Fullborg

Only a little, thankfully, but it was at an IT-focused university. I'll leave you all to ponder that one.

No... the F was very intentional. People, usually those with prestigious degrees from nonaccredited unis, refuse to do this and then wonder why tech support types hate them. Weapons grade stupidity, anyone?

Surprising what you learn when you RTFM.

From electronic version of UFO: Enemy Unknown player's handbook, page 6: "On December 11th 1998, representatives from the world's most economically powerful countries gathered secretly in Geneva. After much debate, the decision was made to establish a covert independent body to combat, investigate and defeat the alien threat. This organisation would be equipped with the world's finest pilots, soldiers, scientists and engineers, working together as one multi-national force. This organisation was named the Extraterrestrial Combat unit: XCOM"

eXtraterrestrial COMbat unit that help?

I've had UFOs come up more than once as a result of interrogating captured Engineers - that's why I asked.

Does researching a UFO multiple times (eg, researching the Terror Ship multiple times) from captured Engineers reduce damage suffered by a crashed UFO, allowing you to recover more?

Well... here goes.... this won't be politically correct, as it's an opinion given by an individual. Name: Keith Townsend Rank: Sergeant Age: 33 Missions Completed: 11 Confirmed Alien Kills: 9 History: 1984: Enlisted in Australian Army after completing high school. 1988: Volunteered and passed selection trials for 3rd Special Air Service Regiment. November, 1998: Honorably discharged from 3SASR. December, 1998: Joined Extraterrestrial Combat Unit. Interviewer: "Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Sergeant Townsend." KT: "I'm only here because I'm too badly injured to go back on active duty. But thanks anyway." Interviewer: "Oookay then... what where you doing before you joined XCOM?" KT: "I was in the Australian Sass." Interviewer: "Sass?" KT (under breath): "f**king Yank." KT: "The Special Air Service." I: "You're ex-special forces?" KT: "Ex? What, exactly, is XCOM?" I: (pause) "... I see your point. What did you do in the SAS?" KT: "Can't tell you. I'm cleared to know, you might be, but I can't take the chance, not to mention whoever might read this." I: "How long were you in the SAS?" KT (grits teeth): "Eleven years. I enlisted in the Army straight out of high school, then volunteered for Sass as soon as I could." I: "Why did you join XCOM?" KT: "The money, for starters... forty US grand a month... and the chance to break stuff." I: "How were you injured?" KT: "I was first man into the second battleship that we'd seen so far. It went pretty well until one of the f**king rookies chucked a grenade into the control deck. Killed all the bugs, but nearly bagged and tagged me as well." I: "Friendly fire?" KT: "Friendly fire? Pig's ass. No fire is friendly when it hits you, no matter if a human, a towelhead or a bug caused it. Blue on blue is a better description than that bullshit American euphemism." I: "Moving on... since that seems to be a touchy subject... what would you say your strengths are?" KT (calming down with visible effort): "Hmm.... I can laugh at myself... enjoy a beer or three... never given up .... I'm fast enough that I always end up on point...." Well... there's something to start the ball rolling for everyone.

I don't know. I've had it happen ONCE in two real time years of playing almost daily.

With the bunch of clueless idiots that have been in power in Australia from March 4, 1996 and onwards, I wasn't surprised. Dat means you, Johnny "Jackboots" Howard, Richard "Senator Luddite" Alston et al.

I tend to follow the bootcamp approach mixed with one of the guys. To train rookies up, since I have adapted my tactics to an 8 man squad, supported with 0-2 HWPs. To smaller UFO crashes or recoveries, I send 1 vet, 7 newbies. To the medium stuff, gain a vet, lose the noob. And so on... In landed battleship assaults (my personal favourite), two screened rookies, similarly equipped to the 6 vets, are sent in to break stuff. By screened, I mean: Firing Acc > 50 Bravery >= 50 Psi Strength >=50 Strength > 40 Reactions > 50 Usually, out of every hundred rookies I hire, ten pass all the requirements bar psi strength, and only about two or three out of those 10 pass the psi strength requirement. Of course, by the time I have psi labs and the requirement for such good rookies, XCOM Ltd has long since been turning a 7 digit monthly profit. Earlier in the game, I screen all rookies to the following standards: FA > 50 Bravery >=50 Strength > 30 Reactions > 40

I have. A few days before my Avenger was ready to go to Cydonia (ie, completed), at end of month of course, Australia, my last remaining sponsor, signed a pact with the aliens. That really seemed sus, given the timing. I've also had one country, Japan, once, in the two years I've been playing the game (UFO ver 1.0), spontaneously abandon a pact and ramp their funding back up (over about 4 months). At the time it happened, I hadn't heard of XCOMUTIL.

About the Skyranger.... Antonov actually produced the An-72 "Coaler", a twin jet transport with excellent short, unimproved field takeoff ability back in the 1970s. The upgraded An-74 was also capable of operating for long periods in polar conditions, of which the CCCP had no shortage. http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/vvs/an72-01.htm was where I got the NATO reporting name of Coaler. (The resemblance between the Coaler and Skyranger is striking) (It's traditional for airplanes designed by Russian firms to put some contraction of the firm's name as the prefix eg Mikoyan MiG-29 Sukhoi Su-33 Antonov An-225 Myria (used to transport Buran)) So... without further ado... Antonov An-95 Uvidimsya (I can't speak Russian, so I just grabbed a title of one of PPK's songs), English nickname "Skyranger" In the mid 1990s, the Ukrainian design bureau, Antonov, heavily upgraded one of their transport designs, the An-72, to serve as a special forces transport. In hindsight, the decision was almost prescient, as the Skyranger fitted the needs of the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit almost perfectly. (insert more filler text here)

Or, after thinking about it a bit... why not do multiple systems? Start with XCOM d20, as you've said you are going to do. Use the money from that to develop, for instance, GURPS XCOM.

Yeah... why d20? Any X-Com game is gritty (as the line from XCommand says, "Rookie came, rookie saw, no more rookie") - IMO, d20 doesn't do gritty all that well. Powering it by GURPS, like what has been done with Transhuman Space, would be a good idea, but that may make it too complex - although I prefer less abstraction myself. Ditch the cinematic rules, turn the realism way up, and then survive. The plethora of books out makes it easy for the GM to socket in what they would prefer - you want a bunch of square jawed power armored US Marines - take a gander at GURPS Special Ops. What about using Interlock, modified to suit from Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. and Mekton Z? It's very easy to be rendered hors de combat after the first hit, making the players very aware of using anything and everything available as cover.