Much of the infrastructure and expertise necessary to produce the most advanced models was lost, with the result that, by the early 31st century, most Great Houses were fielding models that were centuries old. 'Mech advancement in the Inner Sphere crested during the reign of the Star League, but slowly degraded during the protracted conflicts of the Succession Wars. Significant development and refinement of the technology followed through subsequent centuries. It was developed in 2439 by the Terran Hegemony, first deployed in 2443, and produced throughout the rest of the Inner Sphere after its construction plans were stolen in 2455. In the BattleTech universe, the first BattleMech ever developed was the Mackie MSK-6S, described as a 100-ton box with legs. A line of figurines, a collectible card game, and numerous computer simulation titles feature the machines 'Mechs also feature centrally in a prolific series of novels set in the fictional BattleTech universe, as well as an animated spin-off television series. The game's detailed construction rules, which allow players to create legal custom units of their own, has also resulted in untold thousands of additional designs, some published in magazines, on websites, and in various other fan media.Īs the BattleTech franchise has grown, BattleMechs have increasingly appeared beyond the confines of the board game.
FASA and its successors WizKids, FanPro, and Catalyst Game Labs created hundreds of official BattleMechs to complement the game, the majority published in a long-running series of "technical readouts". 'Mechs in BattleTech vary from one another in many ways, including mass, speed, chassis configuration, armor and armament, resulting in a practically limitless array of legal 'Mech designs. This fact led fans to dub these early 'Mechs the "Unseen," while their new look is colloquially referred to as the "Reseen." Since FASA retained the rights to all aspects of the 'Mechs except for their visual depictions, they continued to use the 'Mechs and their stats, but did not print images of them until Technical Readout: Project Phoenix canonized new artwork for the designs. This, combined with legal troubles with Playmates Toys, led FASA in the 1990s to remove all images of these early designs from subsequent published material. Legal impediments with George Lucas over the use of the term "droid" forced the name of the game to change in the second edition to BattleTech. The game's first edition in 1984 was titled BattleDroids and featured mecha based directly on those in the Japanese animated television series Macross and other Japanese animation from the late '70s and early '80s. BattleMechs debuted in FASA Corporation's BattleTech, a board game of futuristic armored combat played with dice, counters and paper record sheets on a map of hexagonal territories.
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