Interstellar transport case study

[veltyen]

Economics normally doesn't grab me as something to look into closely, sometimes though a concept comes up that really needs exploring.

The concept was this. Two high traffic worlds, 2 parsec's apart. How much does it cost to set up a permanent flow between these worlds, and what is the cost of transport.

To complicate things both worlds are transcribed by their primarystellar, making the jump point well away from the primary planetary system. There is at least one gas giant in each system. I have assumed the travel time to be 6 days at 1G (4 at 2) to the planet and 7.5 days at 1G (5 at 2) to the nearest gas giant from the optimal point of the jumpport.

There are three vehicles in the scenario. A Maneveur 2 200dTon shuttle acting as both tanker (from the gas giant) and shuttle to the planet on either side of the jump. A jump -2 1G jump shuttle (also 200dTon) and a 600dTon 1G jumpport. All vehicles have been built at TL12.

Some slack for routine and annual maintenance had been cut into all sub vehicles time (and thus how many cycles could be completed by each in a year)

There are external fuel tanks and refining gear on the jumpport, as well as maintenance and refit gear for the 200dTon craft. I am assuming that the jump port can get away with rolling routine maintenance (rather then needing a spare station). This assumes that individual systems are offline for 2 weeks of every year.

Crewing is at minimum, as is accomodation. This is untrue for the station, which has (arbitarily) 10 addtional engineers and many additional staterooms. This is to account for being able to perform annual maintenance on the smaller craft. The staterooms are there to represent staff on break or going through rotation. All craft have an empty 7 dTon locker as well as a small excess cargo space.

For reasons that have to do with maintenance oppurtunities and fuel transit There ended up being
18 Jump craft
16 Shuttles (8 on each side)
8 Tankers ( 4 on each side)
2 Stations (1 on each side)
with an annual throughput of just under 80,000 dTon transported (40,000 either way). Cost
(including Capital, maintenance, salary and life support) came in to just over 62 MCr/year.

There is an excess of 80 dTon of refined fuel per year. There is an excess of 2400 dTon (per year) between the shuttles and the jump port which is not carried over the jump. There is an enormous excess of refining capacity. The annual maintainence bay is in use a minimum of 42 weeks/year at each end, which is reaching saturation.

I have given the jump craft a 9 day turnarround window. This includes opurtunity routine maintenance and should account for most variation.

With 100% saturation of cargo this comes to a cost price of under 800 Cr/ton end to end.

Knowledge gained.
Transit costs are not that far off.
Fuel Refining is really efficient.
Getting fuel isn't. Fuel efficiency was arround 286Cr per dTon.


Anyway. I was going to vary the case a couple of times to try to find some efficiencies. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed.

 

[RainOfSteel]

There is an undefined term in the above case.

"Two high traffic worlds."

What are the UWPs of the two worlds in question?


Question #1: What range of UWPs would qualify for "High Traffic" from the viewpoint of this dicussion?


Question #2: Did the above study take into account the possible effect on costs of having a PC with CT:Broker 6+ or T20:Broker 20+ (in T20, a variety of other skills can apply, as well) working on the situation (or even NPCs with only a few points in the appropriate skills)?


Question #3: Did your study take into account the jump shuttles [starships] having their own fuel purification plants and then buying unrefined fuel only?

 

[veltyen]

A1) UWP's?

For the point of the study any worlds able to reliably generate the loads to a high level of saturation. The specific jump route in MTU that I was thinking of is between a pop 10 TL14 industrial world and a POP 8 TL10 rich agricultural world, both of which are ducal seats (ones is a sector capital, the other a subsector capital and vassal).

High Traffic is badly definied. For the basiness case to be assessed as worth heading forward there would need to be > 40,000 dTon of traffic either way, with people willing to pay over 786 Cr (zero profit margin point) per ton of cargo.

A2)Broker skill?

Broker skill is not taken into account. This was designed originally as an cut price airline carrying lowberths (4000 Cr per dTon). As such it is designed as a transit for hire, or a courier service rather then as a merchant house. As for costs otherwise I failed to mention that the shuttles (all 3 types) had the 80% mass produced discount, but that the jump ports did not. Cost for the ships is based on a 40 year replacement plan and thus is (original purchase price/40)+ yearly (maintenance, life support, salary, fuel).

A3) Unrefinied fuel

The case study maintains its own fuel fleet. The cost for changing unrefinined fuel into refinied fuel is near zero, which makes a mockery of the 100 vs 500 Cr/ton costing. The cost of the fuel is solely based on distance to unrefinied fuel source (ocean or gas giant). The jump shuttles are only reliably in system for an hour or so at a time before jumping again for rapid turn arround purposes, having the refinery on board would not extend this unbearably, but why slow down the transit of the jump vehicles when you can refine on the company owned jump port. The question is who are they going to buy the fuel from?

The next permutation will be the same system but with single mutlirole ships which will cover the buying refinied, buying unrefined, and self scooping options.

 

[Whipsnade]

Veltyen,

Still scratching my head over your posts, especially all the assumptions contained in them. While I don't think there are any gross conceptual errors, I do think there are plenty of mistakes. Here's a short list:

- You've fallen for the old gravity trade model. In all verions of Traveller up to GT, PCs could find two worlds that economically 'fit' together like the ones you describe and flit between them until they were trillionaires. That is not going to happen. If a trade route is a lucrative and as steady as you propose then other people and firms wil have set up shop there too. Your dinky 200dT 'jump shuttle' (Why the fancy name? Merchantman, liner, or freighter wasn't good enough?) is going to have competition much bigger than itself. One container ship could drive you right out the market. Two worlds 2 parsecs apart both holding ducal seats will have much more shipping available than you've planned for.

- What is a 'jump port'? I'm assuming it's a fuel depot of sorts. Why build one at all? You're flying fuel shuttles already, so why not make them refine the fuel during their trip from the main world and gas giant?

- Your turn around times are ludicrous. An hour between jumps? Hardly. Leaving aside the substantial engineering concerns, how are you going to rendezvous, refuel, take off incoming passengers & cargo, put aboard outgoing passengers & cargo, and jump away all in an hour? First, if all goes well, your jump shuttles will arrive during a 33.6 hour window. Second, if all goes well, your jump shuttles will arrive within a 6000km sphere (jump drive accuracy is 3000km per parsec jumped). Those two factors alone make your hour turn around time impossible.

- Only eight in-system shuttles? That might work for fuel scooping, but you also have them shuttling passengers & cargo between the main world and jump port. You've got a 4-day/2-gee trip out, they must then cool their heels for a worst case 33.6 hours while waiting for the 'jump shuttle' ro arrive, and finally make the 4-day trip back to the main world.

- The cost for refining fuel is not zero. The equipment costs money, the power supply for it costs money, and the sophonts needed to operate cost money. You correctly note the in-system shipping charges but failed to add all the other stuff. Gasoline is cheap too, until you factor in the need to transport, store, and pump it. How much does it cost to build and operate those somewhat useless 'jump ports'? All they do is store fuel it seems. They're part of your 'zero' fuel costs too.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by veltyen:
A1) UWP's?

Ok. I guess I wasn't clear (I seem to be suffering from a run of that lately, my apologies).

If the worlds are OTU, I'd like their names.

If the worlds are originally designed, then their sector hex locations (and if they're across a sector border from each other, please include each sector's coordinates).

And, for each world, I orginally wanted their UWPs, but Pop and Tech are just barely enough to go on, and now that I know them, they'll do.

Originally posted by veltyen:
For the point of the study any worlds able to reliably generate the loads to a high level of saturation. The specific jump route in MTU that I was thinking of is between a pop 10 TL14 industrial world and a POP 8 TL10 rich agricultural world, both of which are ducal seats (ones is a sector capital, the other a subsector capital and vassal).

The shuttle is Jump-2. I can't recall any two sector/subsector capitals that are two parsecs apart (but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist).

Whether or not the worlds are OTU or in an original milieu, I need to know their locations.

Originally posted by veltyen:
the shuttles (all 3 types) had the 80% mass produced discount

Which 80% discount is that? The traditional discount for producing ships at traditional starport shipyards where such vessels have been built before is 10%.

Originally posted by veltyen:
A3) Unrefinied fuel

The case study maintains its own fuel fleet. The cost for changing unrefinined fuel into refinied fuel is near zero, which makes a mockery of the 100 vs 500 Cr/ton costing. The cost of the fuel is solely based on distance to unrefinied fuel source (ocean or gas giant).

Only if that source is free and open. In a system that is a sector/subsector Capital, I'd imagine the world would ban frontier refueling on itself and have the moxy to make it stick. Although the OTU traditionally implies that Gas Giant refueling is free . . . many personallized TU campaigns reverse this assumption. Just as an example where the "line" between what is and isn't allowed or reasonable becomes thin: In the case of Regina (and other moons orbiting gas giants), I'd imagine that local business will have banned gas giant refueling in order to give their refined fuel sales a chance (otherwise, with the gas giant right there, no one would ever buy refined fuel at Regina).

Originally posted by veltyen:
The jump shuttles are only reliably in system for an hour or so at a time before jumping again for rapid turn arround purposes, having the refinery on board would not extend this unbearably, but why slow down the transit of the jump vehicles when you can refine on the company owned jump port. The question is who are they going to buy the fuel from?

I see now where the fuel was being refined on the jumpport. Putting the fuel purification on the tankers allow the refining to get done in transit.


Larsen already covered a couple of other issues. I agree on the one hour turn around. That just won't happen.


I'd like to further go into the tanker logistics.

EDIT START--------11/15/04--1127 hours
Yes, the below is bunk due to me missing the fact that passenger shuttles to and from the planet were separate service.
EDIT END----------

I'd like to state that the 2G tankers will be making a minimum 19 day long circuit to pick up passengers and fuel. 8 days in transit to and from the planet (to drop off people, and pick up new people), and then 10 days to and from the gas giant (with a minimum 1/2 day dropping off and picking up people, and a 1/2 day gas giant skimming, but those would probably be longer, too).

However, the circuit made by an individual tanker will be Jump Point to Planet, Planet to Gas Giant, and Gas Giant to Jump Point. During this time, outbound passengers will be aboard for the entire journey to the Gas Giant and back to the Jump Point, 14.5 days, more than two weeks. 4 Tankers on one side could never keep up with the traffic. Worse, passengers would never put up with it. Pirates, though, would love it. Lone tankers filled with paying passengers in the depths between the stars, going along at 2G? Score!

The jumpport would also be a piracy target.

 

[veltyen]

To reply to your points in turn.

point 1
The case study was to look into this exact point. This is a firm set up to do mass transit between two populous worlds. For this reason I was looking into what the cost recovery price of transit was using the vehicles described. For the courier company specified the cost price of moving 1dTon of material from one planet to the other was just under 800Cr. The case study has nothing to do with buying cargo's, just the transit involved between worlds. ie. I was attempting to find the price/dTon that a medium sized cargo company would need to make transport profitable. While 80,000 dTon per year is not terribly impressive in pure cargo terms, the fact that the jump vessels leave every day for the other system does make up for that a little. It wasn't the intention that this company would be the only transport between systems, just what they could undercut the competition by. 200 dTon is an adequate size, this allows 110dTon per trip. Capital purchase costs are figured into the equation, anything past the price listed above (786 credits average per dTon) is profit.

point 2
The jump port is a reference to the "station" type of ship. It is a central handling and support facility. The jump vessels jump as near as possible to this station, which is mobile and should remain at a known optimal point between the primary planet of the system and the gas giant. Cargo is left here, as is fuel for all vessels concerned. The reason for the refinery to be on the jump port rather then the tanker vessels is for efficiency. A refinery on the tankers would be 6 dTon less fuel (per trip) that they could carry back, the tankers also do not have a dedicated engineer on board. The two refineries on each jump port can refine more then enough fuel (many many times over) then having 8 refineries on board the tankers(which would require another 2 tankers for fuel supply). Not having the jump port would somewhat cripple the operation. The jump ships and tankers would have to go to the planet for maintenance cutting down on each's number of cycles they could perform per year, shuttles would have to wait for a jumpship to come in before offloading cargo, that or leave the cargo floating unattended in space, and the cycles of the tankers would be perscribed by the fact they would have to wait arround to fuel jumpships and shuttles. It was a design choice for the case study for these reasons, it may have been somewhat less efficient, but I liked the idea.

Point 3
I wondered why you thought the turn arround was one hour. To go though the basic assumptions of cycle times.

All vehicles (except for the jump station) are assumed to spend 2 weeks in annual maintenance. This leaves 350 days (using earth calendar rather then vilani calendar) for which the ship can perform its duty.

The tanker and shuttle are assumed to spend a day at either end of their normal trip (jumpstation to gas giant, or jumpstation to primary planet). This is a 4 day trip to the planet, and a 5 day trip to the gas giant. This allows a shuttle the time to perform 34 cycles in a year (allowing a small ammount of slack), each cycle being one day on planet, 4 days in transit, one day at jumpstation and then 4 days back. The tanker is similar, the slightly longer journey (a 12 day cycle) limiting it to 26 in a year (again with some slack).

The jump vessel has an 17 day cycle. In this time it is presumed to make 2 jumps. The comment about "not reliably more then an hour" implies that it is late to arrive but still on target. The jump "landing point" could conceivably only be 5000km from the jump station. A ship can jump soon as it is clear which shouldn't be very far. This makes an hour an extremely tight turnarround, but potentially doable, a 1G ship covers 8100km in 30 minutes stop to stop, and the jumpport is custom designed so that specifically these ships can load and fuel quickly. The statement was reliably in system, the schedule for these vessels gives the jump vessels 36 hours average at either end of the jump (assuming a dead average 7 day jump).

So if it helps the turnarround times are far more realistic then you had perceived.

point 4
There are 8 shuttles and 4 tankers on each end of the service. The shuttles only follow one path, the tankers only follow the other path. As mentioned above the shuttles do not wait for the jump vessel, they dump their cargo at the jump port and head back when they wish. As it happens there is not a 1:1 correlation between shuttle trips and jump trips, meaning there is not meaningfully a single jump ship to transfer cargo too.

point 5
A good day for determining absolutes from non-absolute statements. The term was near zero. In a single year 3 engineers running 2 TL12 refining units can manufacture 400,000 dTon of refinied fuel from unrefinied matter assuming an apprximate 90% uptime. 3 engineers salaries cost 84kCr, the replaced yearly refining units cost 64kCr, luxury life support for the engineers for a year is 144kCr. This is highly unrealistic, but comes to a whopping 0.73 Cr increase in the price of fuel. With a slightly more realistic single dedicated engineer on normal life support and a 4 year lifespan on the machinery the cost is 0.215 Cr. Either way this means that at cost price (at 100Cr unrefinied, 500Cr refined) the profit is over 399 Cr/dTon. That is a near zero cost.

The cost for each arm of the service is fully broken down. From the TOE spreadsheet:
Section Total Costs
Jump Ships(18) 27.2439
Shuttles(16) 17.6248
Tankers(8) 8.8124
Stations(2) 8.5714

Note that the cost is (Lifesupport, crew salaries, maintenance costs, and 1/40 of the capital cost of the ships).

For fuel storage the station has external balloons (uncosted, assumed minimal). It does have a quite large internal fuel tank as well.

There is at least one cost I missed, which was docking fees for the shuttles at either end. Since I haven't definied what class starport the end systems are this cannot be determined.

I can send you the excel data if you like.

Thankyou for your imput. It has clarified what I was thinking immensely.

 

[veltyen]

RainofSteel I think you might have been missing the point. Each small ship is on a dedicated route.

Tankers go jump port to gas giant and back.
The jump vessels jump from one jumpport to the other.
The shuttles move from the system planet to the jump port and back.

Having each craft dedicated allows each to optimise. The tankers don't need to refine any fuel, as a single refinery at the jump port has more then enough capacity for all fuel carried in. The in-system vessels do not need a jump drive. The jump vessel does not need to visit the planet directly. Each can be optimised for the role that it is in.

I hadn't mentioned it, the jump port is the only armed vessel (2 pulse laser turrets and 4 sandcasters). The jump vessels on an accurate jump are already well within firing range (and thus protected to some small extent). I do admit that the shuttle design (the shuttle craft and tanker have the same specifications) is a tempting piracy target.

The case study was intended to stand on its own merits, not connected to any particular world. So the example worlds are not terribly important.

The example is from MTU. Argus is the industrial world and subsector capital. Safari is 2 parsecs (directly over a void) having an agricultural world and the sector capital world which is classed as "rich". There are 4 Naval Bases within 2 parsecs of Argus. Both exist in the same sector, Safari is in an edge square, Argus closer to the centre of the subsector.

The 80% reduction in cost comes from T20. Mass production is not out of the question considering the company will need approximately 20 of each. The designs are nearly identical to some others (Such as refitted free/far traders) that it seemed like a fair assumption. Full cost has been paid for the jump ports.

I've just completed crunching the numbers for the second case study. A large merchant vessel on the same system to system cycle. More results tommorow.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by veltyen:
RainofSteel I think you might have been missing the point.

Yeah, probably. I was coming down with something yesterday, and didn’t realized it until this morning. It must have been interfering with thinking, because there was something nagging at the back of my mind when I posted that, wondering . . .

Originally posted by veltyen:
The shuttles move from the system planet to the jump port and back.

Yeah, I missed the shuttles part. <stupid hat is on>

Originally posted by veltyen:
The 80% reduction in cost comes from T20. Mass production is not out of

Hmmm, I was under the impression that the T20 Design Sequence was 98% similar to High Guard. I’ll have to check up on that.

 

[veltyen]

Case Study #2
A single 50,000 dTon freighter operating on the same route.

I will show a lot more stats in this case to try to cut down on confusion.

This is the same two systems as used in the first case study.

There are 6 examples. This explores 3 different fuel sources (Buying refinied fuel from a starport, buying unrefinied fuel from a starport, and scooping a gas giant) at 2 different speeds (1G and 2G maneveur drives).

First off a rundown of the ship (constructed under T20).

Hull: 50,000 dTon streamlined closed
Computer: model 6, Avi 6, Comms 1, Sensor 1
Bridge: minimum sized (10dTon)
Ships Locker: 990 dTon (used as cargo space)
Fuel Scoops: Optional - only as needed
Jump Drive: 2 parsec
Maneveur Drive: 1G optional 2G
Powerplant: 1005 EP
Ag: 1 (0 with 2G drive)
Fuel: 11005 (4 weeks and 1 jump)
Fuel Purification: varies (0,0,3,5,2,2)
Weaponry: None
Minimum Crew: 223 (238 with 2G drive)
Staterooms: 150 (160 at 2G)
Airlocks: 30 dTon of airlocks
Cargo space: approx 33,000 dTon (varies by design)

The route flown is relatively simple. The ships that fuel at the starport are assumed to spend one day in port, travel to the nearest jump-point (4 or 6 days depending on drive), jump at an average time of 7 days, then travel (again 4 or 6 days) to the planet on the other side where they again spend a day and then repeat.

The gas giant refueling path is similar. The ship spends a day in port, travels to the nearest jump point(4/6 days), jumps, travels to the gas giant and scoops (2 days) then travels to the other planet (5/7.5 days) where the cycle again repeats.

For salaries I have assumed an average salary of 5kCr/month for the command officers, 3kCr/month for the command crew, 3kCr/month for the engineers and 1.5kCr/month for the service crew.

I have assumed that for staterooms there is approximately 3 people per 2 staterooms. This could potentially be a little smaller.

I have assumed 350 useable days in a year (the other 15 are taken up by annual maintenance). There is less slack in this system then in the first case study.

 

[veltyen]

The results

1G Refinied Purchase
Cycle: 40 days, 8.75 cycles/year
Cargo moved: 601,020 dTon
Total Cost: 509.4 MCr
Cost/dTon: 848 Cr

2G Refinied Purchase
Cycle: 32 days, 10.938 cycles/year
Cargo Moved: 695,931 dTon
Total Cost: 538.86 MCr
Cost/dTon: 774 Cr

1G Unrefinied Purchase
Cycle: 40 days, 8.75 cycles/year
Cargo Moved: 583,380 dTon
Total Cost: 434.57 MCr
Cost/dTon: 745 Cr

2G Unrefined Purchase
Cycle: 32 days, 10.938 cycles/year
Cargo Moved: 695,866 dTon
Total Cost: 446.54
Cost/dTon: 642 Cr

1G Scooper
Cycle: 47 days, 7.45 cycles/year
Cargo Moved: 511,328 dTon
Total Cost: 417.15 MCr
Cost/DTon: 816 Cr

2G Scooper
Cycle: 38 days, 9.21 cycles/year
Cargo Moved: 585,826 dTon
Total Cost: 424.75 MCr
Cost/DTon: 725 Cr

Summary
1G 2G
Refinied 848 774
Unrefinied 745 642
Scoop 816 725

Again Landing and berthing fees have not been taken into account.

I'd typo'ed a constant on my first pass (number of days in a year) the end result was comparable to the first case study.

Conclusion

The ships have a big problem if there is not 700 kdTon of material to trasport back and forth.

No great surprise that if unrefined fuel is available it is always worth grabbing. At most the ships had 5 purification units (a tiny ammount) the oppurtunity cost of which is very high. This was due to the large minimum time to jump point.

I strongly suspect there is a sweet spot arround 1000 dTon due to crewing requirements. In this case 2/3rd's of the crew are janitors, which seems a little odd on a non-military craft.

 

[aramis]

Veltyn: please specify which ruleset you used for ship design. It can make HUGE differences.

 

[veltyen]

G'day Aramis,

Both scenarios were done using T20 rules.

Apologies, I'd thought that I had explicitly stated this in both cases.

 

[Straybow]

Mass production discount isn't for 20 units of one custom design, nor 20 units per year. More like 20 units per month to qualify. It typically applies to standard design small craft (cutter, pinnace, ship's boat, lifeboat, etc). Maybe the Type S bought by the gross for the ISS could qualify.

It is thoroughly demonstrated that Traveller economics don't work (iirc none of the original CT standard designs was profitable). There are web pages out there somewhere with such info. There are threads here at CotI discussing it.

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Straybow:
Mass production discount isn't for 20 units of one custom design, nor 20 units per year. More like 20 units per month to qualify. It typically applies to standard design small craft (cutter, pinnace, ship's boat, lifeboat, etc). Maybe the Type S bought by the gross for the ISS could qualify.

Nonsense. It is a standard design discount. Ask Boeing sometime if they get any economic benefit from producing more than one of each type of aircraft they produce. They don't have to produce lots each year to get benefits from the fact that it is a standard design.

Originally posted by Straybow:
It is thoroughly demonstrated that Traveller economics don't work (iirc none of the original CT standard designs was profitable). There are web pages out there somewhere with such info. There are threads here at CotI discussing it.

Actually, there are threads here showing it DOES work, at least in T20. I know, because I sat down and did the calculations. It especially works if you assume that the broking rules are not intended to model the economics of large scale interstellar trade ... after all there are few modifiers there for being a large regular customer, and (IIRC) NO cargoes that are in the kiloton range.

 

[Straybow]

Ask Boeing sometime if they get any economic benefit from producing more than one of each type of aircraft they produce.

Ask Boeing to make a DC-10 (certainly a standard design) and see if you get a discount.

They don't have to produce lots each year to get benefits from the fact that it is a standard design.

Then making small changes (eg, relative sizes of environmental and engineering compartments) should have almost no effect on "standard design" discount. The discount applies to the hull size and shape, hull openings, and other gross features. Everything else would be customizable at little extra cost as long as center of mass, thrust centerline, and a few other key quantities remained within specs.

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Straybow:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Ask Boeing sometime if they get any economic benefit from producing more than one of each type of aircraft they produce.

Ask Boeing to make a DC-10 (certainly a standard design) and see if you get a discount.</font>[/QUOTE]Well, that's the wrong TL isn't it? The point is that your assertion as to quantity was incorrect.

Originally posted by Straybow:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> They don't have to produce lots each year to get benefits from the fact that it is a standard design.

Then making small changes (eg, relative sizes of environmental and engineering compartments) should have almost no effect on "standard design" discount. The discount applies to the hull size and shape, hull openings, and other gross features. Everything else would be customizable at little extra cost as long as center of mass, thrust centerline, and a few other key quantities remained within specs.</font>[/QUOTE]Not sure what your point is here ... my point is that specifying that a design is a standard one gives a discount. Given that the T20 rules don't specify the nature of the discount, we have to make our own minds up about how they get it.

Book 2 says:

Standard designs are easier to produce, their prices reflect a 10% reduction in normal pricing.

My T4 FF&S says nothing about standard design discounts. But Megatraveller (or Book 5: High Guard?) set the discount at 20%, and I think mentioned that once the initial prototype was built then the discount applied.

Re-readng Book 2's section on standard designs I can see your POV, but I think the intention in T20 is to allow the GM to penalise custom designs, not make every design they do for their TU non-standard.

 

[mike wightman]

A book 2 design could also get a discount by using a standard hull,which provides quite a saving for the 100, 200, and 400 ton hulls.
Drive performance will be limited though, due to the small engineering sections.

 

[Straybow]

Falkayn, the point was that Boeing isn't able to make an arbitrarirly chosen model any cheaper just because it is somebody's standard design. It has to be a Boeing design for Boeing to make it cheaper.

And it definitely has a minimum figure. Introducing a new design involves speculating on whether they will get enough advance orders to write off tooling costs at the price level presented. Of course, a producer might decide to dump some on the market, like AirBus selling the A380 for $150M US .

But when we compare it to shipbuilding instead of airframes, volume discount appears to kick in at relatively low numbers. Cruise lines seem to launch 100kt+ vessels in pairs, but that may be due to other economic considerations.