Trade Codes + Population as limiter for Hull Sizes in construction capability

[Spinward Flow]

I'm conceptualizing this notion in the context of CT (because CT is what I know), but the formulation works just as well for other editions of Traveller (I presume).

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It always felt a little bit ... hinky ... that type A and B starports had "no meaningful upper limits" placed on the hull sizes that they could construct in CT.

• LBB2 limited craft to 5000 tons because that was the limit of the design system.
• LBB5 limited craft to 1,000,000 tons because that was the limit of the design system ... although computer model tech level requirements effectively put an upper limit on hull sizes via a kind of back door.

But other than that ... it's basically "build anything, anywhere" with no meaningful guidance regarding the "limits" of shipyard construction capabilities, other than tech level (via backdoor methodology, and sometimes not even that!).

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What I propose is:

1. Worlds with Population: 0-6 (Non-industrial trade code), USP hull sizes are limited to the UWP population code.
   • Population: 2 world can construct up to Hull Size: 2 (200-299 tons) craft.
2. Worlds with Population: 7-A that are not Industrialized, USP hull sizes are limited to UWP tech level code.
   • Tech Level: C world can construct up to Hull Size: C (3000-3999 tons) craft.
3. Worlds with the Industrialized trade code are limited to Hull Size: Y (1,000,000 tons)

Point being that only the highest population Industrialized worlds are capable of constructing Big Ship Universe stuff (20k ton cruisers up through 500k ton dreadnoughts and the like). Meanwhile, on the lower end, there is a better grasp on the construction capacities of non-industrial shipyards limited to Small Ship Universe stuff that will mostly be classified as ACS.

With such a guideline in place, if I want to know "how big of a starship" a location such as Paya/Aramis/Spinward Marches is capable of constructing, I can simply look at the UWP (A655241-9) and note that although the mainworld has a type A starport, the Population: 2 will limit the construction capability there to Hull Size: 2 (200-299 tons) and TL=9 ... so if I want to build something 300+ tons in size, I'm going to need to take my business someplace other than Paya to get the job done.

For ACS market segments, this then gives a reasonable sliding scale for the expectations of "what can be built where" on the low end, while simultaneously emphasizing the importance of industrialized worlds (especially the higher tech industrialized ones!) on the upper end of the BCS.

So using the Spinward Marches as an example of how this plays out ... Glisten, Rhylanor, Mora and Trin all have type A starports and TL=F ... but only Glisten, Mora and Trin are industrialized worlds, Rhylanor is not.

So even though Rhylanor can build TL=F starships, the shipyard facilities at Rhylanor would be limited to a maximum Hull Size: F (6000-6999 tons), which is still "plenty" of any LBB2 design and most commercial shipping designs but doesn't reach all the way up really big LBB5 stuff.

However, any "big iron" Imperial Navy construction of cruisers up through dreadnoughts would have to come from Glisten, Mora or Trin as industrialized TL=F shipyards within the Spinward Marches sector.

Such a distinction in limitations then helps give ... added texture ... to the kinds of market segments that various type A/B starports can support when it comes to construction capacity, along with a better idea of the relative importance of industrialized worlds in the web of interstellar trade and military services.

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Thoughts?
If enough people support this idea, I'll cross-post this into the House Rules forum for preservation ... but right now I'm more interested in knowing what people think.

 

[McPerth]

Worlds with Population: 7-A that are not Industrialized, USP hull sizes are limited to UWP tech level code.

• Tech Level: C world can construct up to Hull Size: C (3000-3999 tons) craft.

Then Earth in IWs could only build ships up to hull code B-C, and even in golden era up to F (under 7000 dtons)...

A plaet whose UPP is 2 means that it has only hundreds of people on it or hundreds or permanent residents on it (so its census is hundreds of people, but many more may be on it on a temporary basis)? This has been discussed to boredom on other threads (though no hard consensus has been achieved).

Current world Anctartica has some hundreds of people on scientific bases. Should it be listed as POP 2 or as POP 0 (as no one is censed there, all being temporary residents)?

Pixie/Regina/Spinward Marches is used many times as tone of the best examples. It's is UPP A100103-D. Can an imperial base be kept by less than 100 people? or those people are the permanent residents, while the base has thousands of personnel (probably including a Marine force)?

And don't forget those people may be robot controlers, with the robots performing the bulk of the work, so Pixie could well be a robotized shipbuilding center with some thousends of temporary Navy personnel and just a handful permanent inhabitants...

 

[Spinward Flow]

Can an imperial base be kept by less than 100 people? or those people are the permanent residents, while the base has thousands of personnel (probably including a Marine force)?

My perspective on Pixie would be that the Naval Base there is separate from rather than "included within" the UWP stats. That's why the "N" for naval base is recorded apart from the UWP.

To answer your question more directly, Pixie would be (under my formulation) able to construct craft up to Hull Size: 1 (100-199 tons) on a contract basis to interested parties (outsiders, basically). The NAVAL BASE, however, would be an exception that falls "outside" of that.

If it helps, think of the Pixie's Population: 1 as the civilian contractors who are permanently stationed at Pixie to support operations there. That means that there are (strictly speaking via RAW) between 10-99 permanent residents who are NOT a part of the Naval Base living there who would be able to service non-naval activities and requests.

The naval base there would be its own separate thing, capable of supporting IN operations up to TL=15 standard (as opposed to the UWP TL=13 standard) and would NOT be available on a contract basis for "just anyone" who comes asking (unless if they're an invasion force who intend to occupy the place).

So to broaden this out to a place like Rhylanor/Rhylanor ... for COMMERCIAL purposes, the shipyard can construct up to Hull Size: F (6000-6999 tons) that can be contracted to private individuals and private/public corporations, etc. who are willing (and able) to pay. The Naval Base, however, does not necessarily need to observe those restrictions for IN construction projects contracted by the IN ... an important distinction.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that Naval/Scout/Waystation/etc. Bases would "waive" the above house rule in limited and specific ways that would ordinarily not be available to a Traveller PC who has mustered out of their career path.

So good idea there on the Exceptions Due To Bases.

 

[Condottiere]

Comes down to the actual industrial base.

Limitations might have more to do about the size of the drives, rather than the hull.

 

[McPerth]

But, again, if earth during the IW could only build ships up to UPP size code B initially (under 3000 dron) or C latter (under 3000 dton), and I guess the naval base exception does not apply, as it cannot rely on external people, how could it confront the Vilani ships? or develop the spinals (that would not fit on those ships)?

If you want to limit it, TCS approach seems more logical to me (though it doesn't adress the non-permanent residents issue, or what you called Exceptions Due To Bases)

According TCS rules, Pixie could build a size Y ship, it just would take more than one generation to do it...

 

[whartung]

Comes down to the actual industrial base.

Indeed. There could well be an example of a "ship yard" world who's main focus IS the shipyard, so may well be able to build larger hulls than its pop code may suggest.

Also, shouldn't the pop code limit overall throughput rather than just size?

I mean, I appreciate the goal. Its not as if these hulls consume any considerable space (either on planet or in orbit), there's room to spare most anywhere. But consider the USS Gerald Ford, which is roughly 140KDtons, but supposedly had 5000 shipbuilders involved in the project.

That definitely a lot for a smaller world (when you consider the workers families and overall societal load necessary to support 5000 workers), but nothing for a larger one.

But if those 5000 workers work for 6 years instead of 3, could they have made a 300KDTon ship? I reckon. Could they have made 10 14KDton ships in the time it took to make one 140KDton ship? I'm sure it scales to a point. But, naturally there's a balance. Why would a world dedicate its work force to a single project like that for so long.

So, anyway, there's some other things to consider regarding this.

 

[Condottiere]

It's not exactly a coincidence I came up with that observation.

I'm working my way through the Confederation Navy and it's industrial base, and it strikes me that the only way they can be a near peer competitor with the Imperium navy, is by picking from a limited number of component choices, and then mass producing them.

In theory, you could build a ten tonne jump drive in your garage - more likely, in a dedicated five hundred tonne factory that eats up a large amount of electricity and costs five hundred megastarbux.

 

[TamsinP]

I mean, I appreciate the goal. Its not as if these hulls consume any considerable space (either on planet or in orbit), there's room to spare most anywhere. But consider the USS Gerald Ford, which is roughly 140KDtons, but supposedly had 5000 shipbuilders involved in the project.

I'm not sure where you got that size from as the Gerald Ford class is only a bit bigger than the Nimitz class. The Nimitz class is listed as having a GRT of 109,958 which converts to 311,366.7 m^3 which converts to 23,064.2 dTons (@1dTon = 13.5 m^3).

 

[Spinward Flow]

Comes down to the actual industrial base.

Exactly ... and I'm using the population code as a proxy to determine this.

if earth during the IW could only build ships up to UPP size code B initially (under 3000 dron) or C latter (under 3000 dton)

For NON-MILITARY craft ... YES.
For MILITARY craft ... if there's a military base (say, a Naval Base) ... then the limitation is waived for military construction (thanks to the insight you provided).

Its not as if these hulls consume any considerable space (either on planet or in orbit), there's room to spare most anywhere.

The limitation is going to be the drydock/airdock space for integration/construction within.
I'm simply proposing that the "size of the construction space" is not infinite everywhere in ways that would be relevant to PCs in a Traveller campaign.

picking from a limited number of component choices, and then mass producing them.

The age old maxim about "Quantity has a Quality all of its own" definitely applies.
SUPER weapons rarely win wars. It's usually the "bog standard boring" stuff mass produced that wins wars.

For example ... the old joke about Shermans vs Tiger tanks.
A Tiger can destroy 10 Shermans ... but there's always an 11th Sherman ...

Industrialized warfare is a battle of supplies and logistics that you're willing to "expend on combat" ... and that requires STUFF™ in staggering quantities and the useful organization thereof.

 

[coliver988]

and I've explained the population vs starport size issue is that the starport population may well exceed local population. I've at least 3 SPA (Star Port Authority) career paths (JTAS had one) so the SPA people, just like a lot of the other careers, tend to move from port to port based on the term. So the starport always has enough people to do what it needs to regardless of local population or even tech level. It is, after all, basically an Imperial reserve on the planet, and technically NOT part of the system.

Heck - my current game started on Zeng, a class A port with 10K people. Yet is also has a Naval and Scout base. So in MTU version, 80% of that port is Navy and Scouts, and the SPA maintaining the civilian side has a personnel population to challenge the "native" population. And most of the "native" population lives near the port as it has the only thing going on. And like most Naval towns, there are a lot of Navy (and Scout) personnel on leave.

A hand wave, but hey, it is a happy little parade-style hand wave that works for me.

edit: the SPA, Navy & Scout populations on worlds do not count as part of the population code. Just to be a bit more clear.

 

[TamsinP]

Just to add to this, there are CT rules for shipyard capacity in LBB A05: Trillion Credit Squadron. A quick scan suggests that maximum ship size is dependent on a formula using the Pop and Gov codes, with TL placing an upper limit (so a high pop world might have the capacity to build a 1,000,000 dTon vessel but the TL limits it to 10,000 dTon).

 

[Spinward Flow]

there are CT rules for shipyard capacity in LBB A05: Trillion Credit Squadron

True.
However that is an explicitly militarized context.

Civilian construction is no doubt related (I mean, how could it not be?), while at the same time not being exactly the same.

So while LBB A5 is great if you're an admiral in charge of a procurement program for a polity ... it doesn't exactly translate all that ideally if you're a corporation wanting to sign contracts for civilian construction projects (including private individuals).

 

[TamsinP]

True.
However that is an explicitly militarized context.

Civilian construction is no doubt related (I mean, how could it not be?), while at the same time not being exactly the same.

So while LBB A5 is great if you're an admiral in charge of a procurement program for a polity ... it doesn't exactly translate all that ideally if you're a corporation wanting to sign contracts for civilian construction projects (including private individuals).

I was thinking that you could use it as a basis for determining the size/capacity of the civilian shipyards.

From what I remember, most IN ships are built under contract by civilian shipyards.

 

[Condottiere]

I tend to view shipyards as assembly points.

 

[Spinward Flow]

From what I remember, most IN ships are built under contract by civilian shipyards.

It's ... (almost certainly purposefully) left vague in the CT sources, so as to not corral things in too tightly (I'm sure).

When you've got a SMALL map ... like a single subsector (let's call it, Regina, in 1979) ... there isn't really any need whatsoever to worry about these kinds of limitations. As originally published in LBB A1 and LBB S3, the Regina subsector had all of 5 type A starports in it and LBB2.77 was the RAW for starship construction, so it really wasn't that big of an issue.

But when you start mapping out an entire SECTOR (or several!) such that there is this wide swath of possible star systems with shipyards to go to in order to place a construction order contract ... it starts becoming a more pertinent question in terms of "why here and not there?" for the flow of economic power in the sector.

All of these things are just like the others
All of these places are exactly the same!

When you start getting as much VARIETY in a location as is available in a sector map, it starts making sense to try and work out things like "this part of the map is good at this, while that part of the map is good at that" and allow some measure of differentiation and specialization to emerge, rather than leveling the playing field to such an extent that it becomes a boring, featureless, flat two dimensional plane with nothing of interest in it.

Even something as simple as saying:

• Vilis/Vilis specializes in TL=10 paramilitary starships such as the Type-T Patrol Cruiser and other system policing ships
• Lunion/Lunion and Strouden/Lunion specilaize in TL=13 commercial ships sold to corporate fleets
• Glisten/Glisten constructs asteroid monitors and jump tenders
• Mora/Mora constructs cruisers and dreadnoughts (because all ships are female! )
• Trin/Trin's Veil specializes in fighters and carriers

... and so on and so forth. Even just a simple little notion like that concerning specialties starts making the different locations and shipyards around the sector "feel more alive" because they're not Just Mere Stats™ anymore. They have things that they're particularly good at, enough to build a reputation around (even if it's just Fluff Text™ that I'm making up off the cuff as an example purely for demonstration purposes).

That kind of added texture to the setting promotes immersion and gives it a necessary "flavoring" that can then be a springboard for all kinds of story and adventure ideas.

 

[TamsinP]

I suspect that a lot of the problem when we think about ship sizes and shipyard capacities is the effect of Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica etc where military ships dwarf the typical civilian ships. Present day civilian ships greatly outnumber military ships, and are on average larger overall. Taking the USS Gerald Ford as an example as the current largest military vessel, there are thousands of civilian ships which are larger.

In the 3I, the situation wouldn't be greatly different. There will be more civilian ships and their total tonnage will heavily dwarf that of the IN (even if the largest civilian ships are dwarfed by those of the IN). Therefore, civilian shipyards would necessarily be bigger than military ones. At least in terms of capacity; however, rather than building, for instance, a single 100,000 dTon battleship they may be building fifty 2,000 dTon freighters or liners.

 

[Kakistocrat]

What I propose is:

1. Worlds with Population: 0-6 (Non-industrial trade code), USP hull sizes are limited to the UWP population code.
   • Population: 2 world can construct up to Hull Size: 2 (200-299 tons) craft.
2. Worlds with Population: 7-A that are not Industrialized, USP hull sizes are limited to UWP tech level code.
   • Tech Level: C world can construct up to Hull Size: C (3000-3999 tons) craft.
3. Worlds with the Industrialized trade code are limited to Hull Size: Y (1,000,000 tons)

Thoughts?

Yup, I occasionally have ’em, flaws and all.

Since the Industrialized trade code doesn’t require a minimum technological index, would all starship-constructing worlds require a minimum technological index of 9, per 1977 Book 3, p. 11? (Similarly, would all starship-drive-constructing worlds require minimum technological indices of between A and F, depending upon the particular drive type?) Or would an A starport effectively be considered to have its own technological index of at least 9, even if its world has a lower technological index (it’s not a likely outcome, but it is a possible outcome), so that all A starports can construct starships, per 1977 Book 3, p. 5?

 

[Spinward Flow]

Therefore, civilian shipyards would necessarily be bigger than military ones. At least in terms of capacity; however, rather than building, for instance, a single 100,000 dTon battleship they may be building fifty 2,000 dTon freighters or liners.

Exactly.
Total construction capacity per year is not the same as a maximum tonnage limit per hull.

would all starship-constructing worlds require a minimum technological index of 9, per 1977 Book 3, p. 11? (Similarly, would all starship-drive-constructing worlds require minimum technological indices of between A and F, depending upon the particular drive type?) Or would an A starport effectively be considered to have its own technological index of at least 9, even if its world has a lower technological index (it’s not a likely outcome, but it is a possible outcome), so that all A starports can construct starships, per 1977 Book 3, p. 5?

This is where things get tricky ...
The best answer is one of "IT DEPENDS" on what you're building (and what you're putting into it) ... and how your Referee prefers to adjudicate this kind of question.

There are different ways to finesse this question, but the safest one is to assume (for starters) that a world's tech level is going to be an upper bound limit on what can go into construction of a craft.

If you're going "custom build" using LBB5.80 exclusively, then you're going to be dependent on the local (world) supply chain, so whatever the UWP tech level is, that's as high as you can can go.

If you're using "commercial off the shelf" parts pulled from LBB2.81 (or LBB2.77 if you want to reach that far back), such items "can be imported and kept in stock" for use in repairs, maintenance and construction projects (theoretically speaking) and would therefore be a potential exception to the "local tech level is the limit" foundational assumption.

So for custom jobs, you're stuck with Local Only sourcing for tech level.
For commercial off the shelf (COTS) parts, such as drives and sand/lasers/missiles turrets, you can exceed the local tech level "with permission from the Referee" (so make a case to justify the exception).



Now, as a Referee, I would use the same ruling for annual overhaul maintenance requirements as well.

So if a ship is TL=13 and has custom drives installed in it (for example) then you must go to a TL=13+ world with a type A/B starport to get annual overhaul maintenance done (TL=12- won't be able to manufacture the custom parts and spares needed, etc. etc.).

By contrast, a TL=10 ship with standard drives and commercial off the shelf weapons could receive annual overhaul maintenance at pretty much any type A/B starport, regardless of tech level, due to the use of standard (not custom) engineering components, which the starport can be safely presumed to keep in stock (even if TL=9-).

So that then turns into a kind of "logistical advantage" for designing starships with standardized commercial off the shelf engineering and components which can be supplied and supported "almost anywhere" ... unlike more specialized/efficient custom jobs in design and engineering that are more "tailored" to a singular ship class and hull form factor.

 

[kilemall]

IIRC the TCS rules were defining total tonnage per year, and then there was a build rate per ton causing those bigger ships to stretch into years. So that doesn’t impose a size limit, just overall capacity.

I would think the HG computer limits govern ship size for HG design ships, and the letter drive tech limits limit LBB2 sizes, plus computers might limit J drives for jump program limits at the cheaper model numbers.

I took TCS to mean total shipyard capacity. You could use the peace/war percentage to get a ratio of military only capacity at peace, and the difference at war minus peace is the civilian yard capacity.

That’s not a direct stat, but inferred by the different valuation a government type places on militarism/preparedness vs actual emergency production with the civil yards militarized.

That part might be interesting to manage, how much transport vessel do you need to set aside at max war footing just to keep your industrial base at full tilt? You may need more freight ships plus replacement for convoy losses.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

The ability of quite small historic civilisations to construct stuff over many, many hectares of land and to several stories in height suggest that the overall size of the final object isn't the limitation suggested. The speed of construction may be slow. The size may be limited by technological constraints. but the number of workers available isn't going to affect the (sometimes unreasonable) vision. e.g. Cathedrals took hundreds to years (sometimes) to construct. And at 25% of a town in size, they were, by the standards of the time, huge.