            41    
        Engineer              30,7
        Maintenance           10
    Service             92    
        Admin                  5,0
        Medic                 11,4
        Steward               75,0
    Gunner        
    Flight        
    Troops            


Passengers            
    High       750    
    Mid          0    
    Low        500

 

[phavoc]

The Traveller Adventure has some information about Tukera and Akerut.

Ah, thanks. I will dredge up that material when I have the chance.

The Imperium is poorer than the current industrialised world and interstellar travel is much more expensive than air travel, hence starports serve much fewer passengers. If we believe the information from GURPS in the wiki a medium system such as Regina serves ~100 000 passengers per year. A bunch of smaller ships on with a daily departure schedule would be preferable to a large ship with a weekly of monthly schedule?

I don't see how the Imperium could be considered poorer than today. But even if we took that statement at face value, what era would you classify the Imperium at? Based on the growth and expansion they should at LEAST be equivalent to the early 1900's. Which, if you look at the specifications of the ships and the overall system it fits - big-gunned ships are the king of the battlefield and armor trumps everything - which was the same for the ships of the time.

The sheer number of people and planets in the Imperium means they have to have a very robust shipping environment. Without large-scale trade it would be economically impossible for the Imperium to exist. Not to mention the core worlds are heavily industrialized and populated, thus they would be generating enormous amounts of ship and passenger traffic.

According to article I found (Hofstra university - https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch3en/conc3en/linertransatlantic.html) just the number of passengers between the 'old world' Europe and 'new world' America was pretty staggering:

The passenger liner era roughly lasted for about 100 years; from the mid 19th century up to the mid 20th century. Its evolution can be divided in four distinct phases:

Introduction. The steamship Great Western can be considered as one of the first liners, crossing the Atlantic in 15.5 days in 1838. Early liners were made out of wood and used paddle wheels, often complemented by sails, as the main form of propulsion. Their capacity was limited to less than 200 passengers.

Growth. By the 1860s the introduction of iron hulls, compound steam engines and screw propulsion led to significant reductions in crossing times to about 8-9 days. No longer limited by the technical limits of wood armatures the size of liners increased substantially with a tonnage exceeding 5,000 tons and a capacity of 1,500 passengers. The number and frequency of liner services across the Atlantic (an across the world) increased substantially.

Maturity. Represents the Golden Age of the liner where those ships dominated long distance passenger movements. By the early 20th century (1907), the liner Mauretania with a capacity of 2,300 passengers was able to cross the Atlantic in 4.5 days, a record which was held for 30 years when the liner Queen Mary reduced the crossing time by half a day (4 days). Liners reached their operational capacity of around 1,500 to 2,000 passengers and Atlantic crossing times stabilized around 5 days. They relied on quadruple screws using turbine steam engines. This also corresponded to the peak American immigration years from European countries, a process to which liners contributed substantially.

The passage time is roughly equivalent to travel in jump, so the liners would be analogues to passenger ships of the 52nd century.

I have done it, but the difference between a 5000 dT liner and a 500 000 dT liner is just a bunch of zeros. Warships are more interesting to tinker with.

No argument there. Warships are lots more fun to design. But passenger liners do require a little bit different mindset. Trying to come up with all the amenities to keep 2,000 people occupied for a week can be interesting too. Maybe not as fun as spinal mounts and weapon bays, but still interesting.

 

[phavoc]

Token medium liner

10 000 dT, TL 12, J-3, M-1, Crew: 50, MCr 2 135
750 Passengers, 500 Low passengers, 100 dT cargo.
20 First Class staterooms, 80 Business Class staterooms, 650 Economy staterooms, 50 Crew staterooms.
870 dT (25%) Common Areas, 1600 escape capsules.

Interesting. Do you think having launches or even a few shuttles would be a better usage of tonnage instead of escape capsules? If their primary use is as lifeboats, you can pack people in at much higher densities than you would for normal operations. The lifeboats on ocean liners are designed for maximum capacity people stowage rather than comfort.

According to Royal Caribbean's website,the standard lifeboat is designed to carry 150 people. The new Oasis class lifeboats are huge (or in Trump terms, Huuugely tremendous) and hold a total of 370 people per lifeboat. Regulations had limited lifeboats to 150, but the ship sizes required changes to the regulations (As well as technology - the new boats are double-deckers).

For space lifeboats you could provide the passengers with fast drugs to essentially make them in suspended animation for the duration of the emergency without undue stress or equipment required. And in zero-g (or even low-g) it's quite possible to do a lot more with them than you can in a gravity field.

Anyways, thanks for posting your design.

 

[phavoc]

For anyone who is interested, here's an article that talks about the shortage of lifeboat space on the Oasis class ships. Like some military ships they also have ejectable life raft cannisters to accomodate the roughly 2,000 person shortage they would experience if full (lifeboats are for passengers they say...).

http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2013/01/articles/sinking/titanic-redux-can-royal-caribbean-safely-evacuate-8500-passengers-crew-from-the-oasis-of-the-seas/

 

[AndrewW]

Does anybody design ships of that size? On the boards all we pretty much see are warships.

There's a 20,000 ton liner (Reaches-class) in Freelance Traveller issue #052 April 2014 (Getting There is Half the Fun, page: 20).

 

[bluekieran]

The Imperium is poorer than the current industrialised world and interstellar travel is much more expensive than air travel, hence starports serve much fewer passengers.

This has me wondering just how expensive it "should" be according to the books/setting. Cost to orbit should be relatively trivial, but needing a room on the ship for >1 week rather than a few hours makes the passage costs in CRB2 make a fair amount of sense.

It's exteremely costly in terms of time to destination, though. Even a single jump away is a 2-week round trip stuck in a boat without a view, so extra-system tourism might not be very attractive to those with limited annual leave! That said, if you're willing to migrate to a lower-TL world for a while with your engineering skills (or as a medical teacher), you could potentially make a killing!

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Interesting. Do you think having launches or even a few shuttles would be a better usage of tonnage instead of escape capsules?

Yes, lifeboats would be more efficient. Escape capsules are more idiot-proof?

My spreadsheet allocates escape capsules by default, it works better for small ships.


After a little experimentation lifeboats costs about the same as escape capsules, if we ignore any crew requirement.

The same ship with 20 × 30 dT lifeboats in docking clamps, downscaled to the same cost. Carries the same number of passengers.

TL 12             Hull 3 240                                                2 379,0    
                                       Desired    ∆TL    Rat    #    dTon    Cost    Power
Hull                                     9000                       9 000            1 800
Config            Sphere                    3             3                   270    
Hull strength     Light                     1             1                
Repair Drones                               1             1            90      18    

External Load     600 dT                    1                        
                                
JumpD             Budget, EneIneff          3     -0      3     1     725     816    3 744
ManœuvreD         High Technology, Size     1      3      1     1      67     202      960
PowerP   (TL8)    High Technology, Size            3            1     250     188    3 571
    Emergency Power                         1                   1      25      19    
Batteries         2400 Power               40                  40      40       8    
                                
Fuel, Jump                                  3             3     1   2 700        
Fuel, Power                                 4           4 w     1      25        
Fuel Purification                        48 h          48 h     1      68       3       68
                                
Bridge                                      1                   1      60      45    
    Holographic                             1                   1              11    
Comp              CORE/40                   8            40     1              45    
    Backup Comp   m/20                      7            20     1               5    
                                
Sensors           Improved                  9             3     1       3       4        4
Array             Distributed               9             3     1       6       9    
Signal Processing Improved                  9             1     1       1       4        1
                                
Staterooms, Luxury                         20            20   200      30    
Staterooms, High                           80            80   480      64    
Staterooms                               100%           796   700   2 800     350    
Common Areas                              25%           25%     1     870      87    
Low Berths                                500           500     1     250      25       50

Library                                    10                  10      40      40    
Medical Bay       5% of crew                1                   8      32      16    
Armoury                                     1                   2       2       1    
Brig                                        2                   2       8       1    
Cargo                                                                 238        
                                
Hangar                                
Docking Clamp                     30 dT    20                  20      20      10    
                                                                              110                                  
                               
                                
Crew                 46                        
    Command           6                        
    Bridge            2                        
        Pilot               1                    
        Astrogator          1                    
        Sensor & EW        
    Engineer         39    
        Engineer           29,8
        Maintenance         9
    Service          91    
        Admin               4,5
        Medic              11,4
        Steward            75,0
    Gunner        
    Flight        
    Troops    


Passengers            
    High            750    
    Mid               0    
    Low             500

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I don't see how the Imperium could be considered poorer than today. But even if we took that statement at face value, what era would you classify the Imperium at?

Somewhere between current Southern Europe and South America?

A single Mid Passage costs very roughly a year's salary for the middle classes.

 

[phavoc]

I don't see how the Imperium could be considered poorer than today. But even if we took that statement at face value, what era would you classify the Imperium at?

Somewhere between current Southern Europe and South America?

A single Mid Passage costs very roughly a year's salary for the middle classes.

The main airport for Sofia, Bulgaria saw 4 million passengers in 2015. Athens main airport had 7 million domestic and 12 million international passengers in 2016. Since the AIA (Athens Intl Airport) website is so useful, I looked up their cargo numbers. 2015 (2016 numbers weren't complete) they had 32 million kilograms inbound in air freight (about 31,500 Imperial tons), 39 million Kg outbound freight and 8.6 million Kg inbound/outbound mail.

That's just two countries. Both would economically fit within your Imperium model. None of that include rail, road or ship traffic. So if the Imperium is a big trading entity the amount of shipping would have to be radically revised upwards.

This is where I believe the cost modeling for shipping is off (both in maintenance costs and charges). The numbers just don't support any sort of realistic cost model. It would also make it much harder for piracy to exists with so few ships to target. And with the number of armed ships floating about the Traveller universe, piracy has to be a very real threat (and at least uncommon instead of very rare) to justify weaponry being so common.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The main airport for Sofia, Bulgaria saw 4 million passengers in 2015. Athens main airport had 7 million domestic and 12 million international passengers in 2016.

How many Bulgarians or Greeks take intercontinental first class flights? That is a more cost-equivalent comparison.

A first class ticket to the other side of the world is much cheaper than a Mid passage...