I'm starting work on 'setting the stage'. This'll hopefully tell you all you need to know about where the planet is, what's on the planet and a description of all its features of interest (i'll leave some blank or very mysterious so we can check them out.

Draconilian, in answer to all your questions:
The weapons will be varied, ballistic firearms still exist but are replaced mainly by laser and energy weapons. People in the badlands will likely have swords and melee weapons but i'm not sure i want light sabers kicking around. There are advanced armours which i will go into in more detail soon, made of smart alloys that sense impacts before they happen etc. Artificial Intelligence is a reality. They pilot most of the mechs and control most of Babylon as well as the Fleet. There will be some pilotable mechs but exclusively in the hands of pirates and of a crude design.

There are 5 races, i will go over them soon but just quickly they are:

Humanity - Standard, augmented, genofixed.
Machine Intelligences - created by Humanity, they range from being as dumb as a blue bottle fly to being able to command a starship.
Tindrel - 6 armed bug like creatures, enslaved by Humanity centuries ago but freed under the insistence of Machine lobbying. Most chose to stick with humankind because their homeworld had been glassed and forgotten.
The Scyvi - Long, thin, translucent beings. They number but a rare few on the planet, acting as missionaries to help sick and dying people.
Rahtu - A once proud race, the Rahtu were the indigenous species of Outremer before their cities got destroyed and their numbers decimated by The First Contact wars with Humanity.

Your characters can be almost anything you can think of. The world is a big place, and if you can roleplay well and not be Overpowered i will accept almost anything. :)

Hope this helped! Suggestions, questions and stuff are always welcome. :sun