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Author Topic: The Opinionated Bastards: a BattleTech/MekHQ Mercenary Campaign (Dec. 30, 3053)  (Read 82024 times)

Hasek10

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I don't know, the main source of income from my games is salvaging and selling enemy vehicles in droves, it far outweighs whatever the contract pays.

That said, guerilla campaigns are brutal because of the complete lack of supply. If the consensus is to go for it, I suggest tripling whatever we think we need in way of supply, and make sure to bring plenty of limbs for all the mechs.

Salvage might be 70%, but it's from a poorly equipped enemy. We are unlikely to find anything really worth 1.5 million/month (and we're giving up loss compensation.) My vote goes to Propus.

I think you are highly overestimating the impact of the "poorly equipped enemy" here, and also underestimating the resale value of a mediocre unit. A Wasp really sucks, but it still sells for like 700,000 C-Bills. You only need to scrap two of them to get to your 1.5m mark.

Vedettes are a common and mediocre tank, but still sell for 250k. The 10 SRM launchers on a SRM carrier sell for a pretty penny. Ditto the AC/20 on a Hetzer.

Based off my current games, I would estimate the difference between 30% salvage and 70% salvage being worth at least 15 million C-Bills. That is way larger of a factor than 3m larger contract or 10% battle loss compensation.

Lets drum up more support for Surcin! Very similar experience on my end also. Even low tech battlemechs are worth refit and repair, and if we luck out, it might be an effective avenue for getting our dispossessed pilots in to a ride of their own.

The only tedious part here would be on Fishbreath's end, purchasing all the extra gear through the parts interface is a bit time-consuming.

orbital satallite networks aren't a thing in battletech, so long as patrols don't sight you, its quite possible to manage it, funny enough :P

Based on the actual Mechwarrior games and other canon sources, I always presumed your employer's aerospace assets generally worked to disable orbital satellite networks as a standard preliminary step for any extended ground-based campaign. See the Mechcommander and Mechwarrior 3 intro/cutscenes for examples.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2017, 12:36:19 pm by Hasek10 »
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Fishbreath

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In the absence of other changed votes, I'm going to go ahead and play out the trip to Propus over my coffee this morning. More salvage next contract, perhaps.

Fishbreath

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Introduction/Last Month's Action Items

Well, the votes are in, and voters prefer the contract on Propus. The techs mothball the mechs, and we're off.

Changing Contract Details?

For some reason, the contract details changed between the first post and this one. Not sure what's up there, but the upshot is that all the contracts are now worth slightly less. (It may have had to do with some of my experimentation.) It's still a pretty good deal, though; 12 million in advance money is plenty.

In Transit


I'm sure it's a pain to coordinate parts delivery while traveling, but our brave administrators somehow manage.

The parts bill is pretty wild. We now have spare arms and legs for all our mechs, as well as spare leg, arm, hand, and foot actuators. Since we're fairly energy-heavy, we have ten spare medium lasers, two spare PPCs, and three spare large lasers. The parts stock includes more than 100 tons of armor, 15 heat sinks, and in general, at least one spare for nearly every part in use by the company. Notable absences: heads and center torsos (if we need those, we have bigger trouble) and engines. We have one spare gyroscope for medium mechs and one spare gyroscope for heavies, but none for light mechs or assaults.

Why mention the last one? Because...

Mech acquisition!

The Federated Commonwealth has the best toys, and since we're working for them, that means we have the best toys. Available in the FedCom mercenary market is an Awesome AWS-8Q, a superb example of the assault mech class and a brand-new cornerstone for our heavy lance.



Kill Board

All-Time Leaders

  • Captain "Drake" Halit (3, 1 mech)
  • Lieutenant "Rook" Ishikawa (3)
  • Lieutenant "Linebuster" Atkinson (3)
  • Private Frajtov (1, 1 mech)
  • Private "Ker-Ker" Ec (1)
Status

It is now September 26, 3050.

Promotions

Congratulations to Sgt. Jose Milspec Ortega, who received a promotion to Sergeant, owing to his new role as lance commander. (See below for more.)

Finances

We have 3.574 million C-bills in the bank right now. Our current operating costs are 141,810 C-bills per month. After shares and monthly expenses, we make 4.255 million C-bills per month. Our expected balance at the end of this contract, prior to travel back home, is 24.850 million C-bills.

Supplies

The Opinionated Bastards now possess, for the first time, a full company of mechs, as well as a large stock of supplies and spare parts. I expect we'll be fine for the duration of this present contract. We can re-evaluate supplies when it's over.

Current Organization

Because we now have a full twelve mechs, I went ahead and rearranged the company. I tried to stick with something in the spirit of Hasek10's organization, aiming to make lances as close to the weight category limits as possible.


An overview


We start off with the Heavy Lance, at 270 tons. Drake moves up to the Awesome. His legendary skill at gunnery should make him a fearsome combatant. Rook steps up into Captain Halit's old mech, the Flashman; Double Dog gets the Thunderbolt. Rounding out the Heavy Lance is Woad, back in the trusty Trebuchet TBT-5N. His primary role will be to act as a screen and bodyguard for the Awesome.


Next up is the Medium Lance, something of a misnomer now. Linebuster Atkinson and Ker-Ker Ec, along with the two Lancelots, take up the first two slots. Clanner Ed Yuksel and his fancy Locust IIC, and Tedros Jamil and his custom Vulcan fill out the lance. The Lancelots are the primary firepower here, both in terms of weight of weapon and of pilot skill.


Lastly, the Light Lance, even more of a misnomer. Newly-minted Sergeant Milspec Ortega leads the lance from the Phoenix Hawk, joined by Private Ngo in the Crab, Severe Payne in the Locust, and lastly, Euchre Kojic in the LRM-equipped TBT-5S.

The only mechwarrior without a mech to drive is Private Frajtov, who was evicted from the TBT-5S in favor of Euchre.

Contract Progress


Updated contract details

We've just started the contract; it lasts until February 25, 3051. At present, the Medium Lance is deployed on Scout duty to fill the terms of the contract. The other two lances are awaiting your direction.

Action Items

  • The TO&E is open for comment; if you think things ought to be rearranged, say so.
    • On that note, should we rename the lances First, Second, and Third or something? Heavy, Medium, and Light are only going to get more misleading.
  • Should we deploy more lances? A different lance? Lances on other duty assignments?
  • In the longer term, what should we aim to do? Should we look to expand our mercenary command first, adding a second company of mechs? Should we save for a DropShip of our own?
  • The following mechwarriors remain to be claimed. To claim a mechwarrior, give me a callsign for one of them. I'll refer to them by their callsign in most places, and bold it so it's easier to find them.
    • Pvt. Yuksel
    • Pvt. Jamil
    • Pvt. Ngo
    • Pvt. Frajtov
  • For the record, the following mechwarriors are claimed.
    • Captain Huri "Drake" Halit (Mephansteras)
    • Lt. SG George "Linebuster" Atkinson (Hasek10)
    • Lt. SG Mariamu "Rook" Ishikawa (Culise)
    • Lt. JG Sung-min "Double Dog" Dare (a1s)
    • Sgt. Jose "Milspec" Ortega (milspec)
    • Pvt. Ferdinand "Woad" Kohler (A Thing)
    • Pvt. Jan "Euchre" Kojic (EuchreJack)
    • Pvt. Cathrine "Severe" Payne (Burnt Pies)
    • Pvt. E-Shei "Ker-Ker" Ec (Kanil)

Mephansteras

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Training up some of our rookie pilots is probably wise.
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EuchreJack

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Training up some of our rookie pilots is probably wise.
Agreed.  To do that, our rookie pilots need to be lead by a Lance Commander of skill Veteran or better.  Currently, our "Light" lance can not train, as the Lance Commander is only a Regular pilot.

Maybe swap Sergeant Milspec Ortega - Phoenix Hawk for Linebuster Atkinson and the Lancelot so our lance can train, and Woad in the Trebuchet TBT-5N for Private Ngo in the Crab so the "Heavy" Lance has more skill and Woad can train.

I would suggest renaming to "Command Lance", "Battle Lance", and "Cadre Lance" to reflect the roles.
...But it might be more fun to got with Dwarf, Elf, and Gobbo

Kanil

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Seems our opponents are going to have a lot of PPC-sized holes in their armor going forward...
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Yah, it sounds like minecraft with content, you have obviously missed the point, people dont like content, they like different coloured blocks.
Seems to work fine with my copy. As soon as I loaded the human caravan came by and the world burst into fire.

a1s

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Seems our opponents are going to have a lot of PPC-sized holes
So, I was looking through pilot's stats (trying to figure out if I was veteran enough to take over training the rookies ;D) when I noticed Linebuster was a specialist in Gunnery/Ballistic, but had a 'mech loaded with what (to my eye) looks like energy weapon systems.
So what counts as "ballistic" in this game?

P.S. If Hasek10 is to be believed, 185 tons is the literal worst tonnage a (now heavy) lance can have.
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I tried to play chess but two of my opponents were playing competitive checkers as a third person walked in with Game of Thrones in hand confused cause they thought this was the book club.

Fishbreath

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Machine guns and autocannons primarily, of which we have none after the Rifleman went down.

185 tons is still a medium lance. I don't know exactly what the cutoffs are.

a1s

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185 tons is still a medium lance. I don't know exactly what the cutoffs are.
Right, sorry. What Hasek actually said was 200 (I guess I confused it with 280?):
0-130 tons     - Light Lance
 131-200 tons - Medium Lance
 201-280 tons - Heavy Lance
 281-380+ tons - Assault Lance
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I tried to play chess but two of my opponents were playing competitive checkers as a third person walked in with Game of Thrones in hand confused cause they thought this was the book club.

a1s

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So, anyway, Linebuster (Hasek10) might look into swapping those lasers for AC/5s (and maybe a Gauss Rifle?) while ripping out some of the heat-sinks to make room. For next contract obviously (As far as I understood, it's a bad idea to try to do major mods in a combat zone/away from trade hubs.)
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I tried to play chess but two of my opponents were playing competitive checkers as a third person walked in with Game of Thrones in hand confused cause they thought this was the book club.

Kanil

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swapping those lasers for AC/5s (and maybe a Gauss Rifle?)
AC/5s are quite possibly the worst weapon in the game. Gauss rifles exist in 3050, but are pretty rare (in theory.)

Instead of ruining a reasonably well put together laser boat (armor allotment aside,) it'd probably be better to just get him a new 'mech.

Or just ignore the specialization for now, since ballistic mostly just sucks, until ultras, LBX, and gauss comes out. We should find something suitable in time.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2017, 05:14:44 pm by Kanil »
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Yah, it sounds like minecraft with content, you have obviously missed the point, people dont like content, they like different coloured blocks.
Seems to work fine with my copy. As soon as I loaded the human caravan came by and the world burst into fire.

EuchreJack

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swapping those lasers for AC/5s (and maybe a Gauss Rifle?)
AC/5s are quite possibly the worst weapon in the game. Gauss rifles exist in 3050, but are pretty rare (in theory.)

Instead of ruining a reasonably well put together laser boat (armor allotment aside,) it'd probably be better to just get him a new 'mech.

Or just ignore the specialization for now, since ballistic mostly just sucks, until ultras, LBX, and gauss comes out. We should find something suitable in time.

Obviously, we need to buy a Hunchback Urbanmech, dump Linebuster (Hasek10) into that, and give me the Lancelot.

Kanil

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Obviously, we need to buy a Hunchback Urbanmech, dump Linebuster (Hasek10) into that, and give me the Lancelot.

A LCT-1V Locust has not one, but two machine guns on it. What more could a ballistic specialist ask for?
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Yah, it sounds like minecraft with content, you have obviously missed the point, people dont like content, they like different coloured blocks.
Seems to work fine with my copy. As soon as I loaded the human caravan came by and the world burst into fire.

Mephansteras

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Clearly we need one of those crazy Solaris mechs with like, 10 machine guns on it.
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Hanzoku

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Or that clan second-line mech, the Piranha with 12 machineguns. :P

But yeah, I agree that it's better to look for something purpose built. I'd say the only time to really build around one specific weapon is when you get a good weapon specialization, like medium lasers. +2 to hit with one of the most ubiquitous weapons in the game? Yes please!
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