Battletech is one game I have liked about in terms of fluff, style, rules and idea. Problem(apart from finding suitable models and opponents to play with) is simply that it takes so bloody long to play!
The new mechwarrior:dark age or something like that could solve model problem(though randomly packed. Yeuch! Would have to look for 2nd handed deals) but from what I have seen it doesn't feel same way as battletech felt like. Too much stuff that changed.
So I'm looking at designing my own ruleset that is as close to old battletech(working from battletech compendium I have). I have several of my own ideas already(like scrapping all those 2d6 dices. They give nice probability curve but forces you to roll all rolls one by one which slooooooows game down.
I'm also looking to cut down excess modifiers(there's point where too many is too many) and trying to make combat tad more lethal(here's memory of 2 medium mech vs 2 medium mechs jumping over each other with very few shots hitting and small damage eroding armour a little shot by shot. Took a LOOOONG time until one side had taken too much damage to carry on). This is done mainly by cutting out number of damage boxes a bit and with modified damage system. Basicly rather than outer and inner armour that works the same way inner armour works similary to how it used but outer armour works basicly as damage reduction. Each weapon has own damage dice(I felt it bit odd that machine gun for example can eat mech alive inch by inch if you give it enough time).
Damage rolls that exceed outer armour causes damage to inner armour equal to excess damage. This means that heavy weapons can quite literally punch through outer armour to cause nasty damage instantly. Weak weapons might not even punch through outer armour to begin with...
That's the initial idea anyway. Trying to write down initial ideas down to semi-coherent document which anybody who is interested can get(mail me at tneva@tneva.net). However any of 'tech fans have further ideas on what aspects really slow down the game and which could benefit from tweaks that, while maintaining feel of old, would also speed up a bit?
Just a crazy small project for me to work in
