Author Topic: Let's Play... BattleTech! Rise of the Hard Light Brigade  (Read 62602 times)

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Offline The E

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Maybe these guys got lucky and found some sort of SLDF cache?
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline niffiwan

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Actually, that variant (CRB-20) was the downgraded one given to the DCMS by Comstar for the war in '39, so it didn't come from a SLDF cache.  Perhaps a DCMS deserter?
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Offline The E

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Guess that's a possibility. Pretty far from home then, I think.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Quote
At this point, the Hetzer crew is proving to be excellent shots.  I'm considering nicknaming this Hetzer the Spoonzer, just because it's mimicking the actions of the Spoonzer I on the first mission of HLPX-COM quite well.
The legend lives on!
Shooting mechs in a WWII self propelled gun.

Bloody hell man, that was one seriously long write up. Making that post must have consumed a lot of your free time.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 
Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Guess that's a possibility. Pretty far from home then, I think.

You'd probably want to be.

 
Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Great job with the write-up Scotty, that was a marathon game there. I'm thinking you missed my post applying for mech tech though, you can give me whichever you please, all the names have comedic story value.

Anyways...
Shame team Urban Renewal Spoonzer got knocked out halfway through, but I'm going with the theory that they and E were just getting out of Dragon's way.
I even have a virtually untouched SLDF Medium to tinker with now.
'yo my domestic skillets, who put swarm torpedoes on the Tev bombers?'
~Nighteyes

  

Offline Patriot

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Just assign the Crab to me ;D

At 5/8 it's too slow for the scout lance :)

pfft, who needs speed when you have no need for ammo :D
'Sides, i hate being a scout xD

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
So did the first battle burn scotty out on this plan already? Because I wouldn't really blame him.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
I hope not. It started really great. I hope it'll get to Clan invasion someday, and I'll get to kick some clanners and steal their mechs. :)

Speaking of badassery:

Corporal Master Seargent :) Anders "Rapier" Bullman
Born 14th April 3026, Atreus City, Atreus
Rather gaunt, with pale skin and very short, brown hair. Blue eyes.
Manners (and mannerisms) of an aristocrat, even when they're very out of place (like in a hardened merc unit...). A bit of a dandy, but once things get serious, watch out. Pretty handy with a blade, hence the nickname. Has a bit of a rose-tinted view of "old times", especially if they involve his family being important (except if somebody asks him just why they weren't killed during the Amaris coup, or exiled after that...).

Born in an aristocratic family which has been in a steady decline since it's main branch was decimated in the Amaris coup, and the rest went with general Kerensky into exile. His side-branch was the only one that remained in the IS. Though once prominent in Free Worlds League politics, the Bullman family is now but a footnote in modern FWL, and, with the exception of possesing an ancestral AWS-8Q mech (said to be a gift from the Captain-General himself, though nobody seems to know which one...), is no different from any other upper-middle class family. Not very happy with that, "Rapier" decided to use his old, but well preserved Awesome in order to make the galaxy hear about his family once again. After solid military training, attempted, and failed, to form his own merc unit. After that, he found out about another startup unit, which had good perspectives with it's Awesome and a couple of other, quite decent mechs. Hoping it'll succeed, he joined in, bringing a second AWS-8Q to the Hard-Light Brigade.

 

Offline Patriot

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
I'm trying my hand on one of these right now, spent 4 hours last night setting everything up for my first battle, ironically, i also got a Pirate Hunting contract. But no early resolution as i have to do an extraction of 2 trucks, a hover APC and a Quasit(thank god the mech is there, it can shoot back with more than a puny missile launcher)

Got me a Centurion to back my lance up xD

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
So did the first battle burn scotty out on this plan already? Because I wouldn't really blame him.

I recently rediscovered I had a social life, so that's where the delay has come from.  In an effort to avoid delays like that again, I'll break up the posts I have planned into smaller, less enormous posts.  Instead of covering the immediate aftermath of the battle clear to the start of the next contract, I'll post something up as soon as I hit March.

Corporal Anders "Rapier" Bullman
Born 14th April 3026, Atreus City, Atreus

Actually, this rank is no longer correct.  After Rapier beat the **** out of an entire company of "pirates", he had enough exp to up from Piloting 6 to Piloting 5, moving him from "Green" to "Regular" on the caste hierarchy skill level scale.  That's good for a promotion to Sergeant.  Immediately after that, I realized that I didn't have a Master Sergeant for this company, and he'd just finished proving that no one in the company can touch him.  Fittingly, he's exactly one exp to up from Piloting 5 to Piloting 4, which is almost 50% of the way to Veteran from where he started.  That kind of rise is meteoric.

Everyone give a big round of applause to Master Sergeant Anders "Rapier" Bullman.

In other news, I don't actually have a pilot for that Crab yet.  The only candidate is PhantomHoover, and he's expressed a desire to be the "mook" of the group.  Hopefully the recruitment goes better between contracts than it did before contracts.

 

Offline Patriot

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
*Claps rather loudly*

Congratulations Dragon :D

mook, being what exactly?

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Fixed. Thanks. :D If it keeps going like that, I'll make officer before Clans even start showing up. That's quite of an achievement, but I guess 13 kills on the first mission will do that. The Awesome lives up to it's name, too. Well, I hope the next contract will go just as well as this one. :) Can't wait to see what we'll get this time.

 
Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Corporal John "Scourge" Aherne
Born February 14, 3024, New Olympia, Ares, Capellan Confederation

Rather short to average height, with light skin and dark, shaggy hair. Face is not exactly chiseled; roundish, but not fat. A persistent stubble hangs out around his chin despite best efforts to shave it off every few days. Brown eyes, usually narrowed from incredulity.

The only child born to a fairly average family, he coasted through school on cleverness alone. With a great distaste for studying, he found himself graduated in the middle of his class, with no great prospects for further education or employment. He didn't particularly care, he just wanted to take it easy for a bit.
But coasting doesn't pay the rent. He went to work in the Quickscell Company equipment factories. After a few years working the assembly lines, watching tanks and components pass by for what seemed like forever, he was promoted to "Refurbishing", where old or damaged equipment was repaired, tested, and re-sold to anybody willing to take it.

One day in 3047, a small mercenary company came through Ares, and stopped by to see what kind of equipment was available and affordable. Having just personally tested a shiny, new, pre-owned but totally functional Manticore Heavy Tank, Scourge pushed it to them, and finally, volunteered to crew the tank himself. Hey, he had experience on it already from months of testing and certifying it, and it would save the trouble of recruiting. John "Scourge" Aherne was hired right there, and he quit his job at the factory and left for adventure! His parents were mostly indifferent.

Usually quiet and laid-back, he comes alive when sitting behind the PPC of the Manticore, or when any of his new friends need help. Doesn't particularly like the nobility; he feels that a person's actions speak louder than bloodlines.

 

Offline niffiwan

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
mook, being what exactly?

I believe it's item 7 here, I'm sure Scotty didn't mean any of the other definitions :)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mook
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Offline Aesaar

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
If PH really wanted to be a mook, he'd have joined as vehicle commander.  We're the mookiest!

So stick him in that Crab.  Or if he's really dead set on being a mook and we haven't been in action yet, you could switch our names around and put him in my Vedette.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2013, 11:43:27 pm by Aesaar »

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
At long last, the continuation!

After that kind of massive battle, the repairs are going to be annoying.  Even if I didn't deploy many units, the ones that I did deploy got kinda messed up.  The Awesomes are okay, for the most part, with just a little internal damage each.  The vehicles, on the other hand... well, in those cases, what we're doing is stripping them of useful equipment and then selling the scrap for what we can get out of them.  That means stripping any working weapons, the engines, and any armor left on the chassis before selling what's left.



I also need to get my people who were injured back on their feet.  Everybody in red on that list has an injury of some severity.  All of them see the same doctor, our resident deathfun, and heal one hit per day on a result of 7+.  This is mostly hands off, and there's nothing I can do to accelerate the process.



As you can see, deathfun has his work cut out for him. 



Luckily, the first day sees most of his patients back out the door with nary a scratch left on their little heads.



Here's what my hangar looks like after the fight.  White entries are 100%, yellow is damage of any sort, red is crippling or incapacitating damage, like missing legs, engines, or heads.  Whatever the reason is, a 'Mech in red can't deploy, whereas if I'm getting desperate I can send one of the yellow boys into the field with only minor degradation of capabilities.  Brown is unrepairable, and only good for stripping parts.



The view from the repair bay condenses all that into everything I need to know to conduct repairs on my damaged units.  In the top left, there's a display for what still has work orders out on it, and what state the unit is in, including how many parts are missing and how many individual tasks are still needed.



The bottom left displays the currently selected damaged machine, with everything that's wrong with it.  This example comes from our commander's Awesome, proving that even if you don't get that ****ed up, your machine still needs a lot of work to get back to 100%.

The big display in the middle shows exactly what needs to be done, what level the repair is, and how long it'll take to do it.  If the part is missing, this is where it tells me that.  I select a job here, and then scoot over to the right hand side of the display to pick a tech to carry it out.



The fastest way to fix things, ironically, is to take your time doing it.  Each level of taking your time improves the target number by one.  On a 2d6 bellcurve, that's a whole damn lot.  Especially when things are going to have 10s or 12s without it.  Hell, some repairs have 10s or 12s with taking my time.  A little more on that later.



There's a distinct advantage to having Green and Regular techs around, and not just all veterans.  If a Green tech fails the roll, the job gets bumped up to Regular difficulty, and a Regular tech can try to fix it, and if he fails the Vets get their crack at it, etc.  However, if a Vet tries a random job, the difficulty if he or she fails is automatically set to Elite.  You want Green techs in order to get the most attempts out of every repair.  It saves you money, if not time.  They're much more likely to fail, however, so you'll probably end up using your regulars and vets anyway.  Plus, it gets your greenies some good experience under their belt, and they'll likely advance faster, which is a good thing.



Not all repairs are created equal.  This one is still pretty easy compared to how difficult some of them can get, like repairing center torsos.  When repairing the Vindicators legs, which is the subject of that previous picture, I actually failed the first attempt on each leg, but thanks to having multiple tech crews, they got fixed on the second attempt.





One of the powerful tools in repairing 'Mechs is overtime.  You don't have to finish the repair in the current day in order to attempt it, and instead you can start it now, and eat up whatever time your tech has left.  He or she will finish the job tomorrow, or the next day, or even the next day, however long it takes.  Things like engines, repairing torsos, or repairing huge amounts of armor (like here) take more than a day to finish.

Taking all this time makes it easier to succeed, but what it doesn't do is make a failure sting any less.  If my veteran mechanic (who shouldn't even be doing 'mech repairs at all, but does sometimes in a crunch) fails on a repair, I have to scrap the component and start over from green.  This can get expensive fast with things like weapons, though actuators and body parts are actually pretty damn cheap.  Plus, if it gets to that point, my techs have to go find a suitable replacement part, which isn't always a sure thing.



Fortunately, it's not too difficult either, but a fail means I have to wait another day to conduct the repairs.

Repairing carries on in this fashion all the way up until I run out of minutes on my techs.



Kind of like that.  Techs run out of minutes fast when they take their time, so this repair process could take days.  The Vindicator may well take several weeks to get back up and running.  As of this writing, actually, both Awesomes and the Crab are finished repairing, and I've managed to strip all but the engines and things I don't want off the vehicles and the Vindicator is still struggling with accepting a pair of new arms.





I hit the Advance Day button and see what happens.  Like I showed earlier, most of the infirmary patients are good to go, while the one overtime event I had yesterday is a success.  Woo.  Repairing goes on in this fashion until everything is finished.

Now that repairing is already rolling, I need MechWarriors.  I have two new 'Mechs that I don't yet have pilots for, and I want them up ASAP.  That means I'll have to do some targeted recruiting.  For 100,000 c-bills, I can target specific kinds of recruits.  MechWarriors, unfortunately, get a -2 to the roll, being a D rated unit another -1, and my lack of a HR admin gives me another -2.  What does that mean?  Well, the number of recruits I get is directly related to the roll result.  If I get 3 or less, I get no recruits despite the spent money.  Higher than that, and I get at least one potential recruit.  With a good unit, a good HR admin, and a good roll, I could conceivable attract up to six.  Odds are, though, on one or two at most at this point.

The result ends up a 5, which gives me one recruit.  Worth it.  This particular recruit comes to me as a Regular pilot and no 'Mech.  Good, I had extras for him anyway.  His skills come up as 4/6.  Not stellar, but Dragon proved pretty conclusively that 4/6 can still **** **** up.

Everybody welcome Corporal Jean "Werewolf" Vidal, new pilot of the Crab CRB-20, to the company.  He'll be assigned to the 11th to replace the downed vehicles until more become available.

I think that's a good wrap for now.  Not exactly action packed, but it's a pretty damn important part of the game to keep your equipment running.

Until next time.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2013, 04:26:10 pm by Scotty »

 
Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Fear my guerrilla warfare large lasers of doom.
17:37:02   Quanto: I want to have sexual intercourse with every space elf in existence
17:37:11   SpardaSon21: even the males?
17:37:22   Quanto: its not gay if its an elf

[21:51] <@Droid803> I now realize
[21:51] <@Droid803> this will be SLIIIIIGHTLY awkward
[21:51] <@Droid803> as this rich psychic girl will now be tsundere for a loli.
[21:51] <@Droid803> OH WELLL.

See what you're missing in #WoD and #Fsquest?

[07:57:32] <Caiaphas> inspired by HerraTohtori i built a supermaneuverable plane in ksp
[07:57:43] <Caiaphas> i just killed my pilots with a high-g maneuver
[07:58:19] <Caiaphas> apparently people can't take 20 gees for 5 continuous seconds
[08:00:11] <Caiaphas> the plane however performed admirably, and only crashed because it no longer had any guidance systems

 

Offline deathfun

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Re: Let's Play... BattleTech!
Why am I always associated with bones?
I pretty much nailed what I wouldn't of minded to be named though (despite not being able to be named that) which is doubly hilarious
Dr. Bones
Love it
"No"