skeleton fabercation

[FedRatCowboy]

OK playing in a campaign right now which is loosely based on Operation Bulldog/ Serpent.

Scenario background:  The unit which my players are playing just have captured a Smoke Jaguar manufacturing plant on Huntress. One of the players has a Phoenix Hawk which has sustained heavy damage losing a leg and both arms. There is raw Endo Steel which has not been cut into other chassis. The SJ techs were saved by the unit as they were about to be executed by some SJ Elementals. The Techs are more than willing to manufacture a new Pixie chassis as thanks and are willing to defect with the unit when they leave. There is enough salvage to rebuild the Pixie with Clan parts and weapons.

Question: How long would it take to manufacture the new Pixie chassis in the SJ plant? The buzzards of the other Clans are starting to swarm around.

[ANS Kamas P81]

I think Campaign Ops' repair and customization rules should cover the question of how long the work will take.  I'd start there, and hope the other Clans aren't getting predatory.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

What's the unit's plan for staying on Huntress?  You going to be there for the long haul or are you preparing to leave?  If you're not going to occupy the planet, you'd probably be fine with just loading as much Endo-Steel onto your dropship as you can carry and doing the refit after you get back to the Inner Sphere.

[glitterboy2098]

What's the unit's plan for staying on Huntress?  You going to be there for the long haul or are you preparing to leave?  If you're not going to occupy the planet, you'd probably be fine with just loading as much Endo-Steel onto your dropship as you can carry and doing the refit after you get back to the Inner Sphere.

agreed. once you combine that with all the other changes having the extra mass gives you, you are probably looking at a depot level refit, and those take a fair bit of time.

to be honest, i'm not sure its worth it. you'd probably be better off grabbing whatever clan mechs are in the construction bays and mostly finished, and take the Endo as repair parts for those.

i'm assuming you're playing through a version of either Operation Serpent or Operation Bulldog?

[Retry]

Sounds like a version of Serpent.  Bulldog was pushing the Jaguars out of the IS, Serpent was going for their heart in the Homeworlds.

[AlphaMirage]

Agreed with the above.

You could also graft or frankenmech a Shadow Cat, Fenris, or Mongrel's limbs onto your IS PHawk (which would take around 9 hours or longer for your SJ Techs and much longer for your IS ones).

There is also the possibility that the Jags might have some captured DCMS or Kungsarme mechs around with the right parts. That way you do not have to worry about fabricating stuff from scratch, that takes time and skill rolls.

If you want to do a full Clanspec ES rebuild you might have time to forge one and reinstall everything for that on the year long trip back from the homeworlds, but it is going to be a huge investment in time and probably money as you need to keep enough Clan ES around the repair it should it break.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Well, the good news on that front is that post-Great Refusal, the Diamond Sharks are in the Inner Sphere and willing to sell to anyone... for the right price.  Or you can just use Inner Sphere Endo-Steel, which is the same mass as Clan Endo-Steel, just twice as bulky.

[glitterboy2098]

Sounds like a version of Serpent.  Bulldog was pushing the Jaguars out of the IS, Serpent was going for their heart in the Homeworlds.

bulldog culminated in going to huntress and rescuing serpent though.

[Daryk]

Ah, so the IS conducted two simultaneous major operations... that alone should have scared off the clanners...

[glitterboy2098]

arguably it was all part of one big one..

Serpent was a deep strike at the homeworlds meant to cripple the Jaguar's supply lines and distract them. while Bulldog was the larger operation that would retake the jaguar OZ. when Bulldog hit the edge of the old IS border, they kept going to clear out any garrisons and outposts the jaguars had built along the IS end of their supply lines, and a portion of the bulldog forces, led by Victor S-D, plowed on up the jaguar supply chain towards the homeworlds with the intent of relieving OP:Serpent, and bringing the war to the homeworlds enough to get them to call off any plans to restart the invasion.

[Daryk]

Still sufficiently scary for deterrence in my book...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

The Clans were too dumb to be scared.

[Kithran]

arguably it was all part of one big one..

Serpent was a deep strike at the homeworlds meant to cripple the Jaguar's supply lines and distract them. while Bulldog was the larger operation that would retake the jaguar OZ. when Bulldog hit the edge of the old IS border, they kept going to clear out any garrisons and outposts the jaguars had built along the IS end of their supply lines, and a portion of the bulldog forces, led by Victor S-D, plowed on up the jaguar supply chain towards the homeworlds with the intent of relieving OP:Serpent, and bringing the war to the homeworlds enough to get them to call off any plans to restart the invasion.

Actually Bulldog was expected to take much longer than it did. The Smoke Jaguars pulled back to Huntress part way through Bulldog thus the decision to follow to prevent the Serpent forces being hit by the returnees - this was their reason for continuing rather than a plan to bring the war to the homeworlds as this was already the whole reason for Serpent - wipe out the Jaguars' homeworld as well as their IS holdings.

[bmcauliffe]

I believe that Endo-steel is not lying around in raw form. It is forged in space, in the shape needed, so it wouldn't be sitting in the factory on the surface and you would need the scientists to design new PXH parts from clan ES.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Endo-Steel is built in zero g, but most mechs aren't.  It would have to be stockpiled at the factory where the mech construction actually happens.

[FedRatCowboy]

Update:

Played on Thursday night with my group. I laid out the options:  1. haul as much Endo Steel back on their dropships as they can cram also with all their other spoils, 2. check inventory of Clan Battlemechs to see what is available to take, 3. wait the time for the new skeleton to be forged with the probability of facing a fight from several Clans, or 4. some sort of combo of the options.

The group decided on cram as much as possible material onto the dropships (they somehow captured a Overlord C in a lightning strike to the airfield which went WAY better than it should have) and perused through the battlemechs on hand. As this was one of the main area of equipment shipping to the IS, they found a couple of PHX-3K's, -1K's, -1's, and (with the luckiest roll I have ever seen in any system) a PXH-1b "Special".

Needless to say, the old torn up Pixie was left behind. They launched and made the rendezvous with their Jumpships for the long trek home.

The player in question is planning to replace all the IS weapons with Clan weapons with the exception of the ERPPC which is being replaced with another ER Large laser. (the player got into Battletech via the HBS game and showed me his build for the PXH-1b "Special" in game and wanted to do something similar.)

I think that did very well for themselves in the campaign. Can't wait to see what they want to do next.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Sounds like a fun game.

[Daryk]

They got lucky indeed! :)

[glitterboy2098]

Endo-Steel is built in zero g, but most mechs aren't.  It would have to be stockpiled at the factory where the mech construction actually happens.

i would assume that most mech skeletons are made with various sub-assemblies, using more or less standardized components. so the orbital foundries would just makes those parts, then ship them down to factories on planets for assembly.
for repairs you'd keep a stockpile of those components on hand to replace any damaged ones.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Are you saying that mechs are made from giant metal Legos?

[Maingunnery]

Are you saying that mechs are made from giant metal Legos?

For metal work (including endosteel) I would assume that there are standard profiles for tubes, beams, plates, etc.

[bmcauliffe]

RAW says that the parts are the same for each weight (i.e. 45t), but art would tell you different