RE: [FT] Space Battlestations (was: FT-Forts)

> 1) Armor may be free, but hollowing ISN'T. Pay 2 NPV per MASS
excavated.
> 2) The free armor is 4 MASS per point of protection 
> 3) The MD1 is based on the original MASS of the un-hollowed asteroid.
> Initial Asteroid = 400 MASS
> Hollow out 240 MASS, costing 480 NPV
> This leaves 160 MASS, which translates to 40 Armor (much more
reasonable)
> MD1 costs 20 MASS, 40 NPV
> Leaving 220 MASS free for other systems.
=> ~1180 npv in total.

For my own Space Stations, I assign them MD1 for
station-keeping/rotation
drives.  The ability to rotate and bring the station's spinal mounts to
bear
make it worthwhile.  If you start maneouvering with MD1, you deserve to
have
escorts in your rear arc.

The 4:1 free armour does sound about right, but the mass of the asteroid
should still be a cost (you need to spin-stabilise, survey out fractures
and
weak points etc).  That way you still need to trade off the asteroid
size
with the engineering requirements (costs).

***
Base Cost: 1 pt per total asteroid mass.
Hollowing cost: 1 pt per available hull mass (as normal hull cost)
Free Asteroid Armour: 1 armour per 4 unused mass (no cost).
Station Keeping Drive (MD1 equivalent): 5% / 2 per mass.
Other costs: as normal.

So:
Asteroid Defence Base
Size: 400 mass / 400 npv
Hollowing: 200 mass available / 200 npv
Asteroid Armour: 50 - free
Hull: 40; 10/10/10/10 - 80 npv
Station keeping drives (MD1): 20 mass / 40 npv
Screen-2: 40 mass / 120 npv
4 fighter bays: 36 mass / 108 npv
4 squadrons heavy fighters: 120 npv (probably turkeys unless a frontline
system)
64 mass of miscellaneous weapons/firecons: 200 npv
 - 6 firecons
 - 2 ADFC
 - 10 PDS
 - 6 x class-3 (3-arc)
 - 8 x class-1
Total Cost: 1270 npv.

Cheaper than the equivalent in starships, but effectively immobile and
probably known to every intelligence service operating where it is.  I
would
still build several mass:80 battleplatforms to defend this, but it's
cheaper
to replace the battleplatforms than this sort of base infrastructure.

Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[Firestorm] Battletech PBeM GM
[Dawn Patrol] World Cup 2001 - "Australia II"