Abstemious Starship Traffic

[robject]

abstemious - restricted, sparing.

Using Adventure 1, Adventure 4, and the Spinward Marches Campaign as my yardsticks, I see a couple dozen Kinunir-class cruisers, a couple dozen Leviathan-class cruisers, 50-some-odd Al Morai freighters and four Al Morai route protectors (probably Fiery-class escorts).

The lists in AD01 and AD04 have sequential hull identifiers (UIDs), but different yards, probably in different systems. Thus the UIDs are most likely Imperial registry numbers, and with the ship class and mission code likely are intended to form a unique entry.

The construction dates I can't recall, but I believe they begin just before the 4th Frontier War, and end with current i.e. 1105-era values. Approximately a 25-year period.

Doing very fast and loose math, that's 1 Leviathan per year, 1 Kinunir per year (and of course that production run has been cancelled), and 2 Al Morai freighters per year.

What I don't know offhand is the order of magnitude difference between these ships and the common starships -- the Scouts, Traders, Liners, and Patrol and Merc Cruisers.

Broadsword - The fact that there's no production list in AD07 (Broadsword) indicates nothing -- there could be thousands of them -- but the ships mentioned plus the Sword Worlds order sets the lowerbound in the thirties, for this class. And there are likely other, unmentioned, Type C classes out there, with unknown production runs.

If that's over a 25-year period, then the floor is likely at 3 mercenary cruisers built per year in the Marches.


Anyway, that's what I see when taking a spare "abstemious" angle.

Addendum - Scout/Couriers

Estimates of the numbers of scout/couriers in service are arbitrary, as they
must work from the counts of those in service, and extrapolate to cover surplus,
detached, and foreign scoutlcouriers; the count ranges from 15,000 to 30,000 in
the Imperium, and around 1,000 in the Spinward Marches.

Assuming an 80-year lifespan, that would imply 12 Scout/Couriers per year being built in the Marches.

 

[Hemdian]

I've always assumed the tail numbers were part of an Imperial registration system. Here's my list from both canon and non-canon sources. (Personally I'm not sure I like all the Fleet Command Ships ... too Star Wars. YMMV.)

 

[rancke]

abstemious - restricted, sparing.

Using Adventure 1, Adventure 4, and the Spinward Marches Campaign as my yardsticks, I see a couple dozen Kinunir-class cruisers, a couple dozen Leviathan-class cruisers, 50-some-odd Al Morai freighters and four Al Morai route protectors (probably Fiery-class escorts).

[...]

Anyway, that's what I see when taking a spare "abstemious" angle.

We've been through this discussion from the "evidence of starships" angle before, Robert, so I won't go into detail, but just point out that even the solid evidence is extremely suspect (I'm particularly thinking about the unlikihood (or, as I like to put it, the screaming fiscal insanity) that a company would use jump-4 ships on jump-1 and jump-2 routes).

Instead, I'd like to come at it from the other angle, the evidence of traffic, as it were. From the early days, CT was totally of two minds about star travel. Ships were expensive, a ticket cost almost a year's income, encounters were few and far between.

But if you look at the description of starports and travellers, traffic is booming. Descriptions mention that "cheap taverns, brothels, hotels and gambling halls abound, wedged in among warehouses, the local ship's crew hiring hall, cargo brokers' offices, and the central cargo exchange." Illustrations show bustling starports that rival busy airports. You don't get that kind of congestion with two Al Morai ships per month.

So the question I suggest we should ask is "do we WANT abstemious starship traffic?" With its concomitant sparsity of tourists, drifters, petty traders, pilgrims, students, and, yes, adventurers?

Myself, I'd much rather err in the other direction, towards the sort of situation you have in a Jack Vance novel, where a small spaceship costs the equivalent of a big truck... difficult for the average middle class wage earner to pay for, but within the means of those who really want it.

OK, we can't get that without a major revision of starship building costs, but we can at least provide enough commercial service to keep prices as low as possible.


Hans

 

[flykiller]

... the unlikihood ... that a company would use jump-4 ships on jump-1 and jump-2 routes ....

just in passing, the ICS Jewell, linked in my sig below, addresses this issue. engineering is J4, pp and j1 fuel is carried internally, and four mounts for four detachable fuel/cargo/passenger modules (each fuel module carries j-fuel for another parsec of range) may be mixed-and-matched as needed on any given route.

 

[robject]

I've always assumed the tail numbers were part of an Imperial registration system. Here's my list from both canon and non-canon sources. (Personally I'm not sure I like all the Fleet Command Ships ... too Star Wars. YMMV.)

I think it's very clever of you to make the tail number unique across all starships. I wouldn't try that myself (I'm too worried about "running out of numbers" so to speak) but it's an awesome true primary key. And you "fill in the blanks" very nicely.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Supp9 says:

Estimates of the numbers of scout/couriers in service are arbitrary, as they
must work from the counts of those in service, and extrapolate to cover surplus,
detached, and foreign scoutlcouriers; the count ranges from 15,000 to 30,000 in
the Imperium, and around 1,000 in the Spinward Marches.

 

[robject]

Getting back to my original train of thought.

(appx 1,000 scout/couriers in the Marches)

Good, good, thank you. That's 80 to 100 per subsector... between (1) in svc, (2) surplus, (3) detached, and (4) foreign. (Not that they're spread out evenly, mind). Foreign is interesting.

I assume most of the surplus units are stored at Scout bases and Way stations.

All of my guesstimations are approximate and abstemious, therefore likely untrue.

The busy starport is completely doable with these assumptions, partly because we can ignore them, but also partly because (1) smaller ships will be more numerous than big ones, and (2) examples given are not the only shows in town.

Assume, along the main trade route, that there are not two freighters, but twice that again (i.e. 6), calling each week. Next assume there's an equal volume (18,000t) of smaller commercial ships, i.e. 30 of the canonical subsidized liner class, then twice that again (i.e. another 60) for other classes of merchants. Then toss in a grab-bag of ten random craft, from Scouts, tramp traders, mercenary and patrol vessels, etc.

Now make that per day, throw in some variation, and you've got 1,000 ships per week, throwing your starport in the class of a "small hub airport".

Realize that your starport won't have 1,000 landing pads. 95% of your traffic will have to park in orbit, then use your shuttle fleet to manage surface transfers. Some will have a lot of surface traffic, and some will have very little.

It's still pretty calm on the average, but I imagine for reasons unknown that ships arrive and leave in "clumps", so there are stretches of calm a few hours long, followed by a few hours of activity.

And as for small starports, I'd think that that grab-bag of ten random craft still applies, daily for interesting ports, weekly for true backwaters.

 

[robject]

1 Kinunir per year = 1200 t/y
1 Leviathian per year = 1800 t/y
25 Scout/Couriers per year = 2500 t/y
3 Merc Cruisers per year = 2400 t/y

Too Low

Even being abstemious, this number is too low, by a factor of 30. Traffic along the 50 biggest Imperial worlds in the Marches, even in a Sleepy Imperium, involves at least 10,000 ships (and as many as 50k even for a low traffic setting).

In other words, we need 250 to 1000 ships per year built in the Marches -- and that's for a low traffic setting.

25/yr Scouts
100/yr Traders
100/yr Subsidized ships
50/yr Freighters, Merchant Cruisers, etc.
100/yr Cruisers (patrol, merc, etc)
100/yr misc (Y, L, K)

...plus regular military, which I am unable to go into.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Do I really look that much like Aramis?

 

[rancke]

Good, good, thank you. That's 80 to 100 per subsector... between (1) in svc, (2) surplus, (3) detached, and (4) foreign. (Not that they're spread out evenly, mind). Foreign is interesting.

But is Fighting Ships early enough evidence for your purposes? Because if it is, you also have such interesting bits of knowledge as Tigress squadrons generally being assigned "one per sector". Which can mean anything from 20 to 28 squadrons depending on how you interpret the statement. Even at the lower bound, we're taling about 160 Tigresses or 80 million tons worth of ship.

Sure, it's military and not civilian, but it still shows something about the scope we're dealing with.

The busy starport is completely doable with these assumptions, partly because we can ignore them, but also partly because (1) smaller ships will be more numerous than big ones, and (2) examples given are not the only shows in town.

The busy starport may be doable; I agree that if a starport lies empty and boring except for twice a month, then an illustrator would naturally go for the interesting times. What IMO isn't doable is the bustling startown. All the people implied by the description I quoted live, directly or at some remove, off the traffic moving through the port.

Anyway, doable or not, the big question seems to me to be whether it's a good idea to do it. A universe where every single traveller is bent on some serious and important business, something worth spending a year's income on? Very few tourists and every one of them wealthy, no students from the backwater worlds studying at the subsector capital, few or no pilgrims visiting the world their ancestors or the prophet or the folk hero came from, practically no drifters or hustlers, very few merchants and brokers, etc. etc.?

I think that abstemious universe of yours would be a very boring place. Unless you ignored a lot of the ramifications, of course.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

Setting aside the numbers infered from various sources, the mental image of a "Starport" is something akin to an Earth seaport of the Age of Sail or a modern Airport.

I remember (vaugely) a discussion of the traffic and berths in the Sol and Mora (IIRC) systems with dozens of docks all in use and ships waiting for a place to land.

IMTU, they are busy places (except for class E) and many are VERY busy places.

 

[robject]

I think that abstemious universe of yours would be a very boring place. Unless you ignored a lot of the ramifications, of course.

Ignoring ramifications is a hallmark of mine.

 

[robject]

Do I really look that much like Aramis?

Well, from this distance (some thousands of km), yes. My apologies!

 

[robject]

I remember (vaugely) a discussion of the traffic and berths in the Sol and Mora (IIRC) systems with dozens of docks all in use and ships waiting for a place to land.

Even for a "low traffic" setting, Mora would need a thousand places to berth ships.

Anyone remember the article "Happy Landings"? It used the concept of a "parkbay" to group berths in elevens (with a twelfth slot acting as a connection to a maglev carrier system). I can see a passel of them surrounding a starport complex.

 

[morfydd]

hmmn

okay trying to catch up here on this thread ..system traffic on the main lines will be extensive ..however system traffic at the Main Starport on those lines may be less so ..(remember the only port mentioned in the UWP is the Main public one)..any Main line trade route will have each Corp at its own private port or a jointly owned coporate port..that class A your landing on at say Regina may just be the equivalent of a large local marina with the big ship's typing up elsewhere..(the small privately owned and chartered vessels sailing in and out of a marina while the main trade is going on a few hundred KM away or up in Orbit at the High Port for really large vessels)

IE what I am trying to get at is your players are not pulling into the main seaport in New Orleans beside the Super Tankers and Super Cargo Ship's but the Marina a tad further up the river with the Shrimp Boats, Charter Fishing Boat's and Other Private and small commercial vessels for charter..

As to production 40 year service life is kinda short for the venerable scout with some instances of 300 and 400 year old vessels being cited..

Base assumption a detached scout is in the range of 80 to 120 years old when its sent (or resent) out on detached duty. after a scout ship hits its third or 4th 40 year run on DD..it gets auctioned off for cheap where folk snatch them up to convert and resell so you have 300 and 400 year old hulls bouncing about the Imperium (the engines may have been replaced after 120 years or so )

Note on Engine life Im looking at the life of a ship and powerplant on earth at 80 years of service life total before it becomes near unteneable without a full rebuild or replacement then look a couple of meillenia into the future and we can figure these ships are built to last the long haul..much like my grandfathers good old 1969 Peterbuilt Semi is still rolling the roads with a 4th generation behind the wheel ( my nephew) and probably will still be rolling with a 5th or 6th generation with little to no chance of it ever getting fully retired (it was built to last engine is same block but has been retooled to handle Bio-Fuels and will proabably get retooled again) Various body parts were changed along the way ..the cab got a facelift to add in a fairing (about 20 years back adding 2 mpg to the trucks economy) the frame rails have been replaced twice. the sleeper section got a facelift last year when my nephew took it over from my cousin. But its still a 1969 Peterbuilt according to the registry. (My nephew is planning on replacing the engine with an Electric plant and use a small high efficient Bio Diesal generater to maintain battery charge for range and longer term economy)

The point is the small ship's flying about the Marches will include hundreds of antique examples that are like the semi mentioned soem will be 10 to 12 generations old and still flying

 

[robject]

As to production 40 year service life is kinda short [...]

I also realized this earlier. 80 years and longer is more reasonable. This theoretically cuts production in half or less, while also making craft somewhat more affordable via the secondhand market.

Interesting points about "marinas". Freighters might well be separated from smaller craft, especially at high-volume ports.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Shameless self promotion.

I used a separate port for my PbP post game. I know that there is a full-on Imperial Starport but with some of the low to mid tech worlds right around the corner, surely there will be plenty of private starports and spaceports both high and low at Regina 1910SM.

I tend to go with a larger population and class A starports probably have more than one, and that number will probably increase with if there is a positive UWP Importance Extension and is almost guaranteed if there is a Naval/Scout base in the system.

As for Starship life, well, 80 years sounds about right for either two Solomani owners, or one Vilani who is still working it, but thinking about selling to say, his nephew.

 

[Straybow]

I definitely think the small ships use a different port than the big ones. If you have a light plane you don't land at JFK or LaGuardia with the heavies. You land at a small field nearer your objective.

Including the main Imperial port listed I'd have at least 1 significant port (same class as main port or one class lower) per Pop, less one for each class below A for the main port. There would be around Pop² total, the balance being two or more classes below the main port. Assume the number of ports of one class is about double the number of the class above it.

 

[aramis]

Actually, Straybow, most heavies do share space with the small aviation.

Anchorage, Seattle-Tacoma, Portland, DFW, Even JFK and Chicago-O'Hare... I've seen small aircraft on the ground at each. When flying home from boot, and when flying in to boot, I saw small private aircraft on the tarmac along with the big boys; one was JFK, and the other was LaGuardia. We had to wait on a C208 for takeoff at COH. I've flown out of ANC as a passenger in aircraft as big as Boeing 747 and as small as a Cessna 150 commuter. PDX, SEA, Eugene I've not flown on small planes in/out, but I have seen small and large planes in/out.

 

[Easterner9504]

Port Traffic

A system to determine port traffic and number of major ports per system was published in JTAS 22.

Port to Jumppoint by Leroy Guatney


I added an extra table of modifiers I felt he missed for my campaign.