Space Industry

Where is majority of shipyards of League and other majors power? Manticore had them in Manticore System. Grayson had them in their home system. About Haven and League we don't know anything, only bit of information is that Hyperion One was on the orbit of Mars.
Why their are building them inside systems? Shouldn't it be easier to just build them in the interstellar space? There is very low chance that somebody will find them and we could transport there raw materials.
In some books there is something about mining minerals out of the planet, why are they doing it? In asteroid belt you could find anything, from Hydrogen to Uranium, Plutonium. Also Junction have repair and refit yards, rather than full size construction yards and supporting infrastructure.
Why Manticore is building new yards in close proximity to inhabited planets? Safer and easier to hide would be building them around gas giants, also we have few smaller planets there or even moons which will be safer as a place for new yards. Especially Sphinx isn't the greatest place to build yards, way too close to the limit. Blackbird was outside so mobile defence should be able to jump out right on top of raiding forces. And if yards are deeper inside system, Home Fleet should have enough time to destroy enemies or ask 8th for help. Also star should be good camouflage for yards if sensors are looking straight into star corona they're blind until they go around that star and sending drones will be quite risky thing. On the other hand defenders will have information from sensors which are placed all around space system and their rockets will be camouflaged by star so ships will find out that they are in trap in last minute.

Draken wrote:Where is majority of shipyards of League and other majors power? Manticore had them in Manticore System. Grayson had them in their home system. About Haven and League we don't know anything, only bit of information is that Hyperion One was on the orbit of Mars.

We don't know where the League builds navy ships, except that there are probably several locations.

Why their are building them inside systems? Shouldn't it be easier to just build them in the interstellar space? There is very low chance that somebody will find them and we could transport there raw materials.

Because that's where the people are. Nobody except the Alignment and Haven tries to hide their shipyards, and Haven originally built Bolthole only as a failsafe. Other systems, and most especially the League, have no reason to hide their shipyards. Besides, it's hard to hide a shiphyard. Haven managed because Bolthole is way the heck at the the edge of civilized space, out beyond the border of the Republic. The Alignment managed because they have a wormhole no one else knows about.

In some books there is something about mining minerals out of the planet, why are they doing it? In asteroid belt you could find anything, from Hydrogen to Uranium, Plutonium. Also Junction have repair and refit yards, rather than full size construction yards and supporting infrastructure.

I don't think there is anything in any of the books about mining minerals out of the planet. Manticore and most other systems get their minerals from asteroid belts.

Why Manticore is building new yards in close proximity to inhabited planets? Safer and easier to hide would be building them around gas giants, also we have few smaller planets there or even moons which will be safer as a place for new yards. Especially Sphinx isn't the greatest place to build yards, way too close to the limit.

Blackbird was outside so mobile defence should be able to jump out right on top of raiding forces. And if yards are deeper inside system, Home Fleet should have enough time to destroy enemies or ask 8th for help. Also star should be good camouflage for yards if sensors are looking straight into star corona they're blind until they go around that star and sending drones will be quite risky thing. On the other hand defenders will have information from sensors which are placed all around space system and their rockets will be camouflaged by star so ships will find out that they are in trap in last minute.

Again, because that's where the people are. Manticore has no reason to try to hid their shipyards, and would have incredible difficulty doing it. No shipyard is ever safe from attack; there is no reason to go out of your way to put the shipyard in an inconvenient place just because of a phantasmal increase in security. You have several mistaken impressions about the security of various locations. First, Blackbird was inside the hyperlimit of the planet it orbited. Second, the corona of a star is not going to blind observers or hide a station unless the station is practically inside the corona--way too close. And third, Sphinx is protected well enough against single drive missiles. If the enemy has MDMs, then they can hit a station from outside the hyper limit no matter how deep inside the limit the station is, because MDMs can go ballistic between stages and stations have predictable orbits and cannot dodge.

I imagine after Oyster Bay and with the amount of territory the SEM now controls they will disperse their shipyards more when they have time to do so. Its even possible they might try to make their own equivalent to Bolthole at me point.

Roguevictory wrote:I imagine after Oyster Bay and with the amount of territory the SEM now controls they will disperse their shipyards more when they have time to do so. Its even possible they might try to make their own equivalent to Bolthole at me point.

They are going to put in better defenses and extend the range of their sensor net. They are also deliberately planning the stations and shipyards so they will be somewhat mobile and have effective defenses. The stations before were allowed to grow and expand as need dictated in an organic manner; not in a planned way.

SWM wrote:

Draken wrote:Where is majority of shipyards of League and other majors power? Manticore had them in Manticore System. Grayson had them in their home system. About Haven and League we don't know anything, only bit of information is that Hyperion One was on the orbit of Mars.

We don't know where the League builds navy ships, except that there are probably several locations.

Why their are building them inside systems? Shouldn't it be easier to just build them in the interstellar space? There is very low chance that somebody will find them and we could transport there raw materials.

Because that's where the people are. Nobody except the Alignment and Haven tries to hide their shipyards, and Haven originally built Bolthole only as a failsafe. Other systems, and most especially the League, have no reason to hide their shipyards. Besides, it's hard to hide a shiphyard. Haven managed because Bolthole is way the heck at the the edge of civilized space, out beyond the border of the Republic. The Alignment managed because they have a wormhole no one else knows about.

In some books there is something about mining minerals out of the planet, why are they doing it? In asteroid belt you could find anything, from Hydrogen to Uranium, Plutonium. Also Junction have repair and refit yards, rather than full size construction yards and supporting infrastructure.

I don't think there is anything in any of the books about mining minerals out of the planet. Manticore and most other systems get their minerals from asteroid belts.

Why Manticore is building new yards in close proximity to inhabited planets? Safer and easier to hide would be building them around gas giants, also we have few smaller planets there or even moons which will be safer as a place for new yards. Especially Sphinx isn't the greatest place to build yards, way too close to the limit.

Blackbird was outside so mobile defence should be able to jump out right on top of raiding forces. And if yards are deeper inside system, Home Fleet should have enough time to destroy enemies or ask 8th for help. Also star should be good camouflage for yards if sensors are looking straight into star corona they're blind until they go around that star and sending drones will be quite risky thing. On the other hand defenders will have information from sensors which are placed all around space system and their rockets will be camouflaged by star so ships will find out that they are in trap in last minute.

Again, because that's where the people are. Manticore has no reason to try to hid their shipyards, and would have incredible difficulty doing it. No shipyard is ever safe from attack; there is no reason to go out of your way to put the shipyard in an inconvenient place just because of a phantasmal increase in security. You have several mistaken impressions about the security of various locations. First, Blackbird was inside the hyperlimit of the planet it orbited. Second, the corona of a star is not going to blind observers or hide a station unless the station is practically inside the corona--way too close. And third, Sphinx is protected well enough against single drive missiles. If the enemy has MDMs, then they can hit a station from outside the hyper limit no matter how deep inside the limit the station is, because MDMs can go ballistic between stages and stations have predictable orbits and cannot dodge.

Further, I fully expect that the Admiralty now DOES have a plan to position hidden rapid recovery capability, though probably not a full blown bolthole. I just don't think it is anywhere near the top of the resource and effort priority queue at the moment.

What the SEM HAS done is reduce the target profile of each new fabrication concentration by doubling the number of major stations, and probably by establishing some other fabrication capabilities at away from the six main stations and at Trevor's and at Basilisk (perhaps on the down low); and by vastly increasing the protection, survivability, and early warning capbabilities/protocols for the new stations. (I don't think anyone is going to be surprised by full blown evac drills from Manticore stations for a very long time.)

I further expect that policies will be changed to incentivize creation & maintenance of additional, commercial, industrial fabrication facilities away from the six government maintained stations.

One more thing that will almost certainly happen is that the design and numbers of mobile fabrication & repair fleet train elements in the RMN will be significantly robust compared to contemporary navies, by permanent policy.

dreamrider

Roguevictory wrote:I imagine after Oyster Bay and with the amount of territory the SEM now controls they will disperse their shipyards more when they have time to do so. Its even possible they might try to make their own equivalent to Bolthole at me point.

I'm afraid that you are wrong. David has told us that the lesson Manticore learned from the fall of Grendelsbane is to NOT distribute their shipyards around. They are going to build all their naval shipyards in the Manticore system.

Zakharra wrote:

Roguevictory wrote:I imagine after Oyster Bay and with the amount of territory the SEM now controls they will disperse their shipyards more when they have time to do so. Its even possible they might try to make their own equivalent to Bolthole at me point.

They are going to put in better defenses and extend the range of their sensor net. They are also deliberately planning the stations and shipyards so they will be somewhat mobile and have effective defenses. The stations before were allowed to grow and expand as need dictated in an organic manner; not in a planned way.

No, they are not going to extend the range of the sensor net. They can already detect the translation of any ship within [/b]light-months[/b] of Manticore. They don't need to extend the range or make that any more sensitive--it already works well enough. What they need is a method to detect the actual ships while they are in stealth.

Zakharra wrote:

Roguevictory wrote:I imagine after Oyster Bay and with the amount of territory the SEM now controls they will disperse their shipyards more when they have time to do so. Its even possible they might try to make their own equivalent to Bolthole at me point.

They are going to put in better defenses and extend the range of their sensor net. They are also deliberately planning the stations and shipyards so they will be somewhat mobile and have effective defenses. The stations before were allowed to grow and expand as need dictated in an organic manner; not in a planned way.

Yeah but they are no longer a single system power, or even a tri-system power all linked by the Wormhole Junction. Given the change in Manticore's status IMO it makes sense that at some point in the near future, once the new Manticore systm yards are up, they will start upgrading shipyards or building new ones in SEM systems other then Manticore.

This would make the SEM's ship building industry much less vulnerable to Oyster Bay style strikes, boost the economies of the systems the yards are in, and decrease the distance that ships needing drydock repairs in the outer regions of the SEM need to travel for repair, and need to travel to return to their assigned areas after repairs unless the ship's assignment is changed during the drydock time.

For a nation the size of the SEM to keep all of their shipyards in one system is an act of madness. If the lesson they learned from Grendelsbane is that keeping all of their shipyards in one system, in effect keeping all of their eggs in one basket, is somehow a good idea then they are far less intelligent then I thought. Oyster Bay is amble proof of why doing so is a very bad idea.

Roguevictory wrote:Yeah but they are no longer a single system power, or even a tri-system power all linked by the Wormhole Junction. Given the change in Manticore's status IMO it makes sense that at some point in the near future, once the new Manticore systm yards are up, they will start upgrading shipyards or building new ones in SEM systems other then Manticore.

This would make the SEM's ship building industry much less vulnerable to Oyster Bay style strikes, boost the economies of the systems the yards are in, and decrease the distance that ships needing drydock repairs in the outer regions of the SEM need to travel for repair, and need to travel to return to their assigned areas after repairs unless the ship's assignment is changed during the drydock time.

For a nation the size of the SEM to keep all of their shipyards in one system is an act of madness. If the lesson they learned from Grendelsbane is that keeping all of their shipyards in one system, in effect keeping all of their eggs in one basket, is somehow a good idea then they are far less intelligent then I thought. Oyster Bay is amble proof of why doing so is a very bad idea.

Let's face it. In the 'real world', there are no 'lessons' of Grendlesbane. There was a 'real world' purpose for the Grendlesbane raid, however. David created the circumstances that led to the very exposed situation, and destruction, of Grendlesbane, in part, to set up Oyster Bay ~5 books later. God, I love that guy!

I agree that the SEM is now too large and spread out to keep literally all of its shipbuilding resources in one system. But they do not really have to take any steps to assure the growth of some dispersed capabilities. Those already exist - they just have to grow up, become capable of building large tonnage ships, and (this is the key point) grow the kind of protection around them that makes them reasonable adjunct naval shipyards. There are functioning shipyards in the Silesian Quadrant; there are functioning shipyards in the Talbott Quadrant; and the capabilities of the Trevor's Star infrastructure are almost certain to grow into at least a de facto shipyard/space industry fabrication node under the pressures of the current crisis rebuilding program and the expansion of Haven trade. I would guess that the station that is growing in Basilisk orbit will also eventually support a repair capability that is virtually able to become a shipyard with a name change.

But the concerns about only allowing NAVAL construction to proceed in yards of systems that have a near-Manticoran level of protection will continue to hold sway.

dreamrider

Roguevictory wrote:

Zakharra wrote:"Roguevictory" I imagine after Oyster Bay and with the amount of territory the SEM now controls they will disperse their shipyards more when they have time to do so. Its even possible they might try to make their own equivalent to Bolthole at me point. quote

They are going to put in better defenses and extend the range of their sensor net. They are also deliberately planning the stations and shipyards so they will be somewhat mobile and have effective defenses. The stations before were allowed to grow and expand as need dictated in an organic manner; not in a planned way.

Yeah but they are no longer a single system power, or even a tri-system power all linked by the Wormhole Junction. Given the change in Manticore's status IMO it makes sense that at some point in the near future, once the new Manticore systm yards are up, they will start upgrading shipyards or building new ones in SEM systems other then Manticore.

This would make the SEM's ship building industry much less vulnerable to Oyster Bay style strikes, boost the economies of the systems the yards are in, and decrease the distance that ships needing drydock repairs in the outer regions of the SEM need to travel for repair, and need to travel to return to their assigned areas after repairs unless the ship's assignment is changed during the drydock time.

For a nation the size of the SEM to keep all of their shipyards in one system is an act of madness. If the lesson they learned from Grendelsbane is that keeping all of their shipyards in one system, in effect keeping all of their eggs in one basket, is somehow a good idea then they are far less intelligent then I thought. Oyster Bay is amble proof of why doing so is a very bad idea.

They might eventually do that, but remember that right now, the Manticore system is the -only- system in the SEM that is capable of producing the warships and munitions the RMN needs (when the space stations and shipyards and nanite farms are rebuilt). the technicians are there, the mining and manufacturing facilities are there, everything they need is in Manticore. The Talbot Quadrant, Sileaia? None of those places are anywhere near to being able to make what's need3ed. Their tech level was below that of the SL, not above. They will all need significant infrastructure and economic improvements before they are capable of supporting shipyards capable of turning out RMN warships. And if you have to ship everything to those distant yards in the first place, you might as well just build the ships in the Manticore system. It will save time and effort.

Now that's not to say that there won't be any shipyards in those provinces of the SEM. but in terms of the current story (this arc of the series), the only shipyards will be in Manticore. After this arc is over, something like 20 years is going to pass, and that's plenty of time to be able to improve the economic, industrial and political infrastructure of Talbot and Silesia. So when the next story arc happens, there might be a few more shipyards outside of Manticore. I still think though that the bulk of all warship production will always be in Manticore and nowhere else for the SEM.

SWM wrote:

Zakharra wrote:"Roguevictory" I imagine after Oyster Bay and with the amount of territory the SEM now controls they will disperse their shipyards more when they have time to do so. Its even possible they might try to make their own equivalent to Bolthole at me point. quote

They are going to put in better defenses and extend the range of their sensor net. They are also deliberately planning the stations and shipyards so they will be somewhat mobile and have effective defenses. The stations before were allowed to grow and expand as need dictated in an organic manner; not in a planned way.

No, they are not going to extend the range of the sensor net. They can already detect the translation of any ship within [/b]light-months[/b] of Manticore. They don't need to extend the range or make that any more sensitive--it already works well enough. What they need is a method to detect the actual ships while they are in stealth.

Ack. I should have phrased that better. I meant extending more sensitive sensors, and probably better programmed computers to pick up on all possible detections no matter how far out. Because if they can detect the hyper footprint, it will make detecting anything easier.

I do agree though that they will be looking to improve detection equipment.