JumpShip Class Numbers for 3025

The best candidate I've found is a simple geometric sequence where each class has 27/50ths as many ships as the previous class.

Qty	- Class
920	- Invader (32% are commercial)
497	- Merchant
268	- Scout
145	- Star Lord
78	- Monolith
42	- ??
23	- ??
12	- ?Explorer? (HM:FWL, p127, 152)
7	- luxury liners (HD:FS, p173)
4	- ??
2	- ??
1	- ??
etc	- various

The top five ships add up to 1908. That's how many stars the old 3025 map shows in the Successor States. 

MW1e claims there are 450 "actively settled" worlds, and the House Atlases describe 156 as highly populated, leaving 294 others. There are 294 Invaders in commercial use.

145 worlds have more than a billion people. That's one world for every Star Lord.

The Successor States have 268 Scout vessels for 270 regiments' worth of House 'Mechs. Could be why there's a Suns regiment and a Capellan regiment which replace all their 'Mechs with tanks.

I've been using this sequence for a while as a fast approximation (it's easier than looking up my old MW1e estimates). Wouldn't have considered it seriously if not for conversations with Frabby and a Simulated Knave.

Hunger in the year 3058: Feeding Sarna from Kaifeng

Someone challenged me to justify low JumpShip counts in BattleTech. 
I believe I've done so. 
(These other threads are also relevant.)
Warning! This is like my other "bean counting" posts except EVEN MORESO.

Grange Class YardShip

[This has been sitting on my desktop for ages. Haven't got around to full stats yet.]

How do I not remember the Sales Bug of the Year?

FWL 3025: Shipyards

The FWL has eight manufacturers of DropShips & JumpShips (DS&JS page 15) operating ten active production sites (HM:FWL page 114). As best I can tell:

• Star Lords built at Clipperton, Loyalty and Tamarind (by SelaSys Inc.)
• Scouts, Leopards, Leopard CVs and Unions built at Oceana (by Irian Technologies, under supervision of the League's Chief Armorer)
• Furies, Buccaneers, Monarchs and Behemoths built at Stewart (by Brigadier Corporation)
• Gazelles and Mammoths built at Oriente (by "Deller, Bingham, and Fouts" or "Keller, Bingham, and Fouts")
• Invaders built at Angell (by Technicron)
• Intruders built at Ryerson (by Andurien AeroTech, a division of Free Worlds Defense Industries)
• Vengeances built at Dieudonne (by Kallon Industries)
• Condors built at Tematagi (by Nimakachi Fusion Products Ltd.)

My reasoning is below the cut. 

The FWL doesn't build big troop transports anymore, which plays to the fractiousness of FWL forces and their reluctance to mount an offense; lack of Mule production helps characterize FWL merchants as versatile traders who prefer Buccaneers; and Intruders plus extra fighter carriers may make up for a lack of small assault ships.

JumpShips in 3025

TL;DR? 920 Invaders, 540 Merchants, 225 Scouts (spread around 340 border systems), 160 Star Lords, 65 Monoliths, and 90 more obscure types. At most 14/36ths of a military's 'Mech regiments can be sent on planetary assault missions, and those missions require an average commitment of 1 jump collar per 4 'Mechs (to account for attack ships, continual supply and whatever else).

[Edit, 2019 Oct 6: better estimate here. /Edit]

Summertime Space Travel

Earlier this year I figured out the rules ye olde DropShips and JumpShips used to construct JumpShips. It's pretty similar to what Chris Hartford(?) devised for BattleSpace.



The common assumption is that Chris couldn't find any rhyme or reason to the earlier stats. But JumpShips were pretty easy to figure out, so I think it's equally likely that he found the system and decided to change it.

DropShips are harder. (One confounding factor is that transit thrust seems to be independent of combat thrust.) I took a break from working them out to do some astrography; unfortunately, that was interrupted, and all such endeavors remain disrupted for me through the present. I hope to resume normal activity in a few weeks.

Notes about DS&JS:

• Bridge mass of the Scout, Invader and Star Lord round up to nearest whole ton. (The Star Lord entry accidentally copied its bridge mass from the Invader's entry.)
• The Scout's Bridge was calculated for a 79,000 ton ship, its engine for an 80,400 ton ship. [Edit: alternatively, its engine is a typo (1930 tons for 1920 tons) for an 80,000 ton ship.]
• The Merchant's KF mass was given as 11,000 tons instead of 110,000 tons. (A zero was left off the end.) 
• The Invader was listed as 152,000 tons but its bridge and engine were calculated for 153,000 tons.
• The Star Lord was listed as 274,000 tons but its bridge and engine were calculated for 275,000 tons.
• The Monolith was given as 380,000 tons but its bridge and engine were calculated for 370,000 tons.

Edit: and apparently the spreadsheet inset, which looks fine on my browser, looks ridiculous on others.

Gravities * Days^2 = Light Minutes

Hey all, just wanted to say this quick before I forget again:

Suppose you are floating at rest relative to the local star, then accelerate at a constant rate towards a planet, and when you're halfway to that planet you flip end over end and decelerate at that same constant rate, eventually coming to rest above the planet.

If you measure your acceleration in gravities (~9.81 m/s/s) and your time in days (~86400s), then Gravities * Days^2 = the distance you travel in units of 61 light-seconds. That's close enough to light-minutes to make a super easy rule of thumb.

Of course, in a "real" situation you'd want to account for the planet's orbital position and orbital motion, gradually change your acceleration to help passengers transition from the old planetary gravity to the coming planetary gravity, account for relativistic dilation on month+ trips, track fuel use and how the rate of use changes as fuel is expended... probably other things.

But hey! Super easy rule of thumb.