Let's Play: Battletech via MegaMek (G2)

[TotallyNotEvil]

[X] Cut them in - 50%

It's a neat bonus, not something worth losing mechs and pilots over. Much less irreplaceable clan tech.

[Leraje]

[X] Cut them in - 50%

It's a neat bonus, not something worth losing mechs and pilots over. Much less irreplaceable clan tech.

Cut them in, but at the next opportunity toss them under a bus.

[Hyena]

[X] Cut them in - 50%

It's a neat bonus, not something worth losing mechs and pilots over. Much less irreplaceable clan tech.

Cut them in, but at the next opportunity toss them under a bus.

Yep. If by "toss them under a bus" you mean saw them in half with PPC's as soon as they let down their guard.

To semi-quote Vizzini, "They're here to kidnap what we've rightfully stolen!"

[Zenn7]

I don't think its anywhere close to worthwhile fighting the mercs over these missiles.

Not sure I'd put it that extreme, but yeah, probably not worth fighting over with the potential to take a lot more damage and possibly even lose all the salvage.

[$iljanus]

If they're helping out then yeah cut them in. Also be ready if they decide to help themselves to more than what's agreed to. Do we have any other units that we can call in if needed to keep everyone honest?

[El Guapo]

[X] Cut them in - 50%

It's a neat bonus, not something worth losing mechs and pilots over. Much less irreplaceable clan tech.

This makes sense.

One question: can we say "oh, we'll give you your share" and then wink knowingly, and then deliver the missiles by dropping them on the mercs?

[TheMix]

Their share.... They killed what? One thing? But we are going to cut them in for 50%? This isn't a "share". This is straight up robbery.

Any chance we can take the missiles and leave everything else to them? That would be more than 50% of the "salvage".

Also, how much more are we going to do here? I don't want to set a precedent where they think they can waltz in at the end of every fight and take half.

[NickAragua]

They're specifically asking for a 50% share of the giant missile stash - they don't really care about the other salvage. Other than that, they've been pretty good about sticking to the contract-designated salvage ratio.

We've got one more facility we need to track down and destroy on this world, then we're done.

[Hyena]

They're specifically asking for a 50% share of the giant missile stash - they don't really care about the other salvage. Other than that, they've been pretty good about sticking to the contract-designated salvage ratio.

We've got one more facility we need to track down and destroy on this world, then we're done.

If it's a negotiation they want, let's offer them one or two of the missles as per their contribution in this particular battle.

[moleymoleymoley]

Yeah go 50/50, we can't even use the things, maybe we can barter in a launcher or some Training from them?

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Cut them in - almost unanimous

Moley thinks for a second. Sure, it'd be cool to grab a bigger stash of very large FedCom-produced missiles. But whether it's worth risking losing a couple of mechs? Urban lance is in decent shape, but "warmed up", while the mercs have barely been touched. And we're currently sandwiched between them and a potential couple more lances from that Union.

"Yeah, we'll cut you in. 50/50?"

"Works for us." the merc lance leader replies.

We walk away with an additional three Barracudas, making it six total that we have. According to the manifest we had, there were two more such missiles, but they were located in a structure that completely collapsed - with no detonation from the inside, our salvage crews refuse to dig through the rubble. Frankly, nobody blames them.

Other notable salvage is a royal-variant Zephyr hovertank, and a Locust 3S. The Zephyr features a turret-mounted laser battery and a NARC launcher, as well as a Guardian ECM and some ferro-fibrous armor, making it a great support unit so we can use all those NARC-capable warheads we stockpiled. The Locust by itself is nothing terribly exciting, being a 20-ton bug mech, but we get some spare ferro-fibrous armor off of it and a pair of streak SRM launchers with ammo.

The next two days we spend rotating our mechs back to the dropships for repairs - we've got a few injured mechwarriors that will take a little time to recover as well, we set a pretty strenuous pace. Salvage allows us to make repairs to almost all of our mechs.

---

October 18, 3052
Echo Sector

"... light mech lance, two medium mechs... medium tank lance." one of Freyland's lancemates reports.

"We can take those." Freyland responds.

"... and a Leopard-class dropship, on the ground."

"We can still probably take it." Freyland says with a chuckle.

"You sure, sir? It's a dropship."

"Yeah, but it's a Leopard, and it's on the ground. Just run around the back of the stupid thing, and we'll be good to go. Engage and destroy, we don't need these guys getting in the way of our search pattern."

Round 1:

Spoiler:

We get pretty close to the dropship, but it's able to deliver suppressive fire to our mechs, dropping our Wolverine to the ground. We do score quite a bit of damage on the Leopard's armor, but it's pretty thick, so it won't be collapsing right away.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

Our Phoenix Hawk shoots down a Kestrel VTOL, causing it to crashland on top of a nearby building rooftop, in pieces. Freyland continues frying bits of armor off the Leopard, taking a left arm armor breach in return, while our Scimitar is immobilized as it tries to ping the dropship with SRMs.

Our Griffin, meanwhile, drops a Firestarter to the ground by shooting a couple of structural girders out in a building it lands on.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

"This isn't working out too hot." Freyland states. "Let's get outta here. Use the buildings for cover."

Our mechs move out, mostly to the south. Our Phoenix Hawk covers the retreating Wolverine by sawing the right leg off a Commando with its pulse laser, while the Griffin plink-plink-plinks a nearby Warrior VTOL's rotor several times. It looks pretty wobbly but is still airborne for some reason. The pilot still opts to disengage, probably not wanting his rotor to detach mid-flight.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

It's not *that* hard to out-maneuver a grounded dropship, but Freyland is still proud that he's been able to do it, jumping into a blind spot and using the Nova's laser array to fuse one of the bay doors closed.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

With the rest of the hostiles distracted, Freyland is able to get into a groove, jumping around the Leopard and frying components, both external and internal, once the armor weakens. Another bay door gets melted down, engine exhaust vents blow, and there's a general "power-down" sound that can be heard.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Freyland and our Phoenix Hawk link up; with the dropship disabled, we can bug out without having to worry about catching a dropships' worth of weapons to the back.

At this point, we can *probably* take the rest of the hostiles in the area. However, we did take a few armor breaches from the dropship - the Wolverine's left leg is exposed, as is the left arm on Freyland's Nova. The Phoenix Hawk and Griffin both have "red" sections as well, and our Scimitar hovertank is currently a smoking wreck and has been abandoned by the crew. The hostile mechs, meanwhile, at least the heavier ones, are mostly pristine, except the Commando, which is down for the count.

The main reason we're considering keeping up the fight is that one of the hostiles is a Blackjack BJ-3 - this model has ten double heat sinks, making it pretty desirable salvage.

[] Push for extra salvage
[] Run away!

---

The other thing that happens is that our merc buddies report a reinforced company of medium/heavy armor heading towards their mech repair facility that we took over for them some time ago. And, more importantly, aerospace contacts. Most of their mechs are out in the field or partially disassembled, and they only have a token defensive force present at the moment.

We do have a lance of mechs present and can direct an aerospace flight their way as well. However, our operations have now moved on from that area, so this location isn't terribly useful any more. Still, we did tell them we'd help defend the facility.

[] Send the mech lance
[] And/or a flight of aerospace fighters
[] The bad guys are far enough away, why don't you guys just pack it in instead?
[] Squeeze them for those barracuda warheads back

[Freyland]

Freyland-- dropship kill

[$iljanus]

We did agree to help defend the facility when all this started. Word is bond and all that. Send in the lance, probably send air support as well

[TheMix]

I say we pack it in here and "tactically withdraw". The double heat sinks aren't a guarantee. And we'll get more down the road.

As for our "allies", I really want to put the screws to them. They basically took the opportunity to extort us for loot they didn't deserve because they had the advantage. I don't know about pushing for the missiles, but I do think that either they pack it in, or they offer us something to sweeten the deal. Whatever support we told them we'd provide went out the window when they mugged us. As noted, we've moved on from that area. So should they. We never agreed to provide permanent defense.

[Zenn7]

[x] Push for extra salvage
[] Run away!

---

[x] Send the mech lance
[x] And/or a flight of aerospace fighters
[] The bad guys are far enough away, why don't you guys just pack it in instead?
[] Squeeze them for those barracuda warheads back

I know we damaged the dropship, but couldn't we get salvage for that? It's only a Leopard, but it's still a dropship, gotta be worth a pretty hefty amount compared to a mech.

**********

Send mechs and ASFs. Our word, plus they have been somewhat helpful.

Besides, if they get wiped out, we'd be on hand to "save" their barracudas (for ourselves).

[Leraje]

I say we pack it in here and "tactically withdraw". The double heat sinks aren't a guarantee. And we'll get more down the road.

As for our "allies", I really want to put the screws to them. They basically took the opportunity to extort us for loot they didn't deserve because they had the advantage. I don't know about pushing for the missiles, but I do think that either they pack it in, or they offer us something to sweeten the deal. Whatever support we told them we'd provide went out the window when they mugged us. As noted, we've moved on from that area. So should they. We never agreed to provide permanent defense.

Agreed. Or we could always send something slow that would be VERY late to the party.

[AWS260]

[] Push for extra salvage
[x] Run away!

---

[x] Send the mech lance
[x] And/or a flight of aerospace fighters
[] The bad guys are far enough away, why don't you guys just pack it in instead?
[] Squeeze them for those barracuda warheads back

Let's do our job. We're not the kind of outfit that blackmails allies for protection.

[NickAragua]

Need a tie-breaker between 'run away' and 'more salvage'.

[Zenn7]

Need a tie-breaker between 'run away' and 'more salvage'.

As company commander my vote counts for 2 right?
I at least get to break ties??
Man... what do I get out of being CO???

[Leraje]

Need a tie-breaker between 'run away' and 'more salvage'.

As company commander my vote counts for 2 right?
I at least get to break ties??
Man... what do I get out of being CO???

Paperwork on odd dates and complimentary migraines on even.

[NickAragua]

As company commander my vote counts for 2 right?
I at least get to break ties??
Man... what do I get out of being CO???

When you retire, your payout is going to be somewhere in the 20-30 million C-Bill range, even if you decide to keep the Awesome.

[Zenn7]

Retire? Never!

But if I did, I'd have to take my Awesome with me. Or at least the command chair. Only comfy chair I know (now that I have the ass-groove just right again after losing the last one).

[gbasden]

Run away!

And retirement will come for you one day with stealth - you'll wake up as I did and find out you hit the eject button.

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

lol, 2 extra votes split the pull back/salvage vote again
die roll tie-breaks in favor of retreat

pull back ||||
go for more salvage ||||

send mech lance + aerospace ||||||
squeeze ||

In the end, Freyland opts to stick to his original plan and withdraw - the dropship is so beat up that it'll require months to get space-worthy again (it can probably do short atmospheric hops if they don't expect it to transport anything). Meanwhile, our mechs have armor breaches and this in no way impacts our ability to complete the contract.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

Freyland and our Phoenix Hawk jump south, leaving the bulk of the enemy mechs; a Saracen and a couple of tanks, plus a Spider pursue.

The Saracen eats an LRM salvo from our Griffin and grinds to a halt along the pavement, while the Spider takes multiple blasts to the center torso from the Phoenix Hawk's pulse laser. The lighter mech rocks drunkenly as its gyro is hit - when Freyland adds his Nova's firepower, it keels over. Freyland also opts to prevent a Pike support vehicle from firing at us with its autocannons and short range missiles, by the simple expedient of stomping on its back - this causes the tank to go out of control and jam itself into a nearby building.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

The rest of the hostiles are not as enthusiastic about pursuing Freyland's lance once the Spider gets worked over - the Firestarter to the north is discouraged by a Nova-originating laser blast to the head (which its armored cowl somewhat absorbs) and a left arm armor breach.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

Withdrawal continues. Although, now we know why the Firestarter was headed north - the mechwarrior appears to have decided to kill our escaping vehicle crew for some reason. Somehow, they manage to survive the laser beams and go to ground before the 35-ton mech can bring its flamers and machine guns to bear.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

Freyland fries its right arm as we leave.

One of the Scimitar's crew doesn't make it. If we ever see that guy in the Firestarter again, his cockpit has a date with a laser or a large-caliber autocannon.

---

Unrelated, we get some good news transmitted to us via local HPG: apparently, the two lances and dropship we sent over to Graham IV have effectively completed their contract by the simple expedient of eliminating the local opposition. They will remain in the area for the duration of the contract, but do not expect any more combat to occur.

The share from the relatively small cache their Kurita employers dug up so far contains a couple of ultra autocannons, a pair of large pulse lasers, Artemis IV and some compatible LRM ammo, and some streak SRM/2s. They were also able to salvage a trio of Drillson hovertanks with extended-range lasers, and a GAL-102 Galleon. Kind of a crappy light tank, but it's got a medium pulse laser and some ferro-fibrous armor, so it's a decent hookup.

As part of that contract, we also get access to a priority purchase. We can just go for the standard fifteen double heat sinks - always useful. Or, we have the opportunity to source a 200 or 300-rated XL engine to stick in the Annihilator. In addition to stopping our prank-minded mechwarriors from repeatedly wiring the "fat guy tuba song" into the mech's comm system to play every time it walks, it'll either let us slap a whole lot more armor on it or make it keep up with Zenn7's Awesome (which is not exactly a sprinting mech, either).

[] 15x (inner sphere) double heat sinks
[] 200 or 300 XL engine as appropriate, for a 100-ton mech

[Zenn7]

[] 15x (inner sphere) double heat sinks
[x] 200 or 300 XL engine as appropriate, for a 100-ton mech

Let's make that 100 tons more useful.

[Hyena]

[] 15x (inner sphere) double heat sinks
[x] 200 or 300 XL engine as appropriate, for a 100-ton mech

Let's make that 100 tons more useful.

Yep. 100 tons moving at 48 (or whatever) is better than 100 tons moving at 32 (or whatever)

[TotallyNotEvil]

[x] 200 or 300 XL engine as appropriate, for a 100-ton mech

Unfucking the Annihilator is a pretty awesome return on investment.

[Leraje]

Give Anni some loving.

[$iljanus]

[] 15x (inner sphere) double heat sinks
[x] 200 or 300 XL engine as appropriate, for a 100-ton mech

Let's make that 100 tons more useful.

Unleash the beast!

[Freyland]

XL

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

XL engine - unanimous

Eventually, the message to our detached lances goes out via local HPG (it's a class B so it only sends out message batches once every week or two, rather than daily or continuously) - get the XL engine. They still wind up with five double heat sinks; not a bad haul at all.

---

October 19, 3052

"This is Bravo-Two lance. Landing zone Beta is not clear - we are being shelled by sniper artillery. Can anybody get some backup to clear this out?"

One of our allied merc lances has been sent ahead to scout out a landing zone for the Thunderball - since we're relocating Beta company to the area where our final target mining facility is located.

It seems that they've come under fire from a small artillery fire base - we'd like the option to retain this location as a landing zone. Which is how Cylus and Beta-Fire lance (and one of our Pegasus hovertanks) get to go rescue a crappy allied merc tank lance.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

You know what, the less we say about the Pegasus tank, the better.

Cylus does immediately locate and blow up the Sniper artillery piece though.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

We pick off a pair of turrets further into the cluster of buildings, reducing the number of LRMs coming our direction.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

"I think you've made a mistake." Cylus states, watching a Firestarter hop over and attack our Stalker. Although it avoids more weapons fire than reasonable, it still takes heavy armor damage, but manages to avoid Cylus' kick before hopping out with a "HA HA" over the general frequency.

On the less annoying side, our allied tanks blast another turret to bits.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

"Come here, you little..." Cylus follows the Firestarter - even despite being highly mobile and keeping its legs under water to absorb several laser blasts, it still takes a pair of armor breaches, one of the arms throwing sparks as an actuator is fried. Cylus then proceeds to put a boot onto the lighter mech's right shoulder, crushing the arm and most of the right torso section as well.

With our allies annihilating a quad SRM turret, there's only one functional one left.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

After thirty seconds of getting pounded by Cylus' lasers, the Firestarter's operator decides to call it quits - with no torso armor left and components dropping off left and right, he fires up his remaining jump jets and lifts off to the south.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Our mech lance moves into the center of "town" to finish off the tanks clustered there - we do blow up a Falcon hovertank, but our Stalker takes a couple of SRMs to the head while the Thunderbolt loses a laser from its left torso to concentrated SRM fire. However, this only annoys our mechwarrior, who proceeds to stomp on the offending Plainsman hovertank. To the northeast, our other Grasshopper cuts through a Vedette's armor with lasers - the tank is intact but moves to retreat.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

The two remaining tanks disappear in a hail of laser and SRM fire, leaving us undisputedly in control of the area.

That was probably one of the easiest fights we've ever had. Just a complete blowout, except for one slightly banged up mechwarrior and a damaged laser. We even manage to recover the very embarrassed Pegasus crew and pull their hovertank back up to the surface.

Now that we've secured this potential landing zone for the Thunderball, we're left with a bit of a quandry - it's obvious that this is a known location for any and all hostile forces on planet. So, do we really want to land our biggest dropship here?

[] It's an Overlord; unless they send a company of heavy mechs, we'll be fine.
[] Better move elsewhere anyway.

[$iljanus]

Is this a landing area that we really need to have or are there reasonable alternatives close to the dig site? Don’t want to ask for additional trouble if we don’t need to even though we’re pretty badassed and all.

[NickAragua]

Is this a landing area that we really need to have or are there reasonable alternatives close to the dig site? Don’t want to ask for additional trouble if we don’t need to even though we’re pretty badassed and all.

It's the closest one - the next couple candidate landing zones are a day or two further out in terms of mech walking distance.

[$iljanus]

Is this a landing area that we really need to have or are there reasonable alternatives close to the dig site? Don’t want to ask for additional trouble if we don’t need to even though we’re pretty badassed and all.

It's the closest one - the next couple candidate landing zones are a day or two further out in terms of mech walking distance.

Might be worth defending perhaps since it cuts travel time for our mechs to be on site and get busy before other “interested” parties show up.

[TotallyNotEvil]

On a somewhat related tangent, you guys and gals would probably enjoy a story on spacebattles called China Shop. It's really neat.

And I think we probably want to stick to that. The company of heavy mechs might be foreshadowing, but we can probably deploy a company of our own to defend it, can't we?

[Zenn7]

Is this a landing area that we really need to have or are there reasonable alternatives close to the dig site? Don’t want to ask for additional trouble if we don’t need to even though we’re pretty badassed and all.

It's the closest one - the next couple candidate landing zones are a day or two further out in terms of mech walking distance.

Might be worth defending perhaps since it cuts travel time for our mechs to be on site and get busy before other “interested” parties show up.

Great question and yes, stay here. The travel time would open us up to more attacks in route and give other "interested" parties more time to show up/interfere.

[TheMix]

Plus, it's always nice when salvage comes to us, right? Instead of us hunting it down?

[Leraje]

Is this a landing area that we really need to have or are there reasonable alternatives close to the dig site? Don’t want to ask for additional trouble if we don’t need to even though we’re pretty badassed and all.

It's the closest one - the next couple candidate landing zones are a day or two further out in terms of mech walking distance.

Might be worth defending perhaps since it cuts travel time for our mechs to be on site and get busy before other “interested” parties show up.

Great question and yes, stay here. The travel time would open us up to more attacks in route and give other "interested" parties more time to show up/interfere.

Agreed. And put Treadheads to patrol the LZ.

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

It's an Overlord, land it.

Common military wisdom holds that you shouldn't attack an Overlord unless you have sufficient force to get past all of its guns and all of its escorts' guns.

The forces that attack the Thunderball during its sub-orbital hop (you have to do a sub-orbital hop in a spheroid dropship - lateral mobility in atmosphere is, shall we say, limited) to the new landing zone don't appear to subscribe to that conventional wisdom. Between us and our merc buddies, we've got five fighters flying escort duty, while the attackers have ten fighters total, six of them lights.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

"Thunderball to all fighters, stay in formation."

Round 2:

Spoiler:

"Here they come. Light fighters closing in. All gunners, target and fire at will."

"Seydlitz is smoking."

"Which one?"

"The one that's drifting."

"Sparrowhawk is in trouble too. Focus on active targets."

Round 3:

Spoiler:

"Seydlitz destroyed."

"Strike Three, Centurion destroyed."

"Bite me, three, I got him first!"

Round 4:

Spoiler:

"Centurion drifting. Pursuing Stuka damaged."

"Aux One, Aux Two, what are you two morons doing? Get back in formation!"

Round 5:

Spoiler:

"Strike flight, we still have a Stuka closing in."

"Understood, targeting and opening fire... target destroyed."

"What're we gonna do about this drifter at two o'clock high?"

"Leave 'im."

Round 6:

Spoiler:

"Aux Two, get back here! I got three of them on me!"

"Shit, adjusting vector, hang on!"

"Thunderball, Strike lead here. Aux flight is getting hit pretty hard - looks like the bad guys aren't targeting you any more. Should we intervene?"

This is pretty straightforward. Three 100-ton Stukas have two of the allied merc Gothas "cornered", and they definitely need our help to disengage successfully. Our aerospace flight mostly just has armor damage, with a single small laser blown out on one of the Lucifers while one of the Stingrays has damage to two heat sinks. The Stukas haven't taken much meaningful damage.

[] Bail them out; mild risk to our fighters
[] Sorry, you're on your own;

[TotallyNotEvil]

Gods, I want to be an asshole so bad. ASFs are so rare.