On the edge of inhabited space, the dogged Rebels fight for freedom against the oppressive Conglomerate--a ragtag alliance of homesteaders and outlaws against the might of Earth's military-industrial complex. You are mercenaries, loyal only to your ideals, your comrades, and the almighty credit, driven in these bloody times to make your mark on history or just a profit. Your weapons are mobile frames, 6-meter-tall humanoid vehicles piloted via neural interface. You operate as agile light cavalry, tougher and packing more firepower than infantry, faster and more flexible than tanks and other heavy armor.
You've got a job to do. This is how.
The Basics
You're a skilled military operator with broad competence. When you have the time and tools you need and no one's opposing you, you can do most things without a problem.
When success is uncertain, roll a d6. The referee will set a target number--usually 4, but it might be lower or higher for easy or really difficult tasks. If you meet or exceed the target number, you succeed.
If you're an expert, roll an extra d6 and take the highest. If you're a master, roll 2 extra d6 and take the highest.
Creating a Merc
You're a proficient operator and frame pilot. If your background includes other training, education, or experience, you have those skills too. Choose 2 skills that you're an expert in. Some examples:
- Aerial/orbital insertion
- Artillery
- Assault weapons
- Camouflage
- Close-quarters combat
- Communications
- Cyberwarfare
- Demolitions
- Field medicine
- Field repair
- Heavy weapons
- Marksmanship
- Urban ops
- Wilderness survival
- Zero-G ops
You're skilled in all of these things; expertise reflects areas of special focus. You can also be an expert in non-mercenary skills, like if you have a degree in nuclear physics. You can't start your career as an expert mobile frame pilot--you're skilled, sure, but expertise comes with experience.
Introduce yourself to the rest of the company by name, pronouns, age, look, and known history. Your lancemates will give you a nickname that will serve as your callsign; you don't get to pick your own nickname, and if you try, you're an asshole. If you're joining an established company as a new recruit, your lancemates can wait to give you a nickname until you earn it.
Merc Equipment
You have access to common gear through the company armory; exotic stuff requires special expense. When you deploy for a mission, choose your load: light (4), medium (6), or heavy (8). At light load, you can blend in with civilians. At medium load, you look like an operator on a mission. At heavy load, you look like you're planning to take on an army, and you're not going to cover any cross-country distance on foot.
Most pieces of gear you can carry take 1 load. Big, heavy stuff, like full body armor or an assault rifle, takes 2. Really small stuff doesn't count. Distribute your chosen load as you like, then you're ready to head out.
Infantry Combat
Combat is played in rounds; each round, every combatant gets 1 action. The length of a round is flexible; in a quick, brutal close-quarters engagement, a round might be a few seconds, while in a protracted long-range firefight, it might be a few minutes. The important thing is that everyone gets to act once.
The side that engages first has the initiative; if it's uncertain, roll off. Ambushes and surprise attacks automatically win initiative, but don't give the ambushers a free round or anything. Everyone on the side with initiative acts, then everyone on the other side. You can choose to delay until after the enemy acts, but you can't act in between two enemies.
Distance in combat is measured in zones. A zone is the area with the same general terrain conditions and sightlines. The size of a zone is flexible; in a warehouse, the crate-strewn floor might be one zone and the catwalk overhead another, while in a firefight across a forested valley, each side of the valley might be a zone and the valley bottom another. During their action, a person can move as far as it makes sense for them to be able to given the length of the round, whether that's multiple zones or only a small part of 1 zone. Weapons can likewise extend as many zones as make sense based on visibility and the effective range of that weapon. (In a firefight inside a building, the limiting factor on a rifle isn't its theoretical effective range but the sightlines available.)
Your main defense against being shot is cover. Each zone might have no cover, light cover, or heavy cover available. When you use your action to take cover, you move to the best available cover and gain a cover rating based on how good it is: 4 for light, 6 for heavy. When someone shoots at you, that's the target number they have to roll to hit (d6, same as usual). Hit or miss, each shot reduces your cover rating by 1. To regain cover, you'll need to spend another action repositioning and taking cover again, which resets your rating to the best available in the zone.
Defending against a melee attack is a d6 roll opposing the attacker.
When you hit a target, you roll your weapon's damage die and reduce the result by their armor. The remaining damage inflicts wounds. 1 damage is a light wound, which gives you -1 to all rolls; light wounds heal with a week of rest in a secure location. 2 damage is a moderate wound, which is -2 to rolls and needs treatment to heal. 3 damage is a serious wound, which is incapacitating and fatal within minutes if not stabilized. 4 damage is instant death. Taking damage while wounded moves you up to more severe wound levels.
After shooting, roll your weapon's ammo die. On a 1, you're dry; switch weapons or spend an action and use a mag you're carrying to reload. Otherwise, reduce your die size by 1 next time you roll (d4 minimum, after that you run dry automatically).
Example weapons:
- Combat knife: 0 load, d4 damage
- Pistol: d4 damage, d6 ammo
- Assault rifle: d6 damage, d8 ammo
- Shotgun: d4 damage (d8 at close range), d4 ammo
- Sword/entrenching tool/fire axe: d6 damage
- Marksman rifle: d6 damage (+2 if you spend an action aiming), d6 ammo
- Light machine gun: 2 load d8 damage, d12 ammo
- Frag grenade: d8 damage to d4 nearby targets
Example armor:
- Bulletproof vest, 1 armor
- Infantry armor (2 load), 2 armor
- Armored powered exoskeleton (2 load), 3 armor
Building Your Frame
For frontier pilots, rebel and mercenary alike, DIY is the name of the game. Most combat frames are assembled from modular and 3D-printed parts according to open-source patterns or the pilot's own design. As a result, every pilot's frame is unique. You take the systems and weapons you want, add on as much armor and ammo as you can, and put them all together to form your rig.
The biggest limiting factor is mass. A mobile frame can only support so much weight and bulk without being slowed down, and in frame combat, speed is life. You also need to consider your frame's power supply and the processing power of your onboard computer.
Frame mass is measured in slots. A light, agile frame has 15 mass to fill. A mid-weight frame has 20, and a heavy beast has 25. No frame can support more than 25 mass, and there's no real benefit to going below 15. Generally, each system you add to your frame takes 1 mass; heavy, bulky stuff takes 2, and some systems don't add any significant mass. A light frame can cover about 400 meters of open terrain in a minute; a medium frame can cover 300; a heavy frame can cover 200.
At minimum, a functioning frame needs 4 systems: the frame itself (meaning the mechanical skeleton and synthetic muscles the frame uses to move), the cockpit (where you sit), the power supply (which provides electricity to the frame and all its systems), and the onboard computer (which runs the neural interface that allows you to operate the frame). Each of these takes 1 mass. The rest of your mass can be allocated as you like to weapons, extra systems, ammo, or armor.
Write down your systems--frame, cockpit, power supply, computer, and any others--as a numbered list, starting from 1 and counting up. Systems that take 2 mass take up 2 lines; stuff that doesn't add mass is off to the side. Systems closer to the top are more internal, so they'll be the most protected; you should always put your vital systems at the top, probably starting with your cockpit. For example, for a midweight frame:
- Cockpit
- Power supply
- Main computer
- Frame
- Ejection system
- Chaff launcher
- Autocannon
- Rocket launcher
- Armor
- Autocannon ammo
- Autocannon ammo
- Armor
- Rocket launcher round
- Rocket launcher round
- Armor
- Armor
- Armor
- Armor
- Armor
- Armor
Non-encumbering:
- Firewall software (1 processing, +2 hardening)
(This is known as the Dragoon pattern, a popular general-use combat frame throughout the frontier. If you're overwhelmed with all the options, the Dragoon is a good place to start.)
Your essential power supply provides 5 power. 3 of that is needed for the frame's basic functions, so you have 2 to spare. Systems that require power to run will take up some of that pool; if you need more power, you can take extra fusion batteries as systems for +5 power each.
Your main computer provides 5 processing. 3 of that is needed for the basic OS. Advanced software, like cyberwarfare programs, will take up more processing. You can add extra processors as systems for +5 processing each.
Describe the look of your frame and one distinctive piece of art or scrawled word you've painted on it.
Frame Defenses
Frames have 4 special defenses. Evasion protects against large explosions and similar area effects. Jamming protects against guided weapons. Insulation protects against EMPs and other electronic attacks. Hardening protects against cyberattacks.
Each defense is rated from 1 to 6. When you defend, you roll a d6 and try to roll equal to or under your rating. Evasion starts at 3 for light frames, 2 for medium, and 1 for heavy; all the others start at 1 for everyone. You can equip defensive systems to improve your ratings--ECMs for jamming, firewalls for hardening, etc. You can also use one-time countermeasures to automatically succeed on defense rolls, like launching chaff to throw off guided missiles.
Frame Combat
Frame combat works basically the same as infantry combat. The main difference is that instead of wounds, damage destroys your systems. When you hit with an attack, you roll your damage, and the target counts that many systems up from the bottom of their list; whatever's in that slot gets disabled. Hopefully that'll just be armor, but if it's a functional system, they lose it until it can be repaired or replaced. When counting up systems for damage, skip any that are already destroyed. If you hit their frame, power supply, or main computer, they're completely disabled and out of the fight; if you hit their cockpit, same, but they're probably also dead.
Rapid-fire weapons will often have multiple damage dice, written like d6/d6. That means you roll 2 d6, but don't add them together--instead, whatever each die rolls, that's what gets hit. So, if you roll a 2 and a 4, the systems they have 2 and 4 from the bottom of their list are destroyed. Explosive weapons will have damage marked with an e, like d6e; that means a hit with that weapon also destroys everything below the hit system. So if you roll d6e and roll a 3, the target counts 3 systems up from the bottom of their list and loses all those systems. Explosives are scary.
If an attack hits ammo you're carrying, the ammo has a 50% chance to explode, destroying everything above it until it hits armor. The armor is destroyed, but it stops the explosion. Smart pilots always put some armor in between their ammo and their vital systems.
You can purge any number of systems at will to free up mass. This can put you into a lighter weight category. Disabled systems still count toward your mass unless you purge them, but if you don't go back and recover them afterward, you obviously can't get them repaired and will have to buy replacements.
Example frame weapons:
- Frame knife: no mass, d4 damage
- Heavy machine gun: d4/d4/d4 damage, d10 ammo
- Frame saber: d6 damage
- Autocannon: d6/d6 damage, d8 ammo
- Howitzer: d8 damage, d4 ammo
- Railgun: 2 mass, d8 damage (+2 if you spend an action aiming), d6 ammo
- Rocket launcher: d10e damage, 1 shot
- Tank gun: 2 mass, 2d6e damage, 1 shot
Example frame systems:
- Attack software: 0 mass, 1 processing, target defends with hardening or loses 2 power until they act to restore systems
- Autoloader:1 power, linked to a specific weapon, reload that weapon without using an action
- Chaff launcher: 1 power, auto-success on a jamming roll, 1 use
- ECM generator: 1 power, +2 jamming
- Ejection system: 1 power, eject manually at will, 5-in-6 when frame disabled, ineffective if cockpit hit
- Field repair kit: repair 1 disabled system for yourself or a nearby ally, depleted on 1-in-6 with use
- Firewall software: 0 mass, 1 processing, +2 hardening
- Insulated systems: 2 mass, +2 insulation
- Jump jets: 1 mass and 1 power per frame weight class, jump up to 30m in atmosphere
- Packet sniffer: 1 processing, cyberwarfare test to intercept enemy communications in target zone for 1 round
- Satellite uplink: 1 power, 1 processing, use satellite imaging for bird's-eye view of the battlefield
- Survival gear: enough rations, supplies, and portable shelter for 1 week in terrestrial conditions
- Zero-G fitting: 2 mass, 2 power, move freely in space and enough air for 24 hours
Infantry vs. Frames
Frames are functionally impervious to small-arms fire. Infantry-portable heavy weapons, like rocket launchers, work against frames just like they do when mounted as frame weapons, although they're usually more cumbersome for infantry. When frames attack infantry, they attack a whole group at once rather than a single fighter; rapid-fire weapons inflict 1 casualty per damage die, and explosives inflict casualties equal to the damage roll. However, if there are friendlies in the same zone, extra casualties roll over to them.
Frames vs. Heavy Armor
Tanks and similar vehicles count as 1 target for frame attacks, and vice versa. A typical main battle tank has 40 mass. Tanks are scary monsters, but they can't go everywhere frames can go. Taking them down requires clever tactics or a lot of luck.
