Let's Play UFO2:Extraterrestrials

[Thorondor]

Training with bots really does pay off sometimes. No critter's gonna steal Jman's thunder. Besides, I'm sure Pete showed him some moves to boot.

Things got a little hairy for a moment there, given someone *cough* got an itchy trigger finger, but all is well that ends well.

This mission really exemplified the importance of grenades. Even with fine shooters at hand there were plenty of circumstances where grenades had to be the go to.

Well deserved promotions for Tammy and her backup. Be happy, troopers - you're alive to tell another tall tale!

[Zombie]

First up is to allocate points. For Jman I initially put 2 points into bravery and then 1 point in shooting, throwing and strength, but had a rethink and decided he didn't absolutely need a high bravery right away. What was more pressing was getting shots down field accurately, strength to carry stuff/better armor and of course throwing. And most importantly I like to have shooting maxed out before a soldier hits staff sergeant because after that promotions become more difficult due to more xp needed and that takes time. (It would also take 4 points to max out his shooting so it makes sense to split the difference and plop 2 points into that now and again in the next promotion). That was my thinking and rationale for putting 2 points in shooting and one point in throwing, strength and bravery which both soldiers got:

Yup, Tammy is maxed out in shooting but she's also ahead by a promotion so they are kinda the same. As for the swarm reward, this time we had the the full gamut of stuff (no guided mega rockets though, not sure if that's a thing in this game). The first reward I got was a Distortion Field Generator (DFG) and Personal Eternal Shield (PES). Took a couple screenshots so you can see the new artwork:

That was the best reward for a bunch of reloads. I did get a Pale Blue Crystal (PBC) and Personal Teleporter (Teleporter). Here's the Teleporter:

I didn't really want a teleporter yet, but there is a Steam achievement for teleporting 10 times during a mission so I saved the game in a temporary slot and ran a mission on the side to get the achievement. It's actually pretty easy to get even if you have low throwing soldiers: you can throw something 3 times in a turn so just keep tossing the teleporter 1 tile in front of you in the transport and in 4 turns you have the achievement. Here's the PBC:

There's also another Steam achievement for collecting 4 "alien crystals" called Mineralogist. I don't think a PBC belongs to that but in the off chance it does I kept reloading and eventually got 2 of them as a reward. I'm sticking with this because it's a good item to have for training soldiers. And it helps to keep them safe from critical hits which might become a thing with Bonesetters and BoP. Luckily we haven't seen the Bonesetters yet but it's just a matter of time. And the auto heal thing is good too as I don't have to baby sit them with a veteran with a medikit (looks at Thorondor and Space Voyager).

As a side note and maybe more of a curiosity than an actual game feature, I did notice something strange with ultimate max levels of soldier stats when putting points into Tammy. For some reason her "top end" (or ultimate) level for bravery increased when I put a point into it and for perception it decreased. It was by a minuscule amount though and I'm not sure if that even equates to a full point, but who knows maybe over the career of a soldier those variances add up to (or subtract from) certain stats to make it more interesting? Or just a bug? Anyway here's Tammy before and after putting a point in bravery and perception:

Well, the swarm leader has been dealt with but now there are a bunch of UFOs still on the map. We aren't going to visit every one of them because we only have one transport and it takes time to refuel especially since the swarm spawned in on the other side of the globe. And the UFOs are still coming yet! We shot down a light cruiser in North and South America, and my interceptors in North America just took down a medium cruiser while a lone interceptor from South America was engaging a recon vessel in the Pacific:

My transport was still on it's way home yet if you are wondering why it's still in the air. Meanwhile the recon vessel was destroyed by my lone interceptor but another one spawned near my South American base where there were 4 more birds to greet it:

Not too smart. Crash sites have been disappearing off the map at an alarming rate but the aliens still aren't satisfied and send a medium cruiser to North America:

It looked like this would be the lull in the storm so I did a little switch in the team. Tammy and Jman are getting up there in rank but JFG and BFL are behind them by 4 missions so both of these get suits of photon armor and a pale blue crystal:

Luckily they only weigh 10 units so it isn't too heavy and they occupy a 1x2 block in inventory so it can fit right above our shields in the backpack. We are carrying more grenades too now that strength is higher. But these two don't have enough strength or shooting for the photon beamers so its normal rifles for you. Welcome back to the team!

We can't get to that medium cruiser crash site in North America before it disappears so its on to the light cruiser instead which will be next time.

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

Didn't take you for a man that values e-cookies (Steam achievements...) but... neither am I supposed to be one and I went for all of them in Teleglitch.  

Hmmmm... Never got all of them in Nuclear Throne I think. Will check.

[Thorondor]

Teleporter, DFG, PBC, PES - quite the assortment of goodies at your disposal, Zombie.

It's their different benefits that I find speak to someone's mindset. For instance, if you're an optimist then the DFG will have you leaning towards "I practically won't get hit now, the shields are there if ever I do, so patching up is not a concern", whereas the fatalist in you grabs the PBC, saying "Getting hit is inevitable, you can't dodge fate, so when it happens I'll be ready to take it and able to bounce back".

JFG and BFL, front and center!! We're on the way to more fun and you'll be the ones playing with the laws of probability. How's that for personal growth? So grab your shiny new trinkets and load up!

[Zombie]

8 hours ago, Space Voyager said:

Didn't take you for a man that values e-cookies (Steam achievements...)

I don't really value them per se but if it's easy to get through normal gameplay or requires little investment in time I'll go after it, especially if most players didn't. For instance, "Teleport master" only 5.1% of the players have achieved it. "Colonizer": 5 bases and 3 floating bases is even rarer at 4.9% which is certainly doable. "Veteran" (reach Colonel rank with a soldier... 6.7% of players get this) is also doable but requires an investment of time and as I have shown in my previous playthrough of UFO:ET Gold where I had multiple soldiers (in fact an entire transport worth) at that rank. Low hanging fruit.

So we get to the crash site and start to disembark and spot a BoP on the ground. I don't think leaving it be till next round is a good idea because it'll launch it's two sentinels making things harder so it's time for BB and his mortar:

The next round we spot a Minol on the roof of the farmhouse so Blade takes it out:

Next round and all hell breaks loose as we see a BoP and Sentinel and also a Minol:

Blade kills the Minol and Sentinel and also sees another BoP which hasn't deployed it's Sentinels yet:

JFG takes both of them out and not only that but dealt some decent damage in the process:

By the way, the green combine cannot be destroyed and will therefore not explode when hit. I tried nuking it into oblivion with multiple mortars and it stood. Therefore, it's very good cover. The screenshot above was taken during the aliens turn as JFG saw a BoP. We spread out a little bit but can't spot it but the next round it shows up again:

Easy kill for JFG. We start spreading out and exploring as I'm pretty sure there aren't any BoP anymore. I wanted JFG to get a kill in the farmhouse so I sent him over there with Kret as a side kick and Slaughter as backup. We opened the door and see the door going into the room on the right is open too so there must be a Minol in there somewhere. So Slaughter shot out a wall and got lucky when he spotted it:

It's back is sorta turned which is a gimme kill for Slaughter:

A couple turns go by as JFG clears the lower floor of the farmhouse but we've been hearing UFO doors opening a lot which means there's probably a Minol nearby:

Blade took it out with a snap shot. Now we have to deal with clearing out the small metal tool shed (where aliens love to hang out). Could've nuked it with a mortar but they are sorta expensive and take time to produce and our engineers are busy making other things right now so let's try a grenade instead. Space Voyager peeks inside and sees a Minol in there, surprise, surprise:

He's not gonna shoot it and risk a missed shot detonating all the explosive stuff in there so SV backs way off and let's Nook toss a grenade in there:

And here's the big explosion:

Yeah, I don't think Space Voyager wanted to risk being anywhere near that. We got lucky though because the alien was not looking in our direction when the door was opened. Maybe the better choice is to toss a grenade at the door without opening it. Will have to try this out next time. Meanwhile JFG is on top of the roof of the farmhouse and the last Minol exits the craft. No shot, but grenades work:

And that was it. EOM:

Wow, 4 promotions this time. First up is Nook:

One point in shooting first as that maxes out that stat and then 2 in strength to max that out too. The last two points went in agility and throwing. A little low in throwing yet but it's usable and maybe a point in vitality would be nice too. Here's Kret:

His shooting was already maxed out so I put two into shooting to max him out in that and then a point into throwing, bravery and agility. As for BFL and JFG I allocated the points the same with 2 in shooting, one in throwing, bravery and strength:

Back in the Geoscape and the aliens will not let up with their UFOs because we had to shoot a light cruiser down near our main base:

Might go after this one first because it's so close. We'll do that next time!

- Zombie

[Zombie]

This next mission was a desert landscape with the maze. Should be interesting. JFG takes one step off the transport and there's a Nh'Teol to greet him:

He gives the universal alien greeting with a bang. Doesn't get much easier than that. We deploy a little and the next round JFG sees a Trep. Let's greet it with an auto shot:

Some decent damage there folks. During the aliens turn Blade kills a Trep nearby:

A couple turns go by and Blade is now at the mouth of the maze and sees a Nh'Teol so he readies a grenade for it:

Which kills it and he then gets back into cover for once:

JFG is at the end of the maze and sees a Nh'Teol which he kills:

We're smack dab in the middle of the maze now and see some movement on the alien's side. Probably a Nh'Teol as it was on the ground. JFG doesn't want to peek out to check so Blade tosses a grenade over there blindly and actually kills it:

Easy kill, so JFG takes point and spots yet another airborne Trep the next round. Got a little too close for comfort but that's what an auto shot is for:

Blade is now covering the right part of the exit to the maze and sees yet another airborne Trep:

Might as well take an auto shot as these things require two solid hits to kill. The next turn a Nh'Teol tries sneaking up on us but Blade has an explosive surprise for it:

During the aliens turn two Nh'Teols come bolting out of the UFO. One ran out of action points and just stood there looking foolish. The other shot at JFG who was standing at the corner of the UFO. No damage thankfully but that precipitated an auto shot reaction fire from yours truly (Zombie) who was kneeling by a wall facing JFG. The first shot was a monster critical hit which killed the Nh'Teol. The second shot always hits the same spot so it harmlessly hit nothing, but the third sailed off and squarely hit JFG dealing 5 damage:

Sorry man! But JFG auto shot the other Nh'Teol in the back:

And that was then end of the mission:

Awesome, more promotions! Blade got one point in agility, bravery, strength, throwing and shooting. One more point in shooting should max him out in that stat:

As for JFG, he was similar to BFL, but I swapped agility for vitality:

Next mission will be to one of the other crash sites, thankfully no new ones to worry about!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

What a lovely display of fireworks at the tool shed on the prior mission!

That thing was either incredibly daft to get iself in that veritable powder keg of a place, or smart as a whip, knowing its pals clearly didn't stand a chance in hell against our elite squad and instant vaporization is not a bad way to go. 😋

I was wondering how much of firecracker that green combine might be too, so thanks for sharing that intel about the dud it actually is.

Just watch that friendly fire will ya? If BB gets in the mood we'll all get blown to bits.

Promotions, promotions, promotions all around. Everybody peppy? Everybody happy?

Good, 'cause the damned things keep falling out of the sky. Let's go say hello - and goodbye again!

[Zombie]

Time to go visit that recon vessel. Yet another desert landscape, but no maze - just the fuel truck. We start to spread out and suddenly Sorbicol is shot seemingly out of nowhere. He realizes that the cubby he is hiding in has a crack between two walls. Well, crap. But we can see it's a Nh'Teol and Blade (who is a few tiles further away than Sorby can get a grenade near it:

Luckily he kills it. The other alien we see is an airborne Trep. Sorby and Blade could possibly shoot at it but JFG needs the experience more and he doesn't have to move to shoot:

Excellent auto shot accuracy so he used that to kill. Next round we see a Nh'Teol standing by the fuel truck. Ok, I could have shot the tanker as the big explosion would have killed it, but I wanted to save that in case multiple aliens show up. So JFG auto shoots it till dead:

No more aliens show up. My goal was to reveal as much of the map as quickly as we can so we can focus on the inside. Took 4 turns and Sorbicol spots a Trep on the roof of the UFO, here's your chance for a kill:

Those Photon beamers are really inaccurate so it's aimed shot territory most of the time, except for point blank range when it's auto shots. A couple turns later and Space Voyager is hit and we think we know from where as the exterior door of the UFO is open. Blade is close by so he tosses a grenade:

A bunch of turns go by as we set up a perimeter inside the UFO. Eventually we see a Nh'Teol and a Trep standing next to  each other. Blade throws a grenade at the Trep as that needs more damage to kill:

For some reason the grenade only killed the Nh'Teol and left the Trep standing. Or did it even hit to begin with? I see there's a red mark inside the UFO and assume that is the position of the Trep, not where the game drew it (the game is buggy in that respect sometimes so you have to watch and adjust accordingly). We wisely back off not knowing what to expect:

The next turn it's gone, but there is a Nh'Teol closer to us so Blade auto shoots it dead:

During the alien's turn the Trep reappears and bolts straight to JFG to attack. The damage was absorbed and he took it out with reaction fire, and then another Nh'Teol appears but runs out of action points. It's a sitting duck for JFG:

And that was it for the mission. EOM report was quiet?

Ok, good. But still quiet. No promotions, nothing to write home about. Coming up is part two which will focus on Geoscape happenings which were a lot since the aliens were quiet themselves.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

The critters expected us to turn to Jelly? Well, we did - and it didn't pan out quite like they had anticipated.

JFG can stomach a punch and return a bunch, laying 'em flat where found.

He ain't playin'; for promotion he is bound as the bugs go 'splat', only not this round.

We aren't just plain Good, pound for pound we'll continue to astound any alien fools that come crashin' to the 'hood. Yeah, there's fun to be had. 'Nuff said! 😎

[Zombie]

Right, as I mentioned in a previous post it takes a lot of time to produce one of these new golden eagle interceptors. I could see that we'd never get enough of these built in a reasonable amount of time to even make a difference. So executive decision time: I started building two more workshops at our European base:

We have plenty of cash right now so that isn't an issue, but these golden eagles are very expensive to manufacture and I could see overextending our funds trying to swap out our entire fleet. To contrast this point, a normal interceptor you can buy off the market costs $180,000 - not cheap, but compared to a real plane it's a steal. You can sell a used interceptor for the same price you purchased it for, no depreciation so at least you'll recover that investment. A golden eagle on the other hand costs a whopping $623,300 (that's 3 1/2 normal interceptors worth). The only saving grace for these is that they are faster and more survivable and you can sell them for a slight profit ($98,700). So they are an investment that will pay back if they survive.

The globe was eerily quiet as there was no alien activity anywhere. This allows our research to finish quicker:

Let's check out the description for this bad boy:

Hmmm, burning. We don't have that tech yet. Luckily our ultra ap ammo is dealing decent damage to these things and photon beamers do too and God only knows we have plenty of ammo for them. Since this finished you can bet our other alien research topic isn't too far behind - especially with 10 more scientists on the job. A half hour was all it took:

Time to check out this out:

Not much new info on these Minol's they are much the same as Teol's. But yeah, they are quick and I think they have a better shooting accuracy too. So they aren't pushovers - you have to be weary of surprising one of these up close. Now that the aliens are done we can put everyone on the new grenade:

We've been using a lot of grenades so far and this might help to ensure a kill. Anyway our first golden eagle finished:

Reequip with the stuff off the old interceptor and we are back in business. Hours later and our grenade research finished too:

Fantastic! I'll post a pic of the new DG2 along with the normal DG1 grenade for comparison:

So wait, it's the same grenade except with a nifty gold color and 10 points more damage. But 10 less accuracy? Really? It weighs the same, what makes it harder to throw accurately? Don't get that part. Ah well, we'll produce some of these to supplement our stockpile of DG1's but I'm not going to be changing to these exclusively. It's so much easier just purchasing these off the market than wasting time producing essentially the same thing. Time to put our scientists back to work again:

Hopefully this will provide us with some more research topics. Like shielding for our ships and soldiers. And better weaponry? Doubt it, but I can wish. About a day passes and finally a medium cruiser pops in for a visit in North America. Right near our base. Bad idea:

Easy as it gets - our defenses soften it up first with a few volleys and then the interceptors are scrambled for a surprise attack. I don't think the UFO even had time to fire back before it was shot down. We'll be doing that next!

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

3 hours ago, Zombie said:

So wait, it's the same grenade except with a nifty gold color and 10 points more damage. But 10 less accuracy? Really? It weighs the same, what makes it harder to throw accurately? Don't get that part.

Ah, the inexplicable complexities of game balancing...  But it does make you wonder if the research was worth it at all, yes. In many cases a well placed strike is much better than a stronger blow that misses.

[Thorondor]

We haven't had that much trouble melting the BoPs so far, even if we're not gunning for the things with the "proper" tech. This here is a no fly zone for you bugs!

See that gleaming high in the sky? It's the fabled Golden Eagle - get ready to die...

Can't say all that research lights me up but a Defensive Grenade 2 just might; if you're not careful with it. The one thing that caught my eye was that enlarged radius of effect and there have been a few close calls with the Mk1 already. 😉

You hear that? UFO down. We're coming to town!

[Zombie]

We zone into this fuel truck desert map and on round 2 there's an airborne Trep nearby so JFG takes an auto shot:

Blade turns around and sees a Nh'Teol by the truck. Let's save the explosion and shoot at it directly:

We slowly start exploring to the South as that's the "hot zone" for alien activity (for some reason aliens don't normally go north when exiting the craft - at least on this landscape type). About 5 turns later and Sorbicol spots a Nh'Teol milling around the walls so JFG gets ready to throw a grenade on it:

Easy stuff when you can toss grenades over walls. You just have to make sure to be out of the blast zone (or most of it at least). And that was it for the outside - only 3 aliens outside the craft. Well, we are going to have our work cut out for ourselves inside, that's for sure. In the anteroom of the UFO we see a Trep hiding behind a piller by the inner door so JFG tosses a grenade next to it:

Damage absorbed. Ok, Sorbicol, toss another one:

Damage absorbed again. Um, Zombie, please toss a grenade in there to finish it off. Absorbed yet again (sorry no pic). Let's stop pussyfooting around here, Space Voyager toss a Photon grenade in there to finish it off:

Absorbed again! Must be some horrendous damage rolls for us. Everyone in front of the door is out of action points too we only have enough to close the door and prey that the Trep didn't mind that barrage. It ignored us and stayed put but called in lots of reinforcements:

In situations like this it's useful to do a threat assessment before doing anything. The Nh'Teol has a weapon to shoot us with and probably has a photon grenade so it has to go first. JFG is kneeling down right in front of it so a point blank auto shot is in order:

Blade, go in there and put an auto shot into that very lucky Trep:

After killing it, he heads to the inner door and spots a Nh'Teol inside. Before we go after that we need to kill that Trep by the main door first so JFG takes an auto shot at it:

And Sorbicol, you can take out the Nh'Teol:

Busy round! The aliens were keeping their heads down for the next 5 rounds as nothing was happening besides the occasional door opening sound. We did hear very short blips of a Nh'Teol moving each turn nearby so I guessed it may be in that room on the right. Blade checks it out and yup, it's there hidden among the furniture. Grenade time:

The next turn JFG spots a Trep in the west hallway:

We see there's a door open on the right so maybe there's more aliens in the back we can't spot. Time to hunker down and play it safe. The next round a Nh'Teol appears in front of JFG. I'm not going to risk using his action points on killing an alien if there's more back there yet so Blade pops out of his room and shoots it instead:

The next turn Blade pops his head out of the room he was in and sees a Nh'Teol right in front of him. Time for an auto shot:

And then JFG glances down the west hallway and sees another Nh'Teol. Auto shoot it:

And that was it. Not too bad overall except for the grenade hiccup issue, but you can't plan for that. EOM:

Wow 3 promotions this time including Zombie. Let's allocate his points first:

He gets one point in Bravery to get him above 70 finally and then 3 points in strength to max that stat out and the last point went into throwing to get him to 81. Decent soldier overall. As for BFL and JFG, they both got the same initial allotment of two points in shooting to max that stat out, then 2 in strength. Blade got his last point into vitality because he was a little low there and JFG got his last point into Agility:

Beast mode activated! Darn nice soldiers so far. They need more points into throwing, bravery, agility and vitality yet but for now we could run full missions with these two along with Mr T and Space Voyager as backup. I'm certainly glad we have a good core group of soldiers now and a whole host of decent backups at base in case it gets attacked.

We have to start focusing more on soldiers - especially armor and shielding as most soldiers back at base have been raided for these items leaving them vulnerable. We have a decent supply of normal grenades as I can purchase those but our ultra ap ammo stockpile is dwindling so more of that is needed too. Along with mortar bombs - 30 can only get us so far.

Next post will again be more of a house cleaning episode dealing with bases, research, manufacturing and soldiers. I'm sure we will have more of these types of posts because the aliens have been quiet and that means research completes before another mission. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Just about everyone partying on the UFO, and what a can of worms!

Opening with a "grenade eater" worthy of the Extraterrestrial label. It absorbed everything thrown its way - except for the right kind of slicing and dicing ultimately provided by Blade for a finisher.

All told we were very fortunate not to have run into any bouts of reaction fire. In such close quarters that could've been nasty.

More mortar bombs? Yes, please!

[Zombie]

Back in the Geoscape and finally we completed a Roaring Earth Launcher:

Manufacturing these take some time and are fairly expensive too (about 3 times more than a photon cannon). What happens if you equip an interceptor with this and it gets destroyed in a UFO encounter? Poof! Gone. So I decide I'm only going to add these to the new golden eagle interceptors as they are more survivable. Golden Eagle production is very slow going but I often neglect my main base (and EU satellite base) interceptors so this time I keep it in Europe:

Not sure what happens if you exhaust all 4 rounds of the launcher. I'm assuming it'll magically refill. But if we have one golden eagle at each base armed with one of these launchers we can cover most of the globe if there's a downed UFO we need to get to but can't get our transport over there soon enough. Speaking of long build times, the 2 workshops I constructed in Europe finally completed:

That'll allow us to build things faster. Honestly I could probably build a base with nothing except a couple hangars, some defenses and the rest all workshops and it would still take a long time to produce stuff. It's pretty bad, but at least it naturally keeps my spending in check (my balance is $23+ million right now). A few hours later and our research into the medium cruiser finished:

Took a while, lets check out the description first:

Yup, keep your distance when fighting these. And if you have to, send a golden eagle first to grab aggro and then your normal interceptors can engage. Best option is if this UFO spawns near a base as the defenses there can almost shoot one of these down without interceptor support. Well, let's put our scientists back to work on the gravity engine:

Speaking of base defenses... I noticed my newer bases have one of each available defensive system installed as that's the most efficient but there's only one rocket defense and those have a longer range. We have spots open and plenty of cash and it doesn't take too long to build so I started construction on a new one at my 3 bases:

Should help with engaging UFOs at a greater distance away from the base. The more damage you can dish out to the UFO before engaging it with interceptors the better.

Back at the main base I decided to make some changes to the current soldier compliment in the transport. Zombie was just promoted so it'll take a while for him to get another. We have other soldiers that need the experience so he will be taking a little vacation. Current crew is as follows:

No, not Silencer, he's on vacation too. We have Thorondor and Space Voyager at the back of the craft as our rear commanders/medics. Really they are neither of these roles anymore as they are always playing backup for the rookies/trainees. Then comes Bomb Bloke with his trusty mortar. Our previous mortar bomb mule/protector for the mortar man was Slaughter. But Sorbicol needs the experience and has a higher strength (allowing him to carry another mortar bomb and photon armor without getting encumbered) so that's his new role. Then we have JFG and BFL who have the higher experience of our trainees so one of them will go with each of the last two trainees: Jman and Tammy.

Jman and Tammy now have the pale blue crystals as they are front line troops in the line of fire most often. And I really beefed up the number of normal grenades they carry:

As they improve they will get even more,  but for now 5 normal DG1's and a photon grenade are sufficient for most missions. Should they need more, all of our soldiers carry extras. Nobody has the new DG2's yet because our main base manufacturing has been focusing more on armor and shields.

At the EU base our engineers constructed another roaring earth launcher and a golden eagle too. I equipped the eagle with it and decided the best spot for this would be our base in South America because it's the farthest away from the main base. Took the stuff off an interceptor there and sold the plane for some decent cash and then transferred the golden eagle there:

Great, now we have two bases with golden eagles and the launchers. That should cover stuff while we build more and hopefully the new rocket defenses finish soon as that will beef up defenses. But before we get to that a light cruiser spawns near our main base so we scramble the interceptors:

We'll be doing this next with our updated crew when it's light out. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

"The third engine enables aliens to thicken the inner fiber metal laminates layer, and thus the casing of the alien vessel is difficult to penetrate. Despite the increased weight, the third engine enables the vessel to develop even higher speed in comparison to the Light Alien Cruiser".

Extra power displaces more mass, logical. Still faster than the Light Cruiser? Errm, does not really compute?

So, as descriptions go, not that great. What they should have used to make this plain and simple to swallow would be to start with something like "A new generation of gravity engines equip the Medium Alien Cruiser, a triple engine combat vessel.", etc.

Voila! "Alien Gravity Engine" as the next topic for you to research.

Anyway, good update on the managerial side of things, Zombie. From base upgrade stuff to craft and personnel assignments, equipment production, you got it all nicely covered.

A lean, mean alien destruction machine. That's where we come in!

[Zombie]

We get to the crash site in Russia and it's an airport map. Nice change of pace for once. Everyone files out of the transport and eventually we spot a Trep in the control tower:

BB didn't have enough action points to fire off his mortar but he did the next round. A few turns later and we spot a Nh'Teol standing by a door. Tammy was kneeling next to the hangar so I checked to see if maybe she could toss a grenade on it:

Yes indeed! I guess the arc was just high enough to make it over the roof. Nice to know! A couple turns later and Jman & crew are trying to clear out the terminal and reach that electronics room where aliens sometimes spawn. He readies a grenade:

And nothing in there at all makes me a sad panda. Four turns later and part of the terminal crew is covering the door to the UFO and we see a Nh'Teol and a Trep. Jman was contemplating a grenade attack but he had clear line of sight so shooting it is. First is the Nh'Teol:

After killing it with a critical hit, he went after the Trep:

Easy stuff and another critical hit to boot. The next turn a Nh'Teol wanders out of the UFO and Jman is ready:

Not a critical hit this time but it's dead Jim (Dr McCoy reference from Star Trek). Tammy has been patiently covering the side of that hangar hoping for some leftover kills with no luck. Jman is just too good. She decides that the hangar should be cleared before she hunkers down inside and right inside the door is a Nh'Teol waiting in ambush:

Gimme kill because it didn't have enough action points to reaction shoot. You can see that in the above pic that Jman is kneeling down in the corner of the UFO, well, a couple turns later he reaction kills a Nh'Teol and then spots another one:

Almost another gimme kill but you never know about the random number generator. Jman bolts over to the other side of the UFO as I want to bring more soldiers up to begin the breaching preparations. We spot a Trep during the aliens turn but can't reaction fire due to low ap's. Ok here's another one for you Jman:

And that was it. We didn't even have to enter the craft on this one either which was a blessing. EOM:

Good? Try fantastic! Jman was a killing machine this mission and fully deserves that promotion. Let's allocate the points:

Two points immediately went into shooting to max him out at an even 100. Then I put a point into strength to get him to 80. The last two went into bravery and throwing. He's averaging 5+ kills per mission which is insane numbers.

Now I know I said I was going to break out the Geoscape stuff for the next few missions but there's a limited number of shots I took (plus I pared it down too), so let's go over that as well. Our research into the antigravity engine finished:

A new fighter shield? Yes please! Before we get to that let's critique the ufopaedia entry:

Just say Elerium or ununpentium or now Moscovium, I know you want to! Hadrons are made of quarks, right? They don't create gravity waves, do they? Umm, ok. Whatever. I put all my scientists on the fighter shield and the next thing to happen was our rocket defenses finished construction:

You may notice we have a golden eagle in our North American base too. Nice, huh? Not much happened for a little bit but another golden eagle finished construction. This immediately went to our main base along with a roaring earth launcher. So now every base has a golden eagle equipped with a launcher. I may eventually swap over the other two interceptors at the main base for golden eagles too because we only have room for 4 hangars and one is for the transport. Not long after and our research into the fighter shield finished:

Here's the UFOpaedia entry:

Gee, there's always a problem of not being able to fire weapons with the shields up. You would think that this would have been solved in Star Trek, but no, it's an issue here and in the future too. At least we'll have better shields for our interceptors now. Base Europe is immediately starting production on these but it'll be intermixed with roaring earth launchers. Our scientists are going to be starting on the soldier shields:

We need new shields badly and this should help. In the interim my main base has been producing some DG2 grenades so now we have a small stockpile of them. Hopefully we get to test them out soon. Tough to do that without alien activity though. And finally the soldier shield research finishes:

Here's the entry:

The VT2000 only has a capacity of 30 so this almost doubles that. Can't come at a better time as I'm worried about Bonestters showing up. It's now the 31st of October. Halloween to normal folks, but to me it's the end of month report arriving. We shot down a light cruiser in North America and I think we can squeak in another mission quick:

We'll be doing that next, and it'll be in daylight too.

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

He he he, at least we get to read the physics books again, right?  EDIT: reffers to Hadrons and stuff. 

[Thorondor]

JMan "The Man" delivers for mankind!

Look at it, ladies and gentlemen - it's unequivocal. One standing amidst the many corpses of our enemies. United we stand, the few against the many, and they shall not pass!!

Even their *cough* Unobtanium-powered ships shall fall from the skies, striken as if by golden arrows, swift and true, to rid our world from the sight of their foulness.

Come daybreak we ride again, for freedom!

[Zombie]

So we zone in to a farm map and immediately someone spots an alien. I click on the icon to see where it is and it's on top of the farmhouse roof and it's a bonesetter:

Kinda wasn't expecting to see these things yet so most of our troops have the ultra AK1 ammo and normal rifles. But Thorondor and Space Voyager have photon beamers to mop up the stragglers. Let's have Jman take a few shots to see what happens:

Unreal, every shot hit and every shot did damage and he ended up killing it too. During the aliens turn Tammy spots and shoots (3 times, all shots hit all shots did damage) at a BoP, but doesn't kill it. And then all hell breaks loose:

Tammy starts shooting and does a fantastic job eliminating a BoP and the two Sentinels before running out of AP's:

Jman was recruited to work on the other BoP:

Took two auto shots to take it down but all the shots connected for some damage and that's what counts at the end of the day. The other alien was a BoP along the other side of the map which was spotted by Sorby:

Might as well take some shots at it:

Understandable he couldn't kill it but it's weakened now which is perfect for Bomb Bloke to drop a mortar on the roof next to it:

Like clockwork, we are a well oiled machine by this point. And Sorby barely had enough APs to withdraw a little bit too. A few turns go by and Sorby spots another BoP and Sentinel in the same area. He starts on the BoP first:

And kills it with one auto shot. So he goes after the Sentinel next:

The combat log is a hot mess. Must be a bug with assigning damage as the Sentinel explosion was causing damage to the dead BoP:

Space Voyager is backup kneeling behind him. Meanwhile, Jman, JFG and Thorondor are searching the farmhouse for signs of alien activity and Jman spots an open door:

Gotta be careful here, there's most likely a bonesetter in there. We wait till next turn and spot it in there. Luckily no reaction fire so we get into position and close the door till next turn:

Hmmm, what to do? Should Jman shoot? He could, but I want to test out a DG2 on it first:

Encouraging results but it was a critical hit. Not complaining, we have plenty of time to test it more. BB has an itchy trigger finger and wants to preemptively send a mortar by the tool shed. Who am I to argue, go for it:

Nothing in there. Oh well. Fast forward 25+ turns. We have settled down inside the UFO and for the last couple rounds we destroyed the alien "furniture" in the main room to facilitate easier shooting. Space Voyager spots a bonesetter in the left room and prepares to take a snap shot:

The shot connects and damages but does not kill. This causes the bonesetter to shoot back and one does damage. SV takes another shot and kills it. When he tries to retreat, another hidden bonesetter shoots him for some more damage. And then the next turn two bonesetters show up:

I moved up Jman into the closest room because he has a pale blue crystal which prevents critical hits and heals. Anyhow, he kneels down and prepares to fire on one of the aliens:

Superb firing accuracy. He kills it with some massive non-critical damage rolls, then starts firing on the other bonesetter but runs out of APs. Sorby is ready though:

One shot was all it took. Not sure why I didn't throw a grenade on these two instead of shooting, but I think part of the reason was that he didn't have any more DG2 grenades. Didn't matter though. During the aliens turn another bonsetter shows up and this time Tammy wants a shot at it:

She killed it easily and that was it. EOM:

Nice, Sorby got his promotion too! Let's allocate the points:

Obviously two points immediately went into strength to max him out there, then one point into agility, bravery and throwing. Not as good as Zombie due to lower overall strength and throwing, but Sorby is higher in APs and vitality so we can make him a light "tank" with the right allocation of points. Back at base it's time to start researching the bonesetter finally:

And just in time, here's the end of month report:

Much better than I thought it would be. I couldn't get to a couple UFOs in the swarm but it looks like because I mopped up one or two that negated all the bad. Antarctica is still reducing funding, but I can't help it when it's so far away. Who lives there anyway and why do they care?

Next post will be another update on the Geoscape stuff: selling, minor inventory: lot's o' research and another downed UFO. Stay tuned for that as it's starting to get interesting again!

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Back at base I started off by selling some stuff (mostly photon beamers, some photon beamer ammo, alien fibers, alien flight controls and alien gravity engines (these last three are UFO components). Not sure if I need the last three for anything (I'm guessing no) so I'm keeping a small stockpile of 40 of each and selling the excess. Came up with a cool $600k:

As you can see I have 10 cryo rockets for an emergency and 12 DG2 grenades. Not a lot of either but we really aren't using the rockets and the normal DG1's are so much cheaper to use and acquire. Anyhow, it wasn't long after I did this and our research into the Bonesetter completed:

Let's check out the entry:

Who the hell performs an autopsy with a circular saw? Apparently our scientists cannot afford medical equipment and instead went to Home Depot and picked up some tools intended for lumber. Go figure. The incendiary stuff sound fun (you know me and my fascination with fire in UFO:EU). We'll allocate our scientists on incendiary then:

And that took exactly one day to complete:

Let's check out the description:

The last sentence is perplexing though. There's such a thing as napalm that does exactly this, so why do we need to do research on it? Or do they mean that napalm does not have a long enough burn so we need something better? Whatever it is, we need this asap as it's just a matter of time before bonesetters become more prevalent. The grenade is a good start so we'll put our scientists on that:

It took about a day again and research into this completed:

Here's the entry for the incendiary grenade:

We gotta get all our engineers to work on producing these pronto. At least we'll have an interim solution to Bonesetters (though our ultra ak ammo is ok and photon grenades should work against them too). We may as well start researching the hellfire armor:

These suits actually aren't that bad against normal alien types. In fact, they have better mechanical protection than photon armor, the main drawbacks are it's 0 armor against cold and chemical. And bonesetter commanders are known for tossing cold grenades and firing cold weapons. So maybe the main takeaway is to engage the commander with only the soldiers wearing this type of armor (and carrying pale blue crystals to ward against critical hits and to get heals).

Well, we started producing the incendiary grenades in earnest and now everyone is carrying one of them for the time being. And we shot down a recon vessel in North America again:

More specifically, the east part of Nevada or western Utah. Oh, what the heck, let's do that now! So we zone into a farm map and deploy around the hedgerows as usual. No aliens are spotted, but during the alien's turn JFG kills a Trep:

At least we have pushover aliens again. I'm not ready for more bonesetter action yet. A couple turns later and Blade spots an airborne Trep near the farmhouse/barn and prepares to auto shoot it:

Easy kill for him. Three turns later and everyone has spread out more. Tammy is loosely covering the UFO door and spots a Nh'Teol. Grenade time:

During the alien's turn Sorbicol kills a Nh'Teol who was trying to sneak up on the team:

No surprises! Tammy has spotted an airborne Trep and is going to take an auto shot:

She kills it and as she's turning around to get back into cover spots a Nh'Teol on the roof of the farmhuse/barn. She's low on action points but you know who isn't? JFG:

It only took a snap shot and it was dead. The next round Tammy is going to throw another grenade on another Nh'Teol again:

Meanwhile Blade and Thorondor are making a mess of the lower floor of the barn due to playing a quick game of "toss the pineapple" with grenades in a suspicious room. Blade kneels down behind a hay bale to cover the steps heading up to the loft and spots a Nh'Teol. May as well toss a grenade on it because he doesn't have a clear shot:

Boom! Tammy gets up from kneeling and doesn't go far when she sees a Nh'Teol by the UFO:

And that was it. One of the quicker missions I've done in a while. It helps when you can kill multiple aliens in a turn. Here's the EOM:

You go, Thorondor! Let's see what we can do for him with points:

Two points immediately went into strength to max him out at 95. Then two went into throwing to get him to an astonishing 88 and finally one point into agility so he has more AP's to get places in a hurry. I think it'll take two more points to max out his throwing (so 94-ish) and then I might start dumping some points into perception (aka reactions) as I like having backup soldiers with high reactions to cover the soldiers who have used up their actions in a turn. More points can go into agility and vitality and who knows, maybe another point into bravery though this depends on the aliens we meet. If Thorondor got promoted, you can bet that Space Voyager isn't too far behind.

For next time, it'll be some minor geoscape stuff and then back to a mission!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Trial by fire - Bonesetters and BoPs: surpassed. Go team!

Things were kind of iffy there for a moment for SV, with all the attention he was getting inside the UFO, but you know him, he hasn't got time to bleed! 😉

It was a darn good month overall. So what if some penguins complained about alien probing?

Research was on a fast track too and now we have spicier pineapples to play with and turn up the heat on the alien newcomers.

Feeling pretty great after my latest boost here. I say fire it up! 😎

[Space Voyager]

10 hours ago, Thorondor said:

Things were kind of iffy there for a moment for SV, with all the attention he was getting inside the UFO, but you know him, he hasn't got time to bleed! 😉

HE HE HE, though things can end VERY BADLY for people who don't take the time to bleed...

 

 

[Zombie]

First things first, our research into the Hellfire Armor completed:

So let's check out the description:

Situational at best, but should be useful. We should probably start building a couple of these things as they take forever to build, but right now my priority is to get our soldier shields swapped over to the new variant. As a side note, I installed the mod from @Von Nah so now all the ufopaedia entries have all the stats and the stats also show up in the soldier equip screen. Much better. I guess we'll research the incendiary rocket now:

And it wasn't long before that research finished, lets see the entry:

More stuff to build and not enough manpower to do it. Something's gotta sit and this is it. We have incendiary grenades at least which are quite useful as you can throw them over obstacles. Back in the geoscape and we finally have some alien activity again. There's a recon vessel in Africa and another one spawned in almost right over our base:

We are going to do the one in Russia first as it's just barely light out yet. Turns out this is a arctic landscape which we haven't seen in probably a couple months. A couple turns in and we have spread out a bit. Space Voyager is covering the edge of the map and spots a Trep. Time to blast it with the photon beamer:

It did decent damage, nothing spectacular though. At least it's dead. The next round and Tammy spots a Nh'Teol the next building over and decides to throw a grenade on it:

Inside the building Tammy is standing by a Nh'Teol shoots Jman for no damage. He didn't have enough APs to shoot back so JFG got the honor:

The next round Tammy spots a Nh'Teol wandering out the door to the UFO. Space Voyager needs some xp for his promotion so he gets the nod to do a little sniping with his photon beamer from clear across the map:

Darn nice accuracy all things considered. It died easily and the next round Tammy spots a Trep coming out of the building across from the UFO. Space Voyager again get's the nod for two more aimed shots:

With that out of the way Tammy peeked around the corner of the building and spots an airborne Trep. No way for Space Voyager to hit that, so Tammy does it:

Meanwhile, Sorbicol has joined Space Voyager in covering the North part of the map and kills a Nh'Teol with reaction fire during the alien's turn:

There are two more Nh'Teols by Tammy and the UFO though and they must be eradicated. Tammy auto shoots the close one first:

And then auto shoots the second one too:

And that was it for the mission. Besides the little hiccup with Jman nobody got shot for actual damage. EOM:

Wasn't expecting Bomb Bloke to weasel his way in front of the line for a promotion so let's allocate his points:

His strength was pretty low for a mortar man so I dumped 4 into that to max that stat out and then one point into bravery to get him above 70. Awesome! Since he was just promoted and it would take a lot of missions to get him another I decided to give him a little vacation. "Who will be our next mortar man?" you may be asking. It's Kret:

He's loaded to bear: the mortar, 5 bombs, a stimpack, one photon grenade, 1 incendiary grenade, 2 DG1 grenades and 2 DG2 grenades plus Photon Armor and two VT2000 shields (old generation, just something to give him a little protection - he'll be in cover all the time and protected by Zombie so there's little chance he's going to see serious action).

Our two "rookies": Blade and JFG got an upgrade to their kit too:

Both now have 1 older VT2000 shield and 2 brand new VT3000 shields. Both have a pale blue crystal, 2 incendiary grenades, a photon and DG2 grenade, and 4 DG1 grenades. Plus 4 clips and photon armor to boot. I didn't give them photon beamers to keep them more mobile and because this next mission is probably going to be more Treps and Nh'Teols.

Overall, I'm happy we are making progress. Promotions are still a comin', nobody is seriously hurt and better shields are going to be more common soon. What I'm annoyed at is the time it takes to produce the stuff our soldiers need. I do have 2 spots open in our main base yet and I'm seriously considering building another workshop or two temporarily to get us caught up. It's not like I don't have the money. But then again, alien activity has been light as of late so we can probably manage just fine with what we have. For now.

Next time it'll be that other recon vessel we shot down!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Incendiary warhead, most effective ignitable weapon now available, all of which tends to have a rather nice ring to it don't you think?

Oh, well. A real shame to have to put it in on the backburner. BB is going to be heartbroken for this jilting for a while though, regardless of the snagged rise in rank.

Threat level is on the low side at the moment, but we're going to need to pack some real punch before too long as the enemy won't stay this tame. So it probably wouldn't be out of order to have the ability in place to make the transition to new hardware swifter.

But those are your duties. We don't worry our pretty little heads with that. Let's recon that downed vessel, troopers; on the double!