Military Sci-fi Encounter

Mission: hold out long enough on the ground until Space forces can cut down enemy escape window. Enemies will have Orbital superiority, so the PCs side have to draw enemy ground forces in to very difficult terrain, like sensor scrambling magnetic polar region which have perpetual poor visibility (which also happens to be the best place to hide anti-orbital artillery).

Military Operation Scale. An enemy Task Force are bent in occupying a system. It is a very large force and this is a great opportunity to draw the fleet into a decisive fight. Basically, keep them there long enough until the cavalry can sneak in and close all the exits.

Enemy Task Force should be rather large, but the fast screening elements should be supposedly guarding Jump Entry points to the system. While Allied forces are well behind the system ort cloud and plan to micro jump to the 100Dlimit of all key strategic sections once enemies are all in positions.

Adventurer Scale. An occupying force will be attempting to raid a facility on a small dense satelite (1.1G) dangerously close to its malevolent gass giant (giving many sensor problems). The bounty hunter squadron will need to sneak up and position themselves on all escape vectors, before revealing their hand. The ground forces need to put on a retreating harassment long enough to give the allied small fighters to be in position.

Use the traveler Vehicular Adventure template modifications and the various templates and load outs. The variable role 6Dton fighters will be useful for setting up a cat's paw against a much larger and formidable opponent. Probably a sooped up 400Dton Frontier Merchant or Fast Courier. Or maybe a menacing baddie

Tech Level: 10 Crude Modified Subsidized Merchant
Hull: 400-dton Cylinder Streamlined hull* (28.9ksf, 28.9tons, $28M), dDR 10 armor (144.5tons, $1.7M ), Stealth (7.2tons, $2.2M) Total 180.6tons
Systems: 12 Maneuver Drive (12dtons, 48tons, $12M, ), 12 Jump Drive (12dtons, 48tons, $48M), 80 Fuel Tanks (80Dtons, 2tons, $1.6M), Fuel Processor (3.2 dtons/hour) (1dton, 4tons), Standard Bridge (2.5Dtons, 12tons, $1M, Mainframe-C9), Model-3 Sensors (Scan-18) (2dtons, 24tons, $8M, -8MW), 5 Heavy Turrets (7.5tons, $1M) (10 Pulse Lasers, 20 Missile Racks) (50tons, $20M, -50MW), Hangar (5x20-dton capacity; 205 Dtons, 7.5tons) (5 Assault crafts; 750 tons), 4 Launch Tube (8Dtons, 80tons, $0.8M, -2MW), 15 Fusion Plants (15dtons, 60tons, $45M), 3 Staterooms (12Dtons, 3tons, $0.15M), 7 Bunks (14Dtons, 3.5ton, $0.14M), Galley (4dtons, 2ton, $0.02), Recreational (8dtons, 2ton, $0.15), Administrative(2dtons, 0.5ton, $0.01), Armoury (2dtons, 0.5tons, $0.01), Brig-Bunk (2dtons, 1ton, $0.02), Workshop (2.5Dtons, 15tons, $0.6M), Sickbay (1dton, 1ton, $0.2M), 5 Cargo.
Statistics: EMass 820 tons (545 original, x1.5 for cheap), LMass 1,810 tons (36tons ammo, 25tons cargo, 7.5+10 tons personnel, 835tons small craft, 80tons fuel ), Cost M$303M ($171M, +$465M, all crude!), SM +9, ASig +3, Hull dHP 40, Life Support 86 (+100 from Assault Craft), sAccel 1.3G (w/o attack ships 2.5G) , Jump-2 (2 parsec range), Top Air Speed 740 mph.
Crew: (not Ready made) Command Section (3 officers), Engineering Section (3 officer, 10 crewmen), Cargo/Passenger Service Section (1 officer), Medical Section (1 petty officer), Flight Section (5 technicians, 1 flight technicians, 5 pilots, 5 small craft crew), Fire Section (60). Total ???

* a beveled Long box, with a menacing wedged front

crude pirate assault crafts Accel 4, LWT240tons, $46.5M each.

Considering to Bridge UT, HT and ISW

Couldn't ship costs follow the UT/HT x2 cost options? The escalating cost of +2 HT for x4 is a too big. Considering warship or frontier merchants who are required to operating far from possible proper support services, costs of X4 for a +2 HT seems to me inconsistent. Considering the huge cost jump, couldn't there be better examples of why it is such a valuable advantage that it justifies x4 cost? Because if its not that justifiable and from how I've noticed how my group looks at it then that rule should be reconisidered.

In my examination and tinkering, the Cheap Option in UT/HT is much better. Since Cheap can increase the mass, it will make a ship certainly slower. Example: Cheap Hero Class will have an Accel of 1.2 vs 1.5. Since Cheap also has the fragile option (-2 HT) the option for reliable trade off for price is still available.

Separating the x2 cost categories to Rugged and Expensive is also viable. The Rugged modifier will slow a ship down (+20% mass; Ex. Rugged Hero Class Accel 1.4), probably not doubling the DR (or just giving a +10% DR instead), increasing the HT by 2. Mixing Rugged but Cheap (heavy and not the fragile) option creates a can have x1.8 Mass and makes for a slow but affordable Frontier Operating Ship (Hero Class at Accel 1.2).

The expensive option, which really isn't that ideal for ships that are supposed to work in rugged conditions, would be great with a yacht (Accel 2.0 to 2.5), interplanetary shuttle (accel 1.3 to 1.5).

On Accel, isnt a difference between two accel, ex. Accel 1 and 6, merit a bonus far greater than half the difference? In the duration of a combat round, i just find the bonus disproportionate to my experience in flight simulations and how TDMs are scaled.