THE INFINITE BROOD (Starcraft/Supreme Commander Crossover Quest!)

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THE SWARM SHEET
  • Informational
    • The Brood of Blades
    ​
    Cerebrate Prime: Samantha Clarke
    LEVEL: 5
    XP: 205/210
    TRAITS
    Strategic Genius: Once per structured encounter, Sam can create a piece of the environment that is in her favor as a sticky spark. Roll a d3 for its value.
    Empathetic: upon meeting an NPC, learn their motivation!
    Legendary Commander: Gain 4 Command sparks at the beginning of each mission/combat. Command sparks may be spent to give NPCs orders, which they may either obey or refuse to obey (doing nothing instead.) Command sparks may not be regained via skills or powers.
    Hunted: Something wants her - but for what? +1 Danger to all scenes​
    SKILLS
    CLOSE COMBAT (2): Brawling, Edged Weapons
    PERSONAL (2): Awareness, Resilience
    SOCIAL (4): Charm, Empathy, Leadership, Taunt​
    MASTERY
    ACU Pilot (2): Nanofabrication [Mass], ObSat Operations [Range]
    The Hilt (4): Biomorphic Spawning (People), Regeneration (Durability), Physical Perfection (Speed), Telepathic Dominion (Range)​

    POWERS
    The Living Swarm
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Gain 1 Living Swarm spark, +1 per vent reduction.​
    The Living Swarm: While this swarm exists, move in three dimensions and through anything smaller than a keyhole, reforming at will. You may expend these sparks to cause 3 Hit Sparks in a Area 2 radius.​
    Area Upgrade: +1 to Area Characteristic​

    Biomorphic Reinforcement
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Create 1 Biomorphic Reinforcement spark, +1 per vent reduction, which can be given out to anyone within Range 2, or to yourself
    Biomorphic Reinforcement: +1 to Damage or Mass characteristic for the purpose of raw physical strength/feats.

    Back to Back
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Choose 1 ally (+1 per vent reduction), within Range 1. Each can take one action using one of your skills, any of them that you wish. Once they have done so, you may make a free attack with your melee weapon, getting +1 to your skill per ally that acted.​

    Adaptation
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Create a number of sparks equal to the enemy's difficulty, narratively based on turning their abilities against them. Works on enemies of Diff 2>, +2 per vent reduction.​

    Just as Planned…
    Vent: 6-0
    Effect: Vent 6 heat and create 1 Planning Spark for her or an ally, +1 Spark per vent reduction.​
    Planning: The person holding this Spark can expend this to get +1 to a skill check as a free action. Using this Stack counts as you are helping for the purpose of relationships.​

    GEAR
    Zeratul's Psi-Blades
    Adds: +0 (Edged Weapons) | Characteristics: Damage [Speed] (4)[1]​
    Shadowstep (3): Can expend as a free action to move without crossing intervening space.
    Guarded Space (3): Can expend to use Damage as a secondary characteristic for Durability, reducing incoming Damage characteristics.​

    GALACTIC WAR
    Victory Points: 5    ​
    RESOURCES​
    TERRAN DOMINION [Background] (1)​
    The men and material of the Dominion - limited, but they're mustering as we speak. ​
    ALLIANCE EXPEDITIONARY FORCES [Mastery] (1)​
    While you have access to several ACUs of every faction, they lack economic and technological support to be fully effective. ​
    ZERG HIVE [Mastery] (1)​
    The scant few Zerg you control that are free of Amon's influence. Mostly Zerglings. ​
    AEON FLEET [Background] (1)​
    While half a dozen CZARs seem impressive, they're not actually well made for ship to ship combat. ​
    ALLIED COHESION [Motivation] (1)​
    The alliance is fragile and weak.​

    FRONTS​
    Trade Sector-34-51 [Pirate Activity]
    Pirates Raiding 6 (Supply Lines in Disarray 1)
    COMMAND: Jim Raynor | ARMY: Raynor's Raiders
    RESULTS: Pending

    Braxis [Zerg Invasion]
    Borealis Siege 6 (Zerg Rampage1)
    COMMAND: General Samantha Clarke | ARMY: Brood Clarke
    RESULTS: Pending

    Typhan II [Active Xel'Naga ACU]
    Typhan II Occupied 6 (Xel'Naga ACU Spotted 1)
    COMMAND: Lt. Colonel Mathew Horner | ARMY: UEF Armored Command Unit
    RESULTS: Pending

    Deep Space Sector 981 [Hive Fleet Identified]
    Zerg Hive Fleet Spotted 6 (Kerrigan? 1)
    COMMAND: Citizen-Commander Dostya | ARMY: CN Armored Command Unit
    RESULTS: Pending
    ​
    ENEMY ASSETS (Currently Known)
    ​
    THE GOLDEN ARMADA
    ACTIVITY: Unknown | Threat Level: 6​
     
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  • Informational
    • ACT ONE, MISSION THREE: The Great Grave Robbery (0.8)
  • Threadmarks
    • You considered your options - and checked the counter in the upper corner of your screen. The orbital platform was going to hit soon. Too soon for you. You leaned back in your seat. "HQ, I need a quick orbmath check - where exactly is that OP going to hit? The trajectory has to be narrowed down by now."

    "We have it down to a fifty meter range, General," Stukov said and you saw it was situated about three kilometers to the east of the orange flier hive - and helpfully, Stukov threw up several circular area of effect indicators that would paint out the blast damage from heat, compression wave, fragments. The plateau would protect a chevron of that space from some of the damage, but the Confeds were still in the danger zone and your base was definitely in the blast radius. Fortunately, the comforting blue circles of the shield emitters for your base made it clear that the AOE would be bulked out...for you...

    "...parashields," you said, quietly. "Would paras do it?"

    "In sufficient number, yes," Stukov said. "Ten, fifteen in total."

    You started queing. "I have a plan."

    ***
    ​
    By the time the last unit for your initial push stepped off the platform of your factory, the OP was visible in the sky overhead as a gleaming spark of light, coming closer and closer towards the ground. The Zerg seemed blissfully indifferent, following their instinctive programming - to either protect what they saw as a hive, or keep back what they saw as predators. And you?

    Your army was a sleek and pared down admixture of T1 and T2 units. You had a small core of Pillar tanks that would smash anything heavier than a zergling, a platoon of Archers to handle anti-air, and a swarming mass of mech marines to engage the zerglings in running gun battles - you were guessing that the range you had and the rate of fire would be the deciding point, even if zerglings outnumbered your infantry. And in the center of it all were twenty Parashields - spindly little four tracked vehicles with the familiar Christmas light studded silver antlers of a shield emitter, scaled down and made mobile through superior UEF engineering. They would help against fliers and any ranged units, but you weren't so sure about those Creep colonies designed to attack ground units.

    Still.

    You were running out of time.

    With a flick of your finger and a few taps at your keyboard, the commands went out - and the entire army started moving at once. Your ACU started to march alongside them - you were there for flash repair, to make sure that the Parashields didn't get taken down. The first few kilometers passed in grim, nervous silence as you got closer and closer to the Zerg defensive wall - and then, as your tanks settled down at the very edge of their maximum effective range of half a kilometer, you frowned, ready for the Zerg to do something unexpected. But the writhing mass of zerglings that were scampering around there didn't seem to be aware that you were a threat...yet.

    You wondered what exactly triggered their attack reflex. They had sent a swarm at you earlier, and you had just built a base?

    Maybe there was something like a defensive instinct - tying them close to their organic buildings?

    You didn't know.

    And to be honest?

    You didn't particularly care. You gave the order with a few quick button taps and watched as the Pillars lifted their double barreled cannons and, with a whirr CLUNK - stabilized themselves. Then they began to open fire. Roaring flares of white light burst among the zerglings, yes. But most of the fire landed on the colonies. They were two types, the spore studded ones and the sunken, tentacle based ones. You targeted the Sunks first and it was deeply gratifying to see shells bursting around them. Blood spurted from lacerations and burn marks, then several Sunks exploded into fountains of gore, splattering the surrounding area and the shocked Zerglings and other creatures. Your grin was wry.

    "It is a beautiful sight," you said, quietly.

    "General, I'm detecting something big coming," Stukov said.

    You tensed.

    One of the structures that had been on the second list of targets after the sunken colonies rippled - and then expanded as something as big as an experimental came thundering through - bursting into the field and spreading its broad, serated limbs with a fierce, bellowing roar that echoed all the way into your ACU.

    "What the hell is that?" you asked.

    "Unknown," Stukov said.

    "I'd have thought that inverse scaling would prevent a creature that big from walking, let alone-" Dr. Hanson said.

    "Biology later!" you said as the creature started to thunder forward - shells bursting around it. One hit directly on the shoulder with a roar of orange-white light and it bulled through the explosion as if it wasn't even there. It had writhing mass of squidlike tentacles ending in bladed protrusions for a mouth; curved and armadillo like plating along its broad back, and a pair of immense bladed arms that stretched from either side of its narrow torso, while its legs were huge enough that you were pretty sure it could kick your ACU over and stomp in your head. Worse, it was fast - clearing ground in impressive time.

    Worse, it hit your front line of tanks - smashing a Pillar, and with a single sweep of one arm, sent dozens of mech marines exploding into a billion sparks and pieces.

    You had a fraction of a second to act.

    ---
    Mechanically, you used your Leadership skill to create sparks to snuff out the Zerg Defensive Fortification sparks, augmented by your Land Factory! That let the Land Factory add its people characteristic to your check, so you got 12 sparks for free! ...which completely devoured those 11 sparks, leaving you with Tier 2 Tanks 1 (Parashields 2) remaining. You need to get those Parashield sparks through this battle intact to succeed!

    So, I have a danger budget equal to [XP Value+(XP Value x # of PCs)]+1 For Hunted - which comes out to a cool 21 Danger in total! I will spend literally every single point on Just One Ultralisk


    HEAT
    0/6

    STICKY SPARKS
    Economic Structures (6)

    BASE
    Economic Structures (Work[Waste]: None | Sparks: None | Adds: +3 (Nanofabrication)
    Land Factory (Work[Waste]: People[Size] (2)(2) | Sparks: Land Forces (1) | Adds: +0 (Leadership)

    SPARKS
    Planning 2
    Tier 2 Tank 1 (Parashield 2)

    ENEMIES
    Just One Ultralisk: Difficulty 10, Durability 4, Damage 4, Area 1, Speed 2.

    [ ] Plan: Slow It Down - use your nanofabricate skill and your Planning sparks vs diff 1 to create Mass 6 (Mass 6 (Big Cube 4) to try and slow the Ultralisk down. Then begin to charge up your antimatter cannon by using Vehicle Weapon vs diff 1+1 to create Charging 1 spark, then take 6 more heat to create even more Charging sparks. Then turn your Economic Structures into Charging 6, to give you a total of 13 Charging sparks. Vent 6 heat using Just as Planned to get 1 Planning Spark - and plan to charge some more. (You need to be able to get 24 Charging sparks in total to blast through the Ultralisk's durability.
    [ ] Plan: Reinforcements! - use your Leadership skill, planning spark and your Land Factory vs Diff 1 to create sparks to augment your army, then take 6 more heat to bump that up by +6 sparks - which creates, in total, Mech Marines 6 (Tier 1 Tanks 6 (Tier 2 Tanks 10 (Parashield 2))). Vent 6 heat to use Just as Planned to get 1 Planning Spark. You can use your army as ways to blast through the Ultralisk's durability just like Charge. The difference is that the Ultralisk can target the army and spoil attempts to build up.
    [ ] Write In
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Plan: Slow It Down

    That's a big dude, and it's established that our smaller weapons don't hurt it, so that means we need a bigger gun!

    Also I wanna see what 24 sparks of antimatter do to the operational area. Hopefully no one will be outside without sunglasses.
     
    Situations like this are what Overcharge was made for, but I feel we can do better than a giant metal cube to delay it. Maybe some walls, or some stairs up to the high ground?

    Ooh, better yet, what about an air transport? The spore colonies are down, so we can just fly ourselves away from this thing.
     
    beleester said:
    Situations like this are what Overcharge was made for, but I feel we can do better than a giant metal cube to delay it. Maybe some walls, or some stairs up to the high ground?

    Ooh, better yet, what about an air transport? The spore colonies are down, so we can just fly ourselves away from this thing.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    The problem is narratively, air transport for yourself won't protect the parashields! …also to be clear, you're not putting a cube between it and you.

    You're fabricating a cube around it
     
    DragonCobolt said:
    The problem is narratively, air transport for yourself won't protect the parashields!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    What about two air transports? Could we expend our Planning sparks to be like "surprise, we were building an air factory offscreen"?
    Mechanically, I guess it would be something like this:
    [X] Plan: The highest ground
    -[X] Use the Planning sparks and Leadership skill to create Air Transport sparks on ourselves and the parashields.
    -[X] Use the Economic Structures sticky spark to make Charging sparks for ourselves.

    (And I guess next turn we would have to nest the air transport sparks in something so they stick around?)

    DragonCobolt said:
    …also to be clear, you're not putting a cube between it and you.

    You're fabricating a cube around it
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Okay, that's more badass than I imagined.
    [X] Plan: Slow It Down
     
    [x] Plan: Slow It Down - use your nanofabricate skill and your Planning sparks vs diff 1 to create Mass 6 (Mass 6 (Big Cube 4) to try and slow the Ultralisk down. Then begin to charge up your antimatter cannon by using Vehicle Weapon vs diff 1+1 to create Charging 1 spark, then take 6 more heat to create even more Charging sparks. Then turn your Economic Structures into Charging 6, to give you a total of 13 Charging sparks. Vent 6 heat using Just as Planned to get 1 Planning Spark - and plan to charge some more. (You need to be able to get 24 Charging sparks in total to blast through the Ultralisk's durability.

    It's a good enough plan for a feral I suppose but an ultra with a mind behind it wouldn't-

    DragonCobolt said:
    The problem is narratively, air transport for yourself won't protect the parashields! …also to be clear, you're not putting a cube between it and you.

    You're fabricating a cube around it
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Oooooh that's neat! Like a flash cast move to encase something, not the firmest but somewhat stable. It'd be neat to get an attachment to deploy that on command from a 'reservoir' for it.

    I'm pondering now a swarm of engineers reclaiming the ground to make trenches like Zero-K terraforming. Or making stable plateaus made of metal like Zero-K. Everyone should play Zero-K as it's an RTS like Supcom/Total Annihilation and is available for free on Steam.

    beleester said:
    What about two air transports? Could we expend our Planning sparks to be like "surprise, we were building an air factory offscreen"?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    1 light Air transport can carry 6 T1 units, or 3 T2 units(parashields) or 1 T3 unit (us). T2 Air Transport can carry 12 T1 units as it has double the clamps. That means nine parashields and us total if we can get T2 Air transport. That's one less than the minimum estimated we need for our goal.

    I don't think we have Forged Alliance units so the T3 transport isn't even potentially available.

    So yeah, air transport is not the solution to this big ultralisk.
     
    Sindri the loyal said:
    What about gunships? Sure a ultra is chunky but it can't exactly hit air and it has weak points we could hit.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    It's a potential solution to this problem and why I wanted an air factory back when, mass gunships are great, and the UEF gunships all have one transport clamp for either a T1 or a T2 unit to be brought along, like an engineer, but the ultra is hitting our line right NOW and I dunno if there'd be some narrative effect letting it hit our convoy and wreck the shields before they came over.
     
    Asmodemus said:
    It's a potential solution to this problem and why I wanted an air factory back when, mass gunships are great, and the UEF gunships all have one transport clamp for either a T1 or a T2 unit to be brought along, like an engineer, but the ultra is hitting our line right NOW and I dunno if there'd be some narrative effect letting it hit our convoy and wreck the shields before they came over.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    True, I guess we could vomit out waves of mech marines to distract it and send into preplanned firing zones of our t1 and t2 artillery, at the end of the day it's still juts feral zerg, without a command organism there are dumb. So it should be very doable to flummox the buffon.
     
    [ ] Plan: Killbox - Pin the zerg experimental in place by surrounding it in calcicrete walls and switch the land factory over to building Flapjack mobile missile launchers. Direct the produced MMLs towards bombarding the monster with cruise missiles.

    [ ] Plan: The Right Tool - Tech up the land factory to tier 3 and build a force of Percivals armored assault bots to fight the zerg experimental and counter any more T4s that may appear over the course of the fight to the survivors.

    I'm throwing up a couple of write-in plans that revolve around building up a more lasting ultralisk counter, since with Tarsonis being a world that's been under zerg occupation for months it is probable that the swarm has access to more than a single ultralisk, nevermind the danger that they'll be able to grow more in response to Clarke's advance, at in-game speeds.
     
    Spart117MC said:
    [ ] Plan: Killbox - Pin the zerg experimental in place by surrounding it in calcicrete walls and switch the land factory over to building Flapjack mobile missile launchers. Direct the produced MMLs towards bombarding the monster with cruise missiles.

    [ ] Plan: The Right Tool - Tech up the land factory to tier 3 and build a force of Percivals armored assault bots to fight the zerg experimental and counter any more T4s that may appear over the course of the fight to the survivors.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    The first plan is fine - it's basically a tweaked version of slow it down. The second plan is something you could try but is highly unlikely to be finished before the ultralisk chomps your ACU in half!
     
    [ ] Plan: Walls Forever! Build engineers to keep building more and more walls around the ultralisk until the orbital platform hits and takes them both out. Continue with the rescue.

    Is this feasible?
     
    Last edited:
    Sigil said:
    [ ] Plan: Walls Forever! Build engineers to keep building more and more walls around the ultralisk until the orbital platform hits and takes them both out. Continue with the rescue.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Sure! It actually has the advantage of letting you tap your economic sparks to add to wall sparks and throw in the factory - giving you some extra levels of heroic effort, and may actually be the first narrative justification for you to use your nanofab miracle, your engineering factory miracle AND your economic sparks all at once!
     
    [X] Plan: Killbox - Pin the zerg experimental in place by surrounding it in calcicrete walls and switch the land factory over to building Flapjack mobile missile launchers. Direct the produced MMLs towards bombarding the monster with cruise missiles.

    [X] Plan: Walls Forever! Build engineers to keep building more and more walls around the ultralisk until the orbital platform hits and takes them both out. Continue with the rescue.
     
    [X] Plan: Walls Forever! Build engineers to keep building more and more walls around the ultralisk until the orbital platform hits and takes them both out. Continue with the rescue.
     
    Gunships would have been my vote, but then we shouldn't have time to get shielding there. I only hope there will be enough time for us to get to the tunnels & investigate them.

    [x] Plan: Slow It Down
     
    Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Oct 31, 2023 at 6:34 PM, finished with 23 posts and 14 votes.
    • [X] Plan: Slow It Down
      [X] Plan: Walls Forever!
      [X] Plan: Walls Forever! Build engineers to keep building more and more walls around the ultralisk until the orbital platform hits and takes them both out. Continue with the rescue.
      [X] Plan: The highest ground
      -[X] Use the Planning sparks and Leadership skill to create Air Transport sparks on ourselves and the parashields.
      -[X] Use the Economic Structures sticky spark to make Charging sparks for ourselves.
      [x] Plan: Slow It Down - use your nanofabricate skill and your Planning sparks vs diff 1 to create Mass 6 (Mass 6 (Big Cube 4) to try and slow the Ultralisk down. Then begin to charge up your antimatter cannon by using Vehicle Weapon vs diff 1+1 to create Charging 1 spark, then take 6 more heat to create even more Charging sparks. Then turn your Economic Structures into Charging 6, to give you a total of 13 Charging sparks. Vent 6 heat using Just as Planned to get 1 Planning Spark - and plan to charge some more. (You need to be able to get 24 Charging sparks in total to blast through the Ultralisk's durability.
      [X] Plan: Killbox - Pin the zerg experimental in place by surrounding it in calcicrete walls and switch the land factory over to building Flapjack mobile missile launchers. Direct the produced MMLs towards bombarding the monster with cruise missiles.
    Click to expand...


    slowin' down!
     
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