CO - Mercenary contracts to warchest points?

[1000Foot]

Hi all, returning to Battletech after a hiatus, but hoping to run a campaign for our games. I picked up Campaign Operations with the intention of running a Warchest campaign.

We created a mercenary company using the Force Creation and some contracts with the Force Operations chapters. Checking the Warchest style campaign, it appears the GM just picks initial warchest points and track costs by gut. Warchest points can be converted to SPs which can be converted to C-Bills, but as far as I can tell the detailed company and contract rules don't interface with the warchest rules.

Was hoping there was some guidance like "The player's initial warchest gains 100 warchest points for every 1 million C-bills of monthly operating costs" or something.

[Paul]

Checking the Warchest style campaign, it appears the GM just picks initial warchest points and track costs by gut.

For the Track system, initial unit creation is considered free; you play with the unit you want. A number of books prescribe a company of 'Mechs.
You start with 1000 WP.
Each Track has very specific costs and rewards, so I'm not certain what you mean.

Warchest points can be converted to SPs which can be converted to C-Bills, but as far as I can tell the detailed company and contract rules don't interface with the warchest rules.

Correct.

Was hoping there was some guidance like "The player's initial warchest gains 100 warchest points for every 1 million C-bills of monthly operating costs" or something.

Maintenance costs are rolled in to the WP cost to access a Track. It's supposed to be seen as the expense in CBills, favors and tradecraft employed to get the unit there, including travel, maintenance and any other activities, such as just getting the assignment to begin with.

[1000Foot]

Thanks for the reply. Still grappling with the various rules and subsystems, so let me see if I can clarify my confusion.

Using the rules in the first half of CO generates a detailed mercenary company and detailed contracts. A mercenary commander can accept the contract, play through a series of missions and then gets the payment agreed upon during the contract negotiation to pay for repairs, ammo, salaries, etc.  All great stuff, but fairly complex, and I'm a bit worried about missing a decimal point and throwing all the numbers out of whack.

I'd like to use the detailed mercenary group to take part in a warchest campaign since the warchest points are easier for me to understand. Where I'm not sure they synch up is in things like payment for the contract, or influencing the size of the current or future warchests.

- If the merc company owns a dropship/jumpship or has a reserve of cash, can they increase the initial warchest beyond 1000 points?
- If a merc company fails a warchest track (ends up with negative warchest points), does it impact their reserve cash? Do they go into debt?
- When a warchest track is completed, is payment only based on remaining warchest points (converting to support points and then to C-bills) or is a reward worked out separate from the warchest points (ie; warchest points only cover the resources the player can bring to battle)?
- If you run a series of warchest campaigns, is there anything that connects one to the next? Do they each start at 1000 warchest points, with mechs determined either by the GM or Campaign Book, with no additional rules to simulate carrying a merc company from one warchest campaign to the next.

It sounds like the warchest campaign is a self contained "thing", while the detailed accounting presented in the first two sections of CO is a little more flexible in stringing along or simulating a series of contracts, but I just wanted to confirm.

Also, if there's a series of forum posts or a blog that details a GM running a campaign with CO I'd love to see it. My google-fu has failed to reveal anything so far.

Thanks again for the help!