Zombie

I looked for it last month but couldn't find it hosted anywhere (including Blunter's Steam page). If anyone does have it or knows where I can download it from, let me know and I'll add it to the files section. I think this subforum allows members to even upload it to a forum post. -Zombie

Time to assume the throne then! The last 3-4 in-game months were chock full of UFOs. Swarms, mini swarms, groups, streams, singles - I had it all. The last month in particular was harrowing as I had a late group which showed up about 12 hours before the EOM report. I wasn't able to get to one UFO in time, but still ended up 20 more than the previous leader (fidak). Just think: on the 3rd of January of this year I only had 1040 UFOs shot down. And just about 11 months later I added 11216. That works out to 1020 UFOs shot down per month or 34/day. And as far as I know I didn't take a day off from this, though we shall see what Steam says for the end of year summary. - Zombie

That's the least of my worries. I'm purposely not showing a pic of the entire west side as just above is a real mess. Probably will be a "next year" project, jeez, may even need professional help. Anyway, I finally was able to put a coat of paint over the primer today: You can see I went a little overboard and painted between the two vertical "standards". Looks a little bright as it was still pretty wet yet. Today was fairly humid too, but there was a strong wind which I hope will help to dry it properly before the colder night temps set in. Not supposed to get to freezing yet, just foggy due to the humidity. I'll try to take another pic once it's fully dry. Haven't got much else done outside lately due to rain and crummy weather. I've been hard at work inside helping to decorate the store for Christmas and more cleaning in the backroom areas where I work. And the leaves just keep blowing into our property every day, and I keep blowing them out. Job security. Blowing them sure beats sweeping or raking them up though. - Zombie

Swarm Leader Part 2 Well, let's get back to it! Mouse is still kneeling in that chem cloud from before and he of course takes 1 damage from it during the alien's turn. We have another pressing issue though as there's a pRider at the corner of the building again. Sorby will toss a normal grenade on it: Is does an insane 48 damage which kills it: With that threat gone, Sorby will patch up Mouse again: Still the same round and we just spotted two hardened bonesetters. The one near the UFO door should be taken out first so NKF will take an aimed shot at it: The shot hit but the damage was absorbed. The bonesetter reaction fires back at NKF but misses badly: NKF must've ruffled it's feathers so to speak. He has exactly enough APs left for one last aimed shot. It hits for 73 which kills it: NKF is a stone cold killer. Nothing ruffles his feathers, that's for sure. We have to leave the other bonesetter because all our shots would be blocked by a piece of the building that juts out. Not a problem really. During the alien's turn two more hardened bonesetters show up next to each other along the west side of the map. When it's our turn, TV will send a mortar between them: There must've been more aliens nearby (specifically at least one hardened bonesetter) as the blast hits 4 total (maybe it's 3, dunno how the game allocates damage from unintentional damage). One of the visible Bonesetters takes 56 damage from an exploding barrel. A hidden alien takes 85 damage and dies, suppose it could be a bonesetter but it's very possible it's a pRider. One of the visible bonesetters absorbs the damage from an exploding barrel and then takes 16. All in all, a good start: When the smoke clears, CG will take some snap shots at one of the bonesetters: It hits for 56 damage but doesn't kill it. It of course reaction fires back at him but barely misses: He doesn't have enough APs to shoot again so he takes cover and patiently watches what it does during it's turn. It's on the move apparently: That's not it, a pRider appears in the fire too: There's a red arrow in the darkness too, and I'm guessing it's another hidden alien. This pRider comes closer to the team and when it's our turn Loonie will take an auto shot at it with el-cheapo ammo: All his bullets hit, but the first three only did 8 total damage to it. The next bullet was absorbed again and the second did 30 which killed it: Other than that, nothing else is visible so we take cover and wait. Yup, there's a bonesetter still milling around the area as we see it searching around in the flames: And then a pRider shows up to help: The pRider makes a mad dash over to us but runs out of APs. Big mistake. The bonesetter settles for sitting in the fire to end it's turn. Not very smart either, but it absorbs the damage. When it's our turn Loonie will shoot at the pRider with el-cheapo ammo: His first bullet is absorbed, but the second does 36 which kills it. He still has plenty of APs left so he reloads his rifle with U238 ammo to shoot at the hardened bonesetter: Exactly like his last auto shot, the first bullet was absorbed and the second did 36 damage which kills it: We've been hearing alien movement sounds coming from inside the building next to us lately so when it's our turn again Sorby takes a peek inside and spots a hardened bonesetter at the ready. He wisely retracts and gets into cover: The big question is what are we going to do now. I think the best option is to have Nook shoot out the wall first: He destroys two wall segments which is fantastic: Now what though? What's the point? Well, it allows us to keep a watchful eye on the action in there during their turn. And like clockwork, another one shows up from above: When it's our turn, Mouse will shoot at the closer one: His first bullet missed, the second was absorbed and the last did 51: He shoots again with all the bullets getting absorbed. On his last auto shot the first bullet is absorbed again, bu the second does 50 which kills it: The ever-reliable Silencer will shoot at the second hardened bonesetter: The first bullet hits and is absorbed, but the second does 60 damage which kills it: A very smart strategy, shooting out a wall and then having soldiers farther away shoot at the stuff inside, because that means the soldiers closer to the action have full APs in case more show up. Anyway, it's no time to gloat as the next part will consist of trying to clear out the aliens in the west part of the map. We know there's more in that area as we hear lots of doors opening up all the time, so stay tuned for that mess. Edit: Still #2 on UFOs shot down. But I did make some decent progress the last few days. I now have 12,008 which means I only need 229 more to get to #1. Should be able to knock that out pretty quick, I estimate maybe November 22 or 23 depending on how much time I have this weekend. Eventually I want to do a little testing on each UFO's weapon damage potential. Probably will not be super accurate as I don't have a logger for this game (where's Bomb Bloke when you really need him? ), but even if it's ballpark I think that would help to gauge how dangerous a UFO really is. Still trying to decide how I want to test this out, either I need something with lots of resistance and no weapons (like a Pegasus Transport with a Raven "tank" loaded on it), or maybe something fast and agile like a Thunderstorm with nothing on it. Gotta think on this a bit, but really the only option is an upgraded "gold" Thunderstorm as I have those on every base. You can only have a Pegasus on your main base so that limits engagements to nearby. - Zombie

Didn't have a lot of time today and it was a little chilly out too (let's call it 8C max) but I had enough time to prime the new-ish mortar joints on the small garage: This primer is good down to 35F (or about 2C) so I figured that it should dry fine with the wind. Looks like it in the pic so hopefully I can hit it with the top coat tomorrow. Yeah, the mortar was plenty cured. Probably could have primed it last week but I always like to give mortar plenty of time to cure properly - otherwise it could potentially suck the water out of the paint in order to complete the process which could cause the primer not to stick. Don't want that. - Zombie

Yup, they did fall on me the other day when I was looking for a decent sized vase box for some wedding flowers. Actually, I may as well show you since I normally take a pic of large flower loads just to refresh my memory in case a problem arises later: This was actually part two of the flowers for the wedding. I took out some table arrangements earlier to a venue, these were going to a residence where the females were staging before the wedding later. (Except for the tall fall-colored arrangement in the back which was for a church). About a month ago I took out another larger load of arrangements for a different venue: This one was 48 shorter vases (6 vases per box and 8 boxes total). Had a little trouble finding enough boxes which would work, but used crumpled up plastic flower sleeves to stuff at the bottom and between the arrangements so stuff wouldn't move around on me. (The box on the right was the perfect height and width, the one on the left was a bit too tall). Worked great actually, no issues with delivery. May as well post another pic of a bucket of green trix dianthus so Thorondor can do the Rorschach Inkblot Test and pick out another shape in the blooms: And here's a pic of some flowers I ordered at the end of July: Peach/pink hydrangeas are in the bucket on the left. On the right is some "novelty" roses. Clockwise from the top left: High+Exotic Yellow, Mandarin X-Pression, Candy X-Pression and Candlelight. Nice mix of varieties! The X-Pression types are similar to garden roses and opened up huge. They were really impressive. We also like the candlelight during fall as it works with a lot of color schemes. - Zombie

Swarm Leader Part 1 This time we are on an arctic base map. Deployment is uneventful and nothing is spotted. During the alien's turn, they are everywhere. Ambush! Luckily we are prepared for the most part. There are two pRiders to the north of us and another just came bombing out of the door from the building next to us: Nook starts shooting with his first bullet hitting and doing 22 damage. He also sees a Hardened Bonesetter at the corner of the building. Anyway, the second looks like it'll hit too: That bullet does 14 damage which kills it: There must've been another pRider behind it as MTR reaction fires at it. His first bullet hits for 54 which kills it: No more reaction firing from us, but another Hardened Bonesetter appears by one of the pRiders to the north. So 4 total aliens are visible. DragonHawk has a shot at the closest pRider to the north so he'll start us off: His first bullet hits for a very healthy 42 damage which kills it: Knan is going to take some snap shots at the Hardened Bonesetter to the north: He hits for 20 & 21 damage with the last bullet missing. Loonie has a little better accuracy so he'll do the same: The first bullet missed, the next two hit but were absorbed and the last hit for 26 which kills it: Mouse will now auto shoot at the pRider next to it with el-cheapo ammo: His first bullet hits for 19 damage while the second was absorbed. The pRider cuts the line and reaction fires back with it's chem weapon: Luckily it missed, so Mouse shot again hitting for 4 damage. Well, he may as shoot at it again: The first bullet hits for 9 which kills it: The last Hardened Bonesetter at the corner of the building is going to be a problem. Let's get Nook involved with U238 ammo first: Three bullets missed, 4 were absorbed and two did 15 & 28. The thing isn't dead yet so MTR will shoot at it next: His first bullet was absorbed, but the second did 42 which killed it: While scouting the battlescape map we make out one of the UFO cannons so TV will mortar it: The blast only did 82 damage so he fired another one at it. This did 104 which destroyed it: Totally happy about our second round. Four aliens dead and one destroyed cannon. The aliens didn't seem phased by all that action and sent more at us. There's a pRider by the corner of the building to the north of us and another farther north where the other two were before. That one shoots it's chem weapon at Mouse: It does 2 chem damage to him. He shoots back: His first bullet hits for 1, the second was absorbed, and the last did 8. Not very good damage, but he does only have normal ammo loaded so it's expected. After the dust settles, we now see four more aliens. We'll have our work cut out for us this round too. There are two pRiders standing next to each other just north of Mouse. Mouse is kind of a sitting duck right now so his backup, Sorby, will toss a grenade on them: The blast does 66 damage to one and 35 to the other which kills them both: With the immediate threat gone, Sorby will patch up Mouse with a Stimpack: Time for payback as Mouse will shoot at the one he hit but didn't kill: His first two bullets hit for 6 & 37 which finally kills it: The last alien we see is an airborne Hardened Bonsetter so DragonHawk will take some long range snap shots at it: His first shot hits for a decent 36 damage. The thing has the gall to reaction fire back at him: It completely misses. DragonHawk's next shot did 56 damage which killed it: That's 10 aliens down and one cannon destroyed so far. Can't be disappointed by that performance. Join me next time for, honestly, more of the same. These swarm leader UFOs are staffed by a lot of aliens! Edit: still #2 on UFOs shot down on the Steam global leaderboards with 11,807. I had one month where it was a steady stream of UFOs from beginning to end with one swarm and a couple mini-swarms tossed in between to make things interesting. Lots of action! The next month was a dud with only 9 UFOs shot down. Gotta take the good with the bad I assume. Didn't have a lot of time to shoot stuff down the last few days so I hoping to get lucky today with at least one swarm. - Zombie

Silly kid, Zombie doesn't sleep so no breaks are necessary. Well, to smell the roses occasionally, but other than that, nose to the grindstone and full steam ahead! Haven't cut myself yet, as I'm very proficient with knives (been using them since I was 16). Anyhow, stapled up some more boxes, stacked them up, and stuffed them into styros. Put those premades on the table at the back of the garage. Since I was putting that away I figured that I should put some other stuff away and sweep the place too: Much better! At least we can get a van in the back if we need to. Still need to address the stuff in the right - I just dumped it there to get it off the ground. The stack of multi-colored plastic buckets need to be bleached out (used them to catch drips from the leaking roof). The three white-ish boards on the ground on the left are going to be used for our wreath display - just set them there for the time being as the wreaths haven't arrived yet and I need to clean the windows where they go. The big dark blue barrel on the left is full of trash from the cleaning job, need to dump that out yet. And the styro table on the front left has some things I need to put away yet (leaf blower, blacktop patch, etc). I even managed to start up the snow blower to make sure that works, and cleaned it off. No painting unfortunately, but I'll get to it. Ditto for the other area I need to patch above the store. - Zombie

And now, here's the end of mission report card: Excellent is right! 23 aliens downed and I guess the best items we recovered was 2 clips of heavy beamer ammo. Not going to complain about that one bit. Back in the geoscape and the next thing that happens is that our 5 bases have completed production on the Positronic Cannons for our interceptors: I don't start producing another run of these because not too long later and our research into the VT5000 fighter shield completes: Let's check out it's description: Bunch of lies, otherwise an interceptor that's heading back to base after getting heavily damaged would be immune to a UFOs weapons. But it's more armor and that helps. We transferred some of the Positronic Cannons to the aircraft carrier and equipped the interceptors with the new tech: No more photon cannons for these babies, it's now positronic! May as well sell those photon cannons though: Not a bad amount for just 3 of them. At our main base, it's more of the same: I figure that if we concentrate our firepower at the main base and aircraft carrier then that can be our last line of defense if the other bases can't handle a threat. Anyway, now that we have a new shield I start production on 5. Nothing really happens on the globe and they finish quickly: In North America, we need new shielding there as there aren't any bases nearby that can help shoot down big UFOs so project one is to upgrade the gold interceptor: And now it's totally upgraded: Really it's only 50 points more resistance which isn't that much, but we need everything we can get at this point. And in terms of cost, it's not that bad as we can recover almost all the cost of the Photon cannons by selling them so it's just the difference between the two. And now, it's the end of the month so let's check out the report card: All the states are either excellent or ok, nobody was good though which was strange. I don't see any big problems that we need to address from this report. Our equipment sales were lower than last month but we had some big ticket items we upgraded and sold last month. Back in the geoscape and nothing is going on again.We just finished production on 3 more positronic cannons: At the main base we just produced another suit of chem armor. Mike The Red seems pretty stoked about getting it: A few days later and we detect a swarm of UFOs. It's a couple battlecruisers (one being the leader) and a bunch of small frys. Only issue is that most of them are over Russia/China so we have to split up: After downing the biggies another one showed up in Saudi Arabia so everyone converges on it: One of the recon vessels is over the pacific ocean near the US so I send out the interceptors there to shoot it down over water: Before we take that out, the last battlecruiser is downed. I think we are going to bombard this one: After taking out the last recon vessel over the Indian Ocean we can head back to base and relax a little bit: All those recon vessels were taken down over water on purpose as I don't want to waste time visiting those things for basically no reward other than xp. Besides, most of them would take considerable time to even get there. We have two biggies very near our main base so let's focus on those. When it's light out, we head to the swarm leader: You can't really tell where it is due to the popup, but it's directly east of the main base: So join me next time when we tackle that. Should be interesting as it's "manned" by poisonous riders and hardened bonesetters, oh my! - Zombie

Throughout the summer and fall, I've been cutting up flower boxes for use as carriers for arrangements and such. Got a crap ton cut up, right now I still have 288 potential boxes ready to go in floral foam boxes. 24/box, 8 boxes on the ground and 4 on the shelf: Since last week I've started to staple some of them up and put them away n the big white styrofoam boxes. 20/box and there's 12 boxes filled (240 total): It's a pretty good start so far. As you can see, I have a couple empty styro boxes at the ready to accept more when I get the time. And the styro boxes on the floor in the first pic are empty too so I can fill those too. There's also about 300 potential boxes uncut in the apartment across the alley from us. Hoping I can get those cut up too. As an aside, it's been raining here for the last few days straight. Not heavy though. Through all of that, no major leaks in the small garage roof that I can see. So that makes me happy. - 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