Calcinites-work partners and TU?

[Tsathoggua]

DQuick Q-

How many TU do calcinites.have?, how far does that thow much damage does their attack do?

 

Just landed at an ocean liner that is under attack from alien forces, enemy, unknown.

 

Rapid-response strike team inserted and upon deployment from the transport, Coelacanth began scouting the LZ, in preparation for clearing the area, and detected two calcinites, one on the prow of the ship one standing on the ground, near the stairs SSW of the LZ.

 

Going to try taking the lower specimen down alive, and bung it into the triton for safekeeping. Definitely got to make certain to take ONE of them at least in one piece. Once thats assured then the rest can come back as a jigsaw puzzle or the men can bring the labtechs back a doggybag. A living specimen is vital though of course, seeing as this is the beginning of month three and how calcinites are so damned rare. Never seen a land based one before.But at least unlike the first shipping misssion where it was the very beginning of month 1 and armed with nothing bigger than a gas cannon and pulse grenades, and running into lobstermen and drones everywhere this time research has been progressing substantially, still carrying the gas cannons, two of them now, one per fireteam functioning as heavy support weapons loaded with phosphorus and HE shells, although neither team is carrying amor-piercing rounds, only AP rounds are those fired from the coelacanth's turret-mounted large cal. gas cannon.

 

But other than those, and the sonic pistols carried as sidearms by the gas cannon operators, this time the squad has come armed for bear, packing tazers, a few sonic rifles for their great accuracy and lower TU cost per shot but primarily heavy sonic cannon and a few pistols plus the obligatory pulse and dye grenades and a handful of proximity charges.

 

What race can be expected to be the main host species, if there are calcinite around on land?

Gill men? aquatoid? lobstermen? I don't SEE calcinite often enough to have any idea really, this is only the first or second time since starting to play the game when it came out.

 

And what is needed to unlock the intermediate drill? because on my old game, despite completing research into and widely deploying the vibroblades with the troops to great effect research into either the thermic lance or HTL quite simply hasn't been possible. Why?

[sp1ke]

Terror missions are a mixed bag of species, often including species only otherwise seen undersea.

If you want to check the TUs of Calcinites, have you looked at ufopaedia.org? Though that might spoil your experience as you are learning all about the game the hard way, I admire that very much.

iirc there are some bugs in Calcinites, that probably UFOExtender fixes so that they are more deadly. But maybe I am thinking of the blobby grenade thrower thingies, whatever they are called. Haven't played for a few years now.

[sp1ke]

Ok so checking UFOPaedia, 68-101 TUs, only appear on land (terror missions) in the company of either Aquatoids or Mixed Crew missions.

[Tsathoggua]

Bugs in calcinites?

 

Or do you mean simply their extreme rarity?

And they ARE damned dangerous if they manage to cross the distance and engage aquanauts at close quarters. So far this appears to be an aquatoid terror (ship hijacking) although I have not yet fully explored nor have the strike teams fully cleansed the area. Spotted quite a few aquaturds though, and there have been a fair few MC attacks, none of them successful. But it could still be a mixed bag, I haven't looked far enough. And MC aside aquatoids are not the best fighters in a physical conflict, they really do not fare too well if they cannot manage to succeed in demoralizing or taking over troops and the feathers start flying. Sonic pistols are a fantastic equalizer for dealing with aquatoids, or gauss pistols although not quite so reliable for a one shot kill. Close up as a compact submachinegun they do work well though, Although prefer the sonic pistol for the troops who need to carry light sidearms, point men for taking aquatoids down because one shot tends to do the

trick.

 

No other species spotted so far, but still on deck one (the reason its taken this long is it is searing hot out here today, hot and sticky and muggy and humid, and I hate

this weather, absolutely loathe it. So used a few extra painkillers and let Mme.Morphia and her cute sister miss oxy take care of me for the day and slept until the

cooler evening. Woken up again (for the most part, albeit with eyelids still pretty droopy, but feeling pretty damn good at least:))

 

 

Blobby grenade throwers? do you mean the deep ones? the TFTD equivalent to the celatids of the first alien war, that have their weapon emit a highly damaging although relatively short-range discharge with a high arcing trajectory? they aren't grenadiers though, not thinking of aquatoids are you? they have a blobby bulbous look about them and they DO use them, they are way too handy at leaving your agents unwelcome little presents that go 'BOOM!', sneaky little bastards aquatoids are. And their low height makes them small targets that have a better chance than most at ducking out of the way of weapons fire that would probably

have left larger and or taller foes as smoking, bubbling piles of disgusting goo.

[NKF]

I don't think there are any bugs associated with Calcinites as such. They're essentially de-clawed Chryssalids in function.

 

You don't see them much because Aquataoid surface attack missions are quite rare for most of the game. The first game month in particular has a 0% chance of an aquatoid surface attack happening. If you want the specifics, see: https://www.ufopaedia...e_Ratios_(TFTD)

 

Unlike the Deep-One, the Calcinite is a bit more forgiving and you only need to recover the corpse to research the Vibroblade. To unlock the next tier of drill, you need to interrogate a live Gill Man (any rank). No, I don't think anyone knows why it has to be a Gillman. Just roll with it - it's easier that way I find.

 

- NKF

[Tsathoggua]

Well that shouldn't be a problem for this new game.New-er game that is. Bagged a fair few this time, couldn't remember why at the time but had some niggling little

voice in the back of my mind that told me that capturing a live gill man was important for something so went all out to take a few alive.

 

IMO making a LIVE alien needed for research into a factor which if not done, can/will prevent the game ever being possible to complete, was stupid, when the ufopaedia (in game not website) if gained via research of an alien medic does not provide the possibilities of tech tree benefits one otherwise does get.

Making the medic ranks potentially as dangerous as the rumored tasoth commander, by locking out research into deep ones. Blades only matter for ease's sake, not for the completion of the game, whilst no advanced third-tier transport/fighter craft=game scuppered, in any case though managed to bag several calcinites on the recent

hijacking attempt, on both decks, making sure to bag living and dead specimens both on each, and toss them the troop transport on deck one, guarded with a combined force of tazer-carrying snipers and the coelacanth.

 

Made sure to bag two on level one, the rest shot on sight, similar process repeated on lower deck, dragging the calcinites away to the exit zone, and setting several guards including the tank in case one got up again and tried any funny business. Took a while, dragging and dropping before ending turn using the reserve for kneel button to make sure I had sufficient TO to throw the calcinites down on the floor, rinse, repeat, to avoid low TU due to weight encumbrance the next turn. Got there

in the end though,

Not quite finished, there seems too be at least one bug left alive down there that needs to stop living. Just have to find the bastard first though.

Edit-I speak too soon...found the sneaky bugger, two as it happens, bumped into a calcinite at close range with very low TU, agent likely..more like almost certainly, wouldn't have survived the experience were it not for his backup, who after the first agent hit the calcinite with his thermal tazer, blasted it with her sonic cannon from two tiles away. Presumably making a really nasty mess for some poor bastard ship's janitor to have to scrape off (and potentially OUT) of the walls, the other was an aquatoid MC user that had decided to sneak off, hide and launch attacks with its psi capability. Idiot had chosen a rather bad spot to hide in though, right behind a closed door. Mutual surprise rule came into play when an agent armed with a heavy sonic opened the door, and proceeded to blow the 'toids face off at point blank range. Making an even bigger mess as said agent burst the aquatoid's skull open like a piece of rotten fruit being run over by a truck. Damn glad it isn't me that has to clean that up.

 

 

 

Calcinite corpses alone are still enough? damn, and I went to all that trouble to have the team herd the buggers using flames to poke it in the right direction and tank gas cannon bolts, one a turn, to draw its fury and encourage it to charge, in the right direction, until it passed a large shipping container, unaware of the pair of soldiers waiting to get the drop on the creature the moment it had taken one step past the side with tazers, and if needed, sonic cannon and pistol, although neither were called for, careless bug never had a chance before being stunned and thrown off the side onto the lowest ground floor deck so the tank could keep it from rising, by parking on its head.

 

Bet that was sore as hell the morning after! I've had my fair share of thunderous hangovers and stinking come-downs, but a tank parked on the face? that'll outdo 95% of them at least

[Kir'jaeden]

Gillman autopsy unlocks the "thermic lance" research.

[Tsathoggua]

Yeah I thought it had something to do with gillmen, but oddly that didn't seem to work. Do you need to have the vibroblade before doing the autopsy?

 

Because I most certainly HAD researched gillmen both living and dead, on my other old game before getting vibroblades, which I did late in the game and never managed to get the thermic lance. Research at this point was pretty advanced, had a fleet of manta attack subs loaded with twin sonic oscillators and could if I had chosen to spend the resources on ammo, have kitted them out with fusion ball launchers, Just didn't because there is no real need when one already has several mantas, hell I've seen battleships and even dreadnoughts taken down by a single one of those high-speed interceptors loaded with two sonic oscillators. Granted the dreadnought came within femtoseconds of blowing my manta to the bottom of several different oceans, came to a battle of who's finger (if fingers the pilot of the enemy ship HAD of course) was quicker on the trigger, my pilot or theirs. And it turned out to be mine, the manta was able to get back to base, critically damaged and in need of very lengthy repairs, but it did indeed survive, and the dreadnought was left on the bottom of the seabed, crippled until a triton was sent to deal with it, kill or capture any survivors and recover both the ruined ship and any technologies that could be salvaged from either ship or its former crew.

 

Was one hell of a fight that mission, even after the pounding the new interceptor craft had given out there were still a great many aliens in and around the crash site

and they were NOT happy about it, not one bit, and tried their best to pay the troops back in kind. Sadly for them though by the time of that ship being shot down, the men were nearly all armed with a heavy support weapon of some kind; two DPLs, a ton of ammo, couple of thermal shock cannons, pair of HJCs, several men carrying gas cannons with IC or HE loadouts, same went for the HJCs, another man with a torpedo launcher and whilst I forget for certain, think the other weapon he carried was a heavy sonic. Every man loaded to the eyeteeth with sonic pulsers, didn't bother with dye grenades at all, just tooled up for maximum destructive potential, and all but the DPL gunners carrying sonic cannon as a secondary main weapon, displacer/sonic scouted until the ship was sighted, gunning down anything that moved on the way, and once the thing had been located, the DPL carrying troopers went on to shell the living hell out of the USO through its portholes, firing blind for part of the assault, firing, letting next guy pick it up and let loose, and the repeating the process, after everyone first stowed at least one weapon to be able to pick up the heavy DPL. A game of HE pass-the-parcel so to speak, repeated until most of the DPL rounds (and I'd had the men take along a BIG pile of shells) were all spent, the launchers stowed in packs and the men relying on captured rounds scavenged from the huge bodycount already racked up before anyone had even left the transport, the tank aside.

 

Those damn huge USOs had caused enough grief while being so dangerous that they had to be allowed to go about their business, without even trying to intercept them, they had to be followed and otherwise ignored, attacking only if they landed, a dangerous enough job for the troops even then, for taking out a fully intact dreadnought meant a long and bloody battle and one damned difficult to pull off without permanent casualties.

[Kir'jaeden]

Calcinite corpse unlocks vibroblade research. TL unlocks either on its recovering or after Gillman autopsy.

[Tsathoggua]

Hm there must have been more than the fair share of squirrely ass oddities and bugs n that other game because both those conditions (TL and HTL recovery, gillman autopsy) were fulfilled. In the short time gilllmen turned up they were slaughtered every mission fought against them. And the troops were USING vibroblades so that can't have been it. Any known bugs with the drill tech tree?