Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH Part Five

Okay. So. Trying to do a screenshot-by-screenshot repeat of all the dialogue like it did with Stardew Valley and hiterto up to now is not really going to work here. This session (this PART of the session - would have generated about 123 screenshots). That's kind of excessive; and beside, unlike, say Stardew Valley, where I was doing Illy's interjections, there's really not a lot for Lynessa to be saying between screenshots. (And also, tyring to keep in it batches of 35 or so, so when posted on the PDX forums as well, there's a 35 image per post limit.) So instead I'm going to summarise, using my screencaps to essentially re-write the scenes and events more proper-like.So that's why the style is lightly changing in that regard from (from about halfway in, as I did this in two lots yesterday. Part six will come this evening - this would have come yesterday, but doing said re-write needed to be done this morning!

Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Five:

Time beat up on some light mechs more effectively...

"Everyone: punch the enemy!"

This time, the mission went a little bit better, but the enemy STILL managed to damage the Blackjack's internal structure, taking it out for a day.

Still, the lance managed to incapacitate the pilot of the panther, rather than KO it, so there was enough salvage for a second panther, which could be sold.

Vey was still coping, and it wasn't like her. So Lynessa said they'd go out for one last spacewalk together.

It was the right choice. Vey was now much more like her usual self.

(BOOM! Lost rebellious for dependable! Huzzah!)

Payday...

Poopy increased her gunnery and guts both to 4.

On day 151, the blackjack was repaired again, so it was time for another contract; a one-skull battle contract in the jungle.

The OpFor consisted of a Javelin, a blackjack and a FRICKING 70T ARC-2S ARCHER!

This was really bad. The Javelin was protected by the winds of fortune and then the Archer was upon then. It hammered the lance, but they managed to take out its left torso. Lynessa's decision to fight in the water was very wise, since it allowed Mylassta in particular to fire all her weapons repeatedly. But then the archer ran up and punched Mylassta's Blackjack in the back, leaving it in critical condition and her in danger of imminent death.

Alarhan made the only move she could - precision fire to take out the opposed Blackjack's leg.

Lynessa jumped to the Archer's right, and using only her small laser fired, hoping desperately to take the other torso out and incapacitate the pilot.

Mylassta didn't hesitate, and ejected immediately.

Lynessa was able to jump one more and take the damn blackjack out, before it could do more damage.

(It DID not want me to have this mission itreally didn't. It took over two rounds to knock out the Javelin with the combined fire of the lance, because the damage location scattered and the precision fire missed TWICE (and it was on base 75-80% accuracy to start).

And it did NOT want me to have that Archer, no, it did not. I managed to whittle it down to the point a small laser precision shot would take it out by torso destruction (and pilot kill, as they'd knock it down once) - anything more would have taken out the CT, and it took four reloads for it to deign to let me hit on a 90%/69% chance to hit... And the moment I did, it made the Blackjack kill Mylassta. Twice.

Okay, game, no.

So, basically I had to reload and reload and reload until Alarhan (the only one who could do anything) rolled the chance to blow its leg off.

After seven or eight reloads, it became clear that it wasn’t going to do, it which meant I had to use the precision fire *(because I couldn't do more than one per round) to knock the enemy blackjack down (Mylassta wouldn't even get an action to eject) and then reload until random chance hit the Archer's RT with the small laser from Lynessa.)

The lance was badly beaten up.

Oh, great, ejecting destroys anything in the head hit slot, that's nice to know. *sigh* At least it was only the "stop the pilot getting damage" module.

Also, I really hate that I did all this work and again, I don't get a mech out of it. Definitely not a fan of the more than three salvage rules now, it's such a grind trying to get up to a point where I can actually take on higher skull missions. And I'm beginning to think the OpFor AI gets more skilled as you pilots do or something, which is bad, 'cos you can't easily even grind lower missions. It's just a really steep uphill slope.)

On the minor plus side, the salvage gave them 3/4 of an Archer and enough to finish a 10F Javelin to be sold.

Just to taunt Lynessa, there was a single piece of a -2R Archer in the store, that they couldn't afford anyway.

Lance was down for four days, while the Blackjack and the Assassin were repaired. Poppy improved her gunnery to 5 and gained Multishot.

The next contract was a one-and-a-half skull contract, in the badlands, to recover some biological samples. Lynessa took the same line up - her in the Enforcer, Mylassta in the Blackjack, Alarhan in the Panther and Poppy in the Assassin.

This proved a troublesome fight. The enemy had about four strikers, plus a Javelin, Jenner and two Spiders. The latter of whom kept running into range and spotting for the Strikers well out of sight, which was highly tedious.

The lance eventually took them down, but not before one of them hit Mylassta in the head.

(You will note that it waited to do that until AFTER she no longer had an injury reduction component. Ha. Ha. Haaa.)

Another two day's waiting around. Still, they got nearly a full spider out of it (though a 5K version) and 10A Javelin, which could be sold.

Alarhan increased her tactics to 7; Mylassta, on her sick bed, increased the gunnery to 7. Poppy, following Mylassta's example, improved her Guts to 5 and took Bulwark.

The next contract would be fighting Free World's League mechs in the badlands on behalf of the local government. Lynessa decided to switch things around a bit. Summer took the Blackjack, Poppy transferred into the Panther, and Alarhan took out the Javelin - the lance would try the long-range approach again.

It was not a mistake, per see, but it struggled to pay off. the lance encountered the enemy scout lance as they approached the lake. the enemy lance continuously pounded Lynessa's Enforcer, until it was critical on both torsos and hit her in the head for good measure. The enemy reinforcements in included a 55-ton Shadowhawk. The lance prevailed JUST barely, and only because of a fluke hit setting off the Shadowhawk's ammunition.

Summer had to eject after both the Blackjack's arms were blown off, the panther lost both of its arms...

But they final won.

The lance was in a very sorry state.

(WHY is it suddenly so damned hard?!)

As a final insult, the ammo explosion had clearly taken out the Shadowhawk's CT, denying them more than one piece (for if not, they'd have had a complete one.) They gained a Cicada 3C (yay).

And the lance did not have any AC/2s to replace the blackjack's destroyed ones.

The ONLY saving grace was that the Blackjack's heat exchanger was in the torso section NOT blown off.

So, Lynessa had a look what they could do with the Blackjack. With no AC/2s in the local store (because of course), they could only replace the AC/2s with something larger - which would be shorter ranges. With only two gun and four laser and two support hardpoints, there wasn't a great deal of room. Lynessa didn't want to out the LB-X 10AC on such a fragile platform - especially as it would have to be arm-mounted.

In the end, Lynessa decided upon this, the Blackbeam (the first official rename!)

She replaced the medium lasers in the torso with larger lasers, supplemented by two small lasers. They added the heat bank to the left torso, so help with the heat issues, and removed the armour from the arms (the medium lasers mounted there were easy to come by) and beefed up the torso front armour. Finally, Lynessa have Yang add a couple more heat sinks - in the legs, to maximise efficiency when in water.

The result was that, at very close range, the damage exceeded the original, and in theory the new version should run cooler for longer. But this came at the price of range, with both a sharp drop overall and at medium range, only coming into play at short laser range.

All this would take a LONG time for the lance to be ready, almost to the next payday.

Lynessa elected, then, not to take a travel contract. On the way to the Prototype flashpoint, some 25 days away (so two days after the Blackjack was ready) was the world of Viribium, which was a one-skull planet. The kitty would extend, at least, safely, to the travel costs and payday with most of the next ready. That would be the next stop.

On the way, the Beta pod was completed. Lynessa, from her bed, authorised the construction of the training pod, since it was fairly cheap.

Summer, meanwhile, was getting a bit restless, and from a speedster, that was a problem.

Lynessa had them analyse the natural remedy.

Which was as well, since a hyper-active speedster would have been quite terrifying and it wasn't like Summer wasn't already a bit hyper from the get-go.

The training module was completed, which was a good start; further upgrades would have to wait.

Payday:

The mechs were ready, and they arrived at Viribium. The store was empty - but for an arm and two legs mods, adding melee stability damage DFA (Death from Above) damage. These took no tonnage, and were cheap enough Lynessa bought them all up.

Time to check the local contracts.

Four or so half-skull contracts, plus a couple of one-skull, though no travel contracts. Still, this would hopefully be quick work to rebuilt the rather low cash reserves. Lynessa elected that this stage, the cash was more important that what little salvage they would get from half-skulls, so they would start at the top and work down.

"No." Mylassta said with horror.

"They can't... HERE? But how? WHYYYYYYY?"

"Hey there, Protagonist," Stubble called cheerfully. "Wow, that banging is still going on isn't it?"

(At this point, the chatter was essentially the same as the previous times.)

Mylassta wondered HOW these cretins could still not have learned anything.

Still, the base this time seemed empty - except for the fast-approaching enemy contacts...

But as they were merely a locust 1E and a Firestarter, they went down without much trouble.

On to the next one! Though first, Lynessa improved her tactics to 9, and gained Called Shot Mastery (which now might start to allow her to reliably hit stuff with called shots).

Next was a mission with so little pay (84k) is was actually worth having max salvage. Lynessa went out with the Enforcer, Mylassta in the Blackbeam, Pseekie in the Assassin and Vey in the Javelin.

The opposition was merely two vehicles and the weapons salvage was at least worth barely more than the max money contract would have made...

The next contract was to destroy a trio of lights, which nevertheless STILL managed to damage the assassin's internal structure.

It was enough to let Vey improve her gunnery to 4, however.

The next contract was a convoy ambush. With the Assassin out, Pseekie took the Panther.

Despite a bit of a run to only just catch the convoy before it left, the lance managed without too much difficulty.

Pseekie increased her piloting to 6.

The next contract would be a one-skull battle.

Poppy took over from Vey (as Lynessa realised that Vey was the only person currently benefitting from the training module) in the Javelin.

The enemy lance was but three mechs, and the two went down quite quickly.

The Blackbeam was definitely better at one thing - with the addition of the small lasers, it was better at taking out overly evasive light mechs...

The salvage was enough to finish a 5K Spider, which being the second, could be sold.

the store had three new arm mods in it, so Lynessa bought them; a total of four arm modules could now increase melee stabilisation damage by 60, which could be applied to almost any of the mechs (though the Assassin and Enforcer were the most likely options...)

There was currently 1.4 million in the kitty. While there were a couple more missions at Viribium, one was a one-skull attack and defend, which Lynessa was leery of, especially in the -35% heat efficiency of the lunar environment and the other a 1.5 skull mission - and travel contracts of 2 and 2.5 skulls.

So, perhaps it was time to try that Prototype flashpoint. Lynessa checked - there was a 0.5 skull world (Claybrooke) that was reasonably close afterwards - so perhaps it was finally time!

In-transit, Lynessa decided to fit the Assassin with all the arm and leg mods, giving it at least something it could do other than snipe at light mechs with its weak weapons.

Alarhan's competence had apparently got around. The Gray Death Legion were trying to recruit mercenaries and were even offering a hundred thousands cbills to any merc company he poached from. Alarhan has been listening to his speeches about how he could change the galaxy or something and she was tempted.

Lynessa suggested she have a long think about it and not make any quick decisions and most especially to talk it over with her friends and maybe talk to her goddess.

Alarhan went away and had a long think. She decided that, no, she preferred being a magical paladin mechwarrior girl, and also, her friends (especially Scarlet) would have been devastated if she left. Also, Azurella had told her in a dream she thought this Grayson Carlyle chap seemed like he had things under control anyway, plus she'd already figured this nice blonde lass would be a good match for him...

The paladins arrived at Fagerholm!

Davinder Singh, the Free Worlds League Liaison contacted the Paladins. Six months ago, a group called Black Caldera Defence working for the head family (Andurien) of the Free Worlds League stole a prototype BattleMech - the Raven - from the Capellan Confederation and were working on reverse engineering it. The Capellans were, perhaps understandable A Bit Miffed and were laying siege to Fagerholm and taking it back, and thus ensuring that House Liao alone would have access to brand-new ECM technology not seen since the Star League and thus tip the balance. Singh wanted the Paladins to swipe it back.

And the reason they hadn’t done so earlier was that the Dame in charge of the operation and Black Caldera Defence just hadn’t told anyone and it was only that House Marik's SAFE (renowned as the Worst Spies Ever) had accidently blundered into the information, probably by tripping over it or something.

First job first, the Paladins needed to rendezvous with Bravo Lance, a group headed by his niece, who were part of the 5th Andurien Defenders but had lost about two-thirds of their forces protecting said dame and had had enough and were ready to defect.

(YESSSS! Raven! One of my top favourite mechs!)

Well, this flashpoint had a max tonnage of 200 tons and a max weight of 55 tons per mech! Yeah, there wasn't going to be an issue exceeding that, since even with the best foot forwards, the lance only reached 170 tons and the largest was the Enforcer!

Best foot forwards. Lynessa in the Enforcer, Mylassta in the Blackbeam, Alarhan in the Panther and Summer in the Assassin (best pilot/gunner combo they had currently, and thus the best melee operator.)

Oooh, urban biome - not been in this one yet.

The Lance dropped in - in drop pods, for novelty (probably because it was urban) - and made contact with Bravo lance, under Lieutenant Genevieve "Ombra" Soberano.

Bravo consisted of a Spider, a Griffin, a Trebuchet and a Javelin, all a bit banged up and who pilots were more than a little cheesed. Meyer picked up some incoming drop pods in addition to the Liao contacts. But this wasn't more Capellan reinforcements, it was Lyran Commonwealth, coming to join the party.

Lucian "Peregrine" Greene commented he hated parties.

(Somewhere in the multiverse, someone had to forcibly restrain Pinkie Pie.)

Oh, snap.

The city of New Jakobstad had very heavy penalties for being illegally parked.

The lance encountered three light Liao mechs, and between them and Bravo, managed to take out a Spider - and then the Lyrans arrived.

Alban Steiglitz-Bradford (goddess, Lynessa thought, what a name) demanded that everyone go away or the lance he had just deployed would kill everyone until they died from it.

Whatever reply Darius or Ombra started to make was drowned out by Mylassta politely suggesting that he go and perform a very specific act of sexual congress with himself. Being an educated paladin of the goddess of love and sex, Mylassta already had some quite advanced theoretical knowledge, so the suggestion was both very explicit, detailed and also responsibly safe to perform.

There was a long moment of dead silence on the comm channel as everyone who wasn't a Paladin of Azurella gaped like a fish, while Lynessa nodded approvingly. Teaching about responsible sex was one of the most important duties, after all. Finally, someone on the Steiner end screeched in a tone that suggested they were crimson with embarrassment that they should get on with things.

The Lyran lance was a Commando, a Trebuchet and an UrbanMech, on top of the remaining Lyran mechs.

Messy messy messy!

Wait, hang on, the UrbanMech was Liao - it shot the Lyran Commando in the back!

(Ahahahahahahahahahaha!)

A precise shot from Lynessa and a beautiful shot of Mylassta crippled the enemy Trebuchet.

Pesky Liao Locust!

Showing a great lack of judgement (possibly still very flustered from Mylassta's comment), the Lyran Trebuchet ran out and kicked the Liao UrbanMech - and thus presenting its back to the lance...

They choose poorly.

The Lance mopped up everything but the UrbanMech in short order, but another Liao lance was being dropped in.

Oh poopy.

And from behind, so the lance needed to watch their backs!

Wow, the hell was that building made of, the UrbanMech took it out with one shot!

The paladins and Bravo played "kick the can..."

Dealing with that just in time for incoming Liao!

Oh, a Vulcan, not seen one of those yet...

Plus a Spider.

Summer was not doing well, so far she'd missed THREE melee attacks...

Hmm, perhaps it wasn't her fault, the enemy seemed to have a STUPID high melee defence (+10?!)

Still, the Liao reinforcements oddly seemed to do nothing but run up and entrench, so the lance kicked and/or Bravo shot them to death.

One down!

The plot thickened. Back on the ship, the Paladins got a message from Marina Liao, the Capellan Confederation Liaison that they would pay a great deal for getting the Raven back and also withdraw forever from Fagenholm. Lynessa said she'd think about it.

(You'll be bloody lucky, duck, give up me one of me favourite mechs, even if I have slight leaning towards the Capellans...(

Ombra wanted a deal of her won; in return for their help, she wanted to make sure Black Caldera's information was completely destroyed, so that the Great Houses would bugger off and stop enforcing illegal parking all over Fagenholm.

Fair enough, Lynessa said (and then giggled a bit because she never got tired of using her name as a bit of pun from time to time).

Ombra wanted the squad to hit a convoy, from whom's black box they could extract the location of the Raven.

(Oh, okay,. I was expecting when it said "multiple deployments" that damage and ammo and such would persist... Apparently not.)

The second mission was to intercept a convoy. The convoy was moving fast, and by the time the lance had reached them, they were getting close to escape, forcing the lance to focus-fire on them before they got away. The lance took a lot of fire from the convoy’s escorts doing so - they were only a pair of Locusts, a Commando and a Javelin, but two or three rounds of uninterrupted fire did quite a number on the lance - and one of them manged to land a head hit on Mylassta.

Salvage-wise, there was a ++AC/10, ++ LRM 10 and ++ SRM 2, so not bad!

More bad news - Bravo had got worse. The Capellans had followed them and ambushed them, and killed Ombra with a headshot with an AC/10.

But Bravo had the location of the Raven and the Black Caldera facility. Both were heavily defended and attacking one would alert the other. No chance in doing both at once, since the armoury was an unknown and the R&D facility was heavily defended by missiles - so while Bravo (still under the guise of being local to the local forces, of course) would sneak in there, the Paladins would nick the Raven and use it to no-sell all the LRM defences.

(Yeah, you're not gettin' that back are you Liao...)

Unfortunately, nothing was getting done for a week, until the mechs were repaired!

Alarhan and Mylassta both increased their gunnery to 8 and gained Breach (to ignore cover or guarded damage reduction with a single weapon salvo). Summer increased her piloting to 7 (+20% sprint). Lynessa increased her gunnery to 8 and her guts to 5 (mostly for reducing the recoil penalty). Tactics 10 (which was -3 to indirect fire) wasn't worth saving for at the immediate moment.

And that is the end for part five!

Comments

[Skywriter]

I was always sorta fond of the Archer back when I used to play.

[Aotrs Commander]

5285332

I quite like it myself. There is a good reason why most of the Unseen designs were borrowed, a lot of them are pretty darn cool looking.

I only have the one, as I came in it became quite hard to get the older stuff (in was in the mid-90s because of the animated series).

I will be getting a load more at the end of the year when the Catalyst labd kickstarter models come in (assuming the quite likely probability it does not get delayed because of the Plague Apocalypse), I forget whether there's another Archer in there or not.

(TT BattleTech, being a game I take 'casually,' means I only have 145 mechs and 14 vehicles. It must be casual, it's literally an order of magnitude less than the number of starships I have...)