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3030s - 4th Succesion Wars, basic technology only, Star League 'Mechs are rare, Clans aren't a thing yet

1 (12.5%)

3040s - Renaissance era, basic technology, but advanced designs begin appearing. The dawn of the Clans

4 (50%)

3050s - Clan Invasion, Clan tech is rare but possible, while advanced IS design and tech starts appearing

3 (37.5%)

3060s - FedCom Civil War, widespread advanced tech in the Inner Sphere, Clan tech is slightly less rare

0 (0%)

3070s - Jihad era, Clan tech is uncommon, while everyone in the IS is running advanced technology.

0 (0%)

3140 - Dark Ages. Tech is... weird. You might have militarized agro-Mechs charging cutting edge Clan designs sold to IS troops.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 8

[Rince Wind]

Thanks.
Pain resistance is nothing I would spend XP on but it is ok.

Shouldn't all weather be usefull for melee in bad weather conditions as well?


I kind of like crews and MechWarriors fleeing on their own and most of the time the AI ignores them.

[Hanzoku]

Well, now that Matt is Elite, he can start saving up to buy special abilities. Are there any in particular you'd want him to focus on first?

That's true, it should make melee attacks better in bad weather, and have less chance of falling down if a kick is missed.

I generally had two things against pilots appearing on the map, first I'd have to move the infantry unit, which consists of moving one hex towards an exit each turn, which is sort of boring. Second, when I first started playing MegaMek and for a long time, the AI had a rabid hardon for slaughtering pilots. You'd see the entire enemy force run over to cluster around and on top of the pilot to all shoot him at the same time.

I never really took advantage of it, but I imagine there would have been a tactical application to a green pilot in a Locust punching out at the right moment to distract the AI.

[Rince Wind]

A bit like The Most Interesting Bomb In The World (or whatever the name was) in MDK. It was a timed explosive that lured enemies towards it.
I sometimes like to use them as initiative sinks.


I have Hopping Jack, right? Then either Jumping Jack or the melee SPAs. In my experience Mechs like the GLT are in melee a lot.

[NickAragua]

Yeah, I remember the bot used to do some really dumb things like a) dogpile on mechwarriors and b) cluster around disabled vehicles without firing on them. There was also a pretty subtle bug which probably resulted in a lot of dumb behavior, although that's hard to quantify - one of the things the bot does is it gives each unit a "potential movement range" hex, which it uses to determine roughly where a given unit can go. There was an arithmetic error that caused the left half of that hex to get chopped off, so basically, if you were to the right of a bot's units it would underestimate your movement range and do dumb things.

I got rid of most of the low-hanging fruit for really dumb bot behavior a while back, there's one remaining behavior which annoys me to no end - if a bot unit has a "destination edge" or is attempting to move to engage hostile units and is out of range, it may get stuck in a cul-de-sac and then spend the rest of the battle humping a wall. You can get them un-stuck by destroying the obstacle or moving a unit so that they have incentive to come out of said cul-de-sac, but I'd really rather have the bot solve that problem on its own. Of course, the solution requires quite a bit of work, so it's not exactly a low-hanging fruit.

With respect to mechwarriors, as far as the fiction goes (especially during the FedCom civil war), there was a lot of targeting of mechwarriors, so it's not entirely unprecedented. But still pretty inefficient to waste a whole turn emptying out an alpha strike into a single dude. Game-wise, one of the reasons I have mechwarriors on is so that, when my deployed forces start getting beat up, there's at least an extra initiative sink on the board to make up for the combat loss a little.

All Weather is ok, but I wouldn't pay XP for it. I guess Ragu's massacre of a couple of infantry squads (pretty sure the Packrat only carries the two squads) was pretty impressive, huh?

[Hanzoku]

Operation Bronze Eyes – Retrospective

The unit arrived at Outreach in the beginning of December and worked on making good their losses among the infantry command the retiring tank crew members.

While the unit enjoyed some well-deserved R&R, the techs and Susanna worked on a special project. The Pillager was a well-designed BattleMech, but the designers had been overly cautious with its construction. It boasted too much gauss rifle ammunition for most battles, and it was cooled to the extent that it could jump and fire its entire weapons array, while suffering engine shield damage and never feel a flicker of heat.

By removing two tons of Gauss Rifle ammunition storage from the legs and an extra double heat sink, they freed up three tons of weight, allowing the cockpit to be replaced with an extended command console equipped version. This would allow Albus to go into battle with the unit and put his tactical genius to direct battlefield use, coordinating the unit while Susanna commanded her lance and dealt with anything that wandered into the range of her Gauss Rifles.  The larger cockpit did necessitate moving the head-mounted medium laser to the laser cluster in the left arm.

The reason for this is to both to play with the command console, and to help Albus gain XP. I had thought that having the commander as an administrator would lead to plenty of XP for gaining leadership skills, but the last few development builds have all had a bug where the maximum number of acquisitions per day setting has been broken, so the elite administrator finds everything and Albus rarely ever gets a chance to gain XP that way. Sitting back while Susanna kills everything should allow Albus to earn that sweet, sweet XP.


The Iron Vanguard
Captain Susanna Nova reported that the ‘Mech company retained full strength and had two backup ‘Mechs in mothballs for the Knights and the Lancers. A mobile heavy ‘Mech should be found as a replacement for the Kings.  All ‘Mech pilots were now assigned to their permanent homes.

The unit’s average skill level is Regular, edging towards Veteran. In the previous campaign, Matt Fischer became Elite, and Svetlana Ragozina became Veteran. Susanna anticipated that Billy Kaine would become Elite shortly, and that Linda Vo and Jack Euchre were close to Veteran status.

She was keeping an eye on two MechWarrior candidates. Sergeant Jamilyn MacNidder of the Behemoth tank of Hovi’s Hailstorm had shown natural gunnery aptitude after her combat experience in the previous campaign, and the newly recruited Corporal Jon Holland of the Special Forces also possessed Green Mech Gunnery skills and natural gunnery aptitude, but no piloting experience.

Their tech support is adequate, with two veteran ‘Mech techs, five regular and one green. They can maintain two custom designs, with one slot currently open.

The Iron Shield
Captain Seija Hovi reports that Hovi’s Hailstorm is at 99% of full strength. The Jump Infantry are missing only two more trained soldiers to be fully operational.  This despite the heavy losses the two platoons of infantry took in the previous battle were good news.

The unit’s average skill level is Regular, trending towards Veteran. There are some training opportunities for the Schreck and one member of the Jump Infantry.

Their tech support is excellent, with two veteran mechanics and six regular mechanics.

The Iron Wings
Commander Ichiro Kobayashi reported that the Iron Wings are at 100% of their full strength. The 3-member flights had performed brilliantly in the previous campaign, and the unit would continue using that formation.

The unit’s average skill level is Regular, and it would be some time before anyone graduated to Elite or Veteran status.

Their technical support is excellent, with two veteran aero techs, two regular and a green.

The Iron Shadows
Newly minted Captain Alex Yi reported that the Iron Shadows are currently at 75% of full strength. While the two infantry platoons of the Special Forces are at full strength, they’ve not been able to secure any further artillery. They have been busy finding gunners in anticipation of more artillery, but without hardware, they weren’t doing much.

Administration
Major Albus Kincaide reported that the administration of the unit was complete, with an average skill level of Veteran.

Financial
The unit has no debts, and 73.3M C-Bills in the bank.

Expansion
Beyond filling out the artillery batteries, there are no plans to expand the unit beyond its current configuration.

Future Plans
The following plans were put in place:

1.   Seek more qualified ‘Mech techs
2.   Seek out more mobile artillery to complete the artillery battery.
3.   Find an additional backup ‘Mech for Kaine’s Kings
4.   Keep an eye on the MechWarrior candidates and induct them into training when possible.
5.   Continue to gather funds to purchase a transport for most of the unit’s assets.

Albus also announced that they had two offers extended to them by the Federated Commonwealth. Functionally identical, one asked them to aid an assault on the planet Kasdach in the Capellan Confederation, the other an assault on the planet Ramsau in the Free Rasalhague Republic. The Confederation PDF was green rated, while Ramsau was defended by the veteran rated 1st Ramsau Irregulars.

After some debate, they took the contract against the Capellans. Their task was to support the Green-ranked 1st Chisholm Raiders, who were attempting to work up some desperately needed combat experience.



En route to Kasdach, a news article catches Albus’ eye.



En route, the unit managed to convince two of the Chisholm Raiders’ techs to retire from active military service and join the unit, earning them an elite-ranked ‘Mech tech and a Veteran-ranked AeroSpace tech.

Two days out from the planet, they caught up on another piece of news.



On the 17th of May, the Iron Brotherhood reached Kasdach and began operations.




The game will be on hiatus through the holidays, and will start again in January.

[Rince Wind]

I haven't seen the news for several versions, which option is that?

[NickAragua]

The news is always around, it's just that it's pretty sparse until you get to the clan invasion/civil war era.

[Knave]

Was also surprised about the news. It's a nice touch, but I guess I miss it because I often play well before the Clan Invasion.

Lots of money in the bank and more to come from this mission I'd gather. Reckon we're not too far off from starting our first dropship search?

Hanzoku - you've run a great Let's Play - Super detailed and fun.

Happy holidays to the Iron Brotherhood!

[Hanzoku]

It's also really easy to miss if you're just clicking 'next day' through the transport sequence to the next planet. As Nick says, we'll start seeing more news pop up, especially as the Clan Invasion starts getting into gear.

We're about 20% of the way to a DropShip, but those things are really expensive to purchase.

[Rince Wind]

I played through all of the Jihad without a single popup. 

[Mini]

News appears in the sidebar along with everything else that happens outside of battles and only pops up if you press a button for that specific news report, so (combined with how sparse they are) it's very easy to miss them.

[Rince Wind]

The thing is that I used to get them. I don't usually advance more than one day and I know what they look like from before.

[Mini]

Check MekHQ/data/universe/news.xml and make sure it's both there and hasn't otherwise been broken by something (mine is 102KB, for reference) I guess.

[Hanzoku]

Operation Eclipse – Week 1

The initial landing went smoothly, and the Iron Brotherhood had a few days to get set up and plan their next moves. An early target was identified – a militia company operating in the area. Albus devised a simple operation to remove the threat before they could discover the location of the Brotherhood’s base on planet.

Using the Knights, Kings and Lancers to close in on the militia from three directions, he herded them into the waiting guns of Hovi’s Hailstorm.  The operation succeeded, though once Lance managed to slip out of the encircling net, but the other two were trapped.

As the net closed in on them, the remaining two lances frantically tried to fight their way past the entrenched Hailstorm, with the Kings closing in rapidly from behind, supported from the air by the Crows.

Once they realized the threat their companions were facing, the remaining PDF lance raced to rescue their companions.

Spoiler: Breakthrough (Defender) (click to show/hide)

The Liao forces try to group up and slip past the Hailstorm on their west flank, but the assault tanks are moving to put a stop to that, supported by the Jump Infantry.



The first Liao ‘Mechs break from cover, straight into the waiting guns of the Hailstorm.



The VTOL and Saracen start slipping past but are engaged by the Manticore and the field guns. Meanwhile, the Jump Infantry attempt to kneecap the Grasshopper.



The Manticore’s SRMs tear apart the Saracen, but the PDF forces are starting to slip the net.



The Devastator savages the Warhammer together with the FedCom Griffin, and it loses both arms, hampering its ability to regain its feet. The Stalker is still standing but has lost most of its armor.

Meanwhile, the Field Guns down the VTOL, and the Manticore is pounding the Grasshopper trying to run.



The Warhammer pilot punches out after the Devastator rips its leg off, and the Stalker makes a clumsy run to the south, though its chances of making it are about zero with the Behemoth still pounding it.

The PDF reinforcements arrive, and the air units are angling to hit the field guns, which begin anti-air fire.



The Behemoth is destroyed but does critical damage to the Stalker in return. In the end, it is the Jump Infantry that take the kill, their massed fire through the rents in the Stalker’s side armor touching off its SRM stores.

The Brotherhood’s reinforcements arrive, and while Knave deals with the Hetzer, the others move south to engage the reinforcements.



Tengu’s run takes off the Grasshopper’s leg, and the pilot ejects. The last surviving ‘Mech is running hard for the south, screened by the company’s light lance.



The Liao light lance valiantly tries to extract anything from the ambush, and the Brotherhood tries to close the trap fully and wipe out the last survivors.



The Ostroc is close to escaping, but will the Liao be trading a light lance for a single heavy ‘Mech?



No, they wouldn’t be saving anything this day, even themselves. The bombs of the Shilones destroyed the Locust and Ostroc, the Guillotine destroyed the Stinger and the Manticore destroyed the last hovertank.

AAR:
The Iron Brotherhood struck hard in their first engagement, wiping out the militia company entirely for the loss of the Behemoth, and heavy damage to the Manticore and Devastator.

They lost two KIA, three seriously wounded and two lightly wounded in the fighting and salvaged the Grasshopper as the reserve ‘Mech for Kaine’s Kings.

The PDF suffered 7 KIA and 2 captured.

Captain Seija Hovi of the Devastator claimed the Warhammer as a kill.
Commander Ichiro Kobayashi claimed the Grasshopper and Vedette as kills.
Lieutenant JG Basuki Burtick of the Manticore claimed the Saracen and Scimitar hover tanks as kills.
Liutenant JG Mikko Kimmonen claimed the Peregrine Attack VTOL and a Crane Medium Strike Fighter as kills.
Lieutenant JG Aldona Barycz of the Jump Infantry claimed the STK-4P Stalker as a kill.
Master Sergeant Matt Fischer claimed the Stinger.
Corporal Baira claimed the Boeing Jump Bomber and the other Crane.
Petty Officer Howard Serrano claimed the Ostroc.
Petty Officer Melissa Lyle claimed the Locust.


Operation Eclipse – Week 2

Repairs were complete by Monday of the next week. The unit also arranged an exchange with the Raiders, letting Corporal Gani Leminoke join the FedCom unit with his Dervish, and gaining the Veteran-skilled Nourreddine O’Mullery with his identical Dervish in exchange.

Privately, Major Kincaide warned the Colonel of the Raiders about Gani’s likely origins, but his concerns were dismissed.

Thursday was the first of June, and PDF morale remained Normal.

The unit purchased a Partisan Heavy Tank as a partial replacement for the scrapped Behemoth, and then Ichiro noticed an unknown listing for an auction for an Ironsides. A IRN-SD1b Ironsides to be exact, the uncommon Royal version of the design. With the funds on hand to purchase it, it was no surprise that the Iron Brotherhood picked up a second Royal AeroSpace fighter. Petty Officer Howard Serrano was assigned as its pilot, and the unit's Shilone was sold off to cover a portion of the Ironsides' cost.

[NickAragua]

Heh, partial replacement is right, they don't really fill the same role at all.