Shipbucket

Hello everybody!! It has been quite a while since I have posted or even visited the SB forums. I've moved from drawing ships and vehicles and focused primarily on country-building itself. My projects have been shuffled around and now the Kingdom of Salide is my current focus (in the new Salidan Altiverse). Nearly everything about it has changed, including the map, the names, and the history. When I get it further along, I will post what I have done in the forum and on the Wiki as well. Denton has taken a back burner, the first issue being a better name, finishing the new map, and refining the history a bit more. Once I get far enough on Salide, I'll get back to work on Denton.

I have not been in contact with anyone in the SB realm or even those with interest in AU scenarios and, as such, I have some varying questions about feasibility and realism of certain concepts that I have not been able to get answered.

My first question to start, which is a relatively small one:
I had thoughts of a 'United Antarctic Program', which would pool resources, such as research facilities and stations, ships, and other equipment. My thoughts were to include both small and large countries especially those who do not have a reason for funding a speciality program, due to location or otherwise:
Would this be a realistic concept that multiple countries might decide to take part in? Countries I was considering include Salide, Denton (of course), Australia, NZ, Chile, Uruguay, Republic of Texas (one in the SA-verse), UK, Germany, France, etc.


A second question, there are several long distance ferry routes that connect Salide with Scotland and Ireland. The shortest of these are 360km and the longest is 545km, giving a transit time with a superfast ferry (30kts) at 7h30m up to 10h15m. Would these long distance ferries be considered a unnecessary or would they be profitable and of use to people? Certainly I can imagine transport of lorries being a major argument for the ferries, but otherwise, I'm not sure.
A subset of this question includes one of the ferry routes to Oban, Scotland (which would require driving through the highlands to reach Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee). I have another ferry that goes to Ardrossan, Scotland (which is nearer to Glasgow). Could the ferry to Oban be considered unnecessary or could there be enough traffic to justify a superfast ferry route?


Regards,
Ethan

ezgo394 wrote: ↑March 16th, 2020, 2:17 am ...
A second question, there are several long distance ferry routes that connect Salide with Scotland and Ireland. The shortest of these are 360km and the longest is 545km, giving a transit time with a superfast ferry (30kts) at 7h30m up to 10h15m. Would these long distance ferries be considered a unnecessary or would they be profitable and of use to people? Certainly I can imagine transport of lorries being a major argument for the ferries, but otherwise, I'm not sure.
A subset of this question includes one of the ferry routes to Oban, Scotland (which would require driving through the highlands to reach Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee). I have another ferry that goes to Ardrossan, Scotland (which is nearer to Glasgow). Could the ferry to Oban be considered unnecessary or could there be enough traffic to justify a superfast ferry route?
....

That's a long and probably unpleasant ferry crossing considering the likley weather most of the year in the North Atlantic, will a fast ferry actually work or would it not be more case of slower heavy good ferry's with most passengers going by air?

I would add depending on how big Salide is the route from Oban could be improved to a motorway as it has a railway already and would grow massively over the historical size.

The long ferry route are a viable solution, especially when considering the history of both countries. In the past the UK was connected to Sweden by the big ferries Tor Britannia and Tor Scandinavia, a voyage which took slightly longer than 24 hours at 22 kts (speeding up to 23 kts to make up for lost time).
A ferry to Oban is a question of need and supply. What does Oban has to offer that is not available in, let's say, Greenock (for Glasgow), or Troon or like you say Ardrossan.
International cooperation in exploring, or any science project depends very much on who is taking part. Many neighbouring countries have a history of conflict (France and Germany for instance, have overcome their differences but Chile and Argentina (though you didn't mention that country and chose Uruguay instead)).

Another example of long ferrry routes is Greece-Italy through Adriatic Sea. E.g route Patra-Igoumenitsa-Ancona lasted 36 hours in 1970s (F/B Mediterranean Sky/Karageorgis Lines) which drop in 19-20 hours with the Superfast Ferries in late 1990s/mid 2000s.

JSB wrote: ↑March 16th, 2020, 11:48 am
That's a long and probably unpleasant ferry crossing considering the likley weather most of the year in the North Atlantic, will a fast ferry actually work or would it not be more case of slower heavy good ferry's with most passengers going by air?

I would add depending on how big Salide is the route from Oban could be improved to a motorway as it has a railway already and would grow massively over the historical size.

Novice wrote: ↑March 16th, 2020, 9:56 pm The long ferry route are a viable solution, especially when considering the history of both countries. In the past the UK was connected to Sweden by the big ferries Tor Britannia and Tor Scandinavia, a voyage which took slightly longer than 24 hours at 22 kts (speeding up to 23 kts to make up for lost time).
A ferry to Oban is a question of need and supply. What does Oban has to offer that is not available in, let's say, Greenock (for Glasgow), or Troon or like you say Ardrossan.

International cooperation in exploring, or any science project depends very much on who is taking part. Many neighbouring countries have a history of conflict (France and Germany for instance, have overcome their differences but Chile and Argentina (though you didn't mention that country and chose Uruguay instead)).

odysseus1980 wrote: ↑March 17th, 2020, 12:10 am Another example of long ferrry routes is Greece-Italy through Adriatic Sea. E.g route Patra-Igoumenitsa-Ancona lasted 36 hours in 1970s (F/B Mediterranean Sky/Karageorgis Lines) which drop in 19-20 hours with the Superfast Ferries in late 1990s/mid 2000s.

This is where Salide is located, with the new map. Salide has a population of 22.5 million, so it is significant, especially considering neighbouring Ireland and Scotland which are 4.8 million and 5.5 million, respectively. I imagine appropriate construction would be done, in terms of a motorway, being that Oban is the closest Scottish city, without having to go around the Kintyre peninsula. However, I'm never sure if ships are willing to go the extra couple of hours to get closer to where they need to be.

Thanks for clarification on long distance ferry routes, I won't wonder about it further. Thankfully, even if ferries were slowed down, even the longest route wouldn't take more than 14 or so hours.

Thanks for the map makes it much easier to think about.

I think you will get a very much larger port in the far north west of Ireland as this is the closest unless politics makes a link with GB more important? What port would be probably Sliago or Castlebar or later a new terminal as far NW as possible?

This will also mean a much larger Irish road network and probably population?
This might drive the main Ferry Route,
Seiskin - (North of smaller Baiyara island) - Western Ireland (with links to motorway - Dublin - Liverpool onwards)

With a northern route, that would start at Sterness (or Buchanan on mainland depending on size?) and then sail to NI or Oban or even just to Stranraer to connect to UK)

Looking at your map presumably the South/East is like most of I/UK more populated than N/W?

Salide has a population of 22.5 million, so it is significant, especially considering neighbouring Ireland and Scotland which are 4.8 million and 5.5 million,

Fitting 22.5M is going to require a lot of flat fertile land looking at your map I question if you should reduce the mountains in the SE if not actually make the land larger by linking the Seiskin - Baiyara channel?

I also think that 22.5M is too large a number for the size and geography of Salide, in view of the populace of Scotland and Ireland (5.5M and 4.8M respectively).
A more plausible number would be around 6M to 8M if you are going to pack your population very densely. You should take into consideration that people need a lot of space to grow food, and if it is all imported, than the idea of technological development is not realistic. Hungry people don't think about science, they think about food.

To start things off, Salide has an (unofficial) land area of about ~91,250 sqkm. Population is ~22,617,000. This gives a population density of 243/sqkm. The UK, in comparison, has 270/sqkm for GB and NI, and Ireland (Republic) has 70/sqkm.

The terrain map is incomplete. The topography you see is where major features are located, but I have an issue with scaling mountains and valleys, so it does seem like it has a very aggressive terrain. Most of the land currently on the map does not go above 100 metres elevation, so can still be considered quite mild. In fact, Salide is fairly flat with dividing ranges interspersed somewhat like you see on the map. (Take a topo map of the UK and tell me how there are 67 million people living there )

The population is indeed concentrated towards the southeast, with the highest densities between Seiskin, Cappach, and Dunmuir. This area is several times larger than the London metropolitan area (14.25 million) and will be home to a significant amount of the population. Initial estimates were between 11-14 million for this area and spread out over much more land (to the point where it wouldn't be considered one single metropolitan area, but two or three.) Among the other large cities, I estimated that each would have a metropolitan area up to or exceeding 1 million. Add to that, the numerous small villages and towns that will dot the areas in between, as is seen in the UK, there should be no problems with the population.

On the issue of farmland I am confident, to an extent, that there will be enough land area. Sterness is just below Aberdeen in latitude and Seiskin/Vittoria are about the same latitude as Belfast. I certainly believe that the southeastern island will primarily consist of farming, and about half of the main island, up to Hopetoun (equivalent in lat. to Ayr), before slowly transitioning to pastoral farming further north. Historically, this would not be an issue, but today, yes it would be. The UK imports almost half of its food and I imagine Salide will have to import some as well. Probably from Ireland...
If I wanted Salide to be a perfectly planned, self-sufficient country, then I would have kept the population at 8 million when I originally started it. But the real world doesn't work out like that and I just have to deal with some of the consequences.

One final point on population. Ireland's population is almost 5 million. It peaked at about 8 million during the famine. If the famine had not happened, it is certainly possible that Ireland could have a population reaching 15 million or even 20. Concerning Scotland, terrain is definitely a factor. And the bloody English...

All of that being said... I will consider reducing the population a few million, maybe to 19. We'll see.


Now, Ferries.

I chose Clifden (which connects to Galway) because I've been to Galway and because Galway is connected to the M6, that leads me to believe it would be a more important city than Sligo. However, given that Salide will definitely have an influence on Ireland's history, I could move the Thorpe-Clifden route to terminate in Sligo. Historically, there would likely have been a significant trading route to Sligo.

In 2018, I took a ferry from Belfast to Cairnryan (they don't dock in Stranraer anymore). By the time I got off the ferry, took a shuttle bus to Stranraer, hopped on the train, and switched trains in Ayr, it would have probably been quicker to just take the ferry straight to Ardrossan or Ayr .

Sterness' metro has about 500k people at least and rail transport could get you from Buchanan to Sterness in less than an hour, so I don't think there's any need to have another ferry route from Buchanan to Scotland.