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This is Battletech, released in 2018 by Harebrained Schemes. The cover art is funny because it makes Kamea Arano look 400 feet tall, stomping her way across the Periphery like a sexy, nobility fueled Godzilla. Her nuclear breath is a stream of cold hard cash. As to the comma after sexy, we will be using Oxford commas in this space with GUSTO because clarity is your friend, and English is the compost bin of world languages and you can do whatever the hell you like with it. This of course includes inspiring pedantry in others for fun and (no) profit.
As to the title of this WHATEVER IT IS, in order to do giant robot kung fu, you need a giant robot. So, we mod up the game with the Battletech Advanced Universe pack (seriously, if you play this, get it. Bloodydoves and the team have done astounding things with the framework HBS left behind to chase illusionary dollars with Paradox Interactive. I have a flying trash can that dispenses war crimes. It is awesome.) And then using some mystic arts from the tomes penned by the great wizard Billy Mitchell, we use a save editor and CHEAT LIKE CRAZY to get ourselves this beast:
Behold what was the Highlander HGN-HM Heavy Metal, now in my mind the HGN-MK Macho King. This big ol' 90 ton walking war crime dispenser is a good all around platform, but well known for its reinforced lower body and jump jets to allow it to fly through the air and simply LAND ON ANOTHER BATTLEMECH in something called, awesomely, a Highlander Burial. Damn the torpedoes, we are going to channel the spirit of its namesake, the Macho King Randy Savage and enter the KINGDOM OF MADNESS by using this machine to attack with nothing but flying elbow drops and occasional fisticuffs. You are also about to read a bunch of technical numbery mumbo jumbo that may not mean much but baby it is dork o'clock and the King of Cheese Mountain has an obligation to bring you only the finest cheesery, and in that spirit, let me show you how to cheese this damn game.
We are gonna take off a medium laser and all the other various junk it has installed, then maximize the armor value. Slap on Clantech Hardened Armor to DOUBLE the armor value in every location. Stuff in something called Triple Strength Myomer, a Supercharger, and up the engine size to 340, allowing us to achieve what for an assault mech is GREASY FAST SPEED. Of course it's now way over the weight allotment, so you gotta slap in an XL Gyro and an XXL Engine for big weight savings at the expense of lots more opportunity to explode, since the engine now has lots of critical spots to hit in your torso - which you basically mitigated already, what with the hardened armor and all. And the speed loss from hardened armor you undid with the TSM, Supercharger, and engine. And lucky us! With the remaining space, we can install a couple 6 tube short range missile launchers, a heavy machine gun, Clantech ECM and Antimissile systems, Clantech Heat Sinks, and a +3 Engine Heatsink modifier.
A brief aside on Clantech - this is technology built by the eponymous Clans, a bunch of Deep Periphery goofballs who believe in honor, not understanding how you can refuse their batchall, stupid accents, genetically engineered snu snu, and dressing like absolute idiots. I mean. Look at this old art from when they first became a thing some 30 years back or whatever. This goofus is the master race? He'll never be a gallant, that's for damn sure. Their technology is far greater than their fashion sense, or lack thereof.
You absolutely need a pilot with maxed ratings in piloting and guts to drive this monster effectively, or you're in for a terrible day that ends with them washing you out of the cockpit with a garden hose. I used my commander, who is a hybrid mech/tank pilot. This will let you move or sprint 5 hexes, but screw that, we have LIFT. You can jump for 6, and have 6 evasion pips. while you do. That's a LOT for something this big and is a huge difference maker. With this pilot and the Bulwark, Brawler, Hull Down and Sure Movement perks you always entrench and defend upon landing as a good flying brick ought to. In the end, it ought to look something like this here:
Now, in this universe the only path to wealth is the clever application of war crimes, so let us go to war and do a crime shall we? Take a contract for a cool nearly 2 million C-Bills...
...take a flying leap off the top rope like a chrome plated god...
...and win the title. OOH YEAH!
Our girl alone took out a combined 400 tons on her own over two missions - this Devastator, two Atlases, and a Demolisher heavy tank with one jump each, before everyone else surrounded her and she went down with Hull Down active in a rain of giant robot fisticuffs, fire, and curses. And in this universe, that's a win, really. And if you can acquire the super rare tech, the super rare mech, all this stuff I used an editor to get and implement this strategy - it's game breaking in a game where melee can already be insanely effective if built right.
But, it also costs three months refit time and over ONE HUNDRED AND TEN MILLION SPACE DOLLARS IN REFIT COSTS.
Which brings me to the main point of this entire thing: this damn prick.
This is Darius Oliveira. Darius is the executive officer of the over-engineered spacefaring clown car that is the dropship you operate out of. He is also hilariously inept at his job. Example:
And who exactly is in charge of GATHERING INTEL, Darius? Hmm? ANY GUESSES? I mean, for goodness sake, look at the memes, man! The memes!
This is the incompetent chump we are stuck with for our executive officer. The man in charge of the intel, but also, in a point crucial to why I am making this whole idiotic essay in the first place, the man in charge of the finances. He obviously doesn't want to do the work. So it is up to us to MAKE him work.
One hundred ten million space dollars just on refit costs. The insane additional expense of acquiring the equipment in terms of travel, in terms of combat drops, other repairs, other upgrades. Liasoning with the representatives of various Great Houses, of Space AT&T, of the Mercenary Review Board. All of that he has to do and through the blood and the sweat and the misery that you in the form of the Commander and all your various mechwarriors had to suffer through to get that bank account ultra fat despite his insanely incompetent executive officering...
...and I blow it all overnight. Every cosmos be damned cent down to the last one. On turning a Battlemech into the Macho King, Randy Savage. Money that would buy you eleven 100 ton Atlases WITH SPARE PARTS, or SEVENTY THREE 35 ton Urbanmechs complete with accompanying memes, or all the pants of your average Clan and all of their precious HONOR. I could do all of that. But no. No, no, no. One mech. One absurd, glorious, unnecessarily overengineered engine of mass war crimes, all made worth it to imagine getting high off the salt of his tears as he runs the monthly budget.
The next time you play any video game and blow the entire budget for whatever reason, listen closely on the wind. Across universes, realities, through the crushing expanse of time, and you shall hear the tears of a broken man hitting the hull of my dropship. Thanks for listening. Pay your HPG bills. Tip your waitress. Then go have a juice box. You earned it.
As to the title of this WHATEVER IT IS, in order to do giant robot kung fu, you need a giant robot. So, we mod up the game with the Battletech Advanced Universe pack (seriously, if you play this, get it. Bloodydoves and the team have done astounding things with the framework HBS left behind to chase illusionary dollars with Paradox Interactive. I have a flying trash can that dispenses war crimes. It is awesome.) And then using some mystic arts from the tomes penned by the great wizard Billy Mitchell, we use a save editor and CHEAT LIKE CRAZY to get ourselves this beast:
Behold what was the Highlander HGN-HM Heavy Metal, now in my mind the HGN-MK Macho King. This big ol' 90 ton walking war crime dispenser is a good all around platform, but well known for its reinforced lower body and jump jets to allow it to fly through the air and simply LAND ON ANOTHER BATTLEMECH in something called, awesomely, a Highlander Burial. Damn the torpedoes, we are going to channel the spirit of its namesake, the Macho King Randy Savage and enter the KINGDOM OF MADNESS by using this machine to attack with nothing but flying elbow drops and occasional fisticuffs. You are also about to read a bunch of technical numbery mumbo jumbo that may not mean much but baby it is dork o'clock and the King of Cheese Mountain has an obligation to bring you only the finest cheesery, and in that spirit, let me show you how to cheese this damn game.
We are gonna take off a medium laser and all the other various junk it has installed, then maximize the armor value. Slap on Clantech Hardened Armor to DOUBLE the armor value in every location. Stuff in something called Triple Strength Myomer, a Supercharger, and up the engine size to 340, allowing us to achieve what for an assault mech is GREASY FAST SPEED. Of course it's now way over the weight allotment, so you gotta slap in an XL Gyro and an XXL Engine for big weight savings at the expense of lots more opportunity to explode, since the engine now has lots of critical spots to hit in your torso - which you basically mitigated already, what with the hardened armor and all. And the speed loss from hardened armor you undid with the TSM, Supercharger, and engine. And lucky us! With the remaining space, we can install a couple 6 tube short range missile launchers, a heavy machine gun, Clantech ECM and Antimissile systems, Clantech Heat Sinks, and a +3 Engine Heatsink modifier.
A brief aside on Clantech - this is technology built by the eponymous Clans, a bunch of Deep Periphery goofballs who believe in honor, not understanding how you can refuse their batchall, stupid accents, genetically engineered snu snu, and dressing like absolute idiots. I mean. Look at this old art from when they first became a thing some 30 years back or whatever. This goofus is the master race? He'll never be a gallant, that's for damn sure. Their technology is far greater than their fashion sense, or lack thereof.
You absolutely need a pilot with maxed ratings in piloting and guts to drive this monster effectively, or you're in for a terrible day that ends with them washing you out of the cockpit with a garden hose. I used my commander, who is a hybrid mech/tank pilot. This will let you move or sprint 5 hexes, but screw that, we have LIFT. You can jump for 6, and have 6 evasion pips. while you do. That's a LOT for something this big and is a huge difference maker. With this pilot and the Bulwark, Brawler, Hull Down and Sure Movement perks you always entrench and defend upon landing as a good flying brick ought to. In the end, it ought to look something like this here:
Now, in this universe the only path to wealth is the clever application of war crimes, so let us go to war and do a crime shall we? Take a contract for a cool nearly 2 million C-Bills...
...take a flying leap off the top rope like a chrome plated god...
...and win the title. OOH YEAH!
Our girl alone took out a combined 400 tons on her own over two missions - this Devastator, two Atlases, and a Demolisher heavy tank with one jump each, before everyone else surrounded her and she went down with Hull Down active in a rain of giant robot fisticuffs, fire, and curses. And in this universe, that's a win, really. And if you can acquire the super rare tech, the super rare mech, all this stuff I used an editor to get and implement this strategy - it's game breaking in a game where melee can already be insanely effective if built right.
But, it also costs three months refit time and over ONE HUNDRED AND TEN MILLION SPACE DOLLARS IN REFIT COSTS.
Which brings me to the main point of this entire thing: this damn prick.
This is Darius Oliveira. Darius is the executive officer of the over-engineered spacefaring clown car that is the dropship you operate out of. He is also hilariously inept at his job. Example:
And who exactly is in charge of GATHERING INTEL, Darius? Hmm? ANY GUESSES? I mean, for goodness sake, look at the memes, man! The memes!
This is the incompetent chump we are stuck with for our executive officer. The man in charge of the intel, but also, in a point crucial to why I am making this whole idiotic essay in the first place, the man in charge of the finances. He obviously doesn't want to do the work. So it is up to us to MAKE him work.
One hundred ten million space dollars just on refit costs. The insane additional expense of acquiring the equipment in terms of travel, in terms of combat drops, other repairs, other upgrades. Liasoning with the representatives of various Great Houses, of Space AT&T, of the Mercenary Review Board. All of that he has to do and through the blood and the sweat and the misery that you in the form of the Commander and all your various mechwarriors had to suffer through to get that bank account ultra fat despite his insanely incompetent executive officering...
...and I blow it all overnight. Every cosmos be damned cent down to the last one. On turning a Battlemech into the Macho King, Randy Savage. Money that would buy you eleven 100 ton Atlases WITH SPARE PARTS, or SEVENTY THREE 35 ton Urbanmechs complete with accompanying memes, or all the pants of your average Clan and all of their precious HONOR. I could do all of that. But no. No, no, no. One mech. One absurd, glorious, unnecessarily overengineered engine of mass war crimes, all made worth it to imagine getting high off the salt of his tears as he runs the monthly budget.
The next time you play any video game and blow the entire budget for whatever reason, listen closely on the wind. Across universes, realities, through the crushing expanse of time, and you shall hear the tears of a broken man hitting the hull of my dropship. Thanks for listening. Pay your HPG bills. Tip your waitress. Then go have a juice box. You earned it.
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