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[Riegien]

These are a rough draft and subject to change.  If they sound workable I'll finish them up and sticky them.

Player Character Creation mechanics:
Each player will have 3100 Supply Points to spend on his mechs and pilots.
Each PC is a Green Mechwarrior or Vee Crew with pilot/gunnery scores of 6/5 with 1 Edge.

Unit costs:
Mech:
tonnage x 10 for intro tech
tonnage x 20 for standard tech (note we are using TRO Prototypes standard)
tonnage x 30 for advanced/clan tech

Vee:
tonnage x 7 for intro tech
tonnage x 15 for standard tech (note we are using TRO Prototypes standard)
tonnage x 20 for advanced/clan tech

Battle Armor:
No. of suits x 50

Character Development:
Increase Gunnery:    200
Increase Piloting:     150
Increase Anti-mech: 150
Increase Edge:        100

ATOW Special Ability: Cost from ATOW x2.  Requires meeting any gunnery or piloting skill requirements.  Other requirements are waived.

Each player may have a minimum of 2 units, and a maximum of 4 units.
Battle armor may only be purchased if you also have purchased a separate unit with an infantry bay.  You may only take enough Battle Armor to fill that bay.

BV Limits:
Unit BV limit: 1700 BV2 each (book value, before pilot)
Player BV limit: 3200 BV2 (book value, before pilot)

edit: added BV limit, max and min unit numbers, max player BV limit, tweaked Vee costs, added battlearmor

[Riegien]

Character Generation Example:

Dan has 3100 points to spend to create his PCs.  He decides he wants to have a Prefect with a decent pilot to start with, and will sort out what to do with his other points from there.

The Prefect is a 75 ton mech, and is at the standard rules level.  This means it cost 20 x tonnage, so 20 x 75 = 1500 SP. 
He wants a pilot that is a fairly decent shot, and is fine with an average piloting score.  His pilot starts at piloting and gunnery 6/5.  He spends 200 SP to improve gunnery and 150 SP to improve his piloting by one each to 5/4.  Deciding to improve his gunnery a bit more, he spends another 200 points to end up at piloting gunnery 5/3.
Dan has spent a total of 2050 points, and has 1050 points to spend on other units. 

He decides that he also wants an Urbanmech IIC to inspire fear in his enemies. The Urbie IIC is a clan mech, and so costs tonnage x 30 points.  30 x 30 is 900, leaving 150 SP to improve the pilot.  Dan decides that the pilot is better lucky than good, and spends 100 SP to give the pilot another point of edge, bringing his maximum edge score to 2.  The pilot remains a green 6/5 pilot and gunner.  The remaining 50 points may be saved for improving thing skills or buying SPAs in the future (or spent if something costs 50 points).

[Black Omega]

If I may pose a question.....  I understand clan tech.  What is your definition of standard vs. advanced [I.S.] tech?  Is standard equal to 3025? 2750? 3050?  At what point does tech become advanced?
Thanks.

[Riegien]

Standard is Total Warfare + what is 'tournament level' in TRO Prototypes(Blazers, silver bullet gauss, ER flamers, etc).  Advanced is using things from TacOps, like XPulse lasers or partial wings.  The TROs label the Tech Base of the mechs, usually something like Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Advanced).

[Darrian Wolffe]

I HIGHLY recommend a minimum and maximum number of units each player can control.  Also, possibly a second cross-referenced balancing factor in addition to Supply Points (BV2 is what I'd recommend, with CBills a second option).  The reason is that Supply Points, used without minimum number of units and a secondary limiting factor, reward finding the single unit with the highest BV for a given tonnage (there's no SP difference between a Kraken and a Dire Wolf A, for example).

[Riegien]

Updated rules.

[Death or Glory]

Here's my Force:

Thug THG-10E (800 Supply Points, 1501 BV)
Gunnery 3, Piloting 4, Edge 2 MechWarrior (800 Supply Points)
Guillotine GLT-4L (700 Supply Points, 1400 BV)
Gunnery 3, Piloting 4, Edge 2 MechWarrior (800 Supply Points)

[Riegien]

Um, thanks!  So you know, the rules are not finalized, this was more for discussion of the rules than character creation.  It will probably be a couple weeks till I've pinned down everything.

[Hat]

Have we even decided yet whose playing in which of the 2 campaigns?  I thought Steve was still planning to run one as well and we'd be alternating months.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[serrate]

Have we even decided yet whose playing in which of the 2 campaigns?  I thought Steve was still planning to run one as well and we'd be alternating months.

Good question, I made some comments in the other thread.

[Hat]

Ok, I'm guessing this is in the section of the rules you're still working on, but wanted to bring it up here anyway.  How does force improvement work?  Is the intended long term cap units totaling no more than 3200 BV?  Can you upgrade individual units through salvage (replace SHS with DHS for example)?

Part of the reason to know this up front is that if the BV is considered static as a max, many folks may start out in the best equipment available or alternatively tank the initial equipment but get awesome pilots as the gear may be easier to upgrade and pilots aren't factored into max force deployment.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Riegien]

I'm still sorting through those rules, yes.  At the moment the problem is exactly the things you point out.

I've got a couple options that I'm trying to decide between for how in game logistics works.  The two extremes are full group control (communal WP to spend on everything either voted on or controlled by one person) and no logistics (gm control), and I'm not sure where the best compromise is to be had there while maintaining the sort of flow that I want the campaign to have.

There will be a max BV for a player that is higher than the current values since part of the goal of this campaign is to play with all the fancy new toys, though I'm not sure where it will be.  Probably in the 4-4.5k range.  I need to run a whole bunch of unit pairings to see where things average out and what the outliers look like first.

There will not be any ability to build customized 'mechs, unless I switch over to ATOW like the current campaign instead of WP.  There will be no upgrading gear with salvage with the possible exception of you being able to prove to me that you can build an existing canon refit with everything on the table.  That way lies AccounTech.

[Hat]

Ok, not sure which campaign I'll end up in, but thought I'd play some with the rules to see how it would work.  I'm posting here in case seeing some options helps Travis with sorting out rules.

Options:
1. Wolverine 6M, Pilot: 5, Gunnery: 3, Edge: 2; Wolverine 6M Pilot: 5, Gunnery: 4; Warrior Attack Helicopter, Pilot: 5, Gunnery: 4 (X2)
2. Wolverine 7K, Pilot: 5, Gunnery: 4; Axman 3S, Pilot: 5, Gunnery: 4
3. Grasshopper 5N, Pilot: 5, Gunnery 4; Axman 3S, Pilot: 3, Gunnery: 4, Edge: 2
4. Wolverine 7M, Pilot: 3, Gunnery: 4, Jumping Jack; Grasshopper 5N, Pilot: 5, Gunnery: 4
5. Axman 1N, Pilot: 2, Gunnery: 4, Melee Specialist, Melee Master, Edge 2; Warrior Attack Helicopter, Pilot: 6, Gunnery: 4
6. Axman 1N, Pilot: 6, Gunnery: 5, Edge 2; Heavy LRM Carrier, Pilot: 6, Gunnery: 5; Hephaesus Scout Tank - Primary, Pilot: 6, Gunnery: 5, Squad of Battle Armor (4 Tons worth), Pilot: 6, Gunnery 5

Of those, the least balanced was #5 and was more an exercise in could I make a good brawler.  Most likely I'd go with option 4.  The Thug / Guilotine combo was really nice as well. 

As written at least, the rules seem to push towards 2 units rather than 3 or 4.  That's fine if intended.  Given the DA motif, mixed unit seemed to make more sense but I didn't feel like there was enough value there.  Crews are as expensive as mech pilots to buy and more expensive to heal or replace.  Option 6 was my attempt at mixed unit types and while I could fit them by BV and Support Points, all the pilots and crews were base.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Death or Glory]

The Thug / Guilotine combo was really nice as well.

If you're doing the two big mechs with decent pilots approach, then I think the Awesome -8Q and Grasshopper -5N is pretty much the best available pairing.  I ultimately went with the Thug -10E and Guillotine -4L because I like those two minis better and I like the fluff of two beat up and downgraded SLDF mechs managing to find their way out to the Periphery March.

[Hat]

The Wolverine and Grasshopper have been probably my two most favorite mechs since Battletech started.  Taking the 2N version lets me play at range but potent up close if needed.  Firepower-wise the others are better choices, but from a fun perspective, those two are definitely me.  One nice thing in going back through the TROs is that the 3050 mentions the grasshoppers still being made in limited #s.  Maybe someday a decent upgrade will get made of it.  Just converting the SHS to DHS gives a lot of room to play.  Here's the dream for the Grasshopper:

Endosteel frame, Std Engine
Move: 4/6[8]/4
15 DHS
Armor: 216 (missing 1 point of CT armor from back)

Equipment
ER PPC
ER LL
3 ML
ECM Suite
Active Probe

And if I figured out how to shave off 29 points, it'd even fit within starting character guidelines! (minus those pesky, no custom mech rules.    )

With a sweep of his...

Hat