McDonough's Rest. A small town built into a long abandoned adamantium mine on the far flung frontier world of Actaeon. It's shelter from the native creatures, and any storm that might roll through. When Earth is years of near-light-speed travel away, and no help could conceivably come to their aid, solid shelter is a must for a frontier settlement.

The mine that McDonough's Rest sits in was set up and run by Alvarez Mineral Imports. At the time, they were a small, ambitious operation that set up many such outposts in planets out in one of the star systems that have been colonized from out of the Sol System. AMI’s business tactic at the time revolved around getting in some place cheaply(and with as little regulation to get in their way as possible) and leaving quickly with whatever they could grab. They left behind a network of tunnels, the shallower ones being quite solid and equipped with worker quarters that weren’t completely stripped when AMI left.

This made it an excellent find when Sean McDonough and his ship full of pilgrims arrived on the planet, looking for a place of their own. In the two generations since McDonough’s Rest, as the town came to be called, is alive and thriving, primarily through agriculture. There are other settlements that they can trade with, but they require a long caravan trip to reach, and it’s only worth the effort for things they can’t produce locally, mostly higher tech commodities.

Recently, a representative from AMI arrived and asked, quite politely, that the people leave so that they can continue their mining. When the townsfolk tried to open up some form of negotiations, it became clear that the request was anything but. They were informed(just as politely) that if they did not vacate the premises by the time AMI’s operation fleet arrived, they would be removed by whatever force was necessary.

With no law enforcement to speak of, McDonough's Rest faces death, either at the hands of AMI’s private police force, or the native mega-fauna out in the wild, should they try to flee. The grandchild of the town's namesake, Patrick McDonough, has set out with the town’s only shuttle in desperation to neighboring towns to find anyone, local militia, mercenary, even a rival corporation, that would protect them, or allow them passage to another safe haven.

A handful of pilots and their mecha partners answer the call.

~~~~~

Due to the expense to build a titan and train a pilot, most are in the employ of one of the larger factions out in the frontier. Even so, there's a fair amount that work as mercenaries, either independently, or as a mercenary company.



The premise of this game is basically the plot of The Magnificent Seven, set in the future, on a colonized planet, with mecha pilots as the cast. It doesn't have to literally be seven(in fact, I'll probably title the game based on the number of players).

This thread is more than likely going in Free, because I'm just looking for a fun game, and don't want too much to keep up with.


Pilot

Name:
Appearance:
Helmet: Your helmet contains the neuro-link to your titan. It’s important, but often used as self expression for a pilot.
Weapons:
Gear: If this were a fantasy or super hero game, think of this like what your special power would be.
Background: Where’d you come from, and why are you working jobs alone?

Titan

Name:
Appearance:
Class: light, medium, or heavy
Armament:
Utility: Similar to the gear section of the pilot CS.
Last Stand: Your titan’s greatest, but most desperate ability. It can be devastatingly effective in combat, but uses a huge portion of your titan’s resources, leaving it lower on ammunition, or sluggish until its capacitors are able to recharge.
The last stand often further merged the mind of pilot and mecha, which can lead to a moment of more effective fighting, but can be disorienting for a moment afterwards.
Notes:

A titan isn’t just a vehicle, it’s a partner too, with its own AI. You can choose how your character feels about it. Standard issue AIs are smart enough to be getting on with, but lack in personality. The longer an AI “lives”, the more they pick up from their human partners.

I love this idea. If it's a thing, I call dibs on the old man who pilots a first generation mech that's still holding together despite its obvious flaws.

Also interested.

Maybe consider dropping the Titanfall connection (Since even if knowing much about the series isn't required, the connection could drive people away anyway.) The idea of just a Mech version of Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven is such a badass idea and letting people have a bit more freedom with the lore they end up crafting for their characters would go a long way.

Hm, I suppose I might. I like he specific world and it’s tech, but I suppose there’s no reason it has to be in that established world. I’ll give it a bit longer, but as there’s only two replies so far, I may remake the thread without the fandom element.

@Gisk

I'm interested in the premise but am also a little apprehensive of the fandom aspect of it. I've played a little bit of Titanfall 2 (it unfortunately does not run very well on my PC) but know hardly anything of the setting or the tech and that is a bit of a barrier to me joining.

I may be interested

@King Cosmos

Well I reckon that’ll settle it, we’ll drop the fandom.

I will still be keeping the style of mech, though. So, as depicted in that picture, and here as well:

So, generally humanoid, though an actual head is an unnecessary protrusion. The cockpit is basically the whole torso, armored to protect the pilot.

Works perfectly for me. I'm brainstorming my character at the moment.

@DawningAurora@King Cosmos@Reflection@Scrub Mage

I’ll get a new thread up when I can, but here’s a CS, more categories may get added, but feel free to fill it out. Since we’re dropping the fandom, we’ll be developing things as we go.

Name:
Appearance:
Helmet: Your helmet contains the neuro-link to your titan. It’s inportant, but often used as self expression for a pilot.
Weapons:
Gear:
Background: Where’d you come from, and why are you working jobs alone?

Titan

Name:
Appearance:
Class: light, medium, or heavy
Armament:
Utility:

A titan isn’t just a vehicle, it’s a partner too, with its own AI. You can choose how your character feels about it. Standard issue AIs are smart enough to be getting on with, but lack in personality. The longer an AI “lives”, the more they pick up from their human partners.

Some examples of utility/gear(but by no means an exhaustive list you must choose from):

Grappling hooks
jump jets
shields(forward facing or bubble shields, maybe one stuck on your arm)
speed booster
radar/xray vision kind of deal.

Gisk, if you want I can help you develop a new less fandom-y backstory and setting to work with.

If you have any suggestions, feel free.

I have just given the first post and title an edit to give more background in an original setting.

It's a frontier colony world, our town happens to be an old mine, but there's other settlements, they're just scattered. We can get up to 99.9% the speed of light, but there's no warp or hyperdrive yet, so we still can't break that limit. Earth is some ten lightyears away from it's closest neighbor, so pretty much anything that goes out to colonize space is going out there to stay. There are worlds closer to Sol than Actaeon, and more densely populated. Though it's been about sixty years or so since Actaeon was first colonized, it's still very much in its infancy as a populated world(Though, I am considering if we want there to be a primitive culture of native sentients). Some groups did come here for business, like AMI, but just like any frontier a lot of people come out just to find a place of their own. Some even come specifically to get away from bigger government influence on more populated worlds. The people of McDonough's Rest are among this second group.

I don't think mecha(I've kept calling them titans, but I want a different name for them) need to have a specific origin. It's enough to assume that they are the evolution of war machines such as tanks. It could be said that they are particularly useful out in the frontier, where there's less infrastructure, and a weapons platform that can walk across any terrain, and even climb etc is invaluable.

A form of AI was necessary to keep the mech's movements stable, and auto pilot was developed so that they could fight with or without a pilot(though they have always shown to be more effect with with a pilot). They were developed to be smarter, to obey verbal commands and relay tactical information to their pilot. These constant advancements, and a built in ability to learn created a sort of emergent intelligence. A new titan is smart, but bland. The older they get, the more their personality develops, and is shaped by their experiences with humans. Some pilots form close bonds to their titans, anthropomorphizing them as humans often do. By treating them as almost people, the pilots feed into the emergence of their personalities, and almost help to create them.

Some pilots, however, don't care for this messy personality business, and will periodically factory reset their mecha's AI to maintain the professional, tactical machine that was originally built. It has been argued that this creates a less effective AI, but there are no conclusive statistics on that.

Oh I am interested!

@Jinxlynx
Glad to here it!

I forgot to tag @eemmtt when I replied to them in the other thread, but I just directed them here so I’ll do it here.

So how are all the people feeling about what’s gone up so far? Is everyone still around?

Month late edit: I cannot believe nobody pointed out that I said here instead of hear.

I am, I have an idea for my Character and mech too

Cool, feel free to either make a CS, or if you like, just kind of run it by me here in simple text.

I am gonna start working on my CS.

@Gisk

Is it okay if we pre-apply characters here?