How much for a Battleship?

OnceFarOff's picture
OnceFarOff
April 18, 2013 - 6:30pm
Hello all, 

I'm trying to work out costs for some standard ships, civilian, mercenary, military etc. 
I'm wondering if any of you all have got some costs you go with, that haven't already been published in the SFman or Frontier Explorer. These are ones I found in the quick reference in SFman #16. 

Liberty Class Patrol Gunship - 1,566,734
East Indiaman - 1,570,000
Explorer Class Hvy Scout - 2,007,600
Jump Tug - 3,621,000

Anyone else have costs they may have worked out for their setting?
Comments:

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
April 18, 2013 - 7:46pm
I worked up the cost for the UPF KH ships years ago and did full ship sheets on each of them.  I had started posting some of them in the Ships of the Frontier project.  Here are the costs for all the warships:

Fighter - 397,600
Assault Scout - 1,223,470
Corvette - 1,430,900
Frigate - 2,755,050
Destroyer - 2,916,150
Minelayer - 2,023,800
Lt. Cruiser - 4,665,200
Assault Carrier (holds 8 fighters) - 7,039,200
Heavy Cruiser - 9,667,750
Battleship - 15,015,250
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OnceFarOff's picture
OnceFarOff
April 18, 2013 - 8:23pm
That totally rocks! Thank you!

Now if I could just get a price for Boneyard Station from Shadow Shack! :)

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
April 18, 2013 - 8:51pm
I should do that, price out a few stations of various sizes.  That could be fun.
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jedion357's picture
jedion357
April 19, 2013 - 3:47am
Thanks Tom for having done this. I know what a pain it is to price out a ship with the KHs rules simply because you have to look up the cost of computer programs separately. On top of that you have to track function points to compute the computer's level as well. its a bit unwieldly of a method.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
April 19, 2013 - 3:56am
Just a thought but when compared to the price of modern cars and motorcycles versus jet fighters and warships and then SF explorers and hovercycles do these prices seem very cheap?
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357's picture
jedion357
April 19, 2013 - 4:21am
rattraveller wrote:
Just a thought but when compared to the price of modern cars and motorcycles versus jet fighters and warships and then SF explorers and hovercycles do these prices seem very cheap?


lol
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

OnceFarOff's picture
OnceFarOff
April 19, 2013 - 4:59am
jedion357 wrote:
Thanks Tom for having done this. I know what a pain it is to price out a ship with the KHs rules simply because you have to look up the cost of computer programs separately. On top of that you have to track function points to compute the computer's level as well. its a bit unwieldly of a method.

YES! Thank you. The FPs are such a pain for everything. 

I have been looking for another ship system to "plug in" but everything I have seen changes the game too much.

rattraveller wrote:
Just a thought but when compared to the price of modern cars and motorcycles versus jet fighters and warships and then SF explorers and hovercycles do these prices seem very cheap?

I was thinking the same thing...

jedion357's picture
jedion357
April 19, 2013 - 6:19am
Time to resurrect KHs 2.0 project?

You buy a weapon system it comes with a program as part of the price.

Programs have levels and a computer must be of the same level and above to run a program.

ditch function points for determining levels of a computer. required computer level can be determined by the same method as a robot's level is: war ships have a level 5 or higher computer, star ships (commercial) might get by with a lower level computer, fighters and shuttles get by with lower level computers. We just make a rough determination of what the computer level should be for various classes of vessels and post a table for it for simplicity perhaps include a price for the computer based on its level

I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
April 19, 2013 - 6:53am
I actually did those prices years (decades) ago.  They are probably low in truth as they really don't take any redundancy into account.  I'll probably rework them and do an article with all the detailed specs for the Spacefleet vessels.

And yes, rattraveller, compared to modern prices, they are dirt cheap.  I personally think ships should be more expensive.  Especially the bigger ones.  This is somewhat reflected in the the preliminary KH 2.0 document I did which is based on realistic volumes and masses for the ship components.  In that system, the battleship would be 102 million credits instead of 15.  And that is before making the weapons and defenses more expensive which I believe they should be.
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Ascent's picture
Ascent
April 19, 2013 - 1:13pm
Don't forget the 300% mark-up. Those are just the production costs, not the cost to purchase.
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Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
April 19, 2013 - 3:57pm
Also the hull prices no doubt vary for a warship versus the standard 50K X HS for civilian craft. A size 5 frigate has 40 hull points compared to a size 5 civie's 25. ANd the prices for "advanced techniques of miniaturization and hish stress construction that can make almost anything possible" (p.19 of the KH Campaign Rules) are also not taken into account via civilian construction rules.

OnceFarOff wrote:
Now if I could just get a price for Boneyard Station from Shadow Shack! :)

No guidelines there, price is dependant upon the overall condition of the salvaged warship (re: drifting hulk) . ;)

The Melinda McCoy from that game (obliterated by the Malthar in Dramune Run) was an otherwise salvageable hull that could be restored to its former 50 hull points and had a fair amount of allocated space for weapons/defenses compared to civilian craft (but in no way could accomodate the original armament) but was otherwise stripped to the bulkheads. The buyers basically paid for a military warship hull design and had to redesign/refit/retrofit it from the ground up. Since all the allocated space from the former military hardware was vacant, it left a fair amount of space for a cargo hold (not the full six units, mind you...IIRC it ended up with a four unit main hold and a half unit auxilliary hold) while retaining several areas for a decent selection of weaponry.

The light cruiser UPFS Courageous on the other hand (which wasn't available at the start of the game but a "move up" option I had available for later on) was victim of sabotage and had the magazine explode from within, nearl shearing the hull in two. Once the UPF was done with their investigations it had been stripped and demilitarized so it was basically a size 12 warship hull that had warship hull point capacity but otherwise would have been subject to all other civilian rules. The price for that would have been about what the McCoy remains were sold for...because there was much less of the original design left by the time the scrap yard acquired it (versus finding the McCoy drifting before the UPF did, salvage laws being what they are).

Then on the other side of the sales yard, there were near-complete vessels that had been worked on but needed finishing (as opposed to the partial ships & hulls that those two warships fell into). The pirate assault scout and corvette that was available there had asking prices surpassing brand new civilian ships of the same size...after all, best wishes to the spacer wanting an ADF:5 civilian scout ship or a MHS:5 cannon stuffed into a size four civilian hull.


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TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
April 19, 2013 - 6:22pm
I think he mean't the cost of the station itself.

And yes, the more expensive hulls and increased cost for weapons miniaturization should probably be figured in.  Different hull types (light, standard, armored, military) was something I added in the KH 2.0 doc.
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OnceFarOff's picture
OnceFarOff
April 19, 2013 - 7:01pm
TerlObar wrote:
I think he mean't the cost of the station itself.

Yes, exactly. I'm actually trying to figure out what certain things would cost, in addition to ships, like a ship yard or space station for example. I"m also trying to figure out what a space ladder would cost, both using an asteroid as an anchor, or a space station.

iggy's picture
iggy
April 19, 2013 - 10:46pm
TerlObar, is it possible for a small moon to naturally end up in a geosynchronous, geostationary orbit such that a space ladder could be built to it?
-iggy

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
April 20, 2013 - 4:14am
For simplicity sake standard prices are wonderful. Totally unrealistic but wonderful. To add reality to the game you should just consider a price range for stations or go with an estimated costs.

Any large construction project will go up for bids. Now in the Frontier with the Megacorps you may have limited choices but the minicorps will want to step in and make a go for it. Whoever wind will have dozens if not hundreds of subcontractors and suppliers all with varing prices. Add in local variables such as government set minimum wages, union demands, transport costs for rarer items, local taxes, unforseen delays adding to costs (Dralasite prank that shorts out the main flux capacitor and sets the project back three months) and many other things which turn expanding a half mile strip of road into a 2 year ordeal (happened here).
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357's picture
jedion357
April 20, 2013 - 4:29am
Construction  Cost Modification Table by Species
Vrusk -15%
Dralasite +10%
Yazirian +5%
Human +0%
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
April 20, 2013 - 8:05am
iggy wrote:
TerlObar, is it possible for a small moon to naturally end up in a geosynchronous, geostationary orbit such that a space ladder could be built to it?

It's possible but very, very unlikely.  Geostationary orbits are just the smallest sliver of possibilities for geosyncronous orbits and those are a very slim sliver of all the possibly orbits for moons.  Plus the orbits of moons tend to evolve over time so even if it was in one of those orbits it would slowly drift out of it (we're talking about timescales of millenia here, it's not real fast).

Most likely you might find a small moon (or possibly even a nearby asteroid) that was "close enough" and nudge it's orbit into the proper one.
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iggy's picture
iggy
April 20, 2013 - 1:05pm
TerlObar wrote:

Most likely you might find a small moon (or possibly even a nearby asteroid) that was "close enough" and nudge it's orbit into the proper one.
I'm imagining a race on a world that has always looked up at the "island in the sky", a moon that never moves, and thinking, "we must go there".  The natural desire would be to build a way to the place.  Of course history would be full of failed towers, but the magic behind such a notion would remain.  Eventually they develop rockets and get there.  Then the efforts for the mythical ladder would resume.
-iggy

OnceFarOff's picture
OnceFarOff
April 20, 2013 - 2:07pm
I have been playing a B/X D&D game (pbp) over on RPG.net and it has me thinking about one of the cooler parts of that game - establishing strongholds, the army of followers, etc. There's all of these cost sheets for how much towers, walls, drawbridges, etc. cost. I can't tell you how many times my kids have asked how much a house, etc. would cost in Star Frontiers. 

That's one thing that's kind of missing, as the PCs get more powerful (and nearer to retirement) where the PCs can build stuff on all of these backwater planets that they saved from the Sathar Onslaught. The KH rules do ok with the mining and freight hauling stuff, but how much to build a building? Or carve out an asteroid? Etc. So I'm trying to figure some of these things out. My kids have hired a crew to run freight in the gullwind and picked up a regular charter, and I'm actually considering them having control of a backwater planet off the edge of the map in unclaimed space as a kind of stronghold. 

I mean if the star devil can do it, or Malthar, why can't adventurers who saved volturnus, saved the Mhemne, defeated the Malthar, and fought in SW2?
 

OnceFarOff's picture
OnceFarOff
April 20, 2013 - 2:13pm
Say for example a person had a mining outpost on a world with no atmosphere. Say the mining outpost made enough profit to pay for a ship to stay in orbit and protect the planet from Streel/PGC/wildcatters. Say GM fiat allowed an ENTIRE PLANET to not run out of minerals before the ship's cargo hold was filled, but that there was enough to mine for years. How much would one have to pay for some pressurized buildings on the surface with life support and living space? I seriously doubt that would be included in the 200,000 cr cost of the Surface Processing plant.

The alcazzar module points out that the operation there cost 5 mil to set up. That's the closest thing I've seen. It would be cool if there ws some sort of standard building cost sheet or something. But what metric would one use to create that? It seems as though the template for ships hulls would be a little high. But there would have to be life support, airlocks, a power plant, etc. 

Have any of you guys ever dealt with this stuff in your settings?

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
April 20, 2013 - 2:28pm
I've not dealt with it specifically.  I do have characters that have outpost buildings and such but it was so long ago that I don't remember what the cost was.  They're effectively NPCs and rich anyway so I may have just handwaved it.  I'll poke around in my notes and see if anything falls out.

I agree however, that data like that would be good to have.  I've been thinking a lot recently about economics of the Frontier (or any sci-fi setting in general).  I might just have to sit down and work something out that makes sense to me.
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OnceFarOff's picture
OnceFarOff
April 20, 2013 - 3:30pm
The closest thing I have some across is in Stars Without Number or one of the FATE games (Diaspora?) where they deal with PC-run factions in a more abstract manner - ie their own "hit points" and "resource points" etc. It actually makes a lot more sense than the crazy number crunching I've been doing over the past few days since I have gotten here lol.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
April 20, 2013 - 6:44pm
This is sort of like in the STar Wars MMOLRPG where players could have a house and guilds could create their own town somewhere on the planet.  In Everquest 2 its a rented room though that can be upgraded to a house with in game money and status.

I would say look at the prices that exist and bash together some prices for buildings with a weekly upkeep cost. Low cost buildings have low structural points but higher cost ones could have more. 

start a thread somewhere for discussion and put together a document and we'll rush it into publication. I think this is a great idea.

easier answer is to let them get a ship and just have a mobile home.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

OnceFarOff's picture
OnceFarOff
April 20, 2013 - 8:40pm
So I was looking through some other RPG books today and compiled some costs: 

Fighter: 400 KCR

Shuttle: 200 KCR - a little low

Tramp Freighter 800 KCR - a little low

Patrol Boat: 3.6 MCR - a little high

Frigate: 6.6 MCR -

a little high

 

Bulk Freighter: 6 MCR -

a little high

 

Cruiser: 17.2 MCR

Battleship: 77.6 MCR

Cheapo Space Station: 8.4 MCR

Armed Station: 11.4 MCR


KHs rulebook says a space station is HULL SIZE x 200 m in diameter, and a ship HS 20 is 600m x 100m. So would a HS 20 ship = a Size 3 Space station Hull?

If that's the case - The hull would be 1 MCr. Figure outfitting the whole thing, life support, computers, etc. Would be another million? Would 3 million be reasonable? It seems low, but comparable to the other prices.

For heavy duty buildings, would the hull size dimensions be a reasonable baseline?


Ascent's picture
Ascent
April 20, 2013 - 9:03pm
I get the sense in some posts above that the Star Frontiers credit is being compared to the modern dollar.

Just for the record, there is no corellation. There isn't even a corellation between the SF credit and the 1982 dollar. The prices in Star Frontiers factor in availability to the player characters. That's a variable that doesn't fit into real world economics.

The cost variances in the magazines or elsewhere tend to be because of inexperience with how to calculate them. The higher costs are more likely given the math provided in the rulebook. Though the lower costs may be only calculating for civilian ships. The only way to make sure it's right is to recalculate the ship yourself, considering whether it is civilian or military, based upon the HP in relation to size. Make sure to calculate all the equipment and programs, and you should come to the correct cost.

Perhaps the ship provided with the cost should be given identification as either "civilian" or "military", so that the cost can be better understood.
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rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
April 21, 2013 - 4:43am
First look at Traveller and the Battletech RPG especially the Nobility rules and you can find some basis for the income PCs can recieve from owning or at least controlling land based assets.

Second the cost of the starships is ridiculously low when compared to other items. Fighters were calculated out at 397,600 cr but the rulebook lists your basic aircar at 50,000 cr or about an eigthth of the price. Add in that it takes a doctorate degree to fly a fighter (pilot 1) and the cost of the equipment does not seem justifiable.
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
April 21, 2013 - 8:09am
According to the KH rules, the each station hull size corresponds to 10 ships hull sizes so a HS 2 station is equal in hull size to a battle ship.  The battleship is longer but the station is wider.  I'll admit I never really did the math to see if it makes sense but you could use that for your price comparison.

If you take the volume of a HS 20 ship to be 600m long x 100m diameter as per the rules, that gives a total volume of the ship to be about 4.7 million cubic meters.  A HS 2 station is 400m in diameter for a "length" of the ring of about 1250 m.  Assuming the same volume that gives a torus about 34.5 m in diamter.  Make it 30 and use the remaining volume for the hub and spokes and it works out about right.  So a HS 2 station is about the same volume as a HS 20 ship.
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Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
April 21, 2013 - 8:18am
OnceFarOff wrote:
KHs rulebook says a space station is HULL SIZE x 200 m in diameter, and a ship HS 20 is 600m x 100m. So would a HS 20 ship = a Size 3 Space station Hull?

No, because the diameter is 6X what the HS:20 ship diamter is. Despite sharing a common measurement (and only a measurement, not to be confused with a dimension), the station is still considerably larger. I'd say start with 6X the cost of a HS:20 craft and work with that.

Terl's formula seems to make decent sense though. 
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TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
April 21, 2013 - 8:45am
It basically works for a HS 1 station as well, in that case the torus is 12m in diameter.  Maybe a little small but not too bad.
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OnceFarOff's picture
OnceFarOff
April 21, 2013 - 1:35pm
So based on the 10 ship hull size: 1 station size ratio, would one be able to pay out 30 hull size to make a Size 3 station, 40 for size 4, etc? I really am struggling to grasp the mathmatical concept here. It would be great for purposes of establishing a baseline though.

Also, any comment from the gang on the subject of other buildings? I'm trying to figure a baseline amount here. For example, if there was a structure needed on a planet that was heavy duty and required life support, would space ship hulls be a good metric? Then work backward from there; 25% to 50% if the building was on a planet with an atmosphere and/or was thinner than the 200-250 structural points of a ship's hull...