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Lore Question: Jumpships and Dropships in the Reach

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deathzealotzero

deathzealotzero

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I originally posted this on my Common Mechs Seen in The Aurigan Reach Thread but I think it would be better to have it post it seperate in another thread to keep things on topic.

I wonder which Dropships and Jumpships would be used in the Reach. In the game we see them mainly using the Union, and the Leopard but there are plenty of different Dropship Classes out there. For example, I would think that the Danais/Trojan Class seen in the early books of the Gray Death Legion Saga would be a common sight in the Reach. As for Jumpships we mainly see the Invader* Class in use though I am sure there are also plenty Merchant Class in use as well.

* - I noticed something interesting with the Jumpships shown in the game. They have four docking collars but as far as I know the Invader Class only sports three while the Merchant Class sports two. The only other Jumpship I am aware of that sports four Collars is a Clan-Only Design.
 
Ask and ye shall recieve.

http://www.masterunitlist.info/Unit...s=57&SubTypes=40&SubTypes=86&AvailableEras=11

Dropships:

Avenger (2816)
Leopard (2537)
Leopard (PPC)
Leopard CV (2581)
Gazelle (2531)
Gazelle (Heavy Vehicle)
Trojan (Blockade Runner)
Buccaneer (Standard)
Union (2708)
Condor (2801)
Monarch (Standard)
Czar DropShip (Standard)
Seeker (2815)
Triumph (2593)
Mule (Standard)
Excalibur (2786)
Aqueduct Liquid Carrier (Standard)
Mammoth (2658)
Mammoth (Standard)
Behemoth (2658)
Behemoth (Standard)

Jumpships:

Scout JumpShip (Standard)
Merchant Jumpship (Standard)
Invader Jumpship (Standard)
Tramp JumpShip (Lithium-Fusion)
Tramp JumpShip (Standard)
Star Lord JumpShip (Standard)


Mind you, not all of these are going to be equally common to see out in the periphery. Mammoths and Behemoth droppers and star lord jumpers are gonna be rare.
 
You can consider ships with LF batteries non-existant lostech as of 3025. So while there was a Tramp variant (or refit) with LF batteries back in the Star League era, it's safe bet that it's completely extinct. LF batteries are probably arcane knowledge that few people are even aware of once existed.

As for normal JumpShips, Invaders are famously thought to make up 46% of all JumpShips across the Inner Sphere (yes I know this is technically the Periphery but still). The only class that comes close in numbers is the Merchant; the Scout is rarer by about an order of magnitude and the Star Lord is even rarer than that. Next rarest design is the Monolith and then the Tramp.
I've been working on an Essay for JumpShip classes for some time already. The available information is incredibly thin, sometimes contradictory, and requires a lot of guesswork. But my analysis suggests the following ratios:
  • 46% Invader
  • 27% Merchant
  • 13% Scout
  • 7% Star Lord
  • 5% Monolith (probably too high; 3% may be closer to the mark - needs further research)
  • 1% Tramp
  • 1% "Other": Leviathan, Liberty, Uma, other unnamed/apocryphal classes

About DropShips:
The Aqueduct, Mammoth and Behemoth as well as any military DropShip larger than an Overlord will also be rare. (Well there's that infamous enigmatic source of tech for the Magistracy, and the fact that they inexplicably have a couple of pristine Colossus-class DropShips in operation a few years down the line.) The reason is that there are simply no shipyards in the periphery that can maintain such large vessels. The Star League deliberately kept the Periphery under-developed and put a limit on the size of DropShips that could locally be built; hence the Danais which, while relatively tiny at 3,200 tons, was still about the largest (!) hauler the Periphery was allowed to build. And they didn't exactly advance their technology level or infrastructure throughout the Succession Wars...
 
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Frabby said:
As for normal JumpShips, Invaders are famously thought to make up 46% of all JumpShips across the Inner Sphere (yes I know this is technically the Periphery but still).
Click to expand...
So you think that the Jumpships we mainly see in the game are Invaders? Even with their uncanon four Dropship collars?

Frabby said:
About DropShips:
The Aqueduct, Mammoth and Behemoth as well as any military DropShip larger than an Overlord will also be rare. (Well there's that infamous enigmatic source of tech for the Magistracy, and the fact that they inexplicably have a couple of pristine Colossus-class DropShips in operation a few years down the line.) The reason is that there are simply no shipyards in the periphery that can maintain such large vessels. The Star League deliberately kept the Periphery under-developed and put a limit on the size of DropShips that could locally be built; hence the Danais which, while relatively tiny at 3,200 tons, was still about the largest (!) hauler the Periphery was allowed to build. And they didn't exactly advance their technology level or infrastructure throughout the Succession Wars...
Click to expand...
Goes to show you why Kamea and her father wanted to recover the Argo.
 
Well, by all accounts nearly half of all JumpShips are Invaders...
Are the ships in the game shown to jump with four DropShips attached at any point? Because the docking collar arrangement is pretty undefined even in classic BT lore.

However, on a more general note I think at the end of the day, JumpShip type doesn't matter - you only need to hire the right amount of docking collars to get from A to B. I guess it can be glossed over what ships exactly perform the service.
 
DOxi6PIUIAAVSUZ.jpg:large

Not four dropships but still four collars. We do see the Argo and two other dropships docked a couple times. And since the Argo takes up two collars that means four collar. Unless this Jumpship isn't an Invader Class.
 
It's not.

Invaders have several features the jumpships in the game do not, such as the dorsal "blade" about halfway down the craft, and the two hydroponics domes mounted to the "head", neither of which rotate the way the two pods on the in-game jumpships do - I can only assume they're intended to be gravity-decks for the crew and passengers.
Invader.png




The next-most-common design, the Merchant, also doesn't match what's seen, even if we take into account a possible art-style change like what happened to the 'mechs (they're obviously very different from the designs seen in the old TRO books and official art). Note that there's no "head"-mounted pods of any kind seen here.
Merchant.png
 
According to Mike McCain, its an Invader.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/m6Nre

Edited to Add - The concept art looks to have the fourth node visually different, to signal its not a collar, but overall its clearly the same jumpship as in the final version.

My guess is the final art was changed for symmetry's sake, but one node still isn't an operative collar. Which might be lucky for the Argo, as I think two collars for 100,000 ton dropships was supposed to just be because they obstructed other collars by reason of size.
 
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Warhammer: 3025 said:
[Western Accent] Some people don't take too kindly to artistic re-interpretations 'round here... [/Western Accent] ;)
Click to expand...

Well, I am one of the people who doesn't like Star Trek Discovery, on the basis it dumps the visual continuity Star Trek had previously tried hard to maintain (even where it was slightly nuts, but absolutely cool, to do so). So I tend to agree with you.

But Battletech has never had, for better or worse, a strict visual continuity / canon approach (whereas, for lore purposes, non-visual continuity is fairly strictly policed).
 
HF22 said:
But Battletech has never had, for better or worse, a strict visual continuity / canon approach (whereas, for lore purposes, non-visual continuity is fairly strictly policed).
Click to expand...
True enough. Compare an original CRD-3R Crusader to a CRD-5K and you'd hardly know they were supposed to be the same 'mech!
CDR-Crusader.png

Crd-5k_crusader.jpg
 
Since something like half of all jumpships are supposed to be Invaders, I always assumed that name was given to a style of ship rather than a specific design. If one company really manufactured half of all jumpships used across known space that would the greatest company that ever existed.
 
deathzealotzero said:
If I remember right the Invader isn't produced by just one company but several different ones. So there might be some variation on the design.
Click to expand...

Yes, just like some Battlemechs, that's how I always imagined it.
 
On this subject, has anyone else noticed that the Commodoe claims at a couple of points that the Iberia carries a battalion of Mechs? But ithe Iberia is clearly stated to be a Fortress not an Overlord or Colossus which should be the only dropships in the periphery at the time able to carry a battalion of mechs.
 
kbs666 said:
On this subject, has anyone else noticed that the Commodoe claims at a couple of points that the Iberia carries a battalion of Mechs? But ithe Iberia is clearly stated to be a Fortress not an Overlord or Colossus which should be the only dropships in the periphery at the time able to carry a battalion of mechs.
Click to expand...

I thought it initially mentioned a combined-arms battalion, which would be right.
 
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