4 Force Maintenance

You may maintain and improve your force between tracks with the Chaos Campaign rules. Maintenance costs can be found in the Hot Spots: Hinterlands sourcebook. See the Hot Spots: Hinterlands errata for clarifications on the maintenance costs for non-’Mech units. Note that the maintenance costs provided in the BattleTech: Mercenaries box set are different. See the errata for clarifications on the maintenance costs for non-’Mech units.

Commanders from all factions are operating independent units and should use the mercenary contract rules. Commanders should use the Mercenary Force Record Sheet and Mercenary Contract Record Sheet to track their force.

This section outlines additional maintenance rules that organizers may use. Organizers may include each of these optional rules independently.

4.1 Skill Limits

The BattleTech: Mercenaries box set or Hot Spots: Hinterlands sourcebook outline the SP costs for Skill Advances. For Event Play forces, units cannot be advanced to better than 2/3 (2). For League Play forces, units cannot be advanced to better than 1/2 (1). Skills cannot differ by more than 3.

4.2 Capture Personnel

A pilot or crew may eject from their ’Mech or abandon their vehicle (see p.164, TO: AR). The pilot or crew may be recovered by a friendly unit or captured by an enemy unit. A captured pilot or crew may be ransomed, with terms agreed upon between the two commanders. Alternatively, a captured pilot or crew may be taken as a bondsman and used as if they were hired.

4.3 Generous Salvage

Each side may salvage destroyed enemy units at the end of a track, unless the Special Rules of the track prohibit salvage. Salvaged units are not removed from the opponent’s force and may still be repaired normally. Truly Destroyed units cannot be salvaged and are removed from the opponent’s force.

Compute the total SP earned from salvage by adding together the selling price of all destroyed enemy units and multiplying by the Salvage Rights percentage, and add these SP to your Warchest. If your contract has 10% or better Salvage Rights (step 4), you may purchase any of the destroyed enemy units salvaged from the track. Truly Destroyed units cannot be purchased.

4.4 Unit Purchases

The purchase price for units is the BV value in SP, and the selling price is half of the purchase price, as described in Hot Spots: Hinterlands.

Organizers may provide a limited list of units available for purchase. Organizers may periodically update the list of available units. Some of the units on this list may have limited availability. If any of the units have limited availability, organizers announce a bidding period for these units. The minimum bid is half the BV of the unit. Bids are secret and the commander with the highest SP bid purchases the unit.

Organizers may allow commanders to purchase units from each other. The selling commander must have the unit in their force and removes the unit after it is sold.

If organizers do not provide a limited list of available units, then commanders may purchase any unit listed on the Master Unit List for their faction in the current era.

4.5 Random SPAs

Units may learn a random SPA for free after a track. After each track, roll 2D6 for each unit that survived. Subtract 2 from the result if the unit already has an SPA. On a result of 10+, assign an SPA to the unit by rolling D6 on the charts below. If the result is invalid for the unit, roll D6 again and use the new result. Commanders may decide to not apply a valid SPA to the unit; however, do not roll again in this case. A unit cannot have more SPAs than are allowed for their experience level, as described in the BattleTech: Mercenaries box set or Hot Spots: Hinterlands sourcebook.

4.6 Design Quirks

Commanders may opt into using Design Quirks for their entire force. If a commander opts into using Design Quirks, then the quirks always apply to SP activity costs for all units. Both sides must agree to use Design Quirks for them to apply in a scenario.

See BattleTech: BattleMech Manual p. 82, BattleTech: Campaign Operations p. 225, or Sarna.net for a list of all quirks. MegaMekLab and Sarna.net list quirks for each unit.

Some quirks require modifications for BattleTech: Outworlds Wastes.

• 2 ’Mechs with Compact ’Mech may share a DropShip bay.
• Bad Reputation decreases purchase and selling prices by 10%.
• Good Reputation increases purchase and salvage prices by 10%.
• Rugged decreases repair costs by 5%.
• Ubiquitous decreases repair costs by 10%.
• Easy to Maintain decreases repair costs by 10%.
• Difficult to Maintain increases repair costs by 10%.
• Non-Standard Parts increases repair costs by 10%.

4.7 Custom Design Quirks

If commanders have opted into using Design Quirks, they may purchase additional quirks to customize their units. If a commander uses Custom Design Quirks, then the additional quirks apply to the SP activity costs for all units. Both sides must agree to use Custom Design Quirks for them to apply in a scenario.

Pay 5% of the unit’s cost in SP per positive quirk point to add a positive quirk. For each positive quirk, commanders must select negative quirks with a total value greater than or equal to the positive quirk’s point value. Increase the unit’s SP costs by 5% for each positive quirk point purchased. See BattleTech: Campaign Operations p. 255 for a table summarizing which quirks may be applied to which unit types. The following quirks may added to your units:

Positive Design Quirks:

• Accurate Weapon (varies)
• Improved Cooling Jacket (1 point)
• Improved Sensors (3 points)
• Improved Targeting (3, 4, or 5 points)
• Rumble Seat (0 points)
• Searchlight (0 points)
• Stabilized Weapon (varies)
• Variable Range Targeting (varies)

Negative Design Quirks:

• Ammunition Feed Problem (1 point)
• Cooling System Flaws (3 points)
• Hard to Pilot (2 points)
• Inaccurate Weapon (varies)
• No Cooling Jacket (2 points)
• Poor Cooling Jacket (1 point)
• Poor Performance (3 points)
• Poor Targeting (2 points)
• Poor Workmanship (1 point)
• Ramshackle (3 points)
• Sensor Ghosts (3 points)

4.8 Custom Units

Commanders may customize units by refitting an existing variant of a chassis. The customized unit must use the same technology base as the variant of the chassis being customized and this technology base must be available to the force in this era. All equipment or weapons added must be available in the current era.

The customized unit must be legal per BattleTech: TechManual construction rules. The unit retains the quirks of the chassis. Major structural modifications such as changing the engine, cockpit, or internal structure are not permitted. Partial wings, Triple Strength Myomer, and full head ejection systems cannot be added.

League organizers set the highest customization level allowed in the league. Each customization level includes all levels below it.

Level 1: Equipment and weapons may be removed from the unit. Ammunition bins may be removed or converted to a different type of ammunition. CASE may be added. Additional armor may be added.

Level 2: Equipment, weapons, and ammunition bins may be moved to new locations. Additional heat sinks may be added. Infantry bays may be expanded. Armor may be converted to standard or Ferro-Fibrous armor.

Level 3: Additional equipment may be added to the unit. MASC, a supercharger, or additional jump jets may be added. Jump jets may be converted to improved jump jets. Gyros can be replaced with another type of gyro. Single heat sinks may be converted to double heat sinks.

Level 4: Armor may be converted to specialty armor, such as Stealth or Ferro-Lamellor.

Level 5: Additional weapons may be added to the unit.

A force can have multiple units with level 1 or level 2 customizations but only one unit with level 3 or higher customizations. A unit with level 3 or higher customizations counts as the single Unique or Experimental unit allowed in a force; a force cannot have both a Unique or Experimental unit and a unit with level 3 or higher customizations.

Commanders purchase the base unit and then pay Tonnage / 4 for each level of customization past level 1 to customize the unit. Custom units may be customized again. If the custom unit uses Omni technology, the unit can still be reconfigured to other Omni variants of the base unit.

Customized units are more expensive to maintain. Increase the to SP activity costs costs by 5% for each level of customization past level 1. For example, a unit with level 3 customization costs 10% more to repair.

Custom units may be salvaged and sold but cannot be added to another force. Commanders cannot acquire a custom unit from another force in any way. Commanders may sell custom units per the standard rules.