NC Part 15: January 2049 - October 2049

[Michael Sandy]

D'oh!  Yeah, I meant automated mine.

As for the rest, Thebes' population will grow about 10% a year.  That is 500,000 a year.  And if the Commonwealth switches to just shipping colonists and automated mines, more population is available for production.

And if the automated mines are shifted to somewhere with Mercassium, there is endless employment for new freighters and colony ships.

And that endless appetite means that more refits will be needed after a while too, requiring, ta da, more shipyards.

So my thought is, if the mines now on Thebes are sufficient to meet the Gallicite part of construction and refit needs, it is time to shift the priority from increasing Gallicite mining to increasing Mercassium.  Doing so, while continuing to ship colonists to Thebes, will allow Thebes to increase its construction factory capacity to the point that it becomes practical for Thebes to build a shipyard.

Thebes has something like 30 construction factories?  Get it up to 100 and it could build a shipyard in little over three years with Construction Tech 2.

[MWadwell]

D'oh!  Yeah, I meant automated mine.

  Thought so.

As for the rest, Thebes' population will grow about 10% a year.  That is 500,000 a year.  And if the Commonwealth switches to just shipping colonists and automated mines, more population is available for production.

Agreed, the population growth of 10% is significant, however the most efficient was is to increase the automation, as increasing population results in a decreasing efficiency.

That is the point that I have been trying to make.

Consider this example, a planet of 5 million people, with 10 manned mines. Two options:
1) automate the 10 manned mines;
2) ship in 500K population.

For a planetary population of 5 million, it will be split the following ways:
Food (5%) - 250K
Service population (26.6%) - 1330K
Mines (10) - 500K
Free - 2920K

Now, let's have a look at the planetary population breakdown after the mines have been automated:
Food (5%) - 250K
Service population (26.6%) - 1330K
Mines (0) - 0K
Free - 3420K

The increase in free population is 500K.

And using the other option:
Food (5%) - 275K
Service population (27.2%) - 1500K
Mines (10) - 500K
Free - 3230K

The increase in free population is 310K.

As can be seen, you end up with more free people from automating, then from importing more people. This is due to the fact that the population devoted to the service population increases with the population size......

And if the automated mines are shifted to somewhere with Mercassium, there is endless employment for new freighters and colony ships.

Agreed - but the mines don't have to go far. For example, in Mycenae (the system next to Thebes and between Thebes and Earth), there is 35000 tons of Mercassium at an accessibility of 0.4.

And two jumps away from Thebes (in Piraeus), there is 59000 tons at an accessibility of 1.

And that endless appetite means that more refits will be needed after a while too, requiring, ta da, more shipyards.

Eventually, yes, there will be a need for more shipyards.

But at the moment nearly 73% of the shipyards are available.

Look at it this way, if you set the upper limit to shipyard usage devoted to overhauls to 50% (the remaining 50% devoted to refits and new construction), this would require another 25000 BP to raise the overhaul requirements to 50% - or about 5 years worth of production (or 14 Atermis II colony ships, PLUS 28 Thermistocles II freighters).

And so any new shipyards are NOT going to be needed for the next 5 years.....

So my thought is, if the mines now on Thebes are sufficient to meet the Gallicite part of construction and refit needs, it is time to shift the priority from increasing Gallicite mining to increasing Mercassium.  Doing so, while continuing to ship colonists to Thebes, will allow Thebes to increase its construction factory capacity to the point that it becomes practical for Thebes to build a shipyard.

Agreed - I think that the main point of disagreement between us is the timeframe.

Thebes has something like 30 construction factories?  Get it up to 100 and it could build a shipyard in little over three years with Construction Tech 2.

Agreed - which is why I think that the Commonwealth won't need a new shipyard for at least another 5 years - which gives 2 years to ship colonists/mines/factories to Thebes, and then another 3 years for the shipyards to be built (at Thebes).

[Michael Sandy]

You are neglecting an important factor in converting the manned mines to automated.  It costs 1500 production to do it.  1/3 of a shipyard, right there.

And that is production at Thebes.  Production at Thebes has to be weighted a bit more strongly.  Automating the mines costs more than building 10 more construction factories.

Converting manned mines to automated ones has got to be a very temporary strategy, just long enough to get everything at Thebes fully employed.  After that, there is no point towards spending more Theban production converting factories.

You are correct in how we disagree about the timing of the demand for shipyards.  You are correct that the Commonwealth can keep producing ships for a long time as the ratio of refit time to shipbuilding increases.  However, increasing economic expansion requires an increase in ship building rates.

If you can build enough colony ships, you can transport manned mines and more construction factories.

There are a few other considerations:
1)  A shipyard in Thebes is secure from spies.  A completely new class of warship could be developed there.  Like, say, Carriers.

2)  A shipyard in Thebes more secure from raids, sabotage etc...

3)  Spies will not have an accurate count of Commonwealth hulls.

4)  A shipyard on Thebes is slightly more efficient for refiting survey ships.  Loses 2 fewer useful months per 3 years.

And run the trends:
2044, Colonization of Thebes begins.  5 years later, 5 million.  If you extrapolate, you should have a lot more than 10 million on Thebes in 5 more years, because a lot of time was lost ramping up freighter and colony ship numbers.  I figure that in 5 years, you would have a few more mines, but a _lot_ more construction factories.

But in 5 more years, there will be fewer new colony ships and freighters coming on line, not more, because of refit issues.

At that point, even producing a new shipyard every 3 years at Thebes it would be hard to increase the new construction speed.

[Michael Sandy]

Hunh.  It looks like we actually agree a bit on a time table.  Sort of.  5 years to the first extrasolar shipyard.  With ever decreasing time to the next new shipyard.

20 years to double total shipyards?

I would point out that with 50% of shipyards doing refits, a single additional shipyard is a 17% increase in new ships.

5 years to move about 100 factories and mines to Thebes.  Another 5 years would likely see what, another 150 or so, and some more beyond it?  That would be like 1/4 the Commonwealth's economic power.

Commonwealth politics will definitely get a little funny in 10 years not only will the industry numbers for Thebes and Earth start to approach each other, but the relative importance of what Thebes produces will be much more important.  Think of which real estate is worth investing in, and figure that politics chases the money.

With merely steady, not increasing ship production, the Commonwealth would basically double its colony ship and freighter fleet in 5 years, with an even higher increase in capacity due to new engines and a Jump Gate link to Thebes that allows more efficient freighter and colony ship designs.

But you may have a point.  With these projections, Earth's industry could be largely evacuated within 25 years.  Faster shipyard production would cut a year or so off that, but then what?  At that point, there is not such a huge payoff from increasing the freighter fleet.  Earth's most vital aspect to the Commonwealth's empire at that point would be the Research factories, the trading links with the other races, and the shipyards.

[rmcrowe]

Which I think is missing three key points.  

1.  The Commonwealth needs to build/move its research capability to Herakleia or Thebes.

2.  The existing population of the Commonwealth will want to be moved OFF the Earth fairly soon, requiring large numbers of the Artemis II class to do it.

3.  Herakleia needs a visit from a few freighters, to deliver at least one mine and at least one Construction Factory.

robert

[kdstubbs]

Steve,
        Once you get a jump gate network built out to Thebes, you would then be in a position to establish a colonization pipeline, by moving population every month in a free flowing movement of colony ships--twelve squadrons of colony ships would produce a steady state movement of 200,000 colonists with infrastructure per month, increasing the number of colony ships to twenty four colony squadrons, would allow you to move 400,000 per month, but you can do the math.  Essentially a colony ship could be landing almost every week if you set it up properly.  
         But you will need to limit ie defend the network to prevent your competitors from simply moving through the gate on their own.  
         need a von neuman factory to allow you to boot strap factory production in Thebes and elsewhere.  Might want to also consider multiple colony sites--don't want all of your eggs in one basket so to speak.  I would immediately begin serious consideration of a second colony site, one where I could cover my bet.  

Kevin

[Michael Sandy]

I agree that the various habitable planets should each receive a starter colony.

First, a freighter full of automated factories.  Then a colony ship and enough infrastructure to support it, along with Construction factories.

That ensures that the colony can build up infrastructure until such time as it becomes a priority to ship large numbers of colonists there.

However, I disagree that there is any priority to building more research labs anytime soon.  The Commonwealth has a lot of research labs, and they will produce up until Nemesis arrives.  And there is a greater incremental benefit to producing more shipyards, and a greater locational advantage in having the new shipyard at Thebes.

[Michael Sandy]

Lets see, how fast can the Commonwealth increase its colony ship building capacity.

There is a planet with lots of Mercassium, availability 1, a bit further out from Thebes.  In order to produce 2 colony ships a year, that is 800 tons.  You would need about 60 automated mines for that.  And several more to cover refit costs.

Would take a lot of freighters, but the Commonwealth has a good number of them.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Does the Commonwealth now have sufficient Jump gate components for both sides of the first warp point in the chain to Thebes?  If so, that will add some flexibility in terms of colony and freighter schedules, which in turn allows more flexibility in terms of shipyard space too.  If ships are leaving and arriving throughout the season, when a new ship is completed, there should be a newly arriving ship that could be refitted.

There are enough jump gate components to build the gates either side of the Sol - Corinth jump point and the Corinth - Mycenae Gate. More components will have to built for the other gates. Once the gates are built, it will become a lot easier to move things to and from Thebes as ships can proceed in small groups rather than as a large convoy.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Question:  why aren't the new Jump Cruisers and refitted grav survey ships not using the Ion IB engines?  These aren't combat ships, they have no shields, so why worry about battle damage issues?

The refitted ships are not using the new Ion engines because replacing all the engines is during a refit is very expensive. I could have included them in the new Menelaus II but I wanted the older ship to refit to the same class.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Perhaps now that the Gallicite shortage has been addressed, ships can be overhauled on a scheduled basis (rather than when Gallicite is available), which would result in a more consistent shipyard usage.

A very good point about the reasons for the problems with shipyard capacity. It as eased now as overhauls have been completed and most of the activity is new construction.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

The other useful thing that the construction factories on Thebes can do is make more construction factories.

Then more colonists could be shipped to Thebes to man them, while the automated factories go somewhere with Mercassium.

As for Terraforming, I thought "colonizable" meant colonization costs were less than twice the optimum, not that the ratio was 1.

The longer term plan will be to move all the automated mines off Thebes when the pop is high enough to support the manned mines.

In Aurora terms I tend to think of ideal as 1.0 and habitable as 2.0 or less. Anything 3.0 or less is also reasonable if you need a base or to establish a mining colony. Up to around 10.0 is possible for an outpost.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

What I'm waiting to see is an automatic automatic factory factory.

LOL - I hope I never get to that stage

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

From what I've remember, you can only place a population down on a planet with a habitability index of 4 or less. The index is also the cost multiplier w.r.t. the amount of infrastructure needed.

All Terraforming does, is to make one of the 2 changable factors (water and oxygen - as gravity is unchangable) more habitable, which then reduces the multiplier.

You can place a population anywhere with a colony cost, although I think it becomes impractical above colony cost 10.0. As well as the infrastructure cost, the colony cost also affects the size of the Food and Environment sector of the population which is equal to colony cost x 5%

The current Terraforming installations allow you to remove or add any type of atmopsheric gas, allowing you to modifiy the amount of oxygen (for example) or add/remove greenhouse gases to affect the temperature. I may add other types of terraforming in the future.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve,
        Once you get a jump gate network built out to Thebes, you would then be in a position to establish a colonization pipeline, by moving population every month in a free flowing movement of colony ships--twelve squadrons of colony ships would produce a steady state movement of 200,000 colonists with infrastructure per month, increasing the number of colony ships to twenty four colony squadrons, would allow you to move 400,000 per month, but you can do the math.  Essentially a colony ship could be landing almost every week if you set it up properly.  
         But you will need to limit ie defend the network to prevent your competitors from simply moving through the gate on their own.  
         need a von neuman factory to allow you to boot strap factory production in Thebes and elsewhere.  Might want to also consider multiple colony sites--don't want all of your eggs in one basket so to speak.  I would immediately begin serious consideration of a second colony site, one where I could cover my bet.  Kevin

One of my priorities at the moment is to establish jump gates on the Sol - Thebes route but it is going to take several years. Once in place, each group of ships can then move at their maximum speed and new, faster ship types can be introduced without complicating the logistics.

Defending the network is a concern although not for the reason you mention. You cannot move through another race's jump gates without permission (I will add a treaty type for this) but jump gates are not too hard to destroy - 100 points of damage is required. Hostile raiders could wreak havoc by taking out a few jump gates.

I agree that I need to establish additional colonies because the Commonwealth would be in severe trouble if an alien race took out Thebes. For the moment, the threat of Nemesis means risks have to be taken but as soon as resources permit, additional colonies will be established in Thessalonica and Cerberus and the Herakleia colony will be improved.

Steve