Battletech: Official OOC/Signup Thread

Alright, this one's for you new guys (Oviraptor @samuraikoku obligatory tags). All mechwarriors (those who pilot battlemechs obviously) wear at least two critical pieces of gear, a Neurohelmet:

www.sarna.net/wiki/Neurohelmet

And a cooling vest:

www.sarna.net/wiki/Cooling_vest


Bear in mind here that the suit is far more rare than the vest across the Inner Sphere, so unless somebody's either got a ton of money or is from one of the elite units that just hands the damn things out, odds are they're not going to have a cooling suit.... so Ovi just for future reference your character probably would have a vest... really probably

Anyway, each is critical for a different reason. The Neurohelmet essentially "Taps" into the mechwarrior's sense of balance and feeds the sensation of the mech back to the pilot, helping them retain their sence of balance 10 plus meters in the air. They also incorpoate a degree of HMD functionality, but don't bombard the mechwarrior with raw data.

As far as the cooling vest... well that one's simple. Battlemechs get hot. All that waste heat starts creeping into the cockpit at some point. Ergo, mechs have cooling gear to keep the pilot from passing out or having heat stroke in the form of a cooling vest. Essentially it jacks into a plug, a pump on the belt of the vest gets the fluid going, and hopefully the mechwarrior stays cool.

It's okay, should have specified that earlier. The suit does make more sense but it's kinda pricey for new guys.

Maybe the vest and the helmet were graduation gifts from mom and dad for Fitzpatrick?

No big, do what you want with that.

I'm just saying character bio-wise, maybe that's where he got his neurohelmet and vest

Alright, since we're getting into the "meat and potatoes" of Battletech, here's how combat is going to be handled. (obligatory tagging: SaintB @samuraikoku anonymousjerk Oviraptor

Each unit on the field gets three phases of action. They are:

Initiative
Movement
Attacking
Utility.

Initiative means who gets to move and attack first in scenarios.
This is sort of nebulous but essentially things like who has better sensors, or who has a terrain advantage, or other things such as time of day and use of thermal optics or NV vs searchlights, essentially it's who sees who first and therefore gets the advantage.


Movement is obvious but it will break down into two categories.
Momentum-based movement means the person or vehicle in question is physically moving in some direction, be it forwards or backwards or turning.
Positional movement means something on an object or person is moved, be it a tank twisting the turret or a mech moving an arm or torso twisting.
The difference is that momentum movement will cost movement points (MP), while positional movement is free. How you indicate movement basically boils down to calling how fast in KPH the unit in question is going or how high the mech is jumping (Note: one jump jet equals 30 meters of jumping distance), along with what positional-based motions are being undertaken.

Attacking is any offensive action undertaken by any unit.
Attacks generally fall into three categories: Indirect/lock-on attacks, direct fire (energy or ballistic), and physical attacks. These happen at different ranges and under different circumstances. How you will resolve this is first stating what you're attacking with and from what range (Distances will be noted and displayed, don't worry). Consult the wiki for minimum and maximum ranges in hexes (more on that later).

Utility is a more broad category where everything that doesn't fit into motion or attacking counts.
Things like turning sensors on and off, grouping weapons, shutting down or restarting a battlemech, turning certain kinds of gear like Beagle Active Probes or searchlights on and off, etc. etc.

Now, things like initiative, weapon damage, and other incidents will be resolved by the traditional two six-sided die. Essentially the higher the number the worse off you are, and visa-versa of course. Of course, simple die rolls alone won't be the only things that factor in. Difficulty of terrain, disposition of target, any enhancements or limiatations etc. etc. For example, movement has an effect on die rolls:

Target Movement
Crouching: 0
Standing: -1
Walking: +1
Running: +2
Jumping: +3
Skidding: +1

As well as unit movement

Crouching: -1
Standing: 0
Walking: +1
Running: +2
Jumping: +1
Skidding: +2

There are more rules of course, but we're trying to keep it simple for now so I'll post more as needed.

Finally, we have to codify all of this and make it easy to read, so let's go with a similar system we used for the TAG feature. What needs to be articulated is movement, attacking, and utility, so for example:

I'm in a Quickdraw and walking/cruise speed. At (X) distance my sensors pick up a Catapult. I accelerate from 43kph to 86.4 kph, twist the torso, lock and fire my LRM-10, then turn hard left while communicating to my lance leader that I've made contact with the Catapult and engaging.

So my breakdown of action would look like this:
Movement: Accelerate from 43kph to 86.4kph, twist torso towards Catapult, turn hard left.
Attack: Fire LRM 10 at (x) distance.
Utility: Comms to Lance Leader about engaging Catapult.

The Catapult meanwhile picked up my Quickdraw after my sensors spy him first, throws his mech into reverse at 32.4 kph while turning to face my mech and locks on and fires with both LRM-15's. So the Catapult's actions would look like this:
Movement: Reverse at 32.4 kph, face Quickdraw
Attack: Fire 2x LRM 15's at Quickdraw
Utility None

So with that out of the way, the dice would come out:
My base roll is 5, but I add 1 for the Catapult walking and 2 for my mech running, so that's 8 total
The catapult's base roll is 11, but has to add 1 for the walking and 2 for my running, so that's 14.

Essentially, he missed pretty badly and I nailed him with an LRM-10, meaning I get to asses how much damage he takes. First I have to figure out how many of my missiles hit which means another die roll:
I roll a 4, which means out of my 10 missiles, which means 4 out of my 10 missiles hit... cheap FWL crap... and subsequent rolls mean that two missiles hit the left torso, one hit the left arm, and one hit the left leg.... cheap FWL crap... which means the Catapult takes 2 damage to the left torso, one to the left arm and one to the left leg.

Now I said (X) distance earlier because... well that's a bit of a sticking point. There are two ways of marking distance in KPH for Battletech. There's the standard 'Tech way which is every hex is 30 square KM, and the Battleforce way which is 180 square KM. I'm inclined to go with the battleforce translation of distance but that might grate some people the wrong way, so a little input wouldn't go amiss here. IE under classic btech the max distance of a Medium Laser is 270 meters while under 'Force it's 1620 meters.

Clear as mud? I'll get more comprehensive tables and post them on the OP in time, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what we're going for.

I've been busy posting elsewhere, I'll begin reading now.

Sounds about right to me.

By request of our OP. Our Unit Insignia:


And combat patch:


And an example of parade livery:

They have uncolored versions of the concept art for mechwarrior online at mwomercs.com somewhere, I made that like 2 years ago or more

i think they have the Pheonix Hawk, but not with a sword there is no melee combat in the game.

The logo is great indeed!

But remember, I'm a Draconis Combine guy, Katanas are better than guns. :trollface:

Kerensky had the right idea.

I don't know about his son, but Aleksandr Kerensky was a guy my character would have been proud to serve under.

... Which means he'd be a Clan guy rather than a Kuritan.

Alright, so a couple of things here.

First one's to anonymousjerk . I don't mind that you're clarifying things like the meaning of certain radio transmission vernacular and formations. In fact I appreciate it, saves me the trouble. In fact if you'd be willing to write up a lance formation cheat sheet and post it here I'd be highly thankful.
That being said... please do all of that here in the OOC thread. IC is for IC and I'd like to keep it that way.

Secondly, this one concerns everyone so obligatory "hey look here" tagging: SaintB @samuraikoku Oviraptor

Since we're getting into actual shooting (well actual simulated shooting anyway), there's something I'd like to address. In Battletech hex distances correlate roughly to actual meters like everything else. For example, the most common weapon, the medium laser, has a range envelope that looks like this:
Min: None
Short: 1-3
Medium: 4-6
Long: 7-9

Now there are two ways of translating that to meters. One is the Classic way, where a hex equals 30 meters. Ergo the ranges would look like this:

30-90 meters
120-180 meters
210-270 meters

There's an alternative however: Battleforce ranges, where a hex translates to 180 meters. In that scheme the ranges look like this:

180-540 meters
720-1080 meters
1260-1620 meters

So my question is this: Which set of ranges looks more palatable to everyone? There's legitimate reasons tech and narration wise to use both so this is a gameplay and in-universe mechanic we're talking about here.

Well you've non-officially committed so I guess you count

Okay... why? Not that I'm judgmental or anything but I'd like a bit more clarity beyond "my gut". Like I said there's perfectly legit gameplay and world-building reasons for both so feel free to share.