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 Do the Job, Get Paid: Let's Play MekHQ Against the Bot! So wot's all this then? This, my friends, is MekHQ. Specifically, version (as of posting) 0.46.1 of MekHQ. It's a campaign manager for virtual BattleTech tabletop games run on the MegaMek engine. It helps keep track of all your expenses, your rolls, your 'Mechs, your MechWarriors, your support staff, what day of the year it is, what's being repaired, etc. Sounds tedious and cumbersome. At times, yes, but once you're in the flow of things, it gets really easy to get going. Wanna look at what new contracts that just popped up? Open up the Marketplace toolbar at the top and look in the Contract Market. Wanna see what 'Mechs need to be repaired? Click the Repair Bay tab. Need to see what lances you've currently got deployed and which still need to be set up? Open up the TO&E tab. I'm not gonna lie and say "it's easy to pick up straight outta the box," you do kinda need to do some test campaigns (maybe one or two) to get used to how everything works, but it's simple to get into the groove of opening and closing menus, doing missions, and checking the balance sheet. As we get deeper into things, I'll explain as we go on. It's free to download from the official BattleTech forums, too! Check it out here if you're interested in playing along or starting your journey. Ok...so what's Against the Bot? Usually, tabletop BattleTech (whether it be virtual via MegaMek or in-person) requires at least two players to play. But Against the Bot is...well, against the bot. It's a rules-set for a solo campaign that puts you in the commander's chair and goes "Can you keep your mercenary outfit afloat, alive, and thriving in the Inner Sphere?" It covers everything from contract breaches to civilian unrest to your employer trying to backstab you and all the bits in between. It's for when you don't have time and/or friends to set up an actual game IRL or spend hours looking for one online. It's been baked into MekHQ as an option, so if you wanna give it go, have at it; all you gotta do is turn it on and you're playing. Ok...so what's the LP going to be about? It's gonna be about one outfit of mercenaries trying to keep the lights on the best they can, based on decisions and suggestions that you, the readers, give me. I'll be in the commander's chair when the bullets (and lasers, and man-made lightning, and missiles) start flying, but you guys are gonna debate, bicker, and argue over which contracts to take, which personnel/unit packages to buy, who to fire, who gets what medals, and who gets promoted. That means while I focus on the tactical side of things, you guys are gonna help me play the long game, much like Yooper's currently (as of writing) ongoing LP of Strike Command and CMO. When the time calls for it, I'll hold a vote on what's currently the issue(s) at hand. Bold your choices so I can see and count them properly. Whatever gets the most votes gets done, no refunds, so do try to keep things civilized. Global rules still apply, so do NOT be dicks. (I'm more than aware that that last part is better off left unsaid, but sometimes people need reminders) Also, in this turns into a faction vs faction pissing match (whether it be about factions in the canon OR factions that pop up here in the thread, for example, Team VTOL vs Team Anti-Air) with people going after each other for liking the "wrong" characters or sides, I will ask the mods to pull the plug on this rodeo and this entire thing will get shut down. Seriously. Don't gently caress this up for everyone else. Let's all just have a good time and not try to harsh anyone's mellow, ok? And if you're looking for hardcore, pro-gamer, meta-abiding strategies, look elsewhere. This is NOT that LP. I might know a thing or two about the game, but I am in no way, shape, or form an expert. What other forms of thread participation are allowed, aside from arguing? For one, you can do fan art; that's always neat. Maybe even some fanfiction; ya know, like an in-character journal write-up for one of the staff members or an after incident report from a MechWarrior. Another is callsigns; nicknames you can give the pilots that speak to their personality (if you need a good resource to jump off from, the f-16.net callsigns database is an amazing place to start; as of writing, it has 1477 callsigns with snippets of how each one came to be). If you're interested in going above and beyond, feel free. If you wanna submit yourself as a MechWarrior (sans callsign; in the grand tradition of such things, you don't get to choose your own), bold your submission. Gimme a name (but no pictures, please; I have TONS to work from already) and I'll toss you in. EDIT AS OF 7/31/2020: If you wanna suggest a callsign for one of our intrepid MechWarriors, please remember to bold your suggestions! If you are one of the said MechWarriors, don't try to be slick and suggest anything--in the grand tradition of callsigns, you don't get to choose your own. EDIT 2 AS OF 7/31/2020: If your character dies or goes missing during a mission, feel free to submit another character for any role, as long as you use a different name. EDIT 3 AS OF 7/31/2020: If you absolutely must submit a picture, please make sure it is 100x100 pixels, otherwise MekHQ and MegaMek might have trouble reading it! So what era will we be playing in? We're going to start in the Third Succession War era (so ~3025), which gives startups like us the best place to get our foot in the door. When the Clans arrive, we'll have a vote as to whether or not to go kick their poo poo in, but for right now, we're starting small. No need to toss us into the deep end quite yet. The Jihad and Dark Ages are likewise also on the table, but that's a long way off yet. (As we've already voted on a sponsor, you can check the index below to navigate between updates.) HereticMIND fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Aug 8, 2020 |
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Jul 21, 2020 03:55
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You're a bolder man than I am- I kicked around an ATB let's play for a while a ways back and came to the conclusion that it would drive me to madness. So good luck! I've been playing ATB since before the rules got imported into MekHQ proper, back in the days where you had a giant indecipherable spreadsheet of rules and you manually tracked everything. Ahh, memories. If you run into any snags or need any support, just ring me up- or if you want someone to play an OpFor a little more spicily than Princess will do, I can do that too. Now! I will dorf myself, but not as a Mechwarrior: If you don't mind, I would like to add Mukai Kubo in as our lone and harassed Administrator. More specifically, as an Administrator/HR, so that everyone you hire has a little bonus to their rolls for skills- if you want to add that admin first, it'll help give a little PEP to your starting mechwarriors and techs! If not, I will cheerfully demote myself to a Mechwarrior from the lovely Canopian periphery. For a sponsor: I'm going to speak up in favor of CHESTERTON, MAXWELL, & ASHBURY, ATTORNEYS AT LAW. Everyone has a pretty glaring flaw, but the Lawyers' are giving us enough cash to fix theirs and they're close enough to a good 3025 company that I'll put my finger on them. Honest Jon's has too many slow lights to make an effective recon lance and are cheap. The logistics folks DO have my favorite mech, the Phoenix Hawk, and they DO have the extremely frightening -4P hunchback, but it's extremely hard to put together a good recon lance even if their heavy lance would be pretty efficient (Warhammer, Rifleman, and Archer all have good long range punch, and the -4P Hunchback is an excellent bodyguard against jumpy mechs trying to get in behind). They're not a bad option. Yuri's... I just hate that set of mechs. And Fukuwara is going to struggle to form efficient lances with that loadout too. How about the attorneys? Well, their heavy lance is going to be... okay. It's hard to go wrong with an Orion- arguably one of the best 3025 heavies- as your centerpiece, and the Crusaders are... decent, though that ammunition in the CT is like a giant flashing red light. And bringing the Shadowhawk with those three gives you at least a reasonable 260-ton heavy lance. The light lance will be dicey because of that Urbanmech. A Javelin's a decent light mech for the era and you can't really get around the Bug mechs in this era... but the Urbanmech means it won't be able to do scouting. You could swap it out for the Firestarter but then you're just crippling two lances, because holy heck, the lawyers' medium lance? A pair of -6R Wolverines, a Griffin, and a Firestarter? Be still my heart because that's a 200-ton-on-the-nose medium lance that's capable of fight missions, capable of scout missions, is flexible, survivable, and lethal. I'm hard-pressed to put together a better lance from any of these patrons than that, and that roster of mechs is frankly going to serve you well for *decades* if you don't get any of them blown up as a stalwart lance you can have do anything. If you can sell the Urbanmech and buy something with a decent movement speed like a Phoenix Hawk you'd have an excellent starting company, but we'll be at the mercy of the market's offerings there. So my recommendation is we take the Attorneys' sponsorship, try to ASAP reform our light mechs into another scouting lance so we can have some comfort doing raid contracts, and let our heavies be the big stick we save for defense when we gotta. Getting another good heavy mech should be a lower priority to drop in for the Shadowhawk in our heavy lance too. Plus they're Mariks so I gotta argue for them. And 75 million C-bills! That's RICHNESS there, buddy. I'm terrible at naming things, so I'll throw out a simple and straightforward suggestion for now: The Grey Goons, no relation to the vodka brand. Edit: I will also note my biases up front: I am addicted to speed. Give me speed, give me jumpiness, and I will fight the entire Inner Sphere. I feel a visceral disdain for lights that can't do 5 hexes walking, and mediums that can't do 4, and for all but heavy mechs I have a hard time coping with not having jump jets. As such, as you may notice, my venom for the Urbanmech and the Panther is coming from a place of GOTTA GO FAST-itis. Edit 2: Instead of the lance structure I outlined above for the lawyer patrons, you *could* kind of do the Murder Lance with the WVR/WVR/GRF/FS9 and then 2 slow medium battle lances, something like an Orion-Crusader-Urbanmech-Stinger and a Crusader-Shadow Hawk-Javelin-Wasp. They'd be neither fish nor fowl but it'd obviate the need to buy a mech ASAP; you'd also want to dedicate Murder Lance mostly to scouting missions in that case. Mukaikubo fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Jul 21, 2020 |
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Jul 21, 2020 04:29
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Shin Rato would like to sign up. CHESTERTON, MAXWELL, & ASHBURY, ATTORNEYS AT LAW because Mukai mentioned going fast and I like fast.
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Jul 21, 2020 04:35
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Circl Mastr would like to sign up, so long as he doesn't pilot a MchWarrior with any 'e's in the name. To that end, CHESTERTON, MAXWELL, & ASHBURY, ATTORNEYS AT LAW is a good shout, since they have numerous non-e options for Mchs (Griffin, Shadow Hawk, Wasp, Orion). Also my entire experience with the Battletech universe is playing MW4M and never doing anything except the tournaments on Solaris. Speaking of which, do you know what else doesn't have any 'e's? PPCs. (No, I don't know how they work in this game.)
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Jul 21, 2020 05:50
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United Security Logistics As they seem to have the heaviest selection.
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Jul 21, 2020 06:35
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Dorf me, please: Fabio Samuels would like to sign up. There is no worse enemy than a lawyer: CHESTERTON, MAXWELL, & ASHBURY, ATTORNEYS AT LAW Fat Samurai fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Jul 21, 2020 |
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Jul 21, 2020 07:43
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Callsign: Eclectic Tastes Real Name: N/A (legally changed to match callsign "on a dare") Likes: -Particle Projector Cannons -Mechs with lots of free tonnage for weaponry. -Stealing Clan tech. -Discovering Star League tech. -The Centurion's arm cannon, refitted for a PPC. Dislikes: -Wasted space for impractical nonsense like jump jets or armor. -Ammo bins. -Mechs without arms (that's just a personal preference). Much as I love the Centurion, I love having money for overtuned energy weapons more, so let's go with Chesterton, Maxwell, and Ashbury. Also, for context on how I'm going to be looking at things, my primary experience with Battletech is playing MechCommander, and more recently the Battletech video game, but mostly MechCommander. Additionally, for the name of the company, allow me to propose General Organized Opponent Neutralization Solutions (GOONS).
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Jul 21, 2020 09:13
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Mechwarrior me as Damanation. I don’t really know anything about the mechs themselves, so I’ll pass on that vote.
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Jul 21, 2020 09:35
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Mechwarrior me as Odd Haberdasher, Mad Hatter or any synonym of such EDIT: I am in favor of General Organized Opponent Neutralization Solutions (GOONS) as a name.
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Jul 21, 2020 10:20
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Plese include lots of description of how you set up & run the campaign. I've bounced of MekHQ several times due to the lack of any tutorial, the tooltips are pretty good and explain what every button does well enough but nothing tells you want to do to make a fun campaign happen. Maybe it's obvious if you have the books and have played Btech before, but i haven't.
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Jul 21, 2020 13:59
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Lyra Anderson would like to throw her hat into the ring as a Mechwarrior. For our sponsor, this is a tough call I have to vote for YURI'S REFURBISHED 'MECHS, TANKS, AND VTOLS I'm a sucker for mechs like the Vindicator and the Panther and I like the guy's attitude! If Fukuwara had something else replacing either the Blackjack or the Vulcan I'd have been tempted to go with that instead. As for a name, I'll toss my vote for Grey Goons
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Jul 21, 2020 14:04
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I’m gonna leave votes for our sponsor open for another  24 HOURS, just so you’re aware. So get your votes in now or forever hold your peace. (CM&A seems to be leading the pack, but let’s leave some room for a few dark horses, eh?)Seeing as we only have two options for a name for our rodeo, I’m calling for at least three more submissions so we can have some semblance of diversity around here. If we don’t reach that after our sponsor vote, we’ll vote on what we got. HereticMIND fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jul 21, 2020 |
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Jul 21, 2020 20:07
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Can you name individual mech? (been a while since I tries mekhq) If so, can you name one of our autocannon-heavy 'mech as Maxim? As for our name - Heretic's host, maybe?
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Jul 21, 2020 21:25
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Voting for Chesterton, Maxwell, and Ashbury. Also, mechwarrior me and for callsign I submit: Tapir Master. Grey Goons for CO name.
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Jul 21, 2020 22:28
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I will note there are some quite fetching gray-based camouflage patterns available for our mechs, since making them look pretty is obviously of critical importance to our success as a company.
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Jul 21, 2020 23:05
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Name: Norman Joe Sponsor: Chesterton, Maxwell, and Ashbury. Organization: Grey Goons Scalding Coffee fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jul 21, 2020 |
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Jul 21, 2020 23:11
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Adeptus Mechgoonicus hasn't been mentioned?
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Jul 21, 2020 23:15
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Mukaikubo posted:I will note there are some quite fetching gray-based camouflage patterns available for our mechs, since making them look pretty is obviously of critical importance to our success as a company. But how will they even know who we are if we're not sporting rad neon paint jobs? We gotta get that word of mouth going! I mean, if we put on camouflage, our enemies might not even realize it was us that blew them up!
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Jul 21, 2020 23:15
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No Jenners in the starting lineup.  This looks awesome! Tried a few ATB campaigns but I'm terrible at this game so my company usually dies early. I'll be a mechwarrior if possible Nasir is the name. I vote for YURI'S REFURBISHED 'MECHS, TANKS, AND VTOLS as I'm a sucker for Panthers. Voting Grey Goons for the company name. Also cracking up at people giving themselves callsigns, you won't get one till your charater does somthing
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Jul 21, 2020 23:17
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Jimmy4400nav posted:Also cracking up at people giving themselves callsigns, you won't get one till your charater does somthing My understanding is callsigns are just easy identifiers for 'mech pilots and also most forum names don't translate well to real people names. 
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Jul 22, 2020 04:44
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EclecticTastes posted:My understanding is callsigns are just easy identifiers for 'mech pilots and also most forum names don't translate well to real people names. I'm just teasing 
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Jul 22, 2020 06:55
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Jimmy4400nav posted:I'm just teasing Oh, cool, sorry, hard to tell in text. I once got utterly castigated for thinking Space Marines were just foot soldiers (turns out that was Imperial Guardsmen), so I tend to be a little careful about Tabletop Wargames Lore. Also, I'm with you on the Panthers, I love any 'mech with a ton of free space to cram full of weaponry (and, if absolutely necessary, heat sinks). That said, I don't think we're going to be truly stuck with the lineup our patron's offering, it's just what we'll be picking from for our starting lances. I'll definitely be stumping for grabbing Panthers, Centurions, maybe even Black Knights if we can afford Heavy 'mechs. Because I judge the value of a 'mech exclusively on how much free tonnage it has  . That said, the extra twenty million starting C-notes is what's got me voting against Yuri (he's my second choice, though).
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Jul 22, 2020 07:13
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And here I was hoping we would be sponsored by the Quickscell company, with appropriately unmaintained mechs.
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Jul 22, 2020 08:11
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evilmiera posted:And here I was hoping we would be sponsored by the Quickscell company, with appropriately unmaintained mechs. oh PLEASE let this be an option 
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Jul 22, 2020 09:07
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I'm throwing in a vote for Honest Jon, a name you, and the Star League*, can trust! Toss me in as a mechwarrior in that beautiful Urbie if we get one. Also if at all possible put an ac20 on it, at the cost of anything. RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 15:19
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Throw in Mikhael Lyte as a pilot, preferably of a Wolverine. I'll put my votes in for the Lawyers and Grey Goons. We will be able to suggest custom loadouts, or are you not going to be bothering so much with that?
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Jul 22, 2020 15:55
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THREE MORE HOURS UNTIL THE CUTOFF CHILDREN Get your votes in now!
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Jul 22, 2020 17:34
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Sugar Daddy: UNITED SECURITY LOGISTICS Name: Hired Goons (always a classic) Signing up as Mechwarrior (after a quick spin on https://www.name-generator.org.uk/) Liam White.
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Jul 22, 2020 18:58
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anakha posted:Name: Hired Goons (always a classic) Hired Goons?
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Jul 22, 2020 19:25
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...Aaaaaaaaand that’s all she wrote in terms of voting on our sponsor! With an absolute DOMINANT showing, Chesterton, Maxwell, & Ashbury have been selected as our And it looks like we’re gonna be calling ourselves the Grey Goons. First update will be done soon(ish), so hang on—not really near a computer right now (on mobile), plus I gotta set everything up using my framework save. If you’d excuse me! EDIT: Dorfed everyone who needed to be dorfed. Made a handy list to help me keep track of everything. If your username is on this list and the character name space says (NOT SUBMITTED)? Yeah, could ya fix that for me please? HereticMIND fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Jul 23, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 20:26
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OddHaberdasher (with one 'b') here, going by the name Kim Keller.
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Jul 23, 2020 02:31
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PROLOGUE: FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS Alrighty, then! Let's get this trainwreck on schedule! First stop, the roster! As you can see, the people who submitted their characters properly (ie not as a callsign) have been added and the rest of the crew have been premade (those who haven't? Well, I made a list, like I mentioned before...). Now, I only mentioned that the 12 starting MechWarriors would be at the Regular 4/5 skill level (as denoted by the Regular in their skill column), but not the 'Techs. This is kinda an oversight on my part but we're gonna roll with it. Besides, we have an Elite level Tech, so of course we're keeping things the way we are (got seriously lucky on my premade rolls). ANYWAY, I've already thrown people into 'Mechs and assigned 'Techs to them, so we're good as far as the roster goes. Breakdown of each lance, as they stand right now. Expect things to change VERY rapidly. Moving on! If you couldn't already tell, I've added the 'Mechs we got from our sponsors. Nothing to see here; just housekeeping. Next! As it turns out, our sponsor was kind enough to liberate some supplies for us. A lot of supplies, actually. (Man that's a lotta machine gun ammo! How much does one Firestarter need?!) Expect this list to fluctuate wildly. Especially the ammo. Next station is...! The marketplace! Here we can buy whatever our little hearts desire. But wait! What light over yonder window breaks? A Guillotine -4P?! At a relatively decent price?! GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME Normally, I'd hold a vote on things like this, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut... You honestly think I'm gonna pass on this? HELL nah! After purchasing that, I've added a new 'Tech to the roster to maintain our newest purchase. With that adventure outta the way, we can move on to... Contracts! There's four to choose from, so let's break each one down and see what prizes we could win! (Quick note: You're going to see our allies' force rating and that of our enemies represented as Experience/Quality of Equipment (if I'm reading it right), and goes from Wet Behind the Ears to Legendary for experience and A to F (A being the lowest quality of equipment, F the highest)) Contract One has us doing dirty work for the Capellans for a month as nothing more than a poke and prod against the FWLM. Simple, easy, clean...except with the added caveat that our new buddies for that month would be pretty green all things considered and the people we'd be going up against are not. Also, we don't get to keep what we kill, so there's that to consider, and we'd be under the Thumb of Liao, too, if only just. The upside is that our prospective foes' equipment is due for a bit of maintenance, so that's a silver lining. Contract Two has us on cadre duty with the Suns against the Concordat. For this venture, we'd sign on for four months, go where the unit we're attached to tells us to go, and raise hell. The salvage we'd get is chump change, though. Plus, our new buddies would be green. Ick. One of the good things about this contract is that we'd be under liaison instead of fully under Davion control, which means we retain some more autonomy. Contract Three is another job from the Capellans, this time as strike-breakers. We'd be on call for six months and get to take home some souvenirs, but the downside is that we'd be on the clock for six months, which costs money. Plus, we'd be playing by the CCAF's rules by being under House command. And here is Contract Four. Free Worlds League wants us to make some noise in the Niops Association for about six months. We'd be able to take home a lot of poo poo with that much salvage. That'd almost be enough to make the six months tolerable. Still, we'd be dancing to the FWLM's tune, so that's kind of a bummer. And with that, our prologue comes to a close. Let's get to our first vote! ----------- VOTE TIMEWith four contracts to choose from, we have to pick one to start with. In an ideal world, we'd do them all at once, but we're too small and too green for that, so there can be only one. Do we go with... A) CONTRACT ONE--Recon Raid B) CONTRACT TWO--Cadre Duty C) CONTRACT THREE--Riot Duty or D) CONTRACT FOUR--Guerrilla Warfare? Make sure to bold your choices and to play nice! VOTE CLOSES IN 48 HOURS ~~~~~~~~~ OddHaberdasher posted:OddHaberdasher (with one 'b') here, going by the name Kim Keller. Done.
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Jul 23, 2020 04:04
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Going with CONTRACT ONE. That Guillotine is quite a find. Maybe you can swap out the Urbie and reshuffle lances so the Guillotine joins the Orion in the heavy lance and the Firestarter joins the light lance. E: Forgot to factor in the costs we'll be eating. anakha fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Jul 23, 2020 |
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Jul 23, 2020 04:26
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Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but those look like minuses next to those numbers. As in, we'll be eating a net loss of money by the end of the contracts. Am I simply reading this wrong? Either way, I'm voting for Contract One.
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Jul 23, 2020 04:47
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CONTRACT ONE--Recon Raid Quick, easy work with very little travel time. Long trips eat money and time not spent shooting things. I agree on swapping the Urbie with the Firestarter.
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Jul 23, 2020 04:49
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Throwing my vote in for Contract Four. And since apparently you don't recognize any ahistorical names, sign me up as David Cage.
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Jul 23, 2020 04:53
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OddHaberdasher posted:Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but those look like minuses next to those numbers. As in, we'll be eating a net loss of money by the end of the contracts. Am I simply reading this wrong? Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Forgot to mention that. I'm assuming that, between missions during the contract, we're also selling off assets that are surplus to requirements. HereticMIND fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Jul 23, 2020 |
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Jul 23, 2020 04:54
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Seems like most of the loss comes from the astronomically large travel costs in comparison.
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Jul 23, 2020 04:57
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Yo Op toss your old pal Gridlocked into the pilot seat as Gridius Lockius Also Contract 3 RIOT DUTY Gridlocked fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Jul 23, 2020 |
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Jul 23, 2020 05:02
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