Changing Universe Rules from Mech-centric to Aero-centric?

[Daryk]

That looks like a good baseline, but I really think I'd make more of a distinction between the ultra-optimized "normal" civilian cores (95% of the mass, not 90%... OG StratOps, page 149 refers) and the primitive ones.  I think those civilian cores are more in the class of the Compact Cores given the extreme engineering poured into them.  Seriously, how many modern systems (not objects) can claim 95% of the mass is devoted to the primary function?  Real world systems end up devoting most of their weight to enabling functions.  The brilliance of the BT universe's engineers was drawing the line between interstellar and interplanetary transport.  Those two functions require very different things.

[RifleMech]

It's the matter of FASAnomics and the sheer size and scope.  the militaries in canon are scaled to be appropriate-for a single nation-state on earth in the mid 20th century, but we've got hundreds (thousands?) of planets, ranging from barely colonized (40,000 or so residents) to fully developed (7-10 billion residents).

Even at a dollar a year per working-age person, the numbers get into the "needs to be tracked with scientific notation because of all the zeroes".  When you actually get into reasonable tax-rates, with a straight mean average?  it gets into absurd numbers for anything bigger than a moderate sized midwestern american town.

Much of the scale problem is how big the writers made everything without scaling the details to match.

as pointed out here:

and yet it isn't, because the writers and devs really can't seem to grasp what they've done or follow the rule of natural consequences regarding what they've done in the past, the sourcebooks, and the TRO's.

Thirty thousand SEEMS like a lot when you look at a typical enlisted tech-but here's the thing: when I was a radar tech for a guided missile system, I was still making less than minimum wage, and wouldn't be earning EQUAL to civilian minimum wage until E-5.

Soldiers, even highly-skilled ones, don't get paid shit.
I knew a few E-6's whose families qualified for welfare and food stamps on top of their TriCare and BHA.

IF they could even GET post housing instead of renting a trailer just off post.  Compared to a Sergeant's pay, working at the late-night-stop-and-rob is earning a bleeping fortune.

and it's not a new phenomena.  When you look at soldier's pay from ancient times to the present, even your high-skill specialist fields get paid a fraction of what they can earn in the civilian market if there's a civilian market for them to work in.  (an E-5 diesel tech has all the same skills as Bennie over at the Dieselstop on Interstate 666, but Bennie's making somewhere around 3-10 times as much for the same work, after expenses.)

the only exception to this, are skills that are NOT in demand in the civilian market.  Nobody in the modern world is hiring Nuclear Ordnance Techs-so there's no comparison in the civilian market and the military wage is the only wage (but most of those guys are using skills that ARE transferrable, and to better paying work in the civilian market.)

I agree FASAnomics has issues. I also agree that X item shouldn't cost more because of what it's mounted on. I also agree that pay for military is abysmal, which is being really polite. The thing is if the USA is a House, and each district is a state, and each county a planet, how many counties, even well off ones own a warship, much less a fleet?

According to Wiki only 32 US States had a naval militia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_militia Even if they all had a warship or two that's not a lot of warships. At 12B a year, over a couple hundred years, they could have sizable fleets. Add them all together, and the House's militia fleet is in the thousands. That House Fleet would have to be many times that, right? That ends up being thousands of watships. That may be okay for the SLDF but t seems rather high for a militia

[Charistoph]

According to Wiki only 32 US States had a naval militia.

Not really a fair comparison.  Many states have no access to any deep water, much less ports, so aren't candidates for having one, like my home state of Arizona or my wife's Utah.

I don't know of a planet which doesn't have access to the void of space.

[RifleMech]

Not really a fair comparison.  Many states have no access to any deep water, much less ports, so aren't candidates for having one, like my home state of Arizona or my wife's Utah.

I don't know of a planet which doesn't have access to the void of space.

It works in a way. They'd represent the middle class worlds. Poorer worlds wouldn't have a naval militia. Rich worlds would have a larger one.

In real life, many of these are historical in nature. Wiki only has 5 naval militia's active and as far as I can tell, they don't have any warships. Of those few that I have found that had warships, they haven't had them for 100 years or more. It looks like they get more of their training with Navy or Coast Guard personnel. Most are even reservists in those organizations.

The point is the number of warships among them is low. Even if you account for museum ships, it's low. While I would love for there to be more warships, I think being able to buy 1-4 a year is a bit much. At some point that purchasing power has to be turned to maintenance.

I think most militia navies would be made up of more dropships than warships. I also can't see more than a dozen or so warships for the more richer systems, with a number of them being mothballed in reserve or as museum ships. The poorer planets might have to make do with just dropships. Presuming they could afford them. After all, if each planet had a couple hundred warships on active duty, what would the House navy do? I also don't think the House would want their planets to have full size naval task force. They wouldn't want all that firepower out of their control.

[AlphaMirage]

That is one of the reasons I think the FWL prioritized it's Fleet the LCCC didn't want the provinces blasting each other with high tech pocket and normal Warships. I definitely think that if there wasn't a neo-Feudal aristocracy built upon land and resource ownership instead of a Central one based on Commerce there would be greater emphasis on aerospace fleets

[Charistoph]

It works in a way. They'd represent the middle class worlds. Poorer worlds wouldn't have a naval militia. Rich worlds would have a larger one.

It doesn't properly work as there is a huge difference between just being too poor to afford a navy and literally having no place to put said navy.  It throws the numbers off considerably.

In real life, many of these are historical in nature. Wiki only has 5 naval militia's active and as far as I can tell, they don't have any warships. Of those few that I have found that had warships, they haven't had them for 100 years or more. It looks like they get more of their training with Navy or Coast Guard personnel. Most are even reservists in those organizations.

The point is the number of warships among them is low. Even if you account for museum ships, it's low. While I would love for there to be more warships, I think being able to buy 1-4 a year is a bit much. At some point that purchasing power has to be turned to maintenance.

With the average civilian ship only being armed with small arms (if that) these days and the USN and USCG providing general defense of the seas (as they are national borders) as opposed to the Age of Sail when going around unarmed was suicide I think explains a lot of that information.

I think most militia navies would be made up of more dropships than warships. I also can't see more than a dozen or so warships for the more richer systems, with a number of them being mothballed in reserve or as museum ships. The poorer planets might have to make do with just dropships. Presuming they could afford them. After all, if each planet had a couple hundred warships on active duty, what would the House navy do? I also don't think the House would want their planets to have full size naval task force. They wouldn't want all that firepower out of their control.

Dropships, maybe.  Militia is a funny thing.  Not too long ago, it was just armed citizens who were not professional soldiery working to defend their town.  Naval militia were just usually fishermen or what merchants called a port home, and those latter only counted when they were actually there.  This is where a good portion of the Dropships would be considered, for the most part.

Today, it includes part-time/semi-professional soldiers who have gear provided by the state.  Maintaining void vessels like combat Dropships and ASF is expensive, and your average citizen isn't going to be paying for it.  The planet's government might, and that's where it stops being a militia in my eyes, but a planetary guard.  They might be part-time, but still sponsored and supported by the local state.  The same would be said of Combat Vehicle crews on the ground, not owned and maintained by their crews (in general), but by the planet's government.

[RifleMech]

That is one of the reasons I think the FWL prioritized it's Fleet the LCCC didn't want the provinces blasting each other with high tech pocket and normal Warships. I definitely think that if there wasn't a neo-Feudal aristocracy built upon land and resource ownership instead of a Central one based on Commerce there would be greater emphasis on aerospace fleets

Probably. Although, I don't think the Feds would want lower powers to get too powerful though. It's like the TH keeping all the best SLDF Tech for themselves and letting the Houses use standard tech.

It doesn't properly work as there is a huge difference between just being too poor to afford a navy and literally having no place to put said navy.  It throws the numbers off considerably.

True. However if you substitute stats for planets the analogy works. Some planets would be poor. Some planets would be very rich. Those in the middle would be middle class.

With the average civilian ship only being armed with small arms (if that) these days and the USN and USCG providing general defense of the seas (as they are national borders) as opposed to the Age of Sail when going around unarmed was suicide I think explains a lot of that information.

Piracy still happens though. They generally don't use warships now days but it still happens.  Battletech also does have a Age of Sail element to it since the Pirates can be as well armed or better than the Militia.

Dropships, maybe.  Militia is a funny thing.  Not too long ago, it was just armed citizens who were not professional soldiery working to defend their town.  Naval militia were just usually fishermen or what merchants called a port home, and those latter only counted when they were actually there.  This is where a good portion of the Dropships would be considered, for the most part.

Today, it includes part-time/semi-professional soldiers who have gear provided by the state.  Maintaining void vessels like combat Dropships and ASF is expensive, and your average citizen isn't going to be paying for it.  The planet's government might, and that's where it stops being a militia in my eyes, but a planetary guard.  They might be part-time, but still sponsored and supported by the local state.  The same would be said of Combat Vehicle crews on the ground, not owned and maintained by their crews (in general), but by the planet's government.

Very true. I think more true militia would be found more towards the periphery where they can't afford a more planetary guard style militia. That or the civilian militia supplements the professional militia. At best they might have a couple old dropships acting as flag ships and carriers for some old small craft and fighters. Or maybe a small old space station or a large manned satellite.

The wealthier and more populated planets would have more planetary guard professional militia. How many are full timers compared to part timers along with how much equipment and it's quality would increase along with the planets importance.

That's why I'm not sure about 12B for middle class planets. Their being able to buy multiple warships, even small ones, every year, seems a bit much to me. I can see 1 every few years, maybe, depending on the size of ship and the planet's importance. There'd still be a lot more warships but not so many that each planet has a task force.

[MDFification]

That's why I'm not sure about 12B for middle class planets. Their being able to buy multiple warships, even small ones, every year, seems a bit much to me. I can see 1 every few years, maybe, depending on the size of ship and the planet's importance. There'd still be a lot more warships but not so many that each planet has a task force.

I think most federal governments in the setting wouldn't want there to be jump-capable naval forces answerable to individual planetary governments at all. That kind of stuff is how the Outer Reaches Rebellion happened. It's hard to run centralized, interstellar autocracies if every population you govern can potentially make a play for controlling the space lanes - or worse, work together to oppose your rule.

On that basis, I suspect that no matter how much naval budget a given planet has, they're going to be prevented from purchasing anything larger that a DropShip.

[Daryk]

I think Cannonshop made a strong argument for his 12B figure.  He cut that down a LOT from the actual tax take that could be expected of a "middle class" planet, and some of that cut down was for maintenance and personnel costs of existing forces.  Humans can generate tremendous wealth when there are enough of them... 

The distribution of that wealth is a whole other ball of snakes... 

[RifleMech]

I think most federal governments in the setting wouldn't want there to be jump-capable naval forces answerable to individual planetary governments at all. That kind of stuff is how the Outer Reaches Rebellion happened. It's hard to run centralized, interstellar autocracies if every population you govern can potentially make a play for controlling the space lanes - or worse, work together to oppose your rule.

On that basis, I suspect that no matter how much naval budget a given planet has, they're going to be prevented from purchasing anything larger that a DropShip.

That would be a very good reason for why ships would be restricted. Still, its hard to say since personal armies are allowed. I also think the number of hulls and their tonnage would be restricted and that restriction would vary depending on the planets loyalty and importance. For some that the Navy will sell them a retired ship but the planet has to provide the weapons for it, and some weapons are not available. Others it could be whatever they can afford. Either way, the Navy makes a profit and frees up ships for other duties. Plus the can always draft them in to federal service if they need to without actually having to buy the ship.

It'd be like the Feds allowing California Navy to buy a couple old cutters or old destroyers or old frigates to patrol their coastline. Then moving the Coast Guard's cutters to strengthen the patrols along the Oregon and Washington Coastlines.

 

I think Cannonshop made a strong argument for his 12B figure.  He cut that down a LOT from the actual tax take that could be expected of a "middle class" planet, and some of that cut down was for maintenance and personnel costs of existing forces.  Humans can generate tremendous wealth when there are enough of them... 

The distribution of that wealth is a whole other ball of snakes... 

I'm certainly not arguing with his figures. I'm wondering if a middle class planet would have 12B extra to spend. Every year. Sure the budget has everything covered now. Next year though, the planet has to provide maintenance and a crew for that battleship they bought the year before. If the planet's GDP stayed the same but their expenses go up, wouldn't their NDP be reduced? So instead of a 12B surplus they may only have a 10B surplus?