OBT Forum
General BattleTech => General Discussion => AeroTech => Topic started by: klinktastic on March 10, 2011, 09:48:31 AM
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So in StratOps, page 183, they have the rules for replacements to aerospace assets. I'm concerned with really only a few categories from that. Everything else...mechs, vehicles, etc, those times make a lot of sense. Aerospace...not so much.
So I'm going to assume that you use the replace rules for add additional as well. So say I wanted to ad a ton of armor to my dropship, that I would use the replace rules, not the repair rules. And it would take me 15 minutes per dot of armor replaced, meaning I could get 32 dots replaced in a 8 hour maintenance cycle.
My main issues is understanding the nature and timing of replacements/modifications made to cargo and transportation bays. Here's the rules:
Cargo Bay / -3 to roll / no partial / 1 month
Transport Bay / -1 to roll / no partial / 7 days per cubical
So lets use the Intruder Upgrade as an example. It comes with 850 tons of cargo space as well as 2 fighter cubicals. Let's say I wanted to make some re-adjustments to the ASF bays and the cargo to support a company of light tanks as well as 2 'Mechs. I'm just wondering how this should all work out.
So I start with converting the 2 ASF bays to 'Mech bays. Since this is a transportation bay replacing a transportation bay, I would assume it takes 7 days (56 hrs) to convert each cubicle, totaling 14 days or 112 hours.
Now say I want to take 600 tons of the 850 tons of cargo space and convert that into 12 light vehicle bays. Is it going to take a straight month per the replace cargo bay rules or is it going to take 84 days (or 3 months / 672 hours) to make the conversion?
Needless to say, making these kinds of adjustments takes a lot of time. Unfortunately, it could be a lot longer. Just trying to get down so I can assess the reasonableness of my modification requests to some of the dropships I'm going to purchase.
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I don't have StratOps in front of me. What amount, if any do they classify the "time" in a day - 8, 10, 12, 24?
I'm just wondering if you have your hour calculations right...
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Time is classified as 8 hour maintenance cycles as far as I can tell. You can have your tech crews pull 8 hours of overtime, but only give you another 4 hours of productivity.
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I'm going to have to look at StratOps when I get home...
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I assume that if you did the repairs at a shipyard, you might be able to cut time down to a third if three 8 hour shifts are at work.
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Without the book in front of me I can only speculate, but why would the rule require work to be done one bay at a time? What about converting multiple bays at once? Seems strange to me that each bay has to be converted in turn one at a time.
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Very good point KM! The only thing that would hold you back is the fact that there are limited tech crews available. One could argue that the entire tech crew can only be working on one projects. I've already asked if it was possible to hire extra tech crews but it was shot down.
Currently tech crew costs are rolled up into a generic upkeep cost for each unit that includes pilot wages, general maintenance, and the tech teams on a per unit basis. Obviously designed to eliminate the time consuming task of tracking all that stuff individually, for which I am thankful. Anyway, definitely a bartering chip.
Also, I think on the next page is says weapons take 30 hours. Is that for all the weapons? Or just one? What if someone wanted to strip out 3 LRM 20s, Artemis and the ammo bays on a Leopard CV and replace with some armor, AMSs and some laser weaponry. Would that just be two 30 hour sessions to do that all? Or would that be 30 hours per weapon? Seems like they're thinking that they were coving capital weaponry in that. Since that's all 'Mech sized weaponry, wouldn't it make sense to use that table?
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30 Hours for a Capital-class Weapon? That actually sounds rather light doesn't it? I mean these weapons weigh thousands of tons...
Sadly, I think it is 30 hours a weapons. Removing armor, modifying electrical and cooling systems. 30 Hours actually sounds about right.
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So you're saying that removing an LRM 20 from a Mech takes 120 minutes, 2 hours but the same LRM 20 takes 30 hours on a Dropship? Doesn't make much sense to me.
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Well if I had to speculate let's think how large a Leopard DropShip is. Now the PPCs have to be snaked to the fire control, and the cooling system, it's turret, then tied into the ship's targeting array, local gunnery station and the bridge. Seems like a lot of wiring/rewiring to me. What about Ammunition feeds, magazines, or changes to the turret?
All I'm saying is that the small volume and design of a BattleMech might reduce the overall time necessary to modify the base configuration compared to a larger DropShip...
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I assume that if you did the repairs at a shipyard, you might be able to cut time down to a third if three 8 hour shifts are at work.
A logical idea.