My Merc Blog

[rat_bastard]

We have one ruined Sampson, and taken about 300 MD of misc damage to other vehicles, should replace 12 long range missiles and one of the pilots died, so we paid 269,000 credits to have him resurrected (we have a five million medical budget).

Thanks to the fact that our merc group has 11 operators including me, repairs will only run about a half million. The missiles, not factoring any discounts will run just over 200 grand, Our leader lost his body armor, which needs replacement.

However the dragons horde included:
1 million credits worth of precious metals
a bookshelf full of pre-rifts tomes
a warded bookshelf with magic texts
a magic crown
a magic dagger
a Princess from Europe, who is apparently the daughter of the king who drove the dragon out of Europe
and of course, the dragon's head is mostly intact, giving us a wealth of options.

[Dog_O_War]

and of course, the dragon's head is mostly intact, giving us a wealth of options.

Fireplace/ash-tray!

[rat_bastard]

and of course, the dragon's head is mostly intact, giving us a wealth of options.

Fireplace/ash-tray!

Thee tongue, eyes and brain of the beast are worth at least a million on the open market, where as the skull has no listed value but is nearly without price to a necromancer or a demon dragon-mage who can learn every spell the dragon knew using the skull.

then there is the value to the princess's father...

[Aramanthus]

Congrats on making it out that encounter alive. Sounds like your group did end up with a decent haul from the horde. Just one thing. Watch out if the princess starts asking you to get her back to alderan!

I'm looking forward to seeing where the next phase of your adventures take your group.

[rat_bastard]

Congrats on making it out that encounter alive. Sounds like your group did end up with a decent haul from the horde. Just one thing. Watch out if the princess starts asking you to get her back to alderan!

I'm looking forward to seeing where the next phase of your adventures take your group.

She's actually Bavarian.

[runebeo]

Eventually, Naruni force fields could become a good solution to your armor woes. They'd provide morre MDC and be able to regenerate some of a suits total MDC value over time.

Depends on how your unit feels about alien tech, though, and whether or not they would use it.

Up close, PA is simply meant to be at a disadvantage vs most Supernatural heavies, IMO. The idea is to use tactics/weaponry to stay at range, as far as I can tell.

~RS

A few Naruni force fields sure can keep repair cost down. Our squad's Glitter Girl use to be broke all the time from repairs and ammo. She bought a medium force field harness for her Glitter Girl 7, since then she almost never takes any direct damage to her bot in most of our encounters. She also owns a Super SAMAS too, and she just moves the harness on to it.

[Aramanthus]

I have to agree with the thoughts on the force field. Of course if you want to stay with human tech, get some triax force fields. Steal them if you have too.

[runebeo]

I have to agree with the thoughts on the force field. Of course if you want to stay with human tech, get some triax force fields. Steal them if you have too.

Which books is triax force fields in?

[Library Ogre]

Sourcebook 1; the Triax Ultimax.

[runebeo]

Sourcebook 1; the Triax Ultimax.

Thank you I was think force field back packs like Naruni ones were in one of the books and I missed it.

[Aramanthus]

Of course the big problem is then how to power them. But the operators should be able to figure something out.

[rat_bastard]

Ok, heres a question.

we have
1 standard issue Bavarian Princess
1 dragon's head that just happened to belong to a dragon that kidnapped said princess.

Apparently the dragon left Europe because of an ongoing fight with the king, the king never did quite get to kill the dragon.

How do we make this worth our while when we don't even know if their is a reward for returning the princess. If she was from north america we could easily return her to her family, but since she's from Europe, we are talking about a very potentially risky journey for no pay.

When answering the question please keep our generally good alignment in mind, no "Use magic pidgin to send the king a finger" crap.

[Library Ogre]

Can you, at this point, communicate with the princess? You might ask her where she came from, and who she is. I then remind you of Star Wars...

"She's rich."
"Rich?"
"She's rich, powerful, if you were to rescee her the rewards would be..."
"What?"
"Well more than you can imagine!"

[Aramanthus]

You might be able to get a message over there to Europe. You could always send it thru a rep from Triax.

[rat_bastard]

You might be able to get a message over there to Europe. You could always send it thru a rep from Triax.

there is a shop in merc town that would send a 10 lb package to Europe for something like 100-1000 credits, however its the reply that has me worried, I am under the impression that this is one way.

[Aramanthus]

Good question. If her father wants her back, he bend heaven and the other place to get her back.

[runebeo]

If you have a contact in the Black Market or Naruni Enterprises can get a message just about anywhere for a few thousand credits. When dealing with the Naruni If you buy some expensive equipment I'm sure for a price they may drop you off in Europe for a little extra, after all your going to be in mercenary business for awhile and they plan on make some money off of you.

[rat_bastard]

If you have a contact in the Black Market or Naruni Enterprises can get a message just about anywhere for a few thousand credits. When dealing with the Naruni If you buy some expensive equipment I'm sure for a price they may drop you off in Europe for a little extra, after all your going to be in mercenary business for awhile and they plan on make some money off of you.

nope, no relationships like that.

[runebeo]

Any mercenary squad could use a small unit of magic users. Think about hiring on a full time Shifter or two, it can really open up the Megaverse for your company.

[dragon_blaze_99]

You might be able to get a message over there to Europe. You could always send it thru a rep from Triax.

there is a shop in merc town that would send a 10 lb package to Europe for something like 100-1000 credits, however its the reply that has me worried, I am under the impression that this is one way.

try paying up front for a return massage and a lay over fee, even if its 4000-5000 credits if the king wants the girl back you could get something out of it..... he may want the dragons head two (to clam the victory) but also he could try to take the characters out by the time they get there.
if its not one way mind you

[Library Ogre]

I see little reason why the messenger service would be one-way... especially if you paid them enough to wait for a response.

They messenger has to come back, after all.

[rat_bastard]

I see little reason why the messenger service would be one-way... especially if you paid them enough to wait for a response.

They messenger has to come back, after all.

problem is, its not a conventional service, its a shifter's shop and the delivery method may be screwy.

[Library Ogre]

I see little reason why the messenger service would be one-way... especially if you paid them enough to wait for a response.

They messenger has to come back, after all.

problem is, its not a conventional service, its a shifter's shop and the delivery method may be screwy.

Ah. In that case, I'll take a look. What page?

[Aramanthus]

I can't wait until you tell how you managed to get the message to her father. And if you all decide to take her home. Although with the way it's set up, it looks like you guys are in for one heck of trip. You might reach Phase World before you get back to the NA.

[Aramanthus]

It sounds like the GM has some really fun things to come. Considering this was their first adventure. I bet he's got some plans which could carry the campaign in a number of directions.

[rat_bastard]

The princess speaks American and euro... at length... no matter how much you want her to shut up.

We had the psychic go over her mind and she appears to be telling the truth.

[rat_bastard]

As I have previously stated, I'm an Operator and I lead a squad called "Blue Squad" made up of Power Armor Pilots with Gladius Power Armor.

One of the problems we ran into was this suit does not have any enhanced leaping ability, something I want to correct on my time. I've decided to install Juicer Jump boots into the power armor. The Gladius only weighs 80 lbs, the same as many suits of juicer armor, so I feel this is well within the boot's capabilities.

first step for me is the power armor's computer, the gladius has no jump program but the Sampson doee. So one computer hacking roll and a few computer programing rolls and I have taken the Jumping program from the Sampson and made it more appropriate for the Gladius. Afterwards, its like 15,000 in parts, two e-clips and a few painful trial and error adjustments and I have a suit of jumping power armor.

thoughts?

[dragon_blaze_99]

nice did not realize the Gladius was only 80lbs, I think that seams low but everything else is A O K

[rat_bastard]

first step for me is the power armor's computer, the gladius has no jump program but the Sampson doee. So one computer hacking roll and a few computer programing rolls and I have taken the Jumping program from the Sampson and made it more appropriate for the Gladius. Afterwards, its like 15,000 in parts, two e-clips and a few painful trial and error adjustments and I have a suit of jumping power armor.

thoughts?

I'm don't think a program is needed, for non booster-assisted jumps. Are we talking about using boosters, or no? I don't have stats for the Gladius in front of me. PA is essentially written up as an exo-skeleton, so I would think jumping is...well, jumping, in most practical departments. I'd compare the weights, robotic strengths, and possible design elements (leg articulation, etc), and then ask the GM if I could do it. *shrug*

Now if you want to put in boosters, I could see the need for a bit of work. Not real sure what the e-clips are for, either, btw, unless you're salvaging the packs the Coalition gives to Special Ops...which aren't supposed to be available to anyone else (yet). In any case, if you're doing booster jumps then yes, I think a review and possibly a modification of the sensor systems (to help coordinate jumps, monitor landscape, etc), a bit of spare parts for reinforcements, and time/money spent into developing, installing, and testing the system seems reasonable.

~RS

In Juicer Uprising, there is a set of "Jump boots" that have jump jets, I am installing the jets into the armor. The e-clips are to power them (I should get 40 jumps from long e-clips). Normally you need to make a back flip roll to use them however with my reprograming it will be a Pilot:power armor roll.

[rat_bastard]

So Anyway, we sent a magic Pidgin to the princess's father and spent the better part of a week fixing Power armor and trying to modify existing power armor. Two weeks later the Princess's father sent us a reply to the effect of: "you bring me daughter we pay you good money yes?" so we packed a transport with the dragons head, 6 red hawks, 4 people from blue squad and most of our command staff and off we went.

First we flew to Greenland, then Camelot and then the NGR, it was safer and caused less wear on the engines than flying to Germany alone would have caused, and the Boss said he had friends in Camelot, but when we arrived merlin's knights told us to leave as soon as we could. I know Boss can be a pain sometimes but those Knights where downright frosty. We left as soon as the engine checkup was completed so as to not anger our cranky hosts... Remind me never to get Knighted, I could do with out the requisite stick planting.

We got to NGR space where they had us land in order to submit to a moderately heavy probing, our Second in command was sequestered during the search, then the NGR Military charged us a more than reasonable "Merc licensing fee". After paing us they gave us great directions to the Princess's homeland... Smack in the middle of a gargoyle offensive! It appears that her kingdom is a military ally of the NGR and is being equipped by Triax. Oh by the way I got to see all sorts of Awesome NGR power armor! I love the terrain Hopper and Jaeger and the Triax base had tons of them, they never let me take a test drive, but then the CS has never let me drive a samas either...

when we got to the pile of rubble that was what was left of the Princess's homeland we managed to be loud and rude enough that someone in charge came to speak to us. Get this, it turns out that the Princess has been locked in time for the last decade! While she was in stasis her father was murdered and her kingdom was nearly destroyed, and they allied with the Germans to hold off the Gargoyles and Brodkil.

Anyway beyond the metaphysical time **** that I don't care about, there is another gargoyle assault coming our way (lucky us!) and the Kingdom hired us to hold the gargoyles till the NGR reinforcements come...

it really sucks to be us but its the only way we will get paid.

On the bright side is that even if they cannot afford to pay us we can still recoup by looting the battlefield, there is allot of military hardware on this battlefield, and we can easily load our transport with military hardware should the kingdom come up short when it comes time to settle debts.

[Dog_O_War]

Also, if the Gladius is really 80lbs, that's just hilarious. And most likely a mistake. The flying armor from RUE weigh somewhere between 170-240lbs, with ground suits like the Samson weighing in at 460lbs. PA Suits from Coalition War Campaign range from 340lbs to 2 tons! (The GB Killer is quite the porker, apparently). The only thing under 80lbs that is powered is the heavy exo-suit on pg 102, which weighs in at 60lbs and has no onboard weaponry, guidance systems, heavier life support, etc. I scanned Arzno, to check if the weights stayed consistant over time, and found that most of the TW Power Armor written up there weighs in between roughly 150 to 460lbs.

I haven't seen the Gladius, but unless it's more like a basic exo-suit without basically any onboard weapon systems, then that 80lb weight is likely missing a number in front of it (ie, 180lbs, 280lbs, etc).

~RS

The Gladius is a basic exo-suit; compare it to the flying titan; the Titan has a jetpack and weapons systems, as well as a better strength score and it only weighs a fraction more. That and the Gladius does not have a nuclear power-source, which means that containment and such is non-existant so you will save weight there. It is a bare-bones suit.

As for the jump boots; personally I'd skip those and just go straight for the Boba-Fett upgrade.

[rat_bastard]

after reading the stats on the beefed up naval Gladius, I'd have to say 180 lbs is probably closer to the truth. That said, I believe juicers easily weigh 300 pounds wearing just their harnesses. All that dense bone and muscle etc

Gladius: 180lbs
+
average pilot weight: 180-200 lbs
+
Rail gun: 333 lbs
=
about 700 lbs

Juicer: easily 300 lbs of muscle and performance enhancers
+
man-killer body armor: 80 lbs
+
rail gun: 333 lbs
= easily 700 lbs.

not a huge difference.

[Aramanthus]

If you do add the juicers boots to your armor add a small gryoscope to all your pilots to keep their balance while jumping.

[batlchip]

Okay, This is just a thought but you might want to keep some of the drake's blood.It is worth good money to some magic users.Ya' might want to keep some skin too. Don't forget to hide or mod any NGR equipment

[Aramanthus]

Great point since there are people out there who want to buy that material. But that also depends on if his group wants to deal with mages. Now that is always an important question.

[rat_bastard]

Okay, This is just a thought but you might want to keep some of the drake's blood.It is worth good money to some magic users.Ya' might want to keep some skin too. Don't forget to hide or mod any NGR equipment

would love to, but we kinda hit the dragon with 12 long range missiles when it had less than 100 MD left... we where lucky to get a mostly intact skull and claws.

[rat_bastard]

Thought I'd post my character in this game.

Name: Jack McGinnly Alignment: Unprincipled Race: Human OCC: Operator Level: 3 XP: 6801/7300
Attributes:
I.Q.: 29
M.E.: 11
M.A.: 26
P.S.: 13
P.P.: 16
P.E.: 15
P.B.: 13
Spd.: 13

O.C.C. Skills: %/Lvl %
Basic Math 5% 90%
Advanced Math 5% 90%
Computer Operation 5% 80%
Computer Repair 5% 70%
Electrical Engineer 5% 80%
Find Contraband 4% 64%
Jury-rig 5% 70%
Mechanical Engineer 5% 70%
Pilot: Hovercraft 5% 80%
Pilot: Robots and Power Armor 3% 87%
Radio: Basic 5% 85%
Sensory Equipment 5% 75%
Weapons Engineer 5% 65%
O.C.C. Related Skills: %/Lvl %
Robot Mechanics 5% 60%
Robot Electronics 5% 60%
Vehicle Armorer 5% 65%
Electricity Generation 5% 85%
Artificial Intelligence 3% 56%
Computer Hacking 5% 65%
Barter 4% 68%
Aircraft Mechanics 5% 50%
Weapon Systems 5% 65%
Secondary Skills: %/Lvl %
Fanatic Robotophile 3% 71%
Computer Programing 5% 69%
History, Post Apocalypse 5% 60%
Optic Systems 5%55%
Natural/Special Abilities, Powers, & Vulnerabilities:
American: 98%, Literacy: American 65% +5%/level, Speak
Techno-can 95% +5%/level. Hand to Hand: basic, Power armor
Combat: Basic, Power Armor Combat: Advanced ground power armor)
Jury Rig and perform repairs in half time. Recognize machine-
Quality: 79%+ 3%/level. +20% to find Contraband when looking for
Tech Items. Soup up Machines.
Weapon Proficiencies:
Blunt
Heavy energy weapons
Equipment:
Large wrench, Medium Robotics tool Kit, Roll of duct tape, Electrical tape (2), Pen flashlight, Large Flashlight, Flares (12), 200 feet lightweight rope, Folding knife, Multi-tool, Silver plated knife, Notebook, Portable disk recorder, Portable language translator, Wielding goggles, Safety goggles, Work gloves, 2 pairs rubber gloves, Backpack, Satchel, Coveralls (4), Tool belt, Canteen, Air filter, Pocket notepad, Pen (2), Antique cigarette lighter, 5 packs cigarettes
Money:
100,000 credits Tech Budget, 5200 credits (NG/MI)
Body Armor:
Bandito
Vehicles:
"Minuteman" a suit Operator modified Gladius power armor, "The Lady Defiant" a Operator enhanced Skybunker hover transport.

[The Galactus Kid]

Awesome. I'm a fan. p.s. this has quickly become my favorite thread on the forums. If you don't update this more often I just might have to hunt you down and slap you around.

[Aramanthus]

Hey Rat_bastard does your operator have Telemechanics? I didn't see it on your character.

[rat_bastard]

Hey Rat_bastard does your operator have Telemechanics? I didn't see it on your character.

mundane human.

Some of the other players in my group have trouble with them concept of playing a normal non combat monster, I thought I would give a display of what a skilled normal human can do.

that and I want cybernetic implants.

[Aramanthus]

Oh ok! Cool! Thank you for that information! Keep your fellow players on their toes!

[rat_bastard]

Ok, we have gargoyles coming and only one real advantage: range

my plan is to use all of this debris and build a bunch of bunkers so I and my fellows can shoot the holy hell out of anything armed coming at us with our longer range weapons and let the Polish mine detectors take the other gargoyles at closer range.

my other idea is to give the nearby Germans targeting solutions for their missiles, as modern warfare is our advantage.

we have 4 gladius suits, 6 red hawks and a mage and a gunfighter, ****ing with the terrain and picking off high value targets seems to be my best bet for getting out of here alive and paid.

[Aramanthus]

That is a pretty reasonable way to put it! Thank you for updating your games SitRep!

[Aramanthus]

I have to admit the Operator is my favorite OCC to run too. Always my first choice. Of course I'm no mechanic, so that is how I make up for my lacking skills, I role play someone who has those talents.

[rat_bastard]

Things I wanna Install in my power armor:
Jump jets that give me jumping capabilities of a Sampson
A Wilk's laser designator
A Wilk's enemy identification computer
Modular forearm and shoulder mountings
A Piggy-back AI that makes non combat actions at the request of the pilots

[Aramanthus]

Those all sound pretty reasonable for addons to armor. Most of those are pretty doable. The hard one is going to be the AI. I know how I did it when I was playing an operator. How do you plan on building your AI?

[The Galactus Kid]

Take the A.I. skill.

[rat_bastard]

Take the A.I. skill.

had it since first level.

[Dustin Fireblade]

Things I wanna Install in my power armor:
A Wilk's enemy identification computer

That should be a basic function of your existing on-board combat computer.

[rat_bastard]

Things I wanna Install in my power armor:
A Wilk's enemy identification computer

That should be a basic function of your existing on-board combat computer.

I've never seen a combat computer that identifies types of enemies.