Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

Theemile wrote:

namelessfly wrote:I still like the idea of

DO UNTO OTHERS AS HAVEN INTENDED TO DO UNTO YELSTIN IN FLAG IN EXILE.

Seize SL systems, cut up their orbital infrastructure. Load up the fabrication modules on to Manticoran ships to haul home.

Amen,

- and Manticore has plenty of ships to assist in hauling that Booty home.

If they bitch to much about it, the RMN can drop a surplus SLN SD on their planet at .8 Cee.

We haven't yet seen any indication that Manticore (or Grayson) has sent out merchant shipping to purchase Solly -or anybody else's- mancine tools and various production line set-ups to kick-start the rebuilding. Everything from basic CNC machine tools and supplies (cutter heads and production specs) to plating equipment, forge and stamping equipment, chip production equipment etc. Communications cable and power cable equipment. Fabrication equipment to build bulkhead doors.

I have to believe that they could find places willing to sell them turnkey operations for all sorts of manufacturing. It becomes a case of having the tools to build the tools to build what you need.

saber964 wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi Theemile,

That was a great post. Just thinking...one could add to your list people who recently retired or moved to planet side jobs.

Just a question about those 300,000,000 living around Manticore B...Is that from textev or one of those extra textual info dumps?

Don

The thing about recalling retirees is that most of them are probably way to old. IIRC 1st Gen Pro-long first appeared in the SKM in the late 1820's or early 1830's PD so even the youngest of those are going to be in their 90's.

As to the Mant B belter population it comes from House of Steel entry on the Unicorn belt IIRC.

First gen prolong could be administered up to the age of 25 or so. There could easily be 100 year olds around in the workforce with the bodies of thirty somethings, after 2 40 year careers. In actuality, the last pre-prolong generation (Adcock's) mostly died while the Havenite wars progressed. Now, that 100 year old could easily have 3 more 40 year careers before he retired.

People who understood how to make the current generation of equipment (Which is has only existed as production models for about 6-7 years) would pretty much all have working in the field and are hence dead. The prototype and R&D people who lived don't make production models, don't build production lines or the equipment needed to make mass production. Older than that it's basically SLN tech with software refinements.

kzt wrote:People who understood how to make the current generation of equipment (Which is has only existed as production models for about 6-7 years) would pretty much all have working in the field and are hence dead. The prototype and R&D people who lived don't make production models, don't build production lines or the equipment needed to make mass production. Older than that it's basically SLN tech with software refinements.

All the R&D engineers are alive and well if it is any business like is done today in large businesses. While their way is stiffling to new ideas, it gets the job done. If a small company this form of business model is impossible and very costly in terms of wasted man hours, and production initiation leading to massive cost overhead.

What is done today is that Design engineers are not onsite. They generally send 1 old coot and a couple of rookies to the job site to oversee the production line installation, alignment, certification. Then send first product off line back to R&D side of things that could be clear across the country.

Same goes for all of your testing apparatus. Small batch testing will be done onsite but all of your MAJOR testing for product lines is NOT done ANYWHERE near the actual production takes place. Here we are talking assembly line stuff. Energy intensive, resource intensive applications of product.

Manticore, if anything like today, lost a bunch of assembly line grunts. All, or nearly all actual R&D, initial production, process implementation, will be done dirtside where the vast majority of the population lives and WANTS to live. Assembly flow models are done on a computer. Assembly efficiency models are done in house. NOT on the assembly line. All this would be done dirt side on Manticore. This is where all the of the Manticore advantage in ship building lies. All these people are alive if one wishes to use reality as an example.

Then again, there are what the books say...

I really don't want people testing things like fusion reactors that fail with a yield of 25 teratons on the same planet as me. Thanks, but no thanks.

kzt wrote:I really don't want people testing things like fusion reactors that fail with a yield of 25 teratons on the same planet as me. Thanks, but no thanks.

You don't want to test those powerplants on a major space station either. There are convenient weapon test sites where you can fire those up.

kzt wrote:I really don't want people testing things like fusion reactors that fail with a yield of 25 teratons on the same planet as me. Thanks, but no thanks.

Ah yes: Arguing 101. Take the most extreme case scenario, put it forth with a bald face as an actual formal argument. Why, this must mean the previous argument is nullified!

Yup, this is the internet...

wastedfly wrote:Ah yes: Arguing 101. Take the most extreme case scenario, put it forth with a bald face as an actual formal argument. Why, this must mean the previous argument .

Well the fact that david has in fact said that ALL the manufacturing of everything was done on the stations seems like an adequate justification for me, but since you wanted to argue....

But in fact most of the equipment has a power output so high that you don't really want to test it on a planet. Or you can't test it on the planet. Now it can be reasonably argued that you also don't want to test it on a space hab with a million plus people, despite David's statements.

In fact his orginal proposal that the unicorn yards are in the unicorn belt makes a lot more sense, but whatever.

kzt wrote:

wastedfly wrote:Ah yes: Arguing 101. Take the most extreme case scenario, put it forth with a bald face as an actual formal argument. Why, this must mean the previous argument .

Well the fact that david has in fact said that ALL the manufacturing of everything was done on the stations seems like an adequate justification for me, but since you wanted to argue....

But in fact most of the equipment has a power output so high that you don't really want to test it on a planet. Or you can't test it on the planet. Now it can be reasonably argued that you also don't want to test it on a space hab with a million plus people, despite David's statements.

In fact his orginal proposal that the unicorn yards are in the unicorn belt makes a lot more sense, but whatever.

The actual building process of a ship is a miniscule part of the actual design work. Assembly requires effectively no engineers at all. Sub assemblies built of sub assemblies is how it works. Certified before installation. Look how subs are built. Effectively the ONLY thing built onsite is the actual hull. Even the nuclear power plant is built elsewhere and shipped in. Look how Airplanes are built. All the systems aboard an airplane are built, designed elsewhere and shipped. Could be local, could be clear across an ocean. Been true since the dawn of aviation as soon as the airplanes grew large enough that additional power was required to control the plane. Today, most bulkheads, stringers, longerons etc are manufactured elsewhere and shipped to the plane manufactures via thousands of parts suppliers.

Yea, the assembly lines are in space and the personnel used to operate the machines are in space, but the design personnel are not. No matter what DW says. No one is going to willingly live in an expensive bubble if they do not have to. Especially when the vast majority of the work required can be done vastly cheaper dirt side.

"most of the equipment has a power output..." How many times do I get to roll my eyes on this one. A very tiny few systems actually need to be tested in space. Said systems are composed of a vast number of sub assemblies all of which will be designed,tested, and certified elsewhere. None of which require the vacuum of space far from a planet or habitat. Will be done nice and cheaply groundside. Manufactured in space, but designed, tested, and certified for production groundside.