Let's Play UFO:Extraterrestrials Gold

[Zombie]

I've also noticed a Sensor bomb in one of your prior screen caps but I'm guessing those would take up more carry space and create a bigger danger zone (for both sides).

 

Yes, that's the proximity grenade's big brother - a cross between that and a high explosive satchel charge. They pack a bigger punch and can tear holes in even alien alloys. That's one reason why I didn't use them - if an alien set one of these off it could potentially destroy the wall and the door leaving my entire team sitting ducks. If I had the time I was contemplating mining the areas where the alien doors used to be so hopefully the dummies would follow the same routes and trigger it. The other reason why I opted against the sensor bomb was that if an alien set one off and got itself killed, nobody on my team would be credited with the kill and thus no xp awarded. A weaker proximity grenade probably wouldn't kill the alien outright thus giving my men the option of killing it with guns. Now if I was dealing with a mixed mission with predators I probably would have used a sensor bomb instead.

 

Anyhow, back at base I had one new greenhorn I wanted to train up but I usually train rookies up in pairs. I kept looking in the hiring pool but nobody had 50's in all stats. Then I shot down a scout, so welcome to the team Duane Martes! I guess you'll be training by yourself then. This doesn't always happen, but he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. I employed mostly aimed shots and a few snap shots if TU were short so his accuracy was tolerable. Larva and Chasers are for the most part pushovers though, so it wasn't critical getting a ton of hits on the target - I just needed one or two. He was a one man bug killing machine.

 

 

15 points to spend on stats so this is what I came up with.

 

 

I put an entire rank's worth of xp into shooting - I like getting soldiers into the 70's in that stat before they start their second mission. Strength is still a little low, I could have probably dump-statted bravery and put that point into strength instead, but I could just carry fewer grenades and let my mules pass them out. Meh, whatever, he'll be fine.

 

Safely back at base it was time to do the unthinkable and fire Mr. Medico.

 

 

You're probably thinking: jeez, this guy has 600+ xp and 47 kills why are you firing him? So hear me out. He has mediocre stats: shooting hasn't been maxed out, strength is below 70, bravery is only 51 and reactions and throwing are still in the low 40's yet. He's basically crippled in late game if he can't wear decent armor and if he's constantly picked on psionically. Besides, if I get a new rookie with 50+ in everything I can train him up to pretty good levels in just a few missions if the xp gods cooperate.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

And here we are, Zombie, a little treatise of yours on how there must be alien pain for there to be gain.

 

It's not much of a stretch to add that less structural damage also means a better payday by mission's end, so that's one more argument against sensor bombs.

 

We herald the promotion of Corporal Duane "The Dane" Martes after his single-handed baptism of blood and honourably discharge good ol' Doc that stopped his fair share of bleeding whenever the need arose. *salute*

[Zombie]

It's not much of a stretch to add that less structural damage also means a better payday by mission's end, so that's one more argument against sensor bombs.

 

In an alien base you can't recover any alloys or proprietary equipment so it really doesn't matter if you totally trash the place or not. In a UFO there's a chance something important might be destroyed with a big blast. I'd opt out of using sensor bombs in that situation except when there are really tough alien mech units on the battlescape as I'm more worried about just surviving than collecting.

 

We herald the promotion of Corporal Duane "The Dane" Martes after his single-handed baptism of blood and honourably discharge good ol' Doc that stopped his fair share of bleeding whenever the need arose. *salute*

 

If we are going to give a nickname to this guy it should be Duane "The Rock" Martes (a nod to Duane "The Rock" Johnson).

 

Anyhow, back at base I somehow managed to nab a decent soldier out of the hiring pool (you can see him in my previous screenshot). And much like before another scout came sniffing around so I shot it down and sent my rookie along to clean it up. Welcome to this mess Tommie Misenhimer, now get out there and kill some aliens! The same group went along for moral support and more importantly spotting - that's the trick. Advance your better soldiers slowly, put them in cover and hunker down. If an alien is spotted either make the rookie take aimed/snap shots at it or back your vet off a little to allow the rookie to get into shooting position. Because you'll be using all the rookies TU up on shooting you can only realistically kill one alien per turn so you can't be constantly forging your vets ahead spotting more. Slow and steady is the name of the game.

 

Tommie did a great job with what he had to work with. He killed all but one alien on the map (this time it was Vipons and Larva). Billi Kellog had a singular token kill. No promotion for her, but there was a whole group of soldiers promoted for no particular reason (probably just the firing of Mr Medico and the new rookie class).

 

 

And of course the promotions.

 

 

So this group of soldiers is getting pretty decent now. My research has been progressing nicely too. I unlocked the advanced laboratory which I focused on hoping to speed future topics along. Unfortunately my base is nearly filled up. I tried to deconstruct some things to make room for it (like the 4th hangar) but the game always crashes. Guess I'm out of luck for that (much like the advanced detection module). It's unfortunate.

 

One good thing did come out of it though. I now have advanced Medi Kits which should make it easier to patch up my wounded. I fast tracked that research and production. I also unlocked the surgery module which should make hospital stays shorter (I was able to start building this structure at least - no crashes).

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

The Rock it is then, Zombie. May he get many an alien caught between him and a hard place.

 

Corporal Tommie "Gun" Misenhimer (sorry, couldn't resist ) drops in hot and starts making a name for himself.

 

And just look at Elmo, reaching 86 in Shooting, so joining the ranks of the lifetakers and heartbreakers.

 

Too bad about those game crashes. I suppose you could make a new base and then transfer personnel between them but I imagine there's going to be an issue in the monthly upkeep side of things doing that.

 

Adapt, improvise, overcome!

[Zombie]

Corporal Tommie "Gun" Misenhimer (sorry, couldn't resist ) drops in hot and starts making a name for himself.

 

Or Hilfiger, but I like gun better as it's fitting.

 

Today I shot down a fighter UFO as it was buzzing around being annoying. Sent out my troops again and it was mostly Destroyers and Larva and a token appearance of a Vipon, and Chaser). Well, Tommy Gun had some fun as well as Duane The Rock.

 

 

No promotion for Duane as he was clear across the map with his sweep team and it was slim pickings. Tommy got in on the action against the Destroyers and emptied a full clip worth of shots into various targets. Double promotion time!

 

 

In terms of how to allocate the points for him, my hand was kinda dealt there. I wanted to get him to 75 strength to be able to use the Heavy Laser decently and 65 bravery was needed in case we met with Hallucinoids - of course I absolutely had to get him to mid 80's in shooting because he'll probably only get one more promotion to max that stat out (at least for the foreseeable future).

 

In the meantime, a scout UFO came by so I just had to shoot that down. Easy pickings there and great xp for training (need I mention the aliens usually only carry plasma weaponry so the danger level is low). Another mixed bag of aliens but this time there were 3 Hallucinoids and of course they started to pick on Tommy... he had too high of Bravery for them to be successful though. Duane got into a good spot and was somewhat successful with some low power snap shots against a Destroyer.

 

 

Can't believe how fast Tommy gets promoted when he's around. This is what I came up with for points allocation.

 

 

Duane is situated very good, he only needs a couple points into shooting to max that out. I'm pleased with how Tommy turned out, he's maybe a little low in bravery and I could see putting a couple points into throwing but other than that I can live with him. The main thing is that these soldiers all have 75+ in strength so they should be able to handle most stuff easily.

 

Turns out, this was the end of the month. I was really happy about getting through this with so much green on the board for once. All this UFO activity was a real pain, but at least it gave good xp to turn the governments in my favor.

 

 

Tried looking in the soldier pool and found one possible candidate. He had 57 in bravery, reactions and throwing which was fantastic, but he only had 50 in strength and shooting which is a tad low. Looking back, I probably should have picked him up as the points probably would have worked out in the wash but I'm in no rush as I have a fantastic squad right now. I'll keep an eye out for possible candidates in the future.

 

So I thought this next month would be a little quieter now that I put a dent in the aliens plans, but no way. They seem unfazed and sent two fighters and a battlecruiser at the same time. My interceptors at my other two bases shot down one fighter UFO over land but had to head back out before getting back to base because another fighter appeared. They shot that down over water which was unfortunate as I wanted the points from a ground mission but on the other hand, it's for the best as I'll be busy.

 

The battlecruiser turned out to be a problem. The trouble with them is that they have really powerful weapons and they focus all their resources against only one of your interceptors. If one of the interceptors gets low on health I typically withdraw it from the fight and send it back to base but battlecrusiers must have good sensors too as they can then locate your base and attack it. So for the first time ever I intentionally let the crippled interceptor get destroyed. That seemed to work as my remaining two planes were able to down it without the annoying base defense mission. I figure I'll be able to recoup the cost of that with missions and my engineers can build a new one in a day or two max.

 

 

I'll have my work cut out for me again. The small ship shouldn't be an issue and the battlecruiser should give Duane some target practice to get promoted finally.

 

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

I've been reading this AAR and it makes for an interesting read, but mostly because of the descriptions you provide, Z. I can't see myself playing this game, looks just as time consuming as the originals.

 

Thank you for the AAR though, really good fun.

[Thorondor]

Things are looking up, Zombie, as evidenced by your rather stellar monthly report!

 

It's also clear you've got a firm handle on ground operations no matter what they happen to throw at you. They pretty much can't even injure your guys anymore with your exemplary deployment techniques.

 

But August is showing signs of being a hot month indeed. And the episode of a sacrificial interceptor means you need to ponder serious investment in better airpower.

[Zombie]

I didn't really want to do this battlecruiser mission without a new rookie to tag along but the RNG gods have not been favorable in terms of recruits. Oh well, I can still train up some of the newer soldiers a little more. This wasn't a terribly difficult mission for some reason, probably because it was just vipons, chasers and larva and the other reason was because my squad is pretty much top notch right now. Everyone is carrying heavy lasers + 3 spare clips and they are all kitted out with full shielding and a menagerie of grenade types. The larva were being a little coy this time around... one camped outside along the left side of the UFO and another one inside on the left lower "leg" of the UFO. This is why it's important to do a thorough sweep of the outside first and then systematically search and hold rooms inside.

 

 

Duane "The Rock" was, well, a rock as usual. If he didn't kill something outright he played a role in someone else getting it instead. I probably could have got him another kill with that camped larva outside, but he was already inside and I didn't want to prolong the mission by walking him out there. Well, with Owl and Duane getting promoted I had some points to spend again.

 

 

Owl is maxed out in shooting now which is cool and the 2 remaining points I put into AP and bravery. APs because he can walk farther and bravery because 70 seems like the "butter zone" where halluciniod psi attacks fail. Have no idea what to expect for the final missions so I'm trying to cover most of the bases just in case. As for Duane, he of course got two points into shooting to max that out, then 2 points into bravery to get him to the decent area and the last point into vitality as "Con is not a dump stat". Just to note, he has another rank he can train for yet so he'll be superb.

 

Back at base it was time to manufacture some more heavy laser ammo as I'm really starting to chew through it now with everyone carrying the big laser. I had to wait a little bit though as my guys were still building the new interceptor. Checked the new soldier pool and there were a couple prospects but both were 50 or 51 in reactions, bravery and throwing. Sorry, not interested. So I figured I'd just get rid of that downed fighter UFO with the crew I have. Cake walk mission even though the aliens were carrying ion weapons. It was just vipons and larva again.

 

 

Phobos got enough xp with 1 kill to be promoted again.

 

 

Same deal as always, max out shooting first (2 points here), get bravery to 70+ (1 point) and the rest can be allocated anywhere: I dumped one point into strength to get him to a nice even 80 and then tossed the last point into throwing "just in case". After this it was all quiet on the western front so to speak, no UFO activity whatsoever which was odd considering how busy it was last month. This allowed my scientists to finish a couple projects I had on the back burners since forever it seems.

 

 

The plasma pistol is kinda trash honestly. Sure it has better stopping power than the laser pistol, but who wants to use a pistol in the first place? Maybe a soldier with low strength, but my soldiers are all vetted in that stat when hired so there is no issue. The real reason to research the pistol is to get to the rifle, that's where it's at.

 

 

It's a lot better than the laser rifle in terms of damage though it's a tad inaccurate. Hopefully the high shooting stat of my soldiers will negate this drawback. The plasma line of weapons look like fish to me or more specifically whale sharks so they are very unique. And I have a crap ton of them due to all the missions I've been running.

 

 

For the time being, all my vets will still be using heavy lasers. My soldiers still in training will get the plasma rifles for a couple reasons. First, they are more mobile and can easily throw grenades since their other hand isn't occupied by a weapon, and secondly because it makes it simple to tell at a glance who needs to be trained more yet.

 

Anyhow Heavy Plasmas are on the way, and after that plasma grenades. I'm assuming after this I'll be able to upgrade ship weapons finally, as well as soldier/ship shielding and base defenses. That'll help. I've been researching a new ship type for a couple months now with only one scientist on the project and he's been making slow progress, but at some point I'm going to have to commit to that fully. Oh, and then Ion weaponry.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Have you noticed just how smug Phobos is looking as of late, Zombie. I mean, most other guys are sort of like glum or on the muted side in their portraits, but there's no raining down on his parade.

 

It's either his genetically-modified ego, his impeccable track record and how it speaks of undiluted invincibility or just plain medically enhanced mood. Whatever it is, that's what irrepressible optimistism is all about.

 

Right, so plasma weaponry is all the rage now and it's only fitting that rookies feel the inclination to carry the new goods, traipsing down the proverbial catwalk towards alien lane. Well, nobody will mind them striking a pose during target practice.

 

Meanwhile in the cruel and unusual punishment department, a lone scientist is made to sit in the corner away from everyone and tasked with the seemingly impossible task of single-handedly whipping out a brand new generation of world-class alien-shaming craft. I see how it is... shameless soldier-boy favouritism.

 

But, yeah, that ship tech needs cranking up in a hurry before we're literally ionised in the air come next wave.

[Zombie]

Have you noticed just how smug Phobos is looking as of late, Zombie. I mean, most other guys are sort of like glum or on the muted side in their portraits, but there's no raining down on his parade.

 

It's either his genetically-modified ego, his impeccable track record and how it speaks of undiluted invincibility or just plain medically enhanced mood. Whatever it is, that's what irrepressible optimistism is all about.

 

He's a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, at least he's enthused to be in my program, right?

 

Meanwhile in the cruel and unusual punishment department, a lone scientist is made to sit in the corner away from everyone and tasked with the seemingly impossible task of single-handedly whipping out a brand new generation of world-class alien-shaming craft.

 

Quote of the year! He'll occasionally get the whole lot assigned to his task too, but then they go somewhere else. I can just imagine the mess that would be IRL. "These guys come in here for a few hours, drink all my coffee, make a gigantic mess, then leave"!

 

I was back in the Geoscape today and noticed that the plasma pistol actually can fit on the belt. Now, that's an interesting development as I can plop one of those on a soldier as a sidearm and pull it out when I'm doing point blank shots. So I gave all my rookies a plasma rifle and a plasma pistol too as these are the guys going in harms way. Since I was messing with soldiers I looked through the hiring pool and actually found a rookie with 50+ in all stats.

 

 

Garland's kinda lackluster with just 50 in most stats, but he had 53 for reactions and 57 for throwing which was helpful. Might as well give him a shot at least as these 50+ soldiers don't come up all that often for me anymore. I wanted to give him a plasma pistol as a sidearm but no bueno - having only 50 strength limits the weight he can carry. No sooner than I got him on the transport and situated and a purple colored scout shows up. My interceptors shoot it down so it's off to the races for the new rookie.

 

This probably wasn't a very good mission to start a rookie on for training as it was Larva and Destroyers. The two larva on the map were easy kills with an aimed shot but the destroyers were obviously a little more difficult. He did get a little luck and killed a Destroyer with an critical hit auto shot. And I softened up another with a couple heavy laser hits first with some vets, then let Garland finish it off. Everything else was polished off with the promoted rookies who were carrying plasma rifles. Oh and Duane got injured by a destroyer, but I was able to patch him up fully with the advanced medi kit.

 

 

20 points to spend on this guy and this is what I came up with:

 

 

A whole ranks worth of points went directly into strength so that he could carry his coveted plasma rifle and plasma pistol combo. Now he could carry the weapons but he needs accuracy to hit anything so I poured 6 points into that. The rest went into agility, vitality and bravery. That should give him a fighting chance.

 

Right after this a battlecruiser paid a visit and created a terror site. I did a little reloading just to see if it was hardcoded to make the site in the same continent over and over, but no, it's just random. So knowing that the battlecruiser's mission was terror, I sent all my interceptors out to engage it. It took quite a bit of damage and then all of a sudden it just landed. No terror site formed. Ok I guess that's better. So right now that's what I'm up to.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

For some reason, when battlecruisers land they immediately form an underground labyrinth. Don't know the rationale behind that, but it is what it is. So my guys load in near the corner of the map and I separate them a bit. Garland of course needs the kills so he takes point. Oddly enough, to the right was three dead end blocks with just a small room. It was just walls to the left so there was only one way into the starting area. This was good news as my guys could just hold that area and let the aliens come to them. It never works out that way in practice. After Garland killed a couple larva and a destroyer the aliens didn't want anything to do with us, so the team moved out.

 

We got to an area which looked like a central corridor. My vets explored a little while my rookies got situated into cubbyholes. One of the vets to the Northwest came upon a larva and he immediately booked it back to the corridor. The next round the larva followed and came into view around the corner. And to the South a destroyer appeared too. Garland can't be in two places at once so he took one snap shot at the larva killing it. He took a couple potshots at the destroyer but Birdie ended up getting the kill shot. The next turn I moved Garland ahead of Birdie so he was basically on point with Owl in a cubbyhole as backup/healer. Let the killing fields happen as the aliens seemed to want to funnel through that Southern area right where Garland was. Take a look at the carnage :

 

 

Garland is the soldier kneeling down in the top central area of the pic and just South of him is 8 dead destroyers and 3 larva and he was the one who killed them all. Admittedly a little bit of a cheesefest as I just camped out for turn after turn and let the aliens come to me. Owl did do a little exploring to the Southeast for a few rounds just to investigate if that area was a dead end. It was not (or at least I don't think it was) as he came upon a destroyer there. He booked it back to his normal area and the next round the destroyer rounded the corner which Garland was more than happy to kill. No more moving for me, as I was happy right where I was. The aliens kept on funneling to that kill zone. At the end, "Tickle Me" Elmo reaction shotted the last destroyer and the mission was over.

 

 

There were 17 aliens total and Garland took out 15 of them! He was a one man killing machine. Obviously he got a promotion as did Elmo. Let's allocate these points!

 

 

Elmo got one point into agility, vitality and bravery and 2 into shooting to max that stat out. Garland got a whole rank's worth of points (5) into shooting to max that out then the remaining points went into the usual stats. He has one more promotion to go eventually so I might give him a point into agility, vitality and strength and maybe a point into reactions and throwing, but I'm leaning to putting those two points back into agility and vitality. We shall see what the improvements do.

 

Back at the Geoscape and what's this?

 

 

Cool, a alien life scanner (aka motion scanner in UFO:EU)! That should come in handy!

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Give it up for Garland "The Man" Vankleeck, as he makes an entrance for the ages. Strutting his stuff on central lane from day one and making it look like good fun. Great pick, Zombie.

 

Sure, you made certain his pals got his back but them aliens put'em up and he knocked 'em down and no matter how hard they pushed he held his ground.

 

Even if "The Rock" got nicked it was still a good battlecruiser run. Furthermore, that artifact find is the cherry on top. To quote Mac from the Predator motion picture: *whispering* 'I see you!'

[Zombie]

To preface, I wanted to say I split this Let's Play off of the Invasion Postponed topic as it's not adding anything to that discussion. With that said, let's get back to the action. I was running time forward in the Geoscape and finally finished researching the heavy plasma.

 

 

This opened up the plasma (ship) cannon and I absolutely need this as my interceptors are quite under powered. The aliens do not actually carry heavy plasmas, this is a human fabricated gun on the same concept. So priority #1 is to manufacture both the guns and it's ammo. A 2/3 gun, 1/3 ammo division of labor seemed the best to me as it produced one gun for every 4 or so clips. My soldiers normally use 1-2 clips per mission (depending if I'm training someone though) so that would leave a few clips as backups. It's always a little harrowing with a new weapon rollout as you can never make enough guns and ammo before you are forced into a mission it seems (this should be a Murphy's Law).

 

Sunday passes and it's now early Monday morning and a Battlecruiser appears. I let it fly around for a little while hoping it would get closer to my base where I would be able to maybe shoot it down. No dice, it just landed. I remembered that Mondays are when the new recruit pool is repopulated, so while checking that I found a new rookie with 50+ in every stat. Meet Stacia Goetzke:

 

 

Actually she has 51+ in every stat. Now it's crunch time to get her kitted out and to adjust the squad to make room for her as we need to get to that Battlecruiser before it takes off again. There were only 3 heavy plasma manufactured so those went to the vets like OVNI and Galfar. Scottie got to sit this one out and Stacia went in his place. She got a plasma rifle and 3 clips plus a couple grenades. Upon reflection I probably should have gave her the laser rifle as it's more accurate than the plasma, but kills are what matters most.

 

We load into a... mine maybe? There's a big central area with lockers and benches for changing clothes and bathroom+showers to the right of that. After killing the Destroyer camped out in the room, Stacia went to the lower doors out of TU and a Sentinel opened them up next round but did nothing. Free kill for her - sort of. She killed it after the second round of auto shots, but not before the Sentinel shot back wildly missing her but destroying part of the wall with the door. Not good there goes some of our cover. Part of my crew was to the left of this in a dead end area of the mine itself. Word to the wise you cannot "tunnel" through dirt like you can in UFO:EU - this stuff seems to be impervious to heavy plasma shots.

 

After moving everyone into the main room and utilizing any and all forms of cover we camped out for a couple rounds. A Sentinel hovered into visual but moved off. Stacia was sent into the mine after it to hopefully shoot it down but encountered a Destroyer instead. To quote Jurassic Park: "clever girl". So she takes an auto shot at the Destroyer, hits once, misses but hits something in the distance and kills it and misses again. She falls back hoping to draw the Destroyer into the kill zone.

 

 

It worked perfectly as she was able to kill it and get into cover for the next round. Then came a few waves of twin Destroyers which she either killed herself or at least got shots on target. For a number of turns nothing happened. Stacia was sent out deeper into the mine with a couple of soldiers as backup while the rest of the crew held position where the mine split off. She killed a Destroyer off in the distance with an aimed shot and a couple snap shots and because this area was a dead end she made her way back to her comrades.

 

Some more cautious exploring took place and we found out that the mine opened up into a corridor with a cubbyhole in the center. Stacia took her place there and the other team members faced her from across the corridor. Each side was mined with a proximity grenade as an early warning system. When one went off, Stacia would peek out from her cubby, kneel down and shoot at the Destroyer or Sentinel. Most times it was a kill, but my team had her back by killing it and remining the corridor again. That's how the rest of the mission went until it was over.

 

 

Not surprisingly Stacia got a promotion but so did Birdie and Galfar even got one due to getting rid of a crappy vet in the Geoscape. It wasn't too difficult to allocate the points for Galfar.

 

 

Shooting was already maxed out so one point went into agility, vitality and throwing and 2 went into strength to get him to 82. Talk about a super soldier, wow! Birdie was a little more difficult to shop for as what do you get a girl who has everything in life?

 

 

Well, three points were immediately siphoned off to max out her shooting. There were two points left though. I was trying to decide between putting one point into agility and vitality or putting those points into bravery and strength. I ended up with the latter as she could carry more stuff and be a little more protected against psi attacks by hallucinoids. Now for Stacia it wasn't too hard but she had 30 points to spend which kinda threw me a curve.

 

 

I dumped 11 points into shooting to max her out there. Six points went into strength so she could carry something better down the road. Four points went into agility, vitality and bravery and the last point into throwing. Really, I should have given her 3 for bravery and put the extra point into reactions or throwing but it's not critical.

 

So I didn't use the alien life scanner for this mission as I thought this was borderline game breaking a few years ago. I might start bringing it along on future missions though as I really hate searching around shot down Battlecruisers for camped out aliens along the sides or for when nothing is happeneing for a few turns.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

I must say, Sargeant Stacia Goetzke is a real looker, Zombie, and not just a pretty face now either.

 

She got very lucky too in that instance when coming face to face with the Sentinel sort of flat-footed and it just flattened some of the scenery around without redecorating her visage.

 

Other than that very much a clockwork cleanup job overall on your part. The alien life scanner should help speed things along - just don't let it lull you into complacency as we've seen that the aliens sometimes just stand in place. Getting psyched maybe ?

[Zombie]

The alien life scanner should help speed things along - just don't let it lull you into complacency as we've seen that the aliens sometimes just stand in place. Getting psyched maybe ?

 

Also, the scanner has trouble picking up aliens in the air. Larva are notorious for going up and down constantly and they always seem to end up in the air at the end of their turn. You just have to keep your eyes peeled on the mini map to see if something shows up where there was nothing before. It's a time saver though as it allows you to guesstimate where to spread your resources the best. I like to keep a couple vets (like OVNI and Galfar) stationed around the transport ship for a few rounds just to make sure it's safe, then move them off in the area of least resistance opposite of the main kill squad. The name of the game is to search out any larva and eradicate them so the team can focus on securing the perimeter of the UFO.

 

Had a small scout mission the other day with mostly chasers and larva and it was on a map with some human structures that had more than one level. Clearing the outside and UFO was easy peasy as Stacia mopped up everything that moved. When she entered the UFO and blasted the first Chaser in there for 103 damage you know it's gonna be a good mission.

 

 

But after killing the second chaser inside, the mission still did not end. Turns out there was a chaser camped out in an upper floor of a building along with the annoying Larva which the alien life scanner didn't pick up. I have to try getting a soldier with the scanner to a lift and then checking the scan results. In the end it didn't matter as my troops can handle pretty much anything with their plasma weaponry.

 

 

Tommy killed one chaser and he was the only person to get a promotion. Time to allocate another 5 points for him.

 

 

The usual allocation mix for someone already maxed in shooting. The 5th point went into throwing just so tossing grenades and stuff is a little more reliable.

 

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

Just a quick Q... Does the leveling of the soldiers depend on what they do or is it just overall?

[Zombie]

I think it's a two prong process. The first type is strictly XP. You get XP from missions to reach the next milestone promotion level. The second is a little bit unclear, but I think it has to do with firing vets and hiring rookies. When you fire a vet your overall soldier rank dynamic is changed. Fewer vets mean that someone down the totem pole will get a promotion next mission even if they didn't do anything XP-wise. Probably depends on a lot of factors though so take this as a view from space generalization.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Not much going on at the end of the month it seems. The aliens are probably sulking somewhere licking their wounds. But just when I thought August 2108 would go out like a lamb the aliens send a couple ships my way: a scout and a cruiser. Shot these down obviously. Sent my squad out to the scout and they easily polished it off. No promotions though. I sent my squad in for the cruiser and it was Vipons and Larva... just like old time's sake.

 

 

A number of my soldiers got kills (including Stacia who had 4) but no promotions for them. Garland did, even though he didn't do diddly squat. I'm not complaining. Let's upgrade him.

 

 

I put two points into Strength to get him to 82 as I was noticing OVNI couldn't carry a plasma rifle and a plasma pistol at the same time without encumbrance penalties. Maybe the ION weaponry will be lighter, or I could give him a laser pistol which isn't as heavy. Anyway, end of the month report is out and I was stellar.

 

 

I have a lot of money on hand so I technically could build another base but I have some big ticket items to manufacture this month assuming the research finishes: plasma cannon for my interceptors and a new type of interceptor (the one guy is still at it working hard). I should probably start selling plasma pistols to make some extra cash on the side but I'm not short on money yet.

 

Upon starting the new month I checked the rookie hiring pool and got a nibble... Finally!

 

 

What's interesting is that new rookies come pre-equipped with a human rifle, three clips plus 3 normal grenades and a stim pack. You can sell this stuff if you want for $2,400 to recoup some of the cost of hiring which I think is funny. You'll be seeing more of Ishantil in the future though so stay tuned.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Congrats on another top dollar alien-whoopin' month, Zombie!

 

Your new recruit looks promising and during our customary screening for final admittance here at HQ here's a little nugget Intel dug out for you - as it turns out, like a few others before him, he belongs to the rather special reclusive |\/| 0 c| c| 3 P. ranks.

 

Approved. Looking forward to see how he does in actual ops.

[Zombie]

There was a little bit of alien activity recently so I ended up shooting down most of the big stuff over water but there was a scout which crash landed. Might as well clean up that site. Ishantil was a real juggernaut killing everything, but I have to hand it to my scouts for getting LOS on the aliens and for my one guy with the alien life scanner. Couldn't have been done without them.

 

 

Obviously it was promotion time...

 

 

15 points isn't a heck of a lot once you start divvying it up but it should be good enough for a start. The main thing is to get shooting up to a level where your auto shot accuracy gets above 60 at about 10 tiles away and kneeling. Get there and you'll be fine. And strength is another good one as you need it to carry heavier stuff. Anyway, back in the Geoscape I was running time forward as nothing was happening and decided to check the hiring pool again. Another nibble!

 

 

Kathlene's secondary stats are rather lack luster but her primary stats are really good. I thought this might be a good candidate to train up as she can shoot right out of the box. Got rid of my last bad "original team" soldiers and hired this rookie.

 

Then the aliens sent a UFO swarm for me to deal with. I really wanted the cash but two batttlecruisers + 3 red cruisers + 2 red scouts are a lot to deal with at one time. I employed a different strategy this time with the smaller UFO's. If they got too close to a base I sent out the interceptors and shot at it a little while until it attracted too much attention from the battlecruisers then immediately withdrew. With the aliens busy giving chase to the fleeing interceptors, I sent out another squad of interceptors from a different base to maraud a different red UFO. With the the annoying red stuff out of the way I was able to send out bigger squads of interceptors to tackle the battle cruisers. One of my ships was lost, but I was able to shoot everything down (mostly over water). There was one scout UFO I was able to shoot down over land so my troops went in again.

 

 

This time it was all destroyers so it was a lot more difficult to get kills for the right person so I did the best I could. Duane "the Rock" got promoted without doing anything except manning the alien life scanner. And of course Ishantil had 3 kills which earned him another promotion too.

 

 

Not bad. Leveled these guys up, shot down a bunch of UFOs and got the $3+ million swarm reward too. Good times!

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

You've proven resourceful in dealing with the new glut of UFOs, Zombie.

 

Giving them the runaround with your interceptors works. For now at least. I don't imagine they'll ever get wise to it but if they keep coming in bigger clusters we'll be skating on thin ice in a hot minute. Even if you're sitting on a pile of cash and can afford it, it takes a little too much time to make replacement interceptors.

 

Best put that money to good use before long and increase your craft production capability as well as your research infrastructure and personnel.

 

Speaking of which, Sergeant Ishantil is a cool cat, how about that? Time for Kathlene too to really hit the scene!

[Zombie]

I was originally going to do a two episode Christmas "special" but I got hung up on a battlecruiser mission last night. Hopefully I can get that done today. For Part 1 it was more of the same on the Geoscape. Kinda quiet for the most part. I had to reload once as I accidentally put everyone on the "new" interceptor design my one guy has been working on and it finished. Turns out it was an old design and worse than the one I have now. Needless to say, everyone is off that ship design and back on the plasma cannon as I'm really feeling the hurt when it comes to battlecruisers. I just need a little bit of an edge in that department, the plasma cannon would definitely help but I also could use a new rocket type as the human stingers are quite under powered.

 

As I was running time forward a battlecruiser came flying by which was shot down with basically all my interceptors. The transport spawns in at the right corner of the map so Ishantil is positioned along the edge to the top (kneeling of course) and I disembark a small group of soldiers: 1 as an advance scout and about 3 more as "backup" in case an alien needs to be killed ASAP. My scout locates a Sentinel and Ishantil shoots at it, take a look at the "play-by-play" box in the upper right.

 

 

He killed the sentinel with one shot of an auto shot for 101 damage and the other two shots fly off in the distance and hit a hidden alien for 80 total damage killing it as well! Not sure what it was, but that was kinda funny and lucky. (BTW, I found an easier way to get screenshots during a mission: I take a "print screen" shot first, then go to the options screen and take a F12 screenshot of the screen through Steam. After that I go to the desktop and paste the print screen shot into a photo editor and finally "save as" the Steam screenshot. So I keep the numbering system in place to make things easier to find). Anyhow, the mission went fairly smooth the only hiccup was when I threw a proximity grenade down either side of the battlecruiser's NE hallway only to find out the aliens didn't want to move anymore. I ended up having to set them off myself by walking a soldier over them. (As another aside: I did some testing on the alien life scanner and indeed it can only display aliens on the same level your soldier is on so you need to get up to another level to scan for aliens there. Kind of a pain, but it's a workaround). End of mission report:

 

 

Ishantil kills 14 of the 17 aliens on the mission and earns himself a promotion and so does Stacia who killed 1. OVNI killed 1 as well. You may be wondering why 16 of the 17 alien kills were accounted for. Turns out one proximity grenade I threw at a destroyer was triggered by itself and thus the kill isn't credited to anyone. Just an FYI.

 

Everyone is now a staff sergeant except for a couple warrant officers and of course any rookies I hire. So time to allocate points:

 

 

Stacia got one point in agility and vitality and decided to give her two points in strength. The last point I almost put into throwing, but at the last minute changed my mind and put it into reactions. I like soldiers with high reactions, so kill me. Ishantil's shooting was maxed out so I put 2 points into everything except for agility and reactions which got one each. He's fairly well rounded now but I could see putting one more point into agility and vitality and then maybe 2 points into reactions and the last point into throwing if he ever gets to Warrant officer level.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

So here's Part 2 of the doubleheader. As you know I shot down another battlecruiser which was in the "antarctic" region of the planet so a little festive Christmas fun with a UFO in the snow down below! For the outside of the crash site it was pretty easy as there were plenty of Christmas trees to kneel behind for cover. Our new rookie Kathlene (that name means "pure" by the way) led the way and dashed from tree to tree until the alien life scanner picked up a red triangle at which time she would hunker down and everyone else would make their way closer for support. Mostly it was Destroyers and Larva. There were a couple times where her shooting accuracy on the auto shot was in the 30's so I'd have to "pre damage" a Destroyer with shots from someone else to make sure it was softened up enough for Kathlene to kill with one or two snap or aimed shots. Got surprised by a Larva which came from above but they are rather weak against plasma weaponry so it was an easy kill.

 

When the alien life scanner wasn't picking up any more blips outside the craft I dashed all my troops to cover the two entrances to the UFO from a somewhat safe distance. From the scanner it looked like there were two aliens camped out in the lower central lift chamber. I jumped ahead a few turns and they just never moved a muscle... frozen in place. I guess that means it's my turn to move so I rushed everyone to the doors and had Kathlene kneel down directly outside of one of them and gathered the rest of the sweep squad around her for support/door opening duty. After peeking in the next round we could see it was two Destroyers both facing away from us. Kathlene emptied two full volleys of plasma rifle into one Destroyer before it fell down dead. She had enough time left and hit the other Destroyer with a snap shot. I think Ishantil took it down permanently as I was afraid the thing was going to come to it's senses and shoot someone dead next turn.

 

Time for a little test. I wanted to know if a destroyer would be aware of my troops directly below who were standing on every tile of the lift. Turns out they are rather dumb like the aliens in UFO:EU. So the strategy of "plugging the lift" is a viable strategy in this game too as the aliens can't come down and can't/won't fire down it either while my troops can fire up it with near impunity (or so I thought). The caveat being you can't actually see an alien above unless you go up there first and spot it. So Kathlene shot a couple auto shots worth of plasma rifle into the tender lower area of the destroyer but still couldn't kill it. Must've been a beefed up destroyer of some sort. The second volley must've awakened the sleeping brute and it tried to fire back. The hilarious end to it's life is in the "play-by-play" box in the upper right.

 

 

Oh, that's too good to be true! The destroyer shot itself and killed itself! Anyhow I now knew that you have to be a little careful around lifts but you could totally cheesefest your way through part of the aliens in the upper level by getting them into the lift area above and killing them from below or going up a level while kneeling and shoot them from behind. How to get the aliens to come to you was an unknown. Because the aliens didn't move a whole lot and seemed rather uninterested in engaging I kept ending the turn until it looked like an alien was outside one of the upper doors around the second floor (L1) via the alien life scanner. My plan was to gas them out so I had one of my troops dash upstairs, open the door to the hallway and then run back below. Then Kathlene came up and tossed a chem grenade in the hallway and headed back down too. That seemed to get the attention of some of the destroyers up there and they evacuated from the hallway into the lift room above. Now it was just a matter of shooting them from down below. Kathlene couldn't kill them all on one round so Duane had to give her a hand,

 

Duane had the life scanner so he kinda had to stay close to a lift so he could go up and down and check the levels for alien blips each round. I knew there were two larva who were taking cover down below on each side as they were spotted in the hallways upstairs. So one group of four (including Kathlene) went to plug one of the auxiliary lifts from above then waited till the larva was somewhat below. It was an easy kill, and the life scanner showed it was the last alien on that side either above or below. So that half of the UFO was secured. Everyone headed back upstairs to deal with the remaining aliens.

 

We located a destroyer in the right (NE) room who was camped out facing the wall looking away from the people right outside the door. The destroyer was partially visible during their round since the door was open so I checked to see if it ever moved or even turned. Nope, it was frozen in place it seemed. Here again it was time to employ cheese strategy and I took a chance and moved Kathlene directly behind it kneeling and ended the turn. It didn't move or look around so it was an easy kill (95% kneeling auto shot accuracy can do that). I knew there was another larva who was hiding down below from the life scanner so it was the same strategy as the other side: plug the lift, then go below and shoot when it gets close. As my lift team headed back above the life scanner showed that there was movement near the door leading to the central lift room. My vets were stationed there waiting in ambush so I wasn't worried. One of my vets tossed a chem grenade on two destroyers and the next round one of the them decided to open the door only to come face to face with a 3-shot (I'm assuming snap) volley of heavy plasma from OVNI killing it instantly. The last one was killed by Kathlene who was kneeling down behind the door to the auxiliary lift.

 

 

The mission results confirmed that Kathlene can be a real beast if you give her the tools to kill.

 

 

14/17 aliens killed just by her which earned her 6 back-to-back promotions on one mission (or 30 points). Time to spend them.

 

 

Four points went into vitality, agility and bravery. I tossed 6 points into strength to get her to 78. There were 12 points left. If I maxed out her shooting it would eat up 11. I really wanted to get a point into both throwing and reactions so I ended up just using 10 points on shooting. She's still eligible for another promotion in the future so I can give her the final point into shooting bringing her to 99 (I think this is the highest it can go).

 

So it was a good mission on a lot of levels. I learned a lot about alien movements and behavior which should give my team a little bit of an edge on maps like this. And of course we have another fantastic super soldier in the making. I'm still looking through the rookie list in the Geoscape for more decent recruits but so far there hasn't been anything worthwhile. My research on the plasma (ship) cannon is about 70% complete so it'll still be another couple weeks before I can produce any of them. They do not take long to produce but boy are they expensive at nearly $1 million space bucks apiece. Glad I have the cash for that.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

From the desert to the snow, Zombie's expertise will be on show!

 

Your two-parter episode turned out special indeed with an uncanny display of marksmanship on Ishantil's part, hitting them bogies "right between the eyes" without even seeing them and on the other hand an overconfident targetting routine on the part of a Destroyer demonstrating how a lack of error correction in the loop is enough to actually self-terminate.

 

There was also a fun bit of derring-do on your part to further push the point of their momentary "technical dificulties" when you brought Kathlene right behind one of the frozen hulking things for a point-blank style execution.

 

All in all both entertainment and learning were goals met, which made for a good run.

[Zombie]

Back at base I was trying to devise some strategies for what to do when the next big UFO shows up. I've been having a heck of a time trying to shoot these battlecruisers down as one interceptor will almost always be severely damaged by an encounter. Then it hit me, I have a free hangar at both of my satellite bases in preparation for that better interceptor which will not come for a while. I bit the bullet and built three brand new interceptors: one for each of the satellite bases and a new one for my main base. I also had to manufacture 2 new laser cannons and 2 laser shields as I only had one of each at my main base. Hopefully this will be a temporary stop gap measure.

 

I decided what I really need more than anything else are bases that are closer to my main each with 3-4 interceptors. Right now my satellite bases are pretty far away so the interceptors in-air time is limited by their long commute time. I have the money to build a couple more bases but I want to wait and see what happens when I have the plasma ship cannon. The extra firepower might nullify the need for more interceptors. However I do definitely need at least one base which is closer in order to provide overlapping interceptor coverage. More on this at a later date.

 

I had a little excitement today in UFO:ET. First a scout shows up so I send out 1 interceptor from the closest base. Less than 10 minutes later another scout appears in a different part of the globe so I sent out an interceptor from the closest base again. And I kid you not, about 10 minutes after that another scout. Different base, just one interceptor. Out of those three, two were shot down over land. I couldn't get to both so I picked the closest one and went to that.

 

 

Kathlene was a killing machine again though this time it was just chasers and larva.

 

I also had two battlecruisers show up. I sent out every interceptor hoping to down one of them. I put some decent damage on one but it eventually landed in Medie. No sooner than that happened and the other battlecruiser landed too taking that continent over for the aliens. So that's what they were up to. Anyhow, this was the state of the globe as my team was lifting off from the scout mission:

 

 

My interceptors had somewhat repaired and rearmed so I sent them out to the damaged and landed battlecruiser mainly to keep an eye on it till my transport could go again. The thing immediately tried to make a run for it but my interceptors somehow took it down. Of course, where there's smoke there is also fire and my interceptors located an alien base there too.

 

 

So now I have 3 targets. Which should I go to first? Hmmm. Well, I figured that the landed and undamaged battlecruiser might flee too so maybe that's the best choice.

 

 

So that's what I'm up to right now.

 

- Zombie