Preparing for the Journey

For those of you have yet to get the gist of the adventure:

Picture The Oregon Trail, Battlestar Galactica, Homeworld 1 & 2, a dash of Game of Thrones with Giant Robots.

The Synopsis (Copied from the Game Page):
The date is May 18th 3051. House Davion and House Steiner have joined together through marriage to form the Federated Commonwealth, the largest Inner Sphere alliance since the Star League. Many believed this shift in the balance of power between the five great Houses would allow the galaxy to once again unite under a single banner. This hope has since faded as mysterious invaders arrived in Inner Sphere space from the periphery and have managed to attack all sectors at once. World after world has fallen to their superior technology and skill. Now with seemingly little hope to stopping the invaders the Federated Commonwealth has turned to the past as its final hope. Lost archives of Star League technology buried on dead worlds throughout the Inner Sphere. The government has turned to The Galactic Prospectors Institute, a group devoted to recovering and studying lostech, to find something (anything) that may turn the tide of this war against the invaders. Our five heroes are selected (for one reason or another: see first post when available) to provide Government oversight and security for this mission. While the GP Institute owns the ship and employs the crew it is all funded by the Federated Commonwealth and therefore this make all 5 characters (even the lowest ranked ones) members of the command of the ship. Leslie Black is the commanding officer of the ship, Nathaniel Stewart is Lance Leader. Several important members of the GP Institute make up a board of directors. All that said this is still a civilian operation so you all will not be in complete command and military like discipline will be uncommon.

Total Funding from Federated Commonwealth: 750 Million C-Bills

Technically all of the decisions being made in this thread are being made by the GP Board of Directors before the player characters are even involved; however, I wanted the players to be the ones to make the decisions as they will have a major impact on the story and I wanted to keep the Oregon Trail vibe going.

Priority A: Jumpship

Invader-Class Jumpship - 486,861,667 C-Bills (2x Laser Bays, Small Craft Bay [2 Doors, 2 Ships], 2x Cargo Bays [1 Door, 287 Tons], 3 Dropship Docking Collars, 6 Escape Pods, 1 Grav Deck [65m], 38 Capital Scale Armor)

Merchant-Class Jumpship - 384,618,750 C-Bills (No Weapons, Small Craft Bay [2 Doors, 2 Ships], 2x Cargo Bays [1 Door, 328 Tons], 2 Dropship Docking Collars, 4 Escape Pods, 1 Grav Deck [40m] 26 Capital Scale Armor)

Scout-Class Jumpship - 277,011,500 C-Bills (No Weapons, Small Craft Bay [1 Door, 1 Ship], 2x Cargo Bays [1 Door, 518 Tons], 1 Dropship Docking Collar, 3 Life Boats, 1 Escape Pod, 1 Medical Bay, 32 Capital Scale Armor)

Tramp-Class Jumpships - 499,621,250 C-Bills (6x ER Large Laser, 6 Anti-Missile Systems, Small Craft Bay [2 Doors, 2 Ships], 2x Cargo Bays (1 Door, 1287 Tons), 3 Dropship Docking Collars, 5 Escape Pods, 1 Grav Deck [140m], 16 Capital Scale Armor)


Let us begin by discussing and voting on a Jumpship to purchase. The jumpship is the largest vessel you will have, where the majority of the crew will live. It will be carrying all food, water, supplies and is the only hyperspace capable ship you will have. You will also need at least 1 dropship. All of the characters personal vehicles are owned by the Federated Commonwealth (or in Roman's case his sponsor) and so do not need to be purchased with this initial funding. The initial funding will need to pay for a crew, by supplies, by any additional mechs, fighters, or small crafts you may want, as well as pay salaries as the game goes on. Obviously you will have opportunities to make more money in the game. Hiring a crew is a very small percentage of the initial funding and even mechs and fighters are cheap compared to the jumpship. The dropship is the next biggest expense and will cost between 100 mil and 700 mil with the most common being on the lower end. Also feel free to suggest a name for the ship.

Just a point to make: Remember these are civilian class vessels and as such many do not have weapons; however, all dropships do and you can always defend a ship with small craft or aerospace fighters if you so choose. The jumpships listed above are the only ones that fall into the budget afforded by the funding and also have docking collars for dropships.

So we will decide the size of our Mechforce? i.e. we can hire on additional Mechpilots and mechs? I wouldn't mind having a nice big Jumpship, but it might be overkill if we end up with a smaller unit. I am in favour of something with a fair bit of armour, just in case we run into trouble

You can hire additional mechwarriors, tankers, and fighter pilots

For planning's sake, typically what can we expect in terms of salary requirements? I'd hate to be ship-poor.

I (and Leslie) would lean far more heavily toward the Invader or the Tramp class jumpship, with a good strong drop force and a wing of Sparrowhawks for security. But, that's the militarily minded side. It may be beneficial to be a speed-strike type vessel.

The larger a mech/aero force we have, the more of a military presence Leslie would like to see (at least among those entities). If we go with the smaller group, that would be more relaxed, clearly.

Do we have a general idea of the cost to add an aero fighter, tanker, or mechwarrior (cost for their salary, the vehicle [mech, aero, tank, etc])? So we can compare the cost of hull and gooey fillings?

Costs for mechs and fighters range significantly but never really more than 15 mil and most less. Salary for mechwarriors and aero pilots is 1500 base per month. Tankers about 900. Mech and aero maintenance is only a few hundred a month unless you lose parts which could cost more. A good guide for the mech and aero costs would be to just look at the mechs and the fighter assigned to the characters, I posted the price for each.

If voting in character, Isaac would prefer a speedy ship to be able to get away from trouble, and be able to strike stealthily if at all possible. This would be from his experience of the faster, smarter, force can usually destroy the clumsier one, even if it is bigger.
That would probably fit the Scout vessel.

out of character, I don't have a preference. I'll be fine with anything.

In terms of Aerospace fighters, do they take up space in the small craft bay, or is that more for things like a pinnace or shuttle and the fighters go on the grav deck?

Additionally, are the mechs stored in the dropships or do they hangar on the j-ship and get sent to dropships only when deploying?

Fighters are held in aerospace bays, very few jumpships have them directly but the dropships will. In theory you could put aerospace in small craft bays but small craft go up to 200 tons with fighters being more around 40-75

So we'll end up with something like:

(Jumpship -- (Dropship--[Mechs et al]--) -- (Dropship--[Mechs et al]--) -- (Dropship--[Mechs et al]--)--)

With the bulk of the crew staying in the Jumpship, likely only until drop, at which point, dropship crew rotates to their duty stations? Ish?

Pretty much, the jumpship is more or less where you live and travel. The jumpship carries dropships and small crafts, the dropships carry mechs and fighters. Everything attached to the jumpship jumps with it.

Small craft are larger than fighter but smaller than dropships. They can be combat ships, maintenance ships, scout ships, and personnel shuttles.

Excellent. Typically what size of a crew is in a dropship (2 mechs and 3 fighters, 20 mechs and 200 fighters) or does that also vary based on dropship size?

The human logistics and crew planning side of me has taken over, I apologize to all others in the thread. Leslie is excited to survey her command ;)

Dropships vary but the leopard which is a common small aerodyne dropship carries 4 mechs and two fighters.

Crew members required for a Leopard is 2 officers, 3 gunners, 4 crew, 12 bay personnel but it has bunks for 30.

So assuming a leopard, for each dropship collar we have, we would need to account for (assuming we are trying to fully outfit the vessel):
21 crew, 4 mechwarriors, 2 aerospace pilots (27 total souls). Plus 4 mechs and 2 fighters.

This means, we would need (funding assumes our PCs will take the helm of their mechwarriors/fighters when a drop goes down:
Invader-Class Jumpship - 3 Collars (81 total bodies (need to fund 76), 12 mechs (need to fund 8), 6 fighters (need to fund 5))
Merchant-Class Jumpship - 2 Collars (54 total bodies (need to fund 49), 8 mechs (need to fund 4), 4 fighters (need to fund 3))
Scout-Class Jumpship - 1 Collar (27 total bodies (need to fund 22), 4 mechs (need to fund 0), 2 fighters (need to fund 1))
Tramp-Class Jumpships - 3 Collars (81 total bodies (need to fund 76), 12 mechs (need to fund 8), 6 fighters (need to fund 5))

Those numbers look good, obviously you will not have enough money to fully outfit the best option. What you need to do here is decide which areas you are willing to make concessions on and which are absolute musts for you. As the journey progresses the Federated Commonwealth will offer additional tasks in exchange for additional funding, should you choose to take them on. Funds for the journey belong to the GP Institute and will really only be spent on the expedition proper. Personal items for the characters will be funded by their salaries. Leslie gets 1875 a month the others get 1500. I will keep track of the "company" with a program called mekHQ that handles all of the business stuff; however, I will be posting the information as monthly reports (game time).

Another item worth considering is the:

Explorer-Class Jumpships - 181,150,417 C-Bills (No Weapons, Small Craft Bay [2 Doors, 4 Ships], Cargo Bay [1 Door, 217 Tons], 22 Capital Scale Armor, 1 Grav Deck [80m]

As this jumpship cannot dock dropships it cannot be taken as a flagship; however, at such a low price it could be added as a second jumpship to the fleet. I am not sure exactly why you would do that but it is an option. At any rate it can carry 4 more small craft if you are so inclined.

If we go Scout-class, it's basically just us as far as drop operators. If we go Merchant-class, we effectively double our combat capacity. Both options leave us defenseless, aside from small craft/fighters. But we'd be quick.

At this stage, having a "fleet" seems excessive.

My vote is the scout. I'd provide more input but I'm coming up on finals week of my (hopefully) final semester, so I'm preoccupied.

I would say either the Merchant or the Invader, as they're simply the two most common Jumpship classes in the Inner Sphere. The Tramp is actually rather big and thus expensive to operate for a small unit; conversely, the Scout with only a single docking collar is a bit too small to my mind

I vote (after all the back and forth) for Merchant or Invader.

We're not really going to war on the front lines though, unless I'm mistaken. I'd rather be in something that can outrun a foe if need be, if we're going to be unarmed anyway. Also, I'm sure we've got other things we need to be spending money on, like excavation equipment and the like, for searching out old tech.

But I'm also the kind of player that hates hiring NPCs to bring around with, so I'm biased. I'd be more than happy with just our Lance (and aerospace support) for every mission.