C-Bill Multiplier For Mercenary Units

[michaelnace]

Hi, folks!

I'm new to/working through The Mercenaries Handbook for the first time, and am trying to build my first Merc unit. I've run into a snag -- the monthly maintenance fee for the unit in C-Bills seems astronomical! I'm wondering if 1) I'm doing something wrong (probably), or 2) this is just the steep cost of doing business in the world of Mercenaries.

Here's what I did:

I had a semi-bad random UP roll and had 50K unit points to work with. That was ok, though: I figured that it might be good to work with a slightly smaller unit for starters.

I bought the following (leaving out new/salvaged and experience for brevity):

• 1 Union Dropship
  1 Scout Jumpship
  1 Heavy Mech Lance
  1 Medium Mech Lance
  1 Light Mech Lance
  2 Medium Fighters
  1 Support
  1 Scout Infantry
  2 motorized infantry
  2 regular infantry
  1 Jump Infantry
  1 Light Armor

I know that new players often skip over Dropships and/or Jumpships in the beginning due to cost, but I bought them because I want to learn how to play the dropships and jump ships component of the game.

Anyway, when I worked up maintenance cost using the SP scale, this is what happened:

Maintenance                   Number   SP    Value    Light 'Mechs (salvaged)   4           30   120 Medium 'Mechs (new)           4           25   100 Heavy 'Mechs (new)           4           35   140 Aerospace Fighters           2           12   24 Union Dropship (new)           1           70   70 Scout Jumpship (salvaged)   1           150   150 Light Armor                   2           7   14 Support (Techs)                   4           0   0 Scouts                           12           1   12 Infantry Squads                   5           1   5

So, gross SP spend after I subtract for techs is 626. Now, Mercenary's says that each SP is equal to 5,000 C-Bills. 626 x 5,000 C-Bills is equal to 3.1 MILLION C-Bills.

To me, this can't be right, since the handbook says that the base fee that a Mere squad receives weekly on a contract ranges from 2,500 to 25,000 per squad. Just eyeballing it, there's no way that this unit could generate even close to 3.1 million.

Have I miscalculated SP?

[Alan Davion]

Which mercenaries book are you working out of? There's a few different ones I know of, there's the older Classic Battletech Field Manual: Mercenaries and Mercenaries Supplemental books, and then there's the newer Combat Manual Mercenaries with the redone artwork for the Warhammer, Shadow Hawk, Griffin and Marauder on the cover.

The Field Manual: Mercenaries has a table on page 148, page 156 using Adobe Acrobat Reader, that has multipliers to raise or lower a persons pay depending on their level of skill, from Lowly Assistant with a 0.5x multiplier to an Elite Pilot or whatever with a 3.2x multiplier.

I recently went about building my own Mercenary unit and calculated how much it would cost, salary wise to pay everyone from the Aerospace pilots all the way to the Technicians and it came out to somewhere around 14.7 million C-Bills a year. Now that was using the "base" salary given in the Field Manual: Mercenaries book, where people like Mech and Aero pilots make 1,500 C-Bills per month, which comes to 18,000 C-bills a year.

If I were to drop some of the pilots and other people such as tank crews and infantry down to the "green" level, that saves me 40% over the "regular" level pilots.

So that mech or aerospace pilot that makes 1,500 C-Bills per month goes down to 900 C-Bills a month, 10,800 a year.

[nckestrel]

Looks like he's going back even older, the book actually called Mercenaries Handbook, FASA1616.

I'm not familiar with the rules from that book, but p98 has an example, and most of the units have techs that subtract from the SP cost.  The first Command Lance, Medium 'Mech requires 25 SP, and it has a veteran tech for it generating 21 SP that only leaves a -4 deficit for that unit.  Several units even generate a surplus, the light tanks only need 7 SP but have a tech generating 20 (for most of them), so there's a +13 SP surplus.

You seem to have way fewer techs than it is assuming.  So it looks like you need to hire some 'techs asap.

[michaelnace]

Thanks, guys. Yes, for the time being, I am using the Mercenaries Handbook (and all of the free legacy pdf. available on the web) due to budgetary constraints. Your answers inspired me to look back into the manual and it has an example work-u of a unit worksheet. I think the trick is that, if you are using mostly green or regular units, you're not really able to offset SP costs. In the book's example, they are almost exclusively using veteran and elite squads, which generate offering SP. And true: I didn't have enough techs, which really make a difference. With this in mind, I can really mitigate SP costs. Many thanks!

[mbear]

Thanks, guys. Yes, for the time being, I am using the Mercenaries Handbook (and all of the free legacy pdf. available on the web) due to budgetary constraints.

For what little it's worth, I'm not sure there are any legacy PDFs available on the web that have been approved by Catalyst.* However, there is the Chaos Campaign ruleset available from the downloads section of this website. It formed the core of the "Building a Force" rules in Campaign Operations so it might be a good substitute.

Chaos Campaign (E-CAT35400X)

The Chaos Campaign is a system to run your own campaign in a variety of BattleTech‘s game systems. Intended to provide some depth, while keeping logistics tracking to a minimum, the Chaos Campaign system is used in many recent books. If you enjoy these rules, an expanded version appeared in Campaign Operations.

The Turning Points PDF-only campaign series uses this system extensively.

The other good thing about Chaos Campaign is that it uses lessons learned from ~25 years of playtesting to suck less keep focus on the stuff that's really interesting to most players: Staging battles. (AccountTech is kind of interesting, but dueling spreadsheets isn't what I'd call fun.)

If you want some random assignment tables, check out Xotl's  3028-3050 Random Assignment & Rarity Tables.

You may also find nckestrel's Combat Manual Lite series, Beta thread interesting.

*But please feel free to prove me wrong. :)

[Colt Ward]

I know that new players often skip over Dropships and/or Jumpships in the beginning due to cost, but I bought them because I want to learn how to play the dropships and jump ships component of the game.

Just for note . . . there is not much 'play' for jumpships, they are just sort of the moving truck that delivers things from place to place.  Since 1SW or at least 2SW they were pretty much off limits for attacking due to their near irreplaceable nature.  Now your dropship . . . well, you are looking at sometimes having to run the gauntlet to land, defending the LZ as you dust off, or planning for it to hop around.

[Gigastrike]

Well, the dropship and jumpship account for half of that upkeep.  Jumpships especially aren't necessary for a company your size to have, since you can just contract independent jumpships for just getting to the place instead of owning your own and costing you hundreds of thousands while you're planetside.

Dropships are useful and you'd probably be expected to have one for a company that size.  I would guess that you don't "need" one, but that's just because I was able to function in MekHQ without one, so I assume I found some other way of getting my company down to a planet (maybe contracting a dropship which would just leave after we landed).  But again, it's just there to get you on and off the planet, and it costs hundreds of thousands of c-bills in the mean time.

[marcussmythe]

Id look at the ownership cost of a Jumper vs the ongoing cost of renting space on demand.  Unless your jumper is constantly fully tasked by your company, competitikn and economics means its probably a money loser - unless it gives you a capability that lets you charge more - “Yes, we can be there in minimum transit time, no waiting around for a jumpship thats headed the right way.  Yes, there will be an upcharge for Express Military Solutions.”

[Colt Ward]

Id look at the ownership cost of a Jumper vs the ongoing cost of renting space on demand.  Unless your jumper is constantly fully tasked by your company, competitikn and economics means its probably a money loser - unless it gives you a capability that lets you charge more - “Yes, we can be there in minimum transit time, no waiting around for a jumpship thats headed the right way.  Yes, there will be an upcharge for Express Military Solutions.”

And absolutely this . . . even a lot of mercs that sell themselves as raider teams (like Avanti's Angels) rely on their employer for JS transit.  They tend to have their own dropships, but require the boss to move them from system to system.  You are also going to have problems cramming what you have let alone what you need into the single Union- 70t of cargo will not cover all your supplies let alone the 2 vehicles, infantry company, techs, admin and medical personnel you will have for the command.  You are also not really going to be able to load salvage . . . so are you renting a 2nd DS already?

So unless you are only planning on taking only objective raids, intel drops or planetary assaults (charge for space!) then your JS is going to sit there in the same system twiddling the crew's thumbs between the times something breaks down.

[skiltao]

Huh. I would've expected the ship crews to generate support points towards the maintenance of their ships.

[Colt Ward]

They should . . . but you are paying them to sit there and the ship still breaks down . . . eventually it has to go for a overhaul/refit.

But IIRC that set of rules made it hard to grow or even operate.

[marcussmythe]

Most mercenary rules they did made it basically impossible to keep the doors open and the lights on, if you were getting paid what was listed, and being allowed the salvage that was listed.

I think at one point it was a friend of mine who pointed out that a Mercenary Company would be -far- more profitable privaterring for a House - hoist the DC flag and wander Steiner Space, murdering and salvaging Steiner mech units and selling the proceeds - because the RAW for being a mercenary were so crazy bad.

[guardiandashi]

its going to sound odd but the best use of the jumpship for that unit is kind of counter intuitive, It is a capital asset but a very expensive one.

what I would recommend is:
1st use it for transportation to and from the operational mission zones, which means that you should be getting the transportation fees from the employer.

2nd once the ground forces are deployed, don't let the jumpship sit idle, it may reduce the maintenance expenses slightly. but its still throwing money out the airlock. With that in mind it would make sense to essentially let people know there is going to be an extra jumpship in the area that would be willing to move some dropships around which would generate jump revenues.

3rd damaged units (salvage quality) are cheaper to obtain, but have a significant maintenance penalty, fortunately there is a Claus that allows you to repair them up to a better condition.  its expensive but the reduced maintenance costs do pay for it over time (especially since your employer doesn't take that into account when calculating your payment. )

[idea weenie]

2nd once the ground forces are deployed, don't let the jumpship sit idle, it may reduce the maintenance expenses slightly. but its still throwing money out the airlock. With that in mind it would make sense to essentially let people know there is going to be an extra jumpship in the area that would be willing to move some dropships around which would generate jump revenues.

The fun part is when you are raiding/attacking a planet while using your Jumpship for revenue, and the defender's reinforcements arrive on your Jumpship

[guardiandashi]

The fun part is when you are raiding/attacking a planet while using your Jumpship for revenue, and the defender's reinforcements arrive on your Jumpship

if you are raiding your jumpship is not likely to be charged and/or available for other jobs, attacking, much the same applies unless you have been on the ground for more than ~2 weeks.

[Colt Ward]

Well, as has been discussed before . . . unless it in the contract to limit the employer's payment for the JS only in transit to their station, then it would be considered part of the merc's assets and what the mercs were hired to provide.  Having it jumping through neighboring systems setting up a triangle trade could be thus considered a breach of contract.

BUT . . . if you did get your transport costs covered, rather then the employer paying your JS costs as part of the contracted force, then the mercs trip to their station will very likely not be as quick as it possibly could be- your not going to be able to take advantage of major trade routes where you can possibly get a command circuit (provided you could pay the rates for the collar) like movement.

Finally, I am pretty sure your MRBC rating involves transport assets . . . so if your group has a JS and includes it for the rating boost BUT only charge transport fees before it becomes a local trader while you are in garrison or whatever then that is fraud for your rating and might be breach as well.

[pheonixstorm]

No MRBC in the original Merc Handbook. Haven't played those rules, or the 3055 rules in so long. Fun times.

[idea weenie]

if you are raiding your jumpship is not likely to be charged and/or available for other jobs, attacking, much the same applies unless you have been on the ground for more than ~2 weeks.

It takes ~10 days for a Dropship to transit from Jump point to planet, unless you are using pirate points.  It takes ~7 days for a Jumpship to recharge its core safely.

So by the time you have arrived at the planet in System A 10 days later, the Jumpship has recharged (taking 7 days), popped away to System B (taking paying passengers), and has spent 3 days recharging.  It spends another 4 days in System B recharging, while your raid takes ~1 day for both damaging the locals loading the loot, and another 3 days to boost back.  By the time the Jumpship is recharged, you have lifted off and are 3 days out from the planet.  Jumpship has received an emergency payment to transport combat Dropships and returns to System A.  Hope your Jumpship can send a message to your Dropships about the surprise it just carried.

Still, those reinforcements had to come from somewhere.  Do you want to go raid that system too?

Here is a time chart:

Code: [Select]

Day        DropShip                      JumpShip
D+ 0       attached                      Jumped/charge=0
D+ 7       7 days transit                recharged/jumping
D+10       On-planet raiding             3 days of charging
D+11       Last of loot loaded/lifting   4 days of charging
D+14       3 days outbound transit       recharged/jumping back
D+15       4 days outbound transit       1 day of charging
D+21       at rendezvous point           recharged/jumping out