Author Topic: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars  (Read 480633 times)

Mendrugo

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Re: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars
« Reply #1470 on: 20 October 2016, 21:20:32 »
Date: May 17, 3025
 
Title: DropShips and JumpShips
 
Author: Clare W. Hess; Art by Steve Venters (cover) and Dana Knutson (ship design and illustration)
 
Type: Sourcebook (FASA)
 
Synopsis:

Buccaneer: Introduced in 2708, the Buccaneer was originally intended to serve as a BattleMech transport to replace the Lion Class DropShip, but lost out to the Union.  Instead, it was redesigned as a civilian cargo hauler, and gained great popularity due to its versatility.  Despite its civilian conversion, a Buccaneer can carry up to 96 light vehicles (160 if the tanks are low-slung and the bays are appropriately modified), though the bays are not designed for combat deployment.  Both the DCMS and AFFS, as well as some mercenary units, use combat variants with more weapons and armor at the cost of 30 tons of cargo space, though these variants are primarily intended to deliver supplies into combat zones, and as a vehicle transport (paired with a Fury to carry the crews).  The Buccaneer is manufactured by Houses Marik, Steiner, and Davion, and has a frequency rating of “Common.”

Mule: Introduced in 2737, the Mule’s uncomplicated design and substantial cargo capacity made it very popular with civilian shipping firms, and thus one of the most commonly seen ships in space.  The ship offers a number of creature comforts for the crew, including an onboard hydroponic garden, a lounge, and single-occupancy quarters.  Special rooms are set aside for uploading and analyzing market data from nearby worlds, and for conducting long-range negotiations with local merchants.  The Mule is manufactured by Houses Liao and Steiner, and has a frequency rating of “Common.”

Monarch: Introduced in 2759 as a luxury passenger liner (though below the standards of decadence set by the Princess class), the class has occasionally been used as a mercenary troop transport.  Passengers enjoy private staterooms, dining and entertainment facilities, saunas, exercise facilities, two gift shops, lounges, and a casino.  They are primarily seen on scheduled routes between major worlds.  The Monarch is manufactured by Houses Marik, Kurita, and Davion, and has a rating of “Common.” 

Mammoth: Introduced in 2808, at five times the mass of an Overlord, the Mammoth is the largest DropShip capable of landing on a planetary surface.  It can carry 40,000 tons of cargo on five main decks, and comes equipped with industrial Exoskeletons to help haul the loads.  In an unusual arrangement, the drives are externally mounted in detachable pods, each with its own small control room.  The ships have a frequency rating of “Uncommon,” and are primarily operated by major corporations and worlds dependent on high-volume trade links.  The Successor State armies use some for bulk haulage of hydrogen fuel.  The Mammoth is manufactured by Houses Marik, Liao, and Davion.

Behemoth: Introduced in 2782 as the largest DropShip ever made, the Behemoth is too large to land on a planet and occupies enough space for two vessels when docked with a DropShip.  It can carry 85,000 tons of cargo split among 20 bays.  The Behemoth is manufactured by Houses Marik, Kurita, and Steiner, and has a frequency rating of “Common.”

Notes:

Buccaneer: Once standardized construction rules were applied to the Buccaneer in TRO:3057, it became somewhat less overwhelming as a vehicle transport, maxing out at 72 light vehicles, rather than the 160 suggested by the description in DropShips & JumpShips. 

Only House Marik would probably “typically” pair the Buccaneer with a Fury to carry the crews for the vehicles in the cargo hold, since that’s a proprietary Marik design.  House Davion may send Seekers along with the necessary troops, while House Kurita sends Condors.  I understand that a lot of the major manufacturers sell to the mercenary market, but I would think there’d be a complete ban on sales to other Successor States (at least prior to the Federated Commonwealth treaty and the answering Kapteyn Accords).  Despite House Kurita not making the design, there must be so many out on the market (it is “Common,” after all) that they have a sufficient number to use as military transports. 

I would have to assume that Bandit Kings would also make extensive use of the design, both because combat DropShips have terrible cargo capacity, and because the name fits their identity so well.  It’s why the first bandit-constructed ‘Mech was called the Brigand, after all. 

Despite being a “Common” vessel, the ship has rarely ensnared the imagination of the BattleTech writers.  Named Buccaneers include Vance Rezak’s ‘Red Raider’ in HTP Antallos, the ‘Mercury’ in “Fortress of Lies,” the ‘Carlyton’ in “Bushido and the Bear,” and the ‘Reibach’ in “Proprietary.”  Several unnamed ones appearing in the fiction have been associated with pirate activity.  (Lotta false hits on that search, thanks to the Blakist ‘Mech of the same name.  Also, didja know that the Robinson Buccaneers are a baseball team?)

So, if “Unique” = 50, and “Rare” = 500 using FASA’s numbers, what could “Common” work out to?  The total number is estimated at 25,000, and there are 4 Common, 6 Uncommon, 7 Rare, and 3 Unique designs.  If my guesstimates of Unique = 50 and Rare = 500 are anywhere close, then Uncommon could be 1,500.  That would leave 12,350 for the Common vessels.  Split four ways, that leaves 3,000 per ship class, with 350 left over for assorted unrepresented ship classes. 

Common: 3,000
Uncommon: 1,500
Rare: 500
Unique: 50

Of course, with the explanation in Strategic Operations that the ComStar estimates were off by “at least an order of magnitude,” you can add an extra 0 to each level. 

Mule:   Perhaps coincidentally, the Mule debuted just two years before the start of the “Third Hidden War” of the Star League era, which was largely a series of covert, deniable strikes against the economic interests of neighboring states which could be blamed on pirates, while giving the “home team” an advantage in markets where they engaged in head-to-head competition.

Historical: Reunification War indicated that the Mule was intended as a replacement for the ubiquitous Terran-designed “Jumbo,” though the Jumbo could carry 20% more cargo than the Mule.  Despite only Steiner and Liao retaining manufacturing capabilities for this design, it is evidently very common in all Successor States. 

I like the bit of fluff about having dedicated equipment for analyzing markets and making trades.  The only issue is that, by the time you find out what’s in demand in the target system, you’re already in that system and it’s too late to go out and get what’s in demand if you don’t already have it in your hold.  It would make far more sense to be able to tap into ComStar data feeds with market information on a wide variety of other worlds, and use that data to inform purchasing.  Merchants could also use HPGs to arrange sales contracts before departing the origin system, both during the Star League (when they could use the services of Starlight Broadcasting Ltd.) and during the Succession Wars (using ComStar).  The existence of these systems, then, points to the absence of a tradition of forward planning (or, perhaps, extortionate rates charged by Starlight…though they would have to be ridiculously high to make five-day ahead planning competitive).

Monarch: I’m astounded that enough Monarchs got manufactured for the design to be considered “Common.”  The Star League sourcebook notes that interstellar tourism crashed in 2745, marking a 50% drop from 2744.  No reason was uncovered.  The wording of the passage implies that tourism didn’t rebound before the outbreak of the Star League civil war, so given the lack of demand and the glut of Princess DropShips and other competing passenger liners (running at 50% capacity), why/how would the Monarch have been such a commercial success?  Looking at the Princess writeup in Handbook: Major Periphery States, those are reserved for the ultra-rich, so perhaps there was a market for the more economical, down-market Monarch.

The Monarch has most notably been featured in Warrior: En Garde in the form of the Silver Eagle, aboard which Melissa Steiner was to covertly travel to New Avalon to visit her betrothed.  Notably, however, passengers on Monarchs should expect to spend significant amounts of time in microgravity, since they don’t have grav decks, and won’t be experiencing any Gs while docked with a JumpShip.  Unless the major passenger liners have command circuits set up along their primary routes to hand the ship off to another waiting, charged JumpShip, the accommodations would necessarily suffer.  Reflecting this, when Caleb Hasek-Sandoval-Davion traveled to Terra for Victor Steiner-Davion’s funeral, he traveled in luxury aboard a JumpShip, enjoying the accommodations on the ship’s grav deck, along with Danai Centrella-Liao. 

I wonder which is more common – using a JumpShip’s grav deck, or traveling on a passenger liner DropShip – for the idle rich of the Inner Sphere doing the Riviera circuit or going on a Nolan hunt?  Or do they stay aboard the Monarch during the in-system transit, and then transfer over to the JumpShip’s grav deck facilities during the recharging days?

Mammoth:   Another example of a design that debuted in the latter part of the First Succession War, when (ostensibly) most shipyards had been wiped out and industry had been shattered across the length and breadth of the Inner Sphere. 

Strangely, the profile of Krester’s Ship Construction in The Star League sourcebook indicates that Krester’s designed both the Behemoth and Mammoth in the mid-2600s, and put a Mammoth prototype into flight in 2658, and the prototypes were stolen under suspicious circumstances (suggesting that Krester’s organized the theft of their own prototypes to allow them to be sold on the open market…though the date given in 2650, eight years before the prototypes were manufactured).  That being the case, why would the Behemoth not have formally debuted until 2782 and the Mammoth until 2808?

The Master Unit List attempts to split the difference by listing the 2658 prototype separately from the 2808 “Standard” version, but there’s no text explaining the rationale.  If we’re going with the “most recent source is correct,” then TRO: 3057 (Revised) swings the introduction date to 2808, more or less invalidating the paragraphs on Krester’s Ship Construction in the Star League sourcebook. 

Behemoth: The Behemoth has the same irregularities regarding its introduction as the Mammoth, with DS&JS and TRO:3057 calling it 2782, and the Star League sourcebook calling it either 2658 or 2650. 

Interestingly, the Behemoth is House Kurita’s only domestically produced cargo vessel.  This probably explains why the Gray Death Legion was able to get as far as it did pretending to be a Union DropShip delivering cargo to Verthandi.  The Combine must have pressed military ships into use as cargo vessels, due to the unwieldy nature of the Behemoth (requiring a swarm of cargo-carrying small craft to shuttle the goods from orbit to the surface). 
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Wrangler

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Re: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars
« Reply #1471 on: 21 October 2016, 06:16:20 »
Thanks again for highlighting such less visited part of the universe, Mendrugo!  I honestly wished CGL would have continued or resumed usage of frequency rating for other things now  like mech variants listed in Combat Manuals.  Its annoying to me their trying keep it wide opening says it's either faction mech or general.  Not how often you can lay you hands on the thing.
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Kit deSummersville

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Re: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars
« Reply #1472 on: 21 October 2016, 07:25:06 »
Originally the MUL was going to have a rarity feature. Then it was seen how much work needed to be done and how few people were available to do so....
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Mendrugo

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Re: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars
« Reply #1473 on: 21 October 2016, 11:40:39 »
Rarity indicators were standard for products like this at the time, such as TSR's Monster Manuals.  One problem, as you can see, is that once specific numbers of unit X are codified as existing, future authors run the risk of over-using rare units.  The Catapult, as written, should have been vanishingly rare in 3025, but people liked the design and the aesthetic, and it became one of the flagship units (getting the PlasTech cover and also featured prominently on the Total Warfare cover).

You can more or less reverse engineer rarities out of the RATs from various factions and eras, but those don't always match up with the published fluff.  (Some from the depths of the Unseen era don't even list any of the classic designs, which were supposedly the most common in 3025.)

When I was compiling a database trying to model the 3025 forces of the Successor States and 17 clans, I went with as much canon data as possible, but there's still a lot of vagueness left out there (intentionally, to allow room for players to run units of their own creation).
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Frabby

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Re: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars
« Reply #1474 on: 21 October 2016, 12:20:59 »
When I was compiling a database trying to model the 3025 forces of the Successor States and 17 clans, I went with as much canon data as possible, but there's still a lot of vagueness left out there (intentionally, to allow room for players to run units of their own creation).
Have you checked how your tables hold up against the Xotl RAT tables?
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Mendrugo

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Re: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars
« Reply #1475 on: 21 October 2016, 13:03:27 »
Have you checked how your tables hold up against the Xotl RAT tables?

XotI?
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

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Wrangler

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Re: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars
« Reply #1477 on: 21 October 2016, 13:40:30 »
« Last Edit: 21 October 2016, 13:42:50 by Wrangler »
"Men, fetch the Urbanmechs.  We have an interrogation to attend to." - jklantern
"How do you defeat a Dragau? Shoot the damn thing. Lots." - Jellico 
"No, it's a "Most Awesome Blues Brothers scene Reenactment EVER" waiting to happen." VotW Destrier - Weirdo  
"It's 200 LY to Sian, we got a full load of shells, a half a platoon of Grenadiers, it's exploding outside, and we're wearing flak jackets." VoTW Destrier - Misterpants
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Mendrugo

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Re: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars
« Reply #1478 on: 21 October 2016, 13:54:43 »
Thanks for the clarification.  I haven't checked them against those.  I used the faction availability tables (modified by date) from Combat Operations and any available fluff, to customize random generation tables for each unit, and hand entered units for which 3025-era "phone book" lists were available.
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.