OBT Forum

+1 FirstStarLord - well said.

One factor that is also not considered is that from 2750 until the outbreak of the 1st SW in 2786, there was 36 years in which to go batshit insane on the whole ship building front, especially so when the advantage of a large fleet was shown by the SLDF's massive fleet peacekeeping deployments.

Naval infrastructure existed to an large extent in that era and even if for the first 10 years (2750-2760), production was low, as new yards were commissioned, twenty six years of rapid building programs and the return of mothballed ships to the fleets, perhaps added to FirstStarLord’s thought on the bandit fleets, would lead to massive numbers of ships.

For example, the USN, once it got its naval yards cranking in the period from 1942-1945 added 78 major fleet vessels (cruiser or larger) to the rolls, which with pre-war totals (including losses) was 137 ships.  These numbers are a good match for BT fleet numbers. 

The numbers of the house militaries doubling and doubling again seem to point more at the regiments than the shipping, at least in my view.  Ship numbers in the first jump go from 155 to 239, but a true double would be 300+, which would point to a 600+ final figure, not the lower 475+ by a second doubling.

I think what we will see, in order to match existing fluff, is that the expansion of the House Navies in the period from 2765 to 2786 will be an ever increasing rate of WarShip production where fleets of each nation will be 150-200 strong.

At least that is my view.

From the key board of Herb himself:

Hello,

At present, we are only planning one more print book covering the Star League era: Historical Liberation of Terra, Volume II. A series of Field Reports covering the non-SLDF forces as of 2765 are also in the planning, but awaiting solidified stats so the authors will not be permitted to power creep their factions one after the other. This even includes nailing down all remaining ships and ship classes of the era, so that there will be nothing of substance left to explore. Combined with the last of the XTR: Primitives series, we will be done with the Star League and prior eras completely.

Hopefully that helps.

Thank you,

- Herbert Beas
  BattleTech
  Catalyst Game Labs

That could take a few years though, and we've already put a lot of thought into the preexisting military structure based on previous canon sources. Maybe we should just expand upon what we already have? It's an AU anyway, things are not going to match up exactly.

Really- the SLDF and earlier era will be set in stone until they need to change it.  The Invincible was lost to a misjump - until they needed WOB to find it.  There was no secret base with lots of mothballed SLDF warships, until they needed WOB to find Gabriel.  TR2750 represented the height of SLDF tech, until later writers (i.e. those who did TR3058) created more powerful units, driving the need for the Royal variants.  The CapCon was still hurting pretty bad from the effects of the 4th SW in 3050, until they needed a revitalized CC and suddenly it turned out things hadn't been so bad.  Only a handful of Calderons were paranoid until suddenly it turns out every Calderon was paranoid. 

The writers will do what they need to do to tell the story they want to tell. If in 3 years they need to say that the SLDF had LAMs that could use XL Engines, Endo Steel and other advanced construction materials, then the SLDF will have had LAMs that could use XL Engines, Endo Steel and other advanced construction materials- it will be handled no differently then how the New Dallas Memory Core trumped the Helm Memory Core.  Remember they still haven't found the Prometheus Data Core.

Herb says they will be detailing every thing, including every ship class- maybe it will happen. I'm still waiting to see a correct Order of Battle for Malagrotta and Tentativa.  And the fact that Herb is worried about power creep in the factions leads me to distrust the numbers they have produced so far.  Especially considering that when you look at the army sizes in H:LoT they don't match up with the previously published numbers for the LCAF and the CCAF. (I think in one of the online chats Herb commented about this but I can't find it right now).  Yes newer material trumps older material- but that's something of a cop out - so that they don't have to fix errors. (any bets that the next time the stats for the Leopard CV are published the introduction date will be before the battle of Malagrotta?)  I'm proud of what we have come up with for BTSD -I think we have done a better job data mining the material and putting it together in a coherent way without arbitrarily changing things and saying it's okay because the old books were flawed. 

From a historical perspective you take older sources over the newer ones unless the newer ones disprove the older ones.  Of course that is a difficult task many times and historians have to keep in mind that all sources lie; either intentionally or unintentionally.  And remember who is supposed to be the authors of these sources, its usually Comstar and we know they lie.  So like historical arguements this arguement about hard numbers (which shouldn't exist since this is a created universe) will continue because of the conflicting information (and I think part of this is accidental [too many people involved, editting misses, etc.] and part of it intentional [built in wiggle room, uncertainty about further development, etc.]).  Just my 2 cents.

Quote from: HABeas2 on May 24, 2012, 10:35:03 PM

Hello,

If there is canon evidence supporting the existence of such vessels, they would need to be statted, but fact of the matter is, we've described hundreds of unit designs from the Star League era already, many of which were deployed by the lance or even by the company to fill the ranks, and as the unit types get bigger and more complex (as WarShips are to BattleMechs), the variances are only going to get smaller. We have to run out of stuff sooner or later, so we can finally say "yup; they have everything needed to play in the era".

Thank you,

- Herbert Beas
  BattleTech
  Catalyst Game Labs

That was in response to a question I posed about the Magistracy WarShip, or if we will see the Taurian Corvettes and Destroyers mentioned in HB:RW.  I dont' think we are going them guys.

MA

I think we should go on with BTSD from where we are now.