Let's Play UFO2:Extraterrestrials

[Zombie]

Light Cruiser

This mission is on a non-maze desert map. We haven't had one of these in a while so let's do this. Round one and we've already spotted a Rider which Nook is going to shoot at:

The first bullet does 27 damage which kills it:

On the alien's turn a Rider shoots at NKF with "heavy" AOE photon beamer ammo:

NKF somehow shrugs it off and then shoots back at it with the first bullet doing 22 damage. Another bullet is coming though:

It does 20 damage and kills it. The last shot would've been a hit too but the Rider is gone now:

A couple turns later and we now see an airborne Bonesetter. NKF is in a perfect position to shoot at it:

He hits once for a decent 50 damage with the next shot being absorbed and the last missing:

So he shoots again and the first two bullets were absorbed while the last does 25 and kills it:

So this was turn 3. We spread out and search nearly the entire map but find nothing. It's now 24 turns later and we've just entered the UFO. We open the door and see a Bonesetter just inside. Sure, we could have shot at it, but I didn't want to risk getting the entire team injured if the things shoots back with heavy photon beamer ammo. So Pete walks up to it and will stun it instead:

It's a weak spot jab which does a massive 122 stun and knocks the thing out. The door leading into the center of the UFO is open and I'm not sure if this Bonesetter opened it or a different one did and is lurking. CG will throw an inferno grenade in there just to be sure:

Nothing. Seven turns later and we've finally spotted another Bonsetter in the center of the UFO. Silencer will throw an incendiary grenade near it:

The damage was absorbed somehow, so now Nook is going to feed it a sludge grenade:

It only does 8 chem damage so we wisely retreat. The next round there's a Rider near us. That's like a gift so Nook will shoot at it:

He hits for 9 & 31 which kills it:

Four turns later and we somehow can see a Bonesetter in the darkness area of the UFO:

At this point I really should have reloaded the game as this is obviously a glitch. But the ref says "play on" so we wait. During the aliens turn NKF shoots at it and hits for 40 damage:

I know how absurd this looks, so just pretend for now. His second bullet hits for 44 damage and kills it. Another Bonesetter shoots at NKF and MTR with heavy photon beamer ammo which hurts NKF for 5 damage but MTR shrugs it off. NKF then shoots back and hits for 10 damage:

Never mind the missing UFO walls, they are still there. His next two bullets were both absorbed. MTR shoots too with his first bullet being absorbed too:

You can actually see he's hitting something where that red dot is, it's just not visible. His next bullet does 45 with the last doing 16 damage which kills it. This is the first time I was ever able to capture the last kill in a mission in a screenshot, so enjoy:

And that was it. We got through the glitchiness with some tremendous shooting from NKF and MTR. Next time I'll cover the EOM along with part of the happenings in the Geoscape so stay tuned for that!

- Zombie

[Zombie]

And here is the EOM report from the last mission:

Pete, buddy ol' pal, congrats on your promotion! Let's do that first:

Obviously, two points went into throwing to max that out at 98, then two points went in bravery to get that to 70 with the last going in vitality. As an addendum, throwing only reached 96 when you look at Pete in the soldier tab of the game so I'm not sure where those two points ended up in the end. Maybe a rounding error? Who knows. He's still a beast though. Back in the Geoscape and I finally finished manufacturing that VT3000 fighter shield at my main base that has been on pause for months and months:

Still have to get rid of that VT2000 shield yet and then I'll have the manufacturing screen clear again. Before I start on that, let's crank out a few shields for our soldiers:

Not long after this our main manufacturing bases completed another 3 long spear launchers:

And with those complete, I equip them on a Thunderstorm at each base and then transfer the interceptors to Africa since we have 3 hangars open there (technically 4 now):

A couple days later and our research into the Raven battle armor completes:

Here's it's description:

I can confirm that the battle armor does indeed add the armor values here to the Raven vehicle's armor. We aren't going to manufacture this right away for a few reasons:

1. We haven't been using the Raven yet
2. It requires a bit of coin and time to manufacture
3. Currently we are doing production runs of Incendiary and now sludge grenades for our soldiers
4. And just because (I kinda know what is in the pipe and don't want to clog up manufacturing space on something unneeded right now).

As for what we are going to research next, I think we'll go back to the pGehe again:

About two days later and our last Hangar in Africa completed construction.

I immediately transferred a Golden Eagle over there and started manufacturing another Thunderstorm at a different base:

A couple days later our Golden Eagle is ready to go at Africa and our two workshops completed construction so we can build two more:

Join me next time for more Geoscape stuff, I'd stick around because it's starting to get interesting now.

Oh, I'm currently #21 on the Steam global leaderboards for UFOs shot down at 2496. My goal is to get to a solid #19 tomorrow as that only requires 103 UFOs shot down. After that it'll be a little bit of a slog to get higher, but once I get to 3000+ it shouldn't take too long to shoot up quite a few notches. There are 312 days left in the year and if I average 32 UFOs shot down per day then that'll get me to #1. It's a long shot, but do-able.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

It's now a couple days later in the Geoscape and our research into the pGehe finally finished:

New ammo for our rifles! About time! Before we get into that, let's look at the pGehe's description and stats:

They are almost completely immune to chemical and shrug off mechanical damage except for the most powerful hits. Pretty terrifying, but it has no protection against freeze or fire. Glad I produced all those incendiary and sludge grenades. We need another research project and this new depleted uranium ammo sounds like the ticket we need:

Three days later and still no UFOs. But our heavy rocket defenses finished construction in Africa:

Let's take a look at the base now:

In order to produce more Thunderstorm interceptors, one of the production bases needs an open hangar spot. For that reason I moved another Golden Eagle interceptors to Africa so that we have a base capable of shooting stuff down. It'll still be 7 days till we have full manufacturing capability, 14 days till the first photon defense and 24 days till the last photon defense, but we do have 3 heavy rocket defenses to rely upon in case things get dicey.

Not even an hour later and our research into the U238 ammo completes, and a light cruiser UFO shows up:

And a new transport too? Yes, please! Let's compare the three ammo types for our rifles starting with the "standard" store-bought AK1:

And now the Ultra:

And finally, the U239 ammo:

A lot more damage, but a smaller clip size and rather horrible accuracy. Do you see why high shooting accuracy is a necessary stat for soldiers now? Yeah, the game pigeon holes you into one strategy and that's it. Shoot or be shot. Time to pour all our research into the new Pegasus transport:

And let's start cranking out the new U238 ammo:

Had to stop production on the Sludge Suit of armor to manufacture the new ammo, but what is more important? A suit of armor for one soldier or ammo for a bunch of soldiers? To quote Spock:

That light cruiser UFO wandered a little too close to our base in North America and was immediately shot down by the defensive systems there:

It's nearly light there so I send out the transport not having produced enough new ammo for everyone:

Hope that doesn't come back to bite me later. But I did give the new U238 ammo to the soldiers with the highest shooting accuracy so hopefully that offsets the ammo accuracy problem. Join me for the light cruiser UFO mission next!

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

Oh come on, don't use Uranium ammo! You'll poison the earth...

[Thorondor]

Time waits for no one when the planet is in peril, so it's a good thing your housekeeping skills are this stellar, Zombie. 😎

Ramping up production of the new Thunderstorm interceptor, long spear missile launchers, bringing bases up to speed and greater operation capacity worldwide, researching pBoP, Chem Monster, Raven Battle Armor (had to chuckle at the "Doable" epithet from our snarky engineers on that one), the hard-hitting U239 ammo and putting things in motion to sort out the new Pegasus transport. Remarkable progress overall.

Light cruiser UFO, non-maze desert map: doing the equivalent of poking NKF with a stick early on is swiftly proven to be a display of poor judgement on that Rider's part. Still, later on a Bonesetter stubbornly decides to play games by cheating physics inside the UFO. We all know what his reward ended up being...

I also like it that you think big - #21 worldwide? Bah, it's straight to the top before this year is through!

Congrats to Nook, Silencer and Pete. Let's demonstrate how things get done around here, gents. Another light cruiser awaits your TLC!

[Zombie]

There will not be a post on the next mission today, sorry folks. I can say that I accomplished my goal and got to #19 on the Steam global leaderboards for UFOs shot down at 2655. So that makes 159 UFOs shot down today (which is kinda an effort as it's not a steady trickle of UFOs - it's nothing at all punctuated by spurts of activity with the odd swarm thrown in for good measure). My cash reserves are back up to a hefty $1.6 billion space bucks too.

Kinda wished I didn't start this till I completed a bunch of swarm ground missions and nabbed some more advanced ship parts. I mean, it's not horrible running with 50% upgraded Thunderstorms and 50% stock, but it would be nice if all the Thunderstorms were the same in terms of speed and damage capacity. Right now I have to babysit the normal Thunderstorms if the UFOs are picking on them and withdraw them manually so they don't get destroyed. Got very, very close a few times.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Light Cruiser Part 1

This is a "moat" map where there is water surrounding the UFO and a significant multi-level underground "base" which finally exits at the front of the UFO doors. This is my least favorite map type so I tried reloading a bunch of times but the game seems intent that this is the only option. No way I'm going to search every last nook and cranny in the underground base so we'll wait it out instead. On round one, Pete spots a Mega and he's able to toss a cryo grenade on it:

It's a weak spot kill for 83 freeze damage:

Atta boy! The next round we can see a pGehe across the bridge from Pete. I'm not going to risk getting him injured so instead of shooting at it, we'll have The Veteran mortar it:

The blast hits a hidden unit for 26 damage and does 30 to the pGehe, neither which is a kill:

Well, let's mortar it again! This time it does a pitiful 8 damage to the hidden unit which thankfully was enough for the kill, and it also does 55 to the pGehe which kills it too:

Four turns later and we spot another pGehe in the same relative area as the mortar blast. Pete's right there, but again, I don't want to bring him out into the open only to get gassed by the pGehe. Not only that, but he's alone and has no backup so getting medical help after a mishap is out of the question. Luckily Accounting Troll is on a position to shoot at it:

He hits all three times for 13, 9 & 23 which kills it:

The next turn there's another pGehe visible which is hovering above the moat. AT again has a shot on it:

He hits for 18 & 25 which kills it:

It's 9 rounds later. Nothing much going on since the last kill except I have 2 soldiers backing up Pete with one across the moat. We have a bigger problem right now as a pGehe somehow made it across the moat on it's turn. Gimli reaction fires on it with his photon beamer:

Everything misses, but when it's our turn I'll have him shoot at it again:

He hits once but the damage was absorbed. The pGehe also shot it's chem weapon at him but silly thing, you are too far away:

He shoots again, this time hitting twice for 23 & 40 damage which kills it:

Ten turns later and Pete & co are surprised by a Mega during the aliens turn. MTR reaction fires at it with the first two bullets being absorbed:

The last does 47 damage and kills it:

Join me for part 2 where part of the team makes it down to the UFO as advanced spotters while the rest provide help from above.

- Zombie

 

[Thorondor]

Without a proper challenge rising in world ranks would not merit acclaim, Zombie. Keep downing 'em and you shall overcome!

Rage inviting rage seems to be a fact of life - as the corpse of a poor human bystander vengefully executed on a boat ends up illustrating so well.

Pete and TV commence retribution. AT, Gimli and MTR join in as needed. This poisonous disposition shall not be contained as we're not inclined to dwell on such matters and are decidedly intent on pushing onwards.

The cleansing shall proceed, my brothers in arms!

[Zombie]

Light Cruiser Part 2

Instead of trying to clear the entire map of aliens (including the 2 huge underground levels of the base), I decided that this time we'd try something a little different. I sent part of the team down the lift to the North of the UFO. It goes directly to the "door level" of the UFO so there's very little excess walking to get there. And because of the moat, I could station soldiers around the top of it as elevated snipers. Took a while to set up, but it's far faster than searching everything. It's 11 rounds later and Nook tries to take a peek at the UFO door and was shot at by a Mega which thankfully missed him:

Instead of pushing his luck, he wisely retreats which allows TV to set up a mortar:

It only hits for 34 but is just barely enough to kill it:

A couple rounds later we spot an airborne Mega. Accounting Troll will take an auto shot at it from above:

His first three bullets did nothing special in terms of damage, but the next bullet hit for 25 and killed it:

There was another Mega right behind it which is now visible so AT will shoot at it too:

It again took two auto shots to kill the thing only this time the damage was more in the beginning:

There's one more Mega by the door to the UFO. Suppose we could've tossed some grenades on it or something first, but TV has a itchy trigger finger with the mortar:

The blast was enough to kill it and end the mission. EOM report:

Yeah, nobody was promoted this mission, but we did it safely and rather quickly which was nice. Back at base, it's time to fire the "old" Kret for the new one as the end of the month is approaching fast:

With "her" gone, we wait to see what the end of Month report looks like:

Not too bad actually. We had a lot of expenses across the board trying to build up the new base in Africa, but had plenty of cash to fund it and our rating with all the states is either "Good" or "Excellent" now. Africa gave us a nice bump in funding due to our base and we maxed out funding with them too.

Back in the Geoscape and there's another Light Cruiser detected over Canada. I immediately send out the transport as the crash site will be in daylight, and then send out the interceptors at the base in North America to engage it:

It went down easily as it came closer to the base which allowed the defensive systems to fire on it too:

Join me next time for that mission.

Edit: I'm now #18 on the leaderboards with 2839 UFOs shot down. It'll take 120 more to get to #17, and an additional 50 to get to #16 which will put me just over 3077 UFOs shot down. After that, each rank will be about 100 more up to rank #7. Beyond that is where the ranks start to spread out quite a bit and will take quite a bit of work. In other news, I just had a swarm reward of $100+ million:

Plus an additional $100+ million for destroying the crash site put me just above $200 billion space bucks for a short time. The game didn't break yet.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

On 2/28/2024 at 11:03 PM, Zombie said:

Plus an additional $100+ million for destroying the crash site put me just above $200 billion space bucks for a short time. The game didn't break yet.

Before I continue with my playthrough, I'd like to take this time to address the above quote plus give some "notes from the field", oddities etc. First up, my defenses are so stacked that they can take down an entire swarm of heavies to battlecruisers:

Didn't have to lift a finger on this one at all, of course, all the UFOs happened to get between my main base, europe, and the aircraft carrier where they all got mowed down.

Here's something interesting/funny/potentially buggy: I was unable to shoot down a battlecruiser UFO headed to Antarctica for a terror mission. It created a terror site in the ocean:

There isn't an island there or anything as far as I can tell. And I didn't want to send in a team to take care of the site in case the game crashed.

As I said before, swarm rewards can get out of hand quick:

A hundred million for shooting it down and an equal sum if you destroy the site.

And the other day I got to the edge of max funds:

Because as soon as I shot the swarm leader UFO down over water, the funds switched to negative:

That's 2^31 - 1 with the last bit for the signed integer. The game didn't really seem to mind the huge negative funds at the end of the month either:

The next month it switched positive again:

After a few months of this I get one of the end-game fail screens:

Here's the deal: if you want to shoot UFOs down to get on the Steam leaderboards, ideally you'll want all land bases. Those bases should have hangars, base defenses and workshops too. Why workshops? Well, you need to manufacture expensive stuff to bleed off funds. There's a couple options here, and I haven't figured out which strategy is better yet.

First option is to manufacture long spear launchers because they are the most expensive non-airplane in the game at $348,800. Just put in a standing order for manufacturing 1000 of them at each base. That should eat up funds pretty quick. Option two is to manufacture an interceptor (my guess is the Golden Eagle would be the best) then have it engage a big UFO so it'll shoot it down (don't equip it with anything). After it's gone, manufacture another one. Kinda finicky but it will eliminate funds from the game. Or ignore swarms. This is sorta an option, but your base defenses may accidentally shoot down the leader. I guess the last (and easiest) would be to reload the game from an earlier save when you are getting close to maxing out funds.

Right now I'm #17 with 2956 UFOs shot down. To get to #16 I need to shoot down 100 more which is pretty easy.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Implementing lockdown mode. All your UFO exits are belong to us!

Moat ground mission ended nice and tightly, Zombie. Should have gotten a rating of Excellent, really.

And that score is at least rightfully awarded on the monthly report for June. Solid work, as ever.

On your ascent through the UFO disposal ranks - heavy killzones for the win, got it. Payouts are insane too; you're swimming in it, man!

So the aliens got miffed and flipped the switch to "Terror from the Deep".

Talk about pushing the boundaries. You ran the numbers and you pretty much know the turning points so you'll be able to game the system - because others before you have also clearly done it.

[Zombie]

Light Cruiser Part 1

Time for this light cruiser mission! It's bad news from the start as there's an Ice Queen on the roof of the building next to us. I was able to bring Nook, Silencer, Crazy Gringo and Pete into the building with very little problems except for Pete getting frozen once. Not a problem as we shoot at him to unfreeze. What to do now though:

One option is to end the turn here and hope the thing decides to stay put. With it this close we have to do something to clear the LZ as best we can. MikeTheRed comes off the transport hoping to toss a grenade of some sort up there, but is immediately frozen. NKF will shoot to unfreeze:

He takes another step and is immediately frozen again. As before, NKF will shoot to unfreeze him:

MTR is then able to move a couple tiles closer only to be frozen again. NKF has enough APs left to unfreeze him one more time:

MTR cannot get any closer without being frozen again so he's forced to throw an incendiary grenade a little short... hoping it'll be enough:

It only does 14 fire damage and he's immediately frozen again. Annoying, isn't it? Sorry MTR, but we have to leave you be as you are much safer frozen during the alien's turn. We are able to unfreeze him during our turn but because his APs are still low he's unable to move yet. During the aliens turn an Ice Queen shows up near him and tries to freeze him again (caught the animation this time):

When it's our turn, we want to get rid of this thing ASAP as we have been unable to clear the LZ yet. CG decided that stunning was the best option but when he steps out of the room to get into range he is frozen too. We unfreeze him and now he finally can stun it:

It's a massive critical hit dealing 146 stun damage:

There's another alien visible though. It's only a Rider down below. Silencer is seriously contemplating tossing a DG1 grenade down there but his accuracy isn't exactly great:

He decides against it in the end because we want to unfreeze MTR and hope he can escape this freeze/unfreeze cycle. After he unfreezes MTR he notices another Ice Queen on top of the building next to us again:

Or maybe it's the same Queen as on round 1. We don't know for sure. During the aliens turn MTR observes another Rider come down the lift by that other Rider:

And then it looks like another Rider shows up too:

The Ice Queen comes to the edge of the roof but doesn't freeze MTR for some reason. When it's our turn, he'll toss a sludge grenade up there:

It does 67 chem damage and kills it:

Oh, and there's a Rider that came up the lift to the platform we need to take care of. Nook will shoot at it from the building:

The first two bullets deal 16 & 11 damage which kills it:

Silencer is now going to toss a DG1 grenade below at one of the Riders:

The blast does 25 damage which kills it. Time to toss another DG1 near the other Rider he can see:

This blast does 54 damage and kills it too:

No incidental damage to the explosive barrels so we have that as a fail-safe in case it's necessary. During the aliens turn another Rider comes up the lift by the transport but is met with reaction fire from Accounting Troll. His first bullet hits for 44 damage which kills the thing:

Nothing much happens for the next few rounds as we are focused on clearing (and holding!) the North side of the map. When that area is under our control an Ice Queen exits the UFO and just stands there. The Veteran thinks it's time to mortar it:

The blast does a decent 110 damage and kills it, along with setting off more explosive things:

It's 19 turns later and we're pretty confident that any aliens that are left are inside the UFO. One of the breach teams have opened the inner door and noticed that the door to the room on the right is open. CG is going to toss an inferno grenade in there hoping to catch something in the blast:

Nothing. We also toss a sludge grenade in there too just for good measure. Still nothing. The next round Pete goes to investigate and finds an Ice Queen at the end of the hall. He'll toss an Inferno grenade on it:

The damage was absorbed so CG comes in to shoot at it instead:

The first bullet is absorbed while the second does 14 damage and kills it somehow:

I think we must've damaged it with the fire and chem clouds last turn, but the game didn't report it for some reason. Anyhow, stay tuned for part 2 where we deal with glitchiness galore but prevail in the end.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Light Cruiser Part 2

It's five turns later. Part of the team has taken refuge in the right room but during the aliens turn an Ice Queen opens the double wide door and hits Nook with her freeze weapon for 17 damage. He shoots back but so far everything is getting absorbed:

His last shot was absorbed too. The Ice Queen then shot at him again for 6 more freeze damage (ignore the combat log in the following pic, the damage happened during the aliens turn, not ours). Crazy Gringo is going to fix him right up:

After Nook is back to normal, he's going to exact his revenge by shooting back at it:

Took two full auto shots, with the second to last bullet hitting for 27 damage which kills it:

Pete now opens the other door in the right room and spots another Ice Queen behind some equipment. Nook still has plenty of APs left and an axe to grind yet so he will toss an Inferno grenade at it:

It only does 29 damage so now Pete will shoot at it:

It took a lot of auto shots with the final bullet finally dealing 28 damage which killed it:

Six turns later another Ice Queen "appears" (not visible in the pic, but it was briefly visible when it moved earlier). Silencer reaction fires at it but can only manage to damage it for 8 with the other two shots getting absorbed. The Queen then freezes MTR and now it's going after Pete:

After freezing Pete it then shoots at Silencer:

It's a critical hit for 24 freeze damage. Darnit! When it's our turn (again, the combat log is wrong when the damage happened) we spot the thing near the double door to the right room. Gimli is getting tired of this mission so he loads up heavy ammo into his photon beamer and prepares to shoot:

He killed it and ended the mission (with 2 people frozen and one critically damaged mind you). I was a little worried about everyone but the EOM was glowing:

Well, it was glowing to me at least. Nobody was wounded or missing so at the end of the day I considered this a resounding success. What was even better was that we recovered an advanced ship part from the wreckage:

Can't argue with that. Not long after, another load of 3 Long Spear Launchers finished production:

14 hours later a "swarm" is detected, which turns out to be a single supply vessel over Canada:

I send out interceptors from Europe, Africa, South America, the aircraft carrier and North America hoping something will get in range quick enough to help out:

The interceptors from Europe and the aircraft carrier were the only ones able to help, but they took it down without much issue:

As the UFO crashed, you can really tell how much faster the Thunderstorms are compared to the golden eagles (especially the ones from South America):

Because the crash site is in daylight I'm going to send out the transport ASAP. Before I do that, I equip NKF with the best stuff, just to be on the safe side:

He's a real monster and carries plenty of grenades, clips and shields for any encounter. He still has plenty of strength leftover so I give him a mortar too. As the transport is nearing the crash site, a light cruiser shows up over Russia where I scramble the interceptors there and later from the aircraft carrier and Europe too:

We shoot it down easily:

So stay tuned for that mission next time.

Edit: currently #13 on the Steam leaderboards for UFOs shot down with 3278. Kinda didn't make my quota of 32 UFOs shot down the last few days as I've been busy and tired. But I can make that up. If a swarm is slated to appear, save the game when they arrive. Then let the UFOs fly around till they get into range of one of the bases. Usually the defenses there will be able to either soften a biggie up or take it out completely. Keep watching and maybe another will be shot down or severely damaged at which time you can send out the interceptors to clean up the rest.

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

4 hours ago, Zombie said:

Kinda didn't make my quota of 32 UFOs shot down the last few days as I've been busy and tired.

Dude, you should be awarded a medal just for still playing the game... How many hours into this playthrough now? Judging by the AAR I'd say somewhere similar to my Nuclear Throne hours, which are ridiculous.

[Zombie]

20 hours ago, Space Voyager said:

Dude, you should be awarded a medal just for still playing the game... How many hours into this playthrough now? Judging by the AAR I'd say somewhere similar to my Nuclear Throne hours, which are ridiculous.

Not even close man, you've got me beat by a mile (kilometer, whatever). Right now I have just about 470 hours on UFO2:ET. I may only have like 370 hours in the actual AAR, the other 100 hours have been going into shooting down UFOs to up my rank on the Steam Leaderboards. Oh, and to keep my streak going for the number of consecutive days played. (Last year was 42 days in a row, this year it's currently 70).

Alien Supply Vessel Part 1

This is going to be a long mission so it'll be broken up into multiple parts. How many I do not know yet as I'm still cutting screenshots (took way too many). Anyhow, this mission is on a human military base map (not sure). We deploy in the usual way and see nothing. During the aliens first turn a poisonous Bird of Prey (pBoP) appears to the left of us and deploys one of it's poisonous Sentinels:

Neither do anything. When it's our turn again, NKF (who is rocking the newly researched depleted uranium AK1 bullets) is going to shoot at the pBoP with a ridiculous 99% auto shot accuracy:

The first two bullets do an unreal 68 and 43 damage which kills it:

This ammo is fantastic! Well, let's have him shoot at the p-Sentinel too:

The first two bullets are critical hits for identical damage (67!) which kills it (and the buggy game mechanic kills the pBoP again and the other p-Sentinel. Caught the death explosion which is kinda pretty actually:

That was it for this turn. During the alien's turn, Crazy Gringo reaction fires at a Mega with AK1 Ultra Piercing ammo (not the U238 stuff) with the first shot being absorbed:

All his shots hit but were absorbed actually. And now we see no less than 4 aliens. There's a Mega in the air behind the pBoP which was killed earlier so NKF will shoot at it:

He hits it for only 32 and 7 damage, but that was enough to kill it:

There's another pBoP in the air which Accounting Troll shoots at and kills (this is the aftermath):

That Mega CG shot at but did no damage to is still lurking in the same area so Full Auto cracks out the explosive photon beamer ammo to shoot at the railing:

Everything missed unfortunately. But there's also another pBoP on the ground so he'll shoot at that instead:

The first blast does a massive non-critical 72 damage to the thing:

The next blast is equally as explosive as the first and kills the thing which reveals another pBoP behind it in the air. FA is one AP short of being able to take an auto shot so he'll take a snap shot at this one instead:

It does a darn good 64 damage but doesn't kill it. Crazy Gringo is going to shoot at that Mega he hit before with reaction fire but the damage was absorbed:

He hits it for 18 & 34 damage which kills it:

He still has plenty of APs left so he'll shoot at that pre-damaged pBoP:

He hits for 8, 2 & 34 which kills it (death animation free of charge):

During the aliens turn, a Mega appears where that pBoP was before. It doesn't move, so when it's our turn FA will shoot at the wall in front of it with his trusty explosive photon beamer ammo:

One shot connects with it dealing 57 damage and killing it:

Another one bites the dust. These damage numbers are all in our favor this mission so far - hope it keeps up! Join me for part 2 next time where it's more of the same as the aliens have flooded the LZ it seems.

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

7 hours ago, Zombie said:

Not even close man, you've got me beat by a mile (kilometer, whatever). Right now I have just about 470 hours on UFO2:ET. I may only have like 370 hours in the actual AAR, the other 100 hours have been going into shooting down UFOs to up my rank on the Steam Leaderboards. Oh, and to keep my streak going for the number of consecutive days played. (Last year was 42 days in a row, this year it's currently 70).

Ok, that is a ridiculous number of hours for a single playthrough, but it does pale in comparison to my NT. Though those are thousands of playthroughs. Like... literally. 🤪

[Zombie]

Alien Supply Vessel Part 2

It's now the alien's turn and we catch a glimpse of a Mega moving around a rooftop next to us:

Nobody reaction fires at it and when it's our turn nobody really has a chance at shooting at it due to the pipe that runs around the roof line. Accounting Troll can shoot at part of the pipe hoping he'll destroy it:

Actually, the shots are missing the pipe and hitting the Mega instead. Unfortunately, all the bullets are being absorbed so far:

The second auto shot was a mirror of the first. Keep going:

The first bullet does 18 damage and the second does an incredible 72 which kills it:

There's another alien visible which turns out to be a pBoP above a rooftop to the south of us. Nook somehow has a shot on it:

Unfortunately, he doesn't have enough APs to get into cover afterwards, so it's a no-go. During the alien's turn the thing shoots at Full Auto damaging him for 2 with the second shot being absorbed. I mean, I'm not an expert on stuff like this but even I know it's probably not a very good idea to shoot at FA even if he has normal photon beamer ammo loaded. The first reaction shot from him looks like it'll be a hit:

It's a critical hit for 71 damage which kills it. Crazy Gringo has just spotted an alien cannon so TV will mortar it:

The blast only does 68 damage:

Someone please explain to me how normal photon beamer ammo does 71 damage while a mortar does 68? Well, ok. If the game thinks I'm going to waste another mortar on the cannon it's severely mistaken. I'm gonna play the odds and have FA shoot at the thing instead:

He hits for 42 and 70 which destroys it:

See? Sometimes you need to switch things up in order to get the result you want. It's five turns later and we've made a little progress searching the map. Silencer has entered the building below that pBoP from a few rounds ago and found a Mega in the "lecture hall" which he'll shoot at:

He hits all three times damaging it twice for 3 with the last shot getting absorbed. The thing then magically moves a few tiles away, shoots at him, but it was thankfully blocked by the chairs:

Silencer wisely retreats. On our next turn the Mega is still in the same place so Silencer will shoot at it again:

The first bullet hits for 43 damage and kills it:

During the aliens turn an airborne Trep shows up to the northwest of us. Someone with a photon beamer reaction fires at it. I'll give you one guess who:

Nope, you're wrong, it's Gimli this time. And he's able to kill it easily. Three turns later and we now spot an Iron Rattler along the east side of the UFO:

Crazy Gringo is hiding in a cubbyhole but finds that if he walks one step out he can throw a photon grenade at the thing:

The blast does 24 damage but doesn't kill it so CG retreats. When it's our next turn the Iron Rattler comes a little bit closer to us so this time Pete's gonna come out of cover to shoot at it:

The first bullet does 8 damage and kills it:

Yup, we are into the thick of alien hibernation spawns right now it seems and that's going to continue for the next part of the mission. So stay tuned for that next time as we try to get some "garbage time" xp for some soldiers.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Talk about a light cruiser with a truly chilly reception. But in the end it's down to us to put their plans on ice, for good. Plentiful Queens or not.

We're in high demand as usual and the latest alien supply vessel gets a visit to be remembered, with NKF doing the honours of showcasing the new depleted uranium ammo in a very special delivery with eye-catching results.

Ample numbers of aliens line up to get assorted samples of what we've got and they're in luck as there's plenty to distribute in the lead & co department.

We can even lecture them on how it's done. But we know there's nothing like "show, don't tell" to really seal the deal and they just keep coming back for more...

Speaking of which, Zombie, 70 days in a row you say? That's almost two and a half months straight of kicking alien behind. Didn't they notice by now you're all out of bubble gum?

[Zombie]

On 3/14/2024 at 1:08 PM, Thorondor said:

Speaking of which, Zombie, 70 days in a row you say? That's almost two and a half months straight of kicking alien behind. Didn't they notice by now you're all out of bubble gum?

Well, it's been about 70 days since January 1, and I'm assuming that's when Steam starts tallying your days played. However, my streak started sometime in December but I doubt those days will count.

Alien Supply Vessel Part 3

Three turns later now and Accounting Troll reaction fires on an Iron Rattler along the east side of the UFO, and it looks like his first bullet will be a hit:

This bullet hits for 50 damage and kills it. Easy stuff. Next alien turn a Trep comes flying in and lands right in back of Pete who's kneeling facing a wall. When it's our turn, Pete's gonna have an easy shot:

He hits all three times for decent damage and kills it (and he's even using the normal AK1 purchased ammo too):

Crazy Gringo steps out of his cubbyhole in the UFO to take a peek around and spots an Iron Rattler near the west side of the UFO. 83% accurate standing auto shot - no need to kneel here:

He hits for 25 & 55 damage which kills it:

During the alien's next turn, another Trep shows up near CG. He reaction fires at it, hitting for 20 & 19 damage and missing the last shot:

When it's our turn, AT sneaks forward to shoot at the damaged Trep:

The first bullet hits for 39 damage and kills it:

What's the other alien spotted icon? Well, he spotted the other alien cannon on the UFO. You know the deal... TV will mortar it:

The blast hits for 78 on the cannon and 96 on the other nearby cannon:

No sense in mortaring it again as Pete is in a perfect spot to shoot at it:

The first bullet hits for 59 damage and destroys it:

Three turns later an Iron Rattler rounds the corner of the UFO and makes a beeline to CG:

He's not getting involved in this mess, so we'll have Pete do the honors:

He hits all three times for 40 total damage and kills it:

Meanwhile, Silencer has made his way to the roof of the building he was in and we can just barely make out the outline of the other UFO cannon. It's pre-damaged and it isn't going to need much to destroy so Silencer is going to risk it by shooting:

His second bullet hits for 36 damage and destroys it:

We can barely see the outlines of two more cannons:

We really need to get eyes on them first before mortaring so join me next time for more cannon destroying and weakling alien killing.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Alien Supply Vessel Part 4

It's a couple turns later. Accounting Troll peeked around the corner of the UFO and finally spotted the two cannons at the far side but was hit by the closer one for 3 damage. The Veteran will drop a mortar bomb between them:

The blast does an impressive 118 to one and 103 to the other, but doesn't destroy either. Figures.Technically someone could have probably shot at both to finish them off, but TV needs some xp so another mortar is readied:

This time the blast does 115 and 61 damage which destroys both:

Time for CG to patch up AT:

With AT all patched up we notice something inside the UFO:

Looks like a Rider. It doesn't come out to play so CG teleports on the roof of the UFO to get eyes on the big central turret:

He teleports back to safety and now The Veteran will mortar it:

It's a weak spot hit for 192 damage which destroys it:

AT's little scouting expedition also revealed the outline of the last UFO cannon on the northwest side so the next round TV will mortar that too:

The blast only does 94 damage:

Do we waste another mortar bomb on a cannon that only needs 30 more damage to be destroyed? I think not. Besides, I have Silencer perched on a rooftop to act as a spotter or sniper:

His accuracy is only 68% at this distance, but I figure he's probably pretty safe where he's at in case he can't destroy it:

He hits for 17 & 15 which destroys it:

Fine shooting there, soldier! Then nothing happens for 20 turns. We don't really want to search that area to the north of the map as that place is a deathtrap. But MTR spots a lone Trep and he can't resist shooting at it:

It shrugged off 44 damage from the first auto shot so he shot again with the first bullet doing 31 which finally killed it:

Ten turns later and Pete summons the courage to peek inside the UFO where he finds a Mega ripe for target practice:

The first bullet hits for 44 damage and kills it:

Join me next time when we have a little trouble with a Mega, have a face-to-face encounter with the commander and clean up the remaining aliens.

Edit currently #11 on the Steam Leaderboards for UFOs shot down with 3543. It'll take another 200 to get to #10, and 100 more to get to #9, and 100 more to get to #8 and about another 100 to get to #7. After that is where the real work begins.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Suicidal flying Trep? Well, Pete has granted its wishes flawlessly.

That's the beauty of bullets, when true even a cannon can be felled (under the right circumstances, naturally - *wink at TV*).

I mean, you've gotta go a little Crazy sometimes and stare danger straight in the face/muzzle to get a target right on your sights. You aliens blink, miss one of us and you're toast.

Well, we're inside the UFO now and we'll be bringing on our A game, so watch out!

In other news: Snake Eyes ranking reached. Feel free to go for Lucky Seven. 😎

[Zombie]

Alien Supply Vessel Part 5

During the alien's turn a Mega on the North side of the UFO shot at MTR with it's chem weapon doing a massive 24 critical damage to him. Ouch! He still alive though so it's payback time:

The first bullet hits for 53 damage and kills it:

MTR uses the remainder of his APs to huff it over to Gimli who is going to patch him up:

What you want to do is cure any critical wounds with the medkit first (in this case one critical is in the right leg):

Once you clear the critical wound, swap over to the stimpack to heal the damage:

There are a couple reasons for doing it this way. First, the only piece of equipment that can cure criticals is the medkit so it doesn't make a lot of sense to waste those uses up on clearing damage. Secondly, stimpacks can be purchased for cheap off the black market. If you use up all the healing capacity on it I think it disappears (same with the medkit) so it's cheaper to buy new for cheap than to manufacture. Anyway, MTR was unfortunately wearing Tundra armor which provides no protection from chem which is a bit of an issue.

There's another alien spotted icon and it's the Mega Commander who pays a visit to Pete. It's not visible, but Pete can target it with the stun rod so he'll try that:

It does 74 stun damage which is nightie-night time for the commander:

During the alien's next turn another Mega shows up on a catwalk between some buildings to the north. It ran out of APs so Silencer is going to shoot at it:

His first auto shot only managed to deal 6 damage to the thing so he's forced to shoot again:

He only managed to do 15 more damage to it so now NKF is going to throw an incendiary grenade at it:

He kills the mega when the grenade hits for a critical 69 fire damage:

The other alien spotted icon is an Iron Rattler along the west side of the UFO which Nook is going to shoot at:

The first two bullets do 16 & 15 damage which kills it:

During the alien's turn another Iron Rattler shows up alongside the UFO in nearly the same spot and because Nook still had plenty of APs from last turn he gets to auto shoot. The first two bullets do 17 & 12 damage with the third bullet on it's way:

That last bullet only did one damage and killed it:

That means Iron Rattlers only have 29 health. During the alien's last turn, Gimli shoots at a stray Trep on top of the UFO with his photon beamer:

That killed it and ended the mission. The EOM report is surprisingly good news:

We killed 41 aliens, stunned a commander, MTR suffered no ill effect from being gassed out for 24 damage and healed, and he earned himself a promotion to boot. Let's allocate his points:

Two went into both strength and shooting with the last going in throwing. He'll require another point in both strength and shooting to max those stats out and he still has 4 promotions left. Beast mode activated! We got a pretty good reward for eliminating the swarm:

It's at this point when I realize that the stockpile of advanced ship parts at my main base isn't as large as it should be. Some are missing. Eventually I figure out that the game only allows you to keep 4 at your main base, any more you "recover" are lost. You have a few options to remedy this issue:

1. Sell the excess. If you're really low on cash these sell for $500k which is a good chunk of change. I would not recommend this though.
2. Equip them on your interceptors. If you are having trouble shooting down UFOs with your Golden Eagle interceptors, I guess this is an option, but there's a better interceptor on the horizon (Thunderstorm) which is better served with them installed as the UFOs only get bigger and more formidable.
3. If you have Thunderstorms at your main base already, install the parts on them. Transfer any excess to other bases and install there. Highly recommended.

As long as you keep your main base with 1 part or less in inventory you will recover everything, and that should be the goal. I'm not really sure how many you can have in inventory in other bases (requires lots of testing and a big investment of time obviously), but even if it's capped at 4 you can still stockpile them at different bases till you have a use for them.

So now I have to do something. I'm forced to reload the game and replay this mission. The main base has Thunderstorms so let's install. There's a button under the Bombs area you have to click on:

And this is what the Thunderstorm looks like with the parts installed:

There's a nominal increase in fuel speed and armor and the interceptor color changes from a blue/silver to gold/yellow. With all the Thunderstorms upgraded, I'll transfer the last part to Europe:

And now I have to replay the last mission in order to recover all the advanced ship parts. 😞 I don't think you guys want me to go through that turn-by-turn again so maybe I'll just recap it with some highlights in my next post.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Trying to turn MikeTheRed green with chemical warfare is a dastardly deed indeed and didn't go unpunished. Not for a second.

Paying heed to sensible advice on prioritary critical hit heals with the right gear makes for good financial health also. Noted!

Likewise worthy of register is the fitting lights out for that naughty Mega Commander. It should know better than to try any funny business with a seasoned operative such as Pete.

In another instance of playing with fire, NKF roasts one other Mega plain overdone. There's no such thing as disproportionate use of force with these things. Let 'em fry!

All told I'd say it was a rewarding mission. Right, Seargent MTR? No pain, no gain.

In more ways than one, as seen in the reported matter of the local stock cap of advanced ship parts. More inventory management fun...

And, time for another run!

[Zombie]

Swarm Leader Part 1

Just to note, I pared this down quite a bit from what it was and it should still be readable. This mission had a lot of aliens present and with the spawns from the hibernation vats there was quite a bit of action. For this reason I'll include a good chunk of the screenshots as it may be interesting. Anyhow, we zone in and Crazy Gringo steps off the transport and immediately spots two aliens. The first is a Bonesetter on a walkway at the building next to us. Crazy Gringo will shoot at it:

That 62% auto-shot accuracy of his really hurt when it came time to put lead on the target as he missed quite a bit, but at the end of it he hit twice for 29 & 85 which killed it:

The second alien is another bonesetter who is on the roof of the building next to us. Nobody has a shot on it due to the ledge surrounding the perimeter, but The Veteran isn't fazed by that with his mortar:

The blast killed the bonesetter but also hit something else for 2 points of damage. So he sent another mortar and killed that hidden unit and damaged something else for 3:

I later learned this other hidden unit was an alien cannon on the roof of the UFO. Makes sense in retrospect. There was a lot of alien activity during their turn and we currently see two more. First is a bonesetter on the ground nearby. AT is going to shoot at it:

Almost all the bullets hit but they either were absorbed or did single digit damage. That ain't gonna cut it mister! Now I'm gonna have Silencer shoot at it:

The first bullet hit for 33 damage and killed the thing:

Mr Reliable! The second alien is an airborne bonesetter and FA is going to take a snap shot at it with heavy photon beamer ammo loaded:

The first two snap shots missed, but the last hit and did 61 damage which killed it:

There's actually another Bonesetter we spotted in a tower. It's got a ledge around it so nobody has a clear shot at the thing. Gimli is going to take an auto shot at it with heavy photon beamer ammo hoping that will open things up:

The shots missed the ledge and hit the alien a couple times for 52 & 7 damage which killed it:

During the aliens turn a Rider popped out on the roof of the tower. When it's our turn, FA is going to shoot at the ledge hoping to again, open things up:

That worked which created a big enough area for MTR to take a snap shot at it:

It hit for 38 damage which killed it:

Great teamwork guys! During the alien's turn an airborne Bonesetter appears just north of the transport which MTR shoots at (you can probably make out the bullet just to the left of the tree in the darkness):

It does a decent 48 damage but doesn't kill it. When it's our turn again, MTR will auto shoot it:

He hits all three times for 3, 6 & 11 which kills it:

Nice shooting! Three turns later we spot an alien cannon which TV will mortar:

The blast does 131 damage which destroys it:

A couple alien turns later CG reaction fires at a Rider on the ground just west of the transport, and it's gonna be a hit:

It does 63 damage which kills it. A couple turns later there's another Rider just north of the previous one which MTR will take a snap shot at:

The first bullet only hit for 22 damage which didn't kill it so MTR shot again which hit for 32 and that did it:

Eight turns later a Rider popped out of the side of the tower and shot at AT with normal photon beamer ammo:

It hits him but the damage was absorbed. He then shot back hitting it once for 6 damage. When it's our turn again, CG will snap shoot at it:

It hits for 31 damage which kills the thing:

There's another alien visible to us which is a Rider on the ground by the side of the UFO which AT will shoot at:

He hits for 23 & 29 which kills it:

Join me for part two where we start to encounter the first wave of alien hibernation spawns consisting of Treps and Iron Rattlers, with one lone Bonesetter thrown in just to make things interesting.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Swarmed, by bonesetters on arrival. With extreme prejudice scorned. Eat lead, invaders!

Towards us they send their riders but they're no match for our fighters.

Make no mistake, we've seen not the end of their vile threats. We can fend for ourselves and there's nothing we can't take on, but as we tread onwards, take care when aiming downsights where you place your bets - and mind those cannons!