Lacöon I

lyonheart wrote:
Tens of millions employed in building starships might describe Manticore, but who in the SL begins to come close in matching the OSK's starship production, or builds even 5%?

Hutch wrote:

Zakharra wrote:Those two nations shipyards wouldn't last long in a prolonged war. Not with the missiles, long range bombers/fighters and aircraft carriers and submarines we have. N. Korea's would be pathetically easy to take out. China's a little more difficult, but no where near impossible to do.

Just for the record, Zakharra, South Korea is the shipbuilding giant, not the North.

That said, I tend to agree that commercial shipbuilding (of freighters larger than 1MT--smaller, intra-system shipyards probably exist in almost all developed systems) is probably concentrated in a few shipyards.

Just for grins, imagine the SL-flagged fleets (non-Manticorian) totals 60,000 ships of 1MT or larger--which I think is high, but for arguments sake, let's use it. Let us also say that freighters have a useful life of 40 years (I suspect it will be much higher, given even modest updates and servicing) and this gives us a 'turnover' rate of 1,500/year. Add 500 additional ships per year (as trade increases) and you need to have facilities to build 2,000 freighters/year.

With nearly 1,900 Member systems, it is unlike that they all have facilities to build on average one frieghter a year. 20 yards building 100 Freighters a year (or 10 building 200) makes a lot more economic sense.

So I think those systems may find themselves visited by the GA sooner rather than later. The infrastructure may not be destroyed (winning hearts and minds), but I would think those yards would not be allowed to deliver thier production to any systems that had not signed treaties with the GA.

We shall see, eventually....IMHA as always. YMMV.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Hutch,

Kudos as usual for your excellent points!

My only nit is that Honorverse freighters last centuries, not surprising since they're based on the same alloys etc, if not better, that the colony ships were built from.

So the need for new ships built in the SL is reduced by another order of magnitude.

One reason I suggested the MMM's having 40,000 ships is that 200 built per year meant the oldest were only 200 years old, given the odds they would sell a perfectly good freighter ["only 2 centuries! Lots of life left in her"] because its finally time to take advantage of the tech advances of the past 200 years, while the freighter had earned the company a profit for 190+ years after paying off its construction cost.

L

Hutch wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi Hutch,

Kudos as usual for your excellent points!

My only nit is that Honorverse freighters last centuries, not surprising since they're based on the same alloys etc, if not better, that the colony ships were built from.

So the need for new ships built in the SL is reduced by another order of magnitude.

One reason I suggested the MMM's having 40,000 ships is that 200 built per year meant the oldest were only 200 years old, given the odds they would sell a perfectly good freighter ["only 2 centuries! Lots of life left in her"] because its finally time to take advantage of the tech advances of the past 200 years, while the freighter had earned the company a profit for 190+ years after paying off its construction cost.

L

Concur Lyonheart, I used 40 years to be as pessimistic as possible, but more likely the ships are in service for 100+ years, perhaps being shuffled off to less-lucrative routes or sold to the 'neobarbs' as they age.

But even using my pessimistic numbers, they re can't be more than 10-20 yards building freighters in the SL--it just doesn't make economic sense otherwise.

Don't see you on the list for Honorcon this year--maybe next time.

wastedfly wrote:There are effectively only 2 nations on earth building freighters. Korea and China. Yes, plenty of 1st tier nations still have shipping yards building one off ships, maybe even 2 or 3 off ships, but no one else in the world is building ships on an assembly line. Everyone else is doing just fine...

Lets hope there is no war as there are effectively only 2 nations on earth who can build a war navy and one of those is a tiny po dunk country who has been the others vassal or near vassel state for the last 1000 years.

Why only 2 nations? Because both countries effectively subsidize the industries and the freighters are being sold at below market value. Now in the Honorverse, this is effectively what Manticore has been doing via the wormhole network. Where the rest of the freighters are being built? Who knows.

saber964 wrote:

wastedfly wrote:There are effectively only 2 nations on earth building freighters. Korea and China. Yes, plenty of 1st tier nations still have shipping yards building one off ships, maybe even 2 or 3 off ships, but no one else in the world is building ships on an assembly line. Everyone else is doing just fine...

Lets hope there is no war as there are effectively only 2 nations on earth who can build a war navy and one of those is a tiny po dunk country who has been the others vassal or near vassel state for the last 1000 years.

Why only 2 nations? Because both countries effectively subsidize the industries and the freighters are being sold at below market value. Now in the Honorverse, this is effectively what Manticore has been doing via the wormhole network. Where the rest of the freighters are being built? Who knows.

Actually your wrong, currently there are a multitude of countries building merchant ships. Finland is building cruise liners for Carnival, NCL, Holland-America, Princess Cruses and B&O, also the US is building ULCC and VLCC tankers for the Alaska to CONUS run. IIRC Todd-Pacific is currently building ferries for the Washington ferry system and several for export.

Hutch wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi Hutch,

Kudos as usual for your excellent points!

My only nit is that Honorverse freighters last centuries, not surprising since they're based on the same alloys etc, if not better, that the colony ships were built from.

So the need for new ships built in the SL is reduced by another order of magnitude.

One reason I suggested the MMM's having 40,000 ships is that 200 built per year meant the oldest were only 200 years old, given the odds they would sell a perfectly good freighter ["only 2 centuries! Lots of life left in her"] because its finally time to take advantage of the tech advances of the past 200 years, while the freighter had earned the company a profit for 190+ years after paying off its construction cost.

L

Concur Lyonheart, I used 40 years to be as pessimistic as possible, but more likely the ships are in service for 100+ years, perhaps being shuffled off to less-lucrative routes or sold to the 'neobarbs' as they age.

But even using my pessimistic numbers, they re can't be more than 10-20 yards building freighters in the SL--it just doesn't make economic sense otherwise.

Don't see you on the list for Honorcon this year--maybe next time.

Joat42 wrote: quote="saber964"]quote="wastedfly"]There are effectively only 2 nations on earth building freighters. Korea and China. Yes, plenty of 1st tier nations still have shipping yards building one off ships, maybe even 2 or 3 off ships, but no one else in the world is building ships on an assembly line. Everyone else is doing just fine...

Lets hope there is no war as there are effectively only 2 nations on earth who can build a war navy and one of those is a tiny po dunk country who has been the others vassal or near vassel state for the last 1000 years.

Why only 2 nations? Because both countries effectively subsidize the industries and the freighters are being sold at below market value. Now in the Honorverse, this is effectively what Manticore has been doing via the wormhole network. Where the rest of the freighters are being built? Who knows.