

Project Phoenix 'mech Distribution
#1
Posted 11 September 2013 - 09:12 PM
Thanks for any answers, and I apologize if this is the wrong place to post this.
#2
Posted 11 September 2013 - 10:22 PM
When things go belly up people tend to stash things, so it's no surprise in the 3050's when people were still finding star league era bunkers
#3
Posted 11 September 2013 - 10:47 PM
Edited by Jin Ma, 11 September 2013 - 10:48 PM.
#4
Posted 11 September 2013 - 11:33 PM
Several factions still have factories dedicated to building these mechs, and after 4 sucession wars and a free market, the designs have gotten around.
#5
Posted 12 September 2013 - 02:42 AM
By the 3040s the grey death legion mercenary company had found and distributed a data core they found that contained designs for star league era technology letting nations begin to mass produce mechs again for the first time in centuries, prior to that mech factories were considered prolific if they built 6 mechs a year making battlemechs hard to come by so you salvaged any mech you could no matter which nation built it.
#6
Posted 12 September 2013 - 02:55 AM
#7
Posted 12 September 2013 - 11:33 AM
However, mechs that are not destroyed outright are always salvaged and put back into the field.
As for the Project Phoenix specifically none of them are actually rare. Quite the opposite. The PP mechs are from the original 18 mechs in the oldest versions of the board game, back when they were using artwork from Japanese Anime. All of the old designs are supposed to be some of the most common mechs in the game, even going so far as the Star League Defense Force (SLDF) had entire regiments of just a single design like the Marauder. In fact there is still a mercenary unit called Miller's Marauders that just run that mech only.
Later the game added their own designs, most created by the artist Duane Loose like the Dragon (Kurita), and Victor (Davion). Those tend to be the faction specific ones.
But again, BattleTech lore is such that mechs that can be repaired, are repaired and always put back in the field with their new owner.
Also, half of the military in the Inner Sphere are mercenaries, and they come from whatever nation they started in.
The last bit of trivia is that the Inner Sphere is using the Feudal system of government. The mechs you see on the field are usually owned by their pilot, who also owns a big tract of land somewhere. The taxes from that land pay for everything, and his mech belongs to him and is passed down to his children.
There are state owned mechs as well, but they're not as common. Usually a big noble will own several as backups in case he loses his.
Towards 3050 the feudal and private ownership system started going away as the Helm Memory Core information make mech production a lot easier.
#8
Posted 12 September 2013 - 11:51 AM
1. Locust. Super, super common. Dozens of factories exist, and even little border nations in the Periphery outside the Inner Sphere build them.
2. Shadow Hawk. Very common. Considered the most versatile design for a medium mech.
3. Wolverine. Common, but mostly noted for the fact House Marik in the Free Worlds League having the most, then Davion. House Liao has the fewest due to having their factory captured during the succession wars to Davion, although Davion also lost their own factory to House Kurita.
4. Griffin. Everyone has them, but only house Liao doesn't have a factory. They buy theirs from the Taurian Concordat in the Periphery. Also notable is the fact House Steiner has two Griffins from a famous battle standing on either side of their throne in the palace on their capital planet of Tharkad. They date back to when BattleMechs were brand new, and the 55 ton Griffin was considered an assault mech.
5. Thunderbolt. Very Common, everyone has factories, but Marik and Steiner have the most. Even the Taurian Concordat has two factories, and the Thunderbolt is their most common heavy class mech.
6. BattleMaster. Moderate availability. Assault mechs in general are supposed to be somewhat rare. Only Marik and Steiner have factories now, although Liao has a bunch in service.
#9
Posted 12 September 2013 - 01:03 PM
Hans Von Lohman, on 12 September 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:
1. Locust. Super, super common. Dozens of factories exist, and even little border nations in the Periphery outside the Inner Sphere build them.
2. Shadow Hawk. Very common. Considered the most versatile design for a medium mech.
3. Wolverine. Common, but mostly noted for the fact House Marik in the Free Worlds League having the most, then Davion. House Liao has the fewest due to having their factory captured during the succession wars to Davion, although Davion also lost their own factory to House Kurita.
4. Griffin. Everyone has them, but only house Liao doesn't have a factory. They buy theirs from the Taurian Concordat in the Periphery. Also notable is the fact House Steiner has two Griffins from a famous battle standing on either side of their throne in the palace on their capital planet of Tharkad. They date back to when BattleMechs were brand new, and the 55 ton Griffin was considered an assault mech.
5. Thunderbolt. Very Common, everyone has factories, but Marik and Steiner have the most. Even the Taurian Concordat has two factories, and the Thunderbolt is their most common heavy class mech.
6. BattleMaster. Moderate availability. Assault mechs in general are supposed to be somewhat rare. Only Marik and Steiner have factories now, although Liao has a bunch in service.
Thank you for both of your posts - they were really helpful to me, because I like for my 'Mech Bay to make sense from a lore standpoint.
#10
Posted 12 September 2013 - 01:07 PM
#11
Posted 12 September 2013 - 01:11 PM
Hans Von Lohman, on 12 September 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:
1. Locust. Super, super common. Dozens of factories exist, and even little border nations in the Periphery outside the Inner Sphere build them.
2. Shadow Hawk. Very common. Considered the most versatile design for a medium mech.
3. Wolverine. Common, but mostly noted for the fact House Marik in the Free Worlds League having the most, then Davion. House Liao has the fewest due to having their factory captured during the succession wars to Davion, although Davion also lost their own factory to House Kurita.
4. Griffin. Everyone has them, but only house Liao doesn't have a factory. They buy theirs from the Taurian Concordat in the Periphery. Also notable is the fact House Steiner has two Griffins from a famous battle standing on either side of their throne in the palace on their capital planet of Tharkad. They date back to when BattleMechs were brand new, and the 55 ton Griffin was considered an assault mech.
5. Thunderbolt. Very Common, everyone has factories, but Marik and Steiner have the most. Even the Taurian Concordat has two factories, and the Thunderbolt is their most common heavy class mech.
6. BattleMaster. Moderate availability. Assault mechs in general are supposed to be somewhat rare. Only Marik and Steiner have factories now, although Liao has a bunch in service.
side note, first ever battlemch was the Mackie, which was 100 ton. But others like the Griffen are old as well but not the first. but Griffen being a 55 ton mech, always confused me how it made assault class ever if the very first mech was 100 ton. My assumption is the text for griffen was written well before the Mackie was even thought of.
Also anyone got link to data on the grffens standing next to the throne. I think I read about it in the stiner house book but its been a while. If i remember correctly they where put there after a assignation attempt or some such thing. They are maned when the archon is there, and thew pilots have training in close quarters area. Tho I wondered if they where modded for small spaces, ie that pcc and lrm not exactly close range equipment.
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Mackie
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Griffin
Edited by GT Hawk, 12 September 2013 - 01:14 PM.
#12
Posted 12 September 2013 - 01:21 PM
GT Hawk, on 12 September 2013 - 01:11 PM, said:
Also anyone got link to data on the grffens standing next to the throne. I think I read about it in the stiner house book but its been a while. If i remember correctly they where put there after a assignation attempt or some such thing. They are maned when the archon is there, and thew pilots have training in close quarters area. Tho I wondered if they where modded for small spaces, ie that pcc and lrm not exactly close range equipment.
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Mackie
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Griffin
I actually wondered the exact same thing. I imagine the Griffin variants are customized with SRMs, or they're just there for a ceremonial purpose, or perhaps for intimidation. I figure, it'd be hard for someone to get by all of the Lyran forces and into the palace, even with a 'Mech. In addition, I doubt anyone outside of a 'Mech in the throne room would risk any funny business when there are two 55 tonners standing there on active duty. Whether they're outfitted with long range weapons or not, they can still kill you with almost no effort.
Of course, that's my belief.

#13
Posted 12 September 2013 - 02:58 PM
At the time (2400's) wars were fought between planets using conventional forces (and still are in fact). You land dropships and offload infantry, tanks, APC's, helicopters, fighter planes, nuclear power aerospace fighters (they can fly into and operate in space on their own), and artillery.
There were 6 major factions. The 5 great houses, and the 30 light year area around Earth (Terra) called the Terran Hegemony. They all signed the Ares Conventions that gave war rules, surrender meant your men would be ransomed back to your faction rather than spend time in prison camps, and civilian destruction would get you arrested by your own men.
War became somewhat common because of that, although "war" was more like set piece battles fought by gentleman generals. Actual bloody slaughters were rare.
The Terran Hegemony developed the first BattleMech, the overweight, underpowered Makie around the year 2400. Then the Steiners stole the computer data on how to build them, but then quickly lost copies of the plans to defectors to House Marik and spies from House Kurita. Ect Ect.
The Terran Hegemony always kept a technological lead, though.
Eventually the TH wins out and forms the Star League and wars go back to being really rare. They did this by getting the other factions to join them by making them into hereditary nobility if they agreed to join forces. Everyone got to be barons, dukes, princes, and were members of the Star League.
The Star League itself kept their technological advantages with things like Double Heat Sinks, Endo Steel, Extended Range lasers, Extra Light engines, ect. The houses only ever had standard tech.
It all fell apart in a coup that killed the Star Lord and his family, and General Alexander Kerensky and the Star League Defense Force says to hell with the crazy politics of the 5 houses, takes their mechs, families, and warships and jumps out to God Knows Where.
The 5 houses would spend the next 250 years blowing the ever living snot out of each other at first, then sort of puttering along at a low rate tempo for the rest of that time. There was maybe 20 years of peacetime in that whole period of history.
Then the mercenaries called the Grey Death Legion found a working computer memory core on planet Helm, and suddenly super tech of the Star League is available again.
Now we're at 3050, and General Kerensky's boys and girls are coming back, and they're grown in laboratories, train since birth, are formed into warrior clans that believe in personal mech duels and 1-up-manship with the smallest sized forces is normal for warfare, and have better technology than ever including power armor and modular mechs.
Have fun.
#14
Posted 12 September 2013 - 07:05 PM
Hans Von Lohman, on 12 September 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:
At the time (2400's) wars were fought between planets using conventional forces (and still are in fact). You land dropships and offload infantry, tanks, APC's, helicopters, fighter planes, nuclear power aerospace fighters (they can fly into and operate in space on their own), and artillery.
There were 6 major factions. The 5 great houses, and the 30 light year area around Earth (Terra) called the Terran Hegemony. They all signed the Ares Conventions that gave war rules, surrender meant your men would be ransomed back to your faction rather than spend time in prison camps, and civilian destruction would get you arrested by your own men.
War became somewhat common because of that, although "war" was more like set piece battles fought by gentleman generals. Actual bloody slaughters were rare.
The Terran Hegemony developed the first BattleMech, the overweight, underpowered Makie around the year 2400. Then the Steiners stole the computer data on how to build them, but then quickly lost copies of the plans to defectors to House Marik and spies from House Kurita. Ect Ect.
The Terran Hegemony always kept a technological lead, though.
Eventually the TH wins out and forms the Star League and wars go back to being really rare. They did this by getting the other factions to join them by making them into hereditary nobility if they agreed to join forces. Everyone got to be barons, dukes, princes, and were members of the Star League.
The Star League itself kept their technological advantages with things like Double Heat Sinks, Endo Steel, Extended Range lasers, Extra Light engines, ect. The houses only ever had standard tech.
It all fell apart in a coup that killed the Star Lord and his family, and General Alexander Kerensky and the Star League Defense Force says to hell with the crazy politics of the 5 houses, takes their mechs, families, and warships and jumps out to God Knows Where.
The 5 houses would spend the next 250 years blowing the ever living snot out of each other at first, then sort of puttering along at a low rate tempo for the rest of that time. There was maybe 20 years of peacetime in that whole period of history.
Then the mercenaries called the Grey Death Legion found a working computer memory core on planet Helm, and suddenly super tech of the Star League is available again.
Now we're at 3050, and General Kerensky's boys and girls are coming back, and they're grown in laboratories, train since birth, are formed into warrior clans that believe in personal mech duels and 1-up-manship with the smallest sized forces is normal for warfare, and have better technology than ever including power armor and modular mechs.
Have fun.
This post reminds me of one of those "*insert game here* lore in one minute" videos.
Good write up though, thanks.
#15
Posted 12 September 2013 - 08:52 PM
For example, America has about 8400 Abrams Tanks in service. 6000 of them are in Active Service with about 2400 in reserve.
So if suddenly, 80% of the active army was to leave the United States for Canada, there would still be 1200 of the active tanks still in America and 2400 of the reserve tanks for a total of 3600 tanks remaining. Now if the United States suddenly broke up into 5 smaller countries because 80% of the US Army left, this would mean that each country would roughly get 720 M1 Abrams each.
Additionally, the factories that produce the M1 Abrams would still be able to produce new M1 Abrams tanks.
This is pretty much what happened when Kerensky left. All the remaining active duty SLDF mechs spilt up between the 5 successor states, then they reactivate their all their reserves which went to whatever successor state there bases were located in. This assured that each successor state managed to aquire at least a few of each and every SLDF mech variant that was actively being produced.
Then of course, each successor state aquired a certain amount of factories that produced one model or another which also meant they were cut off from the models that were produced in factories owned by the other successor states. This is how we end up with certain factions having large proportions of a type of mech over another such as Davion having alot more Victors than anyone else.
Lastly, there is battlefield salvage which means eventually, Liao is going to capture at least a few new production Victors and Davion will capture a few Cataphracts (or an entire factory as the case may be).
All in all this means that virtually every successor state or faction will have at least a few of every mech chassis built, no matter which successor state actually built them.
#16
Posted 13 September 2013 - 06:05 AM
Evan Sakowicz, on 12 September 2013 - 01:21 PM, said:
Of course, that's my belief.

Well My memory said they are maned and have on several occasions have saved the Archon. Also I remember hearing in dark ages they have been changed to more stiner style mechs (ie BIG).
#17
Posted 13 September 2013 - 06:05 PM
Viktor Drake, on 12 September 2013 - 08:52 PM, said:
The big thing this leaves out, of course, is that to complete the analogy, the 5 fledgling sections of the former-USA would then start unloading their weapons stockpiles at each other, going out of their way to target weapons factories and technical centers. The northeast, in particular would be a smoking crater, as a lot of defense industries have manufacturing and R&D up this way, we have an unusually high density of colleges and universities (including the world famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the Electric Boat shipyard (where nuclear subs get built) is up this way, too. The fact that in much of southeastern New England the population is densely packed and right on top of these facilities means that the civilian casualties would be catastrophic.
And I'm sure there'd be similar problems in other parts of the country. The mid-west would be raided for food supplies, and whatever the attackers couldn't commandeer would be burned down. The lower population density would mean fewer casualties... Until the mass starvation kicked in.
Anyway, yeah, when the Inner Sphere started bombing themselves back into the Stone Age, Bad ThingsTM happened. Parts for water and air purification systems became hard to come by (sometimes causing the deaths of large portions of the population on marginally habitable worlds, or even those worlds to be entirely abandoned). Some worlds became uninhabitable because of radioactive fallout or chemical contamination. Some Periphery worlds fell into near lawlessness, even causing slavery to become a thing in some areas. Piracy flourished. Technological capacity waned. Trillions died.
#18
Posted 13 September 2013 - 09:03 PM
Viktor Drake, on 12 September 2013 - 08:52 PM, said:
For example, America has about 8400 Abrams Tanks in service. 6000 of them are in Active Service with about 2400 in reserve.
So if suddenly, 80% of the active army was to leave the United States for Canada, there would still be 1200 of the active tanks still in America and 2400 of the reserve tanks for a total of 3600 tanks remaining. Now if the United States suddenly broke up into 5 smaller countries because 80% of the US Army left, this would mean that each country would roughly get 720 M1 Abrams each.
Additionally, the factories that produce the M1 Abrams would still be able to produce new M1 Abrams tanks.
This is pretty much what happened when Kerensky left. All the remaining active duty SLDF mechs spilt up between the 5 successor states, then they reactivate their all their reserves which went to whatever successor state there bases were located in. This assured that each successor state managed to aquire at least a few of each and every SLDF mech variant that was actively being produced.
Then of course, each successor state aquired a certain amount of factories that produced one model or another which also meant they were cut off from the models that were produced in factories owned by the other successor states. This is how we end up with certain factions having large proportions of a type of mech over another such as Davion having alot more Victors than anyone else.
Lastly, there is battlefield salvage which means eventually, Liao is going to capture at least a few new production Victors and Davion will capture a few Cataphracts (or an entire factory as the case may be).
All in all this means that virtually every successor state or faction will have at least a few of every mech chassis built, no matter which successor state actually built them.
Your analogy only works if the USA is also operating:
Leopard 2A6's
T90M's
Challenger 2's
K1 88's
Arjuns
Merkava IV's
AMX-56 Leclercs
PT-91 Twardys
MBT 2000's
EE-T1's
Type-10 MBT's
C1 Arietes
Ect., Ect. (Disclamer: Ect., Ect. is not a model of MBT.)
All of these other MBTs in conjunction with their M1A2 Abrams. JUST PUTTING THIS OUT THERE.
Edited by Alek Ituin, 13 September 2013 - 09:06 PM.
#19
Posted 13 September 2013 - 09:07 PM
Super high tech mechs are made.
Government that makes super high tech mechs breaks down.
People know government is breaking down, stockpile mechs.
Nukes everywhere!
Only the earth (controlled by comcast) and few other factories spread sparingly throughout space survive.
Factories struggle to churn out enough mechs, mechs are instead salvaged from battles and repaired.
Technology to make super high tech mechs gradually and slowly being lost, replaced by lower tech alternatives again and again as time goes on (though one wonders why there were still factories for such low tech mechs when the- you know if you think about it too much it breaks down so don't do that.)
#20
Posted 13 September 2013 - 09:46 PM
The big one is that it gives a reason why so many small scale conflicts can happen, yet those would have major political impact. It was not unusual to have nothing more than a single Mech Battalion (36 mechs and 2 aerospace fighters) guarding a whole planet.
However, the real reason was that 12 vs 12 on a tabletop game was about as much dice rolling and record keeping as a human being could handle without going nuts. I know, I've done a company vs company fight before in the table top, and it took the whole weekend.
I think the Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome of broke down, rebuilt, salvaged, cobbled together from 6 wrecks of miserable war machines marching over wastelands of the former Star League sort of went out the window really quickly within the lore. It was a bit much.
So, the vibe of 3025 was war is a way of life. Mechs fight, are destroyed, rebuilt, replacements are brought in at about the same rate as they're lost, the nobles who run the whole thing throw their dinner parties, conscripts train, fight, and are discharged back to their civilian life and share stories with their kids who are off to boot camp, and occasionally something interesting happens, but mankind will always have The War.
It wouldn't make a lot of sense to write the lore of BattleTech/Mechwarrior to take place in just a few years of conflict in a massive scale. They went for the epic, slow slogging match of war so that the players of the board game have more toys to buy next month when the next book comes out. Peace in our Time is sort of a no-no if you are making a war game.
Edited by Hans Von Lohman, 13 September 2013 - 09:49 PM.
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