Seasoning UWP's to taste...

[Able Baker]

Awesome thread.

One way to view the population number is also to assume it´s the number of planetary citizens.

The most important task the Census has, is to present a basis for Imperial taxation. So only Citizens of the Imperium are counted. I´m sure everybody can think of twelve dozen ways how the actual number of residents could differ from the number of citizens.

 

[dean]

Yes, it is an unrealistic assumption in certain cases. Glisten most certainly has multiple yards. The Bilstein Yards are mentioned repeatedly in canon and are said to specialize in certain kinds of construction; i.e. yachts, Leviathans, and floating palaces for theocrats among other things.

However, while Glisten has multiple yards (which may or may not be all lumped under TCS' pseudo-canonical capacity metric), it would be safe to say that Weiss, Bendor, and Grote do not. We're already straining plausibility to make a single Class A yard in those three systems "work", so presuming/suggesting that there are multiple starship building yards in those systems stretches things a wee bit too far IMHO.

In the Real World, there isn't just one shipyard in Korea or the United States. Multiple shipyards exist and, while they may not all compete for precisely the same market, their capabilties do somewhat overlap. However, only one shipyard in Korea builds VLCCs and only one shipyard in the US builds CVNs. While VLCCs and CVNs may not be precise Real World stand-ins for the OTU's starships, there should be some commonalities in their construction that we can explore.

Exactly. Extend that same line of reasoning. There are surely 6-10 shipyards on the planet that can handle construction of VLCCs and CVN sized ships. Economies and efficiencies of scale rule out (IMHO) the centrality of a mega-huge yard that builds all the ships on/around a world.

Even if a place like Bilstein has yards specialize and are noted for in one sort of ship construction, surely there's other yards there that will be willing and able to handle alternatives. I'd say that the luxury segment there is driven by the availability of craftsmen and materials that make a luxury ship luxurious (real wood for paneling, flooring, and objects; top artisan craftsmen to produce unique and one-off luxury appointments for the interiors), rather than simply the shipyard's capacities.

I'd say the aggregate capacity of the yards in any given region includes a set of large and small operators and that the chance for multiple operators within a single system is a function of population.

Agreed about the population factor. Any system with an "A" starport will certainly count the shipyards as one of the largest employers (in the yard and all ancillary industries).

Happy Travelling!

 

[rancke]

However, while Glisten has multiple yards (which may or may not be all lumped under TCS' pseudo-canonical capacity metric), it would be safe to say that Weiss, Bendor, and Grote do not. We're already straining plausibility to make a single Class A yard in those three systems "work", so presuming/suggesting that there are multiple starship building yards in those systems stretches things a wee bit too far IMHO.

And Binges! Don't forget Binges!

Seriously, Weiss would be one of those rare worlds with shipyards and less than millions of people that I'd keep, because it expressly isn't an independent society. It's owned by Glisten, so it's presumably an auxiliary naval yard belonging to the Glisten government that does a bit of civilian work on the side. A population of 70,000 allows for a sizable shipyard as long as it's a 'one-purpose' world with nothing but workers, support crew, and their families living there.

Bendor will work for a single, small yard building small ships (shipyard capacity of 8,000 T, according to TCS ).

Grote won't work with that population -- not as an independent world -- and neither will Binges.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Awesome thread.

One way to view the population number is also to assume it´s the number of planetary citizens.

The most important task the Census has, is to present a basis for Imperial taxation. So only Citizens of the Imperium are counted.

The Imperium taxes worlds, not individuals.

I´m sure everybody can think of twelve dozen ways how the actual number of residents could differ from the number of citizens.

Sure we can, but so far there has been very little indication in any Traveller material that this is a valid approach (A few world writeups, IIRC). Every economic rule we have is based on the official population level. Not being an Imperial citizen would keep you from being taxed (if the Imperium taxed individuals), but you'd still contribute to the economy of the world you're living on. So a world with 60 residents and tens of thousands of transients ought to generate freight and passengers as a pop 4 world, but there's no provision for that in the rules.

(There's also the sheer implausibility that the Imperium would consider, say, 60 hardscrabble miners as the legitimate owners of a world with tens of thousands of transients working for a company rather than the company).


Hans

 

[coliver988]

In the JTAS article 'A Referee's Guide to Planet Building' (it's in my 'best of #3', not sure which ones it originally showed up in), there is some discussion about fleshing out seemingly odd worlds.

In dealing with a population:

Craw has a population level of 6. This means between one and ten million inhabitants here, a rather small population even on so harsh a world. ... but 7 million is an awfully small number of people to support a budding industrial revolution. In order to give us a sufficient agrarian base on which to build, we will postulate a sizable population of intelligent, indigenous natives as well.

So in this case, a non-human, native intelligent species is not counted in the official population. So there's another possibility as officially given by GDW.

(The article also indicates that the planet, a size 5, has a lot of heavy metals making the gravity close to Earth-normal. I did way too much of that back in the 80's so I would not have to deal with the encumbrance rules)

 

[Whipsnade]

There are surely 6-10 shipyards on the planet that can handle construction of VLCCs and CVN sized ships.

Dean,

Don't confuse capacity with capability. Skills are as important as slip sizes.

Only one shipyard on the entire planet builds CVNs and it is in Newport News. Of course the market for CVNs isn't exactly huge either, especially now, but the Soviets never managed to build one even during the height of the Cold War.

Currently the biggest VLCCs are only built in one yard too. Again, the market is small and that yard can meet current demand. It simply isn't worth the effort for another yard to develop the skills, suppliers, and other bits necessary to crack into the market. The learning curve is steeper than the profit curve, so only one yard is currently in the business.

The container ship construction market is heading the same way too. One yard (or two at the very most) will own the "biggest" market alone, while others handle smaller construction.

The manufacture of large aircraft is in a similar situation. The planet has only two manufacturers, both of which are essentially subsidized by their respective governments. (Although Airbus is subsidized far more.)

If we see large, bleeding edge manufacturing of ships and aircraft limited to one or two organizations in the Real World, what can we then infer from that about the OTU? IM VERY HO, we can infer that the OTU's biggest, best, and/or bleeding edge starships, be they warships or merchants, are only built in a small number of locations.

While HG2 states that warships can be built anywhere regardless of size and TL because the parts can be always shipped in, I'd think that economics must wiegh in sooner or later. Arglebargle IX could very well strain every financial nerve putting together an Atlantic-class heavy cruiser from some very large kit, but that would be an exception. The vast majority of those heavy cruisers - or large merchantmen or long range survey craft or whatever - would be built by yards who have oriented themselves towards that kind of work.

What I'm trying to say is that the yard "market" should be segmented just as the trade "market" is segmented. Certain yards will be able to do certain things better than certain other yards, and all of them will still be Class A.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

And Binges! Don't forget Binges!

Hans,

D'oh! Another attack of Oldtimer's Disease!

Seriously, Weiss would be one of those rare worlds with shipyards and less than millions of people that I'd keep, because it expressly isn't an independent society. It's owned by Glisten, so it's presumably an auxiliary naval yard belonging to the Glisten government that does a bit of civilian work on the side.

Agreed, although I thought it was owned by Spinward Development Corp.? Either way, it's owned by someone and that's why it can support a Class A port.

Bendor will work for a single, small yard building small ships (shipyard capacity of 8,000 T, according to TCS ).

Agreed. A small yard servicing a niche in the market. Maybe free traders don't get bumped by the big boys for annual maintenance slots and thus show up in droves or maybe something else. Who knows?

Grote won't work with that population -- not as an independent world -- and neither will Binges.

Agreed. IMHO, Grote doesn't work in the OTU. (It works for various reasons IMTU, but that doesn't count.) Binges doesn't work either and for the same reasons.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Able Baker]

The Imperium taxes worlds, not individuals.

(There's also the sheer implausibility that the Imperium would consider, say, 60 hardscrabble miners as the legitimate owners of a world with tens of thousands of transients working for a company rather than the company).

Hans

Is that so? So what is this tax based upon? Most likely a contract from the time of entrance into the Imperium. And that´ll define the population.

See, when you think about it, planetary citizenship is pretty important. You have to belong to a planet to actually be anyone or anything in the 3i. I can elaborate if it´s unclear.

It´s pretty plausible that the planetary citizens are what form the basis for the pop codes.

I don´t see any implausability in the example! Where´s the problem?
How on earth could the Imperium do anything else? Bureaucratically implausible, I say. The rightful owners and citizens of a world are cataloged. The updates are provided via micro-census and the Scout service. I don´t see anyone in the Imperium keeping track of the number of transients. Such a degree of control would actually be pretty "un-imperial" ;-)

 

[Able Baker]

BTW, there is no need to get too much worked up on low pop Shipyards.

What´s their capacity? Depends on the market, as Mr. Whipsnade so nicely showed us. Now, is the market a funtion of the host world? No.

Starships are an interstellar good, and thusly a single digit pop shipyard does not need to baffle us. The only question we must ask ourselves is regarding the capacity over the whole market place.

Or differently: What´s the demand for Starships in, say, a sector?

Huge ships can be constructed by Jack & his cousins. Very few manpower needed. The industry to support is most likely decentralized, or "stellarized" too. There´s not much that has a better value per dton than starship parts.

Second tier supliers of starship subystems will also heavily specialize. Maybe even distributed over the whole sector. Remember: The division of labour is the winning thing for the Imperium, and a certain pop is needed to even attain and maintain TL-15. I´d say starships are definitely part of that. i don´t see single planets producing TL-15 ships all on their own, if they don´t have to. The parts will come from everywhere.

 

[Foxroe]

The most important task the Census has, is to present a basis for Imperial taxation. So only Citizens of the Imperium are counted.

You mean I gotta pay taxes here too!

coliver: Thanks for the JTAS reference! I always imagined that world populations could be boosted above the UWP level by transients (spacers, IN on liberty, etc.), but I never thought about non-Imperial natives.

-Fox

 

[coliver988]

You mean I gotta pay taxes here too!

coliver: Thanks for the JTAS reference! I always imagined that world populations could be boosted above the UWP level by transients (spacers, IN on liberty, etc.), but I never thought about non-Imperial natives.

-Fox

Most welcome. It's all in the interpretation of things. For instance:

Gents,

No one - as in NO ONE - has ever played in a pure OTU setting. There are always tweaks, however minor. That is the nature of RPG gaming.

Everyone can use the basic UWP, but how it is interpreted means everyone will probably see the same thing in a different light. Take world size: 8 = 8000 miles. Depending on how you interpret this: is it EXACTLY 8000 miles, or 7500-8499 miles? Unless somewhere in canon it gives the exact same size, people are going to have different interpretations. The Traveller framework is fairly open-ended, which to me is a great thing. But it does give people a lot of ammo for arguments simply due to how we interpret things.

And once you release your gamers into the OTU, they may impact it in ways that changes that universe; so to paraphrase: no OTU survives contact with players...

 

[dean]

Don't confuse capacity with capability. Skills are as important as slip sizes.

Agreed. Which was also the point I was making about the luxury shipyards.

Only one shipyard on the entire planet builds CVNs and it is in Newport News. Of course the market for CVNs isn't exactly huge either, especially now, but the Soviets never managed to build one even during the height of the Cold War.

I personally think that their inability was not so much a lack of capacity or capability as economics.

Currently the biggest VLCCs are only built in one yard too. Again, the market is small and that yard can meet current demand. It simply isn't worth the effort for another yard to develop the skills, suppliers, and other bits necessary to crack into the market. The learning curve is steeper than the profit curve, so only one yard is currently in the business.

All true. Again, I do believe that the economies of scale for the biggest builders are huge, and places them at an economic advantage to build the bigger ships more efficiently than a smaller builder with the capacity to build them. Experience also counts, but I think that barrier is much easier to overcome than the economics ones.

The container ship construction market is heading the same way too. One yard (or two at the very most) will own the "biggest" market alone, while others handle smaller construction.

The manufacture of large aircraft is in a similar situation. The planet has only two manufacturers, both of which are essentially subsidized by their respective governments. (Although Airbus is subsidized far more.)

Supporting the economic argument rather than the capacity/capability one.

If we see large, bleeding edge manufacturing of ships and aircraft limited to one or two organizations in the Real World, what can we then infer from that about the OTU? IM VERY HO, we can infer that the OTU's biggest, best, and/or bleeding edge starships, be they warships or merchants, are only built in a small number of locations.

Absolutely! I think we mostly differ in our views on the Most Important Reason why this is so. I think as long as a place has the capacity, capability issues can be overcome, IF there is economic incentive to do so.

While HG2 states that warships can be built anywhere regardless of size and TL because the parts can be always shipped in, I'd think that economics must wiegh in sooner or later. Arglebargle IX could very well strain every financial nerve putting together an Atlantic-class heavy cruiser from some very large kit, but that would be an exception. The vast majority of those heavy cruisers - or large merchantmen or long range survey craft or whatever - would be built by yards who have oriented themselves towards that kind of work.

What I'm trying to say is that the yard "market" should be segmented just as the trade "market" is segmented. Certain yards will be able to do certain things better than certain other yards, and all of them will still be Class A.

This is a great discussion, Bill. I agree with the substance of what you are saying; my original post reply and the follow-up was not intended to say that every small/small population world should be able to build a bleeding edge craft just because they're "A" at TL15.

Indeed, rereading that original post I think my point was that on worlds with a lot of capacity, excluding the production and repair of smaller ships just because the world is one of those that has the capacity, capability, and economic ability to build the biggest and best ships was spurious. On those worlds, in particular, the capacity would not be vested (generally, depending on government and law level, perhaps) in one entity. Smaller, peripheral yards would offer those services, taking advantage of the economic conditions created by the large yard.

Somewhere along the way, we got our intentions crossed.

 

[travlar]

Grote won't work with that population -- not as an independent world -- and neither will Binges.
Hans

The shipyard could be worked mostly by robots. Robots could do the food production as well if neccesary.

 

[BlackBat242]

Actually, the USSR had a CVN under construction when it all fell apart. The Ul'yanovsk was to be a 75,000-ton follow-on to the Kuznetsov class, with steam catapults to launch her aircraft (eliminating the ski-jump bow). Ul'yanovsk would have been the first Russian nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Her air wing would likely have been an expanded version of that found aboard Kuznetsov.

The first unit of the class was laid down at Nikolayev South in late 1988. However, work stopped on the vessel after the August coup, in November 1991, and never resumed. In early February of the following year, she was scrapped.



Also, I think DCN Brest would be upset... they built the French CVN Charles de Gaulle from 1987-1998.




And then... Airbus, Antonov, & Boeing all build very large commercial aircraft, now don't they?

And Illyushin isn't far behind... they are still building new Il-76s and their Il-96 is hardly small.

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/photos/photos/8/9/2/0928298.jpg

 

[hunter]

I removed the image, it was huge. It's also not polite to cross-link images like that. Eats the other site's bandwidth.

 

[BlackBat242]

OK, sorry.

 

[hunter]

NP just wanted to let you know what happened to it

 

[rancke]

Agreed, although I thought [Weiss] was owned by Spinward Development Corp.?

BtC says it's owned by Spinward Development Corp., has a Class IV starport, and that the government is corporate. The Regency Sourcebook says it is a captive government owned by Glisten and has a Class A starport. One of the two must be wrong (unless SDC bought Weiss from Glisten between 1117 and 1120, and the writeup in BtC says that it is an SDC development, which would be a contradiction no matter what).


Hans

 

[rancke]

The Imperium taxes worlds, not individuals.

Is that so? So what is this tax based upon? Most likely a contract from the time of entrance into the Imperium. And that´ll define the population.

Most likely based on the world's Gross World Production. Which would have very little to do with what you call the people who generate the wealth.

I'm pretty sure Imperial tax assessors would be singularly unimpressed by the suggestion that the would should only pay taxes based on what a small fraction of its population earned.

See, when you think about it, planetary citizenship is pretty important. You have to belong to a planet to actually be anyone or anything in the 3i. I can elaborate if it´s unclear.

Not unclear, just not backed by any canon I can think of.

(There's also the sheer implausibility that the Imperium would consider, say, 60 hardscrabble miners as the legitimate owners of a world with tens of thousands of transients working for a company rather than the company).

I don´t see any implausibility in the example! Where´s the problem?
How on earth could the Imperium do anything else? Bureaucratically implausible, I say. The rightful owners and citizens of a world are cataloged.

But what makes these 60 people the rightful owners instead of squatters? How did they become the rightful owners, and how do they manage to keep someone else from moving in and taking over? Like, for instance, the owners of the shipyard?

We've seen many examples of the Imperium being pretty pragmatic. Why isn't it being equally pragmatic in this particular example?


Hans

 

[rancke]

BTW, there is no need to get too much worked up on low pop Shipyards.

What´s their capacity? Depends on the market, as Mr. Whipsnade so nicely showed us. Now, is the market a function of the host world? No.

Starships are an interstellar good, and thusly a single digit pop shipyard does not need to baffle us. The only question we must ask ourselves is regarding the capacity over the whole market place.

They baffle me because there aren't any local sources of metal for the factories that make the subcomponents that the shipyard assembles. There's no local source of food for the people who do the work. There's no infrastructure to provide the services usually provided by those of the tertiary occupations. Everything has to be imported. This makes the end product more expensive. How does this shipyard compete? (This is also an answer to the rest of your post).



Hans