Bounty Hunting (microTech)

[ysignal]

icy, shubn and I are planning to use our new OMNI-AFS-Sapphire flight suits to go bounty hunting around microTech using F8Cs and Scorpiuses. There are some cool green paints we can use for this purpose:





Add a post below if you want to join in. To fly in a fighter, you'll need your own OMNI-AFS-Sapphire flight suit, but if not you can pilot a support ship instead, which I will provide in green (e.g. a Vulture in the green Halloween paint). If you have the flight suit but no suitable fighter, you can ride in the gunner's seat of a Scorpius.

We'll figure out the precise fleet composition once we know who's coming.

[Some guy]

I'm up for this but I'm working this weekend and I don't have my schedule for next week yet.

[icycalm]

First off, the suits won’t be available until 3.24.2 goes live, later this week. Then this weekend we have CitCon, so it’ll be next weekend at the earliest.

So we have some time to hash things out. Exiled has also bought the pack. If he won’t be participating, you should grab the suit from him, ysignal, and stack it in your HQ. Just ping him on Discord and arrange a time to make the transfer, just the two of you. Again, this can only be done in 3.24.2.

Then consider the following options:

1. Either you wear the green Aves and the rest of us wear the flight suit as your bodyguards (therefore also including your and/or Exiled’s set, which would give one or two of your bodyguards an extra life), or

2. We ALL give you the flight suit so that you have 5 lives, and the rest of us can wear Inquisitor flight suits or a green undersuit you will pick, so that as a group we will have 5 lives instead of basically 1.

The second option gives us more arcade credits, essentially, but the first option would look cooler. We can also do both options in the long-term but you have to pick one to do first considering that when we lose the suits we don’t get them back until the next patch.

And then you have to pick the ships in conjunction with your suit choice. For example you could take your green/gold F8C (assuming you have one? I think it’s the $15k reward?), and all the rest of us get the white F8Cs (and you have an extra you can give to e.g. Rory). Or only YOU get the F8C, and the rest of us maybe pair up in two Scorpiuses (assuming we even have two; you have to ask people about their fleets). Or you can go through your entire fleet and pretty much pick any ships and ship configurations you want, up to and including your green Hammerhead.

And then during the session you are supposed to mostly hang back and direct us, and if you have to die, you should ideally be the last person to do so. You’ll almost be playing Homeworld rather than Wing Commander. Maybe that’s why it might be good to be in a Scorpius yourself, since it’s tankier, and the rest of us in F8Cs as your bodyguards? But again, you don’t have to stick to one tactic. You can try completely different ones every time. All I am asking for is for the setup to look cool and make sense from a roleplaying perspective.

Note the default Gladius is also green. We could all be in Gladiuses and you in your green F8C or Scorpius. Whatever you can think of.

Adding a briefing area to the MT hangar

We take a pic in your briefing area in your HQ before we start, then another pic with the ships laid out in the hangar (or on some moon if it’s easier), and then we spend the next few hours trying to raise your bounty-hunting rep as high as possible without dying, exactly as in an arcade game.

Every Planetary Commander can create this kind of event centered on any profession (including non-combat ones) by simply starting a thread similar to this in this forum. The details (suits/ships/tactics) are then hashed out in the thread, and once these have been finalized the Commander pings people on Discord to set a date and time that suits him, which can also be midweek.

You don’t absolutely HAVE to find a time that suits EVERYONE who wants to play. If it takes too long to find a time to include everyone, you can also pick a time that includes MOST players. There will be plenty of other opportunities for players who are left out.

You can also—especially when the mechanics to recover unique gear are added—just jump on Discord and start playing, and ping everyone for bodyguards. The scenario here is: The Commander is a hothead who sometimes just goes out bounty hunting solo in the middle of the night, just to unwind, and as his bodyguards get wind of it, they scramble to catch up to him and protect him. And sometimes no one gets wind of it, so he just takes down bounties alone.

The goals are 1) Increase the Commander’s rep, thus opening up opportunities for our entire org in this planet, 2) Make money, 3) Take some cool roleplaying pics.

It’ll be fun seeing the different Commanders focus on different professions, or different tactics within the same profession, thus giving us as an org more varied play scenarios, looks and tactics to tackle. I can’t wait to see what goals people will come up with, and help them achieve them. It’s like we’re taking turns becoming NPC mission-givers for each other.

[ysignal]

I have the F8C paint. You get it when you hit Wing Commander ($10,000). I’ll think about which ships to take. I want to go all green.

[icycalm]

That means shubn has it also. Not sure about Adjudicator, you’ll have to ask. And it’s a ship variant not a paint, so you have 1-2 or 3 of those at your disposal depending on who’s online. Unless we can deliver them to your hangar so you can use them even when the owner’s not online. If so, it’s up to you to arrange the deliveries (and then move your regular ops away from your HQ because I don’t think you’d be able to use it with a bunch of heavy fighters stationed there; maybe when base-building goes in you can stage this squadron off a base of yours for convenience).

I am at around $3k right now, so a long way off giving you another one. But I’ll get you one someday. (Note I have spent another $2k or so on grey market stuff, but that doesn’t count towards the total.)

[shubn]

It's a paint, not a variant, so you should be able to transfer the paint to someone else's inventory in theory. The F8C Executive Edition ($15k) is a variant.

[icycalm]

We’ve tried using a paint on someone else’s ship and it doesn’t seem to work. Should try again to make sure.

[ExiledOne]

I'm in as well. I was unsure because I had some technical issues running the game, but they seem resolved now.

[ysignal]

I think I'll have the bodyguards wear the flight suits, while I will wear the Aves. It looks cooler that way to me, plus (until item recovery is implemented) it makes this a special once-per-patch event with permadeath. I probably won't run out, because I'll be trying to stay out of danger, and I also have multiple Aves suits. But I won't be flying around alone either, so once we run out of bodyguards the mission is over. And when a bodyguard dies, he puts on the Contractor suit and brings a non-combat ship like the Vulture, so everyone can keep playing until we stop.

For five people, the template I want to use is three regular fighters (one F8C and two Scorpiuses) and two more specialized ships. The F8C has more shields, so whoever is flying that can be considered the lead pilot of the regular fighters for roleplaying purposes. I think shubn has a Sabre Firebird, which is great for sniping with missiles from outside of radar range and comes in the green Windbreak paint. In fact, it'd be a good ship for me to use as it would allow me to monitor the action on radar from a safe distance. For the fifth ship, we could take the Ares Inferno, which could be useful for higher-level bounties and also comes in green.

This gives us a rounded fleet that can handle many scenarios and different bounty levels, and we can swap ships between bounties so everyone can try different tactical roles. We can think of it as a hardcore live-fire exercise for the best pilots of Cult microTech, conducted by the Commander and using random pirates as target practice. I will start out flying the F8C to keep my dogfighting skills sharp, while the bodyguards will take turns training in escort, anti-capital and stealth operations. As the bounties get more dangerous and complex, I will hand over the F8C to someone else and start directing operations from the Firebird.

[icycalm]

Sounds great. Don’t forget: 1) You can give your flight suit to an extra person who hasn’t bought one, so we can have a 6-man team if you can arrange it, 2) You’ll have to make sure that whoever brings a ship has the required paint for it, 3) You can start planning the session by pinging everyone in the #stanton channel and linking to this thread, 4) You have probably until the end of the year to arrange the session (before 4.0 drops), 5) If you’re struggling to arrange the session, DM me on Discord and I’ll help.

For latecomers to this mission, note that the Goodies Pack is still available on RSI for around $30 (depending on region), and it has already started showing up in the grey market for around $50: https://star-hangar.com/39972-1730300421.html


P.S. Surprised you’re solo-crewing the Scorpiuses, but you do you.

[ysignal]

The reason I left the Scorpius turrets unmanned is that if one blows up, we lose two suits in one hit. But I have a solution: I just bought another CitCon pack for CULTCLONE-5. So, with all the suits combined we can have two clones in flight suits on top of our five players. In the case where I'm occupied flying the F8C, they could crew the Firebird and Inferno on standby at a safe distance as tactical options. But if I'm in the Firebird, I can park it at a safe distance and use the clones to control the Scorpius turrets. And I can switch back to the Firebird for missile support at will. Or we could use any other combination of ship assignments that suits us at the time. Having two clones will also beef up the photos with extra personnel and we can take the suits from them as extra lives if necessary. If more people join without flight suits, we just drop the clones and give the flight suits to them.

I'll make sure everyone has the right paints. I can gift them if necessary. Regarding scheduling, I want to make sure the servers are semi-stable first. Last time I tried to play they were struggling, and I've read reports in the last day or so that it's still very unstable, though I haven't confirmed myself. Once it looks like things are stabilizing I'll start organizing the session.

[icycalm]

If we manage to get a pic with 7 suits, it will be impressive enough to post on Reddit. No one else apart from the larger orgs will have that many.

[icycalm]

ysignal, you get to outfit your bodyguards. No backpacks or rifles slung on the back to clip through the pilot seat, but anything else goes. You could give them the same green pistol we've given the Medic, but I think it would be cooler to leave that unique for the Medic and find something else that we aren't currently using. Maybe there's another green pistol, or a camo pistol, or you could just use the Inquisitor standard if you don't want to inconvenience people. Then again, it's a once-per-patch event, and everyone only gets one life, so you can also go all out and just pick the coolest stuff. All I am saying is that it's even cooler if the stuff you pick hasn't already been picked. But that's a secondary consideration. The primary consideration, I think, is to be functional and look as cool as possible.

Once you've made up your mind, take a cool 4K pic somewhere on microTech (I would say the NB starport for the pilot bodyguards would be apropos), and post it here, together with the specs.


P.S. Make sure your suit is in your inventory before 3.24.3 drops, because if it's out you'll lose it!

[recoil]

I bought the CitCon pack so I can participate.

[ysignal]

recoil brings us to 6 players and 8 characters, so I'll add shubn's F8C into the mix. I'll also have a Reclaimer ready for players who are out of lives. If that gets too crowded, we'll bring out a Vulture in the Ghoulish Green paint. I'll hop on in the next few days to put together the detailed bodyguard spec with pics and to see how stable the servers are.

[icycalm]

It’s 5 players in suits plus 3 suits that can be given away to other players or clones (2 of yours and 1 of shubn), for a total of 8 bodyguards plus you as the 9th character. You keep forgetting you can give away your own suit.

[ysignal]

I’m planning the fleet based on player sign-ups plus active clones. Since I’ve never seen shubn multiboxing, that’s 8 in my accounting. We have an extra suit, but until we get more clones or players that shouldn’t affect the fleet composition. Having said that, I asked shubn and apparently he’s working on a multiboxing setup. So, we might have another clone on the day. I’ll think about how we could integrate it into the fleet. In either case, we have enough suits for everyone (excluding me) to start as a bodyguard.