Mecha Space Pirate Quest XXV

Welcome back, space pirates and UJCIDF catets, to the twenty-fifth installment of Mecha Space Pirate Quest! Once again, you are Admiral Roarke Starwind of the Iron Kestrels, extremely photogenic space pirate, master of the starship Rhinehawk, pilot of the Knuckle Kaiser, and a man who has many enemies.


Previous Threads: suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Mecha Space Pirate Quest, Collective Game, mecha
Master Pastebin: pastebin.com/sSHs0QmF
Upgrade Menu: pastebin.com/QQQzkFZe
List of Moves: pastebin.com/HSdyCe2y
Rogues' Gallery: pastebin.com/E9ZcDLfG

And after I post this wall-of-text (without pictures because I know we'll hit the bump limit as it is), you will be Roarke again rather than someone with a viewpoint on the Jaburo.

Two things happen at once. The first is the explosions that rock the stationary Jaburo. Carefully-hidden mines placed with extremely artful precision targeting highly specific systems, although loud and noisy enough to stir up a panic.

Colonel Hatsheput, still doing up the uniform buttons of her shirt, marches down the hallway, surrounded by aides, lesser officers, and the Second Mate of the Iron Kestrels. Technicians read off damage reports to her as calmly as they can.

“Engines nonresponsive, ma'am.”

“The Microgate Projector is completely destroyed, we're lucky it didn't cause a chain reaction.”

“Bay 1's catapults have all been destroyed, we've had the most injuries there and a few deaths. Bay 2 is still working, we're transferring the SOUL machines there as fast as we can.”

“Weapons and life support online and functional. It's strange, though, explosions did go off around the main beam batteries...but they were more flash and burn marks than serious payload. Looks damned ugly outside and we'll need repairs soon, but they're still all functional. Maybe the saboteur didn't have time to do it right?"


“They are?” She asks. The Colonel pauses, “Where did I leave my gun belt? Ah...thank you Mohammed.” With a coquettish smile, she accepts the garment from the pirate and straps it on, “Is our defensive screen working?”

“It's functional, ma'am. We actually found the bomb there and disarmed it in time, thanks to some quick thinking and a group of very courageous MPs.”


“Bay 1's computers recorded two unauthorized launches prior to the explosions, we're missing a Pumpkinseed and an Assault Warmouth. The other two prisoners are missing, we assume they launched together.”

“I do not think...” Interjects Mohammed, “That the Terran is working with the woman. Call it a hunch, but it is possible he simply saw a chance and took it.”

[Continued]

The Colonel reaches the bridge and drops into her chair, “Turn these headache-inducing sirens off as soon as conditions permit and keep an eye on the main fusion reactor for further surprises. Get me visuals, I want to see where the prisoners are going.” One of the staff sits down and presses a few buttons, causing the large monitors on the walls to spring to life, “Pan towards the colony, where else could they be going?”

Another of the bridge crew looks up as a new klaxon warbles across the system, “Gate sign, ma'am. It's a small one, but definitely a gate.”

Which is when she witnesses the second event. A small, unmarked transport ship emerging from the ripple in space that marks a gate to the human eye. As she manipulates the controls of her chair to bring it into view, the single launch catapult of the transport opens once...and she waits, nothing happening. Finally, Harpies begin to emerge, smoothly and efficiently, with military discipline that visibly disheartens the Jaburo's bridge staff. Each one is painted brilliant lime green with a skull emblem, the paint fresh and new, and they fan out into a formation that makes the Colonel frown.


“Why did they wait if this was planned?” She muses, “And why are they in an escort pattern?” She covers her mouth with her hand as an idea strikes, rubbing her thumb along one high cheekbone, “Infrared sensors.”

The bridge crew frowns in confusion, but they do what she says, “Ma'am, I can't explain this...but we're picking up two huge heat trails in the center...and what the...what the hell is that thing!?” He jabs his finger at the image displayed suddenly on the spotting radar screen. “Some kind of dragonfly?”

[Continued]

Indeed, from this angle, it looks like one. A massive, stocky body whose features are barely discernable with its arms folded against its torso and its legs splayed out behind it. Four massive wings spreading out behind it, each one resembling a curved talon lined with a bank of high-performance thrusters set along the inside edge . Behind it, like a grotesquely oversized tail or pod, is a metallic structure composed of a series of bulging segments tipped with a drill and with several smaller drills arrayed along it like the legs of a caterpillar. A pair of curved horns arch up over its shoulders, giving it the appearance of bizarre mandibles from above. Its flight is reckless, barely controlled, hammering forward at full throttle towards Auditorium.

“Red Siren's Harpies are engaging the target.” One of the bridge crew reports, “It looks like the prisoners are heading towards the colony too at a slower pace.”

Not seeing the enemy titan, Red Siren's patrol harpies unhesitatingly fly into battle. Their beam guns streak the void with trails of neon. Most of them have never fought in a real battle before, they're fans who performed well in sims or Bluegill Joe tourneys sponsored by Red Siren, some are backup dancers trusted with leading formations. Although even the first wave outnumbers the nineteen lime green Harpies nearly four to one, the Green Skulls seem undeterred. One goes down in flames before the Green Skulls shift to humanoid form midflight and answer with fire of their own, aiming grouped shots to guarantee kills with the mechanical precision of ruthless veterans. Red Harpies burst and explode even as more of the green Harpies do the same, but the red ones come to a stop, and that's all the leader needs.

[Continued]

It lands on the hull, and with a sudden clank the drills automatically aim and drill deeply enough into the thick armor of the colony for the 'tail' to stay locked in place. Something twists, and pops, and the gigantic pod servo comes off, making it flash into visual sight for a moment. Without its tail, the Green Skulls mech more closely resembles a gigantic ape or some monster from ancient legend. Its head doesn't sit above its shoulders, but thrusts forward in front of them. Instead of a mechanical visage, it's artfully worked into an emerald replica of a classic devil's face, complete with a mouth open in condemnation and a black goatee. Its eyes are blank and void save for twin points of orange light. Its arms are oversized for its body, and a pair of shields shaped like angular teardrops cover its forearms, the points extending out over the large three-clawed hands. Every single servo is coated in layer after layer of thick, industrial-grade plating. Its shoulder armor has been shaped into a pair of elongated animal skulls that hang over its biceps. Its feet are tipped by a pair of claws that dig into the decking as it hunches down and ignites the thrusters in its wings again. It soars away along the hull just ahead of the blast wave as the chain-linked fusion bombs in the jettisoned pod explode one by one, tearing a gash in the colony's hull eerily reminiscent of a metal can being penetrated by a can opener. It lands with its arms spread wide against the backdrop of eye-searing plasma bursts, deliberately posing before it fades into invisibility once again.

[Continued one final time]

The big green bastard can cloak.
Wonderful.

Should have taken that blind-fight feat.


Should ALWAYS take blind-fight.

But fuck me, this is beyond fubar already.

...Meanwhile, in Karen's cabin on the Rhinehawk, the notorious pirate Roarke Starwind is doing something that isn't very notorious at all. You're taking a nap, spooning up behind warm, soft Karen and cuddling her against your chest as she dozes in your arms. She's smiling, her pigtails occasionally tickling your nose as she stirs in her sleep, dreaming big dreams.

You feel a sudden tremor run through the ship, and your first quasi-awake thought is that Karen's bed is breaking again, so you hug her tight and roll her on top of you to cushion her from falling onto the floor. She flails and grabs onto your arms, her eyes flashing wide open, as the series of tremors continue. She looks around wildly, "Roarke, what's going on? Is something wrong with the ship?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out." You smile as confidently as you can at her, grabbing your aviators from the bedside cabinet where they rest next to her glasses, and putting them on. You get up, shrug on your jacket, and barely make it outside before one of the crew informs you that there has been an enemy attack and that despite it happening on the opposite side of Auditorium the Rhinehawk's sensors can confirm damage to the colony.

>[Launch in the Knuckle Kaiser]
>[Launch the Rhinehawk]
>[Contact Red Siren]

You actually did take the blind-fight feat. Or at least, the same sensors that let the Jaburo detect it, the ASP.

>[Contact Red Siren]
Man these guys really are dead meat when Roarke gets his hands on them, interrupting cuddle times that's just all kinds of wrong.

I think we should probably launch everybody.

>[Launch the Rhinehawk]
while you
>[Contact Red Siren]
Surely we can message her while we're scrambling our ships?

It doesn't function the same way as blind-fight though, does it? We'd still get shrekt by a cloaked foe.

>[Contact Red Siren]
Yo whaddup?
>[Launch the Rhinehawk]

Actually, ASP lets us our sensors bypass standard Cloaking. However, we can't detect enemies with Pulse Refract unless they're moving, and if they have Stealth, we can't detect them even then.

>[Launch in the Knuckle Kaiser]
Karen needs to contact the Siren and get everything ready. The bugger is probably doing bomb planting to destroy the ships. That means we need to hurry and deal with the bombs while every gets ready for combat or hold it off.

>this intro
>mfw

Not quite. You see, there are levels of cloaking. The cheapest is basic visual-only camouflage that doesn't work on an enemy mech, but is suitable for hiding your machine in a pinch. Then you have the guymelef-tier one that works on mecha too, but deactivates when you attack and requires you to escape notice to properly hide again. Then you have all kinds of upgrades to that, like Combat Cloaking (which lets you hide in plain sight) or the Pulse Refractor (which prevents an ASP from seeing you)

...and then there's stealth, which is separate, and stops you from leaving trackable heat trails or showing up on radar. The S-Betta is pretty much invisible to everything, because it's THE stealth and cloaking mech. This one can at least be spotted by a mech with an ASP or Spotting Radar.

You said that much, much more succinctly than I did, thank you!

And now you see why General Fairchild is actually talking about getting the S-Betta back, because the S-Betta has so many of the stealth and cloaking options that its final cost is nearly double its pre-stealth-and-cloaking cost.

So it has combat cloaking.

Swell. That means only the Jaburo and Knuckle Kaiser can see it?

Or does Auditorium have a spotting radar but they just weren't using it?

The Harpies launched in an emergency scramble can't see it. Obviously they know it's there now, but they have other priorities at the moment.

If that is the case, getting Kaiser knuckle out first to scan the damage is probably the best idea we can do. If we can mark it for the other ships, we'd have better luck against it.

As a side note, I think I figured out Fairchild's plan. The greenmen dismantled the old federation due to the war and forced the goverment to be more Solar system based. There are still the various colonies and planets out there that still hold human life, which have likely formed their own federations and states. Maybe she's trying to fully fortify the Sol System to go for a push against the old holdings and recreate the federation under her?

Feddies once again being the worst faction, even in in a different universe they suck.

So Titans & A-LAWs style? With Green Skulls as her patsies?

Probably. You have the Cake and Joe group who are likely less assholes and simply want diplomacy and keeping the peace. The Green skulls will likely 'vanish' and fill up fairchild's ship as a damn elite crew. As is, we should march out with the kaiser or we WILL lose pilots to Oni Mask and his buddies.

Looking through our mechs, the only units we have that can fight evenly with the Oni's Cloaking are the Kaiser and the S-Betta.

So the question now is, do we want to tip our hand by fielding the S-Betta? Keep in mind that Sam is still officially a hostage rather than a collaborator, and openly using her mech is going to lead to questions.

I would say no. At least not right now. As is we don't know what he's capable of aside from explosives and missiles. When we do fight him, I suggest we go straight for his head to destroy his sensors and give him a -2, then a +2 to our dodges against him with our pilot maneuvers. Maybe a +3. He is too dangerous to simply go straight for the arms. We need to debuff that bastard.

"Karen, get to the bridge, we need to launch the Rhinehawk and Yamato immediately. Prepare our mecha for combat launch and..."

"...And get the Kaiser to a catapult. Already on it." She smiles bravely and leans up to kiss your cheek before dashing off to the bridge, her PC in hand.

You pull out yours, but Red Siren is already calling you. "What's the situation?" You start the talking yourself so that she doesn't get sidetracked being cute.

Fortunately, she's very serious right now, "An unknown enemy mech hid itself in a small swarm of Green Skulls Harpies and blew a rift in the colony. I can't spare the Harpies to hunt him down when mine are struggling to their limit just to finish off the survivors and get this breach sealed. I know I'm being a bit of a bother, darling, but could you lend us a hand?"

"You're not a bother, and second..." You reach the mechbay at a run, grabbing your pilot suit out of a locker and shrugging it on, "I'm already on my way."

You use your PC to open the Kaiser's torso hatch armor, lower the liftwire, and punch in your code. The cockpit opens up for you, and you swing yourself into the seat.

Cornelius' voice crackles over the PA, Karen is either still at the bridge or winded from running there, "All clear for launch, Admiral." He sounds like his usual, grumpy self.

You have the Knuckle Kaiser give him a thumbs-up and step onto the catapult backwards, "Half velocity, I don't want to get thrown into the bay wall." You order him just in time, the catapult fires you out seconds later and if you weren't so adept at piloting you might, indeed, have taken some damage. Instead, you flip around in midair and fire your thrusters on maximum to slow down, kicking off the bay wall as it rushes towards you and flying in an arc across the Rhinehawk's bow to precede it out into space.

[Continued]

Shouldn't we just field a bunch of our guys to help us fight it? Surly we can mark it or break its cloaking system or something to let the rest of our lads take potshots.

Problem is the Oni likely is in the Colony. Potshots can cause unneeded casualties there and a lot of damage. We Need to deal with him before he plants some sort of colony break or something there.

A bit of mecha collateral damage is worth it in my opinion.

Breaking its Cloaking System isn't possible, as it's mechanically a Cost Multiplier System, which means that it doesn't have any designated location and runs as long as the mech does.

Though, technically, you can still spot even a Cloaked mech with a sufficiently high Awareness roll (likely 25+ in this case), so marking it with paint rounds to reduce the difficulty would probably be viable. You know, if we actually used guns.

It won't be just mechas getting damaged if he takes the fighting inside the Colony.

We could just try to oneshot the torso and insta-gib the fucker.

You receive an additional call from the bridge itself, Avi's voice sounding particularly nervous, "Admiral Starwind, sir, we've confirmed three more gate signs. I don't think they're friendlies. Also, we saw explosions from the UJCIDF ship, I'm not sure how badly damaged they are but they're not pursuing that transport vessel. Do you want us to go after it, or stay near the colony?"

You burn void until you have enough distance to scan the colony with your ASP...which is when you see a mech as big as yours, if not bigger, barreling along Auditorium's hull, its fixed wings leaving massive heat trails and its huge, clawed hands trailing what look like a pair of oversized grenade belts.

>[What do?]
>[Also, what do you want Avi to do?]

Not really, no. It causes unneeded clutter and they will likely die if he goes for a AOE. We would also be better off just grappling him and damaging him that way. This is the sort of guy you bring a specialist to, not a group of mooks. Especially since he is likely channeling the dark side of char.

We'll take on the big guy have the Rinehawk and Yoritomo go after the other gates and help the navy ship

That should have been, "it's mechanically a Cost Multiplier System with no listed Kill value".

{What Do?] Give chase to the bastard.
[what Avi do?] Give support to the Jaburo and provide assistance in crew and cover fire. Take a shot or two, but be ready for what comes out.

Oops, forgot a key detail. The enemy mech is currently 1km away and moving fearlessly in your direction. You don't know whether or not it knows you can see it.

Avi should be opening fire at the hostiles at all times, even if they are outside of effective range, just throw enough shit that some of it will stick. He shouldn't be wandering too far out when we don't have accurate intel on exactly what toys the skulls are bringing.

We need to go and grapnel-chan that invisible bastard.

And the colony will be a lot more damaged if we happen to fuck up or the fight drags on for longer than anticipated.
What about epoxy guns?
I recall someone saying in the last thread that this is a system where an ace mech can get wrecked by a much worse mech if it gets unlucky. And its not like it can take its focus away from us to attack the others unless he wants to get punched in the back.

Then lets act like we can't see him then suprise him with grapple chan and fists to his cockpit

Fuck surprise. Stop it from getting close to the hull. It has an objective and you won't let it complete it. Grapple-chan at the earliest opportunity.

How far is the UJCIDF ship? I think we shouldn't leave the colony empty. Have the Yamato stay at the Auditorium so that it can prepare to unload its missiles on anything big that comes. Rhinehawk should be fine to take shots and give relief from the UJCIDF thanks to the shielding. Could stall whatever ships are doing while the Jaburo unloads it's massive cannon batteries.

If he doesn't know we can see him, I say we do a counter surprise attack. Sudden boosting charge, go straight for the head. We MUST take his systems down and lower his accuracy/reflex scores. If he tries to book it, we grapple him.

I say we do this but we bring the the four? bluegills we brought with us to fight the big zam and give them epoxy guns.

Epoxy guns are also guns, so they use Mecha Gunnery. They immobilize the targer, but don't mechanically make it easier to spot, unless Wong rules that way. They don't, for instance, prevent it from Cloaking and then juking around invisibly to dodge shots.

Regarding getting wrecked by an inferior opponent, I don't believe we're using the standard exploding dice mechanic in this quest.

12km, the newcomers are at least 20km out. 12km is viewed as a safe distance because Auditorium would have warning if the Jaburo suddenly charged with its 9km-range superheavy beam battery.

We give the other guys epoxy guns and if they get the chance they shoot. Or they just spray the whole area, either way it makes life more difficult for the guy fighting us.

It is.. normally. thats due to megacrits and exploding die. We don't really get the exploding dice here so that doesn't work. Likewise, if he has officer armor, most harpy gear won't work on him aside melee which has it's own problems.

We need to soften him up, at least by making it so his rolls will be worse. His nukes mean jack if he can't aim them.

Probably want to bring something a little bigger than harpies. By the way, what did we decide to do with the captured pumpkinseeds?

He's probably going to burn his luck and maneuver pool to try and one-shot roarke with his nukespam.

If he uses the volley rule where he rolls for all the missiles simultaneously that may be kind of bad for whatever he is aiming at.

Nukes cost 1000x (literally) what a normal rocket does. Just because he tore apart three Harpies with his rocket spam doesn't mean he has nukes. In fact, it kind of implies that they're cheap ones designed for wiping mooks, doesn't it?

Thats why we counter charge and go for his face. Close the gap fast and make him waste some luck on that. His bigger mech is likely slower and thus with lower reflexes, but it's still going to be a bitch.

I'd say bring nothing. Guy will spite kill them just to piss us off. He's good at killing wingmen. I think aside from the one pumpkinseed 2 with the bigger weapon, we were going to scrap em for CP and research.

Is not us thinking he is of literally launching nuke.

user pls.

Do you guys want a strawpoll to decide whether or not you jet alone or jet with backup?

Also, was the consensus to send the Rhinehawk to the Jaburo's aid and keep the Yamato near Auditorium, or was I imagining it?

Any of the Pumpkinseeds you nabbed and decided to keep are still being repaired and are currently missing their arms, by the way..

That's a pretty interesting idea. I'll remember it!

We go solo for now, their support should be with the jaburo which is fully supported.

Not to be a dick but any shots fired at our guys is shots not fired at us and any time he spends attacking our lads is time spent leaving himself open to getting attacked by us. Its like hyenas attacking a lion, only they also have a lion on their side.
I get the feeling I am the only one who wants backup anyway so its probably not worth it.

Daily reminder that the regular ass zaku II could launch nukes.

I motion we scramble the rest of our mechs to defend Auditorium from any standard non-stealthed enemies, and go after the Oni ourself.

No opinion on the exact ship deployment, though sending one out and keeping one back sounds good.

Fun fact, you don't have to scrap a machine to research it. All you have to do is have it in your mech bay long enough for Karen and Cornelius to poke through it. For example, the Tarrasque is being researched while they repair it, the only reason I didn't stick an option for a shield like the one it has on the upgrade menu is because working out how much weight reduction you'd need when you haven't even purchased the Wings you guys seemed to want is a pain, and you'd definitely need those spaces for a shield generator.

But you've never reminded me before. Why would you let me go without knowing this? What did you possibly have to gain, you sneaky bastard? Imagine the combined MGS+Gundam memes! Imagine them!

MOHAMMED, GET IN THERE

How do you think half the human population got wiped out so fast?

It wasnt even the F types that could do it, it was the regular old C types, which were also radiation shielded unlike most zakus.

I honestly assumed it was from gassed colonies.

Didn't we basically already have Tactical Aspie on Hajj action last thread?

Moe fucked up so hard it worked in his favor.

That probably did a lot of it alright.
Another fact of slightly dubious truth, apparently zeon took about 1% of the casualties in the war and basically none of them were civilian.

Since the general consensus is on solo combat, how would you like to open up?

>[Walk up and punch it]
>[Use Best Girl to immobilize one of his arms or legs]
>[Dropkick. Keep in mind, dropkicks hit the torso only, Caesar only got to chargehit a limb fighting Mohammed because I didn't want him to kill Moe in their first encounter]

>>[Use Best Girl to immobilize one of his arms or legs]

I think that up was accidental.

Moe did pretty well, it's just that the "for fun" Human Perception roll determined whether he came off looking badass by seeing through the Colonel's trick, or looking empathetic for instinctively helping her. I wouldn't say a roll was for fun and then punish a bad result, I just personally liked the low result better for story purposes.

>[Use Best Girl to immobilize one of his arms or legs]
Actually, would having an obvious grappling hook tagged onto him give allies a bonus to hitting him?

I don't really feel like it fits Moe's character, personally, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth, or argue with dice.

Moe seems like a bit of a dick to me.

>[Walk up and punch it]
Tagging a arm leaves the other free. We should most definetly land the first attack with everything we have. If we miss with the grapple he will run off and try for some missile. We do not want that.

I'll make a completely pulled-out-of-my-ass ruling and say that they would be able to target it (which they couldn't do at all if it was just cloaked and they were guessing), but at a -4 penalty as if their sensors were out.

When has Moe ever done anything dickish to anyone? Is this more of your stupid Wrestlequest 'headcanon jobber' nonsense from the last thread? He's got Jesus-tier Empathy in case you missed it.

I wouldn't call him a dick, just more reserved than 90% of the people in this quest.

NOPE. Don't let them try. A -4 is a damn scary thing, especially with the very possible skill difference. Not worth it. They are better used elsewhere.

I'm not even that guy you dickhead.

It's from Moe's inner monologue. He seems more focused on getting shit done than being nice about it.

>Empathy, the stat for reading and understanding people, means you are a good person

Well, Jesus is a fucking douche despite having 10 empathy, so I guess if you want to make that argument you play right into his hands.

Rolled 3 + 12 (1d10 + 12)

Quickly, make a 1d10+14 roll to grapple with the harpoon.

Presumably if you fail you'll try again, since you're still 400m apart when you launch it.

Rolled 1 + 14 (1d10 + 14)

FUUUUUCK

So they are the same.

Is that a pass or fail?

Rolled 10 + 14 (1d10 + 14)

that is sad.

Rolled 9 + 14 (1d10 + 14)

Well, we could have whoever it is Aim for 4 actions to negate the +4, or have a firing squad of several guys.

You had one job.

Doesnt make you a dick you know. Being a dick to people makes you a dick.

Rolled 3 + 14 (1d10 + 14)

Good save user

Defender wins ties.

Can't we just retroactively spend ONE luck just this once?
Goddammit.

Would be nice if we had 4 or 5 faceless meatshields right about now.

No bonus for surprise?

Shit

Rolled 7 (1d10)

It's a failure, defender wins on a tie...and Roarke has tied with enemies attacking him at least seven or eight times in this quest minimum.

Musnt be all that surprised.

Now I'm just wondering if the dice explode with that 9 because that imagery would be hilarious.

"Hah hah, close, you almost got me th-"
"GET OVER HERE!"
"What the f-"

No?

Man, that's kinda shitty.

Also, why roll again? With a +12 he simply cann't beat a 10 on a +14.

Is it for determining crits?

Your bonus is automatically winning initiative unless I missed something important. It's kind of hard to ambush people with a giant robot.

Besides, you succeeded, and you'll see in a moment why I bothered rolling.

Rolled 1 + 13 (1d10 + 13)

Kaiser Grin nigga

Think he might still be able to Parry if his Melee skill is higher than his Dodge.

Lets try and keep this guy alive we could use the info he has