At first I was thinking we'd be getting pretty Drac with 3 Whammy-Ks, but then I realized, aren't we already? There's the Liao Suicide Trashcan, and the Talos is technically Taurian (but practically extinct), but everything else is Drac or FWL, and the latter is selling to the former big-time.
At first I was thinking we'd be getting pretty Drac with 3 Whammy-Ks, but then I realized, aren't we already? There's the Liao Suicide Trashcan, and the Talos is technically Taurian (but practically extinct), but everything else is Drac or FWL, and the latter is selling to the former big-time.
Nah, we want Whammy-Ds - the Ks have a stupid armour layout, for all they've got a half-decent raw amount of it. EDIT: Or go with the Ks, but rationalise their armour scheme.
And I still want my 'we welded half a SHawk-2D to half a SHawk-2K, and made this!' horrible monstrosity. But Prom doesn't seem to want to go that way
Lt. sg. Cornuthaum couldn't be more Lyran if he tried, with his ancestral family Atlas, the yak ranch and attendant cheesery and ice wine vinyards on Tharkad, and the clauses in his contract ensuring he'll never take service against House Steiner.
But he's trying anyways because he's a Steiner boy for life.
Lt. sg. Cornuthaum couldn't be more Lyran if he tried, with his ancestral family Atlas, the yak ranch and attendant cheesery and ice wine vinyards on Tharkad, and the clauses in his contract ensuring he'll never take service against House Steiner.
But he's trying anyways because he's a Steiner boy for life.
Look just because we had to refit the ancestral family Atlas with salvage from the scuffles along the snake border because of grandfather "what do you mean, piloting 10+" Cornuthaum the Elder breaking all the things a few bits doesn't make it any less of an ancestral Steiner loyalist mech
I can only imagine just how long the Talos has been in my family for. Understandably, I'd imagine the other people our merc group were surprised something so old was still working considering it's pre-Star League Civil War.
Look just because we had to refit the ancestral family Atlas with salvage from the scuffles along the snake border because of grandfather "what do you mean, piloting 10+" Cornuthaum the Elder breaking all the things a few bits doesn't make it any less of an ancestral Steiner loyalist mech
Well that doesn't mean you aren'T one of our Faceless Background Techgoons or Part Of The Vehicle Crew or Just Some Person Saying The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time While Delivering FedEx Actuators And Armor Plates
That is quite enough, gentlemen. Sorry Ell-Tee but you´re cooling your heels in the brig for a while over this while the other guy gets handed over to local authorities. Needs of the contract and all.
Well that doesn't mean you aren'T one of our Faceless Background Techgoons or Part Of The Vehicle Crew or Just Some Person Saying The Wrong Thing At The Wrong Time While Delivering FedEx Actuators And Armor Plates
First thing's first, we hire the veteran Draconis MechWarrior.
While Knight's piloting leaves something to be desired (seriously, he'd probably trip over his mechs own feet given half the chance), his shooting skills more than makes up for things. Given one of the Warhammers (or some other kind of sniping mech), Knight could be an incredible long-range support.
Next up, we have the unenviable task of repairing all the damage that Drac soldiers like Knight did to our mechs. Thanks, guy…
Seriously, there's a ton of shit to do. To ensure that we have as many mechs out on the field in case of an unexpected attack, I'll begin with the least damaged mechs first though I first make sure to order replacement parts for both Warhammers, the Kintaro, and Iof's Atlas.
As you might image, that's a lot of spare parts and ends up being preeeeeeety pricey at over 130,000k C-bills for the parts alone. However, now that it's out of the way, we can get started on the repair order. First up is Ostrich's Marauder.
Luckily, she needs some AC/5 ammo replaced, and it proves a simple task for our MechTeks. Next is Cornuthaum's inherited Atlas, the 100-ton machine requiring only a small amount of armour and ammo replaced.
This is swiftly followed by Reckless Prudence's Shadowhawk, Night's Lightning, Emy's Orion, DreamerGhost's Trebuchet, and Ivan's Warhammer.
Annoyingly, Dreamer's Trebuchet will take an extra day or so before it's fully operational.
With most of our mechs repaired, I order our techs to mass repair the captured Banshee with their remaining hours on the clock.
I then assign our injured MechWarriors and prisoners to their doctors.
And order 10 tons of ferro-fibrous armour for the Kintaro as we have zero on hand.
With those tasks completed, I proceed to move on. With luck, we should have time to repair our mechs before Drac's try to smuggle more materials on-world on the 7th of October…
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30th September:
On the 30th of September, we successfully repair the Warhammer -6R, and I then proceed to order our MekTeks to mod it into a -6K variant as the idea that one of our pilots might ride a bomb into battle is… unpleasant.
Luckily, the refit is pretty minor, so the task will only take about six days at most.
We also manage to strip everything of value from the Firestarter, Wasp, and Panther; selling them for 900K, 11K, and 200K respectively.
1st October:
On the 1st of October, we learn that the morale of the Snakes has plummeted thanks to the drumming we gave them during the convoy raid and their abject failure to rescue their comrades. We also learn from out-system traders that there's some political dispute going on amongst the nobility of nearby systems. As a result, it'll be challenging to get our hands on needed mech parts as the nobility are locking down everything they can.
We also strip the last of the parts we want from the captured Trebuchet and sell it for 200K C-cills.
3rd October:
On the 3rd of October, our MechTeks manage to get the Banshee -3E up and running. Now that I bother to inspect it, I see what you mean about it being pretty crappy.
Oh wow, a PPC and AC/5 backed up by a single small laser? I'm terrified
Yeah, you're probably going to be sold for pizza-money, bro.
6th October:
The Warhammer -6R completes its transformation into a -6K and Iof's Atlas is fully repaired along with the Kintaro.
It's a lucky thing, too, as the Drac dropship will land tomorrow…
7th October:
… Huh, that was anticlimactic.
Yeah, so it turns out that I don't know how to add encounters properly (and the game hasn't given me any fights yet). As such, I'm willing to say that the dropship ambush went off without a hitch and you managed to seize a great deal of Drac supplies with the help of the Baron's men. While the Baron took the lion's share of the loot (citing the fact that it's his planet they're being criminals on and his men who seized the dropship), he nonetheless gives you a fair share of the captured equipment.
EFFECT: Pick 1.5 million C-bills worth of equipment to gain next update.
The smugglers themselves have been remanded into the Baron's custody along with their Union dropship. During the operation, a second Union was spotted on approach, but it must have been warned by someone aboard the Smuggler's ship as buggered off pretty quickly. If we had more aerospace fighters in our company, we probably could have forced it down, but as it is we managed to capture half of the Drac's supplies for the next two months.
While this isn't a deathblow to the 9th Benjamin, it can't make their lives any more comfortable. Hell, it might even make them desperate enough to overreach and let us crush them.
21st October:
Ostrich gets better at piloting.
Meanwhile, RangerKarl and KnightDisciple are both put into our shiny new Warhammer -6Ks. While I haven't yet moved them into a Warhammer lance, it's only because I'm waiting for the Dracs to deliver a 4th machine to us.
28th October:
Cornuthaum is now an average shot, up from absolutely godawful.
1st November:
The logistics problem resolves itself as the distant nobles realise that their wealth is not under threat from their peers. Annoyingly, it's now under threat from the peasants.
Precipitated by one petty noble's decision to kick a family off the farmland they've lived on for 200 years so that she could turn it into a hunting preserve for non-indigenous species, a series of petty rebellions and uprisings have sprung up all across David. Fortunately for us, these so-called uprisings are little more than protests and demonstrations, and for the most part, they're aimed at those at the top of the social hierarchy. Even more fortunate, the baron himself seems to be on the side of the lower classes and has, as Cornuthaum described it, given the rest of the nobility a right proper bollocking.
While it's not as bad as it could be, the sheer fact that there is dissent on David will likely bolster the flagging morale of the 9th Benjamin. But hey, at least we got paid. [SPORADIC UPRISINGS]
9th November:
As the morning of the ninth rolls around, something very annoying happens.
For the past few weeks, Delta lance* —having become something of an introductory lance— has been carrying out patrols with the recently hired KnightDisciple to familiarise him with our operating procedures during battle**.
During one such patrol near to the summer house of the noble that started the uprisings with her incredibly poor decision making, Delta detected a significant force of mechs and vehicles approaching the chateau at flank speed. Rightly suspicious, Corporal Ivan proceeded to radio the chateau's staff and was unpleasantly surprised to reach the noblewoman herself. The Baron himself had "suggested" that she retire there for a few months so that he could cool things down at home —a good idea since the protests had moved from merely cursing her to burning her in effigy after a disastrous attempt at an apology.
Faced with the twin facts of a VIP sitting isolated in a soft target and three full lances rapidly approaching, Ivan realised that he and his men would have to do something stupidly heroic as the Dracs were likely planning to inflame tensions.
* Technically minus Night and his Lightning, but an aerospace fighter can get anywhere quickly.
** 90% of the time this could be replaced by asking what the DCMS would do in a given situation and then telling him to do the opposite, but the remaining 10% of the time still requires live-fire training to ensure that the lessons sink in.
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Vote:
Special Event - Dropship Loot:
Note: List this in a single line in the format '1x gauss rifle, 5x medium lasers, 2x AC/10s' etc. Also, please use the unloaded cost listed on the Sarna page for a given item, and try not to make it too rare as I'll ignore things that seem ridiculous.
[] Dropship Capture Reward (1,500,000 C-Bills)
On the 3rd of October, our MechTeks manage to get the Banshee -3E up and running. Now that I bother to inspect it, I see what you mean about it being pretty crappy.
