Alright! Now we get to learn how to actually build those starships! Hey, maybe we can build our own instead of taking a forty-year mortgage on one. That would be cool.
Yeah, that's not going to happen. We are introduced to starship construction with an explanation that shipyards working with major starports do the building of these magnificent vessels. Commercial vessels, yachts, exploratory vessels, and military ships are available, and you can customize them depending on what you need, what you want, and what you can afford.
Starships are also basically modular in nature, with off-the-shelf sections assembled. Like Space Lego, I guess. And almost as expensive. Have you tried to find that stuff on eBay? I loved it when I was a kid, but man, it's ridiculously priced now. Anyway, starships can be customized, but there are a few standard templates to start from.
Or, if you want a designer spaceship, go to a naval architect. He can come up with the plans for your one-of-a-kind ship in four weeks. And it will only cost you 1% of the final cost of the ship. Well, that's not so bad...is it?
Ah, there's an actual checklist for starship design. That will come in handy. I recall Star Frontiers had a similar list for its ship design. Of course, custom starships were never as efficient as the ones that the rules already outlined. We'll see if that holds true in this older game. Anyway, after the naval architect comes up with the new plans, the shipyard can take over the actual building part.
Shipyards are available at A and B class starports, but only A-class ports can build starships; the B-ports are only for interplanetary, not interstellar, spacecraft. So, there probably aren't going to be a lot of places where you can even get a starship built. Or maybe there are; how common are Class-A starports? I'm sure I'll find out in Book 3.
Ship construction takes time, usually between ten and 36 months, depending on its hull size. I remember hull size being mentioned in the fuel section. Oh, and standard designs take a month less; I guess the construction crews are used to building them, so they get it done faster. We'll get more information on hull sizes later.
And it costs 20% for a down payment to get the shipyard started, and you'd better have the rest of the payment figured out, be it cash or financing before they'll bother laying the first piece of hull. And while we don't have the actual cost rules yet, we find out that standard ships are, again, easier (and cheaper) to build. The price for the standard ships is already listed in the standard ship rules section, coming up soon.
And that's another page done. What have we learned? Just a small taste of what we can expect from ship design; it's easier, faster, and cheaper to buy one off-the-rack than have it custom built. And I have a funny feeling that it's going to be stupidly expensive. Then again, the Space Shuttle was pretty costly, and that just got up to orbit. I'm looking forward to seeing what else ship design entails.
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