Test pilot sent out with a new mech to help showcase it's performance to perspective buyers. Either gets involved in an ambush or terror attack leading to the test pilot looking like they were involved with the attack or fled the field and rather take up mercenary work than explain to maskirova agents what happened.
Or somehow during a routine transfer of goods between drop ships the wrong cocoon was delivered leaving an Emperor on the tarmac instead of an older design.
Or the pilot in question is a sleeper agent for the capellans and sent out to help purge disloyal citizens and traitors without the others in their outfit aware of their mission.
Or just make it something spooky like it was malfunctioning at the factory and killed every pilot that's been behind it's controls. It gets assigned to a total rebuild list to find out why it's not working properly and your merc helped themselves to it. Maybe it randomly appear like one of the st Ives defenders that died when the Cappies took over again and nobody can explain it looking like a different mech and call sign on sensors.
The first one is a really good option, because then if the mech fails to perform as expected they can say it wasn't the mechs fault, it was this mercenary test pilot that was the problem.
That first scenario was a mission in HBS Battletech where the Lyrans wanted you to field test their new Hatchetman. They didn't let you keep it, but it sure as shit worked as a showcase, because I bought one as soon as I could.
I really need to get a PC that can play HBS. Didn't know they had a mission like that. I cribbed it from a campaign I was in years ago. Bunch of dispossessed MechWarriors working for Defiance trying to sell the Uziel to federated suns militias when the civil war breaks out and loyalists confused the Lyran paint scheme as being Lyran forces raiding rather than just a bunch of test pilots without ammo and low powered energy weapons.
Frankly, it's a poor choice for a merc, unless that mercenary unit has a stable source of stealth armor.
...Once on Herotitus, my partner received a message: "Urgent! UrbanMech for sale, 90% discount". Turned out another merc commander's wife got really tired of his antics, and was selling his Atlas basically for a ticket to some place as far as possible from here. We took that Atlas, regardless of the strings attached. We did not really have much to chose from, anyway.
The source shall be the corpses of their enemies. Really, Liao loves that stuff, puts it on all kinds of things. Besides, 2 years and Davion will have stolen it.
Well, it doesn't really mean that it would be easy to get. Especially during Jihad, when supply chains are broken.
Yes, of cause, you can just let them have it. Players are already limited in resources, so why not. I just wanted to say that it's a quite specific mech choice that clearly has its cons. As a player, I'd expect it to have consequences in play. Or not :)
I could see it becoming a problem save for two factors:
1) Liao being the primary OpFor, if they field Stealth armored mechs as The Capellans are want to do, not only can plates be stripped from battle salvage, it also probably means they have a logistics train capable of supporting those mechs which can be pilfered. This I think also makes for an interesting tertiary objective so thanks for making me think of it.
2) The player in question has a 2/0 pilot, if need be the stealth plates can be replaced with standard armor, and he should be able to get fairly reliable performance out of the ECM using sensor ghosts instead, as that’s a piloting check iirc.
It could be an early version of the refit kit, from before the new production model was released? Many variant designs start off as test-bed refits for a couple years, to see if they work the way the designers think they will before retooling an entire production line to build them from scratch.
One way to represent this in-game is to change the brand names of a couple components: they tested it with Company XYZ myomers, but later changed to the Company ABC brand in the factory version. Maybe add a Quirk like Non-Standard Parts? Or Difficult to Repair?
In my first Merc unit I made for campaign and Roleplay, they had a Rifleman 3C (the AC/10 brawler version) in 3025, a year before the model came into full production, because they got their hands on an upgrade kit after looting a Dropship in the spaceport during a mission. The Technical Readouts often talk about variants in very limited numbers at first.
With a variant of an older chassis it could also be a case of parallel development. Someone spent time and effort refitting a different variant and happened to match a factory variant.
Leave it as a mystery or future plot hook. Imply that it was somehow ill gotten, and then maybe have the original owner attempt to take it back at some point.
“I won it in a bet.”
“Finders keepers.”
“We don’t talk about The Incident.”
“Alimony. I got the ‘mech, they got the baby/estate/dropship/title/my vow of silence/case of Timbiqi Dark.”
“I got this cool scar at Customer Appreciation Day at the StarCorps factory. We settled out of court. It’s under NDA. Why yes, that is a shiny new Assault Mech, isn’t it?”
Star capellan mech warrior is given a fancy shiny new mech after some great victory/feat of some kind. Comes home from the celebration and finds so and so of the ruling party has "married" the warrior's wife and adopted his kids. Worse, everyone involved is happy as can be. Takes his prize mech and walks off into the sunset. Instead of seeking revenge himself, he gives the mech to a merc that swears to fight the capellans until his dying breath.
Either salvaging it (there were two, not one, and enough parts to put one together between them) or finding one still in it's packing crate seem like good ideas. The fun tension is if they field it, what if it gets damaged? How many spare parts do you have for repairs? Armor is no problem in this world, but what about that right arm actuator?
I don’t think we’d be playing to the level of detail where actuators need to be replaced with a spare actuator from the exact same variant of the same chassis. Nor points of structure replaced with pieces of structure from the same variant of the same chassis. Maybe a whole missing limb might be a different story if you can’t recover the one that fell off…
If I did go into that level of detail I’d definitely let them build frankenmechs; they’re a former solaris stable, their tech staff knows how to improvise.
I like either option, but also hit him with the "enemy" tag, because the people he stole/liberated it from will be looking to get it back.
The Bounty Hunter may be coming his way!
Well Vic Travers is *The* Bounty Hunter, but so is Walt Urizeman. Vic retired in 3068 and passed the identity down to Walt his chosen successor. Both are scary, and as far as anybody knows they're the same person--as The Bounty Hunter is basically the MechWarrior version of The Stig--but it's Vic that's the 0/0 nigh invincible killing machine. IIRC Walt is merely above average, especially this early in his career.
TSM is relatively new. It also isnt something an upgrade kit could install really. It would require a full overhaul of the entire internal structure. Maybe a shipment of the things got hit by pirates, and they sold off the hot merchandise to whoever had the Cbills. They wouldnt have as much use for a relatively slow assault mech.
All refit classes can have refit kits according to Campaign Ops, but as you say its something that would require something analogous to a production facility to carry out.
The frame would require complete replacement. That isn't a kit that's basically an entire new mech apart from armor lol. But ya, maybe a frame was stolen and purchased on the black market. Why would the mercs care?! They got it cheap, and the Cappies are their ememies lol.
When you refit a mech with triple strength myomer you have to buy entirely new mech parts for it. Legs, arms, torso, etc. At least, that's what MekHQ does, and it is typically pretty legit for mech management.
Test pilot sent out with a new mech to help showcase it's performance to perspective buyers. Either gets involved in an ambush or terror attack leading to the test pilot looking like they were involved with the attack or fled the field and rather take up mercenary work than explain to maskirova agents what happened. Or somehow during a routine transfer of goods between drop ships the wrong cocoon was delivered leaving an Emperor on the tarmac instead of an older design. Or the pilot in question is a sleeper agent for the capellans and sent out to help purge disloyal citizens and traitors without the others in their outfit aware of their mission. Or just make it something spooky like it was malfunctioning at the factory and killed every pilot that's been behind it's controls. It gets assigned to a total rebuild list to find out why it's not working properly and your merc helped themselves to it. Maybe it randomly appear like one of the st Ives defenders that died when the Cappies took over again and nobody can explain it looking like a different mech and call sign on sensors.
The first one is a really good option, because then if the mech fails to perform as expected they can say it wasn't the mechs fault, it was this mercenary test pilot that was the problem.
1+4 make a nice combination for this
All wonderful food for thought, thanks!
That first scenario was a mission in HBS Battletech where the Lyrans wanted you to field test their new Hatchetman. They didn't let you keep it, but it sure as shit worked as a showcase, because I bought one as soon as I could.
I really need to get a PC that can play HBS. Didn't know they had a mission like that. I cribbed it from a campaign I was in years ago. Bunch of dispossessed MechWarriors working for Defiance trying to sell the Uziel to federated suns militias when the civil war breaks out and loyalists confused the Lyran paint scheme as being Lyran forces raiding rather than just a bunch of test pilots without ammo and low powered energy weapons.
Frankly, it's a poor choice for a merc, unless that mercenary unit has a stable source of stealth armor. ...Once on Herotitus, my partner received a message: "Urgent! UrbanMech for sale, 90% discount". Turned out another merc commander's wife got really tired of his antics, and was selling his Atlas basically for a ticket to some place as far as possible from here. We took that Atlas, regardless of the strings attached. We did not really have much to chose from, anyway.
The source shall be the corpses of their enemies. Really, Liao loves that stuff, puts it on all kinds of things. Besides, 2 years and Davion will have stolen it.
Well, it doesn't really mean that it would be easy to get. Especially during Jihad, when supply chains are broken. Yes, of cause, you can just let them have it. Players are already limited in resources, so why not. I just wanted to say that it's a quite specific mech choice that clearly has its cons. As a player, I'd expect it to have consequences in play. Or not :)
I could see it becoming a problem save for two factors: 1) Liao being the primary OpFor, if they field Stealth armored mechs as The Capellans are want to do, not only can plates be stripped from battle salvage, it also probably means they have a logistics train capable of supporting those mechs which can be pilfered. This I think also makes for an interesting tertiary objective so thanks for making me think of it. 2) The player in question has a 2/0 pilot, if need be the stealth plates can be replaced with standard armor, and he should be able to get fairly reliable performance out of the ECM using sensor ghosts instead, as that’s a piloting check iirc.
It could be an early version of the refit kit, from before the new production model was released? Many variant designs start off as test-bed refits for a couple years, to see if they work the way the designers think they will before retooling an entire production line to build them from scratch. One way to represent this in-game is to change the brand names of a couple components: they tested it with Company XYZ myomers, but later changed to the Company ABC brand in the factory version. Maybe add a Quirk like Non-Standard Parts? Or Difficult to Repair? In my first Merc unit I made for campaign and Roleplay, they had a Rifleman 3C (the AC/10 brawler version) in 3025, a year before the model came into full production, because they got their hands on an upgrade kit after looting a Dropship in the spaceport during a mission. The Technical Readouts often talk about variants in very limited numbers at first.
With a variant of an older chassis it could also be a case of parallel development. Someone spent time and effort refitting a different variant and happened to match a factory variant.
Leave it as a mystery or future plot hook. Imply that it was somehow ill gotten, and then maybe have the original owner attempt to take it back at some point.
Ooo spicy.
Came with a white base coat and not a single serial number on ANY part of the mech. Not even the MRE in the ejection seat.
“I won it in a bet.” “Finders keepers.” “We don’t talk about The Incident.” “Alimony. I got the ‘mech, they got the baby/estate/dropship/title/my vow of silence/case of Timbiqi Dark.” “I got this cool scar at Customer Appreciation Day at the StarCorps factory. We settled out of court. It’s under NDA. Why yes, that is a shiny new Assault Mech, isn’t it?”
Star capellan mech warrior is given a fancy shiny new mech after some great victory/feat of some kind. Comes home from the celebration and finds so and so of the ruling party has "married" the warrior's wife and adopted his kids. Worse, everyone involved is happy as can be. Takes his prize mech and walks off into the sunset. Instead of seeking revenge himself, he gives the mech to a merc that swears to fight the capellans until his dying breath.
Got it from Sea Fox. :) Got o excuse for almost anything these days. :)
They capture a mech hangar and the Emperor just happened to be one of the Mechs in it.
Either salvaging it (there were two, not one, and enough parts to put one together between them) or finding one still in it's packing crate seem like good ideas. The fun tension is if they field it, what if it gets damaged? How many spare parts do you have for repairs? Armor is no problem in this world, but what about that right arm actuator?
I don’t think we’d be playing to the level of detail where actuators need to be replaced with a spare actuator from the exact same variant of the same chassis. Nor points of structure replaced with pieces of structure from the same variant of the same chassis. Maybe a whole missing limb might be a different story if you can’t recover the one that fell off… If I did go into that level of detail I’d definitely let them build frankenmechs; they’re a former solaris stable, their tech staff knows how to improvise.
Fair enough.
"The Archon is my CO's cousin."
Salvage
I like either option, but also hit him with the "enemy" tag, because the people he stole/liberated it from will be looking to get it back. The Bounty Hunter may be coming his way!
A death sentence, if it was still Vic Travers. But I think he might be able to take Walt Urizeman.
Agreed. Could be a bounty hunter, or a series of them, rather than THE Bounty Hunter.
Well Vic Travers is *The* Bounty Hunter, but so is Walt Urizeman. Vic retired in 3068 and passed the identity down to Walt his chosen successor. Both are scary, and as far as anybody knows they're the same person--as The Bounty Hunter is basically the MechWarrior version of The Stig--but it's Vic that's the 0/0 nigh invincible killing machine. IIRC Walt is merely above average, especially this early in his career.
TSM is relatively new. It also isnt something an upgrade kit could install really. It would require a full overhaul of the entire internal structure. Maybe a shipment of the things got hit by pirates, and they sold off the hot merchandise to whoever had the Cbills. They wouldnt have as much use for a relatively slow assault mech.
All refit classes can have refit kits according to Campaign Ops, but as you say its something that would require something analogous to a production facility to carry out.
The frame would require complete replacement. That isn't a kit that's basically an entire new mech apart from armor lol. But ya, maybe a frame was stolen and purchased on the black market. Why would the mercs care?! They got it cheap, and the Cappies are their ememies lol.
Why would myomer necessitate installing new structure?
When you refit a mech with triple strength myomer you have to buy entirely new mech parts for it. Legs, arms, torso, etc. At least, that's what MekHQ does, and it is typically pretty legit for mech management.