Cold DropMercenary company field manual

The idea in one minute

• A company is a run. It ends when the Commander dies, when the treasury sinks below −277,500 C-bills, when you have no 'Mechs left and under 1.2 million C-bills, or when you choose to retire, which you can do once you have grown your net worth by 50 million.
• You plan, then you watch. Before each battle you pick the lance, their roles, the focus-fire order and when to pull out. Then the fight plays itself, and you can only sound the retreat.
• The rules are tabletop BattleTech, lightly trimmed: real 'Mech designs, real weapon ranges, heat, armour by hit location, facing and rear shots, critical hits, ammo explosions.
• Salvage is the long game. Recover an enemy 'Mech and its design unlocks into your Collection for good. Later companies can buy it.
• Time is money. Travel takes days, and every 30 days the company pays upkeep.

New to BattleTech?

It is the year 3025. Humanity has spread across hundreds of worlds, and five Great Houses fight over them in an endless war. The Inner Sphere is the region they rule. Their armies hire mercenaries to fill the gaps, and you run one of those mercenary companies.

Wars are fought with BattleMechs ('Mechs for short): walking war machines 6 to 12 metres tall, each driven by one pilot (a MechWarrior). A 'Mech weighs 20 to 100 tons. Light 'Mechs are fast and fragile; assault 'Mechs are slow and devastating. Four 'Mechs fighting together make a lance.

Words you'll see everywhere

Your first contract, step by step

1. Found a company. Main menu › NEW COMPANY. Keep the defaults and press FOUND COMPANY. You arrive aboard your DropShip with four 'Mechs and four pilots.
2. Look at the bottom bar. It names your next job. With no contract, that's "Find a contract".
3. Open the Bridge (key 1) and its CONTRACTS tab. Pick an offer with a low difficulty (one or two diamonds). Read the pay, the salvage rights and the deadline.
4. Sign. On your current world the button reads SIGN CONTRACT →. On another world it reads SIGN & SHIP OUT · n DAYS: signing also flies you there, and the trip's days and passage are already counted in the offer.
5. Check the drop. The bottom bar's chips turn green when your lance is fit, repaired and crewed. Click any red chip to fix it.
6. BRIEF THE LANCE. Choose who drops, give each 'Mech a role, set when to retreat. Then DEPLOY.
7. Watch the battle. Pause and scrub if you like. If it goes badly, flip SAFETY and SOUND THE RETREAT.
8. Read the debrief. See what you earned and what broke. BACK ABOARD applies the result.
9. Sort the salvage in Cargo & Convoy: recover the hulls you want, scrap the rest for parts.
10. Repair in the Mech Bay, hire if someone was hurt, and pick the next contract. Every 30 days upkeep is due, so keep an eye on the runway in the top bar.

How it all connects

The orange loop is one contract. The dashed teal lines carry over between runs.

Founding your company

• Name and livery. Leave the name blank and the game picks one.
• Origin. It sets your Commander's 'Mech, the 'Mechs you can start with and your starting cash. Only Green Merc Company is open at first; 17 more unlock through play (contracts won, kills, days survived, standing with a House).
• Sponsor. Optional: +20 standing with one House, a little less with its rivals.
• Traits. 5 points to spend. Better gunners, tighter cohesion, a war chest; drawbacks like Green Recruits or Hard Luck give points back. Traits never touch the Commander.

Your DropShip

The hub shows the ship as a cutaway. Click a room or press its number.

The top bar

The bottom bar

Money

• Upkeep every 30 days: 44,500 per pilot, 16,500 per astech (each extra one costs 25% more), 5,000 per 'Mech you own, 1,000 per bay. A starting company pays about 218,500 a month.
• Runway is how many days your C-bills last at that rate. It turns amber, then red, as it shrinks.
• WAIT ▸ passes time (for repairs, a hiring refresh or payday). It shows your money and parts after the wait before you confirm.
• Can't make payday? The non-wage bills still come out, and pilots go unpaid. Each missed payday costs 10 cohesion. After 30 days unpaid, pilots fight worse. After 60, they may leave.
• Bankrupt at −277,500 C-bills: the run ends.

The star map

Lenses

Each lens repaints the map to answer one question. Press L to step through them.

POLITICAL	who owns what
MONEY	where the best contract pays most after the trip
WAR	live fronts
TRADE	cheap parts (10% off or better)
RECRUITS	good hiring halls
YARDS	repair bays
MECHS	lots selling 3+ of your unlocked designs

/ searches for a world, or for a world selling a 'Mech you want. News scrolls along the bottom of the map; click an item to jump to its world.

Travel

• A jump covers up to 30 light years and takes 7 days. Passage is 83,000 C-bills a jump plus a toll at busy worlds. There is no fuel to manage.
• While a contract is signed you travel to its target, not wherever you like.
• The Travel tab shows TREASURY ON ARRIVAL, after passage and any upkeep due on the way.

Contracts

• Eight mission types: Planetary Assault, Objective Raid and Demolition when you attack; Border Defense, Garrison Duty, Recon in Force, Extraction and Pirate Hunt when you defend.
• Difficulty 1-5 sets the pay and the enemy. Your company rank caps how hard an offer can be.
• Salvage rights (a percentage) decide how much of the battlefield you may claim. They start around 30% and rise with difficulty.
• Negotiate before signing: trade pay for salvage, ask for an advance, or buy intel (the map, the enemy force, a reinforcement warning).
• Operations are chains of 2-6 fights on one contract. They open once your company is BLOODED.

The brief: making the plan

After you sign a contract, BRIEF THE LANCE ▸ opens this screen. It is the only place you give orders. Once you press DEPLOY, your pilots fight on their own using the plan you set here, so take a minute over it.

Each 'Mech's orders

• PURSUE: CHASE runs down a broken, fleeing enemy; HOLD keeps to its role.
• ⇄ SWAP puts a different 'Mech in this seat. … opens the 'Mech's details. ▲ folds the card.

Lance orders

• Focus fire: BY ROLE lets each 'Mech choose by its role. NEAREST, MOST DAMAGED and HEAVIEST make the whole lance pick targets that way.
• Lance retreat line: the whole lance pulls out when its strength falls to this percentage. The line under the slider translates it ("pulls out after about 2 of 4 hulls go down").
• Each 'Mech's own line: a single 'Mech leaves the field when its own armour and structure fall this low. AUTO picks a sensible line for its build.
• Pauses: the replay stops for you when one of yours retreats, and on the moments you switch on: a critical hit, a kill, one of your units going down, the objective, each new turn.

The mission brief and intel

Intel comes in three steps, bought in contract negotiation: the map (lets you choose your landing edge), the enemy force, and a reinforcement warning.

Dropping the Commander

A dropping Commander adds a strong pilot and earns more experience, but takes a lance seat. If the Commander dies, the run is over. Staying aboard is safe and gives the lance passive bonuses instead.

AUTO-RESOLVE plays the same battle with the same rules without showing it. It names the odds and asks you to confirm.

The battle: reading the screen

The battle plays out turn by turn on a hex map, like a tabletop game being replayed for you. You can't steer your pilots, but you can pause, rewind, look at any unit, and call a retreat. Everything below is information to help you understand what's happening and plan better next time.

1 · The status strip

• TURN 7/30: a battle lasts at most 30 turns; after that it's a draw.
• Tags such as WOLF PACK or URBAN are the mission's conditions (enemy tactics, terrain, weather).
• ENEMY 1/5 OUT OF ACTION: destroyed or fled, out of the enemy's total. OUR 0/4 is the same for you.
• STRENGTH 95% · RETREATS AT 50%: your lance's remaining strength. When the bar reaches the red notch, the lance pulls out, as you ordered in the brief.
• RESOLVE: each side's will to fight. It drops as a side loses units. When it breaks, that side runs.
• LIVE means you're watching the newest moment; after rewinding it reads BACK TO LIVE.

2 · Your lance cards

• ARMOR goes first. STRUCTURE is the skeleton beneath; when it is hit, parts break and the warning line says so.
• HEAT above zero slows the 'Mech and spoils its aim. Very high heat can shut it down or cook off its ammo.
• The letters under the name are the pilot's initials. A VIP tag marks a 'Mech you must protect.

3 · The board

• Height matters: grey ridges and buildings block shots and give cover. Woods and rough ground slow movement.
• Moving fast makes a unit harder to hit but also hurts its own aim.
• Facing: every 'Mech faces one way and can twist its torso one side left or right. Shots from behind hit thin rear armour.
• Mouse: wheel to zoom, drag to pan. F re-centres on the fight, E shows hex heights, Tab fades the panels so you can see the whole board.

4 and 5 · Contacts and events

Contacts can read DOWN (destroyed), PULLED (fled the field) or OUT OF SIGHT SINCE TURN n.

6 and 7 · Pauses and playback

You can drag the scrub bar or click a mark to jump to any moment you have already watched.

8 · Sounding the retreat

1. Press SAFETY ▸ ARM. It stays armed for 8 seconds.
2. Read the plate: pay, hulls kept, salvage.
3. Press SOUND THE RETREAT. The whole lance pulls out from this moment on.

Whether you still get paid depends on the contract and the objective; the plate tells you before you commit. A 'Mech that gets away comes home. You can only sound the retreat while watching a battle for the first time.

When it's over

From the debrief, REVIEW THE BATTLE ▸ replays the whole fight.

The rules underneath

After the battle

Salvage is a draft

Your salvage rights give you an allowance, a share of the value of everything left on the field. Each wreck you claim spends its value. What you don't spend arrives as spare parts. The employer keeps the rest.

'Mechs, repairs and field mods

Getting fixed

• Astechs repair a little every day for free while you travel and wait. You start with one; each bay supports two.
• A yard (a world with a repair bay) fixes faster: 25% deposit, then daily instalments. Leave early and you lose what you paid.
• REPAIR ALL books every damaged 'Mech you can pay for in full, lance first, then cheapest. It never puts you into debt.
• A GUTTED 'Mech waits 28 days in the yard.

Field mods

Six typed slots per 'Mech, each a small upgrade on top of the real design:

Space

• Bays hold the 'Mechs you can field. Cold storage keeps spares, but nothing in it is repaired or fielded.
• The hold starts at 100 space: a hull takes 1 per ton, 10 parts or 5 rounds take 1, a field mod takes 1.
• Engineering sells upgrades: +1 bay 1,387,000, +50 hold 555,000, +2 bunks 666,000.
• Loading ammo is free; you pay for the rounds you fire.

Vehicles. Tanks and hovercraft are on the market too, and they sit in the Mech Bay like 'Mechs. A vehicle comes with its own crew, so it can drop without one of your pilots; seat a pilot in it and it fights better. A vehicle has one damage pool instead of body parts: when its armour and structure run out, it's destroyed.

People

Pilots

• Gunnery and Piloting: lower is better. New hires are usually 4 / 5.
• XP: 5 per battle, +3 for a win. Ranks run Green, Regular (30), Veteran (90), Elite (200), Ace (400).
• Perks (22 of them) cost 15, 40 or 90 XP. Spending XP never lowers rank.
• Injury keeps a pilot out for 21 days. Some fights leave a flaw, a few of them permanent.
• Death: a head-shot always kills. An engine kill (cored) kills about 1 time in 6; otherwise the pilot is hurt.
• The hiring pool refreshes every 30 days. Veterans you kept from earlier companies can turn up.

The Commander

• Before each contract the Commander either stays aboard and gives the lance passive bonuses, or drops in their own 'Mech.
• If the Commander is killed, the run ends. If they're wounded or captured, it goes on. A captured Commander can try to escape.
• The Commander's 'Mech always comes home, however badly it's hurt.
• They level up (to level 6) from battles and buy perks with renown.

Standing and rank

Standing with each House (−100 to +100)

Every 10 points of standing raises the salvage cap and the advance by 5% and cuts intel prices by 5%. Fighting a House's forces costs 4 standing with it.

Company rank

UNTRIED → BLOODED → SEASONED → FEARED → FAMED. Rank decides how hard an offer can be (difficulty 2 for an untried company, up to 5), and opens operations from Blooded on.

The long game

• The Collection is shared by every company you ever found. An unlocked design shows up on markets; you still have to buy it.
• Renown is earned from contracts, wins, kills and callsigns, and banked when the run ends. Retiring pays the most.
• The Renown store sells designs, field mods, Commander perks and a head start in standing.
• Origins unlock through deeds: win 2 contracts, survive 365 days, earn 20 kills, reach standing 40 with a House…
• Three company slots on the main menu; all three share one Collection.
• The codex (Records › Codex) explains 209 things: designs, weapons, mechanics, factions, worlds.

Help and settings

• The Chief walks a new company through its first days, one room at a time. You can skip it.
• ? in the top bar explains the room you're in. Hover almost anything for a tooltip.
• F8 files a bug report with a screenshot. Please use it whenever something looks or feels wrong.
• Settings › Accessibility: text size 85-150% (default 115%), colourblind palettes, font choice, spacing, reduced motion.

Still coming before testers