The Republic of the Sphere: My Heart Will Go On (With Another Faction)

[Church14]

Looks like the Lich, Revenant, Celerity, and Zephyr all get widespread enough to make the Mercenaries MUL. None of the drone fighters survive, sadly.

It'll be interesting to see when/if we see an all-drone mercenary unit.

Lament -2D goes merc in ilclan as well. So... maybe? It would be a fun unit gimmick.

[Weirdo]

Same with the Diggs.


Thinking about it...unless this merc unit has a giant warehouse of drones to stock up from, they can't really afford to treat them as expendable units, exactly maybe the Zephyrs. Even if they have access to fresh production, none of those mech drones are particularly cheap. They *can* risk them in environments more hazardous than most mechjocks are willing to run into on a regular basis, but to me it seems like the true strength of a drone-heavy glove is the ability to swap out controllers and keep going for days on end. Use the drones like persistence hunters and wear down the opposing force by always having enemies on your scopes (like that one episode of nuBSG), and when they show signs of exhaustion, that's when you strike with your manned assets that have been kept in reserve and rested until now.

[Church14]

Same with the Diggs.


Thinking about it...unless this merc unit has a giant warehouse of drones to stock up from, they can't really afford to treat them as expendable units, exactly maybe the Zephyrs. Even if they have access to fresh production, none of those mech drones are particularly cheap. They *can* risk them in environments more hazardous than most mechjocks are willing to run into on a regular basis, but to me it seems like the true strength of a drone-heavy glove is the ability to swap out controllers and keep going for days on end. Use the drones like persistence hunters and wear down the opposing force by always having enemies on your scopes (like that one episode of nuBSG), and when they show signs of exhaustion, that's when you strike with your manned assets that have been kept in reserve and rested until now.

I've looked at the autonomous mech drones for this exact purpose. Something that doesn't stop, doesn't sleep, but provides constant harassment. Couple quick pokes, then retreat. Force the entire unit to rouse and mount up multiple times a day.

[Weirdo]

Exactly. While it won't do to keep using the same kind of poke over and over again, I'm certain a good command team could come up with a nicely varied playbook of different wake-them-up tricks.

Wonder if the RAF ever tried anything like this, for that matter.

[Church14]

Exactly. While it won't do to keep using the same kind of poke over and over again, I'm certain a good command team could come up with a nicely varied playbook of different wake-them-up tricks.

Wonder if the RAF ever tried anything like this, for that matter.

Well, there's jack squat for RAF doctrine near the end. But we do know Stone's Brigade, especially Stone's Fury, were using drones and doing so aggressively. And designs were refined to include ECM or Angel ECM to provide ECCM.

It's a little maddening that we don't have any real POV of all the new RAF tech. RISC mechs, drones running harassment, superheavies smashing surprised targets, celerities ramming mechs at 400 kph (we a whole page of this one), combined arms doctrine. All we have is a couple pages in Blood Will Tell. Otherwise, we got stuck with BLP's complete brushing aside of anything from the RotS newer than 3140.

[Metallgewitter]

That is true. There are only some small mentions in the TRO 3145 that the raiding teams used drones for guard Duty (Revenants) and that the Forces that encountered Celerities didn't knew what they were actaully facing. The other definitive action was the anti insurgency actions on Liberty using Celerities as sensor Dispensers and scouts. You know the most effective use I can think of would be using Celerities as Depot Raiders. Send them out as suicide runners straight into the Depots and then blow them up taking tons of supplies to the ash heap without sacrificing men. Or as faints to let the base sirens go off every night robbing the soldiers of sleep

[Colt Ward]

The last is what they were suggesting earlier and it does have a benefit- consider it a "Le Mans" style formation.  You can also accomplish REALLY deep strikes as long as you have the ability to send the signal.

Problem with that is triangulation and artillery.  How many transmitters do you go through?

[Weirdo]

Yeah, range is an issue, strategically. Drones are NOT the kind of thing that can match for 96 hours straight cross-country and hit the other side of the continent. I don't think there is any rules support for transmission repeaters or whatnot.

[Church14]

Yeah, range is an issue, strategically. Drones are NOT the kind of thing that can match for 96 hours straight cross-country and hit the other side of the continent. I don't think there is any rules support for transmission repeaters or whatnot.

Is there a range limit? Or is it like C3 where the limits are kind of... screw it whatever is needed at the time.

[Stormlion1]

Range might not be an issue if a signal can be repeated via low orbit and cheap satellites or in-orbit dropships. Even something like a Boomerang with a built in repeater could be used.

[Weirdo]

Is there a range limit? Or is it like C3 where the limits are kind of... screw it whatever is needed at the time.

80 kilometers from a ground controller, 3 million kilometers from an aero controller.

Also, I sit corrected. It looks like satellites can be used to extend things, though there's still no provision for ground repeaters. Make sure you either have a lot of spares, or orbital superiority. Or, y'know, accept the range limits and plan accordingly.

[Colt Ward]

80 kilometers from a ground controller, 3 million kilometers from an aero controller.

Also, I sit corrected. It looks like satellites can be used to extend things, though there's still no provision for ground repeaters. Make sure you either have a lot of spares, or orbital superiority. Or, y'know, accept the range limits and plan accordingly.

I mentioned ground repeater b/c it is standard SigInt prevention.  You do not broadcast from where you live unless you want shells, rockets or bombs visiting you.  Run cables from your radio/transmitter a half klick or so to the 'repeater' that is broadcasting whatever signals you need to get out.

Easier for defenders to offset their transmissions than attackers which is part of the timeframe issue when setting up ANY sort of big HQ/Ops Center.

[Church14]

Hm. Question for the people who read Shattered Fortress or DA stuff too many times. There's a bunch of mentions of "advanced tech" and a couple that specifically call out RISC weapons. I'm trying to figure out how widespread the new RAF tech was. So the new tech in question would be:

RISC hardware
Superheavies
Drone tech
Not sure what else?

Here's what I had:
Blood Will Tell - Stone's Fury used drones
TRO:RotS - celerities got used for raiding against RasDom, Combine, and CapCon.
TRO:RotS - revenants in XIV Principes
TRO:RotS - All of Stone's brigade had superheavies
ilClan - Redburn Guard had superheavies
ilClan - Thirty-Second Republic Militia had a company of superheavies
ilClan - RAF's Old Guard used RISC
Shattered Fortress - Stone's Fury used RISC
Shattered Fortress - XIII Hastati used RISC
Shattered Fortress - 1st and 2nd Army group from EURUPTIO (8 formations total) had mechs with RISC
Shattered Fortress - X Principes had RISC (Part of 1st Army Group)
Shattered Fortress - Fifth Fides had RISC. They did enough that Anastasia tried to turn them around as salvage against the RAF, but those mechs exploded.

Let me know what I missed


So That's superheavies in:
Redburn Guard
XV Hastati
Stone’s Lament
Stone’s Liberators
Stone’s Revenants
Stone’s Pride
Stone’s Defenders
Stone’s Fury
Some random Terran heavy 'militia' unit.

Drones in:
XIV Principes
Stone's Fury
Likely significantly more formations given how widespread the celerity and revenants were used in raiding.

RISC in:
X Principes
XIII Hastati
Stone's Brigade
Stone's Old Guard
Fifth Fides
1st Army Group (X Hastati, X Principes, X Triarii, 1st Fides). Not guaranteed if in all unit or some
2nd Army Group (XI Principes, XII Principes, XII Triarii, 2nd Fides) Not guaranteed if in all unit or some

If anyone has something to add, lemme know. This was sort of a byproduct of Colt's questions about would any of the new wolf tech make a difference on Terra. Thinking about the opposite side of it

[Colt Ward]

The biggest tech difference makerS IMO would be RHS and the Aegis PDS.

Problem is they did not see the widespread use we should have seen.  Every RAF Omni should have had a RHS config since it offers the greatest damage boost since DHS were introduced in 3050s.

The Aegis PDS should have gone on light vehicles with ECM to create "interceptors" to protect against superior Clan missile racks.

I think your list leaves off how widespread Laments w/RHS were in the RAF.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Did the Republic actually produce the RHS?  I thought that was FedSuns exclusive tech and the Republic was experimenting with the Emergency Coolant System as a home-grown alternative?

[Church14]

Did the Republic actually produce the RHS?  I thought that was FedSuns exclusive tech and the Republic was experimenting with the Emergency Coolant System as a home-grown alternative?

ECS was a replacement to make it easier on pilots so there was one less thing to mess with mid combat.

That said, Laments were produced on Terra for 15 years with RHSS and not shipments from FedSuns through the walls AFAIK. So I imagine they were able to make it

And trying to figure out high widespread the Lament got is a challenge. I'm not sure it ever actually appeared on page outside of HotW and I'm just going to say HotW isn't a good place to reference for the mech's performance or distribution.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Yeah, seems rather ridiculous to assume that they'd have had imported stockpiles that extensive.

[Colt Ward]

Shows up other places, but not all Laments have it IIRC.  The captain using a Lament on Dieron had HLLs but never tripped the system I think.  Same with the Lament Danai faced on Hall as part of novel & SB fiction.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Shows up other places, but not all Laments have it IIRC.  The captain using a Lament on Dieron had HLLs but never tripped the system I think.  Same with the Lament Danai faced on Hall as part of novel & SB fiction.

Just because it doesn't get used in fiction isn't an indication of whether or not the mech has it: it's pretty common for authors to not use a particular weapon or piece of equipment on a mech.  How many times do you see MASC being used in fiction?  The Killing Fields is the only novel I can think of off the top of my head where a mech was described as clearly using MASC.  Looking at the record sheets, the 2R, 3C, 3R, 4RC, and 4D all have an RHS.  There's a unique variant listed in the MUL, but I don't have the book it appears in so I can't check that.

[Colt Ward]

Alright, I did not have a method to check so I did not want to claim they all had RHS.

[Techmarine123]

Just because it doesn't get used in fiction isn't an indication of whether or not the mech has it: it's pretty common for authors to not use a particular weapon or piece of equipment on a mech.  How many times do you see MASC being used in fiction?  The Killing Fields is the only novel I can think of off the top of my head where a mech was described as clearly using MASC.  Looking at the record sheets, the 2R, 3C, 3R, 4RC, and 4D all have an RHS.  There's a unique variant listed in the MUL, but I don't have the book it appears in so I can't check that.

Radical heat sinks are also something you aren't supposed to use unless absolutely necessary due to risk of failure, though in practice soldiers can take a pretty loose view of what is necessary, see for example war emergency power engine settings in WW2 planes. 

[Colt Ward]

Like MASC or Superchargers . . . triggering them for a turn or even two in a row is not too risky.

It is a basic risk vs reward- and the mechs that have RHS, usually have it for a reason- like Clan Heavy Larges, four 16 point hits stands a chance of opening up an opposing heavy mech or even savaging a assault.  If you hit, the 21 cDHS gives you 63 heat dissipation out of the 73 for firing & walking- sure 10 overheat is not great, you become 4/6 and have a +1 penalty TH for the next turn.  At that point you have to hope your 64 points of damage worked someone over and your lancemates can take advantage of the damage to cover for you until you cool back down.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Radical heat sinks are also something you aren't supposed to use unless absolutely necessary due to risk of failure, though in practice soldiers can take a pretty loose view of what is necessary, see for example war emergency power engine settings in WW2 planes.

No argument, I'm just saying that the fiction frequently doesn't mention various equipment on mechs.  And that's not counting times when a pilot outright forgets stuff about their mechs (like in one novel where Phelan Kell was running a Gladiator A and forgot he had jump jets).

[Metallgewitter]

Or the TRO 3145 entry for the Black Knight where it states it has become a common joke among Fedsuns Mechwarrior to "check the manual" which version of the Black Knight they have been assigned to

[Wrangler]

Or the TRO 3145 entry for the Black Knight where it states it has become a common joke among Fedsuns Mechwarrior to "check the manual" which version of the Black Knight they have been assigned to

LOL, I didn't remember reading that.

[Metallgewitter]

From the TRO 3145

New MechWarriors assigned to new-built Black  Knights  have  made  a  joke  out  of  having  to “check the manual,” but whatever its configuration  a  Black  Knight  is  a  powerful  main  combatant.

the Black Knight was brought back to Fed suns production a few years prior to 3100 but unfortunately the producer never stopped building new variants turning it into a "failure to leave good enough alone"So you have varinats with classic Is weapons, then you have those with shields and clan weapons, only clan weapons, some with a melee weapon and so on and so on. I would expect this to be a logistical nightmare

[Colt Ward]

Considering the shield series is different than the 12s & 18s that are put out I would imagine so.

[Metallgewitter]

Imagine being a supply officer for a unit and you get told "Well we have a company of Black Knights" and you go "Oh great this makes stocking spare parts easy" and then you flip through the TOE and you realize you have 12 different Black Knight variants. Maybe it's time to retire to civilan life