Re: Planetary Infrastructure/Invasion/etc

Jeff spake thusly upon matters weighty: 
> >Further, a colony, by def'n, has a focused structure in many cases 
> >- because it doesn't have population or resources, it has to make up 
> >for it by doing the things it needs to (and I'd assume this to 
> >include machining things one can't get shipped, building new things 
> >required in the new environment that would cost too much and take too

> >long to design and ship from civilization, etc.) very well, if on a 
> >small scale. I think a small 10K person colony might well have  the 
> >resources (in terms of fabricating some stuff) of a 250K city back 
> >home, plus some specialized stuff that the city wouldn't have. It 
> >would lack in luxuries, and some things may have to be imported due 
> >to lack of local resources, but for sheer transport costs, most 
> >things would be done locally or not at all.
> 
> Look at any human community.	In a really small town, what do you
have?  A
> few essential businesses/stores/industries.  As the community grows,
more
> people become involved in producing "supporting" services which do not
> directly contribute to the major local industries.  Only in the
largest
> communities will you find the most advanced industries, but you will
also
> find that only the smallest fraction of that community's labor force
is
> directly involved in it.  The rest are plumbers and fast food workers
and
> morticians.  The same is true on a larger scale for colony worlds.

Au contraire. I took Human Geography so I know all about Von Thunen 
(sp?) models, hochtaler planes, and central place theory. BUT, look 
at the requirements of a small colony - THEY ARE NOT THE SAME AS 
THOSE OF A SMALL TOWN. They are not analogous. A small town ( a la 
CPL) can merely access the resources of a larger town by rail, road, 
or some such. That is why it won't have certain resources (in part... 
the really strange things it won't have because it isn't big enough). 
The fact that the larger nearby town can produce it much cheaper. 
In space, this ain't so! You've got long lag times, far distances, 
and high costs (note that with the cheap ass cost of star drives vis 
a vis weapons/electronics, I'm not sure this is as true in the GZG 
background as other sci fi backgrounds) of transport. Combined, these 
make the rational cost of a good far more than it might appear, thus 
making its production locally (if it is important) quite likely.  

> >... A big HEL might not 
> >be as complex to build as you suspect or even that expensive - except

> >for the fact that on civilized worlds they are trying to control 
> >proliferation and on civilized worlds production costs are orders of 
> >magnitude more (labour rates, specialization, unions, restrictive 
> >laws, tarrifs, trade regulations, etc. all factor in). 
> 
> Agreed.  I'd also imagine the homeworld wants to maintain a favorable
> balance of trade with its colonies, so imports will be expensive.  A
small
> colony on a tight budget just can't afford to import a billion credits
> worth of top of the line weapons.  Not when they could be importing
machine
> tools, tractors, industrial equipment, medical supplies and so forth
instead.

Depends on the priority on defence. Then again, in a crisis, the home 
area might waive all tarrifs and all shipping costs for military 
gear.  

> And the homeworld won't sell 'em the really good stuff just in case
they
> decide to declare independence.

But even second tier weaponry can be quite deadly. 
 
> I think the old Traveller system had something like this (probably in
the
> section on running a merchant ship)...all the various commodities and
tech
> gizmos where rated according to their availability; some things could
only
> be purchased at industrial worlds with a given tech base, population
and
> law level.

The advanced rules also accounted for the fact that an TL 15 (high 
tech) rich world had currency worth many times more than a TL 10 (low 
for space tech) low pop world's currency. That kills you in balance 
of trade...

  Tech base and law level kinda falls out of the equation in the
> FT/DS universe and especially for this discussion, but I think that a
> simple system of rating planets on their level of development would be
> useful.  For example for DS II:
> 
> Industry:	Can Produce
> Level 0 - No heavy industry: Imported or converted vehicles only
> Level 1 - Wheeled vehicles, Tracked vehicles, Helicopters, Jets 
> Level 2 - GEVs, VTOLs
> Level 3 - Walkers
> Level 4 - Aerospace Vehicles
> Level 5 - Grav vehicles
> 
> Or whatever.	This is just off the top of my head.  If your
interpretation
> of the universe says walkers are harder to produce than aerospace
fighters,
> then change it to suit you.  The scale could also be condensed to as
few as
> 3 levels or expanded to however many you like.  Make up a similar
chart for
> weapons as well.

That's a cool idea. World stats like traveller.... Hmmm. If it isn't 
a copyright offence, it is a great idea. 

Notice the difference between Traveller type background and 2300 AD 
style background - in one, we have vastly differing tech next to each 
other (TL 15 and TL 3....) and in the other, the tech tend to degrade 
somewhat uniformly from the homeworld out to the rim, but even the 
rim has some of the highest tech stuff. Two different models of how 
worlds would develop....
 
> Or whatever scale you like.  The basic idea being not that you can't
build
> a grav tank from prefab parts with a small team of trained people, but
that
> you have to have all the supporting infrastructure to design and build
all
> the component parts and this will only occur on a core world.

You can't? What about 'kit bashing'? Never built kit cars? (Now a kit 
tank might not be as good as a NAC top of the line grav tank, but it 
might be a heck of a lot better than what the corporate mercs charged 
with taking your planet have). 

Of course, why do I think it would arrive in a courier van in a red 
box with ACME written on the side....

Tom.  
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