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Good lord is this one difficult vote: Andurien Retainer will probably win, but that should be done properly, with actual Rim World units fighting the clans in an equal exchange. As things stand, we would be sending Matilda tanks to fight loving Panthers, which doesn't leave much room for player creativity, but DOES leave Amaris the ability to automatically win with his own forces if the players lose miserably. Also, another a defensive mission, so soon after the last one? Psh, please. No, the others are on to something better: the House Sandoval Planetary Assault is a bit out of the way, but it gives the players plenty of agency, while also encouraging them to be highly aggressive. It also makes the most sense for a new merc company with no house loyalties, since they get a chance to prove themselves without getting thrown into an obvious meat grinder. And so, with all that in mind: 1. Employer: House Sandoval________________(D) 2. Two demands: Support and Pay__________(F),(A) 3. Concession: Salvage Rights_______________(E) 4. If negotiations fall through: Original offer__(A) The contract is stingy on pay, so some negotiation there is probably expected, and the support is far too low for a mission where casualties are expected (it's a loving assault, of course you're going to take loses). By contrast, full salvage rights means the enemy mechs aren't worth the effort they would take to claim, which is a bad sign. Thus, the best way to approach the contract is thus: trade some salvage rights to ensure that damage to the more expensive mechs won't bankrupt the company, and use any added pay as a safety net if this turns into a clusterfuck (which it will). The mission probably won't pay that well, but if the client is impressed, there's a good chance the company will get much better jobs in the future...particularly, a chance to steal some Jade Falcon mechs during the second crusade.
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Feb 11, 2016 19:09
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So should we be proud or scared that the general thread reaction to "Defensive battle against angry angry clanners with little to no salvage reward, and a boss that probably actively wants you to die" seems to be "gently caress it!" 
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Feb 11, 2016 19:26
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Cimbri posted:So should we be proud or scared that the general thread reaction to "Defensive battle against angry angry clanners with little to no salvage reward, and a boss that probably actively wants you to die" seems to be "gently caress it!" Its been building for half the thread; of course people want to see it. We just shouldn't be seeing it through the eyes of a merc company who will either be compelled to join Amaris or wiped out at the end of the battle.
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Feb 11, 2016 19:33
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Cimbri posted:So should we be proud or scared that the general thread reaction to "Defensive battle against angry angry clanners with little to no salvage reward, and a boss that probably actively wants you to die" seems to be "gently caress it!" Amaris isn't a cartoon villain who'll deliberately get mercs killed, after paying them, just because that's what a certain canon house did. He's a guy who loves giving people stuff in fair trades and honoring it so they're loyal to him in return - it's how he's built a gigantic empire as far as we know.
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Feb 11, 2016 19:36
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^^^ I call that "weaponized pragmatism"
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Feb 11, 2016 19:37
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Plus, he's probably out for good publicity if he wins. He's not exactly going to be upset if a bunch of merc units go back to the rest of the Sphere with stories of "We worked for the NRWR, and we kicked the poo poo out of the Clans."
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Feb 11, 2016 19:40
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Cimbri posted:So should we be proud or scared that the general thread reaction to "Defensive battle against angry angry clanners with little to no salvage reward, and a boss that probably actively wants you to die" seems to be "gently caress it!" This is the attitude that brought you Wrestlemech. Do us proud.
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Feb 11, 2016 19:43
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Cimbri posted:So should we be proud or scared that the general thread reaction to "Defensive battle against angry angry clanners with little to no salvage reward, and a boss that probably actively wants you to die" seems to be "gently caress it!" No salvage but Clan salvage isn't really something a 2 bit merc company can afford to keep. 2 years is a long time to put up with a hangar queen you have little hope of properly maintaining. Odds are good you'd wind up having to dump it to the same outfit currently offering you a bounty instead of salvage rights.
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Feb 11, 2016 19:49
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Zaodai posted:Plus, he's probably out for good publicity if he wins. He's not exactly going to be upset if a bunch of merc units go back to the rest of the Sphere with stories of "We worked for the NRWR, and we kicked the poo poo out of the Clans." That's a good point, though my counter would be the same point raised in the post, he doesn't have to replace anything if they all die. But even so I think your points make more sense, after all it's only money. I do suppose it's better than having to assault the guys who absurdly outrange, damage, and armor you with a 2 bit merc company. Edit: Not knowing about how clanners treat defense that is. Cimbri fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 19:49
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dis astranagant posted:No salvage but Clan salvage isn't really something a 2 bit merc company can afford to keep. 2 years is a long time to put up with a hangar queen you have little hope of properly maintaining. Odds are good you'd wind up having to dump it to the same outfit currently offering you a bounty instead of salvage rights. Eh, one would think even a poorly maintained clan mech with most of the parts missing is probably going to be worth a lot more than whatever bounty Amaris is offering. Although I suppose un-maintained mechs left in an empty hangar are prone to catastrophic failure of existence.
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Feb 11, 2016 19:58
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Cimbri posted:Edit: Not knowing about how clanners treat defense that is. "We will fight you in this big open field!" Cimbri posted:Eh, one would think even a poorly maintained clan mech with most of the parts missing is probably going to be worth a lot more than whatever bounty Amaris is offering. You don't know what the bounty is, it's not specified in the contract. Might be worth negotiating just to find out.
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Feb 11, 2016 20:23
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Cimbri posted:That's a good point, though my counter would be the same point raised in the post, he doesn't have to replace anything if they all die. But even so I think your points make more sense, after all it's only money. I do suppose it's better than having to assault the guys who absurdly outrange, damage, and armor you with a 2 bit merc company. He's got no reason to actively want the mercs he hires to die, though. He has plenty of money. He has plenty of ammo, and guns, and whatever else you need to kit out your company. If he just starts cackling maniacally and sending mercs into certain death for no reason, he's not going to be able to hire mercs for any price. As a faction that will likely have reason to want to hire more mercs in the future, torpedoing your own public image will cost you more than just throwing a big bag of money on the table. The NRWR has every reason to fight this battle as convincingly and as cleanly as possible. They don't want to just beat the Clans. They want to humiliate and make an example of them, to send a message to the rest of the Clans (and to some extent the houses of the IS) that if you come at the king, you best not miss. Hell, having a bunch of mercenaries actually win battles on behalf of the NRWR would work in his favor in his dick waving contest against the Clans. It'd be like if in an action movie the hero goes on his big rampage of revenge against the rich, evil organization and then couldn't get past the elderly crippled guy who answers phones in the lobby.
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Feb 11, 2016 20:40
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Vote: 1) Which contract to pursue 1D) House Sandoval Planetary Assault 2) Two demands to negotiate for 2B) Command Rights 2F) Support 3) One concession to make, if necessary 3A) Pay 4) What to do if negotiations fall through 4A) Take the original offer
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Feb 11, 2016 20:57
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Zaodai posted:He's got no reason to actively want the mercs he hires to die, though. He has plenty of money. He has plenty of ammo, and guns, and whatever else you need to kit out your company. If he just starts cackling maniacally and sending mercs into certain death for no reason, he's not going to be able to hire mercs for any price. As a faction that will likely have reason to want to hire more mercs in the future, torpedoing your own public image will cost you more than just throwing a big bag of money on the table. The chances are pretty high that the Mercs would make mad bank if they survived the clan assault, but that's a big "if" considering the very high chance that nukes will be used by one or both sides: at the very least, Amaris has threatened to use nukes against the clan ships (and possibly clan homeworlds), so assuming the clans are willing to do the same to him should be a given. There's also a small, but no zero, chance that Amaris has some secret weapon he doesn't want anyone to know about, which could get the mercs the "power ranger" treatment if they see it get used.
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Feb 11, 2016 21:02
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It could definitely be that Andurien is going to be nuked back to the stone age.
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Feb 11, 2016 21:06
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If you're going to nuke the planet, why bother hiring a bunch of mercenaries? They've already demonstrated the ability to generate sensor ghosts that can beat Clan sensors as well as cloaking that can hide their units completely. If they just need to make it look like they've got units on world you can either have some old training units sitting in some hangars combined with sensor ghosts and the remote control units they've shown they've got for a few movers to not make it look deserted. Or you booby trap the jump points as is already implied. Sending out an open call for all the mercs in the sphere and then having them "mysteriously disappear" doesn't preserve the secrecy of your weapon. It's not shooting one guy in the head or blowing up one facility to keep a secret. You're wiping out the better part of a publicly visible industry. If you saw an advertisement on TV for months that said "Hey, CrapCo is hiring anyone with any amount of IT/construction/whatever experience at all!" and then all of a sudden they all just disappeared from the face of the Earth, it'd be pretty obvious even if you didn't know exactly what happened. If he's just going to glass the planet, he's got all the hardware he needs without hiring anybody.
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Feb 11, 2016 21:15
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I've got no opinions on negotiations, but for location, I'm voting C - Andurien I want to see the tip of that clanner spear.
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Feb 11, 2016 21:25
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Zaodai posted:Alright, I think I've made up my mind. I just have to see the NRWR vs Clan showdown first hand. Awesome fight outweighs somewhat more sensible contract. Put another vote in for this choice. While doing wet-work for AT&T sounds so appealing, working for everyone's favorite outside bet is simply the better choice. If only for the fireworks show it will inevitably produce.
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Feb 11, 2016 21:39
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Contract: C Demands to Negotiate For: A and F One Concession: D If Negotiations Fail: B
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Feb 11, 2016 21:48
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Zaodai posted:If you're going to nuke the planet, why bother hiring a bunch of mercenaries? They've already demonstrated the ability to generate sensor ghosts that can beat Clan sensors as well as cloaking that can hide their units completely. If they just need to make it look like they've got units on world you can either have some old training units sitting in some hangars combined with sensor ghosts and the remote control units they've shown they've got for a few movers to not make it look deserted. Or you booby trap the jump points as is already implied. You're assuming that *all* the mercenaries would be killed, or that everyone would refuse to believe that the clans are willing to use nukes against their most hated enemy. Think more along the lines of a space-Stalingrad: some companies are going to effectively wiped out, some will survive with heavy losses, and a few lucky ones will survive the clan campaign intact. It's going to be pure chaos, and in that chaos, no one is going to notice if a few merc companies are wiped out without explanation, or that Amaris was the one to use nukes on his own planet, as opposed to the clans.
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Feb 11, 2016 22:02
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1) C) Employer: Duchy of Andurien 2) E Salvage rights, F support 3) D Transportation costs 4) A Take original offer Lets get nuts
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Feb 11, 2016 22:04
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My bigger point is that it would be actively detrimental to Amaris' plans to do so. Amaris isn't afraid of the Clans, and I doubt his well planned masterstroke is "Get them on a planet, then nuke the planet". What's his plan after that? Gloat in his castle and wait for the other Clans to show up? Send a message out to them that just says "Neener neener!"? All he's proven to them then is that he's a dick, which they already kind of know. He needs to beat them in an actual fight to get any gain from it at all.
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Feb 11, 2016 22:11
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Zaodai posted:My bigger point is that it would be actively detrimental to Amaris' plans to do so. Amaris isn't afraid of the Clans, and I doubt his well planned masterstroke is "Get them on a planet, then nuke the planet". What's his plan after that? Gloat in his castle and wait for the other Clans to show up? Send a message out to them that just says "Neener neener!"? All he's proven to them then is that he's a dick, which they already kind of know. As best I can tell, his plan is to show all the Inner Sphere powers that he can defeat the clans at their best, and that he can bring the fight to them successfully; it really doesn't matter *how* he does that, only that does, and that his supporters are powerful enough to keep the Inner Sphere from stealing his gains after. To do that, he needs a victory here: and unless you don't consider a "minor power" completely routing a vastly superior enemy (and one of the few with an actual battle fleet to boot) from the capital of said minor power to be a victory, it really shouldn't matter how he does it, as long as he can exploit the situation afterwards.
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Feb 11, 2016 22:52
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thetruegentleman posted:As best I can tell, his plan is to show all the Inner Sphere powers that he can defeat the clans at their best, and that he can bring the fight to them successfully; it really doesn't matter *how* he does that, only that does, and that his supporters are powerful enough to keep the Inner Sphere from stealing his gains after. The Inner Sphere houses have plenty of nukes themselves. It's no great feat to nuke the Clans, and is hardly feasible for defending your territory. If I advertise I'm going to kick Brock Lesnar's rear end in a fight and when he shows up I just shoot him in the chest with a shotgun, I haven't proven anything to anyone beyond that I am a lunatic. Hell, if that's his master plan, odds are good the New Star League is going to show up on his door step to put down the mad dog before he decides randomly nuking people is a sound plan. If he's going to prove he can fight the Clans, he has to actually fight them. He's got a rough tech parity (based on what his research indicates in-story, anyway), he's setting the terms and location of the fight, and he's got an easily manipulatable enemy. He could better exploit the gullibility of the Clans into an actual victory without just nuking them. Now, he probably has a "gently caress This Gay Andurien" plan as a fallback position if everything just goes to pot in the stand up fight, but it's going to be plan Z. If at all possible, Amaris wants to come out of this looking like he can beat whatever they throw at him in a stand-up fight.
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Feb 11, 2016 23:00
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Also, PTN isn't going to put a bunch of players in mechs into a scenario and then nuke them and just go "oh well you all died."
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Feb 11, 2016 23:17
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Leperflesh posted:Also, PTN isn't going to put a bunch of players in mechs into a scenario and then nuke them and just go "oh well you all died." Well no. But it could be the result of the fight or even happening beforehand? If Amaris wants to defeat the clans, then turn the entire inner sphere against them by making them resort to nukes or even faking it so it looks like the clans were losing the fight and spitefully nuked Andurien.
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Feb 11, 2016 23:21
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Leperflesh posted:Also, PTN isn't going to put a bunch of players in mechs into a scenario and then nuke them and just go "oh well you all died." In theory, he could just announce that the result of the vote is that the mercs show up and everyone died and then move on to another vote, I guess. A true CYOA style death. Seems incredibly unlikely though.
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Feb 11, 2016 23:22
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I think the 1C) Andurien Retainer 2B) Command Rights 2E) Salvage Rights 3C) Overhead Compensation 4A) Take the original offer If they win this, they'll have certainly made a name for themselves!
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Feb 11, 2016 23:22
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He has, however, both given players nukes, and a post-nuclear hellscape to fight in.
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Feb 11, 2016 23:23
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I shall refrain from this choice.
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Feb 11, 2016 23:37
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There's a lot of good points in favor of the entertainment value of C, and that it might not be nearly as dangerous as it feels like at first glance. But C also feels very out of character for both Youngblood and Kalma - especially Youngblood, who seems very concerned with his command possibly being greener than he'd like. PTN certainly wouldn't pull a "nukes fall everyone dies", but while it's justifiable to vote C for the "no guts no glory" reasoning it just doesn't feel right, at least to me. And just because Amaris might not outright use mercs as cannon fodder for this sort of operation it still is a very risky situation for an inexperienced command. Also, it's an Amaris, so for all we know he's going to have the Demon Hawks firebomb hospitals to create cover if things go south, or something equally nuts, even if it wasn't in the original plan. I also don't think at this stage that PTN would have put any of the options on there if there isn't an interesting wrinkle, so D will probably still be an entertaining scenario, and quite possibly something we haven't seen yet. Plus it lets us see what's going on somewhere that we don't know what's going on, whereas with A and C in particular we can kind of see what's being set up, even if we don't know how it will play out. Edit: also interesting regarding D is that it's specifically House Sandoval, and not the DSMS/Kurita-Davions, which could have really big implications that would be worth seeing. Not that seeing C play out wouldn't also be fun as hell, but the more I think about option D the more I wonder about what exactly is going on there. Fraction Jackson fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 23:46
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I think you're more likely to be firebombing hospitals in a planetary assault than you are fighting a defensive war on a planet that was hand picked in advance by the defender to make a Tukayyid style defense. I doubt there is much of non-combat value left on Andurien. No sense in getting stuff you can move blown up for no reason.
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Feb 11, 2016 23:51
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1E Wasting my vote at this point, but I don't like any of those contracts. If I were in his shoes, I'd sniff around for something not a death trap and get his team some more skill/experience.
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Feb 12, 2016 00:39
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What is the state of the nrwr's space navy? I'm re-eading through the thread and I just got to the Sea Foxes arriving at Luthien with a few dozen battleships. Unlike the imperial city I'm not sure the clans would have the compunction to save civilian lives if it meant bombarding large parts of Amaris' mech capacity. BTW I recommend rereading just ptns posts. You get all the story plus a good amount of context to remind you what was going on. A lot of stuff that went way over my head last time is making sense now. I'm building a large list of questions, heh.
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Feb 12, 2016 00:58
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:What is the state of the nrwr's space navy? I'm re-eading through the thread and I just got to the Sea Foxes arriving at Luthien with a few dozen battleships. Unlike the imperial city I'm not sure the clans would have the compunction to save civilian lives if it meant bombarding large parts of Amaris' mech capacity. I don't think anyone has ever mentioned NRWR having a space navy. The only non-Clan one in existence is the barely functioning shitboat the Taurians trot out every now and then when the national micropenis is feeling more inadequate than usual. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Feb 12, 2016 |
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Feb 12, 2016 01:03
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Yeah, I think it's largely an unknown what the NRWR has for naval capacity in the PTN timeline. They do have spread out colonies and stuff, so they'd have reason to maybe have a fleet. Plus they've got a lot of orbital manufacturing facilities, so spacedocks wouldn't be out of their means. They might have something they just haven't need to use yet? I dunno. They could also have orbital defense platforms to defend against naval incursions.
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Feb 12, 2016 01:16
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goatface posted:They may not want anyone, but they probably need one. Software houses refusing to admit that their "creatives" are terrible writers is the most common gently caress up in the world of gaming. Harebrained Schemes actually has a career game writer on staff. They don't pull the indie gaming 'programmer as writer' thing. I mean they might benefit from additional scenario and dialogue writers, but it's not for lack of professional staffing. Tran fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Feb 12, 2016 |
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Feb 12, 2016 01:17
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Tran posted:Harebrained Schemes actually has a career game writer on staff. They don't pull the indie gaming 'programmer as writer' thing. I mean they might benefit from additional scenario and dialogue writers, but it's not for lack of professional staffing. I mean, it's the company that did the Shadowrun games, all of which were heavily story-driven with deeply fleshed out characters. They definitely aren't having their coders scribble that out during their lunch breaks. As far as C goes, while Amaris is certainly trying to score as convincing a victory as possible against the Clans, there's no doubt that the Mercs would be at the top of the list if the situation came down to strategic triage and every possibility that he is less prepared for a no-holds-barred Clan invasion than he presumes to be. He might just lose, and a whole bunch of people fighting on his side might get murdered by vengeful clanners as it happens, and even if it doesn't come to that we should probably expect this fighting to get loving ugly given how much bad blood there will be between both sides. Amaris won't be actively setting the players up for disaster but it is absolutely on the table.
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Feb 12, 2016 01:46
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PoptartsNinja posted:You don't know what the bounty is, it's not specified in the contract. Might be worth negotiating just to find out. I bet it's NRWR mechs. Possibly not the very latest, but in advance of anything your average merc company could possibly have scrounged up. And it's brilliant if it is. Amaris frees up his own forces to do other things while his mercs defend, he treats them properly, he takes Clan salvage and gifts the mercs with new mechs that they can then use to kill more Clanners, and when the term expires they take their shiny new mechs back home. Amaris builds a reputation as trustworthy while creating a demand both for NRWR technology and mech production and for NRWR participation in anti-Clan activities. The NRWR has probably been stockpiling mechs for a while in anticipation of this day. It's plausible that they have more raw materials and manufacturing capacity than they do mechwarriors.
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Feb 12, 2016 01:48
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Narsham posted:I bet it's NRWR mechs. Possibly not the very latest, but in advance of anything your average merc company could possibly have scrounged up. And it's brilliant if it is. Plus he gets to reverse engineer the Clantech to drive his research teams to make the mechs he gave away publicly even further behind his own high end tech. As Voyager said, horrible defeat is still on the table. But I think horrible defeat is on the table for all of these options. They don't all have tremendous upside to offset it in the case of victory.
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Feb 12, 2016 01:54
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