Lore about mech storage

[Oxygenus]

So, is there any lore explanation where there are other mechs that are not in mechbay? From tutorial it looks like that mercs have on-planet FOBs, but obviously waiting for years to change mech is not nice. It also may be multiple leopards (at least i found nothing against it), or personal jumpship (not very probable since there are moments when employers are booking a ride for you). What could a merc unit in these years afford for this cause?

[Gailim]

there is no possible canon explanation for "cold storage"

it's just a game mechanic

personally I would love to trade in cold storage for an on planet base, that we could invest in and expand, buy additional dropships to deploy multiple lances to different systems. maybe even have to defend if we anger a faction too much.

as much as I like the gameplay and combat, the "run a merc company" aspect of this game has always been weak.

[pete]

The Leopard dropship has only 4 bays for mechs and 2 for aerospace fighters in lore.

All the other 'available' mechs are Ikeaed (flat packed - who knows?) and simply a gameplay mechanic devised by PGI to give you more flexibility

In HBS BATTLETECH - the gameplay was to invent a large one-off ship as an orbital base that the Leopard docks with and then delivers the 4 mech lance for the mission. Personally - I prefer this mechanic. The enjoy-ability of MW5 would suffer greatly if you only had 4 mechs ready at any time

[pete]

Originally posted by Gailim:

there is no possible canon explanation for "cold storage"

it's just a game mechanic

personally I would love to trade in cold storage for an on planet base, that we could invest in and expand, buy additional dropships to deploy multiple lances to different systems. maybe even have to defend if we anger a faction too much.

as much as I like the gameplay and combat, the "run a merc company" aspect of this game has always been weak.

A base would need defending. The lore of the game would be affected by another uber-merc outfit and the larger the unit - the less likely Mason would actually go into combat,

[Gailim]

Originally posted by pete:

Originally posted by Gailim:

there is no possible canon explanation for "cold storage"

it's just a game mechanic

personally I would love to trade in cold storage for an on planet base, that we could invest in and expand, buy additional dropships to deploy multiple lances to different systems. maybe even have to defend if we anger a faction too much.

as much as I like the gameplay and combat, the "run a merc company" aspect of this game has always been weak.

A base would need defending. The lore of the game would be affected by another uber-merc outfit and the larger the unit - the less likely Mason would actually go into combat,

defending it would be fun. and mason could decide weather he wanted to go into action for normal contracts or not.

[pete]

Originally posted by Gailim:

Originally posted by pete:

A base would need defending. The lore of the game would be affected by another uber-merc outfit and the larger the unit - the less likely Mason would actually go into combat,

defending it would be fun. and mason could decide weather he wanted to go into action for normal contracts or not.

Unlikely. The loss of the founder of the unit would be significant. Plus it's not Mechcommander 5. Personally prefer quality over quantity

[pRaX]

It's called cold storage because they get shot out into freezing space and dragged along on steel ropes.
Why can't you seem them?
Because they cleverly always hide the bundle of mechs behind the Leopard everytime you're looking and they're covered in a black space camo star sprinkled stealth net.
It's pretty elementary really.

[pete]

Originally posted by pRaX:

It's called cold storage because they get shot out into freezing space and dragged along on steel ropes.
Why can't you seem them?
Because they cleverly always hide the bundle of mechs behind the Leopard everytime you're looking and they're covered in a black space camo star sprinkled stealth net.
It's pretty elementary really.

I (didn't) see what you did there

[Tyrendian89]

while having a base to build and even defend would be cool, it's just be swapping one set of plotholes for another. I mean we're going all over the Inner Sphere and beyond - what exactly is a storage facility on one planet going to do to us? We'd still need magical mech teleporters to get them from base to where we are in anything under months.
A base would make sense if it were a prolonged campaign on one planet (or MAAAAYBE if the entire thing was Rise of Rasalhague in scope, hopping a few systems over), but not here.

[Bosmang]

Originally posted by pete:

The Leopard dropship has only 4 bays for mechs and 2 for aerospace fighters in lore.

All the other 'available' mechs are Ikeaed (flat packed - who knows?) and simply a gameplay mechanic devised by PGI to give you more flexibility

In HBS BATTLETECH - the gameplay was to invent a large one-off ship as an orbital base that the Leopard docks with and then delivers the 4 mech lance for the mission. Personally - I prefer this mechanic. The enjoy-ability of MW5 would suffer greatly if you only had 4 mechs ready at any time

This is the answer. In my head cannon you could convert the 2 fighter bays for more mech storage. But that would still mean only 6 mechs at maximum.

In the lore the Gray Death Legion starts out a lot like Jake's Cavaliers... But they end up with their own jumpship and a civilian variant of a Union Class dropship. That supports a maximum of 12 mechs.

I'd really prefer a setup like that. You just can't operate long term on a Leopard. It's made to operate in planetary gravity & short space trips.

[Hykril Tynyx]

Originally posted by Bosmang:

In my head cannon you could convert the 2 fighter bays for more mech storage. But that would still mean only 6 mechs at maximum.

I suppose it's technically possible to disassemble a couple of mechs into basic limb parts and store them there like that, but definitely not in a battle-ready propped up state :D

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by Hykril Tynyx:

Originally posted by Bosmang:

In my head cannon you could convert the 2 fighter bays for more mech storage. But that would still mean only 6 mechs at maximum.

I suppose it's technically possible to disassemble a couple of mechs into basic limb parts and store them there like that, but definitely not in a battle-ready propped up state :D

It's almost like anything that's put into cold storage is stripped of all of it's components so it's not considered "battle-ready"

[yrrot_7]

While it's not overly clear in Career mode, the idea is that Interstellar Expeditions is lugging around some of your stuff on other ships. And subsidizing the costs for the first few extra mechs you lug around in active bays.

In lore/TT, there's basically mothballing mechs to shove them into cargo bays instead of mechbays. You can store a LOT more mechs this way because the mechbays themselves take up a huge amount of cargo space. So the idea is there's an IE cargo ship just following you around, etc.

[ICE 9]

I always assumed I had a Union Class drop-ship (for cold storage) and a spare Leopard (for salvage) following me around the inner sphere.

[Capt.EO]

oh oh oh its magic !

maybe they shrink them down into tiny little hot wheels mechs that fit into little cold storage boxes . but the shrink ray only works in zero gravity so _____________________ < insert more goofy lore here as needed.

[Sentient_Toaster]

When it comes to 'mechs that aren't in your Leopard's bays, it wouldn't be completely crazy to figure that could be elsewhere for either

(1) work being done planet-side, refitting/repairs etc -- which would make sense given that you're not supposed to be able to do 'mech mods until you're on an industrial world,

or

(2) possibly, training recruits for your company, at least when you not doing contracts that you'd prefer to throw relatively untested pilots into