GM Start Guide
We all have to start somewhere...
The intent of this page is to offer starting guidelines to enhancing your Battletech experience. While GM's should always balance additional rules with what is practical for their players, one should feel free to get creative when it is reasonably possible.
That being said, using a simple save editor program, you can adjust many parameters for a new campaign that players are likely to enjoy:
Campaign Difficulty
Whether playing the "story" or "career" campaign, Campaign Difficulty is determined at the start and has the largest impact on how a campaign progresses. Below are some recommendations for best results:
Disable Ironman to avoid savefile corruption issues; you can always do "self-imposed" Ironman if desired.
4 Parts For Mech Assembly is recommended.
Always skip Prologue (time saving measure).
All settings outside the gold box can be adjusted as needed. Set to players preferences as needed.
If Lethality is active, it is recommended to buff MW Progression and/or spawning of Advanced MWs.
Default Scenario Setup
IMPORTANT: All of these changes require an editor app or mod!
Starting Mech Budget (up to 6x)
By default, you are limited to starting with up to SIX mechs due to hangar capacity limits.
4 million C-bills per Player
(recommended)Excess C-bills can be added to community funds.
Starting Pilot Stats:
2100 XP per pilot
Players distribute XP to Skills in-game.
(OPTIONAL) Randomized XP:
Roll 2d6 for each player and multiply the result by 300.
(ex. rolled 7 (x 300) = 2100 XP)Player distributes XP as normal.
(OPTIONAL) XP / C-bills Conversion:
At character creation, a player may use their starting budget to increase their starting XP.
1,000 : 1 exchange rate
ex. 100,000 C-bills = +100 XP
Starting Mech Costs & Faction Selection
To use this chart correctly requires either editing a savefile or campaign settings. Links have been provided here:
Custom Starting Lances (link placeholder)
GM determines starting C-bills for each player.
OPTIONAL - Players may choose to roleplay as a particular faction and limit starting Mech selection accordingly.
