Lore: The economics of ship building

[Cholmondely]

Following on from the previous thread on the Lore of Cowell & MgRath - and from issues arising in DGill's work on the Feudal States OXP.

How many ships (Zerstorers/Korvettes/Jågers) would be built for a higher TL (say TL 8-10) Feudal State in an average year?


Scanning the space in the system.
The number found flying in a system has to be taken into account but is not necessarily indicative.

Just look at the commodities markets where it was early on realised that the quantities on sale on the F8 screen bore little if any relevance to what was really happening in the import/export markets:
Cim: Let's assume a 1Tc barrel of Food contains 1000kg of food, or approx 500 person-days of food. A Boa will bring 125Tc, and lets say 2 or 3 arrive each day carrying food rather than other goods. So they're only importing enough food to feed a couple of hundred thousand people at most. We can probably pretty safely assume then that the Food cargo is generally luxury food, interstellar delicacies, and the like, and all planets are usually self-sufficient for basic food needs. The NPC bulk haulers (eg HammerHead) could raise it to a couple of million people, perhaps, which is still negligible.

Instant Snapshots (thanks to Long Range Scanner OXP):
1) Ededleen G1: 3 foreign Jagers, 1 domestic Jager, 2 domestic Korvettes in a total of 621 entities (including asteroids)
2) Ededleen G1: 2 foreign Jagers, 2 domestic Jagers, 2 domestic Korvettes in a total of 565 entities (including asteroids)
3) Tibecea G1: 3 foreign Jagers, 1 domestic Jager, 2 domestic Korvettes in a total of 816 entities (including asteroids)
•Each system seemed to have a plethora of piratical vipers and piratical Frigates.
•I did not bother docking to see what the Station Dock Control OXP listed as docked/docking ships.
•This is with a handful of ship-adding oxps loaded - the Systems OXPs, Rescue Stations, Contractor, KW's new II, Fighter-Explorers, Liners, Jaguar Company, Sunskimmers, Miner Cobra, Galactic Navy & AddOns.
Stranger's Feudal Raiders OXP would presumably have queered the pitch rather more...


Statistics
Looking at the 11 Royal Houses (top Feudal States) of G1 (Tibedied, Oreseren, Aronar, Digebiti, Esredice, Gelaed, Onusorle, Ededleen, Edzaon, Tibecea, Geinona):

Economy, TL, Population, "Productivity"
T: Poor Industrial TL9, 3.6 Billion, 11,520 MCr
O: Mainly Industrial TL8, 3.3 Billion, 9,240 MCr
A: Poor Industrial TL8, 3.2 Billion, 10,240 MCr
D: Poor Industrial TL8, 3.2 Billion, 10,240 MCr
E: Poor Industrial TL8, 3.2 Billion, 10,240 MCr
G: Mainly Industrial TL9, 3.7 Billion, 10,360 MCr
O: Poor Industrial TL8, 3.2 Billion, 10,240 MCr
E: Poor Industrial TL10, 4 Billion, 12,800 MCr
E: Mainly Industrial TL8, 3.3 Billion, 9,240 MCr
T: Mainly Industrial TL8, 3.3 Billion, 9,240 MCr
G: Mainly Industrial TL9, 3.7 Billion, 10,360 MCr


Feudalism
DGill on "Would there be a need for 100 ships a year for a planet? Do we have a way of estimating?"

Wikipedia states England had a population of 1,700,000 in 1086
with 1100 'Tenants in Chief' (nobles)
including 170 Greater Tenants in Chief (presumably Dukes) with 10 of the wealthiest owning 25% of the land.
Nobles typically had up to ten knights with these having to be declared to the King - presumably to prevent too strong an opposition to him (Cholly - or to let him know how many could be called upon for the English army)

Digebiti has a population of 3.2 billion so how would this be controlled by one King? perhaps like today there would be about 200 countries or states in the world each with a ruling Prince or Duke.
that would give about 200 x 1100 = 220000 Tenants in Chief and 2,200,000 knights - which seems far too many to me.

Perhaps stick with 1100 nobles and 11000 Knights and assuming a 5% - 10% ship attrition rate would give about 600 - 1200 ships per year, probably a lot less as it is not as if the feudal states are at war with each other.

Cholly's Musings
I would presume that it is the wealthiest nobles who buy the various feudal craft for themselves and their followers. Not the King or his government. If the King wages war, then (unlike in a Dictatorship or a Communist State) he summons his nobles who bring their knights and followers - and that is what his army is made up out of.

[Redspear]

Feudalism
DGill on "Would there be a need for 100 ships a year for a planet? Do we have a way of estimating?"

Wikipedia states England had a population of 1,700,000 in 1086
with 1100 'Tenants in Chief' (nobles)
including 170 Greater Tenants in Chief (presumably Dukes) with 10 of the wealthiest owning 25% of the land.
Nobles typically had up to ten knights with these having to be declared to the King - presumably to prevent too strong an opposition to him (Cholly - or to let him know how many could be called upon for the English army)

Digebiti has a population of 3.2 billion so how would this be controlled by one King? perhaps like today there would be about 200 countries or states in the world each with a ruling Prince or Duke.
that would give about 200 x 1100 = 220000 Tenants in Chief and 2,200,000 knights - which seems far too many to me.

Perhaps stick with 1100 nobles and 11000 Knights and assuming a 5% - 10% ship attrition rate would give about 600 - 1200 ships per year, probably a lot less as it is not as if the feudal states are at war with each other.


Cholly's Musings
I would presume that it is the wealthiest nobles who buy the various feudal craft for themselves and their followers. Not the King or his government. If the King wages war, then (unlike in a Dictatorship or a Communist State) he summons his nobles who bring their knights and followers - and that is what his army is made up out of.

Or, count the princes/dukes as the 'tenants in chief' (which they'd effectively be) and then you might only need 200 instead of 1,100.

Followong the calculational route taken above, that would be a mere 2,000 knights requiring production of 110 - 220 ships per year.