3025 Workhorse ASF

[Lagrange]

Can you build an ASF capable of competently doing high speed engagements, normal ASF combat, supporting boarding actions, and destroying ground units with basic 3025 tech?  Something similar is quite doable with an omni-ASF, but without omni capability and using just baseline tech it took me a fair bit longer to cook a design.

The 3025 Workhorse has a hole punching AC/20 and an LRM-5 which can deal with any competing ASF (like a Selydlitz) that is fast enough to keep medium+ range and attack.  This is swathed in an array of 6 machine guns and 7 small lasers.  The hole puncher achieves threshold hits while the small lasers and machine guns have the dual roles of missile defense at long or medium range and substantially increasing damage at short range.  The entire system is swathed in 40 tons of standard armor, sufficient to make the nose immune to threshold hits from an AC-20, and other locations immune to hits from any other weapon of the day.  The Workhorse also features, unusually, a cargo capacity of 1 ton, which can be used to transport additional fuel, additional supplies, or 10 marines for a boarding action.

Considering the different missions:

• High speed engagement: The damage of the AC-20 and LRM-5 are magnified by speed so the damage potential is 67.5, 79, or 125 damage depending on the engagement speed.  The heavy armor of course assists with the odds of surviving the exchange of fire.
• ASF combat: Of the canon designs, only a Riever (58/round) has more sustained damage than the Workhorse (56/round).  However, the Riever's 16 tons of armor is incomparably lighter than the Workhorse's 40 tons.  Everything else is outclassed in both damage potential and armor.  W.r.t. maneuverability in space only light canon ASF designs can mange to pull more gs in a sustained way due to structural damage concerns.
• Ground units: Carrying Fuel-Air bombs, the Workhorse can deliver up to 400 points of damage on a target, likely ruining any ground unit (and quite possibly others that are next to it).  Liftoff from the ground requires safe thrust 2 (=15 or fewer bombs, 300 points of damage potential) and reaching space requires thrust 4 (=10 or fewer bombs, 200 points of potential damage) so smaller loads may be useful.  The big concern with bombing is the lawn dart check for which there are two responses:
  
  • The ASF is likely to survive a single lawn dart check.  A base control roll of 5+2-1=6 is passed 72% of the time.  Given this, dumping bombs on a target and going home is a fairly viable strategy if you kill the target each time.
  • The advanced atmospheric controls rolls in SO page 97 says that atmospheric control rolls are only needed if hits exceed the damage threshold.  Given the quantity of armor, that's not common.
  As a secondary option, the Workhorse can effectively function as an ultra-robust 2/3 wheeled tank with a +2 penalty to hit.
  
• Boarding Actions: The cargo space can be used by 10 marines for space or ground insertion.

Code: [Select]

Workhorse 3025

Mass: 100 tons
Frame: Unknown
Power Plant: 300 Fusion
Armor: Standard
Armament:
     7 Small Laser
     6 Machine Gun
     1 AC/20
     1 LRM 5
Manufacturer: Unknown
     Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 3025
Tech Rating/Availability: D/X-E-D-D
Cost: 5,874,075 C-bills

Type: Workhorse
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Tonnage: 100
Battle Value: 2,452

Equipment                                          Mass
Engine                        300 Fusion             19
Safe Thrust: 5
Max Thrust: 8
Structural Integrity:         0                       
Heat Sinks:                   15                      5
Fuel:                         320                   4.0
Cockpit                                               3
Armor Factor                  640                    40

                           Armor   
                           Value   
     Nose                   192   
     Wings                153/153 
     Aft                    142   


Weapons
and Ammo                      Location   Tonnage  Heat   SRV  MRV  LRV  ERV
LRM 5                           NOS       2.0      2      3    3    3    0 
AC/20                           NOS       14.0     7     20    0    0    0 
3 Small Laser                   NOS       1.5      1      3    0    0    0 
3 Machine Gun                   RWG       1.5      0      2    0    0    0 
2 Small Laser                   RWG       1.0      1      3    0    0    0 
LRM 5 Ammo (24)                 FSLG      1.0      -      -    -    -    - 
AC/20 Ammo (20)                 FSLG      4.0      -      -    -    -    - 
Half Machine Gun Ammo (100)     FSLG      0.5      -      -    -    -    - 
Cargo (1 ton)                   FSLG      1.0      -      -    -    -    - 
3 Machine Gun                   LWG       1.5      0      2    0    0    0 
2 Small Laser                   LWG       1.0      1      3    0    0    0 

Tradeoffs:
Energy vs. Ballistic damage:  It's possible to do slightly more damage in a sustained way by dropping the large laser and machine guns in favor of small lasers and heat sinks.  While this is reasonable in baseline ASF combat it is a substantial drawback in high speed engagements and loses the second hole puncher and medium range.

Cargo capacity: The choice to have some cargo capacity is unusual here.  We needed it for the capacity to transport marines.  Looking into force design, it seems that 10 marines / ASF is relatively reasonable since the tech squad for the ASF and the pilot amortize the marines and vice versa.  The fact that the cargo can be used for other things is a bonus.

Experimental vs. Basic tech: There are amazing 3025 techs available on an experimental basis like the Long Tom Cannon and experimental double heat sinks.  We are refraining here since they aren't  supposed to be widely available, but just for the record a 5/8 with a long tom cannon and double heat sinks is quite fierce.

Variants
The Workhorse AWACS swaps the AC-20 for satellite imagers, cameras, and communications.   It's a rare variant, occurring about once or twice per force.

Code: [Select]

Workhorse AWACS

Mass: 100 tons
Frame: Unknown
Power Plant: 300 Fusion
Armor: Standard
Armament:
     13 Small Laser
     6 Machine Gun
     1 LRM 5
Manufacturer: Unknown
     Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 3025
Tech Rating/Availability: D/X-E-D-D
Cost: 6,755,325 C-bills

Type: Workhorse
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Tonnage: 100
Battle Value: 2,149

Equipment                                          Mass
Engine                        300 Fusion             19
Safe Thrust: 5
Max Thrust: 8
Structural Integrity:         0                       
Heat Sinks:                   10                      0
Fuel:                         320                   4.0
Cockpit                                               3
Armor Factor                  640                    40

                           Armor   
                           Value   
     Nose                   192   
     Wings                153/153 
     Aft                    142   


Weapons
and Ammo                            Location   Tonnage  Heat   SRV  MRV  LRV  ERV
LRM 5                                 NOS       2.0      2      3    3    3    0 
4 Small Laser                         NOS       2.0      1      3    0    0    0 
3 Machine Gun                         RWG       1.5      0      2    0    0    0 
2 Small Laser                         RWG       1.0      1      3    0    0    0 
LRM 5 Ammo (24)                       FSLG      1.0      -      -    -    -    - 
Recon Camera                          FSLG      0.5      -      -    -    -    - 
Satellite Imager                      FSLG      5.0      -      -    -    -    - 
Satellite Imager                      FSLG      5.0      -      -    -    -    - 
Satellite Imager                      FSLG      2.5      -      -    -    -    - 
Communications Equipment (6 tons)     FSLG      6.0      -      -    -    -    - 
Half Machine Gun Ammo (100)           FSLG      0.5      -      -    -    -    - 
Cargo (2 tons)                        FSLG      2.0      -      -    -    -    - 
3 Machine Gun                         LWG       1.5      0      2    0    0    0 
2 Small Laser                         LWG       1.0      1      3    0    0    0 
5 Small Laser                         AFT       2.5      1      3    0    0    0 

Edits: Updated to AC/20 design per Daryk's suggestion, added AWACS version as per conversation with Giovanni Blasini, In light of rules clarification swapped LL for LRM-5 and some MGs for SLs.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Keeping in mind that MegaMekLab treats any ASF as minimum Standard tech level, I present the SL-15Y Slayer:

Existing AC/10 retained, along with the medium lasers in the nose, tail and one from each wing.  Small lasers are added to the wings to serve as secondary guns up-close that can double as point defense, along with two MGs in each wing, and one fore and aft, to serve the CIWS role.  A half-ton of ammo should be sufficient for the six MGs.

Retaining as many lasers as I could struck me as important to allow for strafing.  I had to reduce the total number of heat sinks, but it's still basically heat-neutral under normal circumstances.

Lastly, I added a Recon Camera, since that's available in the era, and present on canon designs like the Boomerang.

Code: [Select]

Slayer SL-15Y

Mass: 80 tons
Frame: Unknown
Power Plant: 320 Fusion
Armor: Standard
Armament:
     2 Small Laser
     4 Medium Laser
     6 Machine Gun
     1 AC/10
Manufacturer: Unknown
     Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 2770
Tech Rating/Availability: D/C-E-D-D
Cost: 4,421,853 C-bills

Type: Slayer
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Tonnage: 80
Battle Value: 1,219

Equipment                                          Mass
Engine                        320 Fusion           22.5
Safe Thrust: 6
Max Thrust: 9
Structural Integrity:         8                       
Heat Sinks:                   17                      7
Fuel:                         800                  10.0
Cockpit                                               3
Armor Factor                  232                  14.5

                           Armor   
                           Value   
     Nose                    84   
     Wings                 50/50   
     Aft                     48   


Weapons
and Ammo                      Location   Tonnage  Heat   SRV  MRV  LRV  ERV
Medium Laser                    NOS       1.0      3      5    0    0    0 
Recon Camera                    NOS       0.5      -      -    -    -    - 
Machine Gun                     NOS       0.5      0      2    0    0    0 
AC/10                           NOS       12.0     3     10   10    0    0 
Medium Laser                    RWG       1.0      3      5    0    0    0 
2 Machine Gun                   RWG       1.0      0      2    0    0    0 
Small Laser                     RWG       0.5      1      3    0    0    0 
AC/10 Ammo (20)                 FSLG      2.0      -      -    -    -    - 
Half Machine Gun Ammo (100)     FSLG      0.5      -      -    -    -    - 
Medium Laser                    LWG       1.0      3      5    0    0    0 
2 Machine Gun                   LWG       1.0      0      2    0    0    0 
Small Laser                     LWG       0.5      1      3    0    0    0 
Medium Laser                    AFT       1.0      3      5    0    0    0 
Machine Gun                     AFT       0.5      0      2    0    0    0 



[Lagrange]

Keeping in mind that MegaMekLab treats any ASF as minimum Standard tech level, I present the SL-15Y Slayer:

I've always enjoyed the Slayer---that 10 ton fuel reserve is just amazing and it's pretty well-balanced by default overall.

The recon camera can be mounted as a bomb, so it need not be hard-mounted and could just be a MG instead.

W.r.t. weapons, I'm always tempted to forward mount and use multi-unit tactics rather than rear mount.  3 extra forward mounted machine guns don't add much to the peak damage, but every little bit helps, particularly in missile defense. 

With those changes, your peak offense offense becomes 10+15+6+6*3=49, a little greater than the Workhorse.  You're also have 2 extra heat sinks which could be turned into something else.

[Daryk]

How much more would an AC/20 in place of the AC/10 add to the peak intercept damage? ???

[Lagrange]

How much more would an AC/20 in place of the AC/10 add to the peak intercept damage? ???

Fooling around a bit, you could do AC/20+2xML+12xMG for 54 damage, so 8 more damage.  In a high speed engagement that translates to 76(+12), 98(+16), and 186(+32) damage.  It's obviously more, but you lose all of your medium range weapons and only have one crit-seeker. 

Instead, maybe this?

Code: [Select]

Workhorse Alpha 3025

Mass: 100 tons
Frame: Unknown
Power Plant: 300 Fusion
Armor: Standard
Armament:
     13 Machine Gun
     1 AC/20
     1 Large Laser
Manufacturer: Unknown
     Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 3025
Tech Rating/Availability: D/X-E-D-D
Cost: 5,843,700 C-bills

Type: Workhorse
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Tonnage: 100
Battle Value: 2,459

Equipment                                          Mass
Engine                        300 Fusion             19
Safe Thrust: 5
Max Thrust: 8
Structural Integrity:         10                       
Heat Sinks:                   14                      4
Fuel:                         320                   4.0
Cockpit                                               3
Armor Factor                  616                  38.5

                           Armor   
                           Value   
     Nose                   191   
     Wings                142/142 
     Aft                    141   


Weapons
and Ammo                 Location   Tonnage  Heat   SRV  MRV  LRV  ERV
AC/20                      NOS       14.0     7     20    0    0    0 
Large Laser                NOS       5.0      8      8    8    0    0 
3 Machine Gun              NOS       1.5      0      2    0    0    0 
5 Machine Gun              RWG       2.5      0      2    0    0    0 
Machine Gun Ammo (200)     FSLG      1.0      -      -    -    -    - 
AC/20 Ammo (20)            FSLG      4.0      -      -    -    -    - 
Cargo (1 ton)              FSLG      1.0      -      -    -    -    - 
5 Machine Gun              LWG       2.5      0      2    0    0    0 
The compromise here is that we are losing 4 tons of armor to add a medium range modest hole puncher with the large laser.  This is again 54 damage potential, with HSE at 77, 100, and 192.  Better?

[Daryk]

192 will do, thanks!  :D

[Lagrange]

192 will do, thanks!  :D

Ok. updated :-)

Reviewing the canon units, this looks like it's immediate death for any light ASF which chooses to get in range of that AC/20.  The Large Laser is less convincing as a hole puncher, but it at least threatens most of the medium ASF everywhere and the heavy ASF on the wings.

[Daryk]

They're almost as bad as they are the ground...  >:D

[Giovanni Blasini]

OK, my original take on this, based on the Slayer, didn't include an infantry bay.  One of my criticisms of the Workhorse concept is that a single ton seems too small for a delivery vehicle.  So, let me try this a different way, and break down some suggestions:

First, I went with an Ahab-X as my base, since it's all Introtech and, well, looks bulky enough to actually carry cargo.  From there, I removed the SRM-6 racks and their ammo, freeing up eight tons.  I reduced the LRM-20s to LRM-15s, freeing up another six tons, and reduced the amount of LRM ammo by another two tons.  That freed up a total of 16 tons.

For the cargo portion, I set it at 10 tons, which, coincidentally, is the same as the Kirghiz-C that inspired this whole idea.  That's enough to carry a full platoon of any of the standard infantry types (foot, jump, motorized, mechanized) with mass left over for supplies/consumables, while also being large enough to shoehorn in small vehicles like a standard-sized APC.

To supplement that, I wanted to be able to help clear an LZ of opposing infantry, so I fitted twin machine guns and a flamer to each wing, with a half-ton of ammo for the MGs.  To round up to the nearest ton, I fit a recon camera in the nose, which I figured would be handy.  That still left three tons remaining, which I first thought about dumping into cargo, but instead went for communications equipment: with the 1 ton considered part of the cockpit plus 3 tons additional, it's capable of low-grade ECCM as well as satellite uplinks.

In combat, it's able to do 18 points at long range, 26 points at medium range, and 31-36 points at short range and still be heat neutral, depending upon which of your close-in guns you want to shoot.  If you're feeling brave, and want to alpha strike and go +15 heat, you can do so for 55 points at short range.  I don't recommend it.

Would I use these, and their infantry, without any other ground forces?  Probably not.  But I feel like they're in a better place to do so, since each fighter can deliver more ground forces, while still not giving up much in the way of aerospace combat.

What about high speed engagements?  I don't know that anyone really wants to do high speed engagements.  I mean, they get ugly fast.  But, OK, let's calculate that out, assuming machine guns count as "autocannons" under the rules, and we're not going over on heat:

Class 1: 8*1.5 (MGs) + 9*2*1.5 (LRMs) + 10 (2 MLs) = 49 pts
Class 2: 8*2 (MGs) + 9*2*2 (LRMs) + 10 (2 MLs) = 62 pts
Class 3: 32 (MGs) + 72 (LRMs) + 10 (MLs) = 114 pts

That doesn't count any bombs or missiles that might be carried, which there's not much appreciable difference between a 90 tonner and a 100 tonner: both have the same practical limit defined by their thrust.

Code: [Select]

Ahab AHB-XT

Mass: 90 tons
Frame: Wakazashi Heavy Unlimited
Power Plant: PlasmaStar 270
Armor: Force Plus
Armament:
     3 Medium Laser
     4 Machine Gun
     2 LRM 15
     2 Flamer
     1 Large Laser
Manufacturer: Harvard Company Inc
     Primary Factory: Terra
Communication System: MyComm LVR
Targeting & Tracking System: Antron 7
Introduction Year: 2697
Tech Rating/Availability: D/C-E-D-D
Cost: 5,050,930 C-bills

Type: Ahab
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Tonnage: 90
Battle Value: 1,558

Equipment                                          Mass
Engine                        270 Fusion           14.5
Safe Thrust: 5
Max Thrust: 8
Structural Integrity:         9                       
Heat Sinks:                   18                      8
Fuel:                         400                   5.0
Cockpit                                               3
Armor Factor                  248                  15.5

                           Armor   
                           Value   
     Nose                    84   
     Wings                 59/59   
     Aft                     46   


Weapons
and Ammo                            Location   Tonnage  Heat   SRV  MRV  LRV  ERV
3 Medium Laser                        NOS       3.0      3      5    0    0    0 
Recon Camera                          NOS       0.5      -      -    -    -    - 
Large Laser                           NOS       5.0      8      8    8    0    0 
LRM 15                                RWG       7.0      5      9    9    9    0 
2 Machine Gun                         RWG       1.0      0      2    0    0    0 
Flamer                                RWG       1.0      3      2    0    0    0 
LRM 15 Ammo (32)                      FSLG      4.0      -      -    -    -    - 
Cargo (10 tons)                       FSLG      10.0     -      -    -    -    - 
Communications Equipment (3 tons)     FSLG      3.0      -      -    -    -    - 
Half Machine Gun Ammo (100)           FSLG      0.5      -      -    -    -    - 
LRM 15                                LWG       7.0      5      9    9    9    0 
2 Machine Gun                         LWG       1.0      0      2    0    0    0 
Flamer                                LWG       1.0      3      2    0    0    0 



[Lagrange]

I think this is a workable design.  It has some virtues: longer range weapons than the Workhorse, more cargo capacity, the comms equipment, and slightly more fuel.  Also, I believe you can hit for 41 damage at short range (MLx3, LRM-15x2, MGx4) for 1 overheat.

Going through these:

• The disadvantage of an LRM loadout is the advanced point defense rules.  For example, the Workhorse's swath of 13 MGs can reduce incoming missile damage by 13.  If both LRM-15s hit (Probability = 0.077 at long range and 0.34 at medium range with gunnery 4) you deal 5 damage and if one or none hits 0 damage.  Hence, the expected damage profiles are something like 41S/10M/0L vs. the Workhorse's 54S/8M/0L.  Given that you can't generally keep distance and use weapons with ASF of the same speed, the short range is dominant.
  
  Critical resistance and critical causation are also relevant.  The Workhorse has more than twice the armor which implies none of the Ahab's weapons cause critical roles.  In return, the Workhorse has about 1.5 hole punchers (where the 0.5 is due to the LL not working on the Ahab nose).  The armor mountain is extra important in air-to-ground attacks if using the advanced lawn dart rules in SO.
  
• A cargo capacity of 10 supports transport of up to 100 marines, which is huge.  The tricky thing here though is transporting the marines.  You could stick them into infantry bays aboard a dropship, but in my understanding these are something like seating in a passenger plane and hence unsuitable in practice for habitation longer than ~24 hours.  Maybe that's viable if you are moving down a jump circuit, but that kind of density seems fairly specialized.  The next step up is steerage quarters, where 100 marines would require 500 tons.  This is about 3x the transport tonnage of the Ahab itself.  In contrast, 10 marines require 50 tons of steerage quarters is 1/3 the transport tonnage of the Workhorse.  There's a judgement call about the desired ratio of marines to ASF with the Ahab on one end.  My expectation is that many invasion forces have a weak link in ASF support, so my preference was to go heavy on ASF. 
  
  W.r.t. other uses of cargo, there is some real value in 5 ton VTOLs (for example).  However, when you transport them as cargo, you need to prep them before deployment (technically in a bay, but it's reasonable to eventually succeed on open ground.) which is a rather lengthy process requiring a tech team.  There's quite a bit of extra support required for limited value here.  As an alternative, suppose you had a couple transport smallcraft with a 100 ton capacity for every 9 dyads.  That would provide more cargo transport per ASF, as well as (potentially) true vehicle bays for initial fast deployment and maintenance.  At the same time, a little VTOL is still slower than the ASF so they seem mostly useful in ancillary roles like SAR.
  
• The comms equipment has some real value and is a good idea.   I was imagining having a "scout" version of the Workhorse which downgrades one of the big weapons in favor of satellite imagers and other electronics.  Having a small fraction of the ASF with this capability may make more sense than spreading it across the force in terms of the impact on total force.  I'll tinker with it.  (The recon camera can be mounted in a bomb slot per errata, so it doesn't seem necessary to incorporate it into the base.)
  
• More fuel is tricky to judge.  Obviously, the ton for marines could be rededicated to fuel and you can carry external fuel tanks, but the Ahab could do that better given the greater cargo.  There's a real tradeoff here where I'm not sure how to think about what should be preferred.
  

You also mentioned clearing an LZ.  Fuel Air bombs are great for that purpose.

Overall, I'd estimate 9 Ahab vs. 5 Workhorse is a reasonably fair fight in practice.   The enormously greater number of infantry that you could deliver to an open battlefield are extremely vulnerable to the fuel-air bombs.   They would of course make an enormous difference in boarding operations although having only 1/3 of the ASF with 1/2 the armor may limit survivability.

[Giovanni Blasini]

I think this is a workable design.  It has some virtues: longer range weapons than the Workhorse, more cargo capacity, the comms equipment, and slightly more fuel.  Also, I believe you can hit for 41 damage at short range (MLx3, LRM-15x2, MGx4) for 1 overheat.

Going through these:

• The disadvantage of an LRM loadout is the advanced point defense rules.  For example, the Workhorse's swath of 13 MGs can reduce incoming missile damage by 13.  If both LRM-15s hit (Probability = 0.077 at long range and 0.34 at medium range with gunnery 4) you deal 5 damage and if one or none hits 0 damage.  Hence, the expected damage profiles are something like 41S/10M/0L vs. the Workhorse's 54S/8M/0L.  Given that you can't generally keep distance and use weapons with ASF of the same speed, the short range is dominant.
  

Point defense is vanishingly rare on aerospace fighters and large craft during the Succession Wars era, which is when our premise is set.  I'm not terribly woried about it.

Critical resistance and critical causation are also relevant.  The Workhorse has more than twice the armor which implies none of the Ahab's weapons cause critical roles.  In return, the Workhorse has about 1.5 hole punchers (where the 0.5 is due to the LL not working on the Ahab nose).  The armor mountain is extra important in air-to-ground attacks if using the advanced lawn dart rules in SO.
[/li][/list]

The Workhorse also has more than twice the armor of any canon aerospace fighter from the era, whereas my Ahab is tweaking the weapons on an otherwise canon airframe.  For that matter, are there any canon aerospace fighters in any era with that much armor?

• A cargo capacity of 10 supports transport of up to 100 marines, which is huge.  The tricky thing here though is transporting the marines.  You could stick them into infantry bays aboard a dropship, but in my understanding these are something like seating in a passenger plane and hence unsuitable in practice for habitation longer than ~24 hours. 
  

If indeed cargo can be directly converted into an infantry bay, rather than compartment, it's got racks for sleeping, spots for them to, uh, use the facilities, etc.  They're not as developed as full quarters, but they're not as undeveloped as airline seating.  That extra cargo space, then, would also be usable for supplies, as I mentioned before.  Since they're not in full quarters, but troop bays, the life support consumption rate would be 20 person-days/ton.  Assume a standard platoon of 28 troops, and they're going through 1.4 tons of consumables per day, covering food, water and oxygen, chemical scrubbers to remove CO2, etc.  So, how long the remaining cargo can sustain that platoon for would break down as follows:

Note: Tech Manual assumes 28 troops per Foot/Jump/Motorized Infantry Bay, and 5 per Mechanized Infantry Bay.

Foot (28 troops): 5 tons for troops + 5 tons cargo = 3.57 days
Jump (28 troops): 6 tons for troops + 4 tons cargo = 2.857 days
Motorized (28): 7 tons for troops + 3 tons cargo = 2.14 days
Mechanized (5): 8 tons for troops + 2 tons cargo = 8 days (the 5 troops use only 0.25 ton per day)

So, really, it's not as overkill as you'd think.  For that matter, under no circumstances are we carrying anywhere close to 100 troops.  In fact, we'd need 3.57 foot infantry bays to carry 100 troops (four full bays carries 112), meaning it'd be a minimum of 17.85 tons to carry 100 troops, and realistically you'd round up to four full bays at 20 tons total.

Which, for that matter, means you're not carrying more than 5 troops in a 1-ton bay.

Snipping the next part about 100 troops, since it doesn't apply.

W.r.t. other uses of cargo, there is some real value in 5 ton VTOLs (for example).  However, when you transport them as cargo, you need to prep them before deployment (technically in a bay, but it's reasonable to eventually succeed on open ground.) which is a rather lengthy process requiring a tech team.  There's quite a bit of extra support required for limited value here.  As an alternative, suppose you had a couple transport smallcraft with a 100 ton capacity for every 9 dyads.  That would provide more cargo transport per ASF, as well as (potentially) true vehicle bays for initial fast deployment and maintenance.  At the same time, a little VTOL is still slower than the ASF so they seem mostly useful in ancillary roles like SAR.
[/li][/list]

Yeah, I wasn't envisioning the light vehicle transport options as your pointy end of the stick, but forces that come down later that can take the time to unload.  But, then, personally I wouldn't use these to the exclusion of all my downwell transport, anyway.

But, either way, looks like we're looking at a revamping of the Workhorse anyway, in order to accomodate troops.[/list]

[Daryk]

Two points:

1) AOE weapons are the best way clear LZs, hands down.  And Artillery Cannons exist...  ^-^

2) The Taurians exist!  Boost those platoons to 30, please...  8)

[Giovanni Blasini]

Two points:

1) AOE weapons are the best way clear LZs, hands down.  And Artillery Cannons exist...  ^-^

2) The Taurians exist!  Boost those platoons to 30, please...  8)

I'm going to operate under the assumption that two more troops are close enough to 28 to make the numbers the same.  And artillery cannons aren't Intro tech, which I thought was the point of the exercise.

[Daryk]

But they ARE 3025 tech...  8)

[Lagrange]

For that matter, are there any canon aerospace fighters in any era with that much armor?

As far as I know the Hydaspes is the canon armor king with 22.5 tons of clan FA (equivalent to 27 tons of standard armor).  It's a beast with a solid clan weapons loadout.

If indeed cargo can be directly converted into an infantry bay, rather than compartment, it's got racks for sleeping, spots for them to, uh, use the facilities, etc. 

I don't know about explicit conversion allowances (maybe Daryk can comment?).  There are references in SO (page 43) to converting cargo into steerage quarters.  Converting into infantry bays is presumably possible.  Converting into infantry compartments should be near trivial since there is no life support required.

Note: Tech Manual assumes 28 troops per Foot/Jump/Motorized Infantry Bay, and 5 per Mechanized Infantry Bay.

Foot (28 troops): 5 tons for troops + 5 tons cargo = 3.57 days
Jump (28 troops): 6 tons for troops + 4 tons cargo = 2.857 days
Motorized (28): 7 tons for troops + 3 tons cargo = 2.14 days
Mechanized (5): 8 tons for troops + 2 tons cargo = 8 days (the 5 troops use only 0.25 ton per day)

I'm not really following the logic of what you want to do here.  Sticking infantry bays on the ASF leaves you with relatively limited durations as you note.   I designed the Ultra around a 6 month duration where the 9 tons for consumables in a bay exceeds the tonnage cost of quarters by a fair margin.  Keeping someone in an infantry bay for months (i.e. typical dropship deployment times) seems cruel and  inefficient.  Keeping someone in steerage quarters seems ok, but steerage quarters + infantry bays seems redundant.

If you are just aiming for a short duration, it seems better to just use an infantry compartment.  They are smaller/denser, and the marine combat suit has 18 hours of life support (AToW page 295) which is good enough for nearly all missions with an ample margin.  If you really want more life support, you could perhaps add a consumables pod on bomb pylon.

Anyways, having 28 (or 30) marines per Ahab seems a bit more reasonable as long as you actually invest the 150 tons in steerage quarters.   At that point, you have as many transport tons devoted to the marines as to the Ahab, so they amortize each other.   My inclination is to be go heavier on the ASF as discussed, but this is just a judgment based on expectation that ASF-centric combat (HSE, low speed engagements, ground warfare) is more common than marine-centric combat (i.e. boarding ops).

But, either way, looks like we're looking at a revamping of the Workhorse anyway, in order to accomodate troops.

I'm not following this. 10 marines fit in a one ton cargo space and/or infantry compartment.

I added a Workhorse AWACS variant based on your suggestion.  It drops the AC-20 for a medium laser and uses the freed tonnage for a ton of sensors.

And Artillery Cannons exist...  ^-^

Artillery cannons are incredible weapons, but I wanted to stick with non-experimental tech.  Fuel-Air bombs are merely advanced tech that exist since pre-space so their should be no issue with availability.  In addition, fuel-air bombs eliminate infantry if 2d6+<distance> is less than or equal to 9, implying a chance to take out infantry over 200 meters from the impact point.  (You can't really avoid advanced tech, since jumpships are advanced tech.)

[Daryk]

Foot infantry bays are the best!  They give you 30 racks.  If you install 30 Steerage Quarters for long patrols, the bay racks give space for prisoners or rescued personnel.  That's how I use them, at least... :)

[Giovanni Blasini]

I'm not really following the logic of what you want to do here.  Sticking infantry bays on the ASF leaves you with relatively limited durations as you note.

Sticking infantry bays and not compartments on my ASF keep my infantry from suffocating at high altitude or in space.

[quoteI'm not following this. 10 marines fit in a one ton cargo space and/or infantry compartment. [/quote]

And that's my point: no, they don't.  You've installed a 1-ton infantry compartment, which lacks any life support.  That's not going to work on an aerospace fighter.

Foot infantry bays are the best!  They give you 30 racks.  If you install 30 Steerage Quarters for long patrols, the bay racks give space for prisoners or rescued personnel.  That's how I use them, at least... :)

Bingo.  Bays have basic life support, and are used for short-duration flights.  Compartments are used on surface vehicles, where the planet provides the atmosphere.  Quarters are used for long-duration spaceflight, basically on spacecraft you live aboard full time.

[Daryk]

Well, a compartment would work on an ASF as long as it stayed in atmosphere at least...  :)

[Giovanni Blasini]

Well, a compartment would work on an ASF as long as it stayed in atmosphere at least...  :)

Technically, you're going to want supplemental oxygen above 3800 meters - well, at least that's the FAA's recommendation.    Above 4500 meters, it's pretty much mandatory.  And, of course, at around 19 km, just outside the Ground Row hex, your blood, at normal body temperature, begins to boil as if you were in a vacuum.  No bueno.

For game purposes, you'd probably be fine so long as you were in the ground hex row of the high altitude map.  Anything above that, I'd say the troopers would be toast.  Yes, I know they could button up their marine combat suits, but those only have an 8-hour supply onboard.  It'd be better to conserve that all for boarding actions.

[Daryk]

I figure air at least can be piped to those suits...  ^-^

[Lagrange]

Sticking infantry bays and not compartments on my ASF keep my infantry from suffocating at high altitude or in space.

Oh, your infantry don't have a spacesuit?  Yes, I agree they'll suffocate. 

When I keep saying "marines", I mean it in a "have space suite--will travel" sense.   I made a post here which is my default thought at the moment.  Marines are a fair bit more expensive than normal foot infantry, which provides another motivation to not have many.

You do agree that marines won't suffocate in space while the life support systems of their space suits are functioning, right?

[Giovanni Blasini]

Oh, your infantry don't have a spacesuit?  Yes, I agree they'll suffocate. 

When I keep saying "marines", I mean it in a "have space suite--will travel" sense.   I made a post here which is my default thought at the moment.  Marines are a fair bit more expensive than normal foot infantry, which provides another motivation to not have many.

You do agree that marines won't suffocate in space while the life support systems of their space suits are functioning, right?

For eight hours, total, and that includes any boarding operations they're going to be conducting.  You did actually read my post where I said the following, right?  Here, let me quote myself:

Yes, I know they could button up their marine combat suits, but those only have an 8-hour supply onboard.  It'd be better to conserve that all for boarding actions.

I figure air at least can be piped to those suits...  ^-^

From where?  The limited life support aboard the fighter itself?  That typically only has 96 hours for the pilot.  Dividing that up across the onboard troops would basically suck, and I suspect your fighter pilots would frown upon those shenanigans.  You could add supplemental oxygen, though there's no rules for it outside, y'now, using actual bays or quarters, like I suggested in the first place.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Well, crap.  We're going to need to rethink machine guns for high-speed engagements.

While I was working on another design, and looking up advanced point defense rules in Strategic Operations, it referred me to the Aerospace Weapons Classes table page 352 of Tech Manual to show which weapons can be used in point defense mode.  For the Inner Sphere, that's the AMS (which presumably covers the laser AMS too), small pulse lasers, small standard lasers, flamers, standard MGs and heavy MGs.  Light MGs do not count as point defense weapons...because they fall under the Autocannons category, which standard and heavy MGs don't.

Why's that matter?  Page 73 of the current Strat Ops and high speed engagement rules say that only autocannons, gauss weapons and missiles gain damage in high speed engagements.  So, machine guns would be excluded.

Not sure what to replace them with.  Prototype RL-10s?  They have a penalty to hit, but they're available as far back as early spaceflight, and they still do 6 damage per half-ton launcher.  On a high-speed engagement you're only going to get one pass anyway.

[Daryk]

*snip*
From where?  The limited life support aboard the fighter itself?  That typically only has 96 hours for the pilot.  Dividing that up across the onboard troops would basically suck, and I suspect your fighter pilots would frown upon those shenanigans.  You could add supplemental oxygen, though there's no rules for it outside, y'now, using actual bays or quarters, like I suggested in the first place.

Life Support costs C-Bills, but has no mass...  8)

[Giovanni Blasini]

Life Support costs C-Bills, but has no mass...  8)

Cool.  What page is the rule on to extend out life support, then?

[Lagrange]

For eight hours, total, and that includes any boarding operations they're going to be conducting. 

Where do you get 8 hours from?  I pointed out 18 hours with a reference up thread here.

Anyways, it sounds like you agree that we can use an infantry compartment on an ASF?  Incidentally, the CMT-6T Troika and the Yun both have infantry compartments.

Edit: I posted a question here about MGs in high speed engagements.  At a physics level, it makes sense that MG damage should be multiplied, but it's somewhat hard to guess what an official ruling will be.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Where do you get 8 hours from?  I pointed out 18 hours with a reference up thread here.

Older books (like Lostech) plus Sarna.  I missed where it got bumped to 18 hours in ATOW.

Anyways, it sounds like you agree that we can use an infantry compartment on an ASF?  Incidentally, the CMT-6T Troika and the Yun both have infantry compartments.

That's...weird.  I don't have either tech readout or record sheets book with them, but if they're using compartments, they're using compartments.

Really wish MegaMekLab didn't hack the file for those two units to shove in the infantry capability without showing the actual item that grants them it.

Edit: I posted a question here about MGs in high speed engagements.  At a physics level, it makes sense that MG damage should be multiplied, but it's somewhat hard to guess what an official ruling will be.

The paragraph specifically mentions avoiding situations where machine guns destroy battleships, but they were more referencing what the kinetic energy changes would actually be for a high-speed engagement, rather than the reduced multipliers under the rules.  :))

[Daryk]

Life Support costs are on page 283 of the current Tech Manual, but there's really no page reference for the lack of tonnage for life support.  Of course, you need to account for the fact that ASF only pay for the pilot and Small Craft/DropShips pay per individual crew/passenger.  Personally, I'd use 50,000 base for ASF, and just add the 5,000 per person.

[Lagrange]

The paragraph specifically mentions avoiding situations where machine guns destroy battleships, but they were more referencing what the kinetic energy changes would actually be for a high-speed engagement, rather than the reduced multipliers under the rules.  :))

Good point---added a note about this to the request.

Aside from the possible MGs-in-HSEs question do you see other flaws in the ASF heavy dyad approach?

[Lagrange]

Given that MGs do not multiply damage in high speed engagements I rejiggered the workhorse design a little bit,  The LL is replaced with an LRM-5, which seems adequate for Seydlitz combat and provides a modest source of multiplier damage.  Then, I converted about half the MGs into SLs to upgrade the close-in damage to 56 instead of 52.

The mixture of SLs and MGs is a bit odd, but it seems to work out.  If you downgrade the wing SLs to MGs and covert heat sinks into armor, the tradoeff in armor * damage is close to flat.  On the other hand if you convert the remaining 6 MGs to SLs and strip armor for heat sinks, the tradeoff appears unfavorable.