[Spaceships 6] Shipbuilding rules and prices

[Ulzgoroth]

How are the economics of this supposed to work?

Even in the very best of situations, where the ships roll off the assembly line fully operational, they take 24 times as much manufacturing as 'normal' goods of officially equal value. Anything bigger is much worse.

So why would anyone ever build them? It's inherently less profitable than making small consumer goods. Anyone manufacturing and selling spacecraft of any size for their list price would be losing monumental amounts of money by using their capital that way.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

How are the economics of this supposed to work?

Even in the very best of situations, where the ships roll off the assembly line fully operational, they take 24 times as much manufacturing as 'normal' goods of officially equal value. Anything bigger is much worse.

So why would anyone ever build them? It's inherently less profitable than making small consumer goods. Anyone manufacturing and selling spacecraft of any size for their list price would be losing monumental amounts of money by using their capital that way.

Niches.

• Perhaps the niches for almost all consumer goods is already saturated.
• Perhaps through historical progression, the spaceship-building companies already have the infrastructure to build spaceships, but not consumer goods.
• Perhaps the cost-to-market initial barrier is too high for new players to enter and expect to make a reasonable profit in a reasonable time. Peripheral markets may be less saturated - a company can start by making space toilets (a very small niche market), and over many years move up to space plumbing and bulk fluid flow, then habitat modules, then whole space stations; such a company could never hope to compete in new external markets, but they could support steady growth in their chosen field.
• Consumer goods markets require enormous spending in advertising, marketing, research, and PR. Even then they may invest heavily in the wrong product and lose their entire investment. It may be likely that consumer goods is a horrendously cut-throat market sector with companies springing up and going under every year, while spaceships is steady work.
• Spaceships are an investment. People buy ships and over the years have to buy maintenance service, repairs, upgrades, etc.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

How are the economics of this supposed to work?

Even in the very best of situations, where the ships roll off the assembly line fully operational, they take 24 times as much manufacturing as 'normal' goods of officially equal value. Anything bigger is much worse.

So why would anyone ever build them? It's inherently less profitable than making small consumer goods. Anyone manufacturing and selling spacecraft of any size for their list price would be losing monumental amounts of money by using their capital that way.

There's still a market for spaceships and profitability is only an issue if you don't mark up your prices enough. Not saying there's a need to gouge the buyer, but making a profit is a part of the business of ship building.

Now shipbuilding, in real life, while lucrative, is also notoriously unprofitable as a whole and it's not unusual for the U.S. Navy to order and build boats they don't really have a need for just to keep the shipyards in business.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

How are the economics of this supposed to work?

Even in the very best of situations, where the ships roll off the assembly line fully operational, they take 24 times as much manufacturing as 'normal' goods of officially equal value. Anything bigger is much worse.

So why would anyone ever build them? .

Because the time estimate for producing ship spare parts given in Spaceships does not include the time it takes to actually install each part. The ship yard is producing complet spacecraft. The parts that make it up have not merely been produced, they have been assembled.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

How are the economics of this supposed to work?

The major problem is that the factory modules in Spaceships are grossly overoptimistic, and thus manufacturing small items is overly effective.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The major problem is that the factory modules in Spaceships are grossly overoptimistic, and thus manufacturing small items is overly effective.

A 2½× increase in price from reagents to final product per factory-stage is overly optimistic?

[SpaceGurper]

2.5x isn't that high really.

Take for instance soda fountain pop. it cost's $0.0559 per oz and most places sell regular for $1.50-$2.00 (8oz) which is almost 3x-4x cost - serving expenses and wages of course, not to mention that 1/3rd of that is ice (at least from burger king).

Now this is just food goods, commodities. So you take that and apply it to a specialty product and you can probably make 5x-10x what you put into it.

So 2.5x is not that huge in the overall.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Molokh

A 2½× increase in price from reagents to final product per factory-stage is overly optimistic?

Depends on the product, but not what I'm talking about. It's production rates that are overstated by a very large margin. Producing things from a general purpose factory module should realistically cost more than the regular commercial price of the item, the only reason you use general purpose manufacturing systems is because demand is too small or irregular to make specialized systems efficient.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Depends on the product, but not what I'm talking about. It's production rates that are overstated by a very large margin. Producing things from a general purpose factory module should realistically cost more than the regular commercial price of the item, the only reason you use general purpose manufacturing systems is because demand is too small or irregular to make specialized systems efficient.

Well, at TL9 3D-Printers should make assembly lines all but obsolete anyway.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by SpaceGurper

2.5x isn't that high really.

Take for instance soda fountain pop. it cost's $0.0559 per oz and most places sell regular for $1.50-$2.00 (8oz) which is almost 3x-4x cost - serving expenses and wages of course, not to mention that 1/3rd of that is ice (at least from burger king).

Now this is just food goods, commodities. So you take that and apply it to a specialty product and you can probably make 5x-10x what you put into it.

So 2.5x is not that huge in the overall.

I could be dying of thirst, but I would not spend that much for an 8 oz.
I buy 2 liters for around $1.50 each.