The Mercs of Yore and Now

[stjobe]

So, a thread I was participating in had me searching a bit too long for a post I made a ways back but can't find again, and it also turned up another related post, so I thought I'd do myself a favour and put all this stuff into one post where I can find it again. It's all about that elusive "3025 feeling", and how BattleTech has changed over the years.

For instance, back in the eighties when BattleTech was first released, the atmosphere of the BT universe was very much more one of feudal lords warring it out with centuries-old, poorly understood, and poorly maintained war machines than it is today - even when re-enacting the same battles. The back story of the whole universe has been retconned to allow more 'Mechs, more understanding of technology, and less feudalism. Whether this is good or bad is of course a matter of preference, but at the very least I hope to convey some of the feeling to those who weren't there, so they can better understand us oldies when we yet again wax poetic about "back in the day..."

As our examples, we're going to look at data for the (arguably) most famous mercenary companies the Inner Sphere has seen - or at least the three first published sourcebooks - Tales of the Black Widow Company, The Fox's Teeth: Exploits of McKinnon's Raiders, and Cranston Snord's Irregulars. I think we're going to find some differences between then and now.

To start off then, Natasha Kerensky's Black Widow Company. Now remember, when this book came out in 1985, these guys were just really cool mercenarys with a mysterious background - the whole Clan thing was still five years down the road, and as Jordan himself has said, there was no master plan behind the Clans. Anyway, cool mercs, not Clans, okay? Here's their line-up:

Command Lance
Warhammer: No damage
Marauder: No damage
Crusader: +2 heat due to battle damage
Griffin: Max 3 points jump, each hex jumped adds 2 pts of heat. PPC misfires but adds heat on 10+ (roll before to-hit)

Fire Lance
Archer: No damage
Archer: -1 heat sinks, 10 armour max on left leg due to internal structure damage.
Wasp: No damage
Stinger: 5/8 movement due to glitch in leg actuators.

Recon Lance
Rifleman: No damage
Phoenix Hawk: Left arm medium laser generates 4 heat on 10+ (roll before to-hit)
Stinger: Right Torso max 4 armour due to internal structure damage
Stinger: No damage

That's:
6 heavy 'Mechs, 4 with no damage, 2 with permanent damage
2 medium 'Mechs, both with permanent damage
4 light 'Mechs, 2 with damage, 2 without

So out of the 12 'Mechs in the company, fully half have permanent damage. These are top-tier mercenaries in 3025, if they can't keep their 'Mechs fighting, who can?

Perhaps McKinnon's Raiders will fare better:

Command Lance
Marauder: AC/5 jam on 9+, cannot be repaired in combat (roll before to-hit)
Warhammer: Right arm PPC non-functional, +5 heat/turn due to reactor shielding damage
Phoenix Hawk: No damage
Stinger: Gyro damage necessitates Piloting roll on every move, 4 points max armour on head due to internal structure damage

Medium Lance
Crusader: No damage
Phoenix Hawk: 10 armour max on left leg
Rifleman: 5 armour max on right arm, -1 heat sink
Wasp: No damage

Recon Lance
Griffin: -2 heat sinks, -1 jump jet, LRM-10 fires 60 degrees off-target on 9+ (roll before to-hit)
Shadow Hawk: 9 armour max on right torso
Wasp: on 8+, -2 heat sinks for the turn
Stinger: on 9+, Medium laser does 3 damage for 5 heat

There's some spectacular damage here, but let's summarise first:
4 heavy 'Mechs, only one with no permanent damage
4 medium 'Mechs, only one with no permanent damage
4 light 'Mechs, only one with no permanent damage

So out of the 12 'Mechs this elite fighting force has on its roster, only three are in perfect fighting order, the remaining nine suffer from some sort of permanent damage. Like this one, for instance, which serves as the number two 'Mech in the Command Lance:

"The Warhammer's Right Arm PPC was knocked out by a heavy laser hit during the Battle of Tancredi II more than a year ago. The 'Mech's fusion power plant shielding was damaged during the same engagement, and it now produces an extra 5 points of heat per turn"

That's not something any of us would put on the field is it? Half a Warhammer, missing a PPC for more than a year! And still, it's the number two 'Mech of the Fox's Teeth.

All right then, let's see what those wacky Cranston Snord Irregulars fields for their battles:

Command Lance
Archer: No damage
Warhammer: No damage
Thunderbolt: SRM-2 missing
Wolverine: 7 points max armour on left torso

Attack Lance
Rifleman: No damage
Hybrid Rifleman: No damage
Shadow Hawk: No damage
Crusader: -1 heat sink

Recon Lance
Phoenix Hawk: 15 points max on center torso
Wasp: Gyro damage means extra piloting skill from physical attacks
Wasp: No damage
Locust: No damage

That's better, only five out of the twelve with permanent damage:
6 heavy 'Mechs, two with permanent damage
3 medium 'Mechs, two with permanent damage
3 lights, one with permanent damage

Interestingly enough, the Thunderbolt from the Command Lance is missing its SRM-2 because it's too badly damaged to repair:

"due to battle damage, it has lost the SRM-2 launch device on its right torso. The Techs cannot repair such extensive damage."

I guess these things weren't plug-and-play back then?

Also, the second Rifleman in the Attack Lance is a proper FrankenMech:

"It has the right and center torso of a Rifleman, the right arm of a Warhammer, and the left arm and left torso from a specially refitted Archer. Shorty did a lot of painstaking work on the 'Mech however, and it functions perfectly."

Not a single penalty for cobbling together that monstrosity, but his Lance buddy's Crusader still has to drop into battle with a malfunctioning heat sink. Go figure.

So that was the first point I wanted to make; that 'Mechs in bad repair really should be much, much more common than they are - we aren't even able to drop a 'Mech with armour damage because it's automatically repaired for us. And who among us would drop a Warhammer missing a PPC and generating 50 points of extra heat?

Now to the second point: Weight distribution. Notice how many assaults are in that regiment of 'Mechs outlined up there? How many assault 'Mechs are included in the roster of the three most well-known mercenary companies in 3025? Yes, that's right - none. Not a single one.

To be fair, that might be related to the fact that there were no assault 'Mechs published until TRO:3025 a year later - it's true; the first year or two with BattleTech the BattleMaster was the heaviest 'Mech we could field (which incidentally also lends a bit more weight so to speak to the Thunderbolt's lore as a "planetary assault 'Mech" and "one of the heaviest 'Mechs that could be produced at the time") - but still; the lineups are what they are which leads me into my third point: No amount of retconning 'Mech availabilty or production capacity or whatever is going to change those lineups; the Black Widow rides a Warhammer and that's that. The most prestigious mercenaries in the Inner Sphere had to field half-repaired 'Mechs and that's that. That's how the universe worked when we first learned about it and when we fell in love with it, which may be at least one explanation as to why we are sometimes so resistant to change.

Another, of course, is that we are just stubborn old men

 

[Gauntlet]

And who among us would drop a Warhammer missing a PPC and generating 50 points of extra heat?

Those of us that have no choice?

Thanks for the rundown (again) stjobe and I really wish we could get a version (maybe BATTLETECH 2.0) that has the option to get some of those types of permanent battle damage. Because to me, that's what would tell a good merc unit story.

Imagine if you played Career Mode and at the end of it you could look over your roster of mech and see the personality your mechs have developed due to the battle damage they've sustained. You could think about to when you lost that AC/20, or PPC and have a grand ol' time reminiscing about the battles.

To me, it's a bit immersion breaking to know that not only is all my ammo and armor going to be repaired but all the damaged components are going to be replaced with nothing by money and time. (Note: This is way better than the previous instant replacement of damaged components don't get me wrong). That and the shear amount of mechs we can eventually acquire. It's one of the reasons I went with 6 pieces of a mech to create a whole one as well as having to outfit them.

Anyway, thanks again for reposting the info, sorry I went off a bit . . .

 

[stjobe]

Those of us that have no choice?

Aye, and that's basically the gist of the whole post; if we, a minor unknown merc company in the backwaters of the Periphery can field nothing but 'Mechs in perfect fighting condition, why couldn't those three very famous outfits?

Some of it might of course be down to "fun" - i.e. it might be judged as less fun having to drop with pre-existing battle damage (especially as the opfor at most has ramshackle 'Mechs at 25? 50?% armour IIRC). So it would have to be something that could happen to the opfor as well, and there's where I guess things get messy. What value do you put on a heavy missing one of its primary armaments? How do you balance that? Tricky questions that makes me grateful I'm not a game dev.

But the main reason is that the universe has changed over the span of three decades; it has been retconned into a setting where had the three sourcebooks I took the data from been published today, their drop lances would look entirely different (lots of assaults) and there would be no permanent battle damage.

And that is the point, really. I fell in love with a universe where things oftentimes couldn't be fixed (hence the permanent battle damage on even high-profile unit's machines), and now that the universe has been changed, of course things can get fixed, and the lineups in the thread opener looks ridiculous and stupid.

It creates a dissonance between the universe as I learned it and the universe that is portrayed to me in the game, and while I do love this game very much and by the same token love BattleTech very much no matter what interpretation of the universe is the current one (well, within limits; no sentient aliens and there has to be 'Mechs), it still makes me miss that very rugged, bleak, and harsh universe I first fell in love with.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Excellent points, Good @stjobe. :bow:

BattleMechs have an enduring identity when they carry the scars of past Battles with them as they move forward. I recall Mike’s comments during BATTLETECH’s path to Launch, that both MechWarriors and Mechs would have Quirks/Tags that they would gain or lose during the course of the BATTLETECH Solo-Campaign. I know that for Mechs, that had to be set aside and onto the cutting room floor. But the idea had a lot of merit in my opinion and would have gone a ways toward realizing what you describe above if those Quirks/Tags decrimented Armor / Internal Structure or rendered Hardpoints non-Operational, or better yet gave Maluses of one kind or another to Weapons and Equipment.

Such a feature (and it would be a resource and time intensive feature at that!) would go a long way to establishing the enduring identity of a particular BattleMech. And it would elevate the game experience of gaining a newly constructed BattleMech... one that has not yet gained any Battle Streamers, Scars or Marks of Distinction. :bow:

I too have treasured copies of the Foxes Teeth, Black Widow Company and Cranston Snord’s Irregulars. To your above tally of early BattleMechs of Yore, I now add Sorenson’s Sabers (as published in 1987.) This most esteemed and audacious Company in the Dragon’s Fifth Sword of Light fielded the following Lances:

Command
Marauder-3R: Misfire-prone AC5, missing 6 Heat Sinks
Warhammer-6R: no damage
Samaurai-25: no damage (at the time, a Module Unique Aerospace Fighter)
Phoenix Hawk-K: no damage (at the time, a Module Unique Mech Variant)

Medium Lance
Longbow-0W: Missing 2 Heat Sinks and Left Arm only supports 9 points of Armor, rather than the original 13 points of Armor.
Rifleman-3N: the Rear Center Torso no longer supports any Armor. The Right Arm Large Laser produces 3 extra points of Heat, the Upper Left Arm Actuator has been destroyed, adding a +1 To-Hit to al Left Arm weapons.
Trebuchet-7K: no damage (at the time, a Module Unique Mech Variant)
Stinger-3R: no damage

Pursuit Lance
Archer-2K: no damage (at the time, a Module Unique Variant)
Phoenix Hawk LAM-HK2: Defective Gyro adds +3 to all Piloting Skill Rolls, if Gyro takes any damage treat it as immediately destroyed
Hermès III (ost)-4K: no Damage (at the time, a Module Unique Mech Variant)
Wasp-1K: no damage (at the time, a Module Unique Mech Variant)


I especially like the inclusion of an Aerospace a Fighter and LAM on the rolls of Sorenson’s Sabers. This Air Element truly gave Sorenson’s and his MechWarriors an edge on the Battlefield. :bow:

Near as I can tell from reviewing the 1987 Sorenson’s Sabers and the original TRO 3025 / Sarna.net references, the above listed “Module Unique” Mechs and Aerospace Fighter first appeared in Sorenson’s Sabers and from there ascended to Lore. As examples, Sorenson’s Sabers is listed as the citation for the Samuria Aerospace Fighter. The Archer-2K, while described in the original TRO, it is not identified as a “2K.” If I understand correctly it isn’t given its “2K” designation until Sorenson’s Sabers in 1987. The Hermès III Is similarly attributed to Sorenson’s Sabers as its reference.

I really, really like that FASA introduced so many new things to the franchise in its early BattleTech Unit product line. : )

 

[stjobe]

Excellent points, Good @stjobe. :bow:

BattleMechs have an enduring identity when they carry the scars of past Battles with them as they move forward. I recall Mike’s comments during BATTLETECH’s path to Launch, that both MechWarriors and Mechs would have Quirks/Tags that they would gain or lose during the course of the BATTLETECH Solo-Campaign. I know that for Mechs, that had to be set aside and onto the cutting room floor. But the idea had a lot of merit in my opinion and would have gone a ways toward realizing what you describe above if those Quirks/Tags decrimented Armor / Internal Structure or rendered Hardpoints non-Operational, or better yet gave Maluses of one kind or another to Weapons and Equipment.

Such a feature (and it would be a resource and time intensive feature at that!) would go a long way to establishing the enduring identity of a particular BattleMech. And it would elevate the game experience of gaining a newly constructed BattleMech... one that has not yet gained any Battle Streamers, Scars or Marks of Distinction. :bow:

I remember the Quirks discussion well, and I personally had high hopes for it; it would have been something unique to HBS BATTLETECH, as far as I know no other interpretation of the BattleTech universe except for TT has incorporated 'Mech Quirks.

As you say, it had to be cut, and I have nothing but respect for the devs having to make the hard choices between what gets in the release game and what does not, so I'm not going to second-guess them on that. I'll just join you in saying it would have made for an even greater level of immersion if not only your MechWarriors grew with you, but your 'Mechs as well.

Come to think of it, we might actually have a tiny remnant of that in the event system, where there's an event where a MechWarrior tries to improve a weapon; sometimes they make it a plus-weapon, sometimes they destroy it. Now imagine if that went for heat sinks, actuators, gyros, and other systems as well!

Because while all of the battle-damage listed in the above posts are negative "quirks", let's not forget that there are positive quirks as well; Strategic Operations, pp.193-199 lists 31 positive and 34 negative design quirks, here are some samples:

Easy to Pilot (2 Points)
Training units such as the Chameleon and Crockett are designed to be easier for a rookie MechWarrior or pilot to operate.
A MechWarrior or pilot with a Piloting Skill of more than 3 will receive a –1 target number modifier for Piloting Skill rolls that they have to make as a result of damage or underlying terrain. More skilled MechWarriors receive no benefit.

Hyper-Extending Actuators (1 Point)
The arm actuators of ‘Mechs like the Quickdraw can bend much further than normal. Even if it has lower arm and/or hand actuators, it can still flip arms to fire all arm-mounted weapons into its rear arc.

Improved Cooling Jacket (1 Point)
One weapon’s design incorporates a highly effective cooling jacket. When fired, this weapon generates 1 point less heat (never less than 1 point). More than one weapon or bay can have this positive quirk, but the cost for each must be paid.

Bad Reputation (1 Point)
While perfectly sound, this unit type has acquired an unwarranted bad reputation (for example the Blackjack during the Succession Wars). As a result, it is worth only half the normal resale value. Note that when buying this unit, players still must pay the normal value.

Cooling System Flaws (3 Points)
A flaw in the design can result in the ’Mech generating excess heat. Whenever the ’Mech executes or receives a physical attack, falls, or is forced to make a Piloting Skill roll because it received 20 points or more damage, roll 2D6. On a result of 10+ the ’Mech will generate 5 points more heat each turn for the rest of the battle.

Cramped Cockpit (2 Points)
Poorly designed, the cockpit of unit’s like the Wolverine and Stinger are very cramped. The unit is considered to have the equivalent of a Small Cockpit (see p. 211, TM), but it takes up the same weight and critical slots as a standard one.​

Furthermore, p.173 has a list of "permanent" battle damage that can be sustained on a failed maintenance roll ("permanent" because it can be repaired as per normal repair rules in that book):

That table to me looks very much like the kind of damage the 'Mechs in the early Scenario Books has as permanent battle damage.

 

[Unruly Marmite]

I wouldn't mind seeing this as an optional toggle in the game settings. Call it "Battle Scarred" or something and then tie it to a chance every time internal damage is taken, maybe? With a range of effects like losing Hardpoints, Critical slots being taken up, armour being capped as in the scenario examples. Only, I'd like to be able to remove it. Maybe tie that to the Reputation system, have it so that at Honoured or Allied levels you can go to a major world and, for a sizeable fee, have the battle damage removed. And then perhaps you could extend this to salvaged mechs, so that they come with battle damage. That could be very interesting, especially as it might make some mechs that are normally a no-brainer less appealing if they have severe battle damage.

I suspect that all of that would be quite a lot of work to implement, though. Still, I can dream.

 

[Yeach]

well the first thing you do while playing campaign is keep mechs fully to stock loadout...

 

[stjobe]

I wouldn't mind seeing this as an optional toggle in the game settings. Call it "Battle Scarred" or something and then tie it to a chance every time internal damage is taken, maybe? With a range of effects like losing Hardpoints, Critical slots being taken up, armour being capped as in the scenario examples. Only, I'd like to be able to remove it. Maybe tie that to the Reputation system, have it so that at Honoured or Allied levels you can go to a major world and, for a sizeable fee, have the battle damage removed. And then perhaps you could extend this to salvaged mechs, so that they come with battle damage. That could be very interesting, especially as it might make some mechs that are normally a no-brainer less appealing if they have severe battle damage.

I suspect that all of that would be quite a lot of work to implement, though. Still, I can dream.

Oh yes, it would be a massive undertaking, not only from a design and coding standpoint, but also from a balancing standpoint. Does the lance picker know to assign a lower value to an Awesome with only two functioning PPCs? How much "battle value" reduction does a faulty gyro entail? And so on.

I'm not expecting HBS to implement any of these things (although as you say, one can dream ), this thread is more of a way for me to gather up my thoughts about how BT has changed since I first fell in love with it in the mid-80s, and to give examples of those changes to people that might have come into the game later.

well the first thing you do while playing campaign is keep mechs fully to stock loadout...

Unless things break, yes. Generally you'd keep things stock, but it's by no means a hard rule. In the lineups in the posts above there are plenty of customised 'Mechs, and even one pure FrankenMech: "It has the right and center torso of a Rifleman, the right arm of a Warhammer, and the left arm and left torso from a specially refitted Archer. Shorty did a lot of painstaking work on the 'Mech however, and it functions perfectly."

 

[Democratus]

I often think of this when people talk about making a game that "reflects lore".

Which lore? Written when?

BattleTech is old enough now that "the lore" is a meaningless statement. Different authors and decades have provided different views of the Inner Sphere.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

“The Lore” is not meaningless to me.

“The Lore,” like “History” represents a body of work that scholars can argue over debate and perceive through which ever prism of pre-conceived notions and institutional bias they bring with them.

That to me is far, FAR from meaningless.

All it means is that one must have a grasp of the context as well as knowledge of the comment being made about “The Lore.”

For me, scholarly debate and discussion on BattleTech Lore can be just as satisfying as a BATTLETECH match itself.

But yes, I know opinions differ. :bow:

 

[Democratus]

I was speaking in terms of having a video game reflect "the lore".

It's meaningless because there is no one lore (*the lore*) that a game must adhere to.

The current BATTLETECH game reflects "a lore". It isn't a universe where there is one jump ship for every hundred planets or a world where even repairing the internal structure of a mech is beyond most wealthy companies. It isn't a lore where the periphery is so destitute that a single heavy mech would be a remarkable sighting in a battle.

It isn't really possible to have One True Lore (tm) - which is what I meant by "the lore".

 

[Prussian Havoc]

...It isn't really possible to have One True Lore (tm) - which is what I meant by "the lore".

Lore is a body of work that is at times contradictory, has many progenitors (Jordan, Authors, CGL, and now Jordan again), and can be drawn upon heavily or touched upon lightly. But no it is not prescriptive in nature, on this I belive we agreed. :bow:

 

[stjobe]

Oh yes. As I stated in the OP, this is my take on the early (mid-to-late-80's) BattleTech lore. It isn't even the current lore, since that has been retconned/refined/reworked many times since then.

 

[Sigil]

The call sign for one of my pilots is DroidWarrior.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

The call sign for one of my pilots is DroidWarrior.

Mr Lucas would like to have a word with you, Sir. :bow:

 

[Havamal]

Mr Lucas would like to have a word with you, Sir. :bow:

Hmm. That's something an organic meatbag would say...

 

[Sigil]

I will add the Grey Death Legion, which came out right in between Cranston Snord's Irregulars and the aforementioned Sorenson's Sabres.

Command Lance
Shadow Hawk: No damage
Marauder: Additional armor added to the rotation ring between the chassis and leg as well as the linkage to the dorsal autocannon (no stats provided)

Locust: Missing two heat sinks and only 8 points of armor on the center torso
Shadow Hawk: left arm 12 points of armor, left torso 10 points of armor

Wolverine: Medium laser fails on a 2d6 roll of 10+ generating +3 heat, Fusion Engine generates +1 heat, Center torso has 18 armor
Rifleman: Left arm large laser generates +3 heat on a 2d6 roll of 10+, fails to fire on a roll of 12

Fire Lance
Warhammer: Left leg damage actuators, moves 3/5 and left leg has only 12 points of armor
Archer: No damage
Crusader: No damage
Shadow Hawk: No damage

Recon Lance
Griffin: Left arm has 8 points of armor, left torso 15 points of armor
Phoenix Hawk: Left arm medium laser generates +3 heat on 2d6 roll of 10+, left arm machine gun feed jams on 2d6 roll of 9+, left arm has only 9 points of armor
Stinger: Engine generates +3 heat, Gyro causes a +1 penalty on all piloting skill rolls and right arm has only 2 points of armor
Stinger: Right torso has 3 points of armor, center torso has 5 points of armor, jump jet movement reduced to 2 on a 2d6 roll of 9+

As with all the previous examples, only 12 out of 14, or roughly 86% of all the unit's BattleMechs sport existing damage.

 

[The Shadowhawke]

Mixed feelings on this one.

To a certain degree it's fun; this original material where mechs with permanent damage and flaws are practically characters as the warriors that pilot them. Some of the good, third-party material such as Battletechnology also introduced very specific scenarios and fiction.

Fun for purists of the age, but also something of a PITA to enact, even in small scale, lance on lance, scenarios on tabletop.

And we're basically seeing the same thing with THIS game , given a certain amount of superior grade or upgraded equipment, such as the + and ++ weaponry. Same thing; this is all much easier to simulate now, because back in the day on our tabletops, we had to make those extra rolls, or account for non-standard rolls because of dysfunctional weapons and systems.

Whereas, and this is one of the beauties of importing the game into the computer is that the program just insty-crunches all those numbers from special weapons and battlefield conditions.

In this case we're just facing standard equipment that has the potential to be upgraded, and the permanent damage is just reflected in a simple outline form, mostly through the undermaintained pirate mechs and vehicles that have Swiss cheese for armor.

What about instituting the idea that a salvaged mech has a random chance of being a clunker? Perhaps previous damage has permanently flawed the computers, and the mech has reduced range or to-hit penalties. Maybe you finally scored enough salvage to field an Atlas, but there's a permanent flaw in the ammunition linkage, that means the AC20, or whatever big gun you install there, has a reflected, permanent modifier to damage, because the shells don't always feed at the proper speed.

We'd have mechs that are big a character as Dekker or Glitch...might be interesting, at least as an optional setting.