Draken Productions

Nothing but a dream...

In the year 3040, high school graduate Regard Verian and close friends Adam Knight, Jason Galsen, and Kevin Basario all wanted to design mechs, they already knew enough to be technicians, and had spent a summer with the merc unit that Verian's older brother was a part off. There, Verian got his first taste of combat piloting a spare mech that had been salvaged and repaired when the Kuritans the mercs were fighting launched a surprise attack on the unit's base camp. Although he claimed no kills, he did severely damage a panther.

So, Adam, Jason, and Kevin all applied to a university of mech design. Verian however, having tasted combat, and wanting to follow the family mechwarrior tradition, applied to a little known academy which taught mech design, among other things, as well as trained its students as mechwarriors for the federated commonwealth. It required students to complete an 8 month, combat-intensive, tour of duty along hotspots of the of the Davion-periphery border.

Verian excelled, and became the highest rated student in the academy's 2 century history. It was there he designed the MAD-5X, for a project, although his teacher said the design was impossible as the marauder chassis couldn't support the weapons array, nontheless, Verian got the highest mark.

When Verian's tour of duty came up, he was well prepared, in addition to the academy training, he had logged countless hours in his family's simulators. He, along with 10 others, and a seasoned veteran who lead the company, fought numerous battles against pirates. Verian received several of the academy's awards for his actions in combat.

Despite the company's success, everything went to hell at the last battle. Angered by the company's success, a little known bandit lord lead his battalion (1 mech company, 2 armor companies) on a rampaging assault against the planet the company was assigned to.

After smashing local defenders, the battered pirate battalion came to the company, 5 of the pilots died, including the leader. However, it would have been a complete slaughter for the pirates had Verian not stepped up and taken command when the commander's Marauder went down.

Verian killed the bandit lord himself, as well as a pirate centurion and crusader. Several armor units also fell to his crusader's missiles barrages.

As a reward, Verian was given a salvaged pirate Enforcer and was asked to stay an additional year to lead a cadre of mechwarriors and assist in teaching mech design concepts. He also spent much of his free time coming up with refit kits, and maintaining his enforcer.

When the time came to lead the cadre, they were assigned to the world where the final battle of Verian's other company was fought. For one reason or another pirate activity increased heavily when Verian's company arrived.

Out of the newly trained mechwarriors Verian lead, one stood out, a son from a fairly wealthy family, Johnston O'Riley. Him and Verian quickly became best friends, and near equals in terms of mech skills, although Verian came out on top, by just a tiny bit.

Verian and his company soon found out why pirate activity had increased, the dead bandit lord's son had come to claim revenge on Verian for his fathers death, and soon Verian found himself in a repeat battle.

However, a well executed death from above attack by Verian slew the bandit lord's son, while Johnston killed the second in command, the pirate forces, badly damaged, and now demoralized and leaderless, fled.

As an award to Johnston for his skills, and for leading half the unit when they split into two groups, he was given a blackjack. As an award for Verian, the academy created an award in his name.

Verian returned to the world where he grew up, and found his friends working rather nice jobs at the starport, and one worked at a battlemech design firm, the ones working at the starport however, weren't believed to be good enough to worth hiring as designers.

Verian decided to tell his friends about his dream he had for them all, there own mech company. Of course, they would need a large grant from the government, and would have to prove their designs worked first. So they got together, and in 3045, they formed Draken Productions.

They offered refit kits, and custom modifications, and showed all their customers the 2 mechs they had designed. They made a nice bit of money, but never got a government grant. A small mech production company did take one of the designs, it was basically a redesigned warhammer.

Disaster, to a dream come true...

In 3046, the most unexpected thing happened, Johnston O'Riley showed at Draken productions' doors. Verian sat down with him and they talked about what had happened in the year since they last saw each other, Johnston, and several of their fellow warriors from the academy had formed a mercenary unit, called the Ripperjacks after the nickname they had given their academy company.

They had fulfilled one contract so far, a small one, but one that had netted the unit a jumpship as spoils of war. They had recently been offered defense duty along the Steinar-Periphery border, and Johnston wanted to go in with a full company, not the two mech lances and armor support they had.

Verian agreed, he was granted command of the third lance, and they recruited a trio of new mechwarriors. They made their way to the border, and started their duties.

Throughout the year long contract, they were treated like dirt by the Steinar forces, never granted support, ever, and being thrown at next to everything. Once the contract was up, the unit retreated into the periphery.

A unaminous decision lead the unit to repaint themselves, and rename themselves as a pirate force, and they began raiding Steinar territory. They took high risk, high reward, chances, scoring each and every time.

After close to two years had passed, a steinar trap left Johnston, and his XO dead. Verian took up the command spot and lead the unit out of the ambush. As a final raid, Verian and his forces captured a steinar starport, and captured themselves a full company of mechs. They quickly retreated with stockpiles of goodies, along with several captured dropships.

When word of the clans reached Verian, a mere week after the last raid. Verian had the unit repainted to their old scheme, and renamed back to the Ripperjacks, they built themselves up to a regiment, over a battalion of mechs, and 2 battalions of vehicles with limited aerospace support.

Verian accepted numerous contracts for numerous forces. By the end of the invasion the unit fielded 3 mech battalions, 2 reinforced armor battalions, and an aerotech battalion. Not to mention the remnants of numerous destroyed units.

So, now with a large war chest, and over a regiment of troops under his command, Verian had returned to Draken Productions. His friends were shocked, as they had assumed he had died in combat years ago. Adam and Jason had wives, and Adam had a 2 year old son.

Verian told them all that had happened, and said that he had numerous goodies for them to look over, including his personal mech, a clan omnimech, the assault class Masakari. His friends drooled over the omnimechs and other clan goodies, as well as the new inner sphere technologies they also had.

Which is when Verian told them of the millions and millions he had in the unit's war chest. He said, that as a favor from House Kurita for bravely holding the line on Luthien alongside more famous units such as Wolf's Dragoons and the Kell hounds, and for a promise of first pick at new designs, Verian had obtained a large industrial complex near the Davion-Kurita border which consisted of mech and vehicle plants, along with various smaller factories for production of other things.

And thus, Draken Productions as we know it today, was truly born.

Modern Times

Now, The ripperjacks have greatly expanded, augmented heavily with Draken battlemechs and omnimechs (such as the lancer) they serve as a permament defense force for the Draken Confederation (a 4 four world periphery nation bordering the Draconis Combine formed by Verian in the late 3050s).

CEOship of Draken Productions passed onto Verian's nephew, orphaned after his father died in a raid against the clans. He also happens to command a small regiment, under semi-permament Kuritan employ.

Draken Productions produces high quality vehicles and mechs for a variety of duties, cargo transport, fire support, artillery, anti-elemental, anti-infantry, anti-air, and recently, has begun developing ITSMs (infantry tactical support mechs, conceived by Knight Industries CEO Richard Knight)

Currently, Draken Productions sells to a variety of factions, a personal friendship with Victor Davion and Regard ensure a return customer from the Federated Commonwealth, and being married to a distant relative of the Draconis Combine's coordinator and another friendship between Verian and Theodore Kurita also help ensure another customer.

Mercenaries and both major periphery, and deep periphery nations also make up a large amount of Draken Sales. Draken Productions also sells to houses Marik and Liao, although not often. Draken refuses to sell to Steinar, and hold a hatred of them, both for the initial Ripperjack contract and the death of Johnston O'Riley, and also for the Fed-Comm civil war.

Other Companies

Draken Productions also owns several other companies, Periphery Productions, a small mech production firm that went under with the advent of the new technologies just before the clan invasion. Battlefield technologies, they now produce the majority of the weapons and munitions along with conduction R&D for new technologies. Toyama Mining and manufacturing provides Draken Productions with vast amounts of raw ores and structural parts, such as actuators, myomer bundling, armor, and internal structure. Diplan Staryards, a jumpship producing company that went down under soon after opening, Draken has greatly expanded their line of products, as they now produce dropships, VTOLs, satellites, aerospace fighters, and in 3061, a joint venture with House Kurita ended in the completion of the Draken Shipyards in 3065, it produces jumpships, and rumours are currently abound of a warship under construction, although access to the shipyards is closely guarded so the rumours cannot be confirmed.

Production Abilities

Draken Productions makes use of the some of the most advanced manufacturing facilities in the Inner Sphere. Our newer plants built after the Formation of the Draken Confederation make use of modular structuring. The standard Draken mech plant is a large several story circular building. The battlemech assembly lines stick outwards and are locked into massive tracks. This allows the lines to actually be rotated to a new position, allowing additional lines to be added. The track system allows the line to move without it actually having to shut down, thus production can still continue during the lengthy rotation. The standard plant has 4 lines, with the largest one having 8. Each assembly line can produce one mech every two weeks. Construction of the lines are scheduled so that the plants produce one mech every three and a half days.

Our fighters are built in orbital factories, while dropships and jumpships are constructed at the shipyards or at special scaffolds that are setup for one time construction. Vehicles are constructed at factories similiar to the battlemech plants, though without the track system, and less advanced. Our civilian productions are manufactured in various types of factories depending on the product.

BattleMech
Name	Technology	Tonnage	Rules Level	Era	R	#	Posted	Views
Stingray SNRY-1A	Inner Sphere	20T	Introductory	Succession Wars	0	2	3/6/2003	372
Stingray SNRY-5A	Inner Sphere	20T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	0	1	7/28/2003	149
Minuteman MNM-1A	Inner Sphere	35T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	4	1	5/11/2003	195
Blackjack BJ-2DB	Inner Sphere	45T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	0	2	6/7/2003	145
Blackjack BJ-ARDC	Inner Sphere	45T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	0	1	6/8/2003	129
Enforcer ENF-OX	Inner Sphere	50T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	0	1	6/8/2003	176
Sparrow Hawk SXH-1D	Inner Sphere	50T	Introductory	Succession Wars	0	6	9/15/2003	248
Sparrow Hawk SXH-1M	Inner Sphere	50T	Introductory	Succession Wars	0	1	10/7/2003	128
Lancer LNC-OX	Inner Sphere	65T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	0	0	7/25/2003	188
Dark Templar DTMP-5E	Inner Sphere	80T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	0	1	7/12/2003	285
Templar TMP-4E	Inner Sphere	80T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	0	3	3/6/2003	339
Battlemaster BLR-5X	Inner Sphere	85T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	3	1	5/18/2003	291
Marauder II MAD-8R	Inner Sphere	100T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	0	1	8/25/2003	318
Marauder II MAD-NA	Inner Sphere	100T	Tournament Legal	Clan Invasion	0	3	5/19/2003	303