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[Darrian Wolffe]

This is a single, massive, set of rules changes for this campaign.  It incorporates all of the changelog and FAQ I've gotten, plus the end results of all the PMs and thread-hosted questions thus far, all arranged in a hyper-linked document.  It includes repair, refit, and customization rules so you won't have to refer back to BMR(r) and StratOps constantly.  It also has a step by step procedure for pre-mission, table gameplay, post-mission, and post-contract play.  It also clarifies several things about the campaign system in general, such as giving a closer context to what each contract type actually means, and how the role of Unit CO is defined and functions.  Finally, there's a more expanded Quirk ruleset which I've been discussing with the writers for the last few weeks, including the beta rules for how to add or remove Quirks from a Mech (it's not easy, fair warning).

If you have questions or need clarification, please ask in this thread.

I highly suggest you familiarize yourself with as much of this document as possible.  It goes into effect immediately following the signing of the 1 September contract; we'll play by this ruleset from here on out.  If you have an ongoing customization or repair that was started on New Earth, don't change anything about what you're doing.  Just get it done under however you figured it out the first time.

Finally, I took out most of the explanations about what MekHQ is and does and how it should be set up.  This rules doc is intended as a reference work for you to have on a phone or tablet at the game, and all that stuff isn't important to that.  

__________________________________________________________________

2-1 Changelog
1.) Maximum Acquisitions/month
2.) Clarification between Well-connected/Contact/Good Rep
3.) Changes to XP expenditure: ALMOST ALL XP COSTS ARE CHANGED to reflect the lower rate of XP gain.  SPAs cost less *after* character creation.
4.) Correction of layout issues.
5.) Slightly revised rules for voluntary retirement of PCs
6.) A quick-reference chart showing what each attribute is used for
7.) Beginning at the end of the current contract, each lance will be responsible for their OWN medical staff.  The docs currently assigned to the unit will be distributed randomly among the players.  Trying to work out which doc is seeing which patient (and docs have a limited number of patients) hasn't yet worked, so we're trying it this way.
8.) Added Attribute minimums to SPAs; don't worry, nobody has to modify their PCs
9.) Several small numerical changes; doctors can only see 2 patients at a time, max prisoners are linked to INT now, prisoner ransoms are now actually worthwhile
10.) Retiring non-MechWarrior characters now involve a separation bonus
11.) Clarified the maximum number of Mechs and usable MechWarriors available to each lance

[Darrian Wolffe]

Clarification: Well-connected and Contact bonuses.

Well-connected works like this:  If you have it at any level, you get a +1 to your acquisition roll all the time.  If you have it tied to a location and the unit is nearby the location (ie, if you were within 1 jump of New Avalon), you'd get a PM from me giving you an additional bonus to your acquisition rolls, and/or I roll on a random table to give you the opportunity to buy a Cool Thing.  Thus far, nobody has been in range of their Well-connected.

Additionally, it gives you +$10,000 CB per month, for each level that you have it at, representing behind-the-scenes acquisition and trading of non-warehouse-tracked stuff.


Contact gives a +0 normally - unless you're near the world your contact is on, it doesn't do anything.  If you're near the world where your contact is located, you get a +3 bonus to a single acquisition roll each month you're within the radius of effect.  Your contact can help you land a single Cool Thing, but not a whole DropShip-load of Cool Things.  Thus far, nobody has been in range of their Contact (or they haven't detailed the contact so I can tell one way or the other).


Errata

1) Maximum Acquisition Rolls per month. This is omitted from the document (at a page break) when it was converted to PDF.  You can make a maximum number of acquisition rolls each month equal to 5 times your CHA Stat or 4 times your Willpower stat (whichever end result is higher).  This will be effective as of 1 March, 3045 and will be in effect from this point forward.

2) WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THAT THE PAGES WITH XOTL'S RATS WEREN'T IN LANDSCAPE ORIENTATION AND GOT CUT OFF?!  I'll re-upload the rules PDF this week with this fixed.

[Darrian Wolffe]

Updated to 2-1 ruleset.  See OP for changelog

[Darrian Wolffe]

Clarifications:

1. If a mechwarrior with 2+ classifications retires, which one determines his severance?
The Mechwarrior's original classification.


2. When a lance has reserve pilots, do they get XP from training, best at table and mission MVP?
Yes.  Those are applied to all members of the lance controlled by the player.

[Darrian Wolffe]

v2-2 forthcoming.

Will include above clarifications, revised Mech Quirk section, sections on employing artillery or air support, and a few small tweaks (including ClanTech modifiers and a small but *heavily* recommended penalty for repairing customized units).  Will not go into effect until the beginning of the next contract.  With any luck, this will be the final rules revision for this campaign.

[Timberwolfd]

... and a small but *heavily* recommended penalty for repairing customized units.

Can you consider clan tech bartering for bonuses as well? Basically, something along the lines of "I'll send you 500,000 cbills worth of FF armor in exchange for 500,000 cbills worth of clan pulse lasers." Getting a TN bonus compared to just buying the gear with cash.

[Darrian Wolffe]

Can you consider clan tech bartering for bonuses as well? Basically, something along the lines of "I'll send you 500,000 cbills worth of FF armor in exchange for 500,000 cbills worth of clan pulse lasers." Getting a TN bonus compared to just buying the gear with cash.

Short of using your Contacts or other applicable PC skills, there is absolutely nothing prior to 3060 that will *ever* give a TN bonus on acquiring Clan gear via economics.  If you want Clan gear, you go pull it off the cold dead corpse of a Clan Mech.

After 3060, Logistics Admins can give you a boost, as well as some other stuff that might come into play. 

If that trade were something like "I'll send you 50,000,000 cbills worth of FF armor in exchange for 500,000 cbills worth of clan pulse lasers.", then something might be worked out, as per basically every bit of fluff about ClanTech v Inner Sphere economies.  You guys should expect to see almost all anti-Clan contracts be exclusively Exchange Salvage, too - there's words to the effect of nobody by A* rated merc units got to actually salvage ClanTech in anything but single pieces (like the single Mad Cat piloted by the CO of Camchero's Callebros).

[Timberwolfd]

Out of curiosity, when we do get to clan gear, when and how will pod-ification of IS equipment for mounting in omnis work?

[Darrian Wolffe]

Changelog for v2-2 (PLEASE IGNORE; this list will be updated as I add new sections - this is for my reference)

Inserted Skill Use Table - shows games uses of all PC skills

Force Composition - The Lance has a total BV2 allowance of 5800 BV2 if there are 4 units, and 3200 if there are only two units.

Force Tracking: Medical Care
   Each Lance is responsible for their own medical care.  A Lance may employ any number of Doctors; each Doctor can care for up to 2 patients.  Each day (not counting the day a patient was wounded) they are assigned to a Doctor, the Doctor may make a standard skill check to heal 1 box of Pilot Damage from that person.  A roll of 2 will instead add one box of damage.  Without a doctor’s care, a wounded person will roll 2d6 each *week*, healing one box of damage on a 7+ and taking one additional box of damage on a failure.


XP Awards:
2 XP: Group blind vote for “mission MVP” (includes all members of that Player’s Lance)
2 XP: Group blind vote for “most enjoyable at table” (includes all members of that Player’s Lance)
2 XP: Admins and Doctors gain +2 XP each month on a 3+ on a 1d6 roll

XP Awards:
Add Wingman Classification: 10 XP per Weight Class

XP Expenditures:
All Piloting and Gunnery Skill costs are +/-2 for either Nat. Aptitude or Slow/Fast Learner Traits
Buy a new Skill: 10 XP
   (+/-2 for either Nat. Aptitude or  Slow/Fast Learner Traits)
Increase a skill: (New skill rank x 7)
   (+/-2 per rank for either Nat. Aptitude or Slow/Fast Learner Traits)

SPAs
-Eagle Eyes, Pain Resistance, and Heavy Lifter SPAs changed to 10 XP at all times
-Added Weapon Specialist and Sniper back into the SPA descriptions, as they'd been omitted.

Recruitment
All incoming non-MechWarrior Personnel who are rated Green begin at a TN 9+ (Skill Rank +1), and are not considered Regular until reaching 7+.  For ease of use, the 8+ skill target will not be tracked; save XP until you have enough to reach Skill Rank +3 (which translates to a TN 7+ and therefore Regular rating).



Travel (to Contract Locations and elsewhere)
   1) If the Unit has no DropShips or JumpShips available, the cost to the Unit PER JUMP to travel is $1,056,000 C-Bills.
   2) If the Unit has enough DropShips to transport all units (even as cargo), but no Jumpship available, the cost to the Unit PER JUMP to travel is $600,000 C-Bills.
   3) If the Unit has a JumpShip, but no DropShips available, the cost to the Unit PER JUMP to travel is $436,000 C-Bills.
   4) If the Unit has both enough DropShips to transport all units (even as cargo) and a JumpShip available, the cost to the Unit PER JUMP to travel is $350,000 C-Bills.
   
   All travels costs must be paid UP FRONT, by the Unit (not Lances) prior to beginning travel.  This can necessitate the Unit going into Debt.
   At the end of a successful contract, the amount of C-bills listed under “Transportation Amount” is paid in a lump sum to the Unit, and is not split among the Lances.  At the discretion of the Unit CO, up to one-half of the Transport Amount profit (if any – profit being any C-bills above the amount it took to get the Unit to its current contract location) may be split evenly among the Lances as a Bonus.


Pre-mission Steps:  ...There will always be a Commanding Lance Leader in any battle; usually the Lance which is originally deployed to the mission in the AtB Briefing Tab.  If more than one lance is deployed to the mission within the AtB Briefing Tab, the Lance Leader with the higher Tactics Skill will be the Commanding Lance Leader.

Pre-mission Steps: ....  Reinforcement units can enter the board in a scenario specific way on “Turn 12-(average unit walk speed)-(Reinforcement Lance Leader’s Strategy skill rating).”  If the entire Reinforcement Unit is jump-capable, subtract one additional Turn from this result.

Pre-mission Steps: 3) Determine Battlefield Support.  The Unit CO determines whether he wants to deploy any battlefield support forces owned by the Unit.  These include: vehicle units, aerospace units, artillery support, and combat engineers (which are separate from vehicle units).  Vehicle Units are deployed just as Mech units are (including reinforcement times).  All other Battlefield Support Units will operate under the Battlefield Support rules found on pages 75-79 of The BattleMech Manual.  Each aerospace or engineering asset which costs BSP may be used ONCE in a scenario (ASFs may make 1 attack pass); each artillery asset may be used TWICE.  If the unit elects to use BSP assets, the OPFOR will have 2d6x10% (+1d6: 1: -50%, 2: -20%, 3: -10%, 4: +0%, 5: +10%, 6: +25%) of the Unit’s final Battlefield Support Cost.  In a very limited number of scenarios, OPFOR will receive BSPs to use irrespective of PC BSP expenditure (this will be noted in the scenario ahead of time).
   Example: The Unit CO decides to add Battlefield Support to a scenario.  He has two Heavy ASFs, 2 Combat Engineering Vehicles, and two Sniper Artillery pieces available.  Each ASF can be used once, so he selects a Heavy Bombing and Heavy Air Cover, just in case (totaling 6 BSPs).  Each CEV can be used once, and each may deploy up to 2 Medium or Light-Density Minefields (or a single Heavy Density Minefield); he has each vehicle deploy two Medium-density fields for a total of 4 minefields (and 8 BSPs).  Finally, each artillery piece may fire twice in the scenario, but he doesn’t want the OPFOR to have as many BSP to work with, so he’ll call in only a single strike each (totaling 8 BSP). The Unit has used 22 total BSPs.
   The GM now generates the OPFOR BSP allowance.  He rolls 1d6, getting a result of 4.  He also rolls an extra d6, getting a result of 3.  4x10 = 40%, the second die rolls subtracts 10% from this number.  So the OPFOR will get a total of 30% of the PC’s BSP allowance; or 7 BSPs.  The OPFOR get 1 use of Heavy Air Cover (2) and 1 Strafing Run (5).

Post-Mission Steps: 7) End of Contract: After the final mission of a contract, any remaining money owed the Unit will be paid immediately by the employer.  This includes the total Transportation fee, if the Unit owns their own Transport vessels.

Post-Contract Steps: Retirement: Retiring MechWarriors specifically require either a non-crippled BattleMech of the weight class which they were originally classified in...

Unit Level Information: Unit CO abilities: .  If majority of the Lance Leaders agree, he may use unit funds to make purchases of BattleMech units to be assigned to individual Lances, or temporarily assign damaged Mechs owned by the unit to a player lance for up to 6 months (once/year/lance).

Unit Level Information:  Logistics.  After being assigned to a Lance for at least 1 month, a Veteran or Elite-rated Logistics Admin will give that lance a -1 bonus to all IntroTech equipment availability TNs.  
   After the year 3055, this modifier is changed to: Veteran & Elite give -1 bonus to all IntroTech equipment availability, Elite gives a -1 bonus to TW-tech equipment availability.
   After the year 3060, this modifier is changed to: Veteran & Elite give -1 bonus to all IntroTech and TW-tech equipment availability, Elite gives a -1 bonus to Clan-tech equipment availability.

Unit Level Information:  Administrators, like Vehicle Techs and Doctors, build XP.  Non-Mech Techs gain XP exactly as Mech Techs.  Doctors and Administrators gain 2 XP per month on a 3+ on a 1d6 roll, purchasing new skill rankings in the same manner as Techs.

Unit Level Information: Unit-level Assets
   The Unit may maintaing a certain number of non-BattleMech assets to aid its job in warfighting and other duties.  The specific composition of these assets is up to the Unit CO and Unit members, but assets are capped in number so as to make manageable the burden of running the Unit for the CO player.
   
   Combat Vehicles: Capped at 24, with no more than 12 total additional vehicle crewmen.  Unit Mechanics are capped at 12.  Note that this includes conventional vehicles, VTOLs, and conventional fighters.  
   Support Vehicles: Capped at 12, with no more than 12 total additional vehicle crewmen.  Unit Mechanics also cover these; 6 Mechanics can cover the maintenance of up to 24 total vehicles.  This also includes Mobile HQs, Field Bases, and Mobile Hospitals.  This does NOT include the plethora of personal-scale vehicles (equivalents of Jeeps and Toyota Hiluxes) which are a necessary part of any combat unit.
   AeroSpace Fighters:  Capped at 6, with no more than 2 additional pilots.  Aero Techs are capped at 6.
   Infantry: Capped at 1 total company (4 platoons of up to 28 personnel each), with the option for an additional HQ squad (7 personnel).  Infantry platoons perform their own maintenance, so no additional personnel are authorized.
   BattleMechs: The unit may maintain up to 8 “spare” BattleMechs for reassignment (or sale to Lance Leaders), and up to 4 total Mech Techs.
   DropShips and JumpShips are uncapped.
   WarShips and other unit types not mentioned elsewhere are capped at 0.

   Unit-level assets are repaired by making an immediate acquisition roll for each required component (only a single roll is required for al of a unit’s armor), and then a Tech skill roll as normal.  If both rolls are successful, deduct the cost of the component from the Unit Treasury.   An acquisition roll for the component may be made once per week, and may not be stored, saved offset or made ahead of time.  This means that a component may be attempted to be repaired or replaced once per week.  The intent is to NOT maintain a complete warehouse for all Unit-level assets.  
   The acquisition roll described above is not modified by any number aside from the following: a single Logistics Administrator without a current assignment to a Lance may assist in these rolls as per the normal rules.  
   Unit-level assets may NOT be customized by Unit Techs.
   Unit BattleMechs may be sold to Lance Leaders for their standard sale price.  All proceeds of such a sale are entered into the Unit’s Treasury.


Corrected Mech Quirks Table - brought into line with current version of The BattleMech Manual.

Corrected Mech Quirks Effects - brought into line with current version of The BattleMech Manual.

[Timberwolfd]

Pre-mission Steps: ....  Reinforcement units can enter the board in a scenario specific way on “Turn 12-(average unit walk speed)-(Reinforcement Lance Leader’s Strategy skill rating).”  If the entire Reinforcement Unit is jump-capable, subtract one additional Turn from this result.

This goes into effect after this battle/contract, correct?

[Darrian Wolffe]

Pre-mission Steps: ....  Reinforcement units can enter the board in a scenario specific way on “Turn 12-(average unit walk speed)-(Reinforcement Lance Leader’s Strategy skill rating).”  If the entire Reinforcement Unit is jump-capable, subtract one additional Turn from this result.

This goes into effect after this battle/contract, correct?

...has the v2-2 rules update been released yet?

Did I ask people to ignore the post SPECIFICALLY, (so they wouldn't get confused as to which rules were currently in play)?

[Timberwolfd]

Just confirming.

[Timberwolfd]

Can you add an adjustment to XP requirements for natural aptitude like we have for fast/slow learner? And the combination of both?

[Darrian Wolffe]

Can you add an adjustment to XP requirements for natural aptitude like we have for fast/slow learner? And the combination of both?

That's a fair request.  Yes to the first, no to the second.

[Timberwolfd]

1. How does/will purchasing weapons, equipment, armor, etc. for unit mech/vehicle repairs work?
Is that on my monthly purchases, a separate x number of purchases, or ...?

2. Do any of the make it easier/harder to procure parts trait bonuses apply to the negotiation to sell salvaged Mechs/vehicles?

3. For non-mechwarriors, are we tracking skill by green/regular/veteran/elite, or by skill number? If skill number, will green personnel be able to have TN 8+? Also is the base green rating a skill of 0 or 1 for the purposes of calculating XP requirements?