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Firefly-Themed Battle

Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 10:01 pm
by DaCheez
My brother and I recently had a Firefly-themed battle aboard a space station. It was a pretty awesome battle and I got a request to upload pics, so I decided to share some pics as well as the scenario description so you can get a good idea of exactly what we were doing (I sized most pics to 320x240, so if it's too small just right click and select "View Image" in Windows to see a much, much LARGER view).

Background
Your ragtag crew of interplanetary denizens has encountered a seemingly abandoned space station. After docking your shuttle to look for salvage, you identify the station as the City of Batlimor, a station formerly used as a repair and restocking post for deep-space transports. Excellent- here’s a fantastic chance to acquire a new secondary modulation phase polarity pump (SMPP pump, or SMPPP) for your engine to replace the one that’s been threatening to burn out for months now. Upon boarding the station you find that the station's crew has been brutally murdered, apparenlty by Reavers. Reavers often return to the site of an attack, so you know that you need to get out of there soon before the reavers return. You also find that the crew had activated a distress beacon before they were killed and long range scans indicate that an Alliance cruiser is on its way. You need to get the SMPPP and get out of there ASAP, making sure to kill of any other salvage teams you encounter!

We built the station in a sort of modular design since my brother and I live in separate states but were splitting up the construction work. I made the following diagram to act as a guide for us in building it. I've included the diagram here to allow you, dear reader, to get an idea of the station layout (sections labeled "By superdave" were made by my brother and sections labeled "By DaCheez" were made by me).
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... iagram.jpg" width="800" height="800">

Here is a picture of the station itself with the modules numbered so you can get a good idea of how the diagram corresponds to the real thing. The only real difference between the diagram and the station itself is that on the real thing there's a balcony on the Promenade Deck and no door going between one of the airlocks (#2) and the Cargo Bay (#9).
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... abeled.jpg" width="240" height="320">

There were four teams in total (my merc team, my bro's merc team, an Alliance team, and a Reaver team; Alliance and Reaver's were under GM control). Each team had a ship/shuttlecraft. Below are the ships I built (my merc ship and the Reaver ship, respectively).
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... c_ship.jpg" width="320" height="240">
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... r_ship.jpg" width="320" height="240">

Looking from an airlock (#12) into the back hatch of the Reaver ship when it was docked at the station.
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... r_ship.jpg" width="320" height="240">

The battle began with my sword-wielding government operative getting shot in the face then revived as an enemy zombie by my medik (stupid T virus...). I then promptly shot my bro's hero unit in the face twice with an assault rifle wielded by my emotionally traumatized 17 year old girl hero unit. Hooray for government test subjects...
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... begins.jpg" width="320" height="240">

My bro's companion unit spent much of her time before she died running about with some Spam Cake Surprise and Beer she found in a cabinet on the Promenade Deck. The beer was later to explode during a hull breach, sending happy glass shrapnel flying everywhere in the vacuum of space, no doubt causing serious injury to some unsuspecting minifigs. Wheeee!!!
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... 8_food.jpg" width="320" height="240">

The Promenade Deck. Much death happened here. The GM-controlled Alliance team can be seen entering the station through an airlock at the far left. They didn't end up getting much farther than that since some jerk (namely, ME) had a unit access the environmental controls in that room to increase the gravity to the point where people had difficulty moving. Then I tried (and failed :-( ) to vent the whole airlock to space.
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... menade.jpg" width="320" height="240">

From middle to left to far right are one of my mercs, my demolitions expert, and my captain. They spent quite a while in the control room trying to mess with environmental controls aboard the station. In the end they only managed to critically fail and increase the lights in the control room to dangerously high levels. "Ouch, Charlie, my eyes!"
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... terate.jpg" width="320" height="240">

Several of my bro's cowardly units were hiding on the Promenade Deck, so I had my captain shoot out one of the windows with a snazzy looking shotgun, thereby causing explosive decompression which blew a bunch of people into space. Only his medik managed to hang on for dear life against the force of explosive decompression, but still ended up dying of vacuum exposure. The picture shows the blown out window from the outside of the station, as well as my bro's first mate flying off into the infinite void of deep space FOREVER!
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... breach.jpg" width="320" height="240">

Eventually the Reavers managed to make it aboard the station and began to flood into the station corridor. I don't like Reavers, so I depressurized the entire corridor, killing them all. The Spam Cake Surprise can still be seen lying on the floor. Not only does Spam never spoil, but apparently it does just fine in a vacuum as well.
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... rridor.jpg" width="320" height="216">

Looking down the corridor towards the Promenade Deck. Much gleeful carnage can be seen. Standing in the open door is a single Alliance soldier in a space suit.
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... rridor.jpg" width="320" height="240">

On the Promenade Deck after everyone in that section was sucked into space. It's so lonely looking with no violence taking place...
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... breach.jpg" width="320" height="240">

At this point in the game there were only three units left alive (out of a total of 31). Two are alliance and one is mine (my brother's team was already toast). In this pic my Tekkie is bravely attacking an Alliance unit with a wrench and a nail gun. The Alliance coward is defending himself with an energy disk, a bottle of hairspray, and some alien pheromones.
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... wrench.jpg" width="320" height="240">

End of game. The Alliance commander not pictured in the previous photo (or even this one) depressurized the room, killing his soldier and my last unit. GM-controlled Alliance ended up winning with one unit left alive, and nobody got the SMPPP. Please note the toilets, sinks, and shower in the bottom right. My bro made those, and they looked REALLY sweet. Almost good enough to actually pee in.
<img src="http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DaChe ... alties.jpg" width="320" height="240">

Anywho, that's that. I know this post has gone on obnoxiously long and probably took an eternity to load due to all the pics. But if you're still alive after reading all that, any comments on the battle would be most welcome.

And I'm sorry, Fearless Overlord Rayhawk, if you have found this post to be disgustingly long, misplaced, or in any other way detrimental to this forum or your own mental health. I apologize for the inconvenience and understand if you choose to delete it because of its ridiculous size.

Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:18 am
by Moronstudios
That was a wonderful battle, BRAVO! Void of space FTW.

Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:36 am
by Natalya
Lol, everyone got sucked off into space and died. I rly like the premise of this, just the battle seemed kinda lame because not much fighting actually happened. Just hull depressurization.

Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 5:57 am
by pesgores
No battle is long enough!

You did awesomely!

Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 8:23 am
by Theblackdog
This definitely sets the standard for all future space station battles. I liked the ships you made, it would be fun to play this game with extra rules allowing the ships to fly around outside and carry troops to different docking ports.
The environmental control did make the game pretty short, but there are ways around that. Put the environmental control for each room INSIDE the room itself, that should make it easy for teams who have secured the rooms to prevent a hull breach.

Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 11:55 am
by DaCheez
Actually, the ships could fly around. The Alliance team did that at one point. They were kind of stuck in their airlock by the hull breach on the Promenade Deck, so they flew to the opposite end of the station where my ship was docked. After knocking my ship off its port, they were able to dock with the station and get in.
A lot more fighting took place than you actually see here. I didn't take many pictures, so that wasn't a complete write up by any means. Only about 10 out of 30 deaths were actually due to changes in environmental conditions. The rest were the result of explosions, bullets, bloody dismemberments, exploding beverages, and getting stabbed in the eye by grenade safety pins. Most of the dead you see in the corridor were killed by weapons. Only a few of those corpses actually died from decompression.
There was actually a huge battle between Reavers and mercs that took place in the corridor about mid way through the game prior to decompression, but I got so into the game that I forgot to take pictures and so didn't mention it in the write up. There was also an epic duel between a couple of my mercs and a horde of Alliance soldiers in the engineering section after they moved to a different docking port. I didn't take pics of that, either.
Total game time was 3 or 4 days I think. We played off and on during that time, so it was probably about 10 hours of actual play.

Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2008 2:20 am
by Popchik
W007 for firefly!

Toast! (throws toast)

The amount of violence in inspiring

bravo!

Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2008 10:56 pm
by warman45
i liked the interaction with the environment (mainly space). it seems that there's a lot more importance placed on where you are. as well this is simmilar to a map i suggested. except that was a cold war bunker being bombed. i think this is awsome i'm gonna try it!

Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 10:56 am
by superdave
There was a lot of effort expended on environmental... adjustments. I like the idea of putting the enviro controls for a room in the room itself, but that burns through a team in a hurry. There was a lot of actual fighting, but it seemed surprisingly ineffective (with the exception of my knife-wielding companion, who made some wonderful stabbity-stab moves to great effect).

Next time, I'm not walking half of my team through a room with a wall of windows between happy, breathable air and the cold vacuum of space.

Finally, credit is due to EvilWayne and his NELUG crew, whose scenario outlines, game mechanics, and random item charts inspired many elements of this game (the Tox Uthat scenario/game elements in particular). Certain NELUG resources were blatantly stolen. Thanks for not calling the cops- I don't think I could handle a copyright-infringement investigation at this stage of my life.

stuff I stole from EvilWayne

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 8:33 pm
by Jaye Tea
awesome idea. Im a huge fan of firefly.

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 10:52 pm
by 501stCadians
*Wonders what Firefly is*
TO GOOGLE!
<INSERT>
DUN DUN DUN DUN
lol..i had <a href='http://tinyurl.com/y42zurt'>alot</a> of sugar today. I am boncing in my chair,and having a brikwars on my desk. Right now Fireteam Alpha is getting it's ass kicked by fire team bravo.