BattleTech in TS
 

This has been a minor background element in my own TS game, and may become more significant if I ever run one set on Mars.

It seems to me that TS supports all the technology needed for recognisable BattleMechs: fusion power, neural interface, energy weapons, and armour. I don't off-hand know what the smallest canonical fusion-powered vehicle is, but in rules terms we're looking at SM+6 to +7 and that's not a problem for Spaceships (TL10 fusion reactors have no size limit).

Of course, they still make absolutely no sense as war machines. Everyone recognises that. In a world filled with smart missiles, drones, and nanoswarms, a 10-metre-tall walking tank is simply a great big target. But some of the older Martian Millionaires (sorry, Phil) remember a game they played back when they were kids - a wargame, a card game, a VR simulation - and now they have the money to play it for real.

So in my TS there is a BattleTech Re-Enactment Society on Mars - "it's no sillier than the SCA" - which devotes itself to formalised combat between giant fusion-powered robots with artificially short-ranged and high-heat weapons. They could be VR-piloted, but in that case you might as well just jack in to a simulation - honour insists that the warrior be present in the cockpit. Very few people get to see the fights in person, but sale of recordings goes some slight way to defray the massive costs involved. That said, it's still a wildly expensive and dangerous sport.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

Not much sillier than Titan Wrestling, I guess.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

This actually sounds plausible; you have real-life companies that offer 'mock dogfighting' in actual jets. Expensive, but fun if you can afford it.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

There might be other legit reasons to have giant robots on Mars, too, like landscaping or intermodal loading or recovery of smaller vehicles.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

Probably not as big as Battlemechs though.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

Battlebots/Robot Wars remote control sounds safer.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

10 meters isn't out of round, but they'd probably be more spindly, esp with Martian gravity. Need more limbs, too. I, for one, welcome our quadrapedal tentacle bot overlords.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

Aren't some of them bigger? I remember some were 50 feet tall.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

-- Sounds cool. I don't know why they would use fusion plants vs. cheap batteries though? I'm sure people will be trying to justify "useful" (lol) large anthropomorphic robots too -- for megaconstruction projects, art projects ("It's a reconstruction of the Atlas of Rhodes, but can move!") and vanity (maybe different divisions of mecha combat ranging from build-your-own combat cybershells to Gundam scale?). Maybe small kits are done like modern gunpla stuff, with a mix of company and garage kits for all budgets and tastes...

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

Dome Teams!

I can't wait for the Robinson City Reaver to wax that goddamn Shanghai Shanker!

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

The Portland Pummeler may be a 3:1 long shot, but the operator is a true veteran. I hear they upgraded the fist coating to diamondoid. But you didn't hear it from me, ok?

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

Because the original game rules say so, and because one can. The point of the exercise is not to build a viable combat machine, it's to build a BattleMech.

(I imagine that some of the wackier players still regard their walking targets as "real" war machines, just as some of the wackier paintballers and airsofties I've met reckon they have acquired real soldiering skills.)

I note that BT's aerospace fighters and dropships - with a drive specific impulse greater than lightspeed - are well out of even TL10's reach.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

-- That alone isn't very interesting though. It would be FARRRRRRRR easier to just use BattleTech and then drape some THS trappings around that (it's in a simulated massive multiplayer online game, or they are real robots with the BattleTech wierdness imposed by outside agencies).

-- That is, I think it's a waste of time and effort to port the BattleTech concept if you are not going to tweak it for a different setting. If you want BattleTech just use BattleTech and swap out of that "minigame" back to THS on the fly.

Re: BattleTech in TS
 

My vision - I'm not saying this is the only or the best one - is that it's a fad among Martian millionaires, who want their giant robots to be "authentic" to the BattleTech game.

Things that PCs might get involved with, off the top of my head:

• Someone with good reflexes and military experience is needed to pilot the 'Mech.
• Someone's winning too many fights. Is he cheating? How?
• A real dangerous thing is happening, and the only hardware available to deal with it is the 'Mechs. Which aren't military-grade by any stretch of the imagination, but are still big robots with a lot of lifting ability.