DropShip Engines

In FASA's 1980s DropShips and JumpShips sourcebook, the engines on the Triumph, Condor, Fortress, Overlord and Excalibur all equal [ship mass]*[thrust]/15 - 50, and the engines on the Seeker, Monarch and Behemoth are close to that.

The Avenger, Buccaneer and Union are at [mass]*[thrust]/15 - 75, while the smallest ships, the Leopard, Fury and Gazelle are right around [mass]*[thrust]/15 - 100. The curve

[mass*thrust]/15 - [(14494*mass*thrust - 11150000) / (311*mass*thrust - 1279000)]

fits most of those engines. I don't expect to fit them all perfectly--when I worked through the JumpShip construction data I found typos, copy errors, and weirder inconsistencies which make that impossible. I'm pretty confident that the Mule and Mammoth engines have a digit wrong, and that the Vengeance's engine was calculated from a thrust of 3, instead of the thrust 4 its listed at. (I'm not the first to notice this about the Vengeance, but danged if I can remember who I've heard it from before.)

I'd feel pretty good about my equation, except that the ships which don't fit are all fast- the Achilles at thrust 8, the Seeker at thrust 5, and the Intruder at thrust 4 (in a band dominated by thrust 3 ships). So I don't think I'm accounting for thrust correctly.

I'd hoped to solve this by Thanksgiving, but que sera sera.

The Many 'Mechs of Lazarus Long

The most misleading of the
covers Google gave me.

Last night I finished reading Time Enough for Love by Heinlein. The novel's framing and structure are interesting (I've spotted at least four ways that the whole narrative might be the hallucination of a dying man) and the moral lesson (that investing in the companionship and well-being of friends and family is what makes for a satisfying life) is fair enough.

But I mention the book because BattleTech seems to have taken inspiration from it. Stackpole did, for sure; its discussion of human breeding is a clear model for certain aspects of Clan culture, and Stackpole's old Warrior Trilogy author bios (which present the author as a time traveler on the run from ComStar) are an extraordinary match for a conversation late in Heinlein's novel.

Intriguingly, the few clues the book gives about the period 1980~2200 match up with what I recall of BattleTech's history for the same period, and it'll be interesting to find out how well the rest of Heinlein's "future history" lines up. (If I'm lucky, it'll bridge BattleTech with Renegade Legion.)

First Step to 3025 Assault Production Numbers

In previous posts, I have determined...

Annual 'Mech production by House:

700 Davion
600 Kurita
500 Steiner
500 Marik
400 Liao

Marik annual production includes 34 assault 'Mechs:

4 Goliath
7 Awesome
11 Stalker
12 BattleMaster

plus 85 heavy 'Mechs which take the place of assault 'Mechs:

21 Marauder-M
22 Warhammer
42 Orion

Steiner's production probably matches those 'Mechs I just named with assault-weight 'Mechs. So, 34+85 assault 'Mechs/year from Steiner.

Meanwhile, the House Davion book gives the Suns exactly 25 assault 'Mechs per year (20 Victors and 5 Atlases from Quentin).

For reasons I'll explain in a later post, I suspect assault 'Mechs to be 10% of the Inner Sphere's overall annual production. So, 270 total from all parties, less 119 from Steiner, 34 from Marik and 25 from Davion. This leaves 92 for Kurita and Liao to split.

As always, MW1e's events tables are my guide to generic conflict on any given border, which should correspond to how often assault 'Mechs are employed (and therefore lost and replaced).

I.e., the proportion of major conflicts on any given border:

Davion/Kurita	10/36
Liao/Davion	5/36
Kurita/Steiner	8/36
Steiner/Marik	7/36
Marik/Liao	6/36

Steiner is probably directing 8 portions of their assault production toward the Kurita border and 7 portions toward the Marik border, while Davion is probably directing 10 (much smaller) portions towards Kurita and 5 portions towards Liao; figure Kurita is being pressed with 80 increments of assault 'Mech production pressure/year. Assuming Marik directs 6 portions towards Liao, Liao would be pressed with only 24 increments. So Kurita is probably building 71 assault 'Mechs annually, and Liao 21.

Quick Plausibility Check: if Davion+Kurita+Liao produce 25+71+21 assault 'Mechs out of 700+600+400 total 'Mechs annually, that would make assault 'Mechs 6.88% of their annual production. That's very close to Marik's (34 / 500 = 6.8%).

Draconis Combine: Probable World Populations

[Edit, 2019 Feb 28: I have refined my opinions on this topic. I no longer believe the Combine has room for more worlds of 500 million or more people; I now believe Ningxia's 23 million is average for the Combine's 379 "typical" stars, and the lowest 312 of those average 1 million people apiece while the highest 67 average 113 (or maybe 77.8) million apiece. /Edit]

Total Population: 90 billion (75% concentrated on administrative worlds)
Average Population per World: 260 million (30-40 million for non-capitals)
Minimum Population per "Inhabited" World: 1 million

Supposing that a single Behemoth DropShip can satisfy one day's food and water needs for 12.5 million people, and that a round trip takes 1 month, then just 700 Behemoths could supply all the food and water needs for 1/3rd of the Combine's 350 inhabited worlds. (Essentially every world with 5 million or fewer people.)

Ningxia, with 23 million inhabitants, would be something like the 120th most populous world in the Combine. There's about 25 worlds ranging from 100 million to 600 million inhabitants, an industrial world somewhere around 750 million, and another around 1.1 billion.


How Do I Figure?

360p Is The Only Choice

YouTube has apparently decided that I should only watch videos in 360p. Luckily, I've discovered that changing the URL from something like this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USkEzLuzmZ4
...to something like this...
https://www.youtube.com/v/USkEzLuzmZ4
...gives me all the old options back.

Edit September 23rd: Unless the video is a vevo music video, in which case I need to find my way around regional restrictions. /Edit

Pathfinder Run #2: Amazon Runaway

My second scenario has long since come and gone. The main elements were a merchant, an unlucky town, some Amazon bandits, and an Amazon runaway; the main clues were a matching set of jewelry and a regionally popular bard duo.

probably inspired by this  (found via Zak)

The Amazons:

• could deflect arrows and magic rays using their bracers 
• had all been kidnapped and brainwashed as children
• rode three apiece (one hidden) on tank-sized rhinoceros beetles
• had spears which drained constitution, spells & spell slots

FWL 3025: Regimental Compositions (part 3)

Is the number of FWL assault battalions proportionate to its rate of assault 'Mech production? If so, then battalion weights can be my guide to FWL Aerospace and LAM production too.

Assault Regiments: the FWL has only two. The way the 6th Marik Militia describes its three assault battalions makes me think the 20th Marik Militia probably has two. (That regiment might consist of two battalions total.)

Heavy Regiments: the composition of five are known and include two assault battalions. If the other twelve regiments are similar, they'd add another 4.8 assault battalions.

Medium Regiments: the compositions of twelve are known and (assuming the Border Protectorate's Iron Guards and Steel Guards entries are a little mixed up) include a single assault battalion. If the other eleven regiments are similar, they'd add another .92 assault battalions.

Light Regiments: the compositions of four light regiments are known, and (assuming the Iron Guards and Steel Guards entries are mixed up) none are known to possess assault battalions. The compositions of eleven more are unknown.

Unknown Regiments: the 25th Marik Militia is listed on the 3025 deployment tables, but not included in the regimental descriptions. Based on the 57 regiments given, I'll abstract it as containing .19 assault battalions.

Land-Air 'Mechs: the four known light regiments include 2.25 battalions of LAMs; if the other eleven are similar, they'd add another 6.2 battalions. The twelve known medium regiments include 1.67 battalions of LAMs; if the other eleven are similar, they'd add another 1.5 battalions. No heavy or assault regiments are noted to possess LAM battalions, and based on the 57 regiments given, I'll abstract the 25th Marik Militia as containing .2 LAM battalions.

This gives the FWL about 14 assault battalions (8 known and 6 more estimated). That's about 7.78% of the regiments claimed in HM:FWL, while assault 'Mechs are 6.8% of the FWL's annual production--pretty close. Based on that, the FWL's 11.8 LAM battalions (3.9 known plus 7.9 estimated) imply that at least 29 of the Stingers, Wasps and Phoenix Hawks built annually in the FWL are actually LAMs.

Page 115's production table doesn't list LAM variants explicitly the way it does Wolverine-Ms and Marauder-Ms, though, and the LexaTech entry in House Kurita: The Draconis Combine also hints at separating LAM production from BattleMech production. Pending how other Houses shake out, I think I'll peg the FWL at a little less than 12 assault battalions (34/500ths (ie, the production ratio) of its non-LAM battalions) and 12 LAM battalions (11.8/166ths (ie, the previously estimated ratio) of its non-assault battalions), and count LAM production as part of AeroSpace production: