2084 Campaign Part 4: Scientia vincere tenebras

[Steve Walmsley]

I think the point to be found here is that there are not 9 shipyards in this complex, there are 9 building slips in 1 shipyard. Components are not fabricated separately in each slipway, they are fabricated in the shops and brought to the slipway for assembly. The only real reason they would use one slipway rather than another for any particular ship would be the size (and weight) of the ship involved.

So why does their brochure state they build particular ship types in particular dry docks. It even states that "Dry Dock 9 is specially designed to build VLCC with greater productivity gains". Those specified dry docks are effectively separate shipyards in an Aurora sense regardless of their proximity to each other.

If civilian ships are of the same complexity as naval ships, then there's no real difference between them. I don't believe this is the case. One reason the excort carriers were so fast and easy to build in WWII is that they were constructed to civilian standards, not naval standards. The light carriers built for the Royal Navy in WWII were also constructed to civilian standards, as it was thought they might be converted to transports or liners after the war.

Well if they were built to different standards they were plainly not of the same complexity then. If you build cheaper, less capable ships in Aurora, they are easier to retool anyway.

I also don't believe it should be necessary to re-retool a shipyard to build a ship that that yard has once been tooled up to build, no matter how many times that yard has been retooled since then. The necessary dies, jigs and plans would be stored and accessible. It would seem to me to be more efficient to add building slips to existing shipyards rather than build new shipyards or retool existing ones when adding classes of ships to the build list. The shops where most of the real technical work is done are already in existence and the workers are already onsite and trained.

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." So it would appear that Northrop Grumman doesn't agree with you.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

I would think 102 ships in 3 years would be impossible under Aurora's current re-tooling rules, which are good for the military side, but are not the best to reflect the civilian side of shipbuilding.  

The reason you couldn't build 102 ships in 3 years is a lot more to do with Aurora downsizing the reality of global output than the shipyard rules. Earth could probably turn out thousands of ships in reality (as in WW2) but that wouldn't make much sense for a playable game that tracks individual ships.

Steve

[MWadwell]

I was looking at shipbuilding on the web, and I found a website for a Korean shipbuilder:
http://english.hhi.co.kr/business/shipbuilding.asp

And as you can see from their website, they build:
VLCC's, Tankers, product carriers, chemical tankers, containerships, bulk carriers, OBO carriers, Ro-Pax ships, Ro-Ro ships, car carriers, LNG carriers, LPG carriers, as well as warships.

Now I cannot find out how many shipyards/slips they have - but the fact that since 1972 they have build so many different types of ships means that they don't need to re-tool as much as you need to in Aurora.

If you read their brochure it tells you that they have nine dry docks of different capacities. Dock 1 and 8 are configured to build LNG Carriers. Naval ships are built in docks 6 and 7, "Dry Dock 9 is specially designed to build VLCC with greater productivity gains". It doesn't sound like they simply build whatever they like in each shipyard with no need to retool. I think its more the case that the civilian market requires more one-off ships, not that for some reason ships intended for a civilian purpose are inherently easier to build than a military vessel of similar complexity

Steve

I disagree - a military vessel is going to have a larger crew, with a larger (and more complex) environmental requirements (not just the NBC requirements, but also larger systems due to the crew sizes), and this is ignoring the added complexity of the military equipment that a civilian ship doesn't carry (and this is ignoring the weapons themselves!). And so a military vessel is going to be a LOT more complex and difficult to manufacture than a civilian vessel.

But the fact of the matter is that  this one shipyard has slips of vastly different capacities:
Dock 1 - 500 000 dwt
Dock 2 - 700 000 dwt
Dock 3 - 1 000 000 dwt
Dock 4 - 400 000 dwt
Dock 5 - 250 000 dwt
Dock 6 - 150 000 dwt
Dock 7 - 15 000 and 8 000 dwt
Dock 8 - 500 000 dwt
Dock 9 - 400 000 dwt

Now there has to be a reason for HHI to do it this way....


Also, if you consider the sentence that you quoted:

"Dry Dock 9 is specially designed to build VLCC with greater productivity gains".

You can read into that, that docks 1 to 8 are NOT specialised, and can build any type of ship (as long as it isn't too big for the slip, that is....)

Also, have a look at the picture of the yards on page 8 of the brochure - and you can see a wide variety of different types and sizes of ships being built next to each other (litterally next to each other).

Also, have a look at the list of ships manufactured in the yards (pages  40 to 53 of the brochure), then you see that there is a wide variety of hull sizes and types (even within the same hull type, there is a wide variation in the tonnage of the ships produced).


Epiphany time! In real life, a majority of the construction takes place away from the slip. The slip is used to assemble the pre-fabricated sections. And so apart from the size of the cranes, the slips doesn't need anything different to the slip next to it (which might be building a totally different ship).

To be sure we are comparing apples to apples - can you confirm that this is the way you envisage a shipyard works in Aurora, or are you using a more "historical" model (where the actual construction (as opposed to assembly) takes place on the slip)

[Steve Walmsley]

This has become a pointless discussion which is going nowhere and no one is going to change their mind. I could argue about whether the Korean example represents multiple Aurora shipyards, etc but it is just semantics and both sides of this argument can use the available information to support their view. Therefore I am simply going to state that in Aurora you will not be able to design a ship and immediately start building it. The game simulates this by use of the retooling cost but it could also do it by requiring design time and cost. Even with the best shipyards in the world, civilian or otherwise, you cannot simply walk in one morning with some plans you just ran up on your computer and get them to start building the ship that afternoon. Even if they could, that ship would still cost more per unit if you built one that if you built five or ten, regardless of whether it is a warship or a paddle steamer. Therefore there will be a retooling cost to simulate that. As I noted in my other reply, if this makes Aurora unplayable there are plenty of other games that allow instant shipbuilding.

Steve

[sloanjh]

In terms of Aurora, I would say there's ~6SY with ~13 slipways between them (e.g. 1 & 8  form 1 SY with 2 slipways, while some of the dry-docks can be building multiple ships at a time - there were 2 with 3 ships each in the brochure photo).

Looking at the brochure, on page 40 it starts a list of actual ships built since 1997.  The first 10 ships on the list seem to be divided up among only 4 classes - it doesn't look like there are any one-offs in these first 10.  This jibes with intuition - why contract with a naval architect to design a brand-new, one-off generic panamax container ship when there exist perfectly good designs that can be re-used?

I think TrueZulu's arguments that WWII civilian ships were much quicker to build than military-spec ships is an argument that civilian ships should be much cheaper to build than military ships.  I think this is already true in Aurora, especially with the new "thin skin" option, and if you down-engine the civilian ships.  (I'm not saying you should do this, I'm just saying that WWII cargo ships were MUCH slower than major warships.)  In my games, I find (IIRC) that I can retool to my civilian freighter design in just a few months, while retooling to warships, jump ships, or colony ships can take a couple of years.

I was actually very skeptical of the new SY rules when they were being discussed, but having played with them I find them reasonable.  One thing that I don't like about them is that they make it even harder to build "very large" ships - by the time you've expanded the SY capacity to 300 HS, retooled it for your design, then built the ship, a LOT of years have gone by.  OTOH, how many countries have the facilities to build a Nimitz-class CV(N), and how long does it take....  One reason I'd like to see big ships is Steve's original idea that armor cost should go down as volume goes up, making it cheaper to build big, heavily armored ships.  It seems like the straight volume cost of engining a ship up means that the "opportunity cost" of long build times prevents building a (relatively) big enough ship to take advantage of this effect.  It will be interesting to see how the new armor rules affect this.

John

[sloanjh]

Eeep - didn't see the second page of the thread when I posted my last.  Sorry 'bout that.

John

[Steve Walmsley]

I was actually very skeptical of the new SY rules when they were being discussed, but having played with them I find them reasonable.  One thing that I don't like about them is that they make it even harder to build "very large" ships - by the time you've expanded the SY capacity to 300 HS, retooled it for your design, then built the ship, a LOT of years have gone by.  OTOH, how many countries have the facilities to build a Nimitz-class CV(N), and how long does it take....  One reason I'd like to see big ships is Steve's original idea that armor cost should go down as volume goes up, making it cheaper to build big, heavily armored ships.  It seems like the straight volume cost of engining a ship up means that the "opportunity cost" of long build times prevents building a (relatively) big enough ship to take advantage of this effect.  It will be interesting to see how the new armor rules affect this.

I am aware that for really large ships, building the shipyards and retooling them can be expensive. Therefore I have introduced a new tech line called Shipyard Operations. This tech reduces the costs of adding capacity and retooling and so far has the following steps:

Starting Tech: Normal Shipyard Operations: No Time/Cost Saving
2500 RP: Shipyard Operations: 5% Time/Cost Saving
5000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 10% Time/Cost Saving
10,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 20% Time/Cost Saving
20,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 30% Time/Cost Saving
40,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 40% Time/Cost Saving
75,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 50% Time/Cost Saving

For example, adding 1000 capacity to a shipyard usually requires 240 BP. With the Shipyard Operations: 20% Time/Cost Saving tech it would only require 192 BP (96 Duranium and 96 Neutronium)

As the rate at which capacity is added and retooling carried out is also based on the shipbuilding rate, this should make it easier to build and operate large shipyards as the game progresses.

Steve

[Haegan2005]

I like this tech line.

I am aware that for really large ships, building the shipyards and retooling them can be expensive. Therefore I have introduced a new tech line called Shipyard Operations. This tech reduces the costs of adding capacity and retooling and so far has the following steps:

Starting Tech: Normal Shipyard Operations: No Time/Cost Saving
2500 RP: Shipyard Operations: 5% Time/Cost Saving
5000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 10% Time/Cost Saving
10,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 20% Time/Cost Saving
20,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 30% Time/Cost Saving
40,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 40% Time/Cost Saving
75,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 50% Time/Cost Saving

For example, adding 1000 capacity to a shipyard usually requires 240 BP. With the Shipyard Operations: 20% Time/Cost Saving tech it would only require 192 BP (96 Duranium and 96 Neutronium)

As the rate at which capacity is added and retooling carried out is also based on the shipbuilding rate, this should make it easier to build and operate large shipyards as the game progresses.

Steve

[sloanjh]

I like this tech line.

Me too - thanks Steve!

John

[Erik L]

I am aware that for really large ships, building the shipyards and retooling them can be expensive. Therefore I have introduced a new tech line called Shipyard Operations. This tech reduces the costs of adding capacity and retooling and so far has the following steps:

Starting Tech: Normal Shipyard Operations: No Time/Cost Saving
2500 RP: Shipyard Operations: 5% Time/Cost Saving
5000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 10% Time/Cost Saving
10,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 20% Time/Cost Saving
20,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 30% Time/Cost Saving
40,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 40% Time/Cost Saving
75,000 RP: Shipyard Operations: 50% Time/Cost Saving

For example, adding 1000 capacity to a shipyard usually requires 240 BP. With the Shipyard Operations: 20% Time/Cost Saving tech it would only require 192 BP (96 Duranium and 96 Neutronium)

As the rate at which capacity is added and retooling carried out is also based on the shipbuilding rate, this should make it easier to build and operate large shipyards as the game progresses.

Steve

Is there an officer skill that reduces ship construction time? Maybe that could be expanded to include retooling also.

[Haegan2005]

wouldn't that be ship building? More points = less time.

Is there an officer skill that reduces ship construction time? Maybe that could be expanded to include retooling also.

[ShadoCat]

To defray the time cost of that first big ship, how about counting the slip build/expansion time against the retooling time for the first ship?

It makes sense that if they are going to build the slip, they are going to build it for waht they expect to build in it.

[sloanjh]

To defray the time cost of that first big ship, how about counting the slip build/expansion time against the retooling time for the first ship?

It makes sense that if they are going to build the slip, they are going to build it for waht they expect to build in it.

'
This is already in - a new SY allows you to set the class that it is tooled for at zero cost.

John

[Erik L]

wouldn't that be ship building? More points = less time.

Is there an officer skill that reduces ship construction time? Maybe that could be expanded to include retooling also.

I don't believe the skill at this point affects retooling. Just actual construction.

[MWadwell]

wouldn't that be ship building? More points = less time.

Is there an officer skill that reduces ship construction time? Maybe that could be expanded to include retooling also.

I don't believe the skill at this point affects retooling. Just actual construction.

I thought that ship building and retooling used the racial shipbuilding rate - which would be modified by any officers skill.

Steve - can you confirm this?