How Many Techs Should Really Be Needed?

[SCC]

In the old Merc's FM, it mentions that 30% of "full" tech support is considered to be the minimum acceptable level, so that each mech gets worked on every third rotation (day?).  So if you're on a cushy garrison assignment, on some world ten or twenty jumps from the nearest threat, then that's probably what you'd target.  In combat, you have to run huge overtime and pull every warm body into the repair bay, and that hurts after a battle or two.

How often a 'Mech gets maintenance is never defined, if however you referring to repairs from battle damage, well your 1 day in 3 assumes that every 'Mech is damaged.

For a front line unit that expects to fight, as people have pointed out, you need vastly more techs than you think you do.  Now, mind you, since that book was a merc book the target level is lower since most mercs can't employ vast numbers of techs unless they're in heavy combat all the time.  I can't say for other books, but I can imagne for most units it's a tough ballance.

Exocet units are NOT permanently assigned to the front they rotate back for a variety of reasons, and units assigned to the front need those extra teams, so those teams will stay there if possible, and even if that isn't the case new units heading to the front likely don't have the extra tech teams they'll need, so you put the tech teams in separate engineering units that can be moved around more easily.

[Kidd]

From experience running very large units using the actual maintenance rules in SO and the repair rules, running a unit that does see intense combat (because... players), I have learned the following:

Mech techs; a minimum of 1 per mech, plus full astech teams.  If you see heavy combat with more than a quarter of your force, you will have units down and out for days if not weeks.  If you want full repairs in a day or two after 1 battalion of a mech regiment has seen heavy combat, you need 3 times the mech techs of a regiment.  Yup, you need 3 regiments worth of techs to fix 1 battalion in a day.  This assumes Regular experience techs, on average.

Mechanics: you need, after maintenance, only about HALF the recommended amount.  Vees are easy to maintain, and repairs are mostly easier too.  Some of the worst parts to repair still only take a tech team their full shift, and that will get a vee combat operable at the minimum (albeit, with little to no armour)

Aerotech (conventional and proper aerospace); even WORSE than mechs.  Between maintenance and repairs - and those repairs taking sometimes weeks and thus completely shutting down your air.  Think I'm joking?  Unless you have maintenance facilities but are instead relying on your transport bays for repairs, your air that takes even a bit of structural damage is going to be grounded for a minimum of 4, but probably 10 days or so.  Heavy armour on a heavy fighter may take two days just to repair one section.

Battlearmour: even better than vehicles.  You can cut the recommended amount of techs - even after maintenance - down to about 1/5 of recommended.  There are 2 reasons here; 1 is that damage sufficient to kill a battle armour usually doesn't leave much left other than for scrap.  In fact, if it is destroyed but the pilot somehow survives, it's just a replacement suit that is issued anyways.  Damage insufficient to kill it will only do armour damage, easy enough to fix, and replacing ammo, which is also quick enough.  2 is that maintenance and repair on suits is remarkably easy; having a full tech team per squad is overkill.  You could probably get away with 1-2 techs per company, but I'd still keep 1 per platoon - and re-purpose said battle armour techs for other duties when they're not working on suits.   

Bigger ships are maintained and repaired by crew, already handled.  I use Small Craft as well, and those take up a lot of maintenance needs, which requires even more aerotechs. 


I am currently running a merc brigade with 2 mech regiments, with 3 conventional regiments supporting, plus full air and it still only has only a little over 100 mech technicians (a ratio that has stayed approximately the same over the last 2.5 years of the campaign; the unit's fortunes have swung between having a ration of 1:2 to 2:3 for technicians to mechs).  This severely strains the ability to maintain any sustained operations, or launch an offensive.  After the first couple engagements, the unit is consistently forced to rely on their vehicles to back up mechs that are otherwise damaged.  A House unit with a "recommended" amount of technicians - (so 1 mech tech per mech plus astechs) can far more quickly repair damaged units and has occasionally fought the merc force to a standstill simply due to the ability to stay in the field longer.

sounds like an awesome game, EPIC indeed

[Kovax]

Last MegaMek/MekHQ campaign, I went with 2 tech teams per lance (one of them Regular or Veteran, the other Green or Regular), plus another team (Veteran or Elite) at company level.  If the unit had grown beyond "reinforced company" size, I'd have added a team for the second company, and then another team (Elite) at battalion level.  The higher level teams get called in for the more complex tasks, while the lance level teams do the bulk of the work.

As pointed out, aerospace assets take about triple the amount of tech support, and one team per ASF is about the absolute minimum.  Take a couple of hits to Fire Control or Landing Gear during a mission, and you're looking at several days of down time at minimum, with mediocre odds of success as a field repair, or else taking a couple of weeks (or close to a month for some jobs) spending the extra time to raise the odds.  ASFs are "hanger queens" by their very nature, and if you're tying up a tech team for 2 weeks replacing a damaged sensor system, you're going to want a second team doing the armor repairs and routine maintenance in the mean time, otherwise it's another week until it flies again.

In contrast, one tech team can handle MOST of the repairs of a vehicle lance, although you'll probably want two, so one can do the major items, such as repairing motive hits and locked turrets, while the other does miscellaneous armor repairs and ammo reloads.

[2ndAcr]

 One thing I have done is I have a Veteran tech assigned to each Mech lance, they handle all maintenance on the lance. 3 Regular tech teams back up the Veteran during combat repairs. I also have 20 Green tech teams unassigned to help handle battle damage repairs, ammo reloads, stripping armor, weapons etc off salvaged mechs after battle.

 I just cannot bring myself to allow lower than Veteran techs do maintenance on my mechs. Transport bays and Regular techs just do not mix well. I have had entire companies arrive in non combat ready after a transit on board ship. At least my Vets keep it under control.

[RunandFindOut]

One thing I have done is I have a Veteran tech assigned to each Mech lance, they handle all maintenance on the lance. 3 Regular tech teams back up the Veteran during combat repairs. I also have 20 Green tech teams unassigned to help handle battle damage repairs, ammo reloads, stripping armor, weapons etc off salvaged mechs after battle.

 I just cannot bring myself to allow lower than Veteran techs do maintenance on my mechs. Transport bays and Regular techs just do not mix well. I have had entire companies arrive in non combat ready after a transit on board ship. At least my Vets keep it under control.

And yet mechs have walked under their own power out of wrecked dropships that sat for decades(or longer) in setting.  This would tend to indicate a problem with the new rules, they simply do not match the setting.

[Col Toda]

The answer after a battle will always be more . In an after action repair cycle you tend to do triage : what unit with up to 3 teams slapping armor on it can be reloaded and ready AS SOON AS POSSIBLE . I go to a heavy armed short brutal combat  more to limit damage taken as much as damage given . The only way to do that is use ammo hogs . By extension you lose sustained combat . For instance for about 10 maybe 12 combat turns I get near maximal results . I lose about 1/3 of my firepower and another 1/3 in  16 turns of fighting. So If the engagement is not won by then I lose .