Your pilot spends some time reading the overview of the Ironside you provided, while you receive a wide array of thoughts and plans to pursue. While some are more set on using heavier parts to improve your survivability and open up more options in terms of weapons and other parts you can support, others indicate that the preference of your pilot is paramount in this decision.
Since you don't know what those preferences are, you follow one of the first pieces of advice: to ask.
What do you want to do?
The man in your cockpit frowns at the screen, where you replaced the Ironside's information with your question. “Why would the repair station...” He shakes his head. “What do I want?” he reads aloud.
There's a pause as he considers that, looking up and away from the text on the screen in front of him. “What do I want?” He remains uncertain for the span of a few seconds, until his expression changes once more, into one you haven't seen before.
Teeth clenching together and hands tightening into white-knuckled fists, Pilot Assist informs you of this new emotion: rage. “I want to kill the hex,” he growls.
Hex? You can't find any reference to the word, but even without that, it is quite clear your pilot intends to go down a path filled with battle. With that being the case, the suggestions of your disparate subcomponents align here.
Suggestion: Equip heavier components to increase survivability in battle. Additionally, the improved load limit of heavier legs will allow for a wider choice of weapon configurations in the future.
With his eyes scanning the message, the human begins to smile. “The future? Yeah right.” Despite the unclear meaning of his words, he reaches out to tap at your screen, even though you don't have anything displayed besides your own message. After a couple rapid taps, you clear that away and replace it with the repair bay's Assembly menu again.
The man immediately opens the Inventory section. While his eyes begin to scan down the list of available frames, you change the information you append to each. Rather than their model IDs, you instead fill in their height and weight class, for him to see at a glance.
-Ray Frames-
Bogatyr MK1 (Custom) – Bay 3
Octagon MK1 – Repair Bay 1
Ocelot (Custom) – Bay 9
Ironside – Repair Bay 7
Avenger (Custom) – Trash
Comet – Repair Bay 5
You still don't know the height of the Bogatyr since you have none of your own records, but the repair bay has its weight logged at least.
“Alright, let's just...” your pilot says, even as he taps on the Octagon. He's already selecting its legs, even as you consider that you should replace your damaged arms first, before doing anything with your legs.
You pop a message up beside the repair bay's menu to inform the pilot of that, but he doesn't look at it until he's already selected to remove the legs from the Octagon. You briefly consider not sending the message to the repair bay to do so, but soon decide to go through with it anyway.
By now, he's looked to the warning to deal with your arms first, muttering, “Oops.” He shrugs, turning your head just enough to see the repair bay across the hanger getting to work turning the Octagon around as it works on disconnecting the legs.
While it works on that, your pilot returns to the hanger's Inventory to look over the frames for a second time. He scans down each one, frowning. “Can't get the Bogatyr, Ocelot, or Avenger, right? That just leaves Octagon, or Ironside... or the Ibex,” he tags on, seeing the already deconstructed frame's parts still listed below.
In response to his thoughts, you make another suggestion.
Forcing the jammed storage bay doors open will allow access to the Bogatyr frame. This may be possible by temporarily equipping the heaviest available parts.
You pause for a moment while he scans the new message, eyebrows, drawn together in a look of concern. Having mentioned the Bogatyr, you also feel it's relevant to mention the Ocelot, and append another section onto your message already on-screen.
The Ocelot is behind repair bay 3 and may be retrieved manually if this frame is small enough.
You tag the last bit onto the end when you remember how narrow the gap between the machine and the storage bay are. If you change out your parts for larger ones, you'll have a much harder time squeezing in there. Of course, that'll be extra hard with the current state of your arms.
Looking back over their statuses, you note that while your left arm is completely dead, the right one is still functional in a limited capacity. While most of the wiring was burned out, there are a few parts still operational. Now that your chi function is at one hundred percent again, it might theoretically be possible to drag the Ocelot a short distance.
Alternatively, perhaps swapping one of your arms for the Ibex or Octagon arms would still allow you to make it through the gap. Double checking each, the Ibex arms appear to be smaller and closer to the size of yours.
For further information, you check through your Secondary Storage.
Ocelot – 9 meter, 50 ton. Classification: Harasser. Produced by Sonora Tech in 2046, this lightweight frame focuses on high speed, allowing it to outmaneuver larger opponents. Its small size and weight allow it to be produced cheaply, while remaining quite effective. A very popular lightweight frame.
Notable traits: Highly effective for its price point.
According to your notes, it's even lighter than you are, designed for harassing enemies with its superior speed. The opposite of the larger, heavier frame your pilot is interested in. And that's not to mention, it's missing one of the arms you'd think to cannibalize anyway.
You immediately drop that plan and clear the suggestion from your monitors, in favor of focusing on the pilot's choice of arms. He's currently blinking at your monitors in confusion, glancing repeatedly between the now-blank section of screen where your message was, and the repair bay's Inventory menu.
There's a quick back and forth with the repair bay, letting you collect the information on each arm available, to better help your pilot make a decision between them. While you're working on that, he says, “What the hell is happening right now?”
He doesn't give any real indication of what that's supposed to mean, so you finish putting together a visual table for him to use, containing the pertinent information of each arm. You display that beside the inventory menu while he's still looking about, somewhere between confusion and distress.
Right Arms
Part
Ibex
Zera
Octagon
Ironside
Location
Inventory
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Bogatyr
Octagon
Ironside
Weight
8 tons
7 tons
9.5 tons
15 tons
Sized For
9 meters
9 meters
10 meters
11 meters
Speed
Medium
Medium-Fast
Medium
Slow
Armor
Medium
Medium-Low
Medium-High
Very High
Hardpoints
5
7
3
6
Sockets
5
7
2
3
Internals
Ammo Storage (2), Weapon Feed
Small Phaser, Ammo Storage, Fuel Storage, Weapon Feed
Ammo Storage, Recoil Suppressor, Reinforced Internal Structure, Weapon Feed
Medium Rifle, Ammo Storage (2), Reinforced Internal Structure
Left Arms
Part
Ibex
Fire Dog
Octagon
Ocelot
Ironside
Location
Inventory
Bogatyr
Octagon
Ocelot
Ironside
Weight
8 tons
8 tons
9.5 tons
5 tons
15 tons
Sized For
9 meters
? meters
10 meters
9 meters
11 meters
Speed
Medium
Medium
Medium
Fast
Slow
Armor
Medium
Medium
Medium-High
Low
Very High
Hardpoints
5
6
3
3
66
Sockets
5
3
2
3
3
Internals
Ammo Storage (2), Weapon Feed
Ammo Storage, Grapple Line, Medium Rocket Launcher, Long Range Radio Scanner, Small Heatsink
Recoil Suppressor, Reinforced Internal Structure, Heatsink
Combat Grapple, Extra Engine
Medium Rifle, Ammo Storage (2), Reinforced Internal Structure
You throw the two tables across each side of the cockpit's screens, with the left arms off to the left, and the right arms on the right, giving your pilot plenty of information to make his decision.
Among everything you put on display, the only piece you can't find is the size of the Fire Dog frame. The Bogatyr's left arm comes from that model, but no such reference exists anywhere in your memory, just like the Bogatyr itself. You're forced to leave that single thing blank, while the rest is filled in.
Next, you add your current arms beside each box. However, the heavy damage makes the information available inaccurate, and you have to extrapolate many parts from your slightly less damaged right arm to fill in for you left arm.
NC-CMT.RA 40%
Weight: 5 tons
Speed: Slow
Armor: Low
Hardpoints: 4
Sockets: 4
Internals: Small Phaser, Heatsink, Extra Resilient Wiring
Hardpoint 2: Flat Armor Plate
Socket 3: Small Phaser
NC-CMT.LA 17%
Weight: 5 tons
Speed: None
Armor: Low
Hardpoints: 4
Sockets: 4
Internals: Heatsink, Extra Resilient Wiring
Hardpoint 2: Flat Armor Plate
For good measure, you finish off by including your own overall status, far off to the left side where it is visible, but won't distract from anything else. You mainly mix together the information from the repair bay, along with a little of your own.
Frame: Comet
Size: 9 meters
Weight: 55 tons
Condition: Damaged
Armor Integrity: 65%
Internal Integrity: 75%
Structural Integrity: 69%
Ammunition: 0%
Fuel: 24%
Warnings:
No weapons
No ammunition
Low fuel
Left arm destroyed
Right arm critical
Right hand critical
Computer system damaged
Cockpit hatch destroyed
With all of that finally done, you return your attention to your pilot. He's just staring, wide eyed and unblinking at the information arrayed around him. You give him some time to take it all in, while also considering things for yourself.
----------------------------------------
Vote:
[ ] Suggest specific parts to use
-Which?
[ ] Investigate more information on other parts or systems
-Which?
[ ] Work on getting access to the currently inaccessible frames
[ ] Write-in