Preparing for the Journey

I'd be okay with the merchant too, but I think the invader might be overkill for what we were sent to do. :P

I'm a little behind in reading the current debate, but whatever MoMo votes I vote the opposite.

Typical! :)

The mission is not intended to be a front line thing, in fact the Commonwealth believes it should be combat free, otherwise they wouldn't only send 5 people. The five of you are more there to keep security and order on the ship and make sure the Institute turns over their findings. Its a cushy and somewhat boring babysitting job, while safe it is almost offensive to be assigned to this despite its extreme importance. (Of Course being an RPG things aren't going to go as smoothly as the government thinks) but you will not be needing a ship of the line or a fleet, but then again its important to realize that none of these are warships. Even the Invader and Tramp are just jumpships. As to hiring NPC's you can be assured they will be taking a backseat to all of you. NPC will be needed because of the nature of space travel and the crews required, most will be civilians, members of the institute. If you choose to take on additional combat NPCs they will be merc but would technically fall under your command.

A couple of facts:

A: The Clans are occupied fighiting the Inner Sphere all around the Inner Sphere. They wouldn't pay much attention to a Civilian Ship.

B: Most of the other Houses are occupied with the Clans and wouldn't really look to stop an expedition that could save the entire Inner Sphere.

C: One or Two jumpships, especially small ones like the scout, have very little emergence signature and therefore can move about with relative stealth.

Given all of that, then it seems like the Institute would likely smile at us taking something the size of the Scout. It would definitely let us get in and out without issue.

Will the Scout offer us enough cargo space for any of the supposed lostech we're out to find? Or would we be better going the Merchant route to up our carrying capacity to return goods?

A little more on dropships:

Aerodyne: Capable of controlled Atmospheric flight using control surfaces. In other words in atmosphere it behaves like a plane. These require more space to take off and land but can do so without thrusters and using far less fuel. The Leopard is practically VTOL and therefore needs very little space

Spheroid: Far more suitable for space operations, but very unwieldy in atmosphere. These must VTOL and require all thrusters to do so. The use a lot more fuel than Aerodyne for launch and landing. The plus side is they tend to be larger and carry more.

Most Common Spheroid - Union Dropship - Medium Dropship - 222,502,000 C-Bills - 12 Mechs, 2 Fighters, 75 tons cargo

Right, a crew is fine to my odd no-NPC crazy preferences. I just meant like... hiring a second Lance to go around with us. Or hiring some assault mech and pilot to be a shield for us. It's the same reason I avoid summoning spells in games, despite how great they usually are. I prefer as much of the mission to be in our personal (or mechanized) hands. Not that I'd be opposed if that was the group decision, to hire more mech pilots. It's just, if it were up to me, it'd always be just us as the combat detail when it came to mech piloting. I do understand that the five of us won't be piloting and operating the flagship by ourselves, though. :)

I would still prefer the Scout, because it saves us C-Bills for the other stuff we'll need and I assume it's faster, but the merchant is good too. I still think the invader is way too much for what we'll actually use it for.

Hey guys I think we should hire like a bunch of NPC's. Not just crew but like some assault mechs and pilots to be shields for us. It reminds me of playing a summoner class in other games, which is the best.

For real though, after catching up I have to vote for the Scout. It makes sense with the situation and is relatively cheap.

I have a sneaking suspicion that you're out to get me.

I'm personally thinking keep it small both from a management/cost point of view and a "keep the attention focused on the PCs" point of view. A Merchant, two Leopards and a total of two lances of 'Mechs (Half of which are PCs) should do the trick nicely.

I was thinking in line with a 2 lance unit as well. We could have recon style lance and a heavier lance for when we need some firepower. I like the Merchant and 2 x Leopards based on unit size and having a little extra space

Though I am still seeing a little back and forth on some of the other classes it appears almost everyone thinks the Merchant is a good middle ground. Unless you want to hash it out further I think the Merchant is what I will add to the campaign. Also I like the idea of two lances (1 combat, 1 recon). Roman & Isaac would make up the recon lance with two NPC's and Nathaniel and Maxwell (Name subject to change) would make up the combat lance. Obviously if you want you could easily have a mixed lance with just the PCs.

Purchase of Merchant-Class Jumpship will leave a balance of: 365,381,250 C-Bills

The Next Priority: Dropships - While jumpships are massive capital class vessels, dropships are the next size down. A dropships purpose is to transport crews, vehicles, and equipment between jump points and planets. They are large vehicles weighing ~1500 tons on the smaller end. These vessels require multi person crews and are self sufficient enough to live aboard (though not as comfortably as on a jumpship). A dropship must dock with a jumpship or warship for hyperspace travel.

There are many options for Dropships, I will list 1 light Aerodyne, 1 Light Spheroid, 1 Medium Spheroid. I will post other options or variants if we do not like any of the options presented.

Confederate - Small Spheroid - 147,084,000 C-bills (Thrust 4/6, 6x Laser Bays, 616 Standard Armor, Fighter Bay [2 Doors, 2 Fighters], Mech Bay [4 Doors, 4 Mechs], Cargo bay [1 Door, 64 tons]

Leopard - Small Aerodyne - 171,302,400 C-bills (Thrust 4/6, PPC Bay, 3x LRM Bays, 4x Laser Bays, 500 Standard Armor, Fighter Bay [2 Doors, 2 Fighters], Mech Bay [4 Doors, 4 Mechs], Cargo bay [1 Door, 34 tons]

(Alternate Leropard Variant Leopard CV Identical to above except Mech Bay is replace by 2x Fighter Bays)

Union - Medium Spheroid - 222,502,000 C-bills (Thrust 3/5, 3x PPC Bays, 3x Autocannon Bays, 3x LRM Bays, 6x Laser Bays, 640 Standard Armor, Fighter Bay [2 Doors, 2 Fighters], Mech Bay [2 Doors, 4 Mechs], Mech Bay [2 Doors, 8 Mechs], Cargo bay [2 Door, 74 tons]

Roman would probably try to be on the combat lance if he has any say in the matter. Other than being fast, he doesn't really have any equipment that'd make him useful for recon, like a BAP, TAG, ECM, NARC, etc. He's more or less piloting a light laser-boat. Plus he's here to show off and look glorious.

As much as I prefer aerodyne style dropships, I think the spheroid ships are objectively better for what we'll need them for. My vote is either 2 Confederate dropships or 1 Union.

I would prefer the aerodyne (especially with Leopard-class having the ability to VTOL at a lower fuel consumption than the spheroids. Wouldn't we then be able to use the Leopard as a planetary transport in addition to just a landing vessel?

I can only base my opinion on the statistics that were posted. If fuel consumption were a big concern, I figure that would've been included, right? Spheroid seems better for the price, according to the information provided here.

That's where I was taking that info from.

Oooops!

Yeah, dunno, then. I definitely think Aerodyne look neater :P

How much of a concern is fuel, Azzorak? Can a Spheroid make multiple jumps on the planet before needing refueling? How much more efficient is an Aerodyne?

If a Spheroid can do a handful of drops before needing to go back to the Jumpship, I think it's still better. If it's a one-and-done kind of thing, then Aerodyne for sure.

We will probably be doing fuel narratively rather than hard and fast with numbers. Aerodyne would be able to make more drops for sure at least on a world with an atmosphere. They also handle better in atmosphere and can be uses for transit from point a to point b without reentering orbit. That said the spheroid shapes are better in space due to the fact that just moving provides atrifical gravity and they have weapons all around rather than pointing forward or back. They also can carry more and take more hits. I am going to postnone more small spheroid that is cheaper and therefore can he used as a secondary with less investment.

I can see ,Roman wanting to be in the combat lance cor sure. His speed and small size make him able to run recon if he wanted to

In that case my vote is for 1 Union spheroid dropship. Cheaper than 2 Confederate, even if having two would be nice in certain situations. It can carry a ton, which seems like it might be useful for our mission. However, once I see this alternate, I might change my vote to a Confederate and the alt.

If the majority wants a Leopard, I'm okay with that, of course. :) I just think the benefits of the spheroid ships---capacity, armor, 360 firing arc---outweigh more drops/atmospheric maneuverability. Plus the Union looks like it could provide some serious covering fire on all sides if we had to drop into a dangerous situation.

My thought is we could go with a leopard and a spheroid secondary. That way we have "equal" ability for both atmospheric and non-atmospheric operations. Additionally, it would let us do more strategic drop works. Diversity is nice. :)