Uesugi-dono

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Member Back to Top Post by Uesugi-dono on Failing my first campaign taught me a lot. My first character was Kenshiro "Secondlight" Uesugi, a noble (every character starts with this background) with roots in the Draconis Combine, a Japanese culture-dominated state known for its militarism. I had a pretty ideal start with him but I wasn't the leader of our little mercenary band for long before I bankrupted the company. I made a classic video gamer mistake: I tried to be perfectly prepared. Battletech isn't like that at all. Battletech is a game about living on the ragged edge, one step away from disaster, trying to make the best 'bad' decision you can to keep your company from the jaws of its creditors. It wasn't long before our dropship got repossessed and once that happens...







I restarted with Riana "Hysteria" Klaue. Riana grew up in the Rimward Periphery, an area of space rife with bandits and after her exile from her noble family that's what she became: a pirate. It was one of these pirate raids-gone-wrong when she was found by Raju "Mastiff" Montgomery, a veteran of the Third Succession War and former Master-at-Arms of House Klaue... Riana's trainer in her youth. He was working for the Royal House Arano in the Aurigan Coalition and that's where he brought her. After a "reformatory" period Riana was lifted to the Royal Guard, assigned to Lady Kamea Arano, heir to the Aurigan Coalition.





Raju "Mastiff" Montgomery Lady Kamea Arano





When High Lord Tamati Arano passed Riana was tasked with escorting Lady Arano to her coronation. Of course this is when her uncle staged a coup. This is Battletech, after all, and it has been compared to Game of Thrones in space! The betrayal was pretty in depth; the enemy was entrenched within the Royal Guard and before long the mission became "help Lady Arano escape" with only Mastiff, Arano, and Hysteria herself battling their way to a dropship. Early in the engagement Mastiff's left arm got blown off his Centurion mech, forcing the most capable mechwarrior I had into a support role. Suddenly Hysteria's Blackjack was taking a lot of fire, being forced into the lead, but Lady Arano was a capable pilot herself and before long we managed to make it to the dropship. I should say that losing Mastiff as a lead warrior changed this inaugural battle dramatically . Whereas Secondlight had little trouble, Hysteria made it out by the skin of her teeth. Shit happened and before long Hysteria was forced to eject; her pilot compartment being launched into orbit to await recovery. Sadly things did not go according to plan. Hysteria was rescued by a band of mercenaries on retainer by House Arano but also suddenly found herself friendless and unemployed.







The mercs, Markham's Marauders, had recently lost their commander who was on the planet's surface when the coup took place. With no one really willing to step into place, and with Hysteria's noble background, it wasn't long before she was elected leader of the band. With this promotion I renamed the company to simply "Mjolnir" and the game skipped forward three years in time to what should have been a relatively simple mission: a group of miners had been forced out by another company and hired us to retake their mining platforms. All we had to do was hit the turret generator at Site A to disable the enemy turrets and then hit the security building at Site B, taking out any resistance we met along the way. Easy right?







Nope. It wasn't easy! Hysteria had an easier go of it than Secondlight did. As Uesugi this is really the mission where I lost... only I didn't realize it til later! The massive damage I suffered on this mission (due to a premature approach and a prolonged battle with said turrets) and the subsequent repairs are what would eventually bankrupt Secondlight. So with Hysteria I was much more cautious. Still things went awry, as things are wont to do. Hysteria's Blackjack was really the only mech to suffer serious damage but that damage was suffered to the head . The head being where the pilots compartment is! She soldiered through it and we finished the mission but Riana herself would be sidelined with injury... for 69 days .











I had to assign a different pilot to Hysteria's Blackjack, which means my main character is going to miss out on a lot of this early game XP that should be building her up! However I got pretty lucky with the next mission. There was a local contract so I didn't have to travel (Jumpships are expensive taxis that carry your dropship from system to system) and all I needed to do was fend off a band of pirates Seven Samurai-style from a local government military base. Also the planet was cold... very cold, which is good... very good for heat-intensive mechs. Basically whereas Secondlight dealt with a shit-ton of desert planets during his short tenure Hysteria's band got to go weapons-free on these pirates. I opted to let them come to me, posting up two long-range mechs on the base itself and hiding two in the thick tree cover as the unwitting enemy approached. With the first salvo I blew an arm off the pirate mech and destroyed one of their tanks. The rest was mopped up pretty easily, even though the pirates pulled off a successful pincer maneuver; coming up and over the mountains to the west of the base. I managed to use my light mech's jump jets to smash an enemy tank, willfully dealing damage to its legs, but that would be the only damage I took during the course of the mission.





Battletech tanks and ground vehicles in their original, tabletop form.



Then I got lucky again: another local contract on the same icy world escorting a government convoy and protecting them from an anticipated rebel assault. After dropping into an active combat scenario and fending off an enemy mech and several support vehicles handily the escort raced out to their rendezvous point with my Lance flanking them the whole way. The whole mission went off flawlessly and I managed to get them to extraction before the enemy could even reach us. With success behind us now came the secondary part of the mission: did I want to go for more money by wiping out the late-coming rebel forces? Hell yes I did! I hid three mechs in forest cover and sent my sniper up a mountain as an enemy mech and 4 ground support vehicles attempted to set up an ambush on the other side of the mountain pass. It was a game of chicken; neither side willing to spring the trap. This suited me fine because it gave Glitch, my sniper, plenty of time to get into position. Then I tasked Medusa, piloting Hysteria's Blackjack, to act as a decoy; moving into full exposure. I picked a spot far from the pass and the enemy mech took the bait, coming around from the side and over a mountain to fire a Particle Projection Cannon (sniper) at my mech but the Blackjack's evasion (a combat condition affected by your movement) proved high enough to allow the messy shot to miss.



It was all timed perfectly. Immediately the Blackjack returned fire as both my Shadowhawk and Locust burst from cover. The enemy Centurion was suddenly missing an arm and most of its armor, the internal systems taking a beating as well. With three mechs exposed the enemy ground support raced into the pass... and into the waiting sights of my Vindicator sniper, waiting patiently atop the peaks. Within two rounds the enemy mech and three support vehicles were toast, leaving one rebel tank trying to flee up a mountainside at long range... but not long enough. What's the old adage about snipers? "If you run you'll only die tired?" Yeah, that's it. A flawless mission! No appreciable damage. On that mission alone, with the bonuses for wiping out the enemy, I made over 353 thousand C-Bills. That put my cash on hand, after just two independent missions, at over 1.2 million! (By contrast at this point poor Secondlight was struggling to make a 225k loan payment.)





At the point I'm at now we've just been offered a shadowy off-the-books mission. This was the mission that Secondlight was about to deploy on when the repo man came to collect his due, so I'm doing loads better. Hysteria still has a month on her recovery time but with travel to the new Jumpship and then to the new system she should be able to get back in action within a mission or two. I can definitely say this much: I love Battletech. The strategy, interpersonal interactions, and the GoT level drama between Great Houses all draws me in perfectly. With any luck I'll update this journal more. I hope you guys enjoy it.









Uesugi-dono

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"We are already in orbit around Bellerophon!" Darius protested.



"I know but the Detroit job has travel pay included!" Riana countered.



"So?"



"So does our mysterious benefactor on Bellerophon!"



"We are already here at Bellerophon!" Darius reiterated.



"Listen;" Riana had that piratical grin that spread across her face whenever she contemplated mischief, "if we let the client in Detroit pay our way there then Bellerophon will pay our way back! It's practically free money!"



Darius let his face fall into his hand. "Hysteria," he began, "that will add weeks to our meeting with the Bellerophon client! Who's to say the client will still even be here!?"



"She asked for Mjolnir by name, Darius," Riana shrugged, "she'll wait."



"She's Canopian elite!" the XO was beginning to get irate, "she isn't used to waiting! Besides, did you notice anything in particular about the Detroit job?"



"What?" Riana asked defensively, "Local government wants us to take down an enemy Lance that's doing exercises in it's territory. It's a milk run... and it pays well! More than the Bellerophon meeting!"



"That 'enemy Lance' is Canopian!!" Oliveira shouted. "What if word gets back to her that she had to wait a month on us because we were in Detroit attacking a Magistracy Lance??"



"Well, the Detroit job still pays more..."









At least that was the conversation in my head canon! But that's also what happened. The off-the-books job turned out to be on Bellerophon; the same icy world that my last two missions had been on. I was already in orbit. But when I checked the contracts there sat the job in Detroit. Travel pay included it said. The mystery client offered 33k for a meeting but Detroit offered a base pay of 187k. Add in bonuses and one job could offset the upcoming interest payments on our loans and payroll. Plus the Bellerophon job included travel expenses as well. There was simply no other alternative as I saw it. (Plus it helps that this is a video game and the story mission would wait as long as I wanted it to!)





A Leopard-class dropship with a Light-class Locust Mech for scale.





So off we flew in our Leopard dropship for a rendezvous with the Jumpship to Detroit. It took about 5 days to get out to the jumpship and dock and it was another two days before the scheduled jump. During which time Yang, our mechanic, finished the repairs on the Spider light mech that Dekker had damaged when he decided to go all Super Mario on that Scorpion light assault vehicle in the "Seven Samurai" mission. That gave me a little time to look over the refit options before we got to Detroit. I really wanted to outfit the Locust light mech with a flamer unit but we were too far out to shop and besides; flamers cost 22k but if I could find one as salvage on the battlefield...



The Leopard approaching the Jumpship





The jump was instantaneous but it took another 5 days or so to reach Detroit orbit. I had decided by that time that there was really nothing to refit on the mechs themselves. I had plenty of leftover medium lasers, SRMS, and even a 3 ton long range laser but my tonnage was evened out nicely already. Besides, why rock the boat? The Lance was pulling off near-flawless missions (except for Dekker's antics) and this mission was a milk run anyway.



A PPC-armed Medium-class Centurion CN9-AL Mech in the colors of the 2nd Magistracy Highlanders





The local government was the client and they were chaffed due to military maneuvers being conduced in their sovereign territory by a single Lance belonging to the Magistracy of Canopus. The Magistracy is a matriarchal interstellar nation ruled by House Centrella. Typically seen as a progressive state where personal freedom extends so far that all consensual acts are legal. Detroit sat in the Victoria Commonality of the Rimward Periphery... belonging to the Capellan Confederation; the youngest of the successor states. With a heavy Russo-Chinese influences the authoritarian House Liao makes a perfect foil to the Canopian central doctrines of freedom of expression so I suspect the Lance is here testing the waters... and creating ripples for a local government that wants no part of House Liao's inevitable response. So they need them gone... discreetly and with an air of plausible deniability.





Enter mercenaries.





The A.O. terrain could be classified as Highlands; dense forest cover and sharp topography consisting of hills and mountains. When we arrived the area was being buffeted by a sandstorm blown in from a neighboring region so visibility was low, making our approach undetected. Darius set a marker on the location of the Lance from orbit and Behemoth, Glitch, Dekker, and Medusa deployed in the same configuration as our first mission on Bellerophon, with Dekker back in his Spider. I, as Hysteria, still had 27 days to go in recovery so I supervised from the Leopard. The local government had an outpost directly ahead of us and the enemy Lance was somewhere in the forest beyond. First I used the Vindicator's jump jets to get Glitch into an elevated sniping position, sending Behemoth in the Shadowhawk and Medusa in my Blackjack into protective flanking positions on either side of the outpost. Dekker moved his Spider through the forest to approach the Lance and get a fix on their location.





Glitch's PPC-armed Medium-class Vindicator VND-1R mech (LRM-5 visible)

Glitch's PPC-armed Medium-class Vindicator VND-1R mech (LRM-5 visible)



It didn't take long for them to pop up on sensors... or for us to pop up on theirs. The Lance was pathetic; a single Locust and three support vehicles. The light mech moved swiftly to engage Dekker only to catch a full blast from Glitch's Particle Projector Cannon (PPC) and a salvo of LRM-5 long range missiles. The attack was enough to knock the Locust off its feet with heavy damage, making it easy prey for the Spider's dual Medium Lasers. As the Galleon support vehicles came racing in they caught ballistic attacks from Medusa and Behemoth, weakening their armor, but they were supported by a Manticore heavy tank. That's when Dekker , the idiot, raced forward with a melee attack (to be fair, I did this, but you know.. head canon) on the tank. He took it out in a single attack but the Galleon was now able to swing around him and attack his rear, punching through the weaker armor there to do internal system damage! The final Galleon fell to a single PPC strike from Glitch and Behemoth made short work of the offending enemy with her 3 ton laser cannon but here we were, at the end of the easiest mission to date, with more expensive Spider repairs!!! Thanks Dekker!





Dekker's Light-class Spider SDR-5V with jump jets engaged (The one he keeps breaking!)





Dekker's Light-class Spider SDR-5V with jump jets engaged (The one he keeps breaking!)

Well, at least it will give Yang something to work on while we travel back to the jumpship for our rendezvous with our mysterious benefactor on Bellerophon!





Uesugi-dono

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Member Back to Top Post by Uesugi-dono on Katzenbalger said: Sounds pretty awesome. Getting a few XCOM vibes from it. More than a few, but maybe a bit more in depth? Imagine if you could go around and talk to the various people in XCOM, getting their backstories, mini-tutorials, and the occasional random event. Then also if you had micro-level customization over your gear and said gear could be damaged and require expensive repairs. Now imagine that the Avenger and every single piece of gear was bought from a bank that charged exorbitant interest and would send repo agents after our shit if you were late on payments! Now imagine the various human factions in XCOM all hated each other and would send you out on missions not only against the aliens but against each other as well and you start to get an idea of what Battletech is like!

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Member Back to Top Post by Katzenbalger on Uesugi-dono said: Katzenbalger said: Sounds pretty awesome. Getting a few XCOM vibes from it. More than a few, but maybe a bit more in depth? Imagine if you could go around and talk to the various people in XCOM, getting their backstories, mini-tutorials, and the occasional random event. Then also if you had micro-level customization over your gear and said gear could be damaged and require expensive repairs. Now imagine that the Avenger and every single piece of gear was bought from a bank that charged exorbitant interest and would send repo agents after our shit if you were late on payments! Now imagine the various human factions in XCOM all hated each other and would send you out on missions not only against the aliens but against each other as well and you start to get an idea of what Battletech is like!

Heh, it sounds great but it also sounds like something I'd never manage to make much progress in. I micromanage like a madman, which is why my progress is always so damn slow in Xcom (I spend way too much time mulling over choices). Especially with resources - I'm awful at that stuff.

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Member Back to Top Post by Uesugi-dono on Katzenbalger said: Uesugi-dono said: More than a few, but maybe a bit more in depth? Imagine if you could go around and talk to the various people in XCOM, getting their backstories, mini-tutorials, and the occasional random event. Then also if you had micro-level customization over your gear and said gear could be damaged and require expensive repairs. Now imagine that the Avenger and every single piece of gear was bought from a bank that charged exorbitant interest and would send repo agents after our shit if you were late on payments! Now imagine the various human factions in XCOM all hated each other and would send you out on missions not only against the aliens but against each other as well and you start to get an idea of what Battletech is like!

Heh, it sounds great but it also sounds like something I'd never manage to make much progress in. I micromanage like a madman, which is why my progress is always so damn slow in Xcom (I spend way too much time mulling over choices). Especially with resources - I'm awful at that stuff. You can definitely gets sucked into it... but not for too long lest you go bankrupt. There's a TON of characterization and stuff to do and space travel can be pretty slow, as well as repairs and refits and recovery so that gives you a little time to micromanage but you're gonna wanna keep the pace moving as you try to stay one step ahead of your creditors.

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By the time I got back to Bellerophon and my mysterious benefactor I pretty much knew what was going on. I had done a handful of very successful missions and I had developed strategies, based on what kind of mission I was engaging in, to limit damage to my Mechs or to my team. Destroy the base missions were some of my favorites. I could just post up somewhere far out of range and send Dekker in the Locust ahead just enough to get a Sensor Lock then unload mounds of LRMs (Long Range Missiles) until it was safe to approach. But I could also use variants of that strategy in Destroy the Enemy Lance missions or just about any mission where I was the aggressor. Escort missions or Defend missions were a little more complicated but nothing was really super dangerous for me except for Destroy the Convoy missions, which has an unpredictability to them that often led to costly repairs. Anyway, after following a job back to Bellrophon I finally decided to check out this Benefactor mission. Enter Lady Centrella, one of the ruling family members of the Magistracy of Canopus. Important woman, rich woman. She was offering an obscene amount of money for, basically, the impossible. Travel to a pirate-infested moon and get a 200 year old derelict ship working again.





I was excited. This would be my first lunar terrain mission! The most hostile environment in the game, where heat dissipation was a major concern. I was feeling ready for the challenge, confident from my string of victories. I was ready... or so I thought. But before I tell you about that I should go back a little, into the game's story. If you're planning to play yourself beware: mild spoilers ahead. I say mild because even the pre-release materials contained these spoilers but, ultimately, it didn't really spoil anything for me. But to be fair not everyone immerses like I do! Anyway, here we go:



So I told you before that my 2nd character, Riana "Hysteria" Klaue, was an exiled noble who turned to piracy. Except for the noble part that's the path I chose: Exile and Pirate. I was still found by my old mentor, Sir Raju, and inducted into the House Arano Royal Guard.

















Getting back to it, the environment of the moon was spectacular. That's the Argo, the derelict, sitting in the background. I was hoping for microgravity as well but I suppose it could be a large moon... still it was a fascinating place to battle in... and battle I did. The moon was the home and base of one Grim Sybil, a pirate lord with a nasty reputation. She had two radar emplacements that needed destroying before Sumire could bring in Lady Centrella's team of engineers to try and get the wreck off the ground. Those radar towers were guarded by batteries of turrets and numerous small tank and assault vehicles, as well as a few light Mechs. The heat restrictions were stifling so, in the process, I took a lot of damage.







Still the visuals were stunning. After a protracted battle I managed to take out the radar towers and move up to the Argo itself, standing guard while Centrella's marines and engineers moved into the Argo to clear out pirates and try to get the ship's reactor started again. It was during this time that Grim Sybil showed up in a heavy Mech along with 2 light Mechs, a medium Mech, and 3 or 4 support vehicles! I mentioned that I had already taken a pounding, right? I had Glitch in her Vindicator acting as my sniper and major damage dealer. Her spotter was Dekker in the Locust and together they formed the core of my typical strategy; Dekker would use the light Mech's maneuverability and speed to get a Sensor Lock and draw fire, allowing Glitch to take her shots. Protecting Dekker was Behemoth in her Shadowhawk. At 55 tons the Shadowhawk was a front line fighter; able to dish out and take mountains of damage. Typically I used Hysteria's Blackjack to act as auxiliary fire but the BJ-1 was out for repairs so Hysteria was piloting a Firestarter; a light Mech with an emphasis on Flamers, which were very useful in this environment. But my normal strategy wouldn't work here... we were in a crater; essentially backed into a corner by Sybil and her pirates. It was a long, drawn out fight. Glitch took a ton of damage, to the point that her Vindicator's leg was totally immobile; she could barely move. The Firestarter was trashed too, still mobile but with so much damage that I ended up scrapping it. The Vindicator should have been scrapped as well but I opted to pay over 100k in repairs because of how central to my usual strategy the sniper Mech had become. In the end however, and by the skin of our teeth, we were successful.







Seeing the Argo rise was a moment of joy for me. Not just because the mission was complete and we were about to get a 1.5 million payday, but because I knew (because of those minor spoilers) that we would eventually get the Argo as a dropship, expanding my Mechbay and crew space and hopefully getting us out form under the crushing loan payments of the Leopard! In all that excitement I had forgotten the other minor spoiler. As our crew entered the Argo to meet with the holographic image of Lady Centrella again she introduced us to our true employer...







alive! I had totally forgotten. Harebrained Schemes had foolishly let this moment be spoiled a long time ago in the pre-game materials but, since I had forgotten, the moment still had power for me. Riana wasn't worthless anymore and, what's more, I didn't even have to be a mercenary. Well, at least I didn't have to act like one. I pledged my company to her cause, the Arano Restoration, and renamed the company from Mjolnir to Queen Kamea's Revenge. In return Lady Arano bought all of our debt; releasing us from our travel restrictions. We could now go to more than three systems to take jobs!







For now, at least, High Lady Arano is taking the Argo and going her own way, leaving me to my own devices for a while. I took a few shady missions with high paydays, including a couple working for the unsavory House Liao (The Capellan Confederation; the Sino-Soviets) doing such questionable things as helping them kidnap scientists! But now the first mission from Lady Arano has appeared: opening hostilities against her uncle's Aurigan Directorate. It seems like the Canopians are more than happy to bankroll Lady Arano's restoration because her authoritarian uncle is inflaming tensions between the Federated Suns and the Free Worlds League.. and nobody wants another system wide war.



Well...





That's Lady Kamea Arano; heir to the Aurigan Coalition who was deposed in a violent coup led by her uncle on her coronation day. I and Sir Raju were responsible for her that day but she was betrayed so thoroughly by her warmongering uncle that, in the days leading up to the coup, he had ordered maintenance on the Royal Guard's mechs in order to sabotage them. So in the battle to escape I managed to get her to her ship but my own Mech was shut down remotely, giving Riana just enough time to punch out and eject into orbit. I wasn't there when Sir Raju made his last stand, his cored-out Mech being found by my newfound mercenary allies later, but I was able to see the news footage from Coromodir of Lady Arano's dropship being shot out of the sky and exploding, Challenger-like, in the air. In my head canon Riana had gone from worthy, to pirate, to worthy, to worthless. So that's where I was in immersion when the game truly opened, 3 years after the deaths of Raju and Kamea when Riana was settling into her role as leader of the small mercenary company called Mjolnir.Getting back to it, the environment of the moon was spectacular. That's the Argo, the derelict, sitting in the background. I was hoping for microgravity as well but I suppose it could be a large moon... still it was a fascinating place to battle in... and battle I did. The moon was the home and base of one Grim Sybil, a pirate lord with a nasty reputation. She had two radar emplacements that needed destroying before Sumire could bring in Lady Centrella's team of engineers to try and get the wreck off the ground. Those radar towers were guarded by batteries of turrets and numerous small tank and assault vehicles, as well as a few light Mechs. The heat restrictions were stifling so, in the process, I took a lot of damage.Still the visuals were stunning. After a protracted battle I managed to take out the radar towers and move up to the Argo itself, standing guard while Centrella's marines and engineers moved into the Argo to clear out pirates and try to get the ship's reactor started again. It was during this time that Grim Sybil showed up in aMech along with 2 light Mechs, a medium Mech, and 3 or 4 support vehicles! I mentioned that I had already taken a pounding, right? I had Glitch in her Vindicator acting as my sniper and major damage dealer. Her spotter was Dekker in the Locust and together they formed the core of my typical strategy; Dekker would use the light Mech's maneuverability and speed to get a Sensor Lock and draw fire, allowing Glitch to take her shots. Protecting Dekker was Behemoth in her Shadowhawk. At 55 tons the Shadowhawk was a front line fighter; able to dish out and take mountains of damage. Typically I used Hysteria's Blackjack to act as auxiliary fire but the BJ-1 was out for repairs so Hysteria was piloting a Firestarter; a light Mech with an emphasis on Flamers, which were very useful in this environment. But my normal strategy wouldn't work here... we were in a crater; essentially backed into a corner by Sybil and her pirates. It was a long, drawn out fight. Glitch took aof damage, to the point that her Vindicator's leg was totally immobile; she could barely move. The Firestarter was trashed too, still mobile but with so much damage that I ended up scrapping it. The Vindicator should have been scrapped as well but I opted to pay over 100k in repairs because of how central to my usual strategy the sniper Mech had become. In the end however, and by the skin of our teeth, we were successful.Seeing the Argo rise was a moment of joy for me. Not just because the mission was complete and we were about to get a 1.5 million payday, but because I knew (because of those minor spoilers) that we would eventually get the Argo as a dropship, expanding my Mechbay and crew space and hopefully getting us out form under the crushing loan payments of the Leopard! In all that excitement I had forgotten theminor spoiler. As our crew entered the Argo to meet with the holographic image of Lady Centrella again she introduced us to ouremployer...She was! I had totally forgotten. Harebrained Schemes had foolishly let this moment be spoiled a long time ago in the pre-game materials but, since I had forgotten, the moment still had power for me. Riana wasn't worthless anymore and, what's more, I didn't even have to be a mercenary. Well, at least I didn't have to act like one. I pledged my company to her cause, the Arano Restoration, and renamed the company from Mjolnir to Queen Kamea's Revenge. In return Lady Arano bought all of our debt; releasing us from our travel restrictions. We could now go to more than three systems to take jobs!For now, at least, High Lady Arano is taking the Argo and going her own way, leaving me to my own devices for a while. I took a few shady missions with high paydays, including a couple working for the unsavory House Liao (The Capellan Confederation; the Sino-Soviets) doing such questionable things as helping them kidnap scientists! But now the first mission from Lady Arano has appeared: opening hostilities against her uncle's Aurigan Directorate. It seems like the Canopians are more than happy to bankroll Lady Arano's restoration because her authoritarian uncle is inflaming tensions between the Federated Suns and the Free Worlds League.. and nobody wants another system wide war.Well...

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Disaster struck Queen Kamea's Revenge. Enticed to Untran via a combination of overconfidence and the powerful lure of money I accepted a contract to intercept and destroy a convoy, which happens to be my least favorite mission. The money was too good to pass up, or so I though, so even though most of my Mechs was undergoing massive repairs I set off for Untran. When I arrived I only had three working Mechs, the rest still undergoing major repairs from the battle on the pirate moon against Grim Sybil. I had two options: First, I could wait about a month in orbit. That would give me the time needed to field a full Lance but if I did that I would end up having to make payroll for a month with zero income. Option two was more risky; take on my most difficult mission to date on a mission type I was not fond of with only three Mechs and no sniper... so a stand up fight where I was outnumbered.





I chose poorly and I paid a heavy price.





I told myself that if things went sideways I would bug out. I knew I was outnumbered and my enemy would be well equipped and in good repair. But when I landed on Untran, a Martian environment with cover-granting dust storms at night I thought to myself "I can handle this." My confidence brimmed as I blew an arm off of an enemy Firestarter. Dekker, piloting Behemoth's Shadowhawk, had nailed a called shot on the opening salvo. Hysteria, hiding in a dust storm, also landed solid hits with her Blackjack. I had posted Behemoth farther back on the battlefield, hiding behind cover in the massive Centurion. Insurance if the convoy sped past us. When the enemy Spider rushed up I wasn't concerned; the Firestarter was all but trashed and the convoy was just pulling into view. They all targeted Dekker with medium lasers but the Shadowhawk was a beast of a Mech, designed to take a ton of damage. We ignored the convoy even as a salvo of LRMs came in from behind the hill: other enemies yet to appear.





A Cicada Light Mech



When the enemy Cicada appeared at the top of the hill I was concerned; I had never seen one of these before, but the Firestarter and the Spider were both dead and the convoy was in range so I had Hysteria unload on it and I scored some pretty significant hits, so I wasn't too concerned. But then the Cicada hit Hysteria Center Torso (CT) with a large laser and destroyed the CT. A Mech cannot operate with a destroyed CT, the whole thing collapses. Hysteria was incapacitated. Normally this means the pilot's life is in danger, but with Hysteria being my main character I knew she couldn't die. Realistically this right here counted as 'things going sideways.' A freak lucky shot that took out one of my three Mechs should have caused me to call for an extraction. I had killed at least one enemy, it would count as a Good Faith Withdrawal so my reputation would not take a hit and I would get part of my pay. In hindsight it would have saved me a lot.







That is not what I did.





Instead I tasked Dekker with stomping the convoy and moved Behemoth up in the Centurion, focusing fire on the Cicada even as an enemy Shadowhawk rounded the corner. Together, fighting back to back, Dekker and Behemoth took out most of the convoy and the Cicada and were just killing the Shadowhawk. Things looked okay, even though Dekker's Shadowhawk had taken a lot of damage. I sent Behemoth after the last vehicle in the convoy and had Dekker attempt a melee strike against the enemy Shadowhawk. I should have had Behemoth, the better pilot and better at hand-to-hand, who was also in the bigger Mech attempt the melee strike. The enemy still stood. 'No matter,' I though, 'I can double team him next round.' The enemy fired his jump jets and brought all 55 tons down on Dekker's Shadowhawk. It's a risky move, it causes damage to the Mech pulling this tactic, but it destroyed my Shadowhawk. Behemoth brought the enemy down the next round and we got full pay but Dekker... was dead.









There's a Reddit page for people to tell stories about how Dekker died. Goodness knows in my head canon he and Riana had disputes often. I liked to blame Dekker for my impatience but, in his role as Glitch's spotter, he had really grown... and I had grown fond of him. When we recovered his Mech every part except for the head had been completely destroyed: both legs, both arms, both shoulders, and the center torso. With the head intact that means that Dekker died from exposure to the cold, unbreathable atmosphere of Untran. So basically the worst way possible.





This was sobering to say the least. I had felt a little invincible until now; like maybe I could keep everyone alive, despite how frequent Mechwarrior deaths are supposed to be. I tucked tail and ran... all the way back to Alloway. My prized Shadowhawk, a bonus for being a backer on Kickstarter, was trashed. I scrapped it for over 400k C-Bills, in an effort to soak up some of the monetary damage I had suffered. The Centurion? Missing an arm and a shoulder: 200k in repairs. The Blackjack? Nearly 100k. Hysteria was now out of the fight for 109 days, I had no working Mechs except for a Locust Light Mech, and money was hemorrhaging. Oh and Dekker was dead. I spent some time in orbit around Alloway, long enough to bring a Commando Light Mech out of storage and finish repairs on the Vindicator sniper, and then I sent Big Sly, Glitch, and Medusa on a milk run attack-the-base mission. It went off well and I was hoping for more milk runs back in my more familiar part of space but alas... there was none. There was a mission on Tincalunas: it was a "capture the base" mission. Sounded easy. The Commando was a sniper as well so if the Locust spotted I could rain death from afar. My Centurion was mostly repaired. I could field a full Lance. No risk right? Never mind the difficulty rating being equal to the ill-fated mission on Untran, this mission would be an easy payday.





I was supposed to occupy an empty base and hold it. The enemy was only three Mechs; a Vindicator and two Shadowhawks. Everything sounded good; with a little luck I could recover enough scrap to make a new Shadowhawk! Some early solid hits on the Vindicator led me to feel pretty confident... until that armless, refuse-to-die Vindicator kicked the CT out of my Locust. Big Sly wasn't my favorite Mechwarrior, he was a backer on Kickstarter who paid 1000 dollars to get his likeness in the game. His voice was a little annoying, even when he said the endearing phrase "I'm your spaniel" when you gave him commands. I was now facing the very likely possibility that he was also dead.







Duncan "Big Sly"Bronski



The two Shadowhawks were nearly undamaged and that stupid Vindicator just refused to die. My two snipers waged a guerrilla campaign, splitting up and trying to target both the Vindicator (WHY WON'T YOU DIE???) and at least one Shadowhawk at the same time. This would be another example of things going sideways, but I needed someone to die so I could get a Good Faith Withdrawal. Believe it or not that first death would be a Shadowhawk. By the time he fell his partner Shadowhawk was also heavily damaged, thanks mostly to Behemoth in her damaged Centurion, punching it to death. Then that god damn Vindicator came up from behind and kicked the CT out of my Centurion.









When Behemoth fell something snapped inside me. How dare these Capellan ass wipes kill two of my Mechwarriors!?? I raged, I sniped, and finally I prevailed; taking out first that goddamed Vindicator and then finally the other Shadowhawk. In the end that mission cost the life of Behemoth, took Big Sly out for 109 days (thank God I didn't lose two,) and left the Commando and the Centurion out of commission for the next month or more.





So that's me... out on the raggedy edge. I'm holding together my crew with duct tape and bailing wire; bleeding money with no Mechs, no pilots, and no milk runs in sight. I took on a new pilot; a guy with a thick Eastern European accent callsign Vamp. He may not know what he's getting in to.









Uesugi-dono

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Member Back to Top Post by Uesugi-dono on endorbr said: This sounds like the kind of "going sideways" that got me to stop playing XCOM. There are a lot of similarities. The best way to approach BattleTech (or XCOM for that matter) is to think of it as a story; not necessarily a story with a happy ending, but like a documentary of an event. Avoid save scumming at all costs and just let the chips fall where they may. That's why I let my first character's campaign end in bankruptcy. I could have gone back, reloaded just after my first mission, and made better choices but I feel like reloading and trying to keep characters alive in difficult games like this is just needless stress. I am experiencing Riana's story, for better or worse, and if I can bring it to conclusion then what a good story it will be.

endorbr

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Member Back to Top Post by endorbr on Uesugi-dono said: endorbr said: This sounds like the kind of "going sideways" that got me to stop playing XCOM. There are a lot of similarities. The best way to approach BattleTech (or XCOM for that matter) is to think of it as a story; not necessarily a story with a happy ending, but like a documentary of an event. Avoid save scumming at all costs and just let the chips fall where they may. That's why I let my first character's campaign end in bankruptcy. I could have gone back, reloaded just after my first mission, and made better choices but I feel like reloading and trying to keep characters alive in difficult games like this is just needless stress. I am experiencing Riana's story, for better or worse, and if I can bring it to conclusion then what a good story it will be. My problem that put me off of XCOM was I felt like the game was cheating. I had back to back to back missions where no matter what I was doing the enemy kept coming out on top. Each roll of the hidden die it got favored a positive outcome for the enemy and each roll of mine kept giving me negative results. I was losing all of my resources and basically had nothing to keep playing. It didn't come off as fun when every time I told my guy to pop up from cover and shoot an enemy I got a miss, but every time the enemy popped up they landed massive damage despite any advantages I had in the situation.

Uesugi-dono

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Member Back to Top Post by Uesugi-dono on endorbr said: Uesugi-dono said: There are a lot of similarities. The best way to approach BattleTech (or XCOM for that matter) is to think of it as a story; not necessarily a story with a happy ending, but like a documentary of an event. Avoid save scumming at all costs and just let the chips fall where they may. That's why I let my first character's campaign end in bankruptcy. I could have gone back, reloaded just after my first mission, and made better choices but I feel like reloading and trying to keep characters alive in difficult games like this is just needless stress. I am experiencing Riana's story, for better or worse, and if I can bring it to conclusion then what a good story it will be. My problem that put me off of XCOM was I felt like the game was cheating. I had back to back to back missions where no matter what I was doing the enemy kept coming out on top. Each roll of the hidden die it got favored a positive outcome for the enemy and each roll of mine kept giving me negative results. I was losing all of my resources and basically had nothing to keep playing. It didn't come off as fun when every time I told my guy to pop up from cover and shoot an enemy I got a miss, but every time the enemy popped up they landed massive damage despite any advantages I had in the situation. See I'm an old school roleplayer. Tabletop D&D, Twilight 2000, Call of Cthulhu... everything can turn on the roll of a die. I can accept it.