darkcloudt2
Well-known member
No point in getting the upgrade now as we don’t have an urgent need for it and can wait for the upgrade Center to be completed.
[X] Wait for Now
[X] Wait for Now
Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
lordmcdeath
Well-known member
[X] Wait For Now
Turn 52 - Oh God, our Heavenly Father
Turn 52 - Oh God, our Heavenly Father
The ‘get together’ on Pollux takes place as scheduled, and it was just as bad as you had feared. About a half-dozen kids ranging from 6 to 14 from various stash houses, all of which you had under surveillance thankfully, were gathered by lawyers from the law firm and transported to the property, and a thoroughly disgusting ‘party’ takes place.
Janet convinces you not to watch the footage, but rather gives you the summary version. One of the oligarchs you already had enough on and 1 you previously hadn’t were present, along with members of their families. A number of lesser lights who had previously not been on the radar had also been present, and were now all under surveillance themselves.
You also are told that they’d gotten somebody inside, so you even had footage from inside the buildings where the external surveillance was unable to look. Janet is smirking about this, and mentions off-hand that it wasn’t Special Branch who pulled that trick off, and have you seen Harry lately?
Several increasingly incredulous minutes later you manage to extract the story from your old friend. Your Intelligence Minister decided that if you want something done right you need to do it yourself, and had somehow managed to infiltrate the catering staff of the event with all of the nifty spy toys your Intelligence Agency has been developing for a field test… and Harry had been a field agent before getting promoted to run the agency.
Janet manages to squelch your bellows of outrage over Harry being able to get out in the field by promising that when the time comes to swoop in and take out all of the scum you are more than welcome to be present, so long as you are wearing a stock Mk II battle armor suit with no identifying marks and do not open the helmet or your big mouth.
She also advises you to keep calm about this, as much as she wants to personally use those bastards genitalia for experiments on the boiling point of, well, genitalia while still attached to the host organism, she wants to catch them all, all of their hangers on, all of their accomplices, all of their enablers. Every single bleeding one of them.
On a far happier note, the Tramp, now renamed Unicorn, evidently after the first ship to sail under the Cunard name, for some reason, is now ready for service. You later find that the person doing the naming is a big ocean liner geek… your beloved husband. He’d not mentioned this to you.
You have several potential uses for the 3-collar jumpship. The military wants to load up three Devastations and go raid the Dracs, since the Royal Sovereigns aren’t ready yet. They even have A Cunning Plan. One so cunning, you think, they could pin a tail on it and call it a fox. They’ve been training multiple crews onboard Unicorn for the past year, you see. So they want to load those crews up on the Devastations, and jump to one of the major jump points for Nowa Warzawa and engage in some Grand Theft: Monolith on any Kuritan jumpships present.
Another option is to use Unicorn to transport Enterprise-A, a Sosumi for logistics support, and a single Devastation to either Calliope, the system you got basic star charts for from the Free Folk, or the currently unnamed system just to Coreward of Griffon, to obtain detailed charts and potentially colonize.
Or finally you could take a pair of Devastations and a civilian cargo hauled and engage in some commerce and pirate-hunting on the route between the NRI and Griffon.
Meanwhile, in even happier news, Quan, James, and Thanh are all having more grandbabies for you to go all ba over! Each of the twins have annoyed their wives by, well, impregnating them with more twins, and Thanh is actually the one acting as Mom for her and her wife’s latest bundle of joy. Since, as your daughter grumps at you, you have effectively barred her permanently from the cockpit so she might as well have a kid.
You can’t resist. You solemnly inform your beloved spitfire of a daughter now that she’ll have a child of her own she’ll understand. You promptly are treated to a twenty minute daughterly freakout.
You still got it.
Jeremy then shows up with paperwork. Your beloved son, with whom you are well pleased, is still destined for the Window Of Defenestration, but this is business, so you let it pass.
The proposal is for the new deployable combined arms Armored Division. Like the current ‘heavy’ or ‘assault’ unit, such as 3rd Armored, it will be very mech heavy, primarily because of the sheer versatility of mech platforms in multiple terrains. It would consist of three brigades. First Brigade would have a single Pathfinder Regiment to secure the LZ during initial landing, and a pair of Standard Armored Regiments to solidify control of the LZ during the operation. Second Brigade would consist of an Armored Cavalry Regiment for screening purposes, and 2 Standard Mech Regiments as the primary striking force. Third Brigade would have a trio of Assault Regiments in order to utterly break the heaviest enemy defenses.
He and Admiral Benjamin also have some other proposals. The Coyote design is, in many ways, an excellent raider transport, Unicorn alone could transport an entire Special Forces Regiment using them. However the design has one critical weakness. She carries nearly no cargo and would thus be utterly unable to actually support the units it is carrying organically. They wish to either discretely hire Majeure Électrique to produce a modified Coyote that corrects that deficiency, preserving a level of secrecy for special operations, or open up a design competition for a replacement.
The ‘get together’ on Pollux takes place as scheduled, and it was just as bad as you had feared. About a half-dozen kids ranging from 6 to 14 from various stash houses, all of which you had under surveillance thankfully, were gathered by lawyers from the law firm and transported to the property, and a thoroughly disgusting ‘party’ takes place.
Janet convinces you not to watch the footage, but rather gives you the summary version. One of the oligarchs you already had enough on and 1 you previously hadn’t were present, along with members of their families. A number of lesser lights who had previously not been on the radar had also been present, and were now all under surveillance themselves.
You also are told that they’d gotten somebody inside, so you even had footage from inside the buildings where the external surveillance was unable to look. Janet is smirking about this, and mentions off-hand that it wasn’t Special Branch who pulled that trick off, and have you seen Harry lately?
Several increasingly incredulous minutes later you manage to extract the story from your old friend. Your Intelligence Minister decided that if you want something done right you need to do it yourself, and had somehow managed to infiltrate the catering staff of the event with all of the nifty spy toys your Intelligence Agency has been developing for a field test… and Harry had been a field agent before getting promoted to run the agency.
Janet manages to squelch your bellows of outrage over Harry being able to get out in the field by promising that when the time comes to swoop in and take out all of the scum you are more than welcome to be present, so long as you are wearing a stock Mk II battle armor suit with no identifying marks and do not open the helmet or your big mouth.
She also advises you to keep calm about this, as much as she wants to personally use those bastards genitalia for experiments on the boiling point of, well, genitalia while still attached to the host organism, she wants to catch them all, all of their hangers on, all of their accomplices, all of their enablers. Every single bleeding one of them.
| [] | Strike Now |
|
| [] | Continue Surveillance |
|
| [] | Continue Surveillance while turning loose Intelligence interrogators on captured accessories |
|
On a far happier note, the Tramp, now renamed Unicorn, evidently after the first ship to sail under the Cunard name, for some reason, is now ready for service. You later find that the person doing the naming is a big ocean liner geek… your beloved husband. He’d not mentioned this to you.
You have several potential uses for the 3-collar jumpship. The military wants to load up three Devastations and go raid the Dracs, since the Royal Sovereigns aren’t ready yet. They even have A Cunning Plan. One so cunning, you think, they could pin a tail on it and call it a fox. They’ve been training multiple crews onboard Unicorn for the past year, you see. So they want to load those crews up on the Devastations, and jump to one of the major jump points for Nowa Warzawa and engage in some Grand Theft: Monolith on any Kuritan jumpships present.
Another option is to use Unicorn to transport Enterprise-A, a Sosumi for logistics support, and a single Devastation to either Calliope, the system you got basic star charts for from the Free Folk, or the currently unnamed system just to Coreward of Griffon, to obtain detailed charts and potentially colonize.
Or finally you could take a pair of Devastations and a civilian cargo hauled and engage in some commerce and pirate-hunting on the route between the NRI and Griffon.
| [] | Install and play Grand Theft Monolith |
| [] | Griffon Will Grow Larger |
| [] | A huntin’ we will go! |
Meanwhile, in even happier news, Quan, James, and Thanh are all having more grandbabies for you to go all ba over! Each of the twins have annoyed their wives by, well, impregnating them with more twins, and Thanh is actually the one acting as Mom for her and her wife’s latest bundle of joy. Since, as your daughter grumps at you, you have effectively barred her permanently from the cockpit so she might as well have a kid.
You can’t resist. You solemnly inform your beloved spitfire of a daughter now that she’ll have a child of her own she’ll understand. You promptly are treated to a twenty minute daughterly freakout.
You still got it.
Jeremy then shows up with paperwork. Your beloved son, with whom you are well pleased, is still destined for the Window Of Defenestration, but this is business, so you let it pass.
The proposal is for the new deployable combined arms Armored Division. Like the current ‘heavy’ or ‘assault’ unit, such as 3rd Armored, it will be very mech heavy, primarily because of the sheer versatility of mech platforms in multiple terrains. It would consist of three brigades. First Brigade would have a single Pathfinder Regiment to secure the LZ during initial landing, and a pair of Standard Armored Regiments to solidify control of the LZ during the operation. Second Brigade would consist of an Armored Cavalry Regiment for screening purposes, and 2 Standard Mech Regiments as the primary striking force. Third Brigade would have a trio of Assault Regiments in order to utterly break the heaviest enemy defenses.
He and Admiral Benjamin also have some other proposals. The Coyote design is, in many ways, an excellent raider transport, Unicorn alone could transport an entire Special Forces Regiment using them. However the design has one critical weakness. She carries nearly no cargo and would thus be utterly unable to actually support the units it is carrying organically. They wish to either discretely hire Majeure Électrique to produce a modified Coyote that corrects that deficiency, preserving a level of secrecy for special operations, or open up a design competition for a replacement.
| [] | Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job |
| [] | Hold a competition |
Janet *and* Her Majesty both receive a Senior NCO Glare for this suggestion.
[X] Continue Surveillance while turning loose Intelligence interrogators on captured accessories
(Given what's going down, I really don't think the *most absolutely cautious* tack fits the character and personality we've made for our
Edit: DAMMIT JANE!
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
[X] Hire Majeure Electrique.
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Jarow
Well-known member
[X] Continue Surveillance
Chance is getting better, but not to the point I'm willing to commit yet
[] Install and play Grand Theft Monolith
I think we should wait for the Royal Sovereigns to do this. Potentially gets us more jumpships though
[] Griffon Will Grow Larger
Don't think we have enough jumpships to actually start colonizing, but we are at the point we can start preparing for colonization.
[] A huntin’ we will go!
Way to get money and possibly diplomatic favor with the NRI. I think we're good on money, though diplomatic favor could be nice.
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
They make pretty much all our best dropships; and we could keep using the current design when moving divisions, meaning a more secret design for special operations makes sense. Though, not quite sure how much benefit keeping it secret would be regardless.
Chance is getting better, but not to the point I'm willing to commit yet
[] Install and play Grand Theft Monolith
I think we should wait for the Royal Sovereigns to do this. Potentially gets us more jumpships though
[] Griffon Will Grow Larger
Don't think we have enough jumpships to actually start colonizing, but we are at the point we can start preparing for colonization.
[] A huntin’ we will go!
Way to get money and possibly diplomatic favor with the NRI. I think we're good on money, though diplomatic favor could be nice.
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
They make pretty much all our best dropships; and we could keep using the current design when moving divisions, meaning a more secret design for special operations makes sense. Though, not quite sure how much benefit keeping it secret would be regardless.
Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] Continue Surveillance while turning loose Intelligence interrogators on captured accessories
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
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[X] Continue Surveillance while turning loose Intelligence interrogators on captured accessories
As much as I’m tempted to want to jump in feet first and put boots on their necks we still need more data.
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
As much as I would love to nick there damned monolith we nees to explore more though....
@LordSunhawk could we also use the Unicorn to maybe move some war materials to the FFR in our local space? At least in the future?
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
As much as I’m tempted to want to jump in feet first and put boots on their necks we still need more data.
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
As much as I would love to nick there damned monolith we nees to explore more though....
@LordSunhawk could we also use the Unicorn to maybe move some war materials to the FFR in our local space? At least in the future?
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
It was discussed ether here or the discord I can’t remember which but they would love more war materials however their major issue is a great deal heck all of their jump capacity is tied down in fighting the Drac shogunate right now.
Joyousmadman
Well-known member
[X] Continue Surveillance
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
Trashman.exe
Well-known member
[X] Continue Surveillance
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
[X] Griffon Will Grow Larger
- [X] To Calliope!
[X] Hire Majeure Électrique to do the job
Turn 52 - Oh, God - And My Father, who is also in Heaven
Turn 52 - Oh, God - And My Father, who is also in Heaven
You get good and bad news on the oligarch front. One of them drops dead of a massive stroke. Good news, bad news, at the same time. His son immediately makes moves to consolidate control of his father’s companies, and that little bastard is an even worse piece of work than his father according to surveillance. It’s not even two hours after his father’s reported death that the little shit is recorded discussing ‘eliminating’ his younger brothers and his mother with the law firm in order to silence them, or eliminate them from the inheritance.
And the rat bastards at the firm immediately start activating contingencies to accomplish just that, unfortunately for the lawyers, and the little bastard who is now their boss in this regard, the ‘contract’ for the murders is given to several Special Branch agents, with a parallel contract to eliminate the hired guns given directly to Jane in one of her various disguises.
The lawyers obviously think that they are clever, having hit men kill the targets, then promptly getting murdered themselves would completely muddle any trail to them, after all.
Special Branch outdoes itself on this one with a flair worthy of the finest heist movie. The team swoops into the three residences of the targets, completely disabling all security systems and ‘slaughtering’ the guards, staff, and targets before themselves getting ‘killed’ by a sniper.
Of course, all the ‘bodies’ are fake, the forensics and law enforcement people who handle the scene are all undercover Special Branch as well, and all the ‘dead’ are hustled off under sedation to a very well hidden facility in Five Fingers for… a frank discussion of their circumstances and how they might earn the chance of continuing to breath. Freedom? Not an option for these people, they’re all complicit in horrific crimes. But they’ll not be cut, drawn, and quartered, which seems to be more than enough for these worthless pieces of scum.
The elder brother is acting all cut up about this, wailing and sobbing for the cameras, but you catch him wiring a bonus to the lawyers for their neat wrapping up of loose ends and him gloating about him now being able to consolidate all of the family fortune.
Thanks to the arrangements of the law firm, you manage to pinpoint about a dozen more corrupt officials, including at least one more judge who, in exchange for a substantial bribe, delayed a critical search warrant that the ‘investigators’, actually more Special Branch officers, had requested. The minor detail that they requested the warrant from that particular bench precisely in order to get proof of the judge taking bribes? We won’t mention that minor detail too loudly.
Janet still wants to hold tight. You have the majority of the big fish dead to rights, albeit not all of them. But you are starting to positively identify more and more of the little guys, the minnows just waiting to become sharks someday if the current sharks are taken out. She uses a chess analogy, any single pawn has the potential to become a queen.
HMS Ocean of the Devastation-class, along with USS Enterprise-A and CLT-01 are sent off attached to Unicorn to the Calliope system. You are expecting a preliminary report with the return of Unicorn and CLT-01 for resupply in a month or so, barring something more significant happening.
About a day after their departure, the New Rasalhaguian Scout jumps into the system and broadcasts a request to meet.
According to their representative, the Dracs are planning a ‘significant’ strike on Griffon in the next several months. They have reason to believe that the Dracs have gathered upwards of 20 Monoliths in Nowa Warszawa to transport the attack and their spies report that the Dracs seem ‘confident’ that they’ll be able to land a significant force. They stress that they do not have precise force composition numbers, nor do they know the exact target, but the Dragon has been… quiet lately, likely building up for this attack, and the estimate of 20 is just that, an estimate, it is possible that there might be more involved.
They give you dossiers and profiles on the likely Drac commanders, which should be helpful on a strategic and tactical level as it gives your people insights on their opposition. Unfortunately they lack sufficient Jumpship lift to provide you with anything more than intelligence and well wishes.
Mobilizing your forces fully would cause some significant economic disruption, but it would allow you to be ready to react immediately no matter where the Dracs show up. One benefit of doing so is it would allow you to bring the new Mk I Defense Stations online a bit early, which could prove decisive in blunting an attack on the Jump Points or directly on Griffin’s Roost.
Home Fleet would cover Griffin’s Roost, Capital Fleet would cover Nowy Gdansk, the Inner System Patrol would mostly concentrate on Griffon IV, although some of their units would also cover Griffon II, while Strike Fleet would cover the Inner Asteroid Belt. The jump point defenses themselves would be on full alert, acting as the tripwire response.
Much as you want to forward deploy more forces to the jump points, the fact remains that the Dracs have shown a willingness to use pirate points in the past, and that threat must be honored.
You get good and bad news on the oligarch front. One of them drops dead of a massive stroke. Good news, bad news, at the same time. His son immediately makes moves to consolidate control of his father’s companies, and that little bastard is an even worse piece of work than his father according to surveillance. It’s not even two hours after his father’s reported death that the little shit is recorded discussing ‘eliminating’ his younger brothers and his mother with the law firm in order to silence them, or eliminate them from the inheritance.
And the rat bastards at the firm immediately start activating contingencies to accomplish just that, unfortunately for the lawyers, and the little bastard who is now their boss in this regard, the ‘contract’ for the murders is given to several Special Branch agents, with a parallel contract to eliminate the hired guns given directly to Jane in one of her various disguises.
The lawyers obviously think that they are clever, having hit men kill the targets, then promptly getting murdered themselves would completely muddle any trail to them, after all.
Special Branch outdoes itself on this one with a flair worthy of the finest heist movie. The team swoops into the three residences of the targets, completely disabling all security systems and ‘slaughtering’ the guards, staff, and targets before themselves getting ‘killed’ by a sniper.
Of course, all the ‘bodies’ are fake, the forensics and law enforcement people who handle the scene are all undercover Special Branch as well, and all the ‘dead’ are hustled off under sedation to a very well hidden facility in Five Fingers for… a frank discussion of their circumstances and how they might earn the chance of continuing to breath. Freedom? Not an option for these people, they’re all complicit in horrific crimes. But they’ll not be cut, drawn, and quartered, which seems to be more than enough for these worthless pieces of scum.
The elder brother is acting all cut up about this, wailing and sobbing for the cameras, but you catch him wiring a bonus to the lawyers for their neat wrapping up of loose ends and him gloating about him now being able to consolidate all of the family fortune.
Thanks to the arrangements of the law firm, you manage to pinpoint about a dozen more corrupt officials, including at least one more judge who, in exchange for a substantial bribe, delayed a critical search warrant that the ‘investigators’, actually more Special Branch officers, had requested. The minor detail that they requested the warrant from that particular bench precisely in order to get proof of the judge taking bribes? We won’t mention that minor detail too loudly.
Janet still wants to hold tight. You have the majority of the big fish dead to rights, albeit not all of them. But you are starting to positively identify more and more of the little guys, the minnows just waiting to become sharks someday if the current sharks are taken out. She uses a chess analogy, any single pawn has the potential to become a queen.
| [] | Strike Now |
|
| [] | Continue Surveillance |
|
| [] | Continue Surveillance while turning loose Intelligence interrogators on captured accessories |
|
HMS Ocean of the Devastation-class, along with USS Enterprise-A and CLT-01 are sent off attached to Unicorn to the Calliope system. You are expecting a preliminary report with the return of Unicorn and CLT-01 for resupply in a month or so, barring something more significant happening.
About a day after their departure, the New Rasalhaguian Scout jumps into the system and broadcasts a request to meet.
According to their representative, the Dracs are planning a ‘significant’ strike on Griffon in the next several months. They have reason to believe that the Dracs have gathered upwards of 20 Monoliths in Nowa Warszawa to transport the attack and their spies report that the Dracs seem ‘confident’ that they’ll be able to land a significant force. They stress that they do not have precise force composition numbers, nor do they know the exact target, but the Dragon has been… quiet lately, likely building up for this attack, and the estimate of 20 is just that, an estimate, it is possible that there might be more involved.
They give you dossiers and profiles on the likely Drac commanders, which should be helpful on a strategic and tactical level as it gives your people insights on their opposition. Unfortunately they lack sufficient Jumpship lift to provide you with anything more than intelligence and well wishes.
Mobilizing your forces fully would cause some significant economic disruption, but it would allow you to be ready to react immediately no matter where the Dracs show up. One benefit of doing so is it would allow you to bring the new Mk I Defense Stations online a bit early, which could prove decisive in blunting an attack on the Jump Points or directly on Griffin’s Roost.
Home Fleet would cover Griffin’s Roost, Capital Fleet would cover Nowy Gdansk, the Inner System Patrol would mostly concentrate on Griffon IV, although some of their units would also cover Griffon II, while Strike Fleet would cover the Inner Asteroid Belt. The jump point defenses themselves would be on full alert, acting as the tripwire response.
Much as you want to forward deploy more forces to the jump points, the fact remains that the Dracs have shown a willingness to use pirate points in the past, and that threat must be honored.
| [] | Mobilize NOW |
|
| [] | Wait until they show up |
|
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
[X] Continue Surveillance
[X] Mobilize NOW
Action Stations Action Stations Set Condition One throughout the System.
Darn we were just about to just the first of the Royal Sovereigns into service along with a bunch of other dropships. They couldn't have waited just one more year? Can we rush the ships working up into service? On the positive side of things it looks like we just got a shot at acquiring a fair few Jumpships. Also it looks like they're going to find out about the Morristown. Pitty that
[X] Mobilize NOW
Action Stations Action Stations Set Condition One throughout the System.
Darn we were just about to just the first of the Royal Sovereigns into service along with a bunch of other dropships. They couldn't have waited just one more year? Can we rush the ships working up into service? On the positive side of things it looks like we just got a shot at acquiring a fair few Jumpships. Also it looks like they're going to find out about the Morristown. Pitty that
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Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] Continue Surveillance
[X] Mobilize NOW
[X] Mobilize NOW
[X] Continue Surveillance
[X] Mobilize NOW
It's time to go to DEFCON ONE.
If we pause her refit, we could probably hide her outsystem.
[X] Mobilize NOW
It's time to go to DEFCON ONE.
If we pause her refit, we could probably hide her outsystem.
Okay, here's how I think the Dracs intend to play it:
1. They know that we're ASF-heavy and also have extremely high-performance combat DropShips that are individually superior to their Achilles class. The idea that a Periphery system could be producing this vast volume of ASFs and DropShips *and also* large numbers of Battlemechs, is grossly implausible.
2. They know, based on literally hundreds of years of doctrinal experience throughout the Inner Sphere, that in large scale strategic battles, ASF/DropShip combat is fundamentally skirmishing -- the decisive factor is Battlemechs on the ground. They furthermore know that their elite MechWarriors are vastly superior to any limited force of 'Mechs we could plausibly field, especially since they have seen *no* Battlemechs of ours, only infantry and armored vehicles.
3. Between this strategic knowledge and their weeaboo tendencies, I would expect a complex multi-pronged assault plan involving major strike groups coming in at both jump points *plus* an elite spearhead force arriving at the pirate point several hours/days later, with a focus on forcing us to split up our defensive forces and the intent of putting a decisive weight of Battlemechs on the ground. I would further expect their major strike groups to be carrier-heavy but their spearhead to be "assault DropShip" heavy, on the idea that even if we have a strong reserve to engage that force, they only have to *last long enough* for the transports to rush through.
4. With 20 Monoliths, I would expect something like a 9-9-2 or 8-8-4 split between the jump point forces and the pirate forces.
1. They know that we're ASF-heavy and also have extremely high-performance combat DropShips that are individually superior to their Achilles class. The idea that a Periphery system could be producing this vast volume of ASFs and DropShips *and also* large numbers of Battlemechs, is grossly implausible.
2. They know, based on literally hundreds of years of doctrinal experience throughout the Inner Sphere, that in large scale strategic battles, ASF/DropShip combat is fundamentally skirmishing -- the decisive factor is Battlemechs on the ground. They furthermore know that their elite MechWarriors are vastly superior to any limited force of 'Mechs we could plausibly field, especially since they have seen *no* Battlemechs of ours, only infantry and armored vehicles.
3. Between this strategic knowledge and their weeaboo tendencies, I would expect a complex multi-pronged assault plan involving major strike groups coming in at both jump points *plus* an elite spearhead force arriving at the pirate point several hours/days later, with a focus on forcing us to split up our defensive forces and the intent of putting a decisive weight of Battlemechs on the ground. I would further expect their major strike groups to be carrier-heavy but their spearhead to be "assault DropShip" heavy, on the idea that even if we have a strong reserve to engage that force, they only have to *last long enough* for the transports to rush through.
4. With 20 Monoliths, I would expect something like a 9-9-2 or 8-8-4 split between the jump point forces and the pirate forces.