Ship prices

General discussion about anything related to Transcendence.
Amilir
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New and improved! Maybe a bit harder to read, but much easier for me to edit, and I can stick any formula anyone wants in.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key ... ey=CI_K1kQ

I decided to figure out the cost of various ships for fun. I'll assume that the chassis are made of titanium with minor construction costs to get an estimate. I'll use up to double the stated value for the chassis in final estimate. I've been neglecting to subtract the mass of the equipment from the mass of the chassis. Depending on what GM intended the values in the XML to mean, that could be right. If it's not, a few values could be significantly off.

Ares fleet:

Phobos class dreadnought:
15,000 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~225,000 chassis.
Kaidun shields: 150,000
24 segs massive tharsis plate * 50000/plate: 1.2 million
2 * ares lightning turret *75,000/turret: 150,000
1 * ares plasma archcannon * 500,000/APA: 500,000
Unknown reactor. Has to be over 500MW. 100-200k
Total without chassis/reactor: 2 million
Total with: 2.3-2.7 million

Deimos class destroyer:
8,000 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~150,000 chassis
Heavy cydonian shields: 40,000
15 segs heavy tharsis plate * 18,000/plate: 270,000
1 * ares lightning turret *75,000: 75,000
1 * hecates cannon * 85,000: 85,000
250MW reactor * 60,000: 60,000
Total: 700-850k

Chasm heavy gunship:
210 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~3,150 chassis. Round up to 5-10k
Cydonian shields: 20,000
4 segs tharsis plate * 6,000/plate: 24,000
1 * ares positron cannon * 200,000: 200,000
Unknown reactor. ~150MW: 20,000
Total: 270-275k
Side note: With a hecates this would only cost ~3/5 as much. Actually, that positron cannon has to be priced too high in the XML. No WAY would the ares armor their turrets that lightly if the gun cost so much. Though those cannons are ridiculously unarmored any way around it.

Tundra heavy gunship:
130 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~1,950 chassis. Round up to 5-10k
Cydonian shields: 20,000
4 segs tharsis plate * 6,000/plate: 24,000
1 * ares lightning cannon * 45,000: 45,000
1 * ares micronuke cannon * 65,000: 65,000
Unknown reactor. ~100MW: 10,000
Total: 170-175k
Plus ~11k in ammo, more over the lifetime of the ship.

Sandstorm gunship:
75 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~1,125 chassis. Probably more, but rounding isn't as fair here. Round to 2k-4k
4 segs light tharsis plate * 750/plate: 3,000
1 * ares lightning cannon * 45,000: 45,000
Unknown reactor. ~50MW: 5,500
Total: 56-58k
Mostly in that gun. I bet the ares make lightning cannons for a lot less than list price though.

Cometfall missleship:
4000 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~60,000 chassis.
Cydonian shields: 20,000
12 segs tharsis plate * 6,000/plate: 72,000
1 * ares lightning cannon * 45,000: 45,000
1 * ares launcher * 75,000: 75,000
Unknown reactor. ~100MW: 10,000
Total: 280-340k
And ~80k in ammo. (yipe!)

Commonwealth fleet:

CSC:
50000 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~750,000 chassis.
36 segs p1300 hexphase * 40,000/seg: 1,440,000
4 * TeV9 blaster * 14,000: 56,000
1 * NAMI heavy launcher * 140,000: 140,000 (on some)
Unknown reactor. 100,000+ Gotta be huge, though the weapons don't require it.
Total: 2.25-3 mil+
Probably three mil or more. It's a mobile base after all. It has costs aside from equipment. It also shocks me that more CSCs don't have better weapons. It's only a tiny fraction of the total cost.

Aquila class cruiser:
10000 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~150,000 chassis.
R9 deflector: 100,000
24 segs p450 hexphase * 12,000/seg: 288,000
2 * katana star cannon * 40,000: 80,000
1 * NAMI heavy launcher * 140,000: 140,000
Unknown reactor. ~500MW: 100,000 (>250MW anyway)
Total: 750-900k
Plus 11k or more in ammo.

Centurion:
250 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~3,750 chassis. Round up to 5-10k
R1 deflector: 5,000
4 segs blast plate * 2,000/seg: 8,000
1 * TeV9 blaster * 14,000: 14,000
Unknown reactor. ~50MW: 5,500 (Just a bit more than 50MW actually)
Total: 33-38k

Centurion/X class:
250 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~3,750 chassis. Round up to 5-10k
R5 deflector: 20,000
4 segs p150 hexphase * 3,200/seg: 12,800
1 * Katana star cannon * 40,000: 40,000
Unknown reactor. ~150MW: 20,000
Total: 100-105k

Britannia:
300 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~4,500 chassis. Round up to 5-10k
R5-B deflector: 45,000
4 segs p150 hexphase * 3,200/seg: 12,800
1 * Katana star cannon * 40,000: 40,000
1 * NM900: 2,000
Unknown reactor. ~150MW: 20,000
Total: 120-125k
The fleet couldn't afford a normal NAMI launcher and XM900s? Is that so this ship is dependent on fleet support? Doesn't this pretty well obsolete the X-class? Use the old shield and it's pretty much just adding a bunch of thermonukes. I suppose the britannia is a bigger target.

Some Commonwealth stuff:

Light IAV:
25 tons size *150 credits/ton = ~3,750 chassis.
2 segs heavy titanium * 100/seg: 200
~1,500 weapon
Unknown reactor. ~10MW: 1,000?
Total: 6.5k?
Probably lower, Improvised Armed Vehicle, right? So it would be a cheap chassis, not titanium. The armor seems rather painfully poor anyway.

Medium IAV:
50 tons size *150 credits/ton = ~7,500 chassis.
2 segs heavy reactive * 300/seg: 600
~7,500 weapon
Unknown reactor. >25MW: 4,000?
Total: 19.6k?
See light IAV.

Heavy IAV:
100 tons size *150 credits/ton = ~7,500 chassis.
4 segs light blast plate * 1,100/seg: 4,400
~50,000 weapon
Unknown reactor. >50MW: 6,000?
Total: 68k?
See light IAV.

Manticore:
200 tons size *150 credits/ton = ~15,000 chassis.
4 segs blast plate * 2,200/seg: 8,800
Wide variance. Weapon+shield: 25,000-50,000
Unknown reactor. ~50MW: 5,500?
Launcher+ammo: ~12,500
Total: 67-92k

Ronin A:
100 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~1,500 chassis.
4 segs light ceramic * 75/seg: 300
1 * bolide * 500: 500
Unknown reactor. ~2MW: 200?
Total: 2.5-4k
Cheap! And a piece of junk.

Ronin B:
100 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~1,500 chassis.
Class I deflector: 500
4 segs ceramic * 150/seg: 600
1 * bolide * 500: 500
1 * NAMI launcher * 1,000: 1,000
Unknown reactor. ~5MW: 600?
Total: 4.7-6.2k
Plus ammo.

Ronin C:
100 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~1,500 chassis.
Class II deflector: 1,000
4 segs heavy ceramic * 300/seg: 1,200
1 * particle beam * 3,200: 3,200
1 * NAMI launcher * 1,000: 1,000
Unknown reactor. ~15MW: 1,800?
Total: 9.7-11.2k
Plus ammo.

Xenophobes:

Ark:
150,000 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~2,250,000 chassis.
24 segs worldship plate * 8,000/seg: 192,000
4 * fusionfire * 85,000: 340,000
8 * xeno ion lancer * 45,000: 360,000
1GW reactor: 200,000
Total: 3.3-5.6 mil

Worldship:
50,000 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~750,000 chassis.
24 segs worldship plate * 8,000/seg: 192,000
1 * mark v howitzer * 50,000: 50,000
6 * xeno ion lancer * 45,000: 270,000
Unknown reactor: ~500MW: 100,000
Total: 1.4-2.1 mil

Defender:
4,500 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~67,500 chassis.
12 segs heavy meteorsteel * 1,300/seg: 15,600
1 * mark III howitzer * 15,000: 15,000
2 * lancer * 7,000: 14,000
Unknown reactor: ~100MW: 10,000
Total: 122-190k

Fighter:
40 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~600 chassis. Round up to 1k-2k
2 segs light meteorsteel * 600/seg: 1,200
1 * lancer * 7,000: 7,000
Unknown reactor: ~50MW: 5,500
Total: 14.7-15.7k

Charon Pirates:

Corsair:
45 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~675 chassis. Round up to 1k-2k
2 segs ultra light titanium * 10/seg: 20
1 * laser cannon * 250: 250
Unknown reactor: ~2MW: 200?
Total: 1.47-2.47k
That chassis cost only really makes sense if they're expecting to upgrade to a corsair-II, even without the round up. The puny armor makes little sense either way.

Corsair-II:
45 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~675 chassis. Round up to 1k-2k
Class I deflector: 500
2 segs light reactive * 75/seg: 150
1 * dual laser cannon * 750: 750
1 * NAMI launcher * 1,000: 1,000
Unknown reactor: ~10MW: 1000?
Total: 4.4-5.4k
And ~100+ ammo

Viking:
150 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~2,250 chassis. Round up to 3k-6k
2 segs reactive * 150/seg: 300
1 * turbolaser * 1,500: 1,500
Unknown reactor: ~10MW: 1000?
Total: 5.8-6.8k

Viking-II:
150 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~2,250 chassis. Round up to 3k-6k
Class-II deflector: 1,000
2 segs heavy reactive * 300/seg: 600
1 * dual turbolaser * 3,500: 3,500
Unknown reactor: ~25MW: 3,000?
Total: 11.1-14.1k

Drake:
1000 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~15,000 chassis.
12 segs advanced reactive * 600/seg: 7,200
2 * laser cannon * 250: 500
1 * NAMI launcher * 1,000: 1,000
Unknown reactor. ~10MW: 1,000?
Total: 24.7-39.7k
And ~2.2k+ ammo.

Frigate:
1000 tons size * 15 credits/ton = ~15,000 chassis.
12 segs advanced reactive * 600/seg: 7,200
4 * turbolaser cannon * 1,500: 6,000
1 * NAMI launcher * 1,000: 1,000
Unknown reactor. ~25MW: 3,000?
Total: 32.2-47.2k
And ~5k+ ammo. Add ~17k to make it a kronosaurus.

Tables:

Full list price weapons:

Fleet:
CSC: ~3 mil
Aquila: 750-900k
Britannia: 120-125k
Centurion/X: 100-105k
Centurion: 33-38k

Ares:
Phobos: 2.3-2.7 mil
Deimos: 700-850k
Cometfall: 360-420k
Chasm: 270-275k ?
Tundra: 180-185k
Sandstorm: 55-60k ?

Commonwealth: (incomplete)
Light IAV: 6.5k?
Medium IAV: 19.6k?
Heavy IAV: 68k?
Manticore: 67-92k
Ronin A: 2.5-4k
Ronin B: 4.7-6.2k
Ronin C: 9.7-11.2k

Xenophobes:
Ark: 3.3-5.6 mil
Worldship: 1.4-2.1 mil
Defender: 122-190k
Fighter: 14.7-15.7k

Charon Pirates:
Frigate: 37.2-52.2k
Drake: 27-42k
Viking: 5.8-8.8k
Viking-II: 11.1-14.1k
Corsair: 1.47-2.47k
Corsair-II: 4.5-5.5k

Half list price weapons:

Fleet:
CSC: ~3 mil
Aquila: 640-790k
Britannia: 99-104k
Centurion/X: 80-85k
Centurion: 26-31k

Ares:
Phobos: 2.0-2.4 mil
Deimos: 620-770k
Cometfall: 260-320k
Chasm: 170-175k
Tundra: 120-125k
Sandstorm: 33-38k

Commonwealth: (incomplete)
Light IAV: 5.75k?
Medium IAV: 15.8k?
Heavy IAV: 43k?
Manticore: 48-61k
Ronin A: 2.25-3.75k
Ronin B: 4.0-5.5k
Ronin C: 7.6-9.1k

Xenophobes:
Ark: 3.0-5.2 mil
Worldship: 1.20-1.95 mil
Defender: 108-175k
Fighter: 11.2-12.2k

Charon Pirates:
Frigate: 31.2-46.2k
Drake: 25-40k
Viking: 5.1-8.1k
Viking-II: 9.35-12.35k
Corsair: 1.35-2.35k
Corsair-II: 3.6-4.6k
Last edited by Amilir on Fri Feb 25, 2011 1:38 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Aury
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Yeah, I think the weapon prices are a good mark-up from their actual manufacturing costs.

Wow. I've destroyed probably about half a billion credits worth of ares ships. :lol:
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Amilir
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It is looking like most weapons are massively marked up at list price, ares stuff especially so. It's not unrealistic, but it makes doing these tables a pain. Of course, for balance reasons there are a bunch of ships with expensive weapons at low firerate and poor armor. The worst example is probably the ares sentry. Even at a 2000% markup for the APC, it should have better armor.

I think I'll do a second set of tables with all weapons at half list price, and see how that changes things.
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Here are some interesting stats for contemporary military programs:

F35 Joint Strike Fighter
Unit cost: $110 million
Mass: 15 tons
Cost per ton: $7.5 million

M1A2 Main Battle Tank
Unit cost: $6.2 million
Mass: 68 tons
Cost per ton: $91,000

B2 Spirit Bomber
Unit cost: $1 billion
Mass: 79 tons
Cost per ton: $12.6 million

SSN-774 Virginia-class attack sub
Unit cost: 1.8 billion
Mass: 7,800 tons
Cost per ton: $230,000

DD(X) future destroyer
Unit cost: 6 billion
Mass: 14,000 tons
Cost per ton: $428,000

CVN-78 Gerald Ford-class carrier
Unit cost: 9 billion
Mass: 100,000 tons
Cost per ton: $90,000

A couple of observations:

1. Larger ships are cheaper (pound for pound) than smaller ships--I had not expected that. That means that the prices for a Deimos should be closer to that of a Phobos.

2. Obviously, aircraft are much more expensive, pound for pound, than anything else. In Transcendence, I don't know if the same relationship would hold between gunships vs. capital ships. Although perhaps there is a relationship between speed/maneuverability and cost. Fast gunships have to use light-weight, but strong (hence expensive) materials.

3. The B2 bomber program and the DD(X) program are probably outliers. They seem more expensive (pound for pound) than one would expect.

4. Note: In all cases dollar amounts are in 2009 or 2010 dollars, so they are comparable. I didn't dilligently convert from long tons to tons in all cases, so some of the mass values might be off by ~10%.
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Note the difference between small run designs where you have to amortize fixed costs over a very small number of hulls and large run designs where you can amortize over a lot of hulls.

If we'd built as many F35s as we built M1/A1 tanks the unit price would be a lot lower. Closer to the inflation adjusted unit price of those aircraft we and our allies spammed during WWII. By the same token if we only built a hundred M1/A1s they'd be frighteiningly expensive.

Design costs are low in the Transcendence universe for everything except CSCs, and even there they get washed out on a per ton basis. Everything else is produced in large numbers. Even Phoboses seem to be churned out in large numbers.

There would be a hull cost, and it would be a lot higher than Amilir's estimate. Titanium would be cheaper with asteroid mining, but labor would be expensive. Zero G ship fitters require a lot more training than terrestrial ship fitters. Essentially everyone will require training equivalent to a masters and hazard pay on top of the pay that merits. Most of the work is not robot friendly. Stuff like wiring, plumbing, and the like are going to contribute a lot to the price tag. I believe this hull cost will dominate the price tag of non-freighters.

Then there are the hidden devices. Amilir counts reactors, but not propulsion, and the sundry abstracted systems like computers, life support, and avionics. Drive costs will be enormous on large ships and life support will scale with crew complement.
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Ttech
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I do think this is the first topic I needed to bookmark because it had a lot of useful information. :)
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what about my ship cost topic?? it hardly got any replies (*sdw195 thinks he should work on the function a bit more )
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sdw195 wrote:what about my ship cost topic?? it hardly got any replies (*sdw195 thinks he should work on the function a bit more )
i had that one in my real bookmaerks i need to add it to the board one :P
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About costs Atarlost... I think you miss a few points.
1) Most humans in transcendence are enhanced in some form or another. A master's worth of training probably doesn't cost nearly as much.
2) There's no reason you need to do most of the construction in a vacuum. Just the assembly. What with such a large percentage of the population living in space, I doubt zero-g is a big deal.
3) Just how are robots not fit to create lots of the same stuff? Almost anything that can be standardized is, as evidenced by ares using the same 250MW reactor as the commonwealth. Heck, the robots we see, patchers and autodocs, can handle multiple situations pretty well.
4) My laptop could do everything we see or assume transcendence ships do. Computers costs can be ignored.
5) Propulsion is less than proportionate to the mass of a ship, what with the bigger ships accelerating slower. Scaling up the tritium, a xenophobe ark has ~450,000 cost in propulsion. Not insignificant, but well within the high estimate. Scaling up a titan isn't much higher in cost. Scaling up the power use shows that its hyperion couldn't fuel either drive though. Something's just wrong.
6) Life support and such is why I was rounding the small ship costs up so much.

I really wouldn't estimate much higher than 30 credits/ton for most larger ships. You could use cheaper materials rather more easily anyway. Most smaller ships are produced in large enough quantities to be pretty cheap also, even if worse.

Side question: Why would freighters be the one category where hull costs don't dominate equipment? They're huge and have cheap equipment.
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All right, time to get more constructive. I think I'll port this to a google doc as that's much easier to use.
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Wow amilir...that's aweseome. 8-)

Good work, that must have taken a long time to compile...cool information though, quite interesting.
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Amilir wrote:About costs Atarlost... I think you miss a few points.
1) Most humans in transcendence are enhanced in some form or another. A master's worth of training probably doesn't cost nearly as much.
Enhancement may allow education to be amortized over a longer productive lifetime, but it cannot reduce the time required for education unless the brain is replaced with something directly writeable. At that point you're talking AI, a term that goes hand in hand with the term rogue and creative strings of obscenities. ******* luminous.
2) There's no reason you need to do most of the construction in a vacuum. Just the assembly. What with such a large percentage of the population living in space, I doubt zero-g is a big deal.
Yeah you do for all but the smallest craft. They require yards too large to pressurize, and building them on a planet brings lifting costs that are even worse.
3) Just how are robots not fit to create lots of the same stuff? Almost anything that can be standardized is, as evidenced by ares using the same 250MW reactor as the commonwealth. Heck, the robots we see, patchers and autodocs, can handle multiple situations pretty well.
Go ask a plumber or electrician if a robot could do his job.
4) My laptop could do everything we see or assume transcendence ships do. Computers costs can be ignored.
Really? You're laptop handle life outside the magnetosphere? Because if you do your radiation hardened laptop isn't as cheap as you think.
5) Propulsion is less than proportionate to the mass of a ship, what with the bigger ships accelerating slower. Scaling up the tritium, a xenophobe ark has ~450,000 cost in propulsion. Not insignificant, but well within the high estimate. Scaling up a titan isn't much higher in cost. Scaling up the power use shows that its hyperion couldn't fuel either drive though. Something's just wrong.
Not all big ships are slower than small ships. The 8000 ton Deimos has a higher thrust to weight ratio than a 250 ton EI500. Propulsion cost also scales with thrust, but I'd assumed you already knew that and were honest enough to acknowledge that something can scale with two independent variables.
6) Life support and such is why I was rounding the small ship costs up so much.
Um. Have you looked at the ships in question? All those little yellow dots some of them have? Those are windows. Ships in Transcendence have large habitable volumes, which imply large crews, lots of air scrubbers, lots of plumbing, and lots of money.
I really wouldn't estimate much higher than 30 credits/ton for most larger ships. You could use cheaper materials rather more easily anyway. Most smaller ships are produced in large enough quantities to be pretty cheap also, even if worse.
Cheaper materials? What cheaper materials? If there was anything cheaper than titanium that could do the job they wouldn't make station bulkheads out of it. More likely they'll use more expensive materials because saving weight means saving fuel.
Side question: Why would freighters be the one category where hull costs don't dominate equipment? They're huge and have cheap equipment.
They hollow. Which costs more, a furnished office building or an empty warehouse? A warship is like a flying office building with guns. A freighter is like a flying warehouse.
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Atarlost wrote:
Amilir wrote:About costs Atarlost... I think you miss a few points.
1) Most humans in transcendence are enhanced in some form or another. A master's worth of training probably doesn't cost nearly as much.
Enhancement may allow education to be amortized over a longer productive lifetime, but it cannot reduce the time required for education unless the brain is replaced with something directly writeable. At that point you're talking AI, a term that goes hand in hand with the term rogue and creative strings of obscenities. ******* luminous.
You've never heard of the idea that smarter people learn faster? Suit yourself. Oh, and what does an average human earn in a year in transcendence? "High cost" could be dirt cheap for all I know.
2) There's no reason you need to do most of the construction in a vacuum. Just the assembly. What with such a large percentage of the population living in space, I doubt zero-g is a big deal.
Yeah you do for all but the smallest craft. They require yards too large to pressurize, and building them on a planet brings lifting costs that are even worse.
Think ISS. There's no reason a ship/station can't be built in small enough modules to fit inside a pressurized building.
3) Just how are robots not fit to create lots of the same stuff? Almost anything that can be standardized is, as evidenced by ares using the same 250MW reactor as the commonwealth. Heck, the robots we see, patchers and autodocs, can handle multiple situations pretty well.
Go ask a plumber or electrician if a robot could do his job.
A plumber or electrician works with a large variety of houses and jobs. Mass producing commonwealth habitat section #580, including wiring and plumbing, is perfectly doable by a robot. Everything's standardized after all.
4) My laptop could do everything we see or assume transcendence ships do. Computers costs can be ignored.
Really? You're laptop handle life outside the magnetosphere? Because if you do your radiation hardened laptop isn't as cheap as you think.
I could be wrong about how much computers would cost, but I kinda doubt it. Shouldn't all ships and stations have decent radiation shielding anyway? And how would a few pounds of shielding even cost that much?
5) Propulsion is less than proportionate to the mass of a ship, what with the bigger ships accelerating slower. Scaling up the tritium, a xenophobe ark has ~450,000 cost in propulsion. Not insignificant, but well within the high estimate. Scaling up a titan isn't much higher in cost. Scaling up the power use shows that its hyperion couldn't fuel either drive though. Something's just wrong.
Not all big ships are slower than small ships. The 8000 ton Deimos has a higher thrust to weight ratio than a 250 ton EI500. Propulsion cost also scales with thrust, but I'd assumed you already knew that and were honest enough to acknowledge that something can scale with two independent variables.
The existence of reasonably priced physics-breaking inertialess drives really ought to solve this problem on its own. In any case, we have no evidence cost actually scales with thrust on anything larger than a EI500. The increasing cost of drives could just as easily be attributed to their higher thrust/ton ratio, or their max speed.
6) Life support and such is why I was rounding the small ship costs up so much.
Um. Have you looked at the ships in question? All those little yellow dots some of them have? Those are windows. Ships in Transcendence have large habitable volumes, which imply large crews, lots of air scrubbers, lots of plumbing, and lots of money.
The ships in question being a sandstorm or chasm? Nah, xenophobe worldships may have a lot of people on board, probably as a result of being a flying city, but warships have no good reason to keep a large percentage of their hull on life support. They have even less reason for windows.
I really wouldn't estimate much higher than 30 credits/ton for most larger ships. You could use cheaper materials rather more easily anyway. Most smaller ships are produced in large enough quantities to be pretty cheap also, even if worse.
Cheaper materials? What cheaper materials? If there was anything cheaper than titanium that could do the job they wouldn't make station bulkheads out of it. More likely they'll use more expensive materials because saving weight means saving fuel. Meh, I assumed some iron would be acceptable. I could be wrong here.
Side question: Why would freighters be the one category where hull costs don't dominate equipment? They're huge and have cheap equipment.
They hollow. Which costs more, a furnished office building or an empty warehouse? A warship is like a flying office building with guns. A freighter is like a flying warehouse.
Anteres-V: 2,000 ton mass, 14,800 in equipment.
EI7000: 850 ton mass, 18,200 in equipment.
Tripoli destroyer: 5,000 ton mass, ~50k in equipment.
Huh, freighters are a lot lighter than I thought. Then again, the scarab is 20,000 tons.
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Aury
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The scarab is a monster of a ship though (It easily dwarves a number of the smaller capital ships; weirdly its still got paper-thin armor (especially given the cargo) relative to where it shows up, but then again, they are used for escort missions); the Antares V only looks big because it scales linearly from the smaller Antares as opposed to logarithmically like the other ships do in terms of pixel size.
Actually, the Antares I and II are still a bit sized up from what they should be. But Rule of... Aesthetics? Won out. And I think I agree that they look better this way than on the log scale.

Still, I think that the quoted mass for the scarab is still rather high. Maybe something like 7000-10000 would be more reasonable.
On the other hand, its carting around pteracnium, which is some of the most volatile stuff around, and thus its essentially a flying powder keg. I suppose some of that mass has to go into internal constructs designed to prevent spontaneous... energy release of the pteracnium (shoot a crate full of the stuff. It explodes. Epically.) - those other freighters were designed to haul around consumer goods. I actually think the EI700 should have a good amount more mass given that its designed to be a sturdier ship, but then I could just be over-estimating its size.
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Amilir wrote:
Atarlost wrote:
Amilir wrote:About costs Atarlost... I think you miss a few points.
1) Most humans in transcendence are enhanced in some form or another. A master's worth of training probably doesn't cost nearly as much.
Enhancement may allow education to be amortized over a longer productive lifetime, but it cannot reduce the time required for education unless the brain is replaced with something directly writeable. At that point you're talking AI, a term that goes hand in hand with the term rogue and creative strings of obscenities. ******* luminous.
You've never heard of the idea that smarter people learn faster? Suit yourself. Oh, and what does an average human earn in a year in transcendence? "High cost" could be dirt cheap for all I know.
The thing about education is that the price the market will bear is linked to the expected earnings of the educated. If increases in productivity increase lifetime earnings the price of education will expand to keep college administrators in the upper class.
2) There's no reason you need to do most of the construction in a vacuum. Just the assembly. What with such a large percentage of the population living in space, I doubt zero-g is a big deal.
Yeah you do for all but the smallest craft. They require yards too large to pressurize, and building them on a planet brings lifting costs that are even worse.
Think ISS. There's no reason a ship/station can't be built in small enough modules to fit inside a pressurized building.
Using the ISS as an example only helps if we're talking about stuff that looks like the ISS. The method of construction dictates the architecture. Show me a ship in Transcendence that looks like it's made from tinkertoys. Even a ship built in sections would have to be welded together in one place and then have the armor installed on the finished hull if it's going to have the smooth lines we see in the game. And only a few ships have potential repeating units and those units are themselves too large to build in a pressurized space, like cross sections of a Phobos. The only ship that can be build your way is the Ferian warrior.
3) Just how are robots not fit to create lots of the same stuff? Almost anything that can be standardized is, as evidenced by ares using the same 250MW reactor as the commonwealth. Heck, the robots we see, patchers and autodocs, can handle multiple situations pretty well.
Go ask a plumber or electrician if a robot could do his job.
A plumber or electrician works with a large variety of houses and jobs. Mass producing commonwealth habitat section #580, including wiring and plumbing, is perfectly doable by a robot. Everything's standardized after all.
What same stuff? You can point to the reactors and weapons. Hey, junction boxes and light switches are standardized too but it doesn't mean every house has the same wiring diagram. Very few ships have identical sections. Just the freighters, the ferian warrior, and maybe the Phobos, though the latter looks cigar shaped rather than cylindrical to my eye and I can't find where I put the converted meshes to check.

Besides, the ability of non-Luminous robots to operate autonomously is belied by the existence of human miners, human freighter pilots, and, to be blunt, humans doing anything but research and bureaucratic makework. Think about it. Even for the ringers it's more practical to provide technology to zooanthropes than to design robots for the job. Asteroid mining is a lot more forgiving than ship construction. The Commonwealth finds it worth employing actual human beings even in Eridani where they're mostly mining titanium and the Centauri Warlords are preying on them.
5) Propulsion is less than proportionate to the mass of a ship, what with the bigger ships accelerating slower. Scaling up the tritium, a xenophobe ark has ~450,000 cost in propulsion. Not insignificant, but well within the high estimate. Scaling up a titan isn't much higher in cost. Scaling up the power use shows that its hyperion couldn't fuel either drive though. Something's just wrong.
Not all big ships are slower than small ships. The 8000 ton Deimos has a higher thrust to weight ratio than a 250 ton EI500. Propulsion cost also scales with thrust, but I'd assumed you already knew that and were honest enough to acknowledge that something can scale with two independent variables.
The existence of reasonably priced physics-breaking inertialess drives really ought to solve this problem on its own.

Inertialess drive is not the same thing as reactionless drive. Try it some time. You still get drive plumes. That means you're still throwing reaction mass out the back of your ship to move, you just get wiggy inertia dumping in relation to the local reference frame. The only ways to make space lift cheaper are to reduce the effects of gravity or move without expending reaction mass and the Transcendence inertialess drive does neither.
In any case, we have no evidence cost actually scales with thrust on anything larger than a EI500. The increasing cost of drives could just as easily be attributed to their higher thrust/ton ratio, or their max speed.
So now you're saying that you shouldn't get prices by scaling up the existing drives? Then how will you price propulsion for larger ships? If you just leave it out your numbers will become even more worthless.
Side question: Why would freighters be the one category where hull costs don't dominate equipment? They're huge and have cheap equipment.
They hollow. Which costs more, a furnished office building or an empty warehouse? A warship is like a flying office building with guns. A freighter is like a flying warehouse.
Anteres-V: 2,000 ton mass, 14,800 in equipment.
EI7000: 850 ton mass, 18,200 in equipment.
Tripoli destroyer: 5,000 ton mass, ~50k in equipment.
Huh, freighters are a lot lighter than I thought. Then again, the scarab is 20,000 tons.
It looks like George is being inconsistent here. The masses of the Scarab, EI500, and EI100m appear to include the cargo mass. The mass of the Korolov freighters clearly do not. Especially compare the EI100 in korolov.xml to the EI100m in transcendence.xml. In 0.7, which is the only pre-korolov resource set I have, the EI100 is the same mass as the EI100m remains. It was re statted when the other freighters were added, but the superfreighter was not.
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