BATTLETECHNOLOGY

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BATTLETECHNOLOGY

JUST THE BASICS

Battlemechs ("mechs" for short) are the war machines of the 31st century. Most are roughly humanoid in shape, ranging from 4 to 15 meters in height, and they can be armed with a variety of weapons. Despite almost mythical tales of their abilities, battlemechs must be piloted by a skilled human warrior. These "mechwarriors" are as revered as the knights of legend. Now that the galaxy is mostly at peace, mechwarriors do battle in the arenas of Solaris City.

Technological progress has suffered due to the fall of the old League Of Planets. Some factions and individuals have managed to keep or even improve on the technology of the ancients. This advanced technology is extraordinarily expensive and difficult to obtain, so many independent mechwarriors make do with vintage or salvaged equipment.

BATTLEMECHS

A battlemech ('mech' for short) is an armored combat vehicle, usually humanoid in shape (though designs with four or more legs are known). Most range from 4 to 15 meters in height and mass between 20 and 100 tons. Battlemechs are heavily armed - a single unit can easily destroy an entire city block. In most situations, the maneuverability, durability and customizability of mechs give them an advantage over other combat vehicles. Conventional infantry only pose a threat in massive numbers.

Seemingly every possible kind of weapon has been mounted on mechs, from railguns, cannons, lasers, particle canons and melee weapons to exotic lostech.. Mechwarriors who can afford it almost always have their weaponry customized to their preferences. A mechwarrior who likes close in brawling, for instance, might have a rifle removed for more armor and a customized blade, while a sniper type might upgrade the gun and add more advanced sensors to help their shots.

An equal number of control schemes, from basic button pushing, to systems which react to their pilot's gestures, to dangerous direct neural interfaces, have been tried. Many variants on the basic humanoid design have also been produced: mechs with four or more legs, flying mechs, burrowing mechs, transforming mechs, the list goes on.

Though thousands of different designs have been tested, one inescapable constant has been found in battlemech design: no matter how much money you pour into it and how much fancy lostech it mounts, there is no such thing as the perfect design for all roles, free of flaws. Rather, battlemech design is a series of carefully balanced tradeoffs, between speed, power, protection, etc. Thus most designs try to maximize efficiency in one or two key areas: close range brawling, sniping, electronic warfare, artillery/missile bombardment, etc.



LOST TECHNOLOGY


To the people of the present day, much of the technology of the League Of Planets era seems so advanced as to be almost miraculous, and their weapons are no exception. The ancients experimented with weaponizing nanotech, force fields and the warping technology used for interstellar transportation. They even genetically engineered cyborg animals for combat and produced true artificially intelligent robots (rather than the crude approximations that exist today).

In the aftermath of the wars that followed the end of the League, much technology was lost and for much that could still be produced, the infrastructure to do so no longer existed. The result has been that the technology of ancient times is rare, valuable and poorly understood. This lost technology's unpredictability and power gives its user an edge.

On the other hand, lost technology ('lostech' for short) is expensive to acquire and maintain, may not behave predictably due to centuries of neglect and a general lack of knowledge on how to use it, and represents a big monetary loss if destroyed. Ultimately, lostech can give an edge but isn't a substitute for a skilled mechwarrior who knows their machine inside and out.

Basically, if you need your character's mech to do something not readily explainable, lostech provides a good way to incorporate it. As long as you're not using it to power-game and it doesn't completely break the setting, players have a lot of leeway in hand-waving what exactly their lostech does. After all, the vast majority of people in the setting don't know how it works either.

If you're having trouble integrating/designing your character's mech/vehicle, please contact the mods and we'd be glad to help.


OTHER BATTLE-TECHNOLOGY


BATTLE ARMOR

Battle armor are powered exoskeleton suits that protect a human fighter, enhancing their strength and allowing them to carry weapons that would be impossibly heavy for an unarmored trooper. In close quarters, battle armor can swarm onto and bring down vehicles and even battlemechs. Battle armor suits respond to the wearer's motions and generally require a high level of physical training. Weapons can be controlled with hand signals or voice commands, but the true strength of battle armor is its agility and versatility. Battle armor combat at close range often resembles a martial arts fight as much as traditional infantry combat. Battle armor can be entered into the Light and Open classes of the games, though entering the latter class is extremely risky.








GROUND VEHICLES

Though often maligned by haughty mechwarriors, versatile ground vehicles fill important roles on the battlefield and can be entered into the games just like battlemechs. Tracked vehicles such as tanks are slow but durable, while hovercraft are light and manueverable yet fragile in combat. Wheeled vehicles, such as cars and jeeps, boast balanced attributes and low cost. Ground vehicles can be mounted with most of the same weapons as battlemechs.

Though rare, battlemechs that can transform into vehicles or incorporate vehicle design aspects (such as a tracked or hover skirt lower half) also exist.





AEROSPACE FIGHTERS
Capable of both atmospheric and space flight and equipped with similar weaponry, fightercraft are an important supplement to battlemechs on the battlefield. However most Solaris arenas aren't physically capable of accomadating them. Far more common are battlemechs, powered armor or vehicles equipped with flight systems. Though such systems provide great advantages in maneuverability, the pilot must sacrifice protection or firepower to keep their vehicle light enough to take off.