Why did it take so long to deal with Silesia?

kzt wrote:David has been very vague about how asteroid mining is done in the Honorverse. Assuming it works like most of us have envisioned it - Which is a very capital intense process using lasers, tractor beams and wedges to cut up asteroids - then it really doesn't matter whether the mining platform is in a local asteroid belt or in some other systems. The cost difference is that a hauler going 2 light hours from mining platform to processing plant doesn't need a hyperdrive, and that presumably you need both less ships and less expensive ships to keep the platform running 24x7.

There are staffing issues that would come up that seem to make running this in a remote uninhabited system kind of a pain, but probably doable. Deep sea oil platforms don't do crew swaps every couple of weeks because the oil companies want to employ more crew, it's because it's cheaper and/or more effective then the alternatives.

Also a sub-light local hauler doesn't need alpha nodes that can reconfigure to Warshawski sails, thus saving even more money.

J6P wrote:

Uroboros wrote:
Here's one. You're making an assumption based on the raw materials and our "trade" materials being driven around. People are not going to export coal
So, yes, your numbers are way off.

What is your address? That way I can send you some reading glasses...

You might want to be clearer on what you mean, if I got your meaning wrong, most likely a lot of other people did as well. Instead of being snarky and rude. I tried reading what you wrote, and just guessed at what you were trying to get at.

Daryl wrote:So RFC regarding his universe says "It is thus possible to transport even such bulk items as raw ore or food stuffs profitably over interstellar distances."

Then a commenter here says ""Possible" does not mean "probable." I cannot imagine it'd be cheaper to transport an entire transport of bulk ore"

Now who's opinion will I go with? Decisions, decisions?

His universe, his rules, live with it!

Again, I said, not at the numbers he's describing. Not that they don't exist.

Uroboros wrote:You might want to be clearer on what you mean, if I got your meaning wrong, most likely a lot of other people did as well. Instead of being snarky and rude. I tried reading what you wrote, and just guessed at what you were trying to get at.

"So, in 2005-2008, the total of actual trade of goods, not bulk goods, is no more than 2.4Billion tons from roughly a population of 7 Billion. "


Fisrt sentence of the paragraph DIRECTLY after delineating the percentage of bulk goods? Yea, oh so confusing...

I am with Lord Skimper on ship numbers.

His numbers might be off, but with trillions of people living in the Honorverse one would expect interstellar freight to be on the same per capita tonnage as contemporary society. This includes places like Africa that generally produce nothing of value except maybe raw materials.

Assume 1 trillion tons ofintersteller cargo per year.

Assume average ship cargo tonnage of 5 million tons.

Equals 200,000 ship loads (or should I write "shitloads" of cargo) per year distributed over 2,000 systems.

Equals an average of two ships per week average for each system.

Assume average transit time of may be 1/10 year, then you need 20,000 ships.

Skimper's higher number is plausible.

Lord Skimper wrote:2012 earth sea world trade was 9.165 billion tonnes of mixed cargo. Up 4 billion tonnes since 2000. Assuming we go up 10 to 100 times once asteroids start getting mined. In the next 2000+ years....

If ships are making 3 month journeys, that would be, using 5 million tonne ships. At 12 billion tonnes. 6,00-1,200 freighters for Earth alone. If you keep it pegged at 12 billion tons Multiply that by 60 main worlds and your looking at 12 billion tons per core world and 60 systems would be 36,000 to 72,000 ships of just goods.

At 2012 levels.

10 times levels would be 360,000 to 720,000 ships.


Lots and lots and lots of ships.

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=w ... 0081,d.cGE

namelessfly wrote:I am with Lord Skimper on ship numbers.

His numbers might be off, but with trillions of people living in the Honorverse one would expect interstellar freight to be on the same per capita tonnage as contemporary society. This includes places like Africa that generally produce nothing of value except maybe raw materials.

Assume 1 trillion tons ofintersteller cargo per year.

Assume average ship cargo tonnage of 5 million tons.

Equals 200,000 ship loads (or should I write "shitloads" of cargo) per year distributed over 2,000 systems.

Equals an average of two ships per week average for each system.

Assume average transit time of may be 1/10 year, then you need 20,000 ships.

Skimper's higher number is plausible.

Your 1 Trillion tons of cargo assumes a population increase of only 100 times?

Lets look at ART. There are roughly 10,000 delegates in the SL assembly(Its actually ~11,000, but close enough). Beowulf, when one averages their number of delegates to their guesstimated population roughly equates to each delegate equaling at minumum 1 Billion people. It could be 1 delegate equals 2 Billion. It is certainly not less than a Billion people per delegate! SL, by itself has around 10 Trillion people and as many as 20 Billion.

Now include the Protectorates and the Verge. Add another 2?->5? trillion or thereabouts.

HV at a minimum must have around 10-15 Trillion people. crudely 2000 times our current population. If you want to call it 1500 times, OK. Close enough.

You slipped either an order of magnitude or a near order of magnitude.

Your 200,000 becomes 2,000,000 shiploads

Your 20,000 ships becomes 200,000 ships

PS. From the little I have read on this subject matter, 20% of a ships capacity is on average empty. Now the real question is what density is average for goods? We know "roughly" HV density is 0.25. If average on earth is 0.5, that would halve the needed HV freighters. I believe average density on earth is around 0.2 and lower. But, I cannot find where I found that number again so I could be smoking something I shouldn't be. What is known is that the maximum density for TEU's is ~0.7 without special permits etc etc.

Things are getting heated up regarding the numbers...

I guess that there's only one thing to do about it...

Uroboros wrote:Here's one. You're making an assumption based on the raw materials and our "trade" materials being driven around. People are not going to export coal to another planet, nor raw iron, nor are they going to stuff a ship full of Nike's and send it off to Manticore. It wouldn't make sense. Every system does not need to haul around base resources and products to other systems, it's a waste of money, and frankly, a waste of resources.

Weird Harold wrote:According to More Than Honor:

The Universe of Honor Harrington
In More than Honor
wrote:(2) Warshawski Sail Logistics
By their very natures, the impeller drive and Warshawski Sail had a tremendous impact on the size of spacecraft. With the advent of the impeller drive, mass as such ceased to be a major consideration for sublight travel. With the introduction of the Warshawski Sail, the same became true for starships, as well. In consequence, bulk cargo carriers are entirely practical. Transport of interplanetary or interstellar cargoes is actually cheaper than surface or atmospheric transportation (even with countergrav transporters), though even at 1,200 c (the speed of an average bulk carrier) hauling a cargo 300 light-years takes 2.4 months. It is thus possible to transport even such bulk items as raw ore or food stuffs profitably over interstellar distances.

So yes, pretty much everything that is transported around Earth would have equivalents being transported around interstellar space.

Uroboros wrote:"Possible" does not mean "probable." I cannot imagine it'd be cheaper to transport an entire transport of bulk ore when you have things like asteroid belts right at your doorstep. I imagine in systems light on asteroids, it might be worth it, but, for the most part? I really cannot see it being done en masse, at least, Not at the numbers being specified by his math. Especially not when it takes so long to transport goods over interstellar distances. You don't need to supply an entire planet with all (or even most!) it's goods from yet another planet. If that was the case, everyone would have starved to death already.

You're missing one factor: the Awesome Power of Plot. RFC wants there to be lots of interstellar shipping, so there is lots of interstellar shipping even though it makes absolutely no sense given the rest of the factors known or assumed to be operating.

Oh I had so forgotten about that quote. Who in their right mind would transport bulk materials 300 light years?

SL is a whopping 400LY across with 1800 planets not even counting the Shell or protectorates. Your average bulk carrier is going to be the nearest system to a populated planet with an a steroid belt. Probably no more than 10 LY. Lets be UBER generous and round WAY UP and call it 30LY just in case most all stars in SL space are deficient in asteroids...

HV has fusion power and thus tranport of bulk materials will be at minimum half per capita what it is today. Oil/coal gonzos. Of course over half of earth's population hardly uses any coal/oil/LNG. All use products but they are produced locally.

As for delegate to population numbers, I have pegged each SL delegate equivalent to around 750,000 Million to 1.5Billion.

Intersteller transport I would peg at less than a quarter of what is transported per capita, as low as 5% per capita on earth today in HV in the SL proper. Shell and Verge per capita intersteller transport I would peg at less than 10% per capita and among the verge, less than 5% going to 0%.

WAG guess at number of actual transports should be less than 50,000. Of course if this is the case we have just as many warships in the HV as transports.

Now a tidy number of actual transports to Warships should be around 10:1 at minimum. Bit hard to categorize this on earth today, as there are lots of smaller transports along with plenty of small gunboats that are labeled as "ships" so go figure.

So, I have to conclude, that due to power of plot, the actual number of HV transports must be in excess of 200,000 and as many as 500,000.

Which brings up another conundrum. Where the heck are all of these transports built? Manticore built a large percentage. Does this mean 15%? 35%? To be a large percentage, I would bet on the 35% at minimum going towards 50%. If transports last over 100 years, that is still 2000-5000 built a year. This correlates to 700-2000 transports built each year in Manticoran space. Well, used to be built there anyways. Approx 1000 ships are built on earth today.

wastedfly wrote:
Which brings up another conundrum. Where the heck are all of these transports built? Manticore built a large percentage. Does this mean 15%? 35%? To be a large percentage, I would bet on the 35% at minimum going towards 50%. If transports last over 100 years, that is still 2000-5000 built a year. This correlates to 700-2000 transports built each year in Manticoran space. Well, used to be built there anyways. Approx 1000 ships are built on earth today. Large ships that is. Plenty more small ships are produced.

SKM stopped building freighters for at least a decade, they were buying them from others people, like allies. Probably from the SL too, as thousands of freighters a year is an enormous number.

I've assumed that every core world builds freighters, at least a few per year.

kzt wrote:

wastedfly wrote:
Which brings up another conundrum. Where the heck are all of these transports built? Manticore built a large percentage. Does this mean 15%? 35%? To be a large percentage, I would bet on the 35% at minimum going towards 50%. If transports last over 100 years, that is still 2000-5000 built a year. This correlates to 700-2000 transports built each year in Manticoran space. Well, used to be built there anyways. Approx 1000 ships are built on earth today. Large ships that is. Plenty more small ships are produced.

SKM stopped building freighters for at least a decade, they were buying them from others people, like allies. Probably from the SL too, as thousands of freighters a year is an enormous number.

I've assumed that every core world builds freighters, at least a few per year.

Friend kzt, I agree that the Core worlds all could build freighters if they wanted to, but would they?

Passenger Airplanes are most built by the US, Airbus (mostly in France/Germany), Russia and China. Brazil and Canada build airliners too, but small (under 100 passengers) commuters.

Why would a Core World invest billions (yea, trillions) to build an infrastructure to make, maybe, 10-20 freighters (because if you are doing it, so are your neighbors--your logic holds for them also). It also assumes the Governments are doing this--not the Transtellars who actually are doing the commerce. Given that the SL appears to be more or less capitalist, that doesn't compute.

Seems to me more likely that there are 10-20 yards in various parts of the SL that do the major building (probably under long-term contracts with numerous planets), while most of the core have what is known as "Fixed Base Operations" that can do repairs and provide spares support for hyper-capable ships, and maybe even build smaller (in-system) craft for planetary use.

It just seems economically rash to have every Core system building freighters, if that is what you are saying.

IMHO as always. YMMV.