Shipbuilding and shipyards

MasterGwydion

Emperor Mongoose
What occurs at a Shipyard in Traveller? Is it just the assembly of parts made elsewhere or is it a complete fabrication facility where they start with raw ore and turn it into small craft, spaceships, and starships? I am curious, since shipyards in the real world are basically just storage and assembly areas. They don't really build any of the parts themselves.

I am curious because, does this mean that building a 400-ton Shipyard gives you the ability to completely build a 200-ton Free Trader, or does this only give you the ability to assemble one from parts purchased elsewhere? Or to make it a self-contained shipyard, would I need to include, mining facilities, refining facilities, parts fabrication facilities (such as factories for Advanced Electronics, Advanced Machine Parts, etc.), and warehouse facilities for all of the parts to be stored prior to assembly?

Also, shipyards in Traveller have minimum staffing levels. What happens if you have only 1 crewman per 100 tons instead of 1 crewman per 10 tons?
 
I am curious because, does this mean that building a 400-ton Shipyard gives you the ability to completely build a 200-ton Free Trader, or does this only give you the ability to assemble one from parts purchased elsewhere?
Presumably shipyard fabricates hulls and installs standard components build in other factories. It's no larger than a Full Hangar.

Or to make it a self-contained shipyard, would I need to include, mining facilities, refining facilities, parts fabrication facilities (such as factories for Advanced Electronics, Advanced Machine Parts, etc.), and warehouse facilities for all of the parts to be stored prior to assembly?
Presumably, yes.

Also, shipyards in Traveller have minimum staffing levels. What happens if you have only 1 crewman per 100 tons instead of 1 crewman per 10 tons?
Presumably a tenth of the crew means about a tenth of the work.


It's not specified in detail, so I can only guess, hence all the presumablies.

Here is my guess of how it would work:
https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/how-many-crew-for-smelters.118812/post-899944
 
What occurs at a Shipyard in Traveller? Is it just the assembly of parts made elsewhere or is it a complete fabrication facility where they start with raw ore and turn it into small craft, spaceships, and starships? I am curious, since shipyards in the real world are basically just storage and assembly areas. They don't really build any of the parts themselves.
What are you, Boeing or something? Going well for them, isn't it? (I'm an irate shareholder since 2001). Anyway, real world concerns aside, it's not specified.

I'm going to riff of the CSC or Robot Handbook and say, maybe the whole thing is a giant fabricator fed by vats of molten high-tech, er, stuff.

I am curious because, does this mean that building a 400-ton Shipyard gives you the ability to completely build a 200-ton Free Trader, or does this only give you the ability to assemble one from parts purchased elsewhere? Or to make it a self-contained shipyard, would I need to include, mining facilities, refining facilities, parts fabrication facilities (such as factories for Advanced Electronics, Advanced Machine Parts, etc.), and warehouse facilities for all of the parts to be stored prior to assembly?
If you were designing a mobile shipyard, or placing it in a frontier or wilderness location, you could include that whole chain from asteroid to starship, but on an industrial (or anything more than a non-industrial world), I would say it could go either way, but all you need for the starport class designation, if you wanted to build a complete and stand-alone Highport above a populated world with requisite TL, is the shipyard bit. Still, it depends. The jump drive ship yard cost extra because you either have to build them there or import them. Or something.
Also, shipyards in Traveller have minimum staffing levels. What happens if you have only 1 crewman per 100 tons instead of 1 crewman per 10 tons?
Long build times and a backlog of orders? Or Robots? Robots could just be massive amounts of automation handwaved into expensive tons... or, repair drones. If a ton of drones costs MCr0.2 and could be considered four 'person'-sized drones, then well, you'd need some drone controllers or brains, but you could piece together a robot factory with repair drones as a guide (or up the brains to make them repair robots)... there's a book for that.

You could also go down the automation path buried in the Hiver section of AoCSv2 (p. 235 - 238, and um, use the table, not the text where you find a conflict).
 
What are you, Boeing or something? Going well for them, isn't it? (I'm an irate shareholder since 2001). Anyway, real world concerns aside, it's not specified.

I'm going to riff of the CSC or Robot Handbook and say, maybe the whole thing is a giant fabricator fed by vats of molten high-tech, er, stuff.


If you were designing a mobile shipyard, or placing it in a frontier or wilderness location, you could include that whole chain from asteroid to starship, but on an industrial (or anything more than a non-industrial world), I would say it could go either way, but all you need for the starport class designation, if you wanted to build a complete and stand-alone Highport above a populated world with requisite TL, is the shipyard bit. Still, it depends. The jump drive ship yard cost extra because you either have to build them there or import them. Or something.

Long build times and a backlog of orders? Or Robots? Robots could just be massive amounts of automation handwaved into expensive tons... or, repair drones. If a ton of drones costs MCr0.2 and could be considered four 'person'-sized drones, then well, you'd need some drone controllers or brains, but you could piece together a robot factory with repair drones as a guide (or up the brains to make them repair robots)... there's a book for that.

You could also go down the automation path buried in the Hiver section of AoCSv2 (p. 235 - 238, and um, use the table, not the text where you find a conflict).
Sorry about the Boeing stock. :( Not specified means "Do what I want, and no rule can contradict Me." :)

Maybe the increased cost for ships with Jump Drives is the added cost for being able to work in Lanthanum.

I like the idea for less workers equals slower work. I will probably use a straight percentage based on number of workers over number of workers needed for full capacity.

Thanks guys!
 
I think it varies.

The hull is probably made locally, and in orbit.

Electronics are small, if not virtual, enough to easily import, as well as the relevant software - so probably from the subsector Macrosoft headquarters, while the electronics could be from Simsong.

The jump drive components could be imported, especially tuned crystals, though it may turn out that not even assembly is done locally.

Weapon and defence systems, probably is local, if cheap and simple.

I think that fuel tanks are constructed locally, in orbit.

Luxury stateroom fittings are probably imported.

Other engineering items, life support, manoeuvre drive, and power plant, might be local, if competitive.
 
What occurs at a Shipyard in Traveller? Is it just the assembly of parts made elsewhere or is it a complete fabrication facility where they start with raw ore and turn it into small craft, spaceships, and starships? I am curious, since shipyards in the real world are basically just storage and assembly areas. They don't really build any of the parts themselves.

I am curious because, does this mean that building a 400-ton Shipyard gives you the ability to completely build a 200-ton Free Trader, or does this only give you the ability to assemble one from parts purchased elsewhere? Or to make it a self-contained shipyard, would I need to include, mining facilities, refining facilities, parts fabrication facilities (such as factories for Advanced Electronics, Advanced Machine Parts, etc.), and warehouse facilities for all of the parts to be stored prior to assembly?

Also, shipyards in Traveller have minimum staffing levels. What happens if you have only 1 crewman per 100 tons instead of 1 crewman per 10 tons?
I would interpret it as a shipyard is a location to assemble parts - those parts being either at the level of structural members being joined together to form the hull or else pre-fabricated sections being joined together to form the vessel being built. Or, even, a shipyard having the ability to do both depending on the ship type and the needs of the shipyard.

In some cases you'd have manufacturing adjacent to the shipyard, but as we've seen in the industrial age, once the technology becomes available for the transportation of parts you'll see manufacturing of parts spread out. Moving raw materials and finished goods is pretty basic for a modern society. It also gives a reason to have a robust and energetic transportation network that knits far-flung industrials worlds together into a single market. Poor @Geir's Boeing had outsourced the 737 fuselage to Spirit Aerosystems based in Kansas and then transports them in 3-6 sets at a time by train to Seattle. It might not be economical to ship a pre-built hull from system-to-system, but there's no reason why every other component couldn't be manufactured and shipped in to a central point.

Whether or not all the specific items for a starship are manufactured at a single port facility, on-planet or one jump away is really too much for the game to try and model. Depending on economic models (that the game doesn't and never should try to discern), you could easily see parts manufactured 2-3 jumps away from the assembly point. I'd probably draw the line at some distance though. I don't have a good distance, but say 10 parsecs as a rule of thumb. The exception is going to be as much as the TL origin of the part as anything else. There's no reason a TL 10 planet could not easily develop the knowledge and skills to assemble TL15 parts to build a TL15 starship - they just don't necessarily have the capability to manufacture the TL15 parts locally. But assembly for most things can be done anywhere once you train the workers to do it and give them the right tools.

Having fewer workers definitely makes for a slower assembly job. In those cases your overall time increases - and probably a more drastic curve than straight linear one. In the example provided it's not unreasonable to say it could take 10x as long to build at 1 per 100 vs 1 per 10 - with a hefty randomness to simulate additional non-efficient processes due to low staffing levels.
 
What occurs at a Shipyard in Traveller? Is it just the assembly of parts made elsewhere or is it a complete fabrication facility where they start with raw ore and turn it into small craft, spaceships, and starships? I am curious, since shipyards in the real world are basically just storage and assembly areas. They don't really build any of the parts themselves.

I am curious because, does this mean that building a 400-ton Shipyard gives you the ability to completely build a 200-ton Free Trader, or does this only give you the ability to assemble one from parts purchased elsewhere? Or to make it a self-contained shipyard, would I need to include, mining facilities, refining facilities, parts fabrication facilities (such as factories for Advanced Electronics, Advanced Machine Parts, etc.), and warehouse facilities for all of the parts to be stored prior to assembly?

Also, shipyards in Traveller have minimum staffing levels. What happens if you have only 1 crewman per 100 tons instead of 1 crewman per 10 tons?

What happens at a 'yard depends on the world that hosts it. All worlds that can build a starship have a Class A starport, so that's a given.
- Worlds that are high-tech, high-pop, and industrial will definitely be manufacturing most if not all parts on-world. Just like with all manufacturing processes, there will be some parts ordered 'out-of-house' [electronics, weaponry, etc.] but the trade ratio is so great that those parts are already figured into the price.
- Worlds that are high-tech with reasonable population [say, in the tens of millions] will manufacture most ship parts on-world, but a higher percentage will be imported. If the world is in a rich cluster or is on a major trade route, this will be figured into the price.
- Worlds with fewer resources than the above will import more parts from further away, This MAY [but not always] effect the bottom line price of the ship.
- And in ALL cases, the purchaser pays out of pocket for any unique custom modifications. This is most often reflected in the 10% custom-build price bump, but some things may be extra over the top of that.
- And anything illegal [customizable transponders, smuggling holds, etc.] will cost through the nose if you can get them at all.

Standard designs can be built in any starport. While the yard may have to import some parts, the Imperium can subsidize the costs to some extent for the sake of getting more trade ships in space.
The general assumption for a Class A starport is that it can construct a significant tonnage of ships. I know of no specific number in either tonnage or hulls to rate 'Class A' but a good thumbnail would be 10,000 tons of construction space with each ship being no larger than 1000 tons.
Also remember that ships that need major damage repairs can take up slipway space otherwise used for construction.
As an historical example, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, all the naval base's repair yards were fully taken up with repairing the fleet. The USS West Virginia had to be refloated and took up dockyard space desperately needed for other vessels. After USS Yorktown returned heavily damaged from the Battle of the Coral Sea, she was in desperate need of major repairs. But that dock space for a ship of her size was taken up with the work on West Virginia and Yorktown was forces to sail for the Battle of Midway down two of her four engine boilers.
 
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From my perspective, what a shipyard could potentially do and can do right now is affected by 3 factors:
1) The astropolitical environment (planetary, system, and nearby system resources as affected by the politics of the area).
2) What the movers and shakers want (and that includes the Travellers as well as whatever maintains continuity for your campaign).
3) Adventure fodder (What will make a good story in the context of your game. Sometimes that will be an elaborate quest for just the right materials, sometimes it will be a handwave and the Travellers are flying off two weeks later with a spiffy new ship. Usually it will be in between).
 
From my perspective, what a shipyard could potentially do and can do right now is affected by 3 factors:
1) The astropolitical environment (planetary, system, and nearby system resources as affected by the politics of the area).
2) What the movers and shakers want (and that includes the Travellers as well as whatever maintains continuity for your campaign).
3) Adventure fodder (What will make a good story in the context of your game. Sometimes that will be an elaborate quest for just the right materials, sometimes it will be a handwave and the Travellers are flying off two weeks later with a spiffy new ship. Usually it will be in between).
Yeah, campaign story-line takes precedence on all considerations.
 
1. Prefabrication and/or modularization is possible.

2. This means the total construction time can be reduced by up to 90%.

3. This is typically done only on ships exceeding 50,000 tons.

4. That's the part that seems off.
 
1. Prefabrication and/or modularization is possible.

2. This means the total construction time can be reduced by up to 90%.

3. This is typically done only on ships exceeding 50,000 tons.

4. That's the part that seems off.
I had forgotten about those little rules. That makes things a bit more complex and implies that everything must be built at the local shipyards unless it is stated otherwise. Otherwise how would anyone know to apply those modifiers or not?
 
Just in time doesn't mean you arrange delivery as the last screw is collected from it's bin.

We've had force majeure clauses for a long time.

Man proposes, God disposes.
 
Just in time doesn't mean you arrange delivery as the last screw is collected from it's bin.

We've had force majeure clauses for a long time.

Man proposes, God disposes.
As far as warship modularization goes, there's been some... oh, call it 'philosophical' differences about it.
- From what I think of as an 'MBA efficiency' point of view, it allows major contracts to go to more yards, putting more people to work and making more world governments happy. It also takes up less slipway room over all... more slipways are used but for a shorter time. Theoretically this allows more hulls to be generated more quickly.
- However, from a practical 'nuts and bolts' standpoint, having multiple yards with a minimum three week turnaround time for any messaging between them is stupid. For one thing, you could supply two different providers with the same freaking blueprints but when you get the two completed modules together there will be subtle differences that all add up to a shipbuilder's nightmare. One millimeter difference between this bolt and and the connector built at another yard times 100 adds up quick. And that makes for extra work, cost overruns, and an infuriating delay as two engineers three parsecs away from each other try and kit-bash a solution.
- And from a naval 'my life depends on this shit' standpoint, modular ships seem to fail more often compared to ships built in one yard by one builder. Connections short out more often, systems don't always work the way they're supposed to, and in really drastic situations whole modules fail as a unit when damaged.

So there are very good arguments for and against modular building. There's a lot of fixes that can be imposed on the process. But considering some of the discussions related to the Plankwell-class battleship on various boards, I get the sense that the IN isn't all that enthused about it.
YTUMV, of course.
 
Looks like we're going to cross the streams.

Politically, you spread the wealth to fertilize as many constituencies as possible, for support of any particular programme.

Redundancy, so that you don't bottleneck with one point of failure.

Economically, efficiency through specialization.

Militarily, you go to war with the equipment you have, not what you want.

At this point, quality control is likely done with laser calibration.
 
Looks like we're going to cross the streams.

Politically, you spread the wealth to fertilize as many constituencies as possible, for support of any particular programme.

Redundancy, so that you don't bottleneck with one point of failure.

Economically, efficiency through specialization.

Militarily, you go to war with the equipment you have, not what you want.

At this point, quality control is likely done with laser calibration.

Well this presumes that there will be absolutely nothing that goes wrong between the two yards and every nut, bolt, wire, and structural frame fits like a glove.
I'm not an engineer and I don't play on TV, but I have fellow game geek friends who are mechanical and structural engineers. What they tell me is that two manufacturers trying to build large components from the same blueprints /plans /schematics botch it better than half the time. A large part of what happens during the final assembly process is the foreman and work crews trying to bump this and squidge that because something is always a half a millimeter off here and damned near a centimeter off there.
Then you add the three week turnaround time between the two guys who say they know what they're doing.
Again, YTU will certainly vary and the Uncaring Buddha of War alone knows the Vilani will have culturally worked out a lot of the kinks, but it seems to me that the higher tech the final product, the more problems will arise.
 
usb-c_connector.jpg


We already have universal standards.

In fact, we dictate laws of physics, to the point that Terran gravitational field is the standard for acceleration.
 
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