Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

[$iljanus]

[X] Do Larry the favor of helping his ... people ... out.
[] Getting into a mech fight is a pretty steep price for what is probably the coordinates of an empty, looted bunker.

Do we even have anything "light" in our roster?

A Phoenix Hawk is close enough. Send me in, Coach!

[x] Commit forces to seize the bunker (we've got four spare lances and an aerospace flight that aren't committed to our current contract)
[] Last chance to back out

I’m in a fighting mood. Let slip the mechs of war!

[NickAragua]

Do we even have anything "light" in our roster?

We've actually got a few Firestarters, Spiders and Ostscouts. I use them... sometimes...

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Help Larry - unanimous
Seize the bunker - unanimous

August 24, 3045
Work Camp

While the rest of the command staff look over the satellite and recon data for the uncovered bunkers, Scrub eventually decides to send Gamma-Probe lance to help Larry's people get out. Larry sends one of his Thunderbolts along as well. Their escape plan apparently wasn't very good, because we only get one transmission on approach - the trucks they were going to use to get out are unable to start in this weather.

So we'll have to get them out the old fashioned way - scoop them up. They'll send a flare up from where they're holed up currently.

Scrub has a second set of orders for Gamma-Probe lance as well - detailed scans on all hostile units in the area. For AWS' Phoenix Hawk with its beagle probe, this will be a piece of cake. Unless someone brings ECM to the party. Seems th

Round 1:

Spoiler:

There's the flare, from that cluster of buildings. We'll need to be gareful shooting at those turrets, don't want to blow our guys up. AWS turns the Phoenix Hawk's sensors northeast, beginning to catalogue the force coming in from there, no doubt intending to recover Larry's people.

Akalon's Vulcan take some fire from the one-shot rocket launchers mounted on a few rooftops, but only one of the twenty rockets actually hits, pinging some armor off the mech. In return, Drazzil blows the top off a rooftop-mounted laser turret.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

AWS "braves" the stream of small arms fire from a rooftop-mounted MG, scattering the crew and sticking the Phoenix Hawk's hand out for Larry's guys to clamber on. Riding on the back of a mech is a little scary, but as long as it doesn't do any crazy acrobatics or fall over, they should be fine.

Cujo and Akalon put some suppression fire on the incoming units while getting more scan data - our Wolverine's large laser damages the turret on top of a Scimitar hovertank while the medium laser and SRMs pockmark the armor on a nearby Assassin. We'll have to watch out for that one.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Akalon jumps north, trying to get a better angle on a couple of tanks way in the back to scan them properly, while firing at a Galleon tank. The Vulcan rocks as SRMs from a nearby Harasser ping the cockpit, but our mechwarrior shakes it off and retaliates by crushing the light hovercraft.

The Assassin jumps over to Drazzil as our mechwarrior focuses sensors on a distant tank - Larry's Thunderbolt opens up on the incoming mech, staggering it, and giving Drazzil time to rotate the Cronus in the right direction. The large laser penetrates all the way through the Assassin's left torso armor, blowing the SRM ammo bin after it had fired only two missiles.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

The opposing force moves to disengage. AWS moves forward a little more to get scan data on one last unit, an AC/2 Vedette in the back.

Akalon takes out a retreating Scorpion tank, while Cujo zaps a Galleon into flaming wreckage with the Wolverine's medium lasers (the large goes wide). In addition to getting the last of the scan data, AWS immobilizes a Scimitar while crushing a retreating Saladin hovertank.

We let the rest go. With the area quiet, Larry's guys don't have to ride all the way home on the back of a mech, we can call our salvage crews in and bring them home in the relative comfort of the back of a flatbed.

----------

Larry keeps his word and tells Scrub that the Banshee came from, what his recovery teams have concluded, is an old Star League era bunker.

"Yeah, we kind of figured." Scrub says, fidgeting.

"Thing is, seismic scans showed another couple of hangars to that complex." Larry adds. "But we got run off before we could finish opening them up."

"Got any coordinates? I bet we could help open it up for a chunk of the loot."

"Yeah." Larry grins, downing half a Defiance-Lite can in a single gulp. The resulting belch could probably melt through mech armor.

-----------

We designate the three sites Red, Green and Blue.

Red is where Delta-Ranger located the Night Hawk, and is heavily guarded.
Green is where Delta-Sweep located an unguarded, closed-up bunker.
Blue is the coordinates Larry gave us.

We put together a deployment schedule that allows us to commit forces to seize Site Red, and monitor it using the weather satellite we piggybacked during the "graduation exercise". The first problem we'll have to deal with is an incoming Overlord-class dropship, burning down from orbit on a trajectory to land at the aforementioned site. Actually, that's pretty much the only problem, because if someone lands an Overlord down there, our required force commitment goes from a company to basically everything we've got - thirty six mechs is nothing to sneeze at. It's possible that it's not *completely* full and whoever is coming in is going to use it to lift mechs out, but even still, it's unlikely to be completely empty. The only question is, where do we carry out the interception.

We can intercept while the Overlord is still in orbit. This gives us a little more time to work with. However, the egg-shaped dropship has an incredible amount of firepower at its disposal and will be a lot better able to make use of said firepower in vacuum. We could also make an atmo interception, at which point, the Overlord will basically be a slowly descending brick, and we can come up from below and hit it in the engines to minimize damage to our craft. But this gives us less time to work with.

We'll be committing our heaviest aerospace assets to this, of course.

[] Intercept in low orbit - a little more time on target, a lot more firepower against us
[] Intercept in atmo - a little less time on target, a lot less firepower against us if we do it right

[El Guapo]

[] Intercept in low orbit - a little more time on target, a lot more firepower against us
[X] Intercept in atmo - a little less time on target, a lot less firepower against us if we do it right

Seems less likely to result in disaster.

Can't we (in the future) buy missiles or something to fire at ships in low orbit?

[Leraje]

[] Intercept in low orbit - a little more time on target, a lot more firepower against us
[x] Intercept in atmo - a little less time on target, a lot less firepower against us if we do it right

[$iljanus]

[] Intercept in low orbit - a little more time on target, a lot more firepower against us
[x] Intercept in atmo - a little less time on target, a lot less firepower against us if we do it right

Best not to fight where the target is on “advantageous” ground.

[Zenn7]

[] Intercept in low orbit - a little more time on target, a lot more firepower against us
[X] Intercept in atmo - a little less time on target, a lot less firepower against us if we do it right

Seems less likely to result in disaster.

Can't we (in the future) buy missiles or something to fire at ships in low orbit?

Agree. Maybe some sort of SAM missiles for situations like this? Though I'd guess if this was possible, everyone would do it and we'd all have been blown away a long time ago.

[gbasden]

[] Intercept in low orbit - a little more time on target, a lot more firepower against us
[X] Intercept in atmo - a little less time on target, a lot less firepower against us if we do it right

Seems less likely to result in disaster.

Can't we (in the future) buy missiles or something to fire at ships in low orbit?

Agree. Maybe some sort of SAM missiles for situations like this? Though I'd guess if this was possible, everyone would do it and we'd all have been blown away a long time ago.

Also agree.

[NickAragua]

Desire for anti-dropship emplacements

Prior to uh, the 3050s, there are basically two options for dealing with incoming dropships (other than let them land and deal with what comes out). First, what we're doing, sending fighters (and potentially other dropships) to intercept them. Second, fixed emplacements mounting naval-grade weaponry. We occasionally see the latter, but those are easy enough to navigate around, being limited by line of sight and light-speed lag. And also, the naval-grade guns aren't made any more. Or if they are, they're certainly not getting sold to random mercenaries.

But never say never.

[Leraje]

But never say never.

Now Zenn will be dreaming of a Naval PPCs somehow wired to his AWS

[NickAragua]

But never say never.

Now Zenn will be dreaming of a Naval PPCs somehow wired to his AWS

Hah, where there's a will, there's a way.

[Leraje]

Hah, where there's a will, there's a way.

Isn't it "where there's a whip, there's a way"? Oh, wait, that's a DCMS infantry march.

[Zenn7]

But never say never.

Now Zenn will be dreaming of a Naval PPCs somehow wired to his AWS

How much damage did you say these naval cannons do?

[Stefan Stirzaker]

Naval cannon blimp force!

[El Guapo]

Naval cannon blimp force!

Now we're getting somewhere!

[Hyena]

[X] Do Larry the favor of helping his ... people ... out.
[] Getting into a mech fight is a pretty steep price for what is probably the coordinates of an empty, looted bunker.

Do we even have anything "light" in our roster?

A Phoenix Hawk is close enough. Send me in, Coach!

[x] Commit forces to seize the bunker (we've got four spare lances and an aerospace flight that aren't committed to our current contract)
[] Last chance to back out

+1

[El Guapo]

[X] Do Larry the favor of helping his ... people ... out.
[] Getting into a mech fight is a pretty steep price for what is probably the coordinates of an empty, looted bunker.

Do we even have anything "light" in our roster?

A Phoenix Hawk is close enough. Send me in, Coach!

[x] Commit forces to seize the bunker (we've got four spare lances and an aerospace flight that aren't committed to our current contract)
[] Last chance to back out

+1

I concur as well.

edit: Whoops, this already happened - did sound familiar. Damn you Hyena!

[AWS260]

[] Intercept in low orbit - a little more time on target, a lot more firepower against us
[x] Intercept in atmo - a little less time on target, a lot less firepower against us if we do it right

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Intercept in atmo - unanimous

The briefing is quick and to the point. "Beta-Strike will engage any escorts. When the escorts have been drawn away from the dropship, Alpha-Strike will come up from below and target the engines." The lieutenant pauses. "My advice is to keep below the dropship at all times, that forward weaponry will shred your fighters in no time."

Our fighters load up and launch.

September 1, 3045
Atmospheric Descent

Round 1:

Spoiler:

"Target on scope, beginning our approach. Alpha-Strike, hold back."

In addition to launching its own fighters, some have come up from the surface to to help the Overlord out.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

"Engaging bogey." Beta-One reports from his Lightning, as the autocannon opens up on an approaching fast-moving Sparrowhawk. A flight of LRMs from the back of the enemy formation whizzes past our fighter, while the two exchange lasers. The Sparrowhawk eats the worst of it, taking an AC/20 burst and a laser to the nose, evaporating sensitive electronics. As the fighter spirals out of control, the pilot yanks the ejection lever. There's no explosion when it hits the ground, just a plume of dirt. Probably not much left of it in any case.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

"Beta-Three here, got one on my tail. Or two."

Round 4:

Spoiler:

"Got him!" Beta Three announces as his target, a 100-ton Riever, loses an SRM launcher and about 80% of its altitude after getting nailed by an AC/20 burst up the tailpipe. Our fighter, however, takes a pounding from a Stuka, another 100-tonner and is forced to eject as the fighter breaks up. Beta-One shoots the larger fighter down, but a little too late.

Beta-Two uses the Lucifer's small lasers to blast a Sholagar as it whizzes by, cracking the light fighter's thrusters and sending it into a corkscrew, which it finishes by throwing up a cloud of dirt as it crashes into the ground.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

The Riever doesn't make it, the aircraft smashing into a hill as the pilot fails to pull up in time.

Our Lucifer takes a turn at having a bunch of fighters on its tail, while the Lightning slams on the reverse thrusters and flaps, bringing itself short of a Sparrowhawk's front arc and unloading into a hostile Lucifer. The brick holds together, though.

Our Lucifer does pretty well, nailing a Corsair in one of the fuel tanks, which annihilates the hostile aircraft.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

"Alpha-Strike on station." comes the welcome transmission. Along with some LRMs at the enemy fighters.

Our Lightning pairs off with its counterpart, cracking the main engine with a solid burst from the AC/20, but has to peel off as the Overlord opens up with one of its batteries, having descended far enough that it can bring its guns into range.

Our Lucifer also shoots down its counterpart, leaving the dropship with just two fighters for cover, one of which is peeling off and disengaging.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

"Forty seconds until touchdown." our Shilone reports, firing LRMs at the Overlord. The missiles impact but do little more than scratch the paint.

Technically, it'll be more than forty seconds, but the concentration of anti-aircraft fire during the final seconds of touchdown down there would be... unpleasant.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

"Ignore that stupid Sparrowhawk, concentrate all fire on the dropship. Remember to stay below it." The flight commander orders. A task easier said than done, as the dropship is constantly descending.

Our Lightning takes a couple of PPC and laser shots, along with the autocannon, losing a pair of heat sinks and the landing gear ("great, I'll have to belly-flop"). The Overlord takes a significant amount of damage from the autocannon and supporting laser/LRM fire, but stays in the air.

Meanwhile, the sensor contact from the retreating Lightning winks off.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

The Overlord swats our second Lightning, the aero jock ejecting before the fighter disintegrates. Our Thunderbird takes the next set of weapons fire, but armor holds up for now. The Overlord continues taking a pounding, but we're just not getting through that armor.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

The Overlord floats down to an altitude where the second one of our fighters gets into a "bubble" around its destination point, the missile lock warnings start screaming. A lot louder than before.

"Dammit." The flight leader sighs. "All craft, return to base, mission abort. Support, initiate search, rescue and recovery operations. Command, we couldn't take that damn thing down in time. Sorry."

We recover the two fighter pilots, but we'll need to re-constitute Beta-Strike from purchased replacement fighters, and repairs on the four surviving fighters (especially the Lucifer and Thunderbird, the latter having suffered some serious structural stress from overheating) are expected to take several weeks, which will leave us pretty short of air support.

Our kill ratio was pretty good, but, in addition to losing two fighters, there's now a potential Overlord's worth of extra mechs at that bunker. This is going to need some thinking over on whether it's worth it to keep trying for that particular facility, or focus our efforts elsewhere for now. Our command staff gathers for a discussion - multiple ideas are thrown around and re-hashed and we can't come to a conclusion very easily. The suggestions that gain the most traction include giving up on Site Red, giving Site Red's location to ComStar and focusing on the other sites, but a few people express a sincere desire for a) payback and b) Star League loot.

What did we decide about Site Red?
[] Give it up, investigate the other two sites instead
[] Give the info to ComStar, see what happens there
[] Continue recon and harrassment of forces at the site, wait for an opportunity to hit them where it hurts
[] Other suggestions

[Author's note: holy crap the Overlord is a freaking monster. We barely got through half its armor with three turns of non-stop pounding. And even if we'd been able to keep at it, the damn thing would have shot all of our fighters down.]

[AWS260]

What did we decide about Site Red?
[x] Give it up, investigate the other two sites instead
[x] Give the info to ComStar, see what happens there
[] Continue recon and harrassment of forces at the site, wait for an opportunity to hit them where it hurts
[] Other suggestions

[Leraje]

What did we decide about Site Red?
[x] Give it up, investigate the other two sites instead
[x] Give the info to ComStar, see what happens there
[] Continue recon and harrassment of forces at the site, wait for an opportunity to hit them where it hurts
[] Other suggestions

Looks like Red site is a bit too much for us to take on with what free units we have. So let the spite flow - point it out to Space Verizon and let them make the life of current site occupants miserable.

[Author's note: holy crap the Overlord is a freaking monster. We barely got through half its armor with three turns of non-stop pounding. And even if we'd been able to keep at it, the damn thing would have shot all of our fighters down.]

We might want to look into procuring an assault dropship like an Avenger for when we need to drop another Spheroid or general highly durable air support.

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

continue recon and harassment - 3
give it up and investigate other two sites - 4
give info to comstar - 2

For now, we decide to give Site Red a wide berth, and re-evaluate our options. Gamma-Probe and a couple of lances from Delta company are re-deployed to re-recon the other sites, and we gear up to send our "experienced archaeology crews" and digging equipment over. For now, we'll avoid getting ComStar involved in this.

September 5, 3045
15km west of Site Blue

Gamma-Battle lance is tasked with providing security for Site Blue, as it is closer to site Red and is more likely to be "investigated" by hostiles. They set up in the middle of an abandoned factory complex, and draw the attention of a reinforced tank company and a medium mech lance trying to sneak past them at night, probably to take a peek at Blue. We can't let them do that.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

The hostile units are a little spread out, but have become aware of us. We'll need to take them out quickly before they get the idea to just run past us. Cylus has a close call with a Saladin hovertank, but avoids its autocannon blast, disabling it with pin-point fire from the Grasshopper's lasers. Angel engages a J. Edgar light hover tank, but only brushes some armor off with the Flashman's lasers.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

Scrub is ambushed by an Assassin, but the lighter mech is unable to land a hit despite the Warhammer's "shoot at me" searchlight. Scrub lands a PPC shot center of mass on the enemy mech, swinging the Warhammer's left arm all the way around to the back.

Angel continues "dueling" the J. Edgar, the nimble little hovercraft avoiding most of the Flashman's weapons fire as a VTOL swoops in from behind to ping away ineffectually at our mech as well.

Cylus and Xwraith engage a Javelin and a Vedette, keeping a wary eye on a Hunchback closing in to weapons range from the southeast. The Vedette is squashed by our Grasshopper's foot.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Angel finally takes out the J. Edgar after taking a few laser shots, looking to take down the helicopter next if it sticks around.

Scrub gets bushwacked by a few light tanks in addition to the Assassin. Her Warhammer annihilates a Galleon light tank, although the searchlight is destroyed in the process.

Xwraith moves to engage the Hunchback, watching with amusement as the enemy mechwarrior falls flat forward - although it does save his mech getting zapped by an ER laser and a few LRMs.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Cylus and Xwraith team up on the Hunchback, lasers melting at least two tons of armor off the mech - it fires back, scoring a couple of laser hits on Xwraith's Thunderbolt, but no autocannon damage. The Javelin's SRMs continue going wide. The loss of armor forces the Hunchback back to the ground.

Scrub immobilizes a Scimitar hovertank which had been pelting her Warhammer with SRMs and autocannon rounds.

Angel is unable to draw a bead on the Warrior VTOL, engaging a Vedette instead. Our mechwarrior's aim is thrown off a little by a salvo of LRMs coming in from overhead, and the Vedette survives until the Flashman's weapons can recycle.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

The Hunchback gets up and moves up to Xwraith's Thunderbolt, hoping to get a good shot in with its AC/20. Xwraith's Thunderbolt takes a few laser hits, but nothing major - it was just bait though. Cylus fires up the Grasshopper's jump jets and lands directly behind the 50-tonner, putting a laser blast through the rear armor and detonating the autocannon ammo, briefly lighting the night up with a fireball.

Scrub charges southwest, firing at three separate targets (the Assassin, a Vedette and a Scorpion tank), failing to kill any of them. The Scorpion does lose all its armor and pulls back to the west, though.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Angel really lights up a Vedette. All the ammo in the 50-ton tank explodes, showering fragments all over the street.

Scrub finally gets a good shot on the Assassin, hitting it in the left leg with a PPC as the smaller mech works on her rear armor. The mechwarrior is unable to compensate for two blown-out actuators and keels over to the left.

Xwraith and the Javelin continue their on and off brawl, the Javelin losing its right torso armor to a laser blast, then regretting a kick attempt as Xwraith uses the Thunderbolt's free arms (having held off on the ER laser to manage heat) to block and strip armor from the lighter mech's legs.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

The guy in the Assassin bails out after his left leg snaps off entirely during a failed attempt to get the mech up. Several failed attempts. Scrub turns her attention to a Skulker tank, evaporating it with a pair of PPC blasts.

Angel tails a Vedette, blasting it with lasers and causing some tread damage (along with rattling the crew around), but they still manage to avoid getting stomped by Cylus.

Small salvoes of LRMs continue coming in from both east and west, but it's manageable for now.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

Taking advantage of the hole that Xwraith opened in the Javelin's armor, Cylus puts an end to its SRM salvos with a laser through an ammo bin. Angel finishes off the nearby Vedette, while Scrub destroys the last of the targets in her area.

The rest of the hostile force quickly high-tails it out of the area, the VTOL leaving behind a small piece of its rotor.

Salvage isn't much, mostly tank wrecks and a legged Assassin. Damage to our units is light, just armor damage and a little ammo usage.

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

Which site do we excavate first? Blue is where Larry got the old-model Banshee, so we can surmise that anything else we recover from there will be older and require more work to get up to "modern" standards. However, it's also closer to Site Red, and will thus be more likely to get targeted, so the less time we leave it unexamined, the less time we have to spend defending it. Site Green is a complete unknown, but will keep longer as we haven't observed anyone moving towards it.

[] Site Blue
[] Site Green

[El Guapo]

[X] Site Blue
[] Site Green

Get it while we can, I suppose.

[Leraje]

[x] Site Blue
[] Site Green

Site Blue - might as well clean it up before the competition gets to it. Speaking of competition - do we have any prisoners to interrogate?

[NickAragua]

Site Blue - might as well clean it up before the competition gets to it. Speaking of competition - do we have any prisoners to interrogate?

We recovered three badly-injured tankers who are in no condition to talk for the moment - although our doctors assure us that they'll survive, but they need to be sedated (two of them have missing limbs, while the other broke several ribs) for the next few days. We'll be able to ask them a few questions once they wake up.

[$iljanus]

[X] Site Blue
[] Site Green

Get it while we can, I suppose.

Agreed.

[Zenn7]

[X] Site Blue
[] Site Green

Get it while we can, I suppose.

Agreed.

Agreed.

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Site blue - almost unanimous
Site green - 1

We get our techs and excavation equipment moving towards Site Blue. It doesn't have power and the doors are all locked, so it'll take the techs some time to figure it all out.

September 8, 3045
Unzmarkt Resources Ltd Processing Plant A-34

A few of the corporate security mechwarriors have a graduation ceremony of sorts, as well. A lance of them (including one of the Wasp LAMs that we encountered and disabled) are on maneuvers in an ore processing plant, trying to harass Alpha-Command, when we detect two medium mech lances approaching rapidly, along with a heavy tank lance, while Isgrimnur reports approaching aerospace fighters.

We'll need to take these guys down before they wreck any critical processing plant buildings. And if the corporate security trainees perform well, we might just consider this group graduated.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

The bulk of the hostile mechs advance on the facility, ignoring our mechs for the moment. El Guapo targets the Firestarter, frying a laser on its left arm with a PPC shot while ignoring the pitter-patter of a few SRMs against the Marauder's right side. Gbasden's got his back, blasting the armor off the Scorpion's rear right leg.

Stefan and Isgrimnur target the Firestarter as well, but are unable to inflict anything other than superficial damage.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

The Scorpion gets away from Gbasden, hopping down an incline and out of line of sight, while El Guapo's target Firestarter makes its escape as well. Our mechwarrior switches target, aiming at a different Scorpion, holding one of the PPCs to stay cool. The other PPC hits the quad mech center of mass, then a gauss slug punches through the left torso armor and detonates the SRM ammo bin. The mechwarrior goes for a little flight, while its legs fall outwards as most of the mech disappears.

Isgrimnur chases down the Firestarter and scores an autocannon hit on it, but fails to breach armor. The enemy mech bathes our Hatchetman with a flamer, causing a little extra heat.

Round 3:
[oops]
Gbasden chases the first escaped Scorpion down as it attempts to snipe at El Guapo with its PPC, forcing it to turn around and ping a few SRMs off the Awesome's armor instead. The Awesome's PPC shots and a kick whiff, though.

El Guapo targets a Whitworth as it unloads LRMs on the base, causing damage to some of the buildings. The gauss slug doesn't detonate any ammo this time, but the combination of PPC from the other arm and gauss shot does knock the smaller mech over.

Isgrimnur braves the heat caused by firing all the Hatchetman's weapons but manages to blow its right arm off, leaving it without any weapons that can shoot farther than ninety meters. Or a structurally intact right torso section. The lighter mech fires up its remaining jump jets and begins a retreat.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Isgrimnur takes a few seconds to cool off, waiting for the heat alarms to quit wailing.

El Guapo's target gets back up, only to be nailed by another PPC and gauss slug, this time shearing off the left arm and ruining about a third of the torso, an SRM salvo from one of the corporate Javelins adding to the mech's pain. Stefan engages a Dervish as it fires on El Guapo, but is unable to land any hits with the lasers, although our mechwarrior does manage a solid armor-stripping kick on the 55-ton mech's left leg.

Gbasden continues dueling the Scorpion, scoring a nasty hit on one of its legs with a PPC. The 50-ton quad mech stutters then falls to the ground, the damaged limb snapping off while the heat indicators light up like a christmas tree.

One of the attacking Griffins breaks the left arm on a corporate security mech's Wasp. Not that big a deal really, nothing on it.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

Well, here's a problem. The hostile aircraft are here. Stefan and El Guapo try to get inside their turn radius and call out a warning for the allied mechs to do the same. Gbasden and Stefan take on the anti-aircraft role, with pretty good success - Gbasden brings down one of the Corsairs, which miraculously manages to make a landing and not disintegrate.

Isgrimnur attempts to stop a Griffin from leveling one of the buildings and even knocks it over, but not before it punches one of the turrets out.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Gbasden continues firing at the Corsairs as one of them makes a strafing run at El Guapo. The squat Marauder proves to be hard to hit and a large laser only grazes one of the legs.

Isgrimnur switches targets to another Griffin, damaging its PPC arm actuator with a laser as it dodges El Guapo's fire. The hatchet then crushes the 55-ton mech's right hip, continuing on to destroy the upper leg section as well, bringing it down.

Stefan engages the enemy Dervish with LRMs, causing several armor breaches.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

Isgrimnur's target bails out, leaving us with just three mechs to take down - Gbasden's Scorpion target, the Firestarter and Whitworth are fleeing and we leave them alone for the time being, still being concerned with a strafing aerospace fighter, a Phoenix Hawk, another Griffin and a Dervish.

Gbasden's anti-aircraft fire causes the remaining Corsair to wobble and start losing altitude, while the rest of our mechs chase the three remaining enemy jumpers and take the opportunity to cool off.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

Isgrimnur runs around the north end of the facility, chasing down a Dervish. Our mechwarrior quickly hits the rate-of-fire override on the autocannon, letting rip a long stream of munitions and wrecking the mech's leg.

Gbasden, meanwhile, targets the Griffin, scoring a couple of PPC hits then watching with amusement as a burst from the nearby flamer turret melts most its leg actuators.

The hostile Phoenix Hawk brings down one of the buildings (and a small laser turret), then breaks off to the north (after having to get up from being tripped by the corporate Panther). The wobbly Corsair regains control and zips off, while its grounded companion lifts off vertically and thrusts away, having left quite a bit of equipment behind. The heavy tanks coming in from the south don't even bother driving into weapons range and turn around, leaving their legged mech buddies behind.

Salvage isn't too bad - four legged medium mechs. We'll sell them to Larry's people for a good profit, ~8M C-Bills. Give his security guys something to drive other than Wasps, and let his techs have some exercise putting mechs back together, too. The mechwarriors did ok, but they're still not ready for prime time. Well, that's ok, we've still got half a year left on our contract here. Larry frowns a little at the damage estimate he gets from his techs, but doesn't bring it up with us, having gotten four discount BattleMechs out of the deal.

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

"Yeah, so that's the deal boss. We're gonna need to borrow a Beagle Probe or two, and an Ost sensor package. Or however many you can get." The tech tells Scrub.

"Why?" She asks, climbing down from the Warhammer after completing a patrol. On Unzmarkt, the best option if you're going to be working "outdoors" is to put your mask on before leaving the cockpit, and don't skimp on long-sleeved clothing. At least you can jump a little higher, which Scrub takes advantage of by hopping off the ladder from a few rungs higher than normal.

"'cause." comes the tinny voice of our excavation expert. "Unless you want us to accidentally bury your precious Star League mechs when we start randomly digging holes, we need advanced seismic scanners to map this complex out exactly - they've got some kind of heavy metals or something in the walls or the soil that's blocking standard imaging."

"Can we... do that without taking the system out of the mech?"

"No. Sorry." the tech says. "Gotta take it to places where a mech can't reach."

"What, there's somewhere an Ostscout can't get to?" Scrub says, incredulous.

The tech rolls his eyes. "Not unless you want to compress it into a three-by-four meter cube."

Apparently, it'll take the techs some time to complete this seismic scanning process at Site Blue. By way of abstraction, each Beagle probe contributes two "points", while each Ost sensor package contributes one "point". We've got one spare Beagle probe that we pulled off a scout Hetzer a little while back, but the more equipment we use on this, the faster it'll go. Pick the units (if any) that we're going to temporarily decommission to do this. We could bring the scanning time required to down as low as three days, with the affected units being down for five days (one to pull the sensor equipment out, one to put it back in), or leave our mechs operational but then it'll take ten days.

20 sensor-days worth of scanning required
1 "free" beagle active probe - 2 sensor-days
[] Delta-Recon - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day
[] Gamma-Probe - Phoenix Hawk (AWS) - 2 sensor-days
[] Alpha-Battle - Ostsol - 1 sensor-day
[] Search and Rescue Detachment - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day

[Isgrimnur]

If you're in flamer range, I'm in hatchet range.

[El Guapo]

20 sensor-days worth of scanning required
1 "free" beagle active probe - 2 sensor-days
[X] Delta-Recon - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day
[X] Gamma-Probe - Phoenix Hawk (AWS) - 2 sensor-days
[X] Alpha-Battle - Ostsol - 1 sensor-day
[X] Search and Rescue Detachment - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day

I think we want to get this done ASAP. Doesn't seem like this would materially compromise our battle capacity, but we can dial it down a bit if I'm wrong on that.

[El Guapo]

If you're in flamer range, I'm in hatchet range.

Why don't you set your hatchets on fire?

[Isgrimnur]

If you're in flamer range, I'm in hatchet range.

Why don't you set your hatchets on fire?

Can ... can i do that?

[El Guapo]

If you're in flamer range, I'm in hatchet range.

Why don't you set your hatchets on fire?

Can ... can i do that?

If you will it, it is no dream.

[Leraje]

20 sensor-days worth of scanning required
1 "free" beagle active probe - 2 sensor-days
[x] Delta-Recon - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day
[] Gamma-Probe - Phoenix Hawk (AWS) - 2 sensor-days
[] Alpha-Battle - Ostsol - 1 sensor-day
[x] Search and Rescue Detachment - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day

Ostsouts are not even proper scout mechs - they are way too light, so put their sensors to good use in excavation.

[Leraje]

If you're in flamer range, I'm in hatchet range.

Why don't you set your hatchets on fire?

Can ... can i do that?

If you will it, it is no dream.

We should find a way to introduce Isgrimnur to the glories of TSM.

[$iljanus]

20 sensor-days worth of scanning required
1 "free" beagle active probe - 2 sensor-days
[X] Delta-Recon - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day
[X] Gamma-Probe - Phoenix Hawk (AWS) - 2 sensor-days
[X] Alpha-Battle - Ostsol - 1 sensor-day
[X] Search and Rescue Detachment - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day

I think we want to get this done ASAP. Doesn't seem like this would materially compromise our battle capacity, but we can dial it down a bit if I'm wrong on that.

I think speed is important. There are other sites to inspect and Comstar Verizon will eventually get wind of what's going on.

[AWS260]

20 sensor-days worth of scanning required
1 "free" beagle active probe - 2 sensor-days
[X] Delta-Recon - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day
[X] Gamma-Probe - Phoenix Hawk (AWS) - 2 sensor-days
[X] Alpha-Battle - Ostsol - 1 sensor-day
[X] Search and Rescue Detachment - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day

As an ancient Terran philosopher once said, "Git er done."

[Zenn7]

20 sensor-days worth of scanning required
1 "free" beagle active probe - 2 sensor-days
[X] Delta-Recon - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day
[X] Gamma-Probe - Phoenix Hawk (AWS) - 2 sensor-days
[X] Alpha-Battle - Ostsol - 1 sensor-day
[X] Search and Rescue Detachment - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day

I think we want to get this done ASAP. Doesn't seem like this would materially compromise our battle capacity, but we can dial it down a bit if I'm wrong on that.

I think speed is important. There are other sites to inspect and Comstar Verizon will eventually get wind of what's going on.

Exactly. Maybe when we are done, if we can evidence we were here, we can sell Comstar the info. And maybe we can give them the info on the heavily defended one. Maybe that will buy us some Comstar free time for the last site.

[gbasden]

20 sensor-days worth of scanning required
1 "free" beagle active probe - 2 sensor-days
[x] Delta-Recon - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day
[] Gamma-Probe - Phoenix Hawk (AWS) - 2 sensor-days
[] Alpha-Battle - Ostsol - 1 sensor-day
[x] Search and Rescue Detachment - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day

Ostsouts are not even proper scout mechs - they are way too light, so put their sensors to good use in excavation.

Agree. I like the idea of leaving AWS functional in case we need mobile recon.

[Zenn7]

20 sensor-days worth of scanning required
1 "free" beagle active probe - 2 sensor-days
[X] Delta-Recon - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day
[X] Gamma-Probe - Phoenix Hawk (AWS) - 2 sensor-days
[X] Alpha-Battle - Ostsol - 1 sensor-day
[X] Search and Rescue Detachment - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day

I think we want to get this done ASAP. Doesn't seem like this would materially compromise our battle capacity, but we can dial it down a bit if I'm wrong on that.

I think speed is important. There are other sites to inspect and Comstar Verizon will eventually get wind of what's going on.

Exactly. Maybe when we are done, if we can remove all evidence we were here, we can sell Comstar the info. And maybe we can give them the info on the heavily defended one. Maybe that will buy us some Comstar free time for the last site.

[Hyena]

20 sensor-days worth of scanning required
1 "free" beagle active probe - 2 sensor-days
[X] Delta-Recon - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day
[X] Gamma-Probe - Phoenix Hawk (AWS) - 2 sensor-days
[X] Alpha-Battle - Ostsol - 1 sensor-day
[X] Search and Rescue Detachment - Ostscout - 1 sensor-day

I think we want to get this done ASAP. Doesn't seem like this would materially compromise our battle capacity, but we can dial it down a bit if I'm wrong on that.

Count me in for full-out assault on scanner mode. Hit it and quit it. Just like my daddy did...

Wonder what his name was...