A few generations ago much of humanity left the surface of their world for grand floating cities in the sky. Virtual utopians of the modern age, pristine in beauty and with every convenience. If you can pay for it. Down bellow on the planet's surface the poorest of humanity are left try and scrounge out a living by mining for raw materials and in particular a glassy, black substance called monthium, a magnificent power source of great energy and lifespan. It is used in power plants to float the cities above the planet, power all consumer devices and propel vehicles indefinitely. So long as the mining continues energy will remain a non-issue to the upper classes above.

Society is divided into three main castes. The lower class who mine resources for the cities above, the middle class who populate the cities and make up the workforce of various mega corporations and the corporate officials who control everything. It is possible to move up in these castes, but it is rare and a promotion is almost always equalized by someone else's demotion.

The everyday citizen need not worry about open conflict between any great powers. War would disrupt business so the mega corporations settle disputes with mock battles and tournaments that are televised to the whole world for entertainment. These battles are fought with mechanical frames, humanoid vehicles designed for combat and powered by monthian reactors. They replaced most conventional fighting vehicles, but are still early on in their development and the populace is entertained as much by their violent combat as their technological advancement. Occasionally however, grand tournaments are held with fortunes for prizes. Such events are open to anyone who wishes to enter and the third of these tournaments is to be held soon with the grandest prize yet. Your very own flying city for your own personal use. Perhaps a way to escape the slums bellow a private getaway for you and your richest friends or perhaps a staging point for a revolution. Its all up to the winner.

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So yeah mecha tournament put on by mega corps to pacify the citizens of magnificent sci-fi floating cities. We'd probably start things off shortly before this tournament and possibly continue past it to maybe a war or something. I want mechs to be more on a lower end of power in general. feel free to have some crazy thing in say a prototype, this tournament would be a great place to unveil new technologies, but try and limit to maybe one or two cool advanced things, like turning invisible, having energy weapons or transforming. Additionally I'm going for a height for these more like 20-30 feet rather than 20-30 meters.









MECH GUIDLINES: Looking for more of a lower power baseline. Slower mechs that do not have perfect articulation for say hands or swordplay, they walk fine. The standard height will be 20 feet with a variance of about 10 feet, but if you want to go further talk to me. Weapons are ammunition based and you can describe weapons more like analogs to firearm categories like pistol or assault rifle. They will be much less effective relatively because of armor, but I feel like most mechs should be able to take a good number of hits before going down. Armor is at its worst assumed to still be lighter and more durable than the most heavily armored tanks of today. Jump jets for quick bursts of speed and longish distance jumps are common, but not standard. You are welcome to have a prototype with advanced technology, but I would prefer that mechs only have one advancement each for now. things that may be considered an advancement are energy weapons, flight, a transforming frame, controlling the mech with your body or mind etc. If I didn't mention it and you are worried about wether or not I'd consider it an advancement please talk to me.





I am interested in expanding the lore based on what people wish to include and I'll try to fill the remaining gaps when everyone else is all set with things. hopefully things aren't too vague to begin with. Again feel free to suggest anything and everything for new elements. I am also not attached to the name and suggestions for the name are welcome.

Oh, if you're interested in making more of a villain PM me because I have ideas.

Characters:

Cayden Black: Jon Carter / PANZER JAEGER XVIII/C - Krupp Corporation

Cultural Titan: Garret Taylor / Tempest - Monthas Corporation

GreenGoat: Clarence Belle / Luna Fighter - Nexus Corporation

Sophrus: Nicolai Astrovia / Atlas - Hell Hounds Mercenary Corp

Urbanliner: Brian Archer / Snowstorm - Monthas Corporation

I'd very much like to have a go at this if that's alright. I won't be able to get a Character sheet done until later today/tomorrow morning as I'll be working shortly. Just curious what sort of mech suits you're thinking about too, Anime'esque or Realistic?

@Cayden Black

That's a question. I guess it depends on the mechs. Monthas corp mechs are going to look anime'esque, but other corps' mechs may have different styles and more "realistic versions" are almost certain to appear out of older models or less marketed models. Beyond aesthetics I am personally a fan of the feel of Hawken's mechs. Kinda slow and clunky, but with jump jets for bursts of speed and maneuverability, but I'd still like to incorporate anything that can be made to fit.

EDIT: added some loose guidlines to the main post.

EDIT AGAIN: Put a better guidline to mechs right above the mech sheet

So about those competitions, would they be some sort of duels, or duels with some different events like team battles randomly happen, or just plop the contestants in a large arena and watch them pummel each other?

the Tournament may be any and all things depending on popular opinion, but if no opinions exist by the time characters are made I will come up with something that will hopefully allow all of the mechs given to shine. At least at some point. Basically I haven't set it up yet as an attempt to allow a wider range of applications. Effective or not, for better or worse.

Im down for this!

(assuming the application is still open)

@Sophrus

It is open for applications until people tell me to stop.

Ok! so i am probably going more of a MechWarrior vein rather than Anime mechas.

so ill be clunky and slow, but pack a punch lol. (missile pods, rotary cannons etc.)

Edit: and i have nothing to do here at work so ill probably write my CS now.

@Cultural TitanI'm in let's do this

WIP

Gah... I keep poking back in here...

I hope this is alright Titan, I designed a new company using an existing one that has history in WW2 for german tank production. If I need to change or tweak anything please let me know.

@Sophrus

No lasers unless the purpose of your mech is for testing energy weapons. They aren't a thing yet. They may however be as part of a mid season upgrade after the tournament if we get there.

@ArenaSnow

Should i take that as interest then? =)

@Cayden Black

Just going to bring up complaints as I come across them.

You say he has an understanding of MECH systems, but I am currently running with the official term being mechanical frame. You are welcome to convince me to change that though.

Him being a military man is a little odd in a world that hasn't know war for 40-80 years (I haven't quite decided exactly when then uninventively named "Last War" was) and the corps do not openly fight each other. Now that said he could still hold himself in a military demeanor, but unless he's going to have served in the Last War, in which case he'd be like 60 or 80 or something, then all of his combat would be against rebels and terrorists, probably all derived from the lower classes rising up and trying to use their mining mechs for combat. At least from my perspective that wouldn't change much about your backstory if you went with that. If you do just know that such rebellions are kept on the down low and John isn't allowed to talk about it.

Its a little short, but that's not an issue, but it sure does weigh a lot. Now I can be convinced that things should weigh more and yours can certainly weigh more than average if you'd like, but I was thinking something more like 10-12 tons would be average. I get that from vaguely extrapolating out what a knightmare frame from Code Geass would weigh if it was 20 ft tall. they're actually shorter than that to my surprise. So assuming you don't convince me it should weigh that much you should knock it down a bit.

For the record how powerful are you imagining the vulcans to be? That may or may not have any barring on John being accepted. Where is the grenade launcher? The left arm? What exactly is the back mounted system? you mention the armor and while its fine to be specific, I personally need to know if it is supposed to be more or less armored than "average," Which I realize hasn't been specifically defined and maybe I should try to do something about that. Its Monthian Reactor. With an n. I should probably go look over my own work to make sure I didn't fuck that up somewhere myself.

Some other things I want to know are. How mobile is this machine? and why is John Carter in the tournament? Then separately I need a paragraph write up about your corp so I can add it to my slowly growing list. You will be credited.

MECH is just a far simpler way of saying Mechanical Frame. That seemed too much of a mouthful for a division of fighters who would be in the thick of combat to yell out. Considering it's just an abbreviation I see no issue myself.

Military roles, regardless of time periods, would still exist. They don't have to be at war to have a military after all, and the whole purpose of machines like these seemed to imply the idea of a "deterrent" to war. Again not much of a difference to today, every country still has an army regardless of being at war or not.
As for the combat history, it wasn't a whole situation of "World War, RARGH!", more of small scale operations, again looking at situations of today and the cold war era. The combat he's been in would be much like the Syrian combat of today and the noted skirmish he was in was a sort of near brush to open conflict that nearly spiraled out of control. He's not been in a full scale war, but his combat record shows he's been in a lot of conflict on Earth. And don't worry, he's not exactly a man who brags about combat, he's supposed to find it distressing if nothing else, but does it because it has to be done.

As for size and weight, I actually based it very much off real tanks, only looking at sizes and weight and trying to accurately increase them on a somewhat reasonable level. Again, following that the company was the real one that made tanks during WW2, the weight is a fictional increase of that of the TIGER 1 model. Height wise I was trying to follow the guidelines you set, being on average around 20ft. If it needs to grow that's not an issue for me, but it's not meant to be the biggest of the bunch for certain. I can look back on the idea and try to adjust, but the armour will sort of explain the weight here.

The Vulcan cannons are rather bog standard for a suit designed primarily with an anti-personnel role in mind, but they can chew through armour at a decent enough pace with the AP rounds they are loaded with, so small and light vehicles are easy targets. It's a suit not designed to all out attack a heavy target, but do so in groups. The Grenade launcher is tucked into the same arm as the Vulcan's, sort of a one two punch deal there. The back mounted system is just a large cannon that can't be fitted to the arms (they'd be pulled off by the force) that allows it to become a sort of anti armour weapons platform during engagements against heavier opponents. This works best in the grouped formations they are deployed in field operations. The Image has the rocket pod where this cannon would be. The Armour is modern standard for plating, but the Jaeger employs it all across the chassis, contributing to a significant weight ratio compared to other sized suits.

I saw it spelt Mothian in one of your paragraphs, but that's no biggie.

His excuse for being in the tournament? Well it's not really his first choice, but his company want to 'field test' their standard suit against everyone else. See how it handles over the 9 years it's been in service and take that info to the newer models. It's more obligation than ambition that drives him here.

I'll update height and weight if you like, can always add another 3 feet to the thing and slim it down a tad on the weight side, but do you want me to add the company info in my character sheet or another post?

@Cayden Black

I'll get back to you on MECH if I finalize any kind of abbreviation. It can stand for now, just don't be surprised when I come back at some point and ask to change it to something else.

Seems good on everything you say on the military stuff, just make sure to remove mention of him fighting other corps because that doesn't happen and understand that his not talking is very much a contract regardless of how okay he is with that. So just a minor change to remove mention of corps and that's dealt with.

The height is fine I'm just mentioning it. not sure why I guess. If that's how much it would weigh based on tank stuff than maybe its fine. I'd generally want the armor to be better than that of a tank though. My running assumption is that the mechs are baseline more well protected than modern tanks and going up from there which may change how you view its armor. That said if you want it to have older armor or at least older styled armor than its weight would make a lot of sense.

I knew Mothian was my fault... damn it.

So yeah just remove the bit about fighting other corps and add his reason for being in the tournament and I think I can accept it. It would be nice if you added in the other details in, but it should be fine. Alter the weight if you want, but if its built more like a tank than modern mechs then its weight makes sense so it can stay, I still want to know how fast/maneuverable it is, but I just want to know that for me and it doesn't have to be in there, but it would be nice if it was for the sake of other players. The paragraph about your corp should be separate from your sheet. Just put it somewhere I can copy it and add it to the first post.

I would like to convince you to leave in the skirmish between companies if I can. It was to lean to the factor that the floating cities are not a perfect world, even if the whole skirmish was covered up so its a red tape matter (aka never happened on record). It would also mean that should we progress far enough into the story that the war does break out it can give some reasoning as to why the corporations may turn on each other. Also means John has a reason to be so silent, since the fight that cost him his friends never happened on public record, their just down as "KIA" and nothing more.

The armour side is actually pretty thin compared to modern Abrams tanks of 600mm. I didn't want to go too thick or it wouldn't make sense how the thing moves, but accompanied by Chobham armour most ballistics would hurt it but take more than one round to fully punch through unless it was a high AP round from a direct hit. In most cases I'm pretty sure that kind of hit would kill most vehicles, luckily the shape of the frame helps direct a lot of energy away from the chassis instead of absorbing the whole impact. It's not one solid piece either, it's a layer by layer style, so the impacts do get absorbed over the whole plating instead of focused on a single point. It's a whole lot of science stuff that gets complicated, but think of it as jumping into a net, the whole thing shares the strain not just one point. The primary focus is what that armour plating is forged from. Abrams use a type of depleted uranium mesh, but I'm not sure what kind of metals you have in your world for armour.

I've adjusted the height by a few feet and decreased the weight by 10 tonnes, to try and make it more reasonable.

As for the Corporation description, I'll post that below.

Krupp is a very old name in alloy, artillery and munitions production. Dating to over 400 years ago, and one of the most productive corporations during the early 20th century, Krupp has since continued their stable and impressive history of a reliable manufacturer with vast numbers of contracts for private security supplies and new construction materials. Although technically older than Montha, Krupp fell out of favour during the last great war. Economic collapse caused the great industrial giant to recede back into a smaller role, only recently expanding to that which they were before the crisis. While Montha and Krupp are in a contract deal regarding the sales of materials and reactors, Krupp has been striving to produce their own variant of the Monthian Reactor to little success. It has lead to more than one legal battle and a few known under-the-rug scenarios with failed tests, but the company has been able to stay afloat so far. It now manufactures a wide array of Mechanized Suits that are employed in many roles, from industrial lifters to Mobile Artillery.
Krupp has a vision, the future is now.

I cannot budge on the corps fighting each other. That is a point of the setting that they settle their problems in sanctioned fights. In theory they could try and hit each other in secret like in Shadowrun, but then you'd be operating as more of a hired criminal or terrorist than an official military man and every company around would deny having anything to do with you and they certainly wouldn't send you to the tournament so they can keep a plausible deniability. You could still enter on your own though. You could have fought these shadow forces of another corp, but it would be hard to prove to what corp they belonged to if any.

I can't say I've thought out armor that well, and let's be frank if I did then we wouldn't be running a mech campaign because the more real science we apply the less useful they become. Let's face it mechs are't actually practical. I am just running under the assumption that at its worst, this universe's armor is lighter and stronger than the most heavily armored of modern tanks.

You didn't need to touch the height, but okay.

I'm going to keep Krupps age more vague than 400 years, because I don't want to be tied to a particular time period and add the s to monthas, but the description is otherwise good to go as soon as we are in agreement on the corps fighting each other issue.

To get an idea of where Soph's coming from, have a look at this.

sarna.net/wiki/Adder_(Puma)

Edit: I'm a bloody idiot who put the wrong name down. >.>

@ArenaSnow

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure that enlightened me in any way. Could you help me out a bit on that? As a side note Sophrus has that mech as his picture in his WIP character sheet. That doesn't have anything to do with this, but whatever.

EDIT: I have seen your edit.

I don't know what he is talking about either.

That is the picture I'm using, but appearance will probably be the only resemblance as I don't have energy based weapons. I expect that I will use a (fast) hydraulic Lance instead, with a tank size cannon, missiles and some chain guns.