OBT Forum

Excellent research folks!  Also any thoughts on the Tsunami?  She's obviously not for Quicksilver stuff but the discussion did get me thinking

Compared Nova Cat fleet of your list with FM update to see what they had then thinking if they had a reserve theyd bring it with them found Lola iii Growler, Ranger and Hunter believed to be the three acquired in 2990 from the trade with Star Adders

I think you'll find the other Carracks they had out there as well. I don't recall the Star Adder trade, do you have a book and page citation?

This the space station i was trying to remember in our discussion yesterday as well Tak
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Outpost_One

Good pull on that one Bradshaw. It sounds like it could be either a Free Guilds station (implying the Clans added to it - perhaps a collective statement) or the Snow Ravens IMO. Also presents a challenge to my Free Guild theory as it states that "it is the largest spacestation in Clan space".

Excellent research folks!  Also any thoughts on the Tsunami?  She's obviously not for Quicksilver stuff but the discussion did get me thinking

Thanks marauder, love to hear some comments on it all. Still have to add to the final product and some of the Clans.

I am trying not to comment on all the designs posted again to avoid pre-judging any competition which is the reason I didn't respond initially. Tis a fine ship like all you designers usually do. It is possible that the Clans could have and refit a Monsoon but much like the Du Shi Wang and some other rare ship classes but why would they? Here is my grip. These one and done classes while neat add to your logistical needs. I know it is BattleTech but when you have the Nightlord why?

They didn't refit it because she's come on for 630 years old (ish) in 3000 and hadn't been maintained, so they just said she's a museium/memorial to the Star League etc and built a ship that was inspired by the Monsoon class.

Headcanon time. The Nightlord isn't a Battleship.  She's basically a LSD (Landing Ship Dock not drugs), that is heavily armed and self escorting.  Her job is not to go up to a hostile battle line and do this.



Before biffing them with heavy caliber autocannons and other fun weapons.  Her (the Nightlord's) job is to punch through any defences and then throw 100 Mech's and 500 Elementals at a planet almost going YEET! whilst doing so.

She's built to shove aside anything in her path and weaken them for the escorting ships and fighters to finish off.  But, put a Nightlord in an actual battle and she's at quite a disadvantage due to her weapons being all over the bloody shop and not actually mounting much in the way of overall firepower, having to give up a lot to carry her Mech's and her Elemental horde (which have NO shuttles :s ).

So the Nightlord is very good at assaulting someone's world, but this kind of direct capability, the capacity to put down a Galaxy of Mech's and a Galaxy of Elementals down on a world would never ever be used at the time she was made (mid 2932 onwards.) Because the Clans were huge fans of Zell at this time, and even if they went at the Inner Sphere, they'd not use WarShips in such a brutally direct curb stomping fashion unless they went in going "They are bandits, and are Dezgra" so this massive troop capacity on the Nightlord is somewhat questionable knowing what we know about the Clans at the time.

And if a Nightlord was carrying a full compliment of Mech's and Elementals its not something the Clan who has her can risk, especially as they knew little about the IS at the time and the Spheroids could well have been building WarShips a plenty.  So the Nightlord needs escorts, or something that can help her reach her target world.  So step forwards something like the Tsunami.  Its smaller than other Battleships in Clan service and more modern than all but the Nightlord and presumably capable of kicking anything that opposes it to death in short order.

Wrong Riga bro

The Nightlord is a victim of lore and fluff.  She also is very much a jack of all trades and very very much a master of none because of it, she's a good assault ship, an adequate cruiser killer and a poor carrier, the only thing she does well is yeet Mech's at planets.  Lore wise we've got the Lore pretty much saying that save a few Clans (literally 2) the Clans themselves don't actually value WarShips and see them as ill wanted solhama for the most part.  And then you look at those lists of ships available and go "If they didn't want them why do some Clans have 20+ ships?"

And why would the Clans keep ships that are 600+ years old (Aegis class) around when parts for them are going to have to be near impossible to get without setting up a factory SPECIFICALLY for these ships?  Basically its like the silly idea of going "Why not reactivate the Iowas?" 

You would have to build EVERYTHING on her from scratch.  We don't make armour like that so you'd have to make armour forging for it, the gun pits for 16-inch 50cal rifles are probably long gone, and there's no place in the world that builds those kinds of engines any more, so you'd have to rebuild those. 

or spend billions basically rebuilding her and then its not worth doing.

And the Clans are not going to spend the resources needed to bring the Aegis up to modern standards and their hulls would be deteriorating and no matter how good their tech, they can't stop entropy and they can't stop metal fatigue that would probably have meant that the Aegis class would have been scrapped prior to the Amaris Civil War (at which point the oldest Aegis would have been 394 year old at the outbreak) and a replacement made. And yes I know that basically McKenna's made a lot of ships obsolete, but the SLDF also built the Luxor and Riga II to escort them and these three classes were probably a forerunner to a next generation of SLDF ships that would see a new Destroyer built etc.

So instead of keeping ancient warhorses around where you have to hand build every damn replacement part, why didn't the Clans build new ships as this would actually be cheaper than maintaining some truly ancient ships that would be as reliable electroincailly as 1970's italian sports cars that you see for sale in news papers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCff8nCxBU

So building new ships to replace the old, recycling them makes sense in terms of pure logistics, and thanks to advances in electronics and the like you'd probably reduce maintenance, crew manning levels etc.  But this is Battletech and its not the 1st time the Lore don't make any bloody sense when it comes to the Clans beyond THEIR WHOLE SOCIETY WOULD COLLAPSE! IT MAKES NO BLOODY SENSE!

Of course if the Clans had half a brain they'd use the Creche system and Iron Wombs to pump out people at a huge rate, sending off jumpships to explore, colonize, exploit every damn planet and system in reach.  Its got a violently flaring red dwarf with useless planets but rich asteroids, orbital habitats HO!  colonise the habital worlds they found on the Exodus trail, fortify them, use asteroid mining etc and build up to defend yourselves and have the room to grow instead of squabbling over the hardscrabble worlds of the Pentagon and Kerensky cluster. 

But I digress.  We know the Clans can build new WarShips, the only thing stopping them was very inconsistent lore.

Thing that doesn't make sense to me is why did the Clans take the Riga destroyer and turn into a Carrier renamed York when they had Samarkands and could have refitted and renamed and produced them.

Simple answer is that the Samarkand didn't exist IRL when 3057R was written.

Oh I agree, Battleships would be rare, they'd probably hold onto their SLDF era BB's because as you said these puppies are a HUGE investment in resources, so yeah the few Texas and Mckenna's would be kept around.  But the oldest ships, scrap them replace them with a new cruiser analogue as well as destroyers etc.

This is, as you said, because the Clans HAVE to establish a new doctrine.  SLDF ships are built for en-mass deployment, its not the one Lola III you need to worry about. Its her 7 other squadron mates, and the Sov Soy leading them that you have to worry about.  The Clans simply can't (or mentally wont) do that as they don't have the forces to deploy ships on mass and outside of the Ravens, if we're honest, they don't have the training for such deployments and in the naval battles we've seen the Clans get involved in, they seem to basically be massed one on one brawls for the most part. 

So in light of this, producing their own designs that don't have the monstrous cargo requirements mot SLDF ships had (with you being able to fit the weight of the worlds largest passenger ship in the Sov soy's cargo bay being a prime example of this lunacy) so they have a shorter range (but up the fuel tanks from the notoriously short legged SLDF ships) and are more flexible and sturdy, able to operate alone and defend themselves against threats large and small, it makes so much more sense.