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.

FWL 3025: Population Density

The Atlas in the back of HM:FWL includes 28 worlds with populations of a billion or more (and two with populations of a million or less). The mapped provinces have 3.5x as many of these gigapop worlds per system as the smaller provinces do (19/125 vs 9/208), plus averaging 15% more people on each (3.3 billion vs 2.86). That amounts to 4x the population density.

Voting power in Parliament is proportionate to the tax base of your province (minimum of one vote). The provinces marked on the map (minus Ohren and Zion, which aren't listed on HM:FWL page 62) total 320 votes across 125 star systems, which is about 3x as many votes per system (320/125 vs 180/208) as the smaller provinces. This means more than 3x the tax base, since many single-vote provinces would be rounded up to one vote.

So, on a scale of 100 to 200 star systems, population correlates pretty well with tax base.

Smaller scales are difficult to gauge because some provinces (especially disproportionate ones like Gibson, Tamarind and Sirius) are no doubt leveraging populations outside their borders.

It's very interesting how most of the gigapop worlds follow a clear sinusoidal curve--and that the average of Andurien and Lopez (which lie close together in the Duchy of Andurien) would fall right on the curve, and that the average of Oriente and Calloway IV (which lie close together in the Duchy of Oriente) would also fall right on the curve. The average of Marik and Angell II stands ~33% above the curve, but perhaps that's to be expected, since Atreus (capital of the FWL) stands ~66% above the curve.

It makes sense for the population curve to dip near the periphery, but why it would dip between Terra and Andurien is less clear. Perhaps a combination of proximity to enemy borders, to Terra, and to other gigapop worlds?

I'm curious to see how Capellan and Draconis gigapops compare; if there's a consistent pattern, I may be able to estimate Davion and Steiner gigapops. (The Atlases in the old Davion and Steiner sourcebooks didn't include population figures.)

It's also interesting that there are [(radius/14.5)-2] gigapop worlds within [radius] Light Years of Terra. Instead of being spread across regular intervals of area (like the FWL's other star systems are), gigapop worlds show up at regular intervals of linear distance from Terra, which means the ratio of gigapop worlds to regular worlds falls dramatically the further out you go.

A few posts ago I calculated that, for small provinces, the average number of votes per system also falls geometrically the further out you go. Big provinces--which generally have more gigapop worlds--don't change with distance.

Perhaps each gigapop world (or pair of gigapop worlds) is the dense center of a population spread across half a dozen to a dozen worlds, such that the value of any given world would depend on its distance from a population center? This will require more thought.

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.

New Fan TRO: Built For War

Some guys are putting together a new Fan TRO called Built for War, and they recently posted a teaser preview! The fluff text isn't displaying correctly for some people, but whatever. It's a teaser. You can still see their layout and the Plog and Scroggins art.

I like what I've read so far. I like how the layout looks too, though maybe something more compact would've suited the omni units better.

FWL taxes from "Succession Wars" boardgame

Firstly: it's Succession Wars (not BattleForce) that contains a concise overview of BattleTech's history up to 3025. (I'm a little surprised nobody questioned that.)

I wish I'd found a better scan of the Succession Wars (hereafter SW) map, but the borders, names and values all seem faithful. You can see many places where the borders of a tax region follow the contours of a province. Or, looking just below Atreus on the HM:FWL map, vice versa. I suppose FASA drew both from an earlier map.

I've done my best to match them up. 

Now, the Taxes

The Tax Zones look gerrymandered, so I think I can assume the nine outer zones really do represent 10/25ths of the FWL's taxes. If so, and if the known provinces contribute a share proportionate to their votes, then that leaves an average of 0.4 votes' worth for each independent star system; by the same logic, independent systems in the eight inner zones should average 1.5 votes each.

Zone	SW Taxes	Est. from Avg Votes	Okay?
Ryerson	1	1.6	Ok
Oceana	2	1	nope
Marik	3	3.4	Ok
Danais	1	3.6	nope
Atreus	4	1.9	nope
Regulus	2	2.1	Ok
Oriente	2	1	nope
Calloway	1	1.1	Ok
Furud	1	1.9	nope
Xanthe	1	0.7	Ok
Wisconsin	1	0.8	Ok
Tellman	1	0.9	Ok
Westover	1	1.4	eh
Landfall	1	0.5	eh
Sierra	1	0.8	Ok
Bella	1	1.1	Ok
Megrez	1	1.3	Ok

Adding up the votes in each tax zone, it looks like most zones mostly work. They can be tweaked to fit.

Some zones can't work no matter what, just because the dominant provinces have too many or too few votes.

It's interesting that the zones which are low happen to be next to zones which are high by the same amount; maybe some votes were shifted for gameplay, or maybe the 3D positions of the stars don't map well to a 2D surface.

It's also interesting that the Marik Commonwealth and Duchy of Oriente, which support more 'Mech regiments than you'd expect from their voting power, also contribute more taxes in SW; and that Andurien, which is famous for being unhelpful militarily, contributes less SW taxes (Furud) than you'd expect from their voting power.

Provinces in the FWL

To help me place the FWL's last shipyard, I've been working out how much economic activity happens on each world; and since a province's economic output equates directly to that province's voting power in Parliament, I've been searching HM:FWL for clues about how many Members of Parliament each world gets.

• At least four provinces occupy only part of a world: New Assam on Tiber IV (page 145), Ryal on Atreus (page 50), Khe Shang on Tamarind (page 138) and Olympica on New Olympia (page 154). Plus, since the world of Thirty Weight (page 34) doesn't appear on the map, it probably shares a star with some other world.
• At least seven provinces seem to consist of a single world: Kyeinnisan (page 120 and map), Panjang (page 70); and Oliver (page 164 and map) and Dalton, Tania Australis, Gallatin and Bainsville (page 50), which seem to have more than one Member of Parliament.

 

The map shows 18 provinces which claim more than two star systems, amounting to 132 of the FWL's 333 star systems. Assuming that the 201 other star systems contain a single world each, and that the 136 smaller provinces contain no more than two worlds each, then they're split somewhere between

• 88 with two stars, 25 with one star, and 23 share stars
• 70 with two stars, 61 with one star, and 5 share stars

The FWL has over 400 worlds across its 333 star systems, though (page 153); adding extra worlds skews the ratio towards more worlds per province. You can skew it back by introducing provinces with three or more worlds, as  long as "the vast majority consist of one or two worlds" (page 62).

Names Can Be Misleading

Provinces are often referred to by the name of their primary world or ruling House (page 55, 72-74, major provinces on 84). The primary world is usually a "parent-state" supporting the province's other worlds as colonial "client-states" (page 63, 98, 100, 149). The ruler of a planet may be an Earl or Count or what-have-you (page 60) but they're all generically referred to as "dukes" (page 24).

• The Sirian Concordat (or Sirian Concordance) is often referred to as "Sirius" even though Sirius isn't isn't part of it anymore. The ducal seat might be Procyon.
• The Principality of Regulus is ruled by the Count of Harmony from the House of Cameron (page 103, 149), from the ducal seat of Regulus. Harmony and Cameron are also planets in the principality.
• The Duchy of Orloff is ruled by an Earl from the House of Orloff, from the ducal seat of Carbonis (page 24). Orloff is a world too (page 111) but it isn't on the map, so I guess at least one of their stars has multiple inhabited worlds.
• The Province of LeFarge is ruled by an Earl (page 72) who--like the MPs from New Olympia, Silver and Marcus (page 49, 69, 142)--happens to be "MP from Bowang" (page 34, 147) instead of "MP from the province of LeFarge." So Bowang is probably in the province of LeFarge, with some other world being the ducal seat. 
• The Silver Hawks are called "a coalition of independent worlds" (page 64) even though several of them have client worlds. So it's not clear whether worlds like Nestor and Talitha (page 42), Camlann (page 63), Irian (page 124), Holt (page 143), or the nineteen other examples of government (page 73-74) go solo or have client-worlds.

There Used to Be Other Notable Provinces

The FWL has been fragmenting ever since "Camlann vs. the FWL" in 2683, but in 2571 it had only 15 provinces (page 62-63).

• Marik Commonwealth
• Duchy of Oriente (including what would become Orloff and The Protectorate)
• Principality of Regulus (including what would become Gibson, Regulan Free States and Rim Commonality)
• Stewart Commonwealth (conquered in 2295)
• Duchy of Graham-Marik(separated from Marik in 2400s)
• nine other provinces, probably including Tamarind and Abbey, plus Bolan and about half of Steiner's Alarion province (held perhaps as late as 2940s)

Those other provinces would contain about 120 of the modern FWL's stars, but I'm not sure how many would've been colonized at the time, especially since they're mostly in the outer half of the League (colonization figures in MW1e would cut their number by 25%).