A BattleTech RP?

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Are there other fans of BattleTech and MechWarrior around here? I think an RP set around those games would go well.

For the curious, here are a few links:
(I'm not responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleTech
Source books
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechwarrior
http://mechwarrior.mytopix.com/

 

/me waves frantically, then puts on horn-rimmed glasses fixed with paperclip and tape, and starched, collared shirt with pocket-protector and 30+pens

Ohhh, I for one have to say I had more interest in BT than D&D for quite a while...FA$A's virtual demise and WotC's putting CBT on the back-burner only banked that - I still have more FASA than TSR stuff on hand.

another couple of good source sites for reference material would be:

http://www.chaosmarch.com/ - a site that actually shows the pics of the 'Mechs along with their stats (handy if you remember images better than you remember names, like me :blush: )

and, the big daddy...
http://www.classicbattletech.com/cbt_home.html - the OFFICIAL source - WotC holds the licenses for BT stuff, and 'annointed' FanPro to carry on the 'classic' BattleTech timeline. The really nice thing here, is the old 3025-era House Sourcebooks are downloadable from here, as well as most of the 3050-era Field Manuals...for FREE (since they're all long out-of-print, it's semi-public domain...mind you, the older ones are almost solely text - no illustrations from the original source, but still )

These SB's and FM's should give everyone interested a good starting point to find a 'place' from which to draw rich, deep character.

And this then begs the big question: WHEN are we setting this RP?

2750 and the time of the first Star League, when everything was nice and shiny and happy...well, except on the Periphery where smaller states resists enforced membership in the League...okay, maybe in the Inner Sphere where each member nation plots Byzantine-style against the others as well...yeah, and the big civil war of the Amaris Usurpation looms in the near future...but apart from that?

3025 and just before the Fourth Succession War, when the Star League has shattered and the five powers that remain are proceeding to demolish civilisation rather than let any of the other four gain control of it?

3050 when the Heirs of Kerensky (saviour of that Amaris Ursurpation back in Star League days, before he packed up his SLDF and just LEFT) return as the fanatical honor-bound Clans with the intent of retaking the Inner Sphere to refound the Star League and to the devil with anyone who disagrees? (And ComStar - the 'phone company' of the Inner Sphere - is revealed to be the holder of a huge military force held in secret for the day when an overwhelming force seems likely to dominate the Inner Sphere and extinguish the light of technology and civilisation, and faces off against the Invading Clans and bests them at their own, noble form of combat in a Trial of Possession over Terra herself?)

3058 and the ComStar Schism - where the new theocratic superpower spinters into two factions: the 'orthodox' ComStar who feel the ComGuards should be used to protect humanity, civilisation and technology from those who would destroy much of it to sieze control over the remains; and the Word of Blake, who feel they shoud destroy much of the Sphere to sieze control over the remains?

3060 and the FedCom civil war when - after two of those big states unite in a marriage of their 'royal' families, the kids end up feuding over the pieces, much like Charlemagne's sons did after his death?

3070 and the Word of Blake Jihad where the 'WoBblies' start a galactic assault to take over, which ends up closing out the Classic BattleTech timeline and meld into the Mechwarrior: Dark Age timeline?

Or further ahead in the timeline in the MW: Dark Age stuff?

Anyways; I guess it's obvious that I, for one, can hardly wait to get started!

/me bounces in chair and goes into geek/fanboy overdose, then falls over

 

/hits AE over the head with a powered armor suit

Calm down, son. When? Um, after 3050 a little. The Clans are strong and invading and Victor has wiped out Clan Smoke Jaguar. Maybe a little part of the Davion invasion (Operation: Bulldog)?

I like the Clan tech too much to give it up, so the Clans are definitely in full swing.

 

Hmm, I'm confused but intrigued. The only thing I've done like this was the Front Mission games. We are talking walking tanks, right?

 

Is this like the big war machines in Terminator 2?

 

Kind of like Front Mission, but not quite tanks. Think giant suits of battle armor. I think apathetic empath can describe it better. I'll PM him about it.

Here's a scale picture of my favorite an Atlas with an infantry soldier to show size:
Size comparison of Mech vs. soldier

Another one from a board game for sizing:
Mechs in the yard

My favorite light Mech, the Locust, fighting infantry:
Infantry shooting a Mech

More Mechs guarding supply trucks to a depot:
Babysitting duty

Because it's cute.
Taluntain plays with an Urban Mech

 

So... big robots with guns and stuff blowing the crap out of eachother? Sounds fun when can we join? Are there people controling the robots or AI?

 

You control the robots. You're the pilot inside it.

I haven't hammered plot thingies out yet; what to do and how to do it. I was thinking of playing a mercenary company, just starting out, and getting stuck with this babysitting detail. You know, "Watch this powerplant that doesn't do anything more and really has no connection to any of our bases on this planet" sort of job.

The Mechs would be outfitted already, so you won't need to worry about trying to stuff an autocannon on a Flea (impossible because the Flea doesn't have the room for it). I would list off what it's equipped with and that.

 

Yeah, the arrival of the Clans in 3048 would have a lot of shock and fear of an unknown faction entering the fray - the Inner Sphere had settled down after a few wars and was 'having a nap' at the time.

After the Battle of Tukayyid between ComStar and the invading Clans resulted in a truce in 3052, Clan tech gradually became more common in Inner Sphere through salvage and trade; a Stormcrow wouldn't be unheard of in a 'Spheroid' unit's roster, but it certainly would be rare (and hard to repair )

I personally think by the time Operation Bulldog occurs, the excitement is starting to go downhill - Victor Steiner-Davion takes a large, well-armed force to *EXTERMINATE* Clan Smoke Jaguar for their inhumane methods of warfare (orbital bombardment of a rebelling city, WMD usage banned by the Ares Conventions from before the Clan's Exodus, etc.) and then sweep right back and sieze the Clan homeworlds. As an old friend of mine who preferred House Liao (a small and weak, but cunning house on the border of the biggest and strongest House Davion) would say "Oh...Gee...the FedRat White Hats ride out and vanquish the evil enemy in toto, and we all live happily ever after. My...what...fun."

I'd vote maybe for the start of the Clan Invasion - the Inner Sphere would have some rediscovered technology (Gauss Rifles, ER and Pulse Lasers) and the like from Lostech finds, so the small unit could have some neat toys to play with.

A mercenary unit will have more freedom than a regular-army 'house unit' (can pick and choose their missions and contracts rather than "You go here and do this. Period.") but that includes the freedom to starve; mercs get paid in $$$, and have to deduct pilots' and technicians' salaries, cost of spare parts replenished ammo (which may not be easy to find) pay for room-and-board (which is okay for the human members of the unit, but how much does it cost to rent a 'Mech-sized hangar for six months in a farming town?) and even transportation, either around on the planet assigned to, or interstellar travel when between contracts.

All-in-all, a merc unit would be a better choice for the added freedom and flexibility, but I just wanna make you aware of what you're getting into...

 

Could you maybe list the diffrent kinds of Mechs. Also is this on Earth? And are the Clans aliens?

 

Um, Dalamar? There's about five- to six-HUNDRED 'Mech designs out there that got approved and published by FASA before they closed up! The http://www.chaosmarch.com/ site has some really good listings of mechs. From what K's been saying, we'll probably start off with 'Inner Sphere' 3050- or 3025-era light mechs.

(so surf to the site, click on "Inner Sphere" under 'technical readouts' then click on "Mechs" that appears just below that, then "3025", and then browse through the leftmost column that comes up (the little, fast mechs - we'll save up for the big heavy and assaults in time )

When you click on any of the mech names there, it'll give you a page with an image of the mech and a breakdown of its performance and capabilities - the last table at the bottom shows the WEAPONS which is what we're all champing at the bit about.

I've been PM'ing with Kuemper and our two mechs are set - Command for her and Recon for me, so just a decent firepower, armor and speed mech from the 3025 or 3050 lists to buff up our ranks.


And now for the 'history lesson'

Battletech is set about a thousand years in the future. The year is AD 3050, and homo sapiens sapiens has discovered FTL travel and spread out to an 'Inner Sphere' of about a thousand solar systems. The total population would probably be closing in on the hundred billion mark - not every colonized world is exactly a 'major population center' - who'd wanna live on an ice planet that exports frozen water to their more thirsty neighbours apart from 10-20 million hardy busniesspeople?

Mankind has also brought his vices with him to the stars, including war. There are (roughly) five major interstellar nations or 'Houses' ruling over the Inner Sphere and feuding amongst themselves over territory, technology; the usual excuses nations make to cull back the population. About two hundred years previously, they had been united under a grand Star League of unity and peace, but an ursurper and civil war shattered that 'golden age' and the resulting Succession Wars (each leader of the five Houses believed they should be the next 'First Lord' to rule over the League) and the fighting over the right to rule very nearly destroyed interstellar civilization (factions were willing to destroy the only factory that made interstellar space ships rather than let 'THEM' get hold of it, etc.) and definitely resulted in technological backsliding.

By 3050, the Sphere has managed to calm down some and come into a brief time of 'rediscovery' (unearthing 'Lostech' - lost technology from the Star League era - restored some of the industry, science, medical, education, etc. infrastructure of civilization).

But one thing to note - at the time, the 'winner' of that Star League civil war was General-Of-The-Armies Alexandyr Kerensky. Many thought HE would take the throne, but instead he marshalled his Star League Defense Force - a huge army that rivalled any of the fractious great Houses - and just warped away from known space and the Inner Sphere in what was later called 'The Great Exodus'.

(Essentially Kerensky knew he was a warrior, not a politican or ruler, and also knew the five other Star Lords would never agree on a single ruler and would war over this, so rather than see his SLDF recruited to one faction or another and result in the devastation of the Sphere he decided to 'take the loaded gun out of the child's hands' and deny the 'Successor Lords' access to all these soldiers and weapons.)

There has been much speculation about where he and the SLDF went, and what happened to them...

(oh, and by the way; happy 400th post to me! )