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Combat

To prevent unacceptable lag during official Level 3 battles, the standard will be two on two competition, not four on four. When an attack is declared, the number of attacking warriors should be divided by 2 to determine how many "2 on 2" combats will occur. Then the ratio of defending mechs to attacking warriors is calculated to find how many mechs the defender will have per two attacking warriors. If the ratio is greater than 1 to 1, then the defending mechs in each individual two on two combat are allowed the corresponding number of regeneration's to simulate the extra mechs arriving as backup after the first are destroyed. (This is for garrison battles only!)

Note: The defending garrison could be of any size but there must be 10% of the garrison piloted to get 100% use of the mechs purchased with the Garrison cBills. This means that if you have 80 mechs for your garrison, you must have at least 8 pilots show up to be able to use all of the mechs. If you only had 6 pilots show up, then you could only field 60 mechs for the garrison battle. But the entire 80 would be at risk if you lose!

Example#1: Attacking Clan invades with four warriors, each piloting a Direwolf, which means two separate combats (four attackers divided by two). The Defending House has enough garrison cBills to afford 16 Stormcrows. During each of the two combats, each pair of Direwolves would face the equivalent of eight Stormcrows. This is accomplished by the two Stormcrow pilots in each combat regenerating enough times to equal a total of eight lives. If the ratio of defending mechs to attacking pilots is not even, then the extra mech must be used in the first round of combat. If the number of attacking units is not even, then the combat would consist of the appropriate number of 2 on 2 combats, and one combat of 1 on 1, with regeneration rules applying as above in all cases. In cases where there are more attacking warriors than defending mechs, the combat will be conducted 2 on 2 or 2 on 1, but never three on one.

If the defender has intercept forces on the planet (front line units with assigned warriors in them), then the ratio of attacking warriors Vs intercept warriors is calculated to find how many combats will occur in the first round. (More than one round is possible if warriors survive to fight in the next round). Intercept forces do not regenerate.

Example#2: Attacking Clan invades with four warriors, each piloting a Direwolf. The Defending House has a regular unit on the planet with 16 assigned members. On the day of the battle, 12 players show up. Of the 12 warriors only 8 are from the unit stationed there. Out of the other 4 players, 2 have battles declared for the unit they belong to and if they fight, they could end up without a mech for their scheduled battle so they choose not to take part in this one. But the other 2 can be freely used to "fill in" for 2 of the remaining 8 pilots who did not show. So the ratio is 4 attackers vs. 10 defenders.

This puts more than 2 defenders to each attacker. But no more than two for each side can take the battlefield. So the ratio will be 4 battles of 1 vs. 2 (attacker vs. defender.) this is called round 1.

At the end of the 4 battles, one Direwolf was destroyed, and 7 Stormcrows (the defenders used Stormcrows in their regular units for this example.) This ends round one.

The next round starts with 3 attackers because of the Direwolf that was destroyed.

The regular Intercept force players choose to continue (without the 7 players defeated in round 1, who are without a mech now).

The ratio is now 3 vs. 3 (Attacker vs. Defender.) So there will be two battles one 2 vs. 2 and one 1 vs. 1. The attacker defeats the defenders intercept forces without any more loses this completes round 2 and also the intercept battles. If the above mechs we not Omni-mechs, the attacker would move on to attack the garrison as outlined in example#1. But because they are, you would need to go to battlefield refit rules. If any of your warriors fight in Omni-mechs, then they get the Refit phase (as outlined below.)

Remember the other 6 Mechwarriors of the intercept forces? They did not get to take part in the battles because there was no one free to fill in for them (10 out of the 16 showed). All the mechs lost in the battle belong to the players they were assigned to. So the fill-in pilots lost their own mechs even though they were just filling in.

Also the 6 Mechwarriors (and their assigned mechs) that did not take part in the battle, are not lost the leader of the defense can "bug out" or stay and set up another battle on the planet, using the normal procedure, after this battle is over.

You will notice that in many cases the defender on a planet has the advantage. This is because it should be fairly difficult for a very small force of four warriors to take over a planet with an indigenous militia in place there.

Retreat

If the defending unit finds that the defense is futile in the face of overwhelming opposition, then it can decide to "Retreat"("bug out," take what you can and haul butt out of there), but the defender loses 50% of the assets on that planet (50% of remaining garrison cBills plus 50% of any cBills that are in the planet bank). And of course the Industry of the planet (if any) is now under the control of the attacker. Likewise, if the attacker finds that the attack is futile, it can withdraw. But they lose cBills equal to jumpship payment from the planet for each ship that was used in the attack.(this comes out of the central bank or a friendly local bank close enough to the planet for establishing supplies if the planet would have been taken).

The reason for the smaller percentage of loss is that attackers are usually more mobile and only bring with them what they need. The exception to the above rule is if the attack was planned as a recon (see below). On recon and raids, the attacker can withdraw without losing any cBills, but the defender still pays the regular penalty for Retreating.

Note: The attacker or defender still has to pay for their jumps. So even though the attacker may have paid the cost for sounding the retreat, they still must pay again for the jump. So keep this in mind.

Industry Attack

The next type of move is an industry attack. This would be used if you didn't have the muscle to attack a well-defended planet, but you wanted to knock the industry down a notch or two. You would declare an Industry Attack and set up for combat as above. Combat itself is conducted a little differently. Instead of a slugfest, the combat would have mission objectives. The attackers would have something to destroy, while the defenders would concentrate on keeping the attackers from completing the mission. On all planets with urban terrain, the Derf Hit and Run mission will be used; for all other terrain's the Hainfield mission will be used. For each group of two attackers that successfully completes the mission, the planet's industry is disrupted by 25%. In these battles, the defender's objective is to prevent the attackers from completing their mission, not to complete the mission themselves.

A planet can have all of its industry disrupted for a time, but not destroyed. Industry will eventually recover with or without outside help or investment at the rate of 25% per month. This recovery can be accelerated by the expenditure of cBills. Basically, you put cBill for cBill back into the planet to repair damaged industry. For example: my planet with an industry value of 600 cBills was attacked and 75% of its industry was disrupted. (Three attacking groups of two were successful -- time to get new garrison pilots.) After the attack, production capability is down to 150 cBills per month. After the next "End of Month" phase, the industry would be set back to 50% on its own (or 300 cBills per month). But I want to accelerate that, if I spend a additional 300 cBills. The planet would be back to 100% production.

Reconnaissance

The next type of move is a recon mission. A group may assign one of its stars or a lance to a reconnaissance mission to determine whether a given planet has a standard line unit present. The recon star or lance is restricted to a total weight of 145 tons. A recon lance must contain no less than three mechs, but no more than four mechs.

This is a two part "objective" based attack. The reconnaissance unit must first complete one of the following: Scavenger Hunt (for urban planets), Kufenstein Maze (for canyon planets), or Steal the Plans (for all other terrain types). The recon lance and any other friendly forces with them on the attack, must get back to their dropship by completing the King of the Hill mission. Only mechs that survive the initial mission may participate in the second mission along with their support forces. So mechs destroyed in the first part can not be used in the second part because they were already destroyed. Failure in either portion of the mission will result in no information being gained by the recon.

Note: In the second part, only one mech needs to survive the King of the Hill mission to be successful, even though all must fight to see if they make it off the planet without taking more loss.

A successful recon mission would garner information consisting of planetary conditions, garrison totals, positions of line units, and industry capacity of not only the target planet, but also one to three planets within jump distance provided that they are in the same map territory. (You would not gain information on planets within Clan Pendragon's territory by doing a recon on a planet in Comstar's territory).

If, after a successful reconnaissance, the leader of the attacking forces finds that the defending forces are weak enough, he can declare a new attack immediately. That would be handled just like a normal attack (industry attack or Planetary takeover), after filling out the proper movement forms on the Level 3 website, even though no actual movement is needed.

Raid for Supplies

This type of movement allows you to strike at a planet without the intent of destroying it's industry or taking over the ownership of the planet. It will be conducted as a Recon mission (see above), with the following differences...

...A) There is no maximum tonnage, or minimum mech limit, for a Raiding force.

...B) The information normally gained from a recon is not given to Raiders. They only gain supplies.

Supplies are Garrison cBills or Bank cBills (taken in that order)! If a planet has no cBills assigned to it, then there are none to take. You will only find this out after completing the mission. If you raid a planet that has cBills, you will be allowed to take away 1,000,000 cBills per mech that completes the mission for your side. This means that if the battle were a 2 vs. 2, the side that won the mission would gain 2,000,000 cBills from the raid. The cBills that are taken would first come from the Garrison allotment of that planet. If there were not enough cBills to cover all the declared battles, then some of the raiders would come out empty handed.

The terrain used and other details about conducting a Raid, are the same as for a Reconnaissance mission (see above).