JumpShip of the Month (Hahahahaha): Star Lord Class JumpShip

[Arkansas Warrior]

In fleet economic terms, it is better for a navy to field Starlords than to field Foxes. Foxes required the invention of the Pocket warship to make them relevant, as they were too vulnerable, and lacked other practical survival features utilized by light warships. As a project for learning, they made sense, but they needed to be pushed aside as training vessels, or undergo a radical shift in concept.

 In succession war terms, these were amazing vessels, that allowed navies to better project power. It is axiomatic that a cargo ship would escort her through her longer journeys.

I’m sure Star Lords are cheaper to run. After all, they don’t have transit drives, weaponry, or anywhere near the crew requirements.  But they’re for different purposes.  It’s like saying “replace your Atlases with J-37s, they can transport ammo more efficiently.”  Now, if you’re just using Foxes for their collars and leaving them at the jump point, sure.  That’s silly, use Star Lords for that.  But if you’re using the transit drives, or capital weapons, or fighter bays at all, then its an absurd comparison.  Star Lords don’t have those, they can’t possibly compete.

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Every naval infrastructure will incorporate Merchants, and Invaders. They may also incorporate Tramps, Scouts, or even Explorers as needed. Keep in mind that an investment in a Fox is also an investment in an Overlord A-3, but you can use whatever assault ship you need to escort a random jumpship, if you deem it necessary. The Starlord had another role that is relevant to navies, and that is an added specialization in recovery operations.

I was talking more commercial operations, why the smaller Invader is more prevalent, and the fluff comment about it being more economical.  Sure the Star Lord and Monolith have better economies of scale, but they can only leverage that scale on routes that let them generate revenue on all or at least most of their docking collars.  That restricts their economic, not military, utility to more highly trafficked routes.  Where as the smaller Intvader is a nice mix of operational costs and the ability to run less busy routes while still keeping its docking collars, and thus revenue stream, full.  Where as a Star Lord might find itself less profitable due to higher operational costs running off the same revenue stream as the Intruder it is being compared to.

And nothing prevents said Invader from working the 'backbone' transit routes, picking up the overflow that can't get moved by its larger competitors.  So more Intruders get built due to wider utility, same as more narrow body and even regional jets get built compared to their massive wide-body airliner cousins.

[Minemech]

I was talking more commercial operations, why the smaller Invader is more prevalent, and the fluff comment about it being more economical.  Sure the Star Lord and Monolith have better economies of scale, but they can only leverage that scale on routes that let them generate revenue on all or at least most of their docking collars.  That restricts their economic, not military, utility to more highly trafficked routes.  Where as the smaller Intvader is a nice mix of operational costs and the ability to run less busy routes while still keeping its docking collars, and thus revenue stream, full.  Where as a Star Lord might find itself less profitable due to higher operational costs running off the same revenue stream as the Intruder it is being compared to.

And nothing prevents said Invader from working the 'backbone' transit routes, picking up the overflow that can't get moved by its larger competitors.  So more Intruders get built due to wider utility, same as more narrow body and even regional jets get built compared to their massive wide-body airliner cousins.

It is quite likely that Invaders are used as charter ships by companies, to carry what is considered a large load to another site securely. In the cases of some worlds, they may have long term contracts with the planetary chamber/department/ministry of commerce.

[scienefictionfan]

There's another potential explanation for why there are fewer Star Lords then other Jumpships despite being more efficient, namely we are seeing the result of the succession wars. If given a chance to destroy a Star Lord or a Merchant I am going to destroy the Star Lord because it has higher carrying capacity. Add to it that the military would probably grab and loose the big jumpships first we might be left with many smaller jumpships surviving even if the larger jumpships were actually more common in the Star League Era.

[Colt Ward]

There's another potential explanation for why there are fewer Star Lords then other Jumpships despite being more efficient, namely we are seeing the result of the succession wars. If given a chance to destroy a Star Lord or a Merchant I am going to destroy the Star Lord because it has higher carrying capacity. Add to it that the military would probably grab and loose the big jumpships first we might be left with many smaller jumpships surviving even if the larger jumpships were actually more common in the Star League Era.

Solid points all around . . . another way to think of it is . . . are all the Monoliths remaining in governmental (IS, Clan or Periphery) hands?  Have we been told about a single one that is not?  Is one even a merc JS?  The single Leviathan JS we know of was under merc control.  I would further suggest that most the remaining Star Lords are in government hands with a few under merc control.  Which leaves most of the civilian shipping being carried by the smaller JS- then again hauling Mammoths, Jumbos and Mules lets them move quite a bit though we should still have more large cargo DS than just those 3 and the difficult Behemoth.

We know trade levels have never gotten back to Star League levels, even under the Second Star League or Republic eras.  As such, the civilian economic goal would IMO be to return trade to where the Star Lord was the ideal JS transport.  The Republic MIGHT be the best era for trade after the Star League because of Stone & the Sea Foxes.  It would be interesting to see if more of the annual production of Star Lords ended up in civilian hands.

[massey]

The Invader can carry 3 Overlord dropships, or a full regiment of Battlemechs.  If you presume that in the Star League era, regiments may have been assigned their own transport capacity, then it makes sense to build a lot of Invaders.  Regiments may not always travel together.  Even if it's less efficient overall, it's more useful to be able to send one regiment over here and another over there without having a big jumpship make multiple trips.  Just give them all their own ship and problem solved.  It makes logistical planning easier.

Also in the Star League era, attacking jumpships was still common.  A Star Lord or a Monolith makes a pretty tempting target.  With Invaders, an enemy warship has to pick and choose which one to attack.  You can jump in at multiple points and it makes it much harder for an enemy to respond.  Let's say you had a fully charged corvette warship floating around at a lagrange point.  It detects hostile jumpship arrivals and it can jump to their location and blow them up (along with any recently deployed dropships they're carrying).  But with multiple jumpships, you need multiple warships to defend the system.

For freight purposes, a lot of smaller worlds just may not need a Starlord.  Speed of transport may also be of the essence sometimes.  One Star Lord lets you transport 6 dropships 30 light years in one jump's time.  But 2 Invaders not only let you do that, they also let you transport 3 dropships 60 light years in one jump's time.  That's a lot more useful when moving perishable supplies from a garden world to a place that really needs food that isn't right next door.

[Daryk]

Logistically, those 3 Overlords are going to need a cargo DropShip to haul their supplies.

[DoctorMonkey]

Logistically, those 3 Overlords are going to need a cargo DropShip to haul their supplies.

Sshhh  :facepalm:  this is FASAnomics, not LogistiTech

[Frabby]

are all the Monoliths remaining in governmental (IS, Clan or Periphery) hands?  Have we been told about a single one that is not?  Is one even a merc JS?  The single Leviathan JS we know of was under merc control.  I would further suggest that most the remaining Star Lords are in government hands with a few under merc control.

What little data I could collect on this is found in the Sarna Essay article linked above.

But to paraphrase, there is ComStar saying the Monoliths and most of the Star Lords are government controlled and both are pretty rare, but both this claim and the numbers given by ComStar are demonstrably false in the former and highly dubious in the latter case:
Several large merc units (including Wolf's Dragoons, the Eridani Light Horse, and the Northwind Highlanders) and even a smallish mercantile corporation possess Monoliths.

And then there is the old BattleTech approach in sourcebooks of ignoring such fluff limits for players and tilting the odds in favor of the players, by giving them all the good stuff right down to Monolith and Star Lord class JumpShips - even for smallish player merc units - in the unit creation tables.

[Hellraiser]

even for smallish player merc units - in the unit creation tables.

Very true, though, IIRC, the #'s needed to roll one of those is insanely high.

I seem to recall when it came to Recruitment you aimed for the Invader & prayed to the dice gods.