What's with those red lines amongst the walls? Indication this is using blindsight? What I want to know is why you can see so far into that room but nothing past the other door. Get a read on what's past the other door; if it's clear go on in and use the second entry to surround them. If it's FULL of enemy units then they're planning to surround you and maybe use the reactor to irradiate you. I don't expect them to blow it up to kill you lot because they have no indication you're dangerous enough for that to be needed. However, being surrounded is bad, so you should probably try to sabotage the door in that case to keep that from happening, and get into the reactor room before they can reinforce it much. I say get in, take down the bot hard and fast, then nail the marine and capture the scientist by the closer control panel while two others go to take care of whoever's in that side room.

We get the scientist to... uh, actually you know what I'm sure the scientist would only hamper us in trying to shut down the reactor. Maybe you should just shoot everyone and get your captive to translate the controls.

The bot is probably the least threatening thing there, if it's anything like the bots that assisted the downed mech-pilots.

If the soft targets have any of those insta-gib sidearms it would be the ultimate foolishness not to splatter them on sight.

Looks like there's a door immediately to the right of our position. Could be a closet, could be a hallway running right past the second entrance.

Scout that shit!

If it is a quick way to the second entrance, here's a plan.

One or two tozols hang back and set up charges on door #1, the rest head for door #2. Blow door #1 and try and snipe the bot but don't enter, use that as a distraction while prying open door #2 then all focus-fire on the marine (and be sure to take pot-shots at any squishies that poke their head out.)

Pushing everyone through door #1 is unideal, sure we could EatFuck the bot easily enough but then we'd be in a perfect position for the marine to pin us down.

Thinking about it a bit, let's do a multi door breach. Move one element up to the other door, attach explosives to both. Breach both, kill the marine and the robot, then soft targets.

Simple.

Blowing up one door can serve as a good distraction while you assault from the other, if you can force it open fast enough.

>>570883

The tactical briefs delays in the order of Seconds for just prying a door open. A sufficiently loud BANG on the opposite end of the room should provide enough distraction to cover those precious seconds.

So...

Recon towards the second door.

If access is unobstructed, set charges on first door, detail one or two Tozols to hold at that breach and engage targets of opportunity (i.e. snipe the bot.)

On detonation, remaining tozols manually breech the second door and attack focusing on the marine.

Once Marine is down, standard room-clearing formation and link-up with Tozols at first door, take out last squishy, prepare BANG party on reactor.

EXFILTRATE!


Sound like a plan?

>>571009
>>571216
Either of these is good from my viewpoint.

Test Pattern 2014/04/19(Sat)03:44 No. 571460 ID: ba8629
File 139790426357.jpg - (105.44KB , 700x600 , battlequest-2-43.jpg )

>Ventilation ducts
Nothing his tozols can fit through. Not with equipment.
>What I want to know is why you can see so far into that room but nothing past the other door.
A tozol's signal processing abilities are finite. Mapping rooms through bulkheads using only passive senses is difficult.

>split up to breach both doors at once
>two tozols per door
That makes sense. It's a tight space, and someone should pull security instead of going in. Baj's blindsight is probably nowhere near as clear as the others. He's never trained in terrain like this. (There was nowhere to train. Only the Spire has enough metal, but that's like learning to fly a kite in a tornado) The older tozols are merely rusty.

Yeah. Better go in with two at each entrance.

Vaejra takes Rinis with him to try the other door. Luckily, it's just a straight shot through two doors. These they opened as quietly as possible, but not in silence. Better make this quick.

Test Pattern 2014/04/19(Sat)03:45 No. 571461 ID: ba8629
File 139790432908.jpg - (74.26KB , 800x600 , battlequest-2-44.jpg )

Ota's pretty sure they can blow through both doorways without expending too much explosive. Vaejra needs to decide whether to blast both entryways at once, to maximize speed, shock, and surprise... or distract with a bomb at one entrance, then attack first from where they (hopefully) aren't looking.

He must also consider how best to engage the targets themselves. The bot and the soft targets should each go down with a headshot, but the Marine's shields are a dangerous question that must be answered.

The current breaching elements:
Door 1:
-Sgt Ota with a fusion rifle (a beefy, slow-firing, mid-ranged thunderstick) and a paralyzer.
-Thaen with a laser (long-ranged precision weapon) and a plasma gun (short-ranged blasty sidearm) and no idea which is better against astranian shields.
Door 2:
-Lt Vaejra with an autocannon (currently loaded with armor piercing sabots) and a paralyzer.
-Rinis with another fusion rifle, and a pulsar (fast-firing mid-ranged energy sidearm). Pulsars sometimes have usefully weird effects on exotic technology, but she trusts in the whispers of her rifle.

All have grenades. Flashburns are standard to deplete force fields, but that might not work. An antitank grenade is almost guaranteed overkill, but that might be suicide with the reactor right here.

Vaejra isn't worried about stray shots from his team. Any tozol worth their lanthanides won't make those. However, fragments, ricochets, and return fire they have less control over.

>>571461

Delay. Blow the east door first, so that the marine and the bot bring their attention away from the southern door. Hit the marine with distraction of kinetic and energy fire. Then blast the other door and smack them in the back with main energy fire. Marine will be forced to turn and engage the new (higher-priority) threat. Concentrate energy fire again. Once shields are weakened or broken by energy fire, kinetic fire to faceplate/dome.

Bot can be splashed by team 1 - it'll probably have to move up towards team 2 to get a shot on them, so it will have its back turned when team 1 breaches. Soft target in the main area is probably low priority, but hard to tell. If they get torched by convection or the Marine exploding or something, well, shit happens.

>>571461
>blast both entryways at once, to maximize speed, shock, and surprise
Yes.

Ota: Fusion Rifle, on the bot first then the marine if it's still standing.
Thaen: Head left for that one dude in the little room and plasma them. Potshot the bot on the way if opportune.
Vaejra: Open with a flashburn, then autocannon on the marine.
Rinis: THE GUN IS GOOD.

If the Marine is still firing back after Ota gets her shot at it, we're ATing that fucker in the face. From Ota, so as to not use the reactor as a backstop.

Blast both doors at once. If you don't fully breach then fire into the room through the hole and clear the room externally. Don't stick around in the fatal funnel of the door trying to break it more open. Do external clearance through the holes.

Select your short distance weapons for this breach.

Blow both doors as simultaneously as possible.

Door 2: After breach lead with flashburn, focus-fire on Marine until ded.

Door 1: Thaen and Ota focus-fire on the bot, wait for flashburn, then move up into the entryway and sight right. Ota fire on Marine, Thaen lases the squishy. Once squishy is dead Thaen moves attention to cover the room the last squishy is in while Ota continues suppressing the marine.

After immediate hostiles are suppressed, Tozol pair with most experience with demo sits tight while the other pair moves in to sweep the last room and murder that squishy. Once clear, expedite BANG party.

>>571461

Blow the southern door first and take down the bot. Blowing up the northern door will get the marine on your ass, but southern will get him moving out of position. Blowing up both may confuse the enemy, but their actions would then become less predictable.

South door: Get the bot, then move up and focus down the marine. If the door isn't fully breached, focus down the bot and have one tozol open the door further while the other fires on anything dumb enough to go after you.

North door: Spare a shot for the soft target, but then focus down the marine. We need to ascertain as soon as possible which weapons are most effective against enemy shields.

Baj: Be ready for anything, and observe as much as you can. You're gonna have to learn under fire.

On that note, Weapons:
Ota: Fusion rifle. We're not taking prisoners this time.
Rinis: Pulsar sidearm. Ota already has a fusion rifle.
Vaejra: Autocannon. Make the marine go boom until there's no more anything.
Thaen: Plasma gun. You're fighting in close quarters and should act as such. If we knew lasers had a greater effect, it'd be a different story, but we don't.

Blow south door, blitz, wait half a second, blow east door, blitz.

I would have liked both fusion rifles on the marine. If it isn't too late to swap, do that.

Waste the bot outright. Squishies, try to not kill them. You have the accuracy to shoot any weapons they have rather than them. Breach the west room as soon as you can without risking being shot.

Consider it a show of force for each person you subdued or disabled instead of killing.

This is not puppy-pickup ops, this is superblack search-and-destroy ops. We're not hear to be carebears, we're here to EAT-FUCK THESE MOTHERFUCKERS.

*ahem*

Seriously, we don't have the time or resources to worry about collecting fresh prisoners, and leaving them laying about unconscious when we blow this popsicle stand is just plain cruel.

Not to mention those squishies might be carrying sidearms, sidearms that can splat a Tozol in one shot.

As Jr. Gong said, "Make et Bun Dem."

>>571461
Delay. The stranners are fucking idiots - they'll fall for a simple ruse like that hook, line, and sinker.

>>571567
>Leave them alive
Unless we're taking prisoners I'm not sure that's a good idea. It's not our primary goal to remain undetected or to make this look like a Scellor attack, but we should do so if we can, right?

>>571582

Indeed. Having one that knows how to operate the reactor systems might be useful, but ultimately not an especially high priority.

>>571463
This is best.
If the soft is a non-combatant focus on the marine so the soft can get out of the way, and if they are combatants it gives the other soft a chance to move into the main room right in front of the second breach.
Also if the softs are non_com we can capture them if need be.

>>571673
I disagree. A reactor tech might have the knowledge how to blow the fucker sky high while leaving us a window to run, not just cut the power and leave. Might be the most valuable thing in the room.

>>571683
I thought we were planting a bomb on it and putting THAT on a timer that would give us a window to run?

>>571683

Causing an explosion should be relatively simple; unlikely they know much about how it actually works. But having one that knows what all the stuff on the consoles means and how to operate it would be helpful.

We're just gonna blow everything up, we don't need to know how it works to do that.

Taking steps to try and safely subdue (a creature who's increadibly fragile) without casualties (a creature who may have a very compact insta-jib weapon on them) a new prisoner (who'll take time to break/interrogate) who may not be useful (our sample-size of 2 shows 50% chance of either total cooperation or absolute intransigence) is not a good allocation of our time.

Remember, every second we waste here is a second the enemy has to re-organize the troops outside who are still befuddled by the huge-ass IED we detonated out there.

>>571782
If we know how it works, we can make a better boom.

>>571812

Really, you think we actually have a snowball's chance of extracting useful intel from one of the squishy targets that will allow us to make boom superior to the boom Tozol demolitions training could provide, and do so in a timely manner?

Remember, (update schedule notwithstanding) this isn't a super-silent 'nobody suspects a thing' op. This is an ambush op, we ambushed them with the Super-IED and we're burning precious seconds while the enemy is all 'Guuuh-Gwah!' before they get their shit together.

What if the kind of info you think we need requires a sit down and pour-over of remedial Astranian reactor-engineering 101? What if the squishy flat refuses to cooperate? Or worse, pretends to cooperate and feeds us nonsense and filibuster to buy time for a full squad of marines to come down on us?

We're Tozols, we're awesome, but we're not invincible. This is not a cheesy 80's action-movie.

((Friendly reminder: Discussion goes in the discussion thread: http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/45791.html ))

>>571848
>What if the kind of info you think we need requires a sit down and pour-over of remedial Astranian reactor-engineering 101?
Than we've not gained much useful this trip, but the squishy might be worth taking home and interrogating later, as said knowledge may prove useful in the long term, not just now.
>What if the squishy flat refuses to cooperate?
Than we take him home, like I said and study him at our leisure.
>Or worse, pretends to cooperate and feeds us nonsense and filibuster to buy time for a full squad of marines to come down on us?
Risk we'll have to take.

>>571903

No.

No-no-no-no-no.

It is NOT a risk we have to take.

It is almost certainly a risk we should Not take.

And shouldn't we be taking this to the discussion thread?

I have to agree with skipping a field interrogation. Take a captive if it's convenient (is there more rope to secure one to another Tozol's back?)- a scientist captive could be useful later.

Taking prisoners is purely on a 'if reasonably practical' level of priority. If we can nab one for negligible cost in time or risk, only then *might* it be worth it. Otherwise, neutralise everything that moves in that room as efficently as possible; this is already a high-risk mission, no need roll more dice than we have to.

Can we come to a conclusion so that the quest can get moving again?

>>572893
I thought we had, and were just waiting on TestPattern/Lonelyworld =/ We're going in, killing everything and placing a satchel charge.

Scellor are aggressive expansionists with no fear of death, granted, but they're not xenophobes, and they don't know what orders you're operating under or who kicked that volcano onto their camp. Talk to the scellor prisoner, propose some straightforward contract mercenary work. You help them blow up stranners, they pay you by importing specific exotic materials (baby tozol ingredients, although they don't need to know what you need the stuff for). Once tenatative terms of alliance are worked out, press for information about their strategic interest in the spire, on the pretext that it'll be easier to recognize the best opportunities to earn your pay if you know what your employer most wants.

Ideally, work out the timing sudh that you're 'on the clock' when that big walker explodes, and the scellor think taking it out was their own idea.

Test Pattern 2014/06/07(Sat)00:25 No. 577493 ID: ba8629
File 140212594003.jpg - (98.28KB , 800x600 , battlequest-2-45.jpg )

The charges detonate.

Test Pattern 2014/06/07(Sat)00:25 No. 577494 ID: ba8629
File 140212595005.jpg - (78.44KB , 800x600 , battlequest-2-46.jpg )

The soft target goes flying. Before it has time to inhale a scream, Vaejra's flashburn, pitched through the blast, lights up. The marine's shields flare. The soft target is now on fire.

Meanwhile, Ota takes no chances with the robot. Her fusion rifle sounds a thunderclap. The bot explodes. Thaen moves in with his plasgun drawn, but there's nothing left to engage, save the marine.

Test Pattern 2014/06/07(Sat)00:26 No. 577495 ID: ba8629
File 140212599368.jpg - (100.38KB , 693x600 , battlequest-2-47.jpg )

Rinis fires her fusion rifle. The room, already chaotic from four detonations in quick succession, blooms hot.

The tozol battle language is not easily translated, but tozols lie when they call it impossible. It might, now, sound something like this:

Ota: "Damage assessment: Shot penetrated destructively / target BOT-g-41 neutralized with high confidence / Advancing to contact"
Thaen: "Damage assessment: target SOFT-g-8 neutralized with moderate confidence / Engaging target MARINE-g-16"
Rinis: "Damage assessment: Shot bounced / target MARINE-g-16 still active / Reengaging"
Vaejra: "Engaging target MARINE-g-16"

Test Pattern 2014/06/07(Sat)00:26 No. 577496 ID: ba8629
File 140212599710.jpg - (54.33KB , 800x600 , battlequest-2-48.jpg )

Vaejra: "Damage assessment: Shots bounced / target MARINE-g-16 still active / Reengaging"
Thaen: "Damage assessment: Shots bounced / target MARINE-g-16 still active / Please advise"
Ota: "Weapon cycling / target MARINE-g-16 still active / Please advise"


This is fucking horseshit.

FUCKING STRANNERS

I have a crazy idea. Have Baj go melee with the guy. He's got a shield gen too. If they are similar enough they should mesh instead of collide and basically Baj ends up inside the shield bubble with the target.

I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

Anyone in front of the marine: take cover, don't get hit by that weapon. Anyone behind: keep shooting.

Fuck this horseshit.

Fall back, avoid return-fire at all costs, return fire just enough to keep the marine's interest. Try and kite that bastard out of the OE and get those charges set-up Tozol!

Also, see if Rinis can get a shot-off with her Pulsar if at all practicable.

Hang on, I see a vulnerability. His shield stops at the floor. He'd trigger a landmine just like anything else. Grenades might even go through if they were moving slow enough.

>>577510

If you could get an AT grenade through there it'd be all she wrote, but how to exploit that and not eat a facefull of whatever that big gun shoots...

>>577496
Well, I guess Rinis could try her pulsar, but:
>>571464
>If the Marine is still firing back after Ota gets her shot at it, we're ATing that fucker in the face. From Ota, so as to not use the reactor as a backstop.
Tozzles are an even more scarce and irreplacable resource than fancy grenades.

Throw large heavy objects at the Marine (e.g. chairs, loose 'Stranners). The shield may block them, but the momentum transfer should be sufficient to temporarily disable the marine for close-in work.

>>577515

Yeah. Thaen, if that's you by the console throw the console at it to keep it down and pour fire/grenades into it.

Everyone get out of its arcs though.

Baj: complain that defenders are OP.

>>577496
>Solar marines swear nothing kills a stranner like a goold ol' fashioned punch-down.

CLOSE TO MELEE!

Oh, aim your guns to the point where floor and shield meet. May slip some shots through and hurt it.

>>577496
You have the Astranian prisoner - you might be able to slip through the shield.

Whichever one of you has the prisoner, CLOSE TO MELEE. If that doesn't work, use the prisoner as a projectile.

Test Pattern 2014/06/11(Wed)16:53 No. 578219 ID: ba8629
File 140253078749.jpg - (117.67KB , 800x600 , battlequest-2-49.jpg )

The Marine turns. Vaejra and Rinis duck away from a stream of red bolts. Ota bounces another fusion blast off the screaming Astranian.

Test Pattern 2014/06/11(Wed)16:53 No. 578221 ID: ba8629
File 140253081760.jpg - (92.14KB , 693x600 , battlequest-2-50.jpg )

>improvised physical attack
>get a grenade under the shield
Thaen has an idea. He rips a control console from the wall and forces a grenade inside it.

An armed grenade.

Test Pattern 2014/06/11(Wed)16:57 No. 578223 ID: ba8629
File 140253102494.jpg - (115.64KB , 800x600 , battlequest-2-51.jpg )

Thaen charges, wielding the console like a battering ram. The shield resists, tearing the face of the console to a shredded, flaming wreck, but there's too much metal here to blast away.

Test Pattern 2014/06/11(Wed)16:58 No. 578224 ID: ba8629
File 140253110842.jpg - (133.53KB , 800x600 , battlequest-2-52.jpg )

By the time the grenade detonates, the Astranian's already had its last breath crushed out. Chunks of smashed armor and smoking bone go flying.

"Room fucking clear," says Thaen.

Permanently disable the reactor. Strip any good shit to eat or use as materials. Fashion some makeshift shields out of plate if you think it would help at all and wouldn't slow you down.

Call in assault gun after reactor is offlined to cause a small distraction by pinging a walker before you exit.

See if you can salvage the marine's weapon.

>>578224
Pry open the door to where the other noncombatant was. Find out how bad an idea ripping a console off the floor was. We may have to evacuate very quickly.

look in to getting clubs made of whatever is the densest material you tozols can make it from. should fair well against shields.

>>578229

THIS! Don't leave that last squishy unmolested, they could un-do all your hard work.

>>578223
I like Thaen.

>>578224
Get the other soft target (in the next room - i think we only got 1?) and set up charges to blow this reactor straight to hell.

Work fast, guys. The alarm will have been sounded, and we wasted precious seconds taking down that marine. You won't have the luxury of squishing shielded reinforcements if they show up in a group.

Get through that side door and see if it offers a better view at something that looks fragile and unstable to cover in explosives. Smashing control panels might not put this out of action hard and long enough.

Perhaps it's not pertinent now, but this encounter does open up new ideas for how to attack the Battlecarrier..

..once things have settled here of course.

Since we've seen demonstrable proof that the Strannertech shield's ability to deflect mass isn't nearly as strong as it's ability to absorb energy that means if we could find something massive enough and just hit the carrier with it really hard it could breach the shield and destroy or cripple it outright.

Something as big and as heavy perhaps as one of those big mining ships the Scellor have adapted to serve as landing-ships?

Gonna have to remember that 'Stranner marine shields don't stand up as well to kinetic mass as they do to energy weaponry. That'll be useful knowledge later. Perhaps use a high caliber, high mass kinetic firearm against them, or maybe fabricate a dense strong metal javelin a tozol could throw through the marine. But that's for later.

Right now there's still one soft target remaining in the side room. It's probably a reactor tech or engineer so it'd be a good idea to capture it instead of immediately killing it in order to try and wring some info out of it about this reactor and where the power conduits are. Rip the doors to the side room open, rip the soft target's clothes off and threaten to rip off parts of the soft target if it doesn't tell you the truth of what you want to know.

Get Ota's opinion on how we're gonna use the explosives here without accidentally blowing the reactor containment while we're still in or near the walker. While we'd love to see this walker go up in a mushroom cloud, we'd rather not be part of said cloud.

Remember, our objective here is to take down the walker's shields so Kaselir can pound the ground forces and also so we can get out of here. That means either blowing the power conduits to the shield gens or forcing the reactor into auto-shutdown by blowing the coolant system, fuel lines or severing part of the power lines to the containment system. The second objective is to either destroy the walker or render it powerless. That means either blowing the containment on the active reactor or wrecking the reactor after its auto-shutdown.

So there's two options here: First is blow the power conduits and then hide explosives in the reactor containment system with timers long enough that we can get to a safe distance before they blow. Downside to this is that the enemy might be able to find and remove the explosives before they detonate, or shutdown the reactor before they go off. Second option is blowing the coolant system, forcing the reactor into auto-shutdown, then ripping out and shooting up as much of it as can before stuffing explosives into the most vital parts of it. That'll wreck it so much that the walker will be down for days while repairs are done or they'll abandon it.

There's something else of note: The burning chairs haven't tripped the fire suppression system. Either it has a high threshold or there isn't one in this room. We could use that to our advantage by turning this room into a raging inferno when we leave. That'll impede the enemy from finding any explosives with a long timer we've planted.

>>578453

Perhaps the amount of energy we just dumped into the room skragged the fire-suppression systems?

>>578465
if the way the flames are spread out in this image is any indication
>>578221
then the marine's shields are their fire suppression systems.

This could be the fact that I've seen them used that way in another quest talking, though =/

Sweep and clear the next room.

Set charges on anything that looks important.

Diddy-Mao

Test Pattern 2014/06/16(Mon)21:54 No. 578917 ID: ba8629
File 140298086049.jpg - (66.35KB , 700x600 , battlequest-2-53.jpg )

Thaen makes a note to extort some gratitude for that stunt, but there's no time for it now.

The reactor lock cycles.

"DIE Y-"

Test Pattern 2014/06/16(Mon)21:54 No. 578918 ID: ba8629
File 140298087194.jpg - (77.28KB , 700x600 , battlequest-2-54.jpg )

Rinis disarms the Astranian. Ota ties him up. His enraged shouting does little to soften the sudden guilt in the team's youngest tozol.

"Maybe," Baj says. "Maybe we should've tried talking before we started killing them?"

"Late to worry about that, kid," says Ota.

Meanwhile, the tinkers in the group coax open the reactor door.

Test Pattern 2014/06/16(Mon)21:55 No. 578919 ID: ba8629
File 140298092430.jpg - (53.22KB , 700x600 , battlequest-2-55.jpg )

"It's, uh..." theorizes Rinis.
"It looks sort of like. Uh..." suggests Thaen.
"It's red," says Baj. "Is it safe for us to stand here?"
"No clue," says Rinis.

"Cease your alien demon babble!" screeches their new friend. "The reactor will detonate like an atom bomb if soiled by your dirty hands!"

"Neat," says Rinis.
"Yeah, but not useful," says Ota. "We need the shield down before we leave, remember?"
"That was the plan," says Rinis. "Plans are flexible."
"I bet he's lying," says Thaen. "Though... that is a pretty hefty power source. Maybe big enough."

Test Pattern 2014/06/16(Mon)21:57 No. 578921 ID: ba8629
File 140298105366.jpg - (58.49KB , 700x600 , PerhapsACarefulReviewOfYourOptionsIsInOrder.jpg )

Lt. Vaejra feels uncertain. He's never seen anything like this, either. It's a tight bundle of... something, throwing off red and infrared light, and exotic energy signatures visible to the tozol eye. It's easy to believe it can go up like a nuke. That doesn't mean it will, however.

If they can't bring down the shield without killing themselves, they'll need to exfiltrate without any help from Kaselir's vehicle. The enemy will have intact command and control with which to direct forces against them, and Vaejra saw five Astranian heavy mechs, a platoon of combat robots, and a dozen marines active under the shield.

Vaejra knows he needs to act quickly, but should he make a snap decision now (and if so, what), or take a minute to work out some options with the team?

Honestly, I don't trust that thing not to scatter incredibly toxic and radioactive rare elements around the place if it goes, soiling this place forever and failing your primary strategic objective. Not worth the risk.

You don't need to disable the reactor, you need to disable the shield. Maybe your little friend can tell you how.

> Compel your prisoners to tell you how to disable the shield.

Why don't you just hold the angry astranian by the neck while you inch a finger closer and closer to the generator, to see how it reacts? It will probably be visibly terrified if it's telling the truth.
If it's lying at least, it'll be really obvious. Then we can get to work on it as planned right?
I admit, it might just be fun to see it squirm if it is telling the truth and just taunt blowing you all to hell and them like it would be a big fat joke while they panic going NO NO NO NO NO NO and the person doing the finger pointing would probably be giggling like a maniac.

>>578921
Threaten to torture your first captive if the scientist doesn't tell you how to shut down the reactor safely in some way that will at least take a while to repair.

Shoot everything but the glowy ball. Trash all the controls. Leave two remote detonated explosives or really any explosives you've got on the orb, one obvious so they know about it. Second one a bit better placed. Also rig up some ghetto trap with whatever you've got that will go off when they open the doors to the reactor. Take your two new prisoners with you along with a sizable chunk of metal to fuck the next shield dude. Maybe fashion a pike of some sort out of a good material? Head to shield room or next thing that looks important.

Torture is never a reliable method of extracting information, it is ultimately self-defeating.

I do like the idea of threatening to do 'stuff' to the reactor if the new prisoner doesn't make with a plan to 'safely' disable the shield.

We now know how to neutralize Astrannian Marines, we can operate at milisecond reaction-times, we can spare maybe a full minute on not atomizing our entire force.

>>578932
Have you seen the look the scientist gives to the first captive? He *wants* to see that traitor suffer.

Smother that thing in explosives. If we don't take the walker down we're completely fucked anyway.

Otherwise, >>578935. A vehicle bay is also acceptable if you find one. We just need to run away without getting melted by the shield on the way out.

>>578936
This. Also, take the scientist home. We've got a potential bonanza
>>578927
Agreed. We need to know how mission kill this fucker without shitting our bed.

Better go destroy the command room first. There's probably a system up there to just shut the shield off without having to blow the reactor.

>>578953

Ummm.....

So you want to assault the most heavily defended room in this walking tin-can, AFTER they've been alerted to our presence?

>>578921

He should take a minute to plan. Push out the parameter but if the Strainers want to try to counter assault then we've got the advantage on them.

>>578919
>Demons
"Demons? Ha! You wish."

>Talk over options or snap decision
... Okay, we've made good time, but that doesn't mean we have a lot of it. We're still in the middle of enemy territory, and if blowing up one of their marines didn't catch their attention I'll make out with myself.

Put up a timed and/or remote detonated explosive. We already know that the signals from your detonators can travel inside of the Astranian's shields, and judging from the new prisoner's reactions, blowing this thing up would do horrible damage to the walker.

>>578952
Also this.

>Baj
"It's a war, kid. People die."

>>578941
Eh, maybe. Looked to me like he was just angry and screaming.

...

He's an Astranian, they do that a lot.

>>578946
(Also, what the hell is Baj doing in here? Get back to watching the corridors! If we get cornered in here by marines while rigging explosives/standing around talking we're going to run out of control panels to use as bludgeons.)

>>578921
hey here's a thought, tell the new guy "ok, so what should we avoid doing, specifically? unless you feel like exploding today"
if he's dumb enough maybe he'll tell you exactly how to blow the fucker up.

Which shield are we trying to take down again?
I thought the mission was to steal a ship?

>>578972
Go back and read through the bomb set-up again. We put Rook back in the spire because he was cooperative, which means we keep our main source of info, but it also means we couldn't steal a ship.

Our primary goal is to disable the walker, our secondary is to hunt enemy assets, and our tertiary is to learn what we can of the enemy's tech.

Remember, if screamy-tech is right keep in mind the scale of something 'atom-bomb' sized. An explosion like that would kill our entire team, And Kaselir, leaving Reya and Anak as the only ones around to defend the Spire.

Oh, and remember, we can't get to minimal safe distance because of the shield.. which we're on the wrong side of for that. And there's the fact that Kaselir doesn't have any idea what we're doing.

Take a minute, come up with better plan.

If you plant bombs around the reactor, you may as well take the time to get some blood in a weak container, and set it to crush against the reactor with the explosion, so as to 'soil' it with your biomass. Otherwise, go for the shield room.

Tozol biomass contains Tozol genetic material.

Tozol genetic material is classified.

We are NOT deliberately leaving classified materials as a calling-card for where we've been.


Also, Jesus Christ Guys, has anyone here actually Read the last plot-post? We're not figuring out plans right now, we're deciding whether to do A THING (Whatever A THING might be) right the fuck now.. or take a breather and try and examine and discuss all THE THINGS we might be able to do.

Do we take a moment, and risk the Astrannians un-fucking themselves and mounting a counterattack?

Or do we do shit Right Now, and risk fucking-up and getting 75% of the Tozol team wiped out?

That is the question we're being asked to solve now, we can discuss pissing in the Astrannian's Cheerios later.

>>579106
I point you to this:
>(and if so, what)
The suggestions for specific actions are a plenty fine response.

Honestly if you can understand that critter, talk to them. Get them to drop the shields or tell you how to drop the shields. Or else the reactor is the only way things'll go. Then abscond with them. Witnesses and all.

Granted, torture is all but completely useless for extracting information that can't be verified independently. Thing is, though, the tozols don't need information; they need the shield dropped.

Tell the new prisoner "This reactor is going to shut down now. By you, the safe way, or by us, the hard way. Your choice." On any response other than immediate cooperation, slap a remote-detonated bomb on the inside of the reactor room door, but tell the prisoner it's got a timer and an anti-tamper proximity fuse.

Then, head for the command center. Maybe leave some actual pursuit-deterrent grenades on the outer doors to the reactor controls, to make the threat more credible.

>>579106
ACTUALLY, If I remember correctly tozol biomass doesn't contain genetic material. Instead of every cell having DNA their genes are stored in sort of a central "core" that controls what cell is generated where.

>>579650

Tozol biomass does contain Tozol genetic material, it's just that only a few specialist cells contain the complete Tozol genome (unlike most other species) while all other cells only contain that much of the genome as is pertinent to their function.

>>579796
I remember this being correct.

Take a minute, get it right; you have no idea what you're dealing with.

But have some of the others monitoring the aproaches for enemy reinforcments.

Also, for the assault on the command center: are there any big pieces of door left? If so, bring 'em along. If not, breach subsequent doors (particularly heavy/armored doors) in such a way as to leave big pieces, preferably as long as the full height of the door. Use 'em as shields, which is likely to come in particularly handy if whoever built this place was competent enough to set up multiple lines of fire on some critical hallway and you end up flanked. More importantly, though, use 'em like poleaxes against anybody with a personal shield.

[Sorry, but this quest has ended.

Explanation here: http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questdis/res/45791.html#85998 ]