Shipyards
In the beginning of spaceflight most ships and modules were buildt on the surface of a planet or moon. When the ship was finished it usually left the pull of gravity with so called gravboosters. These enormous rocket engines was fitted to the shiphull and was discarded once the ship left the planets grip.
This method for building spaceships and spacestation modules was the only means of commercial companies to build space facilities. It was extremly expensive and the ship sizes were limited to a couple of hundred meters in length. At this time the only means for space-exploration was by the largest of goverments on earth. However as the numbers populating space grew and the first colony of spaceshipwrights was established the shift of power started. Soon mighty corporations established their own spacenavies usually by taking over older ships that was sold by governments needing to upgrade their fleets.
The Hanstock Corporation which was leading in spaceship engineering launched a project in 2402 in which the technology for the first space shipconstruction yard(SSCY) was developed. In the beginning these construction yards were spacefields with powerful builderdrones that assembled ship-parts together.
Ship-parts and raw materials were usually constructed on earth and then gravboosted into space where a barge took the parts and moved them to the ship yards where they were put together by the building drones and shipbuilding crews.
The technology for advanced and huge shipyards that could encase the largest of ships were created, the first called “Detroit” in 2490.
Inside the shipbuilding crews could pressurize and work more effective and precise with ship-assembly. These shipyards are in no way luxurious for the workers but they offer a pressurized enviroment and are less hazardous. They also enable building very decorated and comfortable civilian ships that were previously impossible due to the lack of amosphere. In 2544 the first civilian vessel with a class A-comfort was deployed called “Titanica”. The ship housed 890 passengers, 4 holo-theatres, 1 bloodsport arena, 32 resturants, 3 casinos and a gym for the guests. For more info on Titanica, check the designated document.
The companies owning shipyards grew in the 25th century. In the beginning Hanstock Corporation held all except one that they donated to the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth however duplicated the technology and started to build more yards in colonized space. These yards were building warships for domination of space to gain advantage on privatized armies and other goverments that had made claim to some solar systems in the Commonwealths intrest. These wars were despite the Commonwealths superiority lost due to civil unrest.
To keep ther grip on their empire the Commonwealth instead started to sell the shipyard technology and soon the cruicial components and secrets about this industry was free for everyone. Hanstock Corporation almost went bankrupt when this happened, they could not compete with much cheaper competition as the shipyards spread across human space.
Today (2892) the space shipyards are huge and plentiful throughout human space. They are usually deployed in the close proximity of a spacerefinery and can be moved, albeit slowly to better locations. Hanstock Corporation is one of many corporations in the top game, having fought their way back in the ship/spacestation-buisness. Other large companies are Tsunami Alcore, Foxstar, Barge, Tulum Industries and Mirsk Freight Industry. The most prominent governments holding large spacebuilding assets are The Commonwealth, The Federation, Makhi and the Fringe(pirates).
