Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH Part Three and four · 10:55am Jun 14th, 2020
Since the site was down, and neither is a particularly long part, here's parts three and four together.
Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Three:
So, as would have been posted on Friday:
Uhuh. So, yeah, my grandmother died this morning and one of the three places that is one of my regular haunts is down with hardware problems (no ETA), because that first one alone wasn't enough of a brutal rebuttal by 2020 to "gee, I hope things are better soon..."
THIS IS GOING TO BE A FUN SESSION, ISN'T IT?
So the first thing that needed to happen was a day's wait, so that the paladins actually had four available mechwarriors, also giving time for the enforcer to be repaired. 24 hours later, Summer, Pseekie and Mylassta were given clean bills of health.
Lynessa elected to take a one-skull Canopian mission to clear out a load of mercs, and take it for max cash, just to tide them over.
(Just watch this mission be full of mechs I've had killed for...!)
Mylassta took the Blackjack back from Alarhan, Pseekie got into the Assassin, and Summer once again grabbed the Panther.
The lance quickly ran into the enemy. A Firestarter ran forward and took a shot at the Enforcer. Summer whipped up to take a shot (at 45%) with the PPC and LRMs and managed a hit. "Another hit and you're toast!" she said.
Immediately, a PPC shot from the middle distance hit the panther's arm.
(Set the tone already, haven't we? Hahaha, it is to laugh.)
The lance failed to knock out the Firestarter in one go, which jumped closer to Lynessa and instantly got a head hit with the machineguns.
Because of COURSE it did.
And the Panther jumped forward and GOT ANOTHER HEAD HIT on Lynessa with its SRMs.
(So, for the record, at this point the OpFor has fired five times, missed only once (PPC shot from a Cicada at the Assassin) and has dealt two head hits to the same target.)
Two bounds later, the Panther got a THIRD head hit, this time on Mylassta.
And again, it took a ridiculously long time to kill the Cicada four-to-one.
So, off to a flying start, the commander now down for a month, and the second command for two-and-a-half weeks (a DAY after she just got out). On the first 1-skull mission. And now there were currently only four pilots.
(Okay, so if we have a repeat performance of this on the next mission, or tonight, I'm going to call it right there. I'm EXTREMELY tempted to just call it right now and declare today's session "noncanon" already. I REALLY DO NOT NEED THIS TODAY.)
Summer improved her gunnery to 4 (seeming as we are at the point where she never had more than a 55% chance to hit) and Scarlet from 2 to 4 and her tactics to 4 as well. Lynessa (for all the good it would do her) increased her tactics to 8.
So. The only other 1-skull mission in the system was a destroy base mission, which Alarhan couldn't safely attempt with the Blackjack out for three days (the Javelin was still two days from repair). The only travel contract was a 2.5 skull mission.
All the stars around were one-and-a-half skulls, so Alarhan decided SOD THIS for a game of soldiers, they'd spent 23 days and jump all the way back to Independence.
(Three days into the jump, an event spawned, the result of which was -1 medical points for a month, which meant that it would have actually increased the time that the injured spent down. No. RELOAD.)
Well, Lynessa figured, it might be all the drugs making her head woozy, but didn't they have those fancy power conduits.
Excellent, Lynessa thought, the magical walrus pixie had successfully retrieved the magical nuts for the queen of squirrels. Good job, magical walrus pixie!
Farah backed slowly out of the room.
The repair harnesses were complete, but it was going to be a week before payday, so there wasn't room in the budget for anything new. And sadly, the amount of cash needed to upgrade the medical facilities was way out of reach, being 1.8 million cbills.
Payday...
A new flash point had appeared. Yeah, no. That wasn't happening...
(Oh, HEY, there were already several flashpoints, that big one was a CAMPAIGN flashpoint (that didn't expire) - the others were not, in fact, nearly so obvious. "Prototype" looked like it was actually a 1.5 skull mission, they could DO that... And it was in the opposite direction, because of course it was. Eh, it was a 3-skull world, though.)
Ace. There was only one mission at Independence and two travel contracts. Of course. Still, at least one was back in the right direction...
First things first Mylassta jumped in the Enforcer, Alarhan into the Blackjack and off they set on a base defence mission.
The vanguard went down quite easily and they lance managed the first "pilot incapacitated" kill of the career, by knocking out both torsos and knocking a Jenner down.
And FINALLY:
A frellin' headshot.
As the last mission, the enemy coming from two directions (and from the mountain down, where the turrets struggled) made it impossible to save all the buildings, but they saved 6/7.
But a mission where the only ones hit in the head were the enemy! What a novelty!
This is more like it...
(Or course, Mylassta had picked nearly max money, so the three pieces of Javelin they could have salvaged, they only got the one, and a second from random. Typical.)
A quick check of the store for the sake or argument - there was a + Medium Laser (+5 damage) and at 77k, funds would stretch to that, after the cash mission, though there was nothing else worth it.
Alarhan raised her tactics to 6, so she also had a called short bonus, making it viable for a second person to be trying for that. Pseekie raised her gunnery to 5.
Travel to Manthraka for what looked like ANOTHER training mission...
Mylassta glared. "What do you mean, 'this is your thing'?"
"You're already in the enforcer...?" Lynessa suggested.
Mylassta stormed off in a huff...
"But, seriously what IS that rhythmic banging noise?" Stubble asked.
Figured...
*thudthudthudthud*
"Will someone please tell me what that is!" Stubble complained.
Double figured...
Guano in the commando was mostly useless, since the drop-point had been on top of the cliff, and he couldn't get down to the base.
But it didn't matter, Mylassta could nearly have taken them all solo. In the end, the only real damage was the Panther overheating.
(I mean, I don't got to repair it, what do I care, right?)
There was enough parts to assemble a 2D Commando, but Lynessa didn't really think it was particularly worth it.
Contract-wise, there was nothing but a 1 skull and 2 skull for Appian (so back in the right direction, Lynessa guessed, WOW that trip to Independence was a waste...)
Still in the shop at Manthraka, there were several fairly cheap cockpit mods.
Lynessa bought all three.
Time for FINALLY a bit of proper refitting!
Firstly, the Enforcer got an improved comm system and replaced the AC/10 with the ++AC/10 (with extra stability damage).The Assassin got an upgrade to the +Medium laser, the ++SRM 2 and a Rangefinder (+25m viewing distance). The Panther for the ++LRM 10 (stability damage) and the Blackjack got a cockpit upgrade (reducing pilot injury).
That will do for today, I think; quit while I'm ahead...
Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Four:
And as would have been posted on Saturday...
So, off to do the pirate contract at Appian!
On the way Lynessa encountered Alarhan, Scarlet and Summer attempting to construct a culinary catapult.
Well, there was no way Lynessa was not going all-in in this.
Darius could consider this retribution for constantly moaning about the low funds Lynessa was perfectly aware of.
Payday again...
Lynessa though she ought to look out for an eighth mechwarrior, between all the head hits and such; plus if they needed multiple deployments for this prototype mission, they'd need at least one more. She started to keep an eye out.
Lynessa decided to undertake the contract with the three erstwhile siege engineers, since they were in such good humour; Alarhan in the Blackjack, Scarlet in the Assassin and Summer in the Panther.
The mission was accomplished, though focussed enemy fire meant again that the lance would have to wait a couple of days for repair before taking a second contract. This would be to capture a base for the planetary government (another one-skull, this time for max cash reward).
The mission went very smoothly. The enemy was two Jenners and a Javelin - and the first Jenner Summer shot at -
-died immediately.
Scarlet increased her gunnery to 5 and got Multishot. Summer increased her tactics to 6 (to gain the called shot bonus), as did Mylassta. Alarhan increased her gunnery to 6.
The next contract was a one-skull mission to defeat an Assault Mech! this could be messy.
To maximise their chances, Alarhan swapped with Summer, allowing Summer (who had sensor lock) in the vehicle with not indirect fire and Scarlet switched into the Javelin - which would give the squad hopefully a load of long-range firepower - hopefully, it would be enough. For somewhat obvious reasons, Lynessa took max salvage.
The first batch of enemies a Phoenix Hawk and commando went down easily enough, and then the true enemy arrived, detected, but not in sight.
Summer locked on - 90-ton a CP-10-Z Cyclops! Ooer... Scarlet let fly with the missiles, to little effect.
Alarhan had a clear line of sight, though, thanks to the sensor lock, so she got both her PPC and her LRMs and...
...
...
FRACK YES!
Alarhan was very thoroughly mobbed by everyone.
the max salvage meant they could even have all three... of the four parts they needed.
(FRAGDAMMIT!)
Oh well. A piece of the other two mechs and an AC/20 made the best of the other salvage (and there was quite a lot of it).
Scarlet choose to upgrade her piloting to 4 and Summer her gunnery to 5.
Lynessa decided that formation had worked, so perhaps they would try it in an arctic battle on a 1.5 skull mission for the pirates against the local government.
(Watch it now all be very fast light mechs...)
It was! Locusts, Javelins and a couple of vehicles with the reinforcements. But the operation zone was a ridge, and the lance's make-up worked very well this time, the light mechs simply never got up to speed and they were whittled away quite fast. With the lance's improved gunnery skills (and that little boost from the command unit), it was now fairly reliable to aim for the CT and destroy a light mech quite fast.
There was enough salvage to get an operation 10A Javelin and a COM-2B Commando - both of which went to storage.
Lynessa could now level her tactics to 8 and gain Master Tactician (improving her initiative among other things), so she did.
Well, things were going quite well, so Lynessa had a look at a 2-skull mission. I was polar (good for the heat-intensive lance) and was an attack and defend mission.
(One I've not played before... Reload on standby...!)
That is an absurd number of objectives.
The mission is clearly intended for you to try and rush the enemy base (turrets came on line at some point), but the lance was simply not at the level it was feasible. I got a bit into it, to the point where the first reinforcements arrived - which was another three or four enemies (with about three stull active). The four turrets on the base were no use; only two of them ever fired and then one of those got taken out by an enemy. Theirs seemd to be able to hit from miles away with missiles.
At that point, I shook my head and went "nope." That was still way beyond my level, it was painfully clear that aside from anything else, I simple, didn't have enough ammunition to take that many enemies out.
Instead, Lynessa undertook a 1-skull convoy intercept in the badlands.
This didn’t go nearly so well with the pirates managing to blow the leg off the panther, wounding Alarhan. The panther was otherwise lightly damaged, though Alarhan had to overheat it sharply to knock out the enemy before they did too much more damage.
That seemed to be that for this system, though, without taking on those 2-skull missions with a 1.5 skull lance.
Lynessa considered hard whether to start any upgrades or buy anything from the stores (+PPC or Snub-PPC), but in the end, elected to save the cash for now, saving towards the beta pod.
It was a travel contract to Detroit, then, to do a 1-skull escort mission.
Alarhan upped her gunnery to 7. Summer took her piloting to 6 (granting her extra defence). Scarlet took her tactics to 5 and gained Sensor Lock, making her a gunnery/tactics pilot.
At Detroit, Lynessa finally located Vey Lataylaern, Pseekie's best friend, floating around. The first thing one tended to notice about Vey was that she was large. She was rather tall and quite heftily built, almost seeming to be built on a slightly larger scale than everyone around her; "curvaceous" was a good enough word (Pseekie preferred "voluptuous," if one were to ask), "cuddly" perhaps; though an unkind soul might have said "overweight"." This would both be inaccurate and rather foolish, since while Vey was generally a rather sweet half-elf, beneath what had (by at least one impressed observer) been noted as "almost aesthetic surface fat," what Vey was was mostly solid muscle and she was still young enough to be a bit self-conscious about her appearance. Her preferred weapon was a cacking great two-handed axe and she was easily the strongest of Lynessa's little students as the occasional rude person had abruptly found. Vey did mostly apologise and patch them up afterwards, though; but she'd been getting a bit too much this around here, and having taken so long to be picked up had made her a bit rebellious.
Alarhan still needed a day to fully recover, so Pseekie to the Assassin out.
The mission was to escort some vehicles - including a superheavy Demolisher with AC/20s. The first half of the mission went quite smoothly - a Locust and a trio of Javelins - and the escort escaped safely. However, the enemy reinforcements were between the lance and the extraction point: two Jenner JNR-7Ds, another Javelin and a Spider. The lance took a modest bit of damage taking them down. (The Assassin by Pseekie accidently doing a Death from Above attack - and missing, of course...) So the lance would be down for a few days while repairs were underway.
On the plus side the salvage gave them a Spider, a Locust 1M and Jenner (the latter two of which were sold right away.) With the proceeds of that and about 27 Medium lasers (leaving 20 in stock) and 33 small jump jest (likewise), there was more than enough to start work on the Beta pod and have 700k left.
(My general rule is, the first mech of any type goes into storage, all other after that get sold. It is taking rather longer to fill the pipe, as it were, thanks to the 4 salvage...)
Scarlet increased her gunnery to 6.
One day before the next payday, the lance was ready again. The Javelin was still down, so the Panther re-joined the line-up. Mylassta took the Blackjack again, Alarhan the Panther and Poppy (who needed the practise) the Assassin and the lance set off one a one-skull corporate-scientist recovery mission.
And that will be tomorrow.
(I did have a go at that mission, but the RNG once again decided it always and only hits one specific location (getting very tired of that, because it never happens to me), so after it blew up the Enforcer's torso (with an lance of a Javelin, a Spider, a Flea and a Locust) I decided I wasn't going to have any more of that crap, especially since it would have lost the +LL, which is making the grinding slightly less painful. So I'm going to do that again tomorrow.)
Yeaaah... Definitely feeling that 4 salvage. Not getting that Cyclops really hurt, especially since I'm really struggling to get anything better at the moment. Everything is really fragile, and a lot of it is lacking punch. It's very grindy at the moment. (I have considered the training pod, but I think pretty much everyone must be above its limit now.)
For those playing at home, Vey's stated build is that of people who care more about being strong than looking strong. Go watch the World's Strongest Man competition if you don't believe me; it sets itself apart from most bodybuilding circuits by having no aesthetic judging whatsoever, solely caring about the property mentioned in its name. For WWE fans, Mark Henry had in fact legitimately won it before joining, and he's what a typical winner looks like.
Something that's been bugging me, but I keep forgetting to ask: how do you accidentally a Death From Above? (For those unfamiliar with Battletech jargon, the term specifically refers to pretending that you're Mario. Very effective against cockpits, difficult enough to do on purpose given that melee isn't otherwise much of a thing.)
5284669
Because more than once I've clicked on the Jump button while working out where to position a mech and then not clicked the move button before then confirming the physical attack, so instead of running up and perform said attack, they do a DFA. So it's basically incompetance. Thing is, the UI is exactly the same for a DFA as for a phsyical attack (a yellow box around the target and a indicttor of where the mech should stand).
Doesn't help, I suspect, that having only just finished X-Com 2 run (with the magical paladins..), so I'm kind of used to doing it that way too.
After about the third time I've done it, I'm remembering to actually CHECK now...! (I wouldn't mind, but only one out of those accidental attempts actually HIT...)
There is a Part Five for today (Sunday), by-the-by, it's just that I found that doing all the screenshots of the dialogue like I did with SDV and Illy wasn't going to work here, so I'm instead basically summarise/story-fising it from the screencaps I took, so it's just taking more time than I should spend tonight! (There would have been about 123 screenshots for part five, mostly dialogue and we known from experience Fimfic doesn't like that many; and I'm trying to keep it down to things I can batch up in 35s, since the Paradox BT forums whre I'm also posting this, have a 35 image per post limit.) Tomorrow, then.