Re: [none]

Thank you for your prompt assistance in the matter regarding the Horseshoe
Crab. I worked out the hull on the shipyard construction exel file found on
beyond the moons with minimal rigging and it gave me a total of eight
riggers plus cook/healer and officers for a total of 14 crew, but that
didn't tell me if it was based on shift work or if that was total required
for one shift.
 The unseen servant expense is not a problem in FeOsphere because of the
high technological (magicological?) level there.  As far as the unseen
servant automation goes, I was looking at one spell for each specific task
not general workers (e.g. upon command the unseen servants assigned to lower
the landing gear would crank it into locking position, and another command
would set the unseen servants assigned to hauling rigging to begin cranking
specific pulleys they are assigned to. No thought process involved on their
part just manual labor.) in the previous example I presume that I'll require
2 or 3 elite skilled bosuns to add to the crew. The google search you
mentioned might be the same one I found, but I think that included weapons
crews.
 I'm glad you brought up repairs, the plan also included building 12 ships
with 9 running continuous trips and 3 in the docks for maintenance rotating
out in sequence, but I had completely forgotten about having a repairship on
standby. The tugs are not a problem either because I already have a
dedicated tug class for my rockjacks to use and they are on call as needed.
Oddly enough I based my tugs on a tradesman hull with 3 different
engine/helm types on board each one to give them extra towing power. For
insystem use I prefer the gravity drive coupled to either a pump or major
helm. The bunkerage for the pumps on the H.C. class can come out of the
excessive cargo space I built into the vessels. Since pumps run on normal
matter and these ships will mostly haul raw materials that shouldn't be too
big of an expense, but if you know where I can find a table that gives power
output for material types I would like to see it.
 My players plan to let the FRN supply destroyers and frigates to escort
duty insystem, for a convoy of 9 cargo ships my players are thinking of
using 3 military escorts ( 1 destroyer and 2 frigates) since the military
ships have to patrol anyway they can kill two birds with one mission. I
personally think this is a bad idea but so far nothing in space has been
able to stand up to the might of the FRN. The kind of bad guys that could
possibly attack the convoy would have to be some truly dangerous monster to
get to the cargo ships and destroy one, and even then it won't get much for
its pain except ore and broken ship parts. The terrorists on Harpers world
might get ahold of some kind of ship and do a suicide run just to upset the
economy, but again that's unlikely.
 Getting back to the subject at hand, my calculations so far have come up
with a ship that, exclusive of engine/helm, costs about 300,000 gp each with
another 150,000 gp for enchantments and magical outfitting. For a fleet of
12 this is pretty workable, economics wise, for my sphere. Of course there
will not be any profit shown for the first 3-5 years because of the nature
of the cargo (raw iron, nickel, copper, etc. mined from the asteroid belts
and wood and food stuffs from the planets to the processing stations) but
these are being subsidized by the state to keep a steady reliable stream of
materials and goods going both ways thru the system to eliminate monthly
price fluctuations in food and balance supply and demand.
 FYI the FeOsphere contains 3 inhabited planets with 5 inhabited moons and 3
asteroid belts(2 belts and a swarm) and 9 processing stations not counting
Gibralter Base(Rock of Bral). All the rest of the celestial bodies in
FeOsphere are uninhabitable by air breathing carbon based lifeforms.
Thank you again for your help and advice, you can be sure I will add the
valid points you brought up to my calculations before my players get an
answer from the Senate on the subsidy.

V/R FC2 Riley, James R. 
cel: 228-249-2967
e-mail: jamesriley@???.net


-----Original Message-----
From: Spelljammer Setting Discussion
[mailto:SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com] On Behalf Of Dreamer
Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2005 6:51 PM
To: SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER]

In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Sun 11 Dec, jamesriley wrote:

Someone trying to do organised spelljamming merchanting.