Crouching Squaddie

Captain Melanie Unger, 2 Commanders, names forgotten, but somewhere Squad of 10 was poised to breach the entry way into the second part of a base with sufficient TU's for reaction fire. A Tasoth came out and took a few sonic cannons to the chest and dropped. sadly, the door was still open, a DP missile came through and the captain, with the two commanders next to her were instantly turned into pink mist. All the surrounding troops were injured. I immediately scrubbed the mission and reloaded the save point, since my base busting squad were my top ranking officers (captain, commanders, lieutenants only). Sadly, the only save was after I unloaded the triton in the first turn. wouldn't you turn back the clock as well to save your captain and the other hi ranking officers?

NAME: Michael Wong Callsign: tweak AGE: 30 HEIGHT: 5'7 WEIGHT: 138 lbs (~55kg) COLOR OF- ..............Hair: black ..............Eyes: - brown ..............Complexion: clear, and pale, light signs of tanning POSTURE (WALK): slouched posture when walking, needs to actively correct his posture. short strides in his walk, but 'normal' walking pace for him is fast. APPEARANCE- ..............Physical distinctions: odd scaring around his face, neck and arms. ..............Dress distinctions: wears clothes 1-2 sizes too big for him. MAIN CHARACTER TRAIT: not a good leader, but makes as a useful advisor to situations. he can't handle being the center of anything, but is comfortable being the one pushing the buttons in the rear. SECONDARY CHARACTER TRAIT: very quiet and shy with new people he meets. takes months weeks for him to open to anyone, but has a bad habit of opening TOO much. AMBITION- ..............Desires: try to find a comfortable niche in life, and forget the tortures from his past life. ..............Goals: be a great doctor, but just not the best. OCCUPATION: highly skilled, above average paid ER doctor in Beth Israel Hospital in New York City. and part time floater pharmacist for a major pharmacy chain. NATIONALITY: 2nd Generation Chinese-American SOCIAL CLASS- ..............In childhood: - the whiz kid nerd who doubled as a punching bag for the bullies until college. ..............At present: - upper middle class, still paying off student loans IQ: - above average. EDUCATION: dual majored in college to become a doctor and pharmacist, and army reserve. HOME LIFE- ..............When growing up: (attitude toward parents, grandparents, siblings & friends) dysfunctional family, was mostly submissive towards his elders due to piety, altough some of his warrented disagreements were responded to a swift beating. Older siblings help was variable, hard to relate to those that were 10 and 12 years older. In his high school/ college years, he was very introverted, and gave up fighting his family, and decided to bide his time. Childhood and high school friends were few, and he didn't stay in contact with them after college. College friends were few, but very close. ..............Present attitudes toward above and toward a loved one: Less strained relationship with the elders, the distance between them all has helped that. However, feelings of animosity towards them quickly surface within 15 minutes of talking to any of them. Relationship with siblings is a little closer, now that they're all out of college, and working. Rarely gets to see them due to his schedule College friends are a second family. He see's them on a more regular basis, and feels closer to them. He is saddened that he is the only one of the bunch who is still single. AMUSEMENTS, HOBBIES, PLEASURES: enjoys to read romance and science fiction novels, watch the food network, TLC, discovery, and history channels. He plays various computer games and consoles. FAULTS: talks too much to those he's gotten close too. but even if he's opened up to the person, he never completely trusts them. RELIGION: Agnostic (acknowledges/ believes there is a (or several) higher being in the universe, but does not fully accept any established religion) MORALS: sees things in black white and mostly gray. As much as he hates the gray, he enjoys it too. He curses and smiles when he tells himself, guess thats that helps make it gray. SEXUAL DRIVE: heterosexual, Minimal experience, but horny as a high-schooler. FRUSTRATIONS, IRRITATIONS: Hates those who like to use force as intimidation, while appreciates and understands it. Wants to teach every cocky person humility. INNER CONFLICTING FRUSTRATIONS: he never completely trusts anyone, nor would be become surprised if he was betrayed and his personal details were spread like wildfire. He is never completely happy, nor sad. Although he becomes emotionally attached to people over time, signs of apathy creep out sometimes. Wants high seats of power, but doesn't want the attention, therefore doesn't grab them. TEMPERAMENT: outwardly patient and nice with people. If someone is really pissing him off, he only masks and suppresses his anger. SUPERSTITIONS: IMAGINATION: Swings in extremes; vivid, violent scenarios of revenge on his past real life demons and a calm, relaxing recurrent fantasies of him looking out to various backgrounds. In those fantasies, he is always smiling, spooning a faceless woman, and looking out together. UNUSUAL AND/OR HABITUAL GESTURES: - flails his arms alot when talking to those he's warmed up to. CHARACTERISTIC MANNER OF SPEAKING: - very soft spoken, almost a mumble when talking to many (unless he's opened up to them). stutters with everyone VOICE (sound): moderately deep, frequented with his voice cracking. FIRST IMPRESSION ON OTHERS: nerd who's will can be easily broken and subsequently bossed around. POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS: none at the moment, is a mix between republican and democratic. OTHER: Being the weak, shy nerd, Michael was frequently bullied and picked on up until college. The remaining permanent scars from the cuts, bruises, and chemical burns on his upper body, face, arms, and hands are evidence of it. Although he has poor people skills, and lacks confidence in social settings, he has high confidence in his own abilities and decisions, and rarely yields when he knows he is in the right. CHARACTER GROWTH: Has been called to active duty in several occasions as a medic. Although he is physically weaker than the average soldier, his knowledge in human anatomy has helped him in combat situations. People are not entirely sure of his abilities as a 'medic' due to his timidness, and are only persuaded by seeing him in action or hearing tales of it. Other stats Strength - below average (for a soldier) above average for a civilian Speed - Average Agility - Average Character's Mental Condition - Stable, but dances on the edge when stressed. Main skills - Medic. (he's only army reserve) Psionic Strength - High (89 - actual value on a developed character i had once named seigfried berger. he spent 97 days healing once before psi labs were discovered. good thing i didn't fire him) Psionic potential - Above average now, can become high Bravery - low Weapons - Smalll arms - Average. Heavy Arms - below average Rifles - Average in combat, Highly accurate (but not elite enough to put 12 rounds through 1 hole ) if in a sniper position Grenades - hit or miss. either hes dead on, or waaaaay off. He should lob grenades only if no one else around him can. Close quarter - Average. Combat style - Aims to disable, incapacitate. But can kill if need be. Character's Controller - Public Introduce him into the plot after Psionic labs are actually fully researched. (so thats gonna be a loooong way to go) See him introduced in Terror mission in nyc? or a city where the poor guy is vacationing. xcom soldier saves the doctor, but gets injured and knocked out in the process. Doctor patches him up, hides him. Soldier wakes up after Skyranger pulls out, success of mission is TBA. Soldier is watched over and somehow calmed by the doctor (without drugs) until picked up by the clean up crew. Somehow get him placed as a medic into a combat group, and eventually considered as a powerful psi-soldier when the R&D screen him (since his combat skills are limited). (I'm assuming X-com will be screening soldiers for psi susceptibility, and subsequent squad placement, when Psionics are better understood?) IF(?) /when he is placed in a xcom base, (hopefully by the time psi labs are around, there will be several xcom bases) he'll be frowned upon by the other soldiers because he's not as good as them, and he'll be intimidated by them. He inially wins them over by being able to patch the wounded exceptionally well, and after training, he'll be able to keep up with squad movement, but his aim would still be lacking for the most part. but if he's not working too well, just whack him, but make his death a good death. (i can only picture some generalities for the guy. my imagination is spotty to come up with vivid, linear details like everyone else)

don't know if this was mentioned, but, while manufacturing fusion ball launchers as secondary income, i got a message in geoscape saying 'not enough special materials to produce fusion ball launcher' (well, not in those exact words, but that dreaded message when saying you're out of materials. i wondered, what special materials? all it needs is money....right? i checked my inventory at my only manufacturing base, and one thing i started wondering was 'where's that cache of 1000 alien alloys i had here?' i checked the inventory of my storage base (stores and defenses) just to make sure i didnt accidently transfer the alloy. 0 alloy. i reloaded a game from few in-game-months back, and started production, and it seems the fusion ball launcher uses alien alloys (even though in the production queue, it claims to only use $$) all core game files are un-modified, no xcomutil was used, the hack util wasnt used, etc, etc.... guess there's a flaw in kasey changs faq about cost-effect for $...but not all his fault. back to selling laser cannon's on the black market.

scientists/ engineers hired legit research and manufacturing was untouched only areas where i cheated: base build times were quartered soldier stats increased (except PSI skills/ Training, left that to come on its own. when they're superhuman already, psi-amps arent that essential) soldier heal times were quartered (reloaded when anyone died) - cheater or not, i hate to lose a soldier (maybe thats why i can't beat the starcraft campaign....i refrain from losing units, even the zergs...)

I'm a little ashamed cuz I cheated in some areas. (only things that were not corrupted by my lazy/impatient/ cheating ass were the money, Research, Manufacturing, planes, weapons, PSI skills/ PSI training, Inventories.) Why do i still recall the time my Commander got hit with a blaster shell, the last time I played the game Legitimately 3 years ago. (yeah, its bad to start the game back up as a cheater) by now you guys are prob cursing me...

UK's funding was 483,000 My cost of maintenance was still less than that of th Nations' income, even marginally. If I'm paid at end of the month based on the last months report card, I should still gaining money. it is silly to question 2 million lost when compared to the 20+ million from alien tech sold each month, but Xcom's inhouse accountant's are screaming... Off topic, anyone ever salvage the weapons of a Firestorm thats 50% damaged and sell it off since it's faster to just build a new one. (assuming I do have a surplus of materials)?

yeah, the maintenance figure included the saleries, the non-hybrid craft leases, base upkeep.

Current End of month balance @2300 hrs = 41, 210, 252 Current Funding = 13, 419, 000 Current Total Maintenance cost for all bases = 11,020,000 At rollover = Funding Change = + 1,336,000, but, UK has been infiltrated (How, I don't know, all UFO's were intercepted. oh well) New Funding = 14,755,000 Maintenance = 11,020,000 Theoretical Net = 3,735,000 BUT Beginning Month Balance = 38, 876, 252 Nothing was purchased Nothing is in my production queue. Yet, I just lost ~2million. Are there undocumented costs?

lol, this is what happens when the DSL cuts out and when i find a way to fix my own 'problem' NKF pops in. btw NKF, i tried that between my initial post your reply and the first thing that happened was all the new researched facilities were unavailable. a person needs to manually go into the files copy the values that correspond with prices, and ignore the keys that lock/unlock the facility. gotta love hatfarm's documentation of those files on his site

would it be possible for the editor to 'update' any select saved game's facil.dat file to reflect price changes made to the .exe in a future version? as it stands, changes to facility costs only affect future new games. (was funky manually transcribing a newly generated facil.dat's prices to an old one in a hex editor) 1 quarter the build time, but 4 times the price and maintanence

i wonder why it was removed, but i'll have to read up on the disappearing bug. well, heavy laser sucked anyway, so i didnt use it. sadly, when i played xcom for a second time, it was to explore what i could edit with the hex editor. needless to say, i only tweaked with the transfer, obdata, base construction times, soldier stats back then. I did giggle a bit, mostly at the absurdity when I turned the laser pistol into a death ray - 1% to fire anything, 150% accuracy all around, and 250 damage. cant recall if i shot apart a UFO or not. but the fun died after 2 miision when even a rookie was more deadly than a sectopod or blaster bomb launcher. also i laugh and cried when a shot somehow missed and the friendly fire killed.

when engaging the battleships, the odds of 1 or more power sources remaining intact seems to increase when multiple crafts are used instead of just 1 lone avenger. (i could be wrong, and these were all flukes) noticed in 6 attempts so far on the same battleship 3 with lone avenger, 3 with 1 of each of the hybrid crafts lone avenger left 1 or none of the power sources in all 3 attempts 2 'legs' completely blown away when i landed for the salvage operation in one of attempts team effort left 2-3 intact in all three attempts. ----- nifty trick to 'test' if the powersources are still intact while its still in the fog of war / unexplored area (if no smoke is present): (useful for those in dire need of E-115 and need to reload the interception) glide the slector icon around the power source region, and you will see a sillhouette of either an intact PS or a crumpled one. one distinguishing feature is when the icon is right behind the PS - if the front edge of the box that is usally facing you is obstructed, its an intact PS, if you see the edge is a little broken, its a smoldering heap.

this is a little off topic, but related in a way (and in agreement with NKF's post) the alien's transition from the mix of plasma weapons to strictly HPR's is related to your research progress on their weapons. In my newest game, i've researched almost every artifact except the plasma pistol and rifle (just to get the few 'artifacts recovered' points.) It's December 1999 and i still see aliens toting the pistol and rifle, while the heavy's are the predominant weapon. ratio is between 4:2:1 to 2:1:1 heavy, rifle, pistol, respectively. Meanwhile, from what i can remember from my old campaigns, they were toting all HPR's by july. but back then, i researched everything in a linear fashion (stupid me)

In the manuals guide to the battlescape, there is suppose to be an option to 'hit' the alien with your rifle/ laser/ plasma if you're standing right next to the guy. even though i was suspicious, i loaded up a game to try that feature recently.. i tried the rifle, pistol, all the laser weapons and plasma weapons, and after watching my guys die over and over again, i had a sense of deja-vu. i tried this once already in the past when i played xcom for the first time years ago. back then, i didnt test this supposed attack until i had the psi-amp, where i eliminated risk of getting my guys blown away at point blank when the hit option didnt even show up. i even tried to edit the obdata.dat file to see if there was a way to insert a 'hit' option. That failed, but i managed, like everyone else whoever took a hex editor to the game files, to 'create' auto-fire for the heavy laser. anyone else see the 'hit' feature available? or was it one of the locked features like alien reproduction?