Matchmaking

Examining his status, Gray saw that he was a Private First Class with 1,000 merit points. Diamond-Tier players started one rank ahead of everyone else and with 1,000 merit points instead of 250. Gray and the rest of his new team were browsing through the market since they were unsure what their merit points were worth.

"A thousand points doesn't seem like a lot... A resupply of up to 20 units of low-grade reactor fuel is only 20 points, but the price rises by a factor of 10 per grade." Said Gray while looking at the resupply costs.

"Ammunition is based upon the cost of materials, so for that laser rifle it would cost me 5 points per standard energy cell."

In this day and age, 3D printers would handle the manufacturing of almost everything. Retooling was a thing of the past as the 3D printer merely needed the schematic to print out anything within its capacity. Usually, raw materials were processed in a smelter or similar facility. Those materials would be fed to a 3D printer, producing the desired part or parts from the schematic. Once the part was printed out, an assembler unit would be able to assemble anything from the blueprints loaded into it automatically or could be operated by hand by a technician. Smaller devices didn't require an assembler and could be printed as a finished product.

Gray now understood the reasoning behind the simulators even more, as just doing live target practice would cost at least 25 points. 20 points for the refuel and 5 points per energy cell used up. He did note that it was 20 points to refuel whether he barely used the mech or emptied the fuel tank.

Gray looked at the weapons then and started getting a little more excited. The basic weapons he was familiar with were pretty cheap in merit, ranging from 1 merit for an alloy knife to hundreds of thousands for extremely powerful Neutron Cannons. Due to rank restrictions, Gray wasn't allowed to look at every weapon.

"Some of these toys… I mean, weapons… sound amazing! I want to make as many merits as I can to collect all of them!" said Gray to Caleb, standing next to him and looking over the weapons.

Caleb replied to Gray with his usual informative opinion, "Indeed, they are powerful, but remember that more expensive weapons require more expensive ammunition. I estimate that you should only consider purchasing any weapon when you can afford double the cost of the desired weapon for ammunition."

Gray thought to himself that every team needs this type of sane, rational person on their side to keep them from going broke and being unable to afford resupply and repairs.

Gray looked up at the rest of the team and spoke up so that everyone could hear him. "Guys, let's just jump in with what we're given. We don't even know how much merits we earn, if any, from matchmaking."

"Wow Gray, you're starting to sound like a leader, that's a dangerous thing for you." Said Geoff teasingly.

Yurika laughed aloud with Geoff while Stacia seemed to be off in her own little world while looking at the mechs for sale. Stacia's eyes were focused on a small scout mech with two large sensor arrays on the head affectionately called 'Rabbit Ears.' She then muttered to herself, "It's so cute…" and Gray saw her reaching towards the buy button on her interface since this scout mech was extremely cheap at only 800 merits.

"I should probably stop her… but what's the fun in that?" thought Gray.

Stacia ended up buying the small scout mech then, and Gray was the only one that noticed.

The team stopped looking at the market and headed to the matchmaking board to register their team. Nobody could decide on a team name, though, so after getting frustrated, Yurika just pushed the register team button with the data that was prefilled by the system. Their team would now be known as "Enter Team name here."

Looking apologetically at everyone, Yurika whimpered, "We can change it later, right?"

Looking at the matchmaking menu, as a team of 5, they could enter matchmaking in a few categories: Team Deathmatch, Team Capture the Flag, Team Dodgeball, and Team Assault. Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag were common types among many games, so everyone was familiar with them. Score more points by killing the other team and stealing the enemy flag for each mode, respectively.

Team Dodgeball was a little unexpected since they were in mechs. After reading about it, it appeared to be a regular game of dodgeball. The only difference is that the mechs were each given a unique launcher that could be used to catch and throw one of 3 large balls that would disable a mech on touch in the simulation. Of course, this wasn't an actual weapon and only existed for dodgeball, so this type of 'weapon' wasn't available for purchase.

Team Assault is what interested Gray the most. The objective would vary depending upon the battlefield chosen and ranged from planting a bomb, destroying a target, or capturing specific locations. Both teams would get a chance at offense and defense, so it didn't favor either side. There was a time limit in most cases, and the objective had to be met within that time limit. If both teams succeeded in the objective, the faster the two teams would be the winner. In rare cases where both teams finished at the exact same time, kills and assists would be used to determine the winner. It would be considered a tie if both teams still had the same amount of kills and assists. When both teams failed the objective, kills and assists would be used to determine the winner, or a tie would be given if both teams had the same amount of kills and assists again.

All five of them entered their pods and linked up together. They couldn't decide upon a game mode, so they went with random and let matchmaking do its thing.

After a few seconds, a match found notification came up, and the game mode chosen was Team Deathmatch. Yurika yelled excitedly as she wanted this mode the most.

A mech selection screen came up for everyone, and everyone had the same mech and the three variants of it to pick from, except for Stacia.

Gray and Geoff selected the mid-range variant again and opted for the laser rifles.

Yurika went for the short-range variant and opted for dual submachine guns and extra grenade slots.

Caleb looked at the other's selections and opted for a long-range variant. He went with a basic kinetic sniper rifle, then gave a curious glance at Stacia's choice for mech.

She excitedly picked up her little scout mech and then went to the loadout screen and realized that only the laser pistol and alloy combat knife would work with her mech. The simulator only had those two weapons for that mech. Stacia realized her fault but was dead set on using her cute mech.

The team was spawned in a hilly area, and everyone started moving around, getting a feel for the mechs. A counter started counting down, signaling the match would begin in 20 seconds. Everyone looked at everyone else, and eventually, everyone stared at Stacia's small mech.

Her mech was the Juniper SE, a light scout mech that favored speed and agility and nothing else. The two advantages that it had compared to other scout mechs were that it was cheaper than even the standard Phalanx MK 01 that everyone else was using. It also came with fairly advanced sensors for the cost.

Sadly, because of the more petite frame, this mech needed smaller weapons than others, so she only had the backup laser pistol and alloy knife to work with. The Juniper SE stood about two-thirds the height of the Phalanx and had relatively thin arms but fairly thick legs. The armor was fragile overall, and the thickness on the legs was due to the oversized components in the legs to give it more speed. The two long sensor arrays on the head appeared like two rabbit ears, hence the name 'Rabbit Ears.' When they weren't activated, they would fold back against the head of the mech, giving it a streamlined look. The 'Rabbit Ears' would dramatically enhance the range of active scanners when activated, making it an effective mech for scouting but almost useless at other tasks.

Stacia started to get nervous cause she could feel everyone looking at her mech. When she turned on her sensors, the 'Rabbit Ears' perked up, and Yurika yelled, "It's so cute! I want one too!"

"Cute or not, it doesn't have any weapons aside from the pea shooter and twig." Said Caleb, "We will probably be outgunned assuming the other team has 5 Phalanx as the other teams are just starting to figure this out too."

"Well, let's make sure they don't get to have rabbit stew tonight!" said Gray enthusiastically as the timer for the match hit 0 and signaled the start of the fight.