MechWidgets: A Disscussion About 'Mech Production

[SCC]

I'm wondering how you keep scaling up the defenses here.  I mean, if it's this easy to get the horde of Vedettes, horde of nukes, and sufficient ASF for a single planet, then the interstellar empire should find it even easier to drown you in a horde of attackers.

This only works if there's a major limit on KF transport AND point defense is still ineffective, these go away and things are different.

[Dark Jackal]

And here in lies the problem, each Great House has the capacity to make a brand new mech from scratch, and to make pretty well as many of them as they want. It's no longer lostech, the technology is well known, just for some reason everyone is reluctant to build it. Why would you ever build a factory to make a tank from purely indigenous parts if you are only going to churn out 20 odd a year? That should be 20 a day!

The issue is that this is all irrational, because the universe is only half dynamic. Since there's a requirement to make every bit of equipment in game playable, it makes it hard to have a genuine improvement because of game balance. I'm not sure what the in-universe reason is for the small armies, as far as I know there really isn't one, each State should have thousands of divisions they produce themselves, but I suppose that would eliminate the whole a Company is a powerful force approach.

I don't doubt the numbers are a bit wanting in terms of production while trying to tie in Star Wars like epic fights and battles the universe throws into the mix. From the earliest stories in the universe to the Dark Age we've seen a trend of power creep (both in Tech and in numbers) that did not keep in line with the idea of scarcity and difficulty maintaining stellar empires central to the BT Theme of high tech protagonists using their wit and grit to keep their machines going in the face of odds stacked against them. Abrupt insertions into the story-line of large numbers of 'Mechs popping out of the wood work is as common to the franchise as is maintaining a level of scarcity and rarity the universe continually demands. The Clans, Comstar Legions, "new Star League", WoB assault, etc., have large amounts of tech and activity come in seemingly out of nowhere leaving readers with a sense of struggle to come up ways to have it make sense.

Kind of like hammering in a square peg into a round hole.

So yes, I do agree when someone sits down and number crunches that things don't add up as nicely as it should. I'm sure every person that wanted to write a BT story would like to have at least done once in their stories a large epic battle.

That being said, if we remove the sudden glut of things constantly showing up in the universe we can understand somewhat more profoundly where the actual limitations in production would come about if things worked close to reality. The main limitation to churning out massive amounts of units are actually three things (so far that I came up with writing this): inter-stellar trade, communications, and lack of direct influence in local labor. Anyone wants to add more is welcome.

The majority of BT is risk averse and do not have an economy that works like we're used to here where you try to anticipate fluctuations in demand and respond to market forces. Interstellar communications is much too slow to respond in real time to a galactic market on the scale and size of BattleTech. So as is trying to calculate demand, which is why we're doing this number crunching in the first place, and leaves the various corporations risk averse to over produce and gain market control unless they have inside knowledge to do so OR have some form of guarantee they won't go under in the process.

If we remove communications as a stumbling block we then have another bottleneck of sourcing materials once we're going interstellar. This puts an upper limitation to the risk on what a corporation would produce and what raw materials they will ask for given that it takes roughly 1-2 months to ship things via freight in BT one-way. Also, it is prohibitively expensive if you wanted smaller quantity items (like a production run of small lasers or MGs) as it is normally easier to ship via freight a large bulk of raw materials or a large amounts of finished product to market. You will lose out if you're in the middle given the amount of fees that add up while trying to quickly sell something to an available market.

Now we come to labor and probably the most ignored part of the universe and yet the most relevant. When a corporation is ready to produce things, now it comes down to gaining enough skilled workers to produce as many things needed to reduce costs and increase profits. So, the majority of laborers are seasonal staff hired when things are ready for assembly. Additional pressure is also applied when you factor in the lack of direct influence said House Lord or Clan Khans has in the every day life of the folks at the near-bottom peg of society. These folks political allegiance is to his/her local assembly on the local planet and not his house lord, empire, or clan domain. There is no actual way to influence labor than through an equivalent exchange for services and thus limits the ready population of skilled laborers as full time staff to produce things quickly to market. The majority of labor ends up other labor intensive occupations such as mining or logging or in sustainable occupations like agriculture. Most of the universe was written before the large influence of automation we have today. Even if we tried to reason automation into the picture the costs of transitioning from a colony of settlers to a completely automated society costs way too much to organically achieve unless it is plot written. IF it is automated fully, then the laborer is completely liberated and I will leave it to the reader to make conclusions on how the universe would work (or not work).

So it's not really under production but rather only producing what is needed being very close to Marxists type of economy where the worker is not bound as firmly to his/her means of production for survival and somewhat liberated from it. The poster boy of only producing what is needed is Clan Smoke Jaguar and probably the most true to marxists economy whether or not the authors writing the story arcs intended to be it.

I hope this helps as some food for thought until the pop corn is done from the microwave and another 10 legions of Space Ma... I mean 4 Regiments of 'Mech duke it out to advance the story line.  >:D

[guardiandashi]

I don't doubt the numbers are a bit wanting in terms of production while trying to tie in Star Wars like epic fights and battles the universe throws into the mix. From the earliest stories in the universe to the Dark Age we've seen a trend of power creep (both in Tech and in numbers) that did not keep in line with the idea of scarcity and difficulty maintaining stellar empires central to the BT Theme of high tech protagonists using their wit and grit to keep their machines going in the face of odds stacked against them. Abrupt insertions into the story-line of large numbers of 'Mechs popping out of the wood work is as common to the franchise as is maintaining a level of scarcity and rarity the universe continually demands. The Clans, Comstar Legions, "new Star League", WoB assault, etc., have large amounts of tech and activity come in seemingly out of nowhere leaving readers with a sense of struggle to come up ways to have it make sense.

Kind of like hammering in a square peg into a round hole.

So yes, I do agree when someone sits down and number crunches that things don't add up as nicely as it should. I'm sure every person that wanted to write a BT story would like to have at least done once in their stories a large epic battle.

That being said, if we remove the sudden glut of things constantly showing up in the universe we can understand somewhat more profoundly where the actual limitations in production would come about if things worked close to reality. The main limitation to churning out massive amounts of units are actually three things (so far that I came up with writing this): inter-stellar trade, communications, and lack of direct influence in local labor. Anyone wants to add more is welcome.

The majority of BT is risk averse and do not have an economy that works like we're used to here where you try to anticipate fluctuations in demand and respond to market forces. Interstellar communications is much too slow to respond in real time to a galactic market on the scale and size of BattleTech. So as is trying to calculate demand, which is why we're doing this number crunching in the first place, and leaves the various corporations risk averse to over produce and gain market control unless they have inside knowledge to do so OR have some form of guarantee they won't go under in the process.

If we remove communications as a stumbling block we then have another bottleneck of sourcing materials once we're going interstellar. This puts an upper limitation to the risk on what a corporation would produce and what raw materials they will ask for given that it takes roughly 1-2 months to ship things via freight in BT one-way. Also, it is prohibitively expensive if you wanted smaller quantity items (like a production run of small lasers or MGs) as it is normally easier to ship via freight a large bulk of raw materials or a large amounts of finished product to market. You will lose out if you're in the middle given the amount of fees that add up while trying to quickly sell something to an available market.

Now we come to labor and probably the most ignored part of the universe and yet the most relevant. When a corporation is ready to produce things, now it comes down to gaining enough skilled workers to produce as many things needed to reduce costs and increase profits. So, the majority of laborers are seasonal staff hired when things are ready for assembly. Additional pressure is also applied when you factor in the lack of direct influence said House Lord or Clan Khans has in the every day life of the folks at the near-bottom peg of society. These folks political allegiance is to his/her local assembly on the local planet and not his house lord, empire, or clan domain. There is no actual way to influence labor than through an equivalent exchange for services and thus limits the ready population of skilled laborers as full time staff to produce things quickly to market. The majority of labor ends up other labor intensive occupations such as mining or logging or in sustainable occupations like agriculture. Most of the universe was written before the large influence of automation we have today. Even if we tried to reason automation into the picture the costs of transitioning from a colony of settlers to a completely automated society costs way too much to organically achieve unless it is plot written. IF it is automated fully, then the laborer is completely liberated and I will leave it to the reader to make conclusions on how the universe would work (or not work).

So it's not really under production but rather only producing what is needed being very close to Marxists type of economy where the worker is not bound as firmly to his/her means of production for survival and somewhat liberated from it. The poster boy of only producing what is needed is Clan Smoke Jaguar and probably the most true to marxists economy whether or not the authors writing the story arcs intended to be it.

I hope this helps as some food for thought until the pop corn is done from the microwave and another 10 legions of Space Ma... I mean 4 Regiments of 'Mech duke it out to advance the story line.  >:D

this is an interesting view of the universe, but I think its not very accurate.

as I mentioned I always viewed the production limitations prior to "recent" times IE the 3040's and 50's as really being a symptom of how badly the innersphere was both mismanaged (on purpose) by the star league, and then smashed by the succession wars.

you have to remember that during the star league there were issues with directed economies that were so messed up that a planet could not feed its population but its only export product was shoes, and not just a few shoes but likely millions of pairs of shoes per year.

with that in mind what actually happened is you had many planets working much like having an entire city today known for a single product (kind of like Detroit and cars) I'm not saying that was their only product, but its what they were known for.

another factor is that while Lostech is tossed around as a big deal some of the novels commentary mention just how pervasive it is, but I'm not sure that a lot of people really think about what it really meant.

there was a mention in one of the blood of Kerensky novels that gave an example.  Phaelan was commenting that with the techs he was familiar with (kell hounds and wolfs dragoons) if he lost an actuator in his mech and the tech traced the fault back to a faulty chip in the actuator "control module" that modt techs would need an entire replacement actuator to fix the issue, wheras the clans would just replace the faulty chip, and then use a hand held programmer to load the correct programming into the replacement chip. the same "programmer" if the unit even had one, was a stationary console machine "think work bench or bigger"

what it amounts to is its not just a matter of loosing the information necessary, to build the battlemech, its more of an issue of not having the knowledge (and infrastructure) to build the tools to build the parts needed to build the tools to build the parts that go into the parts and tools to build the battlemechs.

another issue was that they didn't really have the knowledge (and capacity) to properly maintain many of the factories that were making the stuff, but ANY production was too critical to take it offline to try to analyze it (and risk breaking it) even if they were successful and were able to double (or more) their output.

[Sartris]

I'm wondering how you keep scaling up the defenses here.  I mean, if it's this easy to get the horde of Vedettes, horde of nukes, and sufficient ASF for a single planet, then the interstellar empire should find it even easier to drown you in a horde of attackers.

the conceit of the overwhelming defense conundrum relies on the conditions of 1) limited myomers and 2) limited KF drives (or some other factor that obviously keeps the in-universe number of jumpships small), per earlier in the thread. Changing either of these conditions moves the discussion outside the parameters of the original exchange.

while I like the myomer explanation,but it doesn't explain why conventional forces aren't in extreme abundance, especially on border worlds. Even if the attackers used nukes to clear a path, that doesn't prevent the defenders from having them too - and eventually those WMDs are going to take out your difficult-to-replace jumpships.

[Maingunnery]

the conceit of the overwhelming defense conundrum relies on the conditions of 1) limited myomers and 2) limited KF drives (or some other factor that obviously keeps the in-universe number of jumpships small), per earlier in the thread. Changing either of these conditions moves the discussion outside the parameters of the original exchange.

while I like the myomer explanation,but it doesn't explain why conventional forces aren't in extreme abundance, especially on border worlds. Even if the attackers used nukes to clear a path, that doesn't prevent the defenders from having them too - and eventually those WMDs are going to take out your difficult-to-replace jumpships.

Most worlds likely don't even have the industry to make combat vehicles, unless people want BAR4 vehs with rifle cannons.

[Dark Jackal]

this is an interesting view of the universe, but I think its not very accurate.

You cannot divorce the universe from being imposed by the limitations presented by communications, travel, and labor. To say these were not factors in trade would mean corporations have fore knowledge or fore sight into the future in order to break even and make a profit with any production item going to interstellar trade. Corporations in universe are largely independent and create sub-entities in states in order to go around trade embargoes to line it's own pockets with profits (usually C-bills or at least we assume).

Micro-economic realities imposed by a colonizing state varies in the universe and not quite up to the scale of galactic trade where military equipment production figures flows organically into the universe as a whole. They are hardly important to the flow of macro-economics, in so far as we can determine in a fictional universe whether a true market exists, and superfluous to know how well state sponsored colonization and forced "trade" factor into the whole. Bear in mind the Vindicator example I used earlier in the thread is an example of a state imposing it's will by stimulating trade, or what the Capellan state thinks as trade (good fluff), forcing a largely independent corporation to incorporate a weapon system that adds to the cost of the entire product. WE don't see that cost as the universe has a fixed price set by C-bills which ostensibly relates to the amount of Germanium that is in Fort Knox. There is nothing stopping said corporation in charging extra for any costs imposed by a state/entity.

Or in short, This deal's getting worse all the time!

[Alexander Knight]

while I like the myomer explanation,but it doesn't explain why conventional forces aren't in extreme abundance, especially on border worlds. Even if the attackers used nukes to clear a path, that doesn't prevent the defenders from having them too - and eventually those WMDs are going to take out your difficult-to-replace jumpships.

Aaaand we're back to the 1st and 2nd Succession Wars.  Understand that the "overwhelming defense" tactic was tried.  It resulted in nukes getting flung on both sides.  As humans in this setting lack the desire to a.) bomb civilization out of existence and b.) peacefully coexist, it was mutually decided to deliberately AVOID escalating to that level.

[SCC]

the conceit of the overwhelming defense conundrum relies on the conditions of 1) limited myomers and 2) limited KF drives (or some other factor that obviously keeps the in-universe number of jumpships small), per earlier in the thread. Changing either of these conditions moves the discussion outside the parameters of the original exchange.

while I like the myomer explanation,but it doesn't explain why conventional forces aren't in extreme abundance, especially on border worlds. Even if the attackers used nukes to clear a path, that doesn't prevent the defenders from having them too - and eventually those WMDs are going to take out your difficult-to-replace jumpships.

Yep, someone pointed out how if the defenders built huge numbers of of tanks the attackers would counter this with nukes, I responded that then the defenders will respond by build a nuclear armed deep space force, and you don't need to attack his JumpShips, just his inbound DropShips will be enough to stop the attack. Thoughts like this are a bad idea because they break the ground combat focus.

Problem with the myomer idea is that you end up comparing 'Mech ability per point of engine rating, and a Timber Wolf uses (say) 375 kg of myomers while 3 Locusts use 360, which would people want?

Most worlds likely don't even have the industry to make combat vehicles, unless people want BAR4 vehs with rifle cannons.

Pretty sure most worlds are more capable then then, BAR5 minimum, ranging up to BAR7.

Aaaand we're back to the 1st and 2nd Succession Wars.  Understand that the "overwhelming defense" tactic was tried.  It resulted in nukes getting flung on both sides.  As humans in this setting lack the desire to a.) bomb civilization out of existence and b.) peacefully coexist, it was mutually decided to deliberately AVOID escalating to that level.

Not if the there are no ground based defenses.

[Alexander Knight]

Yep, someone pointed out how if the defenders built huge numbers of of tanks the attackers would counter this with nukes, I responded that then the defenders will respond by build a nuclear armed deep space force, and you don't need to attack his JumpShips, just his inbound DropShips will be enough to stop the attack. Thoughts like this are a bad idea because they break the ground combat focus.

And then your space defenses get nukespammed right back.  Stuff a Mule full of AR10 launchers, or design a ship with strong anti-missile defenses and anti-ship weapons.  Nukes are not a panacea for planetary defense.

[SCC]

And then your space defenses get nukespammed right back.  Stuff a Mule full of AR10 launchers, or design a ship with strong anti-missile defenses and anti-ship weapons.  Nukes are not a panacea for planetary defense.

You think that the defenders can't do those things to? But my point is that the universe stops being about 'Mechs at this point.

[Alexander Knight]

You think that the defenders can't do those things to? But my point is that the universe stops being about 'Mechs at this point.

My point is there is no such thing as "absolute defense".  Trying to pretend otherwise is foolish.

[Maingunnery]

Pretty sure most worlds are more capable then then, BAR5 minimum, ranging up to BAR7.

Most worlds aren't core worlds, so why would they support heavy armor production or even be allowed to do that?

Not if the there are no ground based defenses.

The succession wars happened, even worlds with space-born defenses died.

[Sartris]

but with established in-universe limits on certain valuable assets, especially on the attacking side, there is prohibitively dangerous defense. (I never even considered substantial orbital defenses in my original hypothesis apart from aerospace fighters)

my point wasn't that overwhelming defense was obi-wan on the high ground, but that attempting to smash through a series of relatively low-tech strongholds would exhaust assets much faster than they could be produced.

[Maingunnery]

but with established in-universe limits on certain valuable assets, especially on the attacking side, there is prohibitively dangerous defense. (I never even considered substantial orbital defenses in my original hypothesis apart from aerospace fighters)

my point wasn't that overwhelming defense was obi-wan on the high ground, but that attempting to smash through a series of relatively low-tech strongholds would exhaust assets much faster than they could be produced.

I think you are over-estimating the effect of the low-tech defenses, a lot of them will be spread around, and they won't help if the attacker stops using conventional assets and starts using strategic assets.

[Sartris]

I think you are over-estimating the effect of the low-tech defenses, a lot of them will be spread around, and they won't help if the attacker stops using conventional assets and starts using strategic assets.

sure, if those assets are available. i was operating under the assumption that there just weren't that many post-2SW.

Regardless, this entire sidetrack wasn't even the purpose of why I brought it up in the first place - it was actually to discredit my own pet theory that myomer shortages were the explanation (or at least a major one) behind mech production bottlenecks.

[Daemion]

Regardless, this entire sidetrack wasn't even the purpose of why I brought it up in the first place - it was actually to discredit my own pet theory that myomer shortages were the explanation (or at least a major one) behind mech production bottlenecks.

Well, when you want to talk about one thing, it'll be surprising what all you missed when formulating your discussion.

Limitations on numbers brings up the questions of 'Why', but also, 'Why isn't something being done to get around those limitations?'

I just wanted to point out that Myomers aren't the only limiting factor, but one of many other little things that build into one heaping pile of the Trash Island that is limited Mech numbers. And, that brought me to want to add the notion that maybe there really is no bottleneck.

As for myomers in limited numbers, I kinda wonder if tanks also don't use them in the very same weapon systems mounted in their turrets. Recoil compensation for the heavy cannons. BT Tanks have a turret traverse rate which is far superior to what we have today. Myomers could be part of the reason. If that's the case, then the same bottleneck you're proposing applies to them, too.

Sure, the construction rules don't come right out and say that, but the don't deny it, either. We honestly don't really know what goes into a 27th century MBT until someone writes up a full break-down.

Same would go for Fighters of any type (Control Surface and thruster orientation actuators).

And, BattleArmor definitely has Myomers powering a suit's movement.

The sidetrack into escalating defense with cheaper stuff in vast quantities, and the fact that it hasn't been done in fiction since the Age of War, or the first two Succession Wars, or lately, the Jihad, suggests that the bottleneck really is more than mechanical. Not saying that there aren't some mechanical short-fallings somewhere for any particular factory or depot, but the lack of vast armies of combatants of a more conventional nature, or space-borne nature, definitely points more to social and economic restrictions.

Turns out the subject might be a little more complicated than 'missing widgets', right?

[SCC]

As for myomers in limited numbers, I kinda wonder if tanks also don't use them in the very same weapon systems mounted in their turrets. Recoil compensation for the heavy cannons. BT Tanks have a turret traverse rate which is far superior to what we have today. Myomers could be part of the reason. If that's the case, then the same bottleneck you're proposing applies to them, too.

Could be or could just be faster/better motors. Just realize that these other uses would use very little myomers compared to how much a 'Mech needs to just move.

[Jellico]

It tend to think the magic widget is far more squishy.

It is the MechWarrior.

The requirement is for a human you can plug into a neural helmet who can then drive a Mech.

Clearly they are not common and the existence of multi generational Warrior families suggests a genetic element. That the Clans are able to operate with a higher ratio of Warriors to population furthers this idea.

So I would suggest the production rates of the infrastructure is tailored to the number of potential pilots.

[SCC]

There's a problem with that thought: Life's Cheap, BattleMechs Ain't

[ANS Kamas P81]

There's a problem with that thought: Life's Cheap, BattleMechs Ain't

"Life of everyone else who isn't a mechwarrior"

[SCC]

Given the, lets call it ad copy, for the FedSuns Training Battalions I doubt there's a shortage of MechWarriors

[Daemion]

Yeah. People wouldn't have worried about dispossession if that really were the case.

 

[Rainbow 6]

Who said anything about putting them on the planet? They could well be launched from ASF or DS, or even from free floating missile launchers.

Then you go full WoB and fire asteroids from the edge of the solar system on a trajectory that intersects with the planetary orbit.

[SCC]

Apart from the fact that that doesn't get you a conquered planet, it may not work. A system with a large deep space force could very well detect, intercept and divert the asteroids before they got anywhere near the planet.

[Alexander Knight]

Apart from the fact that that doesn't get you a conquered planet, it may not work. A system with a large deep space force could very well detect, intercept and divert the asteroids before they got anywhere near the planet.

Correct.  It *does* tell other planets that if they're too much hassle to get conquered, they get destroyed.  The populace of the Inner Sphere has, by and large, decided that forcing attackers to escalate to the level of rendering a planet uninhabitable is a bad idea.

[SCC]

The problem is that such an asteroid would have to be escorted in by your fleet to stop their fleet from diverting it, which really makes your fundamental problem worse instead of better as the attacker, your now anchored to this hard to divert rock.

[haesslich]

The problem is that such an asteroid would have to be escorted in by your fleet to stop their fleet from diverting it, which really makes your fundamental problem worse instead of better as the attacker, your now anchored to this hard to divert rock.

Why does it need to be escorted? A fast moving object needs quite a lot of force to deflect it, as just shattering it means you've got the same mass spread out instead of hitting all in one spot.

Besides, just like now, you won't want to use just one rock. If your system is too hard to invade, I'm smashing the main planet at least and as much infrastructure as I can. Thus we need to overwhelm your defenses by hitting you with enough fire that you can't intercept everything. Especially if it's coming from multiple areas.

Jump points aren't just small circles where everyone is parked in spitting distance, not even jumps don't put you in the exact spot you're aiming for - it puts you in that star system in a fairly large area of space.

Sure, you may see the jump emergence wave in minutes if you've got forces station keeping in the general area, but it'll still take hours to get there given the vastness of space. More than enough time to launch a swarm of a few hundred Killer Whales on a ballistic course for important targets. Or I can launch rocks from outside the system.

Or I can use suicide ships jumping into the pirate points to launch everything they have. If I'm not in a mood to conquer because I need to make an example, I'm going all out, 1SW style. NBC and maybe some drones to record the results so I can share them with my next target.

This isn't Star Trek or Star Wars with sensor suites that use FTL tracking to see things in real time across whole star systems while being able to cross them in minutes.

[Nightlord01]

Correct.  It *does* tell other planets that if they're too much hassle to get conquered, they get destroyed.  The populace of the Inner Sphere has, by and large, decided that forcing attackers to escalate to the level of rendering a planet uninhabitable is a bad idea.

While this is sort of true, it's not really. The only thing that has convinced the planetary populations to simply accept new rulers has been the relative lack of change that comes about with the new government, not the threat of annihilation. You start throwing that around and the reaction is far more complex than you could ever imagine.

Essentially your course of action is a re-write of the old Nuclear Utilization Theorists agenda, where as the opposing approach is the Mutually Assured Destruction agenda. They are both attempts to reduce to simplicity something that is inherently complex, and both are right and wrong in their own way.

[Nightlord01]

Why does it need to be escorted? A fast moving object needs quite a lot of force to deflect it, as just shattering it means you've got the same mass spread out instead of hitting all in one spot.

Besides, just like now, you won't want to use just one rock. If your system is too hard to invade, I'm smashing the main planet at least and as much infrastructure as I can. Thus we need to overwhelm your defenses by hitting you with enough fire that you can't intercept everything. Especially if it's coming from multiple areas.

Jump points aren't just small circles where everyone is parked in spitting distance, not even jumps don't put you in the exact spot you're aiming for - it puts you in that star system in a fairly large area of space.

Sure, you may see the jump emergence wave in minutes if you've got forces station keeping in the general area, but it'll still take hours to get there given the vastness of space. More than enough time to launch a swarm of a few hundred Killer Whales on a ballistic course for important targets. Or I can launch rocks from outside the system.

Or I can use suicide ships jumping into the pirate points to launch everything they have. If I'm not in a mood to conquer because I need to make an example, I'm going all out, 1SW style. NBC and maybe some drones to record the results so I can share them with my next target.

This isn't Star Trek or Star Wars with sensor suites that use FTL tracking to see things in real time across whole star systems while being able to cross them in minutes.

I suppose the real question here is: Why are you not in a mood to conquer? What are you going to do once the reprisals start rolling in?

The only way you can possibly make this work is if you have total military superiority, as soon as your opponents can hit back with equivalent means, it's not a good policy.

[SCC]

Why does it need to be escorted? A fast moving object needs quite a lot of force to deflect it, as just shattering it means you've got the same mass spread out instead of hitting all in one spot.

What is this fast you speak off? We're talking about an object weighing 100's of millions, if not billions, of tons, by the time you've built enough engines to get it accelerating fast enough to get the speeds your talking about it's probably more cost effective to build enough WarShips to invade the system. And you've got to hope that someone doesn't stumble onto your weapon before you launch it.

Besides, just like now, you won't want to use just one rock. If your system is too hard to invade, I'm smashing the main planet at least and as much infrastructure as I can. Thus we need to overwhelm your defenses by hitting you with enough fire that you can't intercept everything. Especially if it's coming from multiple areas.

And all the problems above just got worse.

Or I can use suicide ships jumping into the pirate points to launch everything they have. If I'm not in a mood to conquer because I need to make an example, I'm going all out, 1SW style. NBC and maybe some drones to record the results so I can share them with my next target.

I having trouble here, why doesn't the planet have anti-missile defenses to stop stuff like this?

This isn't Star Trek or Star Wars with sensor suites that use FTL tracking to see things in real time across whole star systems while being able to cross them in minutes.

BT really fails the realism test here, for a projectile of the size your talking about, with the acceleration you want, the drive flare will be visible throughout the ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM, it's a giant SOLAR FLARE, it may well be visible from the planet without assistance IN BROAD DAYLIGHT!