Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH Part Fourteen

Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Fourteen:

Off they set to Mendham.

To come to a complete grinding halt. Scarlet had Accidentally the Engines, with a laser pointer. Farah was grimly amused, Darius (as usual) was just No-Fun-Stick-Up-Arse man about it, Pseekie was in a fit of hysterical laughter and Scarlet was quite distraught.

Lynessa was sure there was something more going on here. Scarlet had been very clumsy since they'd arrived, and now it seemed like there was more to it than just uneasiness. Time for some dedicated one-on-one training.

In the following couple of weeks, it became obvious that Scarlet's issue was her demonic nature was seeing out, since she'd been repressing it so hard. So Lynessa coached her, and spent some funds to make a safe little place where no-one could see her for their sessions. Lynessa coaxed her to drop form into her natural demon form and do some magic, to provide an outlet, so it didn't randomly manifest as Bad Crap Happening.

Honestly, Lynessa didn't say anything, but she really couldn't see what Scarlet was worried about. Scarlet's natural demon form was a bit taller, blood-red and had tiny little horns and a tail, but otherwise really wasn't horrifying or anything. Lynessa figured this HAD to be some sort of deeply-rooted childhood trauma (Scarlet was demon by natural birth genetics, not a soul with it forced upon them like Illyphase or Alluria). While she wasn't going to get to the bottom of that here and now, she did at least start (and encouraged Scarlet to maybe show her friends - or when they got back, perhaps Illy or Alluria), and soon Scarlet was much more relaxed and comfortable and more like her dependable self.

They arrived at Mendham.

(SERIOUSLY, what the HELL is with the contract weightings? Why the FRACK is apparently such that it means more missions for the Taurians keep being generated in a FedSun system than for the Fed Suns?! I'm sure I didn't get this in Taurian space!

It took 15 tries before it gave me a) more Davion missions than pirate/Taurian missions and b) more than one Davion mission I could do. It CAN'T be based on reputation alone, since in several instances, it generated almost all pirate missions (and they dislike me most at the moment) and no Davion missions at all. In the first 14 tries, it generated a set of contracts that had more Davion than anyone else twice, and all but one were above my level on the first instance and none of the second.

And the fifteenth one was only two 3-skull Davion missions (THREE Kurita missions, ALL against Davion, mind). (Saved that for desperation.)

Seventeenth was five Davion missions, all locked out, and one Kurita at 3 skulls. That was the last time I saw majority Davion missions (and only the second instance of it).

I did not do any better than that 15th try in FIFTY. TRIES.

I quit out of the game.

Either there was something MASSIVELY wrong-headed in my understanding, or it wasn't worth playing if the RNG was going to be like that today.

Several hours later, after doing basically nothing whatsoever, I made myself pick it back up, because I had done nothing for about three-four hours except meander about on forums. Heat probably didn't help, but... Yeah.

This is why I don't like excessive RNG, incidentally, it can ruin your day and when you're already on your bottom rung from non-game events, it's worse.)

So. Two Davion 3-skull missions. Two missions for the Capellan Confederation and three for the Draconis Combine.

Both Davion missions were battles. The store had nothing of interest apart from a couple of 0-ton arms mods, which Lynessa bought.

First battle, then: Polar, Lynessa in the Decapitator, Mylassta in the Fair Marauder, Alarhan in the Hunchback and Summer in the Catapult Hammer.

The enemy lance was a Vulcan, two 70-tons Warhammers and a Marauder.

(Naturally, the RNG refused to be even remotely sensible. It took the lance two salvos to destroy the Vulcan, they managed to headcap the first Warhammer, and then missed with the next two sets of precision shots. No, sorry, I'm done with this crap already.

Yeah, 18 misses (three full six-laser salves from Lynessa at 18% hit) in a row before it finally got as head hit in and KO'd the Warhammer - having only landed one head hit from a salvo of eight lasers at 18% prior.

Hit the Marauder once in the head. And then it... Got up and literally ran away.

Legit, turned around and ran off. What?

It came back and Alarhan finally blew its head off.

Lynessa picked up three parts of the Warhammer, and in an unusual surge of competence, the random assignment gave them the last one.

The Warhammer came with optimise capacitors, which added +20% energy weapon damage. This made it a very obvious PPC platform (50=>70 damage would become a head-capper), but there was still not much point doing anything with it yet.

Alarhan increased her guts to 8, to get an extra overheat bonus; Summer her gunnery to 8, Mylassta maxed her guts (seeing as how she was forever getting shot in the head...) and Lynessa increased her piloting to 8.

Next battle, in the desert, this time against the Draconis Combine, rather than the pirates. Alarhan swapped the Hunchback for the Stalker Barrage.

The lance first ran into a Crab. Lynessa ignored it and instead locked onto the 80-ton vehicle at the edge of her sensor range - a Demolisher with LB-X AC/10s. Guess who was getting all the missile fire?

That was more like it. Spotter eliminated. The Demolisher fell shortly after - but there was a second lance coming in, too.

Lynessa locked on the next vehicle - and LRM carrier. Alarhan deftly took it out. (Wow, for once the LRMs are being really useful.)

Mylassta moved to the west and took out the second lance's spotter, a Locust 1M. The enemy sensor locked her, though. Lynessa locked on the last of the north lance - a Vulcan. A salvo a piece from the missile-mechs and it died.

The enemy's centurion was next, coming onto the ridge. It took, couldn't handle the missiles, though it lasted two salvoes each. Then the enemy's Zeus wandered into view to take a shot at Lynessa.

It took three called shots to the head before finally Mylassta took it out.

They waited around for a while, and then eventually went forward to find the last enemy mech - a Jagermech, and Lynessa had expected from what was coming it. After four attempted headshots (admittedly two not-rally-trying-because-LRMS from Summer and Alarhan, Mylassta finally headcapped it).

Salvage was actually difficulty. Three parts of the Zeus? The +++LRM 20? Parts of the other mechs to complete them...?

Also, true to form today, Lynessa had apparently neglected to change the contract details, so they were middle of the road. Ah well, they were low on cash.

Well, that settled it. Piece of Centurion, to finish it (but it was a standard Centurion CN9-A, so nothing to be sold), and the LRM 20.

Of course, no other mech parts...

Lynessa decided she'd had MORE than enough of this place, and they set course for Kern, a 3-skull world in the Capellan Confederation. (Their route back to Independence would likely take them through the Arano Restoration, who seemed to have a lot of world which didn't have any other factions involved, which was maybe a break...?)

Three arm mods went onto the Decapitator, increasing its melee capabilities.

After some thought, Lynessa had the Archer and Warhammer chassis put into storage. There wasn't much point at the moment, as they didn't have much it was worth loading them with, and they tended to only do refit between systems anyway - and it would keep the running costs down - plus they were taking up the last two Mech Bay 2 slots (The CN9-A had had to go straight to storage).

Payday:

They arrived at Kern.

(...

Of course. ONE mission for Davion, THREE for the Taurians (only one which could be done) and THREE for the Capellans (all of them above the level they could be attempted).

Note that this was a half-skull lower than the last world.

Hah. Fricking ha.

You know what? Back to the payday checkpoint, because FRACK. YOU. game.

That was slightly better - two missions for Davion (both against the Taurians) and one for the Taurians against the Capellans. And one for the Taurians against Davion, but frack that.

Lynessa's fortunes were slightly improved when she looked for more recruits and found no less than three!

First, Natasha Spellshadow Dawnbright. A pure elf, Natasha was not a Paladin of Azurella (she was a year and a bit too young), but definitely a potential recruit. Her name was an exotic choice by her parents; it actually meant something entirely different in the dialect of angelic-speech they'd chosen to what it did in English, it was just one of those weird linguistic coincidences). Natasha was one of those outgoing sort of girls, but she was much more wizard-ish bend and so was very intelligent with it. She typically liked using her middle name as her callsign. Natasha also could be a little... Aggressive when it came to spells and loved to blow things up with her magic. (She was quite put-out her usual twin pig-tails had to be bunched into a single ponytail.) While here, Natasha had been tinkering with the technology, especially the ComStar HPGs. A little accident with her magic while doing so had rather collapsed some probability waveforms around her and spawned a bit of chaos magic, which she was currently stuck with.

Second was her friend, Velina Mistmoon. Another elf, Velina was the quieter one of the duo, though by no means reserved. She was often seen with flowers in her hair, and from this took her call-sign. Velina had also tinkered with the technology, and had got quite a dab hand at it, especially in mech maintenance.

Finally, they were under the watchful eye of Zuranna Ruby. Zuranna was something of a rarity in the UCDR - a dwarf, albeit a strikingly tall one. Not a caster, but a soldier and melee specialist. Zuranna superficially seemed like the typical rough-and-ready, little crass and direct grunt, but she was actually a well-educated student of history and quite an intellectual if you caught her in the right mood. While here, she had basically managed the other two as a mini-mercenary band (albeit more on foot than in mech) and had picked up a few piloting tricks, especially with regard to pirate jump points, which had got her into a bit of law trouble.

That brought the roster up to three lance's worth, including Lynessta.

So, onto the mission!

Martian 3-skull terrorist assassination first... With a large 7/31 max salvage... Hmm...

Well, the line-up worked last time, so...

The lance snuck west, closing on the Taurians guards first - a trio of 50-tonners and a 45-tonner, which turned out to be a Phoenix Hawk, which got both barrels of the missile mech's indirect barrage.

in a return to form, the first 50-tonner that moved into contact (a Centurion) and immediately hit Lynessa in the head.

Mylassta was not amused.

Summer and Alarhan pounded the Phoenix Hawk to pieces and an equally thoroughly unamused Lynessa marched to the second Centurion - all three 50-tonners were 9L Centurions - and proceeded to make her displeasure equally known.

The third centurion avoided head-shot death from the pair of them only to be knocked flat by missiles - and then shot in the head anyway.

The lance took a moment to shed some heat. The Decapitator in particular was struggling. But their target approached them anyway, so after a bit of running, they were relatively cool. The enemy mech - a 60-ton Quickdraw - got close and Mylassta and Lynessa were able to head-shot it.

Lynessa wondered briefly if it had been Jarmin or some fool he'd talked into something stupid and wondered if she really should have brought him along... But never mind...

Lots of Centurion salvage, three parts Quickdraw and another +10 damage Medium laser. Nice! Enough to make a whole -AL Centurion (sold!) and 75% of the next one!

That will do for today, I think.