While I agree that spacecrafts shouldn't be gear but rather setting, they are clearly cheap enough for there to be rockjacks, scum barges and brinkers. If a group pools resources and rep and work really hard they can get one. There should be a way of estimating things "beyond expensive". Here is how I would do: I assume the current cost scale continues and is roughly exponential. Every level in the normal system is 1.5 or 5 times bigger than the previous: Trivial: 1-100 creds Low: 100-500 Moderate: 500-1,500 High: 1500-10,000 Expensive: 10,000-15,000 Beyond expensive 1: 15,000-100,000 Beyond expensive 2: 100,000-150,000 Beyond expensive 3: 150,000-1,000,000 Beyond expensive 4: 1,000,000-1,500,000 ... Personally I think this is too messy, so I would simply use a logarithmic system: expensive stuff is four figure, beyond expensive 1 is five figure, beyond expensive 2 is six, and so on: Expensive: 10,000-100,000 Beyond expensive 1: 100,000-1,000,000 Beyond expensive 2: 1,000,000-10,000,000 Beyond expensive 3: 10,000,000-100,000,000 Beyond expensive 4: 100,000,000-1,000,000,000 ... Now, if we assume a spacecraft costs (relative to the ordinary economy) like an oil tanker (price a few tends of million dollars), then it would be in my "beyond expensive 3" range. A bigger and better craft would be even higher. Something on the cutting edge relative to the local economy (like the ISS is to ours, cost ~100 billion dollars) would be in the range "beyond expensive 6" to "beyond expensive 7". While individuals can normally not handle money or rep on this scale, this is of course the typical scale for governments and major organisations. But gaming on this level becomes more of a strategy game than a role-playing game.

Decivre wrote:

The majority of brinker habitats I'd imagine would actually be nano-fabbed housing built into asteroids. As for scum barges, most of them were probably adopted as homes by the people who evacuated within them. They are the last remnants of what was once the ships of nations that were fleeing their homeland. While they may be in disrepair and shoddy nowadays, they were probably once pinnacles of fast-design in a time when we were busy fighting the greatest threat to our existence.

If you can build housing in space, then you are almost an owner of a spacecraft. You just need to add propulsion to it. It might not be the most elegant craft imaginable, it might have lousy steering or acceleration, but it is able to move.

Arenamontanus wrote:

If you can build housing in space, then you are almost an owner of a spacecraft. You just need to add propulsion to it. It might not be the most elegant craft imaginable, it might have lousy steering or acceleration, but it is able to move.

True, but I don't think that's the sort of spacecraft that the original poster was asking about. I mean if you ask me to build you a car, I can probably do so with a few metal poles, four wheels and a lawnmower engine. Don't think it'll be the car you're asking for, though. :D

nick012000 wrote:

Actually, I'm not sure that most Scum Barges are all that poorly maintained. It'd be simple enough to nanofab up a bunch of repair bots and have them do the repairs autonomously, even without direct guidance from fully-sapient egos.

Perhaps, but remember that a good portion of those who utilize scum barges aren't exactly rich or well-equipped. Remember, "scum barge" probably wasn't the original term for these ships. It was probably a colloquial term granted due to their popularity amongst a specific political group. They are mainly patchwork ships, now... maintained by groups of people who nanofabricate/buy/steal new parts to replace old ones, and may or may not fully comply with the original designs anymore.

In our world the main reason spacecraft are absurdly expensive is simply the deep gravity well we have to get out of. In EP this is almost no problem, mainly because most people live above the well. The second reason spacecraft tend to be expensive is that the space environment is pretty harsh (everything from vacuum welding to radiation to thermal control issues), and everything is overdesigned to cope with it. In EP we have a century of experience with space, much better materials and likely lots of designs that solve common problems. The third reason space is currently expensive is of course current near-monopolies, which are gone in EP. I think building big things in EP is much easier than building big things today thanks to robotics, fabbing the exact right parts, nanoswarms for detail work (I doubt they are cost effective for making bulk objects). But compared to the "design and print" engineering most people do this is still far out there: this is one area where traditional engineering methods are important, so it looks awesome to the people who are used to "print engineering". So while the cost for the parts may be much lower than today, the real cost is the services. You need real space engineers to put together the blueprints (even if they are just a compilation of open source airlocks, hull, engines, hab modules, reactors, sensors, guns etc.), check that they make a workable ship, set up the manufacturing logistics, run the assembly process and shakedown tests. That is the real cost. Spacecraft are in a sense handmade, and their price will be proportional to the salaries of highly skilled (and sought after) experts and what they can squeeze out of you.

Decivre wrote:

Perhaps, but remember that a good portion of those who utilize scum barges aren't exactly rich or well-equipped. Remember, "scum barge" probably wasn't the original term for these ships. It was probably a colloquial term granted due to their popularity amongst a specific political group. They are mainly patchwork ships, now... maintained by groups of people who nanofabricate/buy/steal new parts to replace old ones, and may or may not fully comply with the original designs anymore.

Umm... the Autonomists are post-scarcity, dude. They don't need money or anything like that; they just need an nanofabricator (and since one nanofabricator can build another one in five hours, those won't be in short supply, either). Just because their parts might not match their old ones doesn't mean they're poorly maintained; they're just personalised and customised by the crew.

Decivre wrote:

If we build a ship or habitat for info- or synthmorphs, the requisites are even easier; a ship ceases to need life support, and a habitat just becomes anyplace that said synthmorphs call home, or a collection of infomorph servers.

Synthetic life & programs would still need a "lifesupport",of some kind . Some bio conservatives may call that "life" non living, and that life support non existing. Though different, this "life support" (for synth-morphs & electronics) can be quite costly too. However this is often built by default since the world is computerized, so scratching requisites of biological "wetware" & their life support would be reducing costs.

Decivre wrote:

Correction: you need a nanofabricator, supplies and plans. The last one is likely to be the most difficult to provide, as someone has to have the know-how to create the plans for the parts in the first place. The end-result is that they are likely to just get the most competent technician to create a similar part that does a similar job, and not necessarily the original part. Hence, the ship will begin to look piecemeal.

Someone also has to have the know-how on how to assemble the parts & instruct the nanofabricator -correcly. Otherwise the assembled ship will not be what it should have been. In our time People fail or have difficulties when "building" their simple Ikea furniture despite provided the proper pieces & manuals. The results can often be correctly assembled or repaired. Most dont bother though & return it or discard it. "Failed" assembled results can sometimes still be useful though -even if its only as firewood :) I think this will be true even in EP.

King Shere wrote:

Synthetic life & programs would still need a "lifesupport",of some kind . Some bio conservatives may call that "life" non living, and that life support non existing. Though different, this "life support" (for synth-morphs & electronics) can be quite costly too. However this is often built by default since the world is computerized, so scratching requisites of biological "wetware" & their life support would be reducing costs.

Still not life support; all they need is power. Since synthmorphs use nuclear batteries (and I'm guessing that large dedicated computer systems do the same), chances are that they don't need a refuel for a very long time (I'm thinking several decades, if not getting past a century). This is especially true since much of the technology in EP utilizes superconductors. Even if you do need power, solar generators will obfuscate most of your needs so long are you are within a certain range from the sun.

King Shere wrote:

Someone also has to have the know-how on how to assemble the parts & instruct the nanofabricator -correcly. Otherwise the assembled ship will not be what it should have been. In our time People fail or have difficulties when "building" their simple Ikea furniture despite provided the proper pieces & manuals. The results can often be correctly assembled or repaired. Most dont bother though & return it or discard it. "Failed" assembled results can sometimes still be useful though -even if its only as firewood :) I think this will be true even in EP.

Nah. Nanofabrication is likely as easy as "upload file and press print". The problem is in acquiring or creating blueprints. Someone has to design a part's 3D blueprints before you can create it with a nanofabricator. My guess is that it takes a lot of skill. Plus, if you're trying to replace a part after it has broken, there's a possibility that you don't know how that part was built originally enough to build it again.

King Shere wrote:

The nano fabricated parts & the blueprint would be all thats needed to instruct the assembly workers? No overseeing & instructing engineer? Guess designers & repairmen will make both the architects & engineers extinct professions then.

Not in places that refuse the use of nanofabrication, or places where nanofabrication isn't a feasible activity due to harsh conditions (such as assembling an aerostat in Venus's atmosphere).