Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by $iljanus »

[x] Keep the Phoenix Hawk LAM
[] Keep the Wolverine

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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Cylus Maxii »

Keep the Wolverine
My nephew, Jake - "I mean is there really anything more pure? Than sweet zombie monkey love?"
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Vote Results:
Spoiler:
Wolverine - 8
Phoenix Hawk LAM - 3

... but, special player request override!
While Scrub concludes that it makes more sense to keep the Wolverine... someone else thinks differently. It's love at first sight, kind of like Isgrimnur and the Hatchetman or that guy that only Scrub and Zenn7 would remember who was obsessed with his Griffin's LRM launcher. Well, maybe a little less creepy than the latter. AWS' eyes go wide after seeing video of the salvage and our mechwarrior runs into Scrub's office, not even bothering to knock or salute.

"Major, major! You gotta keep that Pixie LAM! I've always wanted to drive one of those! Er... fly... I mean..." our mechwarrior gives Scrub the puppy dog eyes, like a kid asking for a toy. "... can I have it? I promise I'll enroll in flight school and take good care of it!"

Scrub can't help but burst out in a grin. "... ok, fine. But you better brush its teeth and make sure it goes to bed at a reasonable hour. And no joy-riding."

---

March 18, 3047
300km west of air defence installation

Alpha-Company is ready to rock. The plan is for Cujo and Isgrimnur to run interference outside, hitting minor targets and patrols to keep the defenders occupied, while El Guapo's lance and our aerospace fighters hit the air defence facility.

Cujo's lance consists of her in a Marik-variant Wolverine, Stefan in a jump-capable Trebuchet, plus an Ostsol and a standard Dervish. They'll be giving a company of light armor and two mech lances (one light, one heavy) the runaround through some kind of built-up urban area.

Cujo's lance is also supported by a lance of merc tanks - salvaged crap, including the Falcon from the last fight, and a Karnov UR gunship - which, by the way, is the dumbest use of a VTOL chassis I've seen so far. It's probably intended entirely as an anti-infantry unit, packing two MGs in each firing arc and a whopping two tons of ammo (in half-ton lots for some reason). We don't expect them to keep up, just occupy some attention for a little bit then retreat.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
"We're outnumbered and outgunned, intentionally. Don't engage. And watch that wind." Cujo reminds everyone.

The high winds make complicated maneuvers difficult, but also make missile and projectile fire harder. Cujo takes advantage of this by using the Wolverine's laser to melt down a Scimitar tank's autocannon barrel before ducking behind some buildings, which absorb the counterattack.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
Image
Whoever's driving the Falcon hovertank is unable to deal with the high winds and crashes into a couple of buildings (no, seriously - he whacks one, manages to clear out, then slams into another). Somehow, the hovertank is still intact. Our Ostsol squashes a Saladin hovertank, eliminating one of the potential sources of heavily armed pursuit.

To the north, Stefan's Trebuchet takes a shot to the right arm from a Thunderbolt's laser array, losing a laser and an actuator. Combined with the other damage, the mech rocks, but our mechwarrior is able to remain upright.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
Our Ostsol and Dervish move slowly northeast while the bulk of the hostiles concentrate on rooting out Cujo and Stefan (the latter is actually getting a little nervous, having a Thunderbolt and Warhammer stalking him). The Ostsol, supported by the Karnov, applies a generous amount of firepower to an intercepting Vindicator, knocking it over as it brushes our mech's armor with its medium laser. The Dervish works on the back of a Javelin, scoring a little damage to its rear armor, then stomping on its ankle, cracking the joint - the Javelin keels over to the right.

Cujo is intercepted along the rooftops by a Wasp and works it over with lasers and SRMs, stripping armor from the left torso and right arm. The enemy mech's fire misses, and it throws a kick, which our mechwarrior easily avoids and delivers a backhand, forcing the bug mech to stagger back.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
Image
Cujo jumps down to the street below, studiously avoiding a Hunchback, and delivering a couple of laser blasts and SRMs to a Hetzer. A couple of the tires pop, which will slow the wheeled assault gun down enough that it won't be able to pursue our mechs in this (or, really any) environment.

To the south, the merc Falcon hovertank comes out of its building to bushwack the damaged Javelin, blasting it with SRMs from the back. The damaged right leg goes limp and sparks out and the mech shudders like its having a seizure and falls over again.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
Image
The Falcon buys the farm as a Pegasus hovertank zips up and peppers it with SRMS, destroying the fellow SRM-packing tank with an ammo explosion.

Cujo, meanwhile, works a little more on the Vindicator that our Ostsol damaged earlier - the 45 ton mech's left leg is unable to take the damage as the hip joint cracks, sending it to the ground.

Stefan takes one last PPC from a Manticore tank, then is able to escape the gaggle of hostiles by jumping from building to building.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
Image
Bonus! We've attracted a trio of Capellan fighters. Conventional fighters, mostly no threat, except for a Mechbuster with its AC/20. Cujo hops away from the downed Vindicator as it fails to get up and lasers the threatening fighter in the nose. She pays for it by losing the large laser and an upper arm actuator to the AC/20, however, but takes the opportunity to splatter a Harasser missile platform with the Wolverine's foot. The guy in the Mechbuster is unable to stay level and loses a whole bunch of altitude. That ought to keep him out of our hair for a little while.

Our Ostsol has mostly cleared the area so the mechwarrior takes a second to zap an overflying Angel light fighter, blasting through the weak right wing armor to melt some structure.

One of the merc Vedttes gets blown up, leading the remaining one to declare he's pulling back. That's fine, they've more than done their job.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
Cujo watches the Mechbuster's desperate attempts to unstall itself, then smirks as the fighter's engine gives out and it "lands" on the avenue, crashing into a Vedette and destroying both units.

This basically results in us breaking contact, other than our mechs taking a couple of pot shots at the Meteor fighter buzzing around and zapping some armor off its tail. The Karnov gets shot down on its way out, as well.

Since we're basically leaving after we destroy this base, our merc buddies have requested that we search & rescue their tank crews (the ones that survived). They'll send along a Phoenix Hawk to help out. This does mean that Isgrimnur's lance won't be able to directly reinforce the battle at the air defense facility, but maybe we can get the mercs to shell the place with their artillery instead. But, then again, we were hired to get these guys out.

[] Sure, we'll help with search & rescue
[] Sorry guys, you're on your own, we need the firepower to blow this popsicle stand
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

NickAragua wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:16 pm

[X] Sure, we'll help with search & rescue (assuming they help with artillary)
[] Sorry guys, you're on your own, we need the firepower to blow this popsicle stand
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Leraje »

NickAragua wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:16 pm [x] Sure, we'll help with search & rescue
[] Sorry guys, you're on your own, we need the firepower to blow this popsicle stand
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Zenn7 »

gbasden wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:01 pm
NickAragua wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:16 pm

[X] Sure, we'll help with search & rescue (assuming they help with artillary)
[] Sorry guys, you're on your own, we need the firepower to blow this popsicle stand
Yeah, just remind them, our attack fails, we're stuck here until we can take it down.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by $iljanus »

gbasden wrote:
NickAragua wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 5:16 pm

[X] Sure, we'll help with search & rescue (assuming they help with artillary)
[] Sorry guys, you're on your own, we need the firepower to blow this popsicle stand
We are working with them do it's a reasonable thing to do.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Vote Results:
Spoiler:
Help with search & rescue - unanimous
Isgrimnur, still nursing a healing rib from the last fight (which somehow nobody noticed except the doctor who had him in a torso restraint for the last week), cracks his knuckles and directs his lance to the engagement area. They locate a Capellan convoy leaving the area, consisting of tanks and a pair of mechs, and move to engage. The weather has really picked up and we're now talking 200kph winds.

This is great for Isgrimnur's lance because it basically forces the tanks to halt. Paingod's Merlin, Hyena's Grasshopper and the BattleAxe round out the lance as we move in.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
The winds are also making it hard for our mechs to move around, we're barely managing to turn, and jump jets are out of the question. But when we launch the assault, we're right on top of them, our BattleAxe starting the party off by kicking the right arm off their Firestarter, while Paingod starts working on the nearby Drillson's hover skirt with lasers and a boot.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
Image
The winds force their tanks to hunker down, especially the hovercraft. The Firestarter gets knocked down, but gets back up.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
Our BattleAxe pilot whiffs a kick on the Firestarter and winds up on the ground himself.

Round 4+:
Spoiler:
Image
Our BattleAxe manages to get up, walks over and knocks the Phoenix Hawk off a (relatively small) cliff.

The enemy mechwarrior spends about a minute struggling to get up while we pelt him with lasers and PPCs, but eventually passes out. The guy in the Firestarter is eventually able to retreat after taking multiple armor breaches.

We hunker down until the winds die down, then "redirect" ("Sending a series of waypoints. Attempt to deviate from the route or initiate any kind of external radio communications and you will be destroyed.") the Capellan units to a rendezvous point where our merc buddies can take their prisoners off their hand.

[Author's note: not a very exciting battle, tornado "eliminated" all the enemy vehicles so it was four of us plus the "liaison" vs two mechs, with a 4:1 tonnage advantage, no jumping and speed limited to walking]

The air defence facility is going to be a tough nut to crack. In addition to two lances of mechs (a light lance and a mixed heavy-medium-light lance, including a Cataphract and a Liao-variant Crusader with jump jets), there's a short tank company and a whopping sixteen turrets (including an artillery tube).

We've requested the mercs provide us with artillery support, which they do, and they also do one better, sending in a medium mech lance - two Centurions, a Hunchback (4N, not 4G, boo), and an Enforcer. El Guapo's lance is the Awesome, Marauder, Grand Dragon and Cyclops. We also have a bomber squadron - two Shilones and a Lucifer.

The winds have died down, and it's a nice and clear day.

We have two basic approaches we can take - we can focus on taking down mobile units and leave the stationary defenses until we're done with the mobiles. This will be less risky for the aero jocks as it'll let our aerospace fighters pick at isolated hostiles without exposing themselves to too much anti-aircraft fire, but leaves our mechs getting shelled by some artillery fire (until someone takes the artillery piece out, anyway).

The other approach is to have the aircraft make an initial bombing pass at the longer-range fixed defenses, which should eliminate them pretty quickly, but runs the risk of our aircraft getting shot down.

[] Hang back and focus on mobile units (slower, grindier)
[] Lightning strike (higher risk, quicker end to battle)
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

NickAragua wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:01 pm

[] Hang back and focus on mobile units (slower, grindier)
[X] Lightning strike (higher risk, quicker end to battle)
Doesn't seem like spending a long time getting hammered by artillery is much less risky.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

El Guapo wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:47 pm
NickAragua wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:01 pm

[] Hang back and focus on mobile units (slower, grindier)
[X] Lightning strike (higher risk, quicker end to battle)
Doesn't seem like spending a long time getting hammered by artillery is much less risky.
Agreed.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Leraje »

gbasden wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:38 pm
El Guapo wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:47 pm
NickAragua wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:01 pm

[] Hang back and focus on mobile units (slower, grindier)
[X] Lightning strike (higher risk, quicker end to battle)
Doesn't seem like spending a long time getting hammered by artillery is much less risky.
Agreed.
Agreed.
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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 Zenn7 »

Leraje wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:50 pm
gbasden wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:38 pm
El Guapo wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:47 pm
NickAragua wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:01 pm

[] Hang back and focus on mobile units (slower, grindier)
[X] Lightning strike (higher risk, quicker end to battle)
Doesn't seem like spending a long time getting hammered by artillery is much less risky.
Agreed.
Agreed.
To the dangerzone with them!
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by $iljanus »

Zenn7 wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 7:15 pm
Leraje wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:50 pm
gbasden wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:38 pm
El Guapo wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:47 pm
NickAragua wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:01 pm

[] Hang back and focus on mobile units (slower, grindier)
[X] Lightning strike (higher risk, quicker end to battle)
Doesn't seem like spending a long time getting hammered by artillery is much less risky.
Agreed.
Agreed.
To the dangerzone with them!
As the instructors taught in flight school:
They never say hello to you
Until you get it on the red line overload
You'll never know what you can do
Until you get it up as high as you can go.


(Followed by the flight instructor busting out a kickass guitar solo)

(Oh yeah, I vote lightning strike)
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Vote Results:
Spoiler:
Quick strike - almost unanimous
"... so then the agent flies in on his broom stick and shoots photon torpedoes down the exhaust port!" Thud tells Fury. "And as the whole thing blows up, he sends it off by saying 'told you never to make a deal with a dragon.'"

Fury rolls her eyes. "Which movie's that again?"

"It's a book." Thud responds indignantly. "Star Matrix: Potter Wars"

"Nerd."

"Yeah, well, I'm not the one always painting vacuum wolf toys or whatever."

"They're collectible miniatures. And painting is relaxing."

"Great. Cut the chatter and form up." El Guapo cuts in, sighing and recalling with fondness not being in charge and being able to yammer on about random nonsense en route to the next mission area. "Our aerospace fighters are vectoring in, ETA forty seconds, so we need to draw some attention. Watch the blast radius, those fuel-air bombs are something else."

In addition to the mechs, tanks and plethora of turrets, there's also a substantial number of infantry, including high-caliber autocannon field guns.

Round 1:
Spoiler:
Image
In a not-too-good sign for the start, one of the allied merc centurions slip and slides along the pavement and crashes into a building.

On the plus side, El Guapo gets line of sight on the Thumper tube (there's actually three tubes) and opens up with the Marauder's long range weapons, hoping to take it down before it puts too many rounds down range. His mech heats up quite a bit with both PPCs going off in addition to the gauss rifle, but the gauss slug punches through the ammo storage and collapses the entire building.

Our Cyclops takes a couple of headshots from LRMs coming in at an oblique angle, but armor holds up for now, thanks to the armored cowl providing extra protection to the sides of the head.

Round 2:
Spoiler:
Image
One of the allied artillery shells lands on top of a building, smashing a small laser turret. Less relevant than one might think, but every little bit helps.

A Jenner jumps in behind our Cyclops, but El Guapo is right there, shearing its right-side weapons mount off with a PPC (just the one, to cool off), and cutting into the right torso armor with a laser. The damage throws the 35-ton mech off, and it only scores a single SRM hit on the Marauder. A couple of laser hits from the Cyclops distract the light mech, and then El Guapo cracks its left leg in half with a kick as it attempts to run by. Falling over, the Jenner's on-board ammo bin is "lightly jostled" and it explodes.

To the west, Fury moves to cover Thud's back as a Stinger attempts to inflict some damage there, but can't resist the temptation to zap a Peregrine VTOL with the Grand Dragon's lasers. For some inexplicable reason, the VTOL pilot flies in a straight line, making it very easy to hit, and so it explodes in mid-air as the on-board ammo detonates. Fury doesn't forget about the Stinger, though, breaking its left leg and sending it to the ground.

Thud's main problem, though, isn't the Wasp, it's the Firestarter. Combined with SRM and MG fire from a nearby Scorpion tank, the light mech somehow manages a perfect precision focus on the Awesome's center torso armor with both lasers and one of the flamers, which allows a couple of stray MG rounds inside, where they rattle around. The Awesome staggers like a drunk frat kid at a kegger and slams the ground with its right side as the heat indicator shoots way up (our mechwarrior having fired all three PPCs to melt the Scorpion to slag).

An allied Centurion behind El Guapo and our Cyclops suffers a catastrophic malfunction with its AC/10 as a round jams in the barrel and the weapon explodes, taking off the arm. The auto-eject system fires, sending the allied mechwarrior for a little flight.

Round 3:
Spoiler:
Image
Thud gets the Awesome off the ground, but the heat alarms are still blaring and the mech is wobbly. The Awesome's heat dissipation system is actually pretty robust, but when you run, fire all your guns and your engine takes damage, it still takes a little time to work. Fury continues her improvised anti-aircraft role by shooting down a Warrior attack helicopter as it buzzes around Thud's mech, causing it to crash land on a rooftop after plowing three laser shots into it.

El Guapo and the Cyclops engage a couple of light units, causing some damage to a Scorpion tank, but weapons fire mostly just scores armor.

Round 4:
Spoiler:
Image
The allied artillery destroys another gun emplacement, a random one-shot rocket launcher mounted on a rooftop.

The good news, our aerospace fighters arrive and begin their bombing run.

Our Cyclops runs forward and lasers the damaged Scorpion tank apart. It takes a few LRM hits from some nearby infantry popping out of a building, but then the whole area is engulfed in a fireball from a mis-aimed fuel-air bomb and the infantry disappears (as does a large chunk of the Cyclops' armor).

Fury continues taking down helicopters shooting down a Peregrine with the Grand Dragon's lasers. It's not quite honorable mech combat, but it's still pretty fun.

The result of the bombing run is pretty spectacular. One of the Shilones carpet bombs at least five platoons' worth of infantry, getting a couple of tanks in the process. The Lucifer blows away a Wasp, while the other Shilone takes out a Bulldog tank (and accidentally drops one of the bombs too close to the Cyclops, but our mechwarrior doesn't mind too much, as it clears out the infantry swarming around. And the entirety of the base is now on fire. Our aircraft take a little AA fire, but barely enough to shake them.

Round 5:
Spoiler:
Image
Thund stabilizes his mech and begins pulling back - now that we've greatly reduced the "local available firepower" and covered the entire base in smoke, we should have a handle on this without making a crippled mech fight.

With the conflagration, the thump-thump-thump of artillery rounds is now hardly noticeable. Our Lucifer drops its last bombs on a cluster of AC/2 field gunners that have been pelting it, annihilating the group, while one of our Shilones takes out an isolated SRM Carrier. El Guapo and the Cyclops basically play soccer with a Hunter light support tank, kicking it back and forth until it falls apart.

Round 6:
Spoiler:
Image
The smoke reduces visibility for us quite a bit, preventing our mechs form engaging any targets. In fact, we're not really sure how many more mobile targets there are. Our Lucifer reports seeing "three... make that two mobile targets" (after destroying a Stinger with its direct-fire weapons). One of our Shilones takes AA fire from a Cataphract and loses some internal components, while Fury reports engaging a pair of Firestarters (one of which loses its right arm after an allied Centurion nails it with a burst from its autocannon). We also have an unaccounted-for Crusader somewhere in there.

Round 7:
Spoiler:
Image
As El Guapo and the Cyclops struggle through the smoke, Fury keeps trying to bail the allied Centurion out, but the Firestarters (backed up by a Pegasus hovertank) have got its number - the 50-ton mech takes a gyro hit and falls over. Fury's lasers and a kick do cause actuator damage to one of the hostile 35-tonners, though. Hopefully they'll figure out they're outmatched and back off.

Round 8:
Spoiler:
Image
El Guapo spots a Vedette at short range, annihilating it with a PPC blast, lasers and a gauss slug. Our Cyclops moves up ahead and engages a Hermes II, the brief interaction ending when the 40-ton mech's right leg comes off.

Our Lucifer circles around for a strafing run at the Cataphract that gave our Shilone trouble earlier and opens up on the 70 ton mech as it rotates its torso to fire back with an autocannon and PPC. The Cataphract's mechwarrior is a little slower on the trigger, so, by the time he fires his autocannon round, the barrel is already damaged and the round explodes inside the barrel. Since the ammo is stored in the same torso section, the ammo goes up as well, destroying the mech. The PPC shot does hit, however.

The Firestarters and Pegasus continue pounding the Centurion, disabling its autocannon. Fury blasts one of the Firestarters in the damaged leg, forcing it to a knee.

Round 9:
Spoiler:
Image
The damaged Firestarter backs off, leaving Fury alone with the other Firestarter, which loses some armor and is unable to inflict any meaningful damage on the Grand Dragon, but does manage to avoid a 60-ton boot. The Pegasus gets blasted quite a bit by a passing Shilone.

El Guapo and the Cyclops collaps a building housing a laser turret while El Guapo cracks the Hermes' other leg to make sure it stays down.

Round 10:
Spoiler:
Image
The fighting ends after we collapse a couple more turrets while our Cyclops Kool-Aid-Mans it through a building to get at a sensor reading for a Crusader that's been sitting in a cul-de-sac lobbing LRMs at us the whole time. Fury blows the right half off the Firestarter she's chasing, but lets it go when it powers down weapons and moves to retreat.

The Crusader gets away, as do the two Firestarters and the Pegasus. We systematically dismantle the rest of the turrets with weapons fire, then...

[] Call the salvage crews in, there's a good amount of loot
[] Pull back and return to base, the whole place is an inferno and who the hell knows how much ammo they have stored there
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

NickAragua wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:02 pm . El Guapo and the Cyclops basically play soccer with a Hunter light support tank, kicking it back and forth until it falls apart.
Oh man, can we make Mech Soccer a regular thing once we get to our base? We salvage a lot of tanks, seems like this would be a great use of a few of them. Need to make sure that the ammo gets removed before we start play, of course.
NickAragua wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:02 pm
[X] Call the salvage crews in, there's a good amount of loot
[] Pull back and return to base, the whole place is an inferno and who the hell knows how much ammo they have stored there
I don't want anyone running into burning buildings to salvage AC/2 ammo or anything, but whatever we can get safely we might as well get.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Leraje »

Salvage what we can without undue risk.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by $iljanus »

[X] Call the salvage crews in, there's a good amount of loot
[] Pull back and return to base, the whole place is an inferno and who the hell knows how much ammo they have stored there
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

Leraje wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 7:02 pm Salvage what we can without undue risk.
This.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by xwraith »

gbasden wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 2:52 am
Leraje wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 7:02 pm Salvage what we can without undue risk.
This.
+1
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 NickAragua »

Vote Results:
Spoiler:
Call in the salvage crews, but keep it "safe" - almost unanimous
Call it quits - 1
Our salvage crews leave the burning turret wreckage and stick to the non-flaming streets, which our mechs help keep clear by pre-collapsing relevant buildings. All in all, we rack up about 3M worth of salvage. We also assist the Centurion with gyro damage in wobbling back to the merc dropship, while the other Centurion has to be hauled on a flatbed because its ejection seat had fired.

Before we leave, we arrange a prisoner exchange, retrieving Leraje in exchange for the fairly substantial number of personnel we've been keeping on ice. Our mechwarrior's kidneys appear to have been used as punching bags and his right arm looks like it was used for practice by a tatoo artist suffering from addiction withdrawal, but our doctors assure us he'll be fine.

The "cremated" remains of the other mechwarrior "captured" on this mission are returned as well. But there's no recovering from being an unprotected human within the blast radius of a Long Tom artillery shell. We hold a brief funeral service for him and Bass before leaving.

Between the payout and salvage, we've come away from this contract about 300M C-Bills richer. Not too shabby.

As we're securing the mechs for departure, Zenn7 walks gingerly into the mech bay, which spontaneously erupts into cheering when someone spots him. Scrub runs over and envelops him in a hug.

"What did I miss?" he asks. "And did anybody get the serial number on the mech that ran me over? Did the Star League come back yet?"

Scrub smirks. "Give it a few years, I'm sure the house lords will get right on it. As for the contract, it's a long story. But we won." She sighs. "I just wish I hadn't lost so many people."

Zenn7's face turns into a combination smirk and frown. "Three isn't too bad. We lost almost two platoons' worth of infantry and tankers on Unzmarkt." He pats Scrub on the shoulder. "You'll have to tell me about it on the way home."

----

Dowles Update, April 3047:

We've completed construction on the hospital facility and our raw material survey crews have gotten to work. The first three months of their work haven't been terribly fruitful, but there's a lot of planet to survey. Our main survey crew, however, locate some interesting facilities.

Our hospital facility is put to the test after the survey crew attempts to enter a building with multiple large radio dishes and antennae and are attacked by automated defense systems. Several people are killed and a few survey crew vehicles are destroyed, but once we decode the automated signal originating from inside the facility, it's pretty obvious that it's an "abandoned" HPG. It's unoccuped and not making any HPG transmissions (they're pretty obvious when they happen), but there's enough power to operate automatic defenses. We leave it alone for now until we can decide what to do with it.

Once we cover the cost of hiring replacement personnel and buying replacement equipment (compared to mechs, it's peanuts), the surveyors also locate another residential complex and a factory dedicated just to building stabilizers for combat vehicles (so that the guns don't rattle as much when you fire them). And a full-scale fusion power plant which ought to take care of our power needs. We'll still probably want to install independent power generators for critical facilities, but if we re-activate the power plant, we'll be able to (slightly) reduce construction costs on non-critical facilities since we won't have to install individual generators.

Leraje - we have the opportunity to purchase a replacement Guillotine - apparently, a mercenary company in FedCom space apparently chose the wrong contract and has been forced to liquidate some or all of its assets. And personnel.

[] Sure, a 5.1M fire sale Guillotine should be ok
[] Would like to try a different mech (state preference, if any)

How do we want to handle finding the de-activated HPG? Our options basically boil down to ignoring it, sending some mechs to blast the defenses and looting it, or letting ComStar know about it (and seeing if the want to come in and re-activate it themselves). Other than the turrets, we're not really sure what we'd find in there. Re-activating an HPG is a very expensive endeavor, but having comms with the rest of the Inner Sphere without a 7-8 day lag would be pretty nice. Well, it might be faster. Or it might be a class B.

[] Ignore the HPG
[] Dispatch Epsilon company to blast the automated defenses to bits and force the facility open
[] Contact ComStar and ask if they want to re-activate the facility
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Isgrimnur »

[] Contact ComStar and ask if they want to re-activate the facility
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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NickAragua wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:50 pm [x] Sure, a 5.1M fire sale Guillotine should be ok
[] Would like to try a different mech (state preference, if any)
Guillotine 4L or Grasshopper 5H would do, since my preferred mechs designs are energy-heavy jump-capable custom refits in 75-85T range relying on XL/DHS which would be a pain in the ass to obtain at this time.
NickAragua wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:50 pm [] Ignore the HPG
[] Dispatch Epsilon company to blast the automated defenses to bits and force the facility open
[x] Contact ComStar and ask if they want to re-activate the facility
Might as well get Comca.. err Comstar to deal with it, I doubt we have anyone on staff who can maintain the HPG without breaking it.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by gbasden »

Is there any chance of decent loot in there we might want to get our hands on before letting ComStar descend on it?
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gbasden wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:50 pm Is there any chance of decent loot in there we might want to get our hands on before letting ComStar descend on it?
Good point, didn't think of that.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Stefan Stirzaker »

Not sure we can loot then hand it to comstar, they're not dummies and work out recent blaster fire vs old looted ages ago signs.

If we loot it we have to destroy it. Besides, I'm not sure Commiestar would of left their good equip there, probably pulled it out and then turned defences on.

I vote ask comstar first if they want to reactivate.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by El Guapo »

If Comstar reactivates it, are they going to want to station their own personnel / mechs / militia / etc. to protect it? In general Comstar seems like a good option, I'm just a little leery that this will wind up being their planet more than ours.

On the other hand a Comstar presence might also serve as an effective deterrent to pirates / raiders / etc.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

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El Guapo wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:58 pm If Comstar reactivates it, are they going to want to station their own personnel / mechs / militia / etc. to protect it?
Specific terms will be discussed if you guys decide to invite them, but, generally speaking, yes, they will bring their own security.
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Post by Zarathud »

As much as I hate it, getting Commstar onsite gives the planet legitimacy for future growth. We should insist on a finder’s fee.
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We should join the Comstar friends and family plan. They have the know-how to get the site up and running. Just need to make sure they show their appreciation.
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[] Contact ComStar and ask if they want to re-activate the facility
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by NickAragua »

Vote Results:
Spoiler:
Ask ComStar about reactivating HPG - 6
Send Epsilon company to disable turrets so we can loot HPG - 4
Our planetary governor decides to hold off for a bit, nobody on-world is able to reach a consensus, and asking the main force that's en route back home via HPG message kind of defeats the point, so.
Spoiler:
Image
Nobody tries to prevent us from leaving Wright. We bid farewell to Noutel's Narrators once we cross the border to FedCom space, and our employer releases the remaining funds. The rest of our journey continues without incident. Our command staff, dropships and mech arrive on Dowles in early May.

There's fairly strong support for simply asking ComStar to activate the facility (driven by some reluctance to mess with ComStar directly), and nobody wants to just leave it on the table, but one junior officer suggests reaching out to our FedCom contacts to see if they'd be interested in this HPG instead.

[] Go ahead and contact ComStar
[] See if we can get FedCom interested in the HPG

Checking the various markets, we find a dealer over on Armaxa in the St. Ives compact who's just come into posession of eleven (mech) double heat sinks, while a guy on St. Ives is selling a 280XL engine (rated for 70-ton mechs). The trouble is, both dealers are insiting on in-person exchanges, and the deals will be gone in two weeks (from the time we receive the message), which doesn't leave us enough time to grab both (we only have one jumpship and only have time enough to charge and then make one jump).

[] 1x 280 XL Engine
[] 11x Double heat sinks

In exciting news (at least to mech jocks across the Inner Sphere), a couple of new mech variants are coming off the production lines. Irian BattleMechs over in the Free Worlds League is putting out a new variant of the Hermes battlemech. It's a ground-bound 30-tonner so nothing anyone in our company is too excited about, but it's a fast scout with an active probe and endo-steel/ferro-fibrous structure/armor. MASC lets it pour on the speed when it needs to sprint out of sticky situations. The exciting part is that endo-steel structure and ferro-fibrous armor are becoming increasingly common, so we should be able to start rolling out upgrades to our units more and more frequently as time goes on.

Achernar Battlemechs on New Avalon in the Federated Suns is putting out a new variant of the Dervish, the DV-7M. A very solid 55-tonner, this takes our "ad-hoc" double heat sink upgrade even further, using endo-steel internal structure, ferro-fibrous armor to save weight, which then allowed them to install CASE to protect the many tons of ammunition and upgrade the regular SRMs to streaks.

Ronin Inc over in the Free Worlds League has also upgraded the Warhammer (we like to think it was partially thanks to data that we provided them while testing that Marauder prototype that we still have). The WHM-7M swaps the PPCs to extended-range models, removes the small lasers, and replaces one of the machine guns with an anti-missile system to keep those pesky LRM barrages away. Targeting systems have apparently advanced far enough in the Free Worlds League that they can now automatically acquire missiles in flight. To keep up with the extreme heat generated by the extended-range PPCs, they went with double heat sinks (which explains why they stayed with standard structure and armor - those double heat sinks are pretty bulky when mounted outside the engine).

In infantry news, the Federated Commonwealth is beginning its roll out of myomer armor for their ground pounders. It basically allows infantry to carry a lot thicker armor protection than they normally could. It's pretty expensive for infantry armor, but if we invest in it, it'll be a drastic improvement over the bulky suits we have our infantry wear right now (although we'll still have to use those for situations with toxic or no atmosphere).

Skirmishing and raiding continues across the Marik-Steiner border with multiple house and mercenary units carrying out industrial "espionage" and sabotage (although there's really nothing covert about dropping a company+ of mechs onto a world, no matter how hard you try).

Tensions also ratchet up along the Taurian Concoradat - Davion border as a Davion jumpship that "accidentally" jumped into the Landmark system is destroyed. How exactly one "accidentally" jumps into the wrong system is, well, a topic best left for the conspiracy vids. In any case, the Taurians have mobilized their forces along the border, as have the Davions.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

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NickAragua wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:46 pm [x] Go ahead and contact ComStar
[] See if we can get FedCom interested in the HPG
Let's not get too cozy with the FedComs. We are mercenaries, after all.
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NickAragua wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:46 pm [x] Go ahead and contact ComStar
[] See if we can get FedCom interested in the HPG
I'm confused - what's the benefit of FedCom running the HPG instead of Comstar? Also, if we did have FedCom come in and take over the HPG, would that piss off ComStar? I assume so?

FedCom could be the better option if: (1) they might let us own / operate the HPG, in exchange for giving them priority in its use; and (2) it wouldn't infuriate ComStar.
NickAragua wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:46 pm [X] 1x 280 XL Engine
[] 11x Double heat sinks
I forget the benefit of XL engines, but vaguely recall that they are great, and it seems like they are generally more rare than double heat sinks at this point.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

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El Guapo wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 4:37 pm I forget the benefit of XL engines, but vaguely recall that they are great, and it seems like they are generally more rare than double heat sinks at this point.
They're quite a bit lighter than standard engines but stick out into the side torso sections, so if you lose a side torso, you'll need to haul the mech back in a wheelbarrow.
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Post by Leraje »

NickAragua wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:46 pm [] Go ahead and contact ComStar
[x] See if we can get FedCom interested in the HPG

[x] 1x 280 XL Engine
[] 11x Double heat sinks
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Post by AWS260 »

NickAragua wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 4:51 pm
El Guapo wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 4:37 pm I forget the benefit of XL engines, but vaguely recall that they are great, and it seems like they are generally more rare than double heat sinks at this point.
They're quite a bit lighter than standard engines but stick out into the side torso sections, so if you lose a side torso, you'll need to haul the mech back in a wheelbarrow.
We can only do this if everyone starts making "spare tire" jokes about the mech that gets the XL engine.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by $iljanus »

El Guapo wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 4:37 pm
NickAragua wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:46 pm [x] Go ahead and contact ComStar
[] See if we can get FedCom interested in the HPG
I'm confused - what's the benefit of FedCom running the HPG instead of Comstar? Also, if we did have FedCom come in and take over the HPG, would that piss off ComStar? I assume so?

FedCom could be the better option if: (1) they might let us own / operate the HPG, in exchange for giving them priority in its use; and (2) it wouldn't infuriate ComStar.
NickAragua wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:46 pm [X] 1x 280 XL Engine
[] 11x Double heat sinks
I forget the benefit of XL engines, but vaguely recall that they are great, and it seems like they are generally more rare than double heat sinks at this point.
I have the same question regarding what advantage we would have throwing in with the FedComs and the same concern about possibly pissing off ComStar. Out of a sense of caution I chose ComStar but I can be swayed.
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Re: Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

Post by Leraje »

$iljanus wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:49 pm I have the same question regarding what advantage we would have throwing in with the FedComs and the same concern about possibly pissing off ComStar. Out of a sense of caution I chose ComStar but I can be swayed.
FedCom may pay for it, with Comstar, most likely WE will have to pay for the privilege of activating the HPG.
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