It’s been a long, long time since the last update, but the Ministers have not been inactive! In these times of Coronavirus, being unable to meet in person, we have decided to launch the inaugural season of the Ministry of Arguments Virtual Endurance Championship!

Several of us being fans of endurance racing (a race which is either a set long distance, or a set amount of time and whoever drives the most laps wins) we have decided to set up our own series using the Project Cars 2 racing simulator.

Provisionally, the MOAR VEC will include the following races:

The Hour and Twenty Minutes of Sebring (At Daytona)
The Sixty Minutes of Silverstone
The Sixty Minutes of Monza
The Sixty Minutes of Spa
The Two Hours and Forty Minutes of Le Mans

Allowed car classes will be:

LMP900 – Le Mans prototype racers from ca. 2000 – 2005
GT3 – Street car based “grand touring” racers
GT4 – Street car based “grand touring” racers

We held an inaugural practice session of the Two Hours and Forty Minutes of Le Mans several weeks ago, and it went well. Both of the Ministers who participated are still honing their skills, but by the end of the race our fastest laptimes were within a few seconds of each other, so we expect things to get quite competitive throughout the inaugural VEC season, as we will be racing tracks with which each of us are less familiar.

Bring on the racing!

In tonight’s episode, the Ministers sell a lot of gently used cars, and blow some things up.

Yes, fair readers, it has been a while since our last update. Fear not! For the Ministers of Argumentation have not been idle. Much has been accomplished! Many bandits have been vanquished! Many vehicles have been acquired and then sold on at a profit! Many other vehicles have been crashed… and, er… some helicopters. And one car, which was dropped from the skies. But that’s for later!

The Ministers (now regularly three strong, having been reinforced by their old friend Hecuva, he of the land of Hurricanes) have found the placement of Ministry HQ to be most advantageous. It lies alongside a dirt road which is regularly traveled by bands of armed brigands. The Ministry feels that it is only their duty to rid the lands of Altis from such undesirable traffic, and so they have fought many a battle against these evil forces. Ministry HQ is now regularly the site of pitched battles – picture it thus: surrounding the shiny (if slightly tarnished and…er… shoddy) tower of Ministry HQ is a band of armed thieves. The Ministers rush to their fighting positions! Hecuva,  to his vehicle of choice, which usually involves a large gun on the roof. Noberino and The Monkey to the fighting top armed with rifles, usually of late with underslung grenade launchers.

And then the fight begins! Woe to the enemy, for the grenades of Monkey and the Noob rain down upon their heads like the rain upon the seas which were formerly Noah’s front lawn. The speeding projectiles propelled from the heavy machinegun on the roof of Hecuva’s Strider turn their vehicles to a swiss cheese so delectable that someone occasionally tries to make a sandwich out of it.

This usually involves a second, or third, or eleventeenth set of bandits who come speeding down the road, only to crash in to the remains of the previous bunch of bandits, thus sandwiching their vehicles – and occasionally their comrades – firmly together. These new arrivals are speedily dispatched by our heroes, and when practicable,  their vehicles are removed to the parking area behind HQ (aka the Helipad) for later transport to the recycler’s shop to be turned in to poptabs.

On a recent night, this was the scene after a few such pitched battles:

All of these vehicles were shortly transformed into poptabs, that wonderful currency of the land, and thence into vehicles of all kinds: armed Striders, spare Ifrits, and yes, even some helicopters. Having been dissatisfied with his Huey, Nooberino has added several more of these birds of freedom and justice to the Ministry Aviary. There is a Taru, useful for moving large objects (of which again, more later) there was also a Pawnee, until Hecuva was killed with a single shot by what must have been the world’s greatest assassin, while flying it. The Pawnee did not survive, but after last night’s fracas The Noob acquired another.

Having helicopters of course lead to discussions of inventive ways with which to use them to better decimate the enemy forces. Not content with simply flying in, guns blazing and rockets firing, (oh no! much too pedestrian!) Our Heroes soon discovered the ability to HALO jump out of the helicopters. This was all well and good, but since the “real” military is able to deploy fighting vehicles by dropping them in to combat from helicopters, why couldn’t the ministers do the same?

And so it was time for some “scientific” testing. Our Heroes procured a Lada sedan which had surely lived out its useful life. The Noob slung it beneath the Taru, and proceeded to drop it from 100m in the air. The car survived, with nary a popped tire or a single bit of damage! A second attempt was made, this time from 200m up, with identical result! Now it was time for, as they say, the rubber to meet the road. The Monkey shed all of his gear, (and in the best tradition of those about to do something extremely stupid) drank several of Hausmann’s finest beers, and stepped in to the driver’s seat of the Lada. The Noob slung the car beneath the mighty Taru and took it up to an altitude of no less than 400m.

Ladas away! The Monkey did his very absolute best job of not screaming like a little girl plummeting to her death while locked in an old Soviet era sedan being dropped from beneath a helicopter. Unfortunately, his best was not enough, and his squeal of terror was heard for miles.

The rubber literally met the road when the Lada impacted with a mighty “THUD.”

There was no explosion. The Monkey was hurt, but ALIVE!

He got on the radio, and transmitted up to the Noob – who was hovering expectantly overhead – “Hey, that wasn’t that bad. I’m down to about 50% health, but I think I’m going to be jus…”
At that moment, the Lada exploded in a gigantic fireball.

Airborne operations in old Soviet sedans are not a good idea, even for the Ministry.

At the beginning of the evening, El Nooberino spent some time at Ministry HQ. He managed to get in a firefight with a group of roving bandits who had a Dingo. He was able to kill all of the bandits and secure the Dingo to sell. When Deadly Monkey signed on, the Noob was at the traders and needed a ride home. Monkey fetched the Ifrit from the garage and went to pick him up. Unfortunately, upon arrival at the Airfield, it soon became evident that all was not well with the server. Our heroes signed off and tried to sign back on, but no Dice (pun intended). Fortunately, the Se7en Gaming crew was on the job and the server was back up in short order.

After that little issue was cleared up, the Dynamic Duo went to the main Office, and upgraded the Ministry HQ from a level 2 territory to a level 4 territory. At level 4 you can respawn at your base, but periodically teams of AI will parachute in to attack your territory. This would later prove an important point. They then decided to go collect some construction supplies that were being guarded by a group of soldiers off to the northeast. They took fire from random directions for much of their drive in, which was worrisome. However, they established a good sniping position on a hill about 800m from the enemy camp, and went to work. The Noob took out the driver of a Humvee with his first shot, and then the gunner followed him in short order. Meanwhile, Monkey eliminated the crews of three of the four static gun emplacements. While Monkey picked off a few soldiers who were trying to close in, Nooberino covered the main enemy base. Unfortunately, he stood up at an inopportune moment and a bullet intersected with his head.

Fortunately, Monkey was able to use the magic defibrillator that repairs bullet wounds, and the Noob was back in the fight. While all of that was going down, a nearby friendly took out several enemy who were getting a little too close for comfort, and then volunteered to eliminate the last gun crew as well. With that taken care of, our lovable idiots moved in for the loot. After everything was loaded up, they took the long sloooow drive (Humvees have issues tying to tow Ural trucks) back to the Airfield.

Just as they finished up selling the loot, Hecuva signed on for the evening as well. Three Ministers at once! Would the enemy stand a chance?

Of course they would.

After picking up Hecuva, who was picking (and winning) his own fight with a group of soldiers near a military base, the three Ministers returned to HQ. They decided to go after a group of bandits guarding some more construction supplies. After arrival on site, night fell, which proved unfortunate for those without NV compatible scopes. They were able to pick of many of the enemy, but then it was time for a server restart.

After the restart, the Ministers returned to HQ with the intent of setting out on another mission. However, these plans were soon brought to a halt by the arrival of a roving gang of bandits, who were driving an SUV equipped with a minigun. This quickly had the expected results of dead Monkey and dead Hecuva. Since the HQ was now a level 4 base, Hecuva quickly respawned while Monkey waited for a revive from El Nooberino. Nooberino was able to hit the enemy with several grenades, which disabled the SUV. He then revived Monkey, and they picked off the remaining bandits. Hecuva made a beeline for the SUV, and when it was repaired, he quickly adopted it as his very own (temporary) ride.

More teams of bandits appeared on scene in quick order – one group in a Golf, which was rapidly turned to swiss cheese by Hecuva’s minigun, then another group in a HEMMT transporter, which Noob took back to the airbase to sell after it was quickly disabled by Hecuva’s minigun and it’s crew had been hit by repeated grenade rounds. While the Noob was off playing used car dealer, Hecuva and Monkey engaged another group with a Humvee. Noob and Hecuva took the Humvee off to sell it, and when they were gone, Ministry HQ experienced its first paratrooper attack.

Monkey attempted to shoot the paratroopers while they were on their way down, but frankly he’s not that good a shot. All five enemy made it to the ground. Fortunately, Hecuva and the Noob had returned in the armed SUV, and the three teammates made quick work of the paratroopers.

After that battle, the Monkey needed some rest, so he prepared to sign off for the evening. The last thing that he heard was Nooberino and Hecuva discussing that they had sighted some bandits with a Hunter MRAP…

In the aftermath of the siege at MoA HQ, El Nooberino and Deadly Monkey had some conversations about the architecture of the HQ building itself. These discussions centered around how it would be good to make the building more defensible, and in particular how it would be nice to have it made from something where you didn’t need to worry about getting shot through the walls and floors. In this game, that means one thing: concrete.

Monkey had some free time yesterday afternoon, so he took a look around the HQ building and drew up a supplies list. Fortunately, the Ministry had been storing construction materials for a while, and in their supply chest they had a fair amount of bags of cement. In order to put up concrete perimeter walls on the first level, however, Monkey realized that he was going to need junk metal. A lot of junk metal. He threw some of the cement bags, along with water and fuel canisters, into the Ifrit and headed out.

At the trader, Monkey purchased some bags of sand and as much junk metal as he could cram into the Ifrit. He took all of this over to the apartment complex where he used to rent a room, because the owner had promised use of that most rare commodity: a cement mixer. Monkey spent the next several hours making repeated runs to his old apartment to use the mixer, and then back to HQ to drop off the results, back to the traders for more supplies, and so on. At the end, though, the Ministry HQ building had a first floor with concrete exterior walls. Result!

Once El Nooberino signed on later that evening, the two decided to run some missions. First up was the elimination of some gunrunners who had been spotted northwest of the main airfield. This was accomplished in relatively short order and with little drama. This worried our heroes.

While they were disposing of the spoils of the first mission, they spotted some grave robbers to the northeast of their usual haunts. There was a server restart coming up, but our intrepid duo like a challenge, so they headed in that direction. They began by setting up a sniper position on what the Noob had christened Hill Asshat. Unfortunately, Hill Asshat was nearly 2km from the enemy, so while they could put rounds in the general vicinity, server lag was preventing them from actually hitting anything. As a result, they relocated to a new position. Bypassing Hill Beavis, they decamped to Hill Cartman. Hill Cartman was about 850 meters from the targets, which is perfect sniping range for Monkey’s MAR-10 .338 Lapua Magnum rifle. They set up their new position and went to work. Monkey was putting point fire on the enemy while Nooberino was laying down suppression with a series of light machineguns, which provided amusing side commentary. “Bangbangbangbangbangbang….. nope, that one sucks.” “Bangbangbang…. dammit, that one sucks too.” “Bangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbang… Oh, this one’s pretty good.” Weapons testing is hard work. They eliminated most of the enemy quickly, being under time constraints. One pesky soldier managed to advance to within 400m of the Minsters, but a lucky snap shot from Monkey put him down as well. The heroes absconded with the crate of launchers and the covered Ural truck just in time for the server restart.

Upon return to ministry HQ, it was time for some relaxation on the rooftop deck. For the Ministers, this meant more weapons testing! Nooberino had managed to get his hands on a .408 caliber M320 sniper rifle which was liberated from the grave robbers. Various sheep, buildings, trees, rocks, and other innocent inanimate objects soon had large holes punched in them, all the way out to 1.8km away from HQ. During this testing, a group of bandits in an armored Dingo (the vehicle, not the baby-eating wild dog) spotted our heroes and soon HQ was under siege yet again. Unfortunately, these bandits were much better shots than the previous group had been, and they were making use of the heavy machinegun mounted on the dingo. The Ministers had to make good use of their defibrillators and the supply of Instadocs that they had laid in for just such an occasion. Finally, Monkey was able to put a grenade launcher HE round on the Dingo, which disabled it by destroying the tires, and the remaining crew bailed out. Nooberino took several of them out with his own grenades, and then the two picked off the remaining bandits one by one.

Monkey, who had an early morning coming up, signed off and left Nooberino to collect the spoils – including the Dingo, which is worth 60,000 tabs just by itself. Given the proximity of the HQ building to a bandit route and the frequency of bandit patrols, this suggests a new money making opportunity for the Ministry. First, however, some more concrete work is in order…