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Subject: Reply to WILDSTAR's economic stats post
The table below shows the major categories of Imperial expenditures, and the
amounts spent on them. Note that the Imperial family recieves its income
in the form of dividends paid to the Throne (the Imperial family holds
shares in a number of megacorporations, and many lesser companies). The
Imperial bureaucracy is supported by user fees (application, liscencing,
processing, and other fees paid for official services rendered). Some
of these services actually produce a profit; others are subsidized by
the Imperium (for example, the XBoat network operates at a loss, but it is
subsidized through the IISS budget). Much of these funds fall into the
"Other Expenditures" category. The "Naval Estimates" and "Army Estimates"
are, for historical reasons, the terms for the Navy and Army budgets.
Category Percent Budget (MCr)
- - -----------------------------------------
Naval Estimates 51.20 1,123,711,789
Army Estimates 16.05 352,257,309
Scout Service 21.31 467,701,137
Other Expenditures 11.44 251,079,352
- - -----------------------------------------
ALL 100.00 2,194,749,587
- ----Minor quibble. Doesn't the Imperium subsidize most of the starports
- ----within its boundries? This and the fact that I seriously doubt any
- ----bureaucracy the size of the Imperiums is going to operate at profit
- ----on any but the most local of levels leads me to blelieve that the
- ----Scout and Other categories should be a little higher. Also, I expect
- ----that the Marines are a sufficiently independent organization to require
- ----a separate "Estimate".
These figures can be used to estimate the approximate volume of shipping
within the Imperium. A 10,000 displacement ton hull will be used as an
"average" to estimate construction times. A hull occupies its tonnage
in the shipyard for its entire construction time of 160 weeks. Ships
must also undergo annual maintainance; 2 weeks every year. The yards of
the Imperium have an annual capacity of 265,130,980,000 ton-weeks of new
construction or maintainance, and an additional 227,086,570,000 ton-weeks
of maintainance only. Presumably, the Naval Bases, Naval Depots, Scout
Bases, and Scout Waystations contain additional ship construction and repair
facilities to build and maintain ships for the Imperial military services
(this is a logical extension of the policy that a world's survey data does
not include the personnel or technology of any military bases present).
- ----Unfortunately your assumption about Naval Bases, Depots, etc., is
- ----probably incorrect. There have been numerous mentions of civilian
- ----companies and mega-corps building ships for the Imperial Navy going
- ----all the way back to Adventure 1: The Kinnunnir, which class was, if
- ----I recall correctly, built by General Products at Regina and LSP at
- ----Strouden/Lunion. I expect the Imperium still builds naval and scout
- ----vessels the same way we do today; by letting contracts to civilian
- ----firms.
In peacetime, shipyards and ships presumably exist in an equilibrum: the
number of new ships constructed is the same as the number retired from
service; and all ships in service can recieve their annual maintainance.
In practice, there is always some spare shipyard capacity to provide for
regional differences, trade expansion, and so on. Let us assume this
spare capacity at 10%. The active lifetime of a ship must be at least as
long, and probably longer than, the period over which it is financed, 40
years. There is good reason (analysis of the Azhanti High Lightning
class cruisers, the only class of ships for which complete records are
available) to believe that the active life can be more than 100 years.
Let us assume that it is 80 years (exactly twice the pay-off time).
- ----No problem. If anything, your estimate might be low. However, I will have
- ----to argue with your unstated assumption that yards will operate at
- ----90% of max rate during peacetime. My understanding is that modern-day
- ----yards run at between 10-50% of max. possible. Some of the reasons
- ----for this, i.e. the fact that ship construction is often seasonable
- ----and not done during the winter months, like construction, can be
- ----assumed to no longer apply, but the major one still will. During
- ----peacetime most yards will only run one, or at most two, work shifts.
- ----During war, or other peak production periods, three shifts will be
- ----run, overtime will be paid, etc. I would expect Imperial shipyards
- ----to operate at 25-50% of effectiveness.
Lyle (who won't be buying Neo-Traveller)