Ship cost reduction as TL increases?

[laughdad]

So two nations with the same access to technology chose different models. The ability to produce a certain technology does not automatically drive you to do so if other economic factors are in play. Germany probably lacked equivalent automotive industry and oil reserves to the US. That said in some theatres (e.g. the pacific) the US army extensively used mules. Sometimes the right tool for the job is not the high tech version.

True. Mules got a lot of use in Italy. The Commandant at the JFK school was getting ready to eliminate sending guys to the mule skinner course when 9/11 happened, and then quickly discovered the school was needed for supporting ops in Afghanistan.

 

[Condottiere]

swordtart said:
The German army in WW2 was one of the most technologically advanced armies in the period. They were still heavily reliant on horse drawn vehicles.

The U.S. Army was the most mechanized force during the war. When you look at the Corps-level subordinate units there were a LOT of transport battalions at that level.


There's some mythology there, mostly created by German propaganda films, and the need to explain why they so rapidly overran defences.

The British were the most motorized army at the beginning of the war, and they had to leave a lot of that behind at Dunkerque; the Germans seemed to appropriate everything with a motor in the occupied territories.

Anti gravity certainly alters the transportation and logistics picture.

 

[Arkathan]

You can certainly create your own list of mods. I disagree with just making things cheaper without some game balance. TL8 powerplants are different to TL12 power plants, they are cheaper but bulkier for the same power.

We have a number of mods that trade advantage(s) for a disadvantage(s). Just making things cheaper for no disadvantage is not in the spirit of that rule.

But you can rule zero the heck out of it of you want. I am not required to agree with you.

You are not, but you should not put up strawman arguments including biologicals versus advancements in production processes to refute the rule zeroes of others. You are better than that.
Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick two.
That has been a production reality forever.
The standard rules make construction faster with no penalty (10% per TL over 11). Good and Fast. Not Cheap
The budget rules give you Fast and Cheap. Not Good.
The rule the OP is looking for is Good and Cheap, not Fast. The rules don't account for that
By using fewer construction crew, the process is slower. Parts and labor are the major costs. The proposed mods trade Fast for Cheap, while retaining Good. And the penalty is that the ship needs higher TL parts to maintain it.
IMTU, that equates to a premium, if you aren't on a high TL planet. And if you had a standard ship on a higher TL planet, the inferior parts would be cheaper.
Unless destroyed, a ship will pay for maintenance longer than it will a mortgage.

 

[swordtart]

You are not, but you should not put up strawman arguments including biologicals versus advancements in production processes to refute the rule zeroes of others. You are better than that.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I used horses as it was one of the things for which demand hadn't changed significantly in the time period in question and for which genuine statistics were available. I was trying to point up the fact that the cost of horses had dropped by a similar degree to the Model T despite the technological advancements in the horse breeding industry not being significant in the period in question and that therefore they were cheaper for some other reason. Those reasons were likely similar for every other purchase in the period in question and so to argue that the price drop of a Model T during that period was wholly due to improved manufacturing methods is likely flawed.

I certainly wasn't trying to misrepresent anyone else's argument in order to defeat that misrepresentation more easily.

Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick two.
That has been a production reality forever.
The standard rules make construction faster with no penalty (10% per TL over 11). Good and Fast. Not Cheap
The budget rules give you Fast and Cheap. Not Good.
The rule the OP is looking for is Good and Cheap, not Fast. The rules don't account for that

Agreed.
There are other ways to get good and cheap but slow. DIY is the usual method as you save the labour cost. With small external fabs that are in the price range of the average person you could break the Starship down into smaller "slices" and spend as long printing each slice as you would the full ship with a larger fab. The materials cost would be the same the fab itself would be cheaper and the time taken would be commensurately higher.
More plausibly a shipyard might contract out to smaller less advanced manufacturers (like space ship yards) in the same system to free up time on their machinery for more profitable jobs. You might just use cheaper and less advanced fabs to build purely mechanical parts to free up time on the more sophisticated fabs, but then you are using lower tech to make a saving not higher tech.

By using fewer construction crew, the process is slower. Parts and labor are the major costs. The proposed mods trade Fast for Cheap, while retaining Good.

I am not sure that really makes sense. Labour costs are usually expressed in man-hours. It doesn't matter if you have 3 workers doing 9 hours of work each or 9 workers doing 3 hours of work each the job is still 27 man-hours. You might get a small inconvenience payment but I am also not sure how long you would need to wait for a ship for it to be a significant inconvenience. If you had to pay in advance then the opportunity cost for having cash tied up in a ship that cannot earn money would become painful but with the standard mortgage model that doesn't happen, you don't start loosing money until the ship is in your hands. Equally the shipyard doesn't get any money until the ship is completed so there is no advantage to them going slowly.

If you were proposing that you had to put down a low percentage deposit for the ship when the contract was placed, then I would be happier that a longer manufacturing time would actually be a benefit to the ship yard (as they get money up front) and a disbenefit to the purchaser (they have money tied up). The disbenefit offsets the cheaper ship and you could actually calculate in financial terms what that represents. As long as it is zero sum in the long run it would be fair.

And the penalty is that the ship needs higher TL parts to maintain it. IMTU, that equates to a premium, if you aren't on a high TL planet. And if you had a standard ship on a higher TL planet, the inferior parts would be cheaper.
Unless destroyed, a ship will pay for maintenance longer than it will a mortgage.

Higher TL parts is only a consideration if you pay for the yard to do the work and I am inclined to agree with others that any shipyard can perform the routine maintenance on any TL Starship (since the majority of ships components do not have a TL)*. Even for the few higher TL systems, the availability of parts a few TL higher at a class A port is quite high (using the CSC availability rule). If you use the SU system, SUs have no TL and you can buy enough to last months with very little space (and thus freight revenue loss) largely negating any disadvantage. Only the annual maintenance needs to be conducted at a shipyard of "appropriate TL". I would say this also applies to actual repairs since they are more invasive, but it will be the TL of the specific sub component (if it has one - so any shipyard can repair any Hull points).

Of course since you have reduced the cost of the ship, you have reduced the cost of maintenance as well, so this possible disadvantage already comes with a built in advantage.

* HG P43 gives us
While most options can be accommodated by any shipyard capable of building or repairing spacecraft, some require far more advanced technology, as denoted by any TL requirement.
Since this covers installation of components I am inclined to believe that maintenance of those options would be no more dependent on TL and in most case less so.

 

[Arkathan]

Also remember that ONLY components that accept mods are affected, unless the ref intervenes. The hull, computers, staterooms and optionals are full price.
So in the Good Cheap trade off, you are only getting a partial discount for a full loss of time advantage.
IMTU, I pack repair parts into TL specific lots. A low tech ship gets to buy less expensive carried repair parts at higher tech ports. Normal maintenance is standard cost. Reasoning - you can't use those TL 15 phase regulators on your broken McGuffin anyway, so why pack it in a ton of repair parts.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Also remember that ONLY components that accept mods are affected, unless the ref intervenes. The hull, computers, staterooms and optionals are full price.
So in the Good Cheap trade off, you are only getting a partial discount for a full loss of time advantage.
IMTU, I pack repair parts into TL specific lots. A low tech ship gets to buy less expensive carried repair parts at higher tech ports. Normal maintenance is standard cost. Reasoning - you can't use those TL 15 phase regulators on your broken McGuffin anyway, so why pack it in a ton of repair parts.

My personal thought for a while is that ship’s computers should get the same price savings for older units as put forth in the rule in the Central Supply Catalogue. That would make for some notable savings.

 

[MasterGwydion]

You can certainly create your own list of mods. I disagree with just making things cheaper without some game balance. TL8 powerplants are different to TL12 power plants, they are cheaper but bulkier for the same power.

We have a number of mods that trade advantage(s) for a disadvantage(s). Just making things cheaper for no disadvantage is not in the spirit of that rule.

But you can rule zero the heck out of it of you want. I am not required to agree with you.

The "disadvantage" is that you are using TL-15 parts and shipyard, but are only getting TL-12 capability. So, you are sacrificing TL-15 capability (J-3 instead of J-6, M-6 instead of M-9) for a cost reduction.

Basically, the OP seems to be asking if it is cheaper to build a TL-12 100 horsepower motor or a TL-15 100 horsepower motor. I could be wrong about that though?

 

[Terry Mixon]

The "disadvantage" is that you are using TL-15 parts and shipyard, but are only getting TL-12 capability. So, you are sacrificing TL-15 capability (J-3 instead of J-6, M-6 instead of M-9) for a cost reduction.

Basically, the OP seems to be asking if it is cheaper to build a TL-12 100 horsepower motor or a TL-15 100 horsepower motor. I could be wrong about that though?

I thought the OP was asking if it was cheaper to build a TL-12 100 horsepower motor using a TL-15 manufacturing setup.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I used horses as it was one of the things for which demand hadn't changed significantly in the time period in question and for which genuine statistics were available. I was trying to point up the fact that the cost of horses had dropped by a similar degree to the Model T despite the technological advancements in the horse breeding industry not being significant in the period in question and that therefore they were cheaper for some other reason. Those reasons were likely similar for every other purchase in the period in question and so to argue that the price drop of a Model T during that period was wholly due to improved manufacturing methods is likely flawed.

I certainly wasn't trying to misrepresent anyone else's argument in order to defeat that misrepresentation more easily.

Agreed.
There are other ways to get good and cheap but slow. DIY is the usual method as you save the labour cost. With small external fabs that are in the price range of the average person you could break the Starship down into smaller "slices" and spend as long printing each slice as you would the full ship with a larger fab. The materials cost would be the same the fab itself would be cheaper and the time taken would be commensurately higher.
More plausibly a shipyard might contract out to smaller less advanced manufacturers (like space ship yards) in the same system to free up time on their machinery for more profitable jobs. You might just use cheaper and less advanced fabs to build purely mechanical parts to free up time on the more sophisticated fabs, but then you are using lower tech to make a saving not higher tech.

I am not sure that really makes sense. Labour costs are usually expressed in man-hours. It doesn't matter if you have 3 workers doing 9 hours of work each or 9 workers doing 3 hours of work each the job is still 27 man-hours. You might get a small inconvenience payment but I am also not sure how long you would need to wait for a ship for it to be a significant inconvenience. If you had to pay in advance then the opportunity cost for having cash tied up in a ship that cannot earn money would become painful but with the standard mortgage model that doesn't happen, you don't start loosing money until the ship is in your hands. Equally the shipyard doesn't get any money until the ship is completed so there is no advantage to them going slowly.

If you were proposing that you had to put down a low percentage deposit for the ship when the contract was placed, then I would be happier that a longer manufacturing time would actually be a benefit to the ship yard (as they get money up front) and a disbenefit to the purchaser (they have money tied up). The disbenefit offsets the cheaper ship and you could actually calculate in financial terms what that represents. As long as it is zero sum in the long run it would be fair.

Higher TL parts is only a consideration if you pay for the yard to do the work and I am inclined to agree with others that any shipyard can perform the routine maintenance on any TL Starship (since the majority of ships components do not have a TL)*. Even for the few higher TL systems, the availability of parts a few TL higher at a class A port is quite high (using the CSC availability rule). If you use the SU system, SUs have no TL and you can buy enough to last months with very little space (and thus freight revenue loss) largely negating any disadvantage. Only the annual maintenance needs to be conducted at a shipyard of "appropriate TL". I would say this also applies to actual repairs since they are more invasive, but it will be the TL of the specific sub component (if it has one - so any shipyard can repair any Hull points).

Of course since you have reduced the cost of the ship, you have reduced the cost of maintenance as well, so this possible disadvantage already comes with a built in advantage.

* HG P43 gives us
While most options can be accommodated by any shipyard capable of building or repairing spacecraft, some require far more advanced technology, as denoted by any TL requirement.
Since this covers installation of components I am inclined to believe that maintenance of those options would be no more dependent on TL and in most case less so.

I am in total disagreement with you on any Class-A shipyard can repair any TL of ship. Let Me pull up in a Ancient Warship. My guess is that they won't have the parts or the knowledge to do anything.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I thought the OP was asking if it was cheaper to build a TL-12 100 horsepower motor using a TL-15 manufacturing setup.

You could be right. lol

I think the problem here is that the way We alter our ship components with higher tech version. For each TL above the base TL, we can pay a higher cost and "buy" an Advantage. It seems to Me that the OP's problem is fixed by getting a discount equal to the cost of the Advantage, yet without getting the Advantage. So a component 3 TLs higher with the same capabilities, would be -50% or -33% the price depending on how you wanted to do the math.

 

[swordtart]

You could be right. lol

I think the problem here is that the way We alter our ship components with higher tech version. For each TL above the base TL, we can pay a higher cost and "buy" an Advantage. It seems to Me that the OP's problem is fixed by getting a discount equal to the cost of the Advantage, yet without getting the Advantage. So a component 3 TLs higher with the same capabilities, would be -50% or -33% the price depending on how you wanted to do the math.

That might work.

Do you want to provide a worked example (I don't want to do one in case I have misunderstood you).

 

[swordtart]

I am in total disagreement with you on any Class-A shipyard can repair any TL of ship. Let Me pull up in a Ancient Warship. My guess is that they won't have the parts or the knowledge to do anything.

My position was that any shipyard can conduct Maintenance of any TL of ship. Repairs require a shipyard of the TL of the component being repaired.

Your example implies that you are saying that Higher TL shipyards cannot repair lower TL starships, is that correct?

 

[Arkathan]

I provided an incomplete design earlier. It was missing a couple of things, but they weren't discounted, so the same cost would be added to both designs.

This post

 

[Arkathan]

My position was that any shipyard can conduct Maintenance of any TL of ship. Repairs require a shipyard of the TL of the component being repaired.

Your example implies that you are saying that Higher TL shipyards cannot repair lower TL starships, is that correct?

I think he was using capitalized Ancient, not lower case ancient.

Edit: my thinking on it is an Imperial Class A will have access to TL 15 parts, but they may have to be shipped in at a premium.
Good luck fixing your TL 15 trader in Sworld Worlds, Zhodani or Solomani space.

 

[MasterGwydion]

My position was that any shipyard can conduct Maintenance of any TL of ship. Repairs require a shipyard of the TL of the component being repaired.

Your example implies that you are saying that Higher TL shipyards cannot repair lower TL starships, is that correct?

Under normal circumstances, yes that is what I am saying. The existence of Fabricators/makers changes this as they can always produce lower TL parts. Within the Imperium, all Starports are TL-12 at minimum. If the system that starport is located in has a TL above 12, then that will also be the TL of the starport/shipyard. That would cover repairs and maintenance. If your civilization doesn't have teleporters or trade with anyone that does, how will they maintain the teleporters? What is the equivalent of a TL-20 fuse at a TL-15 starport?

 

[MasterGwydion]

That might work.

Do you want to provide a worked example (I don't want to do one in case I have misunderstood you).

I can try.

TL-12, 400-ton ship
J-3 drive - TL-12 - 35 tons - 120 PP to activate - 52.5MCr

J-3 drive - TL-15 - 35 tons - 120 PP to activate - 26.25MCr

 

[Condottiere]

You'd assume that the (after) market for spacecraft, in the Imperium, is large enough that most components are off the shelf.

If not waiting in the lot, ready to drive off.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I am in total disagreement with you on any Class-A shipyard can repair any TL of ship. Let Me pull up in a Ancient Warship. My guess is that they won't have the parts or the knowledge to do anything.

Any ship up to the TL of the polity in question.

This is a holdover from the good old days when any type A starport could build any ship with any letter drives, regardless of world TL.

Stands to reason that within the Imperium spare parts can be shipped all over the Imperium. It is an Empire built on free trade after all...

 

[swordtart]

Under normal circumstances, yes that is what I am saying. The existence of Fabricators/makers changes this as they can always produce lower TL parts. Within the Imperium, all Starports are TL-12 at minimum. If the system that starport is located in has a TL above 12, then that will also be the TL of the starport/shipyard. That would cover repairs and maintenance. If your civilization doesn't have teleporters or trade with anyone that does, how will they maintain the teleporters? What is the equivalent of a TL-20 fuse at a TL-15 starport?

I tend to agree that Starports are TL-12 standard (with maybe some higher tech stuff if either the system is Higher TL or a Higher TL system is within sensible trade range).

I also agree that assuming there is TL12 fabricators that can make any TL10 item including simple electronics (which seems to be any electronic item that is TL10 or lower) other than those with biomechanical parts and certain materials (like crystal iron) is a logical inclusion in a starport shipyard. If there is trade they can have access to higher tech stuff as well (with decreasing availability the higher the TL of the import and distance from the higher TL source world).

Of course with trade there is no reason they cannot have a TL13 fabricator (for which they may need an on-site support contract) which will enable them to print anything up to TL 11 which would include crystal iron, computer/15, M-5 and Jump-2 and military grade sensors, which covers the vast majority of the "normal" trade vessels.

A TL20 fuse could be identical to a TL15 fuse. Some things reach their perfect form (or good enough for the vast majority of people) long before they crash into the technological ceiling. We have high tech hammers that they could not make in the 14th century. But if you broke the fibreglass handle a 14th century tool maker could still replace it with a traditional wooden one if you wanted to and the properties of the hammer need not be significantly changed. The incandescent light bulb has largely been superseded, but we are still using the Edison screw fitting for the LED replacements. If we wanted to we could put those incandescent bulbs right back in.

There are standard cargo containers in Traveller. Is is to far of a stretch to say the standard filter used in the TL15 fusion plant is not the same one that they use on the TL8 fusion plant and kept on using because it was good enough. There is a quirk that older ships (that are cheaper) can have where maintenance cost twice as much (maybe due to non-standard components or possibly because they "drink oil")

 

[Sigtrygg]

The Imperium was TL12 standard 1105 years ago.

The xboat network of the 700s gives a standard of TL13

I have never understood this trend of trying to drop the Third Imperium standard TL - it is 15, it has been TL15 since GDW first wrote about if over forty years ago.