(When I started this morning (not yesterday, sorry) I was pretty distracted by RL stuff. So I didn't really feel "in universe" until about a quarter of the way in, which is the part I did tonight. ah well!)
(I also messed around with Python to insert the image URLs into my placeholders. I had some success, though I tried to do too many things which are flat out easier with a few find-replace's. Still, it did move the URLs from a list into the document, which is a time saver!)
So for my first great plan, we go to the Academy's desert outpost in chainmail. In the day. Derp, it's fine we'll hurry.
We're armed for capture, mostly stun batons and lassos, so of course a drone is hovering in the distance. Spiteful Tychus picks up a magnum and puts it down, impressive range on that gun for aimed shots. A hapless Yeoman wanders out and dies to two laser-pointer hits, which is amusingly pathetic.
I usually think of chainmail as including a shield, but it doesn't matter when you don't get hit. Tricksy nurse who wandered out the door stands back up *twice* before Iduno gives her an extra-long lasso shock. Good practice.
The medic ambushes from the central courtyard, getting some hits in Honorable Mugs' weak side armor while she was taking down the final nurse. Nothing life threatening, but still kinda embarrassing.
A cakewalk, but I still managed to get shot at. Ah well, everyone's mostly okay.
A convoy approaches from the sea, getting uncomfortably close to us, making me glad we have the Scarab. I wait till they land then attack. It takes almost the whole charger laser but they're disabled. Not sure what faction they are... I decided to send the blowfish in the morning, if they're still there.
Ooh forget that, we find another warehouse! ...Dang though, only 4 gals and a lokknar fit to go.
The brainers interrupt with a report on small ship engines (they're ship engines but small). I was going to have them formalize an agreement with the Mutant Alliance, but we'd be lying... there's no way we can crash a pogrom until some of these gals recover.
Well, we're pirates, so yarr. We really only need a week or so to be in decent shape, and we really need those sci books ASAP. I also give the brainers the medic to play with.
In the meantime, the warehouse. ...I hope this isn't a mistake. Khan and Iduno take shields as pocket-las, Typhus and I take tac-vests and lassos. Our lokknar pilot seems happy with a stun baton and pistol.
So far so good. Their light arms glance off the shieldwall as we advance, bashing them down. Tychus and the Lokk run off to take care of "snipers" taking potshots from nearby buildings, nothing heavy though. Guild hostess comes charging out with a stapler, gets a shield to the head. Pretty rough hit... I pour some beer on her but she's barely breathing by the time we secure the area.
I felt understaffed but well equipped for this, we took no wounds and got a decent haul of loot and captives. Mostly soylent and smokes, but another oversided tac vest which is always nice. I wonder why they carry our size?
Oh hm we had a lot of things set to autosell. I can't argue with the various small arms, but I'll be keeping that vodka thankyou. Nothing says "you're worth more if you don't bleed out" better than pouring vodka on a foe.
Had to ransom someone off and- Oh lordy, where'd this brothel come from?? C-certainly impressive. Damn though, we need to negotiate some work/release with these captives.
First though, I celebrate the flawless mission by checking out that smashed convoy after all. Just to make sure they don't go squealing about our location (though I think shooting them up accomplished that).
wat
for Xs sake
Well fine, they've got light arms and I've got chainmail and literally unlimitted lasers, let's do this- WAS THAT A GRENADE
He just bounced a GRENADE off the windowframe and oh of COURSE he has a dog
And the Lokk can't shoot over the chair, and the flashlights didn't even wound him, uhhhh yeah hell with this. I'd love that busted up truck to the north but I'm not risking a grenade hitting every able-bodied gal we have. myself included
News of a seawreck off the Cali coast. Swimsuits on, beach episode! Also Zaxx wants us to check out a wreck with "special assets" which ain't happening, I'm looking to fight fish not deep ones. Right now.
We learn a bit more about the warm fuzzy stuff that keeps us alive and healthy. It's nice that it's everpresent in our zones, but industrial or commercial uses require a tediously refined version.
Osiron security threatened to smash our facilities next time he attacks our hideout. He had balls. He suuuure did.
His friends aren't being so rude, though. We could keep interrogating them, but our brainers are very busy and they don't seem to know much of immediate use. The Researchers we saved from the academy are proving very helpful - I set the runts to recruiting these sec-grunts to help out around the base. We're all just pawns to the Academy, they'll see that. Together we can get revenge. And alcohol!
The Guild sec have literally nothing left to tell us, and apparently hate the Academy for other reasons, so they may join as well. They certainly seem to know their away around the storerooms.
Little to report. Decent haul of recoverable plastic, infested with tonight's dinner on rice. Ooh, and a pair of stasis pods, now those are nifty! And half a sonic oscillator.
Bandit Warehouse bounty hunt should be pretty easy. We can even wear chainmail, though we have to leave the shields behind! Fair. And aww, can't use a proper transport like the Blowfish. Needs to be the scarab... eehh yeah four gals in chainmail can do this fine. Particularly since kustom handcannons are infiltrateable! Aw yeah, chainmail and handcannons, much stealth~
(Sidenote, I'm noticing a lot of melee weapons in the right hand and guns in the left. Ctrl-clicking equipment from the ground defaults to the opposite, and it's amusing how noticeable the difference is, heh.)
That hulking bandit mutant turned out to be quite the conversationalist. Gave us some fighter specs before he sadly had to go. Farewell!
OPERATION STEALTH IS GO, haha look at these cannons.
jeez this thing kicks hard. He's still alive after two hits, too. Owow, "nooo I don't need chainmail just a vest for me, I'm Good"... ow.
Ooh these actually bash pretty well, forget the stunprods. No need to be careful with these mooks.
Screw you for making me search. Though I do love the swishing sound chainmail makes.
And double screw you.
Always a pleasure doing business with Jack, though. Ooh some silver bars, taking those off auto-sale. Some chips and drugs, but mainly the four execution trophies and Jack's good graces. And almost unscathed - what 4 days? I said I'm Good! aww fine.
And hop from the scarab right into the Blowfish in time to... Yep, catch this landed fool! Who says the Blowfish is slow? Ha!
Hot dog, landed right next to it too. Note to self: remember to bring dogs, scouting is important. Also get some lighter MG belts, even Cynical is slightly overencumbered by this much ammo.
Ohai~ Wasn't sure what we'd caught, this is a relief. Batons come out...
"Thought I saw something!" No, you wanted to run a weapons test on that wall. With... disappointing results, honestly.
Handcannon round to the face puts an Osiron grunt to sleep, welcome to the team bro. Oops, he stood up from the bandaging... This is why I meant to bring vodka, darn.
I got a bit overconfident here, dammit. Ooh but Cynical actually did see something this time, an Engineer! Quite valuable, so it's annoying she sent another 10 rounds at her. Engineer's still up though, just screaming bloody murder.
Typhus had 6 wounds jeez D: She'll live but that turn of bleeding took a lot out of her, oof.
Ah good work finding the last one, Cynical! ...What do you mean you didn't have room for a stun baton? Cynical?
...
Cynical did you just unload for an entire turn, crouched, at that range, and inflict no wounds?
On the ENEMY, Cynical, RECEIVING a wound from reaction fire doesn't count! You have 70 firing wtf
Yeah I'm becoming less impressed by wheeled machine guns (at least until we get plastasteel rounds). Shoulda just packed another handcannon.
... Two more short bursts on the next round and STILL no wounds, this is bad...
She fortunately falls unconscious instead of dying outright, as backup arrives and handcannons the problem away. She'll be recovering for a while, though.
So what'd we get for that? An engineer obvously, which is always good (particularly if we could learn to talk to them better). 30mm cannon stuff, poison grenade, steel and hellerium... Oh right, another full ship engine, that's pretty good! Not to mention we saved more people from the Academy, which is personally what I'm all about.
Oof... There we go, I suppose. It's scary, but it's the right thing to do, and they're helping us as much as we're helping them.
And while MY fight is with the Academy, it's not like the Humanists care. We're all scum to them. It's our duty to fight back, and we're stronger together.
More pragmatically, time to get some higher learning up ins, ASAP! And... OH RIGHT we can see about recruiting bugeyes, eee! I'm sure they're not everything the legends say, but our contacts insist they're exceptional medics. They're also soooo cute!
:O Blood Hounds!!!
Now that things have calmed down a little and we have a bit of dosh, I have to admit the 35 empty workshop space is bugging me. Some of that capacity is from the store-rooms of course, which we might not keep forever, but still. I'm ordering yet another barracks constructed, which gives us room for a full compliment of runts and about 10 beds for more hands (peasants, perhaps). Though I'm waiting till the 16th to start contruction, so that we charged an extra month of maintenance. See, that's my runt background coming in handy~
Scarab heads out to intercept some civilian group. I'm not sure how 8 of them packed into that thing, but they were all pacified without incident. Some sort of construction crew, maybe, though one of them is remarkably... out of shape. A foreman perhaps. Harassing civilians like this feels a little strange after signing with the Alliance, but our survival comes first. And our revenge.
Close call with some sort of fast vessel. I should really look into better craft weaponry, despite it not being my "thing" generally.
Ninja gal tells us the secrets of real-time versus turn-based combat. Set free after totally promising to never ever bully Lokks, for reals this time.
They're just pushing buttons like us! They just know which buttons to push. Well hell, we can learn that too...
The bugeye traitor spun a sob story until I finally just let them go. Dunno whether there was any truth to it. Too sober for moral dilemmas- we're pirates, come on!
In lighter news we apparently have four industrial scanners!! I'm not exactly sure why, but I feel like that's fantastic. All my runt instincts are saying these will be useful someday. And I think they're mostly found on certain craft, for whatever reason, so I'm not likely to find them myself.
But for now the focus is these science books.
Another Academy ship dares land next to us, will they ever learn? They should fear us! ...Why does our dog start behind the gals, that's dumb. bad dog. Okay sorry, you are good dog, I am just mad! Mad about the Academy!
Pretty map though, boom forest. UAC chaingun rules. I'd say it's redeeming machine guns, except it really isn't one. I pushed waaay too hard, really. The Osiron couldn't get any hits, but a medic came out with a laser pistol which cut through Shibari's chainmail like nothing. She received a bandage and took cover though.
The light machine gun sure isn't calibrated for accuracy at long distance, but Boyzitbig finally tagged the medic with a couple. She collapsed on her turn, and we sprinted up to disable her Osiron escort and patch her up.
Ooh nice, another engineer with another laser pistol! VIP stun baton treatment for you and your friend!
Why don't they fear us? ...They will.
wait why did they have spike rockets lol
Ohgods immediately a temple raid, my runts are actually having trouble orienting all the rescued! Well, that's a fine problem to have I suppose, and Temples are mostly harmless.
One of the several (!) medics we have finally explained those Surgery Units they were always hooking us up to. She was very graphic, and disturbingly... excited. How much of our torture was actually for science?
Rather than think about that, I finished my treatise on distilling. Now *everyone* can make moonshine! Or grog I guess. casuals.
And we've finished sketching plans for a place to sip it, while reading ancient tomes. And uh learnin' stuff.
Well actually we sketched the plans to start researching the library, one step at a time I suppose.
Oh congrats I guess
Pff yeah I'll say you're out of training. Even us gals don't get much better than that!
Temple needs a new groundskeeper
No problem (My evil twin caught a round trying to block a bullet with her barbarian shield, but she'll be fine). Got a sharp guy too.
I see we're autoselling Neophytes... hard to argue with that. I'd rather rob for bluechips, but it's so little either way that who cares. Not worth the hassle. And too zealous to save.
Some junk text on a data disc.
A couple days of quiet, then a landed ship:
Oops sorry for the trouble officers, thankyou for your service bye
Not that we couldn't take them, but why harass the governments when they're giving us a chance? We *aren't* just bandits.
(The two in swimsuits are the warriors who just arrived. Swabbie tradition, good to get those secondary stats up)
Good, the library research itself was faster than the sci books. Just need to scrounge up some dosh... Ah, these neutronium coupons do nicely. Hooray for gambling!
Since we're waiting on the library anyway, I arrange things with efficiency in mind. Few wasted hours here!
Mutant Alliance: Did you know that if you hold a flashlight at night, you stand out?
truly their wisdom is beyond compare. also were the "headlights" really necessary to illustrate that
This seems a little pointless- oh, fire rounds? Alright I guess.
Also suppressed pistols but not shirts apparently.
Goblin Zaxx archaelogical dig hm? Shouldn't be a problem, any opportunity for bounty tokens (as long as it's easy~) hmmhm, blowfish is almost there-
balls