Re: Size Class Escalation -- How high in Mass?

--- Chris DeBoe <LASERLIGHT@QUIXNET.NET> wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Griffin" <carbon_dragon@yahoo.com>
> >
> > This idea that big ships are uneconomical to build
> > is a popular one, but how realistic is it? It
> seems
> > to me that there is no particular reason to
> believe
> > that pound for pound it's more expensive to
> construct
> > larger ships.
> 
>   Number one, you get fewer examples to work on.

This may NOT be true. Example -- dreadnoughts of
World War I. They built a LOT of those.

>   Number two, the same part usually costs more if
> applied to a more
> expensive system. 

That's american marketing, not reality

...
>   Number three, the individual parts may be
> customized (there are probably a
> LOT more Beam-1's than Beam-4's available for
> purchase).  This not only
> affects volume discounts, but also project time
> lines and therefore payroll...

This again assumes that more small beams are
built. There were a LOT of 15", 12", and 11"
guns built prior and during WWI. I'll bet they
got a few economies of scale with those babies.

Secondly, it assumes smaller ships have class 1's
and 2's. Actually even my destroyers use class 3's
even if they only have 1, so it depends on the
design strategy of the navy. My navies use 3's and
4's more than any other weapon. I'm sure they know
how to make them economically by now. 

Your assumptions say they're uncommon, so they're
expensive so they're uncommon -- circular reasoning.
If they are NOT in fact uncommon, then the only
problem with building big ships is that they're
big ships -- that is even if you build type 4 beams
all the time, they're still harder to build (I'd
say linearly harder) than smaller ones because they
are larger. 

So, it depends on the universe. The construction
rules don't seem to support the contention that
bigger weapons and ships are unnaturally harder
to construct than equivalent mass in smaller ships.
If this were the case (and you're welcome to make
it the case in your universe) where's the evidence?

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