Page 335 of A Time of War has a table for a few common professions in the BattleTech Universe. Conveniently, these directly cover four of the five part members. Three of those four are serving ComGuard. They are the easy ones.
Shin is piloting a 'Mech, but I'm considering him to still be considered Battle Armor Infantry by ComStar. That makes his base pay 960 C-Bills per month. He's 4/4, a regular pilot. That gives him a 1x multipler. He also holds two TP worth of the Rank Trait, giving him another 0.3x (four thirds all told, which I'll grant him.) His total salary from the ComGuard comes to 1,280 C-Bills per month.
David Cho is a helicopter pilot, also a regular. He, however, has four points of rank, doubling the multiplier contribution versus Shin. This combined 1.4x multiplier is applied to the base salary of 900 to yield a comparable 1,260 C-Bills.
Alexander Black is the only Officer in the group, which will get him better pay. He is also quite skilled as a MechWarrior, which would increase his pay if he were a Mercenary. Alas, as a member of a regular military his multiplier is locked at 1. Let's see how much he's losing by working for ComStar:
There are give skills in the MechWarrior Field: Gunnery/'Mech, Piloting/'Mech, Sensor Operations, Tactics/Land, and Technician/Any (in Alexander's case, Mechanics.) His levels for those skills are, respectively, 7, 7, 3, 3, 4. The average of those is 4.8, but Alexander is also the commanding officer of the Level II. We must also find his Officer skills (Administration, Leadership, Melee Weapons, Protocol/ComStar, and Training at 4, 4, 2, 6, and 2). The average for those is only 3.6, for a total average of 4.2, which makes him merely Veteran for the purposes of salary, despite being a 1/1 'Mech Pilot. Still, the Veteran multiplier is 1.5, and to that he adds 5/3's for having Rank 5 and being an officer, or thirteen-sixths of his base pay. Alexander's base salary is 1,500 for being a MechWarrior, plus the modifier puts him up to a hefty 3,250 C-Bills a month in pay.
Alexander, though, as noted above, is ComGuard, which means he's only drawing ten-sixths of his base pay, or 2,500 a month. Alexander is arguably 750 C-Bills a month underpaid, but that's what you pay for the safe umbrella of a huge bureaucracy.
Clark's profession is covered, too. He's a Doctor. A veterinarian to be specific, but I have no qualms calling that a doctor for these purposes. I calculate Clark's rating the same way I did Alex's. The Doctor Field covers Administration, Career/Doctor, MedTech, Protocol/Terran, and Surgery. Clark's ratings are 4, 1, 5, 3, and 5, giving him an average of 3.6. The rules are strangely silent on which way to round this number, but Clark's a Doctor on Terra, one of the richest planets known to man, so we'll round up to Veteran, and a 1.5 base multiplier. Of course, Clark isn't military -- he has no rank. He's fairly new to the profession, too, so I'll ignore that modifier for now, giving Clark a monthly salary of 2,250 C-Bills. Clark also has an Extra Income trait at 1, giving him another 250/month, bringing him up to 2,500 C-Bills a month.
Finally, Simon has a job as well. His doesn't appear directly on the table, so I'll give him an Administrator's base salary. His day job is Communications, so we'll use that field for calculating his rating. Acting: 1, Career/Communications:1 , Communications/Conventional:5, Computers:5, Protocol/Terran:3, and Sensor Operations:1. Average: 2.66. Again, I'll round this up, getting him to Regular, and a measly 640 C-Bills per month.
So that's how the money comes in (although how they ComStar folks are going to get their money now that they're stuck on Terra is unclear.) Tune in tomorrow when we discuss how the money goes out!
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