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[Fishbreath]

I'll take Private Jan Kojic, nickname Euchre, he he.  Let me know what I'm driving currently.

Since we have one less mek than pilot, we should be looking towards buying a (cheap) mek.  After the contract, since we might get lucky and snag one as salvage.

How did you get this started?  Has there been any updates since 2015?  The hardest part of Against the Bot is getting the thing.
EDIT: Nevermind, turns out that the latest versions of MekHQ apparently has everything.

https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1487/79/1487794688435.pdf seems like useful link

Private Kojic is currently the odd man out, sitting on the sidelines sans mech. I can leave him there, or I can put him into one of the Trebuchets, if you'd like.

Why not look for more contracts in this part of space?

It's much harder to find contracts off of our homeworld (or another suitably well-known, well-traveled mercenary world, like Outreach or Solaris VII).

[a1s]

I will take Lieutenant JG Sung-min "Double Dog" Dare

It's much harder to find contracts off of our homeworld (or another suitably well-known, well-traveled mercenary world, like Outreach or Solaris VII).

I don't know how the engine handles this, but we have a full staff of admins, and 3 months to do this (from what I gather including months-long waiting/travel times is standard on contracts, so we're not jumping the gun that much, by starting early.) I'm not saying we have to take it, but it might be a good idea to assign someone to keeping an ear out.

Our net income before share payment is 1.106 million C-bills. After shares, the company nets 884,800 C-bills per month.

Also, I hate to argue for reduction of my own shares, but if we are sure we need to spend 1.7 for transport as part of the contract, shouldn't we take those expenses into account, before splitting our profits? That's the way they taught us in ComStar Personal Accounting for Du Pilots.

[Hanzoku]

Generally speaking, contracts will generate only very rarely unless you're on a capital world for one of the major or minor powers or a mercenary recruiting world such as Outreach or Galatea.

[Fishbreath]

I don't know how the engine handles this, but we have a full staff of admins, and 3 months to do this (from what I gather including months-long waiting/travel times is standard on contracts, so we're not jumping the gun that much, by starting early.) I'm not saying we have to take it, but it might be a good idea to assign someone to keeping an ear out.

Once we sign a contract, the date we're expected onworld is exactly the travel time between where we signed it and where we're headed, so we can't stack up contracts.

Hanzoku is correct in general; until we build our reputation somewhat, we won't get many offers unless we're on an interesting world. (The Against the Bot rules aren't set up to take advantage of the Campaign Ops rating method, and I don't believe the MekHQ implementation has modifiers for faction homeworlds. I cheat it somewhat to give us more interesting decisions. To pick the number of contracts we get, I roll 1d6-2 plus our campaign rating, which is currently 0, plus 1 if we're on our homeworld, plus 2 if we're at a hiring hall or a faction capital, and minus 1 if we're more than five jumps from a border between Inner Sphere states or on a world owned by a Periphery power.)

Also, I hate to argue for reduction of my own shares, but if we are sure we need to spend 1.7 for transport as part of the contract, shouldn't we take those expenses into account, before splitting our profits? That's the way they taught us in ComStar Personal Accounting for Du Pilots.

Mercenary accounting is largely beyond my control; it's baked into MekHQ. To sum up:

1. A contract offer has a bunch of clauses. The ones with direct financial impact are base payment, transport reimbursement, and support (either straight support or the more desirable battle loss compensation).
2. The base payment begins at 75% of our monthly operating costs, plus 5% of the value of our combat equipment, and is further modified by contract type and employer. Multiply by the number of months on-world, plus twice the number of travel months (that is, we're paid for our operating costs to and from the destination).
3. Transport reimbursement pays for leased large spacecraft (DropShips and JumpShips) to and from the destination world. (It's given as a percentage of total costs. Obviously, 100% is best; travel is expensive.)
4. Straight support pays a percentage of our monthly operating costs, multiplied by the time we'll be on-world.
5. Battle loss compensation provides us with cash enough to re-purchase units and parts destroyed in battle. No restitution, however, is made for pilots. Pilots don't receive shares out of battle loss compensation.
6. The total contract value is the sum of the base payment, transport payment, and any applicable support payments. That amount is multiplied by our signing bonus (1.1, for our 10% mercenary reputation bonus).
7. On contract signing, we immediately receive an advance on the total contract value (currently set to 25%). Shares are not taken out of the advance.
8. The remaining contract value is divided by the number of months we'll be on-world. On the first of each month, we get that amount, less shares.

I suppose I can modify things somewhat by using the GM tools (as I'm already doing for contract generation), but it's my understanding that the above system is pretty typical.

Edit: I forgot the Mercenary Review Board fee, 5% of the total contract value paid to the MRB, the arm of ComStar which legitimizes private warfighters such as ourselves.

[Hasek10]

Action Items

• First up, deployment. Should the light lance remain in training, or deploy? Units actively seeking out combat have a much higher chance of finding it. On the other hand, Hasek10 is correct in saying that the game will generate roughly even forces. (Not quite BV-equivalence, but approximately weight-equivalent for sure.) That could make for a tough fight, given the light lance's actual weight and inexperience in piloting.
  
• Next, ongoing procurement. I want to have about four million C-bills in hand before we leave; that leaves room for transit back, transit to the next world, and some downtime if we roll a bunch of undesirable contracts. Should we save the money, or secure sufficient spares and ammunition for a long, independent operation? In either case, I'll get spares for commonly-used weapons and so on. If we're planning on taking a long, independent contract, I'll also likely want to get more actuators and some spare arms and legs. The latter would set us up for a longer contract out of contact with friendlies. The former might yield a treasury which can absorb the price of a light or medium mech.
  
• Mechwarriors are still available to claim; all you need to do is say so and give me a callsign. I'll try to follow claimed mechwarriors more closely in future updates. Available mechwarriors:
• Captain Halit
• Lt. SG Ishikawa
• Lt. JG Dare
• Pvt. Jamil
• Pvt. Ec
• Pvt. Ortega
• Pvt. Ngo
• Pvt. Frajtov
• Pvt. Kohler
• Pvt. Kojic
• Pvt. Payne

In terms of deployment, I think we leave the light lance on training duty. A lot of those guys and gals are so green its painful, and it'll be painful for us if they get their hardware beat up before they can use it properly. Consider trying to send them in as reinforcements for particularly dangerous or lucrative (read: turkey shoot) engagements though.

Next, Ongoing Procurement. This is a very interesting topic that I've been dealing with after being inspired by your post to start up my own ATB campaign. In regards to spending or saving money, I would actually do our best to SAVE as much money as you can. In terms of a stockpile, only purchase in advance some of the more common replaceables. JJs, Heat Sinks, Medium Lasers, extra ammo for our most common missile/ballistic weapons, some spare arms and legs, actuators, and enough armor to cover a battle or two worth of damage are probably all we need.

After that, I would actually spend 100,000 or more on trying to drum up a mechanic or two that we can use to salvage the vehicle hulks you'll undoubtedly retrieve from the battlefield. The armor, weapons, and ammunition that you can recover from them are all transferable to your Mechs, and they're generally a great source of spare parts if you're not interested in bringing every one you recover back in to operation. A stripped vehicle is worth a very small amount of c-bills, but you'll be happy that you didn't need to wait for a Large Laser or AC/10 to be delivered.

[a1s]

offer us 30% salvage rights

Does that mean we have to pay 70% for any salvage we get? Or that they pay us 30% for stuff we don't get? (or both?)
Or does it mean that we can get strictly 30% of salvaged parts/'mechs, and they get the other 70%?

[Fishbreath]

Salvage rights primer:

Full/none: what it says on the tin.
e.g. 30%: after a battle, we get first crack at what we want to keep, but can only take 30% of the mechs/vehicles available according to C-Bill value. The salvaged units are ours to do with what we want. Some-to-most of them will be suitable for salvage only, too heavily damaged to rebuild.
e.g. 30% (exchange): the employer takes all the materiel, but provides us with 30% of the C-Bill value thereof.

[Hasek10]

Salvage rights primer:

Full/none: what it says on the tin.
e.g. 30%: after a battle, we get first crack at what we want to keep, but can only take 30% of the mechs/vehicles available according to C-Bill value. The salvaged units are ours to do with what we want. Some-to-most of them will be suitable for salvage only, too heavily damaged to rebuild.
e.g. 30% (exchange): the employer takes all the materiel, but provides us with 30% of the C-Bill value thereof.

Fishbreath has it right with the different types of salvage. Its interesting to note that percentage based salvage is across the whole campaign and not per mission. It can lead to situations where we might not actually be able to salvage anything if there's no way to split the salvage in a way that keeps us at or below our 30% salvage threshold. On the other hand, we can also forego taking salvage during a mission if it's not particularly valuable in the hopes that future missions will provide more valuable chassis' to recover.

[EuchreJack]

I'll take Private Jan Kojic, nickname Euchre, he he.  Let me know what I'm driving currently.

Since we have one less mek than pilot, we should be looking towards buying a (cheap) mek.  After the contract, since we might get lucky and snag one as salvage.

How did you get this started?  Has there been any updates since 2015?  The hardest part of Against the Bot is getting the thing.
EDIT: Nevermind, turns out that the latest versions of MekHQ apparently has everything.

https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1487/79/1487794688435.pdf seems like useful link

Private Kojic is currently the odd man out, sitting on the sidelines sans mech. I can leave him there, or I can put him into one of the Trebuchets, if you'd like.

Why not look for more contracts in this part of space?

It's much harder to find contracts off of our homeworld (or another suitably well-known, well-traveled mercenary world, like Outreach or Solaris VII).

Give me a little training time, please.  But overall I am content to wait until we're up one mech.

Oh, and I updated my Instant Company Creator, based upon the RAT tables that someone was nice enough to make.  Last table in the document will be all the random mechs to outfit a 12 person starting company.  Unfortunately, I had to make a couple of changes to the Random Mercenaries in order to use the RATs (no comstar/WOB, compensated by moving Clan to rolls of 19 and 20, with each roll being a different clan).  Star League works by notifying the user that a character qualifies for Star League equipment, then the player scrolls down to the bottom to see what they get.
link

Brief explanation on Clan rolls: While the RATS used are Clan Diamond Shark and Clan Jade Falcon, this does not necessarily mean that those clans are the actual origin of the character or mech.  Instead, I used Clan Diamond Shark as the proxy for Clan 2nd line units, as the Clan garrison troops historically shored up their forces with purchases from Clan Diamond Shark.  Clan Jade Falcon, as one of the leaders of the Clan Invasion, is a proxy for Clan Front Line units.

[Burnt Pies]

I'll take Private Payne, please. Callsign 'Severe'

Spending a bit more time in training before looking for a fight sounds sensible. Once that's done, would it be a good idea to spread out the inexperienced pilots between the lances so that no matter which one finds combat, there'll be a few competent pilots on the ground? Or is it better to concentrate the skill in the heavy lance and just use the light lance for training new pilots?

[Fishbreath]

Running this a little early here; I'm out of town over the weekend, so I wanted to be sure it was up for Saturday.

Last Month's Action Items

Hasek10 took the lead this time, so I went with his plans. The light lance remains on training duty. We'll discuss procurement at the end of the month.

The Action of April 19, 3050

On April 14, the unit intelligence officer receives word of a pirate concentration near a grassland town some distance from our base of operations. Happily, the light lance is training locally rather than on an exercise elsewhere, so they join in the deployment.

We'll probably need them, too. This is some battle. A full six lances of mixed enemy mechs and vehicles are facing our ten mechs (Private 'Severe' Pain's Locust is currently in refit, adding some armor and two more medium lasers). Happily, when they catch wind of our approach, they flee. We'll have to chase down and destroy half their force before we can declare victory.

Captain Halit has four levels in the Tactics skill, which means we get to reroll battlefield conditions up to four times. The end result is this: muddy grassland with a town in the center, in moderate rain, on a moonlit night.

Because this is a chase battle, units deploy in order of speed, fastest units in early rounds and slower units later on. Attached to our lance is a Lyran Phoenix Hawk. Since the contract stipulated House command rights, the Lyran pilot is not under our direct command.

Rounds 1-4

Nothing happens.

Round 5

The Lyran mech deploys, along with the rest of the enemy light mechs. In total, they have four Wasps, a Spider, and a Stinger.

The mud is proving tricky.



Round 6

Our two fastest mechs take the field: our Phoenix Hawk (piloted by Jose Ortega) and our Vulcan (piloted by Tedros Jamil). They both fire on a Stinger stuck in the mud a few hexes to the north, but do limited damage.

Round 7

The remainder of our 'light' lance arrives on the field. Our two Trebuchets come first; Private Frajtov is driving the short-range TBT-5S, while Woad has the LRM-equipped TBT-5N. Damayanti Ngo rounds out the deployment, piloting our Crab.



The pirates deploy a number of Vedette medium tanks in a flanking position. Fortunately, the weather will make it very hard for them to hit our mechs at any distance, and Vedettes are slow at the best of times. They may have trouble moving at all.

The light lance concentrates its firepower on a stuck Wasp, the Stinger having escaped the sucking mud and jumped further away. (Ortega pursues him in the Phoenix Hawk, but can't line up a good shot.) They do a good job, hitting the Wasp for more than 20 damage. Its pilot fails to keep his balance under the barrage, and the Wasp tips over into the mud.



Round 8

Our heavy lance hits the field. Expert gunners with long-range weapons should begin to tell here. Three of them (Captain Halit's Flashman, Double Dog's Rifleman, and Linebuster's Lancelot) deploy with the light lance, while two of them (Lieutenant Ishikawa's Thunderbolt and Private Ec's Lancelot) deploy further east, behind the enemy vehicle line.



The pirates deploy their lone heavy mech, an Orion, just to the southwest of our forces. Double Dog turns to face it, ready to engage.

In the Phoenix Hawk, Ortega has run up too much heat from weapons fire and jump jet use, and forgoes firing this turn. The western heavies engage the Wasp, and the eastern heavies focus on the enemy vehicles, including two PPC-equipped Manticore heavy tanks. The mediums (and the Rifleman) divide their fire between the Orion and the vehicle line.

Captain Halit proves his worth on his first turn in battle. Lighting up the stuck Wasp with his large lasers, he draws first blood, neatly coring the enemy mech.

The eastern heavies badly damage the pair of Manticores, knocking out the nearer tank's engine and scything into the more distant tank's armor.

The Orion, unfortunately, aims true and hits Woad's rear center torso with an AC/10. The Trebuchet's engine and gyro both take hits, and Woad is unable to keep the mech's legs beneath him. The Trebuchet bogs down in the mud, and rattling around the cockpit like a pinball does Woad no good, either. He's alive and conscious, but it seems unlikely he'll be able to get unstuck and stand back up, especially with an ailing gyro.

Round 9

Let's talk about a particularly devilish foe: the SRM carrier. A simple tracked vehicle with an enormous box of SRM launchers on the back, the SRM carrier has one of the most devastating alpha strikes in the BattleTech universe. It mounts ten SRM-6 launchers, each of which fires six missiles, each of which does two damage. That's a potential total of 120 damage; for comparison, the Flashman, the most heavily armored mech in our hangar, has 216 points of armor altogether. It's altogether possible for a lucky SRM carrier to blow up a mech in a single turn.

Why do I bring this up? Well, our piratical friends have laid their hands on five of them, all of which are part of the rearguard with which we're currently engaged. We'll come back to the SRM carriers.

This rearguard, by my count, contains enough enemy force to fulfill our mission requirements, so rather than pursue the enemy across the map (and allow the rearguard to fire on us from behind), I decide to focus on beating down the enemy here. That means nobody moves very much, although the medium mechs move closer to the vehicle line to the east of our main body to secure better shots.

Woad is still prone and unable to stand up. His mech takes some light fire from the Orion, but weathers it without further drama. Double Dog, running hot, takes an ineffectual medium laser shot at the Orion, but successfully kicks an SRM carrier, stripping its armor. The Lyran Phoenix Hawk, standing next to him, finishes the job with a kick of its own.

Linebuster destroys a second SRM carrier with well-aimed laser fire from his Lancelot, while Lieutenant Ishikawa and Private Ec in the Thunderbolt and other Lancelot make short work of a Manticore heavy tank and the lone LRM carrier.

Then the SRM carriers shoot back.

Three shoot at Captain Halit's Flashman, but he's moving, and the range, darkness, and rain conspire to protect him. He takes a pounding, but his armor holds.

Two shoot at Private Ec's Lancelot. She's not moving, and she's much closer. Missile after missile slams into her mech's armor. Holes begin to open up, and the explosions move inward to the mech's frame. The dust settles. In all, 61 missiles hit Private Ec's mech, destroying weapons and heat sinks, and damaging leg actuators. Several missiles hit the cockpit. The armor holds, but the shock knocks Ec out cold. Her mech collapses into the mud.

SRM carriers remaining: 3.

Round 10

Well, we should probably do something about those. Captain Halit and Private Frajtov will continue shooting at the Orion, in the hopes of bringing it down. Frajtov places his mech directly in the Orion's path.

Everyone else is going to set up to shoot at an SRM carrier.

Linebuster hits one, knocking out its engine but leaving it alive. Lieutenant Ishikawa destroys one outright. The others survive unmolested.

Surprisingly, it's Private Frajtov who takes home the trophy for largest mech destroyed to date. A simple medium laser shot at point blank range penetrates the Orion's armor and lights off its AC/10 ammunition. Fire blossoms within the pirate mech, then bursts forth in a tremendous fireball which leaves very little of the Orion left.

Then the SRM carriers shoot back.

Private Ec's mech takes the brunt of the barrage. Happily—she was basically doomed anyway. In the end, there isn't much left of her mech besides a frame and, surprisingly, a cockpit. (It survived with one internal structure point remaining; happily, she did not die in her first battle.)

Double Dog takes fire from the final SRM carrier, and it's a doozy. It gets into his Rifleman's internal structure, knocking out several weapons and damaging a leg actuator. He can't keep his mech upright, and it topples, getting stuck in the mud.

That's bad. Hitting an immobilized target is easier, and Lieutenant Dare's mech is still in relatively good shape. It would be a shame to lose it.

SRM carriers remaining: 2.


The mud-soaked battlefield as it stands now.

Round 11

We're winning, per the objective; we only have to destroy half of the enemy's starting force before it escapes, and we're currently up to 45%. Mopping up here in the south should suffice to win.

As far as positioning goes, it's pretty static. Now that the Orion is dead, Captain Halit can turn around to help with the vehicles. He hits a Manticore and kills it. Linebuster destroys another SRM carrier.

Unfortunately, Private Ortega, the only pilot with a clear shot at the last SRM carrier, misses altogether. Hopefully that won't come back to haunt us next round.

One SRM carrier shoots at the Lyran Phoenix Hawk; the other shoots at the Rifleman. The Rifleman survives, somehow, amidst a bevy of internal structure damage. It's alive, but I don't know how much longer it can take this kind of beating.

SRM carriers remaining: 1.

Round 12

Captain Halit accounts for the final SRM carrier with a hail of laser fire. Just before it goes up in a towering explosion, it gets off a shot at the Rifleman.

The Rifleman eats it. Its engine is destroyed, its head is destroyed, and its AC/5 ammo explodes just to really clarify that yes, it's gone. Happily, the autoeject system works, flinging Double Dog free of the flaming wreckage just before the ammo goes off. He's badly wounded and unconscious, but he's alive.



To add indignity to our vaguely Pyrrhic victory, Woad finally gets himself unstuck from the mud, but doesn't risk standing with his damaged gyro. Wouldn't want to set ourselves up for yet more repairs.

SRM carriers remaining: 0. Thank God.

Rounds 13-22

With the SRM carriers dead, there isn't much else left in the south; a few damaged Vedettes, mostly. They go down much more easily, and don't obliterate our mechs in the space of seconds.

Private Frajtov walks his Trebuchet past the still-burning Rifleman, pops out, and brings Double Dog up to the cockpit. At least he isn't in the rain anymore. Private Ec, still unconscious in the cockpit of her very dead Lancelot, remains there for now.

An ad-hoc lance comprising Captain Halit, Lieutenant Ishikawa, Linebuster, and Private Ngo heads north to chase the pirates, now in full retreat, off of the map.

Further in that direction, the Lyran Phoenix Hawk beats up on an immobilized transport hovercraft.


At least someone's having a good day.

Eventually, the pirates make it to the north end of the map, and I call it a day.

Damage Report



Man, it would have been nice to have some battle loss compensation in this contract.

There are some bright spots. Miraculously, Private Ec's Lancelot is not a total write-off; it has enough internal structure left to rebuild. We are, therefore, only down one mech.


It's going to take a lot of work, though.

Four of our ten pilots are wounded, including Double Dog and Woad. Only Double Dog's wounds are serious enough to impact his piloting skills, but he should be fine in a few weeks.




Salvage Report

The Wasp Captain Halit nailed is a total loss, so I took as salvage an SRM carrier and a Manticore heavy tank. We'll strip the weapons and armor and sell the chassis.

In doing so, we make nearly 800,000 C-bills, and add a spare PPC, some armor, a medium laser or two, and a ton of SRM-6 launchers (even after selling half of them).

The husk of Double Dog's Rifleman yields an arm and a leg, along with a few actuators and a heat sink or two.

The salvage we took comes to 35% against our total allowed of 30%. We'll have to pay the employer back for the overage if we don't get our salvage percentage down below the 30% mark; the payment required at present is about 185,000 C-bills.

Kill Board

Last Mission



All-Time Leaders

• Captain Halit (3, 1 mech)
• Lieutenant Ishikawa (3)
• Lieutenant 'Linebuster' Atkinson (3)
• Private Frajtov (1, 1 mech)
• Private Ec (1)

Repairs and Refits

The Rifleman is good for an arm and a leg, which simplifies getting the second Lancelot back in action.

Unfortunately, we need some expensive parts. The damaged Lancelot's gyroscope is a total loss, and a new one sets us back 900,000 C-bills. Other parts come to about 200,000, eating into last month's payout a bit.

By the end of the month, we've rebuilt the mech, which has earned the name Frankenstein from its tech teams.



Status

It is now May 1, 3050. I decided against advancing the game further because...

Mission Progress


After taking such heavy losses in equipment, morale among the pirates here on Gacrux has collapsed, and they've made overtures to the planetary authorities about surrendering. At the same time, the local government has located the pirates' main base of operations and passed that information on to us. See the action items for more.

Personnel



All pilots except for Double Dog are in good health. Lieutenant Dare's concussion symptoms are lingering. The doctors estimate he'll be back to 100% in a week's time.

Captain Halit's Negotiation has improved, which increases our company's reputation.

Finances

We kick off May with 2.881 million C-bills in the bank, and two payments of 884,800 C-bills remaining in this contract. That leaves us with an expected balance of 4.6 million C-bills after this contract, and about 2.9 million C-bills after transit back home.

Supplies

Per Hasek10's directions, I've obtained spare ammunition and armor suitable for a deployment of moderate length and intensity, and laid in stocks of common weapons and equipment.

Action Items

• As far as this contract goes, we have two options. We can attack the pirate base, or accept the pirates' surrender and head home. In both cases, we'll be paid the remaining balance of the contract. In the former case, we have a chance at more salvage, although there are no heavy mechs among the enemy's known forces. In the latter case, we don't risk losing any further mechs in a costly battle, but we'll have to pay 185,000 C-bills to the employer to cover our over-salvaging.
  
• As far as the company goes, should we reorganize? We may be able to find more favorable engagements (read: MekHQ generates less difficult missions) if we go to a more traditional lance structure, heavy units supported by lighter units. On the other hand, that places a greater emphasis on pilot skill; we do have some skilled pilots, but they're distributed mainly in the heavy mechs right now. If you think the answer is 'yes', you should describe a structure you think would be an improvement.
  
• Mechwarriors are going fast, but there are some remaining. Give me a callsign and the pilot is yours; I'll follow them more closely in subsequent updates, refer to them by their callsign in most cases, and bold their name so you can track them more readily.
• Captain Halit
• Lt. SG Ishikawa
• Pvt. Jamil
• Pvt. Ec
• Pvt. Ortega
• Pvt. Ngo
• Pvt. Frajtov
• For the record, the following mechwarriors are claimed.
• Lt. SG George "Linebuster" Atkinson (Hasek10)
• Lt. JG Sung-min "Double Dog" Dare (a1s)
• Pvt. Ferdinand "Woad" Kohler (A Thing)
• Pvt. Jan "Euchre" Kojic (EuchreJack)
• Pvt. Cathrine "Severe" Payne (Burnt Pies)

[A Thing]

• As far as this contract goes, we have two options. We can attack the pirate base, or accept the pirates' surrender and head home. In both cases, we'll be paid the remaining balance of the contract. In the former case, we have a chance at more salvage, although there are no heavy mechs among the enemy's known forces. In the latter case, we don't risk losing any further mechs in a costly battle, but we'll have to pay 185,000 C-bills to the employer to cover our over-salvaging.
  

I think we should accept the surrender. I don't think the salvage is worth the risk of losing more to SRM/LRM carriers.

[a1s]

• As far as this contract goes, we have two options. We can attack the pirate base, or accept the pirates' surrender and head home. In both cases, we'll be paid the remaining balance of the contract. In the former case, we have a chance at more salvage, although there are no heavy mechs among the enemy's known forces. In the latter case, we don't risk losing any further mechs in a costly battle, but we'll have to pay 185,000 C-bills to the employer to cover our over-salvaging.
  

I think we should accept the surrender. I don't think the salvage is worth the risk of losing more to SRM/LRM carriers.

Seconded. Getting salavge is good, but getting paid without having to actually put yourself in harm's way is better (especially seeing as how we don't get loss compensation on this contract.)

[Hasek10]

• As far as this contract goes, we have two options. We can attack the pirate base, or accept the pirates' surrender and head home. In both cases, we'll be paid the remaining balance of the contract. In the former case, we have a chance at more salvage, although there are no heavy mechs among the enemy's known forces. In the latter case, we don't risk losing any further mechs in a costly battle, but we'll have to pay 185,000 C-bills to the employer to cover our over-salvaging.
  

I think we should accept the surrender. I don't think the salvage is worth the risk of losing more to SRM/LRM carriers.

Seconded. Getting salavge is good, but getting paid without having to actually put yourself in harm's way is better (especially seeing as how we don't get loss compensation on this contract.)

While Base Attacks often give us a decent opportunity for salvage, I would vote to keep ourselves out of the fight this time too. The salvage rights don't feel good enough to risk more of the unit, especially with the over-salvage we're paying for already. Lets take the victory and look for a better contract with some experience under our belt.

I'll think about a lance reorganization solution and maybe post something regarding it (and a little roleplay story? who knows) this weekend.

[milspec]

Really enjoying this. Can I please have Pvt. “Milspec” Ortega please?