DropShip challenge: League class

[Middcore]

From The Price of Glory by William H. Keith, Jr:

The Marik DropShip Assagai fell into orbit around Helm. She was an old League Class ship, one outfitted as an orbital headquarters and communications relay vessel for Marik planetary operations. Dish antennae deployed from communication equipment bays high up near the armored bulge that marked the ship's bridge maintained two rigid lines of sight. One was directed at the gleaming brilliance of the ice-bound planet below, while the other was directed outward into deep space, toward the jump point where silently pulsing jets of hot plasma held the JumpShips Rapacious and Huntress in place against the gravitational pull of the local sun.

That's all we get! The few references to the Assagai later in the book yield no further detail on its size, configuration, basically anything.

However, the MUL confirms that such a thing as a League class DropShip does exist, or did exist, canonically. Not to be confused with the League class WarShip introduced nearly two decades later in Field Report 2765: FWLM.

I'm working on a fanfic, probably set in FWL space, where it would be helpful to have an older, unique DropShip referenced. Seems like it would be fun to make it a League. However, I know next to nothing about the aerospace construction rules, and I don't own HM Aero. So I am throwing this out as an open design challenge for anybody who feels like killing a bit of time.

To recap, the some total of what we know about this ship is that:

1. It's "old" as of 3028 - since very few DropShips in the Inner Sphere at this point are shiny-new, I take this to mean the League is a rarely seen type by the early 31st century.
2. At least some of them were outfitted as orbital command and control ships - since it says "outfitted" I take this to mean this was not the original intended role of the ship, and that the Assagai has been equipped for such after being retired from other duties, OR that the League class featured some degree of modularity.
3. It has a "bulge" near the bridge. OK that isn't really useful info.

To that I will add some ideas/stipulations from my fanfic outline for what I think the League originally could have been/would have been:

-I envision theLeague as basically a vehicle for recon-in-force.
-The League is a spheroid, to give greater choice of landing zones in hostile territory
-The League's ground forces carrying capacity is one company of BattleMechs and one mixed company of vehicles and infantry (probably light vehicles used for scouting)
-The League has an additional hold which was semi-modular and ended up being used for the dish antennae on ships like the Assagai, but could also be configured as 2 ASF bays for organic escort and recon, or simply used for cargo

Basically what we're dealing with here is something in between the Fortress and Seeker, probably not as heavily armed as the former (fluff-wise maybe it fell into disfavor because it was too weakly armed to penetrated enemy defenses) and not as fast as the latter, but cheaper.

Have at it! Really appreciate anybody who takes the time to come up with something.

[Sharpnel]

Here's my go at it. It's pretty simple.

Code: [Select]

League-class Dropship
Type: Military Aerodyne
Mass: 4,500 tons
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Introduced: 2720
Mass: 4,500
Battle Value: 2,660
Tech Rating/Availability: D/D-E-D-D
Cost: 256,456,800 C-bills

Fuel: 500 tons (15,000)
Safe Thrust: 3
Maximum Thrust: 5
Heat Sinks: 84
Structural Integrity: 14

Armor
    Nose: 180
    Sides: 140/140
    Aft: 180

Cargo
    Bay 1:  Fighter (6)             2 Doors   
    Bay 2:  Small Craft (2)         2 Doors   
    Bay 3:  Cargo (Refrigerated) (60.0 tons)1 Door   
    Bay 4:  Cargo (Liquid) (200.0 tons)1 Door   
    Bay 5:  Cargo (497.0 tons)      1 Door   

Ammunition:
    80 rounds of AC/5 ammunition (4 tons),
    30 rounds of SRM 6 ammunition (2 tons),
    18 rounds of LRM 20 ammunition (3 tons)

Equipment: Communications Equipment (20 tons)

Escape Pods: 0
Life Boats: 2
Crew:  10 officers, 22 enlisted/non-rated, 8 gunners, 22 bay personnel, 15 marines

Notes: Mounts 36.5 tons of standard aerospace armor.

Weapons:                     Capital Attack Values (Standard)
Arc (Heat)               Heat  SRV     MRV     LRV     ERV   Class       
Nose (24 Heat)
2 Large Laser            16   2(16)   2(16)    0(0)    0(0)  Laser       
1 LRM 20                  6   1(12)   1(12)   1(12)    0(0)  LRM         
    LRM 20 Ammo (108 shots)
2 Small Laser             2    1(6)    0(0)    0(0)    0(0)  Point Defense
RW/LW (11 Heat)
1 AC/5                    1    1(5)    1(5)    0(0)    0(0)  AC         
    AC/5 Ammo (800 shots)
1 PPC                    10   1(10)   1(10)    0(0)    0(0)  PPC         
RW/LW Aft (6 Heat)
2 Medium Laser            6   1(10)    0(0)    0(0)    0(0)  Laser       
Aft (26 Heat)
2 Large Laser            16   2(16)   2(16)    0(0)    0(0)  Laser       
2 SRM 6                   8   2(16)    0(0)    0(0)    0(0)  SRM         
    SRM 6 Ammo (450 shots)
2 Small Laser             2    1(6)    0(0)    0(0)    0(0)  Point Defense

EDIT: There's 20 tons of communication equipment on the ship as well, but didn't transfer to the design. Nevermid, I added it manually.

[truetanker]

Wouldn't it have been more of  a ' Modern '  primitive?

And as such, Primitive weapons might have been the norm? ( More heat, same weight. )

TT

[Middcore]

Wouldn't it have been more of  a ' Modern '  primitive?

And as such, Primitive weapons might have been the norm? ( More heat, same weight. )

TT

I mean, if you want it to be. Since there are still some ships of the class in military service as of 3028, albeit in secondary roles, I would mean against it using Primitive tech, as I think all of the DropShip classes using Primitive parts still extant in the 31st century are civilian? (Like some Czars tooling around.)

[glitterboy2098]

the fact that the bridge is described as being a "bulge", plus the bidirectional sensor array mention, suggests to me that this probably isn't a spheroid, but rather an Aerodyne, perhaps with a general shape comparable to the leopard (which has its bridge bulging out from its sloping nose.) the sensor arrays likely would be mounted in a pair of small craft or fighter bays  near the nose, one per side.

a spheroid's bridge is usually embeded into the nose.. no bulge. and if it was a spheroid you would expect more than two sensor mounts to provide omnidirectional coverage.

[Middcore]

the fact that the bridge is described as being a "bulge", plus the bidirectional sensor array mention, suggests to me that this probably isn't a spheroid, but rather an Aerodyne, perhaps with a general shape comparable to the leopard (which has its bridge bulging out from its sloping nose.) the sensor arrays likely would be mounted in a pair of small craft or fighter bays  near the nose, one per side.

a spheroid's bridge is usually embeded into the nose.. no bulge. and if it was a spheroid you would expect more than two sensor mounts to provide omnidirectional coverage.

This is a valid argument. The description of the comms arrays being "high up" says "spheroid" more to me, because I just don't usually think of aerodynes in "vertical" terms (although in space "down" on an aerodyne is towards the tail and "up" is towards the nose, it seems like this rarely gets brought up in BT).

[truetanker]

Still takes up the same 7 Hex circumference on a Map.

Still has that same " footprint " in levels, 5 for Areodyne and 10 for Spheriods.

The rules for DropShips on the ground can be found on page 249 of Total War.

Footprint: All dropships(regardless of size or TRO dimensions) occupy a 7-hex footprint consisting of a central hex and the six adjacent hexes.

Height: All aerodyne DropShips are 5 levels tall, while all spheroid ones are ten levels tall.

TW says DropShips make attacks exactly the same way as they do in space, but that doesn't match up with the varying ranges the weapons in a single bay might have. I'd ask on the rules forum about this, or check the latest errata thread to see if that was addressed.

But I can see the misunderstanding, Up usually means above, but in space Up means towards the nose ( traditional bridge ).

TT