Player hiring
Choose Company Information > Between tracks, or its company-dashboard or open between-contract-session link. Regular personnel cost 100 SP at 4/5 (AS 4); Green personnel are free at 5/6 (AS 5); in Draconis Reach a new permanent named pilot costs 150 SP at Regular skills with no improvement SP, with at most four permanent named pilots. Hinterlands uses ordinary Regular/Green hiring without that separate named-pilot price or limit. Vehicle crews use the same cost. Purchases cannot create Warchest debt.
Between contracts ordinary hiring is always available. During a contract the GM can use Set between-mission hiring access to close all hiring, including emergency hires, for the current interval. The setting applies to every company without exceptions; after another completed track, the next interval defaults to hiring allowed. Locked, unfinished tracks block personnel changes for their participating companies.
Use the existing Equipment, Pilots & crew, Mission reports and Pilot progression screens for repairs, assignments, mission-funded advancement and recovery. Between tracks does not grant extra pilot SP. Green unnamed recruits retain fixed hired skills and temporary hires never receive training SP.
Shared temporary-hire pool
The GM reviews pilot cards and chassis variants in Campaign > Pilot-card catalog. Opening a settled between-contract session prepares the shared availability pool, including generated fallback hires when approved scanned cards are unavailable. For an older session without a saved pool, open Temporary-hire offers and priorities and prepare it there. One saved pool exists per completed shared contract, even if another session is opened.
Roll 2d6 once per point of the participating companies' combined accepted Scales from the completed contract. Each 10+ selects one distinct eligible card with an authorized variant introduced by the date and equipment available in the receiving company's technology region. If no scanned card can be selected, generate a Gladiator temporary hire. Visiting does not roll again.
Companies rank eligible pilots or leave every entry Not interested and confirm a complete pass. Once all companies confirm, the shared merchant priority engine resolves saved 2d6 tie breaks and snake rounds. Current SP limits awards. These priorities reserve service rights; no fee is posted until the player selects Hire for this track.
Accept the next contract and select an upcoming unlocked scheduled track belonging to that contract to hire an awarded pilot. Review the displayed per-track fee. Payment creates a linked pilot and source-valued Mek on first use, and saves a receipt for each paid track; repeated submissions cannot charge twice. Imported scanned-library and generated fallback hires use the Draconis Reach p.148 weight/experience costs; existing local Hinterlands cards retain their configured pilot-card quote formula.
Awarded service rights bind to the next accepted company contract and expire when it ends; the same individual is not offered to two companies at once. Temporary pilots must use their own paired Mek on a paid track and cannot train or convert their Mek. Draconis Reach checks the selected force below 2,000 BV or 80 PV per Scale before adding hires, the final roster limits, and no more than four named pilots on a track. Repairs and injury consequences remain the company's responsibility. Temporary Meks do not become owned-force value for negotiating higher contract Scales or owned-model preparation tasks.
Emergency offers
After track finalization, an active company below the Scale 1 temporary-hire threshold (2,000 ready owned BV or 80 PV) can receive a private random eligible-card offer or a generated Gladiator fallback. The player can also use Review emergency offer on Between tracks. At most one emergency offer is saved per company contract; revisiting never redraws it. Each qualifying company gets its own offer.
A no-hires interval blocks creation and use of emergency offers. If no eligible scanned candidate can be selected, a new temporary hire is generated with the Draconis Reach Gladiator and temporary-hire weight tables. Its exact source unit must be authorized, available in the current era and within the track Scale. Missing source designs or unsupported calculations stop the operation with an error; no fee or availability result is consumed. The saved offer never automatically charges or hires the pilot.
Card catalog, scans and generation
Campaign > Pilot-card catalog is GM-only. Import scanned pilot library adds each of the 620 individuals once to this campaign, with original card sides and source-page evidence. Repeating the import preserves existing cards, generated campaign skills and receipts. The saved-card dropdown loads controls in place, preserving unsaved fields when switching; Add and Save remain beside it. Imports preserve an unsaved open editor. Without JavaScript, use Load selected card and the normal save/import forms. Additional PDF, PNG, JPEG or WebP uploads up to 8 MB remain protected evidence.
Review exact variants of the printed chassis and ability matches before approval. Clan and Inner Sphere reporting names are linked using the current design source; a printed configuration remains specific to that configuration. Jumping Jack permits jumping variants only. Blank skills remain blank in the catalog until the pilot first appears, then use the unmodified Draconis Reach Gladiator experience/skills tables once per campaign. Every later appearance keeps those generated skills. AS Skill uses the average of Gunnery and Piloting, rounded down. Generate Gladiator pilot still creates a separate unapproved draft for GM review.
Draconis Reach uses the matching Edge Ability for Classic, Alpha Strike or Override. Hinterlands uses the matching SPA for that combat system. Printed specializations are retained; required configured choices must match. Missing or ambiguous rules remain a catalog review problem rather than a substituted ability. Abilities are included without an advancement charge. Imported scanned-library and generated fallback hires use Draconis Reach p.148 weight/experience prices: 100 SP for light/medium or 200 SP for heavy/assault, plus 50 SP for Veteran or 200 SP for Elite. Existing local Hinterlands cards retain their previously configured pilot-card formula.
Suggest era-appropriate backstory uses saved card details, campaign date, faction and region through the shared AI settings and budget. Review, Use suggestion or Discard, then Save card. Unsaved edits are not overwritten while generation is pending. Without JavaScript, Generate and review backstory opens the same review process. An uncertain billed request is never retried automatically.
Print pilot card opens a separate tab and renders the current saved data in a compact card with red/gold skill chevrons, optional approved portrait, background and rules-profile abilities. Printed output hides navigation. A draft with unresolved abilities is marked for review rather than silently supplied with rules.
Players see the original scanned card sides, current skills, included Mek, current-system ability rules and per-track fee before ranking or paying. Original scans with conflicting ratings remain one unapproved record with comparison evidence. Specialist and non-Mek crew cards are retained as reference when the current temporary-Mek workflow cannot represent their printed role or unit; no replacement unit or cost is invented.
Era, location and individual availability
Availability is rolled first. Each successful availability result builds a valid candidate pool and selects one individual. Extra scan copies never add selection weight. The campaign’s actual physical planet and date influence background rarity: local faction backgrounds are more common than distant ones, including explicit national backgrounds on mercenary cards. Acceptance alone does not move the hiring location.
Clan-origin hires are unavailable through 3061, have a 5% selection gate in 3062–3067, 10% in 3068–3130 and 15% in 3131–3150. From 3151 they share the ordinary eligible pool without a Clan rarity penalty. Background factions must have existed by the relevant year; former membership can remain after dissolution. GMs can set explicit first/last eligible years and background faction origins in the card editor.
Service reservations and employment exclude that individual from every other company in the same campaign, including other pending hiring pools. Unused or expired contract service can return a surviving temporary pilot to the market with the same campaign skills. Death and recorded permanent recruitment keep the person out of that campaign’s pool. Other campaigns have independent skills and employment. Historical hire receipts remain unchanged.
The GM can record a card’s Campaign hiring status as Permanently recruited or Dead, or correct it back to eligible, with mandatory campaign evidence for each status change. This updates only the selection pool and is audited; it does not recruit or transfer personnel, post costs, or change a saved pilot’s survival result. Permanent recruitment accounting must already be recorded through the appropriate company workflow.