Ship Repair at Starport?

[Stingray_tm]

I am a bit surprised, that the rules seem to have a lot of detail when it comes to ship damage but almost glosses over how to get rid of it.

My version of 2022 does not have information about hull damage repair but I found it in the Errata PDF. Good enough, I guess. But I am missing are specifics of how to use Starport repair facilities.
Starport ruled mention different capabilities but the rules as written imply, that a skilled Ship Engineer can pretty much rebuild the starship as long as he has enough spare parts. And he can do it in the wildernesd of some backwater planet. Which just seems wrong.

Are there any rules how to let professionals on a Starport fix that damage, especially regarding costs?

Or are Starports esdentially sources for spare parts and that's it?

 

[Vormaerin]

Traveller is generally fairly lenient on the subject, as the intention is that characters actually survive and not be stranded on some backwater forever.

Anything that is only damaged can be repaired with sufficient supplies. Things that are damaged beyond such fixing (aka 'destroyed') need to be dealt with at the starport.

Can you make it more difficult to keep the PC's ship in operation? Sure. Is it useful? Probably not.

 

[Condottiere]

Standardized parts could make them plug and play.

What's important?

Life support, which may be just plugging holes.

Ship controls, add in boards.

Propulsion, to get somewhere you want to go.

And energy.

Since I don't know how advanced engines work, it's pretty mystical to me how you'd repair them.

 

[Limpin Legin]

I am a bit surprised, that the rules seem to have a lot of detail when it comes to ship damage but almost glosses over how to get rid of it.

Does doing repairs enhance or contribute to the games playability and entertainment value? A "repair" (organic or inorganic) is just cost + skill + time + size. Turning a repair into a mini-game would surely require dozens of "repairable" templates that Travellers could tinker with and ultimately fix.

Starport ruled mention different capabilities but the rules as written imply, that a skilled Ship Engineer can pretty much rebuild the starship as long as he has enough spare parts. And he can do it in the wildernesd of some backwater planet. Which just seems wrong.

Are there any rules how to let professionals on a Starport fix that damage, especially regarding costs?

Or are Starports esdentially sources for spare parts and that's it?

Does this help? :

While many options can be accommodated by any shipyard capable of building or repairing spacecraft, some require far more advanced technology. Where a minimum Tech Level is required for an option, this is listed in the option’s title.

Core Rulebook, page 184.

 

[Arkathan]

I just use the critical repair thing for every repair.
Roll great and you don't use any spare parts.
Shades of success determine the amount of parts used, starting at a ton.
Fail and you use the parts and still need to fix it.
Easy, and gives the players utility to team up and spend the amount of time they think they need to ensure success, or risk everything on a quick getaway.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Fresnel]

If you can't be bothered to repair 100 hull points - how much does the shipyard charge?

 

[NOLATrav]

If you can't be bothered to repair 100 hull points - how much does the shipyard charge?

More than having your Engineer do it, but then you get some time to check out the local scenery. Double the cost of the spare parts required? Could be adjusted by TL and/or Starport class.

 

[Fresnel]

+ 10MCr then...

 

[Fresnel]

It would have been great if Highguard had given guidance on this. What might a Starport charge for skilled labour? 100,000 Cr per manhour?

 

[Limpin Legin]

It would have been great if Highguard had given guidance on this. What might a Starport charge for skilled labour? 100,000 Cr per manhour?

Repairs are carried out by an Engineer. According to the CRB, Engineer salary for the maintenance period is Cr4,000. Since the maintenance period is four weeks, then the weekly cost is Cr1,000. Assuming a 40 hour week, than is 25Cr per hour per engineer.

 

[Fresnel]

Thanks. That's a good approach. I would say the Starport would charge 100 Cr per hour then.

So in the 100 hull point example it would cost 10 MCr for the materials and 10,000 Cr for the labour.

Those engineers really need to unionise...

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Stingray_tm]

Since (surprisingly) there are no rules for this I came up with my own. I essentially use the repair rules as written but

A. The test is made on 6+ with a modifier depending on Starport Quality. A=4, B=2, C=0, D=-2
B. Only hull famage repairable on D-class.
C. Quality of success reduced by 1 compared to Do-It-Yourself.
D. Minimum costs, regardless of quality of success: 0,2 tons per hull point/system.
E. If the test fails, it still counts as succesd but with maximum costs of 1 ton.

The result would be, that on most Starports it is more expensive than having it done by a skilled ship engineer. On class A it might come out cheaper, because there is infrastructure for it, but it will never be free and a highly skillef engineer might be cheaper. On less advanced Starports it will be almost automatically be more expensive.

This should lead to the effect i intended: Encouraging the crew to get to a high quality Starport from time to time.

 

[Nelphine]

I'd personally bump all the modifiers up 1 (5/3/1/-1). I want class B to compare to ship engineers, and I think even C class warrant getting people with a bonus. (But I generally find NPC skills on the low side, so YMMV.)

Or if I was getting super complicated I'd do base A: 3, B: 1, C: -1, D: -3 then roll add (2d6)/4 round down.
So 2,3: base. 4-7: your numbers. 8-11: my numbers. 12: +1 above my numbers.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Thanks. That's a good approach. I would say the Starport would charge 100 Cr per hour then.

So in the 100 hull point example it would cost 10 MCr for the materials and 10,000 Cr for the labour.

Those engineers really need to unionise...

The company the engineers work for would want their cut. You might need to add 50% to cover for that.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Repairs are carried out by an Engineer. According to the CRB, Engineer salary for the maintenance period is Cr4,000. Since the maintenance period is four weeks, then the weekly cost is Cr1,000. Assuming a 40 hour week, than is 25Cr per hour per engineer.

Have you ever taken your car to a mechanic's shop to get it repaired?

Have you ever paid the mechanic only his hourly rate? No, of course not. The shop charges you way more than that. You are lucky to get a bill with only double the rate they pay the mechanic. Something has to pay to keep the lights on and if they only charge you what they pay their employees, then they will be out of business.

Edit: Also, mechanic's shops don't work by the hour. They quote you a number made up of building overhead (rent, lights, water, hazardous chemical disposal, etc), labor (hourly wage plus whatever add-ons there are such as Workers' Comp or other such things), parts (not just the parts but the cost to ship non-locally sourced parts for your particular brand of ship, if it is not one of the "Standard" designs., etc. on a job.

That is even before taking into account location. I had hernia surgery in the US and then several years later, I had hernia surgery in Honduras. In the US it cost Me over $100,000 in hospital bills (most of which was covered by insurance). I had the same surgery in Honduras and it cost Me less than $5,000 total and that is with no insurance.

Traveller doesn't have much of an economic system in place, so trying to figure out what things should cost is mostly just making crap up with no rational basis anyhow. Which is a long-winded way of saying, do it however you want as nothing has ever been written for Traveller, that I am aware of, that will help you out.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The company the engineers work for would want their cut. You might need to add 50% to cover for that.

Not to mention rent and/or maintenance fees that they have to pay for their shipyard facility.

 

[MasterGwydion]

2,000-ton Jump-capable shipyard? 0.75MCr per ton, plus 0.05MCr (0.025MCr per ton if it is a planet-side shipyard) per ton for hull. Not sure what an "average" shipyard is, but a 2,000-shipton facility Costs 3.1GCr to build and costs about 240KCr per month just to maintain. Now figure a shipyard that size needs at minimum 200 crew at 0.2MCr per month and 2,400 power or 120 tons of TL-15 power plant at 240MCr to buy plus 185KCr per month for maintenance. 12 tons of fuel per month is 6KCr per month. Now you need 4 more engineers to maintain the power plant at 16KCr per month total as well as 3 Maintenance guys for a total of 3KCr per month.

Add all of this up and what do we get? A mess... lol...

240,000+
200,000+
185,000+
6,000+
16,000+
3,000=

650KCr/month of expenses for a 2,000-ton shipyard not counting parts or Officers (managers), or debts.
or 325Cr/month/ton worth of expenses.

Edit: Not sure if anyone will find this helpful or not.

 

[J. L. Brown]

2,000-ton Jump-capable shipyard? 0.75MCr per ton, plus 0.05MCr (0.025MCr per ton if it is a planet-side shipyard) per ton for hull. Not sure what an "average" shipyard is, but a 2,000-shipton facility Costs 3.1GCr to build and costs about 240KCr per month just to maintain. Now figure a shipyard that size needs at minimum 200 crew at 0.2MCr per month and 2,400 power or 120 tons of TL-15 power plant at 240MCr to buy plus 185KCr per month for maintenance. 12 tons of fuel per month is 6KCr per month. Now you need 4 more engineers to maintain the power plant at 16KCr per month total as well as 3 Maintenance guys for a total of 3KCr per month.

Add all of this up and what do we get? A mess... lol...

240,000+
200,000+
185,000+
6,000+
16,000+
3,000=

650KCr/month of expenses for a 2,000-ton shipyard not counting parts or Officers (managers), or debts.
or 325Cr/month/ton worth of expenses.

Edit: Not sure if anyone will find this helpful or not.

That is actually very helpful; build the shipyard as a ship or space-station, then figure up the monthly mortgage, maintenance, energy consumption cost, life support, & salary costs, divided by the tonnage of the shipyard and a 'percentage of the shipyard which usually sits idle' factor. Figure that 'Idled' portions of the shipyard can be temporarily shut down for a savings (maybe up to 50%?). That is the 'fixed cost'; parts and other considerations are on top of that.