Battletech - 1619 - Dropships and Jumpships

The book is split into two sections, effectively comprising two separate books back-to-back with 80 and 64 pages, respectively. The first section, presented in a style reminiscent of a Technical Readout, was almost the only early (pre-Fourth Succession War) source on BattleTech's large spacecraft (except for the three DropShips in Technical Readout: 3025), and it provided information on numerous DropShips, small craft, several space stations, and several JumpShips.

The second section provides a great deal of information on BattleTech's history of spaceflight and extensive rules for an aerospace-intensive campaign, like crew skills, maintenance, JumpShip recharging, DropShip transit times, and more. The rules for recharging and system transit are the most extensive published in BattleTech, supporting transit times at accelerations other than 1G and detailed charts including flight distances rather than flight times. While the roleplaying rules have altered owing to the huge changes in BattleTech's roleplaying rules over time, the recharge and system transit rules are virtually identical to those of the latest rulebook publications (Strategic Operations).

Technical Readout: 3057 Revised (compiled by WolfNet in 3067) remarks in its preface that ComStar's declassified FB-60 document (i.e. DropShips and JumpShips) was found to contain numerous errors or possibly deliberate misinformation. This is a convenient explanation for deviations from this book's contents in later publications that had to be made because of rule changes.