DropShip of the Week: Vengeance

[mbear]

I don't understand what this means:

...customised Vengance 2682...

Is 2682 the serial number, model number, or something else entirely?

[Weirdo]

Year of introduction. It's how most ship variants are named these days.

[glitterboy2098]

so if you do have to use this ship on its own for a campaign, without a task force to support it, how would you kit it out and deploy it for best effect?

myself, i'd say try to get energy weapon focused fighters, or barring that, ones that use the same LRM and AC5 ammo as the dropship carries for its own weapons. which would simplify logistics somewhat. another thought is try to get fighters that have big fuel tanks (SL-15Slayers would be good) so you don't have to refuel them as often.

another thought, if the GM allows it, would be to use the unused tonnage from the fighter bay allowance to carry extra supplies.. if you have an 80 ton slayer in a bay that can hold up to 100 tons, that is 20 tons extra of fuel and ammo you might be able to carry as cargo.

[Scotty]

so if you do have to use this ship on its own for a campaign, without a task force to support it, how would you kit it out and deploy it for best effect?

The answer to this question is get a different dropship, because the Vengeance is incapable of supporting itself for more than a couple months, and any fighters on board just make the job that much more difficult.

[Weirdo]

What Scotty said. A Vengeance is simply unable to operate solo. If forced to, I'd store half the fighters at a friendly(and secure) port, and use that room for supplies for the other half.

Keep all the shuttles. You'll need them, ESPECIALLY if you're operating solo.

[Alanith]

another thought, if the GM allows it, would be to use the unused tonnage from the fighter bay allowance to carry extra supplies.. if you have an 80 ton slayer in a bay that can hold up to 100 tons, that is 20 tons extra of fuel and ammo you might be able to carry as cargo.

I can see your point, but in real life I'd be quite hesitant to do something like that. That's pretty dangerous, even if it was just a peacetime cruise, let alone if someone is actually shooting at your ship. Because all it's going to take is one accident during hanger operations or a projectile that penetrates to the hanger before exploding and you're going to be performing an interpretative reenactment of the Battle of Midway from the side of the Japanese carrier force.

Personally, I'd rather push to have a new, larger dropship designed and have the old Vengeances scrapped/sold off to Mercs or planetary defense forces or something.

[glitterboy2098]

given the fact most Bt ships are mass limited, not space limited, i don't think you'd have to literally store the stuff in the hangers. just that you'd have that much extra mass for fitting more stuff into the ship. thus why you'd need GM permission.. you'd basically be not only interpreting the fighter bay mass limits in a way not directly supported by canon (though hinted at in the fluff and in mechs like the jackalope), plus you'd be playing a bit loose with the listed cargo mass for the main cargo bay.

and advice like "don't" is good and all, but sometimes if your in a campaign you may not have a choice. if you lose your cargo ship support for example, and can't get a replacement. or if your GM doesn't let you bring additional ships purely to support the vengeance. or your doing a merc campaign and you can only get a vengeance and not other ships due to the rolls.

[Scotty]

and advice like "don't" is good and all, but sometimes if your in a campaign you may not have a choice. if you lose your cargo ship support for example, and can't get a replacement. or if your GM doesn't let you bring additional ships purely to support the vengeance. or your doing a merc campaign and you can only get a vengeance and not other ships due to the rolls.

If you lose your cargo ship support, your mission is a bust and you'll only lose more stuff if you try to operate the Vengeance solo.
If your GM doesn't let you bring additional ships, that's a GM problem, because running a Vengeance by itself is not fun.
If you're doing a merc campaign, sell it and buy a Mule.

EDIT: Seriously, that way lies madness.

[Auren]

Pretty much this. The Vengeance is essentially the post 2nd Succession War Thera.

They are amazing fighter carrier, and will absolutely wreck just about any other dropship with its fighter compliment. But you don't send Theras on solo pleasure cruises and you don't send a Vengeance on solo pleasure cruises either.

Also, an ASF cubicle having 50 tons of extra stuff + quarters for a tech and pilot make life significantly easier for the Vengeance.

[Welshman]

The history of the Vengeance has always been somewhat confused. Even the earliest fluff described what it was and how it was used rather than where it came from. This led to all sorts of confusion. For example it was regularly associated with the Federated Suns despite never being built there, until it was retconned so that it was. It was associated with the Star League, despite being introduced in 2782, until it was retconned to 2682. Perception bending reality?

Retconned would imply changing specifically written history. The history of the Vengeance is one of the more confusing ones in the game. We chose to make a stand on specific data in some cases. In the case of the FedSuns yard, it wasn't a retcon, it was filling in history that had never been written and fit.
 

its not often that i feel less informed about a unit after reading a *otW, but that is what this managed. i had to go to Sarna to get actual info on the unit itself.. because pretty much no specs are given in the article.

The Vengeance was 10,000 tons in DropShips and JumpShips. This is illegal under the current rules and was increased to 11,400 tons in TRO3057R.

And this is just another reminder that Sarna is not a canon source for data. It's a good general reference, you want to check official publications for the latest. The Master Unit list would have given you the correct tonnage.

It seems like you have just demonstrated exactly why you should give at least the basic numbers in the article.

Because at the end of the day, BattleTech is a business. While we love and support the "of the Week" articles, they are not a substitute for the TROs or other canon BattleTech publications.

[Diablo48]

Because at the end of the day, BattleTech is a business. While we love and support the "of the Week" articles, they are not a substitute for the TROs or other canon BattleTech publications.

Of course, but things like total tonnage and thrust profile are not a substitute for the canon publications either.  That is especially true for the Vengeance because the weapons and armor are more or less irrelevant when discussing how to use it, but you cannot use the ship without that information.