.:MechPilots:. Flesh, Steel, Honor and Fire. OOC

[WishBone]

Idea:

Into the far flung future - where the days of Earth are but whispers of a long golden age and mankind has sailed upon that infinite sea. The empire of humanity over a millenia ago - united under a common banner, cause, industry and innovation is but a shadow of its former self. Warring factions, freebooters and deeply seated grudges, percieved slights a mirade of cultures. It wasn't fate that brough you to this hard frontier, all of you were born into houses that bestowed to you the priviledge of owning such advanced and desired war machines. Planets would go to war on a whiff that even a titanic machine of the golden age was left unclaimed, ancient battlefields scoured for the lost artifacts of technology and even today - a large majority cannot be reproduced only parts manufactured and some salvaged from other warmechs. Hence the term - remove the meat, and leave the body.

However - things always have a destiny of getting worse. If it wasn't another titanic war between two empires - or a spat over chartered space between factions. This situation takes the cake and in this dire situation - the money is good, the honor and glory ripe for the taking. But, there's always a catch. A clause to ensure that someone at one end of the table is getting screwed and fucked - no surprise its you. Due to your choices, desperation or a dire need of the work - this pulled you here and the work is endless, plentiful as is the pay. There's risks, loss of life and loss of mechs - which is common in any warzone. Thing is, the enemy we arent facing isnt human and its been surprisingly adaptable and instead of the remove the meat, pilots who have been deemed KIA - later are seen, days or weeks later fighting their friends, family and own allies with suits that while armoured bleed and house teeth, claws and organic projectiles.

After eighty long years they finally did it, capture one of the fallen pilots.
While looking human, they were faster, stronger and much more leathal than expected - even after a sample while they look like us - this only goes skin deep as their makeup from the genetics rounded up are altered, changed to the point where most assessments are leagues ahead. Interrogation resulted only getting one answer, "Surrender and become apart of something more, than you could ever dream." As planets were swarmed, cities infested - the victims of such attacks also became under the sway. This biological warfare, monitored at range revealed that they were able to communicate - co-ordinate as if a collective thought bound them to some unseen purpose. That is, until the MIK opted to glass the planet, turning it into one of the horrific moments in this encroaching war.

The catch is, you sign on. If you die within your tenure, your war gear becomes apart of the war effort.
If you survive six years, you will have earned more than enough to retire mostly because of the specimens you kill. THe addtional perk being you are allowed to be repaired, rearmed and have skilled technicians work upon your war machine without additional cost. You in this scenario - are someone who has watched your house, warband or fellow mech pilots that went into its together only to be torn apart, killed down to the last mech on the field in the most recent encroachment. You survived and thats whats valuable - can you handle the grief of survivors guilt and be enough to connect, set aside differences to ensure the survaval of our species.

You can quit and leave at any time, you just wont get paid and while you can leave - there will be no repairs made.

Which will win more.
Your sanity. Or your ego or your motivation?

Inspiration Music theme:
CANOPUS - A Synthwave Mix for Mechwarriors

I need four players with drive, a commitment to post well and more than just two fucking lines.
Happy to brainstorm. Collaborate.

Character Dossier:
1. Kerra Astra Veliti - Callsign: Princess - Humon
2. Callsign: Hamelin - MisterBrown
3.
4.

Lets see what you got.

 

[MisterBrown]

This premise seems awesome! I have some questions.

- what style of mechs are these? Gundams? Evas? Chromehounds? Lasers? Daka? Warhammer space-magic?
- related: what will combat entail? Down and dirty, on the ground, Evangelion-style? Or floaty, in-space, Gundam-style?

I see the Mechwarrior tag. I have embarrassingly little experience with those games. Is that the general equivalent setting?

 

[WishBone]

After giving this some thought. There would be a mixture of styled mechs like there are for any mixed engagement.
- Mech Warrior Mechs - Big Bois, chunks of hard metal and heavier firepower or long range artillery.
- Eva / Gundam style mechs more so for fast attack, while not as durable as their heavier Mech Warrior themed bretherine rely on the versatility and speed. Akin to a scalple than a sledge hammer.
- Laser yes. Heavy Kinetic Dakka ordinance and missiles and laser beams.
- Yes. However - Lasers will get hot, hot Mechs = Dead Mechs.
- Laser Swords - No. <If you mean blades superheated to cut through material easier - yes.> Mech to Mech melee combat isnt as rare as you think, only, its much more brutal and costly. Further down the line this could be "Discovered" or even rolled out.
- Combat will vary - most Mechs would be used in ground assaults, either on lunar bodies, fast drops and engagements with co-ordination with Infantry, mechanised forces. As a big mech still relies on additional eyes and ears of those with boots on the ground. You're just the extra hired muscle from tech that is harder to reproduce - but also - has the ability to turn a defeat into a victory.

 

[humon]

I think I could get in on this. But why didn't you post it in the group section? I almost overlooked this thread thinking it was for 1-on-1.

I've dabbled in MW lore from time to time but never played the games or read the books, so my knowledge of it is scant. I know heat is a major factor in design, and it's like a tradeoff between low-weight high-heat lasers and low-heat high-weight ballistic weapons. My inclination is to equip both, of course. A central cannon for high DPS and smaller lasers for fast targeting of softer enemies. Missiles as a precious anti-air backup if the lasers fail. My favourite mech fandom is Front Mission, personally.

What is the reason the mechs can't be reproduced? Is it that they use synthetic materials no one knows how to make? Some kind of advanced computing model that completely baffles us? A control/transmission system that models organic nerves more than eletrical wires? All of the above, and more? Hehe, just wondering where the line is drawn between superficial damage that can be repaired and critical damage that can't.

(digging the synthwave by the way, I've had it playing the whole time I was writing this post)

Tell us more about Mech melee... I imagine it involves a lot of ramming and grappling, possibly with hook or claw arms? Or do mechs also have articulated fingers? The small ones do, I'm guessing. I could totally see a squad of 10-foot-tall jetpack Gundams grabbing onto the side of a 50-foot tank mech and climbing up on top of it to try to reach the access hatch and kill the pilot/crew without damaging the rest of the tank.

Not sure if I will play a dude or a chick for this one. Depends on what other players we get, I'll just balance it out, but right now I'm leaning towards a scrappy female who joined alongside her boyfriend, but he's to be counted among that 'rest of the warband' which is now wiped out.

Would all characters have been in the same destroyed war band, or each of us came from a different destroyed unit and we've been brought together to form a new unit out of the remnants of those others?

 

[WishBone]

I think I could get in on this. But why didn't you post it in the group section? I almost overlooked this thread thinking it was for 1-on-1.

Honestly at the time I overlooked where I posted it. I Can ask a Moderator to help move this across :D

I've dabbled in MW lore from time to time but never played the games or read the books, so my knowledge of it is scant. I know heat is a major factor in design, and it's like a tradeoff between low-weight high-heat lasers and low-heat high-weight ballistic weapons. My inclination is to equip both, of course. A central cannon for high DPS and smaller lasers for fast targeting of softer enemies. Missiles as a precious anti-air backup if the lasers fail. My favourite mech fandom is Front Mission, personally.

What is the reason the mechs can't be reproduced? Is it that they use synthetic materials no one knows how to make? Some kind of advanced computing model that completely baffles us? A control/transmission system that models organic nerves more than eletrical wires? All of the above, and more? Hehe, just wondering where the line is drawn between superficial damage that can be repaired and critical damage that can't.

In short - the golden age tech has passed and what war machines remain are mostly from refabricated parts that can be rebuilt. Others are more salvaged and repaired than actually built mostly because the infrastructure and technology to do so is just as rare. Better to replace an arm from a similar model than refabricate the entire limb mostly because not all the materials are needed. Some - if too badly damaged are melted down for armour plating, or picked for parts than can be used. What machine shops you do have can handle the eletrical - rewiring and fitting an arm. The more complicated is when the mech you are in explodes, either tearing apart the engine or reactor. That in all things - you need to find a replacement because that tech rarely exists. And it costs allot to get replacements - even for the smaller and bigger ones.

If you find a relic or a pre golden era site <most are heavily locked down and abandonned> these can house war machines and weapons long lost on forgotten battlefields.
Rare still is anyone dumb enough to try - because the automated defences can make such operations costly.

With weapons and mixed weapon systems comes also risks, temperature, weight, ammunition and risk of ammo detonation. While its great, there are many models of the weapons you use and each has the limited hard points and trade offs. Carry allot of guns, gonna be hella slow and be limited on ammo etc. Same with Lots of lasers - Lots of heat and the old term "Running hot". Superficial could be weapons themselves being torn or blown off, Critical situations, engine, arm, leg and torso. Cockpits can be replaced - pilots however - cant.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mech to Mech melee combat.
Size, momentum and what you are hitting your opponent with are key. Most of the heavier mechs are more just ramming into the other in the hope you knock a mech down before stomping in their cockpit. Others with limited jump jets try the old gamble of death from above, which is metal feet through the cockpit. A risk, because the impact can break the legs of a mech and these walkers without legs are just sitting ducks.

Others who do have more of a prowess for close combat - its a gamble each time you are that close to an opponent - whether the limb itself or the melee weapon you've made can handle the forces on it against another armoured opponent. If you last long enough to even land a hit before they hit you and blast that limb off is another thing. Medium, to more mech "Suit"mechs are able to handle close quarter combat - however - larger mechs adapted to using PDU known as Point Defence Units, to ensure nothing climbed up the armour or tried to melee the cockpit with a point blank shot.

In this case - the story is focusing more so how the four get along enough to create a lance and face the threat that has now started to make serious ground.

Maybe from your last engagement - you just need the money. Or good old vengenance.
Maybe from your last engagement - you lost someone and now they are on the wrong side. You just want to figure out if they are who they are or just a ghost.
Or maybe you just want that sweet pay deal at the end of a six year tour.

(digging the synthwave by the way, I've had it playing the whole time I was writing this post)

Wait till you get to Oscillian Neural Nets :D I just love this mix!
MegaHit - Persistance is just as fun too!

lastly Soul Syphon - I can def see a mech going rogue on base - the alarms blairing and pilots struggling to find a way to get to their mechs before the base is reduced to rubble.

 

[humon]

Oscillian Neural Nets is giving me a Command & Conquer vibe... we are going to have to act... if we want to live in a different world

OK that all makes sense. What are the standard ways that soldiers on foot can fight back against mechs? Do normal anti-tank weapons work? Are drones commonly used? Land mines to disable the legs? I suspect a big part of it comes down to concealment and surprise, while a mech's counter would have to be wide-area destruction, like thermobarics and all that good stuff.

You mentioned houses in the first post. Does that mean we are all some kind of nobility? Like a sci-fi version of the winged hussars?

 

[WishBone]

Houses are in short, who you belonged to - Mechs arent deployed in their thousands in most cases they are the hammer, scalple or a combination to an arm of a force. Even the backbone and due to their rarity are those who own or have fought their way to become able to own such a weapon or relic from an age. Houses can span from a region of space, with lesser houses being bound to a major house. Freelancers - those who have forsaken their house name and ties - then just legged it with the mech to seek fame and fortune - your average individual isnt going to be trained or even know how to pilot a mech and what best they can aspire is mostly either working to become a trained technician or an engineer in certain motorpools. Some spending a good portion just to earn their papers to proove they are as good as they come.

Houses are just one possible origin for your characters. Your family and ancestors owned one or more mechs and was sworn to a larger house - mostly in service with weapons. Other houses are more militaristic and prefer promotion into roles or inherited roles. Actual space faring mercenaries find it a better deal to work and support existing houses without the ties or commitments that come with it. Negotiations mostly over who gets what salvage at the end of each engagement etc. In this case, this threat has started a major boom in business. Worse still are houses that are trying to take on such a thing themselves and end up wiped or worse - assimulated.

 

[MisterBrown]

I'm very down for this. The post-golden-era humanity reminds me of Starsector, and the organic enemies remind me of Knights of Sidonia or Evangelion.

I have an idea for a mech and character. Shall I send it over?

 

[WishBone]

@MisterBrown - Kudos you get sir! And yes send it to me via pm.

 

[WishBone]

Also on a version of terminology: Let me know your thoughts;.

BT-MECHs <Are your heavies, thing battletech, Mech warrior - Oldest, Heaviest and from before the golden age even during the golden age were prized as technological wonders. Hard hitting, suit of sensors - ranging from kinetic to energy based weaponry. While slower on the ground, such units are able to be the back bone of an encroaching force, or the progressive tip of a spearhead assault. WIth layered armour, the BT excells in its verious roles. However - parts and maintenance are a mainstay for such old beasts of war.

AT-MECHs <Are your Gundamn esque style Mechs, still from the golden age just younger and while able to handle most engagements - are harder to maintain and despite the myths relied more so on their armour as no such thing as shielding exists. More so depending on load out, the better option for a scalple than a full hammer. During the fall - resources became considerably hard to procure and even such weapons like this were only located in the many vaults from during the golden age, either lost to time or forgotten.

AB-Mechs.
Current maintstay, franken mechs of mixed hardware either jury rigged together from functional parts. Enough to get the job done, but under the hood a mess and requiring ongoing upkeep less something goes wrong or worse - underload, certain parts of such mechs fail. Still, a well maintained hybrid is the newest after the post war. An experienced pilot might scoff, but a veteran knows sometimes the best of both combined to one might be the magical touch you need.

 

[humon]

Makes sense. So it seems originally the BT-Mechs were created as walking fortresses, but as the technology advanced, they miniaturized with the help of new materials and more efficient reactors and the like. I assume the role that mechs occupy in this world is that they can be deployed onto just about any terrain, so when you need to seize control of some colony world full of mountains and canyons, you drop these beasts onto the surface and they can go anywhere and break any resistance, where ordinary wheeled or tracked vehicles would be stuck without roads or flat ground to drive on, and aircraft can only carry so much ordnance before they become too heavy to fly. I also suspect that the invention of laser weapons made aerial operations a perilous thing, since any laser battery on the ground could just knock your birds out of the sky in an instant. That's why I asked about drones, I could see them being vital to reconnaissance, but also likely to be shot down very quickly as soon as line of sight with the enemy is established. Perhaps in mountainous terrain, drone pilots are taught to keep a low altitude and hug the terrain so they have somewhere to retreat to if lasers start tagging them.

I'm considering a mech layout as follows, let me know if this makes sense or if it wouldn't work:

Spoiler

Lightweight mech, about 20-25 feet tall, in the classic 'bird-like' shape. The center body has a flat top and round underside. Along the flat top is a big cannon, maybe 30mm? I'm thinking something like with the A-10 where it was built to be a gatling gun with wings, but in this case it's field artillery with legs. The cannon is flanked by small auto-targeting laser turrets on the front corners, and anti-air missile pods on the rear corners, so this whole dorsal arrangement is designed to swat down aircraft without the pilot having to think about it too much. The lasers should automatically aim at anything the radar picks up, and the missiles can be used manually if there's fog or anything like that.

The ventral side of the main body contains the cockpit in front, with a retractable armour shell that can be brought up to protect it in a close engagement, leaving only a narrow band at the top where the pilot can still see, or it can be brought down to give the pilot a full view of what's below, at the cost of being more exposed (kind of like a sallet, with the chin-piece being optional). The cockpit window is designed with a bit of curve and warp to it, to refract lasers and reduce the damage they can do to the cockpit interior. Behind the cockpit are two small laser turrets aimed downward, for sweeping the ground of personnel and light vehicles. The rear of the main body has jump jets, and the reactor is buried in the center behind the strongest plating, with heat exhaust vents at the crotch and ass.

Left arm is a high-energy laser for engaging other mechs with. On the topside of the arm are a couple of surface-to-surface anti-tank missiles. On the underside of the arm is an array of short hooks (~3 feet long) that can be used for grabbing onto another mech to jerk it around, or digging into the terrain when climbing a steep slope. I imagine this mech being something like a scout/skirmisher that can crawl up mountains like a bat. The shoulder area might also have a counterweight to balance it out against the heavier right arm. Or I might put in something like a pod for launching and recovering recon drones.

Right arm is built to support a thick steel spike that extends about six feet from the end of the arm (or about half the arm's length). This spike is designed for puncturing cockpits (or limb joints), and it is tipped with a shape-charged high explosive that can pierce armour once per sortie (after that, it has to be just brute force). A shorter secondary spike extends down from the arm about four feet, which can be used for grappling, parrying, climbing, or can be used as a weapon to hammer down into the enemy during a grapple. On the top side of the right arm, a smaller laser is fixed, not as powerful as the one on the left arm, but good enough to pre-detonate any reactive armour before the spike is deployed. On the outside of the right arm, at the shoulder, there is a small shield-like plate that can be made reflective or opaque with a signal from the pilot. So in battle it can be presented forward in the face of laser attacks, but outside of battle it can be made to go dark so it doesn't always give away the mech's position.

So the strategy with this mech is to try to snipe with the main cannon from range if possible, but if drawn into a duel, the right shoulder is presented forward to protect the cockpit while the left arm laser is used to target the enemy. This mech would do circling movements in a clockwise direction to try to get in closer while being mostly evasive. If there's a good opportunity, it can square up and fire the main cannon, otherwise it can try to get close enough to charge in with the spike, either making a direct jet-jump at the cockpit, or doing a grounded ramming move to knock the enemy over, hook it, pin it, roll it to expose the cockpit, and then make a downward strike, sort of like executing a knight with a rondel dagger. If the enemy is too big to grapple, this mech should not engage, but if forced to, then it would have to target the legs first to immobilize it, then look for a safe approach.

 

[WishBone]

Im getting a feel that it looks very muck - or almost like the Viking from Starcraft 2.
Id probably say that this mech would be a classed as a heavy mostly due to the armourments.
As for height and packing that much fire power, it would need to possibly be 12 - 15m.

-- BT Mech Combat:

In short, its hit for hit trade. Not much dexterity as they are just big bricks hitting each other with tremendous firepower.

I could see the AT mechs performing more fast manuvers - akin to that from armoured core but smaller and surgical. While not as heavily armoured, they have their role in the battlefield.
Even soldiers with boots on the ground usually have some exosuits - depending on environments etc.

-- AT Mech, just not the stupid overkill guns and small legs etc.

 

[MisterBrown]

Still working on my writing up my character. You guys every play Chromehounds?

Spoiler

TLDR it was a FromSoft mmo where you put every individual piece on your mech, and went out to do merc stuff with your friends. They had the "spike" weapons too, called piles. I used to run a triple-double, which means three double-barrel naval guns on turtle legs. The cockpit was slapped on sideways in the back, lol.

 

[humon]

From that video it looks like the cockpit is well protected, since his reactor went before he did (parachuting into your own explosion... not a smart eject function, I must say, newer models should allow the eject pod to be steered in the air to get you away from the flames). But does this mean the pilot doesn't directly view the battlefield but is only looking at a projection that the AI put together from dozens of external sensors? So in that case spiking the cockpit is not an option, and a better strategy would be hosing down the sensors and blinding him?

I don't know what they're called, but I was basing my concept off of the classic mechwarrior model (google search calls it a timberwolf or mad cat or something?)

Only with a bigger torso and without those giant missile boxes, since I'd only want to use missiles sparingly, like having maybe six to eight of them in reserve on the aft end that can be shot up into the air, plus two to four on the side of one arm that can be shot in an arc like those Javelin missiles they keep sending to Ukraine.

The cannon need not be a big one, just big enough to fit the size of the box, like something a fighter jet would have. Although I guess that might not then be big enough to break armour. Do they have anything with more punch in a smaller space? Like railguns or anything? I'd want to fill the equivalent role of a Destroyer in sea battles, where I can move fast and sink ships of similar class while staying away from the bigger battleships. Although nowadays destroyers rely on missiles to do their destroying, and I don't want to do that, since missiles are expensive to replace. Hmm...

Poking around in image search I also found the Chupacabra that looks kind of similar to what I had in mind, having that big gun on top. Just add a few hooks to the arms (and more complex shoulder joints) and that's pretty much it. I can't tell what scale it is, and some of the hits in search are saying 60 tons, with the gun being 6mm artillery (why not 80mm?) ...I wonder if that all can be scaled down to something small enough to jump.

 

[WishBone]

Remember, bigger gun = heat. Rail Guns could be more similar to the PPC weapon types or Gauss Cannons - main issue always was with those energy weapons was HEAT. And no one likes riding or fighitng in a mech that runs too hot.

Smaller mech. Less ammo space. less armour and less guns.

 

[humon]

OK I started digging through a BattleTech wiki, and I like the look of this Stalking Spider (middleweight skirmisher with a PPC plus lasers). I dig the tactics notes from the wiki about pairing a striker with a skirmisher, where one of them lays suppressing fire and the other one circles around on the flank.

Give this thing active camo and let it lie in wait in some rubble patch somewhere.

 

[WishBone]

Thing is, imagine something like that on the enemies side.
Terrifying.

 

[MisterBrown]

What's the verdict on things like active camo and energy shields. Never to arise? Or not-yet-invented/recovered?

 

[WishBone]

Energy shields - non existent at this stage and the understanding to maintain them was lost well too long ago. As far as Camo goes - its limited and mostly the types of paint used to reduce signature pick ups. However, due to how hot these mechs run its harder to hide and even doing so - you end up just bottling heat and running the risk of cooking the pilot like an Xmas turkey. Some houses may have invested heavily in this but its also at this stage protypes. With limited to no success. Or a WIP

 

[humon]

Neurohelmet

Neurohelmet

www.sarna.net

Interesting... so these things can actually fry your brain. Meaning a common mafia tactic might be to sabotage someone's helmet while the mech is parked somewhere, just like planting a car bomb. Spies in war time would be doing that a lot, I bet. Gotta be very careful where you park your mech, you never know who's gonna come along and fuck with it.

Myomer drive trains and ferro-fibrous armour also sound like pretty good tech.

One thing that's throwing me off is the range stats on these pulse lasers. I would have expected lasers to have a range of several miles, like you should be able to fry satellites in orbit with them. But maybe it's just that beyond the max range they no longer pack enough energy to damage mech armour? I was hoping to use lasers as an anti-air countermeasure, because otherwise air superiority doctrine would still be the most important factor in winning wars. What good is a lance of mechs if they can just be bombed to shit from high above? With tanks, at least there is the tradeoff that the tank is cheaper to make than the missile that's used to destroy it. Mech forces don't have that luxury of mass production, though.

Can I get a sense of how fast heat dissipates? For example, it says the ER-PPC generates 15 heat per shot, but the spider mech has 11 double-heat sinks, so does that mean 22 points of heat get cleared out every {time unit}, and I can fire at a rate of something like 3 shots over two {time unit}s to stay heat-neutral? Trying to imagine how fast or slow this weapon would be operating, whether I need to spend several seconds dancing around between shots for example.