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Made in fi
Regular Dakkanaut





How fast can Forgeworlds produce fleets of battleships, cruisers and escorts? Could one battlefleet with let's say 10 battleships, 50 cruisers and 200 escorts be produced within a year by some of the forgeworlds?
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

The "uncomplicated to produce" Lunar Class Cruiser takes about a decade to build on a non-FW. Also, it would take the FW Triplex Phall around 30 years to build two Marine Strike Cruisers (as a high priority order).

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/05/18 21:11:23


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




beast_gts wrote:
The "uncomplicated to produce" Lunar Class Cruiser takes about a decade to build on a non-FW. Also, it would take the FW Triplex Phall around 30 years to build two Marine Strike Cruisers (as a high priority order).


If that's the story I'm thinking of. That was a single Feudal World supplying an orbital shipyard. It took the locals, with admittedly, a very low technological base to mine and deliver the resources required to build that Lunar. Realistic an ordinary Civilized or Industrial world should be able to build a Lunar much faster than that.
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Jarms48 wrote:
beast_gts wrote:
The "uncomplicated to produce" Lunar Class Cruiser takes about a decade to build on a non-FW. Also, it would take the FW Triplex Phall around 30 years to build two Marine Strike Cruisers (as a high priority order).


If that's the story I'm thinking of. That was a single Feudal World supplying an orbital shipyard. It took the locals, with admittedly, a very low technological base to mine and deliver the resources required to build that Lunar. Realistic an ordinary Civilized or Industrial world should be able to build a Lunar much faster than that.


Lexicanum wrote:The ship Lord Daros was built in orbit of the Feral World of Unloth. For eleven years its inhabitants mined and smelted ores to be presented to the "sky temples." Their perseverance was rewarded with the birth of a new star in the heavens, which left to join its brothers in the cosmos. This "new star" was the Lord Daros's plasma wake, as it left the system to join its fleet.

I'll see if I can find the original story, but I'm not sure from that summery how much time passed between 11 years of mining at the ship launching (and "sky temples" make it sound like there was infrastructure already in place).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/18 23:56:04


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




beast_gts wrote:

Lexicanum wrote:The ship Lord Daros was built in orbit of the Feral World of Unloth. For eleven years its inhabitants mined and smelted ores to be presented to the "sky temples." Their perseverance was rewarded with the birth of a new star in the heavens, which left to join its brothers in the cosmos. This "new star" was the Lord Daros's plasma wake, as it left the system to join its fleet.

I'll see if I can find the original story, but I'm not sure from that summery how much time passed between 11 years of mining at the ship launching (and "sky temples" make it sound like there was infrastructure already in place).


Thought it was this one, as I said, you have to remember that these shipyards are being supplied by the people of a feudal world. Who are using mineral extraction and metallurgy practices equivalent to our Medieval era.

So they're mining these resources incredibly inefficiently and potentially smelting the metals that have impurities in them. Requiring the ship builders to re-smelt the metals to get rid of said impurities.

A dedicated mining world with current Imperial/Ad-Mech technology would be vastly more efficient at extracting the ores required. With servitors these worlds could have work being done non-stop whilst a Feudal world relying on human labour would have to let their workers at the bare minimum eat and sleep.

That's why I say any kind of Civilized, Industrial, or Forge world could probably build these vessels in at the very least half the time. Possibly even less.
   
Made in ro
Automated Rubric Marine of Tzeentch




dorset

beast_gts wrote:
Jarms48 wrote:
beast_gts wrote:
The "uncomplicated to produce" Lunar Class Cruiser takes about a decade to build on a non-FW. Also, it would take the FW Triplex Phall around 30 years to build two Marine Strike Cruisers (as a high priority order).


If that's the story I'm thinking of. That was a single Feudal World supplying an orbital shipyard. It took the locals, with admittedly, a very low technological base to mine and deliver the resources required to build that Lunar. Realistic an ordinary Civilized or Industrial world should be able to build a Lunar much faster than that.


Lexicanum wrote:The ship Lord Daros was built in orbit of the Feral World of Unloth. For eleven years its inhabitants mined and smelted ores to be presented to the "sky temples." Their perseverance was rewarded with the birth of a new star in the heavens, which left to join its brothers in the cosmos. This "new star" was the Lord Daros's plasma wake, as it left the system to join its fleet.

I'll see if I can find the original story, but I'm not sure from that summery how much time passed between 11 years of mining at the ship launching (and "sky temples" make it sound like there was infrastructure already in place).


its flavour text for the Lunar Class Cruiser entry in the BFG rulebook.


How fast can Forgeworlds produce fleets of battleships, cruisers and escorts? Could one battlefleet with let's say 10 battleships, 50 cruisers and 200 escorts be produced within a year by some of the forgeworlds?



As far as i know, no they couldnt produce fleet that size that quickly. we dont have any certainty about the length of the construction process, but its normally expressed in terms of years form start of contruction to handing over to the Navy, like modern ships. most of the extant fluff about ships shows that many of them are centuries old, with many battleships being relics dating to the founding of the imperium 10,000 years ago.

we have no idea about how many ships a forge world could build in parallel, but a fleet of the size you are suggesting (which is bigger than most sector fleets. and bigger than than any single fleet seen since the end of the Heresy) isnt something that can be knocked up in a matter of months. that would be decades of works to create a force that size, at least.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

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Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




It was 11 years of mining (and continuous construction) to the ship boosting out system. The source is p. 110 BFG rulebook.

The issue is not merely one of raw industrial capacity, but one of limited technical capability. The Lunar class was described as a relatively uncomplicated design that hive and industrial worlds normally incapable of constructing a capital ship could still build. Battleship class ships seem to be on another tier of difficulty. So the question might be rather how much technical expertise and shipyard capacity capable of that level of construction is there for a forge world and given that the Adeptus Mechanicus operates like a mystery cult so that specialized knowledge would be restricted to a limited few? A forge world might be capable of pumping out escorts and cruisers but could struggle to finish one battleship let alone try to do several in parallel. We don't really know because GW has not provided hard figures AFAIK.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/19 08:32:20


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




Iracundus wrote:
It was 11 years of mining (and continuous construction) to the ship boosting out system. The source is p. 110 BFG rulebook.

The issue is not merely one of raw industrial capacity, but one of limited technical capability. The Lunar class was described as a relatively uncomplicated design that hive and industrial worlds normally incapable of constructing a capital ship could still build. Battleship class ships seem to be on another tier of difficulty. So the question might be rather how much technical expertise and shipyard capacity capable of that level of construction is there for a forge world? A forge world might be capable of pumping out escorts and cruisers but could struggle to finish one battleship let alone try to do several in parallel. We don't really know because GW has not provided hard figures AFAIK.


There's definitely an incredible production bottleneck when relying on a workforce who doesn't even have electricity, and arguably explosives. That means they're limited to how far they can dig down because they don't have pumps for keeping out water, and providing a continuous flow of air.

I'm not going to touch a Battleship or other Cruiser types, but Lunars specifically could be built much faster than this example.
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




Jarms48 wrote:
Iracundus wrote:
It was 11 years of mining (and continuous construction) to the ship boosting out system. The source is p. 110 BFG rulebook.

The issue is not merely one of raw industrial capacity, but one of limited technical capability. The Lunar class was described as a relatively uncomplicated design that hive and industrial worlds normally incapable of constructing a capital ship could still build. Battleship class ships seem to be on another tier of difficulty. So the question might be rather how much technical expertise and shipyard capacity capable of that level of construction is there for a forge world? A forge world might be capable of pumping out escorts and cruisers but could struggle to finish one battleship let alone try to do several in parallel. We don't really know because GW has not provided hard figures AFAIK.


There's definitely an incredible production bottleneck when relying on a workforce who doesn't even have electricity, and arguably explosives. That means they're limited to how far they can dig down because they don't have pumps for keeping out water, and providing a continuous flow of air.

I'm not going to touch a Battleship or other Cruiser types, but Lunars specifically could be built much faster than this example.


Lunar class cruisers were (still are?) the mainstay cruiser of the Segmentum Obscuras, with > 600 apparently serving at the time of the Gothic War, and more than 20 actually fighting in the Gothic War itself (again all from the BFG rulebook). Actually given the size of a Segmentum, that seems a low number even if one acknowledges the bulk of construction is probably going to be escort sized ships rather than capital ships. Probably again a case of GW not having a sense of scale in the same way that they give very small numbers for ground forces.
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

From the BFG rulebook:
[Thumb - lunar.jpg]
Lunar class

   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




Iracundus wrote:


Lunar class cruisers were (still are?) the mainstay cruiser of the Segmentum Obscuras, with > 600 apparently serving at the time of the Gothic War, and more than 20 actually fighting in the Gothic War itself (again all from the BFG rulebook). Actually given the size of a Segmentum, that seems a low number even if one acknowledges the bulk of construction is probably going to be escort sized ships rather than capital ships. Probably again a case of GW not having a sense of scale in the same way that they give very small numbers for ground forces.


I still have those books, they’re great reads. I remember other numbers given were 50 - 75 navy vessels per cube. It’s been so long I don’t remember the exact name. It was something like an assigned sector was a cube of X light years. Which was very representative of how overstretched the Navy is.

What I would argue is the vast majority of the Imperiums shipbuilding is merchant/transport/cargo vessels. These are the true lifeblood of the Imperium and probably number in the tens or hundreds of millions of vessels. If there’s entire worlds rely solely on foreign food and water then they’d be most likely receiving vessels nearly daily.

beast_gts wrote:
From the BFG rulebook:


Thanks for finding that for me. The key part in that text should be “most remarkable example”. Implying this was an exceptionally uncommon feat, not the building of the ship but how it was done.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/19 09:30:58


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




Jarms48 wrote:
Iracundus wrote:


Lunar class cruisers were (still are?) the mainstay cruiser of the Segmentum Obscuras, with > 600 apparently serving at the time of the Gothic War, and more than 20 actually fighting in the Gothic War itself (again all from the BFG rulebook). Actually given the size of a Segmentum, that seems a low number even if one acknowledges the bulk of construction is probably going to be escort sized ships rather than capital ships. Probably again a case of GW not having a sense of scale in the same way that they give very small numbers for ground forces.


I still have those books, they’re great reads. I remember other numbers given were 50 - 75 navy vessels per cube. It’s been so long I don’t remember the exact name. It was something like an assigned sector was a cube of X light years. Which was very representative of how overstretched the Navy is.

What I would argue is the vast majority of the Imperiums shipbuilding is merchant/transport/cargo vessels. These are the true lifeblood of the Imperium and probably number in the tens or hundreds of millions of vessels. If there’s entire worlds rely solely on foreign food and water then they’d be most likely receiving vessels nearly daily.


An average sector was given to be a cube of 200 light years per side. Then one has to realize the galaxy's radius is close to 53,000 light years for an idea of the scale of things and how tiny even a sector is.

Not just daily, probably how many vessels per day or per hour even. Terra for example in one of Chris Wraight's novels was described as having people start to starve if shipments were interrupted for even a minute. Of course it would have been the poorest that would have faced starvation. The sheer number of ships and the existence of such worlds dependent on shipments still surviving for thousands of years means warp travel cannot possibly be as dangerous as it is sometimes portrayed to be as otherwise these worlds would have collapsed long ago.

The most likely ship from the Imperial Navy that an average person is going to see if they see one at all is probably going to be an escort. Similarly the most likely enemy ship they would likely see would be a pirate raider ship like the Iconoclast which was given in the BFG rulebook as an example of the kinds of ships used by pirates and that nearly any shipyard could produce. The kinds of battles in BFG where escorts pop like bubbles and where capital ships slug it out are rare, and even more rarely do they slug it out to the point of one ship being totally destroyed. In the BFG background, there are all sorts of engagements where the losing side disengages to fight another day.

beast_gts wrote:
From the BFG rulebook:


Thanks for finding that for me. The key part in that text should be “most remarkable example”. Implying this was an exceptionally uncommon feat, not the building of the ship but how it was done.


Considering the ship was named Lord Daros (presumably the name of the Imperial Governor) I took it to be an example of egotism and trying to squeeze some worth out of ruling over a feral world.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/19 10:04:28


 
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut





That was a comically dumb story, though. If a feral world can make one in a decade, then Imperium should have billions of these things, not hundreds per segmentum, and every Space Marine fleets should have not just a handful of strike cruisers, but hundreds of them (or thousands if they rule anything better than your typical hellhole).

Take Astral Claws for one, Tyrant of Badab needed ships so desperately he annexed local navy fleet, yet despite ruling over dozens of planets (including Badab Primaris, huge hive world with massive centres of industry and orbital infrastructure) he could muster what, 20-30 ships? It just doesn't add up...

Jarms48 wrote:
There's definitely an incredible production bottleneck when relying on a workforce who doesn't even have electricity, and arguably explosives. That means they're limited to how far they can dig down because they don't have pumps for keeping out water, and providing a continuous flow of air.

Um, they did have pumps. Human powered. There is a reason why sentencing to mines was very quick, painful, and miserable death sentence, even under most humanitarian of states.
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




Hive world doesn't mean you can necessarily build capital scale warships, let alone Space Marine ships which are described in BFG as having a higher degree of automation, which is what allows them to function with smaller crews compared to Imperial Navy ships. The BFG rulebook itself says that not every hive world can construct capital ships, except for maybe the Lunar class due to its ease of construction.

The background suggests it might be the forge worlds that have the necessary technical knowledge to construct Space Marine strike cruisers and the like, so no matter how many other normal planets the Tyrant of Badab got his hands on, he would have lacked the technology to construct those ships. It's not just a matter of pure industrial output but restricted knowledge. Hive worlds are like 19th century mill towns writ large. No matter how big of a 19th century factory you have or how many of them you have, you're not going to get them to produce an iPhone for you. The Adeptus Mechanicus keeps its hands on such knowledge precisely because it creates a degree of dependence from the SM on them.

The feral world constructing one in a decade was described as noteworthy, probably due to the low tech base of the inhabitants. We also don't know what the cost to the population was. It might not have been a repeatable feat for that world.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/05/19 11:24:38


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




Iracundus wrote:

An average sector was given to be a cube of 200 light years per side. Then one has to realize the galaxy's radius is close to 53,000 light years for an idea of the scale of things and how tiny even a sector is.


That's the one.

Yeah, it does get pretty crazy. I don't even want to attempt the math to see how many sectors and ships the Imperium might have, assuming even 10% of that radius. It'd definitely fall into that GW doesn't have a sense of scale territory.

Iracundus wrote:

Not just daily, probably how many vessels per day or per hour even. Terra for example in one of Chris Wraight's novels was described as having people start to starve if shipments were interrupted for even a minute. Of course it would have been the poorest that would have faced starvation. The sheer number of ships and the existence of such worlds dependent on shipments still surviving for thousands of years means warp travel cannot possibly be as dangerous as it is sometimes portrayed to be as otherwise these worlds would have collapsed long ago.

The most likely ship from the Imperial Navy that an average person is going to see if they see one at all is probably going to be an escort. Similarly the most likely enemy ship they would likely see would be a pirate raider ship like the Iconoclast which was given in the BFG rulebook as an example of the kinds of ships used by pirates and that nearly any shipyard could produce. The kinds of battles in BFG where escorts pop like bubbles and where capital ships slug it out are rare, and even more rarely do they slug it out to the point of one ship being totally destroyed. In the BFG background, there are all sorts of engagements where the losing side disengages to fight another day.


Exactly. The idea of how deadly warp travel is very exaggerated, and also makes it perhaps scarier that the instances fleets, space marines, or guard armies were lost might not necessarily have been random but targeted by the powers of chaos.

Also agreed. Even during your more common run-of-the-mill renegades I expect all that's needed is a squadron of escorts and transport for the guard. The escorts disable any orbitals, defence monitors, and ground based void weapons then they piss off once the guard make landfall. The ongoing campaign might see the odd escort squadron patrolling the supply lines.

Iracundus wrote:

Considering the ship was named Lord Daros (presumably the name of the Imperial Governor) I took it to be an example of egotism and trying to squeeze some worth out of ruling over a feral world.


This is a fair point.
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut





Iracundus wrote:
Hive world doesn't mean you can necessarily build capital scale warships, let alone Space Marine ships which are described in BFG as having a higher degree of automation, which is what allows them to function with smaller crews compared to Imperial Navy ships. The BFG rulebook itself says that not every hive world can construct capital ships, except for maybe the Lunar class due to its ease of construction.

And? Tyrant of Badab thought nothing of supplementing his lack of manpower with conscripts, to the point his SM companies (Tyrant's Legion) were more like full on IG armies with SM acting as command structure and shock troops. He wouldn't give a damn how automated a ship is, he had manpower to make anything work.

Or take Raven Guard. They rule over a Forge World, where is their fleet consisting of thousands of cruisers?

The background suggests it might be the forge worlds that have the necessary technical knowledge to construct Space Marine strike cruisers and the like, so no matter how many other normal planets the Tyrant of Badab got his hands on, he would have lacked the technology to construct those ships. It's not just a matter of pure industrial output but restricted knowledge. Hive worlds are like 19th century mill towns writ large. No matter how big of a 19th century factory you have or how many of them you have, you're not going to get them to produce an iPhone for you. The Adeptus Mechanicus keeps its hands on such knowledge precisely because it creates a degree of dependence from the SM on them.

Again, if feral world can make one, then it's utterly absurd resources of SM chapter and massive hive world with space docks better than most hive worlds can't produce them. And if it's lack of knowledge, why he didn't trade with his pet hive world for knowledge? No, it still doesn't add up. Not to mention Forge Worlds are actually a minority of ship producing planets, there are literally dozens of planets with big navy shipyards in fluff, none of which are FW.

The feral world constructing one in a decade was described as noteworthy, probably due to the low tech base of the inhabitants. We also don't know what the cost to the population was. It might not have been a repeatable feat for that world.

The story doesn't mention anything of the sort, but ok, let's assume it's not repeatable. So what? It would be repeatable for a world with better tech base. Even if we assume only Forge Worlds can do so, Imperium still has ~35000 of them. Even assuming a decade of production time and very low production rate, it's still billions of ships over 10000 years, not the tiny handful we see.
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




The Adeptus Mechanicus still holds the information and actual knowledge. Hive worlds manufacture the relatively lower tech stuff like Chimeras and lasguns under license from the Adeptus Mechanicus. Again, big industrial base does not equate to high tech industrial base. Unless the Adeptus Mechanicus is co-opted in some form, any rebel is going to be left with whatever their non-privileged manufacturers know how to do. The Lord Daros was constructed around a loyal Imperial feral world that had orbital infrastructure, meaning Adeptus Mechanicus involvement as the natives would not have been the ones that put it up there. Forge Worlds do not just manufacture for the Navy. They build their own stuff which they keep separate and apart from the Navy so it's not as simple as just dictating forge worlds to build a million Lunar cruisers. They are a parallel structure in the Imperium and do their own thing.

As seen from BFG, black market illicit shipyards seem to be able to manage to construct escort size ships like the Iconoclast. Anything bigger seems to require a major industrial base and presumably some form of cooperation from the Adeptus Mechanicus (or equivalent if you are Chaos aligned) that has the specialized knowledge. That is the production bottleneck, not raw industrial capacity. Repairing ships seems to be a different matter though if the Gothic War is anything to go by, as it seems basic repairs (and restocking of manual labor) seems to be within the capability of hive worlds.

Could Huron have tried to flood space with Iconoclasts? Sure, and maybe it is a mistake he didn't do so, in much the same way that the Astral Claws were described as being neglectful of their IG equivalents treating them like how CSM would treat cultist cannon fodder. Huron's pride and arrogance was one of his failings. I could definitely see him refusing to stoop to relying on the kinds of ships pirate scum use. It's also not just as simple as Huron offering to trade for knowledge from the Adeptus Mechanicus. The whole idea of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Dark Mechanicum is that they are mystery cults. The tech knowledge is treated as a mystical secret that you cannot just simply trade for like a loaf of bread, but has to be earned (by joining their closed group which is closed to outsiders from other groups). The Adeptus Mechanicus probably would view selling of technical knowledge to non-initiates to be like the sin of simony.

This message was edited 9 times. Last update was at 2021/05/19 12:38:05


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Irbis wrote:
Iracundus wrote:
Hive world doesn't mean you can necessarily build capital scale warships, let alone Space Marine ships which are described in BFG as having a higher degree of automation, which is what allows them to function with smaller crews compared to Imperial Navy ships. The BFG rulebook itself says that not every hive world can construct capital ships, except for maybe the Lunar class due to its ease of construction.

And? Tyrant of Badab thought nothing of supplementing his lack of manpower with conscripts, to the point his SM companies (Tyrant's Legion) were more like full on IG armies with SM acting as command structure and shock troops. He wouldn't give a damn how automated a ship is, he had manpower to make anything work.

Or take Raven Guard. They rule over a Forge World, where is their fleet consisting of thousands of cruisers?

The background suggests it might be the forge worlds that have the necessary technical knowledge to construct Space Marine strike cruisers and the like, so no matter how many other normal planets the Tyrant of Badab got his hands on, he would have lacked the technology to construct those ships. It's not just a matter of pure industrial output but restricted knowledge. Hive worlds are like 19th century mill towns writ large. No matter how big of a 19th century factory you have or how many of them you have, you're not going to get them to produce an iPhone for you. The Adeptus Mechanicus keeps its hands on such knowledge precisely because it creates a degree of dependence from the SM on them.

Again, if feral world can make one, then it's utterly absurd resources of SM chapter and massive hive world with space docks better than most hive worlds can't produce them. And if it's lack of knowledge, why he didn't trade with his pet hive world for knowledge? No, it still doesn't add up. Not to mention Forge Worlds are actually a minority of ship producing planets, there are literally dozens of planets with big navy shipyards in fluff, none of which are FW.

The feral world constructing one in a decade was described as noteworthy, probably due to the low tech base of the inhabitants. We also don't know what the cost to the population was. It might not have been a repeatable feat for that world.

The story doesn't mention anything of the sort, but ok, let's assume it's not repeatable. So what? It would be repeatable for a world with better tech base. Even if we assume only Forge Worlds can do so, Imperium still has ~35000 of them. Even assuming a decade of production time and very low production rate, it's still billions of ships over 10000 years, not the tiny handful we see.


You have to remember that Imperial worlds (including other forge worlds) have to lobby for STC rights with whatever Forge World holds it. It can often take hundreds of years just to get a response, approval or denial. Without STC rights, and thus a copy of that STC design you effectively cannot build it. A world could attempt to build something similar, but who could say how it’d stand up to approved design and how its machine spirit would cope. Doing something like this is also very heretical.

So whilst I definitely agree the Imperium as a whole should very well have millions of cruisers across the galaxy. The issue is perhaps more political. The Ad-Mech might simply be very zealous in handing out STC designs for military starships. In some Imperial Armour books they talk about how forge worlds that produce Baneblades don’t want to give out their STC designs. So if they don’t want to give out a design for a super-heavy tank, imagine their response at a void craft that could evaporate oceans and level mountain ranges.

The current Imperial worlds that already produce ships have possibly been arranged between the High Lords/Segmentum Command and the Ad-Mech rather than traditional lobbying.
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain




Rogue Trader has rules for 'fitting out' a starship - though not for building the hull itself.

Fitting out requires two weeks for each essential component (plasma drive, warp engine, Gellar field, void shields, bridge, crew quarters, life sustainer and auger array), assuming you're not fitting some archeotech or artificer-crafted rubbish (which obviously takes longer).

That's common to any starship and represents about 16 weeks of work.

Supplemental components take 1 week per point of value, so equipping a spaceworthy lunar class hull with the mars-pattern standards of prow torpedo tubes, armoured prow, munitorium, and a macrocannon broadside and lance battery on each flank takes another 12 weeks of work, for a total of 28 weeks.

The game lacks any rules for building the keel itself, but if one uses the same abstraction - 1 week per ship point - a lunar hull takes about 60 weeks to build.

Adding that all up, that gives a value of about a year and eight months, assuming things like guns and engines are in continuous production and are delivered to the shipyard 'just in time' from a production facility somewhere else, which a major naval yard forge world should be able to.

Termagants expended for the Hive Mind: ~2835
 
   
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And is there any info on how many ships can be produced simultaneously?
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain




No: that's a matter for the size of a forge world: mars, for example, has the ring of iron - an orbital belt encircling the planet above the atmosphere - so that's approximately 23,000 kilometres worth of shipyard drydocks!

Certainly at the height of the great crusade, Mars could easily have turned out a fleet the size you specify simultaneously.

Other major forgeworlds....probably, but at greater effort. Lesser forgeworlds...It's a push.

Certainly building a battleship would be a much bigger deal - the largest ship's with rules in Rogue Trader were Grand Cruisers, and they're at least twice as effort-intensive if properly equipped.

Termagants expended for the Hive Mind: ~2835
 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




Another issue to think about why Imperial ship production might be so low is repairs. If a ship is moored in the shipwrights then that's taking valuable space for another ship to be built there.

A sector could be building 20 ships every year (not necessarily building an entire ship in one year but having hundreds in different stages of construction), losing 20 ships every year, and also repairing 20 ships every year. As well as building and repairing the countless numbers of smaller vessels.

   
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Regular Dakkanaut




Could wealthier worlds and sub-sectors (like Ultramar) build ships but keep them as part of local defenses not directly under the imperial navy? The space-equivalent of the PDF.

So far the ship building capacity of the Imperium has to contend with: Imperial Navy (including warships, transports, and bulk transports for the Guard), Admech Navy, Space Marine navy, merchant marine and civilian ships like cargo and transports, replacement and retrofits of the above (the bigger ships are usually ancient and some are literally run with slave labor--I wonder how often breakdowns happen), whatever the Inquisition deems necessary (up to and including their Black Ships), fighters, and weapons and munitions for all of the above. Quite a tall order, especially for a society that could take a hundred days to make a bullet because it needs to go through a specific series of blessings.
   
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Moustache-twirling Princeps




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I wonder if the issue with new ships is less to do with building them but is about the rare 'human-ish' elements - Navigators, special psykers to calibrate the Geller fields, etc. ?


Altima wrote:
Could wealthier worlds and sub-sectors (like Ultramar) build ships but keep them as part of local defenses not directly under the imperial navy? The space-equivalent of the PDF.
There are mentions of System Defense Forces who operate ships.
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




Altima wrote:
Could wealthier worlds and sub-sectors (like Ultramar) build ships but keep them as part of local defenses not directly under the imperial navy? The space-equivalent of the PDF.


Those are System Defence Ships and Monitors as described in BFG. Most systems may have a few but they are not going to be sufficient to halt an invasion. All escort sized and not warp capable, which seems to again imply a big hurdle is moving beyond escort sized to build capital class starships of cruiser size or bigger.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/20 09:54:07


 
   
Made in gb
Leader of the Sept







I think its more that you don;t want a single system to have access to capital class ships in case they decide to secede. Gives the IN an instant advantage over any rebellion they might need to quell.

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

Terranwing - w3;d1;l1
51st Dunedinw2;d0;l0
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Flinty wrote:
I think its more that you don;t want a single system to have access to capital class ships in case they decide to secede. Gives the IN an instant advantage over any rebellion they might need to quell.


Yes but how to actually enforce it if it were not an actual technical barrier? The existence of pirate ships such as the Iconoclast shows that clandestine manufacture of ships is possible. The galaxy is vast and the Imperium cannot monitor everything everywhere despite its propaganda otherwise. If it were only laws that prohibited rather than a hard limit, then I would expect far more secretly manufactured capital ships for rebel systems.

If it were an actual technical barrier, limited knowledge bottleneck, then the only way a rebelling system could get its hands on capital ships would be either to convince Navy ships to defect or to get control of a shipyard that is capable of producing capital ships (which if they are limited in number due to technical barriers, is not something that is easy to do).

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/05/20 10:36:06


 
   
Made in gb
Leader of the Sept







I'm sure three wold be technical barriers. Admech involvement I'm sure would go up for larger hull classes. As well as that there will be issues of crewing and upkeep. The resources to keep one capital class would cover many smaller craft, which is probably more useful for an SDF acting as anti-pirate.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/20 11:01:05


Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

Terranwing - w3;d1;l1
51st Dunedinw2;d0;l0
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
   
Made in nz
Trigger-Happy Baal Predator Pilot



New Zealand

Even in modern times not all shipyards can build warships. And not all naval shipyards can build the bigger ships. Some components would also take a long time to make.

Around WW2 gun barrels for main armament and armour plate were in short supply because of their lengthy construction times. Rolled homogenous armour was not adequate for warships, but thick face hardened armour of the right specification needed time to make.
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




The BFG rulebook also describes how grand cruisers fell out of favor as the knowledge to construct their engines was lost, with more recent engines unable to provide sufficient thrust. Since larger battleships are still built, I read that to mean the knowledge was lost of how to construct sufficiently powerful engines that were still compact enough to fit in a grand cruiser hull.

I imagine a similar situation would face the average rebellious world. Even though they might be able to build escort sized ships, the knowledge of building large enough or powerful enough components for a cruiser sized (or above) ship is beyond them.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/20 13:40:56


 
   
 
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