We shall call it the Phoenix Eagle Falcon Hawk.
Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Moderators: LawBeefaroni, Arcanis, $iljanus
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NickAragua
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Black Lives Matter
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AWS260
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
How about Super Enhanced Pixie, better known as SExie.
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El Guapo
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
I am glad that we are all on the same page here.AWS260 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 23, 2019 3:49 pmHow about El Guapo, better known as El SExie.NickAragua wrote: ↑Wed Oct 23, 2019 3:44 pmWe shall call it the Double Marauder, and only El Guapo can pilot it.
Black Lives Matter.
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Drazzil
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Ehh. Pass on the tank unless we can kick the tires first and that big laser adds some sort of major combat advantage.
As far as the rest I'll have to brush up on my universe and lingo before I can speak.
As far as the rest I'll have to brush up on my universe and lingo before I can speak.
Daehawk wrote:Thats Drazzil's chair damnit.
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gbasden
- Posts: 7670
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- Location: Sacramento, CA
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
I concur with El SExie.El Guapo wrote: ↑Wed Oct 23, 2019 2:30 pmNickAragua wrote: ↑Wed Oct 23, 2019 2:23 pm
[] Sure, we could go for another ER large laser
[x] Better pass, looks suspicious
[x] Upgrade the Victor with a Gauss rifle
[] Keep it as is
25 double heat sinks available, pick 2 (we'll have 5 left over):
[x] Dervish
[] 2nd Dervish
[x] Warhammer
[] Orion
LBX autocannon
[] Wolverine (mechwarriors don't like the idea)
[x] Orion
[] Centurion
[] Hunchback
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NickAragua
- Posts: 6109
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Vote Results:
We decide to refit the Victor, a Dervish, a Warhammer and the Centurion. Our techs get to work as soon as the parts get in. The Awesome refit is going to take almost as long as it takes for the jumpship's KF initiator to get fixed, but hey, at the end, extended-range PPC.
El Guapo is bored and browsing space-Craig's list, and encounters an advertisement selling a "Turhan Urban Combat Vehicle". A fairly unremarkable medium-sized APC of Star League design, it's main draw is the ability to transport a platoon of jump infantry and the supposed "ferro-fibrous armor technology". This stuff was pretty popular back in the Star League days, being much lighter than standard armor, which allows budding mech designers to cram either more armor or equipment into said mech. Its only drawback is that it's pretty bulky and not commonly available (apparently you need to manufacture it in microgravity), so repairing that vehicle would be a bit of a nightmare. Cool that we're seeing advanced armor going around, but pass because this is literally the second time in five years that we've seen ferro-fibrous armor on the market (the previous being an ill-fated Hussar, a super-fast sniper mech with an ER large laser. The ER laser is currently mounted on Xwraith's Thunderbolt.)
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"Uh, I think we'll need to talk to our CO about it. I don't really have three million C-Bills in my pocket at the moment." AWS tells the "inconspicuous individual". "And an ER large laser isn't really that much better than a standard one anyway, it's only a little bit longer ranged but generates like one-fifty percent the heat."
At this point the poor guy backs away slowly, excuses himself and almost bolts for the door. Our mechwarriors chuckle and go back to an animated discussion on the merits and drawbacks of various kinds of myomer lubricant.
November 6, 3042
Fern's Stop
Asuncion, Free Worlds League
When they get back to base, Delta-Recon is immediately deployed to track down and eliminate an individual that has "absconded with sensitive data regarding battlemech construction innovations." Not too much in the way of details on what those are, but the gist of it is that some guy broke into an Earthwerks facility, compromised their computer network (it's not that hard, as we already knew), then stole a Commando and ran off.
One of the Earthwerks security guys followed the Commando with a Jenner, but really needs backup to deal with the light/medium armor company with which the Commando is about to rendezvous. That's where Probe lance comes in. Two Phoenix Hawks (AWS and Drazzil), a Vulcan 5T and an Ostroc.
Round 1:
"Finally, here you are. They've been milling around this town for a while now, I think they're negotiating, we better take them down before they exchange data." The Earthwerks guy informs us.
The amusing bit is that the Commando is on the other side of a river. Good thing all our mechs can just jump over.
Round 2:
A Maxim zips in towards us, depositing a platoon of infantry near some woods. AWS rotates the Phoenix Hawk left a little bit, drilling the hover transport with the large laser, then the Earthwerks Jenner blows out all the lift fans with SRMs. Drazzil misses the hovercraft with the lasers but sprays the infantry with machine gun fire as they emerge, mowing down about half the platoon.
Round 3:
Our mechs move into the nearby town, looking for cover. An LTV-4 zips around the east side, taking a large laser to the turret from Drazzil. Armor melts, but holds mostly. The Earthwerks guy is really on point today, disabling a Prowler to the norse with multiple SRMs.
To avoid having them in our back field, AWS circles to the southwest, gunning down most of the rest of the infantry platoon that Drazzil started on. There's barely enough of them left now to man a crew-served MG, so our mechwarrior moves to rejoin the main battle.
Round 4:
Fighting continues within the small town, with a couple of shots here and there scoring armor hits, but most going wide. The main thing we have to watch out for here is that Rommel with its AC/20.
Round 5:
"AWS, Drazzil. Break off and go get that Commando." the Lieutenant orders. "Before he gets away."
"Right." Drazzil responds, firing up the Phoenix Hawk's jump jets and blasting away at an LTV-4 hovertank as it hovers around the outskirts of the small town. Most of the lasers miss, but a few stray MG rounds shred the external fans, settling the venerable hovercraft down to the ground. The jumping motion enables our mechwarrior to avoid the incoming fire from the Drillson and Saracen to the north as well.
The Lieutenant's Ostroc gets a little beat up, but armor still holds, and, thankfully, the Rommel's AC/20 rounds go wide.
The allied Jenner continues its reign of terror, disabling a Saracen with a boot after chasing it down - a Jenner is almost as fast as a hovercraft going at full tilt.
Round 6:
Drazzil sees AWS trap the Commando on a little peninsula across the river and jumps over to help the allied Jenner with the Drillson instead. A laser and MG rounds puncture the hovertank's skirt, removing the air cushion between it and the ground and immobilizing it. Some counterfire comes from the nearby laser infantry and Vedettes, but nothing serious.
AWS lands next to the Commando and the two mechs begin their fight. The Commando scores an early hit with a laser, receiving only an MG burst in return. AWS counters the light mech's kick with the Phoenix Hawk's heavier bulk, the Commando's leg armor completely eliminated.
There are basically two ways to deal with an AC/20-equipped tank like the Rommel. Either stay at 270 meters or longer so it can't target you effectively, or get in close so it can't follow you with the turret. Since the Vulcan's maximum range is also 270 meters, that leaves our mechwarrior with option two. After half a minute of non-stop kicking, the Rommel's treads finally give out and the crew scrambles out as the Vulcan grabs the turret.
Round 7:
The Commando unloads SRMs at AWS' Phoenix Hawk, peppering the front of the mech and dinging the dome. AWS retaliates, removing the lighter mech's left arm with a blast from the Phoenix Hawk's large laser, then cracking the right leg armor open with a follow-up boot. A warning beeps as the Pixie's right leg armor goes missing.
Drazzil jumps into the woods and blasts a nearby Vedette with lasers, blowing the turret off. Our Vulcan uses its flamer to smoke the laser infantry out of the nearby building. A few get fried, the rest...
Well, actually, most of them make it. Drazzil guns down a few more as they break away, but we let the rest go once AWS legs the Commando, which causes it to fall on one of its ammo bins and explode.
We grab some tanks for salvage, pulling armor and LRM/10s off the Drillson and Saracen.
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The jumpship repair process is set back. While testing the replacement K-F field initiator, the jumpship crew discovers a series of wiring faults. Seems you're supposed to use 80mm wires to make those connections, not little 60mm wires which can't really carry enough current. And don't even get the jumpship guys started in the substandard wire insulation. According to them, if we jump with it in its current shape, the jump core might just jump out on its own. With about half the jumpship. Or just short out and we'd have to replace that, too.
Anyway, the point being, that jumpship isn't going anywhere for another eight months while the repair crews pull out the field initiator, rewire everything to spec, then re-attach it. With all our mech refits done, there's not really any point in further downtime. Everyone's had at least three months off, and Epsilon company is ready to go, so now we're just about ready to start taking on some more contracts. Or maybe do some more survey work.
FedCom offers us a cadre duty contract on a world called Basalt. We'd be conducting rough conditions and terrain training with a FedCom Regimental Combat Team. And when they say "rough", they're not kidding, the planet has an oppressively thick atmosphere and a whopping 1.5G surface gravity. FedCom wants to pay for four of our companies, as they're looking to conduct some large-scale exercises. Estimated profit is 51M C-Bills, and it's going to be a grueling four months.
In the case of any actual combat, we'll receive 100% of the salvage and 80% battle loss compensation, so it's pretty good. The only annoying bit is that we're only getting 55% transport coverage, but we've got our own dropships so it's not that big a deal, only a couple hundred.
We get another offer from a Free Rasalhague Republic .... alcohol manufacturing concern. It's a quick raid against a single target on the planet Laurent in the Lyran Commonwealth. They're offering 100% transport cost coverage, which is good because without that, the jump costs would be more than what we'd be getting paid for it. 70% salvage rights and 60% battle loss compensation isn't too bad. Even so, the estimate profit is near 0, so it's entirely dependent upon what we salvage. Estimated opposition is poorly-equipped local plant security forces and planetary militia (Green/C).
Which (if any) contract do we take?
[] FedCom Cadre Duty - 51M C-Bills, 4 months, everyone
[] Rasalhague Corporate Beer Raid - ~0 C-Bills, 1 month (+ 3 month travel time one way), 1 company
[] Pass, wait another month
Spoiler:
El Guapo is bored and browsing space-Craig's list, and encounters an advertisement selling a "Turhan Urban Combat Vehicle". A fairly unremarkable medium-sized APC of Star League design, it's main draw is the ability to transport a platoon of jump infantry and the supposed "ferro-fibrous armor technology". This stuff was pretty popular back in the Star League days, being much lighter than standard armor, which allows budding mech designers to cram either more armor or equipment into said mech. Its only drawback is that it's pretty bulky and not commonly available (apparently you need to manufacture it in microgravity), so repairing that vehicle would be a bit of a nightmare. Cool that we're seeing advanced armor going around, but pass because this is literally the second time in five years that we've seen ferro-fibrous armor on the market (the previous being an ill-fated Hussar, a super-fast sniper mech with an ER large laser. The ER laser is currently mounted on Xwraith's Thunderbolt.)
----------------------
"Uh, I think we'll need to talk to our CO about it. I don't really have three million C-Bills in my pocket at the moment." AWS tells the "inconspicuous individual". "And an ER large laser isn't really that much better than a standard one anyway, it's only a little bit longer ranged but generates like one-fifty percent the heat."
At this point the poor guy backs away slowly, excuses himself and almost bolts for the door. Our mechwarriors chuckle and go back to an animated discussion on the merits and drawbacks of various kinds of myomer lubricant.
November 6, 3042
Fern's Stop
Asuncion, Free Worlds League
When they get back to base, Delta-Recon is immediately deployed to track down and eliminate an individual that has "absconded with sensitive data regarding battlemech construction innovations." Not too much in the way of details on what those are, but the gist of it is that some guy broke into an Earthwerks facility, compromised their computer network (it's not that hard, as we already knew), then stole a Commando and ran off.
One of the Earthwerks security guys followed the Commando with a Jenner, but really needs backup to deal with the light/medium armor company with which the Commando is about to rendezvous. That's where Probe lance comes in. Two Phoenix Hawks (AWS and Drazzil), a Vulcan 5T and an Ostroc.
Round 1:
Spoiler:
The amusing bit is that the Commando is on the other side of a river. Good thing all our mechs can just jump over.
Round 2:
Spoiler:
Round 3:
Spoiler:
To avoid having them in our back field, AWS circles to the southwest, gunning down most of the rest of the infantry platoon that Drazzil started on. There's barely enough of them left now to man a crew-served MG, so our mechwarrior moves to rejoin the main battle.
Round 4:
Spoiler:
Round 5:
Spoiler:
"Right." Drazzil responds, firing up the Phoenix Hawk's jump jets and blasting away at an LTV-4 hovertank as it hovers around the outskirts of the small town. Most of the lasers miss, but a few stray MG rounds shred the external fans, settling the venerable hovercraft down to the ground. The jumping motion enables our mechwarrior to avoid the incoming fire from the Drillson and Saracen to the north as well.
The Lieutenant's Ostroc gets a little beat up, but armor still holds, and, thankfully, the Rommel's AC/20 rounds go wide.
The allied Jenner continues its reign of terror, disabling a Saracen with a boot after chasing it down - a Jenner is almost as fast as a hovercraft going at full tilt.
Round 6:
Spoiler:
AWS lands next to the Commando and the two mechs begin their fight. The Commando scores an early hit with a laser, receiving only an MG burst in return. AWS counters the light mech's kick with the Phoenix Hawk's heavier bulk, the Commando's leg armor completely eliminated.
There are basically two ways to deal with an AC/20-equipped tank like the Rommel. Either stay at 270 meters or longer so it can't target you effectively, or get in close so it can't follow you with the turret. Since the Vulcan's maximum range is also 270 meters, that leaves our mechwarrior with option two. After half a minute of non-stop kicking, the Rommel's treads finally give out and the crew scrambles out as the Vulcan grabs the turret.
Round 7:
Spoiler:
Drazzil jumps into the woods and blasts a nearby Vedette with lasers, blowing the turret off. Our Vulcan uses its flamer to smoke the laser infantry out of the nearby building. A few get fried, the rest...
Well, actually, most of them make it. Drazzil guns down a few more as they break away, but we let the rest go once AWS legs the Commando, which causes it to fall on one of its ammo bins and explode.
We grab some tanks for salvage, pulling armor and LRM/10s off the Drillson and Saracen.
---------------------
The jumpship repair process is set back. While testing the replacement K-F field initiator, the jumpship crew discovers a series of wiring faults. Seems you're supposed to use 80mm wires to make those connections, not little 60mm wires which can't really carry enough current. And don't even get the jumpship guys started in the substandard wire insulation. According to them, if we jump with it in its current shape, the jump core might just jump out on its own. With about half the jumpship. Or just short out and we'd have to replace that, too.
Anyway, the point being, that jumpship isn't going anywhere for another eight months while the repair crews pull out the field initiator, rewire everything to spec, then re-attach it. With all our mech refits done, there's not really any point in further downtime. Everyone's had at least three months off, and Epsilon company is ready to go, so now we're just about ready to start taking on some more contracts. Or maybe do some more survey work.
FedCom offers us a cadre duty contract on a world called Basalt. We'd be conducting rough conditions and terrain training with a FedCom Regimental Combat Team. And when they say "rough", they're not kidding, the planet has an oppressively thick atmosphere and a whopping 1.5G surface gravity. FedCom wants to pay for four of our companies, as they're looking to conduct some large-scale exercises. Estimated profit is 51M C-Bills, and it's going to be a grueling four months.
In the case of any actual combat, we'll receive 100% of the salvage and 80% battle loss compensation, so it's pretty good. The only annoying bit is that we're only getting 55% transport coverage, but we've got our own dropships so it's not that big a deal, only a couple hundred.
We get another offer from a Free Rasalhague Republic .... alcohol manufacturing concern. It's a quick raid against a single target on the planet Laurent in the Lyran Commonwealth. They're offering 100% transport cost coverage, which is good because without that, the jump costs would be more than what we'd be getting paid for it. 70% salvage rights and 60% battle loss compensation isn't too bad. Even so, the estimate profit is near 0, so it's entirely dependent upon what we salvage. Estimated opposition is poorly-equipped local plant security forces and planetary militia (Green/C).
Which (if any) contract do we take?
[] FedCom Cadre Duty - 51M C-Bills, 4 months, everyone
[] Rasalhague Corporate Beer Raid - ~0 C-Bills, 1 month (+ 3 month travel time one way), 1 company
[] Pass, wait another month
Black Lives Matter
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Zenn7
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- Location: Michigan
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Ordinarily, I wouldn't vote for this, doesn't sound that great, I'd say wait. But we're looking for a home world in FedCom space - doesn't sound like a bad mission, just not a great one. Might as well get more points with our soon to be neighbors.NickAragua wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:35 pm Which (if any) contract do we take?
[x] FedCom Cadre Duty - 51M C-Bills, 4 months, everyone
[] Rasalhague Corporate Beer Raid - ~0 C-Bills, 1 month (+ 3 month travel time one way), 1 company
[] Pass, wait another month
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AWS260
- Posts: 12687
- Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:51 pm
- Location: Brooklyn
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Screw the great houses, let's build some goodwill with the local brewers.NickAragua wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:35 pm Which (if any) contract do we take?
[] FedCom Cadre Duty - 51M C-Bills, 4 months, everyone
[X] Rasalhague Corporate Beer Raid - ~0 C-Bills, 1 month (+ 3 month travel time one way), 1 company
[] Pass, wait another month
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Drazzil
- Posts: 4724
- Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:54 pm
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
[x] FedCom Cadre Duty - 51M C-Bills, 4 months, everyoneZenn7 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 8:57 pmOrdinarily, I wouldn't vote for this, doesn't sound that great, I'd say wait. But we're looking for a home world in FedCom space - doesn't sound like a bad mission, just not a great one. Might as well get more points with our soon to be neighbors.NickAragua wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:35 pm Which (if any) contract do we take?
[x] FedCom Cadre Duty - 51M C-Bills, 4 months, everyone
[] Rasalhague Corporate Beer Raid - ~0 C-Bills, 1 month (+ 3 month travel time one way), 1 company
[] Pass, wait another month
[] Rasalhague Corporate Beer Raid - ~0 C-Bills, 1 month (+ 3 month travel time one way), 1 company
[] Pass, wait another month
I'm for brownie points with the neighbors and some recon whilst we're at it. Can we negotiate some sort of transport from the fedders? Unless someone else has convincing arguements otherwise.
How will the extra grav and atmosphere affect our combat operations? I know we are in mostly medium and heavy mechs, how will this play with our ability to conduct extended contact with hostiles if things go south?
Daehawk wrote:Thats Drazzil's chair damnit.
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gbasden
- Posts: 7670
- Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:57 am
- Location: Sacramento, CA
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
I'd normally agree with you, but why subject our people to 4 months of 1.5g and horrible conditions?Zenn7 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 8:57 pmOrdinarily, I wouldn't vote for this, doesn't sound that great, I'd say wait. But we're looking for a home world in FedCom space - doesn't sound like a bad mission, just not a great one. Might as well get more points with our soon to be neighbors.NickAragua wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:35 pm Which (if any) contract do we take?
[] FedCom Cadre Duty - 51M C-Bills, 4 months, everyone
[] Rasalhague Corporate Beer Raid - ~0 C-Bills, 1 month (+ 3 month travel time one way), 1 company
[X] Pass, wait another month
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El Guapo
- Posts: 41312
- Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
- Location: Boston
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Yeah, I'm inclined to pass as well. Besides from what I can tell from this thread my mechwarrior must have retired a few months ago, so I doubt I would be participating in any combat missions anyhow.gbasden wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2019 3:41 amI'd normally agree with you, but why subject our people to 4 months of 1.5g and horrible conditions?Zenn7 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 8:57 pmOrdinarily, I wouldn't vote for this, doesn't sound that great, I'd say wait. But we're looking for a home world in FedCom space - doesn't sound like a bad mission, just not a great one. Might as well get more points with our soon to be neighbors.NickAragua wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:35 pm Which (if any) contract do we take?
[] FedCom Cadre Duty - 51M C-Bills, 4 months, everyone
[] Rasalhague Corporate Beer Raid - ~0 C-Bills, 1 month (+ 3 month travel time one way), 1 company
[X] Pass, wait another month
UNLESS we are training the Cadre to fly combat blimps, in which case I am 100% in.
Black Lives Matter.
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El Guapo
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Wait,*can* we accept the Fedcom contract on the condition that we train a unit of combat blimps? Then we can observe, see how many get slaughtered, and decide whether to incorporate one as well.
Black Lives Matter.
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xwraith
- Posts: 1085
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Eh a relatively stressless mission for money sounds good.NickAragua wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:35 pm Which (if any) contract do we take?
[X] FedCom Cadre Duty - 51M C-Bills, 4 months, everyone
[] Rasalhague Corporate Beer Raid - ~0 C-Bills, 1 month (+ 3 month travel time one way), 1 company
[] Pass, wait another month
I forgot to call it "a box of pure malevolent evil, a purveyor of
insidious insanity, an eldritch manifestation that would make Bill
Gates let out a low whistle of admiration," but it's all those, too.
-- David Gerard, Re: [Mediawiki-l] Wikitext grammar, 2010.08.06
insidious insanity, an eldritch manifestation that would make Bill
Gates let out a low whistle of admiration," but it's all those, too.
-- David Gerard, Re: [Mediawiki-l] Wikitext grammar, 2010.08.06
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NickAragua
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
1.5G is pretty rough in actual combat - all movement is greatly reduced and jumping carries the risk of blowing out leg actuators. Thick atmosphere, I believe, intensifies the effect of various wind rules, which doesn't make driving a mech or shooting at targets any easier.
Combat blimps may... be a little rough in 1.5G. But you never know.
Vote Results:
Despite a substantial amount of grumbling about high gravity and basically not being able to go outside for four months plus travel time, we decide to take the cadre duty contract. Everyone knows the drill by now. Pack everything up into the Jumbo except for a company and a couple of aerospace fighters that stay in the Union, then burn for the jump point. Basalt is within well-traveled territory, so we can hitch a ride on any number of commercial jumpships to get there.
Our negotiating team manages to convince the FedCom guys to foot the entirety of the transport bill, which will increase our profit margin on the cadre duty contract by about four million C-Bills. As it turns out, a turn of the pen is worth the cost of a medium-weight battlemech. Also, they are able to adjust the command clause of the contract, in case of actual combat, to liaison rather than direct house command, and still manage to write in a clause guaranteeing "emergency priority access to spare parts". For a bunch of guys whose work doesn't involve wearing banana hammocks and vests with giant tubes, they did pretty good work.
------------------
November 13, 3042
Nakamura Basin
Asuncion, Free Worlds League
"Lieutenant, I'm reading an Orion out there." Drazzil transmits as Probe lance approaches the rendezvous point. We've been tasked with eliminating yet another individual who has absconded with proprietary Earthwerks data. Unlike the last guy, this one came in loaded for bear, carefully walking a lance of mechs along the bottom of a river to emerge just outside an Earthwerks plant. They overpowered the defenders and let in an infantry platoon, which ransacked the local network plus took a bunch of hardcopy data. Since this is our job, we've tracked them down.
"Think we should call for backup?" AWS inquires.
"Maybe." the Lt. responds. Probe lance is three 45-tonners and a 55-tonner, up against two bug mechs, a Crab and an Orion, accompanied by two lances of hovercraft and some light tanks. The Orion is a significantly tougher customer than a Commando and, unlike the last time, we don't have a bunch of buildings to hide behind. Our Earthwerks buddy in the Jenner has been relieved by a poor bastard driving a Wasp, so that won't be much help.
"Probe to Battle lance, requesting backup." the Lt makes up her mind.
"Acknowledged" Scrub responds, throttling up her... ugh... Crusader. "ETA sixty seconds."
Round 1:
We move into position behind a rock outcropping, intending to use it for cover. So far, the hostiles appear willing to come at us, which is fine - Probe lance doesn't really have much in the way of long-range capability. A Drillson sends some symbolic LRMs at us, but they whistle by overhead.
Round 2:
Large lasers and LRMs cross the distance between the two forces, while our Vulcan and the allied Wasp score some medium laser hits on the approaching Drillsons.
Round 3:
Drazzil jumps southeast and immediately gets swarmed by hovercraft. His weapons fire misses the nearby Maxim for the most part, except for a single MG burst which (as we find out later) gets through a weak spot in the hover transport's armor and kills a couple of infantry inside. He takes an SRM spread from a nearby Pegasus, peppering the left side of the mech and getting a head shot.
Our Vulcan moves to back Drazzil up, drilling through the right side of a Saladin as it moves in on our Phoenix Hawk, causing the hovertank to miss its shot. The Lieutenant lines up a couple of large lasers on a Drillson and fires, one going directly through the front of the hovertank's armor - it just stops moving for no discernible reason.
"Get back in formation, Probe Four!" the Lieutenant orders.
"One minute." Drazzil responds, crunching through the Maxim's hover skirt with the Phoenix Hawk's boot, then nimbly stepping aside to avoid a kick from the adjacent Locust as it pings machine gun rounds off the heavier mech. The bug mech overextends and has to brace itself against a rock to keep from going down entirely.
The allied Wasp takes a laser to the left leg from the Crab, nearly removing said leg.
Round 4:
The Saladin guns it out of there, and good riddance.
"You too, five." she adds, directing the Wasp to stop showing off its internal leg structure to the hostiles.
Drazzil and the Vulcan don't quite get back to the ridge, opting to jump south instead. Well, a little flanking never hurt anyone.
It's AWS' turn to experience the SRMs from the Pegasus, although in this case, the ridge absorbs more than half of the incoming missiles, allowing our mechwarrior to open up on the hovertank with lasers and machine guns, punching through the armor and taking out the engine.
Round 5:
Drazzil is just about to jump back into the fight as the Vulcan rotates south to cool off, but then a Packrat comes barreling around the corner, rapidly unloading infantry. Our mechwarrior gets a very unpleasant-looking grin on his face, hosing the poor bastards down.
The Lieutenant engages the Orion at long range, putting a large laser shot directly at the center of mass, but it's an Orion, it'll take a lot more than single large laser to put it down.
Speaking of large lasers, AWS takes a head shot from the Crab - armor holds, barely. This throws our mechwarrior's aim off as she misses what should have been an easy shot on the back of the Locust.
Round 6:
Battle lance arrives and moves to engage. Probe was doing ok, but better to have overwhelming force than a close shave and then spend half a month patching your mechs up. Scrub and Hyena immediately go to work on the Orion - between Scrub's LRMs, Hyena's autocannon an our Ostroc's large laser, the heavy mech falls backwards.
As Drazzil jumps away to cool off, the Vulcan rakes its lasers across the nearby Drillson, somehow managing to avoid punching through the armor. AWS continues engaging the Locust as it picks away at our Ostroc, delivering a solid kick which knocks the bug mech over, its left machine gun snapping off.
Round 7:
AWS' target gets up and books it, leaving our mechwarrior seeking a new target. That turns out to be a Vedette, which loses its left side treads after being raked over with lasers and machine gun fire.
A Drillson zips up the hill and around the Ostroc, forcing a torso armor breach with its laser, but nobody's able to capitalize on it as Hyena disables the hovercraft with a laser and SRM salvo. The Wolverine's autocannon barks at the Orion as it gets up and blasts through the left arm armor, taking out a pair of actuators and causing the heavy's counterattack to miss.
Cylus hunts down a Scorpion tank to the northeast, taking it apart with lasers and a boot, while Drazzil takes out the Drillson to the south, leaving just a Packrat and a Stinger back there. Although Drazzil's Phoenix Hawk beeps at him a couple of times indicating armor loss, systems are still fully functional for now.
Round 8:
There's not actually much of the hostile force left at this point, and the Orion begins pulling back. It takes concentrated fire from our mechs, managing to avoid a good portion of it but still loses a substantial amount of armor.
The Crab moves to attack our Wasp buddy again - Cylus distracts it, absorbing two large lasers with the Phoenix Hawk's armor then boots it, which is enough to get the 50-tonner to miss its kick as well.
To the south, Drazzil legs a Stinger, the bug mech catching the ground pretty hard with a faceplant.
Round 9:
Drazzil cuts the Packrat in half with a large laser blast, cleaning up the southern end of the battlefield. The little patrol vehicle gets off one last SRM salvo, blowing out a pair of the Phoenix Hawk's jump jets.
AWS takes a turn at wiping out infantry, gunning down a platoon's worth hiding among the hovercraft wreckage the Orion abandoned. This can be viewed against the backdrop of the Orion losing its damaged left arm to a series of laser blasts from Xwraith's Thunderbolt.
Cylus pursues the Crab, taking some damage from the Orion but causing multiple rear armor breaches.
Round 10:
The Orion and Crab are basically all alone and make an attempt to retreat. The Crab makes it, the Orion does not, shutting down as it takes an engine hit after the mechwarrior inside passes out.
We'll take the Orion for salvage, since it's mostly intact, other than requiring a leg rebuild. Drazzil's Phoenix Hawk is in serious need of replacement jump jets. We're able to scrounge up one, but the other one, well, no dice. Still, the Phoenix Hawk remains mobile enough that we don't downcheck it.
--------------
Alpha, Beta, Delta and Epsilon's first week on Basalt is unpleasant. Even though we burned in at 1.5G to get everyone acclimated, it's one thing to sit on a couch and another to have to actually walk around and do stuff. We unpack our mechs, get to know the Regimental Combat Team's command staff and set up a training schedule. The first week of the contract is basically just us getting used to walking around without falling over. No, I meant on foot, it's even harder in a mech.
The second week, we've got quite a few "live" exercises scheduled. We, along with a bunch of cadets, will be simulating an assault on a major mech staging base, complete with using our dropship. There's also a planned anti-infantry exercise, and a simulated assault on an orbital defense facility where we'll be acting the part of the defender. That, and one of the Davion officers, one Captain Ben Allred (who we've met before), requests a "practical demonstration of one of your non-standard mountings of the Gauss rifle in action".
We've got two mechs with Gauss rifles - a Marauder, piloted by El Guapo and the Victor, piloted by LordMortis. Both mechwarriors are itching for some action, even with powered-down lasers and simulated slugs, although El Guapo is itching a little more. The opposing mech is an Ostroc, a 55-tonner unlikely to last very long, and the terrain is pretty open - so it kind of favors mechs with long-ranged weapons but also will allow the faster Ostroc to close rapidly. Of course, our original plan was to have Alpha-Command lance participate in the simulated orbital defense facility, uh, defense.
Who do we send to show off our Gauss rifle "implementation"?
[] El Guapo's Marauder
[] LordMortis' Victor
Combat blimps may... be a little rough in 1.5G. But you never know.
Vote Results:
Spoiler:
Our negotiating team manages to convince the FedCom guys to foot the entirety of the transport bill, which will increase our profit margin on the cadre duty contract by about four million C-Bills. As it turns out, a turn of the pen is worth the cost of a medium-weight battlemech. Also, they are able to adjust the command clause of the contract, in case of actual combat, to liaison rather than direct house command, and still manage to write in a clause guaranteeing "emergency priority access to spare parts". For a bunch of guys whose work doesn't involve wearing banana hammocks and vests with giant tubes, they did pretty good work.
------------------
November 13, 3042
Nakamura Basin
Asuncion, Free Worlds League
"Lieutenant, I'm reading an Orion out there." Drazzil transmits as Probe lance approaches the rendezvous point. We've been tasked with eliminating yet another individual who has absconded with proprietary Earthwerks data. Unlike the last guy, this one came in loaded for bear, carefully walking a lance of mechs along the bottom of a river to emerge just outside an Earthwerks plant. They overpowered the defenders and let in an infantry platoon, which ransacked the local network plus took a bunch of hardcopy data. Since this is our job, we've tracked them down.
"Think we should call for backup?" AWS inquires.
"Maybe." the Lt. responds. Probe lance is three 45-tonners and a 55-tonner, up against two bug mechs, a Crab and an Orion, accompanied by two lances of hovercraft and some light tanks. The Orion is a significantly tougher customer than a Commando and, unlike the last time, we don't have a bunch of buildings to hide behind. Our Earthwerks buddy in the Jenner has been relieved by a poor bastard driving a Wasp, so that won't be much help.
"Probe to Battle lance, requesting backup." the Lt makes up her mind.
"Acknowledged" Scrub responds, throttling up her... ugh... Crusader. "ETA sixty seconds."
Round 1:
Spoiler:
Round 2:
Spoiler:
Round 3:
Spoiler:
Our Vulcan moves to back Drazzil up, drilling through the right side of a Saladin as it moves in on our Phoenix Hawk, causing the hovertank to miss its shot. The Lieutenant lines up a couple of large lasers on a Drillson and fires, one going directly through the front of the hovertank's armor - it just stops moving for no discernible reason.
"Get back in formation, Probe Four!" the Lieutenant orders.
"One minute." Drazzil responds, crunching through the Maxim's hover skirt with the Phoenix Hawk's boot, then nimbly stepping aside to avoid a kick from the adjacent Locust as it pings machine gun rounds off the heavier mech. The bug mech overextends and has to brace itself against a rock to keep from going down entirely.
The allied Wasp takes a laser to the left leg from the Crab, nearly removing said leg.
Round 4:
Spoiler:
"You too, five." she adds, directing the Wasp to stop showing off its internal leg structure to the hostiles.
Drazzil and the Vulcan don't quite get back to the ridge, opting to jump south instead. Well, a little flanking never hurt anyone.
It's AWS' turn to experience the SRMs from the Pegasus, although in this case, the ridge absorbs more than half of the incoming missiles, allowing our mechwarrior to open up on the hovertank with lasers and machine guns, punching through the armor and taking out the engine.
Round 5:
Spoiler:
The Lieutenant engages the Orion at long range, putting a large laser shot directly at the center of mass, but it's an Orion, it'll take a lot more than single large laser to put it down.
Speaking of large lasers, AWS takes a head shot from the Crab - armor holds, barely. This throws our mechwarrior's aim off as she misses what should have been an easy shot on the back of the Locust.
Round 6:
Spoiler:
As Drazzil jumps away to cool off, the Vulcan rakes its lasers across the nearby Drillson, somehow managing to avoid punching through the armor. AWS continues engaging the Locust as it picks away at our Ostroc, delivering a solid kick which knocks the bug mech over, its left machine gun snapping off.
Round 7:
Spoiler:
A Drillson zips up the hill and around the Ostroc, forcing a torso armor breach with its laser, but nobody's able to capitalize on it as Hyena disables the hovercraft with a laser and SRM salvo. The Wolverine's autocannon barks at the Orion as it gets up and blasts through the left arm armor, taking out a pair of actuators and causing the heavy's counterattack to miss.
Cylus hunts down a Scorpion tank to the northeast, taking it apart with lasers and a boot, while Drazzil takes out the Drillson to the south, leaving just a Packrat and a Stinger back there. Although Drazzil's Phoenix Hawk beeps at him a couple of times indicating armor loss, systems are still fully functional for now.
Round 8:
Spoiler:
The Crab moves to attack our Wasp buddy again - Cylus distracts it, absorbing two large lasers with the Phoenix Hawk's armor then boots it, which is enough to get the 50-tonner to miss its kick as well.
To the south, Drazzil legs a Stinger, the bug mech catching the ground pretty hard with a faceplant.
Round 9:
Spoiler:
AWS takes a turn at wiping out infantry, gunning down a platoon's worth hiding among the hovercraft wreckage the Orion abandoned. This can be viewed against the backdrop of the Orion losing its damaged left arm to a series of laser blasts from Xwraith's Thunderbolt.
Cylus pursues the Crab, taking some damage from the Orion but causing multiple rear armor breaches.
Round 10:
Spoiler:
We'll take the Orion for salvage, since it's mostly intact, other than requiring a leg rebuild. Drazzil's Phoenix Hawk is in serious need of replacement jump jets. We're able to scrounge up one, but the other one, well, no dice. Still, the Phoenix Hawk remains mobile enough that we don't downcheck it.
--------------
Alpha, Beta, Delta and Epsilon's first week on Basalt is unpleasant. Even though we burned in at 1.5G to get everyone acclimated, it's one thing to sit on a couch and another to have to actually walk around and do stuff. We unpack our mechs, get to know the Regimental Combat Team's command staff and set up a training schedule. The first week of the contract is basically just us getting used to walking around without falling over. No, I meant on foot, it's even harder in a mech.
The second week, we've got quite a few "live" exercises scheduled. We, along with a bunch of cadets, will be simulating an assault on a major mech staging base, complete with using our dropship. There's also a planned anti-infantry exercise, and a simulated assault on an orbital defense facility where we'll be acting the part of the defender. That, and one of the Davion officers, one Captain Ben Allred (who we've met before), requests a "practical demonstration of one of your non-standard mountings of the Gauss rifle in action".
We've got two mechs with Gauss rifles - a Marauder, piloted by El Guapo and the Victor, piloted by LordMortis. Both mechwarriors are itching for some action, even with powered-down lasers and simulated slugs, although El Guapo is itching a little more. The opposing mech is an Ostroc, a 55-tonner unlikely to last very long, and the terrain is pretty open - so it kind of favors mechs with long-ranged weapons but also will allow the faster Ostroc to close rapidly. Of course, our original plan was to have Alpha-Command lance participate in the simulated orbital defense facility, uh, defense.
Who do we send to show off our Gauss rifle "implementation"?
[] El Guapo's Marauder
[] LordMortis' Victor
Black Lives Matter
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Zenn7
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
El Guapo is retired/leading the blimp brigade (and likely to go splat apparently)/busy with Alpha Command on a training exercise (not sure which, can't ever pin that slippery bastage down).NickAragua wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2019 3:49 pm Who do we send to show off our Gauss rifle "implementation"?
[] El Guapo's Marauder
[x] LordMortis' Victor
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El Guapo
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
It depends. If participating in this means that I can't be in the orbital defense simulation (which sounds more bad-ass), then have Mortis do this. If I can do both, then I'm 1,000% in.
Black Lives Matter.
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Drazzil
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Huzzah!
[x] El Guapo's Marauder
[] LordMortis' Victor
My vote is to let Guapo do his thing unless it affects his other thing.
[x] El Guapo's Marauder
[] LordMortis' Victor
My vote is to let Guapo do his thing unless it affects his other thing.
Daehawk wrote:Thats Drazzil's chair damnit.
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NickAragua
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Vote Results:
This puts Alpha Command lance in the mech base assault exercise. That's looking like quite the sizeable engagement, with at least a company of our mechs and a reinforced company of "hostile force" mechs, with both sides also fielding a significant number of tanks.
December 21, 3042
Kimura River Delta
Basalt, Federated Commonwealth (Suns)
"Let's make a wager on it." The guy in the Ostroc tells El Guapo. "If I win, I'll keep the rest of my force out of the training exercise. If you win, you'll keep the rest of your force out."
El Guapo's not sure that he's go the authority to do that, but what the hell - it's only a training exercise, and the Ostroc is lighter by twenty tons.
"Let's do it. You sure you don't want to bring your Phoenix Hawk buddy along, too?" El Guapo asks.
"Feeling confident, are we? Very well." the Davion Captain replies.
Round 1:
The crushing gravity is slowing everyone down. The Marauder's effective speed is reduced by about 25%, while the two faster Davion units - well, it's also 25%, but it hurts them much more, since they were faster to begin with.
Round 2:
The Ostroc is in trouble - El Guapo's got him ranged, and he's going to have to cross a river. El Guapo stops just outside its large laser range and pumps a couple of PPC rounds into the mech. It's not quite a gauss rifle demonstration, but a PPC shot melts armor off the center torso, the battle computer showing it as being a little less than 50% depleted.
Round 3:
The Ostroc first its piddly little LRM launcher El Guapo's way, missing. El Guapo rewards it for its bravery with another PPC shot center of mass.
Round 4:
In an effort to avoid El Guapo's gauss slug, the Ostroc takes the unorthodox step of falling into the river. El Guapo takes advantage of the brief lull to step into some woods for cover. Around here, most of the plant (and animal) life is short and stumpy, but still enough to obscure a battlemech if dense enough.
Round 5:
The Ostroc finally manages to close the range and open up with its large lasers. One dings the right torso just below the head after a last-minute juke, while El Guapo sends all three heavy weapons its way. The battle computer indicates the "hostile" mech's arms to be completely devoid of armor, and the simulated gauss slug takes over half its right torso armor off.
Round 6, 7:
The two mechs continue exchanging fire as the Ostroc continues moving in. It scores a laser hit and a few LRMs, while El Guapo lands a pair of PPCs, including one shot that "exposes" the center torso section.
Round 8:
The Ostroc weaves and bobs, avoiding the Gauss rifle shot and taking a PPC on an undamaged section, the left leg. It lands a laser on the Marauder's center torso, but El Guapo fires up the shorter-range medium lasers and carves bits of internal structure.
Round 9:
El Guapo's gauss rifle takes the LRM launcher off the Ostroc's right torso, while lasers and a PPC melt armor and internal structure on limbs and center torso. "Right, you got me." the captain informs our mechwarrior. The Marauder raises an arm in salute and moves south to engage the Phoenix Hawk, which appears to have only just arrived. The distance gives the Marauder a chance to cool down, so that it's nice and frosty when it comes into weapons range of the lighter "hostile".
Round 10-13:
El Guapo closes with the Pixie to the south and nearly takes its left arm off with the gauss rifle. A large laser scores a hit on the Marauder, and the armor indicator flashes red there. The two mechs continue trading fire from across the river, with the Phoenix Hawk taking the worst of it, including a gauss round to the right leg and two PPC shots to the right torso. El Guapo loses the rest of the armor on the right torso, but the computer shows the Phoenix Hawk's entire left side caved in after a gauss round punches through a hole left by a PPC. The 45-tonner withdraws as well.
In the post-battle de-briefing, Captain Allred and the guy in the Phoenix Hawk nearly get into a fist fight, with the Captain ranting about incompetence and "insufficient elan". El Guapo finds it hard to disagree, that fight would have gone a lot differently if the Phoenix Hawk had actually joined it earlier.
This effectively takes over two companies of tanks out of the mech base assault and frees Alpha Command lance up. Our plan for the mech base assault (and because it's a training exercise, we've also thrown in a beacon location task) is for Beta Assault to drop in between the main body of the hostile armor and the base, while the the newly-formed Epsilon One (lance designation pending) does their work. Anything that gets by Beta Assault will likely reinforce the mech base, and something will get by - we're looking at 50+ individual units. Mostly lights (the planetary militia has gotten in on the action and want to practice their anti-mech swarm tactics), but with a few heavies mixed in, plus a pair of light mech lances.
The mech base itself houses two lances, a medium and a heavy, plus two lances of tanks. We basically have three tactical options. One option is that Beta-Assault performs the holding action by themselves while Epsilon-One, backed up by Alpha-Command takes care of the base quickly. We can also have Alpha-Command reinforce Beta-Assault instead, which will greatly increase the effectiveness of the holding action but leave Epsilon-One holding the bag in the mech base. Finally, since we have a dropship available to us and the opfor doesn't, we can just collapse the whole thing into one giant melee, which is generally inadvisable but this will give us a chance to see what a batallion-size engagement looks like in an urban environment (spoiler alert, it's going to be a meat grinder).
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Epsilon-One. Epsilon-One's job is initially easier, but opfor reinforcements are almost guaranteed.
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Beta-Assault. Epsilon-One's job is initially harder, but they can take their time.
[] Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault all run for the mech base. Giant melee.
Spoiler:
December 21, 3042
Kimura River Delta
Basalt, Federated Commonwealth (Suns)
"Let's make a wager on it." The guy in the Ostroc tells El Guapo. "If I win, I'll keep the rest of my force out of the training exercise. If you win, you'll keep the rest of your force out."
El Guapo's not sure that he's go the authority to do that, but what the hell - it's only a training exercise, and the Ostroc is lighter by twenty tons.
"Let's do it. You sure you don't want to bring your Phoenix Hawk buddy along, too?" El Guapo asks.
"Feeling confident, are we? Very well." the Davion Captain replies.
Round 1:
Spoiler:
Round 2:
Spoiler:
Round 3:
The Ostroc first its piddly little LRM launcher El Guapo's way, missing. El Guapo rewards it for its bravery with another PPC shot center of mass.
Round 4:
Spoiler:
Round 5:
Spoiler:
Round 6, 7:
Spoiler:
Round 8:
Spoiler:
Round 9:
Spoiler:
Round 10-13:
Spoiler:
In the post-battle de-briefing, Captain Allred and the guy in the Phoenix Hawk nearly get into a fist fight, with the Captain ranting about incompetence and "insufficient elan". El Guapo finds it hard to disagree, that fight would have gone a lot differently if the Phoenix Hawk had actually joined it earlier.
This effectively takes over two companies of tanks out of the mech base assault and frees Alpha Command lance up. Our plan for the mech base assault (and because it's a training exercise, we've also thrown in a beacon location task) is for Beta Assault to drop in between the main body of the hostile armor and the base, while the the newly-formed Epsilon One (lance designation pending) does their work. Anything that gets by Beta Assault will likely reinforce the mech base, and something will get by - we're looking at 50+ individual units. Mostly lights (the planetary militia has gotten in on the action and want to practice their anti-mech swarm tactics), but with a few heavies mixed in, plus a pair of light mech lances.
The mech base itself houses two lances, a medium and a heavy, plus two lances of tanks. We basically have three tactical options. One option is that Beta-Assault performs the holding action by themselves while Epsilon-One, backed up by Alpha-Command takes care of the base quickly. We can also have Alpha-Command reinforce Beta-Assault instead, which will greatly increase the effectiveness of the holding action but leave Epsilon-One holding the bag in the mech base. Finally, since we have a dropship available to us and the opfor doesn't, we can just collapse the whole thing into one giant melee, which is generally inadvisable but this will give us a chance to see what a batallion-size engagement looks like in an urban environment (spoiler alert, it's going to be a meat grinder).
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Epsilon-One. Epsilon-One's job is initially easier, but opfor reinforcements are almost guaranteed.
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Beta-Assault. Epsilon-One's job is initially harder, but they can take their time.
[] Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault all run for the mech base. Giant melee.
Black Lives Matter
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El Guapo
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
So my reading of this is that I single-handedly took out two battallions of tanks.
It's only a training exercise - why the hell not? Sounds like fun.NickAragua wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 3:09 pm
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Epsilon-One. Epsilon-One's job is initially easier, but opfor reinforcements are almost guaranteed.
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Beta-Assault. Epsilon-One's job is initially harder, but they can take their time.
[X] Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault all run for the mech base. Giant melee.
Black Lives Matter.
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Drazzil
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Epsilon-One. Epsilon-One's job is initially easier, but opfor reinforcements are almost guaranteed.
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Beta-Assault. Epsilon-One's job is initially harder, but they can take their time.
[x] Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault all run for the mech base. Giant melee.
Sounds fun.
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Beta-Assault. Epsilon-One's job is initially harder, but they can take their time.
[x] Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault all run for the mech base. Giant melee.
Sounds fun.
Daehawk wrote:Thats Drazzil's chair damnit.
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Zenn7
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Great... you inflated his ego again...El Guapo wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 3:14 pmIt's only a training exercise - why the hell not? Sounds like fun.NickAragua wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 3:09 pm
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Epsilon-One. Epsilon-One's job is initially easier, but opfor reinforcements are almost guaranteed.
[] Alpha-Command reinforces Beta-Assault. Epsilon-One's job is initially harder, but they can take their time.
[X] Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault all run for the mech base. Giant melee.
Since it's only a training exercise, we might as well get some training with a giant urban furball. Who says they're the only ones who can get training out of this.
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El Guapo
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
ALSO - we should tell the trainees to bring Space Booze, and then we can have a big party afterwards.
Black Lives Matter.
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Zenn7
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
You know, instead of asking your new friend to bring a friend and make it a three-some, you could have told him loser supplies a case of booze or something.
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NickAragua
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Just to show the scale of this fight, here's the raw objective and kill list:
Vote Results
December 22, 3042
Cosmatos Mech Base
Basalt, Federated Commonwealth (Suns)
We detach most of our attached trainees (a group of six tanks) to run a screening action against the main enemy force while our dropship books it for the "mech base". The trainees perform pretty well, taking out a helicopter and two tanks while losing one tank of their own, then retreat. This still leaves upwards of fifty angry tanks heading towards the mech base, and they will arrive at about the same time as Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault.
Epsilon-One is a mostly heavy lance - a Catapult, a jump-capable Thunderbolt, a Warhammer with a heavy duty communications suite and our slightly customized Wyvern - trading the normally useless two small lasers for armor. We also have some attached trainees, driving treaded tanks that were too slow to participate in the screening action - a Bulldog, a Patton and an AC/2 carrier. So, a bunch of AC/2s and an AC/10. Not the best firepower, but they'll take some damage.
Stationary defenses are pretty beefy, with three turrets worth of note - a quad LRM/10 turret, a triple large laser turret and a dual SRM/4 turret. Currently present are a heavy tank lance, a light tank lance and a medium mech lance. Our job is to conduct sensor scans on the designated buildings to "confirm targets", and either destroy them or get rid of enough of the enemy forces that we are in control of the battlefield.
Round 1:
Epsilon-One comes in from the west.
That mech to the southeast is a Kintaro KTO-20. Now, you might ask, what's so special about a Kintaro? Those things suck! They generate more than twice their heat sinking capacity with weapons fire, and even if the mechwarrior "keeps it cool", he can only fire about two or three guns before you can boil water by leaving it in the cockpit.
Well, the answer is simple. This is a 20, it's got double heat sinks. And ferro-fibrous armor for some reason. And a large laser in place of one of the SRM racks. Guess the FedCom guys are finally starting to upgrade their units too.
We exchange some pro forma long-range fire, with Epsilon One's Thunderbolt putting a couple of lasers into a Manticore up ahead, joined by an LRM grouping from its Patton buddy. The Thunderbolt takes return fire from (what is probably a salvaged) Grand Dragon, the computer indicating a loss of 33% center torso armor.
Round 2:
Our Thunderbolt breaks north, as there's a few too many PPCs pointing the wrong way down the street it was on previously. One Manticore rounds a corner and pays for its enthusiasm - the Thunderbolt's lasers make contact with the heavy tank and the battle computer indicates multiple ammo explosions. Our mech does take a little bit of damage in return, a PPC and a laser blast removing armor from the right arm.
In the same area, our Wyvern takes the head off a nearby Wasp with a large laser in an impressive display of marksmanship, considering the mechwarrior had to jump and safely land on top of a building *and* weather a simulated laser blast.
Round 3:
The Wyvern's streak of luck ends as it jumps on a building and actually blows out an actuator due to gravity-induced stress, which forces the mech down to a knee in a somewhat disadvantageous position. We really ought to look into installing governors on these damn things so it doesn't keep happening.
Our Thunderbolt moves up to help cover its lighter buddy and takes a bunch of damage as well, getting knocked over. It might be simulated damage, but the fall is real and knocks the mechwarrior around a bit. He's fine, though.
Round 4:
The Wyvern gets up and fires all of its weapons at the Manticore that's pounding the Thunderbolt. The cockpit heats up quite considerably, but it pays off - the Manticore reads as immobilized.
The two trainee crews in the Patton and AC/2 Carrier engage the nearby Scorpion tank, completely immobilizing it. Our job may be to take down the turrets, but these ones are tough enough that while we're shooting at them, we'll get picked apart, so we need to thin out enemy numbers before we can concentrate on our objectives.
The Grand Dragon moves on, targeting our Warhammer, the two mechs exchanging PPC shots.
Round 5:
Our Warhammer and Catapult move in to the base, marking two out of the seven locations we're supposed to confirm. Rocket launcher turrets, pretty unimpressive. The Warhammer is also not impressed by the SRM salvo from the nearby Pegasus, which registers pings off the heavy mech's armor. A PPC shot and a pair of medium lasers put an end to that hovercraft's adventures for now. The Catapult nimbly avoids a few rockets, then plants all four of its lasers on the rack, removing it from the battle as well.
Round 6:
Our Thunderbolt comes face to face with the Kintaro, which is the 55-tonner's natural environment. Well, unless it takes an actuator hit from a laser and falls over. The Thunderbolt's center torso armor is in the red, but that Kintaro's in trouble. Our Thunderbolt lightly taps the downed mech's left leg, the computer lighting the limb red.
To the southeast, our Bulldog and the hostile Von Luckner disable each other, the Von Luckner a mobility kill, the Bulldog with a total armor breach.
Round 7:
[camera feed lost, apparently]
Our Warhammer and Catapult prepare to plow through a pair of buildings to get at the biggest base turrets with a little cover - a Vedette and Ostscout move to stop them. The Vedette takes three lasers to the right side and stops moving after delivering its autocannon blast and mg rounds, while the Ostscout briefly brushes the Catapult's right leg with its one laser, and a kick to the bird-shins. Not enough.
The Kintaro gets up and backs up, letting our Thunderbolt have at him. This time, it's the Thunderbolt that's in trouble, as the center torso armor is breached and the engine is damaged, sending alarms blaring and a nice wave of non-simulated heat into the cockpit. The 65-tonner takes a knee.
Round 8:
[camera feed lost, apparently]
Things don't go as well as we'd like - the Thunderbolt's center torso is just about gone, while our allied AC/2 carrier gets disabled. But at least our Catapult and Warhammer break into the buildings and begin laying into the buildings housing the turrets next door. Damage readouts indicate that one of the large laser barrels is disabled, but there's still work to be done on that turret cluster.
Round 9:
Our Thunderbolt pulls back, the Wyvern and remaining Patton tank moving to cover it. They score some good hits, including two armor breaches, but to no avail - the Thunderbolt goes down. In frustration, the Wyvern kicks out at the Kintaro as it's distracted and "breaks" the left leg, causing the medium to go down.
Near the turret cluster, our Catapult takes a second to fire at the Grand Dragon trying to extract it, scoring major damage on the left arm, registering hits on two actuators. The 60-tonner simulates some armor loss, then loses some actual armor when it flops over on the pavement. Our Warhammer uses one arm's PPC to fend off the Ostscout, nearly removing its right torso, then lasers another large laser barrel on the adjacent building. The impromptu bunker is reported as being about halfway destroyed, but that's ok, we won't need it much longer.
Round 10:
Well, here comes the party.
The Wyvern mechwarrior panics and slips on the pavement, the damaged actuator preveting him from maintaining balance. The real trouble is that this leaves him in full view of about half a company of tanks and an Archer. LordMortis gives the Victor's gauss rifle a test drive, nearly blowing through the Kintaro's center torso armor. It may be downed, but it's still viable. Well, not now that the guy inside has passed out.
Our Catapult and Warhammer in the center continue engaging the Ostscout and Dragon. The Dragon takes a PPC to the right leg, with its computer reporting hip and foot actuator damage. The 60-ton mech keels over and stops moving as the mechwarrior inside actually blacks out. Well, what's a few bumps between friends.
Zenn7's party starts off pretty crappy - as he's busy "destroying" an LRM carrier down the street, a random SRM from a Pegasus hitts his gyro from behind.
The rest of our mechwarriors come in guns blazing, Zarathud taking out a laser carrier in the middle of town, relieving the pressure on the units there, while Moley blows away a Saladin that's zipping around under Zenn7 before kicking the fans off the back of an adjacent Pegasus. Isgrimnur takes an AC/20 round from a Saladin - Gbasden does his best to take it out, but it zips away amongst the buildings, evading most of the PPC shots. It can't evade the hatchet that comes down on its left side, though, pinning it to a building. Stefan disables a Pegasus scurrying around underfoot, while El Guapo conserves gauss ammo, using a pair of PPC shots to melt through the front of a Vedette's armor.
Round 11:
The poor Wyvern is in deep trouble, being unable to get up. It fires a large laser at a nearby harasser, taking it out of the fight, but then the nearby Archer breaches its torso armor and lightly taps the ammo bin with a foot. The mech shuts down, indicating an ammo explosion.
Epsilon-One's Catapult legs the downed Grand Dragon, just in case the guy wakes up.
Zenn7 moves out of the line of fire for the most part, taking out a J. Edgar hovertank as it zips by.
Gbasden somehow manages to survive a back-shot by an SRM carrier, which is impressive. The SRM Carrier won't be bothering anyone any more, though, as Isgrimnur takes it out with a burst from the AC/10.
Stefan's mech suddenly seizes up and falls over, and the battle computer reports that the head has been removed. The culprit - a double-tap from a Saladin's AC/20.
To the north, El Guapo takes out a Harasser with a PPC, but he's still got three more hovercraft buzzing around up there, and he's basically holding that flank by himself. Luckily, the impromptu bunker where he's camped his Marauder out is holding up quite well.
Our force is down by about 33%, as is theirs, so it's a pretty even match so far. With the Warhammer in the center finally disabling the triple large laser turret, we're a little closer to achieving our objective - which we may need to actually do rather than rout the opposing force.
Round 12:
A Saladin drives up to the middle of the town, only to be taken apart by Epsilon One's Catapult's LRMs. Good shot on a moving target. Said Catapult also takes the time to score a direct hit on the adjacent LRM turret with its lasers.
LordMortis breaks through the armor on an LRM Carrier, the computer reporting that the gauss round would have punched clear through the engine.
Gbasden and Isgrimnur team up on a Wasp and an Urbanmech. The computer reports that the Urbie's autocannon has been destroyed, while the Wasp keels over with a "destroyed" leg after a backhanded shot from the ER PPC. Isgrimnur finishes it off with some lasers and an autocannon burst. The Urbie tries to flail around with its feet and small laser, but Gbasden puts a stop to that with a stomp on the right foot. The mech falls over and the computer reports an ammo detonation.
El Guapo continues holding down the bunker (although it's starting to deteriorate a little), punching through a Saladin's armor with the gauss rifle and lasers.
The Warhammer's improvised bunker in the middle of the base finally "gives out", leaving our mech in the open.
Round 13:
Our two mechs in the middle of the base break out to the east, the Catapult disabling a Maxim hover transport with LRMs while the Warhammer "shoots down" a Peregrine VTOL and disables a Saracen hovertank that zips by.
Gbasden and Isgrimnur engage a Panther, knocking it down with weapons fire, which leaves it wide open for an Awesome curb stomp. Which Gbasden delivers gladly, registering the complete destruction of the Panther's right half.
To the north, El Guapo continues picking away at hovercraft, immobilizing a Pegasus as it fruitlessly pumps SRMs into the improvised bunker.
Round 14:
Things temporarily calm down, relatively speaking. It's mostly indirect LRM fire and cooling off. Zarathud does manage to nail a Skulker scout tank as it crosses a street, while LordMortis blows through a Condor hovertank's armor with the Victor's gauss rifle.
Epsilon-One's Warhammer engages a Panther, losing leg armor but knocking it down with a pair of PPC shots, including damage to a heat sink. Epsilon-One's Catapult is doing pretty well, flipping over a Darter scout car. "Sorry!" the mechwarrior calls out. They seem all right. Maybe that'll learn 'em not to drive their stupid little car in front of a 65-ton battlemech.
Round 15:
Epsilon-One's Warhammer disables a Vedette, but then loses an arm and a leg to PPC shots form the Panther it knocked down before, and a Manticore that "snuck up". To add insult to injury, the actual fall knocks the mechwarrior out for real. His Catapult buddy takes out a Galleon tank, though.
Isgrimnur and Gbasden move to surround the main remaining body of the opfor with Zenn7, Zarathud, LordMortis and Moley forming the northern part of that action. LordMortis is getting into the swing of the Gauss rifle, breaching a Pike support vehicle's armor, while Gbasden and Isgrimnur destroy a hovercraft each, a Saracen and a Scimitar respectively. Nothing says "power down and play dead" like a light tap to the top of your turret with a hatchet.
Round 16:
The opfor finishes our downed Warhammer off, leaving just the Catapult to the east. Zenn7 comes around the corner slowly, breaching a Pike's armor - the Pike is a non-trivial 60-ton vehicle, but its armament could use a little love, packing only three AC/2s and a pair of SRM-2 racks. Intended more for anti-aircraft work and long-range engagement than up close work against an 80-ton assault mech.
Gbasden and Isgrimnur trap a Rifleman that comes out to take a potshot at our Awesome, flaking armor off with their weapons to knock the enemy down, at which point Isgrimnur taps its right leg with the hatchet, registering a pair of popped actuators.
Round 17:
El Guapo finds a new group of targets, a trio of tanks, as the Pegasus comes back to harass the Marauder from behind. A Scorpion shuts down under PPC, gauss and laser fire.
On the main part of the battlefield, Moley disables the Manticore that took out our Warhammer, while Zenn7 and Zarathud engage a Dragon and an Archer. The two enemy mechs return fire but less effectively, and the Dragon winds up on the ground.
Isgrimnur and Gbasden put several more de-powered lasers and PPCs respectively into the adjacent Rifleman as it squirms around. Isgrimnur's upraised hatchet convinces the enemy mechwarrior to shut down.
Round 18:
LordMortis moves past Zenn7 to chase down the Archer that the Awesome previously zapped, blasting through the right leg armor with the gauss rifle. The Archer teeters and falls over, crunching its right arm.
A Locust runs up to Gbasden's Awesome, breaching the damaged leg armor but failing to inflict any critical damage. That's unfortunate, because its right leg locks up from an extended-range PPC hit. That's the great thing about the ER PPC, you don't have to worry about "charging it up", you just take your shot. Harder for some to get used to, but Gbasden does ok.
Isgrimnur runs down the street to chase down the other Archer as it turns to face our two Awesomes lumbering in. An AC/2 carrier eats multiple lasers and an autocannon burst, and is out of the battle. The hatchet takes a significant chunk of armor out of the Archer's legs, but the enemy mech stays upright.
El Guapo conserves his last Gauss shot, stepping aside to blow away a Scorpion tank with energy weapons.
To the east, Epsilon-One's Catapult takes out a Saladin that's been harassing it while avoiding the worst of the attacks from the Panther that helped take down our Warhammer.
Round 19:
At this point, the opposing force is down to less than 30%. A significant number of enemy units have already retreated or been destroyed, while we've lost the three allied tanks and four mechs.
To the north, El Guapo moves in to finish the last two tanks and fires at the Pegasus. The gauss shot misses because the Marauder's diagnostics suddenly decide to inform the mechwarrior about an engine shielding breach.
Nothing critical happens in the center - just Isgrimnur disabling a Vedette with a couple of boots and Zenn7 knocking the Dragon over again.
Within a couple of seconds, the Dragon gets its armor stripped by rapidly-arriving PPCs from Zenn7 and Zarathud, El Guapo takes out the remaining Vedette to the north, and LordMortis takes a head shot which knocks out his sensors.
The umpires call the match at this point. In addition to the three allied tanks (plus the two in the screening action), we've "lost" a lance of mechs. Most of the rest would have required days, if not weeks of work, and it's likely that we would have lost Stefan and the guy in the Wyvern as well.
The opposing force from the regimental combat team gets chewed out a lot more, though. They lost upwards of a battallion of tanks, plus a couple of lances of mechs, with only a few of their units escaping damage, mostly due to being out of position for the actual fight.
The Davion guys are a little less happy, except for Cpt. Allred who grins and rubs his hands together gleefully, anticipating the excuse to run his part of the RCT through "remedial exercises" after "completely botching what should have been an easy win".
The main reason that this turned out to be such a meatgrinder on both ends that everyone agrees on is the high gravity. Everyone is super slow, the hovercraft maneuver like bricks, and every jump is a potentially blown leg actuator, which means that our favorite urban combat tactics don't work quite as well as they should.
Epsilon-One gets a little bit chewed up about losing 75% of their mechs - but that Star League tech Kintaro won the fight against our Thunderbolt fair and square, while our Wyvern mech jock winds up having to catch a few extra hours in the simulator practicing jump jet usage. The guy in the Warhammer, well, not much you can do when your leg gets taken out. Same goes for Stefan, that Saladin was supposed to be "out" and took a cheap shot. We don't complain too much though, plenty of times in actual combat both us and our adversaries have 'played possum'. We also don't give Stefan too hard a time, as he cracked his head pretty good when the mech fell over.
El Guapo sums it up best: "That was fun, but I wouldn't want to do it for real."
We still have two outstanding exercises this week, an "infantry suppression exercise" and a simulated defense of an anti-orbital laser installation.
LordMortis considers further modifications to the Victor - according to him, there are still way too many heat sinks on it. "I am freezing even when firing all weapons and using jump jets at maximum rate!" is the commentary. He suggests dropping the heat sink count to add armor or more missile tubes:
[] Drop two heat sinks and mount two additional tons of armor, bringing the armor to near-maximum
[] Drop one heat sink and upgrade the SRM/4 to an SRM/6
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Cosmatos Mech Base
Basalt, Federated Commonwealth (Suns)
We detach most of our attached trainees (a group of six tanks) to run a screening action against the main enemy force while our dropship books it for the "mech base". The trainees perform pretty well, taking out a helicopter and two tanks while losing one tank of their own, then retreat. This still leaves upwards of fifty angry tanks heading towards the mech base, and they will arrive at about the same time as Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault.
Epsilon-One is a mostly heavy lance - a Catapult, a jump-capable Thunderbolt, a Warhammer with a heavy duty communications suite and our slightly customized Wyvern - trading the normally useless two small lasers for armor. We also have some attached trainees, driving treaded tanks that were too slow to participate in the screening action - a Bulldog, a Patton and an AC/2 carrier. So, a bunch of AC/2s and an AC/10. Not the best firepower, but they'll take some damage.
Stationary defenses are pretty beefy, with three turrets worth of note - a quad LRM/10 turret, a triple large laser turret and a dual SRM/4 turret. Currently present are a heavy tank lance, a light tank lance and a medium mech lance. Our job is to conduct sensor scans on the designated buildings to "confirm targets", and either destroy them or get rid of enough of the enemy forces that we are in control of the battlefield.
Round 1:
Spoiler:
That mech to the southeast is a Kintaro KTO-20. Now, you might ask, what's so special about a Kintaro? Those things suck! They generate more than twice their heat sinking capacity with weapons fire, and even if the mechwarrior "keeps it cool", he can only fire about two or three guns before you can boil water by leaving it in the cockpit.
Well, the answer is simple. This is a 20, it's got double heat sinks. And ferro-fibrous armor for some reason. And a large laser in place of one of the SRM racks. Guess the FedCom guys are finally starting to upgrade their units too.
We exchange some pro forma long-range fire, with Epsilon One's Thunderbolt putting a couple of lasers into a Manticore up ahead, joined by an LRM grouping from its Patton buddy. The Thunderbolt takes return fire from (what is probably a salvaged) Grand Dragon, the computer indicating a loss of 33% center torso armor.
Round 2:
Spoiler:
In the same area, our Wyvern takes the head off a nearby Wasp with a large laser in an impressive display of marksmanship, considering the mechwarrior had to jump and safely land on top of a building *and* weather a simulated laser blast.
Round 3:
Spoiler:
Our Thunderbolt moves up to help cover its lighter buddy and takes a bunch of damage as well, getting knocked over. It might be simulated damage, but the fall is real and knocks the mechwarrior around a bit. He's fine, though.
Round 4:
Spoiler:
The two trainee crews in the Patton and AC/2 Carrier engage the nearby Scorpion tank, completely immobilizing it. Our job may be to take down the turrets, but these ones are tough enough that while we're shooting at them, we'll get picked apart, so we need to thin out enemy numbers before we can concentrate on our objectives.
The Grand Dragon moves on, targeting our Warhammer, the two mechs exchanging PPC shots.
Round 5:
Spoiler:
Round 6:
Spoiler:
To the southeast, our Bulldog and the hostile Von Luckner disable each other, the Von Luckner a mobility kill, the Bulldog with a total armor breach.
Round 7:
[camera feed lost, apparently]
Our Warhammer and Catapult prepare to plow through a pair of buildings to get at the biggest base turrets with a little cover - a Vedette and Ostscout move to stop them. The Vedette takes three lasers to the right side and stops moving after delivering its autocannon blast and mg rounds, while the Ostscout briefly brushes the Catapult's right leg with its one laser, and a kick to the bird-shins. Not enough.
The Kintaro gets up and backs up, letting our Thunderbolt have at him. This time, it's the Thunderbolt that's in trouble, as the center torso armor is breached and the engine is damaged, sending alarms blaring and a nice wave of non-simulated heat into the cockpit. The 65-tonner takes a knee.
Round 8:
[camera feed lost, apparently]
Things don't go as well as we'd like - the Thunderbolt's center torso is just about gone, while our allied AC/2 carrier gets disabled. But at least our Catapult and Warhammer break into the buildings and begin laying into the buildings housing the turrets next door. Damage readouts indicate that one of the large laser barrels is disabled, but there's still work to be done on that turret cluster.
Round 9:
Spoiler:
Near the turret cluster, our Catapult takes a second to fire at the Grand Dragon trying to extract it, scoring major damage on the left arm, registering hits on two actuators. The 60-tonner simulates some armor loss, then loses some actual armor when it flops over on the pavement. Our Warhammer uses one arm's PPC to fend off the Ostscout, nearly removing its right torso, then lasers another large laser barrel on the adjacent building. The impromptu bunker is reported as being about halfway destroyed, but that's ok, we won't need it much longer.
Round 10:
Spoiler:
The Wyvern mechwarrior panics and slips on the pavement, the damaged actuator preveting him from maintaining balance. The real trouble is that this leaves him in full view of about half a company of tanks and an Archer. LordMortis gives the Victor's gauss rifle a test drive, nearly blowing through the Kintaro's center torso armor. It may be downed, but it's still viable. Well, not now that the guy inside has passed out.
Our Catapult and Warhammer in the center continue engaging the Ostscout and Dragon. The Dragon takes a PPC to the right leg, with its computer reporting hip and foot actuator damage. The 60-ton mech keels over and stops moving as the mechwarrior inside actually blacks out. Well, what's a few bumps between friends.
Zenn7's party starts off pretty crappy - as he's busy "destroying" an LRM carrier down the street, a random SRM from a Pegasus hitts his gyro from behind.
The rest of our mechwarriors come in guns blazing, Zarathud taking out a laser carrier in the middle of town, relieving the pressure on the units there, while Moley blows away a Saladin that's zipping around under Zenn7 before kicking the fans off the back of an adjacent Pegasus. Isgrimnur takes an AC/20 round from a Saladin - Gbasden does his best to take it out, but it zips away amongst the buildings, evading most of the PPC shots. It can't evade the hatchet that comes down on its left side, though, pinning it to a building. Stefan disables a Pegasus scurrying around underfoot, while El Guapo conserves gauss ammo, using a pair of PPC shots to melt through the front of a Vedette's armor.
Round 11:
Spoiler:
Epsilon-One's Catapult legs the downed Grand Dragon, just in case the guy wakes up.
Zenn7 moves out of the line of fire for the most part, taking out a J. Edgar hovertank as it zips by.
Gbasden somehow manages to survive a back-shot by an SRM carrier, which is impressive. The SRM Carrier won't be bothering anyone any more, though, as Isgrimnur takes it out with a burst from the AC/10.
Stefan's mech suddenly seizes up and falls over, and the battle computer reports that the head has been removed. The culprit - a double-tap from a Saladin's AC/20.
To the north, El Guapo takes out a Harasser with a PPC, but he's still got three more hovercraft buzzing around up there, and he's basically holding that flank by himself. Luckily, the impromptu bunker where he's camped his Marauder out is holding up quite well.
Our force is down by about 33%, as is theirs, so it's a pretty even match so far. With the Warhammer in the center finally disabling the triple large laser turret, we're a little closer to achieving our objective - which we may need to actually do rather than rout the opposing force.
Round 12:
Spoiler:
LordMortis breaks through the armor on an LRM Carrier, the computer reporting that the gauss round would have punched clear through the engine.
Gbasden and Isgrimnur team up on a Wasp and an Urbanmech. The computer reports that the Urbie's autocannon has been destroyed, while the Wasp keels over with a "destroyed" leg after a backhanded shot from the ER PPC. Isgrimnur finishes it off with some lasers and an autocannon burst. The Urbie tries to flail around with its feet and small laser, but Gbasden puts a stop to that with a stomp on the right foot. The mech falls over and the computer reports an ammo detonation.
El Guapo continues holding down the bunker (although it's starting to deteriorate a little), punching through a Saladin's armor with the gauss rifle and lasers.
The Warhammer's improvised bunker in the middle of the base finally "gives out", leaving our mech in the open.
Round 13:
Spoiler:
Gbasden and Isgrimnur engage a Panther, knocking it down with weapons fire, which leaves it wide open for an Awesome curb stomp. Which Gbasden delivers gladly, registering the complete destruction of the Panther's right half.
To the north, El Guapo continues picking away at hovercraft, immobilizing a Pegasus as it fruitlessly pumps SRMs into the improvised bunker.
Round 14:
Spoiler:
Epsilon-One's Warhammer engages a Panther, losing leg armor but knocking it down with a pair of PPC shots, including damage to a heat sink. Epsilon-One's Catapult is doing pretty well, flipping over a Darter scout car. "Sorry!" the mechwarrior calls out. They seem all right. Maybe that'll learn 'em not to drive their stupid little car in front of a 65-ton battlemech.
Round 15:
Spoiler:
Isgrimnur and Gbasden move to surround the main remaining body of the opfor with Zenn7, Zarathud, LordMortis and Moley forming the northern part of that action. LordMortis is getting into the swing of the Gauss rifle, breaching a Pike support vehicle's armor, while Gbasden and Isgrimnur destroy a hovercraft each, a Saracen and a Scimitar respectively. Nothing says "power down and play dead" like a light tap to the top of your turret with a hatchet.
Round 16:
Spoiler:
Gbasden and Isgrimnur trap a Rifleman that comes out to take a potshot at our Awesome, flaking armor off with their weapons to knock the enemy down, at which point Isgrimnur taps its right leg with the hatchet, registering a pair of popped actuators.
Round 17:
Spoiler:
On the main part of the battlefield, Moley disables the Manticore that took out our Warhammer, while Zenn7 and Zarathud engage a Dragon and an Archer. The two enemy mechs return fire but less effectively, and the Dragon winds up on the ground.
Isgrimnur and Gbasden put several more de-powered lasers and PPCs respectively into the adjacent Rifleman as it squirms around. Isgrimnur's upraised hatchet convinces the enemy mechwarrior to shut down.
Round 18:
Spoiler:
A Locust runs up to Gbasden's Awesome, breaching the damaged leg armor but failing to inflict any critical damage. That's unfortunate, because its right leg locks up from an extended-range PPC hit. That's the great thing about the ER PPC, you don't have to worry about "charging it up", you just take your shot. Harder for some to get used to, but Gbasden does ok.
Isgrimnur runs down the street to chase down the other Archer as it turns to face our two Awesomes lumbering in. An AC/2 carrier eats multiple lasers and an autocannon burst, and is out of the battle. The hatchet takes a significant chunk of armor out of the Archer's legs, but the enemy mech stays upright.
El Guapo conserves his last Gauss shot, stepping aside to blow away a Scorpion tank with energy weapons.
To the east, Epsilon-One's Catapult takes out a Saladin that's been harassing it while avoiding the worst of the attacks from the Panther that helped take down our Warhammer.
Round 19:
Spoiler:
To the north, El Guapo moves in to finish the last two tanks and fires at the Pegasus. The gauss shot misses because the Marauder's diagnostics suddenly decide to inform the mechwarrior about an engine shielding breach.
Nothing critical happens in the center - just Isgrimnur disabling a Vedette with a couple of boots and Zenn7 knocking the Dragon over again.
Within a couple of seconds, the Dragon gets its armor stripped by rapidly-arriving PPCs from Zenn7 and Zarathud, El Guapo takes out the remaining Vedette to the north, and LordMortis takes a head shot which knocks out his sensors.
The umpires call the match at this point. In addition to the three allied tanks (plus the two in the screening action), we've "lost" a lance of mechs. Most of the rest would have required days, if not weeks of work, and it's likely that we would have lost Stefan and the guy in the Wyvern as well.
The opposing force from the regimental combat team gets chewed out a lot more, though. They lost upwards of a battallion of tanks, plus a couple of lances of mechs, with only a few of their units escaping damage, mostly due to being out of position for the actual fight.
The Davion guys are a little less happy, except for Cpt. Allred who grins and rubs his hands together gleefully, anticipating the excuse to run his part of the RCT through "remedial exercises" after "completely botching what should have been an easy win".
The main reason that this turned out to be such a meatgrinder on both ends that everyone agrees on is the high gravity. Everyone is super slow, the hovercraft maneuver like bricks, and every jump is a potentially blown leg actuator, which means that our favorite urban combat tactics don't work quite as well as they should.
Epsilon-One gets a little bit chewed up about losing 75% of their mechs - but that Star League tech Kintaro won the fight against our Thunderbolt fair and square, while our Wyvern mech jock winds up having to catch a few extra hours in the simulator practicing jump jet usage. The guy in the Warhammer, well, not much you can do when your leg gets taken out. Same goes for Stefan, that Saladin was supposed to be "out" and took a cheap shot. We don't complain too much though, plenty of times in actual combat both us and our adversaries have 'played possum'. We also don't give Stefan too hard a time, as he cracked his head pretty good when the mech fell over.
El Guapo sums it up best: "That was fun, but I wouldn't want to do it for real."
We still have two outstanding exercises this week, an "infantry suppression exercise" and a simulated defense of an anti-orbital laser installation.
LordMortis considers further modifications to the Victor - according to him, there are still way too many heat sinks on it. "I am freezing even when firing all weapons and using jump jets at maximum rate!" is the commentary. He suggests dropping the heat sink count to add armor or more missile tubes:
[] Drop two heat sinks and mount two additional tons of armor, bringing the armor to near-maximum
[] Drop one heat sink and upgrade the SRM/4 to an SRM/6
Black Lives Matter
-
Drazzil
- Posts: 4724
- Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:54 pm
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
I say drop a single heatsink and give him the guns... But not my call.
Daehawk wrote:Thats Drazzil's chair damnit.
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Drazzil
- Posts: 4724
- Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:54 pm
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Also... Apparently I was catching up on my space netflix today. 
Daehawk wrote:Thats Drazzil's chair damnit.
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Zenn7
- Posts: 4449
- Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:15 pm
- Location: Michigan
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
2 SRM tubes don't sound nearly as valuable as 2 tons of armor.
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El Guapo
- Posts: 41312
- Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
- Location: Boston
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
I think Mortis can make the call. Though personally I would go for the additional armor.
Black Lives Matter.
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LordMortis
- Posts: 70210
- Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:26 pm
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
I tend to like armor but I also tend to like heat note syncs not being wasted. Tough call. but if the heat is there to fire cannons and the SRMs then I'd take the SRMs
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NickAragua
- Posts: 6109
- Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
- Location: Boston, MA
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Vote Results:
"I believe I will go with the extra rockets." LordMortis states smugly after almost everyone else tells him to go with the armor.
We'll check in briefly on how the garrison on Asuncion is going.
November 29, 3042
Parts Depot 8G
Asuncion, Free Worlds League
The last two times, we were behind the eight-ball and only got ahold of the raiders after they'd raided an Earthworks facility. Our employer is understandably upset, even though we got their data back. We adjust our patrol routes and schedules, coordinating with the FC Adnan's Marik Militia unit and hit the jackpot when Probe Lance is within response range of a parts depot. Between them and a reinforced Marik lance, we've got nine mechs on the field, including AWS and Drazzil's Phoenix Hawks.
Plus, for once, this time, we'll be the ones with air support. It's not very good support, a pair of Defender-class conventional fighters, which are basically good for taking a PPC shot each, but it's the principle of the thing.
Incoming is a light raiding force, supported by a pair of Manticore tanks and an LRM Carrier. Only one mech though, a Locust 1S. The raider guys even brought a cargo chopper.
Round 1:
We're the first to the fight as the Marik lance struggles to catch up. Except for the Spider, which runs forward at its expected rapid pace, distracting a Drillson hovertank long enough for Drazzil to zap the fans off the back with the Phoenix Hawk's large laser. He takes a couple of SRMs in return, but they mostly just scuff the paintjob.
A couple of streets to the west, AWS plays a similar role to the Spider, allowing Delta-Probe's Vulcan to blast through the armor of a Saracen, cutting the fuel lines running its engine.
Round 2:
AWS spots the cargo VTOL making its way towards the depot and opens up on it with lasers and MGs, shooting it down. We're picking away at the peripheral groups for now, the main group of six tanks driving down the main street will be left for last, as it's a non-trivial amount of firepower.
Our Spider buddy goes chasing after the Locust as the two weave and bob through alleys.
Round 3:
One of the Marik Stingers eats about a third of the LRM Carrier's full salvo, bursting actuators and blowing out a machine gun. A good reminder to be extra careful about lines of sight if you're in a bug mech. Speaking of paying attention, the LRM Carrier's crew and buddies weren't, and now there's a large hole in the vehicle's left side, courtesy of AWS' lasers and foot.
Our Ostroc nearly squashes a Galleon, and our Spider buddy reports inflicting major damage to the Locust. "What about you?" our Lieutenant asks.
"Couple SRM dings, no big deal."
Round 4:
"So then, as he's trying to get up, I zap him in the leg with the lasers again." The Spider pilot tells us after the battle.
The damaged allied Stinger gets legged by an LRM salvo from the Saracen, which is almost immediately disabled by Drazzil's Phoenix Hawk, while AWS takes out a Vedette that had probably forgotten about our Phoenix Hawk, jumping over some low buildings and stomping it flat.
The on-going losses severely discourage the rest of the raiders, and the remaining Manticores and a Galleon manage to withdraw, along with their beat-up LRM Carrier buddy.
The actual salvage is basically crap, so we let the employer have it to build up credit, grabbing only a pair of Saracen hovertanks for their LRM/10 ammo and some armor (although we're pretty well supplied with armor, thanks to the extended downtime).
After the repairs are completed, Gamma company gets to spend the next month and a half patrolling with no incidents and/or watching tri-vids. Thankfully, there's a normal HPG on-world, so we have pretty good access to up-to-date broadcasts. What gets watched the most often in the Moonraker's break room?
[] Highlights from Solaris VII. We've got a retired company member running a stable.
[] The news. Gotta keep up with what's going on in the inner sphere.
[] Re-runs of old action flicks. The special effects suck and the plot lines are stupid, but...
[] Soap operas. 'nuff said.
Spoiler:
We'll check in briefly on how the garrison on Asuncion is going.
November 29, 3042
Parts Depot 8G
Asuncion, Free Worlds League
The last two times, we were behind the eight-ball and only got ahold of the raiders after they'd raided an Earthworks facility. Our employer is understandably upset, even though we got their data back. We adjust our patrol routes and schedules, coordinating with the FC Adnan's Marik Militia unit and hit the jackpot when Probe Lance is within response range of a parts depot. Between them and a reinforced Marik lance, we've got nine mechs on the field, including AWS and Drazzil's Phoenix Hawks.
Plus, for once, this time, we'll be the ones with air support. It's not very good support, a pair of Defender-class conventional fighters, which are basically good for taking a PPC shot each, but it's the principle of the thing.
Incoming is a light raiding force, supported by a pair of Manticore tanks and an LRM Carrier. Only one mech though, a Locust 1S. The raider guys even brought a cargo chopper.
Round 1:
Spoiler:
A couple of streets to the west, AWS plays a similar role to the Spider, allowing Delta-Probe's Vulcan to blast through the armor of a Saracen, cutting the fuel lines running its engine.
Round 2:
Spoiler:
Our Spider buddy goes chasing after the Locust as the two weave and bob through alleys.
Round 3:
Spoiler:
Our Ostroc nearly squashes a Galleon, and our Spider buddy reports inflicting major damage to the Locust. "What about you?" our Lieutenant asks.
"Couple SRM dings, no big deal."
Round 4:
Spoiler:
The damaged allied Stinger gets legged by an LRM salvo from the Saracen, which is almost immediately disabled by Drazzil's Phoenix Hawk, while AWS takes out a Vedette that had probably forgotten about our Phoenix Hawk, jumping over some low buildings and stomping it flat.
The on-going losses severely discourage the rest of the raiders, and the remaining Manticores and a Galleon manage to withdraw, along with their beat-up LRM Carrier buddy.
The actual salvage is basically crap, so we let the employer have it to build up credit, grabbing only a pair of Saracen hovertanks for their LRM/10 ammo and some armor (although we're pretty well supplied with armor, thanks to the extended downtime).
After the repairs are completed, Gamma company gets to spend the next month and a half patrolling with no incidents and/or watching tri-vids. Thankfully, there's a normal HPG on-world, so we have pretty good access to up-to-date broadcasts. What gets watched the most often in the Moonraker's break room?
[] Highlights from Solaris VII. We've got a retired company member running a stable.
[] The news. Gotta keep up with what's going on in the inner sphere.
[] Re-runs of old action flicks. The special effects suck and the plot lines are stupid, but...
[] Soap operas. 'nuff said.
Black Lives Matter
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AWS260
- Posts: 12687
- Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:51 pm
- Location: Brooklyn
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
I predict some serious fights over the remote.NickAragua wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2019 4:29 pm After the repairs are completed, Gamma company gets to spend the next month and a half patrolling with no incidents and/or watching tri-vids. Thankfully, there's a normal HPG on-world, so we have pretty good access to up-to-date broadcasts. What gets watched the most often in the Moonraker's break room?
[] Highlights from Solaris VII. We've got a retired company member running a stable.
[] The news. Gotta keep up with what's going on in the inner sphere.
[] Re-runs of old action flicks. The special effects suck and the plot lines are stupid, but...
[X] Soap operas. 'nuff said.
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Drazzil
- Posts: 4724
- Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:54 pm
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
[] Highlights from Solaris VII. We've got a retired company member running a stable.
[x] The news. Gotta keep up with what's going on in the inner sphere.
[] Re-runs of old action flicks. The special effects suck and the plot lines are stupid, but...
[] Soap operas. 'nuff said.
[x] The news. Gotta keep up with what's going on in the inner sphere.
[] Re-runs of old action flicks. The special effects suck and the plot lines are stupid, but...
[] Soap operas. 'nuff said.
Daehawk wrote:Thats Drazzil's chair damnit.
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Stefan Stirzaker
- Posts: 1136
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:12 pm
- Location: Australia
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Solaris VII highlights
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El Guapo
- Posts: 41312
- Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
- Location: Boston
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Zarathud
- Posts: 16515
- Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:29 pm
- Location: Chicago, Illinois
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Endless streams of intergalactic cat videos.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein
"I don't stand by anything." - Trump
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
“It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
"I don't stand by anything." - Trump
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
“It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
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Hyena
- Posts: 2288
- Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 4:14 am
- Location: San Antonio, TX
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
IRL, Not gonna lie, and not really sure how this is going to be accepted, but is anyone else watching that year date tick closer and closer to 3050? Our company will probably be on v3.0 of most of our people, but I'm still very interested in how it gets handled.
"You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because you're all the same." ~Jonathan Davis
"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." ~Robert M. Hutchins
"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." ~Robert M. Hutchins
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gbasden
- Posts: 7670
- Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:57 am
- Location: Sacramento, CA
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Keeping up with current events is kind of important to our livelyhood.NickAragua wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2019 4:29 pm
After the repairs are completed, Gamma company gets to spend the next month and a half patrolling with no incidents and/or watching tri-vids. Thankfully, there's a normal HPG on-world, so we have pretty good access to up-to-date broadcasts. What gets watched the most often in the Moonraker's break room?
[] Highlights from Solaris VII. We've got a retired company member running a stable.
[X] The news. Gotta keep up with what's going on in the inner sphere.
[] Re-runs of old action flicks. The special effects suck and the plot lines are stupid, but...
[] Soap operas. 'nuff said.
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NickAragua
- Posts: 6109
- Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
- Location: Boston, MA
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Yeah, I expect a few folks will reach mandatory retirement age within the next few years. I'm still working on how to best handle contract and opposition generation post-3050 versus a certain class of opponent.Hyena wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2019 6:56 pm IRL, Not gonna lie, and not really sure how this is going to be accepted, but is anyone else watching that year date tick closer and closer to 3050? Our company will probably be on v3.0 of most of our people, but I'm still very interested in how it gets handled.
Things have been a little crazy at work, plus it's an unexpectedly large scenario so it's taken me a lot longer than usual to do the next update. Should be done tomorrow.
Black Lives Matter
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El Guapo
- Posts: 41312
- Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
- Location: Boston
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
Can we sign up with the Clans and then switch sides at the right moment?NickAragua wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:22 pmYeah, I expect a few folks will reach mandatory retirement age within the next few years. I'm still working on how to best handle contract and opposition generation post-3050 versus a certain class of opponent.Hyena wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2019 6:56 pm IRL, Not gonna lie, and not really sure how this is going to be accepted, but is anyone else watching that year date tick closer and closer to 3050? Our company will probably be on v3.0 of most of our people, but I'm still very interested in how it gets handled.
Things have been a little crazy at work, plus it's an unexpectedly large scenario so it's taken me a lot longer than usual to do the next update. Should be done tomorrow.
Black Lives Matter.
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NickAragua
- Posts: 6109
- Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:20 pm
- Location: Boston, MA
Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek
It certainly is possible for an individual mechwarrior to become part of a clan.El Guapo wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:54 pmCan we sign up with the Clans and then switch sides at the right moment?NickAragua wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:22 pmYeah, I expect a few folks will reach mandatory retirement age within the next few years. I'm still working on how to best handle contract and opposition generation post-3050 versus a certain class of opponent.Hyena wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2019 6:56 pm IRL, Not gonna lie, and not really sure how this is going to be accepted, but is anyone else watching that year date tick closer and closer to 3050? Our company will probably be on v3.0 of most of our people, but I'm still very interested in how it gets handled.
Things have been a little crazy at work, plus it's an unexpectedly large scenario so it's taken me a lot longer than usual to do the next update. Should be done tomorrow.
Black Lives Matter