can i kill Yang?

[moshpitkosh]

i want that thing he blew up

[Twelvefield]

Originally posted by Meewec:

honestly, i'm surprised nobody comes after us for the argo

Go broke, and the bank comes after you.

[Wantoomany]

Originally posted by jmvbento:

Furthermore, if Yang hadn't blow that place up, what you would be getting to the face was a Directorate army of SL-era 'Mechs, meaning good luck with that.

Not really. First of all, you wouldn't have to worry about Directorate troops because only Ostergaard landed on the planet to challenge you. Had he managed to capture the castle you can bet the salvage would of gone to the Taurian Concordat, not the Directorate.

But more importantly, Ostergaard had nothing left to try to take the castle. He only landed with a single Fortress class dropship. A formidable vessel to be sure, but also limited to only a single combined arms battalion. Meaning 12 mechs, 12 tanks, and 12 infantry platoons.

You personally oversee the destruction of 11 mechs and 2 vehicles during the escape mission. Assuming a few additional losses in the fighting previous to the mission, where Kamea lost most of her pilots and support crew that landed after you captured the castle and returned to orbit.

It safe to assume that, at best, Ostergaard would be left with only a handful of tanks and infantry. Had Kamea stayed, rather then retreated, she could of had weeks to pillage the castle before Ostergaard could be reinforced or resupplied.

[Graygan]

Originally posted by veryinky:

Side note, why do some people think that the vehicle hangar of a computer research center would have the blueprints for making the vehicles stored there? Raiding a NSA computer lab that researches how to crack passwords isn't going to give you the plans for a F-35 factory.

Because in the lore, it's pretty clear that Star League Caches, of which this is definitely one, were also repositories of much of the Star Leagues knowledge. Yes... some of them were also specific research centers, but they were all designed as "safe havens" of a sort for knowledge. Pretty much for exactly this reason as well as a backup storage/repair/safety/whatever for the local Star League forces that were nearby.

[veryinky]

Originally posted by Graygan:

Because in the lore

In the lore the New Belt Pirates operate the Stars End star league naval shipyards and if a massive orbital drydock that rivals anything in the Inner Sphere didn't warrant a data cache, then some computer lab researching computer viruses in the periphery didn't warrant one either. Furthermore, a cache's most important feature is that it's hidden until needed; an R&D lab with continual supply drops and correspondence is a stupid place to put a last redoubt cache. Might as well store super secret technical documents at the local Starbucks bathroom. It's a computer lab and it's attached guard unit's mech hangar, nothing more unless proven otherwise.

And going by the Lore, caches were explicitly designed as caches, sealed until use. The fact that the lab was manned until the virus broke loose automatically disqualifies it as one.

Also, speaking of the Argo, if some major power wanted their own 100k ton dropship they could just capture one of the Behemoth dropships doing bulk trade between populated planets, easier to mug some random merchant that's docked at one of your orbital ports than attack a mercenary company. Plus a quick trip to a TAG shipyard to slap on a grav ring for 50 million along with a maintenance bay for 500k and it's a new Argo. That or just buy one new from Federated Boeing Interstellar. Or ask the New Belt Pirates for one, they produce Invader class jumpships which have the grav decks that inspired the Argo's design and Belters aren't picky as to who they sell their merchandise to.

[Graygan]

Originally posted by veryinky:

Originally posted by Graygan:

Because in the lore

In the lore the New Belt Pirates operate the Stars End star league naval shipyards and if a massive orbital drydock that rivals anything in the Inner Sphere didn't warrant a data cache, then some computer lab researching computer viruses in the periphery didn't warrant one either. Furthermore, a cache's most important feature is that it's hidden until needed; an R&D lab with continual supply drops and correspondence is a stupid place to put a last redoubt cache. Might as well store super secret technical documents at the local Starbucks bathroom. It's a computer lab and it's attached guard unit's mech hangar, nothing more unless proven otherwise.

And going by the Lore, caches were explicitly designed as caches, sealed until use. The fact that the lab was manned until the virus broke loose automatically disqualifies it as one.

Also, speaking of the Argo, if some major power wanted their own 100k ton dropship they could just capture one of the Behemoth dropships doing bulk trade between populated planets, easier to mug some random merchant that's docked at one of your orbital ports than attack a mercenary company. Plus a quick trip to a TAG shipyard to slap on a grav ring for 50 million along with a maintenance bay for 500k and it's a new Argo. That or just buy one new from Federated Boeing Interstellar. Or ask the New Belt Pirates for one, they produce Invader class jumpships which have the grav decks that inspired the Argo's design and Belters aren't picky as to who they sell their merchandise to.

And yet...

It's referenced as a cache. Perhaps they were scientists who were secretly assigned to the cache... you know... because it was secret and caches, by definition, are unmanned. Supply drops would have been kept secret as well... etc...

Oh... and we won't mention that lovely picture that shows mech after mech after mech in front of Kamea. All kinds of lovely hardware for the grabbing.

Regardless. Yang destoyed it. Whether there actually was anything worthwhile in it is continued to be up to speculation exactly like this thread.

As for the pirates and their shipyard... you're correct. They'd have plenty of specs on ships. And they do. But they are a shipyard. Not a mech factory, nor a repository of knowledge for anything but ships.

I do agree with you, though. The whole idea of cache redoubts is stupid, not just using them for storage of all the currently known science. Of course... it was an excellent way for FASA to introduce story lines, suspense, and a story hook to allow the occasional good piece of equipment to make it into general use.

I find the idea behind the clans equally stupid. Logically it shouldn't have happened like that. But it did in the Lore. The whole universe is full of illogical storylines, story hooks, and illogical shenanigans. We basically have to accept it as it is. Stupid or not.

As for the Argo, well.... *snips the comments* Basically the same thing. The whole idea is illogical, but it's fun and it filled HBS's need for something different to hook us in. Not to mention a bit of a money sink during the career.

[jmvbento]

Originally posted by Wantoomany:

Originally posted by jmvbento:

Furthermore, if Yang hadn't blow that place up, what you would be getting to the face was a Directorate army of SL-era 'Mechs, meaning good luck with that.

Not really. First of all, you wouldn't have to worry about Directorate troops because only Ostergaard landed on the planet to challenge you. Had he managed to capture the castle you can bet the salvage would of gone to the Taurian Concordat, not the Directorate.

But more importantly, Ostergaard had nothing left to try to take the castle. He only landed with a single Fortress class dropship. A formidable vessel to be sure, but also limited to only a single combined arms battalion. Meaning 12 mechs, 12 tanks, and 12 infantry platoons.

You personally oversee the destruction of 11 mechs and 2 vehicles during the escape mission. Assuming a few additional losses in the fighting previous to the mission, where Kamea lost most of her pilots and support crew that landed after you captured the castle and returned to orbit.

It safe to assume that, at best, Ostergaard would be left with only a handful of tanks and infantry. Had Kamea stayed, rather then retreated, she could of had weeks to pillage the castle before Ostergaard could be reinforced or resupplied.

Ostergaard doesn't NEED anything else to take the place. The Fortress alone can shred anything you throw at it. And taking Ostergaard to the face with SL-era 'Mechs isn't really an improvement over taking the Directorate to the face with SL-era 'Mechs. Unlike the rest of the Concordat, Ostergaard doesn't give up on bashing your face in. Between "blow it up" and "now your enemies have it", I'm all up for "blow it up."

And since they knew that it was a SL-repository, I wouldn't put it past Ostergaard to have brought in a few spare 'Mechwarriors to man those things.

Honestly, the only problem with "blow it up" is that it might piss off ComStar.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by jmvbento:

And since they knew that it was a SL-repository, I wouldn't put it past Ostergaard to have brought in a few spare 'Mechwarriors to man those things.

i don't think they knew it was a repository, they seemed pretty surprised to be facing star league mechs. i think it was just a "they'll be here, lets get revenge" operation, if they knew what the place was they would have brought a lot more equipment to secure the place.

Originally posted by jmvbento:

Honestly, the only problem with "blow it up" is that it might piss off ComStar.

i doubt comstar would mind much, they'd probably only care about the loss if they had had a chance to get their hands on it instead of anyone else

[jmvbento]

Originally posted by Meewec:

i don't think they knew it was a repository, they seemed pretty surprised to be facing star league mechs. i think it was just a "they'll be here, lets get revenge" operation, if they knew what the place was they would have brought a lot more equipment to secure the place.

They don't need anything past the Fortress to secure the place. If you fight, they nuke you. If you hide, then Ostergaard just parks above it and bombs anyone that isn't Concordat/Directorate that comes near until he gets either reinforcements to storm the place or everyone inside dehydrates to death, and that's assuming the facility can withstand the Fortress's bombardment. For the Restoration, the repository is a death trap.

[moshpitkosh]

i just wanted a few extra mechs.. it would have taken at least 2 weeks for reinforcements to arrive from out of system, and even with just a day or two i could easily have loaded as many mechs as the argo can hold, download whatever was in there, snag a few nice piece of hardware, let yang and the doc look around etc
plus im slowly losing those wonderful double heat sinks one by one :(

[veryinky]

In theory the Fortress only carries 125 shots of Longtom, in practice they carry 20-40 of them because they're so rare in 3025 and that the Fortress has a pitiful cargo bay so the tonnage is better allocated to more useful supplies (Fortresses are built lean, designed to lead large military assaults on a planet, they need immediate resupply after a battle or they have to retreat or surrender). The Long Tom is also useless against any target that can move more than 3 hexes a turn due to shell travel time. Fortress has 280 points of armor on the sides when landed, each side has either 2 lrm-20s, 2 large lasers, a ppc and 3 medium lasers or a ppc, ac/20, ac/5, 2 lrm-10s, 2 srm-6, and 2 medium lasers, nose and aft arcs can't shoot ground targets. Arcs do not overlap. Long Tom is conventional artillery too, it's useless in space and can't be fired while the ship is flying. Not that a spheroid dropship can loiter.

In short, killing a a landed Fortress is as easy as attacking fortress turrets the player's been encountering all game, it can't move and it's own bulk prevents most of it's guns from hitting any one target. If all it's enemies come from one direction then it's dead.

In short, a few SRM & LRM carriers would be more of a threat than Ostergaard's Fortress. Fortress is a terrible ship for a solo mission, I'd be more worried if he had used a stock Union since those carry a couple aerospace fighters and enough supplies to last more than a single battle.