DropShip Conversions and Logistical Headaches

[Zweihart]

Alright so I've been trying to work out the logistics of the Clusters I want to use in my writing and I'm currently basically working out what DropShips I need to carry any given Cluster and the JumpShip capacity thereafter. Due to the configurations I've came up with, I've encountered some trouble: I can't find any Canon design to transport certain formations, and I'm trying to figure out what Canon DropShips I could use as a base for a Variant that can solve those issues.

Right now I have two unusual formations that don't have any Canon transport:
- A simple Command Nova with a star of 5 Mechs and a star of 25 Battle Armors
- A more unconventional Supernova with two stars of 20 combat vehicles and 2 stars of 10 platoons of conventional infantry.

From searching through a variety of designs on Sarna, I've been able to partially solve my situation by looking at the Seeker design and its customizable transport bays. So far, it seems perfect to transport the Command Nova and act as a field command DropShip due to its speed, extra amneties, durable design and good self-sufficiency. The wiki explicitely states that it's common for it to be reconfigured to carry a Lance of Mech while still having nearly the 3/4th of its vehicle capacity still untouched.

I haven't been able to find anything appropriate for the Supernova, though, so I was wondering: With all the extra space I still have in Trasport bays and a Cargo capacity of roughly '1'200 tons, would it be reasonable to fit both formations on this DropShip? I do not have access to the shipbuilding rulebooks or any shipbuilding fan program, so I have no way of calculating it for myself. As such I'd like the opinions of people who know better, and alternative suggestions if it doesn't work out.

Link to the Seeker page for ease of access http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Seeker

[Cryhavok101]

Do these formations all have to ride in the same transport? You could probably put all the battle armor into small craft that escort the 'Mech/Vehicle transports. There are a few clan dropships that carry small craft, but the jumpships you are using might as well. I know the Comitas JumpShip carries five small craft and a star of elementals.

[Zweihart]

They don't have to, but I'm interested in knowing whether it's possible because that would lower the total amount of DropShips and thus reduce the amount of Docking Collars capacity the Clusters using them needs.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Tip of the spear rides in combat transports.

Everyone else rides in civilian style bulk transporters and are offloaded in secured planetheads.

Clans aren't going to be that much different than anyone else*, at least when it comes to real warfare rather than ritual Trials.


*= major exception: those Clan forces riding in a WarShip.  Still, you only need a handful of combat transporters to ferry the troops from WarShip in orbit down to the planet itself.

[BritMech]

I've been thinking about how a DropShip would be used for frontline warfare, and really it doesn't make sense to use one or two DS to shuttle between a WS and the planet. You want to land with as large a force as possible and use the DS to establish your beachhead.

The DS can carry a lot of supplies, and has weaponry to provide some security during debarkation. It can have a MASH for wounded troops as well as comms equipment larger than the vehicles that would be deployed in the field.

Command structure would be inclined to be in the second or third wave, so likely not big on MASH facilities but probably a portable HPG to communicate with the higher-ups. More of the longer-term supplies, replacement parts and maybe empty cargo space for the spoils of war, particularly for Clans if they come across a Brian cache.

I'm a fan of WS with plenty of collars on them, because multiple large DS can fulfill more roles than the extra 10k tons for each collar. ASF DS to cover the approach, AMS screeners to protect the WS, Troop DS for planetfall and Cargo DS as needed. I guess it depends on what you expect the mission to be. A quick smash and grab or something more long term.

[Zweihart]

Maybe I've just read it wrong or it was written in a misleading manner, but from what I could gleam from looking up JS/WS pages on the wiki, while they have cargo space, they don't seem to have any actual transport capacity, which is what led me to believe that if I'm transporting troops, then I do need enough DS to account for them all, with the exception of Aerospace if you're going around with a WS that has enough Carrier capacity.

As of right now, the Clusters I've set up require either 4/7 Dropships if the Seeker can carry all the stuff I want to know if it can, or 5/7 if it doesn't. This is kind of annoying because even with the smallest of 4, that's over-capacity for a single Invade-class JumpShip, which is basically the only JS described as relatively common and widespread, with the 7-DS Cluster being too big for two of them no matter what.

I could have one of the York-Class WS with 2 docking collars + one Invade and that would give me a 5-DS capacity that works no matter what, though, so it's not that bad. I don't really want to assign any WarShip permanently to any given cluster though since they basically only have 2 of those and they need them for a million things.

Anyways, at this point I'm mostly just rambling and thinking out loud, feel free to as well.

[Cryhavok101]

Are you trying to fit a full cluster in as small a number of DropShips as possible, with everything in transport bays? Or are you just trying to find transports for those two formations? If the first, it would be useful to know how many of each unit type is in the cluster, rather than just those two components of it.

If the second, my proposal:

Command Nova
5 'Mechs, 25 battle armor
Comitatas JumpShip
-Carries 25 battle armor and 5 assault shuttles to transport the battle armor without using an extra docking collar.
-1 Docking collar for a Broadsword, which carries 5 'Mech Bays.

JumpShip arrives and launches small craft and DropShip towards planet, full nova deploys together. In fact I would go so far as to say the Comitatas looks like it was built to deploy a nova exactly that way. I do find it kind of odd that I can't find  a dropship that would drop a nova by itself. If you want to put it all in one dropship, an Outpost will fit it all, plus some extra friends.

Unusual Supernova
20 combat vehicles
10 platoons of conventional infantry
Clan Variant of the Lion class DropShip-Modified. Pull the 10 'Mech bays, and replace them with 10 heavy vehicle bays, and 10 light vehicle bays for the exact same weight. It already has infantry bays for all 10 platoons.

As you pointed out, it is an unusual formation, and they don't have a DropShip set up for just that. Even the Hell's Horses don't go that far into vehicles, judging by their transports. The Outpost is close, but only has one star of vehicles and one of 'Mechs, along with a star of battle armor rather than conventional infantry. They just don't have a single DropShip that carries 20 vehicle bays standard.

As an alternative, you could use two Wolf's Dragoons Lion variants, carrying 10 vehicles each, and put the infantry in the DropShip's cargo bays. Unless you were planning on airdropping the infantry, they can just walk on out of the cargo bay without a problem. That would get you down to 2 DropShips for that supernova, but if you have the option I would go with the modified clan lion for 1 DropShip carrying the entire supernova.

[Zweihart]

Only for those two formations, everything else is covered. Note that I do not have access to any form of rules for assault shuttles or regular shuttles so I don't know how they work and therefore am less comfortable with trying to use it, that's why I'm going with transport bays.

The initial question I was trying to ask was whether I have enough space between the reconfigurable transport bays and the extra cargo bay on the Seeker-class DropShip to fit everything, because I also do not have access to shipbuilding rules so I can't figure out myself if I could make a legal/working Seeker variant that would be able to transport both formations.

As for your suggestions, I don't think the Corsacs have the means, economic or military, to secure several somewhat rare, heavily armed Clan warships for each Cluster. The Comitatus DOES look interesting, especially with its 4 hardpoints, but I think I will probably have to make do with mostly relying on a bunch of common and somewhat-abundant Invader-classes due to difficulty in the characters securing anything more exotic for JumpShips.

[Cryhavok101]

Ah okay, I was under the mistaken impression that this was an actual clan unit, and was using that tech. That changes things. The seeker in TRO 3057 could easily be reconfigured to fit the 20 vehicles and 10 platoons of infantry.

For figuring out how you would modify DropShips, you can use this to mess around with the cargo bays:
'Mech Bay 150 tons-holds 1 'Mech.
Light vehicle bay-50 tons, holds 1 vehicle of up to 50 tons.
Heavy vehicle bay-100 tons, holds 1 vehicle of up to 100 tons.
Superheavy vehicle bay-200 tons, holds 1 vehicle or small craft up to 200 tons.
Fighter Bay-150 tons, holds 1 vehicle of up to 100 tons.
Small Craft Bay-200 tons, Holds on fighter or small craft up to 200 tons
Foot infantry platoon bay-5 tons, clan version holds 25 soldiers
Battle Armor point-10 tons, holds 1 5-man squad of battle armor

The bays for the Command Nova would take 750 tons for the 'Mech bays and 50 tons for the battle armor.

You can strip the 'Mech bays out of a DropShip and for ever 'Mech bay you can put in 1 heavy vehicle bay AND 1 light vehicle bay, or you could switch 2 'Mech bays for 3 heavy vehicle bays, so you could convert any number of 'Mech carrying DropShips for your vehicle formation... assuming any GM involved Okays making modifications.

Small craft operate like DropShips a lot. In fact their construction rules are very similar. They have the bays on board them to carry units. The small craft (aka assault shuttles) that you would probably want to transport the battle armor, if you decided to use them, would be Battle Taxis. Each battle taxi has 2 battle armor bays on board it, so you would only need 3 battle taxis to carry all 5 points of battle armor.

You could probably modify an overlord to carry both the command nova and the vehicle supernova, if you wanted to get them all on one DropShip.

If you are interested in modified designs, I can work one out for you, and probably quite a few others would probably be willing to as well.

As for carrying infantry in the cargo bays, You would first account for their weight in the cargo (approximately 50 tons for 10 platoons of foot infantry). Then you would need to account for life support, which if I remember right, off the top of my head it is 1 ton per 5 people per day, when those people are riding in cargo. In which case 10 platoons, assuming 25 men each would need 50 tons per day of life support, or 350 tons per week aboard the ship. It's definitely not the idea way to transport them, but it's doable on many DropShips. Putting them in bays reduces their life support needs by a lot. Deploying them would amount to them picking up their gear and walking off the ship with it.

[Zweihart]

Those numbers help tremendously, thanks.

So considering the Seeker has by default 40 LVB and separate quarters for 4 platoons that's (40*50) + (4*5) = 2020 total tons of proper transport space to work with.
750 = 5*150 (Mech Bays)
1000 = 20*50 (LV Bays)
50 = 5*10 BA Bays)
50 = 10*5 (Infantry Bays)
1850 used up Bay tons

So not only is it enough but I have roughly 170 tons of buffer to work with in the reconfigurable bays alone and fluff in amneties like simulators and medical and such.

Relatedly, I can't help but be slightly confused on the part about life support for crew in cargo. Do cargo space in BT not have any life support? How do the mechanics who take care of it get around and do their work? As for the life support components themselves, you make it sound like a consumable that runs out like bottles oxygen rather than any form of sustainable oxygen recycling/CO2 purifiers. Just looking at these numbers look like they would become prohibitively exponential for any trip of more than a handful of days

[Cryhavok101]

Do cargo space in BT not have any life support? How do the mechanics who take care of it get around and do their work? As for the life support components themselves, you make it sound like a consumable that runs out like bottles oxygen rather than any form of sustainable oxygen recycling/CO2 purifiers. Just looking at these numbers look like they would become prohibitively exponential for any trip of more than a handful of days

Consumables cover more than just air, but air is a part of it. It also covers food, water (for drinking and sanitary purposes), toiletries, meds, etc. All of the things a human consumes regularly.

Our current construction rules ties life support into the quarters, with normal quarters providing good life support of 1 ton of consumables covering 200 people for 1 day, next step down is bay quarters, the free quarters that are included in transport bays to cover the small tech crews and pilots, those are 1 ton of consumables covering 20 bay personnel for 1 day. The lowest step is passengers carried in cargo bays, which gets very prohibitive for long journeys, unless you can make regular supply stops, at 1 ton covering 5 people for 1 day (assuming I am remembering this right, I'm being lazy and not looking it up).

I imagine the real explanation is a balancing factor giving design min/maxers a reason to actually put bays and quarters in, since it actually gets cheaper, tonnage wise to have full quarters for everyone on board the longer your journey is (without resupply). I am not 100% sure of the in-universe explanation, but my guess is that these ships are built to minimize waste, and since cargo isn't in need of consumables, the ship isn't built to provide consumables to that area very well. I bet the ship's systems can provide water to the quarters much easier than to the cargo bays. Most of that is just my best guess though, not any kind of official word on it.

As far as I can tell, exoskeletons are used often to work in cargo bays, and the people operating them may very well be using rebreathers. They also aren't constantly working with cargo. For most of the trip, cargo just sits inert, so it really wouldn't require a lot of attention or life support in those areas. It would be packed to the consumables carried in cargo would be readily accessible, and minimize time spent in the cargo bay.

Some people say most of an invasion force would be carried in a cargo bay, so you might think a lot of technical work would go on in there, but I am pretty certain 15,000 tons of 'Mechs are gonna be strapped down until the DropShip lands and then techs will unpack them. At which point the bay doors can be open for all the fresh air you want. I don't think you would want 100 ton projectiles bouncing around inside your ship as you maneuver, so I don't think they would get unpacked from cargo before the ship lands. I also don't recall any fiction mentioning invasion forces being carried this way, so it may be one of those things players decide they do because it makes sense, but the ships aren't really designed for it... but then I'll also freely admit I haven't read all of the fiction. Either way, I hope this has been useful to you.

[Zweihart]

It has been, makes sense enough. Thanks again.

[BritMech]

Most Canon DS, JS and WS are not the best designs that can be made using the mechanics of construction, similar to how most Canon Mechs can be stomped by user designs.

"Best" has a few different meanings. For min/max players, there are better tonnage brackets that they like to use to allow the most armor/SI/weaponry/whatever they choose to give them the edge against their friends/mortal enemies. For those with a mind to RP as they design and play, few if any canon designs carry a Field Kitchen, MASH, NCSS or HPG.

Designing what you need is going to work better for you narratively.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Converting "raw" cargo space to troop/materiel transport capability is very easily done under the rules.  As pointed out upthread, you just have to account for less efficient consumption rates of consumables.

Here's an image that may help:



That's a real world 463L pallet stacked with chairs.  Load a few of those into a C-130 or C-17, and that's how you turn those cargo aircraft into passenger transports.  Scale the same idea up, and it's easy to imagine palletized bathrooms, air handlers, water recyclers, and everything else necessary to keep troops alive in space to go along with some palletized seating/living areas. 

Of course, materiel is even easier to transport as bulk cargo.  Just tie it down.  Unload it after the dropship lands in a secure planethead (ie, a place where your Union/Overlord dropped troops already cleared of hostiles).  Or in the case of a warship, untie the materiel and drive/walk it through lanes in the cargo bay to an appropriately typed bay for loading into a planet-bound shuttle.

[BritMech]

Consumables cover more than just air, but air is a part of it. It also covers food, water (for drinking and sanitary purposes), toiletries, meds, etc. All of the things a human consumes regularly.

Our current construction rules ties life support into the quarters, with normal quarters providing good life support of 1 ton of consumables covering 200 people for 1 day, next step down is bay quarters, the free quarters that are included in transport bays to cover the small tech crews and pilots, those are 1 ton of consumables covering 20 bay personnel for 1 day. The lowest step is passengers carried in cargo bays, which gets very prohibitive for long journeys, unless you can make regular supply stops, at 1 ton covering 5 people for 1 day (assuming I am remembering this right, I'm being lazy and not looking it up).

Can you remember which book this is in? I'm trying to find it an coming up short.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Can you remember which book this is in? I'm trying to find it an coming up short.

Strategic Operations pg 155

[Cryhavok101]

Can you remember which book this is in? I'm trying to find it an coming up short.

Took me a minute to find it, but it is on page 155 of strategic operations.

[BritMech]

Thanks. I was looking for a table, and forgot it was in a Wall'O'Text.

[Daryk]

Actually, page SO 44 has the correct numbers per this ruling.

[Cryhavok101]

Actually, page SO 44 has the correct numbers per this ruling.

I have the PDF, and it says the same in both places. Probably newer printed hardcopies do to.