Author Topic: Price of mechs  (Read 6082 times)

Dunia

  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 56
  • Cute, deadly and with 2 PPCs. Fear me.
Price of mechs
« on: 25 October 2017, 11:17:08 »
Just curious. What do mechs cost to a merc unit that wants to buy one or two?
My mother and father met in a Mechwarrior RPG game, I am a Battletech Born Brat :)

GermanSumo

  • Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 188
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #1 on: 25 October 2017, 16:35:38 »
hi dunia.

the price of mechs is "relativly" simply. most mechs you can roughly count by tonnage in million c-bills +- 10/20 percent from the factory. xl engines double that price, xxl engines triple it. electronic devices such as a c3-system, targetting, ecm etc range into millions, too. afaik a c3 master counts as 5 million. thats roughly the price. many are listed over at sarna. and of course there are certain books to do the numberscrunching yourself  ;) ;) have fun counting hehehe

but for your typical merc unit the price is not the most important factor. in the various editions of the rpg, characters can accumulate quite a lot of money and vehicle traits to own mechs. the problem of acquiring the mechs if you have the money is the availability and the willingness of certain factions to sell them to you. the base bug mechs have their own category here. they can be found in reasonable numbers everywhere. then (in the 3025 setting) the factions have certain loot that they are willing to sell because they dont give these mechs to their pilots in many cases. the base charger is such an exmple for steiner and davion.

but almost economies in the battletech universe or directly or indirectly state-controlled. and in certain time frames houses are just not willing to sell the mechs because they dont have enough for themselves (in 3025 the houses had issues to fill their own ranks with battle-ready mashines; the civil war era made mechs hard to come by in what was the fedcom; in jihad era the houses even restarted production of primitives again to fill up their ranks. after jihad there was a massive demilitarization). the fluff gives many examples for that. so i would really take a good look at a mechs fluff and the time frame and consider the state the given houses economy is in. battle salvage (not functioning and too damaged to make it viable for the houses to repair) is usually what a merc unit gets. the old merc handbook stated that one of the most important "stats" of any merc unit was the ability to repair and to maintain the whole unit. when the brothers kell arrived on galatea to found the kell hounds, they did not hire ONE jock in the first months. just techs! they had good reason for that ;)

another options are heirloom mechs. an impovered scion of a family of mechwarriors might find himself in the position of needing money. so he sells daddies heritage. many options here, btw...

but pristine factory mechs should be very hard to come by in any area for any private person. unless having the appropriate contacts etc etc.

well... i hope, i helped you with my little excursion here.

have fun


Daryk

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 37048
  • The Double Deuce II/II-σ
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #2 on: 25 October 2017, 18:33:56 »
Costs for many 'mechs are in the MUL.  As a GM, you can add whatever overhead costs you deem reasonable.

SCC

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 8389
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #3 on: 04 November 2017, 03:05:34 »
Th construction rules include cost as an output, at least if you choose to calculate it. However the formula used are majorly flawed. Most notably the prices for many pieces of equipment are based upon how much they would cost to build during the Clan Invasion when they where either new to the market or still under development, times have changed but and the costs haven't.

They also tend to be based a concept of balance and without any regard for anything realistic, for example Light Fusion Engines are cheaper then eXtra Light ones, despite that fact that XL's had been in production for at least 20 years when LFEs where introduced.

An extreme example is the (Vlar) 300 XL, it is without a doubt the most common engine used (If you want a 'Mech to move at a given speed, the 300 XL is likely the best choice for free tonnage) but it's cost, because it formula based, doesn't reflect this.

Col Toda

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2943
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #4 on: 06 November 2017, 06:28:44 »
The cost of a mech and combat vehicle is the price of it's components muliplied by a factor of maximum tonnage . So a 50 ton mech would cost the price of all the components times 1.5 and a 100 ton mech would cost component cost times 2 . The most costly component tends to be the engine . If the mech has an XL engine that costs 4X more than a standard fusion engine . The aforementioned C3 Master is one of the few components that costs more than most engines . When the pulse laser targeting computer combo starts to show light mechs start to require an XL engine to remain viable . So before 3050 a light costed 2-5 million C Bills , medium 4-7 , Assault 7- 12 approx. After 3050 anything with an XL fusion engine jacks up the price 33 -55 percent higher .

Lamont-Cranston

  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 50
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #5 on: 06 November 2017, 22:05:51 »
Costs are also provided in the Heavy Metal program, I think the rules in one of the Field Manuel: Mercenaries provides for adjusting cost based on era and location and condition.

Hechtic

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 1
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #6 on: 26 January 2020, 22:43:02 »
I know this is a bit of a necro, but I figured it worked because it is exactly the topic I am interested in asking about. So I get everything stated here, my question is this, is there a way to say generate a pool of "mechs available to a PC Merc group for purchase" at any given month? I thought that there were these types of rules somewhere, but can't find them, and I know that MegaMek basically creates something like this, but I am wondering if there is a rule system for the TTRPG of something similar. Thank you in advance

pheonixstorm

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 5548
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #7 on: 27 January 2020, 07:49:44 »
The rules used in MekHQ is from AtB (Against the Bot). As far as I know there are no official rules like this. You could try looking in the old Merc Handbook 3055.

RifleMech

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 4444
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #8 on: 27 January 2020, 13:31:50 »
TM, TO, SO, and IO give costs along with the items. SO page 180-181 also has some rules about buying, selling, and negotiating the price.


I know this is a bit of a necro, but I figured it worked because it is exactly the topic I am interested in asking about. So I get everything stated here, my question is this, is there a way to say generate a pool of "mechs available to a PC Merc group for purchase" at any given month? I thought that there were these types of rules somewhere, but can't find them, and I know that MegaMek basically creates something like this, but I am wondering if there is a rule system for the TTRPG of something similar. Thank you in advance

I've never heard of a rule like that. As far as I know that'd be up to the GM.

Daryk

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 37048
  • The Double Deuce II/II-σ
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #9 on: 27 January 2020, 18:43:16 »
You could probably base something on a number of rolls on Xotl's RATs.

Insaniac99

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 557
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #10 on: 28 January 2020, 10:49:54 »
i believe Campaign Operations has acquisition rolls, and that is what I would lean towards.

guardiandashi

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 4826
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #11 on: 14 February 2020, 23:02:32 »
I always used a variation of the reinforcements tables from mw 2nd edition
2d6 (typical) role to see how many are available
2d6 role to determine weight class for each unit
2d6 role to determine tech base
2d6 role to determine faction source
2d6 role to determine specific unit


note in most cases the era determines if the tech base roll is even needed.  IE in 3025ish you can pretty much ignore it although it can be kind of fun to discover that those 4 crates of heatsinks you picked up were mislabled, and were actually crates of DHS....

Col Toda

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2943
Re: Price of mechs
« Reply #12 on: 24 February 2020, 07:02:14 »
Campaign Operations  have generic mech prices .