ok i want my own willy wonla chocolate factory aka i want my own factory

[elf25s]

OK so what do we need to set up a factory that makes mechs?
obvious things first
a lot of creds...
access to material and engineers/ designers/testers/advertisers/sales
and location
so what else?

[Hptm. Streiger]

The right person in the right position. You need the support of the locals and the surrounding systems.
Speaking of systems the location is important.
Next the question of supply you don't produce on your own.

Example you want to build a factory on Ko in 1938 that produces shiny new Zeus Mechs.
Well when Defiance says no - you have some hardship and lots of brownnosing before you.
And when you finally get everything together - you still need Defiance Laser, Acts, and PPCs.

Oh you also need a licence. And when you have everything together - the Dracs drop by say thanks and buy all your supplies and finished Mechs and they pay with your blood.

[Robroy]

Also depends on what year you are playing in. My unit got mauled by the Falcons in 3050 despite winning. Sold the two clan dropships and most the salvage, half the money went to rebuilding the unit. Took a page from the Dragoons and Blackwell and invested the other half in a company.

The GM just pretty much used the rules for a land hold of what ever it is called now. Remenber, building or expanding a factory takes time and profits mite take a while to come back on investment. And sure you can sell those shiny new mechs for 10 million, but 95% of that goes back to the company to cover cost of building them. Maybe more if you are continuing R&D.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

OK so what do we need to set up a factory that makes mechs?
obvious things first
a lot of creds...
access to material and engineers/ designers/testers/advertisers/sales
and location
so what else?

During the Succession Wars era you'd need ComStar's blessing or you likely wouldn't have those things in the first place, and if you did have them you couldn't keep them without ComStar's blessing.  And ComStar's blessing is something someone wanting to combat the technological erosion wouldn't get.

[worktroll]

Most "factories" are final assembly areas - components shipped from across the stars plugged together in one place.

Often some major components - chassis or engine - will be locally made. Armour might be shipped in slabs, to be formed on site.

So what you need is a good relationship with (for example) VOX for engines, Martell for medium lasers, and Tru-Trac for guidance systems.

[Col Toda]

My solution was to steal what I could that I needed  or required and purchased what I could not . The Jihad had the WoB uplift the corporate HQ with all personal of Defiance Corp . This led to mechs I used frequently to have lost one of its point of manufacture and largest  .  I went to other corporate locations and raided key components from mech factories that the WoB had not got around to yet and purchased the rest so the mech I used frequently could still be made .  I put it in a sub optimal secret location which made production levels low and used the stolen components put manufacturing stamps from the original company as I replaced and produced parts for my own units . Then stockpiled and not sold any spares so when the Jihad ended the Combine and Nova Cats would have another source of supply for Dragon Fire mechs . This prevented the mech from becoming rare ( It would never become extinct as it used Marauder parts . ) Sometimes a manufacturer discontinues a  mech and retools to build more modern better ones and you can get the forms and licence to make the older design  mechs and parts on the cheap as the militia market is steady . Bottom line did not want to do it I found Specialty ammo factories far more cost effective in both operation costs and profit margins .  The mechs I made is what I used and acquired the capability to keep using the mechs as opposed to changing to a less optimal but currently made option . A lot of merc units and  Corporations own a Solaris VII Stable to test prototypes and variants , the Naganata being just one . Once you wanted to use the factory to make new variants then you needed engineering / designing teams .  The legal issues only came about when the Free Worlds league was going to solidify into a single political unit again and be in a position to make legal hell on behalf of the restructured Defiance Industries .  When you are broken up like the league was before the Dark Age you can get the dominant faction to rule your way in exchange for a lot of mechs by way of a fine so they can solidify there claim faster while the Combine officially recognizes the faction .  The reason for them to do it is if they don't : you recognize the second largest faction hand them over 150 mechs and make the first faction spend years longer subduing the other factions in exchange for indemnity on paper to the recognized government .  In a non-free market nation like the Combine internally it does not matter but once you want to sell to more factions then you have to toe the legal lines better . It matters What mechs you want to make and What market if any you want to sell in .  You can get backers IF the demand is there

[idea weenie]

You want to make Mechs?  A good idea would just be buying the materials and assembling it in a Mech bay on a Dropship.  Buy a bunch of fusion engines of the size you need, a bunch of internal skeletons, weapons, armor, cockpits, gyros, myomers, etc, and have your Techs get to work.

If you can't get all of that, you will need to make a factory to get the basic components of mechs made.  A good idea is to get the price of an item per ton, as a reflection on its complexity.  For example, the PPC is 200,000 C-Bills and 7 tons, for a cost of ~28,571 C-Bills per ton.  Regular armor is 10,000 C-B per ton.  So it would be easier to set armor manufacturing than PPC manufacturing.  Of course, armor will be damaged often so your factory's production might be just to keep your Mechs protected instead of for sales.

[Hythos]

If engaging the FWL any time through the 3030's, you might have PILES of AC/5's saved up.
Remanufacture 100 of those AC/5's to Light AC/5's, or possibly even UAC's, and re-sell 'em.

The downside to fabrication, is the amount of effort needed to improve/modify equipment, compared to their end resale value.
Difference in cost:
AC/5 = 125k
Light AC/5 = 150k
UAC/5 = 200k

Fabrication (SO p179) states the cost to fabricate hardware [bold]from scratch[/bold] would be 10x the time and cost:

fabrication will take 1,800 minutes, or 30 hours

. While some components of the standard AC/5 could be re-used, the over-all time & cost of fabricating could be assumed to be less than that of one from scratch.

An advantage here to refitting / remanufacturing a stockpile, is a function of labor-costs.. time spent for an Engineering or Technician team to design an upgrade that could be reproduced, would off-set the costs... IE, 10x 200k = 2mil Cbills & "30hrs" of time to reverse engineer a UAC/5. Production of "a different loading mechanism" could be easily offset by the time-cost-quality trifecta, and production-cost-factored into a price-each formula.

Off the top of my head, I'd guess rebuilding 100 AC/5's into UAC's (with sufficient technology and equipment and after developing the process procedure & upgrade parts), could run less than 1/8*200,000*10 in cost each, and an amount of time (labor) to fabricate....

Selling 100 AC/5's as salvage might net 6,250,000 Cbills at an average C-rating; but if spending 2mil  (designing) + 1,250,000 (fabrication costs) + 18,000 (13 units/week/tech-team labor), selling those 100 units as fabricated UAC/5s at half-value (100k each, unless vetted, tested, and commercialized) would yield 10mil-(3.250mil+18k) = 6,732mil, or for a bit under 500k Cbills potential profit over the straight sale of weapons...

[elf25s]

additional question. would having a lance or more mechs for security would be advisable?

i was thinking about location for the factory not being on the ground for security reasons more like in asteroid belt or long range orbit.

[guardiandashi]

additional question. would having a lance or more mechs for security would be advisable?

i was thinking about location for the factory not being on the ground for security reasons more like in asteroid belt or long range orbit.

to be honest the best security is to make the factory somewhat hard to get to, and from, and somewhat obscure.

if its an orbital factory, sure having some marines (infantry) as security, definitely battle armor (if available) and a few mechs might make sense, but I would also plan to have aerospace fighters and  some combat dropships, along with as many combat satellites as you can get away with.

for a ground factory, one trick I would try to do, is have underground trams, being the primary access and deliveries to and from the factory, preferably with security checkpoints well outside the factory proper.  and with the actual tram connections at the next towns over IE there are several towns/cities at least 10 miles away from the actual factory, the supplies (and workers) board subways and are transported underground to the actual factory complex. all materials leave the factory in a similar manner.
If you are really sneaky, the trams are sealed (vacuum tight) and run through evacuated tunnels, on maglev tram lines, thus no (or very little) sound to use to track the tram cars, and if you lie about how fast the trams actually run, and take measures to scramble things like inertial trackers, you could make it really difficult for people who don't really know to figure out exactly where your factory really is.

of course at that point your factory is in many ways an actual castle brian, just with significant manufacturing capability.

[elf25s]

if on the ground i was thinking about having few places instead just one point while having assembly of final product somewhere else. say have dual purpose or more than just dual use places that would manufacture components. say optics facility could double as scientific instruments specific parts manufacturer while producing lenses for lasers etc. place like that would not have to be heavly guarded and security could be cheaper too without much compromise. may take longer to get stuff in one place to put a mech but would be safer if cover for making civilian components is in place.
only one that would be harder would be endo steel production facility as i recall endo steel can be only made in 0g .