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.

Pathfinder Transcript: mountains and dragons can't kill us, only drow clerics can kill us

[One of the players in our group has started keeping brief transcripts of our sessions, partly for the amusement of a third party who isn't playing with us I guess, and partly to help us pick up the following session in medias res. 

The next quest was run by the player who'd been controlling Camlost (Bloodrager / Dragon Disciple). It continues a broad metaplot of politicking between two dwarf cities, with spoiling actions from a drow city.

TL;DR- we were hired to recover a magic box which had been stolen a week ago from dwarves somewhere on secret mountain roads several days to the north. I think we surprised the GM by:

• Choosing to Magic Steed a direct route through the mountains instead of an easier route through the plains; we might've missed an important encounter by doing this. 
• Demolishing a Frost Worm so quickly; the party was strung out due to terrain, so it was able to ambush a single (I think random) character in isolation. I liked the set up. If it had gotten one of the spellcasters instead of a melee type, things might've ended differently.
• Driving a White Dragon from its lair and teleporting away with its loot; this was accomplished almost entirely by the wizards player. This showed how powerful his character build is relative to the rest of us, but also exposed weaknesses.
• Being essentially immune to falling off a mountain; we're getting into higher levels, where there's a bunch of magic and special abilities which negate most normal threats. It makes adventure design a little more difficult. 
• Attempting a non-violent resolution to being ambushed by trolls; unfortunately, we had no leverage or clever tricks, so we fell back on violence.
• Being bad at finding things; probably related to the first bullet point. He might also have expected us to have different skills or spells, or to leverage what we did have differently, or to hire an NPC tracker. 
• Almost TPK'ing in the boss fight; our characters are all pretty capable individually, but our squad tactics are nonexistent. I suspect we survived mainly because the boss decided to leave instead of finishing us off.

Deciding where to go and how to find the magic box occupied most of our play. The GM did a fair job of making the combats interesting and not letting them drag on.

Pathfinder Transcript: Pirates

[One of the players in our group has started keeping brief transcripts of our sessions, partly for the amusement of a third party who isn't playing with us I guess, and partly to help us pick up the following session in medias res. 

I've updated this post to include the other two transcripts from that quest, and the death of my metaplot.

The next quest was run by the player who'd been controlling the wizards Cal and Darmos.

Seventy-Nine Thousand

A quick count of the forces in 20 Year Update shows 575.33 Regiments in the Inner Sphere and near periphery. 128 'Mechs per regiment (as described in BattleForce 1e) would put that at about 73600 'Mechs.

AFFC	268 Regiments, 1 Battalions [sic]
DCMS	99 Regiments [including Ghost Regiments]
FRRK	16 Regiments, 2 Battalions
FWLM	72 Regiments, 2 Battalions
CCAF	30 Regiments [some are short a battalion]
CG	50+ [sic] Regiments
TDF	14 Regiments
MAF	12 Regiments, 1 Battalion
OAMC	3 Regiments [full regiments now, unlike 3025]
bandit	[8 Regiments and 4 Battalions]

[Edit August 24: 55000 (the estimated number of 'Mechs in 3025) multiplied by 4/3rds is 73300, a mere rounding error away from my count for 20YU. Per 20YU, the War of 3039 petered out into the usual pattern of raid and reprisal, so attrition should be back in equilibrium with production, which means 'Mech production by 3050 should likewise be 4/3rds of what it was in 3025. (I.e., up to 3600/yr from the old 2700/yr.) The ComGuard was deploying during this period and supplying 'Mechs to other forces, however, which would account for some of the increase.

When the Clans invade they destroy many regiments and capture several factories. Per TR:3050, the Successor States step up production at their remaining facilities. That wouldn't have recouped all their losses, but for the sake of estimating production, suppose we round the Inner Sphere up to 79000 'Mechs (a thousand for each non-Clan enty TR:3050). Subtracting the ComGuard's 50 regiments would leave 72600, or 1.32x as many 'Mechs as were going around in 3025.

I notice that MW2e has 1.33x as much chance as MW1e did of a "Successor State" character scoring a state affiliation (almost 36/36 instead of 27/36). This implies that the Successor States were building 3600/yr shortly after Tukayyid, and agrees with the figure above derived from TR:3050.  /Edit]


If the "Successor State" table represents 3600 'Mechs/year:

Pathfinder: player transcript of my quest

[One of the players in our group has started keeping brief transcripts of our sessions, partly for the amusement of a third party who isn't playing with us I guess, and partly to help us pick up the following session in medias res. 

Edit, July 21: I've updated this post with two more transcripts to finish out the quest.

The first transcript picks up a session or two into my previous post.]

Pathfinder Run #4: The Rat King

I no longer prepare NPC stats. I just key everything off class and level.

• Level*1.5 for good attacks and primary skill
• Level*1.0 for medium attacks and good saves
• Level*0.5 for weak attacks, bad saves, minor skills and initiative

For weaklings/mobs/mooks I don't even determine hit points until a player strikes them. No point tracking it if they'll be killed in one blow. For level-appropriate foes, I assign AC based on caprice, player stats, and how long I want the fight to last; and since I tend to retreat NPCs when the tide turns against them, I counted HP upwards from zero (ie, damage taken instead of health remaining) to save the trouble of working out exact HP and reduction effects.

I should select some interesting spells to use in each encounter, but I don't because reading an encyclopedia of spells is my least favorite part of anything.

Fifty-Five Thousand

Last year I estimated that there were fifty-four thousand BattleMechs operating in and around the Inner Sphere in 3025. (I didn't account for certain nuances, like how many regiments might have two battalions instead of three, or the presence of independent battalions, or all the independent warriors on Solaris VII.) A few months later I estimated that the Successor States had 3566 DropShips assigned to their 387.44 'Mech regiments; at that ratio, 430 regiments would have 3960 DropShips.

Now here's a coincidence:

• TR:3025 has fifty-five BattleMech entries, which means there are about 1000 BattleMechs for each BattleMech entry. 
• The book also has four DropShips, which makes 1000 'Mech-hauling DropShips for each DropShip entry. 
• We don't have any good figures for how many AeroSpace fighters exist, but 1000 per entry is certainly reasonable.

If the pattern holds, that would mean 1000 Land-Air 'Mechs for each LAM entry too.

The FWL builds 500+325 'Mechs and Aerospace Fighters per year. 3/70ths of that (3 LAM entries in TR:3025 vs 55+15 'Mech and Fighter entries) would come to a little over 35 LAMs per year, very close to what I estimated (36/year) from the FWL regimental descriptions. That's convenient. It also makes me think I should count LAM production separately from both 'Mech and Fighter production.

It doesn't help me with LAM production or Aerospace Fighter production for the other states, but it'll be a useful check for when I do.