Mechanized Age (Sign-Up/Discussion Thread 1)

[Sifright]

I would like to join this game, making my character now.

Edit: making my character with Cabal and Gem.

I would like to suggest moving Mobility from industry to a combat specialty. A combat pilot is going to push equipment to the brink far more than an engineer would want to do so.

[Geminex]

Aaand here's my backstory!
Cabal, Sif and myself are making characters that stem from the empire of Varus, an allied nation that's sending a relief force to help you guys. Our characters have known each other for 8 years, so it's time to show you guys how it's done. And bitch about your horrible tactics. And spy on your technology.

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Name: Hauptmann Manuel Remseck
Age: 29
Description: 175 cm, 180 pounds, close-cropped, black hair, styled in a pratical buzzcut, dark skin. Very formal and by-the-book when on duty, reflected by his stern, tight-lipped expression. His pale blue eyes normally have a calculating look to them, not quite a thosand-yard stare, but they definitely give the impression of being somewhere else. Until he focuses on you, that is, and his gaze becomes piercing, probing. Muscular in a lean, sinewy way. His stance is usually proud and upright, not quite agressive, but definitely confident. When he's off-duty, or with friend's, he's generally much more easygoing and relaxed, and his stance reflects it.

Backstory: Manuel is part of an expeditionary force, graciously sent to Marecia by it's larger neighbor and ally, Varus to assist in its stabilization. Despite being only a small force, the Varan Expeditionary Force (VEF) includes many experienced officers and pilots, and Remseck is no exception. Growing up in a middle-class family, Remseck recieved a scholarship to earn a degree in mechanized engineering. He succeeded academically, and gained a keen interest in his country's military culture and history. He was accepted into the Varan Officer's academy, and, after another one-year course, emerged with a master's degree of mechanized combat engineering, the rank of first lieutenant, and two close friends. Having been part of the same squad during training, they stayed together when they were deployed to the First Varian Mech, a heavy, mobile division consisting of mounted infantry with heavy mech support. They spent an 8-year tour of duty in the country's west, protecting the Varan coasts and engaged in heavy fighting during a 3-week border skirmish with the Empire of Clarens. Varus ended up gaining a nice chunk of territory, and Manuel got his first glimpse of real battle. He and his squad found they had a taste for it, and, when their tour completed a few months later, they signed up again, this time with the rank of captain and new, customized mechs.

Despite being fairly easygoing, and sometimes even casual, when at home (he was well-known for the occasional prank) he finds it hard to adapt to new social situations, and this, combined with a very formal upbringing, results in him clinging tightly to military ettiquette now that he's in Marecia. He also feels the urge to set an example to the undisciplined mob of mech pilot's that they're expected to fight alongside.

When among friends, or in the throes of combat, he becomes less inhibited, though, and strict discipline is replaced by wit and informal practicality. He's a very calculating individual and will try to think all his actions through, but does let passion get the better of him a lot of the time. Fiercely patriotic, with a keen interest in history and tactics, as well as the technology that he studies, but a tendency to get distracted by routine or repetitive tasks.

Mech Design: A small mech that's faster and stronger than it looks, scuttling across the battlefield. The mech is around 30 feet in height, a 4-legged design that has the bulk of the mech below the leg joints. Cockpit and arms, as well as engineering tools are mounted in the top half, while the lower half stores sensors, com, and the generator powerin the mech. It's pained a nondescript gray, normally, though the maintanance gear includes respray kits for improved camouflagee. The rounded design and internal ammo stores greatly diminish improve radar cross section.

[Astral Harmony]

Created this nearly entirely out of boredom. If you're already full, no hard feelings or nuthin', just something I was in'erested in.

Name: Anatasia "Ana" Ruukstein
Age: 26
Description: Anatasia stands at 5' 5", weighs 117 pounds, has red-brown hair and blue eyes. She has an average build and, due to her upbringing and strict father and grandfather, constantly dresses prim and proper in both civilian clothes and military uniform. Her mech is the Longinus Stridetank Mk III which she drives while Tristam, a fine-boned averagely handsome man operates the weaponry and Priscilla, a dark-blue haired servant of Anatasia's family, constantly monitors the Longinus's status and readouts.
Backstory: Until recently, Anatasia always wondered why she was ever born with the gift of free will, and not a day passes that she doesn't curse her own life and fate. Apparently, her father Julius never wanted her to enjoy life and her mother Alflora was far too submissive. Constantly bullied by her father who was disappointed that she was born as a girl to begin with, Anatasia was raised with firm, unfair guidance and undue harsh abuse the moment she stepped out of line or even just whimpered.

The moment Anatasia was able to enter the military, she eagerly pursued it, mainly because it allowed her to get away from Julius who was only trying to impress his own father, a retired high ranking officer named Killian. She was certain that her father was more intent on just having Ana married off to some self-important asshole with political and noble influence, anyways. Studying her ass off, Anatasia scored high enough that she was selected to enter active duty as the driver for the Longinus Stridetank MK III. This was perhaps the only victory she ever claimed over her father, seeing as how he was never chosen for the honor of piloting the very armored tank his own father did.

What made this event all the sweeter was that Anatasia had finally gotten to meet her grandfather Killian. Julius never introduced the two together because he was so ashamed of having what he believed was an unworthy daughter, but Anatasia and Killian warmed up to each other quickly. Much to Anatasia's joy, Killian detested his douchebag of a son. To Killian's telling, all the money Julius has and even being married to Alflora was all to Killian's own credit, but apparently the bastard got his rocks off more on making people miserable. Anatasia wouldn't have minded dying on the battlefield since it meant she wouldn't have to go home anymore, but after meeting her grandfather finally, she now carries on with a sense of pride and determination, intent on making Killian proud by piloting the same mech he did with honor and distinction. For him, and of course, for the other two members of the three unit crew.

Anatasia's personality has become a lot more aggressive since then. She has a more positive outlook on life and is openly opposed to her father's whims, often embarrassing him in front of his friends during those rare moments that the two interact, the stories of which entertain her grandfather immensely.

Mech Design

Not so much an upright mech as it is a heavily armored four-legged tank, the Longinus Stridetank Mk III stands roughly 20 feet tall, 40 feet wide with the legs bent at right angles, and 40 feet long. It is painted an irridescent teal with black stripes lined with violet, making it stand out quite a bit. Nearly all weaponry, electronics, and other machinery not inside the tank is mounted on the top. The tank has a crew of three: Anatasia drives while Tristam mans the guns and Priscilla constantly monitors the tank's various readouts.
Statistics and Specialties

Character Statistics
Reflex: 2
Accuracy: 4
Economy: 1
Engineering: 5
Focus: 6
Computers: 0

Mech Statistics
Payload/Total: 4 / 8
Armor: 3
Speed/Modifier: 1 / -20%
Generator Output: 3
Backup Systems: 2

Specialties
- (Combat) Primary Weapon Specialty: Heavy Machine Gun (7 Payload)
- (Industry) Circuitry
- (Logistics) Turret Manipulation

[DanteFalcon]

Alas currently full AB. If someone drops I'll send you a PM with an invitation. I'll be approving your post tomorrow Gem (Saturday the 4th).

Edit: New specialty similar to Mobility in combat named Reflexive Movement. Editting it into the Specialty list so its full description is there. There are some differences to make it unique but if your combat focused and can't get Mobility this is very similar.

[Geminex]

A few more questions.

First, turrets. What're they armed with?

Second, when talking about damage, you said mechs could take several hits. Care to specify? If not, could I offer a suggestion?

Armor provides protection from various classes of weapon. But when armor is breached, I don't think there should be a huge discrepancy in damage. My suggestion would be that each point of backup would be able to "absorb" one point of damage. Whereas one point is the equivalnt of one seconds' worth of attacks from each weapon.

Basically, if your armor is susceptible to the SMG, you'd take roughly one point of damage for every 6 smg rounds you get hit with. For the assault rifle, you'd take one point for every two rounds you get hit with. For the sniper rifle and battle rifle one round.

At less than 50 metres, shotguns should probably do double damage to lightly armored mechs, and I'm thinking that the heavy machine gun should always do double damage.

When a mech isn't immune to a calibre, but it's ineffective (like the assault rifle against 4-armor mechs, or the battle rifle against 2-armor mechs), I'm thinking half damage would be appropriate. Also thinking that pistols should always do half damage.

I'm not sure how you want to handle the effects, exactly, but my suggestion would be that the mech's functionality is decreased by a little every time they take a point of damage. How is up to them, it can be anything from decreased speed to aim that's slightly off. When they've taken as much damage as they have backup, the mech becomes disabled, losing a major part of its functionality, like weapons systems or mobility. They're not dead yet, but it'll take a lot of creativity to continue fighting. They can still get repaired when they're disabled.

Once they're disabled, they can take their backup's worth in damage again, before they become destroyed.

This doesn't have to be a strict measure, by any means, but it'd be good to have a rough guideline re: how many times can we all afford to get shot.

[DanteFalcon]

Gem is approved.

Turrets are Machine Guns but of a weaker variety than the ones you guys tote. They'll still shred anyone who thinks they can walk into it, just not stray bullets to kill everyone ever.

That works roughly for damage. Because of the freestyle nature that's a good baseline but circumstances can mess that whole thing up. And Weapon Specialties.

Edit: Relm is approved. Slowly putting together the first post.

[Sifright]

Erk, Will make sure to have my bio finished tomorrow morning sorry for the time it's taking had some things come up will have it up asap.

Edit:

Name:Hauptmann Karl Von Kriger

Age:31

Description: 5'8 200lbs Karl has a very broad build and walks with with a dignified poise inspite of his prosthetic leg. He has short black hair, brown eyes and lightly tanned skin

Background: Karl Von Kriger has been a member in the armed forces of Varus for more than 13 years. Intially serving in the infantry forces it would be 6 years before he fought in the battle for besacon valley one of the most important conflicts in the Varus-Civean war. The mission was a simple one the execution was anything but, the goal was to capture a secret production facility working on cutting edge technology for mechanoid battle tanks. Three wings of M.B.Ts and just under a thousand men all fighting to capture a single facility. The intensity of the battle was unbelivable and the ammount of ammunition expended uncountable. The mission was a success the facility taken it's secrets plundered and taken, that didn't change the fact that only a single mech wing made it out unscathed and less than half of the infantry forces involved survived. A year passed before Karl recovered from his wounds and learnt to use his new prosthetic leg. Testing into the Mech Academy after the battle was the only way for him to continue to fight for his country. It has been many years since Karl has graduated the academy, serving in the 25th mech brigade with his fellow mech warriors even so he hasn't forgotten his days on the ground as an infantry man.



Mech Description:

The [--information redacted--] is a new class of [--information redacted--] Featuring internal ammo feeds for the chassis mounted shotgun and new [--information redacted--]





Stats : Pilot

Reflex: 5
Accuracy: 3

Economy: 3
Engineering: 0

Focus: 5
Computers: 2



Stats : Mech

Payload: 3*2=6
Armor: 1+1=2
Speed: 1+3=4
Generator Output: 1+2=3
Backup Systems: 1

Specialties:

Primary Weapon (shotgun)
Reflexive Movement

Outfitting

Turret manipulation
Signal Reading


Ps: Might make a few last minute adjustments talking with Gem and Cabal.

[CABAL49]

Apologies for the delay

Name: Hauptmann Frederich Raven
Age: 27
Description: 186 cm, 77Kg, white skin, blue eyes and black military cut. Raven had a privileged upbringing and often comes across as arrogant. But his heart burns only for the Empire. He places a great value on rank, but is not above fraternizing with those beneath him. As long as they show respect. He places more value on a rank earned than inherited. Also enjoys fine cigarettes.

Backstory: Frederich is the youngest son of the second cousin of the Duke of Ravensburg, a major military family. Frederich has been in boarding schools and military academies since he could talk. He is well versed in history and battle strategy. His status and skill got him placed in the First Mech division, The Furor Varus. It was then he was paired with two young officers that he became very attached to, Karl von Kriger and Manuel Remseck.

Inspired by the older days, he requested a fully custom mech from his family. This mech was modeled after the knights of old.

During the fight with Clarens, the First Mech Division was named the Furor Varus by the Clarens for their ferocity and tenacity in battle. In some battles they claimed to have taken no loses. After the war, many nations preferred peace. The Empire has turned away from war and more towards keeping the peace. Raven and his squad were chosen in the interests for keeping stability in Marecia. It is an assignment he hates because of the lack of organization of the land. But he will serve with honor and distinction.
Mech Design: Like this but grey.

Character
Reflex: 3
Accuracy: 4
Economy: 3
Engineering: 4
Focus: 2
Computers: 2

Mech
Payload: 6 (3*2)
Armor: 3 (2+1)
Speed: 3 (2+1)
Generator: 2 (1+1)
Backup: 2

Specialties
Combat
Primary Weapon Specialty: Assault Rifle
Target Analysis

Industry
Repair
Circuitry

Logistics
Signal jamming

Also carries a pistol.

[Geminex]

Awh yeah, Varus in the house, bitches. Time to show your Marecians how it's done.

[Menarker]

You guys might have to wait until tomorrow for me to post. Got two assignments to deal with.