Comments And Analysis

So, you want to design some ships to carry cargo and passengers, and you want the ships to be as efficient as possible. This page should give you an idea of which ships designs are the most efficient for carrying cargo and passengers.

Assumptions And Conventions
The following assumptions are made for this discussion:

1. Freighter. A ship designed to carry cargo. It includes only the minimum systems necessary for a ship to handle cargo. It does not mount Cargo Handling Systems, Pressers, or Tractors.
2. Liner. A ship designed to carry passengers. It includes only the minimum systems necessary to handle passengers.
3. All ships are commercial style ships ("freighters" in Starfire terminology).
4. No weapons or other military systems are included.
5. Each ship design has one and only one purpose, either cargo or passenger transport. There are no mixed capability designs.
6. When considering freighters, one Hold will be ignored, to conform with the Starfire Assistant program's practice of reserving one Hold solely for a ship's own use.
7. Where an option exists for mounting a Crew Quarters (Q) or a Small Crew Quarters (Qs), the cheapest option will be used.
8. When considering liners, one quarters will be ignored to allow for the ship's own crew. If a Qs is installed, the Qs will be ignored. If no Qs is installed, one Q will be ignored.
9. All ships are designed with a standard speed of 4/4 (4 Strategic Movement Points / 4 Tactical Movement Points). No other ships are included.
10. Hull sizes of FT8 and above are not considered, as they are not able to make 4/4 movement.
11. TL1 technology will be used on all designs (except for the TL requirement to build the hull).
12. Ship costs are based on constuction in shipyards, not on planets.

Efficiency Criteria
Three different criteria are considered when determining efficiency; Cost Per System, Return on Investment (ROI), and Pay Back Period.

1. Cost Per System. The first criteria for determining the efficiency of a design is the lowest cost per transport system (H or Q). Thus when comparing two designs, the one with the lower total cost divided by the number of H (for a Freighter) or Q (for a Liner) will be the more efficient. Operating costs are not considered, since maintenance is a direct function of the build cost of a vessel. Vessels scoring well in this comparison are those which a player would want to build for their own use outside of the CFN (i.e., "Imperial Freighters").
2. ROI. This indicates the rate (as a percentage) at which the ships makes money. The higher the ROI, the better the investment. Note that ROI is the inverse of the Pay Back Period.
3. Pay Back Period. The final criteria for determining the efficiency of a design is the time required to recover the initial investment in the ship. The lower the Pay Back Period, the quicker the ship begins earning profits. Vessels scoring well in this comparison are those which should be used in the Government Pool of the CFN.
   Note that the payback period does not include the time required to build a vessel. The speed with which a vessel may be built varies with the Tech Level and how closely a campaign follows the construction rules regarding the application of work from shipyard modules to individual ships. Since these factors cannot be readily included in the computations, they have, for better or worse, been ignored, and it is assumed that all ships are built in one turn.

Boat Bays Verses Atmospheric Capabilty
As commercial ships must have a way of getting cargo or passengers to the surface of a planet or moon, each design must have either a boat bay (Bb) or be Atmospheric Capable (AC). Designs for hull sizes of FT0 through FT4 will have a version with each of these options. Designs for hull sizes of FT5 and larger will only have the boat bay option, since it is a required part of the design. The Small Boat Bay (BbS), being the cheapest of the boat bays, will always be the type of boat bay carried. The cost of one shuttle (20 Mc) will be added to the cost of a ship with a boat bay (a shuttle is the selected small craft to conform with Sky Marshal #2, 15.04.03b, CFN Freighter Design, page 44).

Freighters

Designation	TL	HS	Holds (H)	Cost (Mc)	Maint. (Mc)	Net	Cost Per System		ROI (%)	Pay Back	Rank
							Mc / H	Rank
Freighter 0 AC	1	7	4	34.6	2.7	0.3	11.53	11	0.87	115.3	12
Freighter 0 Bb	1	7	3	42.5	3.2	-1.2	31.25	13	-1.92	Never	13
Freighter 1 AC	1	12	8	56.4	4.3	2.7	8.06	3	4.79	20.9	5
Freighter 1 Bb	1	12	7	63.0	4.7	1.3	13.83	12	1.57	63.8	11
Freighter 2 AC	1	16	11	78.0	5.9	4.1	7.80	2	5.26	19.0	3
Freighter 2 Bb	1	16	10	83.0	6.2	2.8	11.44	10	2.72	36.8	10
Freighter 3 AC	1	20	13	100.5	7.6	4.4	8.38	7	4.38	22.8	8
Freighter 3 Bb	1	20	12	104.0	7.8	3.2	11.27	9	2.58	38.8	9
Freighter 4 AC	1	30	21	151.0	11.4	8.6	7.55	1	5.70	17.6	1
Freighter 4 Bb	1	30	20	151.0	11.3	7.7	9.00	8	4.50	22.2	7
Freighter 5	2	45	31	226.3	18.6	11.4	8.21	5	4.63	21.6	6
Freighter 6	3	60	46	356.8	24.7	20.3	8.37	6	5.39	18.6	2
Freighter 7	5	80	57	432.0	33.9	22.1	8.07	4	4.89	20.5	4

All the efficiency criteria indicate that the Freighter 4 AC is the preferred unit to build for both Imperial Freighters and the CFN. Beyond that, things are not so clear. For Imperial Freighters, the Freighter 1 AC is a reasonable option early in a campaign, since, at Tech Level 1 or above, these ships can be built in one turn from a single shipyard. Further, if such ships become superfluous, they are not too bad as investments in the Government Pool of the CFN.

Liners

Designation	TL	HS	Quarters (Q&Qs)	Cost (Mc)	Maint. (Mc)	Net	Cost Per System		ROI (%)	Pay Back	Rank
							Mc / Q	Rank
Liner 0 AC	1	7	3	51.6	3.9	-0.9	17.20	12	-1.74	Never	11
Liner 0 Bb	1	7	2	55.5	4.2	-2.7	50.33	13	-3.58	Never	10
Liner 1 AC	1	12	6	104.4	7.8	-0.3	13.92	8	-0.29	Never	12
Liner 1 Bb	1	12	6	102.0	7.7	-0.2	16.27	11	-0.16	Never	13
Liner 2 AC	1	16	9	138.0	10.4	1.6	11.50	2	1.16	86.3	4
Liner 2 Bb	1	16	8	139.0	10.4	0.1	15.14	10	0.06	1,590	9
Liner 3 AC	1	20	11	178.5	13.4	1.6	11.90	6	0.90	111.6	6
Liner 3 Bb	1	20	10	168.0	12.6	0.9	13.93	9	0.48	208.9	8
Liner 4 AC	1	30	17	281.0	21.1	2.9	11.71	4	1.03	96.9	5
Liner 4 Bb	1	30	16	277.0	20.8	1.7	13.20	7	0.57	174.7	7
Liner 5	2	45	26	421.3	31.6	5.9	11.77	5	1.34	74.8	3
Liner 6	3	60	35	568.0	42.6	8.4	11.53	3	1.43	70.0	1
Liner 7	5	80	48	791.0	59.3	11.2	11.50	1	1.38	72.4	2

If building liners to carry troops, Liner 2 AC is the best buy, with Liner 6 and Liner 7 being better options as Tech Levels increase. Clearly, liners are never used as investments (apparently the Starfire universe doesn't have any luxury cruise ships).

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Updated 24 April 2000.