Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

[Cylus Maxii]

Do it right if we can afford it. Its a critical need.

[Zenn7]

What's the warranty on a new one?

Just a guess, but only about as long as it takes for them to get our money.

But yeah, we have the money, buy a new one. Here we lucked out, the parts are readily available locally. Next time, we might be in a hot situation with no time to waste on repairs and/or off in the Outer Rim or something where we'll pay 40 million c-bills, plus 40 million delivery fee plus hoping it actually makes it to us.

[Stefan Stirzaker]

40mill option. Might break down in a less nice area next time

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Unanimous for "do it right".

"Ok, let's get the full replacement part." our commander tells the jumpship captain. "I'll have the Moonraker tow it out."

It takes a couple of weeks, but we manage to close a deal for a replacement K-F initiator. The part itself winds up costing only 25M C-Bills, but the attendant tools and spare parts plus drydock space rental over at the recharge station bring it up another 8M anyway. Still, 7M under isn't too bad.

November 10, 3041
Asuncion
En route to nadir jump point

"Gamma-Strike leader to Moonraker, you guys seeing this?"

"Sure are. Looks like we've got company." the Moonraker's captain replies. "We'll continue deceleration burn. Stay in formation. That goes for you too, Strike four." he says, referring to the attached Marik escort fighter that's hitched a ride in one of the Moonraker's fighter bays.

It looks like we'll be getting a chance to give that replacement Lightning a try.

The "company" is a total of seven aerospace fighters, five heavies, with a pair of lights. A pair of Lucifers, our favorite, a pair of Eagles (basically Lucifers, but less armored) and a Stuka. Our buddy is driving a Stingray F-90, which features a PPC. Nice.

They were running pretty silent until we were almost right on top of them, so they got the drop on us pretty good. Unfortunately for them, they're "getting the drop" on a Union-class dropship, so it might get a little rough. We'll see.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

Our fighters stay in the dropship's "sensor shadow", giving them a little extra edge. Our Slayer is unable to get meaningful target lock with any of its front weapons, leaving it firing SRMs from its rear-mounted launcher.

The Moonraker's weapons open up at relatively short range - a salvo of LRMs impacts one of the attacking Lucifers, blowing out a small laser, while its starboard side weapons dig into the Stuka's armor. One of our Lightnings takes advantage of the Lucifer's distraction, plowing AC/20 rounds into the nose and right wing.

Our newer Lightning engages the Stuka in a head-on pass, inflicting some damage but losing a heat sink and a laser in return.

The allied Stingray reports taking avionics system damage and drifts out of formation as the aero jock tries to regain control of his aircraft. A hostile Eagle loses it as well and drops out of the fight for the time being.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

Our Slayer recovers and gets on an Eagle's tail, pounding it with LRMs and lasers, although a Lucifer flakes off large amounts of armor from the Slayer's left side in return. The Eagle starts spinning erratically.

The Moonraker continues firing at the Stuka as the 100-ton fighter is unable to maneuver out of the way, and breaks up under the sustained fire.

As the guy in the Stingray tries to regain control, he takes an engine hit, causing it to sputter out. "I'm drifting!"

"Keep your transponder on, we'll pick you up when this is over." replies Gamma-Strike's flight leader. "One way or the other.", she adds after letting go of the transmit switch. She briefly glances over to the port side, watching one of our Lightnings nearly take apart a Sparrowhawk as it fires at our Union. The light craft and its buddy lose control, and begin drifting.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

"Jeez, those Lucifers are tough." remarks one of our Lightning pilots as he rakes an AC/20 burst across the hull of one, without so much as a twitch from it. The enemy craft responds with its large lasers, blowing out one of the Lightnings' lasers.

The Moonraker takes apart one of the drifting light fighters, the Sparrowhawk getting cored out by an autocannon burst. It also unloads on a Lucifer, but the heavy simply shrugs it off. Those things really are flying bricks.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

"Shit, he's on my tail!" one of our Lightning pilots calls out as a Sabre gets behind his fighter, putting several laser blasts into the aft section and nailing the engine. The Lightning pilot manages to maintain control of his craft long enough to fly by the Moonraker's port-side batteries, which target and destroy the light fighter. The dropship's guns also target an Eagle hanging out at long range, causing it to sputter as armor flakes off and its navigation systems struggle to cope with the damage.

Our other Lightning shows one of the Lucifers what-for as the hostile craft targets our Slayer, both aerospace units losing a significant amount of armor.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

With a pair of aerospace fighters crippled and drifting, our prospects would look bleak, but the Moonraker blows away one of the Eagles *and* a Lucifer. With our remaining active Lightning pumping autocannon rounds into the second Lucifer and there being only one other active hostile, the two of them retreat.

The Lightnings will require some extensive repairs, but we should be able to grab spare parts from the wrecks floating around. We recover all five wrecked aerospace fighters, keeping the Eagle and Stuka wreckage while handing the rest to our employer. Well, once we strip said wreckage for the spare parts we need, we also sell the rest to our employer, netting a good 7M C-Bills. As it turns out, the Lightning takes over two weeks to fix - the engine and sensors needed repair, the internal structure was banged up and the landing gear wouldn't retract.

The pilot in the Lucifer that was gutted in the last part of the fight actually survived, so we're able to ask him a couple of questions regarding who they are. Well, we don't get much out of him, other than the fact that they were planning to blow up the Moonraker's escorts, cripple it, then hold it and the jumpship parts for ransom. Well, that's pretty good, but he wasn't really in on the planning part of it, so we have no idea who hired these guys. We hand him over to local law enforcement for a small bounty, they take a pretty dim view of pirates.

-------------------
Alpha and Beta companies hang out at the jump point for about a month - given the planet's distance from it, we'd spend more time burning to and from orbit than actually being planet side. We put the spare time to good use, repairing damaged and salvaged mechs, carrying out minor refits, treating injuries and selling excess equipment that we salvaged on Eom to the local government, to the tune of slightly over 35M C-Bills, bringing our warchest to a total of approximately 1.8 billion.

As the projected repair date draws to a close, the following conversation takes place.

"So, Major, I've got good news and bad news." the jumpship captain says.

"Yeah?" Gbasden responds.

"The good news is, we're going to come in a few million C-Bills under budget."

Eyebrow arches up.

"The bad news, is, well, it looks like it's going to take eight or nine months in drydock."

"What? That's a huge difference, what happened?"

"Well, we noticed that the drive coil connection was all screwed up, so that means we have to dismount the charging system, and there's an issue with segment A-6 of the sail retraction mechanism..."

The major's eyes roll up in the back of his head. "Never mind, jeez, sorry I asked." As a mechwarrior, over the years of operating, maintaining and helping repair a battlemech, one generally picks up at least the basic operating principles. And you hang out on a dropship long enough, you'll figure it out too. But a jumpship is a whole another deal, full of arcane tech that's hard to grasp even at a basic level without half a decade of theoretical study and practical experience.

We call the command staff together to discuss the issue. Our options are basically to either sit around here for the next three quarters of a year, or (and some of our longer-serving members sigh) go back to hiring jumpships until ours gets fixed. The planet below is an ok place to put down for a bit, other than the on-going hostilities, and give us a chance to finish up refits and repairs, but we'd basically be taking the year off on our own dime and missing out on contracts and survey opportunities. On the other hand, hiring jumpships means that we go back to depending on somebody else for a ride out of any given system when we're done with whatever we're doing there.

[] Take a year off. R&R. Expected expenditure of about 60M C-Bills. Might get sideswiped by ongoing planetary hostilities.
[] Go back to hiring jumpships and relying on employers. Annoying and a little more expensive (~200-400k per jump), but lets us continue to take contracts and do surveys.


On an unrelated note, the local Marik government offers us a "supplementary contract" to the tune of 55 million C-Bills, over the course of four months. It would appear that after "worker discontent" turned into "worker strikes" then "low-grade raiding and brigandage", has now turned into "full scale rebellion". The rebels have seized control of pretty much a whole continent and declared their allegiance to the Federated Commonwealth. Specifically, they've seized control of the Asuncion Industries aerospace production facilities, which they would like us to take back.

It will run concurrently with the garrison contract - they only really expect us to commit one mech lance anyway. We'll be working alongside government units, and, unlike the Earthwerks guys, they won't be taking our orders.

But, money's money. Of course, it'll stretch our capabilities a little bit, but things have been quiet around the Earthwerks facilities for a while now, given the drubbings we gave the potential attackers. The Marik intelligence indicates that the forces that have seized the aerospace production facilities are using reasonable-quality equipment and have gained quite a bit of operational experience over the last six months of fighting. They're unlikely to get any formal support from FedCom, but chances are they're already getting covert support.

Nitty gritty details:
4 month maximum expected contract duration
House command
Regular/F allied forces
Veteran/D estimated opposing forces
30% salvage
20% battle loss compensation
55M C-bills estimated profit (the garrison duty income already covers our payroll and fuel costs)

It's money. Not very easy money, but money, and we're only expected to commit one lance. Scrub talks it over with the rest of the command staff (except Delta Company, who aren't there) via "light-speed lagcomm". Aka, send a message out, wait eight hours for a response. We'll be stretching our capability quite a bit, but we've acquired enough salvage from our Eom contract and recruited enough new mechwarriors here over the last month that we can probably put together an extra lance. Granted, we'd be spending more on salary, techs and maintenance in that case, cutting into our profit quite a bit.

How do we handle the contract offer?
[] Take it. Not the easiest payday ever, but decent money.
[] Take it. Ask for an extra lance from Alpha or Beta company just in case.
[] No thanks, this garrison job is cushy enough without inviting more trouble.

[Cylus Maxii]

Take the year off and decline the additional contract offer.

[AWS260]

Hire jumpships. No point in sitting around getting older and fatter when we could be risking life and limb on a daily basis.

[Hyena]

Take the year off and decline the additional contract offer.

This.

[Isgrimnur]

What will the rebels pay us?

[NickAragua]

What will the rebels pay us?

Honestly, they'd probably suggest we work for free, considering how much of their hardware we've blown up.

[Isgrimnur]

Pass.

[Zenn7]

[] Go back to hiring jumpships and relying on employers. Annoying and a little more expensive (~200-400k per jump), but lets us continue to take contracts and do surveys.

How do we handle the contract offer?
[] Take it. Ask for an extra lance from Alpha or Beta company just in case.

Meh, if we wanted to just rest on our laurels for a year, we might as well retire and cash out this fortune we're sitting on.

And as long as we're sitting around this dustball anyway, might as well add to our cash reserves. But things rarely go well, especially for a newly minted lance. Lets send some experienced people along as back up.

[El Guapo]

[] Go back to hiring jumpships and relying on employers. Annoying and a little more expensive (~200-400k per jump), but lets us continue to take contracts and do surveys.

How do we handle the contract offer?
[] Take it. Ask for an extra lance from Alpha or Beta company just in case.

Meh, if we wanted to just rest on our laurels for a year, we might as well retire and cash out this fortune we're sitting on.

And as long as we're sitting around this dustball anyway, might as well add to our cash reserves. But things rarely go well, especially for a newly minted lance. Lets send some experienced people along as back up.

I agree with this.

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

R&R 3+1 = 4
Keep working 3+ 1 = 4

Subcontract 0 + 2 = 2
No subcontract 3 + 2 = 5

---------

After some discussion, we decide to avoid getting involved in the brewing civil war. The issue with the jumpship gets a little more thorny. A lot of our mechwarriors are feeling cooped up in the rented dropship attached to our jumpship, even with access to the jumpship's grav deck and there's some sentiment among the command staff that we should ground ourselves planet-side and hang out while the jumpship conducts repairs. Some are also concerned about the jumpship's security while it's in drydock.

Zenn7 reminds everyone that there's currently a civil war brewing planetside, so it may not be the most restful location. In the end, we decide to "keep it moving", leaving the jumpship defended by four aerospace fighters. If necessary, we'll also be able to get the Moonraker there. Our rented dropship detaches, moves to an outbound commercial jumpship, taking Alpha and Beta over to Outreach, with a couple of stops along the way for planetary surveys.

Ground-side, Gamma company spends quite a bit of time training, as there's literally nothing else to do. Nobody even so much as makes a move on the AWS figures out how to handle the Phoenix Hawk's heat curve a little better, the rookies stop driving their mechs like rookies and can actually shoot straight (at stationary targets, at short range).

So it does turn out to be pretty peaceful for a while.

------------------------

Delta finishes their survey of Nai-Stohl, and it's more or less a wash. Two places here housed installations of some kind - one in the fourth orbit and one in the fifth. Nai-Stohl IV is actually a pretty interesting structure, astronomically speaking - it's a "super earth" with a crushing atmospheric pressure - no place to build a colony. But, orbiting it are four moons, including one about half the size of Terra. Completely devoid of an atmosphere, although it's covered in wrecked and abandoned structures on one side (none of them sealed in any way) and a giant crater on the other. A close-up orbital scan and a pass by our aerospace fighters reveals the site of a massive asteroid impact. Chances are, either it happened naturally or House Steiner paid the place a visit a couple hundred years ago and "accelerated" the natural process.

The facilities we do examine up close are a mixture of breached greenhouses and research complexes. However, we do locate a pair of locked-up bunkers underneath abandoned military bases. We lack the means to open them currently (we try demo charges, high-caliber autocannons, seismic scans, asking nicely). Just... two big metal boxes with really tough doors.

Nai-Stohl V looks to be a Star League project that got started but never got quite finished. About 80% of Terra's diameter, it's got a relatively thin atmospheric pressure. A low-altitude pass reveals an enormous methane plume coming from a couple of structures on the surface, likely tapping into underground reservoirs of the gas. It seems that the plan was to "thicken up" the atmosphere and warm the planet up to near Terran Standard, then break up the ample surface ice for oxygen.

Nobody's sure where they were planning to get the nitrogen though, as human biology is pretty specific in terms of what we can take into our lungs. And also that particular atmospheric combination is unstable at best, given how much oxygen loves to react with organic compounds.

We make note of it all, but nobody appears too enthusiastic about living on either of those places.

------------------------------------

Delta's survey of Lone Star is only slightly less discouraging. At one point a fairly standard Terran world, as mentioned before, it got bombed back into the stone age during the Amaris coup when the Star League garrison proved to be a little too tough a nut to crack. Over the next fifty years, the remaining population either left or died as the nuclear winter took its toll. The ashes have settled, as has the radiation (mostly), but the planet still boasts a nice, chill -5 degrees celsius average surface temperature.

Historical records also indicate that there was a moon in orbit at one point, but that's nowhere in attendance.

We do locate quite a few intact structures, including some adapted pretty well to the "climate conditions". It seems that the Amaris guys didn't get everything, just the major Star League unit stationed there.

Delta returns to Outreach on January 7.

------------------------------------

Between waiting for spare parts and down time, our jumpship crew finishes decoding the data storage from Gorki. It's mostly boring 200-year-old accounting and HR data, cargo manifests and transmission logs, but because there's a lot of down time, we do discover some interesting tidbits.

First of all, there was communication with a pair of off-world facilities. The first one on a tiny moonlet off the inner-most planet has a few emails regarding maintenance schedules and spray nozzle (?) refits for aerospace fighters. The second one was with a facility on the fourth world, regarding experimental plankton farming techniques. Kind of boring by itself, but if we come back there it might be worth investigating those places.

The on-planet facilities were mostly concerned with a mixture of farming sea animals (apparently there was a market for whale blubber in the Capellan Confederation back before the second succession war), and research related to techniques for building structures capable of withstanding high pressures, as well as construction of said theoretical structures. Plus a little mineral extraction and food production to support the aforementioned activities.

-----------------------------------------

Alpha and Beta's survey of Belluevue is disappointing. The innermost planet is where the colony originally was, as evidenced by a multitude of abandoned structures, but, probably thanks to terraforming equipment failure, the atmosphere is an out-of-control greenhouse with an average temperature of 584 degrees kelvin (which converts to "only" 311 celsius).

Mandal is only slightly better, the main difference being a single orbital habitat just sitting there, spinning around. The interesting thing is it's occupied. We have a brief (remote radio) chat with the occupants (of whom there are about 5000), who've been out of contact with the rest of the inner sphere for about two hundred years. They're not terribly enthusiastic about re-establishing contact, either, although they do admit to being mildly curious regarding what happened after they lost contact.

"More of the same." is the answer.

The habitat looks a little scuffed up but well-maintained, and the inhabitants don't really have much in the way of advanced tech. Apparently, it was originally a facility conducting research into hydroponics and animal husbandry in micro and low gravity environments. Which was very convenient when the Star League tech keeping the world below habitable started failing and they needed to bail out fast.

Since they don't have anything meaningful to trade and aren't really interested in re-joining the Inner Sphere, there's not really any profit in revealing their existence. Before we leave, a few of them offer to join up with us, which is understandable - spending your entire life in a "small" habitat must be a drag. The leadership doesn't protest too much, most likely they want to get rid of these people.

[] Sure, we could use a few more assistant techs, and who knows some of them might even be decent mech or aero jocks.
[] We don't really need exiled charity cases from a weird-ass lost space colony.

---------------------------------------

Upon arriving at Outreach, the first thing we do is poke our FedCom contacts and trade them one our Artemis IV fire control systems. We get four double heat sinks in exchange, bringing us to a total of ten. While noodling it over, it occurs to a couple of our techs that some of our aerospace fighters could easily stand to lose a ton of weapons that they can't fire anyway and mount Artemis IV instead, so we keep the second example of the technology. Ten double heat sinks is enough to outfit approximately one mech. So, which one do we want to pimp out?

Option 1: Stefan's Catapult. Now, the Catapult is a perfectly good mech. But, back in the Star League days, Catapults mounted double heat sinks, ferro-fibrous armor, and twice as much ammo for those LRMs. We don't have ferro-fibrous armor, but we could gain five tons by removing the external sinks and upgrading the in-engine ones to doubles. That'll let us nearly maximize the armor and put in twice as much ammo, letting Stefan blaze away with LRMs to his heart's content.

Option 2: A Phoenix Hawk. This is pretty straightforward. Upgrade the engine with double heat sinks. Now, instead of having to screw around with heat management, this thing can jump at maximum burn every round then alpha strike, and the mechwarrior won't even break a sweat. In fact, it'll probably get a little cold in there if you don't fire the lasers as soon as they recycle.

Option 3: An Archer. The old-school variants had all kinds of fancy doodads, but simply sticking double heat sinks in will basically double its heat capacity. We've got two of these: an "Isgrimnur Special" with the rear-facing lasers rotated forward and a "Kurita" variant with two large lasers instead of four mediums.

Or, if you've got an idea for a mech that can take ten double heat sinks while maintaining the same weapons load, feel free to put it forward.

[] Upgrade Stefan's Catapult
[] Upgrade a Phoenix Hawk
[] Upgrade an Archer
[] Write-in

[Zenn7]

[] Sure, we could use a few more assistant techs, and who knows some of them might even be decent mech or aero jocks.

---------------------------------------
[] Upgrade an Archer

Archer is bang than a Warhammer? If so, Archer. Otherwise, thinking Warhammer might could use it?

[gbasden]

[] Sure, we could use a few more assistant techs, and who knows some of them might even be decent mech or aero jocks.

---------------------------------------
[] Upgrade an Archer

Archer is bang than a Warhammer? If so, Archer. Otherwise, thinking Warhammer might could use it?

I agree with all of this.

[AWS260]

Delta's survey of Lone Star is only slightly less discouraging.

[X] Sure, we could use a few more assistant techs, and who knows some of them might even be decent mech or aero jocks.

[X] Upgrade a Phoenix Hawk

Gotta advocate for the little(ish) guys.

[El Guapo]

Delta's survey of Lone Star is only slightly less discouraging.

[X] Sure, we could use a few more assistant techs, and who knows some of them might even be decent mech or aero jocks.

[X] Upgrade a Phoenix Hawk

Gotta advocate for the little(ish) guys.

Also, I thought every upgrade went to the Marauders first.

[NickAragua]

Vote results:

Spoiler:

More techs - unanimous

Upgrade Archer - 1 + 2 = 3
Upgrade Catapult - 2
Upgrade Phoenix Hawk - 1
Upgrade Marauder some more - 1

"Well, it won't restore the Star League, but this Archer will do just fine with the double heat sinks." the tech in charge of the upgrade remarks. It'll take about a month to carry out the upgrade - they do have to basically take the engine apart to put in the new heat sinks.

The astechs from the space station do ok on board our dropships but have a little trouble getting used to being planetside, with various minor illnesses making their rounds, but they eventually adjust. Filling our tech teams with permanent, rather than temporary, astechs has a couple of benefits - security-wise, we're less likely to have some saboteur "accidentally" drop a wrench into a gyro (or, as some of our older mechwarriors recall, rig a grenade to a mech's cockpit hatch, nearly killing Xwraith MK I and putting a mech out of action for several weeks due to cockpit damage). It's harder to exhaustively vet local day-jobbers than it is to vet someone we brought along with us. Crap still happens, but less frequently. Also, as long as they get along, a tech team with permanent astechs will likely perform better overall.

The command staff (except for Gamma) reviews our contract offers, which have piled up quite a bit. We immediately toss out a few where the salvage terms are either complete crap (20%) or "exchange" (we don't get to keep salvage, just get paid its estimated monetary value). That leaves us with a couple of options:

"Relief" duty on Lyons. A Draconis Combine representative offers us a pretty well-paying job with excellent salvage rights. The opposition is "a pitiful regimental combat team still struggling to rebuild after being decimated by the succession wars". They make us sign a non-disclosure agreement to discuss further details. The idea of this contract is to provide "substantial support" to elements of the Free Skye movement operating on Lyons. We'll be expected to engage in a variety of combat actions, ranging from recon and raid to assaults and defensive actions if necessary. Sounds like the separatists are planning to make some serious moves. Presumably this will keep FedCom busy "projecting force" to keep the Skye separatists down rather than "projecting force" onto the Combine borders. Skullduggery aside, Lyons is a very nice, temperate world, with just about Terra standard gravity. The Combine rep expects us to commit at least a company, but won't turn up his nose at more (and will pay proportionally more the more forces we commit).

Nitty gritty details:
Liaison command
100% transport coverage (kind of helpful now that our jumpship is in the shop)
90% salvage
80% battle loss compensation
3 months expected contract duration, 1 month estimated travel time (one way)
Regular/D allies
Green/A estimated opposition (rookies driving top-of-the-line equipment?)
~100M per company committed

If the briefing is to be believed, this is a great opportunity to grab some "recently manufactured" salvage while beating up on hapless, snot-nosed rookies. On a 'personal' note, traveling to Lyons will bring us past a pair of former colonies we could survey.

---
Cadre duty on Acamar. A FedCom representative offers us payment and a "transport voucher" to send a company's worth of our mechs over to Acamar to help train some rookies. Since the beating FedCom took in the war of '39, they've stepped up their training regimen and are "in need of qualified instructors", as the rep puts it. Our veteran units would basically "ride shotgun" on FedCom rookies during their training exercises and wipe their noses in case they get a boogie, or change their diapers if they don't make it to the bathroom on time (toilet training is hard). In case of any actual combat, salvage will be split evenly.

Nitty gritty details:
Integrated command
50% transport coverage ("discount coupon for a docking collar on my third cousin's jumpship")
50% salvage rights (mostly irrelevant)
no battle loss compensation (mostly irrelevant)
4 months expected contract duration, 2 weeks estimated travel time (one way)
Green/F allies
Regular/D simulated opposition
~50M per company committed

Pretty straightforward, and a great way to relax. We can also stop by a colony that fell off the charts during the succession wars.

-----
We also have several offers of garrison duty to defend various strategic facilities or relieve FedCom units rotating back home. Most are crap, but one stands out: La Blon. We would be expected to commit at least a company of mechs for a period of eighteen standard months, but we'd be in charge at a tactical and strategic level.

Nitty gritty details:
Independent command
50% transport coverage (see above contract)
60% salvage rights
60% battle loss compensation
18 months contract duration, 1.5 months travel time (one way)
~300M per company committed

Good payout, except that somebody's going to have to sit there for a year and a half. Our projected jump path will take us through a system with an abandoned colony, so there's that.

----
Finally, we have an offer from the DCMS for an extended 19-month contract on Nirasaki (which is an awfully specific amount of time). We'll liaise with the regular Combine units there and be expected to defend several in a list of "strategically important manufacturing and design centers". Pretty standard.

Liaison command
100% transport coverage
50% salvage rights
100% battle loss compensation
19 months contract duration
Regular/F allied forces
~320M per company committed

We'll be able to visit at least one previously surveyed world en route.
------------

On the surface, the contracts from the Combine pay a lot better, but they've got a reputation for trying to screw mercs over. Cadre duty is boring and doesn't pay that well, but is easy and over quick. There aren't really any major wars on right now, so corporate raids, rebel/pirate hunting/aid and garrison duty are pretty much what we're going to get.

We have three companies available:
Alpha - Command
Beta - Assault role
Delta - Heavy Recon

Let's pick out contracts and level of force commitment to each (between 0 and 3):
[] "Relief Duty" - support for FedCom separatists
[] Cadre Duty
[] FedCom garrison duty
[] Draconis Combine garrison duty
[] These all kind of suck, let's hang out for a month and see if we get anything better
[] These all kind of suck, let's go do some more planetary surveys on our own dime

----------------------

Another decision that we may consider making is whether or not any of the planets we've surveyed qualify as a home base.

Oyevaina:
Blistering/freezing desert mostly, with some mountains, badlands and really deep cracks sprinkled in.
+ Known underground manufacturing complex
+ Abandoned HPG (with automated defenses)
+ Existing underground structures (1/2x construction costs underground, probably, subject to detailed survey)
+ Great hostile environment training for mechwarriors
- habitation needs to be underground or environmentally sealed (5x or 1.5x construction costs)
- blistering heat/freezing cold (during the day/at night)
- low gravity
+/- in Rasalhague space

Lone Star:
Frozen over. Occasional radiation pocket.
+ Existing structures
+ Probably an abandoned HPG somewhere
+ Possibly has intact military infrastructure
+ Possibly has intact industrial infrastructure
+ Great hostile environment training for mechwarriors
- habitation needs to be underground or environmentally sealed
- super cold
- low gravity
- radiation hazard
+/- on FedCom/Combine border

Gorki:
Very peaceful, covered with water.
+ Two known Star League - era facilities on other planets in systems
+ Can walk outside in a t-shirt
+ Very difficult to invade
- no place for mechwarriors to practice
- Substantive habitation needs to be underwater or requires significant infrastructure investment
- low gravity
- On three-way border between Steiner/Davion, Liao, Marik

Some "back of the envelope" calculations indicate that, to house our company and provide landing facilities/hangars/etc for our hardware, we'd need at the very least a 200 million C-Bill investment. And that's on a perfectly habitable world. Obviously, the three candidates identified above would cost more, probably to the tune of 300-500M C-Bills, and that's before we start putting up bells and whistles. We've got about 1.8B C-Bills, so we can afford the initial investment, but will grow substantially if we decide to set up or reactivate manufacturing capability, build orbital/jump point facilities, places for our people to live larger or better than 3x3 meter steel boxes etc.

Do we pick a world? Or keep surveying?
[] Oyevaina
[] Lone Star
[] Gorki
[] Keep looking

[El Guapo]

I'd say take the 'relief duty' mission. Seems interesting and offer the best opportunity for good salvage.

On the planet...unless we have some strong short-term need for a planet base, I'd say keep looking. I'm sure that we could make any of these planets work, but none seem compelling enough that we need to jump on them.

[Cylus Maxii]

I'd say take the 'relief duty' mission. Seems interesting and offer the best opportunity for good salvage.

On the planet...unless we have some strong short-term need for a planet base, I'd say keep looking. I'm sure that we could make any of these planets work, but none seem compelling enough that we need to jump on them.

Ditto.

[AWS260]

I'd say take the 'relief duty' mission. Seems interesting and offer the best opportunity for good salvage.

On the planet...unless we have some strong short-term need for a planet base, I'd say keep looking. I'm sure that we could make any of these planets work, but none seem compelling enough that we need to jump on them.

Ditto.

Tritto.

[Zenn7]

Send Beta and Delta for the relief mission (they will provide the versatility for all needs - heavy metal and recon/raiding).

If we don't need anyone near where the jump ship is (kinda hate leaving it there, seemingly undefended?) - send Alpha to train the cadre. Similar length so they'd be free close to same time as Beta and Delta for the next mission.

These planets suck, let's keep looking and hope for something better. Though we probably need to keep in mind anything we really want is likely already claimed/occupied (why wouldn't it be - these planets all had reasons why they are abandoned).

[NickAragua]

If we don't need anyone near where the jump ship is (kinda hate leaving it there, seemingly undefended?) - send Alpha to train the cadre.

Gamma company is in-system with our jumpship currently, still on garrison duty at Asuncion. So in addition to four aerospace fighters right there, we can also get the Moonraker and two extra ASFs over to help defend the jumpship if necessary.

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Relief Duty - 1 + 4
Cadre Duty - 3 + 1
FedCom Garrison - 3

Settlement:
Keep Looking
Lone Star - 3
Keep Looking - 4+2 = 6

Though there's a good amount of support for trying to make Lone Star our base of operations, we ultimately decide to stick a pin in it for now. While our mechwarriors and aero jocks/spacers are used to having to live in tiny metal cubes, families and support staff aren't necessarily that way.

Thinking the contracts over, garrison duty ties up our forces for far too long. While more cost-efficient than the cadre duty, it's also boring. Well, cadre duty is boring too, but we're a lot less likely to get shot at for real. The real money is in the "relief duty" contract.

So, we will deploy Beta and Delta companies to support the Skye separatists, while Alpha company will go train snot-nosed FedCom rookies, accompanied by our artillery battery, which could use some serious practice with those new Long Toms we "acquired" back on Eom. Kind of a "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" situation.

We have one last chat with the Combine rep before Beta and Delta load up. He reminds us that, under no circumstances, are we to reveal who hired us, since it would be diplomatically embarrassing (given that FedCom and the Combine are technically under a cease fire). Doing so would be a contract breach, punishable with financial penalties under section blah blah blah of paragraph blah blah blah, at which point pretty much everyone in attendance from our side except the legal staff zones out for the next couple of minutes. Well, that's why we hired the legal staff in the first place.

The Jumbo's been fixed up, so we'll be able to bring plenty of supplies with us to Lyons. We'll also be bringing the Sparrow, in case we need to make a hot drop and/or power through some aerospace opposition on the way there. We may, as the Combine rep informs us that the Steiner forces typically stationed on Lyons have a substantial fighter base on its moon. Ideally we'll plot our approach to come in from the far side, but it may not be possible.

Alpha can hitch a ride on a rented Union or two. We'll bring along some limited supplies for specialty munitions (gauss rounds, streak SRMs, etc), but we expect FedCom to supply the training munitions. We've also expanded our roster with quite a few of the mechs salvaged on Eom (eight in total), so this will be a great opportunity to give those guys a couple of shakedown runs and get us and the artillery support working together.

It takes us a couple of weeks to sort Alpha, Beta and Delta for departure, and then off they go. Beta and Delta are projected to arrive on Lyons on April 1st (no joke), Alpha on Acamar near the end of February. Meanwhile, we'll check in on how Gamma is doing as they convalesce.

-----------------

March 7, 3042
Asuncion
Approach to Earthwerks Parts Depot 20B

Gamma winds up getting about a four-month downtime period, which they mostly spend alternating between standing boring guard duty, putzing around in the barracks and visiting the local towns. Said towns feature lots of dishes such as "meat dumplings", "ground meat in sauce", "ground meat pie", etc. When one of our mechwarriors inquires about a salad, she gets ground beef with spicy peppers on it.

"Eet has vegetables, so eet ees salad." says the restaurant owner with a grin. Our mechwarrior shrugs and hands over the C-Bills.

While our guys are relaxing, the civil war isn't going too great for the local government forces. Their attempts to retake the Asuncion Industries aerospace factories fail and the FedCom-backed rebels begin mounting raids on the other landmasses. Not really our problem, but, eventually, they begin creeping towards the EarthWerks facilities we're contracted to guard. Then it becomes our problem. A battle breaks out within several kilometers of a parts depot, and a militia tank force gets in way over their heads. By the time we're able to scramble aerospace fighters to assist, there's four tanks left, facing two Victors, a Demolisher and a Rifleman.

As our fighters link up with the one remaining Marik fighter, he informs us: "We've got inbound vectors on hostile aircraft. We'll have about one minute before they're all over us, so let's get this done quick."

Round 1:

Spoiler:

Our aerospace fighters scream overhead, making an attack run on the Demolisher and Victor as the enemy units close in on the remaining militia forces. Lt. Leschtchenko lets the bombing sights smoothly settle over the Victor, then, just as she's about to hit the bomb release, the screen goes fuzzy. Of course, the thumb was already on the release button.

"The hell was that?" She calls out. Looking out the side, she notices our two other fighters completely mess up their bombing runs as well, the bombs going wide and making a very pretty spread-out crater pattern across the plains, but not a single one hitting the target. To add insult to injury, one of our Lightnings takes an AC/5 round from the Rifleman, getting winged and losing a laser.

"Did your targeting screen just go fuzzy?"

"Yeah, me too." comes the string of reports.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

"Right, switch to standard weapons, forget the bombs." the Lieutenant orders. At least our weapons targeting controls work just fine, allowing us to score multiple hits, including an AC/20 on the Rifleman. The Slayer takes a beating from the Demolisher and Victor, but levels out.

The damaged Lightning vibrates as the pilot tries to avoid further fire from the Rifleman and stalls out.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

As Strike Two glides down, Strike Three pulls a pretty awesome Split-S maneuver, looping downwards to reverse direction, giving him a great shot at the back of the Rifleman, nearly coring the heavy mech out. The enemy mechwarrior repays our fighter with a large laser up the tailpipe. Although, at least, one of its autocannons looks blown out.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

There's a brief lull in the fighting as Strike Two regains control of the aircraft and Strike Three breaks off the engagement, trailing smoke from the engine. Strike One notes that an allied Vedette has been blown to bits, then her attention is captured by panicked screaming - seems that Strike Two didn't actually regain control of the fighter.

Round 5:
[camera feed damaged]
"Great, now it's just me." Strike One remarks as she lays into the back of the Rifleman with the Slayer's weapons. She breaches the armor, blowing out a laser, then the allied Maxim zips in to unload some infantry and fire its short-range weapons. Between the two of them, the Rifleman winds up on the ground.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Not only does the Lieutenant's aircraft stall out, but the rebel aerospace fighters show up. The Rifleman gets up and unloads on our descending aircraft, just in time to get blasted in the leg by the Marik Gotha. A damaged actuator takes the mech down to the ground again, and smoke starts pouring out.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

Not much of a concern for our beleaguered aero jock, as she continues to attempt to avoid hitting the ground. At least the guy in the Rifleman bails out, so our aerospace fighter will have a little breathing room if she manages to recover.

She doesn't make it. Strike Three grits his teeth as there's a burst of static and the status reports cease.

With their air support driving off the Marik fighter, the two Victors mop up the rest of the Marik militia force and move on to the parts depot and loot it (well, as much as they can, anyway) before our ground units can respond. By the time they do, our aero jocks and aircraft wrecks are nowhere to be found, and neither are the wrecked Marik or rebel units. That was some quick salvage work.

Earthwerks is pretty pissed off and demands either restitution for our "mission failure" or that we find and get their thirty two tons' worth of Flea actuators back.

How do we handle it:
[] Pay out 5M for the destroyed vehicles and stolen parts
[] Make an attempt to hunt down the stolen parts

[El Guapo]

Well, that's why we hired the legal staff in the first place.

In so many ways, they are the true heroes of this mercenary company.

[Freyland]

Hunting sounds like more fun, and leads to fewer enemies to fight later.



Plus, fleas....

[Cylus Maxii]

Go after the parts.

[Zenn7]

We are not paying for fleas... ever!

[xwraith]

Chase down the parts — and find our aircraft too.

[NickAragua]

Relativity is pretty hard to get a grasp on, especially when dealing with faster-than-light travel. That being said, within about two seconds of reading the restitution demand from Earthwerks, the response from any member of our company who reads it (whether Scrub, right away, or Zenn7 a hundred light years away and a couple of weeks later) is basically the same:

"What the [insert curse word of choice]? We're not paying for [bleep]ing Flea parts."

In Scrub's case, she adds:

"Everyone get your ass into your mech, time to quit lounging around and go hunting."

---------------

Beta and Delta stop by to survey Rocky en route to Lyons. The former colony is in orbit around a gas giant in the outer system and is almost perfectly habitable, thanks to Star League terraforming tech that's still chugging along. About 50% water coverage, plenty of imported flora and fauna. Gravity is a little low, at .59Gs, and the atmosphere is a little on the thin side. Unfortunately, the Star League tech has been chugging along a little too much, so there's a high concentration of various toxins in the atmosphere, to which the local wildlife has gotten used, but cause what the survey crew describes as "severe short term respiratory problems" in humans. This means we'll need environmental sealing and have to walk around outside with rebreathers.

On the plus side, there are plenty of abandoned structures, most apparently having to do with animal husbandry and agricultural research, and an abandoned space station (with non-functional life support, but an active transponder beacon) orbiting the next moon over.

When we get to Lyons, the contract doesn't go as expected. They jump into Lyons and burn for orbit, where they get a video transmission from our old buddy Hawk, his forearms just as huge as ever, and sporting a bright red beret.

"Fancy seeing you guys here. You guys looking for work?"

"Something like that." Zenn7 replies.

"Sorry to say, no work to be found here. We just finished mopping up some separatists that tried to stage an uprising."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, darndest thing, they had a bunch of Kurita gear. I even scored this weird assault mech with a bunch of large lasers, light autocannons and LRMs." He says with a grin.

"I see. Can we, uh... have clearance to land our dropships? We need to stretch our legs, maybe use the HPG."

"Sure thing." Hawk says. "And when you're done video chatting with your girlfriend, I've got a job offer for you."

Communications cut, we are escorted to the spaceport by several flights of Lyran fighters, then Madmarcus and Zenn7 hit up the HPG a couple of times to swap messages with our Kurita employer (it's a class B, so it batches up messages once a week or so and sends them out unless you pay through the nose for priority transmission - we don't want to look any more suspicious than we already do, so we just pay the standard rate). With no separatists to support, we decide to part ways amicably. He even lets us keep the advance ("as a gesture of good will"), so we wind up with about 50M C-Bills for basically no work, other than flying out here for no reason. When you subtract dropship fuel costs and jumpship transit fees, it's more like 40M, but still, pretty good chunk of change for not getting shot at.

The FedCom contract offer is a quick industrial raid on Connaught, a mere four jumps away. Details will be discussed upon contract acceptance, but it's a pretty reasonable assumption that we'll be raiding the Kong Industries facilities there, which assemble multiple types of battlemechs and industrialmechs as well. Or at least parts for said battlemechs. We'll be providing the primary force, but Hawk informs us that he's planning to have a couple of liaisons along for the ride to help us out and provide "on-site advice", although we'll be in charge at a tactical level.

Details:
4 month contract duration
Liaison command
Regular/C allied forces
Veteran/D estimated opposition
20% salvage rights
100% transport coverage (Free jumpship ride)
1 month travel time
54M expected profit

Well, it's ok, except the salvage rights are crap.
[] Take the objective raid contract
[] Pass and head back to Outreach, slightly embarrassed

---------------------

March 10, 3042
Acamar approach

Having been running training exercises for a couple of weeks, our artillery crews get a lot better, being able to occasionally land their rounds on target. Our mech guys run the Steiner and Davion recruits ragged, and our aero jocks get to join in the fun too. We're holding an exercise in orbit when a transmission comes in:

"Acamar command to Alpha-Strike. We are tracking inbound Leopard-class dropships moving towards orbit, escorted by a substantial amount of fighters. We need you to take yourself, and your trainees and intercept them. Either convince them to leave or make them. They do *not*, I repeat, do *not* have clearance to land. This is not a drill."

"Well." states Alpha-Strike's Lieutenant, flying a Shilone. "Hope you snotlings have been paying attention."

By the time we get there, the number of dropships has been reduced to one - two CVs have been driven off, at heavy cost to the attacking Lyran aerospace fighters. Their fighter escort remains. We vector in to intercept the bright pink Leopard and its hornets nest swarm of escorts - we've got our two Shilones and a Corsair, while the Lyran trainees have mostly medium fighters - three Corsairs, a Lightning and a Sabre. The Leopard is flanked by a swarm of Cheetahs, a couple of Sabres - the biggest fighters being a Corsair and a Stingray. They wait a few seconds then open fire at us as well.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

(for reference, the hostiles are light blue and pink)
It's a furball, with fighters flying everywhere. Strike-One (Lt. Arnwelle Schumann, flying "Shilone #2") makes an attack run on the Leopard, plastering the right side with lasers and LRMs. Her craft takes some damage from an enemy Corsair, but the enemy pilot rips past and will need to spend some time re-orienting.

One of the rookies joins in the party in a Lightning, unloading the AC/20 on the enemy craft. Strike-One watches as a Cheetah gets in behind said Lightning and nails it in the right wing, causing the allied fighter to wobble.

A pair of lasers come in from the left of Strike-One, blasting said Cheetah in the nose. The lasers are invisible, of course, but the damage is evident as armor globs out from the damaged area.

"I got him, I got him!" comes the excited chatter from another one of the trainees. Strike One can't even see him, but hey, good job.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

The Leopard picks up speed, seeking to outrun our fighters. Strike one keeps up, sparing a few SRMs for a tailing Thrush. Well, maybe "tailing" is a strong term, the poor fighter looks like it's been through a meat grinder.

Our craft focus fire on the escaping Leopard, stripping off a good amount of armor. The rookies aren't doing too hot at maintaining control of their spacecraft. The Leopard's tail guns nearly blast our Corsair into bits, causing severe engine damage as the fighter tries to evade.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

"The damn dropship is getting away!" Strike One calls out. We send LRMs its way, but to little effect, the dropship's relatively heavy armor absorbing the impact. Strike One rides out a pummeling from a nearby light fighter, although the damage indicator on her landing gear lights up. The beat-up hostile Thrush peels off, having taken too much damage, while the rest circle around for another pass.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

The Leopard briefly rotates as it's about to begin atmospheric entry, blasting one of our Shilones apart as it turns. This gives Strike One the opportunity to rake her fighter's laser along the bottom of the enemy craft, causing sparks to fly out.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

The remains of our Shilone drift on as one of the Lyran rookies, the guy in the Lightning, fires up his thrusters and goes for one last shot at the Leopard before it hits atmo. There are vids where the plucky rookie gets in the last shot at the last moment, saving the day. This is not one of those vids. The Leopard sends a good amount of firepower his way, forcing him to jink and miss most of his shots.

With the dropship hitting atmo, the hostile fighters do as well. We have our salvage crews do a sweep of the area, but can't even find the Shilone's debris, let alone the pilot.

While it was a pretty dismal performance, the Lyran representative in charge seems pretty pleased.

"Well, sure, you got one of your fighters blown to bits and didn't even make a dent in all the hostile fighters." He says, wagging his finger. "But!" he perks up. "The poor bastard must have taken landing gear damage, because when that Leopard tried to land, one of the wheels didn't deploy and he broke a wing off!" the rep barks a laugh. "The mechs in it and the fighters that you left are somewhere on the surface, but we'll get them. Or maybe you will."

Then he adds. "Plus, you didn't get any of the noble brat trainees killed, that's always a plus."

Small consolation for our disintegrated aero jock.

--------------------

Gamma's tracking pays off. We coordinate with the militia, who've been taking a beating and losing facilities left and right. Based on their approach and departure direction, we work out a pair of possible facilities where the Flea parts could have been taken - a command center and a supply depot. The militia have also lost control of a nearby air base and a long-range anti-aircraft battery. We'll need to hit the command center and supply depot for sure. The air base might be annoying and send backup, while, honestly, the anti-aircraft battery isn't that relevant, given that we only have the one aircraft left.

The other problem is that we only have a company of mechs and three targets to attack, which means one lance per target. Luckily, the militia is willing to send some backup to hit the command center and air base. If we commit fully, we have a good chance of recovering the stolen parts and maybe even one of our aero jocks (her aircraft's transponder leads us to the air base). However, that also means we don't have anything available to respond to attacks, except for a single aerospace fighter, a Valkyrie light mech (we hired another new mechwarrior recently) and a platoon of AC/2 infantry. But then again, time is of the essence - we don't get those parts and our people back soon, chances are they're going across the sea or off-world.

The command center is guarded by an assault lance (two Stalkers, an Awesome and a Longbow) plus an assortment of light tanks and a couple of medium mechs. It's also got a large number of defensive turrets (militia recon reports ten). We briefly consider using the Moonraker to drop our mechs in and just carry out a raid, but the presence of the rebel-controlled anti-air installation precludes that from happening.

The airbase has a light garrison of hovertanks and medium armor, but also aircraft. Still, it'll be fairly easy to take down.

The supply depot is relatively lightly defended, only two medium mechs (and a, uh, Longbow assault mech) plus a reinforced tank lance.

The anti-air installation has unknown defenses at this time.

Let's pick what we hit:
[] Command center. Tough nut to crack. Possible parts location.
[] Airbase. Provides air support to other facilities unless taken down. Also has at least one of our aero jocks.
[] Supply Depot. Lightly defended, possible parts location.
[] Orbital Defence. Not really required, and we don't have the troops for it anyway. But taking it out will allow us to use our dropship.

[gbasden]

Let's pick what we hit:
[X] Command center. Tough nut to crack. Possible parts location.
[X] Airbase. Provides air support to other facilities unless taken down. Also has at least one of our aero jocks.
[X] Supply Depot. Lightly defended, possible parts location.
[] Orbital Defence. Not really required, and we don't have the troops for it anyway. But taking it out will allow us to use our dropship.

I think we don't have much of a choice as to hit them all given the mission requirements. We are definitely going to try to get our crew back. Is it possible to hit the supply depot and airbase and then roll into the command center? I'm guessing given the time factor that we have to hit them all ASAP.

[Zenn7]

Let's pick what we hit:
[X] Command center. Tough nut to crack. Possible parts location.
[X] Airbase. Provides air support to other facilities unless taken down. Also has at least one of our aero jocks.
[X] Supply Depot. Lightly defended, possible parts location.
[] Orbital Defence. Not really required, and we don't have the troops for it anyway. But taking it out will allow us to use our dropship.

I think we don't have much of a choice as to hit them all given the mission requirements. We are definitely going to try to get our crew back. Is it possible to hit the supply depot and airbase and then roll into the command center? I'm guessing given the time factor that we have to hit them all ASAP.

Assuming we can't...

Gamma 1 to the command center, Gamma 2 to the Airbase, Gamma 3 to the supply depot. Hope the militia are sending something remotely useful... (at least able to soak up a few rounds if not able to contribute significantly offensively speaking).

Let's take Hawk's offer. We're getting in good with him, build up some more brownie points. Good chance whatever planet we get will be somewhere near FedCom space, be good to have neighbors who don't want us dead.

[gbasden]

Let's pick what we hit:
[X] Command center. Tough nut to crack. Possible parts location.
[X] Airbase. Provides air support to other facilities unless taken down. Also has at least one of our aero jocks.
[X] Supply Depot. Lightly defended, possible parts location.
[] Orbital Defence. Not really required, and we don't have the troops for it anyway. But taking it out will allow us to use our dropship.

I think we don't have much of a choice as to hit them all given the mission requirements. We are definitely going to try to get our crew back. Is it possible to hit the supply depot and airbase and then roll into the command center? I'm guessing given the time factor that we have to hit them all ASAP.

Assuming we can't...

Gamma 1 to the command center, Gamma 2 to the Airbase, Gamma 3 to the supply depot. Hope the militia are sending something remotely useful... (at least able to soak up a few rounds if not able to contribute significantly offensively speaking).

Let's take Hawk's offer. We're getting in good with him, build up some more brownie points. Good chance whatever planet we get will be somewhere near FedCom space, be good to have neighbors who don't want us dead.

Agreed on Hawk. Regardless if it's a great contract, it's good for the relationship especially since they caught us red handed working for the combine.

[NickAragua]

Zenn7 and Madmarcus decide to take the FedCom objective raid contract.

"Great!" Hawk says, rubbing his hands together. "I'll have my guys stow their gear on your Jumbo and we can get going!"

-----------------

March 14, 3042
Asuncion
Captured Marik Militia Airbase

Scrub talks the situation over with Hyena, Cylus and Xwraith, as they form the command group of Gamma. After some discussion, we decide to hit the air base first to see if we can get our aero jocks back. Simultaneously, we'll hit the supply depot. Depending on how those two raids go, we'll then see if we can hit the orbital defence facility and the command center.

Battle lance deploys to hit the airbase right away, trailed by a lance of allied armor - LRM Carriers, a Manticore tank and a Hetzer. As we get close, there's a relatively close double-WHUMP as a stationary Long Tom battery opens up on us. We'll need to take that thing out ASAP. Scrub and Hyena, backed up by the Hetzer and Manticore advance down the middle while Cylus and Xwraith will drive down the east flank. LRM Carriers will provide support from the southwest. Scrub reminds everyone to maintain air watch, which doesn't go amiss as we get strafed almost right away.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

Scrub's PPCs spark down the street, blasting through a Vedette's armor and wrecking its left-side treads as it pings an autocannon round off her right arm. The crew gets a good whiff of ozone and an extra ventilation hole and bails out pretty rapidly.

The aircraft nail her pretty good in the back, breaching most of the armor and blowing out the SRM launcher.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

Scrub watches a swarm of hovercraft zip down the street and tries to turn aside, but they come in too fast. She sighs in relief as a Condor hovertank detonates, although the stupid thing only had AC/2s in the first place. A flurry of SRMs and other light ordnance disables her left arm PPC as alarms blare.

Hyena continues blazing skyward with the LBX autocannon, taking the time to stomp on an approaching Maxim, which disintegrates completely.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Scrub backs up out of the way to regroup, letting Hyena move up. her remaining PPC and short ranged weapons target a nearby J. Edgar hovertank, annihilating it as its fuel tank goes up. She hears a brief 'beep', then finds herself flying through the air as her Warhammer disintegrates underneath, briefly looking up to see an Eagle fighter doing a show-off roll as it flies back up. The ejection seat crashes through a window, but somehow she remains alive.

To the east, Cylus and Xwraith come upon a lone LRM Carrier lobbing missiles at an oblique angle and blow it to bits.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

The allied armor units advancing with Hyena report that they've been immobilized and are abandoning their vehicles, although at least that Long Tom round got an enemy Condor too.

Hyena disables another Condor hovertank with a cluster shot from the LBX autocannon, deflating its skirt and causing it to skid to a halt on the pavement.

Cylus and Xwraith angle in, homing in on our aero jock's transponder. Xwraith fires a few lasers at a Hunchback down the street, noting with gratitude that it doesn't have the characteristic AC/20. One of the lasers blows out the LRM/10 launcher on the enemy medium's right torso. It fires at Cylus as the Grasshopper comes around the corner, both mechs savaging the other's armor with laser fire, but the Hunchback keels over and bounces awkwardly before ceasing movement altogether. That's too bad.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

The Hunchback's damage readout looks pretty green still, other than the blown-out LRM, so Cylus moves to finish it off, surgically removing the head with a series of laser blasts. Xwraith moves to engage an Enforcer, taking an AC/10 round to one of the arms while scoring laser hits on the machine's back.

That Eagle continues making hash of our allies, taking out an LRM Carrier.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Cylus moves back towards the transponder beacon, spotting our aero jock as she forcibly ejects a guard out the second story window of the nearby building. He'll be all right. Probably. Weathering the incoming fire and a kick, the Grasshopper scoops the Lieutenant up, quickly allowing her to climb into the hatch in the back of the mech. Enjoy the ride without a cooling vest!

Hyena gets a little shot up by indirect-fire LRMs and a strafing run from that damned Eagle, but still manages to stomp the nearby Manticore's treads off. He tracks it with the Striker's entire weapons array, bringing a wave of heat and screaming alarms to the cockpit, then swears as his most powerful weapons miss - both the PPC and LBX autocannon shot going wide, only a pair of lasers hitting.

However, they must have hit something important, because the Eagle lurches downwards and slams into a building.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

"I've got our girl!" Cylus calls out.

"Right." Hyena, answers, quickly taking stock of the situation. It's not looking too good. We've got three beat-up mechs getting strafed by aircraft (the Stuka is still out there) and bombarded by artillery and oblique-angle LRMs. The allied units have all been disabled or destroyed. "Pull back to the north. I'll make my way out to the south." He orders.

But he doesn't make it. A Griffin jumps in as the temporarily slow mech turns around and throws a couple of punches, one going through the weakened left torso and into the LBX ammo bin. Hyena's ejection seat fires just in time.

Xwraith and Cylus break north, Xwraith disabling an LRM Carrier while managing to avoid an entire sixty-missile salvo from an SRM Carrier to the southwest, while Cylus works on the Enforcer, stripping armor off the left side with lasers and blowing out one of the 40-tonner's arm actuators, while nearly taking off its left leg. An AC/2 carrier is a little out of place in the brawl, taking a little armor off Cylus' arm, but then Xwraith crushes its right-side treads with the Thunderbolt's foot.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

Cylus takes a couple of hits to the left leg as artillery rains down. Xwraith jumps over that SRM Carrier, giving it a good boot in the rear, shattering the thin armor and causing the crew to rethink their presence on the battlefield.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

As we split up and retreat, Xwraith's Thunderbolt eats its second AC/20 round of the day, this one ripping off most of its left side. At least our mechwarrior manages to take the left arm off the Enforcer behind the Hunchback. With the destruction of most of its jump jets, our mech will have to walk the rest of the way.

Our two remaining mechs are able to clear the field, although Cylus has a couple of close calls and it's a while before the Enforcer gives up the chase. Scrub and Hyena get out as well, making their way through the buildings while avoiding enemy patrols. About the only thing we got out of that battle was rescuing one of our aero jocks, who tells us that she doesn't know where the other one wound up.

As the other lances carry out their attacks, Hyena, having nothing better to do with his time, winds up having a conversation with one of the techs about spare parts.

"So what's the big deal with Fleas anyway? That's gotta be one of the stupidest mech designs ever - slow, no jump jets, armor can barely take small arms fire, let alone mech-grade weapons. What the hell do the Wolf's Dragoons like them so much for?" He asks, increlously.

The tech thinks about it. "Well, the design sucks, sure. But you can use the actuators and parts for other mechs - especially the weapons which they make here. The actuators are rated for 20-tonners, so you can put them into a Stinger or whatever. The large laser, you can put into just about any other mech that mounts one."

"Huh. So we can buy spare Crusader parts - lasers, actuators, joints, whatever from the Kallon plant and use them to fix the Thunderbolt?" he asks, looking at the mangled sixty-five ton machine that barely retains any structural integrity.

"Yup." confirms the tech.

"Well." says Hyena, wrinkling his nose. "That's great. But a bug mech is still a bug mech."

We're still hitting the supply depot with Probe lance. However, the air base will now be able to send in air support the other facilities in the area, making our attacks harder, so we'll need to adjust our battle plan. Our first option is to get Striker lance back into the airbase immediately instead of having them hit the command center or orbital defense facility. This means our aircraft will be unable to operate in that area and we'll have only searched half the possible stolen part locations. The other option is to have Striker lance do a quick raid on the command center and just rifle around in the warehouses for the crates we need then retreat.

[] Hit the airbase again. 50/50 risk of losing stolen mech parts, but supply depot should be easier to secure.
[] Raid the command center. Almost guaranteed to find stolen mech parts, but both battles will have aircraft circling overhead.

[Hyena]

Jeebus, what an ass-whoopin.

[Cylus Maxii]

Hit the airbase again.

[Zenn7]

Hit the airbase again.

Holy hell...

Gotta do this. 100% chance to find stolen parts only works if we can survive to get them out.

[gbasden]

Hit the airbase again.

Holy hell...

Gotta do this. 100% chance to find stolen parts only works if we can survive to get them out.

Agreed on both counts. That did not go well...

[NickAragua]

Vote results:

Spoiler:

This one is a complete split:
Hit the airbase again: 0 + 3
Raid the command center: 2 + 0

March 14, 3042
Asuncion
Rebel-Held airbase

"Look, Corporal, I know you want another piece of those guys that took out the Captain's mech. We all do. But we've got a job to do, and we just don't have enough forces to spare." comes the radio transmission from Lt. Vazquez, answering Cylus' request. "Sorry. Now, clear the comms, I've got a hit and run to do. Over and out."

"Yeah, I'm sorry too." Cylus answers, remembering to take a finger off the 'transmit' button. "Too bad you're too dumb to see that those aerospace fighters are going to chew you up."

"Now listen up." our mechwarrior addresses the other two fellows in the short, impromptu lance, formed up from the recruits we picked up while on Asuncion. "We're going to go after that airbase and save everyone's sorry asses, even if they don't know they need it. In the words of a wise man, if win, noone will complain. And if we lose, there won't be anybody left to complain."

Despite orders to the contrary, Cylus has decided to organize a follow-up attack on the air base. The "spare" mechs are a Valkyrie and an Ostscout that belong to disgruntled militia mechwarriors that we've poached - they're pretty decent mechwarriors.

The FedCom-backed rebels at the airbase have only had about eight hours to repair, so a few of their units are still damaged. Cylus' plan reflects the mechwarrior's preference for maneuver warfare: use our jump jets to avoid engagement with the garrison. Instead, take out fuel depots and other critical structures.

"Seriously, don't even think about standing still." The mechwarrior reminds everyone as they form up. "There's a double-barrel Long Tom in there, and it will ruin your day. Not to mention the aircraft. We got one of them, but there's still a 100-tonner out there, plus I think I see a pair of lighter ones circling around."

Round 1;

Spoiler:

Cylus is almost immediately targeted by the enemy aircraft, getting a lot of armor peeled off by the Stuka's attack.

To the north, our Valkyrie gets a little beat up by a Drillson hovertank that zips by, its armor showing evidence of having recently been extracted from inside a building.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

Cylus quickly disables an annoying little Condor hovertank coming up from behind with lasers and a few LRMs. The enemy unit is too busy trying and failing to dodge to shoot accurately, so it's basically done.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Cylus grunts in annoyance as the Stuka comes back for another pass, blasting a good chunk of armor off with its large lasers. It takes a lot of fire in return and loses a little bit of altitude, though.

Our Valkyrie reports using its flamer to set one of the critical buildings (the one housing the Long Tom) on fire. Hope that ammo doesn't blow.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

"I'm just going to hide in here for a bit." The Valkyrie's mechwarrior informs us. It's a cozy place, covered in smoke both from the nearby fire and the LRMs coming in at an oblique angle. But it does protect the Valkyrie from pretty much all damage.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

Until the structure comes down and breaks our mech's right arm off.

To the south, Cylus is in trouble. The Stuka pilot is just too good and the Grasshopper's armor is pretty much all red at this point. Our mechwarrior manages to disable an SRM Carrier that comes around the corner, but still, it's time to bug out.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

The Valkyrie barely manages to get into another building, before it's buffeted by an ungodly number of LRMs, plus some lasers from the Stuka. It remains intact though.

"Ugh, forget it." Cylus orders from the Grasshopper as it gets pummeled by the Stuka again. All units pull back. The mech tilts to the left suspiciously, and it appears that the right arm has come off at some point.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

As Cylus jumps off to the south, a Sabre comes in for a strafing run. It pays when a couple of the Grasshopper's lasers slide along the bottom of the craft, causing sparks to fly out of the engine and then gently brushing the fuel tank. The aerospace fighter disintegrates.

Cylus takes a bit of a gamble and plows through a building, which allows the Grasshopper to avoid getting plastered by another strafing run from the Stuka while blasting away with large lasers at a Sparrowhawk trying to join in the fun. The enemy fighter takes a laser and a couple of LRMs to the nose through a window and aborts its attack run.

Our mechs are able to clear the field - with heavy damage, but intact. The airbase remains under rebel control.

Scrub monitors the situation from the medical bay and shakes her head as she listens to comms chatter. Gamma-Probe reports a Seydlitz and a Corsair flying towards the supply depot (a light and a medium aircraft), while Striker lance reports sensor contact with the Stuka (the 100-tonner) and another Eagle ("only" 75 tons) near the command center.

Given how badly we're getting chewed up by these aerospace fighters, it may be time to abort the command center raid, and possibly the supply depot raid as well, although low cloud cover will help Probe lance a little at the supply depot. Pick none, either or both.
[] Abort the command center raid
[] Abort the supply depot assault

[AWS260]

[X] Abort the command center raid
[] Abort the supply depot assault

[gbasden]

[X] Abort the command center raid
[] Abort the supply depot assault

Agreed for sure on aborting the command center. If those heavy fighters are going to be flying cover over the supply depot as well, I vote for aborting both. 5m for some stupid flea parts is a hell of a lot cheaper than losing a lance of mechs.