Frabby, why are you choosing numbers arbitrarily?
Just to get this out of the way first:
Yes, the relative numbers are definitely arbitrary. But they are still based in what data we have - and where that data is contradictory, I have tried to draw conclusions that reconcile as much information as possible. This is the best I could come up with.
I'm fully aware that my numbers are mostly guesswork an conjecture. All I'm trying to do is to interpret the many bits of unclear data into a plausible picture of the situation.
Critical feedback is very welcome, I am fully prepared to adjust my analysis if you can make a better argument.
Explorer Corp provides you with two starting points: the Corp's JumpShip distribution, and the size of the Drac contribution (less than fifty vessels of any type). My intent was to examine the "commonality" logic you used in your other essay.
The "commonality logic" is straight from
DropShips and JumpShips, where every ship class has a relative "Frequency of sighting" rating stated in its stat block. The tiers are "Common", "Uncommon", "Rare", and "Unique". No further explanation is given in the book, not even how these tiers compare relative to each other. But evidently this is the most important sorting lead we have besides the
Invader's explicit 46% share.
I've explained in the Essay how I came to the conclusion that - at least for JumpShips - each tier must be around three times as common as the next lowest tier for the whole system to make any sense.
But this "commonality" tier system is only found in the
DropShips and JumpShips sourcebook. It is not applicable for a quote from
Explorer Corps; there is absolutely no indication that the text reference of "common" here has anything at all to do with the "Frequency of sighting" tiers from
DS & JS.
DS&JS splits the Invader 51%/17%/32% between House/Mercs/Merchants. If you're ignoring those ratios, why not also ignore the Scout's "uncommon" rating? Why make the Scout such an incongruously large part (11%) of your expanded JumpShip population?
I don't follow you here. Where am I ignoring the
Invader ratios?
Also, when
- 46% of all JS are
Invaders,
-
Invaders and
Merchants are "common" while
Monoliths and
Star Lords are "Rare" and
Scouts are "uncommon",
how does an estimated 11%
Scouts constitute an "incongruously large part" of the JS population?
What do you estimate to be a reasonable ratio for the
Scout given their relative commonality as stated?
Incorrect.
That "wide range" statement refers to the 15% of JumpShips which are less common than Scouts. Invaders make up 60% of the fleet, while Scouts and Merchants make a combined 25%. The book later (page 24, the Drac contingent) describes a number of classes which are present in very small numbers.
How do you divide the Merchant % from the Scout %, and do either of them (using your ratings from the other essay) qualify as "common" in the Corps?
There is no way to tell the
Scouts and
Merchants apart in their combined 25% share. But from the way the information is presented I deduce that both classes are the #2 and #3 most numerous classes operated by the Corps.
According to p. 17 "JumpShips and DropShips", "the remaining fleet consists of a wide range of other designs, including the purpose-built
Magellan". This paragraph is talking (only) about the JumpShips, so "a wide range" of designs makes up 15% of the EC fleet while 85% comprise of
Invaders,
Merchants, and
Scouts. It's unclear if the "more than forty" Combine vessels quote refers to DropShips only or if it includes the JumpShips. In any case, we're told there's a few
Tramps, at least one
Chimeisho and one
Uma there. That's perfectly in line with my assumptions.
As I've written above, I don't think the
DS & JS "Frequency of sighting" tiers are even applicable to the Explorer Corps.
As a thougth experiment though, clearly the
Invader is so dominant that it would be the only "Common" design; the
Scout and
Merchant are on the next tier ("Uncommon"); the
Magellan and
Tramp are "Rare", the
Chimeisho and
Uma would have to be rated as "Unique". There's no information about other classes, but the
Explorer-class
Sacajawea was formerly operated by Interstellar Expedition, the Explorer Corps' successor organisation, which to me suggests the
Explorer class would also have been present in the Corps' fleet, in "Unique" or "Rare" numbers.
It's important to remember that there are far fewer JumpShip classes than there are DropShip classes, so "common" may not mean the same ratio at all when comparing a "common" JumpShip class to a "common" DropShip class.
The text is not ambiguous.
"Attack ships" would be things like the Avenger and Achilles. Leopards and Unions are transports, and the book chooses to describe the Rose as a cargo ship - these all have or can be made to have the supplies an expedition would need, and an expedition into Clan space may need their armor and weapons.
I've called the text ambiguous because at face value it seems like total nonsense to me. The passage first states there are "relatively few attack or carrier DropShips" - and then the very next sentence names two military deployment vehicles and a Q-Ship fighter carrier as common vessels in the EC fleet. For this to make sense I think you have to interpret "common" not in the sense of a primarily used type, but instead as "not totally uncommon".
Neither the
Leopard nor the
Union are typically regarded as cargo ships. They are higgins-boat style deployment vehicles. Cargo carrier refit variants exist for both, but those are sub-variants. I think the book means armed military vessels - that may or may not be refitted as cargo carriers - when it says "attack ships". The usual terminology for the ship classes you mention is "assault ship", not "attack ship."
I'm not even saying you are wrong. In the end your interpretation is as valid as mine. It doesn't make much of a difference when it comes to the JumpShip ratios we're discussing.
Not so. DropShips and JumpShips has less than 100 Monoliths, and it apportions them with fractional ratios instead of by counting them individually.
I'd argue that the numbers given for the
Monolith are demonstrably incompatible with the stated ratios, the stated production numbers, and the fact that
Monoliths stay in service (do not suffer from maintenance shortfalls) because of their excellent spare part supply situation.
To make sense of the numbers, I've suggested to interpret the available data to mean the stated numbers ignore the
Monoliths in ComStar service which outnumber all other Monoliths combined several times over (a whooping seventeen to one from my own suggested numbers), for a total of several hundreds existing.
Why wouldn't ComStar's fleets grow along with everyone else's?
I'm not talking about ComStar's fleet, I am only talking about the Explorer Corps fleet. Given that the Corps has a very specific mission that doesn't really change in scope, its ship requirements don't change in scope either.
But even if you assume the Explorer Corps is assigned a certain percentage of the entire ComStar fleet, it will only grow porportionally over time, and not by leaps and bounds. With the exception of the initial creation of the Corps, of course.