Starship Budgets

[Ishmael]

Here is an alternative method based on real-world practices that I qorked on a few years ago....

I know from the start that my idea would not follow canon very closely, but then again, I felt the force levels in the OTU were too big, so the numbers I'll use make things more to my liking anyways. I am also working to make a general organizational budget such that the same methods can be used for any branch of service, and perhaps even merchant fleets. I also think that using different allocations can be assigned to different races' budget to give different flavors to the races' forces. Giving a low R&D allocation to the Vilani budget, for example. I'll make a couple of notes concerning ideas on how to use the various parts in my example.

keep in mind that the numbers/percentages I'm using are off the top of my head and are not ideal. Naturally, as this is an annual budget, the allocations can be changed each year as conditions warrant.
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B-877888-B pop mod=5
peacetime military 3%
non imperial and 60% of the military budget going to the navy
18,000*.65*5e8*.03*.60 = 105.300,000,000 Crimp

allocations:
R&D__________________7%.........7,371,000,000
Appropriations__________28%........29,484,000,000
Operations_____________33%........34,749,000,000
Personnel______________32%........33,696,000,000

....I'm thinking of using R&D as reasearch and devolopment of new equipment. This includes naval architect costs as well as costs for mock-up and evaluation. This amount might be split up among different contractors to produce prototypes for head-2-head comparisons before awarding a contract. An example of this would be the contest between the yf-22 and the yf-23.
....I'll figure that the research spending allows for the construction of 10 times the amount spent on any single project. So, for example, if you wish to upgrade the main gun on a ship that would cost 2,000,000,000Crimp, you'd use 200,000,000Crimp of R&D before you actually begin such an upgrade. This represents designing fittings and adapting things to a specific class of ship. If the costs for R&D to build a completely new class of ship, you'd have to spend this amount over a period of years until the costs are paid. If you wish to build a ship whose design already exists,then, as the R&D has already been paid already, you won't need to pay it again unless you are making a change/upgrade whereupon you'd only need to pay R&D costs for that change/upgrade.
Just because the R&D costs are paid does not mean the project has to be followed through upon... mbt70, Sgt York, AH-56 Cheyenne are examples of this.

R&D: 7,371,000,000 Crimps allows for the design of up to 73,710,000,000 of new construction and/or upgrading existing equipment.

Appropriations; 29,484,000,000 Crimp of new construction allowed for the year. If shipbuilding project costs more, then the payments continue with each year's budget until the full amount is paid.
This part of the budget is what pays for replacement equipment that is damaged or destroyed.

Operations; 34,749,000,000 Crimps allow for a fleet total cost of 347,490,000,000 given the idea that ops/maint is 10% of total unit cost.

Personnel; 33,696,000,000 Crimps... divided by 2* per capita for the tech of the owning world ( 18,000 in this case ) to give the total number of crew members and assuming a 3:1 ratio of support personnel to deployed personnel gives the total crew that are in the fleet/unit.
33,696,000,000/36,000 = 936,000 total manpower with 234,000 deployed in the fleet.
per capita * 1 are green crew
per capita * 2 are normal
per capita * 3 are experienced
per capita * 4 are elite
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I'm hoping to work this sort of method out for all branches, including scouts and merchant fleets and perhaps even starports.

 

[Epicenter]

The research and development aspect is missing, as recent events for the LCS, Zumwalt, Osprey, Lightning and any number of other vehicles demonstrate how much money can disappear down a black hole.

While this may sound like I am trolling, I am serious:

I've always wondered why a game like Traveller, with its infamous "death in chargen" system, never had a vehicle design system that was as brutal of a mini-game as the classic Traveller chargen.

A few years back, I got about halfway through a starship design sequence that I felt more closely mirrored reality as an "improved" Fire, Fusion, and Steel system.

Your starting stats represent things like "Designer Competence", "Corruption Level" (which like Soc Standing can go up during a design, though in this case you don't want it to), "Military Support", "Political Support", and "Budget". Yes, you can just give all these scores high numbers, but that's like giving yourself all 18s in D&D.

Each step, when you install a subsystem you had to roll on tables. Only on an outstanding success did the subsystem work as it was supposed to. Otherwise, it might work but development costs made the installation cost anywhere from double to seven times (1d6+1) the original component price, in addition performance might suffer, or reliability would suffer. You also had to roll on a political events table which would add a die modifier.

All ships were assumed to take at least 12 years to design (three "terms"), with it possibly going for more terms (unlike chargen you wanted to "muster out ASAP"). Each continuation term inflated the final price of the design. If you rolled really poorly on the continuation chart, your design "dies in chargen" as pressure becomes great enough so that the design is considered unworkable and it is cancelled. If you roll badly, but not that badly, every system in your ship suffers a 0 - 50% degradation in effectiveness (1d6-1) as the design is being worked on for so long that technical innovations leave it behind. You can go with it as-is or you can attempt to upgrade the system which is identical to the original installation except the installation cost is now (1d6+2) ...

While my original idea became too complicated, I still think a system that introduces effects like this would be more interesting.

 

[phavoc]

If you want to semi-apply real-world examples to how worlds do it, you should keep in mind a few things.

1) The amount of budget dedicated towards planetary defense is going to be dictated by local factors . A single planet with no colonies in the system will concentrate on local forces, with perhaps a few cutters and what not to patrol the space lanes. But they'll concentrate on what is theirs first and foremost. If the system is infested with pirates that prey on their shipping or cause their businesses to lose money, they'll probably act. But if somebody else is feeling the pain, they may or may not, depending on their relationship with the other party and what economic and military implications there are.


2) The will of the planetary government to spend on their military will be the primary second factor. If they are relatively peaceful and #1 above isn't an issue, they'll not need much more than a police force. But a more militaristic government, or one that is oppressive, will probably need to spend more money on their military to justify and protect their own existence.

Today a country like Norway spends a relatively low amount on it's military. Norway spends 1.4% of it's GDP on the military. Sweden 1.2%. Switzerland .8%. Saudi Arabia spends 8%, while the US spend 4.2%. Sweden actually develops a number of it's own weapon systems, while Switzerland and Norway import most of theirs, with some local industries. Saudi Arabia imports virtually all of their gear and has little to no R&D budget.

The UWP stats listed for a system really don't tell the whole story. There's no more info on the other planets in the system, so it would be up to individual ref's to generate system UWP profiles and determine if any other entities exist. Imperial law only allows a polity to claim space out to 100D. So every station, moon and planet can potentially be owned by someone else, who may or may not have a military budget to take into account.