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[Darrian Wolffe]

Custom Vehicle is a 2-point Trait that does not scale.  You either have it or you do not.  If you have multiple instances of it, they don't stack, and it cannot be sold back like actual, scalable Traits can (such as Wealth or Rank).

Custom Vehicle allows you to customize your Mech OR it allows you to select a single Mech from your faction list.  Not both.  If you want a custom design you must roll randomly for the base chassis.

(I've been asked this three times, so it clearly needs to be stated plainly and in a new thread and not buried in the generator questions or master rules thread.)

Also, as a reminder, at the end of character creation you can burn one (1) point of Edge to reroll one of your Wingman's Mech choices.  This is not reducing a Threshold - this will actually cost your PC one point of Edge from their Edge attribute.  You'll have to raise the actual attribute to get the point of Edge back using normal XP rules.

Finally, assuming your force wins the scenario, you should expect between 2-6 points of XP per game, barring extreme luck in getting kill-shots.

[serrate]

Quick clarification:

Custom Vehicle allows you to customize your Mech OR it allows you to select a single Mech from your faction list.  Not both.  If you want a custom design you must roll randomly for the base chassis.

When you say "customize your mech", you mean customize it pre-campaign, correct? Once the campaign starts, we'll be able to customize our PC mechs using standard repair/maintenance/customization rules for doing so, with all the time limitations and potential hazards involved. Right?

Regarding maintenance/repairs...
1)  Do we know how long we'll have between Merc force creation and traveling to the first contract? This info would have a bearing on how long we can spend on customization rolls, right?
2)  While basic maintenance hours will be done monthly (man-hours: 40+(tonnage/5)), not weekly, what about basic maintenance costs (Battlemech: 75 cbills)? Will this also be monthly?
3)  Normally a merc unit has a warchest and all purchases/expenditures/overhead comes out of that. Since each lance commander will maintain his own warehouse, will the merc unit as a whole still have a warchest, or will all funds be distributed after overhead costs are subtracted? If the merc unit has a warchest, what % will typically be withheld?
4)  You said to use FM: M(r) to determine number/quality of techs. Can you explain how this process works (if we're even able to do so at this point). It looks like determining this is part of the force creation process, and subject to some random rolls/lifepath events sort of stuff.
5)  Determining tech needs: My force will require 209 man-hours/month of just basic maintenance. So, that's slightly more than what 1 tech could provide. But that doesn't account for repairs or customization at all. In your experience, how many more tech hours should we typically account for to cover these needs? Does my own team have to do any customizing, OR if we were spending a month on Outreach, could I have a local mech-shop do the work instead for a simple c-bill cost? Is that a better option, since they'd likely have access to better tools/facilities and veteran technicians?

That should do it for now. 

[Darrian Wolffe]

Quick clarification:

When you say "customize your mech", you mean customize it pre-campaign, correct?

Yes.  Once the campaign starts, you can customize freely and min-max to your black little hearts' content.  It just means that the computer-generated OPFOR will have a higher BV to build the OPFOR against.  Likewise, the computer randomly assigns (IIRC) somewhere between 40 and 80% of the SPA's you have available in each mission, so if the deployed PC unit has 20 SPAs between them, the computer will assign somewhere between 8 and 16 SPAs to OPFOR pilots. 

Oh, and of course you'll have to use the normal customization rules, which means your customization will generally take 10,000-20,000 minutes of work, the Tech assigned to it can't do anything else while doing the customization work, and you make a skill roll at the END of the customization and if you fail, the customization doesn't work and the time (though not components) is completely lost.  If you pass with exactly the TN required, you gain Quirks.  If you pass the TN, then the customization works.  Customization TNs for a regular Tech are (IIRC) roughly a 9+, down to a ~6+ for an Elite Tech.  Customizations should not be treated as a given nor entered into lightly.

Regarding your questions:
1) Nope.  Because it'll be based on which contract you choose.  You're starting on Outreach because it's easy and central, and then if you select a contract in the MoC, then you'll just have to travel out that far.  If you select a contract on New Earth, then you'll have like a 2-week trip.

2) See StratOps

3) Generally speaking from each contract, the unit will receive 5 shares, and each person will receive 1 share for their personal upkeep.  If there's a 10 million CB payment at the end of the contract, and there's 5 PC lances, then each lance will get 1 milllion CB and the unit will get 5 million CB.  If you want something too expensive for you personally to buy, you can ask the unit to subsidize you.  And since you brought it up, salvage goes to the unit and players can ask it be given to them for repair/refit.  If a unit doesn't get assigned to a lance after 6 months, or the whole unit agrees, or you don't have space on the DropShip to carry it, then it'll get sold for CB and the cost split as usual.

4) It's part of force creation and I can't do it until everyone is done with thier forces.

5) Depends on the customizing.  Again, your techs are completely responsible for doing all maintenance, repairs, and customizations for your own lance.  If you are on a planet like Outreach, then you're still responsible for it, but you'll qualify as automatically having access to a Factory facility (approx. -4 to Repair TNs), because there's Mech factories on that planet.  If you're on a planet without a factory, and you have a DropShip, and you're assigned to Defense or Fight status, a DropShip counts as a maintenance facility (approx. -2 to Repair TNs).  And no, you may not sub-contract tech support, because allowing that defeats the entire purpose of having you each run a mini merc unit on your own.  Again, each lance will be guaranteed to have a couple Techs (IIRC, 1 Vet, 1 Reg) at the end of force creation; if the force doesn't get enough of those to start out with, the number of Techs will be increased to ensure that happens.  Beyond that, if you want a better/more Techs, go hire them.  Each month you're on-planet you'll get a list of people who are available for hire, their skill rating, their salary, their hiring bonus, and the minimum contract you're signing them up for before they qualify for retirement rolls (usually 1-5 years).

Side note: as far as I can determine, if you're actually repairing a Mech, the basic maintenance time is automatically done during the repair.  StratOps maintenance occurs EVERY TIME a Mech is deployed or used in a game (unless it's been errata'd, which I should probably go look at).

[serrate]

Ok then, regarding the Custom Vehicle trait combined with the Well Equipped (x) trait:

Since anything you get from Well-Equipped is not available to add to your mech pre-campaign, how does this blend with Custom Vehicle (assuming you're using this for customization and not to pick your ride)?

For instance, both you and Timberwolfd have posted stats for customized rides that include the SLDF gear from Well-Equipped. Is it assumed that every customization that didn't involve a piece of gear from Well-Equipped happened pre-campaign start, and that the mech is sitting in the hangar with no engine at the moment, waiting for campaign start to attempt a customization roll to install the XL (or in the case of Timberwolfd, an XL, ERPPC x2, LB10-X)?

Or will you only be able to make customizations pre-campaign that result in a legal design (assuming there's still the original fusion engine), and then after campaign start, you can attempt to install the XL, and then install other components to take advantage of all those tasty space savings?

Doesn't really affect me, since I picked my ride, all my customizing will be after we start play. But I was curious, since I've seen you both post stats reflecting use of the SLDF gear.

[Darrian Wolffe]

For instance, both you and Timberwolfd have posted stats for customized rides that include the SLDF gear from Well-Equipped.

This is an issue because the rules changed since I created my design:

Rule version 1:  http://forums.cincybattletech.com/index.php?topic=722.msg7270#msg7270

Rule version 2: http://forums.cincybattletech.com/index.php?topic=739.msg7406#msg7406

And I haven't updated my personal design to match the updated rules since my design was the first one completed.

However, the more I think about it, the more I think that Well-equipped should go back to Version 1, because that's a rather pointless restriction.  It's not how it's normally done, but if people generally want it, I think I'd be OK with it.

[agustaaquila]

I would like version 1, although I'll have to go back and retweak my mech again.  Which is fine, as I still haven't posted stats for any of the customization at all.  I just feel that a huge advantage to rolling, which is customizing beforehand, is lost when I will have to take up just as much time as someone who chose their mech to get the sldf gear in their mech.

[serrate]

I would like version 1, although I'll have to go back and retweak my mech again.  Which is fine, as I still haven't posted stats for any of the customization at all.  I just feel that a huge advantage to rolling, which is customizing beforehand, is lost when I will have to take up just as much time as someone who chose their mech to get the sldf gear in their mech.

I don't disagree with this. Most of your customizing is predicated on the weight savings from an XL engine.

[Timberwolfd]

It would probably be better to simply create a new trait for this campaign.

Dealer's Choice (2 pt) - You may select a mech from the appropriate faction and weight table.
Custom Mech (2 pt) - You may customize your mech prior to the onset of play. Equipment from Well-Equipped may (or may not) be included in this customization.

Dealer's Choice and Custom Mech are exclusive and only one may be taken.

Also, let me know which way this resolves. For the record, I would be fine with setting it up as only one or the other.

[Darrian Wolffe]

I'm rolling things back to a certain version 1 of the Well-equipped Trait.

If you have Custom Vehicle and Well-equipped, you may mount ONE piece of equipment from "Well-equipped" into your unit as part of your customization.  If you have more than one level of Well-equipped (remember, each level costs 2 Trait Points), then additional items may not be mounted.

..........

As a second and mostly unrelated issue, I'd like to issue a general caution about mounting XL engines in everything.  Mostly because replacing a single XL engine for a 60-ish ton Mech will usually cost more C-bills than the entire standard payout for a contract.  It remains, of course, your decision (there are some concepts which simply cannot function without XLFEs, such as heavy cavalry designs), but do keep in mind that a great deal of this campaign's mechanics will work on C-bills, and XL engines essentially double the cost of a Mech for a reason.

[Timberwolfd]

So, as an example, I have custom vehicle and well equipped 8. I can customize my ride and select 4 pieces of SLDF tech. I choose an XL engine and 3 other pieces of equipment that are irrelevant to the rest of the example. In my customization, I add the XL engine and ER PPCs and double heat sinks. Because I am fed suns I have access to DHS and ER PPCs so only the engine is required via well equipped. And my mech could start the campaign that way.

Correct?

Clarification: are we changing the roll and customize vs pick and no customization trade off?