Thoughts on Shipyards

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Would the extra slipways speed up production of the ships or just incresae the number under construction at anyone time?

Slipways would effectively be what shipyards are now. They would build one ship at the same speed that shipyards do now. 'Shipyards' would become a higher level organizational entity that determined what its subordinate slipways could build.

For example, using this model a population might have the Motovolosk Shipyard that has three Slipways and is configured to build Sovremenny class destroyers. Those three slipways would allow it to build up to three destroyers at once. If the Motovolosk Shipyard retooled for Kirov class frigates that its three slipways could buld up to three Kirovs at once but could no longer build Sovremennys. The same population might also have the Zhdanov Shipyard, with four slipways, that builds Kalinin class freighters and the Severodvinsk shipyard, with two slipways, that builds Udaloy class survey ships.

The population would have three shipyards in total, with nine slipways between them, and could therefore build up to nine ships. However, it could build a maximum of three Sovremennys, four Kalinins and two Udaloys. No other ships types could be built unless a shipyard was retooled, in which case all its slipways would be capable of building the new ship type. This type of model is the closest to reality I think.

You would also find that if a shipyard is building destroyers, it will probably continue to build destroyers of different types because it will be cheaper to retool to similar classes (based on the retool cost of refit or new, whichever is lower).

Steve

[Erik L]

Can a shipyard be tooled for multiple classes? For example, a Geode class geo survey ship, and a Kepler class grav survey ship are identical, except the type of survey instruments.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Can a shipyard be tooled for multiple classes? For example, a Geode class geo survey ship, and a Kepler class grav survey ship are identical, except the type of survey instruments.

Each shipyard would be tooled for one class only. That is the choice between building extra shipyards and extra slipways. Extra slipways are cheaper but you can only build one class per shipyard. Extra shipyards are more expensive but you gain more flexibility in what you can build concurrently.

You could also build your Geodes and then retool for the Keplers. As the two ships are very similar, the retooling cost would be a lot lower then retooling from scratch. Note I haven't coded any of this yet, I am still at the design stage on possible shipyard changes.

Steve

[Pete_Keller]

I think that the slipways should be "modular" like the maintenance facilities are now.

You can start out with slipways that build 5000ton ships, then expand them later to build larger ships.

That way the shipyard/slipways to build a superdreadnaught will cost more than a small one to build frigates.  And it allows a colony to build "system patrol vessels" using a small shipyard and slipway without having the ability to build the above mentioned superdreadnaught.

Pete

[Þórgrímr]

I like Pete's suggestion myself and back it.  




Cheers,

[wildfire142]

I also like Pete's suggestion.

[Brian Neumann]

I like pete's suggestion as well.

A seperate question for dealing with slipways.  In real life a crash project would grab extra people to get the job done faster.  How about allowing extra slipways to add a bonus to the production speed of the ship under construction.  Say around 20% with a max of doubling the rate of construction.  For each extra slipway however add 40% to the monetary cost and a lesser (say 5% or 10%) to the mineral cost.  The extra money covers all the overtime and the minerals cover the extra wear and tear on equipment, and the inventible wastage that occurs with a crash project.

Brian

[sloanjh]

I like Pete's suggestion too, but I think the capacity modularity needs to be at the SY (not slipways (SW)) level, and should be small granularity (in tonnage) like your recent change to MF (i.e. much more granular than 5000 tons - maybe the 50 ton level (1HS) ?).  Since all SW associated with a SY build the same thing, it both doesn't make any sense and is much harder to track if different SW have different capacity.

Note that this means that SY upgrade/build/retooling costs would vary: increasing capacity would depend on the number of SW, adding a SW would depend on the capacity, and retooling would depend on both.

I also like Brian's suggestion about rush jobs.

Questions:  If I've got a SY with 10 SW and capacity C will there be a build command to "split" the facility by building a new SY with capacity C and assigning some of the SW to the new yard, i.e. one SY with 6 SW and the other with 4 after the build?  Will there be a command to drop capacity of a SY complex (to make it cheaper to add SW)?

John

[Pete_Keller]

I think that both the shipyard and the slipway should be granular.  You cannot build higher than the lowest of both of them, and the total hull spaces of units in the shipyard cannot exceed the shipyard's total.  

This allows for battle damage as well as upgrades.  I upgrade the shipyard to have more capacity, I then upgrade my slipways one at a time as they become available.  Once they are all upgraded (or mostly) then you can switch over to another hull class.

My only problem with this whole idea the Electric Boat Shipyard.  During the early 1980s, it was building Los Angeles class subs(~6900 Tons), Ohio class subs (~18800 Tons) and refitting Sturgeon class subs (~4800 Tons).  One Shipyard, with 2 slipways, and a pair of drydocks.

Pete

[Pete_Keller]

OK, after sleeping on it overnight, here are some ideas.

I think that both the shipyard and the slipway should be granular.  You cannot build higher than the lowest of both of them, and the total hull spaces of units in the shipyard cannot exceed the shipyard's total.

 

Granularity should be around 10HS not 1 HS, 1HS makes it too fiddly.

My only problem with this whole idea the Electric Boat Shipyard.  During the early 1980s, it was building Los Angeles class subs(~6900 Tons), Ohio class subs (~18800 Tons) and refitting Sturgeon class subs (~4800 Tons).  One Shipyard, with 2 slipways, and a pair of drydocks.

Pete

We should split the current shipyard into 3 separate items.

Shipyards are the main area, that is where the "industrial work" gets done.

Slipways are primarily designed to build new ships, but they can overhaul, repair, and refit ships at a penalty (25% maybe).  I added overhaul in the list for forward bases.  I have a shipyard with a slipway, but no maintenance facility (possibly due to combat damage) and this way you could overhaul a ship using the old method.

Drydocks (or spacedocks) are the third item.  They allow overhaul, repair, and refits at normal cost, but building ships is at a penalty (again maybe 25%)

One of the reasons I suggest this is the US Navy during WWII Pacific campaigns had "Destroyer tenders" and "Floating Drydocks" forward deployed to fix battle damage.

The drydocks were modular, like we were talking about.

We then could then add 2 "ship items" called "Tender" and "Drydock"

Tenders allow repairs of battle damage like Damage Control without using up replacement parts.  You could also be alongside and perform a minor refit to replace the replacement parts.

Drydock or "mobile spacedock" would allow quicker repairs of battle damage and quicker minor refits. (replace the replacement parts at double speed maybe).  drydocks are large, and cannot be mounted on a ship with engines.  You MUST tow them.  Which forces you to develop a tug.

Pete

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I think that the slipways should be "modular" like the maintenance facilities are now.

You can start out with slipways that build 5000ton ships, then expand them later to build larger ships.

That way the shipyard/slipways to build a superdreadnaught will cost more than a small one to build frigates.  And it allows a colony to build "system patrol vessels" using a small shipyard and slipway without having the ability to build the above mentioned superdreadnaught.

I agree with the modular idea but the granularity will have to be much smaller than 5000 tons. One of my design goals with Aurora is to have ships of many different sizes, rather than the everyone has 30HS destroyers situation in Starfire. To this end I am trying to avoid anything that pushes players of all races into designing ships of a certain size. In this case, everyone would start building 5000 ton ships. Perhaps the best thing would be to buld a shipyard for half the current cost then have a modular slipway with a granularity of maybe 200 tons, the same as maintenance facilities. The shipyard itself will be useless until its slipways are built.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I like Pete's suggestion too, but I think the capacity modularity needs to be at the SY (not slipways (SW)) level, and should be small granularity (in tonnage) like your recent change to MF (i.e. much more granular than 5000 tons - maybe the 50 ton level (1HS) ?).  Since all SW associated with a SY build the same thing, it both doesn't make any sense and is much harder to track if different SW have different capacity.

Note that this means that SY upgrade/build/retooling costs would vary: increasing capacity would depend on the number of SW, adding a SW would depend on the capacity, and retooling would depend on both.

Yes, I realised that this might get a little complicated. I agree that having all slipways the same size would be a good idea. If a shipyard has three slipways and wants to increase slipway size by 200 tons, it will have to pay for 600 tons so that all three increase equally. If a new shipway is to be added, it will have to be added at the same size as the existing ones. Retooling will depend on the overall capacity of all slipways.

Questions:  If I've got a SY with 10 SW and capacity C will there be a build command to "split" the facility by building a new SY with capacity C and assigning some of the SW to the new yard, i.e. one SY with 6 SW and the other with 4 after the build?  Will there be a command to drop capacity of a SY complex (to make it cheaper to add SW)?

Probably not for a first cut but this is the type of detail I would add later.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I like pete's suggestion as well.

A seperate question for dealing with slipways.  In real life a crash project would grab extra people to get the job done faster.  How about allowing extra slipways to add a bonus to the production speed of the ship under construction.  Say around 20% with a max of doubling the rate of construction.  For each extra slipway however add 40% to the monetary cost and a lesser (say 5% or 10%) to the mineral cost.  The extra money covers all the overtime and the minerals cover the extra wear and tear on equipment, and the inventible wastage that occurs with a crash project.

Some type of crash construction project is a definite possibility. However, I will probably get the basic system working first and then look at this type of extra functionality.

Steve

[kdstubbs]

I enjoyed reading this post.  now for some historical perspectives.  One Caveat.  I am not an expert on shipbuilding.  But I have studied this somewhat for WWI.  During the 19 months of US participation in WWI, the US Government laid down 1000 slipways in multiple shipyards.  They were producing approximately 3 million gross deadweight tons of new ships by Nov 1918.  This laid the foundation for American production in the Interwar period and during world war II.  

The time needed to produce a new design for a new ship is usually done while the old design is still in production.  In the US we produce mini upgrades to existing designs through a process called preplanned product improvement.  The DDG-51 class Arleigh Burke Destroyers went through three block upgrades, the last added an entire helicopter deck and hangar to the Destroyer design, adding over twenty feet IIRC to the total ship length.  

when retooling a yard with multiple slipways, you begin retooling one of the slipways at a time while still manufacturing the older class in the remaining ways.  E.G., if you had four slipways, and assuming it took six months per slipway to retool, then over a two year period you would go from 4 DDG, to 3 old class, in the first six months, to 2 old, 1 new, 1 retooling, to 1 old, 2 new, 1 retooling, to 3 new and one retooling at 18 months. to 4 new at 24 months.  You get the picture.  

The older class can be upgraded to the new design or to a new block during a SLEP (service life extension program) dry docking period.  usually taking up to two years for a CVN and much less for a smaller warship.  So the idea of an assembly line producing a standard freighter hull makes sense.  Block upgrades could be done every five or ten years to keep the fleet modernized, etc.  

Steve, you will have a lot of fun coding slipways into 2.3

Hope this helps

Kevin

[Pete_Keller]

My idea was similar to Kevin's except shutdown one slipway at a time to resize it larger, then keep building the original ships on it, once all were upgraded, then change to a larger hull design.

Pete