How accurate are the old fasa house books

[mrbooth]

So I am doing a campaign in 3025 and want to know if the old house books are accurate when it come to troop strength in 3025?

[Tai Dai Cultist]

They are the baseline upon which all of BattleTech is built.


As for "troop strength", they pretty much leave out mention of conventional forces.  Some books give more details than others... for example the House Liao book tells you how many line regiments of conventional forces the CCAF has.  However, that still doesn't tell you how many conventional regiments there are in the Confederation, as planetary militia and private armies do not fall under the CCAF umbrella.

So the raw numbers of mech forces are hard and fast.  In the House Armies.  Again, they leave unmentioned how many "loose" mech forces there are in the employ of private armies and militia.  (not to mention professional mercs that happen to not be employed by any given house as of the in-universe date of the sourcebooks).  Conventional forces are completely in the realm of the GM's preserve.

[mrbooth]

I am more looking at mech regiments, conventional​ force not so much always add those as needed.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Well, as I said whatever the House books say about mech regiments *is* the canon that has been subsequently built upon/added to.

In a few cases, there's 3025 lore that exists outside the House Books. Most are also from the 1980s, but also some retroactive sourcbooks like Brush Wars add to that era as well.

All of what I've said thus far aside: there is an intentional built-in degree of "unreliable authorship" to the House Book series.  They are, in an in-universe sense, ComStar documents for internal consumption.  A GM can cite ComStar obsfucation or ignorance to explain any detail (or absence of a desired detail) as an in-universe error by the ComStar acolytes who prepared the House Books.  So while the details are from our POV canonical, you're free to change whatever you want and you have "canonical" top cover to do so.  GM's perogative and all.

[Sartris]

So while the details are from our POV canonical, you're free to change whatever you want and you have "canonical" top cover to do so.  GM's perogative and all.

funding for corporate wetworks to take people out for altering canon in home games was cut drastically during the license transfer from FASA to WizKids, so no worries there.

I'd take the military dispositions more or less as printed if that's the era you plan to play in. The previously-mentioned Brush Wars or perhaps the 4th SW Atlas might make some minor alternations, but the time spent digging for conflicts and retcons in obscure sources probably isn't worth the effort.

[Don Lunardi]

...and probably best just to disregard any mention of how many 'Mechs a given House is cranking out a year :P

[Dayton3]

...and probably best just to disregard any mention of how many 'Mechs a given House is cranking out a year :P

Weren't the House mech production figures written back when the idea that the Inner Sphere was still a "scavenger economy" still in effect and you were much more likely to obtain a new battlemech by defeating it on the battlefield and salvaging the remains than simply purchasing one?

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Weren't the House mech production figures written back when the idea that the Inner Sphere was still a "scavenger economy" still in effect and you were much more likely to obtain a new battlemech by defeating it on the battlefield and salvaging the remains than simply purchasing one?

Not really.  Hesperus II "started out" as being the location of a giant warehouse full of functional battlemechs rather than the location of a factory where more are being built.  Steiner was, IIRC, the first of the house books, and even by then Hesperus II was already a factory world.  That being said, yes if you were shot out of your mech, you weren't likely to get a newly made factory built replacement.  Being "Dispossessed" was, when all was right with BattleTech and lives were cheap but battlemechs weren't, the greatest fear of a MechWarrior.  It was part of the lore that mechwarriors sometimes disabled their ejection seats because they'd literally rather die than live on after ejecting from their family's mech turned into a smoking crater.

Still, production numbers is an example where you can see an evolution in the House Book line.  Namely, the first books didn't offer any.  IIRC it's only the last two, Marik and Liao, that list them.  Those numbers may, in light of the retcons that came about in the succeeding three decades, be viewed as incorrect information compiled by ComStar.  Whether you choose it to be deliberate or not is part of the fun.

[Death by Lasers]

  Yeah, IIRC in the Wolf Dragoons scenario-pack Hesperus II was a described as a salvage yard.  Once the Housebooks came out mech-factories were firmly part of the setting. 

  As to mech production numbers.  I don't know, they seem proportional to total mech numbers.  Marik has what, 60 regiments of mechs in the housebook and produces something like 4 regiments a year in 3025.  That means in 15 years they could potentially double their number of mechs.  None of the Successor States have demonstrated an ability to rapidly double or triple their number of mechs over even prolonged periods of low-activity so 4 regiments a year for Marik fits the setting pretty well.  Plus the Successor State economies are growing from 3025-3060 so expanded production in later eras is entirely justifiable and likely if they are needed to explain the setting.

  If their is anything I would take with a grain of salt it's the population figures and whole conundrum they open up with Fasanomics, but these numbers are firmly part of canon so it's more a case of internal logic/plausibility than an issue canonicity.

[Frabby]

The production numbers aren't so much outright wrong as they are subject to interpretation. In what is largely a scavenger economy, how do you differentiate between newly-built vs. refurbished vs. repaired?
My favorite example is Liao 'Mech production as of 3025. You have different sources stating altogether six (iirc) different 'Mech manufacturing sites, where the state supposedly has only four. They supposedly couldn't build assault 'Mechs anymore yet were the only House to keep spare parts in production for their Highlanders.

[ajcbm]

The production numbers aren't so much outright wrong as they are subject to interpretation. In what is largely a scavenger economy, how do you differentiate between newly-built vs. refurbished vs. repaired?
My favorite example is Liao 'Mech production as of 3025. You have different sources stating altogether six (iirc) different 'Mech manufacturing sites, where the state supposedly has only four. They supposedly couldn't build assault 'Mechs anymore yet were the only House to keep spare parts in production for their Highlanders.

Ah... the old Hollis Incorporated "factories". Technically, Hollis could still make Highlanders and Catapults but they are made in pieces and by hand. They are then assembled someplace else like a jigzaw puzzle.

In 3025, they were less a 'Mech producer than a spare parts producer with parts factories in several planets.

[NeonKnight]

STUFF

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**edit** sorry, site does not keep for long the image :(

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[Death by Lasers]

  I'll take it!  O0  I can't seem to get it to work but I'll fiddle around with it.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Ah, the Decepticon Dance Party.

Also if you want more outdated fun, fish out the national descriptions in the first edition Mechwarrior RPG.  Each realm has right around one regiment per world, give or take a couple.