Interesting info on Galaxy's largest shipyards

[Dark Primus]

According from the Roleplaying Game: Starships of the Galaxy gives some interesting figures how many slips for the individual shipyards.


Kuat Drive Yards: 5,781 slips

Kuat Systems Engineering: 1,200 slips

Alderaan Royal Engineers: 325 slips

Corellian Engineering Corporation: 3,650 slips

FreiTek. Inc: 410 slips

Gallofree Yards. Inc: 500 Slips

Incom Corporation: 2,234 slips

Koensayr: 452 slips

SoroSuub: 3,008 slips

Mon Calamari: 1,000 slips

Silvuit Corporation: 400 slips

Sienar Fleet Systems: 4,227 slips


Though there are hundreds of shipyards all over the galaxy, but for a galaxy spaning Empire I think the number of slips for the largest shipyards are some bit low, but that is just my opinion.

The 5,781 slips from Kuat are just the ones orbiting Kuat, haven't found any numbers on the other shipyards that are suppose to exist on the other inner planets in the same system, I believe there are three others beside the planet of Kuat and assuming they are equal big that would give the whole system roughly 23,124 slips, something I would think would be closer to the truth to the sheer size, but that is just shipyard fan wanking from my side.

[Mange]

Hm, yes it does sound a bit low. How large are the slips?

[Dakarne]

Slips?

Don't you mean ships?

[Dark Primus]

Hm, yes it does sound a bit low. How large are the slips?

Does not say. Only that larger the ship then more slips are needed to attain to it in order to cut down construction time. Ships as big as SSD's needs 12 slips so they can be built in 1.7 years at fastest rate.

An Imperial Star Destroyer needs 12 slips so it can be built in 6 months time at fastest building rate.

However under the ISD's size, smaller the ships then fewer the slips are needed.

Edit: Building at fastest rate Kuat could finish roughly 481 ISD's every six months.
And the Galactic Empire lasted for 20 years or so would mean 19,270 ships from the Empire's birth to the battle of Endor.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

What the hell is a slip?

[Dark Primus]

What the hell is a slip?

I assume slips are just like Construction Docks or Dry Docks etc etc. There are a several names for them.

[Civil War Man]

Though there are hundreds of shipyards all over the galaxy, but for a galaxy spaning Empire I think the number of slips for the largest shipyards are some bit low, but that is just my opinion.

It seems low because it probably is. See the beginning of your post:

According from the Roleplaying Game: Starships of the Galaxy

The Roleplaying Games tend to be major culprits in the EU minimalist phenomenon.

[Tribun]

Are these again EU-minimalism numbers?

[FTeik]

Yes they are. According to IronFist KDY-facilities span the entire system, not only the fourth planet, IIRC.

Almost two years to build an Executor? Was the siege of Yavin really that long?

[Noble Ire]

Yes they are. According to IronFist KDY-facilities span the entire system, not only the fourth planet, IIRC.

Almost two years to build an Executor? Was the siege of Yavin really that long?

Not to support these obviously wrong figures, but the period between ANH and ESB was three years.

[Sea Skimmer]

What the hell is a slip?

Slip is short for slipway, which is an inclined ramp built along the water on which you build a ship, prior to sliding it into the water. The term makes no sense in referance to starship construction. As it is today, slipways are now only rarely used, and most ships are built in dry-docks. Building that way is far easier because you don't have to worry about sliding the ship and you're building a surface, which is flat.

[Golan III]

So...Sluis Van and Tangrene and Bilbringi don't count?

[Dakarne]

Not to support these obviously wrong figures, but the period between ANH and ESB was three years.

And the fact remains that the Executor Class was in production since just before ANH IIRC... sort of like a manhood compensator for Vader who didn't have a Death Star...

[Ender]

Not to support these obviously wrong figures, but the period between ANH and ESB was three years.

And the fact remains that the Executor Class was in production since just before ANH IIRC... sort of like a manhood compensator for Vader who didn't have a Death Star...

You recall wrong, it was started witht he rest of the fleet expansion in response to the defeat at Yavin

[RThurmont]

In my youth, when I was an avid Star Wars fan (well, I still am, but you know what I mean), I bought some of the RPG books. I found the concept of the role playing game kind of eerie, but the sourcebooks were delightfully escapist, and already I was very much a nerd. While factual inaccuracies in the sourcebooks are common (and often major), they are fun in that they really allow you to enter a deep, virtual world to a level of detail that is absolutely amazing.

In this instance, it's clear that the author probably underestimated the number of slips in use, and also, one could argue that different shipyards would have different methods of construction, so there wouldn't be any unit of capacity analogous to a slip. Or perhaps, by slip, he is using "slip" as a metric to refer to the total number of ships that can be under construction at any given time, rather than to a specific docking bay in which the ship would be built.

Before we completely throw out these low ball figures, one thing that is worth considering, is the average construction time required. It is quite possible that KDY, SFS and the other shipyards are extremely efficient and are able to roll out completed vessels in much less time than it would take a naval shipyard in the real world to do a similiar task. While it seems logical to assume longish construction spans for ships such as Star Destroyers, it is quite possible that by using advanced processes, they're able to turn them out very rapidly.

Ultimately, the slip figures are irrelevant, what would be more relevant would be a metric of the total output capacity per year, measured in gross registered tonnage. So if KDY could do, say, 600 million GRT worth of ships in a given preriod of time, we'd have a more reliable estimate. Metrics are fickle-you have to find the most appropriate ones to use.

That said, I wish I had that book. It would be fun to read on an upcoming business trip (especially for the raised eyebrow it would induce in my colleagues).

[Noble Ire]

Before we completely throw out these low ball figures, one thing that is worth considering, is the average construction time required. It is quite possible that KDY, SFS and the other shipyards are extremely efficient and are able to roll out completed vessels in much less time than it would take a naval shipyard in the real world to do a similiar task. While it seems logical to assume longish construction spans for ships such as Star Destroyers, it is quite possible that by using advanced processes, they're able to turn them out very rapidly.

The existance of the self-replicating droid constructors used to build the DS2 so rapidly and the factory machines like Coruscant construction drones (and the World Devestators for that matter) suggest that a large and more well equpit shipyard (like KDY) could churn out ISDs and comparable craft at a far faster rate than one would conventionally think.

[nightmare]

The SoG material is internally consistent and a good resource for roleplayers, but its shipyard capacity listings are about as canonically relevant as my left shoe.

[Admiral Drason]

How does a cap ship take up more than one slip? In my minds eye I see structers kind of like the ones in Star Trek.

[Sea Skimmer]

Ultimately, the slip figures are irrelevant, what would be more relevant would be a metric of the total output capacity per year, measured in gross registered tonnage. So if KDY could do, say, 600 million GRT worth of ships in a given preriod of time, we'd have a more reliable estimate. Metrics are fickle-you have to find the most appropriate ones to use.

GTR would certainly be better then the number of building slips, especially with the size of the slips undefined. But as a measurement of ship volume it's still a pretty limited indicator of building capacity.

[Enforcer Talen]

My rule of thmb for those was add a zero or two. It helped.

[RThurmont]

better then the number of building slips, especially with the size of the slips undefined. But as a measurement of ship volume it's still a pretty limited indicator of building capacity.

If you've got a better metric, then please, share it with us. GRT output per annum indicates exactly how much "ship" can be produced in a given year, irrespective of how many actual ships were commissioned, and the increased percentage of resources building large ships were required. So for instance, KDY could be building 5,000 ISDs per year, then start building 100 SSDs and 4,000 ISDs per year, with out a big change in GRT per annum, since obviously the SSD is much larger (those figures aren't exact, just to give you a sense of the advantage of measuring output this way).

Another way of measuring it would be to measure the total value of deliverable vessels that can be produced in a year. This would basically give us a sense of the maximum revenue generating capability of the shipyard, but of course, is somewhat arbitrary, since KDY or whomever ultimately sets the prices for their vessels, and the maximum revenue would basically depend on their pricing structure and on an exact basket of vessels being delivered that would maximize revenue.

Darn it though, I wish starship building was a real industry. I'm loving it already. Too bad KDY and SFS aren't on the NYSE...

[Dark Primus]

So...Sluis Van and Tangrene and Bilbringi don't count?

They aren't listed in the roleplay game.

[drachefly]

... and there we hit the major issue. The capacity of these large shipyards may be correct, but there just may be a lot MORE major shipyards.

After all, the major thing making the sources minimalist isn't their ability to imagine things on the planetary scale, but their inability to imagine things on a galactic scale.

So, figure that there are 10,000 planets with shipyards comparable to Kuat, and there you go. No longer minimalist.

[President Sharky]

There are no shipyards comparable to those at Kuat. The KDY primary yards are the largest in the galaxy by a wide margin. The second largest yards are the Sienar Fleet Systems and Corellian Engineering Corporation yards. Fondor is largely known as the fourth largest shipbuilding facility in the galaxy. Though "slip" is somewhat of a vague term, and each one's construction capabilities might be minimalized by the RPG rules, I believe what the authors had in mind when they used this terminology was a structure like this:





So in their minds, Kuat Drive Yards' primary facilities would have 5,781 construction stations or "slips" similar to the ones at Bilbringi (I say this since Bilbringi is probably a KDY-owned yard). However, the RPG guide is unspecific as to the size of each one of these slips.

Different shipbuilders would also use different construction stations. Mon Calamari's 1,000 slips would probably consist of stations similar to this:

[El Moose Monstero]

Related topic, but has anyone got that rather nice Kuat bay doors image with a star destroyer exiting what is presumably a shipyard facility through some enormous bay doors? It was posted a month or two back, but I've no idea in what thread.