BattleForce at a scale proper for Regiments?

[Daemion]

For Games of Large Unit Combat, BattleForce 1 and BattleForce 2 didn't quite reach the mark.  (See Commentary, below for more on my opinions there.)  But, suffice it to say, the BMR era of BattleTech, including AeroTech 2, had a lot of elements to make a game that could be properly scalable from and integrate with the standard parent game.  But, those elements won't be enough.  There's a little something required for quick and easy resolution of 'inconsequential battles.'


Goals
1) Large Force Deployment: BattleForce, in my opinion, was meant to be a means of running forces of Battalion or larger in a compact format.  It would give people who didn't have the table space for sprawling map layouts the means to make larger tactical maneuvers that weren't possible on a normal 1x2 map set-up, and allow for uneven engagements.  Though the regiments may be balanced points-wise, lance deployment and general objectives can make for more than a stand-and-deliver line battle.

(Aside: If there's one thing BattleTech gets accused of, it's that balanced games are unrealistic.  The second is that light scout units can't be fully utilized as they are intended, and end up in situations that see them destroyed more often than they should.)

Easy Integration:  Another goal that was lost in the older versions was being able to take any given engagement at the larger tactical level and easily convert it into a standard BattleTech game, and then take the results of that game and dial back out to the larger 'regimental' level with some relative ease.

Quick Resolution of 'Inconsequential Battles':  This requires a missing element.  Simply scaling down the gritty Mech and Vehicle stats from the standard BattleTech game simply won't do.  Resolving battles with mixed units against other mixed units should be relatively simple and quick, almost to the point of simply rolling dice Risk-style.  But, the results should be useful enough that if you wanted to focus what's lift into a standard BattleTech game, it wouldn't take much more than some damage allocation.


Existing Elements
AeroTech 2 (Or the aerospace combat section of Total Warfare) has given us a map scale that actually integrates well with the standard BattleTech Ground Map.  It's called the low-altitude map.  At this scale, one hex represents one standard BattleTech Map Sheet.  You can already use this scale of map for air engagements over and around a particular battlefield and allow for attack runs on enemy forces with ease.

You also have an impulsing effect when integrating the longer-duration of turn for High-Altitude Space Combat.  Space combat at High Altitude has a turn length of 1 minute, or six ground turns. 

A fully integrated game would play out six ground turns on two different maps, then pause at turn 6 to resolve space combat to see if new forces are joining, or otherwise interacting with the ground like with orbital bombardment. 

Tweaks and Implementation
See next post.

Commentary
Both systems had some issues that didn't quite work.  Both issues made it hard to rescale to a proper BattleTech game if you wanted to.  This was true of a lot of supplementary games, like BattleTroops.  The two just didn't mesh.

Scale of maps: The odd choice to simply switch hex scale from 30 to 90 meters meant you couldn't pick out a standard BattleTech map or two to fit if you wanted to dial down to that level of detail.  This was forgivable early on for BF 1, considering the Low-Altitude Map from AT2 had not been introduced.  You simply had AT1, which had the fighting literally happening in space, and any ground support went straight to the maps where a battle was underway.  And, BF2 simply tried to revamp what had been established in BF1.  I don't know for sure if AT2 post-dates the printing of BF2 or not.


Scale of units: BattleForce 1 was rather wonky, having a variety of weight class units, but leaving you with no idea what it might actually be composed of.  BattleForce 2 broke the Adventuring Party style of Lance build you could get with the stock game by assuming that each lance was fully composed of the type of mech defining the unit.  A Commando -2A unit was literally a lance of 4 COM-2As.  This might have been okay for the Star League era, but it would fail in the 3rd and 4th Succession War periods, where lances were a mish-mash of different units and weight classes.  So, you could not take the phonebook lists in the Wolf's Dragoons book or any of the Clan Source books and expect to field them at the BF2 level.

Aside: In my opinion, Alpha Strike took the BF2 unit stats in the right direction as far as I'm concerned.  It's not perfect, but each unit representing a single Mech makes sense.  And, I may be mistaken, but when the card game came out from Wizards of the Coast, it looked to me like they had used BF2 stats. 


Application of damage:  Too much emphasis was placed on matching the 'did we hit' nature of BT.  At such a larger scale of time and the volume of fire involved, hits and misses wouldn't be so 'yes or no'.  So, we would want to step outside the box and re-examine an attack system.  The final result, on the surface, probably won't look like BattleTech.  It would be in the side panels, explaining what an attack roll meant and what damage meant that you could explain why something is representing a parent game effect over the course of roughly six turns.

[Daemion]

Tweaks and Implementation
For the moment, let's focus on simply integrating various BattleTech games on a larger map.

From the existing elements listed above, Low-Altitude Map Scale and different turn lenghts of 10 seconds to 1 minute, how can we use them to get ground movement in a meaningful manner.

At the scale of one map is a hex, there are two ways to go.  You can keep things at the same 10-second turn length that the ground and low-altitude games play at.  This would require partial MP on the part of many ground forces, requiring x amount of turns to move from one maphex to another.  And, this is barring the complication of adverse terrain at the low-altitude level. 

The other option is to impulse ground movement, and combat, at the same level as space combat while forces are tracked on the low-altitude map.  It's this latter version I'm gonna focus on. (I've used it twice, and it worked really well.  And this was just for setting up games of BattleTech to be resolved separately.)

Tactical MP - Making Movement Meaningful
If we have ground forces moving over the course of a minute, that is 6 BattleTech turns, units can traverse an okay number of hexes on the map during that time.  Remember that a hex on the low-altitude map is equivalent to 500 meters. Depending on how you want to round, that's 16 or 17 BattleTech ground hexes.  17 comes out to 510 meters, that last hex straddling the line. 

A lot of Mechs have a running profile of 6, even many Medium designs, and a few light Mechs. (The Ubiquitous Panther, anyone?)  With no terrain blocking the way, or even with one facing change at the end of one or two turns of spending all 6 MP, it takes those Mechs three turns to clear one map and be ready to get onto the next. 

With 6 turns being a minute, that would mean that Mechs running at 6 MP can clear two maps under ideal circumstances. So, they would have a tactical MP of 2 at that level.  And, we haven't bothered to look at advanced movement options like Sprinting.

A simple conversion would be to take a Mech's running movement and divide by 3 to get its tactical movment on the low-altitude map for the ground forces game turn.

What to do with the units that get a fraction leftover?  This would be units that run 5 or 8 or 11 or the rare ones that run faster.  (Unless we get into some special designs like Mechs with Hardened Armor, no Mech runs at 4 or 10  it can't be done with the way run is calculated.)   

Well, one could round.  It would be easy to fudge upward for some of them, since they are effectively 3 hexes away from the next higher movement profile.  It's simple enough, but there should probably be some sort of penalty.  (You would be effectively dipping into the advance Sprint movement mode, after all.)  The penalty could apply during movement, or it could be a turn delay in deployment if the unit goes into a game.

The other option would be to round down, but give the unit some sort of bonus it can execute during placement should it go into combat.  maybe a deeper deployment on the starting map edge than normal.  (My initial idea was this one, though I could see something for the other version.) 


Base Unit - The Lance
Now while it may be fun to have different Mechs move their own speed across the maps, one thing that a standard BattleTech game emphasizes and was the focus for the core unit of the original BattleForce iterations was the lance.  They moved and fought together.

If you're going to be fielding a Battalion or more, using a force as your base for movement will become crucial.  A basic Battalion is 36 Mechs, sure, and that may be easy enough to track individual Mechs on a map for movement, especially when you're breaking things down by minute long chunks to get them there.  But, when you get to 108 in a regiment? 

If you deploy your forces at the lance/star/Level II scale, it becomes much more manageable.  A Battalion is only 9 lances.  A regiment would then only be 27 lances.  Still manageable. 

Of course, if you do this, the lance will want to move together, and that means they will be moving at the speed of their slowest Mech/Tank. 


A Whirling Melee - Combat
A proper game of BattleTech is short-ranged and can turn into a whirling melee that can drift between two or more maps.  Moving ground units around on the low-altitude map is over the course of 6 standard ground turns when following the tactical ground turn that I've proposed.  And the idea behind that movement is to set up a game when two opposing forces get close enough.

What's close enough?  Well, it depends on how you're using the hexes of the low altitude map.  If your using each hex to define the map a lance is occupying, then it can be simply when the two forces are adjacent at the end of movement. 

If you think that the standard game set-up should be followed more closely, then assuming the lance occupies the hex close to its center, then a game can be initiated as soon as the enemy is two hexes away (one hex between them).  You can assume  that the hexes overflow when picking the maps.  Or you can take a bit of a literal approach, find a central map that fits the hex and two maps that fit the occupied hexes.  And, if you need to make room for space, fold the two occupied maps in half when lining them up with the main central map.

Once a game is started, if it ends early, assume that the winning forces spend the remaining time consolidating position and cooling down.  If the battle is still going after 6 turns, pause the game.  Switch to another game and resolve it to the next pause point, and so on.

Once you have a game established, it's best to assume the fight moves into one hex or the other.  You can base it on where the large bulk of the game has drifted in the game.  But, this is where a central map hex would best work, because even though the maps you've set up may have units all across the board, on the tactical map, it's a matter of moving the two forces together into the central hex. 


Organization to the Chaos - Turns and Phases
Yes, we're gonna want movement and combat phases for this level of game, and this is where things get turned on their head. 

I've found that when playing this type of game, the combat phase, the phase where you're resolving 6 turns of one or more standard games, should come first.  Because this combat is going on at the same time other units not locked in a fight are running around.  If one of those stray lances happens to get close to an ongoing game, they will have the opportunity to join that fight next turn.  Since it should be an existing game, they will only be able to enter when adjacent to the central hex of combat.


That hex represents a map - Terrain
If you're using existing BT maps for your low altitude map, it stands to reason that the hexes on that map have a slightly different meaning than they do on a ground map. 

Blank - This is flat open terrain.  Best to be using those blank sides of the maps, if you have them.  Otherwise, find something with relatviely few features and next to no elevation changes or really minor ones.  For example: The Urban maps with all the roads have only two large 1-level tall swells.  You can easily state that the roads simply aren't there and ignore them as terrain features while leaving the small pond and the few tree hexes.

Light Woods  - lightly forested maps.

Heavy Woods - heavy forest maps.

Rough/Rubble - these would be maps with lots of hills.  Think the desert maps or any of the other hilly maps that happen to have a fair amount of trees.  It could also be interpreted as low-level urban maps if so designated.

Building - city maps with some tall buildings if there's a level specified.  You could ignore that if you don't want to implement those size of buildings.

Elevation - per the low-altitude map, each elevation corresponds with a low-altitude... well, altitude.  This is gonna be tricky because unless someone wants to specify a sharp cliff, you'll want to assume a gradual incline.  If you're not using mountain face or mesa maps for the change in elevation, you'll want to reference the aerospace section of Total Warfare, or low-altitude operations from AT2 for the number of ground levels each altitude takes.

From memory, I know the first three are each 50 meters tall.  It starts to exponentiate a bit beyond that.  50 meters is 8 to 9 levels depending on how you want to round or line it up.  6 meter levels on the ground map.  8x = 48m.  9x = 54m.

[Daemion]

This is a quick summary of what I've been using for simply setting up games in a regimental clash:

A Tactical Turn for Ground Units on the Low-Altitude Map is one minute compared to the standard ground game. 

The turn is broken up into phases: Combat, then Movement, then a clean-up phase.

Combat comes first.  Combat is simply six turns of an initiated BattleTech game.  There might be more than one going on at the same time.  It is a matter of simply resolving each one separately for six turns. On the sixth turn, the game is paused until the next combat phase next turn.
- Games that end early whether a force was decimated or one side decided to run, will have the two forces occupy their appropriate hexes and consolidate.  They'll be free to enter the movement phase next turn.
- Retreating units will move onto the hex next to the primary battle hex on the map in the direction in which they retreated. 
- I personally found that putting down a combat token in a central hex with the units helps mark where a game is in progress.

Then movement gets resolved for any units not locked in a battle. 
- MP is based on a Mech's running stat divided by 3, rounding down. Any Mech with a fraction of Tactical MP gets a bonus trait that it can use when deploying into combat. 
- When moving, MP is spent as would be done in a standard BT fashion.  Terrain will have additional MP costs as per standard BattleTech.  A Mech or lance that doesn't have the MP to spend for a terrain feature can enter that hex using minimum movement restrictions.  IE - it's the only move the unit makes that movement phase.


Then comes the Clean-up Phase. Here, combats that have ended get separated, and new combats that are eligible to begin get declared and marked.  Same with forces close enough to join an existing combat.  Any ending combats have their token removed and the units are free to act in the movement phase of the next turn.

The basic unit is the lance.
- When a lance moves, it uses the speed rating of its slowest Mech/Tank.
- If a Mech/Tank is too slow/damaged, it can be abandoned by the lance, changing the profile of the modified lance.
- Any abandoned unit can be made into its own 'lance' and move independently.  If it's removed as a casualty, the unit is considered to have powered down and surrendered to whomever might come along and occupy that hex.

Terrain on the tactical map represents full ground maps.  When using standard map sheets, feel free to get creative to match the hex terrain type. See my list in my prior post.

And, this is just using elements from the core game in a creative fashion to set up a large game between battalions and regiments and get something of the tactical variation one would expect for a proper, more believable battle.

However, there's one thing yet to tackle.  That missing element.  A quick and dirty combat resolution system for those games you don't really care to track, but want resolved for the sake of completeness or deciding what's left to reinforce your 'story' team.

[Daemion]

Okay.  My brain's tired from writing all that up in one sitting.  And, it's midnight.

I'll work on my thoughts on that missing element tomorrow, after I've had a chance to rest.

[Sabelkatten]

Way back when we tweaked BF1 and used single mech "units" rather than lances. Played out Battalion-on-Battalion fights with no serious difficulties. But BF1 was arguably even simpler than BF2/AS as you didn't even track crits, just damage level.

[Daemion]

Yup.  I have the game.  It's interesting enough.

But, the conversion looks a little over-complicated.

I'm thinking there might be something a little more streamlined way to sum up around 6 turns of a BattleTech Game.  I have one idea I'm about to propose. 

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, I don't recall a conversion system.  Everything was based off stock designs in BF 1.    I'll have to give the rulebook a look-through again.  Now, I find the silhouette icons the right size for the map and want to scan them for reprint.

[Daemion]

That Missing element!
How does one condense a 6-turn game of BattleTech in a way that could be streamlined and easy to resolve, but still allow some sort of backward conversion to the grainy detail of the standard game?

The notion of making an attack roll won't have the same meaning.  Many Mechs have lots of weapons and are often making as many attacks are there are BT turns in minute's time.  A fair amount of those shots will probably be misses.

And, what kind of damage should we be tracking?  A Raw life meter doesn't make sense because of the random negative performance effects which come from the destruction of different locations in Standard BattleTech.  (This is where BF2 missed the mark for me.  Damage was static and tied to a single roll.  But, the damage conversion suggested three solid hits from everything, and nothing for 2 or 1,  and the different weapons succeeding or failing.)

Honestly I'm fond of the idea of a risk-style roll off.  We've done that on occasion in some of my group's campaigns where we were tracking a wide front of combat and only wanting to focus games on the hero units.  But, you get no idea of what's left with that.  I also want a little bit more nuance to get some sort of feel of a free-wheeling exchange on a map-sheet.

One of the things that every attempt at showing a lance or star or Level II as a basic unit of action failed to incorporate the individual elements you'd get from 4, 5, or 6 individual Mechs combined into one whole.  Like how a Mech is composed of different sections (Head, tosos, arms and legs) losing one of them has a unique effect on the Mech's performance, and each one brings a different ability based on what's loaded there. Arms generally have weapons, along with the torsos. 

The lance, star, Level II should also be that kind of diverse with each Mech bringing a set of stats that build the final values one lance can use to move, fight, and absorb 'damage'.

Aside:  I've done an original attempt.  The idea wasn't to determine if damage happened, but to assume it would happen, and determine when inside the 6 turns of a minute.  The best thing I could think of was a d6 roll, and modify the result to happen either sooner or later.  (One face per turn.) 

My initial version was accused of being a bit of a slog.  I agree with that.  Each little battle on the larger map would take a little longer than it should even for someone just learning to play.  I've posted that version on these boards.  Anyone who wants to see it can PM me and I'll link you to it.

Elements of that could be implemented, but for the moment, I'm setting it asside.

But I do have an idea that I think could work. 

[Daemion]

Basic Stats for a Lance
This applies to Stars, Level IIs, and any other size of Mech team you can define.  But, I'm styling it off they typical Inner Sphere Mech formation for ease of conveyance.

I've already suggested what stats a lance will have in a lance-on-lance engagement:
- the ability to do damage
- the ability to avoid damage
- the ability to absorb damage
- there's also the speed to traverse the defined scale of map, which I've covered already.
- there's also the capacity to deliver damage sooner.

All of these can be defined by the definition of 'damage'.  What kind of damage are we tracking?  Well, I'm going to propose the Novel approach to BattleTech fight descriptions. (Go ahead and groan at the pun.) 

In a lot of novels, the authors will only describe key hits, telling damage that cripples the other enemy.  Some authors are good about indicating a large volume of untracked missed shot or stuff that simply does meaningless armor damage. Many others don't even bother with that.  So, if you read some novels, you might come away thinking there were no to-hit rolls involved.  Everything hit and in such a way that the novel's combat sequences would be completely cheesy.

That's the kind of damage you'd want to track when condensing 6 game turns into a short attack roll of sorts.  But, I propose taking it a bit further, and have an attack roll check to see if the lance looses a portion of its total (A Mech) as a casualty to some form of crippling damage.  (Aside: The most basic version of this would just focus on that, but we can add more nuanced damage for Mechs that 'survive' to keep fighting, but at diminished capacity)
 
So, with that definition of damage, let's define some stats.
I'm gonna throw in one other term I'll be using:
'A Combat' - is how I'll be defining the larger tactical combat round, the thing that represents 6 turns of a standard BattleTech game.

- A Mech - this is the lance's capacity to take damage.  Each Mech is effectively like a Lance's hit location and a form of internal structur point.  Each one has stats it pools with the other Mechs in the lance for it to deliver damage and avoid said damage.  When one lance attacks another, it will be focusing on one or more target Mechs in an enemy lance. 

- Firepower - the capacity to deliver crippling damage in the course of a combat.  Each Mech can bring different levels of firepower which will add to the Lance's total.
 
- Mobility - In the course of a combat, each Mech has the capacity to generate enough motion to avoid taking damage.  The dance and interplay betwee Mechs of a lance on a battlefield is loosely represented in this stat.  Mechs that can move fast around the game map, or have the capacity to jump will have larger Mobility values than the slower ones. This should not be mistaken for Speed, which is the MP generated for a lance to move across the tactical map.

- Defense - This is a bit of a misnomer.  But, resorting to terms like armor, or size doesn't quite work, either.  But, this value is a combination of an indivdual Mech's capacity to absorb damage, which includes its size (internal strucure) and its armor to take more or less punishment.  Larger, more armored Mechs will be less likely to lose locations from early weapons fire unless they get concentrated on.  Every Mech is susceptible to lucky hits, though.

- Speed - the MP a lance uses to cross the tactical map.  This can be effected by Mech loss and potentially by minor damage effects.\

- Range - This is a stat for the movement phase of the tactical game I proposed above.  During movement some Mechs can reach across a map and into another.  It can't be used by a mech belonging to a lance locked in combat.  Still up in the air on if it should be allowed to target Mechs locked in combat.  But, at the very least, some Mechs in the movement phase should be allowed to lob shots at range at units that come close enough but don't engage, even if the idea of success might be highly unlikely.

So, when generating a lance, each Mech you add will bring different levels of each to the group. Being a Lance, the limit of Mechs is obviously four.  When a mech is lost, the lance loses the stats it brought.  How much that happens to be will come down to the conversion process.

Getting Specific - Stats as Point Pools
This is what I'm gonna suggest.  FirePower, Mobility, and Range form points pools for their respective abilities to be spent to conduct an action against an enemy lance with which the lance is locked in combat. 

Defense is like armor for a Mech's damage location, after a fashion, in that it is strictly related to the Mech when it is targeted for an attack.

Again, Range is for a lance functioning during the movement phase, allowing it to take pot shots against other lances it isn't locked in combat with and may refuse to engage in combat.  It would function similarly to Firepower in that regard.

For lances locked in a combat, the two stat pools that are relevant will be FIrePower and Mobility.

Potential Rules Text:
At the start of the tactical combat phase, chose an active combat to resolve.  Each one is resolved one at a time, and completely before moving on to the next.  The lances that are locked in the chosen combat tally the total firepower and mobility provided each Mech into points pools for each lance to spend respectively. Some Mechs can add more firepower or mobility but at a cost.  The choice to pay the cost to get the extra points for the pool are made at this time before resolving the combat.  (See the Abilities list for the cost results.  The points added will be listed with the Mech.)

(Aside: Yeah, I've been stewing on this for a while.  I'm working on an honest rules text for this.  I'll attach it once it's done.)


Each Mech will bring at least one Firepower point to the lance pool.  (Others bring more, whether directly or conditionally.  I'll explain in a following conversion post.)

These points can be spent to get an effect:
- (Basic) Make an attack roll against a particular Mech in a target enemy lance.
The attacker gets to choose more often than not.  This is representative of a player maneuvering his Mechs in a standard game to attack certain enemies on the other side. 
- (Optional) Focus Fire to boost the final result of an attack roll.  This should be spent before the attack roll is made.  You can try to guarantee that the die roll will be a success, or you can chance failure to save some Firepower for other attacks.

The number to beat for the attack roll will be the target Mech's Defense stat.  If the roll is equal to or better than that value, the target Mech has taken crippling damage and is removed from the lance as a casualty. 

Of course, that target number can be modified before the die roll.

Most Mechs will bring at least one mobility point to the Lance's Mobility pool.  Some rare ones might not.  Many will bring more, some conditionally so. (Again, I'll explain in Conversion.)

These points can be spent to get an effect after an attack roll is declared against the lance, and usually before the roll is made:
- (Basic) Evade Attack - After an attack roll has been made the defender can spend a mobility point to force a reroll.  This can be done as often as there are mobility points in the pool to spend.  Once the defender chooses not or is unable to spend a point, the final roll stands.  This would be the lance maneuvering to switch up potentially easy targets for the enemy while taking some key opportunities of its own right.  This will especially be usefull when taking ranged pot-shots during movement.
- (Optional) Become a Hard Target - Mobility Points can be spent to boost a target Mech's Defense by one before the combat roll is made.  The number of points available to be spent on a particular Mech is limited to the Mobility points it brought to the pool for that combat round.  This would be a Mech generating high target mods in BT.
- (Optional) Become the Threat - A mobility Point can be spent once a target has been declared for an attack roll to allow the defender to choose a new target in the lance to take the attack.  This declaration is made before points are spent to modify the attack roll and defense value.  This can only be done once per attack declaration, and it can only be redirected to an active Mech in the lance.  (You can't redirect to dead units.) Imagine this as the lance moving to take certain Mechs out of lanes of fire while leaving an anchor to take potential hits. 

Special Note: I labeled the different options as basic or optional because if someone tries this out, and doesn't want anything too complicated, there should be at least one option that looks standard.  I can see some people disagreeing and looking at the Defense boosting as standard.  By all means.

[Daemion]

A Working Example

Let's generate some example lances to showcase a sample round of combat.  I'll show how I came by these in my conversion post.

Phoenix Hawk PHX-1
Firepower - 1(h1/AP1)
Mobility - 3
Range - 1
Defense - 4

Griffin GRF-1N
Firepower - 1(b1)
Mobility - 2(j1)
Range - 2
Defense - 4

Shadow Hawk SHD-2H
Firepower - 1(AV1/AP1)
Mobility - 2
Range - 2
Defense - 4

Wolverine WVR-6R
Firepower - 1(AV1)
Mobility - 3
Range - 1
Defense - 4

Let's assume two lances face off, each with  one of the four in its roster.  Each lance would generate a firepower pool of 4 (Barring the special traits I have in parentheses. More on that in a bit.)  Each one would generate a mobility pool of 10, barring conditional abilities in parentheses.

With just the basic point-spending options, both lances can make 4 different attack rolls against each other, and force 10 rerolls.

In my current version, an attack roll is a simple d6 roll.  I liked the idea behind this because the firepower pool could simply be a dice pool.  When you spend a firepower point, you pull a die from the pool, and once spent, whether on a roll or on a buff, it's set aside.

Aside: This could be changed to 2d6.  I know a lot of people associate 2d6 results with BattleTech, overall and would prefer something like that.  The way the Defense stat is derived would have to be reworked, though.

So, already it can be resolved with just a series of die rolls.  Let's have the first lance target the Phoenix Hawk as its first choice. Let's generate some rolls.
The first attack roll is a 3, failing to equal or beat the Pixie's defense of 4.

The second Lance tries to target the first Lance's Griffin, trying to knock out a Mech with some reach.  The first combat roll is made: Also a 3.  (Yeah, my dice are rolling less than average.)

At this point in time, neither lance has had to spend a mobility point to force a reroll.

First lance's second roll is a 1.
Second lance's second roll is a 2.

First lance's 3rd roll is a 6.  That would be a success, but the second lance has a glut off Mobility to spend, and forces a re-roll: 3.
Second lance's 3rd roll is a 3.  No Mobility required to be spent.

First lance's 4th roll is a 5. Again, better than the target 4.  Again, Second lance forces a reroll by spending its second mobility point.  And unless First lance gets luck and rolls high for each of the 9 remaining rolls, it's gonna eventually end in a failure. (My next roll was a 1...)

I rolled a 4 for the Second lances final attack roll. First time for a forced re-roll. and I rolled another 1 to follow up.

The combat round would end since neither side has any Firepower to spend.  In fact, if neither lance breaks off the combat to run, the combat could continue on in perpetuity with nothing actually happening.

But, anyone who's played enough BattleTech knows that even though a game with this make-up of lances could carry on for quite a while, there will be lucky hits that at the very least work away at armor, leaving either side closer and closer to losing a Mech to some sort of catastrophic damage.

Hence why I added the other spending options. 

So, lets run through the next round of combat, starting off the next tactical turn. 
Special note: If you've been paying attention, the pools for each lance are generated at the start of a combat.  So, the lances don't have to alternate attack resolutions, because the loss of a Mech won't have an effect until the end of the turn.  They won't go into movement until next turn, and if combat continued, the dice pool would be filled with whatever's left in whatever condition it's in.  It can play a part in how points are spent, so that's why I recommend it.

So, First lance continues its attack against the Phoenix Hawk of Second Lance.  This time, the lance pools all three other firepower dice into concentrating fire, boosting the final result by 3.

Second Lance decides to bolster the Pixie's defense. It normally can bring 3 mobility to the fight with no conditions, and spends 3 of the ten mobility from the lance pool to boost the defense up to 7, effectively negating the firepower bonus applied by First lance.

Sadly, the attack roll was a 2.  The final result was 5 against 7, which is a failure, so that ends the combat for First Lance.

Second lance decides to do the same while targeting First Lance's Griffin again.  The Griffin only has two mobility, and it can generate a 3rd mobility point conditionally by taking on a heat token.  But, first lance had not used that option this turn.  So, First lance can only boost the Griffin's defense to 6.  Second lance performs no better, rolling a 1.  That's 4 against 6, a failure.  With no more FP left to spend, that ends second lance's round for that combat, as well.

(I know.  Crap examples honestly rolling dice.  But, this shows why extra things need to be added.)

Now, technically, each lance has one extra firepower point in the Griffin if you decided to go with the special abilities.  The Griffin carries a weapon capable of breaching head armor, or taking it clean off in the case of the PHX-1.  So, the weapon adds a breaching point which can only be spent to boost the attack point by 1.  It cannot be used to generat an additional attack roll.  So, those results earlier, would be one point higher - 6 to 7 and 5 to 6. 

(The Wolverine and the ShadowHawk also have those kinds of points, but are conditional based on target type.  AV is anti-vehicle damage.  AP is anti-personnel damage. Good to know for when vehicles and infantry are brought into this.  The Phoenix hawk can also generate one more firepower but has to overheat to do it.)

But, there is one more minor complication to add to help hasten things along as on combat round potentially rolls into the next: degredation.

Potential Rules Text:
Once a combat round has been resolved between all lances locked in a Combat, any Mechs that had been attacked receive a damage marker.  Though they may have survived, they didn't come through completely unscathed. 

A Mech's defense stat is reduced by the number of damage markers it has sustained to a minimum of 2.  Regardless of how many damage markers are on a Mech, its Defense stat cannot be reduced below 2.  There is always a chance the Mech can walk away from a battle practically with one point of IS in each location and still be fully functional.  Hence a result of one is often a failure. 

(Aside: I'm not keen on auto-misses on strict dice results. That's why I don't strictly come out and say it.  Usually, if you allow auto misses, people will be clamoring for auto hits.  That's not really a thing in BattleTech, asside having enough modifiers to make a target to-hit number impossible to reach on 2d6.  So, if someone is determined to try to kill a Mech, they can boost the attack.  But, likewise, someone wanting to keep a mech alive can boost the defense, too.)

(Optional:  To show the chance that a Mech may have sustained minor critical damage that only hampers a Mech's capacity to fire accurately, move fast, or even removes a weapon, a mech that gets a damage token should roll on the critical result table to see what ability is damaged.  This will carry on for the rest of the game until the Mech is repaired. 

No matter how often a non-defense stat is hit, the final stat value cannot be reduced below zero.)

(Extra Optional:  If players are up for the record keeping, a critical hit roll can be made against a Mech for each FP die spent on it, wither it was to boost an attack or make a roll.)

(Aside:  Now, there's one other level of depletion to consider that i haven't cemented down yet, and that's ammunition expenditure.  It's a matter of deciding on a rate of activity.  Some Mechs won't be firing all their ammo-based weaponry all the time.  But, ammo-dependent weapons will run out, and it might have an effect on the range stat, the firepower stat, or special abilities associated with either.)

[Daemion]

So, that's the general idea.  I know I have some extra complications I intend to tackle.

I may actually rename A Combat either a Melee or a Fire-Fight. I have to decide how a lance can break from combat. (This can easily be one more thing to spend mobility on.  I could see a potential mobility war between highly mobile forces at the end of a combat round.)

I also want to decide what is considered a measured rate of activity when it comes to weapons expenditure for Mechs that track ammo in standard BT.  (This is a matter of conversion, because I intend to do up cards for a selection of Introductory Tech Mech designs, as well as special tokens to use for when my group uses little system.  The idea is that some Mechs will have a number of cards based on a lance's depletion factor, which will be separate from damage.  As a lance is engaged in combat, it gets a depletion counter, and any Mechs in that lance bring up the card associated with that level of depletion when going into a new combat round.) 

The reason I'm so excited for this particular set-up is because I'm eyeballing this as a merging medium for different eras of combat, as well as something I could put other style of mechs and tanks into.  By this I'm looking at things like Macross/Robotech, Gundam, and something of stylized derivative of 20th century armored combat in the form of the Kenner MegaForce Toys.  These are toys I have that I want to play with, but I want to emulate them in a fashion that fits the medium they're from. 

Using the low-altitude map scale, where one hex is 500ish meters fits really well for the LoS ranges those combat machines are working with.  BattleTech, to me, is a unique beast in its own right, and BattleMechs and Tanks out of BT have something going on that actively reduces those ranges when anything faces off against them.  So, there would be special encounter rules that reflect that.  But, against each other, Gundams, Veritech Valkyries and Destroids, and M1- and Merkava- analogues supported by fantastic mobile structures and other fancy sci-fi-ish combat vehicles would be working at those ranges.

Because my initial thought for this was for BattleTech, and it is a unique animal, that's why I'm sharing this here.

If you think you like what you see, it's free to use.  (Especially by me posting it here.)  But, you don't have to wait for me to come up with individual cards.  All you need to see is my conversion process.  Once you see my thoughts on how I generated the stats, you should have something from which to tweak it to fit your tastes.  So, if you want to change it to 2d6 attack resolutions, you have an idea where to start.

And I'll post that sometime tomorrow afternoon, barring anything gets in the way.

[Daemion]

Conversion
- Defense Value -
I believe that each weight class has a size value in AlphaStrike.  It should be how much damage the Mech does in phyiscal combat.

The Defense stat for this new BattleForce is based on that value.  But, that's not all.
Since I'm basing this off 1d6 and a meet and beat system where 1 should be a miss under normal circumstances, that size value should be modified by +1. 

Secondly, some Mechs are particularly well armored.  I originally went with comparing the converted values of armor and internal structure for Alpha Strike.  But, I decided to skip that for something a little more direct.  If you divide the armor points a Mech has by the internal structure points, and you can round the fraction up normally to 2, the Mech is armored enough to get an extra point of defense.

Some examples:
Of the famous 55-ton quartet (in which I include the Scropion Quad) the three humanoid Mechs all have the same internals and the same tonnage of armor.  9.5 tons of armor gets you 152 points.  You total up the internals for each location, you get 91 points.  152/91=1.67.  That easily rounds up to 2.  So, that's +1 defense for those three.

However, the Scorpion only has 7 tons of armor, for 112 points of armor, and it also has the dubious benefit of having 8 extra internals due to its forelegs, which gives it 99 internal points.  112/99=1.13, which rounds down.  No extra armor point.

As a quicky, the Warhammer -6R/K/L's 160 armor points to its 107 internals comes to (160/107=) 1.495. it's on the downward side of rounding that it wouldn't get the +1 for extra armor.

One other example I'm gonna use is the ubiquitous Stalker, a Mech so common that it can't surprise anyone with its presence on the battlefield.  It's 85-ton chassis nets it 130 initernal points.  Its 13.5 tons of armor grants it 216 armor points.  216/130=1.66. +1 Defense.

For those who don't know, size in Alpha Strike is as follows:
Light = 1
Medium = 2
Heavy = 3
Assault = 4

And regardless if it wasn't in Alpha Strike, this is what I'm using for 1d6 resolution. For meet and beat, add one.

So normally the Defense stats for the different classes are as follows:
Light = 2
Medium = 3 (Like the Griffin, Shadow Hawk, Scorpion and Wolverine)
Heavy = 4 (Like the Warhammer)
Assault = 5 (Like the Stalker)

In the case of better armored units like the 55-ton trio and the Stalker, it gets bumped up by 1 because of better than average armor.

So, the given range of Defense values and the above listed Mechs placement:
Defense 2 - no example given (Wasp & Stinger)
Defense 3 - Scorpoin (& Locust)
Defense 4 - Griffin, Shadow Hawk, Wolverine & Warhammer
Defense 5 - no given example (The Marauder -3R actually fits here.)
Defense 6 - Stalker

- Range -
This one is pretty simple.  If the Mech has one or more weapons that can fire out to between 15 and 18 hexes, it has a range of 1. 
If it has one or more weapons that can fire from 19 and further, it has a range of 2. 
Only artillery weapons can get past 36 hexes, so, only they will have a range of 3+

The ShadowHawk, Griffin and Stalker all have LRMs, that reach out to 21 hexes, or even 28 if you're considering extreme range.  They all have a range of 2.  The Phoenix Hawk Wolverine and Warhammer have weapons that can reach past 15 to 18. (The Large Laser in the case of the PHX-1, the AC/5 and PPC for the Wolverine and Warhammer.)  They would have a range of 1.
The CLPT-C3 Catapult is equipped with a valuable Arrow IV Artillery missile system.  That weapon's standard munitions can travel out to 8 maps, which translates to 8 tactical hexes, or a range of 8.
Anything less will get a range of C, meaning they can only ingage in close combat.

[Daemion]

The next set of stats come down to what you might percieve as a reasonable rate of activity.  This will help define some of the extra conditional bonuses you might come across. 


Conversion, continued
- Mobility -
The basis for this is simple enough: start with a Mech's best Walking Target Modifier.

Next, if the Mech has jump, see if the highest Jump modifier exceeds the Mechs best walknig target modifer. If it does the mobility value may be increased by 1.  However, depending on judgement, that may be conditional. 

The first test is if the Mech can at least perform an attack while moving just enough to generate the best jump modifier and remain heat neutral.  Any weapon will suffice.

One other consideration may be a specific Firepower ability. (See the Breach ability in Firepower.)  If it can fire while heat neutral in all instances, it gets a straight +1 boost to its Mobility stat.  If it cannot, the mech can get the bonus, but under a special condition that requires overheating. 

For the sake of nomenclature to set it apart from gaining extra firepower by overheating, this conditional ability will be called jump.

The Stalker, being an Assault Mech with no jump jets, generates only a +1 with its 3 walk. So it has a mobility of 1

The Wolverine has jump jets.  It generates a modifer of 2 with its walk of five.  It has 5 jump jets and can generate a 3 when jumping to its max.  It can fire any of its weapons while jumping and remain heat neutral, so it gets that +1 boost added directly to its mobility stat. (Even if I boost its firepower for having a crit-seeking weapon - the SRM 6, it can still fire that and be heat neutral.  It's only if it fires ALL its weapons that it'll have an issue, and that comes in Firepower below.)

The Shadow Hawk can jump, but its Jump modifier is the same as its walking modifier of 2, so the SHaD doesn't get a boost from jumping.  It only has an effect on its Speed during the movement phase with the J monicre.

The Griffin is a special case.  Like the Wolverine it can generate a Jump modifier of 3, which is better than its walk modifier of 2.  It can do that and fire its LRM-10 remaining heat neutral.  However, it has a PPC which is a head-breaching/capping weapon.  That weapon can be fired and allow the Griffin to remain heat neutral while not jumping, and using it nets it a Firepower bonus.  In this case, I've decided that the Griffin should be getting the FP boost at the expense of a permanent Mobility boost.  It can still get the mobility boost, but only if it decides to overheat to do so.  So, the Griffin gets the Jump [1] condition as part of it's mobility stat of 2.  This sets it apart from the others in a way that is meaningful as well.


- Firepower -
Any Mech that can do damage gets a Firepower of 1.  This could even be physical attacks. 

Beyond that I had two other criteria for generating extra firepower:
Can it generate 20+ points of damage to force a PSR?
Does it have a weapon that can breach head armor or destroy the head location outright?

Breach X
That last criteria, I realized, could be applied to an ability where it only gets to boost the result of a die roll as long as that spending option is in use.  So, I've relegated it to a special trait called Breach X .  Most of the time the X will be 1 (like a PPC).  However, in the case of weapons that can both breach and generate a PSR all in one (the AC/20), that x will be 2. 

This leaves the generating of a PSR. The basis for this one will be based on total damages.
When determining if a Mech can generate 20+ points of damage, use the average results for cluster weapons that use the cluster hit table. Can it do this with any arrangement of weapons and remain heat neutral?  If it can, it gets a solid +1 to the base firepower of 1. 

How many multiples of 20 damage points can it generate?  How many of them can it do and remain heat neutral?  Add that value to the base, instead.

From there, anything else is conditional.  And, this is where rate of activity also comes into play.  For some abilities to apply you'll have to assume the Mech Pilot is committed to a series of actions.  More often than not, most pilots will be sane and regulate their actions within reason, like bracket-firing for heat management.  Some abilities will reflect this.  But, some Mechs require some extra commitment to pushing to get their full effect.

- Alpha Strike X-
Mechs like the Warhammer and Marauder, and the Griffin usually can regulate their activity even though some of the ideal combinations might cause them to overheat a bit.  Some weapons are good at different ranges, but have a different selection of weapons for closer engagements, and rarely should the twain meet.  But on occasion, if the moment is right, it is a good idea to unload it all, all at once for a potential gain.  It won't necessarily shut the Mech down completely, but it will put a dent in the Mech's performance.

Alpha Strike is a one-time use overheat ability where the Mech will take a single heat token on the turn it uses the Alpha Strike.  Using it will generate X extra firepower.  For mechs that don't quite generate a 2nd level of 20 points of damage beyond the first, this will be 1.  For those that can generate more without coming even remotely close to shutting down, it can be however many increments of 20 points it can do. 

Example:
The Warhammer can generate 20 points of damage out to range one with its twin PPCs.  It can use these with some bit of heat regulation and not be too hampered even after six turns of constant use, not even reaching a shutdown check if a pilot so desired.  When up close it can switch over to the batteries of smaller torso weapons, generating at least 20 points of damage overall, but not much beyond that.  Though it could also run heat neutral by alternating fire between PPCs and some close weapons, like two medium lasers, the regulating fire of Twin PPCs then close-in weapons tends to be the normal use for the Mech. It could fire everything and shut down inside three turns, but the benefit for doing that is generally not worth it to most pilots.  But, there may be that one time where it is too good to pass up.

Hence not only will the Warhammer start with a base FIrepowe of 2, with a Breach 1 trait that can also apply in ranged attacks, it gets the Alpha Strike 1 trait. 

Aside: I actually decided this for the Whammy because I realized that only greenhorn pilots would push the Mech recklessly, and I intend for special pilots to be an additional part of this little set-up eventually, including green pilots.  I'd give a green pilot an ability where an Alpha Strike ability turns into the Overheat X ability with Shutdown 1. 

Another Example:
The Griffin and Marauder are in the unique position that they can't quite generate an extra 20 points of damage.  The Griffin can potentially do so, but it relies on luck.  The Marauder only gets an extra 15 points of damage on top of the 20 it can generate normally.  Both overheat to use the extra weaponry, and so using the extra weaponry would be something conditional or that the pilot would regulate heavily.  Giving them each Alpha Strike 1 makes sense even though the math doesn't quite add up unless rounding is involved.

I'm considering this for the Wolverine, as well, because it comes close, though it doesn't overheat real bad when it does use all its weaons and jumps.  13 heat versus 12 heat sinks means it will only reach heat level 6 at the end of combat. 

- Overheat X & Shutdown X-
Every point of 20 beyond the amount that can be generated while remaining heat neutral can be applied, but at the cost of overheating.  This is where a little math and comparison to the heat scale will determine how much can be generated for a heat token as well as how much can be generated before the Mech shuts down. 

This is for Mechs like the Stalker that can practically shut itself down when it fires ALL its weapons, but can also generate significant fire power with varying levels of activity so that it doesn't shut down. 

A Mech that gets these abilities is assumed to be capable of pushing itself and that the pilot will commit to the level of activity for a full 6 turns. 

Overheat X is the amount of Firepower that a Mech can generate with one level of significant heat push.  Usually it's gonna be by 20 points, but when it comes to some Clan Mechs, it can be more. 

Shutdown X is the number of times the Overheat ability can be used before the Mech shuts down, or comes close enough to the top of the heat scale that it might as well be shut down.

Example:
The Stalker is a unique Mech. It is a bracket-firer under normal operation.  With 20 heatsinks, if it fired responsibly at any range, it can meet any target with a decent amount of damage. 

Twin LRM 10s can potentially do 20 points of damage, but generally fall short at an average of 12.  Inside one map's distance, it can reliably generate 20 points of damage with only movement heat being a consideration when adding one LRM 10 to the twin Large Lasers. (8x2 + 4 =20.)  At close range, it has 4 medium lasers it can rely on and not overheat.  Although the twin SRM-6s could potentially do 20 to 24 points of damage on top of that but usually average 16, and these are crit-seaking weapons.  It can fire the Medium lasers and both SRM-6s and only have to worry about overheating by movement.  (3x4 plus 4x2 is 20 heat.)

When a pilot is willing to push a little bit, they can get that extra damage, like throwing in a large laser with the 4 medium lasers and 2 SRM-6s, or an SRM-6 with the twin large lasers and four medium lasers.  At 28 heat for the first option or 32 heat for the second, the mech can push to about half the heat scale assuming running movement.  That would be 10 to 14 final heat, netting you 44 points of damage on average.  Assuming some regulation, it wouldn't be hard for the Mech to stay around this mark with a little push, then let off and cool-down.

Now, if the Stalker fired all its weapons for an average final damage of 64 damage, the Stalker generates 44 weapons heat. Once the heatsinks have come into play, the Mech is looking at a +4 attack modifier, -4 movement points, which nets to 0, and shutdown avoided on 8+.  If it ran, it goes up to heat level 26, where the shutdown is avoided on 10+.  At that point, it might as well be shut down.  It would take one turn of no activity to put it back to heat level 6.

So, in the case of the Stalker, the Overheat option isn't a one-time thing, and if a pilot is really wanting to blast one or more targets, they can push to shutdown.  But, the overall firepower gain is incremental.

So, I gave it Overheat 1 and Shutdown 2.  It can take on an overheat token to gain an additional firepower point, and it can do that twice before the Mech goes into shutdown enough to have an effect on the next potential 6 turns.

This is on top of the straight Firepower stat of 2.


- Crit Seeking -
The Stalker, Warhammer and Wolverine are interesting in that they both have SRM-6s, which are known for crit-seaking.  I haven't really attributed extra damage to those weapons, but since the Nature of those weapons is to exploit weaknesses in armor to make bad things happen, I may go ahead and allow a Mech that sports at least an SRM-4 as having a crit-seaking weapon.  An SRM-4 averages 3 separate hits.  An SRM-6 generates an average of 4 hits, and they go all over the hit table. 

With this in consideration, crit seaking can add a natural extra firepower point to the base firepower, unless there is some sort of consideration for order, like maybe the Warhammer.  It uses its PPCs with the breach for Range 1 attacks.  The SRM-6 would be added in standard close combat.  It'd be easier and less complicated if the crit-seeking bonus went to the Alpha Strike bonus, making for Alpha Strike 2.

Same would be true for the Stalker with its overheat bonus. 

And, this is why I'm thinking of giving the Wolverine an Alpha Strike bonus stat.  Or, come up with one more ability that is strictly called crit seeking that can only apply in combat to FP. 

When it comes to generating abilities, I highly recommend that if something can be ropped in with a larger one, do so.  That's why I won't give crit-seeking to the Warhammer and Stalker, but will do that for the Wolverine.  It doesn't overheat bad.  They do.  And, that bonus really only applies when they decide to push.

So, this gives you an idea of what I'm looking at for stats. 

[Daemion]

I will only be generating cards for a selection of Mechs, as well as lance and star sheets for these cards.

I'll be doing:
Locust
Stinger and LAM
Wasp and LAM
Phoenix Hawk and LAM
Chameleon
Griffin
Shadow Hawk
Scorpoin
Wolverine
Merlin
Rifleman
Crusader
Thunderbolt
Archer
Warhammer
Marauder
BattleMaster
Stalker
Longbow
Marauder II

As well as
Warhawk
Timberwolf
Summoner
Hellbringer
Mad Dog

This list is based off the micro Mech collection I have decided to keep. I'll post them once I have them finished. Otherwise, exercise your best judgement when generating stats and abilities.  Hope it works out for you.

[Daemion]

I hope you can see looking at the Stalker, why I would have to decide on what would count as a normal rate of activity for determining a rate of depletion for ammo use.  Even though you could fire to shut down over the course of 6 turns, that's 4 turns of actual fire using all your ammo.  So you wouldn't run out too quickly.  However, the real question would be how much of the SRM ammo and LRM ammo gets used when doing a single overheat, or even well-regulated weapons fire.

[Daemion]

Oh, yeah! 

If you don't want to mess around with the special abilities when converting, the following is what I originally did when devising this version of the system. 

Evasion - This stat was originally assigned based on as described above.  Best walking TMM for the Mech, and add one if the best Jump TMM was better.

(Aside: The special consideration for the Jump ability can be ignored.  If the Mech can jump and attack with heat neutrality at all, or can regulate it, then it gets the extra mobility from it's Jump TMM. So, the Griffin's Mobility stat of 2 (1j) would actually be just a straight 3.)


Firepower -
Each Mech gets one base firepower point, regardless of how big or short-ranged the weapon.  (Even the Charger gets a single FP even if it was down to its last small laser.)
If the Mech possesses at least one weapon that can breach head armor (...under normal circumstances.  We're not looking at Hardened armor, yet...) it adds one to the base firepower stat.
If the Mech can generate 20+ points of damage forcing a PSR while staying heat neutral, it adds 1 to it's firepower stat.

(Aside:  I had intended for pretty much all Mechs to top off at 3 FP, however, some might look at Clan Mechs and think they deserve a little more.)
Optional - Instead of just checking for the ability to generate at least 20+ damage points, add to the firepower stat the number of full increments of 20 average damage points a Mech can generate while remaining heat neutral.


Simple enough, right?  A lot of Mechs would start to look similar, though, which is okay.  However, I do remember the TCG and BattleForce 2 having some extra things to set Mechs apart.  I looked at the Griffin compared to the Wolverine, and the Warhammer compared to the Marauder, and also looked at the Stalker, which was capable of a lot more if it could overheat.

And, that's when I felt the need for abilities and flavor.

edit: fixed the 20+ option for a little more clarity.

[Daemion]

Determining Stat Degradation With Damage
One of the things I was looking at as an option was a simple means to emulate the location and stat damage that Mechs suffer in a standard BattleTech game. 

I was thinking that the Alpha Strike crit table would be a good analogue.  I wanted to keep it to a d6.  But, the crit results are a bit extensive and detailed for what I have in mind above.

So, a simple d6 resolution table seems in order.  So, to determine the base stats on a Mech card for this system, roll a de6 and consult the following table:

1 - Speed -1
2 - Mobility -1
3 - No ability damage.
4 - No ability damage
5- Firepower -1
6 - Range -1

No ability damage = this is like a Mech simply taking armor and internal damage with no ill effects.  It happens.  Remember that this extra ability damage is in addition to the point of damage inflicted on the Mechs Defense stat.

Firepower = Firepower reduction can mean more than just weapon loss, but it generally comes down to that.  It could be as simple as accuracy damage through actuator hits or sensor damage, too.

Range = There are specific weapons that give a Mech its reach, this represents that loss.

Mobility = There are some extra facets to mobility than just a Mech's speed.  If it can jump, it could lose a jet or two over the course of a battle.  The gyro could take a hit, slowing it down. 

Speed = This is legit leg damage slowing a Mech down.

Keep these in mind, because if you decide to convert a Mech back from this level of stats, you can use this as a guideline for assigning damage.