Most Profitable Jumpship?

[Vehrec]

There are few expenses larger in the setting that buying your own Jumpship.  You run a half-billion C-bills into debt just to buy a Invader that can bring in 300,000 C-bills a week in total gains, judging by the cost of attaching a Dropship to a Jumpship, which means that you'll need at least a 32 year loan with 0% interest to pay off the ship.  At least, you would the way I calculate it.

So what's the best ship to make money?  Assume that you jump 1 time per week, 2 if you have a Lithium-fusion battery, and we collect all 100,000 C-bills for a dropship on a collar *every time* you jump.  Less traffic=less profits=less predictable returns.  Only operate Jumpships in areas where there are plenty of Dropships needing service.

The catch is I have no idea what maintenance costs on these ships are, and how much helium you need to fill the tanks with or hydrogen you need for fuel.  To say nothing of crew costs-at 24 crew isn't much but it is an ongoing expense of several thousand extra C-bills per month.

Still, here's my back-of-the-envelope calcs using cost data from Sarna.  That's...probably badly out of date though, but do I really want to calculated the cost of these designs by hand?
Invader-32 years
Star Lord-24 years
Merchant-37 years
Monolith-21 years
Scout-57.7 years
Tramp-49.4 years

I'm interested as well in how Recharge stations (more jumps=more money, but you need to pay for recharges, is it worth it?) and LF-batteries (almost certainly a loss-but can you charge premiums?) affect this.

[kato]

The catch is I have no idea what maintenance costs on these ships are, and how much helium you need to fill the tanks with or hydrogen you need for fuel.  To say nothing of crew costs-at 24 crew isn't much but it is an ongoing expense of several thousand extra C-bills per month.

Details at CO pp.24-29 plus SO p.147 and p.179.

For an Invader assume per week/jump a minimum of 53,200 C-Bills for spare parts, 6,913 C-Bills fuel cost (assuming the cheapest hydrogen cost listed) and 4,410 C-Bills for a regular crew, hence about 21.5% operating cost versus what you make off of the dropships you transport.

[Vehrec]

Details at CO pp.24-29 plus SO p.147 and p.179.

For an Invader assume per week/jump a minimum of 53,200 C-Bills for spare parts, 6,913 C-Bills fuel cost (assuming the cheapest hydrogen cost listed) and 4,410 C-Bills for a regular crew, hence about 21.5% operating cost versus what you make off of the dropships you transport.

That certainly has a depressive effect-now you earn just 235,477 C-bills a week, 12,224,804 per year-and the cost of the ship, according to a spreadsheet I'm messing around with, has gone up to 681 million.  With those numbers, we get about 56 years for a zero-interest loan, or 81 years for a 1% interest loan.  Oddly, a lot of loan-calculators you find online don't like interest rates that low, but at 2%, you're paying more interest every month than you actually earn.  The economics on Jumpships are just *terrible* it looks like.

[snewsom2997]

That certainly has a depressive effect-now you earn just 235,477 C-bills a week, 12,224,804 per year-and the cost of the ship, according to a spreadsheet I'm messing around with, has gone up to 681 million.  With those numbers, we get about 56 years for a zero-interest loan, or 81 years for a 1% interest loan.  Oddly, a lot of loan-calculators you find online don't like interest rates that low, but at 2%, you're paying more interest every month than you actually earn.  The economics on Jumpships are just *terrible* it looks like.

What if you carry correspondingly more valuable cargo. Luxury goods from a single planet of manufacture. I get the feeling that in addition to Drpships, the internal holds, any empty quarters, and just dead space would be filled with rare booze, electronic equipment, medical supplies, art, basically anything that would fetch above commodity value on a market other than the source.

Maybe even venturing into the more illegal, controlled substances, small arms, rare animals.

I would also expect to get paid a premium for transporting mercenaries or military cargo, just because of the addition risk that you are no longer a civilian trader.

[epic]

jumpships don't carry cargo much (what they have is probably sufficient for some light trade at a charge station at best, or for the needs of the crew/spare parts).

Jumpship economics only work with either incredibly low interest loans (as noted) or some other factor that is missing.  For me, I would suggest a small percentage stake in whatever dropship cargo they carry (in the neighbourhood of 1% or less).  This would vastly increase jumpship profitability, but would make the jumpship crews almost like mini-customs officials.  Perhaps a different item would be to typically also include all maintenance costs in their fees contractually with dropships.  That would mean that the more jumps a ship make, the more profitable it is for them (though harder on the equipment!).

It is notable, however, that most jumpship crews in the fiction are barely ahead of the banks that hold their mortgages, so perhaps the 81 year loan is an actual thing and there is no other way to make jumpships profitable...

[kato]

It's possible in trade-up deals with strong negotiation skills to generate the required assets in a somewhat realistic fashion.

Provided you have a mid-sized dropship, sell it off at 130% and obtain an Invader at 70% with the help of another 100 mill from the bank - then it's possible to pay that off within a BT-standard loan period of 12.5 years.

[Alsadius]

It's possible in trade-up deals with strong negotiation skills to generate the required assets in a somewhat realistic fashion.

Provided you have a mid-sized dropship, sell it off at 130% and obtain an Invader at 70% with the help of another 100 mill from the bank - then it's possible to pay that off within a BT-standard loan period of 12.5 years.

Sure, but what does it say about the economy that you can't generate a return on your assets of over 2% anywhere else?

[Giovanni Blasini]

How much worse is it, I wonder, for ships like the Explorer or Aquilla?

[Minemech]

How much worse is it, I wonder, for ships like the Explorer or Aquilla?

An Explorer is more a CEO's Ferrari, than a space Uber.

[marcussmythe]

See, and my thought here was that we have a situation where state and capital actors want a rare/irreplacable resource under their command.  Confiscation would rile up other forces, so the powers that be collude to depress profits and increase costs for the owner-operators of tramp Jumpers (and Droppers) so as to allow them to claim thise scarce-to-irreplacable assets into their direct control. 

A House’s available cash is nigh infinite by any standard.  A trillion is a lot of people.  But all the cash in the world wont buy you Dropships, Jumpships, or Atlas’s if noone is selling.  Hell, the high initial cost may be a product of the corporations/Houses bidding up the cost of those few Jumpers on the market until the private owner/operator -cannot- turn a profit - so he doesnt buy it, the House does.

[Korzon77]

TGhis is sort of "we don't talk about FASAnomics."  Because if jumpships are that rare, why wouldn't they be owned by the state? You buy your jumpship, struggle to pay the loan, or it's a clunker that has been in the family forever, and then one day you find yourself handed suitcases full of cash--enough money that you and your family will be rich forever. Want something else? Fine! here you go, baron!  Your very own chunk of an advanced planet, a domain the size of California with 50 million people paying taxes to you. Because if they were that rare? Well, that's what you will get. Most people aren't going to hang on to the family jumpship in the face of becoming instant zillionaires. 

The only way to change that is if jumpships are common, which well, hits other aspects of the setting.

So don't think of it too hard. Having the bank come for your jumpshipo becuase you can't make a profit is a bit like the 1980s land baron wanting the old farm when he could just buy it.  Go get the A-team, ah, I mean, a merc unit, and find some improbable mission that will save the day.

[Frabby]

The "price tag" is pretty much a balancing game mechanic that's meaningless in-universe. It's at least very misleading.

It is spelled out in Mercenary's Handbook 3055 that you can't simply go and buy a JumpShip. There simply is no market.

Instead, to acquire such a vessel you need to invest at least 15 million C-Bills (or more, in 6-million increments) which represents market research, favors called in, and presumably bribes and other incentives. And that's for the chance to get a JumpShip.
Next, you need to literally get very lucky (as in, there's a 50/50 chance that the acquisition attempt fails on the first roll and all those investments are lost with zero recoup.
If you even make it to the second roll, you still need to roll 8+ on 1d6 (!) to get a Scout, and higher for other, larger vessels (up to 12 for a Monolith). Extra investments improves the target by -1 for every 6 million C-Bills.
As I read the mechanics, you have to chose a ship class first and then roll if you get it. You don't get a smaller ship if you fail your roll; instead, the entire acquisition process comes up empty.

Yup, this is pretty much a seller's market.

Edit: And to add,

Because if jumpships are that rare, why wouldn't they be owned by the state? You buy your jumpship, struggle to pay the loan, or it's a clunker that has been in the family forever, and then one day you find yourself handed suitcases full of cash--enough money that you and your family will be rich forever. Want something else? Fine! here you go, baron!  Your very own chunk of an advanced planet, a domain the size of California with 50 million people paying taxes to you. Because if they were that rare? Well, that's what you will get. Most people aren't going to hang on to the family jumpship in the face of becoming instant zillionaires.

I tend to believe that's in fact exactly how it works.

Well, that and one more aspect that's not been considered so far in this thread: JumpShips don't exist in a vacuum (pun...). You don't just go get a JumpShip and it works for you. This isn't a new car, and there is no manual under the driver's seat.
JumpShips are big. Really big. Even a small Scout class JumpShip is essentially a spaceborne present-day aircraft carrier, with a surprisingly tiny crew. That's a lot of machinery. And a lot of that machinery is decades if not centuries old, and has developed kinks over time. A spacer family who've been living on this ship for years will know it inside out. A tech fresh out of NAIS academy will run away screaming from all the warning lights, malfunctions, quirks and kinks. And most likely won't ever in a lifetime figure out how to coerce the old lady into actually making a jump.

"Before you can jump, you need to override airlock security on hardpoint #2 into safe mode and manually lock the hatch. Also, keep hydrogen tank 4 de-pressurized until the seventh KF coil ring starts to oscillate, then flush the tank with fresh hydrogen, but make sure you've locked down abort sequence 447 when you do that or the jump will fail. Oh, and that panic button on the engineering console broke off so you have to jam it with a paper clip. Finally, keep the nav console well heated at all times, if it cools down moisture from the air might short-circuit all the jury rigged parts..."

In short, you can't easily separate the vessel from its crew. (Except if you're a Stackpole protagonist unit.) The crew are not only highly-trained techs, a valuable commodity in and of itself in BattleTech, they're also the only people around who can make this one JumpShip here work. A prize crew may be able to acquaint themselves with the vessel in the long run, and I presume there's a world of difference between a properly maintained DCMS vessel with intact maintenance logs versus a shot-up hulk from the periphery that you took in a violent boarding action. But you get the idea: Crew are an important, even invaluable part of the ship. You can maybe buy them out as Korzon77 suggests, but you cannot easily force them out; and from what we know about spacers, they may not want (or even be able to comfortably live on) a planetside landhold. You pay them through the nose for their carrying service, they pay through the nose for shipyard services and spare parts.

Finally, I suppose ComStar will somehow have its fingers deep in this matter one way or the other. I've often mentioned my theory in the past that ComStar operates a massive merchant marine, on par with any one Great House or perhaps even all of them together, and we know that they are shareholders in many individual JumpShips or the corporations that own JumpShips. Which may be part of the phenomenon how these ships are treated as sacrosanct lostech, which in turn goes a long way to explain how they still survive even when kept together by the proverbial duct tape and prayers.

[idea weenie]

Here was one person who used some economics to calculate the cost of a singe jump from different jumpships:

1. Jumpships are purchased with a 10% down payment
2. Jumpships are financed at a compounding annual rate of 5%
3. Jumpships are fianced for a period of thirty years
4. The lender requires insurance equal to 5% of the monthly payment
5. An amount equal to 2% of the payment is put in a "Rainy Day" fund
6. Jumpships will average three jumps per month, 6 with LF batteries
7. A jumpship always jumps with a full complement of dropships
8. Investors will demand the standard 12.5% annual return on investment
9. Crew wages and monthly maintenace fees are based off of info in FM:Mercs and TRO:3057

Given that, I get the following costs(rounded up to the nearest 500 c-bills) per dropship, per jump.
Scout: $529,500 c-bills
Merchant: $391,500 c-bills
Invader: $293,500 c-bills
Magellan: $728,500 c-bills
Chimeisho: $338,000 c-bills
Tramp: $449,500 c-bills
Star Lord: $219,500 c-bills
Monolith: $195,000 c-bills

Source page:
http://www.heavymetalpro.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4122

[Vehrec]

Some...interesting perspectives here.  Last things first, those are some interesting calculations and assumptions-5% is a good rate to pick for historical reasons, but man, it's not gonna be easy to pay off.  So it's no surprise that at a *minimum* those figures are twice the 100,000 C-bill figure.

As for the accusations of this being FASAnomics and verboten, I say Nay, this is CATAnomics.  We're ideally using only figures from Official Catalyst Approved Products, which there are quite enough of by now to begin poking holes even if they're avoiding hard numbers.  If the same problems that plagued FASA are cropping up again, well, that's not my problem.  I'm amused by the fact that for something like 81 million C-bills you can get a 50-50 shot at buying a Monolith outright, and all the variability is down to that coinflip of heads you win, tails you lose.  Of course, those are 25 year old rules, from a heavily out of print book, so I'll take them with a grain of salt the size of my head.  But I'm not talking about Mercenaries or Mom and Pop Jumpships that are somehow grandfathered into the setting.  They never really went out of production, Jumpships, and someone had to pay for building new ones by buying the damn things.

And they're pretty much indestructible, aren't they?  Oh, they need upkeep and maintenance, but 95% of a Jumpship is the damn core, and there's a body of canon that says that that is a solid monolithic core of solid-state technobabble, isn't it?  The parts that break down are the peripheral bits and bobs, the not-quite-replacement parts and jurry rigs and moving bits that sure as shooting don't actually connect directly to the core.  All that needs is it's helium seals changed out every 30,000 light-years, and you're golden.  If they weren't so resistant to serious damage, well, that single-core monolith design would be a bit of a pain in the neck, wouldn't it?  One tiny fault buried under thirty tons of Germainum-titanium alloy, and suddenly the whole thing's worthless?  And you think attempting to repair an Apple product is bad?

And let's flip this on it's head-we know that in the Star League Iron ore was exported from the Outworlds Alliance's more distant quarters to Terra for refining.  Let's assume it moved via Behemoth, and then be generous and assume that each behemoth only needs one collar per Behemoth instead of two.  That adds $1.25 per ton to the cost of the cargo every time a Jumpship jumps.  And it's 18 jumps on the Terra-Apheratz route, assuming maximum range jumps all the way.  That's an extra $22.50 per ton for that iron ore-must be awfully high content stuff to be worth importing, dang.  Two-collar behemoths, now you're talking 45 Star league dollars a ton surcharge on that ore.  It's not dealbreaking, that's the most amazing bit-we've seen prices shoot up to 150 dollars a ton here on earth in the last ten years-but now they're barely over 60.

[Iracundus]

Although there may be new Jumpships being made, the way I see it is the governments and megacorporations or corporations in industries governments deem vital have all bought up new Jumpship production runs for years, even decades, in advance.  The shipyards do not take new orders from new unknown buyers of uncertain political leanings or that may pose national security risks.  The red tape of licenses, security clearances, etc... would be as much of a barrier as the actual price.

Any Jumpships acquired by a merc unit or smaller commercial firm is through a secondary market.  The sellers are either being forced to sell due to other reasons like bankruptcy or getting out of the business, or the Jumpship is on the verge of falling apart and the cost of maintaining it is considered no longer worthwhile.  Tramp traders are either using these rust buckets or are using an inherited ship.

Alternatively, the huge cost of acquisition and the risk of failure is due to paying bribes or other extra-legal activities in order to jump the queue and get a ship from the shipyard ahead of other buyers, though I see this really only being possible in less state-run regimes.  I would find it hard to believe CC or DC state owned enterprises would tolerate being passed over for some unknown Mom and Pop outfit.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Although there may be new Jumpships being made, the way I see it is the governments and megacorporations or corporations in industries governments deem vital have all bought up new Jumpship production runs for years, even decades, in advance.  The shipyards do not take new orders from new unknown buyers of uncertain political leanings or that may pose national security risks.  The red tape of licenses, security clearances, etc... would be as much of a barrier as the actual price.

That sounded pretty clear from the Tech Readout 3057 entries, too.  They did make the point on some entries what the availability of some of the ships were, as well as the most common users, such as Merchants being the mainstay of Inner Sphere trading fleets, the almost all Invader production going to military procurement, etc.  That said, a couple entries, like the Chimeisho and Tramp, imply sales to non-military parties, with the Tramp even being said to be "relatively easy to acquire" due to some production defects and a recall early on in the newer production ships.

Any Jumpships acquired by a merc unit or smaller commercial firm is through a secondary market.  The sellers are either being forced to sell due to other reasons like bankruptcy or getting out of the business, or the Jumpship is on the verge of falling apart and the cost of maintaining it is considered no longer worthwhile.  Tramp traders are either using these rust buckets or are using an inherited ship.

Alternatively, the huge cost of acquisition and the risk of failure is due to paying bribes or other extra-legal activities in order to jump the queue and get a ship from the shipyard ahead of other buyers, though I see this really only being possible in less state-run regimes.  I would find it hard to believe CC or DC state owned enterprises would tolerate being passed over for some unknown Mom and Pop outfit.

I'd mostly agree, which is one of the reasons I found the entry on the Chimeisho production being opened up to non-DCA buyers on their 3063 production run so odd.

[Maingunnery]

I am not quite sure, wasn't the Monolith quite rare, but became quite more common in latter eras? 

It is quite the perfect jumpship for a busy route.

[Frabby]

I'd mostly agree, which is one of the reasons I found the entry on the Chimeisho production being opened up to non-DCA buyers on their 3063 production run so odd.

The Chimeisho was designed with LF batteries and the DCA urgently needed such ships to run the Wolcott blockade. It may even have been designed with Wolcott in mind from the get-go. It was noted in TRO3057 how the DCA had bought the entire production for several years in advance.

As of 3063 the DCA's needs were apparently satisfied. I don't remember off hand when the Wolcott situation was resolved (Bulldog/Bird Dog?) but at that point I reckon LF ships were considered too expensive for regular use going forward.

[marcussmythe]

Amusingly, given the potential to charge both coil and bettery at the same time, I dont see how you can afford to build jumpships -without- LF.  Jumpers get paid per jump.  Twice as many jumps mean twice the revenue stream*.  I dont have my spreadsheets, but if LF batteries dont double your cost or more, you would always install them (assuming they are available; etc)

*This assumes that there are always enough Droppers to fill your collars.  Given the ‘Jumpships are rare and precious’ and ‘we throw Dropships into combat’ aspects of the universe, It seems that in most cases the transport bottleneck is jumpcollars, not dropships.

Caveat:  What sorcery allows a battery to ‘insta-charge’ a KF Drive perfectly safely, while the same amount of electricity from the Fusion Poweplant would wreck it?  Maybe the ‘battery’ isnt even a battery, at least not a separate one, but a partial duplicate/expansion of the K-F drive, at least of the part of the core that has to be trickle-charged lest BAD THINGS happen.  If it is a ‘core expansion’, it would explain why it does such terrible things to Drop Collar costs.. which would make no sense if it was just a big battery.

[Frabby]

LF batteries are useful, yes, but imho they double your effective range rather than your turnaround times.

They are invaluable for long-range hauls that do not involve handoffs, and for military operations (jump point scouting, quick retreats, Wolcott-style blockade running).

They are presumably also valuable on "jump bus lines" duty - jump, some DropShips undock, some DropShips dock, jump to next stop, repeat.

But they are not very valuable for standalone free traders. Renfred Tor and the Invidiuos or Reston Bannin and the Telendine spring to mind - JumpShips with permanently assigned DropShips, who seem to make up a not-insignificant share of the traffic at least outside of the bus lines.
These jump into a system, and by the time their DropShips have reached the planet the JumpShip has already recharged its drive; it will actually usually sit idle for a few days until the DropShips come back. What would they need a LF battery for?

Also, recharging the drive or LF battery from the reactor gobbles up fuel, thus reducing the ship's endurance and incurring extra costs. While those costs may pale in comparison to the possible extra revenue of jumping more often, the increased dependence on refuelling infrastructure limits the range and usefulness of the JumpShip.

Finally, keep in mind that installing a LF battery will knock of a number of docking hardpoints off your JumpShip - you're not going to jump twice as often with the same number of DropShips. (Except if you're using a hideously inefficient design to begin with - the Tramp springs to mind, much as I like it otherwise.)

[marcussmythe]

LF batteries are useful, yes, but imho they double your effective range rather than your turnaround times.

They are invaluable for long-range hauls that do not involve handoffs, and for military operations (jump point scouting, quick retreats, Wolcott-style blockade running).

They are presumably also valuable on "jump bus lines" duty - jump, some DropShips undock, some DropShips dock, jump to next stop, repeat.

But they are not very valuable for standalone free traders. Renfred Tor and the Invidiuos or Reston Bannin and the Telendine spring to mind - JumpShips with permanently assigned DropShips, who seem to make up a not-insignificant share of the traffic at least outside of the bus lines.
These jump into a system, and by the time their DropShips have reached the planet the JumpShip has already recharged its drive; it will actually usually sit idle for a few days until the DropShips come back. What would they need a LF battery for?

Also, recharging the drive or LF battery from the reactor gobbles up fuel, thus reducing the ship's endurance and incurring extra costs. While those costs may pale in comparison to the possible extra revenue of jumping more often, the increased dependence on refuelling infrastructure limits the range and usefulness of the JumpShip.

Finally, keep in mind that installing a LF battery will knock of a number of docking hardpoints off your JumpShip - you're not going to jump twice as often with the same number of DropShips. (Except if you're using a hideously inefficient design to begin with - the Tramp springs to mind, much as I like it otherwise.)

1.)  Agreed as to single-jump repeat routes with assigned droppers.  This seems a waste of jump capacity, ideally some bright person with a calculator would rationalize jump routes, what with Jumpers being the great bottleneck to the trading lifeblood of the nation, but.. hey, it is how the authors say it is, for one presumes good reasons.

2.)  Given the cost per collar of production, and the cost per jump of a jump, fuel costs per jump just cant be a big issue.  They run on Hydrogen, right?  Most common element in the universe, crackable from water with the application of electricity, in a universe where they have to -try to find a use- for spare 25 rated Fusion Plants and thus invent the Savannah Master?  Whatever the limiting factor is, it just cant be Hydrogen. 

3.)  Agreed as to collar counts.  If your taking off half your collars to put on the batteries, thats at BEST a net break-even, and probably a loss.  As I said, I'm away from spreadsheet.  If Jumpship designs are tight enough that a LF Battery wrecks your collar collar count, then you shouldnt install it.  If Jumpship design is tight enough and you HAVE SPACE for a battery, you maybe should have put on more Collars.

[Iracundus]

Although hydrogen can be gained from cracking water, where is the water coming from?  Either you are doing so and then hauling in the hydrogen via a Dropship, getting refueled directly from a station, or getting water itself shipped over and cracking it on the Jumpship itself (presumably using the oxygen as well). 

The issue I see is time and opportunity costs.  Doing any of the above takes time and anything that delays a Jumpship from jumping is essentially costing them money.

[idea weenie]

One potential use for LF batteries is connecting 2 systems with sane recharge times through a system with a long recharge time.

I.e. Three systems, and the Jumpship path is A-B-C
Systems A and C have a ~180 hour recharge rate, while system B has a 300 hour recharge rate.  So the Jumpship gets fully charged both core and L-F battery in system A, taking 360 hours.  It then jumps to system B, exchanges Dropships, and jumps to system C.  It never needs to unfurl its sail thanks to the L-F battery.  It then arrives in system C, and unfurls its sail to begin charging.

A regular Jumpship would spend 180 hours charging in system A, then jump.  It then spends 300 hours charging in system B, before it can jump again.  Total charge time is 480 hours.

So the L-F battery can handle 33% more Dropships on the same route.  The question is if the L-F battery would take up enough mass to reduce the number of Docking Collars by 25%.  I.e. design a regular Jumpship with 4 collars, then see if a L-F battery version can still fit 3 collars in it.

[Charistoph]

Also, recharging the drive or LF battery from the reactor gobbles up fuel, thus reducing the ship's endurance and incurring extra costs. While those costs may pale in comparison to the possible extra revenue of jumping more often, the increased dependence on refuelling infrastructure limits the range and usefulness of the JumpShip.

Not really as much as you'd think.  Fuel costs were never a stated concern for charging from the power plant, any more than refueling a Battlemech was.  There was more concern over fuel for the station-keeping drive itself. 

The problem was with the energies themselves being too chaotic to be able to reliably charge the Core.  You could even set up the reactor to charge at the exact same rate as the sail, and it would be just as dangerous as one charged it within the 6-8 hours it would have taken at max speed (at least under the BattleSpace rules I read an age ago).  For some reason, they are too sensitive and crash.

[marcussmythe]

So a KF battery raises your instananeous radius of action, but not maintained speed, because it cannot safely charge, save but from the sail.

And the rules have no mention of the idea of installing a double sized sail to allow one to charge both at the same time, or some flavor of, yannow, power regulator between the powerplant and core/LF battery to dampen those irregularities.

[Frabby]

Basically yes.

Jump Sails are canon for BattleTech because they looked cool in the art.
It's never been explained how they really work or why they're needed given the obvious fact that their energy output is a tiny fraction of the ubiquitous fusion reactors in the setting.
However it is they work, if doubling sail size would reduce recharge time you can bet they'd have done it, at least on WarShips. That nobody ever did it implies the solution isn't as easy as that.

Game design and universe building mandate that regular JumpShips need to recharge for a week or two. Remember they're the bottleneck feature whenever plot requires one.
LF batteries wereintroduced not to make the regular merchants twice as fast, but to allow for double-jumps on (initially) WarShips.

Edit: Corrections/typos

[Charistoph]

LF batteries were introduced not to make the regular merchants twice as fast, but to allow for double-jumps on (initially) WarShips.

Pretty much.  Either to quickly bypass a system, or to be able to get out of dodge if the jump point turned out to be exceedingly dangerous.

[Frabby]

Edit: blanked, sorry for misreading

[SaltyDog325]

You could even set up the reactor to charge at the exact same rate as the sail, and it would be just as dangerous as one charged it within the 6-8 hours it would have taken at max speed (at least under the BattleSpace rules I read an age ago).

It's changed according to Strategic Ops. I haven't looked to see if there's any errata on it: pg. 87 has a quick charge table on it; at 175+ hrs there's no damage to charging the drives. The fastest you can charge it is 16 hrs at a +10 modifier, at 15 hrs it just says n/a.

[Charistoph]

It's changed according to Strategic Ops. I haven't looked to see if there's any errata on it: pg. 87 has a quick charge table on it; at 175+ hrs there's no damage to charging the drives. The fastest you can charge it is 16 hrs at a +10 modifier, at 15 hrs it just says n/a.

At least they corrected that oddity, then.