Industrial Mech Numbers

[imperator]

I'm trying to find any data on how many Industrial Mechs, Security Mechs, or Militia Mechs would be on Poor, Average, and Affluent planets during the Dark Ages.  Does anyone have a sourcebook or a link to an older topic I may read?  Thank you.

[Weirdo]

That's the kind of information they specifically try to avoid publishing, because it would invariably become a tool for the fans to use against CGL. Heck, I would be immensely surprised if they ever actually created definitions for Poor, Average, or Affluent worlds.

The closest you'll likely find would be the Objectives series of pdfs, though those are set immediately post-Jihad, not in the Dark Age.

Long story short, there are as many or as few IndyMechs as you need.

[Marveryn]

That's the kind of information they specifically try to avoid publishing, because it would invariably become a tool for the fans to use against CGL. Heck, I would be immensely surprised if they ever actually created definitions for Poor, Average, or Affluent worlds.

The closest you'll likely find would be the Objectives series of pdfs, though those are set immediately post-Jihad, not in the Dark Age.

Long story short, there are as many or as few IndyMechs as you need.

Yep, i would say they are as many as plot demand.  I mean if you live in a world with ton of forest then you should expect at least a lance of forestry mech depending on how rich the colony is and its tech level.  So the numbers are always going to be fluid

[imperator]

Gah!!  Always when I want to do a campaign!  What would be a goos guess? 2x to 10x normal battlemechs?  Are there any Dark age scenarios or setup rules available?

[Lanceman]

Era Digest: Dark Age is probably the best starting point. And then there's a few Turning Points set in the Dark Age: Dark Age Turning Points: Vega and Liao and Turning Points: Irian and Epsilon Eridani, though the last one is post-Fortress Republic.

[Sartris]

Say the words “Dark Age” to the average Inner Sphere freebirth, and they will regale you with images of ForestryMechs with welded-on cannons swinging chainsaws at hoverbikes. Certainly, such engagements occurred, especially in the first few years after the Blackout. But the industrial might of the Inner Sphere was dormant, not dismantled, and by the time of the Battle for Terra, conflicts involving cutting-edge tech were once more commonplace.

the dark age novels i've read seem to indicate a paucity of even industrialemechs. ten times the number of industrialmechs to battlemechs would mean tens of thousands were in circulation and i'm not convinced they were built in those numbers. poor worlds would probably be lucky to have even a few. their presence would probably be highest in places with major mining, forestry, or commercial spaceport operations but there wouldn't need to be large numbers of them. think about numbers of real-world machines workmechs were designed to replace on such sites.

having a range of a few to a few dozen seems sensible.

[pokefan548]

It will also vary wildly even by worlds of similar GDP, standard of living, etc. Practical industrial needs and local corporate interests are going to be the biggest factor in how many indies you're likely to have on-planet. A major, wealthy trade hub with little more to offer than a strategic spot at the crossroads of key trade routes and a clever ad campaign may only have one or two small construction companies running one or two indies each that work on contract for the odd local job that requires some more dexterous equipment than normal. Conversely, a dirt-poor, highly exploited planet surviving off of logging and quarrying industries may have quite a few indies on planet, probably owned by a large interstellar corporation that's using the planet's resources and funneling the resulting funds almost entirely back to their headquarters on New Avalon or whatever.

'Mechs are tools; ultimately, you want to put them where they make sense. A fairly wealthy world with little to no organized crime that also sits well away from contested borders and lacking crucial strategic targets doesn't need a regiment of your latest OmniMech-equipped troops nearly as much as the poor ball of barely-habitable dirt that happens to be one of your only buffer planets between your enemies and a vital military and/or industrial hub. The same applies to indies, albeit dictated more by civilian needs than military ones.

[DevianID]

In the day of heroes sourcebook, when the grey death is doing a 2 week running retreat they mention needing to stop at farms along the way to raid the industrial mechs for parts to repair their battlemechs.  They never mention how many or what kind, just that it was something they found at farms.  Even if it's just 1 per couple of farms operating like a tractor/thresher/harvester thats a lot of random industrial mechs on the macro scale.

If you could dig up the numbers, Id think its fair to compare the number of industrial mechs to the number of cropduster planes per farm when those were a thing.  Like an industrial mech, thats a pretty specialized piece of equipment that was found on farms, but not all farms, with some parallels to a military plane similar to an industrial mech to a battlemech.  There was an effort to get people flying for work or school clubs to develop personnel who could fly or maintain planes in wartime, which sounds like a good reason to use an industrial mech then a simpler/cheaper tractor in the battlemech dominated mindset of the inner sphere.

[pokefan548]

If you could dig up the numbers, Id think its fair to compare the number of industrial mechs to the number of cropduster planes per farm when those were a thing.

For the record, they still very much are a thing, and let me tell you getting sprayed by a defoliant you're allergic to sucks.

But yeah, for a reasonably wealthy world with lots of agriculture, that checks out.

[Colt Ward]

Since it was a concept re-introduced and used in the Dark Age books, the novels there might be the most use.  The first book had a logging company using . . . 4?  IndiMechs, 3 to cut and IIRC 1 to move/load the logs . . . and it was a mid-sized decently run operation.  FREX, I want to say they talked about a Indi-Mech lot that had something like 20-40 for sale in various conditions . . . but you also had a small mining town that had 4 or 5 in use by the various independent miners.  Then again, IIRC Engadine right before the Jihad had a pirate raid take the 'easy' IndiMechs and ordered in a replacement shipment that was something like 8-12 IndiMechs though we were never told for what use- probably mining or forestry.

[Weirdo]

A bit off topic, but has anyone ran the customization rules and figured out how much time it takes to convert some of these IndyMechs into their MOD variants? Given that there are plenty of stories of pirate groups (or even proper military raiders) spending weeks or months on a world to give it a proper ransack, I'm curious as to how long it would take a militia, company, or even private owner to convert a working mech into a fighting one when the need arises.

[RifleMech]

Didn't the Gray Death Legion help Verthandi rebels who used mech forces were mostly various types of IndustrialMechs?

[idea weenie]

A bit off topic, but has anyone ran the customization rules and figured out how much time it takes to convert some of these IndyMechs into their MOD variants? Given that there are plenty of stories of pirate groups (or even proper military raiders) spending weeks or months on a world to give it a proper ransack, I'm curious as to how long it would take a militia, company, or even private owner to convert a working mech into a fighting one when the need arises.

Don't have the Mech designs, but the Campaign Operations seems like the correct location to start.
Field Refits (Class A and B) do exist, and might cover your needs.  Per page 211 they only need a crane and some standard tools:
Class A - changing armor type/distribution, or removing a component
Class B - changing a weapon facing in its current mounting, engine heat sink changes, adding a component in the same location that an item was removed from

So you would have the IndustrialMechs coming in with Commercial or other civilian-grade armor, and civilian-grade equipment.  The armor gets changed to Mech-grade (Standard) armor, and one or more of the civilian items gets removed.  This is the Class A refit.

The IndustrialMechs are then moved to a second location, where the civilian-grade heat sinks are removed, and a weapon installed.

The time multipliers for the Class A and Class B Refits are x2 and x3 respectively, and if the location has sufficient refit kits the time is halved.  Time is from the Master Repait Table (pages 205-207).

So changing out the armor, heat sinks, and replacing the Combine in an Agromech would be roughly:
Class A:
* Remove the civilian-grade armor - Assuming 120 pts of armor this is 600 minutes (though since the armor is spread across 11 locations, you might be able to get this reduced as techs work across multiple locations simultaneously)
* Add the Military-grade armor - assuming 80 pts of armor - 400 minutes
* Remove the Combine - 250 minutes (Weapons & other equipment, 4+ crit spaces)
* Remove Civilian Sensors - 260 minutes
* Remove Civilian-grade Life Support - 180 minutes
Total = 1690 minutes before multiplier, 3380 minutes afterwards
(I figured it at 5 tons of Commercial grade armor that provides 24 pts of protection per ton but takes critical hits on any hit of 6+ pts of damage.  This is being changed out to Standard armor that is 16 pts per ton.)

Class B:
* Add an Inner Sphere-grade LRM-5 with half a ton of ammo (Combine is only 2.5 tons) - 120 for the weapon, 120 for the ammo
* Change out all ten Heat Sinks in the engine to DHS - 90 minutes per, 900 minutes total
* Put in Military-grade sensors - 260 minutes
* Put in Military-grade Life Support - 180 minutes
Total = 1560 minutes before multiplier, 4680 minutes afterwards

Total time is 8060 minutes, or just under 135 hours.  You would still have the civilian engine, myomers, internal structure, gyro, and other similar parts of the Agromech.

If you are willing to skip the Heat Sink change out, this saves 2700 minutes or 45 hours.
If you are willing to go into battle with Commercial grade armor, this saves another 2000 minutes, or 33 hours.
If you are willing to fight with civilian-grade sensors, this saves 1300 minutes, or just under 22 hours.
If you are willing to fight with civilian-grade Life Support, this saves 1300 minutes, or just under 22 hours.

Skipping all of these steps and just changing out the Combine to the LRM means you only need 1220 minutes, or about 20.5 hours.  A Refit kit would drop that to just over 10 hours.


Look about right?

[Weirdo]

I have zero baseline from which to say that might be right or not. Tomorrow, I'll be able to throw an actual canon MOD at you.

[idea weenie]

I have zero baseline from which to say that might be right or not. Tomorrow, I'll be able to throw an actual canon MOD at you.

The IndustrialMech before it was militarized, or the MOD after it has been militarized?  Providing both would let me see what had been changed in the process so I have a list of items to get the timing for.  (If doing an attachment I would request them as plain ".txt" files to ensure I can read it easily.)


How was the format that I used to make the changeover?  Was it understandable, organized, confusing, or?

If a different format would be better, what should be improved/reordered/added/removed?

[imperator]

Thanks for all the great replies.  Trying to take the easier way by getting sourcebook data, but the the era reports are both scarce when discussing such as numbers that you can call up as opfor or when your company/PCs have to defende your teritory.

[SCC]

the dark age novels i've read seem to indicate a paucity of even industrialemechs. ten times the number of industrialmechs to battlemechs would mean tens of thousands were in circulation and i'm not convinced they were built in those numbers. poor worlds would probably be lucky to have even a few. their presence would probably be highest in places with major mining, forestry, or commercial spaceport operations but there wouldn't need to be large numbers of them. think about numbers of real-world machines workmechs were designed to replace on such sites.

having a range of a few to a few dozen seems sensible.

The problem here is that WorkMech's aren't better then prior machines, and up until the fall of the SL people capable of piloting 'Mechs were rare, so why why a WorkMech that you'll have trouble finding a pilot for.

[Weirdo]

...up until the fall of the SL people capable of piloting 'Mechs were rare, so why why a WorkMech that you'll have trouble finding a pilot for.

Specific source on this assertion?

[SCC]

The SL source book, there's a line where new recruits are asked to use a miniature 'Mech using a neurohelmet, anyone who showed the slightest ability ability to move the 'Mech was trained as a MechWarrior, to me this speaks to the supply of people being able to be trained as MechWarrior's as being somewhat limited, unlike in later eras.

[Colt Ward]

It does not mean rare, you could postulate those capable were a finite resource (a common trope for brain dependent McGuffins of sci fi) . . . but also consider the armies of mechs were much larger at that point as well.

Most relevant is later materials, which supersede previous canon material, where that is not a limiter and any sort of pre-disposition testing has dropped from mentioning.  Closest you could get was Caleb Davion's testing to go to the academy and he was shuffled to armor.

[idea weenie]

If anyone has a canon IndustrialMech that they want me to run some numbers about how long it would take to refit into a Canon MOD Mech, feel free to attach them to a message.

If anyone has a fan design that they want me to run the numbers on, please link it with a label telling the thread that it is a fan design.  My idea is to post the results in that Fan design thread and link to it from here.

Basically I will need the before and after, and will try to limit the changes to Field Refits:
Class A - changing armor type/distribution, or removing a component
Class B - changing a weapon facing in its current mounting, engine heat sink changes, adding a component in the same location that an item was removed from

I have two general types of report formats:

Format A (separated by Class of Refit)
* Total time needed
* Class A Refits and time needed for each change
* Class B Refits and time needed for each change

Format B (separated by component being refit)
* Total time needed
* separate lines for each component, with a note indicating if it is a Class A or Class B refit

Offers?

[SCC]

It does not mean rare, you could postulate those capable were a finite resource (a common trope for brain dependent McGuffins of sci fi) . . . but also consider the armies of mechs were much larger at that point as well.

Most relevant is later materials, which supersede previous canon material, where that is not a limiter and any sort of pre-disposition testing has dropped from mentioning.  Closest you could get was Caleb Davion's testing to go to the academy and he was shuffled to armor.

Compared to the setting in the 4SW and later, where being unable to pilot a 'Mech seems to be the exception, it seems like maybe 5% of SLDF recruits could do so. And unless a piece of lore is specifically retconed it still stands, so has that lined been retconned?

[Col Toda]

At a guess poor 1-10 , Average  about 100 , Aflunt 10,000 , regional capital 100,000 and successor state capital 1,000,000 . The later 2 mostly cargo loading mechs . This ball park cones from economic model expansion derived A Time of War Companion property trait .

[dgorsman]

If anyone has a canon IndustrialMech that they want me to run some numbers about how long it would take to refit into a Canon MOD Mech, feel free to attach them to a message.
Offers?

A quick test on converting a Buster BC XV to a Buster XV-M MOD (drop tracks, cargo, hoists, add LRM10/AC5 plus heatsinks and more armor) in MekHQ shows it as a Class D (Maintenance) and just shy of 8500 minutes.

[Daryk]

So... ~six days.  Call it a week. 

[Wolf72]

converting? nah, just humanoid-style (2 hands) 10t + mechs with handheld weapons.

most of year: doing some good ol' industry work (like using a chainsaw, what? 3t or so)

during pirate invasion: pick up trusty old "shotgun" from the armory! (Clans could make some good $$ with ChML's!)

[glitterboy2098]

as a trial run, why not go with the canon models that best fit the "classic MOD quad" from the MWDA first wave? how long would each of these take?

ED-X5M LoggerMech MOD
CON-9M ConstructionMech MOD
RCL-4M-B MiningMech MOD
HVR-199M-A MOD Harvestermech

[Weirdo]

A quick test on converting a Buster BC XV to a Buster XV-M MOD (drop tracks, cargo, hoists, add LRM10/AC5 plus heatsinks and more armor) in MekHQ shows it as a Class D (Maintenance) and just shy of 8500 minutes.

So... ~six days.  Call it a week. 

That's not bad, honestly. There's plenty of accounts of pirates or other staying on planet for longer, so if you start your conversion as soon as you receive word and luck out in terms of not being one of the early targets, there's a very real chance you can have the conversion finished in time to help fight them off. Your timeframe gets even better if they're detected while in transit and you can add at least a few days of warning to all of that.

[Daryk]

If you insist on 40 hours/week, call it a month... 

[Weirdo]

Given that we're talking about a marauders-from-space kind of emergency, I think they can see fit to put multiple shifts on a fewer number of mechs to get them out in time. Army you've got vs army you want, and all that.

Now if the HPGs have just collapsed and you've convinced the motor pool to back your play to conquer the tropics, taking some extra weeks to prepare and have more mechs at the end is probably the wiser choice. Besides, it'll give you more time to practice your bombastic speechifying.