Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

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Freyland
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Freyland »

Is there helium involved? Man, karaoke night just got way more entertaining!
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

After thinking it over, Scrub decides on a piecemeal approach. She'll stick around and rustle the town residents away from the gas. Cylus' mech has arms, so the Grasshopper will be used to carry the briefcase back to our base for some technical evaluation in a sealed inflatable dome well away from our drop zone. Hyena and Xwraith proceed to Beta-One's position at best speed.

Even with that help, nobody in Beta-One is impressed with the force ratio, so Zenn7 gets on the horn to the Intruder. The only extra forces they have on board are four infantry platoons, which, while nice, won't really make a damn bit of difference against three heavy mech lances. And they also say the infantry will be required for their subsequent operations, so they refuse to commit them. The dropship does let us have a minelayer with enough mines for three clusters of minefields, which is awfully nice of them but also pretty useless.

Having established that, we call in Alpha-Air to provide some air support, loaded with HE bombs for maximum effect against battlemechs.

The allied units are a Demolisher tank, a Victor, a Longbow and an AC/2 carrier.

Realistically speaking, this is going to be a meatgrinder.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
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We open fire at maximum range, PPCs and LRMs streaking back and forth as the Davion mechs and tanks make their approach. Zenn7 and Moley target a Crusader to the south, scoring three PPC hits and landing all ten LRMs on target respectively. The heavy mech's armor absorbs the punishment, but that was some serious damage. LRMs sparkle against the dropship's heavy armor plating and it returns fire, disabling a Von Luckner heavy tank with several PPC shots. After their tank slips its treads and refuses to move, the crew bail. The Intruder is a tough customer, and even with their heavy numbers, the Davion forces will find it tough to bring it down.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
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Zenn7 splashes down into a pool of water, cooling the mech off from rapid PPC fire.

The Intruder focuses fire on a Marauder, blasting it with PPC and LRM fire, but failing to breach armor. The Marauder still falls over, though. Zenn7 continues firing at the same Crusader as it unloads its LRMs on the dropship, breaching right arm armor and damaging an actuator. LordMortis clears some annoying buildings and opens up on a Maxim zipping in rapidly. He misses most shots, but a medium laser jams the hovercraft's turret.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
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Zenn7's target backs up, probably thinking that six PPC shots is enough for now. The Awesome targets a different Crusader, blasting all the armor off its left arm. LordMortis has nothing in range for short-range weapons, but targets a distant laser carrier with LRMs, blasting off all of the vehicle's external motive elements.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
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As the Intruder continues taking a pounding from LRMs, our air support arrives. The Marauder it's been targeting gets a little too close and takes several LRMs to the right leg, blowing out a heat sink and an actuator. The mechwarrior is unable to remain upright and the mech falls over backwards, where something jostles the on-board AC/5 ammo and the mech explodes.

One of our aircraft, a Shilone, flies over and drops its full HE bomb load on an Archer. The enemy mech survives, but takes major armor damage, and the craters make for difficult terrain, causing it to slip and crash into the ground.

LordMortis takes a nice big jump into a lake, firing at an LTV-4 as it zips by and breaching its armor with the AC/20. The hovercraft opts to gun it out of range. Zarathud engages a Partisan tank, blasting it with PPCs but failing to breach armor.

Zenn7's original target returns, and he blasts it center of mass with PPCs, breaching center torso armor.

The dropship is down to about 50% of its armor, which isn't so hot, but we still have two aircraft left to make bombing runs, so maybe we can do something about it.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
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The Intruder takes advantage of the Archer's loss of evasive manuevers as the mech struggles to get up, and a PPC from the dropship takes the heavy missile mech's head off.

Zenn7 continues firing at the Crusader, as the enemy mech continues pumping LRMs at the dropship. You have to admire the guy's dedication to his mission, but now he's got an armor breach in the left torso as well. The enemy mechwarrior has had enough and withdraws.

Zarathud splashes down into the same lake where LordMortis has taken up residence and opens fire at a nearby advancing Demolisher tank, neutralizing the AC/20-toting vehicle with a PPC blowthrough to the engine. The allied AC/2 Carrier takes advantage of it by focusing on the minor armor breach, detonating the assault tank in a fuel explosion. LordMortis is distracted by an infantry platoon firing rifles at him, so he takes a few seconds to plink off individuals with lasers and an SRM spread.

Our air support does pretty well, the Lucifer dropping its bombs on a Griffin. A Scorpion tank gets caught in the blasts as well, while the Griffin takes major damage to one of its legs and keels over. The Stuka gets in behind a Hunchback firing at Moley, hitting it in the rear with several large laser blasts to precisely cut off the left third of the mech.

The dropship reports damage to its thrusters, which isn't great but is non-crippling.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
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Xwraith and Hyena arrive, but I'm not sure their arrival will make a difference. Either we destroy like half the enemy force in the next ten seconds or, more likely, the dropship gets blown to smithereens.

It gets one good last lick in on an Ostsol that gets *way* too close, into range of all the short-range guns. That's a lot of lasers, which, by the way, remove the mech's arms and head.

Zenn7 switches targets from the retreating Crusader to the one that's not retreating, crippling its left arm, which, at least, removes a source of LRMs. The enemy mech, unbalanced by the loss of equipment falls over, crunching a pair of heat sinks.

Zarathud fires at a Partisan heavy tank, putting its AC/5s to rest with several PPC shots. LordMortis walks out of the lake for a second to target a Champion. Most of his weapons fire misses, but a single laser brushes the head, and the enemy mech kind of freezes in place, still upright, but teetering.

Moley moves in behind a Centurion, which turns around and burns some armor off with the right-arm-mounted laser, but it takes a lot of damage to the rear torso section, with multiple heat sinks spraying coolant fluid out the back.

Our Lucifer, freed from the heavy weight of its bombs, strafes a Scorpion tank, the aero jock smirking as a laser hits an ammo bin, detonating the tank. The Stuka drops its bombs on the second Davion Marauder, which explodes. Maybe it was from the bombs, maybe it was from that stupidly-placed autocannon ammo bin going off. Unfortunately, before exploding, the Marauder got a pair of last PPC shots off.

Those PPC shots are the straw that breaks the camel's back - after withstanding hundreds of LRM impacts and a large amount of PPC fire, the dropship's structure can't take it any more and the right side kind of wilts as multiple hull breaches render it incapable of flight, let alone in space.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
The Davion forces seem inclined to withdraw, now that they've turned the dropship into a wreck. Zarathud targets a Crusader which escapes Zenn7's gaze and puts a PPC shot into its left leg, popping a pair of actuators. The heavy mech falls to the ground.

Moley continues working on the back of that Centurion - it's kind of trapped between a rock and a hard place - if it moves away from Moley, it moves into Zenn7's line of sight, and the mechwarrior makes the choice to avoid the PPCs. Unfortunately, that choice results in its right torso section being blasted apart by lasers. The damage unbalances the medium mech and it faceplants. Moley takes the opportunity to finally stomp the nearby Vedette flat (that damn tank took at least three stomps!)

LordMortis walks up to the Champion he just stunned and takes the head off with a "carefully" aimed AC/20 burst.

Our aircraft continue strafing the enemy mechs, with the Lucifer exploding the damaged Griffin's LRM ammo as it limps along. The Shilone takes out the Maxim that Zarathud damaged earlier.

Zenn7, as a result of everyone trying to hide from him, has nothing better to do than blast a few infantry with PPCs.

The heavy losses encourage the remaining Davion units to retreat. The Crusader and Centurion both manage to get up and limp away under their own power.

The salvage is pretty good - we pick up an Archer, an Ostsol and a Champion, along with a pair of tank wrecks, handing over a bunch of the salvage to the MAC guys. The aircraft turned in a pretty good performance, while the allied units and landmines sucked it up.

The reaming we receive from the liaison is nothing short of legendary. She threatens to take the cost of the Intruder out of our pay (said cost being about 300M C-Bills), and strongly implies that she'll evaluate our performance as a contract breach if we don't pick up the slack that the dropship's absence has left in the MAC's order of battle. To that extent, she tells us to move one of our Unions to a set of coordinates she's providing, where it will await a supply convoy that was supposed to rendezvous with the Intruder that we allowed to get blown up.

As our techs work overtime to put our mechs back together for the next set of sorties, a few undertake the task of examining the "Fox's Breath" briefcase that Cylus brings back. After defeating the rather inferior security measures, to nobody's surprise, it contains a fairly substantial amount of nerve gas. According to the tech in charge, it normally decays in a couple of hours, but, because the average surface temperature is about twenty degrees lower than "Standard Temperature and Pressure", the hours turn into days. Exposure leads to death within minutes, as the victims' nervous system shuts down. It's not a particularly subtle weapon.

Interrogation of the personnel captured from the convoy reveals them to be mostly mercs and local hires, with no idea what they were carrying. But they do reveal a list of destinations, some distance away. Well, we got most of that stuff, anyway.

Scrub is able to be fairly persuasive in her Warhammer and is able to convince the residents of that town to evacuate pretty rapidly. Only a few particularly stubborn individuals in the northern section of town don't listen and pelt her with small arms fire when she walks up to their houses. She assumes they die pretty horribly when the wind blows the nerve gas in their direction. She "hands off responsibility" to a planetary militia unit which shows up several hours later and announces their intention to relieve her by opening fire at long range with autocannons and LRMs. She doesn't stick around.

First - administrative stuff:
Stefan, your Catapult is out until we repair the big box LRM launcher on the right side. We apparently have a spare Catapult that I didn't notice, but if you want to mix it up for a bit, it's your call.
Isgrimnur, your Hatchetman is limping way too much, so it's out as well.
Xwraith's Thunderbolt is still missing armor plates and ammo for the LRM launcher, so I'd prefer to bench it for the week.
Gbasden is still nursing that sprained foot.

We have the following replacement mechs:
Ostroc (the one Paingod was riding in. Said mechwarrior prefers a Griffin instead). 5/8/5, medium armor, two large lasers, heat issues.
Thunderbolt. Standard variant, no jump jets. 4/6, near max armor, all around brawler. More guns than heat sinks. Nobody wants to drive the ground-bound version in our company, probably because we've had at least three KIAs driving these.
Archer. Standard variant. 4/6, surprisingly heavy armor, 2x LRM/20, 4x medium laser (basically a grounded catapult).
Whitworth. A lightweight Catapult. 2x LRM/10, 3x medium laser
Stalker. I've grown to like this walking weapons depot mech design, arm-mounted ammo aside, but nobody wants to drive it for some reason.
Phoenix Hawk, Orion and Panther are also options, along with a spare Griffin and a Commando (although, given the opposition we face, a light mech is maybe inadvisable).

Second - as mentioned before, we're ordered to deploy one Union and three mech lances. One of the lances will escort a supply convoy, one will guard our dropship during the loading operation, which the liaison will supervise. The third will be "free-roaming" and assist wherever necessary. When asked what's in the convoy, the answer, as usual, is some variation on "none of your business".

Who are the three lances?
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Isgrimnur »

I'll take the Archer.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by xwraith »

I'll take whatever's left that has jump jets.
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
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El Guapo
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

Soooo...we're pretty sure that our employers are going to nerve gas people, right? Do we have any sense of the targets? Is this the point where we have to make our saving throw vs. morality?
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Stefan Stirzaker »

I'll take catapult 2 thanks
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

Assuming convey escort does not require too much speed, send Gamma 1 on that.

Beta 1 to defend the dropship.

Alpha 1 can sit out and let GB's foot heal. Have Alpha 2 for roving (so Alpha isn't totally out of it).

Regarding our knowledge of the nerve gas - is there some way we can get out of this, maybe get a contract to switch sides and join Davion without totally ruining ourselves in the process, or something like that?
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zarathud »

There is no good answer.

But if the liaison gets too upset about the loss of their dropship, we can return the nerve gas...with extreme prejudice.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

Zenn7 wrote: Tue Mar 26, 2019 9:19 pm Assuming convey escort does not require too much speed, send Gamma 1 on that.

Beta 1 to defend the dropship.

Alpha 1 can sit out and let GB's foot heal. Have Alpha 2 for roving (so Alpha isn't totally out of it).

Regarding our knowledge of the nerve gas - is there some way we can get out of this, maybe get a contract to switch sides and join Davion without totally ruining ourselves in the process, or something like that?
One thing I'm unclear on is whether we know that they're going to nerve gas *civilians*, or whether the plan is to nerve gas military forces (e.g., Davion military units). I'm not sure whether the latter is legal, but at the very least there's a pretty big moral difference between the two.

But either way, seems like we should be exploring our options here.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by xwraith »

I don't think the Ares convention is still binding in a legal sense, but arma atomos ultima ratio regis or something....
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
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by AWS260 »

Are we sure it's nerve gas? I think it might be super soldier serum. Any volunteers to test my hypothesis?
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Whether or not it's super soldier serum really depends on if you've got a couple of necromancers on retainer.
--------------------

Scrub's comments in a meeting held deep within the bowels of the Moonraker re: nerve gas are that we'll need to figure out a way to talk to the Davions without the Capellans listening in. Currently, they're not really listening to us (she tried). Unless you're talking about using RADAR to monitor our force movements whenever possible. Her joke suggestion is that we get one of our mechs to zap out a message in morse code using PPC shots. We do have a bunch of their people prisoners, so we could probably see if we can get our info across under the pretense of a prisoner exchange.

The main thing that we need to avoid is having any more of these suitcases set off in populated areas. There's at least one missing, and we've got several sets of coordinates for where these things were supposed to go.

That being said, we're still under contract and, at least as of last month, the correct portion of the contract payment was released to our accounts. So, we deploy the Union with Beta-One, Gamma-One and Alpha-Two. Because we don't entirely trust our employer, Alpha-One and

The liaison and her attached lance remain around the dropship, while Gamma-One moves to the rendezvous point with the convoy. It's a small deal, three vehicles and a Dervish. Scrub look at the convoy with a raised eyebrow - there are three "Fox's Breath" crates on each of the vehicles. The escorting MAC guys acknowledge the command transfer and return.

"Why don't we just slag them and say they got blown up?" Hyena asks over tightbeam laser comms.

Scrub gets a smirk. "I've got a better idea. I don't think that liaison has figured it out that we know what this stuff is, yet. Better keep stringing her along and load it up on our dropship. We can always shove it out the airlock and blow it up later."

The escort doesn't go as smoothly as we think. Outside what's apparently a logging town, we're intercepted by a company of light militia units, backed up by a lance of heavies and a couple of mechs. Gamma-One is as usual - Scrub/Warhammer, Hyena/Striker, Cylus/Grasshopper. Xwraith's Thunderbolt is still in the shop, so we have two Grasshoppers instead of one.

"Convoy, hold position to the north of town while we take care of these guys.", Scrub instructs the convoy.

"Affirmative." comes the response.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
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Gamma-One advances to the south, aiming to close with the southwestern elements of the intercepting force as soon as possible, the idea being to split them up from the guys to the southeast and defeat them individually, rather than getting dogpiled on by both.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
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Some of what we'll be facing.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
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"Visual contact with light enemy mech. Locust." reports Cylus. Xwraith fires some symbolic LRMs at it, but the bug mech is moving way too fast, pumping its relatively huge legs for all they're worth.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
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The Locust continues to slink around, no doubt reporting on our mechs' positions. Xwraith fires another salvo of LRMs, hitting trees. "Geez, this LRM launcher sucks, too few missiles per salvo."

Round 5:
Spoiler:
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Here they come - although, with the woods in the way, it's hard to get a target lock. The Locust gets around the back of Scrub's mech, pinging her with a couple of laser shots (this is the 1E variant, which has two medium lasers and two small lasers) and landing a kick on the back of her leg. However, this leaves it wide open for attack by Xwraith, who unleashes the Grasshopper's laser arsenal on the light mech. Two medium lasers hit, drilling through the "shoulder" joints where the lasers are mounted.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
Image
The Locust appears to be done for the day - its weapon mounts throw out sparks instead of firing as it continues circling around Scrub's Warhammer, then a missed kick causes it to fall over. Xwraith's quick glance at the damage indicators shows that it's completely unarmed at this point. That also serves the purpose of alerting our mechwarrior to a Stinger jumping through town to get at our convoy.

Hyena, meanwhile, eats almost a full 40-pack of LRMs from an Archer as it comes out from behind a cluster of trees, throwing off his aim and blasting off a bunch of armor. The accompanying Manticore tank adds a few more LRMs to the mix, along with a PPC shot to the right arm, stripping armor and damaging an actuator.

Scrub, meanwhile, blasts a stray Vedette with PPCs and a laser, the damage going internal and inspiring the crew to drive the tank away as fast as possible.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
The Archer steps back to cool off, while the Manticore isn't quite as quick on the ball. This baits Hyena into unleashing a full alpha strike, even though his mech's cockpit turns into a sauna as a result. The tank takes some serious tread damage, but remains mobile and inflicts another PPC hit on the Striker, while sending some LRMs at the damaged right arm.

The Stinger to the east refuses to die, dodging a PPC shot and some laser fire, then opening up on one of the transports carrying the Fox's Breath, causing Xwraith to cringe.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
Image
Scrub curses as she follows a disobedient convoy vehicle and sees an SRM Carrier pull into LOS. She takes a faceful of SRMs - less than half of the sixty missiles hit, but twenty eight is still a lot of SRMs. She manages to hold her mech steady long enough to give it a taste of its own medicine. The vehicle's lesser armor proves unequal to the challenge, and it detonates as the fuel tank explodes.

Cylus and Hyena exchange unfavorable with the Manticore, with Hyena's damaged arm being completely disabled. At least this time, most of the Archer's missiles hit the water instead of our mech.

To the east, Xwraith really works that Stinger over with lasers, ruining the left leg, then basically melting the right torso to slag. The bug mech collapses, and its heat readings spike as it hits the ground. The mechwarrior inside wastes no time in shutting down.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
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Scrub continues chasing after the "Killjoy", and manages to blow away another SRM Carrier while dodging a Von Luckner's AC/20 burst (although she takes an SRM hit and loses a heat sink). The SRM Carrier, however, fires at the "Killjoy", completely evaporating it and its nerve gas cargo.

Hyena continues engaging the Manticore, this time hitting with everything while the Manticore misses. Cylus gets in behind the Archer and gives it a good dose of lasers and a boot, stripping off a lot of armor. This is pretty suboptimal range for the Archer, so that's pretty good. The Manticore is still giving us a lot of trouble though.

Round 10:
Spoiler:
Image
Hyena's just not having a good day - a Scorpion tank and the Archer breach his right leg armor, then the Manticore zaps him with the PPC and an SRM salvo - the upper leg actuator blows out, and the Striker falls over backwards. At least Cylus uses the distraction to crack open the Manticore's armor and engine compartment. Scrub engages the Von Luckner from an advantageous position: directly over it, repeatedly stomping at the tank's thick armor from point blank range where it can't bring its AC/20 turret to bear.

Round 11:
Spoiler:
Image
Cylus jumps in behind the Archer, outmanuevering it completely, and directs lasers at its legs and rear torso, cutting off the last of the armor there, then cracking the back of its right leg. Several actuators burst, and the Archer keels over.

Now that the Manticore has stopped firing, Hyena gets revenge on the stupid little Scorpion tank, blowing it away with an AC/10 burst. Scrub, meanwhile, keeps working on that Von Luckner, snapping off bits of tread.

Round 12:
Spoiler:
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The Archer struggles to get up, and Hyena uses the opportunity to feed it a PPC through the armor breach, cracking the engine shielding.

Scrub has to avoid an AC/20 round, but manages to disable the Von Luckner with short range weapons fire, taking only a few SRMs in exchange. The reduction in AC/20 fire is a major relief.

Round 13:
Spoiler:
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The guy in the Archer bails out as Hyena limps over, the ejection pod landing in water. "Hey, come over here for a second!" Hyena calls out over the loudspeaker.

Cylus jumps over to attack the Behemoth as it moves belatedly to support its Von Luckner buddy, scoring several hits which rattle the crew. The Grasshopper deftly avoids the dual streams of AC/10 tracers as they tear up trees.

Scrub moves to engage a Condor, scoring a PPC hit, while Xwraith opens fire on a J. Edgar that's attacking the convoy Dervish, which insists on "helping" us "clear the route".

Round 14:
Spoiler:
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The Condor runs away from Scrub and joins two other hovercraft in harassing Xwraith. The hovercraft and our mech exchange fire, with some armor damage.

Cylus takes advantage of the Behemoth crew's disorientation to walk up and unload at point blank range, but it's a tough tank and its armor remains intact. Well, until a boot strips it off the left side, anyway, immobilizing the tank while it's there.

Round 15:
Spoiler:
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Cylus jumps away, moving to support Scrub and Xwraith. Scrub scores a solid PPC hit on a J. Edgar, melting most of the armor off its left side, while Xwraith pings the Pegasus with lasers, avoiding most of its SRMs, then gives it a solid kick. The driver grips the throttle and runs for it.

Hyena forgets that his right leg armor is breached and steps in the water to pick up the downed Davion mechwarrior. The leg immediately seizes up, sending our mech into the drink.

Also, what's that crashed helicopter doing there?

Round 16:
Spoiler:
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The guy in the Pegasus is a little too enthusiastic and crashes into a building. The J. Edgar finds itself facing both Scrub and Cylus - it puts a couple of SRMs into Scrub, but Cylus' lasers breach its armor and get at the crew a little bit. Just enough to give them third-degree burns and convince them to zip away.

Xwraith scores a couple of LRM hits on the Condor's front viewport, injuring the driver with blowback. "Ugh, with my Delta Dart, that would have gone right through. Pretty solid heat sinks on this thing, though."

With nothing remaining in the way, other than a pair of running hovercraft, the convoy is able to continue its advance, minus one crate of nerve gas. Technically there are still two lances of enemy tanks to the east of our mechs, but they opt not to engage.

The guy Hyena was trying to scoop up swims away, pointing and laughing. "Yeah, well, at least I still have a mech, asshole." Hyena grumbles.

----------

The convoy arrives at our dropship. "Get this stuff loaded up. Full environmental seal on the cargo bay. And jam all comms going in and out." Scrub directs the dropship crew. Despite the "secure" communications, the liaison cuts in.

"Why the precautions? And where's the third crate?" asks the liaison, her smile a model of plastic insincerety on the video display.

Scrub makes the Warhammer approximate a shrugging motion and returns her own fake smile. "Well, you're not telling us what's in those boxes. Might be candy, might be neutron bombs. Can't be too careful these days. As for the third crate, it drove by an SRM Carrier."

"I see." says the liaison, her jaw moving around as she grinds her teeth. "Look, I need to be able to remotely monitor the contents of those crates. I can't do that if you're jamming comms. Drop the jamming, or you're in breach of contract."

"Drop it why? So you can gas us?"

The liaison scowls. "Not if you do what you're paid to do."

That's when the Davion forces attack. Quite a nasty assembly of units - an assault lance, two heavy lances and a medium lance, all mechs. Plus a small amount of vehicles, with more tanks coming in behind the initial group. Our defense is pretty solid: Beta-One and Alpha-Two, plus the somewhat beat-up Gamma-One. And the Capellans have temporarily put aside their beef to help us repel the incoming forces. They're not going to be *too* much help, but a Manticore, a Bulldog and a pair of SRM Carriers are nothing to sneeze at. Scrub narrows her eyes as the enemy forces approach and finds herself hoping that they'll blow the liaison to bits. Shouldn't be too hard for them, she's driving a Wasp this time.

At the same time, our remaining dropships observe the remaining MAC dropships lifting off. "We'd better get some backup to the Moonraker." remarks Gbasden, supervising from the other Union's bridge. "And it's time to start packing it in."

Who do we send? (pick one or two)
Delta-One
Alpha-One (with a Crusader substituting for Gbasden's Awesome)
Alpha-Air (with lots of bombs)
Artillery battery

Delta-One and Alpha-Air will arrive more quickly, but are less useful in a meatgrinder.
Alpha-One will arrive a little bit slower, but packs a pretty mean long-range punch.
The artillery will arrive the slowest, but can make a serious dent in densely-packed enemy units, especially with the Long Tom.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Isgrimnur »

El Guapo wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2019 4:12 pm Alpha One.
I agree.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2019 4:13 pm
El Guapo wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2019 4:12 pm Alpha One.
I agree.
Agreed. We might need rapid response for something else and don't want to risk our artillery assets (assuming mechs protect in case of nerve gas leak, artillery crew would be screwed).

EDIT: And make damn sure we don't drop the jamming! Don't trust our "allies" not to gas us to keep us silent or eliminate us as a possible problem.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

Zenn7 wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:24 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2019 4:13 pm
El Guapo wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2019 4:12 pm Alpha One.
I agree.
Agreed. We might need rapid response for something else and don't want to risk our artillery assets (assuming mechs protect in case of nerve gas leak, artillery crew would be screwed).

EDIT: And make damn sure we don't drop the jamming! Don't trust our "allies" not to gas us to keep us silent or eliminate us as a possible problem.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

The dropship assault is going to be a substantial fight. The plan is to have Beta-One screen the dropship while Alpha-Two and the faster elements of Gamma-One come in behind the enemy force. Sensors show a second, smaller force coming in behind the huge clump of mechs, which will wind up enveloping our enveloping units, so we'll need to pay attention to that. Hyena will limp in as his mech in as fast as he can.

The approaching hostiles are a little bit shudder-inducing. There are two Stalkers, and a Longbow (50 LRMs per salvo with plenty of heat sinks), plus a Thunderbolt, a Warhammer and a Crusader. That's a healthy amount of LRMs and PPCs. There's also a Behemoth tank and assorted lighter mechs forming a screen for the longer ranged units.

They also have a weird-looking Rifleman with them - it's a 4D model, which replaces the autocannons with PPCs. I bet the thought process behind it was something like "Hey, you know what would make a Rifleman better? Adding more weapons that generate obscene amounts of heat!" Maybe they thought the light sprinkling of snow coming down would help cool it off?

Good news, the Davion mechs have to cross a river to get to the dropship, and we spotted them far enough that they won't be able to open fire on it immediately. We might have a good shot at the Moonraker not getting blown to bits!

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
We open fire at long range, trying to bait the incoming mechs into the river. A healthy amount of LRMs crosses the river, some impacting an "allied" SRM Carrier which should have done a better job of taking cover.

Zenn7 and Zarathud target a helicopter as it zips across the river, evaporating it with three PPC hits. Not much of a firepower reduction, but every little bit helps.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
Image
Looks impressive, until you realize that most of those mechs don't have jump jets, so they'll have to very slowly cross on foot.

Still, they blow away the damaged SRM Carrier, a Warhammer's PPCs doing the damage. In return, LordMortis fires off his "Doombud" LRM/20 salvo, peppering a Maxim hover transport - it makes contact with the surface of the river as it's almost done crossing and sinks to the bottom. A small number of LRMs ping off the Atlas' armor.

Zenn7 scores a couple of PPC hits on the distant Behemoth, but a hundred-ton tank is a hundred-ton tank, not that easy to take down.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
Some of their lighter, jump-capable units start to cross the river. Zenn7's Awesome starts taking hits, eating a solid LRM salvo from a Crusader and a PPC from the obnoxious Rifleman design. He balances the Awesome with practiced ease and his aim at the Behemoth is true, as he breaches the assault tank's left-side armor and cracks open the engine. Zarathud finishes things up with another PPC through the hole, leaving the Behemoth a smoking wreck.

LordMortis sends another LRM salvo at a Stalker across the river, scoring solid hits, while Moley absorbs a reasonably small amount of LRMs from the Longbow.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
Image
Hey guys, guess what! Alpha-Two and the Grasshoppers from Gamma-One are here!

As an aside, Lt. Neala Rogers, the officer in charge of Alpha-Two is driving a Merlin, which is an interesting "jack of all trades" mech - a 60-tonner with medium armor, it's got the movement characteristics of a Thunderbolt. For weapons, it packs a PPC and LRM/5 for long-range combat, a pair of medium lasers for closer work, and a flamer/MG combo for infantry work. It's also a rare stock design that has a half-ton of machine gun ammo. A reasonable amount of firepower, although it's allergic to water, as the jump jets are mounted in the legs. I honestly don't even remember where we got it. Probably bought it on Outreach after the Lieutenant's Blackjack got totalled. It's another relatively new design, put together in the early part of the century. We'll see how it does.

Anyway. The ambush begins with Alpha-Two and the Grasshoppers sneaking up on the Longbow and other mechs in the rear of the Davion formation and opening up with everything they've got. One of our Trebuchets gets a lucky kill on one of the Stalkers with an LRM salvo - the missiles penetrate at just the right spot in the assault mech's armor and detonate its SRM ammo. Cylus receives a substantial amount of damage - no major armor breaches, but one of the Grasshopper's heat sinks blows out after a nasty SRM salvo.

Zenn7 cools his mech off a little, firing only two PPCs across the river to breach the center torso armor on a Centurion - a Crusader dings the Awesome in the head with a few LRMs. Our mechwarrior is shaken but remains conscious.

A Javelin tries to get the drop on Moley, which is a mistake as it brings the smaller mech within range of LordMortis' autocannon. To his credit, the enemy mechwarrior manages to fire a few SRMs towards the Atlas, a few of which even hit. The autocannon burst shreds the Davion mech before it even lands, so it just crumples down.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
Image
The effect of our extra units' arrival is similar to that of a cavalry charge to the rear of an infantry formation. Other than the raw damage, it forces them to split up and expose their backs to either one or the other surrounding unit.

Zenn7 and Zarathud continue pounding on the Centurion they were targeting previously, as it sends a few LRMs at Zenn7. One of Zarathud's PPC shots goes into the weakened center torso section and cracks the engine shielding pretty hard. The mech all but starts glowing, and the mechwarrior turns it around and begins a rapid retreat. Well, as rapid as can be made when your actuators start seizing up from all the heat. Which lets one of the allied units send a rackful of SRMs at it, and the engine shuts down entirely.

LordMortis and Moley team up on a Wolverine, with Moley getting around the back while LordMortis works on the front, weapons fire from the Atlas cracking the 55-tonner's right arm and autocannon. Moley takes a couple of hits from the Wolverine's Enforcer buddy, but armor absorbs both the AC/10 rounds and large laser without too much issue. The Wolverine is able to fire its weapons at the Atlas before falling over, but the armor more or less shrugs it off. Once it hits the ground, Moley crushes its head with a boot.

To the north, our Merlin gets its first kill, blowing away a Scorpion tank scurrying around underfoot of all the mechs with a combination PPC and LRM shot, then breaching armor on the Longbow's right leg with a medium laser. The Longbow continues taking a pounding, but, being an 85-ton assault mech, it's not easy to bring down. Our Phoenix Hawk takes a substantial amount of armor damage as it jumps too far out, but remains upright and functional.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
Image
Scrub joins the party, having crossed the river to our side a little bit away from the battlefield. The Warhammer's armor condition and PPCs leave it suited for a sniping role at this point - that SRM Carrier facial really reduced the armor volume on our mech.

The Davion units start pulling back, their jump-capable units retreating across the river. Zenn7 and Zarathud focus fire on a Crusader, delivering a devastating barrage of six PPC shots. The mech remains standing but its armor readouts go from gray to yellow and red pretty quickly. Moley joins in as well, hitting it with lasers and LRMs. The allied Bulldog, ever the opportunistic vulture, takes advantage of this to send lasers and SRMs at the Crusader as well, and its right leg separates from the mech.

To the north, the Merlin jumps forward and eats a PPC shot to the right leg, damaging the hip and blowing out a jump jet - overbalanced, the mech tips over, crunching more actuators and jump jets.

Xwraith's Grasshopper takes a substantial amount of fire from an enemy Thunderbolt, and the computer announces that the center torso armor is depleted. A lot of people shot at the Longbow this turn, but Xwraith got the kill, detonating the mech's on-board LRM ammo.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
The Merlin struggles to get up, but gets pounded. Between all the PPCs and SRMs coming in, both legs stop responding entirely, sending it back down. So much for new technology.

Moley moves up, firing weapons at a regrouping AC/2 Carrier, breaching the tank's armor with a combination of large laser and LRM. A Thunderbolt that's been hiding in the river for a while eats an AC/20 burst and some LRMs from LordMortis, although it remains upright.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
Image
The legged Crusader stops struggling to get up. Presumably the mechwarrior inside got knocked out.

Lt. Rogers powers down the crippled Merlin. It's not a bad mech, but can't really stand up to massed firepower the way a good assault can.

Zenn7 opens fire at a Warhammer to the north, letting loose with three PPCs, missing with two. The third is "intercepted" by a Darter scout car, which promptly disappears.

An Enforcer jumps up the riverbank just as LordMortis gets there. The two mechs exchange autocannon and laser fire, with the Enfocer losing about half of its right torso. Moley helps out by jumping into the river behind said Enforcer and zapping it in the left leg with a couple of lasers. The mech can't take it and keels over.

Cylus opens fire on a Whitworth, lasering it in the right leg and fusing the hip joint, while Scrub knocks over a Centurion with PPC shots after it fails to blast the liaison's Wasp.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
Image
The Davion force is, at this point, outnumbered, and they retreat in good order. A Centurion covering their retreat gets blown to bits when Zarathud nails it with a PPC in the left torso, the LRM ammo bin shredding the mech, while the Thunderbolt from the river tries to climb up the river bank and gets knocked over by LordMortis' AC/20 and other combined fire, losing an arm. Cylus and Xwraith combine fire to deflate a Pegasus.

Even though their reinforcements have almost reached the fight, the remainder of the Davion mechs apparently don't feel they can take us on any more. So, they begin to pull back.

"Amazing work, mercenaries." the liaison says, before they're even out of sight, sarcasm almost spraying out of the speaker. "Now, are you going to turn off your comms jamming and deliver those crates to the coordinates you've been provided? Or is it time to declare you in breach of contract?"
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

Is there a way to spoof dropping the jamming? E.g., send fake signals back or the like?

What's the legit reason for why they want to drop the jamming? They want to be able to monitor the location of the crates, I would guess? Unless we're ready to openly move against Liao at this point (which it doesn't seem like we are) kind of seems like we're going to need to drop it if we can't fake it.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

El Guapo wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:18 pm Is there a way to spoof dropping the jamming? E.g., send fake signals back or the like?
Probably not in the time you have.
What's the legit reason for why they want to drop the jamming? They want to be able to monitor the location of the crates, I would guess? Unless we're ready to openly move against Liao at this point (which it doesn't seem like we are) kind of seems like we're going to need to drop it if we can't fake it.
That's the stated reason, yes. Chances are that the crates also have some kind of remote activation mechanism built into them.

There are three sets of designated coordinates (which is weird, as only two of the crates made it). All three are located within populated areas.

The Davion forces are still within line-of-sight, and according to a prior incoming transmission from our other dropships, the bulk of the MAC forces have picked up and are burning for orbit and beyond.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Isgrimnur »

NickAragua wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:48 pm That's the stated reason, yes. Chances are that the crates also have some kind of remote activation mechanism built into them.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

I think this is the point we either have to decide to go along and deliver nerve gas to population centers or tell them to get bent and switch sides. I vote for switching sides.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

Switch sides, but only after we make sure we are no where near those crates or we have them sealed up in something they can't detonate remotely. If they can take us out, I fear they will use the nerve gas (or at least 1 of them) for that purpose.

Edit: guess we'd switch sides now and make securing the crates priority #1.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zarathud »

I didn't accept a delivery mission. Only an escort mission.

If the liaison wants them, he can carry them out of jamming distance. Or we shoot him. Maybe both.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

Zenn7 wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:51 pm Switch sides, but only after we make sure we are no where near those crates or we have them sealed up in something they can't detonate remotely. If they can take us out, I fear they will use the nerve gas (or at least 1 of them) for that purpose.
It would seem we have successfully jammed their signal or the liaison wouldn't be so bent out of shape. Probably?
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Hyena »

How about we jettison it out in low orbit and they can go find it themselves.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

gbasden wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 11:47 pm
Zenn7 wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:51 pm Switch sides, but only after we make sure we are no where near those crates or we have them sealed up in something they can't detonate remotely. If they can take us out, I fear they will use the nerve gas (or at least 1 of them) for that purpose.
It would seem we have successfully jammed their signal or the liaison wouldn't be so bent out of shape. Probably?
Just concerned they might overcome the jamming or have some short range detonation method the jamming won't stop (or a suicide runner will come in and trigger one or something). Just because I'm paranoid does not mean they are not out to gas us too! :)
Hyena wrote: Fri Mar 29, 2019 8:11 am How about we jettison it out in low orbit and they can go find it themselves.
And hope they don't free fall and detonate and release this toxic crap all over the atmosphere, possibly over us? Possibly accomplishing their goal, or even worse than they were going to do? If we are going this route, we'd need to forcefully shoot it out into space away from any populated areas (towards the local star seems like a good choice).
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by xwraith »

One thought, a lot of nerve agents tend to be flammable and we've got inferno SRMs. So have something rigged up to trigger the Inferno SRMs if the package blows up?

Just a thought.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

"Yeah, you know what?" says Scrub after a brief pause. "Get bent. We're not nerve-gassing civilians."

"You're smarter than you look, mercenary." responds the liaison. "Seems I'll have to take care of this myself. My revenge will not be denied!" She cuts off communication as she rapidly wheels her Wasp around and zips off before anyone can react. The MAC tanks that were fighting alongside us don't make any move to follow, and their commander, sounding extremely nervous, does his best to assure us that they're not "in" on the scheme. All we require of him is that he temporarily get his crew out of the tanks while we sort this out.

Scrub gets on the line-of-sight horn to the retreating Davion forces and informs them of the situation. Their commander informs us that they've spotted a pair of dropships on the ground within a few hours' march (by mech).

"Perhaps that's where your liaison is going. I'd recommend catching up to her before she can get there and lift off. If she's got more of these nerve gas containers, she can easily activate them once her craft reach orbit and have direct line of sight."

"Uh..." Scrub says, considering our force disposition - what we have here are almost entirely heavy and assault mechs, the only thing even remotely able to catch up to the liaison being Beta Two's Phoenix Hawk. "Can't you guys do that?"

"I don't feel comfortable leaving your dropship unattended at this time." states the Davion commander. "That, and you plowed us pretty hard just now. We're about as combat effective as Capellan TSM on Sian." He chortles.

"What? You know what, never mind. Zenn, better get your people moving. My mechs are all shot to hell - we'll stay here and play standoff with the Davions." she informs Zenn7.

"Right. Alpha-Two-Four, on that Wasp. Maximum speed. Beta-One, Alpha-Two, keep up as best as you're able." The Phoenix Hawk sprints off, the rest of the present Beta Company mechs following as fast as they can (other than the Merlin, which is being wheeled into a mech bay in the dropship).

--------------

The Phoenix Hawk is just barely able to keep the Wasp on sensors, but not much else. The seven mechs from Alpha and Beta are unlikely to get there in time, but we *do* have a force that's able to move in and attack the dropships. Alpha-One. At least the Pixie is able to note which dropship the Wasp runs into.

With Beta-One and Alpha-Two trundling in, but some distance away, it'll fall to Alpha-One to soften up the defending units before the rest of our forces get there.

The good part is that the Davion commander was able to detach a scout car to keep up with the Phoenix Hawk. Once clear of the jamming field, said scout car makes contact with a nearby Davion artillery battery (which, it appears was going to open fire on our dropship prior to our cease-fire). They'll provide fire support, hopefully taking those dropships down a notch.

The problem here is that there are a) two dropships parked close together (a Triumph and a Union), b) guarded by a Marauder, an Awesome and two mediums, plus three mixed-weight tank lances, c) with another company of medium and heavy tanks plus two mech lances (heavy and medium), all visible by Beta-One on sensors coming in. The surrounding terrain is composed of jagged hills, which prevent the dropships from engaging us at long range, but also prevent us from engaging them at long range. El Guapo takes stock of the situation, then recalls another battle he was involved in where there was a dropship in relatively close quarters, and calls the whole thing off. Taking on all of that would be suicidal in that kind of terrain, even with Beta-One and most of Alpha-Two.

The dropships lift off shortly and burn for orbit. The Union burns for the zenith jump point, along with the other MAC dropships that had already left, while the Triumph remains in orbit, circling lazily and beaming out transmissions.

We use the Phoenix Hawk to relay the state of things to Scrub and the Davion commander. Scrub shares the set of target coordinates with him, and informs him that there are at least three crates unaccounted for - the two delivered by Delta-One some time ago, and the one on the hover transport that got away when Gamma-One hit the Capellan convoy.

The Davions send out their faster units, a couple of scout cars, with orders to jam all communications going into the target coordinates.

"I hope you people have some recon units, because we're going to need help finding those crates."

"We do." answers Scrub. "We can have Delta Company begin searching immediately."

"One more thing - with all the jamming going on, I don't think our militia units are going to get the message that you're no longer hostile. I'll send out the rest of my scout cars, but your Delta guys can get there quicker. Rough terrain and all. Just... try not to blow too much of the militia up. Or the civilians."

--------------

And that's how Delta-One winds up searching through a small town while being chased around by bug mechs and militia tanks, Archinerd's Dervish and Madmarcus' Wolverine loaded with inferno ammo to quickly burn down any crates they find. Delta-Two and Three perform similar tasks in the other sets of coordinates. The plan is to sweep through the town and locate any of the Fox's Breath crates - we've got their sensor signature, but it appears to overlap with several brands of microwave, so we'll need to get a lot closer to confirm.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
Freyland and Madmarcus approach from the north and will sweep the western half of the town, while Archinerd and Paingod approach from the east and will sweep the southern part. Freyland is engaged by a Vulcan, the two mechs exchanging laser fire - except that the Vulcan's lasers go wide, while Freyland drills it with three shots. Madmarcus and Paingod fire at some turrets, causing minor damage to the equipment.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
Image
The Vulcan won't leave Freyland alone, so it gets three more lasers and a pair of SRMs to boot. Paingod exchanges PPC fire with a Manticore, our mech's left arm taking some actuator damage. Well, it's not the PPC arm.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
Madmarcus gets a little mobbed, but manages to nail the Vulcan with a five-pack of inferno SRMs. That's going to be pretty unpleasant. The Wolverine's left arm takes severe damage, but a Blackjack trying to get it misses and winds up on the ground instead. Freyland and Paingod cool off, conducting scans of two suspicious looking buildings, while Archinerd tussles with a Wasp.

Round 4:
Madmarcus and Freyland ditch the Manticore and LRM Carrier, jumping south. Freyland scans a third building. No luck.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
Image
Madmarcus dodges most of the pursuing Manticore's fire, but its LRM salvo disables the Wolverine's left arm. The Wolverine's return fire fuses some of the heavy tank's treads, making it harder for it to continue pursuit. Archinerd scans two buildings at once, while Paingod covers the Dervish by blowing a building out from under a Stinger.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
Image
Freyland scans the last of the buildings with suspicious readings. "Where the hell is it?"

Madmarcus misjudges positioning and gets pegged in the center torso by a PPC shot - this cracks the gyro housing and makes the mech wobble and fall over. Not good.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
Freyland jumps north to relieve the pressure on Madmarcus, getting in behind the LRM Carrier and blasting out its engine block with lasers and SRMs, then kicking an AC/2 Carrier to strip off the armor entirely. Unfortunately, a lot of the enemy units are not so easily distracted, and our Wolverine gets pounded with lasers and SRMs - Madmarcus is unable to stay upright for a second time and the Wolverine keels over, cracking the engine and shredding the gyro. When the nearby Griffin curb-stomps on it for good measure, the Wolverine simply explodes, as the inferno SRMs blow.

The mechwarrior ejects just in time, but is immediately scooped up by the Griffin.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
Image
Time to leave. Paingod nails a Stinger as it pursues the Griffin and Dervish, the PPC shot blasting through the right torso and cracking the bug mech's gyro.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
Image
Freyland bugs out to the southwest, surgically removing limbs from another Stinger that tries to give chase. The mech flops over on top of a building roof, missing an arm and a leg.

Round 10:
Spoiler:
Image
Freyland lets loose a salvo of LRMs as the Quickdraw jumps out of town, disabling a turret on top of a building. Paingod, meanwhile, puts a building housing a flamer turret out of its misery - the structure was already on fire anyway.

Round 11, 12:
Spoiler:
Image
Freyland disables a pursuing Goblin tank with an LRM salvo, but takes a hit to the shoulder joint from the enemy Griffin's PPC, fusing the right arm in place. The Quickdraw quickly switches targets as it runs away, firing a solid grouping of LRMs at the Griffin, and gets nailed by another PPC shot to the left arm.

The militia forces don't pursue as we make our way out.

With jamming still on-going, Delta returns to their rendezvous point to compare sensor readings, coming up with nothing.

After consulting with the Davion commander, he suggests that we attempt to intercept and destroy the dropship the liaison boarded (the Triumph). Davion aircraft will join us in punching through its aerospace fighter escort screen. This will allow our dropships to engage and destroy it, or force it down.

"Our dropships?" Scrub asks, pointing to herself.

"Yes, your dropships. Considering the *excellent* work you've done against us, we're pretty low on active dropships. And mechs. You're lucky we're able to help out with aerospace units at all."

"Uh, we don't have any aerodyne units."

The Davion shrugs. "Not my problem. Engage them in orbit if you must, but you need to prevent them from releasing any of that nerve gas. I'm sure you weren't informed of the particulars when you took the job initially, but I'm guessing my superiors will hold you responsible if people die and they can't get their hands on any Capellans." He smirks. "When somebody gasses a bunch of civilians, if you can't get who's responsible, you get a scapegoat."

Scrub sighs. "Right. Moonraker, unload those boxes, slag them with infernos, then deactivate your jamming and prepare for dustoff. You and ... the other Union ... are going to be doing an orbital interception. Once you deactivate jamming, tell Gamma-Three to scramble and rendezvous with Davion forces at these coordinates."
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Gamma-Air scrambles and moves to catch up to the orbiting Capellan dropship, meeting up with a pair of FedCom aerospace fighters. As they burn for orbit, they're intercepted by twice their number of Capellan ASFs. Bastards have been holding out on us! Luckily, Gamma-Air's flight leader saw it coming and had Alpha-Air scramble as well.

The Capellans come in from above at a high velocity, and are able to get in among our formation, so it's possible that Alpha-Air may not make it in time. We'll time. It's a furball.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
The FedCom Cheetah gets blown away almost immediately, its fuel tank detonating as a Sparrowhawk gets on its tail and nails it with a laser salvo. Our Lucifer pulls a pretty lazy turn and blasts a Stingray in the tailpipe, melting about half its main thruster off with both the large and small lasers, sending it into a panicked retreat.

Our Thunderbird easily absorbs a Corsair's rear fire, and then our Slayer goes to town on said Corsair with lasers and LRMs, while the Thunderbird cracks open the engine housing on a Stingray flying in formation with the one our Lucifer nailed. Nobody crashes, but taking two bad guys out of the fight isn't too bad.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
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The aircraft continue twisting and turning. A pair of Capellan heavies open up with LRMs from long range, acquiring sensor lock from outside the furball. The missiles go wide, however.

The FedCom Lightning gives a good accounting of itself, staying on a Corsair's tail and tearing at apart with AC/20 and medium lasers.

Our Lucifer keeps an enemy Lightning busy, zapping it with lasers, with a large laser shot hitting the cockpit. Not too busy to blast our Thunderbird with an AC/20. Luckily, armor holds up. Our Thunderbird lays into a Sparrowhawk, damaging multiple internal systems with lasers and an LRM salvo. Really, it's only a heat sink, sensors and fire control, but the little fighter still stalls out and takes a dive, all the way to the ground below. Our Thunderbird is a little more sturdy, and the aero jock keeps the plane level.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
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The Stingrays wobble away - with their engine damage, they'll be unable to get back up to orbit, so they will likely have to land and surrender. The remaining Capellan aircraft tighten up their formation, perhaps not to their own benefit.

Our Thunderbird's computer informs the aero jock that its nose armor is critical, as he blasts away at a Hellcat. The medium fighter shudders as multiple systems blow out, and then breaks in half as the FedCom Lightning saws it in half with an AC/20 burst.

Our Lucifer zaps the enemy Lightning with a few lasers, but it swerves at the last second to avoid the LRM salvo. Unfortunately, that causes the fighter to stall out and lose a lot of altitude.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
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"On him!" calls out the Lucifer pilot.

The allied Lightning goes chasing after a Thrush, cutting into its tail with the on-board lasers, but takes damage from a hostile Thunderbird, losing a significant amount of altitude.

Our Lucifer stays on the out-of-control Lightning as it slowly loses altitude, causing severe damage to the rear section of the enemy aircraft. The enemy aircraft somehow manages to level out, despit the major damage, but it's barely keeping altitude as smoke trails out the back.

Our Thunderbird takes a good chunk out of a Capellan Transit-class fighter, causing it to take a nose-dive, though the pilot doesn't quite lawn-dart.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
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Our Lucifer is targeted by a Stuka as it leaves the smoking Lightning behind and targes the nose-diving Transit to finish it off. Bits fly off the aircraft - armor holds, but sparks fly out. Our Slayer is unable to stop the offending Thunderbird, while our Thunderbird evaporates a Thrush as it loops around for a fast pass on the Slayer.

The arrival of Alpha-One leaves the remaining Capellan forces outnumbered, and those who are able to regain control of their aircraft break for high orbit, in an attempt to rejoin their dropship.

Said dropship continues to transmit what we presume are activation codes for the remaining nerve gas crates, but, at the very least our comms jamming prevents them from being effective. Upon Xwraith's suggestion, we slag the crates we've got with some inferno SRMs, allowing us to drop our jamming field and for the Davion forces nearby to transmit a situation update to the rest of their forces.

Once our aerospace fighters and the FedCom Lightning catch up to the Triumph, the chunky aerodyne dropship and its remaining escorts have no chance. Disabled, it comes down almost right on top of the facility where Delta-One just conducted recon. The ensuing fight is over shortly, and the Davion forces are defeated. Our fighters observe the action but lack the fuel to actually engage the grounded Capellans. We do have Alpha-One ready to go, however.

Our objectives are pretty simple - destroy the remaining Capellan units. If we give them time to search the base, they'll probably find their crate (if there's one there) and set it off manually.

Alpha-One does have some potential backup, in the form of Delta-One. Delta-One is missing Madmarcus and the Wolverine, Paingod's left arm is almost gone and leg armor is in the red, but the Griffin is still combat effective. Freyland's Quickdraw has a messed up shoulder actuator, so one of the lasers is basically useless, while Archinerd's Dervish is in the green. Alpha-One is El Guapo in the Marauder, Stefan in the Catapult, Isgrimnur in an Archer and a replacement mechwarrior in a jump-capable Crusader - so they've got some serious long range firepower. But you can never have enough backup.

Plus, it's a chance to recover our missing mechwarrior. Hopefully, the Capellans didn't blow him to bits along with the Davion guys. Does Delta-One go as well?
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

Delta 1 goes as well, we want to rescue our guy if possible and make darn sure they don't manage to trigger a nerve gas crate!
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

Yes - we need to stop them from finding that crate.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

Yeah, I don't see any reason not to send Delta One as well.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Alpha-One advances on the Capellan-held facility, with Delta-One about thirty seconds behind.

The Capellans look like they took some casualties, but they still have a lance of Manticores, a Bulldog, a pair of Vedettes, and a medium mech lance. They've also seized control of the base turrets that haven't been blown up. Plus, they've got infantry squads searching through the various buildings. The good part is that their Triumph is basically a wreck.

Alpha-One's Crusader is a Liao modification of the classic design - it downgrades the missile launchers but adds two heat sinks and a full set of jump jets, trading maximum firepower for mobility and the ability to actually fire some of those guns without melting.

As usual, around here, it's snowing.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
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"Where's your leader, mercenaries?" comes a transmission on the open channel, the liaison's voice projecting an aura of bitterness into everyone's cockpit.

"He uh, sprained his foot." comes the response from El Guapo. "I don't suppose you fine folks want to simply surrender and call it a day?"

Alpha-One advances, engaging the forces at the north end of the base, including a damaged Vulcan that charges out at El Guapo. It dodges the Marauder's PPC shots, and the streak SRMs fail to lock on. Isgrimnur and Stefan work on a turret, with Stefan's LRMs blasting chunks out of the building and damaging one of the barrels.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
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"What's with the nerve gas, anyway? Are you *trying* to start another war?" asks Stefan as he unloads thirty LRMs and a laser at the Vulcan. The enemy mech jumps up to El Guapo, avoiding the LRMs, but is buffeted by laser shots from three out of four of our mechs and is unable to land any hits. A distant Manticore zaps the Marauder with a PPC though, stripping armor off the right arm. The loss of armor unbalances the Vulcan and it tilts over to the right, crashing into the ground where its right arm throws sparks and lets out a puff of smoke.

"Mercenaries. Always sticking their noses where they don't belong. Don't worry, when we find that crate, an interstellar war will be the least of your concerns."

[as an aside, Isgrimnur rolled two twelves on medium laser attacks].

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
The Vulcan struggles to get up, damaging its leg further, but eventually manages to limp away. El Guapo turns his attention to the Manticore to the southeast, puncturing the tank's armor with a pair of PPC shots. The turret seizes up and smoke begins to belch out.

A Cicada charges up to Stefan, zapping him with its lasers, but eats a significant amount of fire from the three surrounding mechs - a large piece breaks off the right side, and armor falls off in drips and chunks as lasers and SRMs blast away. It survives, but is pretty beat up.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
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Delta-One shows up, moving up to support El Guapo. Isgrimnur, Stefan and the Crusader move in to the north east corner of the base, engaging the remaining three mechs. The Blackjack takes the worst of it - Isgrimnur targets it with all four of the Archer's lasers (we've customized it, facing all the weapons forward), with one of them brushing the head. The mechwarrior inside passes out as the mech hits the ground, and Isgrimnur stomps on the right torso, crushing it to make sure the mech stays down.

The Cicada doesn't get left untouched - while the Crusader focuses most weapons fire on the Blackjack, it spares some machineguns for the back of the enemy mech - Stefan still takes a couple of lasers from it, but then a kick from the Crusader crunches the Cicada's right leg - the resulting fall cracks the gyro housing and disables the right torso.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
Image
Whoever was in the Cicada bails out.

El Guapo climbs out of the lake, him and Paingod each firing a PPC shot - between the two of them they disable one of the turrets.

The Crusader and Isgrimnur fire at a Manticore, melting off its tracks. Isgrimnur does his best to stomp the one underneath his Archer, but it remains intact.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
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Isgrimnur and his second neighbor Manticore exchange fire, both taking serious armor damage, but no penetration. Until the Archer's foot comes down on the front of the tank, crushing it and sending the laser barrel flying.

Paingod trades PPCs and LRMs with a fourth Manticore, but the tank's shots miss. Paingod's PPC hits, and the tank decides to hide behind a small hill.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
The enemy Griffin gets the drop on Paingod, jumping over and opening fire with the PPC from behind. Paingod is fairly quick on the draw, however, and plugs the enemy mech with a PPC shot as Archinerd moves back to provide support.

El Guapo blows away a Vedette as it tries to hide between Freyland's feet. Stefan "only" melts the main gun on his target Vedette, taking it out of the fight.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
Image
As Paingod and Archinerd battle the Capellan Griffin, the Manticore that hid from Paingod rolls out from behind its hill. Freyland pounces, using jump jets to land right next to it.

"Dammit, watch the fields of fire!" El Guapo calls out as the Quickdraw blocks his shot.

The Manticore's PPC impacts the building in front of Paingod, then Freyland's lasers and SRMs immobilize the tank.

The Griffin boots Archinerd's Dervish, stripping most of the armor from the right leg.

"Looks like I'll have to destroy you all the classic way." states our former liaison.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
Image
Stefan fires at a rocket launcher turret as it traverses towards the Catapult - one of the lasers hits one of the rockets, lighting it off, along with the rest of the building.

Archinerd's leg absorbs a PPC from the Griffin, which is proving to be a tough customer.

"Take that!" whoops the enemy mechwarrior before breaking out into a fit of coughing as her mech's heat readings spike - Paingod smirks knowingly. When you fire that Griffin's jump jets plus the PPC, it heats up. A lot.

Round 10:
Spoiler:
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The Griffin pulls back a bit behind a building to give its heat sinks a break.

El Guapo and Freyland dismantle another building, while the Crusader and Isgrimnur work on and collapse their target.

Round 11:
Spoiler:
Image
Paingod chases after the Griffin as it jumps east, eating a small salvo of LRMs from Isgrimnur's Archer. It fires back but misses. "I'll get you little bastards."

Freyland jumps southeast as well, disabling a loose Bulldog with a couple of SRMs through an armor breach.

Round 12:
Spoiler:
Image
That Griffin keeps trying - it lands a solid hit on Stefan's left missile rack with the PPC, breaching armor. The enemy mech's armor is toast at this point. Freyland comes zooming in on jump jets, but the mechwarrior steps aside and our Quickdraw winds up on its back, leaking coolant fluid from a crack in the engine heat shielding.

"Look, you crazy moron, you're the only one left." El Guapo informs our former liaison. "Your mech is swiss cheese, and if you run, we'll just chase you down. If you give up you'll probably... uh... " he pauses, thinking about it. "Well, I guess you can't really expect a fair trial from the Davions, you did try to nerve gas their people. Hell, you did nerve gas their people. And tried to get us to do it, too." the mechwarrior facepalms slowly. "What a mess."

But she does run. Archinerd, Paingod and Freyland try to chase her down, but she eludes their pursuit and escapes into the frozen wilderness.

It takes a couple of hours for us to send a runner outside the jamming field (which, miraculously, stayed up), get a signal to our salvage crews, then wait for them to show up. They search the through the rubble and the base up and down, but can't find anything, until somebody notices an ordnance transport driving towards the base, with a familiar-looking crate sticking out the back.

Apparently, Madmarcus managed to commandeer an ordnance transport vehicle and clear the battlefield. "Turns out, when you're being escorted to a holding cell, if a bunch of Capellans crashland nearby and wipe out the garrison, your guards may get a little distracted." the mechwarrior says with a smirk. "So I whacked him upside the head, took his keys, then stole a truck and ran for it."

"What, you didn't notice the crate full of nerve gas in the back?" Stefan remarks, bursting out laughing. "Good thing you didn't make it outside the comms jamming field."

"Yeah, you're not kidding." says the other mechwarrior, eyeing the APC suspiciously.

We burn the remaining crate with inferno rounds.

--------------------

We stick around for a couple of weeks, helping the Davion guys fix up the vehicles and mechs they recovered from the Capellans. Since the salvage clause on our original contract gave us 90% of the battlefield salvage, a large chunk of the tanks and mechs that the planetary militia "lost" actually wound up in our Jumbo. We'll need to decide what to do about it. We also immediately release all of the capture prisoners (all eighty eight of them) as a gesture of good will. Except for a few who opt to join our organization instead.

We'll also need to figure out what to do about our contract fee. We've already collected about 225M C-bills, leaving us with about half the contract fee uncollected "due to mission failure". Then again, it's not like we actually completed the terms of the contract as written. So maybe it's worth it to just leave well enough alone - it's possible that Comstar might figure out what happened and find us in actual breach of contract (as opposed to just plain old mission failure).

So:
What to do with all the Davion salvage that we're not planning to keep for ourselves:
1) Return it to them, to generate more good will (0 C-Bills profit, no resentment)
2) Sell it to them (~110M C-Bills profit, minor resentment)
3) Keep it, sell it on the open market (~220M C-Bills profit, max resentment)

What to do about the contract fee:
1) Leave well enough alone. We've got the 225M, and a very minor ding to our unit rating for a failed mission.
2) See if we can get Comstar to cough up the rest of the money in escrow. It's a long shot, and we might get dinged some of the money we earned as well.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by LordMortis »

he Davion shrugs. "Not my problem. Engage them in orbit if you must, but you need to prevent them from releasing any of that nerve gas. I'm sure you weren't informed of the particulars when you took the job initially, but I'm guessing my superiors will hold you responsible if people die and they can't get their hands on any Capellans." He smirks. "When somebody gasses a bunch of civilians, if you can't get who's responsible, you get a scapegoat."
... so
2) Sell it to them (~110M C-Bills profit, minor resentment)
3) Keep it, sell it on the open market (~220M C-Bills profit, max resentment)
One is right out. I lean toward two, if only to lord it over our contact.

I'm a big fan of money but certain sleeping dogs... I don't think ComStar care about civilians anymore than did our liaison.
1) Leave well enough alone. We've got the 225M, and a very minor ding to our unit rating for a failed mission.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

Agreed - sell the equipment, leave the contract fee alone.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Hyena »

I third that.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by xwraith »

Sounds like a reasonable plan not to poke too hard when people have been throwing nerve gas around, but who the hell was our liason?

Yeah, yeah I know she gave us a name, but I think we'll find that person doesn't really exist.

I mean everybody knows the Capellans are a bit odd. The nobles have a reputation for being mad and vindictive, but nerve gassing civilians seems to be a bit extreme even for them.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

Option 2 - sell it to the Davion's. We deserve a little money after all we're losing on the contract, but let's not totally piss them off. Especially being as we already know Laio won't be hiring us anytime soon. Need someone we haven't pissed off to work for (and we want more LB-X ammo).

Definitely option 1 with Comstar. Our luck they'd come after all the money we got and probably somehow try to set us up for the nerve gas somehow.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zarathud »

Sell the equipment and take the 110M to put out a contract hit on our former liaison.
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