Let's Play: X-COM - UFO Defense

Welcome back! Let's try that Battleship on Veteran difficulty. Hopefully we can not have a TPK.

As mentioned earlier, shooting down Battleships is very difficult. Their weapons are strong and will generally out-range whatever armament you're packing. It's possible using the "ultimate" X-Com craft (usually, at least two) but generally, you'll just want to let them land.







We end up in a pretty good position; we only find a few foes outside with PHILLIAM 5.

(I think we're on PHILLIAM 5.)



Destil takes out the first alien...



... and spots a second.



Sectoids are real bastards with psionic attacks (see: Superhuman update on the previous page), so standard operating procedure for soldiers will be to drop their gun at the end of their turn. I'm not going to show all of the insanity, but generally, Merus, Destil, and Alixsar spend most of their turns not in their right mind.



Gerad gets a hit on that Sectoid...





...but it's not a solid hit. The retaliation attack kills him. Sorry Gerad!



Mogri avenges him (Mogri is really going to clean up this mission).



Mogri spots this Cyberdisc the following turn, but I've got plenty of soldiers to fire at it from beyond it's Reaction range.



Like Destil.



I always like opening a hole into the Battleship; there's usually always some aliens sitting near or on top of the lift, so ensuring you have an avenue to not get reaction shot from entering a door is a good think.



No alien screams, but that's okay.

Merus, for whatever reason, becomes a real lightning rod for psionic attacks. Needless to say I could probably count the times that I could use Merus's TUs (i.e. when he wasn't panicked/berserk/mind controlled) on one hand.



This alien is in a tricky location; I muse about sending a Blaster Bomb over there, but decide to cautiously approach it instead.

(Very cautiously.)



This one Sectoid wanders out. Aliens are terrible at not using doors (in fact, "movement" AI is quite poor at avoiding doors), but that works in my favour, as it knocks off a chunk of the enemy's TUs (which affects their ability to do reaction shots).



Yup.



We catch this guy floating in the distant.



For some reason, I decide that more aliens will come streaming out, and toss a proximity grenade here to catch them.

This turns out to be a horrible idea.



Another Sectoid emerges from the ship (and moves not in the direction of the proximity grenade), but Nodal takes it out.



Reibeatall shoots down the Cyberdisc with extreme prejudice (and from extreme distance).



That alien in the house keeps poking in and out of vision, so I start shooting up the place.



The game can be weird sometimes; I have no vision into the ship. I shouldn't be able to see this Sectoid at all. Oh well.



Yet another Sectoid emerges, so Mogri shoots it.



Yet another emerges, this one falling to reibeatall. These lifts are good places for proximity grenades if you can spare them.



We send PHILLIAM # in, and immediately spot two enemies.



... I... I don't understand how we're seeing this one (we definitely do not have line of sight).



Mogri gets yet another one (I think that's his third kill).

Nodal spots a Cyberdisc, but can't shoot it down (only graze it).



So we bring in some bigger ordinance.





Judging by those two Sectoid corpses, that Blaster Bomb took out at least three aliens. Keen! Go Kishi!



We keep scouting with PHILLIAM, spotting this Sectoid...





But our tank gets killed when it runs up to the top floor. You served us well PHILLIAM 4 (5? 6?)!



Mogri gets his fourth kill...



... and another Sectoid wanders out to the slaughter.



Merus: still being useless.



Mogri: dodging heroically.



Five kills. If this was an Unreal game we'd have an announcer flipping out right now.



Outside, Destil (who until then was often under psionic control) draws some reaction fire from an unseen foe.



We can't see it; perhaps the Sectoid in that house that was bothering us earlier?



PROBLEM SOLVED.

So much for that house.



We're out of Blaster Bombs so Kishi grabs a plasma rifle and joins the fray. I think this is his first time out of the Skyranger (at least, on his own volition. And by "his" volition, I mean "mine").



Merus panicks once more...



... right into that useless proximity grenade I threw ten turns ago. Whoops!



About a dozen X-Com soldiers feel their chances of promotion rise considerably.





We start moving up to the third floor. There might still be aliens on the second (and possibly still outside, although that is unlikely), but those bastards with the mind control will be up here.



We spot one...



Which CaptBlasto gets, but he doesn't have the TUs to get the second one hiding behind it.



Kishi preps a proximity grenade. They can be pretty useful on this floor to prevent aliens from sneaking round behind you.



This guy is probably the psionic jerk.



This guy is a Blaster Bomb jerk.

Wait Blaster Bomb!?



Uh oh.



But... no death screams!



Apparently the alien shot the missile into the roof (?); we all escape unharmed from the blast.

Jerk.



Now about that Grenade...



That's better.



Jackpot!



PROMOTIONS FOR EVERYBODY.

also:

NEW RECRUITS FOR EVERYBODY!

















Our next UFO appears over Africa (why are they so interested in Africa?)...



... but flies off.



Small Launchers are VERY useful. Like the ones that were used on us before, they're an AOE stun attack that we can use to capture aliens with general ease. Like small rocket launchers that aren't destructive. We're going to be short on ammunition, so we'll have to produce some more (but not right now).

Hopefully we'll run into a decent sized Sectoid ship soon...

I end up dumping a lot of Elerium and Alien Alloys from HEY AFRICA! at our new base, because I'm seriously running out of room (HEY AFRICA! has been doing the bulk of the work).



Yet another UFO start flying over Africa.



We shoot it down and send our new rookies after it.



I've been sending new armour piecemeal from BASE CAMP to HEY AFRICA; the soldiers with Power Suits are put on point as they're most likely to survive reaction shots. We can spot one alien immediately.



Snakemen! Snakemen are probably the least threatening aliens in the game pound for pound. For one, they've got low TUs, so their ability to move and fire reaction shots is poor. Secondly, they've got the worst Reaction skill of any alien. They do have slightly higher firing accuracy and health/armour over Floaters and Sectoids, but the former is hindered by their lack of TUs/Reactions, and the later is overpowered by the stronger weapons you'll be packing once you first encounter them.

They're best known for their Terror unit, which is perhaps the most famous alien in X-Com (Lobstermen probably are a distant second, but they don't appear in this game, just the "Terror from the Deep" sequel).



Plasma rifles take them out with ease.



When I get close enough to their ship, it's quite obvious that the Power Source (the most valuable part of the ship) has been blown to bits, and I figure the last Snakeman is hiding inside.



I hear a scream which indicates that I did indeed get him.



I'm sure there was more aliens with that ship (killed upon crash landing), but that Blaster Bomb probably destroyed a few of the corpses.

The kill list:

Zef: 2 kills
McClain: 1 kill
Stiv: 1 kill
jpfriction: 1 kill



Heya! Heavy Plasma is awesome. You generally want to replace your Plasma Rifles with these guys. Early on, you'll find more Rifles and Heavy Plasma, so it's generally worth putting these off until later. They're slightly less accurate, but the higher damage should make them worth it.



A large ship flies south out of sight. I send an Interceptor to patrol South Africa, but don't find anything.



This is useless to us, but the research is needed to unlock Laser Cannons, which are a popular way to make money later with Engineers.



This isn't too useful, but maybe at some point we'll get bored of base defenses, so we'll build 5-6 Fusion Ball Defences (which is at the end of this research path).



This is timed well with our new Small Launchers.



This research opens up both Flying Suits and UFO Construction, both of which are (of course) very useful. The Flying Suits are obvious, but the UFO Construction has the benefit of reducing our monthly costs; we're technically renting our Skyrangers and Interceptors!

Our funders are still pleased!

One thing to note: the funding you receive from each country will vary from game to game. The United States and Japan tend to be your biggest piggy banks, but in this game Europe is stepping it up pretty well. Monthly funding tends to just cover your labour and land costs, but if you're not sure where to position a base, consider protecting your biggest (paying) fans.

I should also note that May is usually the make or break point in the game. Why? Well, we'll find out soon...



Project IRON MAN is GO! If you've seen your character die, sign up (again) below!



We're pretty ahead on research, so we're not really researching anything critical right now. Once we start really capturing aliens we're going to have lots for our Scientists to look up on Wikipedia.







A small ship appears in Asia; we shoot it down and send a Skyranger after it. We bring along nearly a plane full of our rookies (plus a new PHILLIAM), so this should be a pretty easy mission.



We also get some more Power Suits shipped over. Stiv models it well; most of the team is wearing it now!



This is a pretty standard mission against Sectoids (the ship is found ripped to shreds), the last one of which we find hiding behind a weird wall. Junk shoots it out...





... and gets shot back in retaliation. Nuts!

Sorry Stiv, it wasn't meant to be...



Pretty slim pickings.

The kill list:

Junk: 2 kills (then killed)
Loki: 2 kills



Another ship appears in South America.



At the same time, a different ship appears near HEY AFRICA! Perhaps a supply ship?



Not a supply ship!

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY X-COM: The moment you bastards have been waiting for.

If you've been killed in action and want back in, let me know! Once we get some Flying Suits going we'll get you guys back in the action!

RESEARCH THE AREA

While research in this game is not basic, the "tech trees" are not as complex as your typical 4X game (such as Master of Orion or Civilization). It's generally pretty obvious what you need to research to "unlock" the next tier of item.

The majority of "research-able" topics in this game are not in a tree at all; as an example, you don't need to research "Plasma Pistols" to research "Plasma Rifles". Having one of the item in storage is sufficient enough to begin research on it (and usually will not "unlock" another tier of item). General comments follow each tree.

The following are the tech "trees" in the game. Thanks to the UFOpaedia for this information.

Quote:

Laser Weapons Laser Weapons -> Laser Pistol -> Laser Rifle -> Heavy Laser -> Laser Cannon -> Laser Defense (+ New Fighter Craft) -> Laser Tank

Laser Pistols are useful early in the game, but the rest of this tech tree can jump in a lake. It can be useful to get up to research Laser Cannons because they're very profitable to craft/sell, but it won't be until the late game that you really get the opportunity to start using your Engineers for the money-making game.

Quote:

Plasma Weapons Plasma Rifle + clip OR Heavy Plasma + clip -> Plasma Cannon -> Plasma Defense (+ New Fighter Craft) -> Hovertank/Plasma

You'll definitely want all of these as early as you can handle them; Hovertank/Plasma can wait, as you won't be realistically building them until you get a manufacturing base up and running.

Quote:

Fusion Weapons Blaster Launcher + Blaster Bomb -> Fusion Ball -> Fusion Ball Defense (+ New Fighter Craft) -> Hovertank/Fusion

I wouldn't worry about researching past the Blaster Launcher; Fusion Balls require Elerium to craft, so Plasma Laser and Hovertank/Plasma will generally serve you better as they don't require constant crafting.

Quote:

Armor Alien Alloys -> Personal Armor (+ Elerium-115 and UFO Power Source) -> Power Suit (+ UFO Navigation) -> Flying Suit

You'll definitely want all of this, ideally before May so you can craft some Flying Suits. Chryssalids are generally unlikely to show up before then although you can get unlucky in April.

Quote:

Aircraft Alien Alloys + Elerium-115 + UFO Power Source + UFO Navigation -> UFO Construction -> New Fighter Craft (Firestorm) -> New Fighter-Transport (Lightning) -> Grav Shield -> Ultimate Craft (Avenger)

These are all required to beat the game, but none of these ships are really necessary until then, so get the other stuff out of the way first.

Quote:

Psionics Any live Psionic Alien (Sectoid Leader or Commander, or any Ethereal) -> Psi Lab -> Psi-Amp -> Mind Shield

This should be an absolute priority; psionics breaks the game in your favour.

Quote:

Hyper-Wave Decoder Any live Alien Navigator -> Hyper-Wave Decoder

Another priority; Hyper-Wave Decoders offer 100% detection in their large area, making small and large Radars obsolete.

Quote:

Endgame Any live Alien -> Alien Origins (+ any live Alien Leader) -> The Martian Solution (+ any live Alien Commander) -> Cydonia or Bust (+ Avenger) -> Endgame

Probably self-explanatory, but unless you want to fend off Aliens for several years you'll want to research these to win the game.

Welcome back! Today we've got two ships off the bat to deal with. The first is a medium ship that landed in Columbia. The second is a TERROR attack on Nairobi. One will pay off dividends; the other will be bullshit.



The medium ship turns out to be a Sectoid one, and lucky for us we've not only researched Small Launchers, but because it's a medium ship, this craft has a Sectoid capable of using Psionics! Taking the Sectoid Leader alive is therefore of primary importance (even more-so than the Terror Mission).

This is pretty lucky, as Sectoid "appearance" ratios drop off dramatically once April hits. The game is hard-coded to have particular "percentages" of aliens on particular months of the year. Sectoids are your main opposition in January through March, accounting for about 50% of all missions (with Floaters, and to a lesser extent Snakemen, for the rest).

Once April hits, the amount of Sectoid ships you'll encounter will drop dramatically, to about half of what it was before. A new alien race (that we haven't seen yet) appears, and most importantly, Snakemen terror missions open up (they're impossible to see before then), and their chance of appearing (as opposed to Sectoid or Floater terror missions) is VERY high.

Our next big concern - an entire race of psionic beings - will potentially start appearing in June. Getting psionic capability before that happens is recommended, although difficult unless you really push it (perhaps using stun rods would work, but I've never used them so...).



The ship, being intact, is of course worth a lot. I lose PHILLIAM but given how much Heavy Plasma (and aliens) we're encountering this isn't that big a deal.

Kill counts for this mission:
ajr82: 3 kills
Falselogic: 1 kill
LancerECNM: 2 kills
Soren Highwind: 4 kills
Meditative_Zebra: 4 kills



Now for the bullshit: this game appears to have a strange way of punishing success: by defeating that alien ship, the amount of time the Terror Mission is "available" to solve drops dramatically. We're talking on the order of a few hours in game, which may be critical for refueling/rearming your ship. At the end of the last mission, our Skyranger at HEY AFRICA! was returning from a mission when the Terror attack hit. Had I not attacked that medium Sectoid ship right away, I would have the time to wait for the Skyranger at HEY AFRICA! to refuel.

But with that Sectoid ship captured, the aliens in Nairobi apparently spontaneously decide to cut their partying by the hour I need to get the ship refueled, even though they'd happily stay if I did nothing. In fact, had I simply ignored the Medium Ship for about a half an hour, I could have gotten to both. But I didn't want to replay through that Sectoid mission a second time all for the sake of dealing with this game's bullshit.

So, I took advantage of an unusual feature that the Xcomutil program does: it makes your Interceptors capable of carrying troops. Not many troops, but sending six of them is better than -1000 points I figure. I will hopefully never need to "use this" feature again, as it doesn't exist in the original game.



But then again, bullshit shouldn't either.





Incidentally, this is what Xcomutil makes the "Interceptor" look like: basically just a smaller Skyranger.



And it's Snakemen! This lovely fellow that Zef is shooting here is a Chryssalid, a.k.a. the alien that everyone talks about when they talk about this game. Chryssalids have high movement - over 100 TUs worth - and they have a very unique attack. We'll see that later tho.

Chryssalids also have pretty decent armor and health, but two good hits of Plasma will take most out. Despite the horror stories, Chryssalids aren't that bad to fight. Unless you're careless, the chances of them sneaking up on you isn't that high, as their movement will provoke plenty of reaction shots, and enemy AI being what it is, they'll often simply wander around in place. I always lose more units to the Snakemen than their terror units. Flying suits are of course, the "best" solution to Chryssalids because they lack a ranged attack. Saving TUs for reaction fire is the second solution. With care, you shouldn't have too many problems with them.



A flare lights up a second Chryssalid. This one is too close for comfort.



jpfriction gets him tho.



Loki takes care of a Snakeman lurking nearby.



This map has the benefit of one large street that cuts the map in half. These roads are well-lit, which not only reduces the need for flares, but makes it easy to snipe things from a distance. Like Zef here does.



We're going to get Kylie to take advantage of this.



McClain tries getting another Chryssalid that appears, but only manages to shoot a civilian. This is normally pretty bad, but in Snakeman terror missions it's generally better to kill the civilians than to let the Chryssalids get at them.



On the enemy's turn, that Chryssalid McClain saw and a Snakeman move into a good sniping position for Kylie.

A second appears however.



When McClain goes to investigate, he finds a Snakeman hovering near the window. It's a risk, but I have him shoot the Snakeman instead of retreat from a Chryssalid he can't see (and hopefully won't see him).



Stiv meanwhile finds a different Chryssalid lurking the west.



A Snakeman does some shopping...



... while this Chryssalid decides to pop in and say hi to McClain. Uh oh.





Chryssalids turn any enemy (save for tanks) into zombies! Tanks they generally just wreck, as the damage they "deal" is comparable to heavy plasma. The process is completely unavoidable if the Chryssalid gets close enough with the TUs to make a melee attack. However, armour is still important, as a strange bug in the game will cause the Chryssalid to continue "attacking" until the target has lost all it's hit points (despite being destined for zombification), the damage of which is hindered by armour. This can prevent the Chryssalid from jumping from unit to unit to unit with it's massive amounts of TUs.

This leads to an even stranger bug where the Chryssalid can "zombify" the target, but not "kill it", which causes the unit to continue holding it's equipment! The zombie won't use their equipment in general, although they will use it for reaction fire. It's pretty rare.



The scariest part about Chryssalids however, is that once a zombie is killed...





...they turn into Chryssalids too!



You'll therefore want to make sure that you have enough TUs available to kill not only kill zombies you see, but to kill the Chryssalid that pops out as well. Stiv here is more than man enough to kill Zombie McClain and the bastard that turned him into a monster.

Another hilarious counter measure is to have units carry around an primed grenade. The grenade will "kill" the unit before it can rise as a zombie, which will prevent it from being turned into a Chryssalid.



As I advance (with Kylie sniping from the rear... you can see her handiwork in this screenshot), I have Loki prepare to assault this shop so he can get the Snakeman inside. Note that I've both looked DOWN the street and BEHIND me.



I end the turn with him here. Next turn?



I can see an alien.



Wow. Loki, you are one lucky son of a bitch.

I mis-click and end up having Loki dance around the Chryssalid, which allows him to spot a Snakeman that wasn't there last turn. Loki shoots him...



... then the Chryssalid. Bad. Ass.



His actions spot another one...



... which our sniper...



... deals with.



This is unfortunate. Zef's last TUs are spent discovering a Snakeman is just on the border of his vision.



It ends about as well as you can imagine.



jpfriction goes shopping for Snakeskin. I thought that one Loki killed last turn was the one in the shop, but I guess not.



Loki kills what is the sixth or so Chryssalid on the map. Sheesh. I'm surprised I haven't seen any zombies (other than McClain).



A badly placed bomb reveals enough of a Snakeman for Stiv to shoot...



... while another gets killed by Reaction Fire.



The last one plays in the street, and is unceremoniously gunned down.



That went pretty well considering that we only had six X-Com agents to work with! The amount of civilians on this map was shockingly low. I dunno if I've ever seen a mere eight in a Terror mission.



While chasing after a Battleship in South America, we spot this Medium Ship too.



I probably don't have a chance at attacking "both" so I go after the Battleship, as it's worth more and I might be able to stun an Alien Commander (necessary to unlock the endgame).

The Medium Ship (the northern green "X") will likely get away, but I send the refueled Skyranger at HEY AFRICA! towards it anyway. It leaves before it can arrive as I suspect.



No big recap for the Battleship fight, but it's Sectoids (again). I hate Sectoids at this point as dropping my weapons each turn is a pain in the ass way of fighting psionics (but effective).



I especially hate their damnable Cyberdiscs. Goodbye Son of Sinistar! Perhaps your corpse will be reanimated.



Seen here: a Blaster Bomb (not mine).



It takes out MCBanjoMike, who had spent most of the mission under alien mind control. He was only standing there because he panicked all the way over. Hilariously, the Blaster Bomb explosion took out the Sectoid who fired it too!



TheSL was sadly ambushed by the last Sectoid. I had hoped he was the Commander, but no dice.



Not a pretty mission, but the losses were acceptable.



And allowed some people to move on up in the X-Com hierarchy!



NERV HQ begins to add some workshops; they can't come soon enough. I never expect to have to defend the base, but I hire 10 random soldiers who will hopefully never appear in this LP to defend it just in case.





Priority number one.



Here's our first Alien research report! I've been avoiding autopsy's on corpses and stuff because they're not really worth getting (except for lore's sake). This guy was a Leader however, so it also opens up the ability to research "Psi-Labs", which are critical.



My funds are okay, but the amount of soldiers I've been hiring has been cutting into it. For every unit you see, about four are tossed because their stats are too horrible. That means you're all worth about $100,000 each; it adds up.

Speaking of expensive hires, check out our new recruits!

This is theoretically the "best" aircraft weapon in terms of range and damage, but they're expensive to use compared to Plasma Lasers, as you need to keep replenishing the ammo. The only ship that these are "good" against are Battleships, and you generally never want to fight those.



Time for PROJECT IRON MAN! I'll make as many of these as needed, so if you die in combat and want back in, let me know in the comments! I'll hire a new soldier with your name and slap you in one of these bad-boys.



Here we go. Psionic Laboratories are a key part of the end game. They're not an instant "win" (it'll take several months to start seeing results), but they'll ensure that our losses drop dramatically in the future.



Normally I like to build a new base in the Arctic to house my Psi-labs, but that's just for thematic sake. They're much more useful where your soldiers are full-time, so I start building one in both BASE CAMP and HEY AFRICA! The one annoying thing is that they just won't be ready for the end of the month, so we'll be delayed at using them until the end of the month following this one.



This is needed to use Psionics, although it'll be a few months before we need to manufacture some.



We finish researching these too, although I'll probably sell most of the ones we find. I don't really like grenades once the mid-game hits, even if they're Alien ones. We will be able to use the ones we find on the corpses of our enemies tho, if we wish.







Our first batch of re-hires! I could technically ensure that their stats "match" the ones they were first hired with (via Xcomutil) but whatever.



We've now got decent (not great, but decent) Radar Coverage over the world. Our only real weak-spot is the southern hemisphere, particularly South Africa and Australia, but they're probably not worth building a base for.

This is the first "alien" ship you can build. I rarely do. The Firestorm is a "replacement" for your Interceptors. Ignore the "HWP" and Cargo Space; they're Xcomutil additions. Unlike your regular craft, all "alien" ships run off of Elerium, so you need to always have some on hand to re-fuel them. They're not really worth building, as you can get something better with a little more research.



Researching UFO Construction opens up several new production options, although the only one that's that useful is the Hovertank/Plasma.



The month of May has a big gap in it where there's little to no UFO activity (which I don't really mind).



This one gets intercepted near Baghdad...



... and shot down. I was actually hoping to kill it but oh well.



It's an unexciting capture. Sectoids, once again. I try capturing aliens looking for an Navigator (for the awesome Hyperwave Decoder), but no luck.

Kylie: 1 kill
Pajaro Pete: 2 kills
BEAT: 1 kill
jpfriction: 1 kill
sraymonds: 1 kill



A small alien ship flies off past Hawaii. Where's it going?



I finally get around to researching Laser Cannons; they'll be our cash cow later in the game.





A large ship appears, and flies south over India. I try checking around for a base with an Interceptor, but no luck.



The Lightning is a pretty unique ship; it can be equipped with a single weapon, and carry a 12 (not 28; that's a Xcomutil change) troops. It's most unique feature however, is that due to a bug, there's are multiple exits that your soldiers can use! Rather than unloading your troops through a single entrance, there are four you can choose from (although only one has a "ramp").

The Lightning however cannot carry tanks. It's a cool ship, but the next ship is only one research topic away, and is overall, a lot better. I might build one later for kicks tho.



Until then...



May was kind of a slow month, but we've still haven't seen anyone go over the side of the devils, so that's a relief.



I find this amusing graph when I check the stats. Antarctica? The only way the score would be THIS high over there would be if the aliens decided to set up a base in the stupidest place imaginable.

Now, depending on how you're doing you might want to take advantage of this; the problem with most Alien Bases is that they're a small drain on your score each month, and if they exist too long, chances are the "host" country will cut off X-Com funding.

With Antarctica however, the chance of losing funding is nil. If desired, I could exploit this, as enemy supply ships would be coming regularly. By building a nearby base I could assault from, I could exploit it pretty easily without any real consequence (the points from successful assaults would outweigh any negatives). However, I don't want to drag this game out so.

So I form a team to find and assault it.



Another small Sectoid ship appears near HEY AFRICA! I shoot it down and recover it.



It's worth very little, although both Gerad II and Red Hedgehog II pick up their first official "kills".



Sure enough, our Skyranger from BASE CAMP finds the aliens dug into the frozen reaches of Antarctica.



It's a Floater base, which might explain why they set up camp in the stupidest place on earth.



Humourously, they also decide to put the control room right next to the access lift.



I decide to take advantage and open an easy path to the alien "leaders"



Sadly, the alien leaders have Blaster Bombs too. This one not only kills the PHILLIAM we brought along AND Yimothy, but the Alien Commander too! I wanted him alive!



Despite the low amount of casualties, numerous soldiers get injured.

Kill tally:
ajr82: 4 kills
Terafi: 1 kill
Yimothy: 1 kill (dead)
Lucas: 4 kills
Meditative_Zebra: 1 kill
Soren Highwind: 1 kill



We've got plenty of backup soldiers thankfully, and better four soldiers injured than four soldiers dead.



Another small ship gets shot down. No score screen: the lone survivor was killed by a Blaster Bomb from sraymonds.



Three things before we end this update: A nice shot of all three of our bases in one picture. And...



... two Hovertanks in production at NERV HQ. These will happily replace the PHILLIAMs we've lost multiple times this update. But they need a name! Any suggestions? Finally...





... a terror mission to end the update (because that picture is awesome).

Once again, if you've been killed in combat and want back in, let me know! I've got seven Flying Suits I'm not using, and can make more with relative ease.

Mission recaps are going to become even less frequent; we're into a point in the game where you're really going through the motions. I'm not sure how exciting I'll be able to make it look, but I'll give it a shot.

See you next time!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eddie Our first batch of re-hires! I could technically ensure that their stats "match" the ones they were first hired with (via Xcomutil) but whatever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eddie two Hovertanks in production at NERV HQ. These will happily replace the PHILLIAMs we've lost multiple times this update. But they need a name! Any suggestions?

1. Obey orders
2. Combat aliens
3. Protect humanity
4. Don't shoot power cores