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Windwalker

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  1. Thank you, guys. I don't believe it will be neccessary to split the discussion. We're just a bunch of friends here ain't we? Tonight is the second battle... Though preparing the battle report takes more time than playing the game (which is not short per update either) I now appreciate what you guys have achieved even more. If I was Mr.Spock I would have calculated my success chances as "less than worth mentioning" but hey, that's the spirit of the challange is it not? Wish me luck.
  2. I prepare myself to see the research team and meet them next, but before that a siren goes wailing on the corridors of our base. I haste to command office and my second leads me to sonar. We have just spotted an USO. "Alredy?" "Alright... Lets see our pilots. Launch Barracuda 01 and intercept!" I watch the sonar, unable to digest the speed of the craft. I wonder if our Barracude will be able to reach this thing, but we don't have to wait too much to see the answer. Our pilot, Dwayne "Shark" Hughes reports he has sight on enemy. I recall the attack patterns of our craft and order for a standart attack. I throw a gaze on another video feed and see what enemy ship looks like. But before I am able to inspect it further... "This was... fast. Well done, shark, have a circle around target and return to base." I turn to my second in command. "Prepare squad and launch Triton now!" He hesitates for a second and I know what he is about to say. "Don't worry, son. They will make it before sunset. I know what time the sun goes down in that meridian, OK?" He seems relieved... He trusts me after all. How I wish I had the same trust. I wait, hiding my anxiety and finally Phillip "Whale" Monet reports back. I put the headset on and sit to commander's chair. Here I can receive all the audio and video feedback from squad intercom and their shoulder cams. I hear squad running through several checklists as they prepare to go out. But I am aware they are lacking a command chain in case we loose contact. I have to make a quick call here to assign someone as leader. I remember the LightSharp to be a cool and calm sniper from an elite Brezillian killteam. "Alright everyone, I know this was quick but you know what? I like it better this way. The faster we finish this, the sooner we can go back to our facebook routine." A couple chuckles fill the link. "Well, it sems I hear some static over here, so I am promoting LightSharp as a field commander for now. This is temporary, though, we can discuss the details later when you all come back. You got that Light?" "Sir! Yes sir!" "Good. Don't make me regret this, girl." "Sir!" I quickly activate the battlescape algorithm, which will combine the visuals from every squad members video feed, turn them into a 3D combat area overlay display. Then I will feed all the info back to squads and they will be able to see in their wrist pads. Algorithm only takes a couple seconds to run and I receive first results. I see mule scouting as he was told to do so, from cover to cover, taking it slow and steady. And Shaqqles take position on the wing of Trition. She is good with underwater grenade trajectory calculations and can prime the small proppelers on the grenade with unerring accuracy. I am still proud of Frederic for coming up with such a solution to be able to throw grenades underwater. He basically created an exoskeleton for our grenades, surrounded with small propellers in all sides. He also added some motion sensors, so the small processor reads the throwing motion of aquanaut, and primes the propellers motion routines to form an arc-shaped line of trajectory. Good aquanauts can also "fine tune" the propellers, increasing their accuracy. One of my command staff, Lopez, comes up with a 2d tactical map of combat area. I want it on the big screen and relay information on how I want my squad to spread out from Triton. "Allright, moving out!" yells LightSharp. She seems a little bit too eager but I don't interfere. It's still too soon. And as soon as she turns the Triton's cockpit around, she has sight on enemy sub. After a quick evaluation she reports: "Taking cover." Now, thats my girl. Paranaim, our fastest runner lunches out next, running between the damaged petrolium line nexus and natural flora right next to it. I hear the voice of Frederick right behind me: "Tell him to stay away from the nexus. I have several reports of "accidently" exploding petrolium line nexii!" The rest of the squad also prepares to spread next turn. Everyone out is safely spaced and in relative cover, and everyone inside is ready to rush out next. That's my way. (Next Turn) Paranaim and Mule continue their sweep. Although slowed down by the natural flora, they are at least in relative safey and extend our vision of zone quite a bit. Hernandez takes the role of backyard scouting, and finds herself a good cover while reporting in "clear!" GreenGirl, holding our Portable Torpedo Launcher finds a good spot in the middle of our deplyment zone, ready to react to which side neccessary. After all these aquanauts report "Clear!" LightSharp moves again. "I need someplace I can see everything better" she says. Next moment I see her climbing to foreside of Triton, right over the cockpit! "Thats better!" she says, as she places her feet in either sides of window panel holders. I check the 2D map and I am happy with my squad. They are spaced out, well in cover, and doing everything by the book for now. Mule reaches the edge of fauna and kneels, setting his sights on enemy sub. "It looks heavily damaged sir, I suspect anything can survive this." Paranaim runs behind him, finds another underwater sandhill, and uses it as cover. "Everything is so eerily still here, sir. I don't like this." "Neverlady, you take position at where Mule just left. It's another gun towards the enemy sub and we may need your Hydro-Jet Cannon any moment." I order. "Awright, sir!" she replies. I hear her breathing heavily as she tries to move the bulky and deadly weapon into position. "This is Hernandez. Moving forward behind the Triton. I see some kelp, will try to use it as cover. No bug here." (A couple turns) Mule, Paranaim and Neverlady make our left sweep, while Hernandez does the backyard one. Our heavy weapon specialists make slight arrangements to their positions. But there are still no ailens in sight. "Sir, I see the back of enemy sub now, and... half of it's ass is not here." (Next Turn) Hernandez runs towards next sandhill to use it as a cover, but she suddenly stops and throws herself to ground. "Contact!" We barely have time to inspect the alien, as it notices Hernandez and raises it's arm for a kill. Just then a harpoon hits its chest. Its mouth open, surprised, already leaking some blood. Thats where the second harpoon goes. The small body is thrown back by the power of the impact, and the last harpoon flies through just where it was standing. "Enemy down!" reports LightSharp. The squad spends another hour slowly exploring the area, but they find no other alien life form. They report a mission successfull. I am not happy with what I see, but I keep it to myself. To bolster morale, which I believe will be our only weapon, I salute my soldiers for their fine work. "Oh, by the way... LightSharp, you are now an Ensign. Permanently."
  3. Which I ordered to be built here: At that moment I have this strange feeling, as if I had done this before, exactly like that. I miss the question of my Administrative Executer at first: "Sir? What will be the base name?" Frederick tells me the base will be "possible to live in" within two weeks. I spend all my time figthing bureucratic skirmishers. Finally, sleeples I move to sup-pen to leave for base. But before I move to Triton, I arrange some last minute changes over X-Net. I won't let this Gray's lackeys know things beforehand. I quickly arrange new orders for base layout. Only my mastermind knows the details. Right as we take off, I receive a message from Delilah Lane. She reports the arrival of her team to Deja-Vu. I quickly reply with my first orders to them: During the sixth hour of our flight, I am awakened by Phillip Bere, the pilot of Triton. He has the arrogant aura all over him as he informs we are in contact range with out base and will be diving shortly. Before our underwater journey begins, I check reports on my computer and make order some items I believe will be neccessary. I also order the Craft Gas Cannon on Barracude 2 to be replaced with a DUP head launcher, courtesy of OREGON initiative. (Along with a personal note from Carmen : "Nucelar research is not all that-bad, huh?") I was first excited by the chance of seeing some underwater life, but I don't see much in that high speed travel. Finally we arrive and Phillip carefully brings us surface inside the sub-pen. I find my squad of 8 ready and saluting me. I salute them back and move into my office. After a short sleep I ask for a cup of coffee and send an order saying I want to meet my soldiers personally. I order them one by one into my office and talk at least an hour with each of them. That spends my day. Here are my files about them and the callsigns I gave them. Overall, I am quite satisfied with what my old collegues have sent for me. For the first time I calculate that I may actually have a chance of success, all you need is some good men, after all...
  4. I knew it was time when I heard the unmistakable flops of a helicopter aproaching. I was both relieved and worried at the same time. Their coming meant that my foresight was accurate and my plan had worked, but it also meant the second alien war was about to start and it was going to be hell soon. I got out of my hut, which was my home for six years now on this island where I lived on isolation. When I was young I used to believe I was an important person; one with special inner strength that may change the world for some good. I fought through small minded money-holders first, then corporations, then governments, then international agencies
  5. It's starting now in it's own thread. First report coming in a couple hours. Be ready.
  6. Look what I found after hours of franctic search. This little baby was hiding in my guitar bag, along with "orange box". Will make a clean install, then update to v2.0 and play it vanilla. Will start tomorrow I guess, it's 01:49 here, and just watched some fringe episodes from 3rd season. And I was already in depression before that, so definately not good night to start something that big. But some alcohol... Yeah that would have been nice... There was some vodka somewhere I believe...
  7. Drinking challange would be nice, but I can't do it alone. I must have my friend with me for that. Drinking alone has bad side effects on me, very bad, no-no. And I would only combine drinking challange with no-alien-tech challange only after I complete the game with latter. (Which will probably never happen.) Besides, I am quite the noob in capture & LP preperation, so an event as fun as drinking challange would be wasted on me. I would like to watch one of you guys doing it though .
  8. I still have the CD, so I think I will make a new install on my PC, than install XcomUtil over it and just keep the equipment fix, if it's possible. Although in truth I have doubts that my aquanauts will have a high survival rate so it wont make a difference. But first I will take NKF's advice and try to see what my options are.
  9. Allright, first trial was a disaster. But not because of no-alien tech approach. Because of several differences I noticed of the version I play now with the one I played before... My Coelecanth has 100 TU's, and my Gauss weapons do not require any ammunition. When I noticed that I just decided to go and find my old cd back. And I did! Boy it's old, and there are lots of scrapes on it but it still works. As a result I will have to start again because there is no challange in unlimited gauss clip size, and the ultimate spotter machine. So this re-start has nothing to do with the unlucky incident of a gill-men throwing incredibly destructive sonic pulser on my triton and killing half the squad waiting inside for deployment. (after surviving three grenades... I have an avi file of this special specimen... I will ty to share...) And another cannon wielder sniping my only man with 50+ accuracy. This version seems to come with a dos-box backbone and has the options to take screenshots, record a video and create an album with the screenshots you take. It also handles some dos-box properties like screen size and format. Also includes all the manuals, and has the EU too. But it seems whoever did this also went ahead and modded the game to make it easier/more balanced. Added to what I wrote above, I also noticed my triton has a weapon slot on it. And the equipment screen remembers which aquanaut has which weapon from the last mission. Does anyone know about this version? Is it good? What else it offers? How can I keep the equipment screen fix without the rebalancing mods? Thanks.
  10. I already did the first mission, with a very-below-average skills squad. Got two of them killed in an extremely nasty situation. I have taken some screenshots, however I feel I missed alot of good stuff going on. I will try to write a walkthrough-ish post which will undoubtedly lead to my ultimate demise, but it will be an honor to challange the game like that and... die horribly...
  11. It looks better than I first anticipated, but still it's cover based, auto-health recovery, agents-revivable, console minded game... Console minded means that it works in large chunks instead of small, detailed parts. Sure, the graphics, the animations, the environment and the eye-candy stuff is quite fine, but notice when "ultimate war machine" shoots aliens; all the cover-line of aliens, even the one out of blast radius is killed, because the stuff doesn't work range-based, but target-zone based. And the target zone is "behind these covers", not "just that spot." Anyway, at least the retro-style is in place... But will definately need better scripting and voice acting. At least some original quotes to make it more personal. My hernandez was special for me not because of her abilities, but because of how she played out, and without even saying a word she became the center of all my attention... and then she died and we cried. Hope it will work out like that in the game too.
  12. Of course I will not reload in case of a disaster! If so, where is the sense of challange? It's obvious with enough (too the number may be too high) number of reloads, you can come out of almost every situation, espeically if you are saving on different slots. Don't know... I never reloaded even my best men died when I played years ago. We didn't reload when Hernandez died either... we were very sorry, especially my friend since he was holding the mouse and gave the order to move that particularly nasty spot where the gill-man reaction-killed her. And before that, we both were in love with her as he did some magic juggling with HE gas cannon ammo in a very confined space, making carefull aim and calculations of blast radius to kill an enemy in cellar, and two more in dining hall, saving another aquanaut who was left without TU's and in front of aliens in the process. (Hence the destruction of the stairs) And we were talking about her, how we were going to promote her and how she was going to get the first of all equipment. She was going to be our special love... Then she died... Two stories above the kitchen she slaughtered three aliens, and one story above where she killed another one. Her kill per bullet ratio was over 1.0! And she died... That night, with the help of some alcohol, we couldn't do anything but talk about her and her ceremony... We sent to various friends SMS messages and facebook sendings saying "Hernandez died." Nobody understood what that meant, especially in the 3:00 AM of the night... But we did not reload. She was dead. Gone. Thats why the game was so good and why we were still playing it after all these years, instead of fancy 3d games.
  13. Ironman mode? What is that? Is there something like that? I followed the link for the fire and it's effects, valuable information there... But it's all for EU. Perhaps most (if not all) are also true for TFTD. Will start today. Wish me luck (oceans worth of luck)
  14. Thank you guys! thank you! Besides, I would like to apologize for rushing in with questions without having a good look at the forums first. I have located several similar posts and the path they lead me was great. I found many great tools and mods but did not have the chance to fire up dosbox to use them. My 64 bit win 7 was being a bitch about not running them. Anyway, since you said the magic words "nightmare but possible" I decided to dedicate my useless life to something meaningfull and start doing it. I will try to take screenshots, saves and report them back in a post here in the forum. I hope it will be a worthy challange. Needles to say, I will play on superhuman, with human tech only, except for neccessary researches to finish the game. I can already feel the thrill (and the fear) and I can foresee some serious changes in my gameplay. I believe I will be able to get some additional money for selling every equipment once I research them. I also foresee I will need some capable man and women to properly handle torpedo launchers, and throw magna packs. Can some experienced veteran enlighten me more about how the flames work? And I need one more confirmation (I can try this one out but it would take time) can torpedos breach walls and/or uso walls? I am positive on magna pack destroying walls in teror missions. Stun rods will be handy I presume... Also as someone mentioned, I may prepare some primed magna-pack carrier suicide bombers for some tough enemies... would be costly, but also may come in handy. Oh god I am about to fill my pants... I was just imagining an alien colony in my head and trying to get my man to the central elevator room... oh god... oh god!
  15. Come'on guys, we need the rest of it! You can't stop it here, how long we will have to wait! Come'on!
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