Repairing high-tech ships

kevinknight

Banded Mongoose
So let's say you have a TL15 ship that gets heavily damaged at Junidy in the Aramis subsector of the Spinward Marches. The nearest TL15 planet is many (10+) parsecs away. What are your thoughts on repairing it, assuming you have run out of the spare parts you brought with you? Mine are as follows...
1) With a workshop and fabricator - relatively simple, acquire the raw materials and make the parts
2) With a workshop - not as simple, more time consuming but still doable to acquire the raw materials and make the parts
3) No workshop - emergency repairs only until you get back to civilization (TL 15 world). No hull points can be repaired. Critical systems will need to be replaced with locally sourced (low tech) versions.
4) Order parts and wait months or pay to have your ship hauled to Rhylanor, I guess would be other options...

Thanks.
 
Specify exactly the technological level of the component that needs to be repaired and/or replaced.

You might find out that you can get that done at a lower teched garage.
 
Depends on your paradigm.

According to LBB2 any A or B starport can repair any ship regardless of TL.

According to High Guard military ships can only be repaired at worlds that match their TL.

Note also that every IN base should be classed as TL15 for repair purposes.
 
A&B ports do a lot of business with annual maintenance and other repairs. They likely have a supply of various parts useful for such purposes. Probably at a mark up if you want to get that technical. If you are replacing an entire system because it took a "you're toast" crit, then it is probably a special order and you are gonna sit for a while waiting on the thing to be delivered.

This is one major reason that most merchant ships are TL 10 to TL12. There isn't much advantage to being TL 15 for their purposes and it complicates supply and repair.
 
Yes to all the alternatives, depending on circumstances:
CT TCS, p34-35:
REPAIRS
_ _ Ships damaged in battle must be repaired. The crew can attempt some repairs in space, but permanent repairs require a starport.
_ _ Field Repairs: Any ship system not the victim of a critical hit may be repaired after battle at no cost and in no time, provided the ship's crew factor is at full level; repairs are impossible without a full crew. All systems which suffered a partial loss (loss of factors) have half their lost factors restored, rounding fractions up. Fuel tanks are restored to full capacity (although lost fuel is not replaced). Half of all batteries which were knocked out are restored to full factor, and half are restored to half factor, rounding fractions up. Crew losses may not be repaired, although many of those lost will be only wounded and will be frozen pending delivery to naval base hospitals. Critical hits (including lost armor) may not be repaired.
_ _ Breakdown: Field repairs tend to break down. Roll 8+ once a week per repaired
system for breakdown: once for each drive, screen, battery, or other system. The roll is made the first time the system is used; if it is not used roll at the end of the week. Consequences of breakdown (aside from the system not working) are up to the referee. Allowable DMs are -1 for each previous week in which the system did not break down and -2 if an entire week is spent doing nothing but repair (no jumps, battles, refueling, etc.). The best possible total DM is -3. The referee may impose additional DMs for heavy (or careful) use of the system. If a system breaks down it must be repaired again, but there are no further penalties.
_ _ Starport Repairs: Full repair may be done at any A or B starport, but j-drive repairs require double cost and time at B starports, and no starport may repair a ship system of higher tech level than the starport's tech level. Repairs require shipyard capacity equal to the ship's tonnage. Field repairs are ignored: all original combat damage must be repaired. The cost is full price of the system for a critical hit and one fourth the price of the system for other damage. Systems which were reduced to partial factor cost one fourth the full price times the percentage lost; for instance, if a level 8 meson screen were damaged to level 7, the cost of repair would be 1/4x1/8 or 1/32 the cost of a new meson screen. Repair of a destroyed fire control system (a critical hit) costs one tenth the cost of all ship batteries except the spinal mount. Crew or frozen watch casualties are replaced free at any naval base. The time required for repairs is one to four weeks for non-critical damage and four to eight weeks for critical hits.
_ _ Jump Failure: Ships unable to jump because of critical hits on their power plant, jump drive, computer, or bridge present a special problem. If the bridge or computer is out, another ship may be linked to it for jump; the linking ship must have a computer and bridge as least as large as that of the damaged ship, and linking takes one week. Both move at the jump rate of theslowest ship and maneuver is impossible while linked. Roll for breakdown of the link after every jump; repair takes another week. Ships whose power plants or j-drives have been destroyed must either be transported to a starport inside a tender or must be repaired in place. To repair a ship in place, first a message must be sent to a starport capable of repair; a new drive must be transported to the damaged ship; and it must be inserted, taking double the normal repair time (although not double cost).

No time in the text above refers to TSC Campaign turn of a week each; a few days is "no time".
 
The Harrier in Pirates of Drinax is TL15. The Drinax companion says that, while some systems can be replaced with conventional components, you need to find suitable materials. This is why the players are looking for Sindalian technology.
 
I charge extra for higher tech repair parts at lower tech star ports. Plus shipping.
I charge less for lower tech ship parts at higher tech star ports.
My players stock up at TL 14 and 15 worlds for their TL 13 ship, always keeping a few tons on hand.
 
So let's say you have a TL15 ship that gets heavily damaged at Junidy in the Aramis subsector of the Spinward Marches. The nearest TL15 planet is many (10+) parsecs away. What are your thoughts on repairing it, assuming you have run out of the spare parts you brought with you? Mine are as follows...
1) With a workshop and fabricator - relatively simple, acquire the raw materials and make the parts
2) With a workshop - not as simple, more time consuming but still doable to acquire the raw materials and make the parts
3) No workshop - emergency repairs only until you get back to civilization (TL 15 world). No hull points can be repaired. Critical systems will need to be replaced with locally sourced (low tech) versions.
4) Order parts and wait months or pay to have your ship hauled to Rhylanor, I guess would be other options...

Thanks.
Just remember that Fabricators cannot make armor, so therefore cannot be used to repair hull damage. Also, Fabricators produce items 2 TLs below the fabricator's TL. So, to make parts to repair a TL-13 ship, you need a TL-15 fabricator.
 
I'll take a T5 maker over fabricator tech anyday.

A maker can manufacture anything it has the pattern for at its TL, with general limitations based on maker size, raw material inputs and often specialised components. For example the chips are often manufactured by other makers on an industrial scale and are in the spare parts bucket,

The type of maker can also limit its ability to manufacture components.

Weapon maker - makes weapons
Armour maker - makes armour
Thing maker - make just about anything
Vehicle maker - makes vehicles
Small craft maker - makes small craft
Ship maker - makes ships and starships
Robot maker, synthetic maker, even sophont maker...

There really needs to be a maker book for MgT...
 
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I'll take a T5 maker over fabricator tech anyday.

A maker can manufacture anything it has the pattern for at its TL, with general limitations based on maker size, raw material inputs and often specialised components. For example the chips are often manufactured by other makers on an industrial scale and are in the spare parts bucket,

The type of maker can also limit its ability to manufacture components.

Weapon maker - makes weapons
Armour maker - makes armour
Thing maker - make just about anything
Vehicle maker - makes vehicles
Small craft maker - makes small craft
Ship maker - makes ships and starships
Robot maker, synthetic maker, even sophont maker...

There really needs to be a maker book for MgT...
A maker is just a Manufacturing Plant in MgT. This is very different from a Fabricator. One is a factory. The other is basically a 3D printer.
 
T5 overloads the word 'maker'. It's hard to tell what's a design process and what's a design processor.

To be fair, the main reason to limit a fabricator has more to do with the Traveller mileu than anything else. If it worked to make same TL stuff by feeding it from the junkyard, you'd pretty much jump to a post-materialist society. That's Star Trek, not Traveller.
 
Well, more accurately, it's not Charted Space. Traveller the game system can run Star Trek just fine :P But that's just my pet peeve about conflating the two, not a meaningful contribution to the discussion. :D
 
I agree that the character generation and basic mechanics work just fine for Star Trek, the Wild West, ancient Sumeria, or whatever. But Credits, SOC, Trade, are not well aligned for Star Trek, so it would be a different set of sourcebooks for sure.

And then there's Harry Mudd, so sometimes the post-materialist trappings of Star Trek look only surface deep - and Star Fleet is basically a government job, so economics are likely distorted from that point of view (says a guy with a government job who used to be an entrepreneur, but really wanted to be able to afford good insurance. Shoulda moved back to Norway...).
 
I agree that the character generation and basic mechanics work just fine for Star Trek, the Wild West, ancient Sumeria, or whatever. But Credits, SOC, Trade, are not well aligned for Star Trek, so it would be a different set of sourcebooks for sure.

And then there's Harry Mudd, so sometimes the post-materialist trappings of Star Trek look only surface deep - and Star Fleet is basically a government job, so economics are likely distorted from that point of view (says a guy with a government job who used to be an entrepreneur, but really wanted to be able to afford good insurance. Shoulda moved back to Norway...).
To make matters even more counter dictating is the later Star Trek shows throw out the whole Post-Materialist trapping. Just watch Picard. RB was a utopias which shows very strongly in the Original series and early TNG but as he became less and less connected to the shows they moved more and more away from the utopian aspect.

Harry Mudd was like the Fringy of TNG suppose to represent the evils of free enterprise and capitalism which was supposed to be one of the great evils Federation was removing from the galaxy. This is also why both early on were giving a sight clown / childish look.
 
Makers are part of the Third Imperium setting, note this is the 400s onwards. You really need to read Agent of the Imperium if you intend to write for the Third Imperium setting. Everything that follows is from that novel.

“The siege engines will start building kinetics tomorrow. Are they properly stocked? Tell me the foreseeables.”
“The critical path constricts on flash chips. Everything else can be lasered and makered [22](footnote Clearly 3D printer technology). They did an exercise last season with excellent results. The chip stockpile is full; that’s just a commodity. We have more than enough.”

Our siege engines reached the belt ahead of schedule and started work immediately. The ships extended their rail guns and prepared for a long campaign.
They harvested FeNi chunks, peeled them of their outer husks, then sliced them into manageable pieces. Lasers engraved them with textures to help them plunge through atmosphere.
Makers processed the shucks into thrusters that they spot welded into place.
In a last step, crew swarmed over the newborn kinetics and inserted their brains: flash-programed chips that knew where and when to strike. Then they launched.

Cleon would gift some trader a hold full of fusion modules and send him out into the Wilds. The trader would
ultimately arrive at a ripe world with a hold full of modules. He sold perhaps a few; he gave away a few more,
Cleon’s gift included a makershop with templates that could make more and a monopoly on free power.

Many a powerful family knew that the key to its power was the secret control codes for its makershop and its output.

I addressed our Engineer. “We need a duplicate makershop [59](footnote Based on 3D printing processes.) for delivery planetside. How long?” He estimated a week and I accepted.

Other displays ran loops discussing in broad terms how a makershop worked and how a portable fusion module worked. It all consumed huge amounts of power. It was meant to make an impression.

Our price was simple: all would swear fealty to the Empire and the Emperor. One of them would become ascendent and receive a makershop that would create more modules: enough to fuel the recovery of this world and propel it to greater heights than ever before.

“See the cluster of gantry frames. They’re makering the hull and interior structures in a single pass. No one builds ships like that.”

What if they could reprogram their maker shipyard to build effective faster-than-light drives?

By the time we emerged from Jump, exactly as plotted in the Whece system, I was recovered. We laid over for a month, repairing damage, makering replacement panels, even creating better shielding against emp. I hoped we would never need them.

We were escorted deep into the bowels of the Likiinir, past the drive compartments and makershops to the auxiliary bridge

If you want to know more about makers and maker shops just ask :)
 
Makers are part of the Third Imperium setting, note this is the 400s onwards. You really need to read Agent of the Imperium if you intend to write for the Third Imperium setting. Everything that follows is from that novel.

“The siege engines will start building kinetics tomorrow. Are they properly stocked? Tell me the foreseeables.”
“The critical path constricts on flash chips. Everything else can be lasered and makered [22](footnote Clearly 3D printer technology). They did an exercise last season with excellent results. The chip stockpile is full; that’s just a commodity. We have more than enough.”

Our siege engines reached the belt ahead of schedule and started work immediately. The ships extended their rail guns and prepared for a long campaign.
They harvested FeNi chunks, peeled them of their outer husks, then sliced them into manageable pieces. Lasers engraved them with textures to help them plunge through atmosphere.
Makers processed the shucks into thrusters that they spot welded into place.
In a last step, crew swarmed over the newborn kinetics and inserted their brains: flash-programed chips that knew where and when to strike. Then they launched.

Cleon would gift some trader a hold full of fusion modules and send him out into the Wilds. The trader would
ultimately arrive at a ripe world with a hold full of modules. He sold perhaps a few; he gave away a few more,
Cleon’s gift included a makershop with templates that could make more and a monopoly on free power.

Many a powerful family knew that the key to its power was the secret control codes for its makershop and its output.

I addressed our Engineer. “We need a duplicate makershop [59](footnote Based on 3D printing processes.) for delivery planetside. How long?” He estimated a week and I accepted.

Other displays ran loops discussing in broad terms how a makershop worked and how a portable fusion module worked. It all consumed huge amounts of power. It was meant to make an impression.

Our price was simple: all would swear fealty to the Empire and the Emperor. One of them would become ascendent and receive a makershop that would create more modules: enough to fuel the recovery of this world and propel it to greater heights than ever before.

“See the cluster of gantry frames. They’re makering the hull and interior structures in a single pass. No one builds ships like that.”

What if they could reprogram their maker shipyard to build effective faster-than-light drives?

By the time we emerged from Jump, exactly as plotted in the Whece system, I was recovered. We laid over for a month, repairing damage, makering replacement panels, even creating better shielding against emp. I hoped we would never need them.

We were escorted deep into the bowels of the Likiinir, past the drive compartments and makershops to the auxiliary bridge

If you want to know more about makers and maker shops just ask :)
In this case, why do Manufacturing Plants even exist? It is for this reason that I use Manufacturing Plants for Makers. The current rules for Fabrication Chambers don't allow for what is mentioned above, but Manufacturing Plants do. If the 3I was using Fabricators to build ships all the way back in Cleon's time, then Shipyards wouldn't be in the rules. No one would use them, if they could use a 1,000-year-old technology that was better in every way. Nothing stays secret for 1,000 years, so everyone would have it. I can build, within the current rules, a 90-ton Maker. This is the smallest that I have been able to build it. It includes Manufacturing Plants of all 4 types, plus a Mining and Construction Drone Bay. This does everything that a Maker, as described above, can do, minus building ships. That Maker Shipyard could just be an assembly line of manufacturing plants and shipyard built together. Raw Ore goes in one side and a ship comes out of the other.

This theory meets all of the requirements listed above and doesn't use a Fabricator.
 
They are part of the setting.
Cleon expanded the Imperium by gifting makershops and fusion+

A maker does have limitations. They are not Star Trek replicators, they do not turn energy into matter.

Size - a maker shop can only make parts smaller than itself, these parts can be assembled into something larger
Raw materials - a maker needs a supply of the substances necessary to construct whaterver, and there are limits to the material technology although these will decrease with increasing TL
Specialised parts - for some parts of a device it is more efficient to manufacture parts using other fabrication technologies, the chips in the above example for instance.
Templates - the maker requires the blueprints.
Speed - makers are not the fastest but they are universal within their limitations.

So what is a maker? A TL12+ 4-d printer+CAD/CAM+CNC with gravitics built in, at higher TLs damper tech is part of it. It also uses robotic and drone subsystems to aid in the manufacture.

What can't a typical ship makershop do? At Imperial TLs a maker can not transmute nor can it disintegrate, but it can disassemble. It can make spare parts, "things", weapons, armour
 
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