[Spaceships] Homeworld-style Mobile Shipyard at TL9?

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

In your opinion, what is the typical build of a mobile shipyard (like the ones in Homeworld 2, or the Mothership in HW) at TL9? I'm assuming that Stardrives are TL^, but otherwise am hoping to minimize ^'s. For those who haven't played, it's a huge ship which houses hangars, mining and research facilities etc. to produce other spacecraft from scratch (e.g. from an asteroid belt's resources, assuming a rich belt).

Thanks in advance!

[D10]

What exacly do you want to know ?

I assume its something huge, like a middle sized city.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by D10

What exacly do you want to know ?

I assume its something huge, like a middle sized city.

At least one sample build which would suffice for the task. How many workshop/refinery/factory/hangar/etc. systems and what skill set for operators for what ship SM etc.

[jacobmuller]

Haven't added up any numbers but, from the latest Spaceships, it seems that it all depends how fast you want it built and what size.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Haven't added up any numbers but, from the latest Spaceships, it seems that it all depends how fast you want it built and what size.

I almost don't care about speed. I care about the fact that this shipyard will be able to design and produce ships up to and including a certain SM at its TL.

[cccwebs]

What maximum size ship can the mobile shipyard construct? Looking through Spaceships, it would seem the maximum size that can fit through hangar bay doors is SM-3 if using a combines 3-6 bays. The internal construction facilities would take place inside a hangar bay, so just design the shipyard to be at least +3 SM greater than the largest craft it can build. Add in all the appropriate factories for building the components and refineries for processing the raw materials. The mining operations are probably performed by secondary craft, so make sure to include a couple of extra hangar bays to hold the support craft. You might even get away with having the refineries be on the support craft also. That way the craft could mine and process the raw materials then deliver the processed materials to the shipyard for construction use.

[Ulzgoroth]

Do you have SMs in mind for the Mothership and the biggest thing it can build? I played the game, but I don't really know how big those things would be.

Also, the SS6 rules are going to determine an extremely long build time for those ships.

Also, it technically could be an SM +6 ship with one factory...it would just take forever and require building externally. And are you giving the thing any non-stardrives?

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Also, the SS6 rules are going to determine an extremely long build time for those ships.

Well, the ships moved unrealistically fast and had reactionless drives. Plus they slowed down by turning off their drives instead of doing counter-burns.

I wouldn't worry that you can't build a beam frigate in five minutes and just consider it an abstraction of the interface.

[vicky_molokh]

Well, the external building is acceptable (for bigger ships, anyway), but I still expect the miners to be held inside, even if they fly out to mine.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Do you have SMs in mind for the Mothership and the biggest thing it can build? I played the game, but I don't really know how big those things would be.

According to the Homeworld wikia page, the mothership from the Homeworld 2 would be SM+15, and was described as being smaller than that in the first (a dedicated warship/mobile military shipyard, rather than a colony ship). There's no firm number for the size of the original mothership.