[tbontob]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
[QB]

quote:

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Originally posted by tbontob:
In real life a mothballed ship cannot be upgraded. If you upgrade it, it can no longer be mothballed.

Why exactly? There is absolutely no reason to why it would be necessary to pay a full crew to man a ship at combat readiness while you are ripping out its guts and entirely replacing.
QB]

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Hi Graeme

Mothball is defined in my dictionary as
1. a ball made formerly of camphor---Oops wrong mothball

Let's try again
1. To deactivate (as a ship) and prevent deterioration chiefly by dehumidification.
2. To withdraw from use or service and keep in reserve.

My understanding of mothballing is that basically the ship is sealed off. If so, you cannot upgrade a ship and still have it sealed off.

As to paying a crew for being in combat readiness, take the Bismark as an example. It was built, and then IIRC went on sea trials in the Baltic for about a year to train its crew. Only then did it venture into the Atlantic.

The sea trials were important because in its first battle, it sunk the battleship Hood which was the pride of the British fleet and damaged the Prince of Wales.

Pretty good for a novice ship.

So, if we want to be really accurate, I guess we could build the spaceship, and then have the ship hang around the planet for a year while its crew are being trained (to the basic minimum) and only then venture out into deep space.