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Traveller-digest            Friday, 12 July 1996        Volume 1996 : Number 242

(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

         1. Insider Trading (was: Inside Trading)
         2. Hiver & Ithklur
         3. Review: Traveller Chronicle 10
         4. Re: The Iridium Standard
         5. Re: The Iridium Standard
         6. Re: The Iridium Standard
         7. Re: Corn Dogs
         8. Re: This is the company we're dealing with.
         9. Re: Fighters and Missiles
        10. Re: Energy standard & British Empire
        11. QSDS on Excel?
        12. [none]
        13. Pop Culture in Trav (was Corn Dogs)
        14. Re: Hiver & Ithklur
        15. Starship construction (VERY LONG!!!)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ron Dawson <rdawson@cgc.ns.ca>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 09:45:06 -0300 (ADT)
Subject: Insider Trading (was: Inside Trading)

eris@pen.net (Eris Reddoch) wrote:

> >Perhaps, in the Far Future, acquiring trading information prior to
> >its  public release, then trading based on that information, will be
> >illegal  as well.
> 
> It might be Joe, but that won't stop people from trying, and as you
> say most go uncaught.  OTOH, this isn't really "insider information." 
> 
> Now let's say you hear that Megacorp Mining has struck the motherlode
> here in the Aster belt, and you hop aboard your Jump 4 ship and hop
> over to Sucker III 4 parsecs away.  Arriving there you notice that
> Megacorp Mining is trading at 8cr/share, so you buy 50,000 shares.  A
> couple of weeks later the news of MM's good fortune reaches Sucker and
> the share price goes up to 12cr.  You sell out clearing a cool
> 200,000!  Was this illegal?  Unethical?  Maybe.  I'm sure the current
> US government would say it was, but I'm not so sure.  Personally, I
> think it's just plain smart trading. <g> I'm positive local exchanges
> (and governments) would find ways to blunt this type of thing though. 

But let's say that Megacorp high tech goods is negotiating with government
officials to build a new line of starships for the Imperium.  This
contract will be into the Trillions.  Magacorp and government officials
know that this is coming down the pipe, so they start to buy up stock
(through spouses, relations, what have you) prior to the announcement at
which time MegaCorp high tech goods stocks sky rocket.  

Or let's say the reverse, the contract is going to be cancelled and prior
to that official release, government officials and MegaCorp company
officers (or their wives, relations, etc.) start dumping stock.

I suspect that these activities will be illegal.  

- - Ron


------------------------------

From: Mark Clark <markc@udel.edu>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 08:53:28 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Hiver & Ithklur

  Well, I feel rather guilty now.  As the author of the first review of 
Hiver & Ithklur on this list (and the person who came up with the 
nickname "Sneeks & Geeks"), I think I set the tone for subsequent bashing 
of this product.  As a long-time Traveller player (since 1979) and owner 
of almost everything published for the game, I was offended by the 
juvenile humor of the Ithklur section, and was rather lukewarm about the 
Hiver section.  In comparison to GDW's original Aliens modules and 
especially DGP's Cogs & Dogs and Rats & Cats, Sneeks & Geeks was poorly 
organized, repetitive, and forced in its humor.

  I want to make clear, however, that I like The New Era in general - 
more than Megatraveller, certainly.  Path of Tears got me interested in 
playing Traveller again after a several-year hiatus, and I thought (and 
still think) that Virus was a cool idea with lots of implications for 
adventures.  I reviewed a number of products negatively - Sneeks & Geeks, 
of course, as well as the novels (talk about turgid writing!) - but 
overall I like the RC and the Regency as settings.  I especially liked 
the Regency Sourcebook - if Sneeks & Geeks had been done that way I'd 
never have objected.  Much of my reaction to TNE was conditioned by the 
rather depressing nature of MT and the gradual collapse of civilization - 
Hard Times is one of the most depressing gaming supplements I've ever read.

  As for corndogs, this was not just a Sneeks & Geeks joke, but a 
long-running gag in the Traveller News Service.  As a minor background 
joke, I thought it was rather funny. 

  It will be interesting to see how well Imperium Games does - I plan to 
keep collecting, and I'm looking forward to reviewing their products as 
well.


Mark "Love those Corndogs" Clark 

------------------------------

From: Mark Clark <markc@udel.edu>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 09:50:29 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Review: Traveller Chronicle 10

  I've been following the development of Traveller Chronicle since issue 
1, and I've noted the continuing improvement in quality with pleasure.  
While still not up to the production values and content of JTAS, 
Challenge, or Traveller's Digest, the last few issues of TC are quite good.

  As others have noted, the primary focus of Issue 10 is the Solomani Rim 
in the New era.  16 subsector maps with data for systems for both 1117 
and 1202 occupy 16 pages, with another 10 pages of text describing 
significant features of the sector, are very well done - certainly as 
good as any of the sector supplements produced by GDW and others.  With 
an index and other information, the Solomani Rim section makes up 36 
pages out of 56.

  According to the editorial, future issues will detail the major polical 
entities of the Solomani Rim and provide equipment and ship designs for 
Classic, MT, and New Era settings - it looks like this will be Sword of 
the Knight's pocket empire for the near future.  The Terran Republic, a 
pocket empire centered on Earth, seems especially interesting, as a 
non-fanatical religeous empire.  I've always thought that religion was 
one of the most neglected aspect of Traveller - I'm looking forward to 
the next issue.

  One interesting piece of information is in the writeup for Arcturus 
Subsector on the planet Cymbeline (the source of the Deyo chips used in 
Imperial Transponder circuits and Virus).  This mentions that Vampire 
ships make "pilgramages" to Cymbeline (to visit their ancestors?) and 
come away with altered programing, an "Evangelical Doomslayer" strain 
that wants revenge on Lucan for nuking Cymbeline in the late stages of 
the Wars of the Rebellion.  The altered Vampires then head Coreward to 
try and find Lucan.  This explains the "Vampire Highway" from the 
RC material.  I have not seen this explanation in print before, though I 
may have missed it, and I rather like it.

  The remainder of the issue is an adventure.  One nice aspect is that 
the setup provides three settings - Reformation Coalition, Regency, or 
the Traveller Chronicles own Far Frontiers.  A typical rescue scenario, 
the adventure is well written, though the final resolution of the mystery 
brings those naughty Ancients in again.

  Overall, a solid effort, though the interior art is still substandard 
(nice cover, though) - well worth the purchase price.  Most useful for 
TNE GMs, though for folks without the old GDW Solomani Rim supplement 
this is a cheap way to get that data.  Two thumbs up.


Mark Clark 

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:20:30 PST
Subject: Re: The Iridium Standard

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> Regardless of what a currency is based on, whether it be faith, gold, 
> salt, or ivory (all of which have been used at 1 time or another by 
> somebody on Earth), the people still have to believe its worth 
> something...  If somebody had found gold nuggets by the ton on say for 
> example Australia, economies would have been wrecked wholesale in the 
> 18th century...
>
> Actually, an interstellar empire is even less likely to base its 
> currency on a precious metal of any kind, when you consider there's a 
> great chance that the system 2 parsecs over might have enough of your 
> **precious** metal to the point where they use it in thin foil sheets 
> to wrap candy bars...

Actually, it's unlikely that there are *major* fluctuations in
elemental abundances in the small area the Imperium covers. But if you
are mining asteroids, it's not that much extra trouble to seperate out
*everything* rather than just leave the "tailings" sitting there. 

Assume that gold or iridium occurs at 1 part per billion (1e-9) in
nickel iron asteroids. That means that a cubic kilometer of such
asteroid will have around 8 tonnes of them. They are more likely to be
in parts per million, which gives you *thousands* of tonnes of them.

When you get right down to it, all *any* currency really is, is
bookkeeping. An organized system of IOUs. 

Before currency, you had to use barter. And if what I had to trade
wasn't what you wanted, I had to trade it to someone who *did* have
something you wanted, then trade that to you. 

With currency, I can sell my goods to whoever wants them, and get
currency in exchange. Then I can trade the currency to you for what I
want.  The currency amounts to a *generalized* IOU.

This is a tricky concept. Currency really *doesn't* have any "backing"
except the people's confidence that they can get things in exchange for
it. This *can* be considered to be "backed" by the strength of the
economy, but that's not a view I agree with.

Given this, interstellar trade and currency are a bit easier to figure
out. Imperial currency is spendable almost everywhere because everyone
knows that all traders will accept it. Planetary currency is probably
spendable on planets that do a lot of trade with the planet of origin.
Otherwise, it's of little value.

The USSR provides some good examples of the complexity you can encounter.
They had several different rubles. The internal ruble, which was not
convertible to any other currency and wasn't worth much anyway. It had a
fixed exchange rate (this was what they made tourists convert their
currency into) but that was only for converting foreign currency into
rubles. And the official exchange rate was nowhere near the buying
power (the foreign currency was worth a lot more than the rubles you
got). There was also a foreign exchange ruble, which was exchangeable
for gold, but not allowed to be used internally. And of course, there
was the "real" ruble. That's what you could *actually buy for a ruble
on the black market (which wasn't much). There may even have been a
difference between the rubles they gave tourists and the ones they gave
citizens. The tourist rubles were worth more because you could by
things in special shops that didn't take regular rubles, and normally
sold only to tourists and high Party officials.

Also consider the value of the dollar inside the USSR, officially it
had a low value, so they'd only give you a few "tourist rubles" per
dollar. But, citizens would give you a *lot* of rubles for one (if they
were sure they wouldn't get caught with them). On the black market a
dollar was probably worth a few hundred rubles.

Because of this, many companies doing business with the USSR resorted
to barter, because their sales were in internal rubles, which couldn't
be taken out of the country. So for example, Pepsi worked out a deal
where they got a liter of Stolichoynya vodka for every liter of Pepsi
they sold.

So you can see how complex exchange rates get. 

The tech level differences in exchange rates are reasonable, as a lower
tech planet has less to sell. But they may try pegging the exchange
rate at 1-1 so as to maintain a favorable trade balance. In such a
case, the trader will probably try trading his goods for other goods
rather than selling them for local currency and then buying goods with
that.

I rather expect that normal practice will be to take any local currency
and exchange it for goods or Imperial credits before you lift out.
Otherwise you may wind up with a lot of worthless pieces of paper. 

I expect that the Imperial credit's value does "float" from place to
place. But given travel times, it's easier to treat it as having a
fixed value. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 21:22:12 PST
Subject: Re: The Iridium Standard

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> I've always been impressed by the currencies used in Jack Vance's books,
> where the unit is the amount of money paid for one hour of unskilled
> labour. No doubt there would be practical problems with this, but it's
> a wonderful way to make equipment lists for one society useful for a
> different one. In my campaign one credit (lower-case c) is a sociological
> term for this amount of money. It varies from low-tech, low-population
> society to high-tech, high-population society, of course, but that's what 
> exchange tables are for. One Crimp (Credit, Imperial) is the imperial 
> currency and is equivalent to the credit of a high-population, TL 15 world 
> with a Class A starport. This accords well with many of the prices 
> published in various Traveller publications, though not perfectly. In
> any case the salary tables and costs of living in Traveller are badly
> broken anyway.

Heinlein noted that the way he and his wife compared the economies of
the many different countries they visited was to find out how many
hours a journeyman carpenter had to work to buy a kilo of the local
"bread".

It equates equivalent work with an equivalent good. Otherwise you get
into situations like the one in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
Court" where you have someone saying he's better off because he gets 10
dollars an hour and you only get 5, but ignoring the fact that he's
paying 3 times what you are for food and shelter.

It doesn't matter if hamburger is $100/lb as long as there's plenty of
hamburger *and* you get paid enough to afford it.

As an example, here in Oregon, we have had a lot of folks move up here
from California, and they willingly paid housing prices that natives
wouldn't. The result is that in the last 5-10 years rental prices have
*tripled*, but wages haven't gone up near as much. The result is that
many people live in *lousy* housing.

It's not the amount of labor that counts. It's what you can *buy* for
that much labor. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 21:38:11 PST
Subject: Re: The Iridium Standard

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> As did the gold strikes in the U.S... And what did discovering 
> that field of jade boulders in Canada do to the price of jade 
> as a semi-precious mineral? 

It actually didn't do as much as you might think. For one thing, there
are *two* minerals known as "jade". Jadeite and Nephrite. The find was
nephrite which isn't as valuable.

The other major factor is that a lot of semiprecious stones have a good
part of their worth being due to their *appearance*. So while the price
of nephrite dropped, it can only drop so far because it still looks good.

This resembles the "utility" theory of worth. (ie a thing's worth is
based on was use you can make of it).

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 21:47:54 PST
Subject: Re: Corn Dogs

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> : Firing 'warning shots across the bow' with a laser.  Stop giggling!
>
> Any reason why this can't be done?  You figure that if you get within 10
> feet, somebody has got to know that they missed on purpose.

Slight problem. If we are in a vacuum (or at least as close to one as
you get in most systems), you won't *know* that a laser beam missed
you. It's not like you can *see* the beam.

With a PAW you could probably detect the effects of this huge charged
particle beam going by. With an NPAW, you couldn't even do that.

This *really* needs to be considered in many combat situations. Tghe
first thing you may know about an attack is when they get their first
*hit* on you.

To fire a warning shot with a laser, you nail the target *dead on*, but
at reduced power. Not enough to damage, but enough to send quite a
flash over any optical sensors it hits.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 22:00:39 PST
Subject: Re: This is the company we're dealing with.

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> On Wed, 10 Jul 1996, Douglas E. Berry wrote:
>
>> I just had the most amazing call from Imperium Games.
>>
>> Quick Backround:  I had mailed off my check for the hardback set of rules..
>> a few days later my wife goes shopping with the ATM card.  That sound you
>> heard was my $35 check entering the atmosphere at .1c on its way to a 
> bounce.
>
> Fine, Fine, but the real question is (running for cover): What's the
> kinetic energy of a check at .1c?

Heck with that. I want to know what kind of atmosphere will bounce
*anything* at .1c. And for that matter, what the bouncing object is
made of!

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 23:39:28 PST
Subject: Re: Fighters and Missiles

In somewhere mysterious you write:

>
> On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, Leonard Erickson wrote:
>
>> A few fighters could ruin your whole day. They'd have to be able to sit
>> there quietly, concealed by something (I have a few ideas :-), and then
>> do a quick run in, fire, and get the hell out of there.
>
> Or concealed by nothing...a fighter with minimal power systems running
> (e.g. life support and a passive sensor array) has got to be a near
> impossible target to detect at an distance greater than "next-door".

If you want the pilot to "live" it has to be radiating at *at least*
300 K. That's *way* above the 3K background. 

My though it to try enclosing the fighter in an non-reflective
"bubble", big enough that the rate the *bubble* radiates at is
reasonable for a hunk of rock at that distance from the star. You have
cheap, throwaway passive sensor arrays as part of the bubble. They'd
just be the antennas, the electronics would be on the fighter.

So it just sits there, looking like a rock (a big one, but a rock
nonetheless) and waits for you to get close. 

Such a bubble will be expensive, but not terribly so. I don't have the
formulas handy so I can't calculate the size required, but let's say
it's a kilometer in diameter. You dump a little bit of gass to inflate
it, possibly even use some extra to give you some *convective* cooling.

I get about 10 million m^2 of material, and 524 million cubic meters. 
Assuming the material weighs one gram per square meter (doable), it'll
mass 10 tonnes. If it weighs more, the weight goes up linearly. If you
fill it with gases to 1 gram per liter (about 1 atmosphere) it'd take
524 tonnes of gas. If you fill it to 1/100th of an atmosphere, it'll
only take 5 tonnes, but that oout to both fill it out, and give some
help with evening the heat load. So we get a 15 tonne *mass* package
that can be deployed to hide a fighter. 

You *could* put more in it, but you risk making it too warm.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 00:33:15 PST
Subject: Re: Energy standard & British Empire

In somewhere mysterious you write:

>>Antimatter p-plants consume antimatter which presumably has to be
>>manufactured in a fusion plant.
>
> Well, only at the begining.  In an anti-matter economy, anti-matter
> plants could be used to run your Creato-Anti-Matter (tm) machine.

Not for long. It *takes* more energy to create antimatter than you get
back by "burning" it. So unless you have access to a "natural" source
of antimatter, antimatter is merely a means of *storing* energy, not of
*producing* it.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 07:35:32 -0700
Subject: QSDS on Excel?

Are the spreadsheets for QSDS/SSDS availible for MS Excel 5.*?  Being a
computer ignoramus, I'm not sure what formats my program can read.

+--------------------------------------------+
| Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net |
|    Professional Driver - Traveller Guru    |
|--------------------------------------------|
|     Now Appearing At:  (Note New URL!)     |
|  http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/index.htm   |
+--------------------------------------------+


------------------------------

From: kshade66@juno.com (Keith P. Shade)
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:52:50 PST
Subject: [none]

index traveller

------------------------------

From: Paul Walker <tiger@datasync.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:24:56 -0500
Subject: Pop Culture in Trav (was Corn Dogs)

>From: "Stuart L. Dollar" <sdollar@goodnet.com>
>Subject: Re: Corn Dogs
>
>On 10 Jul 96 at 23:52, John Kovalic spewed:
>
>> My own beef with the Corn Dogs comes from the sheer number of 20th century
>> referrences found in later Traveler material. Would a civilization
>> X-hundred years from now *really* still be obsessed by late 20th-century
>> junk (read "pop") culture? It struck me as being damn culturally
>> self-centered. For me, the whole mystique of the Imperium broke down on
>> such pieces of pop-centricism. Especially the Monty Python referrences. And
>> I'm a Monty Python FAN!
>
>This is a trap that TNE fell into often...

As much as I enjoy TNE (even these references), I agree!

>
>> How much popular culture from even 150 years ago is still around on this
>> island Earth?
>
>Uh...Charles Dickens...a few Stephen Foster songs...uh...come to 
>think of it, that's about all I can think of...

Don't forget Calvin & Hobbes (Oh the glories of playing Calvin Ball!).  Oh,
yeah, don't forget the references to 2001!

Really, these things don't bother me a whole lot.  I think part of the
reason that we don't have a more intimate knowledge of what happened in the
mid and early BC culture is primarily because of the lack of documentation
of cultural events (compared to modern documentation).  With all the items
being saved on CD-ROMs and other hi-tech medium, I don't think a knowledge
of our culture would be too difficult to obtain.  Also remember that the RC
(TNE's main area) was at one time a Solomani world, and as such would have
many Solamani influences.  Just look at what many third world countries term
American Imperialism if you have any doubts of the Solomani taking their
culture and instilling it into the culture of worlds they find.

While I wouldn't dare to argue that this is probable, but I will stand
behind my belief that it is possible!  I had a history teacher who, through
the course of the semester, showed us how many ancient cultural things we
still do.  Many of them surprised me.  I don't think that this influence
from our culture is all that impossible.


Paul  {tiger}


------------------------------

From: Paul Walker <tiger@datasync.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:24:54 -0500
Subject: Re: Hiver & Ithklur

>From: "Stuart L. Dollar" <sdollar@goodnet.com>
>Subject: Re: Hiver & Ithklur
>
>On 11 Jul 96 at 10:24, Paul Walker spewed:
>
>> Again, I'm not bashing anyone who knows the material.  I'm a bit perterbed
>> by those who don't know the material and yet continue to bash TNE and its
>> supplements.  I regret that I didn't get involved with Traveller earlier so
>
>Actually, I was a bit cranky about it earlier.  As a result of a 
>reread (more like a reskim really) I take back a little bit about 
>H&I.  I didn't particularly like the writing style, and there was a 
>great deal of departure from the way in which the Hivers were written 
>in both earlier JTAS articles, and the previous CT alien module...  I 
>guess that bothered me more than anything else.  They took a good, 
>well developed alien, rewrote, and added way too much weak humor...

Actually, I agree with you here.  Personally, I enjoy the humor in the book,
but I KNOW that it is the type of humor that is not enjoyed by everyone.
When I was reading the book, I'd read a paragraph or two and laugh at the
contents and then I'd show it to my wife and she would just look at me with
that "how stupid" look.  It occurred to me then that not everyone would
enjoy H&I because of the humor in it, but I did like the development.


>> Hiver & Ithklur.  I don't think that apart from the "cannon" issue there is
>> any problem with Hiver & Ithklur.  If the previous stuff had never been
>> done, Hiver & Ithklur would be a wealth of information, enough for any
>> referee to run a Hiver or Ithklur PC or NPC.
>
>No...I guess not, for someone who doesn't have the old stuff.  But I have 
>enough problems with it being a departure from previously published 
>stuff, that I can't get over that fact.  There is definitely enough 
>stuff to run them as a race, but it would be a different enough alien 
>as to bear little resemblance to the CT Hivers...

Out of curiosity, are the changes such that they can be attributed to the
imperium not understanding the Hiver, or are they completely incompatible?
IIRC, MT said that little was really known about the Hiver because the area
of space they lived in wa so far from the main areas of Imperial Operations.
Remember the RC are intimately familiar with the Hiver and their culture.
Is it possible that the differences are things that were thought to be true
of the Hiver, but now with the RC being so closely involved with them we
know are not true?  (Remember, I don't have any of the CT stuff other than
Research Station Gamma.)


Paul  {tiger}


------------------------------

From: Paul Walker <tiger@datasync.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:24:47 -0500
Subject: Starship construction (VERY LONG!!!)

At 11:30 AM 7/11/96 EDT, you wrote:
>In a discussion over on TML Paul Walker said:
>>As a rule of thumb, a surface vessel will split cost evenly between
>>materials and labor.
>
>If one accepts this for starships it is interesting. Since we know how much
>starships cost, how long it takes to build them, and the salaries of engineers
>we can calculate _how many_ people are needed to build a ship.
>
>Sticking to classic, Book 2 puts the average starship engineer at a salary
>of 4000Cr per month. First lets assume that the average starship _constructor_
>earns the same. 

This is a BIG (Read: HUGE, ENORMOUS, GARGANTUAN) assumption.  First off, you
wouldn't be using what Traveller calls Engineers (at least not what we first
think of).  The only real place we have for these guys in our ship yard is
in the Maintenance Dept, and they rarely work on ships.  Some of your cost
is going to people who in Traveller would best be described as Business
Professionals (could be Engineers) with a high Starship Architecture skill.
Starting pay for these types IIRC is $25K with top levels being as high as
$50K to $75K.  Most of your cost is going to go to Construction workers.
These fellows make $6.00 to $13.00 an hour.  We typically work the yard
48-60 hours a week depending on how far behind we are.  In our ship yard
(and I think as the norm) we have welders, fitters, painters, and helpers
(the yards that do vessels as opposed to jus barges add electrical and
mechanical).  The experience of the worker is going to determine how much he
makes.

>Second lets assume 100% loading. Ie. that the administrative
>cost of a person is equal to their cost in salary (true for the software 
>industry,
>the only experience I have).

This is not true at all.  The software industry must have a high overhead
rate!!  In our shipyard, we have about 200 employees whose pay is charged to
the job, and about 25 "overhead" employees who don't charge their time
directly to a job.  As I'm in purchasing, I don't know the actual pay
figures for people, but my guess is that our overhead pay is close to $70K
to 80K per month.  Our job direct employees would be in the neighborhood of
$450K per month.  Of course, since I've been here we have never had fewer
than three hulls in the yard, and about every other job is a multiple hull
job.  A typical contract is for $8 to 10 Million (8,000,000) per hull.  This
is for a barge with no propulsion or crew quarters.  Just a bunch of cargo
space and painting and , depending on the type, we also add piping, pumps,
and generators or engines to run the pumps (for cargo handling).  Anyway,
the point is, that I would consider a typical ship yard to have overhead at
20 to 25 percent of job direct labor.  Of course, I wasn't including Labor
in my figures the other day, and whil they were slop figures and very
conservative, the excess wouldn't be enough to cover the entire overhead
figure.  Also, most yards would probably be part of a corporation that had a
main office that charged overhead.  That overhead wasn't in my figure
either, and I have no idea how much that number would be, but I do know that
it would be split between at least two yards (although only two or three
yards centralized overhead would probably be run from one of the yards.)


>By Book 2, the standard scount costs 29.43MCr and takes 9 months to build.
>Thats a cost of 3.27MCr per month. Of that 1.635MCr is labour. Removing
>the loading leaves 817.5KCr cost in salaries. Dividing by the normal wage
>implies that it requires 204 engineers working full time to build a standard
>scoutship.
>
>Applying this to the rest of the standard ships we get:
>
>Free Trad     211
>Sub Merch     451
>Sub Line      673
>Yacht         290
>Merc Cruis   1115
>Pat Cruis     987

These figures are all costs, the price would only be 15 to 25 percent of
that, and you should use the price figure to come up with the accurate labor
numbers.  Also, I'm curious what the "cannon" time to build these other
ships is.  I don't think I agree with the 9 month figure to build a Std
Scout.  I would probably list is as at least a year and consider it a quick
project.  I mentioned in my post that it was going to take almost 3 years to
build a 600Td hull (Barge only, add at least 6 mo for a ship).  This is a
typical time for Government jobs.  Civillian Jobs take a bit less, maybe two
years.  This time is pretty standard for hulls from 250Td to 900Td.  The
smaller hulls would take probably a year and a half on average.  I'd be
interested to see how your figures match the current norms based on what I
believe to be a more accurate construction time.  I'll get with the
Production Controll guy here and get some numbers on manhours for different
size hulls, and post that later if the interest continues.


>So, for example, if a starport wins a contract for making a subsidised liner
>that garuntees jobs for over six hundred workers for nearly two years. You
>can see how governments might subsidise such vessels not just for
>garunteed freight service but also for the employoment it ingenders.
>
>In fact you might say that such subsidised vessels are primarily built during
>slumps in commercial shipping. Rather than have loads of ship yard workers
>laied off and either degenerate or move away, commissioning a subsidised
>ship keeps them gainfully employed and their skill sets current. The trickle
>down effect benefits the rest of the economy. For this the government gets
>a ship that must service their shipping requirements and probably at a very
>good price, since prices would drop during a slump.

Shipyard workers are very migratory.  For example, Down here on the coast,
many of our yard workers quit during shrimp season and go out to run their
shrimp boat until the season is over, at which time they come back and hire
on again.

The shipbuilding community usually runs on a three to six year cycle, that
is every three to four years there is more work than there is yards.  The
idea is to get work lined up for your yard to last throughout the coming
slump.  Its not easy, but that's what makes the estimators hair grey.  ;)


>"Ah yes", said the old starhand, "The Willful Wallabie here was built during
>the depression of the 1030s. She may be old but you will find no problem
>getting spare parts. There are thousands like her that the governments
>were churning out. In fact they say that the economic boom of the 1040s
>was caused by the increase in shipping tonnage due to all the subsidised
>ships on the market place. And she can be yours for the excelent price of ..."

The economist in me balks at this, but that's another topic for another day!


>In the private sector, companies would mainly be concerned with keeping
>their facilities in full production for as much time as possible. (Assuming
that
>construction engineers are permanant rather than casual hire. Not necessarily
>valid comparing to today.) Consequently there would probably be _less_
>shipyard space than demand would indicate.  It is more profitable to have a 
>medium
>sized shipyard that is always busy than a large one that stands idle 
>occasionally.
>Shipyards would only expand when they were really certain they could support
>it. Competing shipyards would strive to get someone "book in" to slots in as
>far advance as possible. So they might give attractive discounts to a 3 year
>contract which work may not start on for 1 year (or more!).

This is true to some extent, but I've never seen a shipyard at 100 percent
capacity.  Naturally, you want to make the most of every inch of your
facility, but this really isn't practical.  I'd expect the average to be
around 55 to 60 percent capacity.  Of course, often a good 25 to 35 percent
of your capacity is taken up by repair jobs.  Repair jobs are a different
story altogether.  The fariance in repair jobs is so vast, that it is
difficult to even set a standard.  For example, a simple job, like blasting
and repainting a set of deck barges is usually a cash cow for yards.  Other
jobs, like re-outfitting a barge, can take your shirt along with all your
money.  It is an art to know which jobs to bid on and shich to refuse.


>Inbetween the public and private sector you would have unions or other worker
>"representative" bodies. Their main concern is not profit but increased wages
>and numbers of workers. They would likely lobby at increasing the size of
>shipyards whenever possible. In good times they can use the threat of strike
>to try to drive the salaries of their members up and in bad times they might
>cut deals promising not to strike and fix wages in return for lump-sum 
>donations.

The reality of the Shipworkers unions is much less dramatic than that of the
United Railworkers Union, the United Autoworkers Union, or any of the other
"highly visible" Unions here in America.  In reality, the Union does the job
it is supposed to, that is working with management as a representative of
the employees as a whole to improve working conditions.


Sorry to those of you who aren't interested in this stuff, but finally the
topic has come around the circle to something I know about and can talk
somewhat intelligently about.  Hope this helps folks better understand
Traveller shipbuilding.  When I find the time, I'm gonna try to work up an
information type document on my take on Traveller starship construction.
I'll post it to the list for comment


Paul  {tiger}


------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #242
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