How many starships?

[Murph]

How many starships do you have in your universe?

Are starships common? Scarce? Rare? So common they are mundane?

My rule of thumb is:

For each population level you get 1 starship per week times the population level then multiply by 2. With all worlds on Mains, or main trade routes getting an additional 1-20 per week. A level 9 world would get 9x9 starships per week (81)x2=162 +1d20 extra if on a main.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Does starport size factor into your calculations at all? In your example, 162 starships a week would be way too many for a Class E or D starport, and even some Class C, IMO.

I think you equation would be a good rule of thumb if you add another step for starship size.

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi !

I would refer to a nice article written by C. Thrash and indirectly by Anthony Jackson.

Traveller Statistics

Using these numbers You may calculate it back to e.g. shipped tons per population.
For myself I calculated around and get a basic rate of 8000 dTons ship volume per year per 1 million of population.

This is modified by the starport type:
A * 10
B * 5
C * 1
D * 0,5
E * 0,1

At least its number tweaking....

Regards,

Mert

 

[Jame]

A homebrew that I'm working on (very sporadically and only for the last two months) has about forty-some worlds (in the main empire) with a population not more than a couple hundred billion. So I'm figuring that there are only like a pair of dozen thousand starships all told, including the military and scout ships. Now there may be as many again non-starships, maybe more, but still...

 

[Murph]

I like a starship common universe. I had not thought about starports, but that is a valid point on shipping. I should break it down as x% BIG ships and y% smaller tramp type vessels.