Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH Part Nine · 12:23am Jun 21st, 2020
Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Nine:
(Welcome to "Ambush Convoy" theatre! Let's see how many of these I can get through before I'm well and truly sick of them!)
The paladin waited a day for the Enforcer to be repaired, and started on the first one-skull convoy mission. Lynessa decided that it was worth just doing these for max cash.
(With 4 pieces for salvage and unequipped mechs, the cash was just at this juncture better than farming for light mech parts and general jumble; and if salvage wasn't a concern, the mechwarriors could just got for CT kills to get the enemy dead as fast as possible, which was definitely what they wanted for a convoy mission. Plus that extra +25% bonus for killing the guards was worth more.)
Two Javelins and a Jenner, guarding a convoy that was very close. Easily dealt with, no damage.
(Second mission: reload, because ONCE AGAIN, the OpFor MAGICALLY managed to - in two salvos from a PHOENIX HAWK - blow off the Enforcer's arm. Okay, that's the last start game, from now on I'm going to start reloading on head called shots, because I am SICK of this clearly biased shooting distribution. If nothing else it will get me into the habit of making in-mission saves if I do so before every called head-shot, since there's no quicksave.
...
Oh, okay, fine, you're going to be a pain? Reload, we'll do this X-Com 2 Being Kvetchy-Mode then, and do it for every shot.
That's more like it.)
The defenders, a panther and phoenix hawk were swiftly dealt with, with no specifically concentrated damage, except for the Phoenix Hawk's head.
Last one, then, since the last two were verses local pirates, and this was 1.5 skulls, so max salvage this time.
The enemy was this time heavier vehicles, plus a Spider, two Firestarters and a Phoenix Hawk.
Yes, Mylassta WOULD be taking the head of the latter, thank you; she served Azurella and Azurella guided her aim, not the random number gods. Yes, Azurella would also guide Lynessa's point-blank CT shot on the Firestarter so she did not, in fact, miss twice at 95% chance to hit.
And EVEN WITH Azurella's blessing, Alarhan STILL got shot in the head and the enemy STILL managed to cut into the Blackbeam's and Enforcer's IS.
They took all three pieces of Phoenix Hawk (enough with the stores to make a full one) and as well they did for they didn't get any other mech parts as random rewards.
(The RNG is REALLY fighting me today.)
They would be heading to a new system, so Lynessa had a good look at what she could do with the Phoenix Hawk. Not much, really, but with near-max armour and jump jets and a trio of heat sinks, it seemed like it might as well be as good a testbed for the Coil-M as any, for a laugh. (It had vectored thrust units, which increased the damage after jumping, so it might as well...)
The Firestarter could go to storage, as now could the Blackbeam, having done its last job.
The Blackbeam was stripped and the heat bank and exchanger added to the Cyclops, with two larger and four medium lasers, plus four jump jets and the rest of tonnage devoted to armour. (It could run fairly warm, but the heat efficiency said it was still maxed, so... In necessary, they'd refit it with a couple more heatsinks and less armour, but they'd have to see how it went first.) This was named the Decapitator, as that is what Mylassta intended to do with it.
Lynessa sighed - they wasn't enough in the cash to buy the +++Comm system and cover the next payday, so that would regretfully have to be left. (Though they didn't have a great sturdy platform for it anyway.) There was a nice ++heat exchanger (-20% weapon heat), but it would have required the Cyclops to shed armour to be fitted and nothing else generated enough heat to warrant four heat sinks.
There actually some really nice stuff in the black market overall - a ++ Narc Beacon, a ++ Snub PPC, a ++ LB-X AC/20, +++ LRM 15 and 20... But nothing that Lynessa really thought was instantly useful, at least not at the price. She elected to spend about 400k on a ++ Ultra AC 5, however, which reduced the tonnage by 2, and would allow the Shadow Punch to fit a ++Leg mod which would reduce the DFA self-damage by 30 (to a total of 40 with the leg mod it already had.)
So. 21 days until everything was up to snuff. The travel contracts were to Alloway, a 1.5 skull system with a black market but a jump away - but that took 17 days. It seemed pointless to jump that close and wait three days. After some searching, Lynessa located Mandalas, a 1.5 skull world 22 days away that had the advantage of being only occupied by the Capellans, the local government and the pirates. Maybe some pirate missions could be found there...
Ah, to heck with it; Lynessa authorised the Farah to spend a good chunk of the funds on restoring the next stage of the power conduits - there had been that fire after all - and that would be done by the time they arrived. It would likely mean some cash missions on the other side, but whatever!
Payday:
Darius spent two more day's worth of time screaming to be let out because he'd been shut in a room with a hyper-active Summer.
The Phoenix Coil and Decapitator were completed!
On the trip, the paladins did a bit more training. Alarhan increased her tactics to 10 (since she did quite a bit of the indirect fire). Summer increased her piloting to 9, since she was mostly punching things at the moment. Lynessa herself increased both piloting and guts to 6.
They arrived at Mandalas with all of 41k in the kitty. Oops...!
Contracts then!
(True to form tonight, required a reload just prior to arrival to actually GET some pirate missions, the first try was nothing but planetary government ones...!)
First off, a one-skull battle for the pirates for cash - that would also just taken out of the "disliked" reputation.
Lynessa took the Enforcer. Mylassta delightedly jumped into the Decapitator. Alarhan figured she'd try the Phoenix Coil (a 1-skull battle seemed an ideal place) and Summer yielded her spot in the Shadow Punch to Pseekie. (The other three seemed to still be getting benefits from the training module).Lynessa's Enforcer was now the fragile egg of the group.
This qualified for a 240-ton lance, 3 skulls’ worth!
A platoon of enemy vehicles, plus an enemy lance.
(The Coil-M was a bit disappointing the first try - Alarhan jumped and generated 7 evade chevrons, but the damage was only increased from 25 to 30. Then I realised you only generate extra damage with the COIL if you RUN.
FRACK OFF, GAME! The enemy light mechs fired THREE times (a Flea, a Spider and an UrbanMech and despite the fact that she was standing in cover the ALL hit the Enforcer's right arm and blew it off. FRACK. OFF. Reload. This is RIDICULOUS! The OpFor isn't even using called shots! It ALSO magically managed to get a head hit on Pseekie as well. No, sorry RNG, I am NOT having this crap today, I'm really not. NATURALLY, it only ever pulls this crap if I DON'T save mid-mission. Reload.)
OH, Alarhan thought, WOW, that was a lot of damage!
Damn, maybe they should have used that earlier!
Time to test the Decapitator and ow, that was a lot of heat. (Being in desert mission didn't help...)
(Still had a reload then, because the OpFor AGAIN managed to IS the Enforcer with not-precision fire precision fire. Naff off, game, this is RIDICULOUS.)
OpFor down...
Lynessa increased her piloting to 7. Mylassta increased her gunnery to 10 and her piloting to 3.
Lynessa elected to change her flag. she was going to remove the comm unit from the Enforcer and spend a day transferring it to the Phoenix Coil and THAT would be her new mech. It had (ironically) better armour than her Enforcer (even though it was five tons lighter), was faster and with the COIL-M, had only slightly less damage potential, but also the fire would be much more concentrated.
The next battle would be purely for reputation - a one-skull distraction mission. Lynessa was making a bit of a buffer for future actions against the pirates. It wasn't a lot, but she was fairly sure at this point the salvage from a 1-skull wouldn't be all that great, and there were plenty more mission with better pay-outs cash-wise.
Alarhan took the Trebuchet back and they were ready to go!
Well, that idea was a bust... Lynessa couldn't generate four chevrons when she ran (three was only 75 damage) - so it looked like Alarhan would be getting the Phoenix Coil back next mission, and Lynessa would take the Trebuchet next time...
The enemy - three vehicles, a Firestarter, Locust and Javelin went down fast, but not before the Firestarter's flamethrower's hit the Trebuchet and super-heated it, the desert having rally not helped.
So that was down for repairs...
Looked like Lynessa was going to be on fire support duty next mission!
Still, they did at least get a Javelin part from their three pieces of salvage, so there was that.
And we shall leave it there for today!
Hey, look at the bright side. At least the game actually lets you save and reload it mid-fight like that. Back in the old days, they'd make you run through the whole damn game without any saving mechanics at all. Twice in a row, if you wanted the real ending. (I was tempted to add "uphill both ways" but decided not to exaggerate. As in, I am not exaggerating at all.)
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And that's part of why I didn't get into computer gaming until we had a PC in the mid-90s. Until then, games weren't deep enough to interest me (we had an ST and a Spectrum, and I played on both, but more as a novelty) and the technically limitations (which is what really initially had limited save points) eased off.
I greatly dislike when games mandate where, when and how you have save (there's no damn excuse for not being able to save where I like now, JRPGS, if I need to stop and go out or something). The only thing I LOATHE more than that is games that insist of preserving the random seed with reloads (Firaxis, looking at you especially, but you too Creative Assembly), which can be a deal-breaker (first thing I modded into X-Com 2, snce unlike the previous games, where they only put it an an option in the expansion or the Civ games, where it was an option in the base game in set-up), though the only bigger deal-breaker is enforced ironman, which I simply won't play.
(Tried the legancy missions in X-Com 2, this time. On the FIRST. ROUND. An alien ran up and exploded a car, killing a trooper. "Okay," say I, I'll be re-starting the mission the-" *sees 'if you restart the mission, you lose 5000 points'-* "Hahahahaha, [expletive] off, guys, I'm not playing that at all, then." And quit right out and started my regular campaign.)
(You'll recall I even found an extra save mod for Stardew Valley.)
As I always say, if I want to play something where there are no takebacks, I'll be playing a tabletop wargame or a roleplaying game. Computer games, devs? Don't qualify. You want to lock out save-scamming from achievements or whatever? That's fine, I have no problems with Paradox locking them behind ironman so that I won't ever get any. But not DO start trying to put in measures to tell me how to have fun. Once I've given you my money, it's MY toy, not yours; and as long as I'm playing with MY toy on my own, non-competively, you don't get to tell me how to play with it, anymore than Hasbro get to tell me I'm playing Transformers wrong if I decided to have them do nothing but have tea-parties, or insitigate a massive bloody pony civil war with ponies or something. (I wouldn't do either (well, the latter would not be unlikely in the earlier years...), but I retain the right to do so if I choose.)
I have little enough control over reality as it is you can DAWN WELL BET[1] I'm not going to let a game dictate to me over something I'm doing for fun.
So, yes, I do feel kinda strongly about it.
[1]That was a type, but now that seems like such a thing an angry Celestia or Luna would say, I'm totally leaving it there.
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Or, y'know, real life. This is one of those bits where realism makes for worse gameplay.