Author Topic: 'Mech Engineer Quest  (Read 44597 times)

Daryk

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #210 on: 02 January 2016, 10:32:30 »
I like that VEPR, and think the automatic or combat shotguns from AToW page 268 might fill that role.  And page 265 has a range of machine pistols (though most are listed as SMGs).  In both cases, if the weapon has a recoil modifier, it's worth paying the extra 10% for recoil compensation (p. 286, there are some other nifty accessories there too).

As for armor, I think we should look at a concealed flak vest and combat boots for day to day wear, and a ballistic plate vest and advanced combat helmet for those days we know it's going to be bad.

Koren-Gagin

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #211 on: 02 January 2016, 20:26:19 »
I like option two at this point... if the boss was involved some how, it's better to know as soon as possible what that means for the project.

I agrre
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Vehrec

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #212 on: 05 January 2016, 20:22:40 »
*makes notes about arming the nest batch of assassins with Inferno SRMs, sniper rifles and vibrokatanas.  'If you pull a knife they pull a gun' sort of deal...*  Anyways, not satisfied with this, but it will get the job done.
---

The car pulls in the back entrance to the industrial park, the service entrance that the trucks use, because the front entrance is still blocked by the wreckage of a van and the two tanks that were moved off their plinths to block the entrance.  One of them has it's turret pointed directly at the gate.  A third tank-assault weight-rolls past as you exit the car, moving at a fast jog as it cruises by with it's dual-autocannon and lasers turret tracking to allow it to slip between warehouses.  A ton of police cars fill the lot-a lot of workers went home early apparently, for there to be so many, and there's even an industrial mech with a metropolitan police paintjob standing by at the edge of what looks like a crime scene.  Some factory workers have opened a window and set up a machine gun nest in the corner of their building, and R&D's smaller laser prototypes have been set up in mobile cradles on the lawn, long cables dragging behind them.  Everyone's on edge, but also getting bored-even the actual scrap metal of the demolished van stopped burning some time ago.  Getting in means your ID gets a longer than normal scrutiny, but you're cleared through and two of the soldiers camped out on the lawn take the opportunity to get you inside and down a secret passage through the basement.  Where you find your co-workers hanging out at the top of the staircase and tunnel that leads to the bunker.

The fact that there's a bunker on the property shouldn't surprise you really-though the fact that you need to go down three flights of stairs to get to it is probably a bit much-still, no Mech can stomp it's way through six meters of reinforced concrete, clay, gravel and sand.  What is surprising is the story of what happened here.  Apparently, just after you were attacked, a van full of gunmen with a bomb inside broke through the gate and drove around, shooting up the buildings and trying to pen everyone up inside, and get the bomb into position.  Since there were armed guards and soldiers in all the buildings, that was a bit tricky-they had the advantage of surprise, but were outnumbered from the start.  The Chief designer used one of the underground tunnels to get into the factory and borrow the latest T-25 H model that was almost ready for delivery, apparently crewing it with production line staff.  Loading the ammo had proven impossible for anything but the machine gun-but when the doors of the factory slid open and that monster drove off the line with lasers firing, the fact that it's autocannon and missile launchers had been so much dead weight didn't really comfort the gunmen much.  There had been about five minutes of black comedy as the tank caught two of them by surprise and then chased down the van and the others in slow motion, but three of them had gotten inside a building and a stalemate had ensued until the army had a helicopter fly in and drop a platoon of jump infantry on the roof.

The boss was still driving around in the tank, probably because he liked it more than because the place needed the extra protection.  He'd parked it around lunchtime, but only to wrestle several ammo cassettes in through the loading hatches, so he had missiles and AC shells to fire now. 

There have been other attacks on other companies and schools.  Nothing really bad at the other rival company, they'd run into a pop up barrier and detonated their bomb 30 meters from the target, breaking a lot of glass but not much else.  The university on the other hand, had seen one team go into an undergraduate engineering lecture and just...unload on the whole class.  There, the dead and wounded were in the hundreds.  That's clearly bothering some of the new hires-Doctor Sandoval is worried about her former co-workers and you have to poke her to get her to notice you and give you her...very impressive list of accomplishments.  She went to NAIS, for starters, and getting a foreign national into that school is almost unheard of.  She's in her early 40s and has a doctorate in radiation based alterations to material structure, and is rather withdrawn and reserved, but apparently has dipped her hands in nearly every single metallurgical project in the past decade.

Code: [Select]
[ ]Doctor Sandoval needs some comforting after this disaster.
[ ] Stop your boss before he goes mad with tank-given power.
[ ] Other?
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Daryk

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #213 on: 05 January 2016, 21:04:25 »
Comforting?  Minako doesn't strike me as the comforting kind. What she can do is distract Doctor Sandoval with more work related questions, like her opinion of the endo-steel project's prospects...

I kind of like the idea of the boss having some tank-given power for a little while.  It'll give him some additional authority around here (not that he needs it), and definite credit with the military techs.


Warclaw

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #214 on: 05 January 2016, 22:57:33 »
I disagree.  I think Minako would be quite comforting and sympathetic.  Get Sandoval to talk about pretty much anything the woman wants to, be a kind shoulder to cry on if she needs it.  If talking about metallurgy seems to be the way to go, once she gets going, so be it.  But if all she wants to do is cry and vent, that's ok too.  In private of course, maybe a side office.  Once all this dies down, Snadoval wont want to have been seen to have broken down in front of her subordinates and co-workers.  For pride's sake, if nothing else.

Vehrec

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #215 on: 09 September 2016, 12:34:47 »
(Okay, so I burned out on this pretty hard around the turn of the year, but if you guys are still willing, I'll stoke up the boilers once again and restart it.  It may be tricky to do-I completely blanked on how to write the next segment, so I may have to just skip to the next decision point and move on towards the meat of the quest-actually designing a Mech.  We'll go from the inside out-internal structure first, then actuators, then myomer and engine, you get the idea.  I'm diverging from the Tech manual in one fairly major way though-armor goes on last, because you can't skin the Mech until you have all the internals located and roughtly bolted down.)
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Daryk

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #216 on: 09 September 2016, 17:52:18 »
I'm game... My schedule hasn't changed much.

Warclaw

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #217 on: 12 September 2016, 19:32:43 »
I'm up for it.

Koren-Gagin

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #218 on: 05 October 2016, 07:44:24 »
Hey guys o/ Sure I m up for whatever you are up for just glad to be back.
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Marlin

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #219 on: 10 October 2016, 14:52:26 »
I just stumbled over this. I think it is fun. :) Would be cool.

What are the prerequisites?  O:-)
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XaosGorilla

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #220 on: 12 October 2016, 22:20:52 »
Seeing the design process play out is rather interesting.  I too would have liked to have noticed this sooner.  I will however continue to follow this with interest.


Vehrec

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #221 on: 11 February 2019, 23:31:14 »
Whoa...Okay, I just...felt the urge to come back.  Weird, huh?  Well, let's see if anyone's still interested in our Quest.  Even if I have no idea if I still have my notes on 'how to build battlemech...

Odds, you head out to talk to your boss, evens you talk to the doctor....EVEN.

Doctor Sandoval, you decide, after a solid half-hour of talking to her, is a *genius*.  There's no other word for it.  Emotionally delicate, deeply affected by the events of the day.  That, you cannot deny.  But you can't deny the other side of her, the fact that she lights up and talks to you for *ten minutes straight* about ferro-polymer mixing and foaming.  She talks your ear off about Beta and Gamma annealing, Transmutation Minimization, and a hundred other factors that you will admit, you never went *this* in depth on.  You also briefly have a cry yourself when you realize that the lack of local PPC production also means the local industry has to rad harden it's armor using giant nuclear reactors for about a month instead of precise and accurate particle beams doing the job in about 15 minutes.  On the other hand, she's rock-hard certain that the Endosteel production problems will pan out for serial production in 6 months, a year, tops!  She knows her stuff about esoteric materials science, you've got to give her that-she even asks you questions about Clan Harjel, stuff you've never heard of before.  More's a pitty.

It occurs to you though, that there's an important early choice to make coming up.  A Battlemech's skeleton supports ten or twenty times it's own weight-and not just static weight either, but running, jumping, and dropped-from-orbit onto a 1.5g Superearth weight.  And traditionally, there are two ways to deal with that.  There are Static chassis designs-big solid chunky boys with metal bones that can take all that force with room to spare, but that comes with risks of performance issues, bulky, oversized forms, and being generally less efficent than they could optimally be.  It's more often found on assaults, but you can also find it in some mediums and lights.  Then there are Dynamic chassis designs.  Ones where the actuators and the skeleton guide the stress of movement through other parts of the design as well-where myomer and armor provide extra structure and strength.  Designs, in other words, were a miscalculation means a broken hip, or a delicate shoulder joint that requires an ammo-feed be mounted external to some crucial armor.  It's a good way to build a BattleMech though.  Marauders are Dynamic, and so are Locusts and Wolverines.  And crucially if you're building in Endosteel, you have to build Dynamic.  So it might be a good choice if you want to use that material, or future-proof your designs for it.

Buuuut, you really should make that decision when your team are all here and all in their right minds.  People are distracted, distraught, and in need of help.  What can you do to help them?

[ ] We all mourn in our own ways-tell everyone to go home and be with their loved ones.  And maybe request a delay to the start of the project.
[ ] In times of crisis, we come together-and we go out together tonight.  Drinks, food, and bad singing together to wash away the pain.  And maybe request a delay to the start of the project.
[ ] Circle the wagons-and put up some cots.  Keep people here, check on the defenses, and call in anyone who's gone home.  You've got to keep your team safe-even if you can't hope to protect them all alone.  You're keeping your options open about asking for a stay on the project.
[ ] Write-in/Other

Today's vote-coping strategies.
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Daryk

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #222 on: 12 February 2019, 04:34:45 »
I'm definitely still in!

I like part of A, but don't want to delay the project.  In fact, I'd release everyone to go home (or to their coping mechanism of choice), and then go back to the office and so some basic calculations on the static vs. dynamic chassis issue.  If some stay with me to work on that, more power to them.  When those calculations yield something close to a result, then use strategy B with any that stayed, but not too much drinking!  There's still work to be done tomorrow...

And as far as the static vs. dynamic thing, I'm definitely leaning toward dynamic.  You had me at "future-proof"...

Vehrec

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #223 on: 15 February 2019, 10:54:30 »
I wish there was more than one response to this but...well, I'll produce content for a little while longer, and we'll see if anyone comes in to Quest.

TN 9 Test to convince people to stay and work: 6+3=9 NARROW SUCCESS

TN 7 Test to not loose your cool from the assassination attempt: 2+2=4 FAIL

There's not much of a team here yet-but you figure that given the lateness of the day, and the little work that can be done before you're chased out, but you decide to make a go of it.  You tell the team that you can find that anyone who wants to go home to their family is welcome to-more than welcome-but you're going to stay and do a little work before your time is up today.  And a few of them do stay behind-older people mostly, but they call families before reporting in, but they decide to stay because you want to stay-you want to get something done, to stick a flag in the ground and proclaim that you won't be silenced that easily!

But when you grip the stylus and try to draft something, you hand just won't stay still.  You've got the shakes, like you've never had before-you shake like an alcoholic who needs their fix, you shake like a leaf on a tree next to a dropship landing, and you just.  Can't.  Draw a line!  A few false passes are all you manage before someone puts a hand on your shoulder and then the facade crumbles, and you wet your terminal with tears.  You pour it all out-the fear, the frustration, the anger, and above all the powerlessness of your situation.  Designer?  What a joke-a bad joke, a parody of a job title!  You can't even design your own life, you're never going to see any of your family again, you're a refugee in a nation where you don't speak the language and someone's trying to kill you just for having a degree in engineering!  The stress and the strain pour out of you, and you hardly care at all that you're doing it in public.  You cling to...someone, you're not even sure who, but you desperately crave human contact, if not love than sympathy.

You're not a trivid heroine, or an action-movie bad-ass who machine guns people down and drives away.  You're an engineer-you know a bit about sport shooting from your grandfather, and about guerrilla warfare from his stories but that is it.  And your breakdown pretty much puts the breaks on any hope of getting work done today, so you all clock out and head to a coffee shop-not a bar, you insist on that-and get something to drink.  You keep having to wipe your face and mop up the tears that won't stop flowing but...dammit, now you feel guilty about failing at this hurdle-failing to put a shape to your plans.

...You wake up the next morning, tired despite your rest, but...well, after a shower, and passing a brush through your hair, you feel more like yourself again.  You let go yesterday and frankly, it felt much better afterwards, to have reached your limit and then refused to go on, to cry for help-and just to have had a cry.  You feel like you can go back to work, and appologize for your breakdown and get some *real* work done today-nothing earth shattering, nothing grand, but the simple things...

But once you get dressed and ready to go out the door, you notice a note someone shoved under the door that says:
[ ] Minister of Productivity Maria Antonia to visit the factory this morning-be prepared.
[ ] Colonel of Guards Santiago Armando to visit the factory this morning-be prepared.

...SHIT you gotta put on something better than this!
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Daryk

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #224 on: 15 February 2019, 17:12:38 »
Hmmm... I think the Colonel might have less actual authority over anything resembling real work, so I'll go for him.

Vehrec

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #225 on: 15 February 2019, 22:25:40 »
I mean...they're equivalent people to choose from, that's why you're getting a choice here-it might not be fully obvious what the choice is, but I do intend for them to have equalish weight.

Also you can flirt with both of them.
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Daryk

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #226 on: 16 February 2019, 07:24:10 »
Given the emotional break down the previous night, flirting isn't even remotely on the agenda.  Anyway, I'll stick with the Colonel.  I'd rather deal with someone with a battlefield requirement than an accounting one.

truetanker

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Re: 'Mech Engineer Quest
« Reply #227 on: 17 March 2019, 22:31:03 »
I'd take the Ministry, reason being I can see what { they } really want from me, the Engineer... I can always schedule a meeting with the Colonel later to see what the military wants...

Now if it was a military check paying this, opposite first.

So recap, whoever is paying me in cash is my current immediate boss... after all I gots to be paid, emotions aside...

TT

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