BattleTech: Objective Raids (1992)

From the back of the book:

Objective Raids is an indispensable resource for BattleTech and MechWarrior players, providing current listings of units and industries on worlds along the border of the Clan occupation zone.

A discussion of the tactics for conducting raids, two representative industrial floor plans, and a reference guide for locating the manufacturing site of any BattleMech, vehicle, aerospace fighter or component is also included.

User comment:

This sourcebook is an expansion for MechWarrior and BattleTech, although it's slightly strange in that it offers nothing by way of rules, and not much by way of fluff. It's essentially a battle- or campaign-building resource, that works very well with Hot Spots and the Mercenary's Handbook: 3055 in two different ways.

Firstly, it provides an updated military roster for the Successor States, the three major Periphery realms and the clans, the first such major update since the BattleTech: 20 Year Update.

Secondly, it includes locations for every major defence industry plant, anywhere. If you want to know where PitBan 320 engines are manufactured, this book can tell you. Not just aircraft, vehicles and 'Mechs, but every major component. That actually adds a surprising amount of depth for a campaign, because it gives good background reasons for staging raids, slash and burn attacks and the like. It's also not difficult to work backwards using other sourcebooks to place those industry sites in their correct realms at various points in history, so the book can work well with the older House books for games set before, during or after the Fourth Succession War.

This book's no longer in print, but it is available as an electronic download from the current licence holder, and as this isn't a book you'll need out on the tabletop on a regular basis like a main rulebook or the Technical Readouts, it's one that doesn't suffer from staying in electronic form.