Zombie

Battlecruiser Part 2 Three turns later now and a Rider comes out of the door by the hangar and shoots at Loonie doing 5 damage. CG is going to patch him up ASAP: When he's all healed up, he's going to shoot at that pesky Rider: His first two bullets do 12 & 43 which kill it: Eight turns later and we got most of the terminal cleared, except for that mechanical room. As soon as Kret steps inside the door he is blasted by a Rider doing 11 damage. Since he's basically face-to-face with the thing, he'll just shoot it: His first two bullets do 22 & 15 which kills it: The next turn we spot another UFO cannon so TV will mortar it: It does a decent 140 damage which destroys the thing: Six turns later and we can barely make the outline of another UFO cannon out so TV will mortar it: Granted, the pic really doesn't show the outline at all, but we know it's there. Right? Right! The blast only does 74 damage though: TV mortars it again with the blast doing an equally-unimpressive 65, but that was enough to destroy it: Now MTR peeks inside the hangar and is shot by a Rider next to a helicopter of sorts, luckily for no damage. He may as well shoot at it: His first bullet does 26 which kills it: A couple turns later we spot a Rider trying to sneak out of the UFO during it's turn: It doesn't go far either so when it's our turn Knan will toss a normal grenade on it: It does a very respectable 61 damage which kills it: Seven turns later we spot the last alien cannon on the far side of the UFO. I originally was going to leave it be, but since TV was in range he'll mortar it: The blast did a pitiful 49 damage but his next did 103 which destroyed it: A couple turns later we notice one of the doors to the UFO is open. No, TV isn't going to mortar the area: Sorby gets into a position to spot a Rider which he'll shoot at: His first bullet was absorbed, but the second did 25 which just barely killed it: A couple turns later and I'm pretty confident that there isn't anything outside anymore. We just spotted a Rider inside so Mouse will throw a normal grenade near it: The blast does 26 which just barely kills it: Six turns later we spot a couple Riders milling about the power sources on the other side of the UFO: Sorby steps out of hiding and is shot at by one of them for no damage, so he'll shoot back: He hits for 7, 9 & 25 which kills it: Sorby doesn't have a clear shot at the other one, but he can shoot at the power source: The resulting explosion was powerful enough to kill the thing and end the mission. Next time we'll go over the EOM report and deal with a lot of things on the Geoscape like manufacturing, a little bit of selling, upgrading interceptors, researching, more production, more upgrading of interceptors, End of Month Report, more manufacturing, and finally shooting down a UFO swarm. Action packed! Edit: Still #2 on the Steam global leaderboards for UFOs shot down. I didn't have it in me to get to 11,500 yesterday, but I got that done today. Current level is 11,514. That means only 723 more UFOs to get to #1. The plan is to get there before the end of the month and hopefully before Thanksgiving which is the 28th. Anything after that is just the frosting on the cake so to speak. Pretty stoked about getting there as it's been a long 10 month project so far. - Zombie

Absolutely nothing is under the tables. We blew those areas out a couple times with a leaf blower just to make sure... because we were putting boards under there. The few leaves that are inside was because they blew under the doors. The last couple days there have been a lot of leaves falling off the trees and with the strong wind they go everywhere. Almost doesn't pay to do anything until all the leaves are off, but by then it's December and too late. Pain in the rear. - Zombie

Not a whole lot of painting happened today unfortunately. But since the bosses son was there I put him to work helping me get the greenhouse complete. Was quite a bit of sweeping, leaf blowing, shelf cleaning, putting plastic flats away and just general tidying up, but we got it done with time to spare: We got some outdoor work finished too, and still had some time to staple some cut-up flower boxes as flats for carrying arrangements. It was a big help in keeping ahead of the game, that's for sure. There's still minor cleanup which needs to be done yet of course. But now I can focus on painting and whatever other maintenance projects crop up. There's always something! - Zombie

Today was very nice out again. I had some other projects I'm currently working on though: greenhouse and cleaning up the small garage. There was a lull in the action in the afternoon so I was able to fill in some more rough spots in the pavement along the greenhouse. You should be able to see the new areas as they are shinier than the other patches: I wouldn't say this area is complete yet as there are a couple areas under the plastic flap that could use filling too. Dunno if I want to tackle that this year anymore, I guess I could if it's really quiet, but come on, that never happens this time of the year. There are a couple other areas I have my eye on that I might do yet, we shall see. Anyhow, I was able to tamp down all my patches again today. Here's what the ones look like by the alley: I think that was quite beneficial actually. Maybe not so much here, but along the greenhouse the patch wasn't super compacted and that extra tamping certainly helped. And the patches blend in color to the rest of the pavement better. Maybe next year I'll seal coat the blacktop in the driveway and along the greenhouse again. Last time I did that was ages ago, so it's time. Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty nice again, I'll see what I can get done while the weather is cooperating. - Zombie

Battlecruiser Part 1 This time we're on an airport map. We deploy as usual but don't spot anything until the aliens first turn. Two Rars show up just west of the transport. MTR will shoot at one of them to start us off: His first bullet hits a very weak spot for an unbelievable 146 damage which kills it: Unreal, that's more than the mortar can do sometimes! Nobody can really get a good shot on the second Rar, so CG will stand up from his hiding spot to shoot at it: His first bullet does 39 while his second does 49 which kills it: When we peek out of the hedge that faces the hangar to the northeast Nook spots another Rar which he'll shoot at: His first bullet is a weak spot kill doing 112 damage: Nothing much happens during the alien's turn, but when it's ours again a cannon on the roof of the UFO must've spotted CG somehow when he moved and shot at him doing no damage. Thought he was far enough away to be safe, but that's a big no. Since the cannon is visible, TV will mortar it: The first blast only did 80, so he fired another one. This one did even less damage at 59, but it was enough to destroy it: During the alien's next turn, another Rar shows up where the last two were before. Loonie is ready for it and immediately starts shooting at it with the first bullet hitting for 51 with the second on the way: That hits for 43 which kills it: Quite impressive. When it's our turn, CG takes a peek around the corner to spot a Rider standing next to a light pole. He books it back into hiding to let MTR toss a grenade next to it: Why not directly on it? Well, I want to keep as much of that hedge intact as I can for cover. Anyhow, the blast does 45 damage which kills the thing and makes a one-square hole in the hedge: When Sorby peeks out of the hedge he spots two more aliens. The first is a Rar by the corner of the hangar. He'll toss an incendiary grenade at it to start things off: It only does 13 damage so he tossed a sludge grenade next which did 52 but didn't kill it: That's rather unfortunate. But now you can see that the other alien is a Rider by the other corner of the hangar. Well, Mouse gets into position to throw a cryo grenade at this tough Rar: It only does 33 damage, but that's enough to take it out: As for that Rider, it's going to have to wait as nobody is in a good position to toss a grenade on it. Sure, TV could have mortared it, but why waste a bomb on a weakling Rider? NKF is itching to shoot at it but can't either: On our next turn, Loonie spots a Rar between the hangar and the UFO which he'll shoot at: His first bullet hits for 89 and kills it: When he fires, he had to turn a bit and spotted a Rider to his left. Well, he may as well shoot at it too: The first bullet does 33 damage which kills it: This was kinda a mistake on my part as he couldn't get back into full cover anymore. During the alien's turn, a Rider shows up by CG: NKF reaction fires at it hitting with the first bullet which does 28 damage and kills it: He's a monster who cannot be stopped. This allowed Loonie to get back into cover again the next round. On our next round, TV will mortar the control tower since we just spotted it: It damages a hidden Rider (try to figure this one out) but for only 22. Again, try to figure that out. 22 damage for a mortar against a weakling Rider. Unbelievable: At least it's visible now and there's nothing in the way of Mouse shooting at it: The first bullet does 33 and kills it: So join me for part two when we deal with the rest of the alien cannons and a whole raft of Riders. Should be able to get that in one part because after that will be a lot of Geoscape stuff too. That'll be a post on it's own as there's a lot to cover. Edit: Right now I'm sitting at 11,324 UFOs shot down with 4 days left in the month. Which means I need to shoot down at least 14 UFOs each day till the end of the year to get to #1. Obviously, I'm going to keep up my pace while the going is good. I'm aiming for getting to 12237 (#1) by the end of November which will give me the whole month of December to pad the stats a little bit. If I have the time, the goal for December is 1000 more. - Zombie

Awww, thanks for the kind words Mr T. Much appreciated! Pats on the back happen after the job is done, so we'll wait on that one. The other day I actually had a little time in the afternoon to put a first coat on the primer spots on the east side of the building. Just kept going until I got it done. Used up the last drops in the pail on putting a light coat on some areas where the primer was still peeking through: Looks better obviously, but more needs to be done yet. There's some peeling paint above the door on the right as well as some areas below the fire escape on the far left. I have about 1/2 gallon of the old paint color left so after I get those spots primed and caulked, it should be enough to cover over it. If not, I have plenty of the new Loxon stuff left. My plan is to paint the wall next year with the new color as what I have on there now should protect it through the winter and spring. I guess the big $64,000 question is: which one do I like better? They are pretty similar actually. The Loxon stuff is quite a bit thicker which requires more latex paint conditioner to get the proper consistency so brushing is easier. It seems to cover good as is evident on the area I painted by the big garage door (it was one medium coat, thinned with a little conditioner, that's it). With that said, if I had to pick one, it would still be the Diamond Vogel as that's what I'm used to using. My pick could be swayed if the Loxon stuff didn't bleach out in the sun as fast (though, 12 years for a paint to remain the same color is asking a lot). I should really paint that big gray eyesore of a gas meter too, but I need to touch up the fire escape first and I don't think I'd have enough to finish that too. Now that I think of it, it's probably better to wait as I'd need to get the new color matched in an oil paint so that it looks the same. Didn't have any time to do painting or patch tamping today, so no update there. I spent most of the day getting the inside of the greenhouse cleaned up and putting stuff away for winter. Not a very glamorous or interesting job, so I didn't bother taking pics of that. Certainly was a nice day in terms of weather and you have to take full advantage when it's good. - Zombie

So there was some pretty significant peeling paint going on to the east of the big garage door on the alley. Spent a while scraping all the old stuff off, priming and caulking it: Not going to bother putting on a first coat with the old paint color, I hit it with the new Loxon stuff from Sherwin Williams: Yup, schlupped some paint on the brown, but I have to touch that up anyway so no big deal. Should probably do above the door and the west side too, but that's going to wait till I have time. Took some time today to tamp down the new patch in the middle of the driveway and also did another tamp on another one too: Don't think that was necessary per se, but it made the patch lighter so it blended in better. I have a small straw whisk broom which I was using on the patches to sweep out the pothole first, but ended up breaking off the cheap plastic handle the other day. Not good. I thought that maybe I could jam an old broom handle in there to see if that would fit. Yup, perfectly in fact. Cut a length off, drilled a hole in one end for hanging it, then hot glued the handle into the end. Finally, put a coat of polyurethane on it. All fixed: Even better than before as the handle is longer and much more sturdy. If the hot melt glue doesn't hold, then I might switch to Gorilla Glue. Anyhow, was putting away some metal racks against the side of the small garage on the parking lot and noticed some crumbling mortar in a few of the joints. Got out the hammer and screwdriver to knock out the old stuff, then mixed up a batch of mortar and filled in the joints: Step cracks are the worst thing in the world. Very annoying to fix because they keep coming back. Mixed up a little too much mortar so I used the rest on some cracks in the cement in the greenhouse: Much better. Not sure if it'll hold, but it's better than nothing. Probably will not have too much time tomorrow but I'm hoping to get back on the painting project. - Zombie

Had a little time today so I messed around with filling in more potholes. The big one in the middle of the driveway was priority #1 obviously. Forgot to take a pic of it filled, but did take a pic of it with two boards over it (with newspaper underneath to prevent sticking): I did a lot of hammering on it and I think it turned out good. One more tamping is needed yet when it fully sets. After this, I went to work on some smaller potholes by the big back garage door: There were a lot of divots from the wheels of the garbage dumpster that used to sit here. It's a little annoying when you are using a hand cart to move glassware into the back as these bumps make it difficult to get a head of steam going. There is a fairly high lip between the blacktop and the concrete floor so I might tamp a little more into the crack to make a little ramp like I did to the other garage doors. I have about a half a pail left of the patch so I may have to ration it a bit as I don't want to pick up another bag if I don't have to. - Zombie

I'll post a part one on that next battlecruiser mission tomorrow. Just wanted to mention I now have 11005 UFOs shot down and it's only the 19th. The goal is to try to crank out some more tomorrow and hopefully get 232 more by the end of the month. That would be ideal. I need to shoot down 1232 more UFOs by the end of the year to be #1. That's only ~17/day which is a cakewalk. - Zombie

Can't be any worse than them landing directly on the plastic itself. Actually, what I'm thinking of doing for a little bit of extra protection from winter storms/snowfall is to toss an old piece of greenhouse plastic over the bad areas and secure that down. Probably would be beneficial anyway. And possibly a door too! Yeah, I was looking at that earlier this year. I know one previous window opening is on the wall going down the steps to the basement (we keep our floral spray paint there). It looks like most would be under the current steps going up above. Not sure why they were there or why they were bricked off, but it would be interesting if they were still there. - Zombie

The weather was cooperating today so while it was warm I patched up a few holes in the plastic on the greenhouse from the stupid seagulls again: Dunno why I wanted to do this today as it was really windy which made getting the tape through the holes nearly impossible. I didn't swear this time though. Hopefully it'll hold over the winter as it did last year. Actually I heard about a method to prevent bird damage to greenhouse plastic - put a very fine mesh over it. Not convinced that would solve it completely, but it perhaps it's worth a shot if it isn't too expensive (we had one of these mesh covers but it got thrown out a couple years ago by accident). Oh well. So do I fill a pothole or paint? Had some time so let's paint! Painted the area above the door and to the right of it too: Actually, I spent about a half hour going through all my cans of paint before I started. I thought I was out of the "Taffy Apple" base color paint, but forgot I bought a few cans back in 2019 in anticipation of painting the east side of the building. That never happened due the pandemic and being busy. I used up one can last year and found the other one today. Splashed a little latex paint conditioner in there to aid in brushing and it worked great. Best of all, it completely matches so no worries about seeing where you left off - it blends in perfectly. Still had time after this quickie job so I got a start on the east side: It's a little bit darker than the paint that's still on it because of the sun bleaching it out for the last 12 years, but hey, it's not bad at all. I'm sure that once it's dry it will be closer in color. Hopefully we have another couple warmer days so I can finish covering the primed spots. Only used up 1/4 gallon of paint so far too so I should be able to get this side buttoned down before the snow starts flying. And then maybe next year I'll put on the final coat of the new paint color (similar but a little lighter, actually you might be able to see the new color is a couple courses of brick above the fire escape). I was admiring my tuck pointing job on this side today too as it's hardly noticeable with a coat of paint over it. - Zombie

Spent a little time cleaning up between the greenhouse and store today as the weather was finally decent. Cleaned the two windows, swept up the leaves and dust and chunks of blacktop, put away the hose reel, used the leaf blower to remove the rest of the stuff. Took a pic of the final state: Looks great now. That white thing on the one patch is a bird feather - the patch may be a little sticky yet. Some of the loose blacktop on the bottom of the pic... well, I might just put down some roofing patch and "glue" the loose pieces back into place for the winter. If it doesn't hold, no big deal, at least I tried. I'm getting rid of a bunch of old pallets too, so that we only have 3 stacks total. Anyway, as for the crap at the far end of the pic, I'll clean that up soon. Still need to fill in that last pothole in the driveway and a couple rough spots by the greenhouse patches. And I need to start painting the areas I primed too, before the weather gets too cold and humid. - Zombie

So here is the End of Mission Report: We recovered a lot of good alien weapons and have 3 promotions. Kinda no surprise who as they were all main players in the mission. Let's do Loonie first: Basic strategy, put 3 points in Strength to max that out at a nice even 100 and the last 2 went in shooting to max that out at 99. Pretty incredible so far and we haven't even touched the other stats much. Next up is DragonHawk: Same basic strategy: max out strength at 100 with 2 points, max out shooting at 100 with 2 points and the last point went in throwing to get him to 83. I think his max potential for that stat will be right around 99 or 100 depending on how the game handles that last point. And last, let's do the new Nook: Exactly the same as DragonHawk: 2 point went in strength to max it out at 101, 1 in shooting to max that out at 101 and the last 3 into throwing to get him to 82. What beasts! Really glad I spent the time hiring them and bringing them up the ranks. Back at base, it's time to check out our Positronic stockpile of weapons: We now have 25 Positronic Beamers and 19 clips. Still not enough to start equipping them on a regular basis, but if we know a mission might be tough, we can supplement our normal rifles. Oh, almost forgot about the Positronic Grenades: Yeah, only 5 isn't going to cut it. Luckily the aliens haven't been using them on us which I think is because I set the sight range for the aliens the same as us. If they can't see us until we can see them, there's really no point in tossing a grenade for them. Back on the Geoscape and our manufacturing bases have completed the first round of Positronic Cannons for our interceptors: That's some great news. I'm going to put these on the upgraded "golden" Thunderstorms first because then I know at a glance what interceptors can handle tougher fights. I'll show you one in North America: This couldn't have come at a better time as we've been seeing a lot of Battlecruisers and Massive Patrol Vessels lately. Needless to say, I started manufacturing a second batch. One day later and our research into the Hardened Bonesetter completed: Ah, ha! A new fighter shield! That comes at a great time, though it means we'll have to balance what to produce. Anyhow, time to check out the Hardened Bonesetter description: This kinda mirrors my experiences with them so far: mechanical is iffy, fire and freeze do decent and chem is the weakest link. Just for comparison purposes, let's look at the normal bonesetter again: The picture is that of a commander, not the normal grunts, but the stats are from the usual ones. And yeah, the normal ones seem like pushovers when compared to the hardened variety. Time for researching, I think everyone is going on the the new fighter shield: A couple days later and we spot another Battlecruiser near South America. I send out my interceptors to get spotted and then withdraw them so my base can help take it out: I sent out some other incerceptors from Antarctica and Europe but soon realized they wouldn't arrive in time to help. Well, since I had the birds in the air already, I had them go there just in case another UFO shows up around the area. The fight actually didn't take too long (probably because one of the interceptors had a new cannon on it) but one unupgraded thunderstorm took some damage. Huge explosion ensues: It's going to take a while for the crash site to be in daylight so we have to wait a little before leaving. So join me next time when we tackle yet another Battlecruiser crash site. - Zombie

Really, all the traffic we get through there is feet. Well, I go through there with my big wooden cart which would probably be fine too depending on what's on it. Although I will mention that I normally straddle those potholes with the cart so that the load remains stable. Honestly, it's been leaking from the same areas for years. So I know where to look. I also take measurements from below and then use a "landmark" of such, to measure off on the roof to pinpoint the problem area. If I can't find a crack I expand the search. The underlayment for the roof is boards with small spaces between them and that's where leaks show up (I'll take a pic of this sometime). This year the leaks were big enough where I could see light coming through (especially helpful in a dark garage). In the past where I didn't see light, I pounded a long nail up through the roof from below so that when I got up there I could find the spot. Ok, going to change gears again on another project I've been working on for a while. Last year I noticed that the wall above the door where I poured a new threshold was peeling paint and needed some help. I spent a while scraping, wire brushing and caulking to get the prep finished (10/5/2023): I also adjusted the cable above the door so that it went straight across instead of drooping like it was before. That big crack of missing mortar above the gutter was not touched as I was out of mortar mix (or so I thought). The weather got cold for a while but we had a warm snap at the beginning of December so I was able to start painting. Wanted to use up the old paint as the bucket was starting to get a rusty rim so I started with the long wall (12/8/2023): You can see the areas where I didn't paint (no cracks or peeling so I left them alone). This whole area will get a fresh coat of paint eventually - not this year anymore though. And here's what the area looked like above the door after paint: To the right of the door near the ground there were some bricks that had some chunks coming off. I "glued" them back on with some caulking and painted over it. That didn't hold up over winter so I needed to fix that somehow. I was in the small garage a couple months ago putting stuff away when I noticed I had a half-used bag of mortar mix in there yet. I had plastic over it, but I think the bottom may have got wet as it was hard. The stuff above that was still powdery so I decided to fix that crack above the door and the missing chunks of brick (9/11/2024): This area went fine - got it to stick and was able to smooth it out without the mortar sagging. The area above the door was a different issue. I couldn't get my mini-homemade mortar "hawk" (a flat board with a handle screwed on it) close enough to push the mortar into the crack because of the conduit which was in the way. As a last ditch effort I used my hands to fill it as best as I could. Wasn't pretty though and a lot of swear words were muttered: I figured the rest I can fill with caulk. After the stuff that was smeared on the bricks dried, I came back and scraped it off. I had to let it sit like that for about a month to fully cure. (Probably didn't have to wait this long as the areas were small and not very deep but I was busy too). Anyhow, the other day I caulked and primed both areas(10/11/2024): Caulked a crack in the mortar again but didn't bother priming that. Hopefully one of these days I can paint the spots. As an aside, I did a lot of this same work on the east side of the building too. Started that late last year (didn't take a pic from that) and it's continuing on to this day (took pics this time). So expect to see that soon. - Zombie

Interesting. I like the slogan: "In Beer We Trust"! - Zombie