How do you purchase transport for your units in Alpha Strike?

[Recklessfireball1]

Reading through the rulebooks, I couldn't find how to determine whether or not your unit owns its own Dropship/JumpShip transports.  Is the rule hiding in there somewhere, or is that something that was simply left up for the players/GM to determine for themselves (by mutual agreement, or what have you)?

[Atlas3060]

For the typical Alpha Strike game, it probably doesn't matter.
As the scenario is set up, it is unspoken that there's enough transports to get your stuff to where they need to be.

If you are playing a campaign, with a system like the Chaos Campaign system; Warchest Points for a track tend to be that abstract sense of getting enough support for your forces to do this.

Now if you're playing a bit more hardcore or detailed; I'd think that whenever Dropships get a Point Value, groups can come to some agreement.

Mind you all of this is before Campaign Companion comes out, which is supposed to be the big book of Campaign creation. Naturally I'm hoping they'll have Alpha Strike rules alongside the Total Warfare counterparts.

[Recklessfireball1]

Cool.  I pretty much figured that might be the case.  Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.  Thanks for the info.    I'll keep an eye out for the Campaign Companion.

[pheonixstorm]

Considering the popularity of Alpha Strike, the work done for running a campaign in AS and AS Companion, plus having a print home for the Chaos Campaign rules it seems a no brainer that Campaign Operations would have more AS goodies.

[Atlas3060]

it seems a no brainer that Campaign Operations would have more AS goodies.

Well that and taking into account CGL's unofficial mindset about rules:
"Yeah put that in, that too, kitchen sink? Chapter 9! We'll split books up worst case." 

[pheonixstorm]

 O0 That! That is so signature worthy. Worktroll we found you a new sig!

[Recklessfireball1]

Glossing through the Alpha Strike Companion this morning, I realized there is another reason to ask this question.  When finding a forces starting support (pgs 168 to 170), you add together the SP values for the various unit types in your force, the multiply by your forces average skill rating, apply house/clan/merc multiplier, ect.

The thing is, DropShips and JumpShips are worth a whopping 10,000 and 50,000 SP's, respectively.  In the spirit of CCP force construction, in order to give players a reason to not just take the best of everything (in this case, a DropShip and JumpShip- or multiple units of that type- in order to get a bunch of SP's), shouldn't there be a CCP cost for determining this?

Personally, I do feel there really ought to be a CCP cost for determining personal transport for a force, in order to properly have balanced campaign play via balanced force construction.

Thoughts?  Opinions?  Add hoc house rule suggestions to implement this if, or until, there is an official ruling?

[Fabe]

Well that and taking into account CGL's unofficial mindset about rules:
"Yeah put that in, that too, kitchen sink? Chapter 9! We'll split books up worst case." 

Speaking as a Shadowrun player  I think that might just be the mindset for the Battletech line

[nckestrel]

In the Alpha Strike campaign, transport is part of the warchest costs for a track, along with most other background details (salaries, health care, building maintenance..).
If you want a DropShip as a combat unit as part of your force, then you have to pay for it (PV, SP to  acquire later in campaign, etc).

[Atlas3060]

Speaking as a Shadowrun player  I think that might just be the mindset for the Battletech line

I've seen some Shadowrun releases.
Though I love our surviving FASA cousins as well; I have to wonder if you guys were competing with Avatar: Last Airbender on the "How many animal mish-mashes we can make?" contest for a while. 

Either way all in good fun.

nckestrel's right, the calculation of points should be seen as only for bringing units into the game.
Theoretically your forces have all sorts of support people, vehicles, medics, etc.
However that's all "off camera" and not in the fight. Though if you want to bring support elements in to fight, I know a few players like that, then pay up the costs. Same go for Dropships too.

While your forces duke it out, they are off camera, sitting down and watching the fight.
Probably even placing bets on who wins, but they won't tell you who among them bet you'd lose. 

[Recklessfireball1]

I need to go back and read the Campaign in the Alpha Strike Core book, I suppose.

As I think about it, only merc units would really need to determine this.  House units would all have DropShip/JumpShip transport (though exactly how many of each, might require digging into some BattleTech Field Manuals, or something- or you could just assume they have just enough of each kind of transport to move all their forces).

Without looking through the warchest rules, a quick and dirty house rule occurs to me;  Roll 1d6 for each (DropShips and JumpShips, I mean) and reference a table based on your units Skill level.  Assume enough of each kind of transport to move all of your forces, if your roll indicates that you possess transport of that kind.

Unit is Green or Less:  Has own DropShip on a 5+/JumpShip on a 6
Unit is Regular:  Has own DropShip on a 4+/JumpShip on a 5+
Unit is Veteran:  Has own DropShip on a 3+/JumpShip on a 4+
Unit is Elite: Has own DropShip on a 2+/JumpShip on a 3+
Unit is Heroic or better:  Automatically has own DropShip/Has a JumpShip on a 2+

[Tai Dai Cultist]

There is at least one hint of support forces coming into play in the more complex ASC campaign system... if you purchase something with the MFB special you get a discount on repair costs.

I'd like to see that rule revisited.  For a paltry 5PV you can just about get a blanket -25% SP deduction to your repairs.  If you're tracking time yeah you have to do your repairs one at a time (or just spend another 5PV and do repairs two at a time..) AND you get a -50% time requirement per repair as well.  That's broken imo.. too good NOT to take.

I think though that there's promise for buying campaign advantages via specialist support units. There's a similar discount rule for healing your WIAs if you paid for a MASH unit.  Mobile Headquarters units give you the battle-applicible MHQ special as well as campaign initiative modifiers.  I'd like to see more rules encouraging purchasing things like Coolant Trucks, Bridge Layers, and Engineering Vehicles.  If you bother to pay PV for dropships, I think you should get to use the dropping troops rules for any scenario you like, for example.

I need to go back and read the Campaign in the Alpha Strike Core book, I suppose.

As I think about it, only merc units would really need to determine this.  House units would all have DropShip/JumpShip transport (though exactly how many of each, might require digging into some BattleTech Field Manuals, or something- or you could just assume they have just enough of each kind of transport to move all their forces).

The bolded part is pretty much as far as the AS rules go at this point.  AFAIK the only nod to transportation in the campaign rules is when you purchase new units/pilots mid-campaign, you have to wait a few scenarios for them to arrive.  You're automatically assumed to have a logistical pipeline even if you're the attacker on a hostile world.

As mentioned upthread, the upcoming Campaign Companion will surely give the option to flesh that out beyond that basic assumption.