Interstellar Operations Open Beta Test: Creating A Force: Discussion

[Scotty]

Yeah, that example about Bob doesn't sound like the best for pointing out a flaw with the idea.  I mean, the guy very clearly (explicitly) wants an Atlas battalion.  Why the blazes is he rolling for an Atlas battalion if he already knows that's exactly what he wants?

[wellspring]

I'm now planning on doing something like that so players know reasonable budgets for opposing forces, per Minerva's request to build "stock units."

That's easy enough to add to the Flexible Force Construction Rules.

Though I'm looking forward to seeing if anyone can fix the bugs in the baseline idea. I'd really like to assign budgets in modular increments so you can make sensible forces of any size.

I'm actually working on a proposal. Mind if I ask a few questions? Ok, great, thanks, here goes. ;)

What exactly are we balancing here? I mean, who gets hurt if I have a battalion of Atlases? I'm not arguing that this should be ok, but I want to understand why it isn't so I get a sense of the root concerns. This isn't a rhetorical question since I haven't seen the rules for how you use a force in practice.

If we're balancing players against other players, then the Basic Budget Table seems problematic. There's variation of a full order of magnitude, determined in a one-time event at the start of the campaign. How do you balance Player A who rolled a 2 at the beginning of the campaign versus Player B, who rolled a 12 and has more than thirty times the budget? That's before bonuses for Budget Modifications, which can inflate the differences even more.

If one player is running a combined arms merc company, and the other is running a frontline Clan Galaxy, then of course there will be inter-player balance issues. Whether that came about due to GM fiat, a faction table, or one very good budget roll. The problem isn't min-maxing, it's that each player has created a very different force.

Are we balancing players against the setting? That makes sense, too; you want Clan players to be able to afford Clan tech, while 3025 forces have the limitations that make 3025 distinctive. Making forces true to the setting is a valid goal as well, though it's at cross purposes to balancing players against each other. Your Bob example seemed to imply that this kind of balance is what's got you worried.

Are we balancing players against themselves? That is, creating constraints like a tonnage limit on a mech to force players to make tradeoffs between different force characteristics. Since the principal limitation in the rules is budget, having that be determined randomly seems odd.

One brand of balance is in the construction rules, where we put limits on the overall performance envelope. The other is in the gaming rules, where ideally there are strengths and weaknesses to different size forces. That is, giving players a reason not to want a bigger force in the first place.

Anyway, I'm interested in your thoughts on this one. 

[Decoy]

I'm working through the rules and trying to get things as straight as I can.

1) I pull up the MUL and Megamek as they both have prices I can go off of.

2) I decide how many "Berths" are in my unit. I decide 8 Mech, 4 ASF, and 16 Battle Armor berths for combat units.

3) I roll for cash and get 120 million (Lucked out)

4) I start rolling units. Berth #1, I get a RFL-7X Rifleman. Berth #2 misses the Rifleman, but nets a Ti Ts'ang . Berth #3 misses the Ti Ts'ang but gets the Rifleman. Berth #4 misses the Ti Ts'ang, Rifleman, and Ha Otoko, but gets the Blackhawk Ku. (Question: Are all rolls for omnimechs and battle armors done for base chassis?) Berth #5 and #6 get a PXH-1c Phoenix Hawk and a MLR-B2 Mjollnir, respectively. Berth #7 rolls and eventually gets a Shadow Hawk IIC 5, while Berth #8 rolls for and gets a Crimson Hawk 2. (Question: Do Clan units have their price multiplied by 5 if the direct cost option is being used?)

5) I start rolling for Battle armor. Since individual suit cost is not on hand, I default to the price on the availibilty list for such. (Which means no CBAs for me as they are 3.5 million a pop. Besides, I need a 12 to snag one suit of CBA and I'm not sure a green BA trooper is worth it.)

I decide to handle this differently and make a list of Battle Armor Suits I'm willing to use and how many berths fall into them.  I also go for Regular skill level troops to ensure I get homogenous squads. (Question: Is there an option to roll on a 'Per squad' basis in order to get homogenous squads?)

Ultimately I end up with three squads of Fa Shih (Support) and one squad of Infiltrator II (MagClamp) all regular.

6) I roll for transports and eventually get a Green Union (3055) and a Green Invader.

7) I luck out again and roll randomly for a +1 to init in certain terrains.

I have yet to do the administrative support of said unit. Having said that, do I have the process down?

[Archameades]

How does this sound?

2 - 2,000,000
3 - 2,500,000
4 - 3,000,000
5 - 4,000,000
6 - 5,000,000
7 - 6,000,000
8 - 7,000,000
9 - 8,000,000
10 - 9,000,000
11 - 10,000,000
12 - 11,000,000

Modified by the Primary Unit Type:
Infantry X 0.35                       On the light end you get a platoon of Rifle Grunts on the high end you might get Jump SRM warriors, if you get a modifier in your favour.
Armour X 0.35                         Again fair on the light end you have a rather basic light vehicle, but on the mid to high range there are plenty of good heavy rides.
'Mech X 1.0                             Ranging from various light 'Mechs almost up to the, ever so popular, Atlas.  Era or faction modifiers can really open some good options up.
ASF X1.0                                 Same as above, while expensive ASFs tend to be a little cheaper than the equivalent 'Mechs of the era.
Combined Arms X 0.75           A mixed bag, too many potential options to list.
BA/Proto X 0.75                      For 4 or 5 man squads..  if you have too poor a roll in this catagory perhaps you default to Infantry or have to pull funds from another unit to make up?  It should    be ok for the most part, however, as the factions that operate these forces are less likely to get a very poor draw on the budget modification table (Independent, Outworlds Alliance or St. Ives).   

Now multiply the roll by number of final units desired in the force e.g. Lance X4, Company X12, Battalion X36 or X40, etc etc...  If I want to run 4 understrength 'Mech companies (9 'Mechs each) in my battalion, then fine, but I'll get the same amount of starting c-bills as if I started with 3 regular companies.  Now the C-bill roll can be done for the unit as a whole, or per unit. 

I rolled a 2,3,4, and 11 for my 'Mech lance, a 5,9,10, and 12 for my 4 Infantry platoons, and a 4,7,9, and 10 for my Tanks...

Or I rolled a 7 for my Combined Arms Company X 12

Now I'm sure Bob could find a way to create his all Atlas scout company by rolling a much larger unit in the first place, Buying even numbers of Atlases and Fleas, and then selling or disbanding the undesired units, but really he could just create the unit as he saw fit within the Alternate Force Construction rules, presumably.  You could make a reputation penalty for dumping your troops prior to game play, after all who is going to trust a unit with obvious internal strife if half the warriors are leaving or being kicked out, certainly there is a penalty for losing those same units as game play progresses. ( AToW Companion pg. 229)

Some units will roll far too much money, but they can take their good fortune to add specialties for their unit, stock up on spare parts, save some cash for a rainy day, or even expand their units beyond their initial intentions before game play begins (Initial force C-bill multiplier being the minimum force a unit starts with).

This is in addition to the Era and faction modifiers, of course.

Thoughts?

[Jackmc]

I like the idea of smoothing the range of hte table.  There's just waaay to much disparity in the results right now, even accounting for the probability of a 2D6 curve. 

Personally, I'd rather see wide cash variations tied to Era so that you can afford to build units in those periods where there are XL's, yet also avoid being able to afford an entire assault battalion on the same roll when you're buying for a 3025 era unit.

-Jackmc

[idea weenie]

You could go with this format:
96 million C-Bills for a company:
1 Command Atlas
2 lances of 4 Atlii each.

Total remaining = ~9.36 million C-Bills
He then buys 4 platoons of motorized conventional infantry.
Total remaining = ~1.36 million C-Bills

His third lance is the conventional infantry, but he never uses them in combat because that is the staff personnel (all those gofers, aides, planners, etc that hang on to Lyran formations).  They have their own off-road vehicles so they can keep up with the scout force.

[cray]

What exactly are we balancing here? I mean, who gets hurt if I have a battalion of Atlases? I'm not arguing that this should be ok, but I want to understand why it isn't so I get a sense of the root concerns. This isn't a rhetorical question since I haven't seen the rules for how you use a force in practice.

The basic idea is that the resulting forces should vaguely resemble canonical forces, where assault-tonnage units are rare and most forces consist of mixed medium-tonnage units. That's the balance I'm aiming for.

Are we balancing players against the setting? That makes sense, too; you want Clan players to be able to afford Clan tech, while 3025 forces have the limitations that make 3025 distinctive.

Yep.

If we're balancing players against other players, then the Basic Budget Table seems problematic. There's variation of a full order of magnitude, determined in a one-time event at the start of the campaign.

I'm actually okay with the full order of magnitude variation since it allow the construction of, roughly, a lance to a battalion (though the budgets appear to need some tuning, based on earlier feedback.)

I like the idea of smoothing the range of hte table.  There's just waaay to much disparity in the results right now, even accounting for the probability of a 2D6 curve. 

Here's the idea rattling around in the hollows of my skull, based on everyone's input here and overcoming my own hysteria:

I keep the random roll on the Basic Budget table, but make the random roll optional. Then a column will be added on the right indicating approximately what you can buy with the listed budget: 10 million for a 3025-era 'Mech lance, 60 million for a 'Mech company, 180 million for a battalion, etc. (Again, the exact values need some tuning.)

The "big" modification is that the random roll on the Basic Budget table is not mandatory, but instead the default. Optionally, a player may simply select the base budget from the table that suits them, allowing them to get a budget that suits their desired force size. Likewise, this will allow quick construction of a "stock opposing force."

Players interested in abusing the system to just get as many battalion-level budgets as they want will be directed to the optional "Alternate Flexible Force Construction Rules," which simplifies their munchkiness by removing the need to track budgets.

Good, bad, ugly?

How does this sound?

2 - 2,000,000
3 - 2,500,000
4 - 3,000,000
5 - 4,000,000
6 - 5,000,000
7 - 6,000,000
8 - 7,000,000
9 - 8,000,000
10 - 9,000,000
11 - 10,000,000
12 - 11,000,000

I'd actually like to have the Basic Budget Table address everything from 1 lance to 1 battalion (and expanding to 3d6 or 4d6 is fine), rather than having the player multiply the basic budget by the number of sub-forces.

Given that players will be able to pick their force size if they don't want a random roll, is putting the range of a lance to a battalion on the table acceptable, or would folks prefer the Basic Budget Table just address a range of lance-scale forces?

Modified by the Primary Unit Type:
Infantry X 0.35                       On the light end you get a platoon of Rifle Grunts on the high end you might get Jump SRM warriors, if you get a modifier in your favour.
Armour X 0.35                         Again fair on the light end you have a rather basic light vehicle, but on the mid to high range there are plenty of good heavy rides.
'Mech X 1.0                             Ranging from various light 'Mechs almost up to the, ever so popular, Atlas.  Era or faction modifiers can really open some good options up.
ASF X1.0                                 Same as above, while expensive ASFs tend to be a little cheaper than the equivalent 'Mechs of the era.
Combined Arms X 0.75           A mixed bag, too many potential options to list.
BA/Proto X 0.75                      For 4 or 5 man squads..  if you have too poor a roll in this catagory perhaps you default to Infantry or have to pull funds from another unit to make up?  It should    be ok for the most part, however, as the factions that operate these forces are less likely to get a very poor draw on the budget modification table (Independent, Outworlds Alliance or St. Ives).   

Sounds good. (Nitpick: fighters should be x0.5 for Inner Sphere forces, since there are usually 2 fighters per air lance.)

[cray]

4) I start rolling units. Berth #1, I get a RFL-7X Rifleman. Berth #2 misses the Rifleman, but nets a Ti Ts'ang . Berth #3 misses the Ti Ts'ang but gets the Rifleman. Berth #4 misses the Ti Ts'ang, Rifleman, and Ha Otoko, but gets the Blackhawk Ku. (Question: Are all rolls for omnimechs and battle armors done for base chassis?)

Ooo, good question. How about I clarify that as, "Yes" in the rules, and add something about acquiring extra omni pod sets.

(Question: Do Clan units have their price multiplied by 5 if the direct cost option is being used?)

Yep. If you ain't a Clan force, then you pay 5x as much.

5) I start rolling for Battle armor. Since individual suit cost is not on hand, I default to the price on the availibilty list for such. (Which means no CBAs for me as they are 3.5 million a pop. Besides, I need a 12 to snag one suit of CBA and I'm not sure a green BA trooper is worth it.)

I decide to handle this differently and make a list of Battle Armor Suits I'm willing to use and how many berths fall into them.  I also go for Regular skill level troops to ensure I get homogenous squads. (Question: Is there an option to roll on a 'Per squad' basis in order to get homogenous squads?)

Good catch. I'll clarify that BA (and protomech) acquisition is meant to be on a per-squad basis.

I have yet to do the administrative support of said unit. Having said that, do I have the process down?

Looks like it.

[Acolyte]

Here's the idea rattling around in the hollows of my skull, based on everyone's input here and overcoming my own hysteria:

I keep the random roll on the Basic Budget table, but make the random roll optional. Then a column will be added on the right indicating approximately what you can buy with the listed budget: 10 million for a 3025-era 'Mech lance, 60 million for a 'Mech company, 180 million for a battalion, etc. (Again, the exact values need some tuning.)

The "big" modification is that the random roll on the Basic Budget table is not mandatory, but instead the default. Optionally, a player may simply select the base budget from the table that suits them, allowing them to get a budget that suits their desired force size. Likewise, this will allow quick construction of a "stock opposing force."

Players interested in abusing the system to just get as many battalion-level budgets as they want will be directed to the optional "Alternate Flexible Force Construction Rules," which simplifies their munchkiness by removing the need to track budgets.

Good, bad, ugly?

Yahtzee!

One thing might be for the selected "Base Budget" to have a roll of say 2d6+3 * 10% giving said budget level 50% to 150%(averaging 100%) of that base value for those who want to pick a force size, but still want some randomness. This would only apply to forces picking a budget, of course.

Thank You
   - Shane

[Jackmc]

Here's the idea rattling around in the hollows of my skull...

That sounds excellent to me.  Not to insult you, but my inital reaction when I saw the random roll, and its disparity in results, to kick off generation was "Frack me!  Cray, how in the world could someone like you miss the lesson we learned about random gen when FM:mercs (r) came out?"  That was almost immediately by the bout of honesty with myself about just how easy it is to manipulate the point buy system in MS:1. 

So, I really like the idea of buffering the randomness with an idea of what an average unit should look like, which also provides a handy reality check to those who choose to go the "build it your own way" route.  From the pov of the random vs point buy school, it feels more like collaboration than comprimise.

-Jackmc

[monbvol]

That does look a lot better cray.  Personally I'm not adverse to the idea of going either direction:

A: Multiply the base budget by what ever is needed to get something appropriate to the size I'm after.

B: Just generate multiple default force sizes with the table as needed until I get the size of force I'm after.

[jh316]

Man. With it costing 1.2 million cbills just to keep an average jumpship running a month, how can pirates afford it? They must be doing a *lot* of raiding, seeing as how for two ASF a dropship and a jumpship they'd have to pull in over 100 tons of hydrogen fuel a month just for basic maintenance. Will there be rules for generating hydrogen from water or skimming gas giants?

[Crunch]

Two questions.

1) Is there any thought to including a Tech Level/RAT cost option?

2) Any thoughts to adding pre existing damage ala the Pentagon Worlds stuff as a cost modifier?

[Archameades]

Man. With it costing 1.2 million cbills just to keep an average jumpship running a month, how can pirates afford it? They must be doing a *lot* of raiding, seeing as how for two ASF a dropship and a jumpship they'd have to pull in over 100 tons of hydrogen fuel a month just for basic maintenance. Will there be rules for generating hydrogen from water or skimming gas giants?

I imagine most forces with access to Fusion reactors, just create their own Hydrogen at their base.  All you basically need is a well and a reactor... instant fuel depot.

[Acolyte]

Man. With it costing 1.2 million cbills just to keep an average jumpship running a month, how can pirates afford it? They must be doing a *lot* of raiding, seeing as how for two ASF a dropship and a jumpship they'd have to pull in over 100 tons of hydrogen fuel a month just for basic maintenance. Will there be rules for generating hydrogen from water or skimming gas giants?

It's already there in StratOps pg 179.

   - Shane

[jh316]

It's already there in StratOps pg 179.

   - Shane

Those rules are poorly defined, though, due to the maintenance/repair cycle being poorly defined. Under RAW, depending on how often you have battles, it can take 8 hours to make 10 tons of fuel or it could take months to do so.

Anyway; I think you'd need a pretty decent sized well for this kind of thing, and I'd genuinely be worried about running out, considering not every world is blessed with water supplies and that's what a lot of piracy is about, there used to be a lot of fluff about water raids. To simplify rounding, with near 100% efficiency it's 100 tons of water to make 10 tons of hydrogen (Water is 11% hydrogen, so with perfect efficiency it'd need slightly less water, but calculating it at 10% is easier on the math), with the example needing 126.85 tons per month just for maintenance, not for combat maneuvering. At 264 gallons a ton, with 1268.5 tons of water, you'd need 335,000 gallons of water, around 1.3 million liters. This is what a 1 million liter tank looks like.

I think the really odd part of the rules is the sheer amount of fuel consumption. A Corsair takes nearly as much fuel a month as a dropship, and 3 take more fuel than a jumpship, just for maintenance and basic training. Combat fuel use isn't nearly that amount; 4 full loads of fuel is quite a lot of fighting for aerospace unless it's all done in atmosphere a long distance from home, unless you're in a constantly active war zone the whole month. 4 loads of fuel is 800 thrust points.

Anyway, I know these rules are fine assuming a unit with easy access to a planet's resources. A few million liters of water is likely nothing to most planets, but I just can't see pirate bands having that luxury most of the time.

[Archameades]

1.3 Million litres certainly sounds like a lot, but isn't nearly as much as it seems.  You can fairly easily pull 100,000 litres off a medium sized stream every day and not have effect the flow levels.  I know we do in Road Maintenance; Irrigation for agriculture uses even more and far more regularly. 

Water for Hydrogen production, doesn't have to be fit for human consumption after all.

[jh316]

1.3 Million litres certainly sounds like a lot, but isn't nearly as much as it seems.  You can fairly easily pull 100,000 litres off a medium sized stream every day and not have effect the flow levels.  I know we do in Road Maintenance; Irrigation for agriculture uses even more and far more regularly. 

Water for Hydrogen production, doesn't have to be fit for human consumption after all.

Right, and that's great for a planet like ours. But this is a setting where pirates raid other solar systems for water.

[Jackmc]

This is what a 1 million liter tank looks like.

That is amazingly small compared to the scale of BT spacecraft.  BTdropships are like mobile skyscrapers and there are no manmade structures on earth that approximate the size and volume of js/ws's.

-Jackmc

[jh316]

That is amazingly small compared to the scale of BT spacecraft.  BTdropships are like mobile skyscrapers and there are no manmade structures on earth that approximate the size and volume of js/ws's.

-Jackmc

An Invader jumpship is 500 meters long. There are no manmade structures that come close to that? A Merchant is only 320 meters.

Sarna says an Invader can carry around 525 tons of cargo. It takes 600 tons of water per month to fuel its station keeping drives. Presumably it'd have a Mule or something attached to help out, but it goes to show that cargo space isn't as unlimited as you seem to think. I wonder how effective these water raids are if a pretty good chunk of what you can manage to take has to go to fuel the engines for the trip home. God forbid you have to charge the drive with your fusion engine, that'd eat up another 2000 tons of water.

[SCC]

For reference 1 cubic meter holds 1 thousand liters, 1 cubic meter is also the size of a Minecraft block, so we're looking a about 1,300 Minecraft buckets

[jh316]

For reference 1 cubic meter holds 1 thousand liters, 1 cubic meter is also the size of a Minecraft block, so we're looking a about 1,300 Minecraft buckets

Okay? Minecraft isn't exactly life-sized so I don't see how that's relevant. I'd like to see you carry around a bucket that holds 1 ton of water.

[wellspring]

It should be relatively easy to accomplish this using a dropship. You land, pump the water into water tanks (they don't even have to be all that big as long as you continuously replenish them), use your fusion reactor to generate the hydrogen. Refill your fuel tanks, then fill the ones you have as cargo. If you're a non-pirate, then your dropship might have extra or oversized fuel tanks so it has the option of using the fuel it's carrying as cargo.

60 tons of hydrogen fuel per month is therefore actually 60 tons, easily pumped in from a dropship's tanks. The 540 tons of extraneous oxygen was removed and vented by the dropship prior to takeoff.

JH316's other point about maintenance costs is more serious. That same Invader requires $2.3 million C-bills in spare parts per month. Presumably, you raid another JumpShip and steal their parts? Stock up 6 months or so worth and try to stay ahead? And what parts can you use; will DropShip parts do?

That brings back my build-or-buy point earlier. Earlier in the rules, it's assumed that technical, medical, and administrative support is organic to your unit. What if you want to outsource it to locals? Pirates probably can't, but mercs certainly might. Even governments often find it useful to employ local contractors, if nothing else as a jobs program/nation-building/hearts-and-minds effort.

Here we have the reverse. What if I want to make/jury-rig spare parts on my own? Out of preference or necessity, even if it's less efficient. I might have plenty of skilled labor but not a lot of C-bills, or I might not have a parts depot that I can buy parts from.

I realize that that's part of the point, that making off with a cargo hold full of little geisha dolls with wobbly heads won't pay to keep my ship repaired. But more than $2M a month just for my pirate jumpship doesn't seem like something a pirate band can afford.

[jh316]

It should be relatively easy to accomplish this using a dropship. You land, pump the water into water tanks (they don't even have to be all that big as long as you continuously replenish them), use your fusion reactor to generate the hydrogen. Refill your fuel tanks, then fill the ones you have as cargo. If you're a non-pirate, then your dropship might have extra or oversized fuel tanks so it has the option of using the fuel it's carrying as cargo.

60 tons of hydrogen fuel per month is therefore actually 60 tons, easily pumped in from a dropship's tanks. The 540 tons of extraneous oxygen was removed and vented by the dropship prior to takeoff.

JH316's other point about maintenance costs is more serious. That same Invader requires $2.3 million C-bills in spare parts per month. Presumably, you raid another JumpShip and steal their parts? Stock up 6 months or so worth and try to stay ahead? And what parts can you use; will DropShip parts do?

That brings back my build-or-buy point earlier. Earlier in the rules, it's assumed that technical, medical, and administrative support is organic to your unit. What if you want to outsource it to locals? Pirates probably can't, but mercs certainly might. Even governments often find it useful to employ local contractors, if nothing else as a jobs program/nation-building/hearts-and-minds effort.

Here we have the reverse. What if I want to make/jury-rig spare parts on my own? Out of preference or necessity, even if it's less efficient. I might have plenty of skilled labor but not a lot of C-bills, or I might not have a parts depot that I can buy parts from.

I realize that that's part of the point, that making off with a cargo hold full of little geisha dolls with wobbly heads won't pay to keep my ship repaired. But more than $2M a month just for my pirate jumpship doesn't seem like something a pirate band can afford.

2 million a month? It shows 228,000 in my pdf. And jumpships use generic aerospace spare parts, same as dropships and fighters.

And, technically, you only get to generate 10 tons of fuel per fusion engine you have, and you can only do that after a battle during the maintenance cycle. The maintenance cycle is just the time between battles, no matter how long that may be, as indicated by the fact that you only make one maintenance check between battles with no mention of time. So if you're between battles, with RAW you can't actually generate any fuel until after your next one.

[Armitage72]

And, technically, you only get to generate 10 tons of fuel per fusion engine you have, and you can only do that after a battle during the maintenance cycle. The maintenance cycle is just the time between battles, no matter how long that may be, as indicated by the fact that you only make one maintenance check between battles with no mention of time. So if you're between battles, with RAW you can't actually generate any fuel until after your next one.

Presumably, that will be defined more precisely in the Force Operation portion of the rules, much like there was a difference in earlier editions between making individual Technician skill rolls to work on a `Mech in the field and expending monthly Support Points or Man-Hours to run a unit.
Unless a player controlling a regiment is expected to make 130+ die rolls every maintenance cycle. 

[Nebfer]

No the rules do that but rather badly thanks to what seems to be abysmal background research.. The baseline for realism is about 200 shots per year not number of reloads because amount of shots in each reload in tanks is far more than with BattleMechs. So when you have AC/5 you use 10 tons a year, and with AC/10 you use 20 tons a year and with AC/20 you use 40 tons a year... This has a neat side effect of making expensive systems like Gauss cannons even more expensive...

Well, if you actually use live ammo all the time the ammo expenditure would be tremendous. For fun I calculated that you would use something like: 92 + 92 rounds (mentioned before) plus all the sub-caliber munitions ( 260 rounds). Notice that during maneuvering at higher level that would add 175 more for ... 92+92+260+175 = 619 rounds per tank per year.
So Elite level training is 3 times as munition consuming as normal training. However, in real life shooting that many rounds per year would lead army to have to put every single Mech through a depot maintenance every year.

Technically speaking 120mm Tank rounds are 20-25kg each (not including packaging) so that's 4 to 5 tons per year and a single ton of ammo per tank.

B-tech ammo expenditures under these rules realy depend on the type of weapon and the amount of ammo carried, Per the current rules it's .25 tons per month or 3 tons per year per ton carried, for AC-2 thats 135 shots per ton of ammo on the unit for a unit that carry's two tons of ammo thats 270 shots. Where as AC-5s thats 60 shots a year of "peace time" training per ton of ammo carried. Units with three tons of AC-5 ammo (like units with RACs) that's 180 shots. AC-10 and 20s get 30 and 15 rounds per year for training per ton carried, Gauss rifles get 24 shots.

Though as a B-tech autocannon fires more than one shell per shot/burst it probably can be configured to a training mode where it fires in say "semi auto" mode with the units computer being set up to treat that single shot as a full shot of ammo... Though this dose not work with weapons that fire a few rounds per shot or just one...

So it realy depends on the type of ammo in question, even then do the units realy need to fire 200 shots per year to maintain their skills? Though I would agree for an option that mentions say that ammo expenditure can range from say .25 tons per month per ton carried to as much as 1 to 1...

---------------------
The Number of "Admins" seems fine to me but to me the "admin" staff should be defined as Administrative, command, logistical staff, communications, clerks and perhaps a few other roles but should not include Medical and field cooks (we already have that info from other locations -IIRC Tac ops mentions a field kitchen can feed 150 at a time and has a crew of 3), and strat ops has medical at 1 team (of 5) per 25 personnel.

So for me for the number of admin
Add up the number of combat personnel, Tech and the required number of medical and kitchen staff and divide by 10 for the admin staff.

Mercs and pirates should have the option of having half the Admins due to that part being supplied by the government (or lack their of) not Government/house units.

Personnel for a battlemech regiment with HQ elements I would see it going something like...
132 mechs and mechwarriors
132 tech teams (924 personnel)
sub totals 1056 mechwarriors and techs
medical teams for 100% coverage (assuming this includes teams to evacuate wounded) would need some 50 teams or 250 medical personnel
Sub total 1281
Field cooks would need roughly 10 teams and 30 personnel
Sub total 1336

Now for admin personnel that's 1/10th pf the above or in this case 134 personnel
grand total 1470 now that's a regiment (all be it a small one).
Personally I would of liked having dedicated logistical and communications elements though...

Infantry are not to far off the above mech unit with notional number of admin staff. Though I detest the ability of admin staff being largely full filled by line personnel...

I would of liked... to have seen the personnel brake down a bit more like so
Combat Personnel
Techs
Medical personnel
Communications personnel
Logistical personnel
Cooks
Command and administrative personnel

I made some quick numbers to fill out the personnel in the above and come up with some half decent results but I am loth to post them here due to them not liking that kind of detailed info being posted...

[jh316]

So, with regards to the issue of current budget vs a budget composed of rolling for sub-units or adding multipliers based on ideal size, why not make it an optional rule? Have it be a force generation system that is halfway between the standard generation and the "Pick whatever" generation, where you still roll availability and all but have a bit more guidance in the size of the force.

[Daryk]

Just doing some basic calculations based on the MUL, the low end seems that it might be a little too low.  A Periphery Independent mech lance in 3025 that rolls a 2 is going to be pretty much stuck with four Hornets, or less than four mechs.  15,000,000 might be a better floor.

[Decoy]

You can make a company with 10 million. >< It's something I tried. You'll need to employ something on the order of at least a lance of Harvest Ant Mods and have to take the most cost effective penalties available. You can do better if you choose to go into debt and double your starting allocation and maybe design the CO with ATOW. Make sure the CO owns their own 'mech. ><

[Daryk]

True, but it won't be a company of BattleMechs, which I believe is the intended baseline.