Posted 12 May 2012 - 03:01 PM
OK, here goes. This is gonna be LONG, so warning you ahead of time. These are just kinda thoughts I had and some ideas while pondering a fictional "Battletech Online" that I was inventing in my head on the ride home. (I had a 100 mile a day commute. For four years.)
.....
Broad strokes
Some detail
Mostly overview and generalized approach
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Location & timeline
Various points in the Inner Sphere, not long after Tukkayid...say, 3055-to 3065ish. Pick a year....I’m thinking like 3063. The Clans are occupying large swaths of Draconis Combine and Steiner territories. The map view would be similar to EVE’s.
Travel and time:
Obviously vast distances between star systems and planets. We’ll need to truncate travel *to a degree*. The need for long-*** distance travel taking time can/will be a major factor in logistics and planning.
For instance: in the canon universe, jumpships can jump up to ( I think it was something like 28 ) 25-30 light years in a couple minutes time. BUT they then must unfurl the solar sail and charge the batteries for up to a week, depending on the strength of the star they jumped to.
We don’t need to go quite this crazy, but the mechanics of this will be interesting for planning. Hyperpulse generators (operated and guarded by ComStar, with their own military and neutral to all) allow communication across the stars fairly quickly, but not physical transmission. Thus, you can order a lance of mercs to garrison planet x, but what happens between now and ...when they arrive? TIme for travel will be criitcal. We’ll need to talk about this one a lot.
Startup / early paths
From the get-go: start a toon in one of the House militaries, each with their own styles/locations/traditions etc. EVE also did this nicely with its factions. You can become a n00b light mech pilot on a backwater garrison going into their West Point / Mech Academy. Missions via NPCs mostly, and against NPCs...the regular noob stuff. Get combat experience, salvage (?), cash, etc.
Also available (perhaps on a restricted basis?) : Roll up a toon in an established Merc company. We can make NPC and game master led ‘big names’ that people can join. Think the Grey Death Legion, Wolf’s Dragoons, Snord’s Irregulars, etc. A lot harder missions, much more difficult assignments (raids, etc) but much better pay. Plus salvage and upgrades. Training for larger mechs is expensive!
Plus, there’s the “Straight to the action” option of dropping your happy *** into the middle of Solaris 7, the game world. Legal gambling on mech vs mech and team vs team fights in the arenas. Open PVP here. Excellent cash but a high chance of death/loss of cash.
Tangent time: Death. Borrow heavily from EVE’s clone/implants system.
Also have an option for rolling up CLAN. However, they have strict rules to go with the better tech. Server-side bidding for the lowest amount of gear among NPC clan commanders to keep it real interesting.
Obviously heavy open PVP on contested worlds in clan vs i.s., clan vs clan, i.s. vs i.s. as always. Endless amount of npc ‘worlds’ can be spawned as mission points for npc missions & factions.
Critical importance on this next part.
Mechs and customization.
Different variants of mechs are available in different areas. Plus, the appearance of your mech is unique.
For instance, the original Marauder was a Marik and Combine mech. The Marik version came standard with a GM ‘Whirlwind” A/C 10 over the right torso. It had a tendency to jam in the linkage, and ran a little hot.
Say a merc has one of these MAD-3Rs, and in his travels, he yanks that out for a Coventry Metalworks LB-10x autocannon. Lighter, but bulkier, and I can tell by looking at it that it isn’t the GM. If I know my ****, I know Coventry gun comes from the foundry on Hesperus 2, and they have excellent construction. Plus, as an LB-x autocannon, the bore & barrel are slightly different in appearance, so they can fire regular or ‘shotgun’ rounds. I want to be able to see the difference between the two.
Did you ever read the original tech readouts for battletech? The source books? On every tech readout page for mechs that had a ‘noteworthy variants’ section. They’d list that the 5R designation made by Marik swapped out the A/C5 for two medium arm-mounted lasers and three more heat sinks and an extra ton of armor. Etc etc. These ‘cosmetic’ changes in mech variants would be easily doable with current tech and allow endless customization.
Plus the entire scope of available customization for each mech is astounding. That part alone would probably take a year to code in.
Thus, I could opt for the massive Sunglow Large Laser (from the original Thunderbolt) over the more ‘classic” Magna Mk 3 Heavies (Rifleman) if they ran a wee bit hotter but did a hair more damage. Or, perhaps choose to use the Martell Medium lasers because the focusing mirrors were better secured and got jarred loose less often than the Intek ones.
Take it a step further: While testing the Intek mediums (On, say, a Crusader) you also happen to note that the Harpoon-6 SRM racks were exceptionally quick reloading, compared to the Hollys on the Warhammer shoulder.
Think about it. The amount of customization and geek-out-ability of a system like this would be off the charts.
Of course, it would make EVE’s database look tiny in comparison, but we’re just talking here!
Part Deaux:
Session overview - “ to be noted and detailed more separately.
Setting: “Me” gamer. Chris (the wife) is at her sisters for the weekend. I’m sitting down in front of my PC with my morning joe, and it is time to get my battletech freak full-on yo. I may or may not leave the house today, and it doesn’t matter to the world if I do. The grocery shopping is done, the laundry is done, the cat has food, water and a clean litterbox. I’m off of work, the BlackBerry is silenced, and we’re off.
What do I want to make? What would me dream be? That’s what I’m here to find out, as I log into my (fictional - for now) Battletech Online account.
…........................................................................................................................................................
Lets see, where were we when I logged off? Ah yes, home sweet home...the mech bay at my home ‘headquarters’ on Planet XYZ. I recently got back from a trip to Hesperus II (I went personally to Defiance Industries manufacturing facility to take delivery of a my biggest order ever. But I just so love their ER Medium lasers and AC/5s, plus the guidance/targeting systems are just *choice*. So I brought that shipment (that took me WEEKS of mission running to save up for) back to my home-20, and ordered the gang down in the mech bay to upgrade two of my lance with the new hardware. I let that run overnight so I’d have them ready for this morning.
(Note- lots of explaining necessary on that paragraph alone. I’ll get to that later)
The upgrade is done, so I queue up a new paint job for the lance. If we’re gonna be heading out on a new contract and rollin’ with new hardware, we might as well look cool too!
That won’t take too long, so I bring up the Comstar link to the MRBC (Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission) contracts listing. Lets see...this is the meat and potatoes of the universe right here....
Sort by … expected necessary unit size and … region? Yea, see if I can get a couple of quickie out and bring in some cash. Lets see, a lance or smaller...
(There’s X contracts up for bidding in my range. Think EVE’s complex faction listing system on speed. Then couple that with the same planetary mapping/overview. Only, at each of those systems is located at least one planetary body, the majority of which will be game accessible, even if generic. Sorting by region ((say, within 10 jumps)), the faction list of people I’ve pissed off lately ((or ever, really)), and the expected force size give me a certain number of available NPC missions.
We have tons of wiggle room here, and almost unlimited possibilities. Garrison/guard duty missions....keep a target alive as NPCs attack...even the hated escort missions. Static guard duty...make sure noone ***** with an outpost, or warehouse.
Bounty hunting can be HUGE. Everything from small-timers within a star system to big-name Raid-type targets with fortified compounds.
Plus, also typing into the reputation system...I want NPC’s to get and KEEP a hate list of players. You **** off Faction X enough, they start putting contracts out on YOU. Enter NPC hitmen that pop in on your missions and try to kill you for the bounty.)
I spend 15 minutes plugging through mission contracts. Where, when, paid by who, what objectives, etc etc. I decide that, even though it isn’t the easiest or closest contract, THIS one is what I want to do. Strike Faction XYZ’s mercenaries at their camp on Planet QRS....they’ve been ******* off the locals something fierce, and they’re being paid by a known House Marik agent to stir up the local **** in a long-term bid to cause unrest and maybe flip the planets alliegence from LyrCom back to House Marik, where it once was aligned during the First Succession War.
Reports have two or three light mechs, and a medium. Small contingent of personnel, a few hovers and utility vehicles. Support and logistic support is a minimum, it looks like a subcontracted merc airdrops supplies in to them a couple times a month as needed. They operate in the field mostly, little contact with indie populations except to attack and keep up political unrest.
The local protectorate folks caught wind of this and aren’t happy, so they’re putting up a reward to … smish.
I make sure to check the ‘Known ********’ page, and see who’s toes I’m stepping on this week. Noone I don’t already dislike, by the look of it. Sounds fun, let’s do this. I accept the contract, and Comstar’s built-in escrow account give me the stated up-front cash to arm up. I pull up the system and planetary data sheets and give them a closer look....I glanced over them to make sure I wasn’t taking a contract on a zero-g, no atmosphere asteroid, or a planetary glacier or some **** (yes, those exist and yes, there will be contracts for something on them, so you best pay attention to this minor detail, as I’m sure you’re aware these environments will have huge different mech loadouts). But now I’m looking at known system info....how many planets, population centers, distances and drop points, etc etc...any data is good data.
I don’t see anything special....near-normal gravity and atmosphere, temps within normalish ranges. Slightly elevated solar radiation levels from the parent star but I won’t be in-system long enough to give a ****. I really don’t need to make much in the way of configuration changes.
Now, think about what I’m doing a minute. This is a merc group...smallish, but decent. After all, we’re talking extended field operations with little or no support or resupply. No or minimal spare parts and no ammo reloads, plus field repairs only and otherwise almost self-sustaining. This isn’t a group of n00bs. These are experienced mercs. As such, what can I expect?
Field ops, no resupply. This means mostly energy weapon loadouts, as autocannons go out of ammo quick and become dead weight with constant resupply. Also, field repairs means armor may not be at 100%, and there’s already wear and tear on the existing machinery.
I’m going to take the time to throw ablative armor on my Shadow Hawk. More expensive, bulkier armor (takes up more critical slots) but performs a lot better vs. energy weapons. Otherwise, my team is ready to go.
I’ve got a single lance of mechs. Shadow Hawk (?) for me. Wolfhound, Panther, and Raven. My NPC mechwarriors are pretty vanilla. Basic team commands....for instance “keep max range, lob missiles/long range weapons on specified target”. The Raven will have a couple extra available commands, as it has advanced C3 comps and ECM/probe equipment. I also load inferno SRMs into my launchers, make sure all my custom hardware is ready to fly.
(SIDE NOTE - I want to build in 75 metric fucktons of hardware customizations. If you can imagine bolting that ****** onto a walking tank, I want it in. I don’t care about limitations, we’ll cut elsewhere if needed. The personalization of the mech is arguably the key to the entire game experience, and the players HAVE to be able to see and work with their mechs. If this fails, the game fails, period.)
So, back at it. I hire a Leopard class dropship to a pretty vanilla standard transport contract. We have wiggle room here too. Make many just straightforward “Taxi” contracts, but some possibilities exist for more exotics. For instance, hiring a ship to be a “field command center”, including repair/refit/rest and atmospheric travel.
We’ll gloss over the questions of transport time and logistics (that’ll be a series of meetings all its own).
OK, so, we hit the dirt and deploy. The dropship hangs back, hot, with orders to bail and ask questions later if attacked. My lance deploys, diamond formation, at best group speed (meaning, fastest walk speed of slowest mech; in this example, the wolfhound and shad are both 5-8-X movers, so the equivalent of 5 hexes per turn). The Raven takes point with sensor suites in full passive mode, we maintain broadcast radio silence and use LOS infared comms only.
I’m looking at recent satellite data (snagged it on the approach) and it looks like the base ops of the unit we’re hunting in near the back of a small canyon-like series of hills. Almost a cul-de-sac with limited line of sight. The rolling hills are only 20 to 40 meters tall, but steep enough you’d need hefty jump jets to traverse many of them. And it would take a near-direct overflight to get a scan on them. Nice setup. Someone was thinking when they did this.
We’re still about two clicks out when Raven comes over the comm. “BOSS! I’m reading an active scan, but more importantly I’m seeing something BIG power up....huge neutrino signature. At least a heavy, maybe assault class!”
****. “OK, full ECM. New orders: Best speed now. Everyone get to medium range with your most power weapon and do a full-stop alpha strike in the cockpit of whatever the hell is coming online right now. After that, stay at best long range and keep moving, focus your fire on my target. Watch it though, I’ll be at point blank and I’d rather you not shoot me.”
A chorus of affirmative responses.
Slam the throttle to full and lean forward, the cockpit jostling up and down as the 9 meter metal simulacrum hits 80kmph. Quick check of the board, all green across the weapons systems.
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