The earliest mechs were the Single-Trooper Armored Recon (STAR) units, demilitarized and packed onto the colony ship. These powered exoskeletons were intended solely for exploration, and had no real weaponry, which proved a major liability when attacked by megafauna. Many STAR units were upgraded with jury-rigged weapons for such purposes.

By the time of the Kodan War, the Five-Star League had the largest number of preserved STAR units, thanks to their surviving colonial infrastructure. They were the first to mass-produce weapons for the mechs, and refit them into an armed version known as a "Gun STAR." The pilots and their mechs were a fearsome force on the battlefied, but Xurian sabotage prevented them from fully engaging the vastly larger Kodan armada.

After the dissolution of the Five-Star League, Minegarde became the leading developer of mechs, introducing the "Konchu" armored exoskeleton for its elite hunter teams. The MCC got in on the action as well, with their speedy "Spartan" walker. As infrastructure improved across the planet, every league began to field mech units as a middle-ground between infantry and armor. Now, the most advanced mech chassis would probably be the Lunar Republic's "Gerty," adapted for vacuum and micro-grav, or the "Wall of Fyr" prototype in Resdayn.