Darius......you're *FIRED*!!!!!

[AncientRaig]

Well, and it's my turn to be fair and contradict myself - there was also the Taurian Fortress which was an issue. We weren't supposed to kick all them apart with SLDF 'Mechs, we were supposed to make a run for it. And leaving that behind for them to maybe salvage was not a good idea, on top of the Locura - which, I think, was going to "attack" anyway whether the password was correct or not. (Remember, the darn thing went rogue on the techs who created it from all we are told and/or can infer about it.) It was the sane option . . . but there's a part of me which wanted to say "Yang just hold the line for Sumire and a salvage team to get there to haul off as much stuff as we can cram into the Leopard."

Which would have been a terrible decision, and we would have had a lot more death.

It went rogue because Farah tried to force the system for some reason, and in the process opened up the "vault" (aka removing whatever firewall or partition was keeping the virus safely locked away for study) that the Locura was in (which, another point. The Locura is a deus ex machina that completely ignores how the SDS Mk. 2 actually worked. It's a drone control system, not a runaway super-virus. It was locked away because the system's IFF didn't function correctly, which caused it to fire at several civilian transports, and it was more politically convenient for the SLDF to just make the Mk 3 instead of trying to bugfix the Mk 2). Additionally, an SLDF fortress should have all sorts of very juicy surface to orbit anti-ship weapons that we could've used to swat that Fortress out of the sky like it was a fly.

Yeah, I hear you, that's annoying as all hell - but I get the inclination to think those zones are picked before the mission since she's basically executing a precision landing from either orbit or high altitude each time. Can't afford to be too picky, and . . .

I'm gonna be honest, in the respect of the game again, no matter where she puts the evac point/LZ the enemy is going to probably try to cut us off. First, that's the design for some missions - to try to do an evac by the skin of the teeth. (Which is why when that happens, I tend to instead fall back and pick of the enemy instead - Sumire does not get to risk the DropShip on someone getting a lucky shot into the control room with an AC.) Secondly, the OpFor commander probably does know by the time they get aware of our insertion where the potential evac points could be - or can guess - and is going to try to cut us off.

In short, I always assumed she picks the area she has to in order to make it work for her role as a pilot to land/takeoff safely - rather than with our ground team's comfort in mind. And while I would cheerfully agree it's frustrating . . . a rule of thumb I was taught when I took supervisor/management roles is "don't second-guess the person actually doing the job". If you trust them enough to do the job, you trust them enough to make the right decisions to do it safely.

... as for the "Leopard DFA", I had it happen back when the drop zones weren't marked as well. See, they used to tag terrain with one descriptor and I thought the corner of the forest was safe to take cover in. Last OpFor 'Mech died, Sumire landed . . . and the nose of the DropShip took out my Spider. (And Dekker. Because of course it was him.) And I started paying attention to ground terrain markers to notice that . . . issue, so I now give spots marked with "DANGEROUS! A DropShip is inbound to this location" a wider berth than might be necessary.

If she absolutely must land closer to the enemy, the least she could do is give my battered forces some covering fire with the absolutely apocalyptic firepower a Leopard can carry. Usually the only times I'm forced to retreat without clearing the field are missions where I'm way too over my head, and in those cases I generally won't have the armor left to fight my way through numerically superior forces.

Slightly smarmy comment: I don't know if we'd be better off trying to manage two actively dropping DropShips as well as we manage an orbiting base and the Leopard. Logistics probably would be way worse of an issue, and we'd have much less in the realm of self-sufficiency. We'd need to rely on finding "safe ports" to put in for more dedicated repairs/rebuilds, or medical leave. Instead of having those facilities to use on the Argo. There's an attractiveness to not needing to rely on one of the factions (even the Aurigans) to not screw us over while we show up needing a couple weeks of downtime.

Firstly, on the topic of logistics... I have a feeling that operating and repairing the Argo (which is basically held together by hope and prodigious amounts of duct tape when we first get it) would, in a more realistic economy, be far, far more difficult than simply operating a small fleet of dropships supported by our own jumpship. We wouldn't be able to pull off the magical repairs we do in game, where, for the cost of only a few hundred thousand c-bills and a month at most, we can perform massive structural repairs to the Argo without even needing a drydock. Bringing the Argo from a slightly mobile scrap heap that probably haunts the dreams of whatever the equivalent of Space OSHA is to something less likely to kill us than the OpFor is would require billions of c-bills and decades of time spent in a dedicated refit yard. And this assumes we would even be able to repair it, given that it's a not-quite one off prototype. The Taurians, an industrial powerhouse even by Successor State standards, couldn't repair their sole (semi) functional warship, even with the help of the Capellans, until well after the 3060s and they had actual facilities capable of working on the thing as well as almost a century of time on their hands with which to fix it. And even if we could get the Argo into decent shape, we'd still need access to maintenance facilities to keep it and the Leopard that way, and those facilities aren't going to be operated by us. We also have to worry about ComStar ROM, as well as every Successor State and Periphery nation in existence, trying to steal the Argo away from us because it's honest to god Lostech and a group of mercs who can't operate more than a single lance of units aren't going to be capable of keeping anyone who wants it badly enough from either stealing it from us or blowing it out from under us so that nobody else can have it. ComStar's done it before with the Tripitz, there's no reason they wouldn't do it again. Actual lore-wise, the Arano civil war takes a few years to complete and I find it mind-boggling that the Argo doesn't get destroyed by a ROMGuard black-ops team during that period.

On the other hand, ComStar would probably be willing to pay billions of c-bills to get their hands on the Argo if we offered to sell it to them instead. They have the money, and it's easier for them to just come take it from us and pay us money that never really actually leaves their hands in the process than it is to mount an operation to take it from us. Less harmful to their image as "just your friendly neighborhood communications service" too. With the money they'd pay us, we could afford to buy a Union or an Overlord, a Jumpship to transport us, and a Jumbo or even a Behemoth to carry all of the spares and salvage we'd ever want.

 

[Kereminde]

It went rogue because Farah tried to force the system for some reason, and in the process opened up the "vault" (aka removing whatever firewall or partition was keeping the virus safely locked away for study) that the Locura was in (which, another point. The Locura is a deus ex machina that completely ignores how the SDS Mk. 2 actually worked. It's a drone control system, not a runaway super-virus. It was locked away because the system's IFF didn't function correctly, which caused it to fire at several civilian transports, and it was more politically convenient for the SLDF to just make the Mk 3 instead of trying to bugfix the Mk 2). Additionally, an SLDF fortress should have all sorts of very juicy surface to orbit anti-ship weapons that we could've used to swat that Fortress out of the sky like it was a fly.

Disclosure? I haven't played that mission since May 2018, literally a month after release. So my grasp of finer details like this? It's a little vague. What the Locura actually is, I'm not entirely certain if Farah tries to explain it other than "yeah I airgapped it in a storage unit and I'm not touching it again". (Until we needed it to wreak havoc on someone else, but that's another story. Less "Diablos ex Machina" purely, mixed with "Chekov's Program". But of the many nitpicks to put the story to - this is low on my priority list, so to speak. I got ten pages of stuff I wrote about the topic of the story - collectively - and decided it'd be easier to just do my own writing instead.)

If she absolutely must land closer to the enemy, the least she could do is give my battered forces some covering fire with the absolutely apocalyptic firepower a Leopard can carry. Usually the only times I'm forced to retreat without clearing the field are missions where I'm way too over my head, and in those cases I generally won't have the armor left to fight my way through numerically superior forces.

"Absolutely apocalyptic firepower"? Doesn't it carry only slightly more weapons than pair of Highlanders? According to what I have, it's 2x PPCs, 5x Large Lasers, 7x Medium Lasers, and 3x LRM 20s. Respectable, but in five-skull missions it's prone to just not be enough to deal enough damage to a full Lance if splitting targets (if Sumire has people who can do that while she pilots) and while it might vaporize one target ... that's both only one target and a far cry. Also, opening fire with a DropShip tends to signal it's fair game to open fire on in return...

Firstly, on the topic of logistics... I have a feeling that operating and repairing the Argo (which is basically held together by hope and prodigious amounts of duct tape when we first get it) would, in a more realistic economy, be far, far more difficult than simply operating a small fleet of dropships supported by our own jumpship. We wouldn't be able to pull off the magical repairs we do in game, where, for the cost of only a few hundred thousand c-bills and a month at most, we can perform massive structural repairs to the Argo without even needing a drydock. Bringing the Argo from a slightly mobile scrap heap that probably haunts the dreams of whatever the equivalent of Space OSHA is to something less likely to kill us than the OpFor is would require billions of c-bills and decades of time spent in a dedicated refit yard. And this assumes we would even be able to repair it, given that it's a not-quite one off prototype. The Taurians, an industrial powerhouse even by Successor State standards, couldn't repair their sole (semi) functional warship, even with the help of the Capellans, until well after the 3060s and they had actual facilities capable of working on the thing as well as almost a century of time on their hands with which to fix it. And even if we could get the Argo into decent shape, we'd still need access to maintenance facilities to keep it and the Leopard that way, and those facilities aren't going to be operated by us. We also have to worry about ComStar ROM, as well as every Successor State and Periphery nation in existence, trying to steal the Argo away from us because it's honest to god Lostech and a group of mercs who can't operate more than a single lance of units aren't going to be capable of keeping anyone who wants it badly enough from either stealing it from us or blowing it out from under us so that nobody else can have it. ComStar's done it before with the Tripitz, there's no reason they wouldn't do it again.

On the other hand, ComStar would probably be willing to pay billions of c-bills to get their hands on the Argo if we offered to sell it to them instead. They have the money, and it's easier for them to just come take it from us and pay us money that never really actually leaves their hands in the process than it is to mount an operation to take it from us. Less harmful to their image as "just your friendly neighborhood communications service" too. With the money they'd pay us, we could afford to buy a Union or an Overlord, a Jumpship to transport us, and a Jumbo or even a Behemoth to carry all of the spares and salvage we'd ever want.

I see no reason at all for ComStar to "play fair" regarding the Argo if they really wanted it. I see a promise of money big enough to get our attention but not overly so to where it smells like a trap . . . then a hull breach or two to deplete the atmosphere, followed by several cycles of an airlock to dispose of bodies. Assuming they just don't blow it up . . .

Remember, ComStar does want the technology, but they'd much rather still appear neutral at this point and not let on what they're doing with regards to the technology. They're not going to be known as a market to go trade technology to in-universe as much as we the players know. So why would ROM set a high-profile deal offering cash for a ship when a low-profile strike to just make the problem look like a bad mis-Jump? (At the cost of an additional JumpShip, or maybe just taking that and using information control to make it look like it's "gone" when it's just had the registry re-written and suddenly it's doing work in Lyran space...)

Frankly, it's what I'd do if I was in their place. Vanishing the Argo would be way easier than tipping the hand and allowing some mercs to go on their merry way knowing ComStar is interested in advanced tech. (Or even if they false-flag it as NAIS, having the chance it'll come back on them should Hanse find out... even if we know in lore he finds out "soon" in canon.)

 

[AncientRaig]

Disclosure? I haven't played that mission since May 2018, literally a month after release. So my grasp of finer details like this? It's a little vague. What the Locura actually is, I'm not entirely certain if Farah tries to explain it other than "yeah I airgapped it in a storage unit and I'm not touching it again". (Until we needed it to wreak havoc on someone else, but that's another story. Less "Diablos ex Machina" purely, mixed with "Chekov's Program". But of the many nitpicks to put the story to - this is low on my priority list, so to speak. I got ten pages of stuff I wrote about the topic of the story - collectively - and decided it'd be easier to just do my own writing instead.)

I only remember it so clearly because those two sets of missions made my inner lore grognard rather unhappy.

"Absolutely apocalyptic firepower"? Doesn't it carry only slightly more weapons than pair of Highlanders? According to what I have, it's 2x PPCs, 5x Large Lasers, 7x Medium Lasers, and 3x LRM 20s. Respectable, but in five-skull missions it's prone to just not be enough to deal enough damage to a full Lance if splitting targets (if Sumire has people who can do that while she pilots) and while it might vaporize one target ... that's both only one target and a far cry. Also, opening fire with a DropShip tends to signal it's fair game to open fire on in return..

The standard Leopard crew is something like 3 pilots, 3 gunners, and 2 crewmen to handle other things. Repairs, filling spots, etc. It's still the firepower of half-3/4ths of an assault lance being thrown at the enemy.

I see no reason at all for ComStar to "play fair" regarding the Argo if they really wanted it. I see a promise of money big enough to get our attention but not overly so to where it smells like a trap . . . then a hull breach or two to deplete the atmosphere, followed by several cycles of an airlock to dispose of bodies. Assuming they just don't blow it up . . .

Remember, ComStar does want the technology, but they'd much rather still appear neutral at this point and not let on what they're doing with regards to the technology. They're not going to be known as a market to go trade technology to in-universe as much as we the players know. So why would ROM set a high-profile deal offering cash for a ship when a low-profile strike to just make the problem look like a bad mis-Jump? (At the cost of an additional JumpShip, or maybe just taking that and using information control to make it look like it's "gone" when it's just had the registry re-written and suddenly it's doing work in Lyran space...)

Frankly, it's what I'd do if I was in their place. Vanishing the Argo would be way easier than tipping the hand and allowing some mercs to go on their merry way knowing ComStar is interested in advanced tech. (Or even if they false-flag it as NAIS, having the chance it'll come back on them should Hanse find out... even if we know in lore he finds out "soon" in canon.)

True enough, but ComStar has been willing to just buy-out particularly annoying thorns in their side in the past. It's a matter of resources. "How much is it worth to attack these people vs just paying them a bit of dosh and then killing them later if they go blabbing about it." They might attack us once to try and grab it, pretending to be pirates or what have you, and then if we continue to survive to the point where attacking us more would be too suspicious, or too resource intensive, they'd put an offer on the table. Plus, we don't tend to spend much time in secluded areas. If the Argo suddenly got attacked by ROM's fleet, it wouldn't be as easy to write it off as a ghost story as it was for the Tripitz.

Hell, they could even approach us through an intermediary like our... definitely trustworthy best friend, Mr. Ed Corbu. There are plenty of collectors who would kill to have a piece of Lostech like the Argo in their collection, regardless of its condition on sale, so it wouldn't be a particularly unbelievable event.

 

[Kereminde]

Hell, they could even approach us through an intermediary like our... definitely trustworthy best friend, Mr. Ed Corbu. There are plenty of collectors who would kill to have a piece of Lostech like the Argo in their collection, regardless of its condition on sale, so it wouldn't be a particularly unbelievable event.

There may be plenty of collectors who would kill for it, and unfortunately as we both know - that's . . . kinda literal also.

Personally, if we gotta get rid of it? I say we take it to Zathras and hand the keys over to the guy in charge over there. Let them inherit the problems, we'll trade it - and the 'Mechs inside - for that Fortress-class he has.

 

[sortulv]

Darius actually manages to convince our employers to retrieve full mechs as "salvage" from enemy controlled battlefields. The guy is a genius negotiator. Might have a problem with the intelligence part of the job, but strategic intel is usually part of the contract - not something a small merc unit can provide.

As for the rest - never had Sumire land on me, but have had other "friendly" Leopards do so (escort mission). (Guess I could have had a talk to Darius about that - well, he did start marking the landing zones, so good talk, I guess), and would you really get rid of excellent engineers? Those are really hard to replace...

Considering the Argo herself, I don't think she's worth that much. The class may not be in production, but it isn't because people lost the tech - just that the type of ship was pretty much useless. It's not a dropship and not a jumpship. It lacks a role in the BT universe.

 

[Kereminde]

And would you really get rid of excellent engineers? Those are really hard to replace...

I just had to listen to Chief Engineer Virtanen backtalk the contact working for House Davion so hard she left a strongly-implied threat to Get Out or else. ("Hearts and Minds" Flashpoint) Yeah, I may not need to worry about getting rid of him.

 

[Jamey]

I’ve sometimes wanted to fire Darius right out he airlock for his poor intelligence.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

On a related topic. Did anyone notice a difficulty spike after 1.7 came out? I remember that, in spite of some headaches along the way, my Career as Hellebore's Hounds was quite successful. However, Pilgrim's Posse (yes, I love alliteration ), is *really* struggling to make any headway whatsoever.....even though my difficulty settings are unchanged.

 

[Kereminde]

On a related topic. Did anyone notice a difficulty spike after 1.7 came out? I remember that, in spite of some headaches along the way, my Career as Hellebore's Hounds was quite successful. However, Pilgrim's Posse (yes, I love alliteration ), is *really* struggling to make any headway whatsoever.....even though my difficulty settings are unchanged.

If you opted to kick difficulty for that sweet 1.00 multiplier for your score... you might be having a rough time. Saddling yourself with some of the detriments to hit the lack of score penalty means trading in some nice comforts. ("Very Slow Progression" is NOT going to be my choice next time.)

I also feel like it's being harder but because the OpFor is making fewer boneheaded decisions or "just why?!" moments. Though I have caught it standing in one spot and just firing as though the old Bulwark was still in

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

Sometimes it's just RNG not be with you and you being 'off' your game. There are times I can kill multiple lances with no problem and other times I couldn't get a kill if they turned on each other.

Also sometimes it's just a matter of the contracts you draw and the maps.

 

[HBS_RedMenace]

This is still my favorite imagining of what's actually going on:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8gyzun/fing_darius/

 

[Kereminde]

A short snippet of writing from my campaign, though it conflated two different missions.

Valia Delune: "So the FedSuns want us to take out some troublemakers. What sort of forces are we hunting? Got a list? Please tell me you got a list this time."
Darius: "No. Seems Lady Cunningham isn't inclined to be helpful after Yang let his Capellan pride show."
Yang: "It's just how I was raised."
Darius: "Just take it easy and everything should be fine."

(One combat drop later.)

Darius: "I know it looked bad-"
Valia Delune: "Five Awesomes. Four of them were the 8T model. With a Zeus and a Quickdraw for good measure. Put Lady Cunningham at the bottom of the list of clients, below Lady Arano. I'm still salty about Smithon."

 

[Prussian Havoc]

All I know is that all during BATTLETECH’s Kickstarter I championed Clausewitzian Fog and Friction of War, contesting “Perfect Intelligence” at every turn...


...why, it’s almost like I personally wished Darius into existence! : )



“Darius may not be the Intelligence Officer we want, but he is the Intelligence Officer we deserve.”

Spoiler

#BATMANshoutout... with a BATTLETECH twist :bow:

 

[Kereminde]

“Darius may not be the Intelligence Officer we want, but he is the Intelligence Officer we can afford.”

Fixed that for you...

And if someone thinks it a safe thing to hire a new person after the outfit is making money, boy are they going to be surprised when they find out where a good chunk of the Successor States' intel operatives wind up working

 

[sortulv]

This is still my favorite imagining of what's actually going on:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8gyzun/fing_darius/

So who cares about op-int as long as he keeps making cake... I really want a Darius makes cakes for everyone event now

 

[ntw]

Fixed that for you...

And if someone thinks it a safe thing to hire a new person after the outfit is making money, boy are they going to be surprised when they find out where a good chunk of the Successor States' intel operatives wind up working

If the implication there is that "space verizon" are "recruiting" retired Intel officers, then the simple solution is to retire Darius out an airlock... It might also serve to inspire his replacement to actually provide accurate intel *occasionally*

 

[sortulv]

If the implication there is that "space verizon" are "recruiting" retired Intel officers, then the simple solution is to retire Darius out an airlock... It might also serve to inspire his replacement to actually provide accurate intel *occasionally*

More like that your replacement is a spy for someone else...

Makes me think of CK2 - where you quickly learn that a bad spymaster is better than a traitorous one....

 

[Kereminde]

If the implication there is that "space verizon" are "recruiting" retired Intel officers, then the simple solution is to retire Darius out an airlock... It might also serve to inspire his replacement to actually provide accurate intel *occasionally*

That's your call, but if you space someone for not living up to your standards, you don't inspire loyalty - you inspire fear. Sure, you might get a result more to your liking . . . but for how long?

Also, my implication was more along the lines of "you might not know who you're hiring is really who they say they are".

More like that your replacement is a spy for someone else...

Worst case, they turn out to be feeding information to someone who has a vested interest in making those contracts you take turn out so much worse for you. Best case, they're feeding it to someone who isn't in a position to do anything about it. (Yet.)

 

[Prussian Havoc]

...Worst case, they turn out to be feeding information to someone who has a vested interest in making those contracts you take turn out so much worse for you. Best case, they're feeding it to someone who isn't in a position to do anything about it. (Yet.)

Sorry, but the worse case is that Talon is still holding a grudge and is in a position to now do something about what I put his Awesome Dragon through in the Bourbon and BattleMechs FLASHPOINT!

 

[Kereminde]

Sorry, but the worse case is that Talon is still holding a grudge and is in a position to now do something about what I put his Awesome Dragon through in the Bourbon and BattleMechs FLASHPOINT!

He's had worse. (Courtesy of Geist.)