Author's notes: Because the ATAC system is apparently incompletely implemented in MML, I had to manually add an additional crewman and leave the extra tonnage needed as free space. The Balao IIA is able to control a single squadron of drone fighters (or in this case drone missiles) or one larger drone with its ATAC system.
As a quick and dirty description of the AdCap, it is a twenty ton missile able to be launched from either a white shark or AR10 launcher, which functions as a drone aerofighter with the following stats: Thrust: 10/15, fuel: 160, Armor/SI: 32/10, equipment: booby trap (200 points), shielded SRCS (elite). The munition is launched during the weapon attack phase, and upon launching may immediately expend up to half its thrust capacity to move. On subsequent rounds it moves as a standard drone aerofighter, save that the only offensive order it can execute is to ram a target. If a ramming attack is successfully executed, it inflicts 200 points of standard scale damage (20 capital) in addition to any collision damage. Though the missile is impervious to standard point defense attacks, it is still as vulnerable to normal weapon attacks as any fighter, and while the missile's compact size means it has only one armor location, any critical hit sustained automatically destroyes the missile.
The Adcap was designed as a twenty ton aerofighter with a compact fusion engine (in this case a star league prototype lost with the missile). In addition to the normal costs for such a craft, there is an additional 50% cost increase to account for the sophisticated compact components used in the design. This raises the final cost of each missile to 2,299,302. The Balao was a heavily specialized and somewhat mythic Star League vessel. Officially classified as a surveilance ship in the same manner as the Bugeye, the Balao was actually designed to function as an attack vessel, relying on its tiny emergence wave and stealthy features to approach and eliminate a target without being detected itself. In its most well known form, this was achieved through the use of a sophisticated but expensive munition called the Advanced Capital Munition, or AdCap, essentially a tube launched drone aerofighter with a poweful warhead. These munitions gave the tiny Balao a short term punch comperable to a small frigate while also allowing it to remain safe from harm. However, the high cost of these munitions (each comperable to a medium sized aerofighter) and the need for a sophisticated control system that was in turn only able to control six munitions at a time somewhat limited their general utility, and even in ideal circumstances, AdCaps rarely made up more than half a Balao's warload, with the rest of the ship's magazine loaded with conventional or nuclear tipped white shark missiles.
The Balao IIA and its AdCap warheads were still a new technology when the Amaris Coup began, resulting in few being available for duty. Accounts from both the Periphery and the Hegemony indicate the Balao was active in both theaters, though specifics are fuzzy and mostly consist of enemy vessels that may have fallen victim to an attack by a Balao. Balao captains (generally recruited from Terra's asteroid belt) were said to take a perverse delight in not boasting about their exploits, saying that the whole point was to not be seen doing their job. The ship's crews on the other hand tended to be another story, freely boasting about exploits that the rest of the SLDF persistently refused to either confirm or deny.
However effective the Balao IIA might have been at its job, it was ultimately ill suited for the grinding slog of re-taking the Hegemony, particularly as its specialized munitions, already scarce, quickly began to run out. While captains frequently made the argument that the ships could continue their hunter-killer role using nuclear weapons, this strategy was largely vetoed by General Kerensky, who kept a tight hold on the SLDF's nuclear arsenal. Quickly into the Hegemony campaign, the Balao fleet was retasked primarily to surveilance and scouting duties. It is not known how many survived the war or accompanied the exodus, however the hulks of six such ships were revealed in 3050 to still exist at Sian in the Capellan Confederation. Though the Capellans apparently made multiple efforts to restore and reactivate these relics over the years, they were in such a poor state and required so much extravagantly expensive technology that it simply wasn't cost effective to do so. More recently, the Capellans have chosen to instead use the relics as templates for their own design, intended to serve as a more general purpose jump capable gunboat rather than a specialized stealth attack ship.
As the Balao IIA name indicates, there was indeed a much older model. The original Balao I lacked the capital missile tubes, the ATAC control system, and the extensive sensor systems of its later cousin. Instead it carried a single large bore naval autocannon in the nose. Though traditionally this would limit the vessel to only short range engagements, the ship's gunners specialized in plotting extremely long range shots against unwary opponents on stationary or highly predictable paths. These "Sniper Shots" only tended to work once in a given engagment, as after the first shot hit home, enemy forces would begin evasive maneuvering which would spoil any follow up shot. Thus while the ship's main gun had considerable punch, it could only reliably take out soft targets like conventional jumpships, dropships, or civilian stations, making each use of the vessel a potential public relations nightmare. Increasingly unwilling to use them, the SLDF had most of the Balao I fleet converted to special operations transports by 2700, removing the gun to make room for troop quarters, storage space, and launching bays for shuttlecraft. In this configuration, the recristened Balao IA served throughout the last years of the Star League.
Balao IIA class Missile Ship
Mass: 25,000 tons
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Advanced)
Introduced: 2765
Mass: 25,000
Battle Value: 9,861
Tech Rating/Availability: F/F-X-F-F
Cost: 8,854,363,000 C-bills
Fuel: 1,000 tons (10,000)
Safe Thrust: 3
Maximum Thrust: 5
Sail Integrity: 3
KF Drive Integrity: 3
Heat Sinks: 139 (278)
Structural Integrity: 60
Armor
Nose: 13
Fore Sides: 13/13
Aft Sides: 13/13
Aft: 13
Cargo
Bay 1: Cargo (185.0 tons) 1 Door
Ammunition:
60 rounds of White Shark ammunition
Dropship Capacity: 0
Grav Decks: 0
Escape Pods: 0
Life Boats: 12
Crew: 14 officers, 70 enlisted/non-rated, 8 gunners
Notes: Equipped with
lithium-fusion battery system
1 Mobile Hyperpulse Generators (Mobile HPG)
1 Autonomous Tactical Analysis Computer (ATAC)
1 Naval Comm-Scanner Suite (Large)
30 tons of lamellor ferro-carbide armor.
Weapons: Capital Attack Values (Standard)
Arc (Heat) Heat SRV MRV LRV ERV Class
Nose (90 Heat)
6 Capital Missile Launcher (White Shark) 90 18(180) 18(180) 18(180) 18(180) Capital Missile
White Shark Ammo (60 shots)
FRS/FLS (20 Heat)
2 Large Pulse Laser 20 2(18) 2(18) 0(0) 0(0) Pulse Laser
ARS/ALS (20 Heat)
2 Large Pulse Laser 20 2(18) 2(18) 0(0) 0(0) Pulse Laser
