Shipyard Changes

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

The minerals are based on the class because if you are building cargo ships you will presumably need very different equipment that if you were building warships.

But what you are making the ship out of really has nothing to do with the _tools_ used to build the ships.

If I'm building a gold wiring jig, likely I am not making the jig out of gold just because the wires are gold.

 Same for armor - I'll build the tools out of the cheapest materials that can do the job, but I really don't need all the braces used to hold the hull in place before joing the plates together made out of the same high grade armour that I'm using to build the hull...

OK, that does make sense. I am convinced

I have changed the retooling so that it uses just Duranium and Neutronium, the same as all other shipyard modifications.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve, below is the current schedule for the Bath Iron Works here in the US, notice it is building two different types of DDG's at the same time. And the Zumwalt is just about as different from the other class as you can get.  

Yes but if you look at the delivery dates, the Zumwalt isn't being delivered until 2012, 2 years after the last of the other DDs. This is exactly how Aurora works. At some point after laying down the last Spruance, you retool for the Zumwalt class and start work on the first one while you still have several Spruances under construction. The delivery schedule would then look the same as the contract list for that shipyard. If you look through the rest of the contracts on that webpage, in almost all cases each shipyard is building one ship type, very much like the new Aurora situation

This is not going to be easy to explain but we have to be careful to differentiate between an Aurora shipyard complex and a large real-world ship building company. I am sure there are some shipyards in the real world that produce multiple types of ship in different slipways. In game terms, a shipyard complex is a collection of one or more slipways that build the same design plus a central complex headquarters responsible for adding capacity and retooling. A population might have several of these complexes and an Empire may have several populations dedicated to shipbuilding.

In the real world, a large 'shipyard' might comprise several Aurora shipyard complex equivalents and would in effect be more like the population level while a country is the Empire level.

Take the following example. In Aurora terms this looks like two shipyard complexes, one set up to build carriers and the other to build submarines. The carrier yard probably only has one slipway, looking at the delivery dates, while the submarine yard has 2-3 slipways

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Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Aircraft Carrier U.S. Navy CVN 77 Firm George H. W. Bush 75,000 ldt, FY 01 3,806 Apr-08
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Aircraft Carrier U.S. Navy CVN 78 Firm Gerald R. Ford 80,000 ldt, FY 07 4,726 Sep-15
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 777 Firm North Carolina 7,700 ldt, FY 98 1,371 Dec-07
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 779 Firm New Mexico 7,700 ldt, FY 04 1,485 Apr-10
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 781 Firm   7,700 ldt, FY 06 1,576 Apr-12
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 783 Firm   7,700 ldt, FY 07 1,723 Apr-14
Newport News Shipbuilding Newport News VA Submarine U.S. Navy SSN 785 Option   7,700 ldt, FY 08 ~1,900 Apr-16

EDIT: The point I am trying to get across here is that the carriers and submarines cannot be built interchangeably in the same slipways. There is a set of slipways set up for the carrier class and a set of slipways set up for the sub class. In Aurora terms, those are two separate shipyard complexes, even though they are both Newport News in the real world

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

To allay the concerns over similar classes requiring different shipyards, I am considering the idea that in addition to the class a shipyard is set up to build, it could automatically build any other class where the refit cost from that class the to 'normal' class was less than 20% of the normal class cost.

In other worlds, if you can build a specific destroyer class costing 1000 BP, then you could build any other class that could be refitted to the specific destroyer class for 200 BP or less. How does that sound?

Steve

[Brian Neumann]

To allay the concerns over similar classes requiring different shipyards, I am considering the idea that in addition to the class a shipyard is set up to build, it could automatically build any other class where the refit cost from that class the to 'normal' class was less than 20% of the normal class cost.

In other worlds, if you can build a specific destroyer class costing 1000 BP, then you could build any other class that could be refitted to the specific destroyer class for 200 BP or less. How does that sound?

Steve

Instead of any other class within that limit, make it a selection that the player does.  When the player wants to check what ships could be built they have to look, the screen would only show those within the limit.  This would get around the problem you mentioned earlier about the program having to check each time a player clicked on a shipyard complex.

Brian

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Instead of any other class within that limit, make it a selection that the player does.  When the player wants to check what ships could be built they have to look, the screen would only show those within the limit.  This would get around the problem you mentioned earlier about the program having to check each time a player clicked on a shipyard complex.

I have written a piece of code since my last post. It checks all the other classes and creates a list in a fraction of a second, so it doesn't have the performance overhead I was worried about.

Steve

[RoguePhoenix]

Steve,

I think alot of this ends up being 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Indeed most slipways in a shipyard are geared to a certain size of ship and if possible depending on the amount of ships being generated geared towards a specific class. This increases effeciency and reduces cost of course and like your last post would not affect it too much if there were minor changes to an existing design.

Slipways are generally however grouped as many together as there can be because having them in one shipyard also increases the effciency by allowing mutual storage and easier construction on similar components (even carriers, cruisers, and subs have similar components). This effciency is usually increase by the number of slipways you have (i.e. the more ships you are building at once in the same area be they different or not the cheaper it is per ship). How much of a difference this makes and how easy it would be to program either way I know not.

This concept is also complicated by the way you have designed Aurora. In comparison to Starfire there are far, far fewer ships being produced. For the most part maybe 5 to 8 ships of any given design (I think the max I saw was 20 to 25) seem to be produced before technology has moved on to the point where a new design is ready to be made. It is the problem most shipyards are facing today, they really have no time to learn how to produce a particular class more effciently because by the time they have learned a new class or a new phase is being produced or too few ships of that class are going to be made in the first place. The Liberty ship in comparison, which had some 2700 ships produced, was able to make the transition from 240 day construciton to 42 days because of how many they had to learn from.

So... if your looking for realistic I don't know how much a shipyard could gear itself to a particular class of ship when it might only produce a few of each of that class. Now I can see a shipyard gearing itself to a particular type of ship (ie freighter, carrier, missle ship, beam ship) and only be limited to the size of whatever slipway it currently has. A sub is a sub even it is a SSBN or SSN it has simlar needs and overall characteristics, same as a carrier or surface ship.

It's a complicated problem, guess I will have to see how it games out in testing, but I thought I'd toss my 2 cents in.

Also I was curious. How does this affect refits?

[Erik L]

To allay the concerns over similar classes requiring different shipyards, I am considering the idea that in addition to the class a shipyard is set up to build, it could automatically build any other class where the refit cost from that class the to 'normal' class was less than 20% of the normal class cost.

In other worlds, if you can build a specific destroyer class costing 1000 BP, then you could build any other class that could be refitted to the specific destroyer class for 200 BP or less. How does that sound?

Steve

I like this. It cuts my 8 shipyard scenario to 3. Big big savings.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve,

I think alot of this ends up being 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Indeed most slipways in a shipyard are geared to a certain size of ship and if possible depending on the amount of ships being generated geared towards a specific class. This increases effeciency and reduces cost of course and like your last post would not affect it too much if there were minor changes to an existing design.

Slipways are generally however grouped as many together as there can be because having them in one shipyard also increases the effciency by allowing mutual storage and easier construction on similar components (even carriers, cruisers, and subs have similar components). This effciency is usually increase by the number of slipways you have (i.e. the more ships you are building at once in the same area be they different or not the cheaper it is per ship). How much of a difference this makes and how easy it would be to program either way I know not.

This concept is also complicated by the way you have designed Aurora. In comparison to Starfire there are far, far fewer ships being produced. For the most part maybe 5 to 8 ships of any given design (I think the max I saw was 20 to 25) seem to be produced before technology has moved on to the point where a new design is ready to be made. It is the problem most shipyards are facing today, they really have no time to learn how to produce a particular class more effciently because by the time they have learned a new class or a new phase is being produced or too few ships of that class are going to be made in the first place. The Liberty ship in comparison, which had some 2700 ships produced, was able to make the transition from 240 day construciton to 42 days because of how many they had to learn from.

That is a very good point. Aurora does have fewer ships than Starfire and the breadth of different technologies means that you can make minor improvements to a design on a regular basis. I guess what I am trying to aim for is a more real-world situation where you keep producing the same basic design for several years while before changing to a new one that includes a lot of new technologies, not just one or two. Of course the other advantage of keeping the same design is the ability to exchange spares between ships of the same class. Now I have added the ability to also build classes with minor differences, the same yard could produce ships with some upgrades but not a significantly changed design.

So... if your looking for realistic I don't know how much a shipyard could gear itself to a particular class of ship when it might only produce a few of each of that class. Now I can see a shipyard gearing itself to a particular type of ship (ie freighter, carrier, missle ship, beam ship) and only be limited to the size of whatever slipway it currently has. A sub is a sub even it is a SSBN or SSN it has simlar needs and overall characteristics, same as a carrier or surface ship.

A good thing about the code for allowing similar ships is that the percentage of refit cost is a global constant. If playtesting showed that 20% wasn't enough, I could change it to 30% or 40%.  That would allow similar types of ships to be built but not radically different ones.

It's a complicated problem, guess I will have to see how it games out in testing, but I thought I'd toss my 2 cents in.

Also I was curious. How does this affect refits?

For a given yard, you can refit to any class that can be built in the yard (from any other class).

Steve

[Randy]

One more thought over night...

  I think it would make some sense that a given SY complex could go back and build any class it has previously built (ie has retooled for at least once) for a much lower cost than retooling to build it in the first place.

  Say something like 10%...

  This might be an alternative to the "can build anything within 20%" cost solution. It is less prone to abuse, and somewhat realistic as part of the retooling process is learning how to build it in the first place...

  This would let you build class A, retool for class B (the grav and geo sensor versions of ships for example). Decide you need more class A, you can switch the complex back to A for 10% the normal switch cost (in both BP and minerals).

  Allowing this makes it so the investment to build class A or B isn't lost when going to another class - it will still be recoverable at some point in the future...

[Erik L]

Regarding yard names...

Why not call them something like "Terra Yards" "Mars Yards" "Alpha Centauri A III Yards"

Prefix Yards with the colony name. Simple and tells you exactly where it is.

[Pete_Keller]

A good thing about the code for allowing similar ships is that the percentage of refit cost is a global constant. If playtesting showed that 20% wasn't enough, I could change it to 30% or 40%.  That would allow similar types of ships to be built but not radically different ones.

Steve

Steve, is it hard coded in the program, or is it in access?

Pete

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

 This might be an alternative to the "can build anything within 20%" cost solution. It is less prone to abuse, and somewhat realistic as part of the retooling process is learning how to build it in the first place...

I'll answer the main point separately but I thought I had better cover this first as I may not have properly explained the 20% rule. This isn't any ship within 20% of the cost of the dedicated class. It's any ship that could be refitted to the dedicated class for less than 20% of the main class cost. Therefore it only applies to designs that closely resemble the dedicated class.

For example, a shipyard dedicating to building the Udaloy III could also build the Udaloy IIIC because to refit the latter to the former would cost 125 BP, which is only 18% of the cost of the Udaloy III.

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Udaloy III class Survey Ship    3750 tons     335 Crew     694 BP      TCS 75  TH 300  EM 0
4000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/3/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Replacement Parts 5    

J375 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 3750 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (5)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres    Range 216.0 billion km   (625 days at full power)

Gravitational Survey Sensors (3)   3 Survey Points

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Udaloy IIIC class Survey Ship    3750 tons     335 Crew     744 BP      TCS 75  TH 300  EM 0
4000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/2/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Flag Bridge    Replacement Parts 5    

J375 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 3750 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (5)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres    Range 216.0 billion km   (625 days at full power)

Gravitational Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points However, you couldn't build the Kotlin II class Terraformer, which costs 734 (only 40 more than the Udaloy III) in this yard, because the refit cost from the Kotlin to the Udaloy is 625 BP. This system should not be open to abuse because the program performs all the refit calculations and provides only eligible ships as available for construction. The part that will need playtesting is where to set the percentage. I am not sure if the 20% is slightly slow.

For example, to refit the Sovremenny IIA to the Sovremenny IIB requires the replacement of all six missile launchers with newer types. This refit costs 225, which is 25.4% of the Sovremenny IIA build cost. So should this new ship be built with no modification to the yard or should the yard retool to build the updated version. In this case the Yard has two slipways and would pay 225 BPs to retool (because the retool cost is based on the lower of the new cost and refit cost). Retool cost calculation is 225 x (0.5(SY) +0.25 +0.25 (2x SW)). The shipbuilding rate for this pop is 784 BP so retooling would take seven weeks, based on 225 / (784x2). Personally I don't think 225 BP and seven weeks is unreasonable as a retooling time and cost so the 20% level may be OK.

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Sovremenny II-A class Destroyer    6000 tons     693 Crew     886 BP      TCS 120  TH 480  EM 270
4000 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 9-300     Sensors 1/0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 30
Magazine 600    Replacement Parts 10    

Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (8)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 90.0 billion km   (260 days at full power)
Beta R300/15 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  90 Litres per day

Missile Launcher 05-050 (6)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 50
M600 Missile Fire Control (1)    Range: 600k km
SS-N-2 Scarab (120)  Speed: 14,000 km/s   Endurance: 50 secs    Range: 700k km   Warhead: 4    Size: 5

Active Sensor MR20000-R40 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 40

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Sovremenny II-B class Destroyer    6000 tons     693 Crew     946 BP      TCS 120  TH 480  EM 270
4000 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 9-300     Sensors 1/0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 30
Magazine 600    Replacement Parts 10    

Sorokin S8 Ion Drive (8)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.80    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 90.0 billion km   (260 days at full power)
Beta R300/15 Shields (6)   Total Fuel Cost  90 Litres per day

Mikoyan M40 Missile Launcher (6)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 40
M600 Missile Fire Control (1)    Range: 600k km
SS-N-2 Scarab (120)  Speed: 14,000 km/s   Endurance: 50 secs    Range: 700k km   Warhead: 4    Size: 5

Active Sensor MR20000-R40 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 40
Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Regarding yard names...

Why not call them something like "Terra Yards" "Mars Yards" "Alpha Centauri A III Yards"

Prefix Yards with the colony name. Simple and tells you exactly where it is.

There would have to be an additional number because you can have more than one yard per population. So you might have Terra Yard #4, etc.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

One more thought over night...

  I think it would make some sense that a given SY complex could go back and build any class it has previously built (ie has retooled for at least once) for a much lower cost than retooling to build it in the first place.

Not necessarily. The Russians converted some warship yards to build freighters and it was considered very difficult to change back. A US example is the following statement from Northrop Grumman.

According to a Northrop Grumman source, "Our workload forecasting and PERT [Program Evaluation Review Technique] charts show that we will be wrapping up our last contracted DDG-51 for the US Navy at the end of 2006 or early 2007. Once that is done, we will shut down the assembly line. If anyone wants to purchase the DDG-51/AEGIS after we shut down the assembly and lay off the highly trained and skilled DDG-51 craftsmen and technicians, you can imagine the added costs involved. So, if anyone intends to buy this system, they should wisely sign up soon."

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

A good thing about the code for allowing similar ships is that the percentage of refit cost is a global constant. If playtesting showed that 20% wasn't enough, I could change it to 30% or 40%.  That would allow similar types of ships to be built but not radically different ones.

Steve, is it hard coded in the program, or is it in access?

Coded as a constant, but it could be moved to Access.

Steve