The Tripitz Affair - Classic ComStar - BattleTech Reaction
Added 2024-12-19 17:59:32 +0000 UTC
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While a kinetic bombardment with Atlases can work to some degree, it's something even out of House Steiner's military budget. Instead they use DropShips (note the capitalization and lack of space), that can take off and land on their own but require JumpShips (again, capitalization and no space) to make FTL jumps. They come in two flavors: Aerodyne and Spheroid, aka big airplane and big egg. If you see pictures of spaceships in Battletech that have big orbs hanging off their sides those are Spheroid DropShips, which can detach, land, unload, launch back up, land somewhere else, make a pickup, fly back to space and reattach. Aerodynes require big runways to land and take off, making them much more limited in use compared to the big eggs, who just require a smaller (but still stadium-sized) landing pad. The tradeoff is that an Aerodyne is much more maneuverable and fuel efficient while big egg is just big egg, and damage to its instruments is more likely to make it crash. And while big egg does not require a runway, having one land just anywhere (big egg ranges from 200 tons for the tiniest of civilian DropShips to the 100.000 tons Behemoth, aka Biggest Egg; note that in BattleTech tonnage is in metric). So if you were to land something as small as a Lance-sized DropShip anywhere that's not a fortified landing pad your big egg will be putting at least 2000 tons on a patch of ground that's much too soft for that kind of weight and you will sink and possibly get stuck, making it a risky and difficult affair to just drop 'Mechs wherever you want. This is why when invading smaller planets, capturing the spaceport means you've essentially taken the planet since your enemies are now severely limited in waht they can pit against you.
Beriorn
2024-12-21 21:14:52 +0000 UTC
