Why are the Sword Worlds not TL14?

[rinku]

While it would be possible to set up a fuel processor on a Type C, D or E port, there are a bundle of reasons why this may not be the case:

* On a desert, fluid ocean or vacuum world, there may not be any water or other suitable resource to process - any Type D or better port on such a world is probably bringing in hydrogen from elsewhere in the system or from outsystem. If the facility is rated E, this must be either impractical or too expensive.

* On a world with oceans and/or a near gas giant there may be no market.

* The world may be a genuine backwater and not see enough shipping to make it worth doing. Especially if the local tech level or population is too low to support any sort of facility. Cr50,000 might represent several years or decades of economic surplus on a truly marginal world.

* Maybe they DO have a fuel unit, but there's a contract to only supply it to Captain Smith. Or Oberlindes Lines have purchased a monopoly on hydrogen sales.

* Local custom or law that prohibits or limits contact with the evil offworlders (this is more of a class X issue).

* They have one, but Vargr raiders keep stealing their supply. Could you perhaps help with the matter?

The universe is infintely strange, and I'd rather work out a reason why things are (or appear) to be the case than to just try to force everything to be standard.

Edit: Another one ocurred to me - if the ships serving that world already have fuel processors there may be no market for refined fuel. As you say, it's a cheap component, and most of the expected standard ships (Free and Far Trader, Scout, Subsidised Merchant) already have them.

 

[DFW]

So, yes. I concede that any class C starport will allow routine repair of non-destroyed systems of standard (i.e. TL12) systems.

Why are you "conceding" something I never asserted?

 

[rinku]

I'm conceding something *I* asserted incorrectly. Type C starports have been bumped up a little under MGT, which I'd overlooked.

 

[DFW]

I'm conceding something *I* asserted incorrectly. Type C starports have been bumped up a little under MGT, which I'd overlooked.

Dam#, you're right. Didn't even notice that, And, I can't find anything in MGT about Annual Maint at A or B starports...

 

[rust]

And, I can't find anything in MGT about Annual Maint at A or B starports...

No more annual maintenance, according to the core rules maintenance is
done each month and requires a shipyard (so starport A,B or C). Which
has the unwelcome side effect that a ship's safety begins to decline after
the first month without maintenance - bad for long distance missions in
a frontier region.

 

[rinku]

Well, the rule says monthly maintenance that "requires a shipyard" (p.138), so that implies an A or B port, since Type C only has small craft shipyards. Myself, I prefer the old annual rules.

I suspect that they may have intended to change Type B ports to being able to build standard ships (i.e. not naval or capital) and to have ditched the Jump-drive distinction between A and B. That's what I initially thought had happened until I spotted the reference to J-drives on p.105. Wouldn't cause any real issues if you ignored the p.105 stuff. I sort of like the idea that the difference between A and B is ship size, not Jump capability.

 

[DFW]

And, I can't find anything in MGT about Annual Maint at A or B starports...

No more annual maintenance, according to the core rules maintenance is
done each month and requires a shipyard (so starport A,B or C). Which
has the unwelcome side effect that a ship's safety begins to decline after
the first month without maintenance - bad for long distance missions in
a frontier region.

I saw how it was broken up by month but missed the part about requiring a starport repair yard every month. Part 1: "A ship needs maintenance, which costs 0.1% (1/1000th) of the total cost of the ship per year and requires a shipyard. 2nd statement: "Maintenance should be carried out each month. If maintenance..."

So, grammatically, it is read as hitting the shipyard once a year. But, you have to spend time every month performing maintenance. I assume you show this by expending $ for parts. But, no, the text doesn't require monthly starport calls. If that was the intention, the author needs some English lessons.

 

[rinku]

Ah, but in the ship descriptions all the maintenance costs are expressed in monthly terms. This is explicit on p.137 as "1/12 of 0.1% of ship's purchase price/month". It's pretty clear the maintenance is meant to be performed and paid for monthly.

 

[rust]

But, no, the text doesn't require monthly starport calls. If that was the intention, the author needs some English lessons.

I only have the German version, and according to it the maintenance has
to be done monthly.

 

[DFW]

I read this as "requires the ship to land/go offline" monthly. Easily done for the average trader during the typical 7 day layover. During that time the engineer does some maintenance/tune ups on systems like engine, grav plate etc. that require them to be taken offline. The whole process might take just a few hours. Similar downtime can be found on complex IRL units that require some maintenance jobs outside the "big overhauls" (1)

You still have the "big yearly" where they bring in the specialist gear to tune the Zuchai crystals and de-ionize the Lanthanium grid (Or whatever they do)

Yes, that is how it actually reads and how I play it. BTW - I thought the grid had to be re-ionized every year not, de-ionized.

 

[steelbrok]

I took monthly maintenance to be routine stuff and the monthly cost to be an indicator of what a crew had to save uo every month to pay for the annual maintenance.

One other factor:

starship payments are 1/240 of cost for 480 payments or 40 years.
BUT The standard Imperial calendar has 13 28 day months

Having one month free of bank payments while the ship undergoes annual maintenance keeps the payment schedule on track

 

[DFW]

I took monthly maintenance to be routine stuff and the monthly cost to be an indicator of what a crew had to save uo every month to pay for the annual maintenance.

One other factor:

starship payments are 1/240 of cost for 480 payments or 40 years.
BUT The standard Imperial calendar has 13 28 day months

Having one month free of bank payments while the ship undergoes annual maintenance keeps the payment schedule on track

Good point there. Although the way I do it is that most tramp level ships are built on a co-op basis with local gov and pay a % of gross profit to the gov (minimums apply) and thus the ships don't cost 200% of list. Makes subsector commerce development cheaper and keeps the banks from sucking up all the capital without producing anything...

 

[simonh]

Interesting thread, I missed it first time round as I was on holiday.

I think minor monthly maintenance involving the servicing and replacement of small or technologically simple parts makes sense, but would also prefer to keep major overhauls a yearly affair. I don't want my players to have to worry too much about making their maintenance stopovers every couple of jumps.

In the OTU setting I think we need to move towards viewing TL as a measure of technical infrastructure rather than knowledge. With some specific advanced scientific and particularly military exceptions, Sword Worlders will have access to the same scientific knowledge as advanced Imperial worlds, but they just don't have the deep investment in manufacturing processes.

This reminds me of an article about small specialist Japanese engineering firms. There are many high tech sub-components for which 80% or 90% of the worlds supply comes from one Japanese company, and for some components there is only one manufacturer. These are things like tiny electric motors like the ones in disk drives or rear-view mirrors, the etchers used in making LCD panels, and many other specialist items. Companies like Toshiba, Sony or Samsung are just assemblers - they all use the same small companies to make the really tricky stuff.

To me, it seems that TL is partly a measure of how many of these highly specialised parts are available locally. Each of these may seem like no big deal, but thousands of these specialist teams are required in order to support the higher tech levels. Their employees have experience that nobody else in the world can match to the same level of consistency and quality.

E.g. there may be a specialist component required by TL15 fusion devices that is incredibly hard to manufacture and require special equipment and experienced engineers to make to the required quality. There are only as many fab teams capable of this in the Imperium as there are TL15 worlds, one per TL15 world. Take out that team on a TL15 world and suddenly it's incapable of maning any TL15 fusion devices - everything from starship power plants to FGMPs. And that team relies on fabrication equipment that is only needed by them and is made by several other teams that are also usually unique to any given TL15 world. But the parts I'm talking about are tiny, typically only the size of a computer chip so they can be distributed widely in spare parts at very little logistical cost.

Simon Hibbs

Edit: I found the article.