Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

Joyousmadman

Well-known member
[X] Deploy DoME team to Nouveau Paris for cleanup efforts

Radiation poisoning is HORRIBLE no one deserves to go out like that, so if we can help, we must.
 

Yacovo

Occasionally spouting nonsense
The first sighting of any Black Steel units since the Fourth Battle of Arvum has finally occurred, a pair of scouting corvettes are run off by system defense forces in the Kurortas system. This immediately flags a number of alerts, as Black Steel forces had not been seen that far south for a very long time. Analysts are not certain if this presages a shift in their axis of attack or if instead this is merely an attempt to redirect your forces away from the Arvum schwerpunkt.
Stupid Black Steel strategic mobility.

[X] Deploy DoME team to Nouveau Paris for cleanup efforts
 
ShadowArxxy - Thunderchild

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
More Omake!

The design mimes at Periphery Studies have submitted another unsolicited WarShip design, one that the Navy has very reluctantly flagged for further attention because it's so insane it just might work. The Thunder Child-class "Extremely Armored Cruiser" is an almost comically undergunned heavy cruiser with armament on par with a mere destroyer. . . but it's also got the speed of a corvette and more armor than a battleship. The design notes indicate that it is designed to "aggressively taunt" the enemy while having the speed and protection to actually survive doing so.

However, you strongly suspect that the Naval staff actually sent this to your desk because the proposal is delivered in video format by the very enthusiastic mimes. The enemy forces in the video are represented by a pompously overdressed "stick in the mud" naval officer who clearly also represents Admiral Fisher, and you have to admit it's quite amusing to see the hero mimes holding Thunder Child models dancing around him and repeatedly making him pratfall as he tries to grab the models from them, then has literal steam shoot from his ears after comically failing to smash the super-durable models.

You also get the sense that there's an entire chorus of your Honored Ancestors enthusiastically cheering because it's a gloriously super-fast WarShip and they don't actually have to deal with any of the logistic headaches regarding a hyper-specialized, pseudo-capital unit so fast that most of your escorts can't actually maintain formation. In fact, you are struck by the thought that given your particular Honored Ancestors, this might be a chorus line rather than a chorus.

Annnnnyway. . . .

Code:
Thunder Child Extremely Armored Cruiser
Mass: 1,250,000 tons
Technology Base: Mixed (Advanced)
Introduced: 3145
Mass: 1,250,000
Battle Value: 416,204
Tech Rating/Availability: F/X-X-X-F
Cost: 14,128,480,000 C-bills

Fuel: 5,000 tons (12,500)
Safe Thrust: 5
Maximum Thrust: 8
Sail Integrity: 6
KF Drive Integrity: 25
Heat Sinks: 1711 (3422)
Structural Integrity: 180

Armor
    Nose: 1107
    Fore Sides: 909/909
    Aft Sides: 810/810
    Aft: 513

Cargo
    Bay 1:  Small Craft (4)         4 Doors  
    Bay 2:  Cargo (Liquid) (1001.0000000000001 tons)1 Door   
    Bay 3:  Cargo (4959.0 tons)     1 Door   

Ammunition:
    5,760 rounds of Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle/40 ammunition (12 tons),
    5,760 rounds of LRM 20 (Clan) Artemis-capable ammunition (6 tons),
    1,920 rounds of Rotary AC/5 ammunition (6 tons)

Dropship Capacity: 4
Grav Decks: 3 (95 m, 250 m, 250 m)
Escape Pods: 30
Life Boats: 12
Crew:  81 officers, 220 enlisted/non-rated, 180 gunners, 20 bay personnel, 20 passengers       

Notes: Equipped with
    1 Naval Comm-Scanner Suite (Small)
    4,500 tons of lamellor ferro-carbide armor.

Weapons:                                            Capital Attack Values (Standard)
Arc (Heat)                                      Heat  SRV     MRV     LRV      ERV    Class      
Nose (1,040 Heat)
20 Naval Laser 35                               1040 70(700) 70(700) 70(700)   0(0)   Capital Laser
FRS/FLS (1,118 Heat)
4 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/3)                     128  12(120) 12(120)  0(0)     0(0)   Sub-Capital Laser
4 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/3)                     128  12(120) 12(120)  0(0)     0(0)   Sub-Capital Laser
20 HAG/40                                       160  64(640) 48(480) 48(480)   0(0)   AC         
    Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle/40 Ammo (480 shots)
20 HAG/40                                       160  64(640) 48(480) 48(480)   0(0)   AC         
    Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle/40 Ammo (480 shots)
20 LRM 20                                       120  24(240) 24(240) 24(240)   0(0)   LRM        
    LRM 20 (Clan) Artemis-capable Ammo (960 shots)
20 ER PPC                                       300  30(300) 30(300) 30(300)   0(0)   PPC        
10 ER Large Laser                               120  10(100) 10(100) 10(100) 10(100)  Laser      
2 Rotary AC/5                                    2   4(40)   4(40)    0(0)     0(0)   AC         
    Rotary AC/5 Ammo (320 shots)
RBS/LBS (1,118 Heat)
4 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/3)                     128  12(120) 12(120)  0(0)     0(0)   Sub-Capital Laser
4 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/3)                     128  12(120) 12(120)  0(0)     0(0)   Sub-Capital Laser
20 HAG/40                                       160  64(640) 48(480) 48(480)   0(0)   AC         
    Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle/40 Ammo (480 shots)
20 HAG/40                                       160  64(640) 48(480) 48(480)   0(0)   AC         
    Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle/40 Ammo (480 shots)
20 LRM 20                                       120  24(240) 24(240) 24(240)   0(0)   LRM        
    LRM 20 (Clan) Artemis-capable Ammo (960 shots)
20 ER PPC                                       300  30(300) 30(300) 30(300)   0(0)   PPC        
10 ER Large Laser                               120  10(100) 10(100) 10(100) 10(100)  Laser      
2 Rotary AC/5                                    2   4(40)   4(40)    0(0)     0(0)   AC         
    Rotary AC/5 Ammo (320 shots)
ARS/ALS (1,118 Heat)
4 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/3)                     128  12(120) 12(120)  0(0)     0(0)   Sub-Capital Laser
4 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/3)                     128  12(120) 12(120)  0(0)     0(0)   Sub-Capital Laser
20 HAG/40                                       160  64(640) 48(480) 48(480)   0(0)   AC         
    Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle/40 Ammo (480 shots)
20 HAG/40                                       160  64(640) 48(480) 48(480)   0(0)   AC         
    Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle/40 Ammo (480 shots)
20 LRM 20                                       120  24(240) 24(240) 24(240)   0(0)   LRM        
    LRM 20 (Clan) Artemis-capable Ammo (960 shots)
20 ER PPC                                       300  30(300) 30(300) 30(300)   0(0)   PPC        
10 ER Large Laser                               120  10(100) 10(100) 10(100) 10(100)  Laser      
2 Rotary AC/5                                    2   4(40)   4(40)    0(0)     0(0)   AC         
    Rotary AC/5 Ammo (320 shots)
Aft (1,040 Heat)
20 Naval Laser 35                               1040 70(700) 70(700) 70(700)   0(0)   Capital Laser
 
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Yacovo

Occasionally spouting nonsense
This might actually be slightly viable once we hit the Inner Sphere if they are still behind the warship game and what matters is how much small arms fire and nukes you can take.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
This might actually be slightly viable once we hit the Inner Sphere if they are still behind the warship game and what matters is how much small arms fire and nukes you can take.

It's actually meant to fight WarShips; against anything less, this much armor is gross amounts of overkill. The Extremely Armored Cruiser has maximum Clan-grade WarShip armor on a structural integrity rating of 180, making it in relative terms the most durable WarShip ever built.

For reference and comparison, almost every canon battlehip in Battletech is "only" in the 80-95 SI range, with the two notable standouts being the Mjolinir-class at 140 and the battleship version of the Leviathan at 150. This means our heavy cruisers are by canon standards exceptionally well-armored pocket battleships, which is why they're able to fight Black Steel capital ships and give better than they take instead of being *annihilated* like lesser ships would normally be by a battleship. Our actual battleships, on the other hand, are stupendously tough juggernauts that are, overall, three to four times as tough as any Inner Sphere analogue.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
by the way what's the highest practical SI a warship can get?

Maximum SI varies based on speed. A 3/5 WarShip has a maximum SI of 150, which is exactly what I build my battleships to; a 4/6 WarShip can go up to 180 SI, but with that much armor the weaponry is going to be kinda thin. A 5/8 WarShip can in theory have an SI of up to 240, but that's ludicrously impractical because once you add the actual armor to that drive and structure, there's literally no room left for crew quarters or fuel. A 5/8 WarShip with an SI of 230 is paper-doable, but at that point you have a comical 9000 tons of usable space on a 2.5 million ton ship with minimum required quarters.

So I would say, in practical terms 180 SI is the practical maximum for a heavily armored WarShip. The tonnage penalty for 5/8 drives is just enormous, and even a very large armor-centric WarShip just doesn't have enough to push to the SI + armor limit on that tier.
 
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Yacovo

Occasionally spouting nonsense
It's actually meant to fight WarShips; against anything less, this much armor is gross amounts of overkill. The Extremely Armored Cruiser has maximum Clan-grade WarShip armor on a structural integrity rating of 180, making it in relative terms the most durable WarShip ever built.
Then I guess it depends on how developed the Inner Sphere’s capital grade weapons program is going. With how hard it was for us to develop even Sub-capital weapons with our not Holy Shrouded tech base, I can imagine Inner Sphere warships are probably under gunned.

I know the Clans and Comstar are the only ones with any real warship fleet for the rest of Inner Sphere to copy off of, but most of those are either centuries old or built with inferior to Star League shipyards due to age and technological regression. Those ships were probably not the most modern in their own time and probably not equipped with the latest tech and weapons either.
 
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ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
Given the lack of idiot balls and FASAnomics, I would really expect that the Great Houses have fully rebuilt their naval forces face in the wake of the second succession war and carefully maintained them into the third. They are likely primarily used as strategic fleets-in-being against each other and lack our experience in sustained high intensity naval operations, but will certainly outnumber us on an even larger scale than Black Steel does, although without the technological advances the cyborgs enjoy.
 

darkcloudt2

Well-known member
Given the lack of idiot balls and FASAnomics, I would really expect that the Great Houses have fully rebuilt their naval forces face in the wake of the second succession war and carefully maintained them into the third. They are likely primarily used as strategic fleets-in-being against each other and lack our experience in sustained high intensity naval operations, but will certainly outnumber us on an even larger scale than Black Steel does, although without the technological advances the cyborgs enjoy.

I don't really believe it would be like that, just the combine and the suns would be using their ships, raids into shipyards, especially miliarity ones would be a constant issue so while I believe they have ships I don't believe they have the numbers on us.

Did we ever find out the number of planets each group has in the Inner Sphere? and how many of those are as developed as ours?
 

Yacovo

Occasionally spouting nonsense
Did we ever find out the number of planets each group has in the Inner Sphere? and how many of those are as developed as ours?
I know the Cappellans, the smallest house at (one of) their heights had above 200+ worlds with FASA. We are currently 1/3 their size at best. If that number only counts major worlds and not outposts or colonies too small to be worth raiding, that difference will probably increase dramatically. We probably still have the edge in quality and local theater as long as we don’t attempt a Barbarossa on a Major House.
 

darkcloudt2

Well-known member
It could very well be as you say but even without FASA I don't see how they could have more then 200+ as for one, they only had 400 years without DOME terraforming teams to assist and not the best technology before the Amaris Civil War, after that I don't think they would have colonised a lot of systems, so 200 or so major worlds/systems sounds to me as understandable.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
It could very well be as you say but even without FASA I don't see how they could have more then 200+ as for one, they only had 400 years without DOME terraforming teams to assist and not the best technology before the Amaris Civil War, after that I don't think they would have colonised a lot of systems, so 200 or so major worlds/systems sounds to me as understandable.
Note: The Capellan Confederation in this time is roughly 1/2 the size of the other 4 houses, if not smaller, in comparison.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
Note: The Capellan Confederation in this time is roughly 1/2 the size of the other 4 houses, if not smaller, in comparison.

According to the current edition of the official BTech site, the Jihad-era Capellan Confederation stood at 160 inhabited systems, 267 for the Draconis Combine, 308 for the Free Worlds League, 330 for the Lyran Alliance, and 432 for the Federated Suns.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
Yeah but 1/2 to 2/3 of the Davion worlds are literal 19th to 20th century tech base Skidrow worlds that haven’t had investment since before the Star League
I'm pretty sure the Outback is something like 1/4 of the total FedSuns worlds. They are more spread out than the interior of the sphere IIRC. But yes, the Outback is pretty much left alone.
 

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