3025 Heavy Production: FWL vs MW1e

Remember how the Free Worlds League's manufacturing listings only added up to 486 'Mechs per year instead of the 500 claimed in the text? The most popular solution is to add 14 Thunderbolts per year. I eventually came around to that solution too, but now I think it's actually 13 Thunderbolts per year, not 14.

• The manufacturing chart shows the FWL building only 257 universal designs per year. 13 Thunderbolts would raise that to exactly 270. 
• The Earthwerks corporate profile mentions Thunderbolts instead of Phoenix Hawks, and the manufacturing chart lists the Phoenix Hawk at 13 per year.
• When you line the FWL figures up against my figures from the MW1e encounter tables, the Thunderbolt fits perfectly at 13 per year.

From left to right, the Warhammer, Marauder, Archer, Thunderbolt and Rifleman align so perfectly that I have to suspect these values represent their overall, sphere-wide ratios.

Six Weeks of Events-

-if the players do nothing to change them. I kinda like the simple D&D seed better than the longer BattleTech ones.

Started with the event tables in the first edition Mercenary's Handbook and MechWarrior RPG. Not really satisfied with the results (my ultimate goal is to enable domain building in a randomly generated war front), but I think they're good enough to hang a short campaign off if I need to.

(Events below the cut.)

How MW1e Figures House Currencies

House	Strength in...
	Stars	Mechs	Currency
Davion	507	7	9
Kurita	407	6	8
Steiner	439	5	11
Marik	332	5	7
Liao	209	4	5

When MW1e said House currency was "measured in terms of industrial strength and the availability of important natural resources" (p103), I had no idea there would be an actual equation behind it. Approximately:

(Stars - 'Mechs*60 + 173)*(9/256) = strength of currency

The number of stars in a realm seems to be a proxy for that realm's natural and industrial resources. That's pretty fair, I think. "Mechs" is 1/100th of the House's annual 'Mech production, and seems to be a proxy for the House's military production in general. So we've got a pretty clear "guns and butter" situation. Not, y'know, clear enough to base a domain-building game on yet, but it's a step in the right direction.

The 9/256 factor is very interesting. Remember how Periphery realms get four worlds for free and then need two companies of 'Mechs for every world after? Well, there's 9 companies in a regiment and (per BF1e) 128 'Mechs in a regiment, so to garrison 9 extra worlds you would need 256 'Mechs. 

I don't know what the 173 is. Could be a logistical term which varies slightly from House to House for reasons I've yet to discover. Could be a meaningless term invented to put the currencies on a more attractive scale.

More 'Mech Production Insights From MW1e

Since I'm taking the production rates for Valkyries and other signature 'Mechs from the MW1e Enemy Lance Table, I decided to compare each House's portion of signature 'Mechs with their overall level of production.

I'm surprised by how well the Houses line up. Each has a base of 269, and then however many signature 'Mechs from the Lance Table, plus additional 'Mechs amounting to 61.2% of their signature designs.

Davion is a little off, which is discouraging; and the Hermes II (MW1e's signature Marik 'Mech) doesn't even appear on the table, so I need to check Marik some other way.

I think the Marauder-M and Wolverine-M could be considered signature Marik designs.

The Stinger, Wasp, Griffin, Locust, Warhammer, Archer, Shadow Hawk, Phoenix Hawk, BattleMaster, Rifleman and Crusader definitely aren't. Marik's manufacturing chart shows 257 of these/yr, and 14 Thunderbolts/yr raises the total to 271. That agrees pretty well with the 269 figure on my graph.

If each House builds 270 of these/yr, then that would mean the standard variants of these fourteen standard designs make up about 50% of the Inner Sphere's annual 'Mech production.

# House Regiments *10 = 'Mech Production

House Liao: The Capellan Confederation (hereafter HL:CC) details its forces at the battalion level, which makes it easy to see they have about 40 regiments worth of house regulars. I notice that House Liao happens to build 400 'Mechs/yr and MW1e gives you a 4/36 chance of being in their employ.

The other House TO&Es aren't as detailed, but they seem to follow the same pattern: Davion has 70 regiments of house troops, Kurita has 60, Steiner 50 and Marik 50.

(I think we can trust that (for instance) the Davion book is accounting for short and weakened units when it estimates its 118 regimental commands at an overall strength of 110 regiments; and if we subtract known mercenary regiments from that overall strength, the remaining regiments should be house regulars (plus whatever mercs are too small to appear on the TO&Es).)

Of the 385 regiments' worth of 'Mechs operating in the Successor States, 270 belong to house troops while 115--or about 29.9%--belong to mercenaries.

Quick Plausibility Check:

• The Periphery Houses have a total of 17.33 regiments. At a ratio of 115 to 385, we'd expect 5.18 of those regiments to be mercenary, and we do indeed see 5 regiments of mercs. 
• MW1e gives you a 2/36 chance to roll a "bandit" affiliation (page 135 calls the difference between bandits and other alliances "more semantic than actual"). This implies 20 regiments of "house" troops spread across all lesser Periphery states, which in turn implies 20*115/270 merc regiments. Added to the three Periphery Houses and the five Great Houses, that's 430.85 regiments overall, or (at 128 'Mechs per regiment) 55149 'Mechs, which agrees with my previous estimates.

House Marik, which has 50 regiments of house troops, builds 500 'Mechs/yr with an average mass of 49 tons per 'Mech; since House Steiner sustains the same number of house troops with the same production/yr, they probably average 49 tons per 'Mech too.

The Periphery Houses, on the other hand, have a little more freedom because their production rates aren't encoded in the MW1e Affiliation Table.

The Outworlds Alliance has 1.33 regiments of house troops, so if their production averaged 49 tons per 'Mech, they'd build 13.33 'Mechs per year; to achieve the same overall mass with only 20-ton 'Mechs would require building 13.33*49/20 = 32.67 'Mechs per year.

The Magistracy of Canopus has 3.33 regiments of house troops, less however many mercs are too small to appear on the TO&E; P1e says they produce roughly 30 armor and 30 AeroSpace Fighters, so let's suppose they produce 30*49 tons of 'Mech per year--exactly enough for 10 Shadow Hawks and 46 bug 'Mechs.

The Taurian Concordat might then have 17.33*270/385 - 1.33 - 3 = 7.82 regiments of house troops. As the Periphery state most like a Great House, they probably do build 78 'Mechs per year averaging 49 tons per 'Mech.

This gives the Periphery a total production of 167 'Mechs/yr split into a 3/5/7 ratio (33/56/78). Happily, the MW2e Affiliation Table retains that 3/5/7 ratio circa 3050 when it raises their combined output to 250 'Mechs/yr (50/83.33/116.67).

MW1e Units Deploy in Groups of 1d6 Companies

I've realized something about MW1e's Unit Size chart. Ignore the top half of it; short version, you have ~12% chance of starting with 4 'Mechs, 25% chance to start with 8 'Mechs, and a 50% chance to start with a full 12 'Mech company. (Long version here.) What interests me right now is the 1d6 table at the bottom.

Although a battalion typically consists of 3 companies, it could be short a company (or have an extra) and still be referred to as a battalion; so rolling 2-4 on this table puts you in a group which consists of 2-4 companies. Likewise, a regiment could be short a battalion and therefore consist of only 5-6 companies.

It Gets Better:

If a deployment group consists of 1d6 companies, that's an average of 42 'Mechs per group, which is about right for a battalion with a command lance. In turn, three such groups would average 126 'Mechs, about right for a regiment with battalion and regimental command groups (a total of 128 'Mechs, per BF1e); at most you'd get 18 companies (which amounts to five battalions plus command elements, like the 42nd Avalon Hussars).

Intriguingly, the Mercenary's Handbook does indeed have you roll 3d6 to determine initial unit assets. (NPC units roll 3d6 on the table to the right, while PC units roll 2d6 plus their Leadership score--i.e., a Leadership skill roll; your unit's fortunes are literally two parts luck and one part leadership).*

The Mercenary's Handbook chart isn't linear, of course. I'm curious to see how much of that is because bigger units tend to have a better ratio of support and auxiliary units. Won't get to that for a while, though.

Next Time: Bandit Kings!

*This sentence was salvaged from an October 2016 post, which was otherwise trash and has since been deleted. 

Second Look at 3025 Lyran Assault Production

TL;DR? Best guess is ~94 assault 'Mechs/yr, including 33 Zeuses. Exact number of other types TBD; estiumates below the jump-cut. 

Moving carefully with Lyran production because how I proceed here will decide how I estimate the other Houses.

Revisiting the Valkyrie Test & the FWL

The ol' MW1e BattleField Encounters and Enemy Lance tables continue to intrigue me. Almost 30% of the 'Mechs turn out to be light, and almost 40% turn out to be medium, which seems to agree with BF1e's later assertion that the light/medium/heavy/assault weight classes are split 30/40/20/10. (Assault 'Mechs are underrepresented on the MW1e tables, I suspect because the "assault" class hadn't been separated from the "heavy" class yet.)

Applying the table's percentages to the FWL's 500 'Mechs/yr would yield 141.53 light 'Mechs/yr, of which 51, 42 and 32 would be Stingers, Wasps and Locusts--and HM:FWL's manufacturing table does indeed show 141 light 'Mechs/yr, of which 51, 42 and 32 are in fact those three bug 'Mechs, although the values for the Stinger and Wasp are swapped; swapping them back would help put HM:FWL's list of most-produced 'Mechs (from the link above) back in order. Gibson shifting four to seven 'Mechs from its Wolverine-M line over to its "troubled" (and unlisted) Hermes II line would fix the rest.

Quick Aside About Bug 'Mechs

TR:3025 estimates the Successor States use 5000 or more Stingers. The 51:42:32 ratio suggests the actual numbers would be around 5100 Stingers, 4200 Wasps and 3200 Locusts; about 12500 altogether. That works for a BattleDroids-ish setting with no other light 'Mechs and 39500-41500 'Mechs overall; but it gets a little tight once we move into the 3025 Housebook setting, even with 55000 'Mechs overall.

51:42:32 is also very close to 25% (9/36ths) Locusts, 33% (12/36ths) Wasps & the rest (15/36ths) Stingers. TR:3025 says the -1V accounts for "more than 75 percent" of extant Locusts, and I can't help but notice that 7/9ths is the simplest fraction to fall between 75% and 80%; you could almost fit all this on a 2d6 table. If the two other bug 'Mechs are similar, then I might expect the -1A to be 9/12ths of all Wasps and the -3R to be 12/15ths of all Stingers.

FWL Mediums

HM:FWL's manufacturing chart shows 187 medium 'Mechs/yr, while MW1e's Encounters and Lance tables would result in 191/yr. It's impossible to make the tables yield both 141 lights/yr and 187 mediums/yr (well, technically you can, but you'd have to use negative values for the frequency of light and medium lances), so apparently I have to increase production of some medium 'Mech by 4/yr.

The Phoenix Hawk, Hunchback and Hermes II seem like good choices because they "increasingly dominated" the League's regular regiments; but the Hermes II, Wolverine and Griffin are bad choices because they'd disrupt the list of most commonly produced 'Mechs. The 486 'Mechs shown on the chart have an average mass of 49.002 tons--I'll try to choose a 'Mech which keeps the chart's average mass as close to that as possible.

FWL Assaults

"Except for the period between 2953-68, when it controlled the Liao Atlas and Victor production facility on Carver V," HM:FWL says "the only new assault 'Mechs produced by the Free Worlds League during the past century have been Awesomes, BattleMasters, and Goliaths," and that there's "four active production lines of this type, producing an estimated 30 units per year"--yet the production chart shows 34 assault 'Mechs/yr, including 11 Stalkers.

The obvious solution is to replace the Stalker line with another one producing 7 Awesomes, BattleMasters or Goliaths. I'd go with the BattleMaster, making it about 2/3rds of the FWL's assault production, since the common BT3e 'Mechs make up 2/3rds of the FWL's production overall. (Though I have to say it's also tempting to replace both the Stalker and the BattleMaster with, respectively, the slow and fast variants of Longbow.)

Earthwerks et al

HM:FWL says the FWL produces about 500 'Mechs/yr of 24 types at 17 facilities, yet the production chart shows only 486/yr at 13 facilities, and replacing the Stalker takes us from 24 types down to 23.

The Earthwerks corporate profile in that book mentions a Thunderbolt line which would fill that gap nicely: it takes the number of 'Mech types back up to 24; being a heavy 'Mech, it doesn't screw up the light, medium or assault counts; and 14/yr is pretty close to what heavy production lines on the chart average (about 12.5/yr). (There's a small chance that I should reduce the Thunderbolts a little to increase Quickdraw production by one or two per year; it's something I'll have to watch for.)

Curiously, the corporate profiles don't mention the Awesome line on Irian, the Stalker (or any other assault) line on Shiro III (they mention Quickdraws instead), the BattleMaster line on Keystone, nor the Shadow Hawk line on Calloway VI. If these production lines got absorbed from other locations, that would help bring the number of facilities up to 17 as mentioned in the text. No doubt some of the shuffling can be chalked up to the reconstruction following Anton's revolt.


SUMMARY:


[Edit, 2017 March 31:  I've removed the summary chart because a couple of the changes are "squishy" and I'll have to treat them as such moving forward; also because charting the manufacturing by location is only really useful for identifying the FWL's seven inactive production lines, which involves analysis I haven't done yet. /Edit]

Skilled Technicians (part 2)

After doing a fair bit of math, it looks like the chances of a BattleTech character getting a regular technician instead of a green one basically amounts to rolling 2d6 against a Target Number (hereafter TN) equal to the pilot's base gunnery plus their base piloting. And MW1e technicians almost always work faster than technicians in later editions- an average "Green" technician uses only 70% of the time listed for a repair, and an average "Regular" technician needs only 30%.

You're never going to roll a veteran (MW1e skill level 6 or 7) technician.

For most skills in MW1e, each level of skill reduces the TN by one. But repair rolls work differently. Each kind of repair has a fixed TN (and requires a set amount of time), which you modify per the charts below.

Comparing how your Learn score modifies repair rolls with how Attributes usually modify skill rolls, the author seems to be using base target number of 6. (When MW2e converted the repair difficulty chart from TNs to TN modifiers, it also assumed a base TN of 6.)

Technicians need to buy two levels of skill to improve their TN by one, which I think is meant to balance their progression against MechWarriors, who need to buy levels for two skills (piloting and gunnery). (MW3e tackled that issue from a different direction, by fragmenting the MechWarrior MOS and Technician MOS into similar numbers of sub-skills.)

Skill Level	Target Number	Total Cost
1	7	free
2	6	10
3	5	30
4	4	60
5	3	110
6	2	190
7	1	310
8	0	470

MW1e gives each character type a free level (the first level) in their core skills, and attributes don't affect a skilled repair roll, so a technician character can be "Green" for free, or "Regular" for only 60 points. "Veteran" skill would require 190 points, just about the maximum a new character would squeeze in. In contrast, MechWarriors spend 35 points on attributes, plus another 40 for "Green" level skills; or another 90 to rate "Regular;" or another 170 to rate "Veteran."

Repair rolls accrue XP more slowly than combat does, however, so technicians advance more slowly during actual play. That may be one reason skilled technicians are less common than skilled MechWarriors.

Techs have shorter careers than MechWarriors, too--maybe ten years vs. twenty-five. A technician attached to a 'Mech unit encounters a wide variety of technology and swaps knowledge with colleagues from other backgrounds; at some point, this experience may become valuable enough for the technician to get lured away into the civilian sector. Workplace injury no doubt plays a role too--although MechWarriors and technicians both face radiation hazards, live ordinance, and the threat of being crushed by multi-ton objects, MechWarriors do so for only minutes at a time from behind a half-ton of armor and strapped into a harness and neckbrace; technicians do so for hours at a time with few of the same protections.


To Be Continued: repair yards, Solaris VII, and the march of technology

Skilled Technicians & Mech Customization

tl;dr? almost half of all field technicians can make short-term modifications (but short-term only). Will talk about player characters, tech progression, repair facilities, Solaris VII, and redoing the skill chart in a following post.

In MW1e:

• A tech with skill 4+ can attempt a temporary repair with improvised parts by adding +3 to the repair difficulty (reroll each time the hit location takes damage). This can "involve grafting an arm or leg from a different 'Mech type onto the afflicted unit."
• A tech with skill 6+ can research 'Mech design. 

In BattleTechnology #4 (aka #202):

• Stuart Bell, the mercenary who created the CGR-SB Challenger by modifying a Charger to use a smaller engine, had a skill of 8 and stupendous amounts of documentation (and recommends at least a skill of 6 for anyone trying to follow his modifications).

How easy is it to find an NPC at these various levels of skill?

The 156 Most Populous Worlds Amount to 450 Billion People

[Edit, 2019 April 2: revised calculation here. /Edit]

Someone called Mendrugo is doing an interesting review of BattleTech fiction in stardate order (wrong franchise, sure, but it's easier than saying "chronological according to fictional date rather than real world copyright date"), and he's raised an interesting question: how come worlds like Trellwan, Verthandi and Stein's Folly don't seem to have HPGs when MW1e says HPG stations are located on every inhabited world in the Inner Sphere?

The trick is that the HPG comment comes in a section which distinguishes "inhabited" worlds (and bandit holds) from mere colonies. To wit: while "uncounted other worlds are claimed and exploited by Davion forces," the Federated Suns only possess "about 110 star systems actively settled under its aegis" (page 112). The old House Davion sourcebook (FASA1623, hereafter HD:FS) agrees by setting the number of duchies at 100 to 120. (No doubt the exact number fluctuates with loss and conquest along the House border.)

Unlike the other House books, at most 19 of the 30 worlds listed in the HD:FS Atlas have substantial populations; adding the 9 Chesterton worlds published previously in HL:CC brings the Suns up to 28--exactly the same as the Free Worlds League, and in line with the Draconis Combine and Lyran Commonwealth.

The Housebook Atlases focus overwhelmingly on capitals and other highly populated worlds. By failing to list more such worlds, the HD:FS Atlas rather strongly suggests that the Federated Suns don't have any more to list; and since the Chesterton worlds give the Suns' count parity with the other Houses, it's likely that the other Houses don't have any beyond what they've already listed either.

Now here's a curious thing:

Neither the HD:FS Atlas nor the HS:LC Atlas give population figures. But if we suppose that Steiner's major worlds average midway between Marik's and Kurita's, and if we suppose that Davion's major worlds average midway between Kurita's and Chesterton's, then the (approximately) 156 most highly populated worlds in the Successor States have a combined population of 450 billion people.

The number 450 is remarkable because the number of "inhabited" worlds MW1e gives for each House also adds up to 450.

Another curious thing:

I count about 1900 stars on the Housebook maps, with something like 2000 worlds claimed between the five Housebooks; meanwhile, HD:FS (second page of its History chapter) philosophizes thusly:

Perhaps there are epochs in history when humanity finds an area large enough to grow into--first a country, then a continent, then a world, then four thousand worlds--and remains at that level of expansion until it, too, has been outgrown.

So: greater than 450 billion people, and 2000-4000 colonized planets? This sounds an awful lot like what Robert A. Heinlein said in his book Time Enough for Love, which implies the Inner Sphere has right around 500 billion people across 2000 planets.

I'm tempted to estimate the population of each tier geometrically--450 billion, then 45 billion, then 4.5 billion, then 0.45 billion; and since the divide between "settled" worlds and colonies is at 450 worlds, to put each tier break at (450 - 156 = 294) 294/156ths of the previous tier; so the first 156 worlds average 2.9 billion apiece, then the next 294 would average 150 million apiece, the next 554 would average 8.1 million apiece, the next 1044 would average 430 thousand apiece, and the last 1968 would average 23 thousand apiece.

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]

MW1e: Quick Plausibility Check

Is 26 years plausible for the typical length of a MechWarrior's career?

It's long enough to beget and train an heir, yet not so long that 400+ MechWarriors/year out of Sun Zhang becomes totally implausible. (Multiple factors would give the Combine higher turnover than expected.) So it's definitely the right ballpark, although pushing the long side.

Are 250 combat encounters (half 'Mech-vs-'Mech) per year plausible?

Yes, of course. It's a staple of the setting that 'Mechs often clash without being destroyed. Combining statistics given in BattleForce (1st edition) and the way MW1e awards XP should tell us just how little damage it takes to drive enemy 'Mechs off. (MW1e's Ceti Hussars entry implies that high intensity conflicts don't rise above 10% annual casualties.)

How big is a typical garrison?

Well, there's about 7 times as many 'Mech companies as there are planets in the original setting, but I want to look at 3025 proper. From the old House Steiner sourcebook:

• 42 regiments are assigned to the ~93 worlds within 2 jumps of Kuritan or Marik space. Assuming 12.5 regiments are engaged in assault or relief duty (Steiner's full 75.1 regiments * 4/36 assault & 2/36 relief), spreading the remainder as thinly as possible would give each border world a garrison of 34.2 'Mechs (minus however many have embarked on raids). 
• 16 regiments are assigned to the ~55 worlds within 2 jumps of the periphery. Spreading them as thinly as possible would give each of these outworlds a garrison of 31.4 'Mechs (minus however many have embarked on raids).
• 17 regiments garrison 13 key worlds of the interior.
• More than 140 interior worlds have no 'Mech regiments assigned to their region.
• "Garrison units usually consist of infantry, armored, and artillery regiments, whose personnel are mostly native to the planet. There are usually only a few 'Mech lances that pull garrison duty on a world unless that planet is strategically important."

Steiner could put a lance on every interior world if each of their 75 regiments detached two lances apiece. (This wouldn't break the setting.) However, the Trell system is only 45 light-years from the nearest Drac world, and it didn't get a lance until Oberon's raids became a problem. So the interior worlds probably don't have 'Mech garrisons either.

Page 30 of MW1e says "Unlike an assault... [raids] often involve a significantly smaller force (often of one to two Companies...)" I.e., 12-24 'Mechs is significantly smaller than an assault force. Since an average assault force is about 140% of the defender's mass (page 96), it follows that any world worth conquering will be garrisoned by significantly more than 17-34 'Mechs. The world of Chara III (also called Pacifica) has a battalion in garrison, though apparently that's due to its agriculture, rather than strategic positioning. Maybe it's not worth conquering.

So, based on my earlier figures...

• Key worlds average 1 full battalion, 2 full companies and 6 smaller units. A few add extra full regiments. 
• Theater Headquarter worlds are the same, except that 2/3rds of their forces are engaged in assaults, raids and relief. 
• Strategic worlds and the scant handful of other worlds within 1 jump of the Kurita or Marik borders have 2 full companies and 6 smaller units.
• Worlds in the Periphery theaters or 2 jumps from Kurita or Marik have 1-3 lances to fend off raids. 
• Worlds 3 or more jumps from the border are garrisoned by conventional regiments only.

A few incidental curiosities from the Lyran deployment table:

• CMO 26 (which I read as "Coventry Military Outpost #26") is on the map. CMO 1-25 either don't have 'Mech garrisons or are known by other names. 
• I'm guessing "Ellison IV" should be "Corridan IV."
• Two regiments in the cavanaugh theater are assigned to "Denebola V," which isn't actually in that theater (only three other worlds are). Don't know if the two regiments should be moved to other worlds in the same theater or moved to the other theater.Would have to check enemy deployments before deciding.

MW1e: Personnel

MechWarriors see an average of 250 combat encounters (almost half are artillery bombardments, aerospace strafing runs, infantry or minefields)* annually. A career lasts 26 years on average, and about 1600 end (retirement, dispossession or death) each year.

There's 5/6ths as many technicians as active MechWarriors, and their military careers last about 11 years on average.

There's 1/6th as many scouts as active MechWarriors, and they last about 14 months.

Sphere-wide...
About 80 regiments are deployed as full regiments.
About 350 battalions are deployed as separate battalions.
About 600 companies (350 full strength, the rest 9-11 Mechs) deploy independently.
More than 1800 other groups of 8 or fewer 'Mechs are deployed independently.

That's almost 2900 deployments, about 2000 of which are defensive (25/36, using my trick with the events table). The Inner Sphere only has 1700 settled star systems! Too few for a single deployment per system, and too many for a single deployment per world (assuming better than 1.2 inhabited worlds per system). Best explanation, I think, is that relatively few worlds have 'Mechs in permanent garrison, and that each garrison consists of one large group plus multiple small groups, scattered across the world.

MW1e: Mech Production Rates

The old House Marik sourcebook says the Free Worlds League manufactures "an estimated 500 'Mechs per year," and the old House Liao sourcebook lists eight manufacturers totaling 400 'Mechs per year. The other three House books don't say how many 'Mechs they build.

However, from the Attack by Natives table I suspect that at least some tables in the first edition MechWarrior RPG (hereafter MW1e) are carefully non-arbitrary, and from my survey of Notable Pilots I know that numbers in MW1e can correlate systematically with numbers in other books. (Humans, writers especially, like to be consistent and will reuse numbers when they can.) In particular I want to look at the chart where players roll a d36 to choose their starting faction. Chances/36:
7 - Davion
6 - Kurita
5 - Steiner
5 - Marik
4 - Liao
2 - Bandit King
7 - Unaffiliated (i.e. e.g.,  periphery)

I doubt it's a coincidence that Marik gives you 5 chances and produces 5x100 'Mechs/year, or that Liao gives you 4 and produces 4x100 'Mechs/year. I think it's reasonable to take Davion production as 700 'Mechs/year, Kurita 600/year, and Steiner 500/year for a total of 2700 'Mechs produced annually across the whole Inner Sphere.

I also want to look at the "Standard Enemy Forces Table." It's easy to find the chance of any 'Mech turning up in a given lance type, and I've roughly calculated the chance of each lance type turning up during a "Battlefield Encounter."

If I take the ratio of Valkyries to other light 'Mechs encountered as also being the ratio of Valkyries to other light 'Mechs manufactured annually, and assume there are [30% of 2700] light 'Mechs produced annually, MW1e yields an annual production of 128.4 Valkyries. This is close to the 130 cited in TR:3025.

This vindicates my assumption about annual Davion, Kurita and Steiner production rates, and shows that the lance table is at least a reasonable guide for individual 'Mechs. It doesn't have every 'Mech on it, of course, so I'm hoping (for instance) that more precise calculations will push the Valkyrie entry up to 146/year to cover both Valkyrie and Spider production.

BattleForce says that 30% of all 'Mechs are light 'Mechs, but I'm reluctant to assume that same 30% also applies to annual production. Hopefully more precise calculations will let me discard that 30% weighting factor.

MW1e: Attack By Natives

The first edition MechWarrior RPG has a general weekly encounter table. You have a chance to be attacked by things, to receive reinforcements, and a number of other events, all being more or less likely depending on your current assignment.

There's no table to determine the players' current assignment, but you have to figure that most forces are in garrison, so the chances of getting some other kind of duty should correspond with the chance of an equivalent event happening to a garrison. If the Garrison Events column gives you a 3/36 chance of being attacked by natives, then I figure that's equivalent to a 3/36 chance of being assigned to Pacification Duty.

Now, whatever assignment you're on, if you roll the "attack by natives" event and get attacked while in your 'Mechs, you roll 2d6 (then modify the result depending on your assignment) to see what support they get. I wanted to know just how often the natives had 'Mech support.

I noticed something peculiar.

Notable 'Mechs and MechWarriors

TR:3025 describes the "feats and foibles" of 168 Notable combatants. I think Steve (Centurion13) put it best when he said these sections read like a notation in a real military – they say what the person does, how they do it, and what impact it has on themselves and the people around them.

Besides giving players colorful characters to interact with, these kinds of briefs are essential to establishing a MechWarrior's-eye-view of known space. They form very careful ratios of rank, faction, and perhaps even gender. (Almost 29% of the Notables were women by a quick count, though I didn't record it.)

You can see a more detailed breakdown here.

Half of all Notables have no command rank; one quarter command a lance; one eighth command a company; the remainder spreads more or less evenly across battalion, regiment and ships; only two command more than a regiment; none of the 168 are House, mercenary or bandit leaders; and Natasha Kerensky is as close as they get to the stable of novelized point-of-view characters. 

TR:3025 was written in conjunction with the 1st edition MechWarrior RPG, and the number of 'Mech regiments that the RPG claims for each House is almost exactly three times the number of Notables TR:3025 assigns to that House. The ratios are so exact that I feel confident assigning Hap Carsburg (Dervish) to the Lyrans, Charles LaPierre (Ostsol) and Timothy O'Neil (Grasshopper) to the Capellans, and it's all but certain that there are 102 mercenary 'Mech regiments in known space in 3025.

I think future TROs would do well to follow the halving pattern for rank and to apportion factions according to the forces those factions actually field. (It'd also be good to have a sprinkling muster out, be drummed out, desert, defect, or otherwise change factions.)

It looks like the authors of TR:3025 wrote maybe half as many Notables to start and then did a second pass to even the ratios out. However, since BattleTech revolves around MechWarriors, the number of MechWarrior Notables per regiment is the best measure of factional bias. Not only do Steiner, Davion, and Mercenaries have disproportionately more MechWarriors than other Notables, but "slightly more than half" of Davion's 110 regiments are mercenaries, as are about one third of Steiner's. This exaggerates their existing bias and leaves few merc regiments to the other four factions.

(Considering this Davion/Steiner/Mercenary bias, the "students of history" and "Successor Lords" comments from the introduction, the "Comstar officials" comment from the HCT entry, the alleged Davion agent in the OSR entry, how designations for Kapteyn-exclusive designs (ie, their Aerospace fighters) differ from everything else, how the back cover quotes the New Avalon Herald, and how FASA had not yet begun using ComStar as their default neutral point of view: TR:3025 was most likely written either for academic (non-military) studies within the NAIS or by someone outside the Davion hierarchy as a guide for FedSuns-aligned mercenaries.)

Of the 168 Notables, a whopping 48 mention the condition of their machine. Twenty (12%) are in mint, best, or perfect condition. Twenty-eight (17%) are battered, scarred or understrength. (Notable Davion machines tend towards good condition. Steiner and Marik split more evenly.) Conversely, only thirteen (8%) of the 168 mention which variant they are. Of those thirteen, three (SDR, CPLT, WHM) specify the stock variant; three (WHM, VTR, BNC) specify an established variant; four (OSR, CP, Leopard, Overlord) modify their communications or electronics; and two (QKD, WSP LAM) have special armor.

Out of the whole book, only one Notable machine and combatant (HBK Shawn Philips) has unique game stats - and that was a rare ground-up assembly of a design already known to have a large class of undocumented variants. The universe is altogether more interested in the long lasting, preexisting damage to a given machine, and individual pilots are overwhelmingly more likely to restore a design than they are to alter it. What modifications they do make tend to fall outside the formalized rules or scales of play.

 

Two of TR:3025's Notable MechWarriors are notably dead. Since they are both on the same page (JN7) and one of them is really about the guy's present-day descendant anyways, I believe that page is an aberration. Historical figures (Aleksandr Kerensky, Ian Davion, etc.) belong to Battle History.

All 166 other Notable combatants are still live and active in the field. Sure, Maria Gutierrez (F-90) spends most of her time behind a desk, Sealth (ZEU) wants to retire, and a host of others have almost run out of luck. But their fates haven't been decided yet - that's up to the player. Cadre duty (including many of the highest ranked Notables) and bionic limbs seem to be as close as death and retirement can get before the person is no longer worth mentioning. (Mentioning in a TRO, anyhow. Feel free to discreetly finish one or two as Easter Eggs in scenario books or novels.)

The Repair Facility, MASH, Coolant Truck and Boomerang Spotter Plane (quite sensibly) have no Notable combatants. The J-27, Mobile HQ and Swift Wind note crew mainly for the continuously exceptional risks they take.

The Rommel/Patton also has no Notable combatants, but its "Notes" section addresses all the points that Battle History, Variants and Notable Crew normally would. I'm not sure if that reflects the early stage of the tanks' development or an early stage of TR:3025's real world development.

Finally, I'd like to say that I really like how, instead of using generic ranks all the time or using confusing factional ranks all the time, the TR3063 fanbook compromised by putting factional ranks in the bold header and using generic ranks in its actual writing.