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Note: The first part is based on a discussion in Cannonshop's excellent War is a Grave, regarding FASAnomics.

Thanks to a policy of financial incentives and tax breaks, coupled with a subtle but effective propaganda campaign, we had attracted to Coromodir a high percentage of the skilled space personnel working in the Concordat, some from the Federated Commonwealth, and even a few from the Earth asteroid belt, that could not find work anymore in such places.

Meanwhile, in the rest of Concordat (and the other nations) the Trinity of Corruption / Regulation / Taxes, controlled by the military-industrial complex in power, had substantially reduced / not allowed the development of large-scale resource exploration outside the habitable planets, this exploration being seen as a thread to their position.

Because of this, while other nations, and even the Concordat outside the Aurigan Province, had problems with costs and obtaining materials to maintain the current WarShips race, we were increasing our capacity at a good rate, only limited by local budget and time to train personnel, while the actual cost of building JumpShips and WarShips within the province was slowly but surely coming down.

At Coromodir V and Detroit, the local dockyards were slowly upgraded to full shipyards, only using hardware produced in the Province for two reasons, the blockade of exports from the core of the Taurian Concordat because of the internal political fights and our will to be fully independent. It was slowing down the development but the end result was much better. 

A major contributor to this was the fact that Aurigan Province, had great autonomy (as did Provinces, Marches or equivalents of other states with the exception of the Capellan Confederation) as long as it paid its federal taxes, contributed troops to the TDF, and obeyed federal laws, which it did scrupulously. 

A series of new WarShips began to appear in late 3062, early '63.

The Concordat had almost finished the Texas refit, which was scheduled to enter service in early 3064. Thanks to a reduction of its cargo capability, the changes included replacing the NL45s with NL55s, greatly increasing the missile magazines for the AR-10s, upgrading the Killer Whale tubes to AR-10s, doubling the number of ASFs to 80, and adding a considerable amount of anti-ASF and anti-Missile weapons. These consisted of 16 Arrow IV SAM tubes, 64 LPL, 32MPL and 64SPL. For the first time, the pulse lasers added an extra anti-missile capability in addition to their normal mode of operation, the Small ones replacing the standard AMS while the bigger ones added extra capability against capital missiles, Alamos, and even Arrow IV types.

A LF and armor upgrade to Lamellor Ferrous-Carbide completed the changes. 

The EDF, meanwhile, showed an improved Mackenna, (see Delrane's Fighting Ships Revised page 41), that every intelligence service said was a new construction, and not a refit of an ex-SLDF one, packing considerable anti-ASF defense and many other changes. It first appeared in orbit around Rasalhague in December 3062, to replace the Farragut there, which returned to the Sol system for maintenance.

On the Clan side, for the first time, a Fleet Carrier had been seen, in use by the Snow Ravens, tentatively identified as the former SLS Formidable (Ark Royal Class - see Delrane's Fighting Ships Revised page 81), now the CSRS Storm Talon.

The Federated Commonwealth being busy building WarShips that already had decent anti-ASF and capital missile defenses, didn't focus on new classes, freeing resources for other projects.

Clearly the time of 'easy' victories in space by squadrons of Inner Sphere ASFs against enemy WarShips was coming to an end.

As a result of the growing collaboration between the Taurian Concordat and the Draconis Combine, the Concordat had received models and plans to build C3 Master and Slave units, and in return the Combine had received the pulse laser anti-missile technology.

Another result of this collaboration was the launch of the Light Cruiser Dart II, built by both navies, although in small quantities due to its high cost. The Dart II was the result of a plan to built an WarShip that would be fully ammo independent.

Dart II (Light Cruiser)

Mass: 680,000 tons

Length: 703 meters

Sail Diameter: 10,135 meters

Safe Thrust: 4

Maximum Thrust: 6

Armor Type: Improved Ferro-aluminum

LF Battery : Yes

24 ASFs

6 Dropships

120 Marines (half with Battle armor)

3750 DHS (to manage a very heavy energy weapons system)

Armament:

21 NL45

21 NL55

8 Heavy NPPC

14 Medium NPPC

16 Large Pulse Laser

32 Medium Pulse Laser

16 ER PPC