just how do you make money as a mech merc?

>>15784454
I suppose it would depend on a setting's established economy, the availability of mineral resources, the availability of contract work, and how lenient the governing factions are towards independent businesses using giant robots to make money. Battletech spans hundreds of planets so materials are abundant and relatively cheap and there is always court intrigue using mercenary teams in proxy wars or as buffers to their own forces, other menial tasks like security postings, espionage, and convoy detail notwithstanding. Something as big and broad as that, there are plenty of work and space monies to go around.
A setting like with UC Gundam might not see much mercenary activity as the ruling body, the EFSF, may have a larger clamp on the region so there's not much need to spend money funding independent teams outside of the military as there are very few jobs that they themselves can't fill out. It would likely be extremely expensive to get a mercenary company off the ground in a setting like that, provided there's even jobs that can cover the costs.

>>15784454
It depends on your role in things.

An actual private army would have the bank to provide their own materiel (or maybe the materiel to justify making serious bank under contract), but that's from accruing funds over time or from some form of investment. A merc can easily just be under contract to provide skilled labor so as to not cost the client the cost of training their own people, they don't necessarily have to bring their own goods.

So the merc life can pay maybe as well as a trained pilot but without the obligations of a uniformed serviceman, or pay as well as however much a government allocates to fund their military might maybe. It largely depends on contract.

Depends on the setting

Macross has PMCs that are hired to reinforce the regular military for the colonies. They are large and rich enough to arm their pilots with good hardware and earn enough to pay their pilots much more than the military would pay their soldiers, but in return they do riskier things like scouting ahead of the colony fleet like Pixie squadron in Frontier and generally doing any risky shit

>>15784513
>>15784519
>>15784520


how cheap do you think starting mercs have to settle for jobs? like do they take high risk but low pay jobs to build rep/experience in order to get better paying jobs later?

>>15784677
Just look at how PMCs work in reality.

There is no buildup with high-risk and low pay jobs.
These people are hired to put their neck on the line, no one is stupid enough to hazard their life on the off-chance that it will somehow improve some imaginary rating.

You're drawing parallels to life. Well, life isn't a video game. You get only one and mercenaries know its price.

Likewise, the fiction mimics that. You gauge how hard the mission will be in Armored Core by looking at how much it pays, for instance. There is no other indicator of its difficulty.

>>15784691
>There is no other indicator of its difficulty.
Well, there is one. Past around the first act you look at the mission description. If it suggests some manner of cakewalk or milk run you know to go loaded for bear.

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>>15784454
Salvage rights and lucrative jobs from governments/rich folk. And especially in larger space settings like Battletech, the government/army isn't always there to protect civilians. Mercs' are in high demand and low supply, making them profitable.

>>15784454
Military people risk they neck for a pitance, but there are books and stuff than deal a bit with that, it all depends of the setting. The Revelations Cycle deals about that a bit, it's about companies of mercs in power armor(with some mechs) and stuff.

>>15784454
IRL right now?

By having connections to the Republican party, mainly. Back in the days you made money by having connections to either the French or the Habsburgian court.

In BT you generally do not, with most merc commands folding pretty quickly. Your best bet are long-term contracts that cover your maintainance costs.

In Battletech? Just sell your mech. Should be enough to afford decent lifestyle for several decades.