Resale of an aerotech warship?

[Andorinius]

I'm curious, reason being I had been playing battletech since FASA was running the game had created a mercenary unit from MechWarrior 3e mercenary creation. The unit acquired 2 McKenna battleships from one of the clans through trial of possession. I was wondering what the cost of reselling one would be and using some of those funds to refitt the other to be more of a carrier then a battleship.

[Liam's Ghost]

The raw C bill value of a Clan Mckenna is about 33 billion just by the cost calculation rules.

I will be honest, and say that in the typical universe this scenario is basically unthinkable. There are a lot of reasons why it's very unlikely to happen, and I only mention that to say that I'm going to ignore all of them and focus on your question, because you're free to enjoy your game how you like. Also, I don't know anything about your setting, so I'll speak generally.

So you have a McKenna to put on the market. Assuming the general state of the Inner Sphere is what it is, you can probably expect buyers to pay top dollar. This is kinda a once in a lifetime opportunity for most of them. If you have multiple possible buyers, the price you will get will go up, because everybody will want it.

If this is at a time before the Jihad, expect the highest bidders to be dressed in white and have surprising opinions about toasters. 

So the sell price of 33 billion is probably accurate if you have only one buyer. If there are multiple buyers engaged in a bidding war, it's not unreasonable for that price to double.

If you have evil buyers, one will likely try to steal it from the winning bidder and stick you with the angry customer who wants his money back.

The refit is trickier. In theory, selling one should be plenty of money to refit the other into some sort of carrier, but I'm not sure exactly how much it would cost, except to say that it will cost extra.

Because you'll have to go to a shipyard to do the work, and shipyards are very rare and in demand, so you now have to outbid other people to get access to the yard. And any major changes will take time. Probably on the order of a few months.

So ballpark, maybe a few hundred million and three or four months in the shipyard to get the refit done.

[idea weenie]

The buyer for the first McKenna might want to get in on the refit contract as well, as all the Capital Weapons being removed from the McKenna can be used as spare parts or research studies.

I am also wondering what the mercenary party put up as collateral that was worth the McKennas

[monbvol]

Honestly the crew and upkeep requirements of a McKenna would make me more inclined to sell them both rather than keep one.  Much less risk of getting 'Company Stored' into operating at the behest of someone else that way.

[Lazarus Sinn]

If you sell them both you could buy quite the impressive brand-new fleet of ships for all occasions.

[Daryk]

I would think advertising that much hardware for sale would draw at least one national military response to seize the property in question.  And one or more those would be packing nukes to deny it to the others (you being a "lesser included case").

[dgorsman]

The raw C bill value of a Clan Mckenna is about 33 billion just by the cost calculation rules. 
...
So the sell price of 33 billion is probably accurate if you have only one buyer. If there are multiple buyers engaged in a bidding war, it's not unreasonable for that price to double.
...
If you have evil buyers, one will likely try to steal it from the winning bidder and stick you with the angry customer who wants his money back.
...
So ballpark, maybe a few hundred million and three or four months in the shipyard to get the refit done.

There's also the problem that all that money isn't going to happen all at once, or even in actual money.  Money would be in payment terms, likely measured in decades.  The rest would be covered as things offered in trade, probably including lordship (whatever title is appropriate for the state) over planets or small provinces as means of political control.  The good news would be that negotiating access to yard time for maintenance on the other vessel would likely be acceptable as part of the sale price.  Access to refits for the remaining vessel is a little more up in the air, given how much time would be required and thus taking at least one slip out of use for an extended period.

[Liam's Ghost]

There's also the problem that all that money isn't going to happen all at once, or even in actual money.  Money would be in payment terms, likely measured in decades.  The rest would be covered as things offered in trade, probably including lordship (whatever title is appropriate for the state) over planets or small provinces as means of political control.  The good news would be that negotiating access to yard time for maintenance on the other vessel would likely be acceptable as part of the sale price.  Access to refits for the remaining vessel is a little more up in the air, given how much time would be required and thus taking at least one slip out of use for an extended period.

Very likely. Any lump sum cash in hand offer is probably going to be almost insultingly small. Because anybody who wants to buy one McKenna is also going to want to secure the service of its sister ship in the bargain. So any reasonable offer is going to take the form of generously large but long term payment plans landholds, or other investments in major national interests, things that get you invested in supporting the buyer and protecting their interests.

[Warship]

I am reminded of the Mechwarrior Mercenaries game.  Once after winning through and reaching a certain amount in the bank, your character cashes out and buys a planet.  Jump them to New Avalon, get yourself a planet and shiny title, award your mercs with comfortable fiefdoms, and enjoy the good life.

[BATTLEMASTER]

This AU sounds like fun, similar to the one I'm running for myself right now. 

How do you plan to do a refit?  Have a shipyard or a yardship on hand?  (Wow, that's funny how the names work out!)

[Lazarus Sinn]

I would take the money and run. Negotiate for a few companies worth of my favorite Mechs, vehicles and fighters. Get a jumpship or two and a few dropships all recently out of the shipyard either new or fully serviced. Get a pile of spare parts for everything and a big bag of money then be gone before the war to own them begins. Maybe a get small land hold on an interior world away from the areas that get raided every few years too.

[BATTLEMASTER]

I would take the money and run. Negotiate for a few companies worth of my favorite Mechs, vehicles and fighters. Get a jumpship or two and a few dropships all recently out of the shipyard either new or fully serviced. Get a pile of spare parts for everything and a big bag of money then be gone before the war to own them begins. Maybe a get small land hold on an interior world away from the areas that get raided every few years too.

In the primary universe, one could probably straight-up buy an entire planet and retire comfortably and not have to worry about money ever again.  But this is BattleTech, not RetirementTech  ;D

[Colt Ward]

For an AU the important part is . . . what year is it? and what was the timeline branching effect?

You have two different pools of buyers IMO- the Inner Sphere and the Clans.  The Clans?  Yes . . . you could sell to the Diamond Sharks, Warden Wolves or the Nova Cats if you were willing to accept payment in kind- spare parts for the one you are keeping, upgrades & additions to your ground forces, and IMO even dropships.  You would not get paid as much for the ship by a Clan source just because heavy capital ships are not as rare among the Clans- Leviathans, McKennas, Nightlords, Texas, Camerons, and Black Lions are all easily found in Clan fleets.

Among the IS . . . it is like owning the Mona Lisa or Rosetta Stone . . . no other exists, nor were there peer replacements.  The Mjolnirs come closest (but still lose, and might not exist in that form based on your timeline) but only two exist and both belong to a single power.  The FWL fleet can match the firepower with numbers in their Thera TFs . . . the Dracs, FedSuns, and Cappies would have to gather most of their fleets.  Liam has some good points, but for a price I think he is off by a order of magnitude for the value . . . this is not like where a mercenary brings in salvage and gets paid 40-60% of the MSRP value to a merchant who marks it up after fixing it up to MSRP + 10-15%.

I mean you could probably ask Hanse for your ugly hunchback daughter to marry Victor and the McKenna is the dowry.

The Dragoon's fleet was home ported out of their own private world and thus sort of stood apart . . . but it would be surprising if a House did not have a restriction on what private warships could mount for weapons.  If you mercs are based in a House's space, you might be forced by law to strip the weapons down to a light cruiser equivalent based on some earlier laws.  After all, a House is going to want to outgun mercenaries and that law would at least go back to 1SW when the Houses actually had heavy capital ships of their own.

I would also point out, the only warship outside of House, Clan or Dragoon hands?  It was repaired at the Warden Wolves' Lupus Majoris . . . at least what repairs the Blue Star Irregulars could afford.  Particularly important to you, the facilities can accommodate a McKenna (Werewolf is tended at the station), the crew/staff has the only experience outside the Clan OZs with a McKenna (btw, NONE of the OZ Clans actually has one after the Jags lost theirs), and they can source parts to repair warships- maintaining the Wolf fleet, repairing the Black & White Paw (Aegis class), and fixing up the Winter Wolf/Yggdrasil.

[Col Toda]

The cost in mantanance and trained personnel make it dead weight.   You ought to sell each to different clients.  1st Diamond Sharks 2 IS successor State . 3 Com Star . You would be lucky if you got 20 percent the price . All Com Star has to do is wait for maintenance  shortfallsvmake it break down and salvage it with a yard ship if you fail to unload the very fast .

[thedancingjoker]

I REALLY tried to make a warship work financially in a post-juhad mercenary campaign (captured a fleeing blakist warship) and it just doesn't work (although stripping out and selling all the ammo-dependant weapons and replacing them with NL 35s helps a lot, although does have some combat power loss).  2 McKennas is a pretty huge strategic asset I think you would be racing against the clock to cash out before some nation or another siezed them.  In that position my inclination would be to present the ships to whichever nation your merc company is most closely alligned to ASAP, then your entire company retires to noble estates.  Not as fun as keeping it I know.  I still have a mini of a Sovetskii Soyuz painted up in the colors of my mercenary Company.

[Daryk]

35s?  It should be 45s at least...  8)

[Col Toda]

Thats just it it costs too much to operate for a mercenary company.  Nothing short of a major corp or well developed planet with billions of tax payers has a prayer of having the resources to operate one warship. A single battleship is Insanely costly dead minimum the gross planetary product of 2 dead  average planets . The Dancingjoker is absolutely correct it is impossible to keep a year and very difficult to keep the quarter year it would take to unload them .  My unit from time to time have been loaned the use of a warship by a Suceesor State client to get the dropships on the ground but even with dozens of below average systems for resources and taxes it was not as cost effective as Starlord jump ships with 2 pocket warships Avenger CV 2 Overlords and a Rose for neccessary military protection.  That fully loaded package is a fraction of the maintenance cost of an empty Mckenna . If the warship was a Bug Eye or better yet a Sylvester Maybe I would consider keeping it but a Mc kenna  no way.