Brilliant stuff dude.
ED: Real World Price of Ships (AKA: fun with numbers)
- Thread starter Starfish
- Start date
I think you've kind of lost sight of the amounts we're talking about here.
£159m vs £740b, for something that weighs 16 x more than the other. It's not that much bigger and it has no tech aboard that the other doesn't have, just a bit more of it and a bit better. Maybe a better way to describe it: for the cost of one Anaconda you could buy approx. 4600 Sidewinders. Being that it's entirely fair to compare an artic with a Transit van (cargo capacity, range, gunmen on board, lol) it becomes clear that 4600 vans vs one lorry in your fleet is a no-brainer.In a real economy nobody but a lunatic would buy an Anaconda at that price. In a real economy nobody would charge that kind of money. The cost of building one, even if 100 times more than a Sidewinder, would preclude it. At x100 it would be £15billion and even that's tearing the butt out of it.
Maybe what FD should have done was established three tiers of trading; one at normal speed (between a planet and various moons and stations), the next with SC, between planets in a system and between close stars and a third with hyper-jump. Then the advanced tech for levels 2 and 3 could have explained/justified the massive extra costs. Probably would have made for a deeper game too.
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I would go from another angle
If we look for size and function of the ship, Anaconda is pretty good match for LCS-2 in terms of function performed , volume (but not weight 400t vs 2307t)
Wiki says that ship cost $704 million (plus minus additional fees- though subsequent ships are estimated to cost $360M). Navy budget is quoted for $149.9 billion for 2011, so the cost of that ship would be ~1/213 of said annual budget ( and 1/416 per next ones). Of course said "investment" would actually span few fiscal years. Also, new ship development is but a fraction of budger, as operational costs are usually large and fixed chunk.
My point is that given similar form and function it should have similar spot in space navy. There is question of said navy size, but one could expect it to be similar in one solar system, and then add additional units per inhabited every solar system (with differentiation based upon projected tax revenues from it) , and adequately add layers of strategic (sector, constellation level) fleets to that.
As for Cr->$ conversion, we could look at some kind of price parity index. Basket of common goods for middle class (one could survive on Food Cartridges/ MRE's but what's the point)
Then ofc there is the problem that as it is do not have that much life in it (despite fact that barring some extinction level event, with access to stars and with current reproduction rates, in 3300 we could be looking at 827.648.624.702.129.000.000 people out there. 847.6x10¹⁸ ... that is over 2 billion for each solar system avg.)
If we look for size and function of the ship, Anaconda is pretty good match for LCS-2 in terms of function performed , volume (but not weight 400t vs 2307t)
Wiki says that ship cost $704 million (plus minus additional fees- though subsequent ships are estimated to cost $360M). Navy budget is quoted for $149.9 billion for 2011, so the cost of that ship would be ~1/213 of said annual budget ( and 1/416 per next ones). Of course said "investment" would actually span few fiscal years. Also, new ship development is but a fraction of budger, as operational costs are usually large and fixed chunk.
My point is that given similar form and function it should have similar spot in space navy. There is question of said navy size, but one could expect it to be similar in one solar system, and then add additional units per inhabited every solar system (with differentiation based upon projected tax revenues from it) , and adequately add layers of strategic (sector, constellation level) fleets to that.
As for Cr->$ conversion, we could look at some kind of price parity index. Basket of common goods for middle class (one could survive on Food Cartridges/ MRE's but what's the point)
Then ofc there is the problem that as it is do not have that much life in it (despite fact that barring some extinction level event, with access to stars and with current reproduction rates, in 3300 we could be looking at 827.648.624.702.129.000.000 people out there. 847.6x10¹⁸ ... that is over 2 billion for each solar system avg.)
What can I say... other than... awesome thread.
As for the "scale" of the economics, I find it very plausible that our current economic level are utterly dwarfed by anything from 3300!!
As for the "scale" of the economics, I find it very plausible that our current economic level are utterly dwarfed by anything from 3300!!
My money is definitely going on the 4,600 sidewinders in that fight! haha!
Starting to get curious about how much the capital ships would cost to build now, and as someone else in the thread said previous, the space stations!
Spot onI think you've kind of lost sight of the amounts we're talking about here.
In a real economy nobody but a lunatic would buy an Anaconda at that price. In a real economy nobody would charge that kind of money. The cost of building one, even if 100 times more than a Sidewinder, would preclude it. At x100 it would be £15billion and even that's tearing the butt out of it.
Maybe what FD should have done was established three tiers of trading; one at normal speed (between a planet and various moons and stations), the next with SC, between planets in a system and between close stars and a third with hyper-jump. Then the advanced tech for levels 2 and 3 could have explained/justified the massive extra costs. Probably would have made for a deeper game too.
As i said before - the weight of anaconda makes little sense. (and that extends to L9 too). They are made of wood !
Costs seem all-right given size (volume) but not capabilities.
Then again, such ships are never intended as "torpedo boats". On paper swarm of 100000 torpedo boats should destroy any aircraft carrier for a fraction of cost. It is, hovever , not the case, because there are area-of-effect weapons, and that swarm of boats would present prety big soft area target.
Kinetic weaponry is never strongest suit of any current warship. Command, control, Surveilance, ECM, independent reach are. That small hangar with copters and detachement of marines too. And ability to operate for months "off the grid" so to speak. Ofc there are none of those things in game right now, but hopefully they would be. Actually , that would make 'conda a great frontier exploration base-ship for small gang.
Something like Demetrius from BSG (down to fighters on deck, but without the smell ) -> img in spoiler
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Must be some futuristic light weight metal alloy or something. The ships would need to be relatively light so they can get up and down from planetary landings. If they can only get up to ~500m/s in space, I wonder how they would deal with a planet with 50G gravity, presumably it would be off bounds (which is ok, as I doubt anything could live at such a surface gravity, is such a planet even possible without being a gas giant?). Either that or supercruise would take over.
I guess most of the planets we will be able to land on will be earthlike or smaller, atmosphere-less worlds.
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The Anaconda at its current price is a player vanity item.In the context of the ED universe there is no reason of its existance its price is so inflated compaired to its caperbilities as to be worthy of ridicule.You could buy more than 400 vipers for the price of this ship,could a anaconder take on 400 vipers,could it even take on 10.A planetry goverment would never buy this ship its very poor use of cash if you are limited in the amount you have.
problem is they do have lesser structural density than modern transport airplanes. They are more like dirigibles. (or somewhere in between). I have not checked against space shuttle (yet)
Numbers I ran:
| V | Mass empty | Density empty [t/m3] | Max Mass | Densfull [t/m3] | DWT[T] | CargoVol | |
| An 225 | 4 178 | 285 | 0,0682097222 | 640 | 0,1531727094 | 355 | 1300 |
| LCS2 | 32 367 | 2307 | 0,0712764174 | 3104 | 0,0959003033 | 797 | 11000 |
| Victory | 28 987 | 4300 | 0,1483423604 | 14900 | 0,5140235278 | 10600 | 20000 |
| L9 | 110 573 | 1000 | 0,0090437669 | 1594 | 0,0144157644 | 594 | |
| Anaconda | 69 268 | 400 | 0,005774694 | 1212 | 0,0174973228 | 812 | |
| Cobra Mk3 | 4 397 | 180 | 0,0409378022 | 286 | 0,0650456191 | 106 |
Cobra is showing somewhat reasonable density, rest, not so much
And family photo with cargo representation
That's a really interesting picture (@LukeP). What dictates the 'size' of the cargo for the Elite ships? As cargo is only measured in tonnage, not cubic metres or something in Elite. I assume we're not still talking about (cubic metres of) gold!
It does have some implications for when we are able to walk around in ships. What the hell is taking up all that room?
It does have some implications for when we are able to walk around in ships. What the hell is taking up all that room?
problem is they do have lesser structural density than modern transport airplanes. They are more like dirigibles. (or somewhere in between). I have not checked against space shuttle (yet)
Numbers I ran:
V Mass empty Density empty [t/m3] Max Mass Densfull [t/m3] DWT[T] CargoVol An 225 4 178 285 0,0682097222 640 0,1531727094 355 1300 LCS2 32 367 2307 0,0712764174 3104 0,0959003033 797 11000 Victory 28 987 4300 0,1483423604 14900 0,5140235278 10600 20000 L9 110 573 1000 0,0090437669 1594 0,0144157644 594 Anaconda 69 268 400 0,005774694 1212 0,0174973228 812 Cobra Mk3 4 397 180 0,0409378022 286 0,0650456191 106
Cobra is showing somewhat reasonable density, rest, not so much
And family photo with cargo representation
That sounds like the same kind of density problem Star Citizen had(has?), there were threads on SC forum showing how the biggest ship the Idris had density like air or something like that.
awesome post
The boxes are standard 20ft ISO containers (one that define TEU). Each can take 33,1 m³ or 28,2 T of cargo, max. I actually used 20T for load due you transport things like grain (0,79 T/m³). From that "unit" for a cylinder would be about 1,3 -1,5 m³. (so far only thing that surely would not fit is coffee-> 0,43T/m³ if roasted beans.. it would take 2,33 m³ to fit ton of that) Ton of gold is actually a cube 0,3728m on the side
Anyway , another picture. Red cylinders = 2,5m³, Green Cylinders = 1,3 m³ , so green ones fit inside 20' container, red into 40'. Ton of gold in front of man.
Edit: also, those cylindrical containers sure waste lots of space.
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It feels to me that the tiny cargo sizes of ships will aso make it difficult for players to actually have an impact on the economy.
They never, ever are. Car analogies on the internet, along with meal analogies, are the most painful things you can ever read. There should be a Godwin's Law about them.
I'd revise those ship prices down significantly given the value of gold will significantly reduce once all those new sources of gold across the galaxy up the available supply
problem is they do have lesser structural density than modern transport airplanes. They are more like dirigibles. (or somewhere in between). I have not checked against space shuttle (yet)
Numbers I ran:
V Mass empty Density empty [t/m3] Max Mass Densfull [t/m3] DWT[T] CargoVol An 225 4 178 285 0,0682097222 640 0,1531727094 355 1300 LCS2 32 367 2307 0,0712764174 3104 0,0959003033 797 11000 Victory 28 987 4300 0,1483423604 14900 0,5140235278 10600 20000 L9 110 573 1000 0,0090437669 1594 0,0144157644 594 Anaconda 69 268 400 0,005774694 1212 0,0174973228 812 Cobra Mk3 4 397 180 0,0409378022 286 0,0650456191 106
Cobra is showing somewhat reasonable density, rest, not so much
And family photo with cargo representation
That looks odd, why is the cargo space so small compared to the actual ship?