BattleTech fan since the early '90s, game design enthusiast since forever.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

First Look at FWL 3025 Manufacturing


House Marik: The Free Worlds League (FASA 1622), page 114:
The Free Worlds League presently has 17 fully or partly operational 'Mech production facilities, manufacturing an estimated 500 'Mechs per year. Another seven production lines are currently shut down (due to component shortages) or disabled. Twenty-four different 'Mech types are currently manufactured in the League, with the most common being Stingers, Wasps, Orions, Griffins, Hermes IIs, Locusts, Wolverines, and Warhammers.  
Those most common 'Mechs don't seem to be in any kind of order, unless they're being listed from most-produced to least-produced:
42    Stinger (9 shy)
51    Wasp
42    Orion
41    Griffin
34    Hermes II (2 shy)
32    Locust (4 shy)
36    Wolverine-M
22    Warhammer

21    Marauder-M
16    Trebuchet
16    Spider
15    Archer
14    Hunchback
14    Shadow Hawk
13    Phoenix Hawk
13    Vulcan
12    BattleMaster
11    Stalker
9    Quickdraw
8    Rifleman
7    Awesome
7    Crusader
6    Cicada
4    Goliath
The chart lists thirteen production sites and 486 'Mechs built annually--four sites and fourteen 'Mechs fewer than stated in the text. I know from the Davion and Kurita books that some factories don't get listed in the production chapter, so I'm inclined to think these four "missing" sites were simply too small to appear on the chart, and that they're responsible for the 9 Stingers and 4 Locusts needed to put the "most manufactured" list in order. (Per the Free Worlds Defense Industries profile on page 126, the 2 extra Hermes IIs seem to come from a troubled line on Gibson.)

The corporate profiles don't mention Shiro III's Stalker line (which must be new, since the FWL hadn't built any Stalkers in the past century), Irian's Awesome line (newly rebuilt) or Keystone's BattleMaster line (I don't know why). Per the chart, these three lines produce 30 'Mechs annually; the text says all four make 30 together, but I think that's forgetting to add the Goliath line in, or maybe shorting the new/rebuilt lines.

The profiles also have Thunderbolts instead of Phoenix Hawks built on Keystone (TR:3050 gives it both, so I'll assume the Thunderbolt line is simply fallow in 3025) and Calloway VI retooling for Phoenix Hawks instead of Shadow Hawks (probably a copy error - either the wrong Hawk or the wrong planet).


To be continued later.

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