15. Red Ides of March
Surprise motherfucker.
A bigass medium sized ship lands right in our territory, but given how interrupting craft landings has gone so far I choose to ignore it instead.
Ah, that was why our technology was bottlenecked, I had forgotten our damn Workshop was still under construction. I get the Runts to work on the Tiny Drill right away. Additionally, when some research finishes up we'll be able to research more advanced components now like ship parts and heavy equipment.
Christine goes on her first interception run. I had actually forgotten to order more cannon rounds but I figure 150 should be enough to handle lesser craft.
Its immensely satisfying to finally shoot something, anything down after cowering in a hole for the entire game, even if it is just a regular civilian craft.
Taking the hostages goes over about as easily as you would expect.
The crew are rather restless. They want glory. They know the Runts are working on something big.
Some miscellaneous research finishes up, including the useful ability to manufacture more lethal bullets for our smaller caliber weapons. This will give weak recruits a much better chance to kill a target when they are armed with a weedy little peashooter as their first weapon.
More importantly, a Brainer is finally freed up to begin researching our big red book.
In the mean time we open up relations with more advanced black market dealers. The equipment these guys have for sale is nothing special at all, but they can hook us up with a Pachyderm spacecraft. Finally something better than the Partyvan. But do I really want to part with the chariot that brought us all salvation from the Academy?
I take some time to reflect on everything that's happened, and I get a sudden sinking feeling. Things have been moving kind of slow around here actually. This is a pirate outfit, god damnit, and a pretty fucking brutal one at that. There's no room for petty sentimentality when we have a whole solar system to conquer.
The line "Don't waste the time, or the time will waste you." is most likely a callback to Knights of Cydonia, which features the lyric "Don't waste your time or time will waste you.".
I hawk the Partyvan to the first buyer who will give me a deal on it, then place an order for a Pachyderm immediately. The specimen we get has quite a few AU on it, a lot of micrometeor pits and some dents here and there. But its our first honest to the Gods spacecraft, and its appropriately clad in dark red armor. I set about equipping the vessel immediately.
Haven't quite decided on a name yet though. I have Pussy Wagon written down in my notes, but I'm open to suggestions. Booty call, having been suggested earlier, is saved for bigger and better things. Another idea I had was something involving Terry, considering we he taught us how God loves elephants and the ship is named the Pachyderm.
Believe it or not we can actually take on space mission right away, though questionably equipped, with these automatic Rescue Pods that come with the Pachyderm. It is possible to complete some of the earlier space missions using just these, though difficult and you're liable to lose people. Still, its a necessary step.
There's also some random research that was unlocked via our new contacts or other techs that never displayed while I was tooling around. The Seagull is our first missile, and we will need to take one apart to begin that avenue of research. I order one right away. I'm relieved to find that the dog collar has a nasty Freshness debuff, otherwise I might have been tempted to use it for the Morale buff.
Another major landmark technology is the Vulcan battery, which offers us an effective defensive weapon for once. It also apparently restores Freshness with its good vibes. We don't quite have the capital to build a complete line of them yet like I want to, but I could always dip into my reserve funds if raids become more commonplace.
Here's a surprise, I had figured the game stopped giving us Castaway Gal rescue missions. Apparently they just become very infrequent instead. In my haste I don't get complete shots of what the Pachyderm looks like on the outside, but suffice to say what it lacks in looks it makes up for in carrying capacity and versatility. Also debuting on this mission is the Slayer Rounds, which prove their usefulness immediately as A-Z0-9 guns down one of the tough as nails cultist enemies in one hit with them.
Some more research completes. We get a Wrecked Helicopter from the Little Bird research that we can apparently put back together, though now that we have our brand new Pachyderm and considering Elerium isn't super hard to find in this mod I'm less than interested in this idea. The Possessed Sarge research alludes to some of the demons having been previously female, clearly a joke on how the original Doom only had male sprites for enemies despite the UAC being stated to employ women as well as men.
I recall SgtMarkIV, for all his flaws, stated that he wasn't going to bother making female Doomguy sprite for Brutal Doom on the grounds that any woman who is as ripped as the Doomguy would be pretty much indistinguishable from him when wearing the helmet. Its not referring to the demons but i think I still like his take over this idea.
Our Armored Vaults manage to fend off an attack for once.
Speaking of heavy weapons, I equip the Spike Rocket launcher I rather thoughtlessly dumped the Bounty Tokens on to the Pachyderm.
It seem like our Guild rats keep ending up back at their old stomping grounds. Things go fairly well for the early portions of the battle, though A-Z0-9 catches a round and has to lag behind.
The Valeyard and Mooger Meng get surprised by a Guild Security guard though and Meng is wounded so badly he loses consciousness.
Thinking quickly, The Valeyard plugs Mooger's wounds with Vodka, then hefts him over her shoulder and rushes out the door with him. Sea Urchin handles the guard instead.
At least nobody's dead.
@Overcast,
@wtfNeedSignUp
Since we finally have two Castaway Gals on hand again, I get them recruited to fill in the gap left behind by Honky. Overcast was rescued from Reticulans all the way back in Update 10. Her miserable strength is likely from all the time spent waiting around in her prison cell for us to do something with her. Negev was freshly rescued from the torture cultists.
Negev wastes no time taking a liking to one of our captive Guild employees. Despite being a brand new pirate she makes an impassioned plea to Witty complete with puppydog eyes to let the prisoner, wtfneedsignup according to his old nametag, go free and bunk with her. Witty much to my immense irritation caves in immediately, telling me we can put him to work as my assistant. At least I now have a clerk to get drunk and complain about women with.
A routine extermination mission goes over surprisingly poorly as a bunch of the gals end up wounded, especially Overcast who gets chewed up up quite a bit for her first mission. At least both of the rookies get a fair amount of kills. Pocket Dragoon is promoted up to Boss Gal, presumably due to the rank reshuffling after Honky's death.
I send the Christine out to hunt down these migrating hordes of bow and arrow armed whoever they ares. I hope they're not something we get a penalty for wiping out because they're utterly no match for modern weaponry and are shredded so badly that there's nothing left to take hostage afterwards. Because I'm me, I also systematically hunt down and obliterate all six of them that spawn.
We complete research on a few interesting things. First off, we complete research on the LACC cannon that the Church Zealots gave us so much trouble with. Its piercing ammunition seems like it will be great for taking on armored goons, but at the moment we cannot manufacture it. We also complete research on the 14mm Antitank rifle Jack was kind enough to supply us with. I'm skeptical of the usefulness of this weapon but I equip A Callow Youth with one for the time being.
Next is the unique Aggressor armor which we cannot make any more of, essentially a special variant of the Warrior armor that is also classified as stealthy so we can take it on all kinds of missions. We get eight of them, and I equip them to our first eight Gals: Witty Squid,
@NerdShamer, Forever Sunrise (
@Sanshain),
@Niggermancer,
@ChucklesTheJester,
@Moths,
@Dr. Ricearoni and
@Figger Naggot. Congratulations on being the earliest signups and surviving this long. Even though most of you are currently in bed from battle wounds at this given moment. Ignore the fact that you guys might see yourselves wearing the Warrior armor in some screenshots, I didn't switch everyone over until a bit later on in my session.
The Personal Attention training method seems like a good idea with its +1 Freshness bonus. I may be a drunk who sits at a desk all day, but I assure you that I can come up with a training regimen that will break even the toughest Gal. I can obviously only give each Gal such a thing one at a time. I'll start with Witty once she's healed up, then go down the list.
I assemble one of the Reticulan Plasma Chargers and send the Christine out with it. Unfortunately her first opponent ends up being a Megapol Police Hovercar. I'm overall not pleased with how tense the tiny battery makes this fight, so I make a note to re-equip the 30mm cannon when Christine gets back to base.
The Gals aren't really sure what to expect from these guys, so they play it safe and take cover.
Jesus, they have plasma weaponry!
And they're furries!
Much like the armored Academy troopers and the Military Police units the Humanists employ, the Megapol officers are pretty much immune to conventional weaponry aside from the occasional lucky hit. Fortunately they share the same vulnerability to standard hand grenades.
We've given the fuzz (geddit?) a bloody nose, and even captured one of their mutts alive.
We've finally begun to understand the basics of how ships work.
The Red Codex has been unleashed. Witty crowns herself The Red Warrior Queen complete with ceremonial armor I expect her to wear once given how impractical it is. I'm more than happy to settle for a hat pin and some tungsten epaulettes for my rank as King. There's also some secondary information revealed to us about the Shadow Plot, and a handful of new topics to go on.
A tremendous storm marks our coronation.
The Humanists seem unaware of this development either way. Let's make them regret that.
Our senior Gals are looking good in their new armor. Meanwhile, Negev gets her first real kill.
Throughout the battle, I'm more than a little underwhelmed by the accuracy and stopping power of the 14mm Antitank rifle. I know these weapons were not terribly useful in real life, but I at least expect one to make short work of a man-sized target wearing conventional or nearly conventional armor.
The Valeyard is forced to rather callously bomb a civilian who decided to stand next to a Military Police goon. The civvie is wounded rather than killed, and I would send someone over to patch him up, but he has the misfortune of flopping on to the exposed support beam when the platform beneath him disintegrates, meaning nobody can get to him without a gravity belt.
Getting at their leader gives us some trouble but resistance starts going downhill even before he dies.
Eventually the last Military Police trooper is taken down, and their leader passes out from all the shrapnel he's taken. We recover a fair amount of civilians this time, including a surviving Young Uber.
I finally research the ability to recruit Warriors from the market, which I will no doubt make use of when the recruitment pool dries up. Additionally, we take apart our first spacesuit, and I'm rather disappointed to learn that it doesn't unlock further technology along this route. We also vow to stop targeting civilian traffic, which due to how the game works will take place in the next month.
Also I research Pimpcraft, which in my opinion is of extremely dubious value. captured hookers, Guild Hostesses, Damsels, and Church of Sirius Shrine Maidens can be pimped out to relevant clients. There are some drawbacks to this though. For one thing, I'm unhappy with the idea of random Johns (or perhaps Janes) coming in and out of the base just to screw our goods. For another thing, several of these women would be more useful as slaves to increase out storage capacity. And finally, and most importantly, pimping converts the target into a Courtesan, which
takes up prison space rather than being enslaved to us directly. For this reason you will probably not see me bothering with this mechanic much.
The Pachyderm gets its first kill with those rockets; a Sky Ninja Jetbike.
Christine also shoots down some civilian traffic while its still fair game.
Sweeping up the hostages is no trouble. The Aggressor Armor effortless shrugs off a point blank shotgun blast.
This weird thing finishes up research between missions. Its clearly based on the Aztec macuahuitl weapon.
For reasons known only to themselves, the Brainers and the Runts have a naked volleyball game in the hangars. I forgot who won.
Overcast steals all the kills on this mission, then gets shot at the last minute and passes out for her antics. Fortunately the enemy who shot her also passes out a moment later.
Some more junk finishes up. The flying armors are an interesting curio but most of them offer like no protection whatsoever making them not particularly suited to my needs.
Feeling perhaps a little outdone by the Brainers and Runts, two of our newbie Gals stage their own naked show on a routine supply run in Jackstown. given they did this in public I have them reprimanded over the incident.
A Ratmen Rodeo proves ample opportunity for target practice among both the newbies and the Slave Soldiers.
Next time: Hopefully I can get some better weaponry together.