people make references to things such as project phoenix and unseen mechs. but unfortunately i never played classic battletech, so im not sure what these mean. Is unseen a completely different group of mechs. or are these two groups the same mechs but with different styles and appearances. I just dont get how it would make since. Unseen archer and a project phoenix archer. which is the way that an arhcer officially looks. Can these two groups co exist. I guéss i have a lot of questions about this because im rambling. So could someone just give me a run down on what this stuff means?

At one point, a lot of the artwork used in Classic Battletech wasn't created specifically for Battletech - they were originally created for a variety of Japanese Animation series (a good deal of them, such as the Archer, Rifleman, Wasp, Phoenix Hawk and several others, were from the series Macross). Several of those animation series were licensed for distribution in the United States, and one company (Harmony Gold, which licensed Macross, and called it Robotech in the US) started filing lawsuits over the use of the images. Since FASA didn't have the money to fight the lawsuit, they decided to stop using the graphics for those battlemechs that were not created specifically for Battletech - these 'Mechs were dubbed "unseen" because they were referenced in fiction and rule books, but their graphical images were not longer published. The 'Mechs, however, were still very popular designs, so there was long a desire to bring them back in some form or another. Recently, they figured out a way. FanPro (who got the license to produce Classic Battletech source books), put out the "Project Phoenix Technical Readouts" book, which gave fictional reasons for the redesigns of the 'Mechs, and produced new graphic appearances for all of them, as well as new Classic Battletech stats for the updated 'Mechs. These 'Mechs, which are no longer "unseen" by anyone, are now referred to as "reseen" or "Project Phoenix" (after the source book) 'Mechs.

Hope that helps :)

thx. that helped a lot. just out of curiousity, what were the fiction reasons for having them redesigned in appearance?

each mech had its own reason.. the rifleman for example was bad armor/heat, adn problems with the production of JagerMechs. all with a well-developed fluff :)

Basically, from a fluff POV, it was basically "Yeah, they're great designs, but, now with all these awesome WOB designs, and the Jihad, we'd better redesign some of them."

Some stayed mostly the same (Battlemaster, Griffin), while some bear very little resemblence (Marauder, Marauder II(NOT the WK one, it's VERY different).

Freeptop, my compliments. You've explained a long story in a very compact but thorough way. A little addendum: FASA used those Japanese designs for BattleTech simply because they got permission from the Japanese companies. Harmony Gold, however, decided to do things the American way by trying to beat FASA to death by filing lawsuits against FASA. As far as I understand US-justice, those with the ability to file lawsuits the longest in such a way that their opponent simply can't pay the legal charges anymore after a certain period of time simply win. "Money sometimes oils the wheels of justice", to quote a sample used by the dark electro-act Wumpscut.

when did project phoenix come out?

2003

If im not mistaken all the lawsuits filled by Harmony Gold evently caused ITSELF to go bankrupt. Hows that for karma?

ShivanWurm, I would file that under "poetic justice". Thanks for relaying that piece of information, I was under the impression that Harmony Gold emerged victorious from this little exercise in legal backstabbing.

Oh no, Nanhold, just TRY to find stuff from Harmony Gold these days. :)

They went UNDER - just as they deserved to.

Don't forget that I'm from Europe, Hakkenshi. Of course you can purchase lots of goodies originally made for the US-market here, but now that you mention it, the majority of Macross-related merchandise which I've seen in specialized stores here originated from Japan.

I could hardly forget you're from Europe, Nanhold: besides the flag at the bottom of your posts, the French quote gives it away since even players from Québec don't post anything in French here. :)

I meant no slight, BTW. I was just commenting on how Harmony Gold bit the big one, so to speak.

Mind you, I don't even speak French. But when I became a member of this forum, it was fashionable in a certain part of the world to enthusiastically bash the French in name of God, president and the nation-state because the French government performed the unholy sin of disagreeing with a certain all-powerfull nation-state. And that's probably part of why I took that little piece of French poetry as a signature. I quoted it from the inlay of the EP I Am The Bloody Earth by the British doommetal-band My Dying Bride, by the way.

That's okay, Nanhold.

Ik kan Nederlandse niet te wel spreken. :)

Interesting factoid about the band, I may want to check it out.