RayhaanRose
11/18/20 04:40 PM
185.224.1.191
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A request has been made via your broker for a company level Mech unit…
Employer: Greenpeace (Circa 3025)
Remuneration: Excellent
Job: Wildlife Preservation / Conservation and Media Relations
Your unit is to travel to “…….” Where you will be established within the “……..” enclosure and within the “ ……… “ National Forrest.
Once on site your duties will include capturing these animals for off world zoos / deterring big game hunters / medical poachers
Secondary duty – your unit is to assist a media crew in preparing a nature documentary on the local wildlife.
Also you will be provided with a local “controller” to ensure your work is within guidelines at all times.
By now you would be thinking BattleMechs to protect animals???? Until you do a quick search on the planet and find the local wildlife to be dinosaurs ….
And the hunters use ‘Mechs to hunt them in
Has Anyone else have any other ideas for mercenary contracts like this?
Edited by RayhaanRose (11/23/20 11:12 PM)
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Wick
11/18/20 06:53 PM
173.247.25.195
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That is somewhat similar to ComStar/Interstellar Explorations contracts for deep space exploration. While the hired mercenaries could encounter a deep periphery military force, the more common tasks would be routine exploration-assistance tasks like clearing debris (especially on jungle worlds), building/assembling prefab structures and providing protection from hostile locals or alien monsters (which may not be large enough to justify mechs like dinosaurs are, but infantry instead.) More engineering than combat really. Mechs like the Marco prove there's a role to justify it though.
BattleTech is a wargame and Mechs are instruments of war, so the options for non-war footing contracts are pretty rare.
There are rare mop-up/scorched Earth contracts, where a unit is sent in to finish destroying some target that is effectively ruined and abandoned, but repairable against the wishes of the hiring House. For example, during a war, the House units may have crippled a firebase and scattered the defenders, but are too busy elsewhere to ensure the firebase is utterly destroyed such that the defenders can't rebuild it and attack their flank. It is war footing, but not direct combat against enemy forces.
There are also cadre assignments, where a mercenary group is hired to train recruits or militia. These are typically not real battles, but simulations and training, leveraging the experience of the mercs. The big houses generally don't do this because they have academies for this stuff, but independent worlds will need to rely on mercs, as well as companies seeking to have their defense forces trained. Whether this counts as war footing or not is up to you - its kind of in the gray area of preparing someone else for war footing. Most cadre assignments are also garrison assignments though (in which the garrisoning force trains local militia or company forces instead of being there solely for defense), and I assume you are counting garrisoning as a war footing scenario.
Most likely type of contract I can think of is parade/show of force contracts. Typically some noble is about to be crowned or wedded and wants to make a show of force by parading mechs down the main boulevard of their capital city. Sometimes the militia doesn't have any nice mechs to display, and the general public doesn't know (or care) that they belong to mercs, only that their noble has the means to protect them with mechs if the need arises. Clean mechs that look fully operational with fresh coats of paint are preferable to actual battle functionality. On major worlds, House units would fulfill this duty but on some minor worlds or in the periphery I'd suspect it to be more common.
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ghostrider
11/19/20 10:20 PM
66.74.60.165
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Might be worth it to start using non mechs, or see if you players would start some adventures outside of their mechs.
There are a few scenarios you could run, but they are not as exciting as combat scenarios for those that want to stomp each other with their mechs.
Recon an area that is highly unstable, on to find out where a crashed probe/ship/ufo, or search for a cave or structure that showed up on some radar, but no one can figure out how to get into it without just digging down. Cave ins as well as maybe a gas explosion could result from such an action.
Extermination of hostile wildlife is always possible, but not many will give even a light mech much trouble. If they do, then the game stales.
Contracts to explore a destroyed station/jumpship/asteroid might be another that can be done in a mech for most, but getting out of the mechs into personal armor might be required.
Shutting down a reactor has been done, but can be a scenario, but what if it is say an unexploded bomb in the middle of the city that no one knew was around until they started to dig it up, remodeling say a park?
But as stated before, this is more for getting out of your unit, instead of using them.
Could really press their abilities and see if they can use their mechs to recon a site. See if they can avoid being spotted, and get the intel.
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