What is an "average commercial shipyard"?

[MasterGwydion]

High Guard says this, but never defines what an "Average Commercial Shipyard" is.


Is an average shipyard a shipyard at a Class-C Starport, since Class-C starports are considered "average"? Except that the Traveller Companion has this to say about average starports.

So, this says that Class-C starports are unlikely to have a shipyard of anykind, and yet...

This clearly states that to be considered a Class-C starport, it must have a minimum of 200 tons of shipyard.

Which leaves Me severely confused as to what any of this is supposed to mean. Which takes me back to my original question...

What is an "average commercial shipyard"?

 

[Condottiere]

That would depend if you want to individualize them.

And, who says there's only one per system, or even planet?

You might take the listed values as expectations.

Though, even with a low technologicalized world, large population, industrial base, might indicate substantial capacity at the cheap end.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Was there an answer in that word salad?

 

[Condottiere]

The words average, vary, and considerably, give permission to scale the starport facilities and capacity up or down.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The words average, vary, and considerably, give permission to scale the starport facilities and capacity up or down.

From what to what? How can you do anything without a baseline definition? At what size does a commercial shipyard build 1MCr/day of ship? 100 tons? 1,000 tons? 10,000 tons? 100,000 tons?

 

[Condottiere]

Pin down the system, and the starport, you want to apply this to.

Then, look around it's operating environment.

If it's in the middle of a trade route, large population, and has a lot of traffic, the capacity and facilities would be at the high end.

Find a reason why it isn't rated Alpha or Beta.

If it's in the middle of nowhere, likely at the low end, with minimal facilities, and possibly, capacity that isn't being used.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Pin down the system, and the starport, you want to apply this to.

Then, look around it's operating environment.

If it's in the middle of a trade route, large population, and has a lot of traffic, the capacity and facilities would be at the high end.

Find a reason why it isn't rated Alpha or Beta.

If it's in the middle of nowhere, likely at the low end, with minimal facilities, and possibly, capacity that isn't being used.

It doesn't say the average per system. It doesn't say the average starport. It doesn't say the combined tonnage of all shipyards in a system. It just says, "average commercial shipyard". What I am asking is, "What is an average commercial shipyard in the context of the rules saying that they build 1MCr of ship per day?"

 

[MasterGwydion]

An additional thought. What TL is the "average commercial shipyard"? Because higher TL shipyards build ships faster, meaning that they build more than 1MCr of ship per day.

Edit - Another thought. Since these rules are written in setting-agnostic books (CRB and High Guard), this should apply to shipyards outside of the Third Imperium as well. So, your "average commercial shipyard" is a system rule, not a setting rule. So, what is the average commercial shipyard? TL-9? 10? In the Imperium it is 12. 13? 14? 15? 16?

 

[Terry Mixon]

Maybe the World Builder’s Handbook has a clue?

 

[Arkathan]

Average shipyard is based on what you are trying to build. The average starport might be C, which will skew your non-starship capacity down from something above 10,000 towards 200.
For jump capable ships, the average capacity is going to be greater than 25,000, because that is the minimum for a class A and Class A is required for starship construction.

IMTU, small independent manufacturers with construction bays of sufficient size and TL can build starships.

Standard TL of starports seems to be 12, although I am not sure of the source.
I allow players to get TL 12 supplies at an A or B starport regardless of system TL, but higher TL parts get an upcharge for the difference between the desired parts and the system TL. This encourages them to travel to higher TL worlds and stock up when they can.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Average shipyard is based on what you are trying to build. The average starport might be C, which will skew your non-starship capacity down from something above 10,000 towards 200.
For jump capable ships, the average capacity is going to be greater than 25,000, because that is the minimum for a class A and Class A is required for starship construction.

IMTU, small independent manufacturers with construction bays of sufficient size and TL can build starships.

Standard TL of starports seems to be 12, although I am not sure of the source.
I allow players to get TL 12 supplies at an A or B starport regardless of system TL, but higher TL parts get an upcharge for the difference between the desired parts and the system TL. This encourages them to travel to higher TL worlds and stock up when they can.

Okay. Let's take the Galoof-class Megafreighter for our example.

30,000 tons
TL-12
7,287.77MCr

It is a commercial vessel and so is presumably built in commercial shipyards.

The minimum size shipyard that can build it is 60,000 tons and at 1MCr per day that would take 260 months to build.

I doubt a bare minimum size is considered average for building ships of this size, but then again, this size ship is not exactly considered average size. The same shipyard could build 150 Free Traders in 47 days. So, this maybe could be considered an average commercial shipyard, but we really aren't given much guidance on that in the published material.

Edit - Or 15 Free Traders in 5 days building in sections and assembling. Would only take 3 days at TL-15.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

From what to what? How can you do anything without a baseline definition? At what size does a commercial shipyard build 1MCr/day of ship? 100 tons? 1,000 tons? 10,000 tons? 100,000 tons?

The 1 MCr /day is per ship (including small craft). So it could be building anything from one 5 ton runabout to multiple megaton warships.

A large shipyard could if dedicated to light fighters turn out 100's daily. A very small shipyard might only work on small craft on at one at a time basis taking days to weeks depending on complexity.

 

[Condottiere]

Above fifty kilotonnes, you're allowed to modularize.

Send the low value ended components to the the shipyards with the cheapest bids, keep the high value added component manufacture for yourself, and assemble the whole in a starport/alpha.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The 1 MCr /day is per ship (including small craft). So it could be building anything from one 5 ton runabout to multiple megaton warships.

A large shipyard could if dedicated to light fighters turn out 100's daily. A very small shipyard might only work on small craft on at one at a time basis taking days to weeks depending on complexity.

Okay. Not a bad take on it. A few questions. Since this is an "average commercial shipyard", what would make their production go down below 1MCr/day? TL can take it above 1MCr within the current rules, but how do you go below 1MCr/day? There has to be a way, otherwise the average would be higher than 1MCr/day. As far as I am aware, so correct me if I am mistaken, you can't build a 200-ton ship in a 200-ton shipyard, correct? It still needs to be a minimum of 2 tons of shipyard for 1 ton of ship built, correct?

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Standard TL of starports seems to be 12, although I am not sure of the source.
I allow players to get TL 12 supplies at an A or B starport regardless of system TL, but higher TL parts get an upcharge for the difference between the desired parts and the system TL. This encourages them to travel to higher TL worlds and stock up when they can.

In High Guard they don't seem to specify but a Class A has to be at least TL 12 because it has improved sensors. Class B and C similarly have to be at least TL 9 due to civilian sensors. Class D with basic sensors TL 8 minimum. Each could be any higher TL. Of course if you really want to confuse your players the sensors could be a separate small station with an unrelated TL. That Class E port has a TL 15 sensor system in a separate 50 ton station they imported to warn of raiders.

Okay. Not a bad take on it. A few questions. Since this is an "average commercial shipyard", what would make their production go down below 1MCr/day? TL can take it above 1MCr within the current rules, but how do you go below 1MCr/day? There has to be a way, otherwise the average would be higher than 1MCr/day. As far as I am aware, so correct me if I am mistaken, you can't build a 200-ton ship in a 200-ton shipyard, correct? It still needs to be a minimum of 2 tons of shipyard for 1 ton of ship built, correct?

Personally I have higher TL shipyards get increased construction rate and lower TL get slower rates. I use TL 12 as the 1 MCr/day/ship (or ship segment). I don't know if there is something official along the same lines but wouldn't be surprised either way. Large ships as cited by Condottiere above can be built in segments but I forget where I saw that rule.

You might also house rule that some items (such as jump drives) are not built at the ship yard but just installed and speed up the build time by reducing the time for that unit (or delay it by weeks/months as they are backlogged on delivery). Especially if the drive is a common model like those used on free and far traders. The same for the M-Drive.

Of course some shipyards may specialize in maintenance and do very little in new builds, maybe only replacement small craft.

Sorry I can't be more help with actual rules.

 

[MasterGwydion]

In High Guard they don't seem to specify but a Class A has to be at least TL 12 because it has improved sensors. Class B and C similarly have to be at least TL 9 due to civilian sensors. Class D with basic sensors TL 8 minimum. Each could be any higher TL. Of course if you really want to confuse your players the sensors could be a separate small station with an unrelated TL. That Class E port has a TL 15 sensor system in a separate 50 ton station they imported to warn of raiders.

Edit - Yeah, fringe cases are always going to be issues, but rules cover the 95%, not the 5% of fringe cases.

Personally I have higher TL shipyards get increased construction rate and lower TL get slower rates. I use TL 12 as the 1 MCr/day/ship (or ship segment). I don't know if there is something official along the same lines but wouldn't be surprised either way. Large ships as cited by Condottiere above can be built in segments but I forget where I saw that rule.

You might also house rule that some items (such as jump drives) are not built at the ship yard but just installed and speed up the build time by reducing the time for that unit (or delay it by weeks/months as they are backlogged on delivery). Especially if the drive is a common model like those used on free and far traders. The same for the M-Drive.

Of course some shipyards may specialize in maintenance and do very little in new builds, maybe only replacement small craft.

Sorry I can't be more help with actual rules.

Don't apologize! Reading your take on this has been great and helpful.

I think I found an easy fix. Extend the Ship Construction Time table to include longer times for lower TLs. Then explain in that same section that that is 1MCr/day per ship that they are building. Then state clearly in that same section that this TL-12 shipyard is what is being referred to as an "average commercial shipyard". It already has the building in sections part for larger ships, so that's already handled.

I think that might more or less fix it.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

A couple of tables
Construction time MCr vs TL

TL	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
MCr/day	.2	.5	.7	.9	1	1.2	1.4	1.8	2.6

TL Difference MCr/day Multiplier

TL Difference	0	+1	+2	+3	+4
Multiplier	1.0	1.1	1.4	1.8	2.4

So for example building a TL 9 Free Trader at a TL 9 port would be .5 MCr/day as the TL Difference multiplier is 1x.5. Built at a TL 13 port it would be 2.4x1.2 or 3.36 MCr/day. The largest allowed (by me) TL difference for an advantage being 4 would mean that building at a TL 15 Shipyard would be 2.4x1.8 or 4.32 MCr/day.

I already had that written up. Hopefully useful.

 

[MasterGwydion]

A couple of tables
Construction time MCr vs TL

TL	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
MCr/day	.2	.5	.7	.9	1	1.2	1.4	1.8	2.6

TL Difference MCr/day Multiplier

TL Difference	0	+1	+2	+3	+4
Multiplier	1.0	1.1	1.4	1.8	2.4

So for example building a TL 9 Free Trader at a TL 9 port would be .5 MCr/day as the TL Difference multiplier is 1x.5. Built at a TL 13 port it would be 2.4x1.2 or 3.36 MCr/day. The largest allowed (by me) TL difference for an advantage being 4 would mean that building at a TL 15 Shipyard would be 2.4x1.8 or 4.32 MCr/day.

I already had that written up. Hopefully useful.

I love this, but it made Me think about something else. Why is the average of 1MCr/day not dependent on the TL of the ship you are building versus the TL of the shipyard? TL-9 ship in a TL-12 shipyard? Counts as +3.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I love this, but it made Me think about something else. Why is the average of 1MCr/day not dependent on the TL of the ship you are building versus the TL of the shipyard? TL-9 ship in a TL-12 shipyard? Counts as +3.

If you reread my explanation above you will see that building a TL 9 ship at a TL 12 yard is faster as you multiply the base 1 MCr/day of the TL 12 Yard by the 1.8 modifier for +3 TL of the ship yard and manufacture 1.8 MCr of the TL 9 ship per day a compared to .5 MCr/day if it were made at its own TL 9 or for a TL 12 ship at the TL 12 yard only 1 MCr/day.

 

[MasterGwydion]

If you reread my explanation above you will see that building a TL 9 ship at a TL 12 yard is faster as you multiply the base 1 MCr/day of the TL 12 Yard by the 1.8 modifier for +3 TL of the ship yard and manufacture 1.8 MCr of the TL 9 ship per day a compared to .5 MCr/day if it were made at its own TL 9 or for a TL 12 ship at the TL 12 yard only 1 MCr/day.

I explained badly. Apologies. My question was about why is a TL-9 shipyard not turning out TL-9 ships at 1MCr/day. A TL-12 shipyard not turning out 1MCr/day of TL-12 ships, etc.

Yes. I understood above where TL-9 ship in a TL-12 shipyard is +3. My question why is the base for TL-9 0.5MCr instead of 1MCr when building TL-9 ships? Or a TL-15 Shipyard building 1MCr/day of TL-15 ships or 1.8MCr/day of TL-12 ships.

Obviously, most people won't care or even notice this stuff except in very long campaigns or while doing historical worldbuilding in Traveller.