Interstellar Operations Open Beta Test: Force Operations: Discussion

[Archameades]

I ran through the force operations rules yesterday as Mukaikubo did, though perhaps without as fine toothed a comb.   ;)

For the purposes of the run, I used a character I recently created with AToW for my commander and went with the force creation rules, as presented, with the exception of the Modifier the commander gets for traits, instead of rounding up to the nearest whole number, I went with a decimal so in this case 1.1.  Also I excluded the commanders ride form the creation process, but added it back in for the force operations step.

Combined Arms Battalion 3070

Armour Company
Condor (3039), Condor (3075), Vedette (netc), Vedette (netc)
Myrmidon, Myrmidon, Myrmidon, Myrmidon
Typhoon, Typhoon, Zhukov, Manticore (All 3058 variants)

Infantry Company
Foot Laser Platoon
Foot Laser Platoon
Foot Laser Platoon

'Mech Company
Wraith TR1, Scarabus SCB-9A, Javelin JVN-10F, Wolfhound WLF-1
Garm GRM-01B, Dervish DV-7D, Stealth STH-1D, Apollo APL-1M
Atlas AS7-S, Kodiak, Black Hawk-KU BHKU-O Prime, (Last position reserved for another RPG character)

Auxillary Forces
MIT 23 MASH Vehicle, MIT 23 MASH Vehicle, Platoon of Combat Engineers, "Carbine" Construction Mech CON-7

Naval Forces
Union Dropship
Gazelle (Obselete)
Invader Jumpship

The Gazelle has plenty of room, for all the forces, techs, and administrators if bunks are set up in the heavy vehicles bays.  Lets say it's customized for the purposes of this trial.

Total Personnel 453 
Total Ground Force Value 134,513,659 C-bills
Total Dropship Value 410,982,976 C-bills
Invader Value 590,797,750 C-bills

Total monthly at peace cost 2,911,529 or 1,194,779 without Hydrogen Fuel costs, they will certainly be producing their own.

Obviously the naval assets dwarf the ground ones in value.

Going through the reputation:
-Nearly all the combat elements are Veteran, the commander Elite.  So 20 Points for veteran average.
- The scratch built commanders seem to have an edge on most equivalent ones that I roll up here; as well.. 10 points total.
-No combat experience yet so 0 here.
-Sufficient Dropship capacity 5 Points.
Note, the table listed a penalty of 3 points for not having enough capacity for support personnel, while the text walk through on page 4 gives Arnold a 3 point bonus since he can hold all of his.  It is not in the chart.  It should be added or the text amended.
-10 points for Jumpship.
-5 points for sufficient KF transport capacity.
-0 Adjustments for support rating.
-No debt or criminal history 0 points

Net: 50 Reputation

Starting no a standard hall, say Arc Royal in 3070 (Before the Blakists hit..)

2 Offers
*Edit* forgot to add the reputation modifier there

Capellan Confederation and a Corporation
I wasn't 100% clear on the Corporation description on page 7.  All all corporate missions supposed to be covert, as implied?  What about a garrison contract?  Perhaps a note that all offensive missions performed for corporations should be covert, to ensure confidentiality?

For the purposes of examples, I'm going to run both of these out side by side.  Also, while I generated the other aspects, I'm going to stick to the finiancial ones, as I don't think there's much new to talk about with BLC vs straight support or salvage rights.  Both of these contracts offer BLC.
 
                     Capellan                                  Corporation (Frito-Lays)
                     Garison Duty 18 months          Extraction Raid 3 months
Op Tempo     1.0                                           1.6 + 0.3 (covert?)
Employer       1.2 Major Power                      1.1 Corporate
Reputation     2.0                                          2.0   
From table it would be 2.0 and 1.5 from the formula, which should we use?

Transport modifiers end up with 45% transport reimbursement from Liao and 100% from Fritos.

Lets get transport costs out of the way first, for the sake of simplicity both missions are 5 jumps away.

Transport Payment
*Edit* This is not applicable, as the ships are owned by the unit, I will remove them from the calculation below.
So time to get there is 2 weeks plus 1.1 weeks per jump.
7.5 weeks / 4 = 1.875 months or 2 months for transportation costs
= 1% Dropship purchase price of 4,109,830
5 Jumps x 3 collars on the Invader = 1,500,000 C-bills

Total 5,609,830

X 45% = 2,524,423                                x 100% = 5,609,830

Big question here, does the 75% peace rate include fuel usage.  Can a unit really calculate a monthly peace rate of nearly 3 million, then generate it's own Hydrogen so it's costs are really 40% of that?  Although if it ends up you can't generate your own.. you'd be hooped without the full rate.

Payment while in transport
So time to get there is 2 weeks plus 1.1 weeks per jump.
Base Payment = (2,911,529 X 75%) + 27,274,831 = 29,458,478
Liao = 29,458,478 X 2 (length) X 1.2 (Employer) X 2.0 (Reputation) = 141,400,695
Fritos = 29,458,478 X 2 (length) X 1.1 (Employer) X 2.0 (Reputation) = 129,617,304

Mission Payment

Liao = 29,458,478 X 18 (length) X 1 (Op Tempo) X 1.2 (Employer) X 2.0 (Reputation) = 1,272,606,255
Fritos =  29,458,478 X 3 (length) X 1.9 (Op Tempo) X 1.1 (Employer) X 2.0 (Reputation) = 369,409,316

So Total Payment would be

Liao for 18 months + 2 months travel = 141,400,695 + 1,272,606,255 = 1,414,006,950
Fritos for 3 months = 2 months travel = 129,617,304 + 369,409,316 = 499,026,620

Now that's pretty staggering.. I have a couple thoughts.

Reputation clearly plays a large part in earning the big pay days.

I also ran the numbers if I hadn't included the Dropships in the 5% payment
Liao ends up at 364,532,608 for 20 months
Fritos ends up at 128,649,633 for 5 months

Both are respectable numbers a Combined arms battalion if there are no large ship losses.

What about including 5% of the costs for the combat forces (Infantry, Tanks, 'Mechs, ASFs...) + 1% of the Large Spacecraft Costs.

That would be 624,919,636 C-bills for 20 months worth Garrison Duty or 220,544,555 for 5 months with a probably combat intensive Extraction Raid.

* I would add an exemption to the 1% rule if the units primary forces are space based and thus far more likely to see large naval losses.  In that case 5% seems entirely appropriate.

Clearly you can see why Mercs saw Garrison Duty contracts as attractive.

[SCC]

Combined Arms Battalion 3070

Armour Company
Condor (3039), Condor (3075),

According to this you have a 3075 Condor in 3070

[Mukaikubo]

I ran through the force operations rules yesterday as Mukaikubo did, though perhaps without as fine toothed a comb.   ;)

Then let's see if we can't help each other out!

Naval Forces
Union Dropship
Gazelle (Obselete)
Invader Jumpship

The Gazelle has plenty of room, for all the forces, techs, and administrators if bunks are set up in the heavy vehicles bays.  Lets say it's customized for the purposes of this trial.

Union, or upgraded Union-X? Also, wow, did you roll for those? Because I had the devil's time getting any large spaceship with the dice (which honestly likely makes sense).

Total Personnel 453 
Total Ground Force Value 134,513,659 C-bills
Total Dropship Value 410,982,976 C-bills
Invader Value 590,797,750 C-bills

Total monthly at peace cost 2,911,529 or 1,194,779 without Hydrogen Fuel costs, they will certainly be producing their own.

I'd suggest leaving it in, if just as a backdoor way for wear and tear on the reactors etc to be modeled; I left fuel costs in mine, and that's rules as written which I usually go with unless it's really horrid. Also, yeah, this kind of brings home how much of an impact including spaceships has, doesn't it?

- The scratch built commanders seem to have an edge on most equivalent ones that I roll up here; as well.. 10 points total.

Also found this- it probably needs tweaking.

2 Offers

Huh. So you beat the Negotiation/Protocol TN by what, 5 or less? And you have a net modifier to the roll of +7 (2 for the standard hall, 5 for reputation); what skill level did you have? Because if you had a skill of say 2, you'd be shooting for a TN of 7 on Protocol (6 if you used cray's idea to switch with negotiation) with a +7 bonus, so effectively a TN of 0/-1... did your dice just throw snake eyes? Ugly.

Transport Payment
 So time to get there is 2 weeks plus 1.1 weeks per jump.
7.5 weeks / 4 = 1.875 months or 2 months for transportation costs = 1% Dropship purchase price of 4,109,830
5 Jumps x 3 collars on the Invader = 1,500,000 C-bills

Total 5,609,830

X 45% = 2,524,423                                x 100% = 5,609,830

Big question here, does the 75% peace rate include fuel usage.  Can a unit really calculate a monthly peace rate of nearly 3 million, then generate it's own Hydrogen so it's costs are really 40% of that?  Although if it ends up you can't generate your own.. you'd be hooped without the full rate.

Payment while in transport
Base Payment = (2,911,529 X 75%) + 27,274,831 = 29,458,478
Liao = 29,458,478 X 2 (length) X 1.2 (Employer) X 2.0 (Reputation) = 141,400,695
Fritos = 29,458,478 X 2 (length) X 1.1 (Employer) X 2.0 (Reputation) = 129,617,304

First point: Rules as written, dropships and jumpships you own DO NOT factor into the Transport Payment, and it's explicitly for those you have chartered. This has its own issues (I'll expand on this at the end), but be aware.

Second Point: I don't believe fuel costs factor into Transport Payment; it's the flat %age of dropship price or cost-per-jump. How I interpret RAW is that fuel costs for what you own go into your peacetime costs, which you earn back as part of your base payment. Fuel costs for ships you charter, it is assumed that they cover it out of their profit margin and you don't have to care.

Third Point: Wow, it now appears to me to be reaaaallly exploitable to have long-distance travel with a decent reputation, since you have zero risk of losing equipment and get at least as much as your peacetime costs unless all your equipment is supercheap if you own your own ships. Can I start switching missions between the Magistracy of Canopus, the Outworld Alliance, and the Lyran outer border...?

Mission Payment

Liao = 29,458,478 X 18 (length) X 1 (Op Tempo) X 1.2 (Employer) X 2.0 (Reputation) = 1,272,606,255
Fritos =  29,458,478 X 3 (length) X 1.9 (Op Tempo) X 1.1 (Employer) X 2.0 (Reputation) = 369,409,316

So Total Payment would be

Liao for 18 months + 2 months travel = 2,524,423 + 141,400,695 + 1,272,606,255 = 1,416,531,373
Fritos for 3 months = 2 months travel = 5,609,830 + 129,617,304 + 369,409,316 = 504,636,449

Now that's pretty staggering.. I have a couple thoughts.

Reputation clearly plays a large part in earning the big pay days.

I also ran the numbers if I hadn't included the Dropships in the 5% payment
Liao ends up at 365,844,808 for 20 months
Fritos ends up at 129,112,730 for 5 months

The second numbers look reasonable. The first numbers look utterly absurd, to be honest. A billion and a half dollars for one battalion for a year and a half? Really? This is just another reason why I have suuuuch a hard time with including spacecraft in the equipment cost.

Here's my proposal. The problem is that people need to be compensated for using their own dropships- it has to be 'worth it' to own one. People also need to be able to either use or not use space-based assets as they like. There are two dials here-

1. Do you include Jumpships and Dropships in the base equipment cost and have them contribute to base payment?
2. Do you include Jumpships and Dropships THAT YOU OWN in the Transport Payment?

If the answer to 1 is "no" and 2 is also "no"- how I interpreted rules as written- then it makes no economic sense to ever, ever own your own spaceship. If the answer to 1 is "yes", then as soon as you manage to have a big dropship or a jumpship you're going to be swimming in more money than you can spend whether you use them or not. What I'm leading to is the following thing I think will work, and I'll go back to see the effect on the two examples I used. Something along these lines-

Dropships and Jumpships that you own do not contribute to the overall equipment cost of your force that you multiply by 5% for your base equipment cost. Dropships and Jumpships that you own do contribute to the Transport Payment as though you were chartering them. Additionally, if dropship and spaceship assets are intended to be used as combat forces during a contract, the cost of the Transport Payment during the mission duration only is doubled ('Hazard Pay').

This seems to be before play testing it to fit the bill of what's needed; if a player intends to keep their ships out of harm's way, they don't risk them in combat and they don't get appalling amounts of money just for owning them. If they do, they get double the transport payment during the time in which they're able to be used in battles, recompensating an aero-heavy player for risking his crown jewels. And finally, there's an economic incentive for mercenary units to own their own dropships, because they'll get paid for them as if they were chartering- equivalent to if the entity hiring the mercs were simultaneously chartering the ships that the mercs own. Thoughts, from other players or from Cray?

[Archameades]

According to this you have a 3075 Condor in 3070

Sorry I didn't specify, it's the TRO 3075 variant.  Introduction date of 3068.  In the absence of a better source, I used the RAT's from Field Report 3085 and rerolled anything that wasn't available in 3070.

Union, or upgraded Union-X? Also, wow, did you roll for those? Because I had the devil's time getting any large spaceship with the dice (which honestly likely makes sense).

I used the Obsolete variant, the roll was a 9, with the era modifier I got from being in 3070.  Ironically I failed the roll for my Mule which was a 6..  Gazelle was an 8 and Invader was a 7.  I can't really imagine getting anything that isn't cheap, civilian and, very common in the 3025 era , which is probably the point.

Huh. So you beat the Negotiation/Protocol TN by what, 5 or less? And you have a net modifier to the roll of +7 (2 for the standard hall, 5 for reputation); what skill level did you have? Because if you had a skill of say 2, you'd be shooting for a TN of 7 on Protocol (6 if you used cray's idea to switch with negotiation) with a +7 bonus, so effectively a TN of 0/-1... did your dice just throw snake eyes? Ugly.

... I didn't add the reputation modifier.

First point: Rules as written, dropships and jumpships you own DO NOT factor into the Transport Payment, and it's explicitly for those you have chartered. This has its own issues (I'll expand on this at the end), but be aware.

Oops, better go fix that up.  Seems strange that an Invader can get paid 1,200,000 on it's own, but is only worth 851,512 with a mercenary force (75% of 1,135,350 which is the cost to maintain).

Dropships and Jumpships that you own do not contribute to the overall equipment cost of your force that you multiply by 5% for your base equipment cost. Dropships and Jumpships that you own do contribute to the Transport Payment as though you were chartering them. Additionally, if dropship and spaceship assets are intended to be used as combat forces during a contract, the cost of the Transport Payment during the mission duration only is doubled ('Hazard Pay').

I like this, it works very well for the shorter in and out sort of missions.  Though longer missions would definitely start to put a big drain on units for having all those expenses not contributing.  Without fuel those ships would be 507,350, or over 2.2 million with fuel, per month to maintain.  Of course, there are always options for enterprising mercenaries to make a little extra money with available ships.

Is there some middle ground?  You could get 0.5-1% of value of a unit per month to keep it on retainer, but it isn't eligible to be included in a forces 5% or it's monthly at peace rate?  Not sure how to approach this issue that would make the ground based units, ground based units with limited large spacecraft, and large space craft and aerospace units all happy.

[Mukaikubo]

Fuel's a headache of an additional question that I don't really want to think about right now. Longer missions, not really- you're still getting 75% of the peacetime operation costs from base payment, and now you're getting some percentage of what it would cost to charter a spaceship as well. It... should work out that you don't lose money via long trips still, especially when you include fuel.

For the 3057 mech company that owns a single union, peacetime support costs for the Union are about 537,000 Cbills per month. From the base payment you always get, it's 75% of that or 402,750 C-bills. It'd cost you 0.5% of the dropship cost per month to charter that Union, or 800k; now they're getting 35% of that (the transport terms) from the Capellans, which comes to 280k/month.

In total, you're getting (402,750 + 280,000) 682,750 C-bills a month from the Capellans for that Union, and it's costing 537,000 C-bills a month to operate; that's a net profit of about 150k C-bills a month during transport for owning your own Dropship.

[doulos05]

In total, you're getting (402,750 + 280,000) 682,750 C-bills a month from the Capellans for that Union, and it's costing 537,000 C-bills a month to operate; that's a net profit of about 150k C-bills a month during transport for owning your own Dropship.

I think that's how it should be.

As I've said, including aero assets in your equipment total dramatically inflates payment. But putting aero assets on the gaming table dramatically increases the cost of lost equipment (and, there's a really good chance that once you've lost it, you'll never get it back given how rare aero assets are meant to be). I liked the proposal of doubling the transportation terms during combat, but that's not enough to offset the cost of losing 1 aero asset every 20 months, which is entirely possible given how deadly aero combat seems to be (note, I have extremely little experience with aero combat, and all of it has been against the bot in MM. but even with that woefully inadequate competition, I will still lose dropships on occasion). I genuinely think the best way is just to have a sentence leaving it to the discretion of the gaming group. It could even be a really generic sentence such as

"When calculating equipment value, include all assets which your gaming group plays with. If you have included infantry for 'base security' or aero assets for transport but your group doesn't use infantry rules or play aerospace battles, do not include them when calculating equipment value."

That leaves open the possibility of additional ruleset and equipment types which play groups may or may not choose to include at their gaming tables.

[cray]

Page 5 is very obvious that they are a merc command in this instance, while the tone of page 11 suggests it as well

Oh, yep, I see it on page 5 under crimes. "Liaison officer," "employer." Funny, the crime was based on the movie "Kelly's Heroes," which is about a US government military force stealing some Nazi gold in WW2. I'll tweak the wording.

[cray]

I ran through the force operations rules yesterday as Mukaikubo did, though perhaps without as fine toothed a comb.   ;)

You turned up some good questions.

Note, the table listed a penalty of 3 points for not having enough capacity for support personnel, while the text walk through on page 4 gives Arnold a 3 point bonus since he can hold all of his.  It is not in the chart.  It should be added or the text amended.

Noted.

Capellan Confederation and a Corporation
I wasn't 100% clear on the Corporation description on page 7.  All all corporate missions supposed to be covert, as implied?  What about a garrison contract?  Perhaps a note that all offensive missions performed for corporations should be covert, to ensure confidentiality?

No, not all corporate missions are covert. I'll clarify that. Defensive contracts would, IMO, tend to be fairly public as a deterrence measure ("Hey, we're now protected by Bad Ass Bob's Bruisers! Don't attack our factory or else!") unless it's handy to keep the defenses secret. But even some offensive missions might be quite public - corporate accountability varies across factions and eras in BT.

Corporation (Frito-Lays)

Heh :)

From table it would be 2.0 and 1.5 from the formula, which should we use?

I'll try to straighten that out.

Big question here, does the 75% peace rate include fuel usage.  Can a unit really calculate a monthly peace rate of nearly 3 million, then generate it's own Hydrogen so it's costs are really 40% of that?  Although if it ends up you can't generate your own.. you'd be hooped without the full rate.

I'd say by default, yes, fuel costs are included in the base payment. However, I'll add a clarification that if "usable water supplies are available," the hydrogen portion of the fuel element will be cut to 10% of its normal value. (10% to cover transport and storage of the hydrogen.)

What about including 5% of the costs for the combat forces (Infantry, Tanks, 'Mechs, ASFs...) + 1% of the Large Spacecraft Costs.

I could do that. I plan to add a clause like "if players rarely or never address large spacecraft combat, do not include the costs of large spacecraft in contract cost calculations."

Clearly you can see why Mercs saw Garrison Duty contracts as attractive.

Indeed.

Third Point: Wow, it now appears to me to be reaaaallly exploitable to have long-distance travel with a decent reputation, since you have zero risk of losing equipment and get at least as much as your peacetime costs unless all your equipment is supercheap if you own your own ships. Can I start switching missions between the Magistracy of Canopus, the Outworld Alliance, and the Lyran outer border...?

It'd be an annoying complication to cost calculations, but this could be addressed by adding something like "During transport periods, do not include ammunition or non-large spacecraft fuel costs for base pay." Or "During transport periods, only include salaries and large spacecraft fuel costs in transport period reimbursements."

[doulos05]

I realize this throws off the whole "reputation" table, but why would having empty transport bays be a plus for reputation? You get a bonus for carrying your mech lance around in a Union instead of a Leopard? I get that employers may want you to have extra bays to carry liaison officers, but which employers attach liaison officers at a 1:1 ratio to combat elements in a hired command?

I think that should be revised to be similar to the way it was handled previously. Perhaps you get 0 points if you can carry 120% of your combat elements (to make space for the employer's goons) and you lose 1 point for every 10% (or part thereof) you fall short of that mark.

That's been bugging me for a while and I just now got around to calculating my force's rep and it really stood out as wonky to me.

[cray]

I realize this throws off the whole "reputation" table, but why would having empty transport bays be a plus for reputation?

Because it is a statement that the military force has an excess in a useful capability, like having extra techs, extra artillery, or extra 'Mechs. In the case of transport, not every force can make independent interstellar assaults. They have to beg from their employer, hire independent JumpShips, and so on. This means that a military force with excess transport capability is, potentially, BFFs with those poor forces that lack space transport.

After all, not every mission is conducted by a single military force. A regiment-scale assault might involve a couple of small merc forces and some militia. The guys with the spare DropShip bays are going to be very popular. You won't get your regiment-scale assault if you don't have 108 'Mech bays.

Having the transport reputation factor also supports the construction of forces noted for their aerospace capabilities, like a merc force noted for its fighters and troop transports.

[doulos05]

Because it is a statement that the military force has an excess in a useful capability, like having extra techs, extra artillery, or extra 'Mechs. In the case of transport, not every force can make independent interstellar assaults. They have to beg from their employer, hire independent JumpShips, and so on. This means that a military force with excess transport capability is, potentially, BFFs with those poor forces that lack space transport.

After all, not every mission is conducted by a single military force. A regiment-scale assault might involve a couple of small merc forces and some militia. The guys with the spare DropShip bays are going to be very popular. You won't get your regiment-scale assault if you don't have 108 'Mech bays.

Having the transport reputation factor also supports the construction of forces noted for their aerospace capabilities, like a merc force noted for its fighters and troop transports.

Thank you, sir. Now I see the reasoning. I'd still like to get some points for making 100% capacity, but that's really just me being greedy.  ;D

[Daryk]

...
I've been at the forefront of encouraging installation of passenger quarters in BT spacecraft (you can find my words on the topic in StratOps), but I have to admit that BT spacecraft are not short of volume. A Union is actually less dense than an EMPTY space shuttle external tank. There are corridors for 'Mechs to march to their drop doors. You can easily put hundreds, if not thousands of people in there if you rig bunks and concede that your BattleMechs won't be able to hold their pre-drop soccer matches. (I also have an issue with how much volume BT DropShips have for their mass.)

So Tech Manual could easily be errata'd to include full tech teams, noting mistakes by writers who overlooked by prior canon. It's not a ideal solution (I'd prefer to give everyone quarters...), but it fits the old rules for tech team sizes.
...

I can validate the volume issue based on the Manatee deck plans I drew up.  I was essentially able to stuff a combined arms company into a lance transport, including tech support.

Cray if you can get that errata into Tech Manual, you'd be even more of a hero than you already are!  In my book, bay quality quarters are still quarters (and probably more in line with what we see aboard actual military ships today).

[ronalmb]

For determining modifiers to Base Pay (and to see if I understand the process correctly):

If my employer was a Stingy Noble, hiring my Reputation 0 unit for cadre duty, my base payment multiplier would be:

Noble (0) +  Stingy (-.2) + Cadre (.8 ) + Unrated (-1.0) = -.4 multiplier?

If my base payment was 1,000,000 C-bills per month, he'd want me to pay him 400,000 Cbills (1,000,000 x -.4) monthly to do a mission for him?

Edit: I see the section that obscure factions should be treated as a 1 modifier so I should assume that the base rate for a Noble is (1) not (0). Which in case means I should treat the formula as:

Noble (1) + Stingy (-.2) + Cadre (.8 ) + Unrated (-1.0) = .6 multiplier

And thus in the example above I'd be offered 600,000 Cbills monthly. 

2nd Question (reputation)
Under Reputation Factor it says to take 20% of the Final Reputation and add .5 to it to get a reputation modifier for payment.

There is also a table for reputation that has payment modifiers as well but the numbers there don't match the math in Reputation Factor section. Do I add both modifiers to my calculation?

[Armitage72]

It might be covered in other parts of the book that we haven't seen yet, but there don't seem to be any consequences to not having sufficient spare parts, either in Force Operations or Force Creation.

If you don't have enough ammunition, your units' bins will obviously start to run low, but there are be no effects from not having enough spare parts.

A penalty to maintenance skill checks, maybe?  Lacking spare parts makes it more likely that a unit will suffer damage or quality reduction.  Maybe a cumulative penalty if parts aren't available for consecutive months.

[cray]

If you don't have enough ammunition, your units' bins will obviously start to run low, but there are be no effects from not having enough spare parts.

Oh, crap. That was something to copy-n-paste into the rules from FM:Mercs. :) There are maintenance penalties and the like that are supposed to be in there.

For determining modifiers to Base Pay (and to see if I understand the process correctly):

If my employer was a Stingy Noble, hiring my Reputation 0 unit for cadre duty, my base payment multiplier would be:

Noble (0) +  Stingy (-.2) + Cadre (.8 ) + Unrated (-1.0) = -.4 multiplier?

Hmm. I guess I need some checks and balances to avoid negative results.

If my base payment was 1,000,000 C-bills per month, he'd want me to pay him 400,000 Cbills (1,000,000 x -.4) monthly to do a mission for him?

He's a noble. You should be honored to work for him. ;)

2nd Question (reputation)
Under Reputation Factor it says to take 20% of the Final Reputation and add .5 to it to get a reputation modifier for payment.

There is also a table for reputation that has payment modifiers as well but the numbers there don't match the math in Reputation Factor section. Do I add both modifiers to my calculation?

Ignore the table's reputation modifiers, just use the one in the text.

[doulos05]

Does SO have notes about maintenance checks with insufficient spares (or something about 'adverse conditions')? In that case, we just need a line pointing readers to the modifier name and page number in SO.

Something like
"Each month without spares, the techs suffer the 'Mild Adverse Conditions' penalty listed on page XXX of SO."

IDHMBWM or I'd look it up.

EDIT: I checked my copy of SO, it seems the easiest way would be to have lack of spares degrade the location modifier by 1 step (since spares are one of the primary differences in the location descriptions listed on page 171)

[Taharqa]

the reputation payment multipliers on pg. 9 are negative for 1 and unrated, but the formula on the previous page enters them in multiplicatively which would lead to negative payment amounts. These should be positive values below one.

[Taharqa]

I am really glad that contract pay is going to be based on the value of combat units (i.e. capital stock) rather than labor costs. However, the base amount of 5% of the value of all combat units per month is way, way too high. Since there is no compounding going on here that equates to a 60% annual return on investment. To put it another way, without any other modifiers, paying a mercenary force for 2 years would be equivalent to purchasing all of their combat equipment at a 20% premium.

This gets even worse when you start looking at all the multipliers. An objective raid by a mid-rated (5) company for a major power is looking at 19.2% per month for three months, so close to 60% of its value for the three months of the contract.

Mercenary work is high risk and so it should offer high returns on investment, but these are out of the ballpark. I would suggest either lowering both the base amount and the size of the multipliers for unit quality, or treating these values as annual returns and then dividing by 12 to get the monthly pay. In the latter case, the base would probably need to be raised some.

[cray]

I would suggest either lowering both the base amount and the size of the multipliers for unit quality, or treating these values as annual returns and then dividing by 12 to get the monthly pay. In the latter case, the base would probably need to be raised some.

In other words, you want about a 20-year period of return on the investment?

Even with multipliers for higher risk missions (doubling income, roughly), you're asking for a return on investment that sounds longer than it takes to seriously damage or destroy all units in the force (assuming a fairly constant stream of non-garrison missions). Can you find another value for reducing the income of a military force without leaving it destitute from battle damage after a few years?

[Taharqa]

Ok, I am just looking through parts procurement now and my head is spinning.

Why is the availability target for ammo based on its tech rating and not its era-specific availability rating. That makes no sense.

The idea of basing the spare part availability roll on the unit is wrong-headed and extremely problematic. Lets say I have three mechs  and two vehicles that between them have 7 medium lasers. I want to get a lot of spare medium lasers. Which unit do I base my availability roll on? It makes no sense. Spare parts have tech ratings and availability codes just like ammunition - there is no need to create two separate rules for procurement of the basically the same thing.

Beyond all of this, why are you creating two different mutually exclusive and incompatible systems for parts procurement within what is supposed to be the same line of integrated rulebooks? Strat Ops already has a section on parts procurement. Why is that not used here or at least serve as a baseline?

[Taharqa]

In other words, you want about a 20-year period of return on the investment?

Even with multipliers for higher risk missions (doubling income, roughly), you're asking for a return on investment that sounds longer than it takes to seriously damage or destroy all units in the force (assuming a fairly constant stream of non-garrison missions). Can you find another value for reducing the income of a military force without leaving it destitute from battle damage after a few years?

I am not sure where you are getting 20 years from, since I didn't give any hard numbers. There are a lot of numbers less than 60% that get you a lower return on investment time than 20 years.

As for battle damage, BLC is still in there as are salvage rights, which help offset such losses.

[Sandslice]

On a quick skim through the rules for Mission Failure seem a bit harsh, I loss one fight and the contract is finished and I don't get anymore pay? Seems somewhat unrealistic, mercs have to lose sometimes and Out of Game I should be losing 50% of the time

"This section also supports play through the mission, wraps up costs and addresses changes to reputation. Most of the actual campaign rules are found in the Chaos Campaign chapter, p. XX." from the first page.

That suggests to me that a mission, in IO terms, is equivalent to a CC track (which contains multiple scenarios.)  I don't think the intent was to have a failed scenario (a potential minor setback) be a full-off show-stopper.

--------

A few questions, some of which have been asked in here before.

1.  On the missions table, Special contains three entries: Guerrilla, Recon Raid, and Diversionary [Raid], all marked with *.  This usually points to a footnote, but the table has no footnote.  What is different about rolling those?

2.  Is the "pre-Succession Wars" modifier for salvage actually supposed to be -12, which virtually assures no salvage?

3.  The "reputation trait" table is unclear to me.  Elsewhere, the force's reputation is calculated in the same way as the FM:Mr Dragoon Rating value (because, I'm aware, force reputation is Dragoon Rating under a new name.)  On this table, however, it's single digit numbers, almost like A Time of War trait.  What should it be?

4.  (This one was asked before) The support modifiers chart was lifted straight from FM:Mr, including a column for "overhead compensation."  Will IO be retaining this mechanic; and, if so, will it be a fixed value (25k cb or so) or 5% of the contract value, as I vaguely recall it being in FM:Mr?

5.  Even the short raids have a base contract length of 3 months, not counting jump and burn times; how do Wilma's Wabid Wombats have "two weeks of raiding mayhem?"

6.  The section under "Finding the Reputation Score" for command rating: the second chapter details how to pseudo-create a force commander without using AToW.  Would this paragraph be better under Force Creation, since a force without its commander isn't much of a force?  :D  In any case, "treat final results of less than 1 as 1" should be in the first paragraph, since the non-AToW method cannot produce results less than 1, even with a Green commander.  (A nitpick of paragraph flow.)

------

As for actually "playing it out," I'll do so later - I'm posting this during a lunch break at work.

[cray]

1.  On the missions table, Special contains three entries: Guerrilla, Recon Raid, and Diversionary [Raid], all marked with *.  This usually points to a footnote, but the table has no footnote.  What is different about rolling those?

Oops. Something disappeared between the Word and .pdf versions. The footnote is:

*Offered with Planetary Assault contract, to begin immediately at termination of first contract.

2.  Is the "pre-Succession Wars" modifier for salvage actually supposed to be -12, which virtually assures no salvage?

No, it should be -2. There was a typo.

3.  The "reputation trait" table is unclear to me.  Elsewhere, the force's reputation is calculated in the same way as the FM:Mr Dragoon Rating value (because, I'm aware, force reputation is Dragoon Rating under a new name.)  On this table, however, it's single digit numbers, almost like A Time of War trait.  What should it be?

See page 6 of the .pdf, Final Reputation Score.

"Final Reputation Score: Sum up all the different applicable
bonuses and penalties to get the final Reputation Score. A
related and important value used in contract negotiations is
the reputation modifier, which is equal to the Reputation Score
divided by 10, rounded down to the nearest whole number."

4.  (This one was asked before) The support modifiers chart was lifted straight from FM:Mr, including a column for "overhead compensation."  Will IO be retaining this mechanic; and, if so, will it be a fixed value (25k cb or so) or 5% of the contract value, as I vaguely recall it being in FM:Mr?

The overhead column will be deleted from the table.

5.  Even the short raids have a base contract length of 3 months, not counting jump and burn times; how do Wilma's Wabid Wombats have "two weeks of raiding mayhem?"

Per the Length of Mission section (pg8-9 of the .pdf), the contract length is "2 weeks plus 1.1 weeks per jump to reach the site of the mission." The Wombats had a 2-week raid, plus transport time.

6.  The section under "Finding the Reputation Score" for command rating: the second chapter details how to pseudo-create a force commander without using AToW.  Would this paragraph be better under Force Creation, since a force without its commander isn't much of a force?  :D  In any case, "treat final results of less than 1 as 1" should be in the first paragraph, since the non-AToW method cannot produce results less than 1, even with a Green commander.  (A nitpick of paragraph flow.)

Noted.

[Sandslice]

See page 6 of the .pdf, Final Reputation Score.

"Final Reputation Score: Sum up all the different applicable
bonuses and penalties to get the final Reputation Score. A
related and important value used in contract negotiations is
the reputation modifier, which is equal to the Reputation Score
divided by 10, rounded down to the nearest whole number."

I actually missed that part.  Thanks!

Per the Length of Mission section (pg8-9 of the .pdf), the contract length is "2 weeks plus 1.1 weeks per jump to reach the site of the mission." The Wombats had a 2-week raid, plus transport time.

From the same session,
"The Master Contracts Table reflects the typical base duration of the mission.  After determining the base duration, add in the length of time required for the force to redeploy to the mission site...
Unless the mission is on the same planet, deployment time is calculated as 2 weeks plus 1.1 weeks per jump to reach the site of the mission.  Divide the number of transit weeks by four and round up to the nearest whole number to determine the number of transit months for the mission."

The first jump should not count; you aren't burning outsystem toward an uncharged JumpShip, after all.  :)  I suggest a change to ...deployment time is calculated as 2 weeks plus 1.1 weeks per jump after the first, to reach the site of the mission.

And even the shortest raids are 3 month contracts by default.

Thus, the Wombats' example should look like this:

"...a week to reach the JumpShip, the instantaneous jump, a week to the target planet, three months of raiding mayhem, then a week back to the JumpShip, and finally a week to the garrison planet."

It also appears that the return transit is not part of the contract time.

[Sandslice]

All right, found another point of confusion.

In Creating a Force page 10, you are allowed to reduce your tech (or admin) needs by having combatants pull double duty.

In Force Ops page 4, the support rating is calculated this way:
"If a force has sufficient technicians, administrators, and large spacecraft crew (not including combatants pulling double duty as technicians or administrators,) then no modifier applies to the Support Rating.  For each category... that has an insufficient number of personnel, subtract 5 from the force's reputation."

The way I'm reading it is this.
Sample force: 12 'Mechs supported by a Seeker DS and Invader JS.  This works out to 140 personnel: 12 MechWarriors, 84 tech-types, 44 starship crew.  This is a mercenary force, so it needs 14 admins.

If I have one MechWarrior pull double duty as an admin:
Create a Force says I now need 13 admins to have my full admin load.
Support Rating says I still need 14 to count as having my full admin load.

Why are these different?

[SCC]

Sandslice, you got it wrong, you only need Admins for the MWs

[Sandslice]

Sandslice, you got it wrong, you only need Admins for the MWs

Page 10 of Create a Force has a list of people that need admins.  It starts with techs, and pretty much includes anyone that isn't an admin or dependent.

But even if I only needed admins for the MWs, the example would apply: ru(12/10)=2, so I'd need two admins.  Having one MW pull double duty would reduce that to one according to CAF, but not according to the Support Rating calculation.

[cray]

In Creating a Force page 10, you are allowed to reduce your tech (or admin) needs by having combatants pull double duty.

In Force Ops page 4, the support rating is calculated this way:
"If a force has sufficient technicians, administrators, and large spacecraft crew (not including combatants pulling double duty as technicians or administrators,) then no modifier applies to the Support Rating.  For each category... that has an insufficient number of personnel, subtract 5 from the force's reputation."

The way I'm reading it is this.
Sample force: 12 'Mechs supported by a Seeker DS and Invader JS.  This works out to 140 personnel: 12 MechWarriors, 84 tech-types, 44 starship crew.  This is a mercenary force, so it needs 14 admins.

If I have one MechWarrior pull double duty as an admin:
Create a Force says I now need 13 admins to have my full admin load.
Support Rating says I still need 14 to count as having my full admin load.

Per Force Creation, pg10, combat personnel can count as administrative personnel but they don't reduce the number of combatants that require administrative personnel. Is there some trick of my (probably bad) wording that you're seeing that suggests the number of effective combat personnel are reduced by double-duty combatants?

[Sandslice]

Per Force Creation, pg10, combat personnel can count as administrative personnel but they don't reduce the number of combatants that require administrative personnel. Is there some trick of my (probably bad) wording that you're seeing that suggests the number of effective combat personnel are reduced by double-duty combatants?

First, thanks for answering a question that I did have, that I hadn't asked yet.  :)

I think it's a trick of my wording.  If I might rephrase.

My sample company has 12 'Mechs, one Seeker DS, one Invader JS, and is mercenary.  It has 140 personnel (12 MWs, 12 techs, 72 astechs, 44 starship crew,) thus it needs 14 admins.

Per Create a Force p10, if I use one MW as a double duty admin, he counts as one admin since ru(1/3) = 1.  Thus, I would only need to hire 13 dedicated admins, and all 140 of my team are covered.

Per Force Ops p4, my double duty guy doesn't count; since I hired 13 admins, I'm considered one short and take a -5 on reputation.

Is that correct and intended?

[cray]

Now that you point it out, the Force Operations parenthetical comment weighing against double-duty personnel only seems to complicate matters as you have to more carefully separate and track double-duty personnel. It'll be deleted.