Shipyards

[KraytKing]

Throughout the old EU, shipyards have been treated as extremely valuable military assets, and very rare. Certainly not all planets have them, and the Rebellion only had a single yard capable of producing capital ships until well after the Battle of Endor. Shipyards must then be a) critical to ship construction and b)expensive to build. To me, however, it seems rather obvious that you don't really need a shipyard in space the way you need a drydock on Earth. I would think ship construction might use a skeletal framework as a matter of convenience, to allow for easier stabilization of large components, but would not be critical. In null G, you would only NEED construction ships and barges to haul parts into position, where workers can fix them together. Something that can be done anywhere. The only requirement would be a large factory or mill, possibly in null G, to produce enormous sections of hull and armor.

In the WEG sourcebook, it mentions that the first ISD "lumbered out of drydock." In space? Hold on. Furthermore, in the Imperial Sourcebook, it mentions that deepdocks (mobile shipyards) have a number of bays, and the more advanced ones can combine bays to produce larger ships. Both of these imply a need to enclose the work area.

I very much like both of these implications, as I like the idea that shipyards are absolutely necessary to building or or performing substantial repairs on big ships. My question for the board is twofold: one, what justification can you see for a space drydock, and two, what is your interpretation of Star Wars shipbuilding? To expand on the latter, do you think ships should be able to be built just about anywhere with adequate supply lines, do you think shipyards should be important but not be drydocks, or some other third thing?

My own thoughts on the first question relate to the ease of welding and cutting when not in vacuum. Drydocks really only need to be big air bags, but are usually more sophisticated to also allow hookups for energy and fluids and easier moving of large components. Of course, we've figured out how to weld in space already, so I'm sure they have excellent methods.

[Rogue 9]

They built the second Death Star without extensive drydock facilities, so obviously they can. Where the space station drydock likely comes into play is housing the workers, or perhaps even enclosing the ship in an artificially enclosed atmosphere (though that's just me spitballing; I don't know that there's any evidence for it) to make the work easier. In any case, if a ship is laid up for a long time, it makes sense to contain it at the production facility so that you don't have to waste a bunch of time and fuel on stationkeeping.

[Gandalf]

My question for the board is twofold: one, what justification can you see for a space drydock, and two, what is your interpretation of Star Wars shipbuilding? To expand on the latter, do you think ships should be able to be built just about anywhere with adequate supply lines, do you think shipyards should be important but not be drydocks, or some other third thing?

Ships rolling off the production line in one centralised location makes security easier, keeps skilled people in one place, all while presumably ensuring sweet procurement contracts for whomever. At least that's how I'd read it for the Empire.

[Solauren]

You also have different sizes of shipyards, and presumably therefore, able to produce different ships.

For example, Kuat Drive Yards encircled the planet Kuat as an artificial ring. it was also one of the major, if not the primary ship producer for the Empire. (Depending on Disney vs Pre-Disney Canon). It was the only producer of Executor class ships, as well as Imperial Class ships. No where else had the capacity.

So, losing Kuat was a major blow to the Empire (in both timelines)

[Agent Fisher]

As someone who just finished up several welding certifications for structural welding, I'll chime in. A zero-g, vacuum would be great for welding. You'd be able to weld without worry of atmosphere contaminated the weld, meaning the welds will be stronger, and in zero-g, you don't have to worry about gravity pulling the hot metal away from the welding joint.

[Adam Reynolds]

One potential problem with operating in vacuum is that vacuum welding is a thing that can happen unintentionally, as was done by accident in the Gallielio probe.

As someone who just finished up several welding certifications for structural welding, I'll chime in. A zero-g, vacuum would be great for welding. You'd be able to weld without worry of atmosphere contaminated the weld, meaning the welds will be stronger, and in zero-g, you don't have to worry about gravity pulling the hot metal away from the welding joint.

What percentage of the time are you welding in a fashion in which gravity helps as opposed to hurting?

[Jub]

What percentage of the time are you welding in a fashion in which gravity helps as opposed to hurting?

It's Star Wars, you can have a vacuum and then choose* between weightlessness and gravity by switching on or off an artificial gravity generator in your section.

*More likely you'll have scheduled periods of gravity, weightlessness, and probably even low gravity to assist with different tasks.

[Agent Fisher]

As someone who just finished up several welding certifications for structural welding, I'll chime in. A zero-g, vacuum would be great for welding. You'd be able to weld without worry of atmosphere contaminated the weld, meaning the welds will be stronger, and in zero-g, you don't have to worry about gravity pulling the hot metal away from the welding joint.

What percentage of the time are you welding in a fashion in which gravity helps as opposed to hurting?

Pretty much every time you are not welding in the ‘flat’ position (aka straight down), you have to account for gravity causing the molten metal to sag. So ideally, you would always be trying to weld down into a piece for the best penetration of the metal. The problem is unless you are welding in a shop or a small piece, you are often going to be welding in a vertical or overhead manner, which is know as an out of position welding. And as someone who’s had molten metal drip out of an overhead weld and fall on me, you want to avoid it. Now, heat distribution in zero g might be tricky, but I imagine that some sort future version of TIG welding, where you’re using a current to melt and fuse the metals, or electron beam welding where you are doing the the fusing via electrons being shot at the metal, would be able to handle it. Droids, and computer assisted controls would remove the lack of finesse that spacesuits would cause. Or like Jub said, small artificial gravity generators, just enough to make the joint of the weld the ‘downward’ direction would be a great help.


And as to cold welding in a vacuum, with environmental controls that a sealed construction bay offers, you could replace the lack of atmosphere in a section to be worked on with inert gas to protect the welds, or putting in a gas mix that allows better penetration to the metal.

[Eternal_Freedom]

You also have different sizes of shipyards, and presumably therefore, able to produce different ships.

For example, Kuat Drive Yards encircled the planet Kuat as an artificial ring. it was also one of the major, if not the primary ship producer for the Empire. (Depending on Disney vs Pre-Disney Canon). It was the only producer of Executor class ships, as well as Imperial Class ships. No where else had the capacity.

So, losing Kuat was a major blow to the Empire (in both timelines)

Not quite the only producer of Executors or ISD's, in the old canon at least - either Executor herself or Lusankya were built at Fondor while the other was built at Kuat (both under the same name, to keep the Lusankya secret). The opening to the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy mentions the Intimidator was sent to the yards in the Deep Core to "free up a Super-class slipway" at her original yard - I forget the name but it wasn't Kuat. Bilbringi was also building ISD's under Thrawn's tenure and I believe Gyndine was too.

Having one or more big central shipyards makes sense, as they allow you to build up all the associated infrastructure in one place, along with the skilled workforce, R&D facilities, design facilities, resource extraction/refining and so on. Plus, one large shipyard means only one site to defend, so building sufficient numbers of fortresses, defence ships, and ground-to-space weaponry to repel a major assault is quite possibly cheaper than having lots of scattered yards that can fend off raiders or pirates.

The DS2 isn't the only example of secret shipbuilding of course - the Eclipse class were built at Byss and finished at Kuat if memory serves. The various Warlords managed to build a lot of ships in secret.out-of-the-way locations - Terradoc managed to build seventy-odd VSD's in secret, Harrsk had a couple dozen ISD's, Krennel was close to expanding his main shipyard to be able to build ISD's, and (I think) Delvardus managed to build the Executor-class Night Hammer, in complete secrecy before Daala whacked him.

So yeah, building ships can be done probably anywhere, but it's easier, probably cheaper, more secure and so on to have a handful of sprawling yards than lots of tiny ones.

EDIT: Since the wet-navy analogy doesn't work for spaceships as well, think of them like, oh, small arms in the modern day. Sure, pretty much any reasonably equipped workshop with the right designs can turn out basic firearms (I'm thinking bolt-action rifles here for example) but in very limited numbers and needing to ship parts from other suppliers. But if you have one big, well designed factory, you can happily churn out thousands of them a day, for much less (in costs and man-hours) than the same number of small shops filling the same order.

Marge yards would presumably be much better able to cope with sudden, large orders than lots of small producers. Say a Grand Moff goes along to Kuat and says "I'd like fifty extra ISD-II's please" - you're gonna get the ships much quicker from one yard like Kuat than fifty yards than can just about handle one ISD at a time. Good old economies of scale.

[Jub]

Massive system spanning Star Wars shipyards make even more sense given that size tends to equal toughness in the setting. A large shipyard will have room for thicker hull plating, more shield generators, and more defensive turrets than a smaller one will; not to mention volume simply leaving more space to absorb any damage that does happen. They may not be indestructible, what is, but they're going to be tough to damage and even tougher to outright destroy.

Toss this in with the above lines of reasoning and it can make sense for a universe like Star Wars to have these permanent fixed structures while another series might use disposable scaffolding and cheap AI labour to assemble their fleets.

[LadyTevar]

I've also thought that fighters and freighters could be built planetside, but any of the larger capships did better being built in space.

Now that we have more idea on the timeline to the Clone War -- how many of their shipyards were taken by the Empire, and how many were kept by Separatists who became Rebellion?

[Lord Insanity]

You also have different sizes of shipyards, and presumably therefore, able to produce different ships.

For example, Kuat Drive Yards encircled the planet Kuat as an artificial ring. it was also one of the major, if not the primary ship producer for the Empire. (Depending on Disney vs Pre-Disney Canon). It was the only producer of Executor class ships, as well as Imperial Class ships. No where else had the capacity.

So, losing Kuat was a major blow to the Empire (in both timelines)

Um... in A New Hope Han boasts: "I’ve outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk-cruisers, mind you. I’m talking about the big Corellian ships."

In Solo we flat out see the Corellian shipyards building Star Destroyers.

So for the "movies only" casual fans, Corellia is the main and/or only producer of Star Destroyers in either Canon. No one has even mentioned Corellia yet, how silly.

Realistically, a galaxy spanning civilization should have several major systems capable of producing capital ships in quantity. Even if that sill only means one in several thousand systems has the capability.

[Patroklos]

Its a myth that vacuum or weightlessness is some sort of manufacturing panacea. You can certainly do things in both that you can't do in atmosphere and gravity, but that logic works both ways. Gravity makes things predictable. The wrench you drop will always go exactly one way. Think of the pain of handling gases and liquids in either vacuum or zero-g for instance.

So it makes sense to have a facility that can provide specialized areas that exploit all the benefits these options offer while avoiding their shortfalls.

[Galvatron]

I have nothing against megastructures in Star Wars myself, but I think also it's important remember that the original Death Star was considered incredibly huge by their standards.

I could easily conceptualize the Star Wars equivalent of Earth Spacedock from Star Trek though. I'm sure it would have to be scaled up significantly to accommodate ships as big as the Executor, but it should still be smaller than the Death Star was.

[Patroklos]

There was a good cut screen at the opening of the game Star Wars Rebellion that showed ISDs being built at a shipyard in what looked like a modular system. Ever since then it's what has popped out in my head cannon whenever a shipyard is mentioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0UDUm0Glr8

[GuppyShark]

I have nothing against megastructures in Star Wars myself, but I think also it's important remember that the original Death Star was considered incredibly huge by their standards.

By whose standards? The CIS was working on a Death Star-scale weapon during the Clone Wars. DS1 was built in secret, if these projects were unprecedented megastructure engineering feats, they wouldn't have been able to keep them under wraps. It'd be like trying to hide the Panama Canal.

Luke Skywalker: Look at him. He's headed for that small moon.
Han Solo: I think I can get him before he gets there. He's almost in range.
Ben Kenobi: [with sudden realization] That's no moon. It's a space station.
Han Solo: It's too big to be a space station.
Luke Skywalker: I have a very bad feeling about this.
Ben Kenobi: Turn the ship around.
Han Solo: Yeah. I think you're right...

[Crazedwraith]

.. Your quote seems to indicate the opposite of your point? It's considered imossibly huge by Han there. Later Wedge is famously awed by the unexpected size of the thing.

The one who knows what it is... is the clairvoyant space wizard.


eta: That being said, it doesn't really preclude there being bigger structures about, obviously even if you knew about kuat drive yards being a big ring a moving battlestation like the Death Star would still be outside what you'd expect to see on a day-to-day basis.

[Galvatron]

.. Your quote seems to indicate the opposite of your point? It's considered imossibly huge by Han there. Later Wedge is famously awed by the unexpected size of the thing.

The one who knows what it is... is the clairvoyant space wizard.

You beat me to it.

[Batman]

No matter how large they were by the perception of people unused to them, even on an interplanetary scale both Death Stars were tiny. Hiding a construction site for something like this in most of a galaxy's worth of real estate is trivial. What you couldn't hide would be them being a significant drain on the Empire's resources. So while they may have been individually much larger than what people are familiar with (and I wouldn't necessarily call Han or Wedge high experts on Imperial military technology) they can't have been the near-economically crippling megaprojects some have claimed.

[chimericoncogene]

The Death Star was built on the black budget, in complete secrecy.

You can certainly hide very large and very expensive projects - the Manhattan project, at 2 billion, was 1% or so of US GDP in '45 - a bit less than the B-29 program. However, it seems unlikely that the Death Star would be substantially more expensive than the entire Imperial Navy, large chunks of which were built during wartime on what presumably would have been an emergency blank check mobilization budget.

It does not seem likely that you would build a dedicated dock for a one-off/two-off project like the Death Star. A giant construction scaffold, maybe (the old fluff had the thing built with self-replicating factories). But the scaffolds and individual "growth ends" would be dwarfed by the gargantuan bulk of the entire Death Star. I would guess that you would build the Death Star with as many folds and nooks as possible (or heck, in many pieces) to maximize the growth surface area - so a single massive scaffold would be eschewed in favor of many tiny scaffolding platforms. Incidentally, this accounts for the moth-eaten look of Death Star II.

By contrast, given the huge demand, I would expect medium-sized to large spacecraft to be built more or less on assembly lines. Assuming a Death-Star-sized order for Star Destroyers (20 million ISD-sized vessels or so over a twenty-year timespan)... you're looking at a production rate of one large ISD-sized warship every thirty seconds. That's a Venator-sized warship every eight seconds, or a Vindicator every half-second or less. And let's not talk about the gargantuan Clone Wars mobilization which probably shat out that many warships in a year to fight the CIS - DSII, built on a similar emergency budget, was built in four years... Medium-sized-to-large warship sections will probably be built on assembly lines for mass production, and then snapped together as quickly as possible. If you could build a large warship on an assembly line, you would.

[LadyTevar]

By contrast, given the huge demand, I would expect medium-sized to large spacecraft to be built more or less on assembly lines. Assuming a Death-Star-sized order for Star Destroyers (20 million ISD-sized vessels or so over a twenty-year timespan)... you're looking at a production rate of one large ISD-sized warship every thirty seconds. That's a Venator-sized warship every eight seconds, or a Vindicator every half-second or less. And let's not talk about the gargantuan Clone Wars mobilization which probably shat out that many warships in a year to fight the CIS - DSII, built on a similar emergency budget, was built in four years... Medium-sized-to-large warship sections will probably be built on assembly lines for mass production, and then snapped together as quickly as possible. If you could build a large warship on an assembly line, you would.

Isn't that how the US built the Liberty ships in WWII? Modular, so large pieces could be built separately then lifted into place and bolted down?

[Galvatron]

FWIW, here's how the Kuat shipyards are depicted in the new EU:

Spoiler

[chimericoncogene]

Well, as ugly as the comic art is, at least they kept the ring at the bottom.

[Patroklos]

Those cranes look like they were lifted straight out of a 20th century dockyard. Yet another imagination fail for the new canon.

[LadyTevar]

Those cranes look like they were lifted straight out of a 20th century dockyard. Yet another imagination fail for the new canon.

And do you have a good visual for it? One that would make it clear to the reader what it is?
And, furthermore, do you have a way to make it do the same job without looking somewhat similar? There's an old theory about why things look the way they do, and the answer is "because it's the most efficient way for it to work".