Let's Play UFO:Extraterrestrials Gold

[Thorondor]

So, there's some skill involved in Battleship kiting if you want to avoid ending up trashing a JAG. Timely support it is, Zombie.

 

As for the base organization it seems to me your rather stellar handling of our ground forces could have probably made it feasible to ditch any medical facilities.

 

Sure, there are some more sensitive stages in troop progression, when you try to juggle the less experienced with the more hardy elements, to make sure you have effective backup, making for some added vulnerability at spots that could end up with the odd casualty. Rare, though, from your reports on the thread and therefore possibly in the range of the negligible.

 

The rest, facility-wise, is undeniably as you say, priorities you must get straight. The thing is, if you didn't occasionally go experimenting with stuff, we'd never learn from it.

[Zombie]

I shot down a battleship which I was thrilled about, but before I could send out my team another battleship appeared so I had to put the ground mission on hold. Shot the second one down a fair distance away from my main base so I'm happy I have two transports to switch between. The first battleship was a real mixed bag of alien types with just about every race represented. The second battleship was preachers and telemats which meant some xp for once. Here's the EOM for both:

 

 

After all of this I decided to sell off some more of the alien components/weapons. It was quite a bit of stuff in the end. I had ~$83 million spacebucks before and the sale was ~$19 million which brought my total to ~$102 million:

 

 

That's not it either, if you notice I kept about 20 of each type on hand just in case funds get tight for some reason. An estimate... it probably comes to $10-12 million more. So funding is covered this month for the time being, there's going to be some big ticket items coming up though. As soon as the extra hangar was up at my main base I started work on JAG interceptors in earnest. The plan is to build a JAG, transfer it to another base (did I mention all my auxiliary bases now have 6 hangars?) then take the weapons and shields off a nightwolf, sell that ship (for a slight loss) and finally equip the JAG. When every base has 5 JAGs, I'll switch gears and produce a stockpile of weapons and shields to cover the final ships so that when they arrive at a base they are ready to go.

 

In the meantime there was a flurry of alien activity: a scout, cruiser and battlecruiser. After shooting those down I visited the scout (phantoms+inquisitors) and cruiser (preachers+vipons) first:

 

 

The final two ships airborne were a scout and a battleship. I thought I had enough firepower at the ready to take the battleship down, but I miscalculated the time difference and the thing ended up getting through the circle of interceptors and landing at my base. I was actually happy about this as I could do the killing at home without using the fuel on the transports. After the base defense mission (vipons+phantoms+larva+terror floaters) I sent the team out to the other scout (phantoms+inquisitors):

 

 

So I have that last battlecruiser to deal with yet which I'll do for next episode. Right now my transport has what I think will be the final squad to go to Earth. I cherry-picked the best of the best and am trying to level them up. OVNI and Baldhor (which are locks as they are the cream of the crop and promoted as far as I'm willing to go) are sitting out the remainder of the missions back at base. I'll probably have 2 extra soldiers to pick from for the final mission which I thought was important to do. Most of the soldiers on the transport right now are 2600+ xp range with most being in the 2700 range and two in the 2900 range (these two are the temporary "rear commanders" who gain a little xp just by being present). It looks like I should be able to level these soldiers up to the next rank if the xp per mission remains about the same.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

 

Heck, yeah, Zombie - raking it in!

 

Should be an adequate enough margin, especially given the planned Nightwolf "trade-in" program when getting the JAGs.

 

On the not so plus side I see Melia Mccardell and Kathlene Marciniak got nicked by Phantoms. You let them alien fools get a crack at our gals?

 

This demands payback. Pack up some of those guided Chem and Flame MEGA-Rockets and let it rip!

[Zombie]

I finally got around to visiting that battlecruiser... another mixed bag of aliens which was nice for a change. For the most part, Jarrett is the guy doing the majority of killing, but there are a few soldiers I'm also trying to level up so they will get a token kill in here and there. EOM report was "very good" even though we killed 14 aliens, bah.

 

 

The next two missions were a scout and a cruiser. The scout was inquisitors and phantoms and as usual, once you kill all the aliens outside of the UFO bridge, the last two phantoms make a beeline straight for your craft. Set up a perimeter firing squad before they arrive and it's a cakewalk. As for the cruiser, it was just vipons and chasers and some random terror units (even a hallucinoid made an appearance).

 

 

I also shot down a fighter so I sent in the team for that. Phantoms and inquisitors again! I had to spread the wealth around a bit to get everyone into the 2900xp range. Recall that the next promotion is captain which happens at 3060xp which means I'm not far from getting everyone promoted in the next mission or two. Anyhow, everything went fine until I breached the UFO when Birdie got a little trigger happy and reaction shot at a phantom, missed all three shots and hit Melia with two of them.

 

 

I patched Melia before the mission ended but ended up in the hospital for one day anyway. Luckily the auto doc prevented critical wounds otherwise it could have been much worse. And what's this?

 

 

4 "blaster bombs" eh? I might have to give these guided rockets a whirl sometime as I'm curious if I should be bringing these along for the final missions. That 300 damage is certainly a good reason.

 

So between all these missions I was very, very busy manufacturing JAGs and selling nightwolfs. Right now all my bases are full with JAGs which makes me happy as that means I'll have some extra help shooting stuff down near my main base. I held another mini fire sale which got my funds back into the $90 million space bucks area even after the big switchover. I produced 2 more akew ship cannons, 2 imperator missile launchers and 2 ship particle shields as backup just in case one (or more) of the JAGs get destroyed. The weapons and shields take a long time to produce so it's a good idea to have a small stockpile of them on hand so all you have to worry about is producing the JAG itself. The advanced detection at my main base finished but I'm still not getting any info out of UFO's anymore. I might build a standard detection module yet just to check if that helps. If not, it's a bug. Not game breaking especially this late but annoying.

 

Late Edit: I'll just post the soldier xp values here so you can see how close everyone is.

 

Kathlene 3012
Galfar 2970
Mephistoex 2988
Lashunda  2962
Duane 2973
Owl 2907
Birdie 2897
Ishantil 2920
Jarrett 2982
Melia 2944

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Battlecruisers, Cruisers, Scouts, Fighters - bring 'em on as Zombie will down 'em for a song!

 

Just as long as they come bearing loads of XP they're welcome. Not that big of a stretch to go now anyway as your list of "promotables" clearly shows.

 

Of course, some of those folks *cough, Birdie, cough* do seem to get somewhat overly ambitious and with silly ideas on occasion, thinking to push ahead of the rest by shooting their own squadmates. Lucky for him you can't just bench him at this stage.

[Zombie]

Of course, some of those folks *cough, Birdie, cough* do seem to get somewhat overly ambitious and with silly ideas on occasion, thinking to push ahead of the rest by shooting their own squadmates. Lucky for him you can't just bench him at this stage.

 

Birdie is female, but yeah it was kinda my fault for camping her directly in front of a door I knew would be opened by an alien. I didn't know that she'd miss all of her shots though, that shouldn't happen with a maxed out shooting accuracy.

 

Well, I thought I hit the xp jackpot when my JAGs took down another battlecruiser. No such luck, it was about the worst crew you could imagine: chasers and hallucinoids (though it was nice seeing the latter as I haven't encountered them much the last few months). Birdie and Owl were falling behind in xp so they got most of the kills. EOM report:

 

 

At least we got an excellent rating this time. What made this even better was we found another artifact:

 

 

Unreal! I was hoping a swarm was going to give me a chance at this again, but getting it from a battlecruiser was a real score! Back in the geoscape and my JAGs shot down a cruiser again. and it was a mixed race crew too: phantoms, inquisitors, chasers, sentinels, vipons and terror floaters. EOM report:

 

 

Basically almost everyone got in on the action to get as close to a promotion as possible. Here's the breakdown (3060 is the next promotion level):

 

Kathlene 3052
Galfar 3010
Mephistoex 3043
Lashunda 3046
Duane 3013
Owl 3054
Birdie 3039
Ishantil 3044
Jarrett 3030
Melia 3033

 

Galfar and Duane are in the 3010 range so I'm hoping there's plenty of xp to get them a promotion along with their comrades. I think if I focus on killing with those two, then switch over to Jarrett, Melia and Birdie that should be a good start. Kathlene and Owl are mere points away from a promotion so I can make them rear commanders and they'll get their promotion just for showing up. The soldiers in the 3040 range will be close, but I think the points gain for showing up is around 20xp which should be enough for a promotion too.

 

To break it down, 5 soldiers will be promoted just for visiting a mission and the other 5 will require some killing to get there. Certainly possible in one mission. With that said, I just shot down a battlecruiser, a battleship and also there is a cruiser (partially damaged) who is still airborne so there's plenty of chances. We'll get there in my next post so keep your eyes peeled.

 

Oh, and I removed the standard workshop at my main base and built a standard detection module in it's place to see if that stacks with the advanced detection module. That'll take 20 days to become operational so I'll have to prolong the game this much (or I could just test it out on the side). Speaking of end-game, after these promotions happen I might stick around Esperanza a little bit yet to see if a swarm shows up. If it doesn't, maybe one of the next three UFO's will offer up an auto-doc or something useful. If none of those offer up anything good, then it'll be time to finally go to Earth and get this over with.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

They're all just fine killing instruments to me, Zombie.

 

Quite the mix of aliens tossed into that cruiser. Nice of them to let you take a fair shot at the whole lot for sport.

 

And with the UFOs downed there should be plenty of game for the XP picking. Shouldn't be long for the EOM funding to arrive now either.

[Zombie]

I decided to visit the Battleship first, figuring that will have the most xp out of the three. When my transport arrived we found out it was Chasers and Sentinels. There were a lot of Chasers and about 6-7 Sentinels so I decided to go ahead and do the mission - I'd try to get the lowest xp soldiers the Sentinel kills and fill that in with some Chasers to get them to the 3060+ level, then let everyone else have at it with the Chasers inside the UFO. Jarrett was the only person to get to that level outside the UFO, but the other soldiers were in the 3040-ish range. There were about 8 Chasers left inside which should be good enough to give most everyone a chance to get to 3050xp (that was my arbitrary cutoff to make it fair). The aliens were easily mopped up so here's the EOM:

 

 

Congrats everyone on your promotion! God only knows you all earned it. As for assigning the 5 points to the soldiers, I initially decided to put one point into Vitality and the other 4 into Throwing for everyone. When I was looking through the numbers I changed my mind a little and decided to get everyone to around 80 Throwing and put the remaining point(s) into Vitality. I've said it before, Con is not a dump stat and I was worried about the final missions where I'll have (possibly) limited-to-no access to "base" medical facilities and have to rely on Medikits+stimpacks for healing. That was the rationale behind the change, 80 throwing should be good enough for what I'm using it for (normally throwing grenades distances between 6-12 tiles away, any further and I use a handheld weapon or withdraw). Here's the soldiers then:

 

 

 

Now that (most) everyone is at about 80 throwing it'll also make it a little bit easier to decide who to bring along on the final missions as I can base that primarily on strength, shooting and vitality. Since everyone is a Captain now, I will not have any higher ranking officers to bring along which I don't think is a huge problem. My original thought was that OVNI and Baldhor will fill that role and right now they are sitting at ~3300xp. The final promotion is Colonel at 5200, so as a back-of-the-matchbook calculation that would take ~126 kills each (@ 15xp/kill on average). I think that might be feasible to do for one of the guys for sure as I'd still like to wait a little for another swarm or chance at an Auto-doc. Or I could do both and have recaps every so often just to update on the progress. I'd take both along on the missions and probably have them do all (or most) the killing so it shouldn't take forever.

 

Anyhow, that's my thoughts on it.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

To expand a little on my previous post, 125 kills @ 15xp/kill equates to about 16 missions if there are 8 aliens on a mission on average (usually more). This is for a lone soldier doing all the kills, if I spread the xp between Baldhor and OVNI it'll be about 32 missions. But you also have to take into account that for every mission they complete, they'll get that 20xp bonus so if you subtract that out (20xp is about an extra kill per mission free) it'll probably be about 25 missions when all is said and done. Totally doable.

 

Speaking of xp, we have a couple UFOs to deal with right now so I sent the crew with OVNI and Baldhor leading the charge to that battlecruiser. It was all preachers, nothing else - I don't recall that happening before, but I'm not complaining as they are 20xp. That mission went pretty good, I cleaned up the outside easily but there was a slight hiccup in that 2 preachers were camping out in a room. I used Melia as a decoy to draw fire from them so OVNI could toss a mark III chem grenade between them. After patching him up, it was just the matter of getting rid of a preacher in the other room.

 

 

Next up was the Cruiser, this time it was Vipons and Sentinels so not as much xp but fairly decent as the Sentinels are worth 15xp. Here's what the battlescape looked like when we showed up:

 

 

In the pic you can see a Sentinel but to the right of it and 1 tile farther away was a Vipon commander. Funny seeing them yet. One thing is for sure, I like the chemogun for taking them out as the AOE kills them so quick. I could probably use the flame thrower thingy too, but that sometimes causes stuff to get destroyed in the blaze. Here's the result when everything was dead:

 

 

Baldhor is at 3536xp and OVNI is at 3601 so that's a good start. Supposedly there are a couple scouts coming up and after that maybe a base defense mission. The end of the month is soon approaching so that's something else to keep an eye out.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Ahoy, Captains!

 

I see you like to aim high, Zombie, gunning for a couple of Colonels still. You're contemplating a slew of prospective missions to get that xp count. It's kind of funny though how one suddenly comes to wish for a swarm (or three) to show up.

 

Fellas, we're just hankerin' for some quality alien turkey shootin'!

[Zombie]

Nothing really happened directly after that last mission so it was the end of the month, let's check out how I did:

 

 

Stratos reduced funding by a little but other than that everyone was happy. I sold a lot of stuff this month, more than twice as much as last month, although I have a sneaking suspicion that all those interceptors I sold played a minor part in that. Speaking of interceptors, I made a lot of new JAGs which is why my manufacturing numbers were so high. But this should be about it for manufacturing except to refill my stockpiles of mark III chem grenades and particle shields for my soldiers. Oh, and I got rid of all my scientists so that's another cost that will not be present from now on.

 

My previous tests turned out to be correct and we had a scout UFO show up. This time it was destroyers and larva which I always think is a strange combo. As always Baldhor and OVNI went to town and killed everything themselves. Well, it was mostly all Baldhor because he was behind OVNI in xp.

 

 

The next UFO to show up was actually a cruiser so that was a good surprise. Vipons and Destroyers were the name of the game, and yes, there was a vipon commander in the mix too camped out behind the transport as usual. There was a big building between the transport and UFO so we had to go through it. One little trick I've started to use is to toss an inferno (fire/incendiary) grenade inside which destroys walls and stuff making it a wide open clearing - perfect for sniping from outside. Sorry for the collateral damage civvies, but I need my space to work. All went fine till we got to clearing the inside of the UFO. There were two vipons stationed upstairs on the bridge and one in two different rooms on the ground floor. I much prefer to get rid of the upstairs crew first so I tried having Baldhor blindly shoot upstairs with the Chemogun. This was the result:

 

 

He killed one of the vipons outright and damaged the other one which alerted it to his activity. The vipon then tried shooting down the lift at Baldhor, which it missed and critically hit itself. Oh no you don't! I reloaded, can't let these vipons commit suicide, my guys need the xp! This time I sent OVNI up there first. He took a snap shot at a vipon which unbelievably didn't kill it so it auto shot back injuring OVNI. Luckily he has an auto-doc so no critical hits, but then I was forced into bringing everyone up there to patch him up and ride out the last two vipons storming out of their rooms below to take revenge. We got them in the end though.

 

 

OVNI had a few more kills than Baldhor primarily because there is a big xp difference between vipons and destroyers. Anyhow, next up was indeed a base defense mission. Time to hunker down and protect the hangar stronghold from the aliens (phantoms, chasers, inquisitors & terror floaters). I caught a funny moment too:

 

 

In case you can't figure it out, OVNI took an auto shot at a phantom - first shot killed it, the second shot flew past and hit a chaser hidden in the shadows: a monster critical hit dealing 200+ damage (insta-kill obviously). Too bad there wasn't another alien hidden back there too as that third shot could have killed something. I found out a new "strategy" when defending a hangar too: try to station a dedicated "killer" at each door. In case it gets "hot" at one door (the NE door always seems to get more alien activity than the SW door does due to how it's situated), you can take pot shots at an alien at the other door from your 2nd guy. This way you aren't running back and forth between doors trying to cover both. In my case a couple other soldiers got in on the action because their reactions were so high.

 

 

Right now OVNI and Baldhor are both in the high 3900xp range which means we are making progress. Slow, but that's mainly because of the average xp and small fry UFOs. Hopefully we'll see a battleship or battlecruiser soon.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

After everything the scientists have done for us this is the gratitude you show them, Zombie?

 

Well, I suppose this is yet another way they're contributing to the war economy and a prolonged vacation is pretty much overdue.

 

Meanwhile you go on giving the aliens hell in more ways than one and even refusing them the prospect of suicide by idiocy. How's that for payback!

 

Incidentally, I appreciate the play-by-play description you've provided as, for some reason, the only way I could see the images you've posted was by resorting to the post editing functionality, which only let me view the thumbnails at that.

 

Anyway, I hope the bugs managed to 'radio' for help as we need more meat in this here meatgrinder!!

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

There was a recent update involving the second game via Steam. Something was said about a Platinum Version of the original game. Do you know anything about this? It was confirmed by a developer?

 

-NoX

[Thorondor]

Well, NoX, even though it seems some mention of such a thing was originally made by a developer about a year ago I wouldn't hold my breath, or find it adviseable to pursue.

 

If this purported new version was to be implemented it would likely be some sort of update/upgrade to the Gold version of the first game. Seeing as you can't even purchase that anymore, as far as I can tell, investing development time on improving it would make little sense, particularly when there's so very much in need of betterment in the sequel, that is actually commercially available.

 

Unfortunately, Chaos Concept has proven to be a little too chaotic for its own good.

[Zombie]

Yeah, it was just a couple pics of concept artwork and then everything went quiet (as usual, big plans, little action). Just to mention, if anyone wants to buy UFO:Extraterrestrials Gold edition, you can still pick it up at Green Man Gaming for $14.95usd even though it's no longer on Steam. Alternatively, physical copies are available on eBay or even amazon if you're lucky.

 

Ok, back to the play through! Absolutely nothing happened for the first half of September 2109. I was getting really worried that the game might be bugged or broken, but then on the 15th a battlecruiser spawned very near my satellite base in Pulsar. My JAGs surprised it with point blank shots and I also sent a JAG from my main base to take some shots at it also.

 

 

When my crew arrived we found it was phantoms and inquisitors which meant decent xp for Baldhor and OVNI. Finally! Cleaning them up was fine on the outside except for a sly inquisitor who camped out in the air at the front of my ship and somehow managed to get a bead on a soldier to wage mental warfare. It didn't work obviously due to the mind shields but it's just something you need to be aware of when they are around. The inside was difficult, none of the phantoms wanted to move much so they all had full TU ready to reaction fire. Needless to say I really had to consolidate the particle shielding to my breaching team. Baldhor ended up getting injured, but thanks to the Auto-doc and stim pack injections I was able to patch him up. EOM summary:

 

 

Baldhor was about 50xp ahead of OVNI so he'll be able to catch up. When we got back to base, nothing happened for what seemed like forever. Suddenly on the 26th this happened:

 

 

A swarm, finally! This time the whole team of UFOs spawned close to Syrtis Maior. Now, my base there is very near the ocean which isn't a great place to be if you want to shoot UFO's down over land. I do what I can by sending up my JAGs when one of them gets really close to get some shots in on it quickly. Check out what it looks like:

 

 

Did I mention the UFOs are all a sinister red color? Anyhow, whenever you engage one of the UFOs in the swarm everyone immediately comes charging over to help so you have to pick your fights and disengage as soon as you shoot one down. I took down one battlecruiser initially, and after a quick reload/repair they went back out to take care of the second battlecruiser and a cruiser. In the meantime, that second battleship icon on the battlescape turned out to be not another swarm member but one hell-bent on starting a base defense mission. No problem, go right ahead. It was preachers and observers which were killed easily:

 

 

OVNI and Baldhor are both in the 4300xp area so progress is being made getting them their promotion. I still have a red battlecruiser to deal with and the swarm leader (red battleship). I might have to lure the battlecruiser away and try to take it out quickly, then hope and pray that I'm able to shoot the battleship down over land. I need to go on that ground mission as I want a chance at some more auto-docs and such. Just no more alien life scanners, I have enough of those already.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Nice find, Zombie, good to know it's at least still available on GMG.

 

It's a bit puzzling it's not on GoG though and the fact there's still associated DRM to stomach over a decade after release is kind of on the preposterous side.

 

Back to the action, it seems you're having to deal with Inquisitorial mind games in more ways than one. That strangely long hiatus in UFO presence, leaving you wondering, only to follow up with The Big Red Menace sounds like it was engineered to mess with your head and try to catch you off-balance.

 

No such luck for them string-pullers. You've responded swiftly and deftly. Time to go for the green!

[Zombie]

Yeah, so this swarm was a royal pain in the arse. Everything was buzzing around Syrtis Maior and there aren't any of my bases nearby to help shoot the UFO's down. Well, Thermos is kinda close but it would have been better if I had a base in Pelopenisia. I ended up doing some quick sorties: take off, fire a missile at the UFO, take a few shots with the cannon, then withdraw, land, rearm and wait till it comes back or another UFO comes close. The swarm leader was really skittish and didn't want anything to do with me so I had to catch it while it was over land and let loose with everything I had. Eventually it went down, phew!

 

 

There was one last airborne battleship which I shot down and after that the coast was clear to send out the transport. First things first, we gotta go after the swarm leader battleship not only for the money but also the prestige and chance at some goodies. My transport zones in and holy moly I have never seen so many red blips on a map before :

 

 

That's 21 aliens on the lowest level alone, and undoubtedly a bunch more on the next level up inside the UFO. The first priority when you see something like this is to take out as many aliens as you can that are closest to the transport to give your guys some temporary breathing room. You don't want aliens rushing up to the transport exit and firing a lucky shot inside. After that you continue killing the priority threats and if you have time start to whittle away at the numbers so there aren't so many aliens to worry about. On this mission it was Phantoms and Terror Floaters which meant a ton of xp was available. Eventually OVNI and Baldhor polished off everything they could from inside the transport. There was one lone small blip outside the UFO which wasn't moving much which I assumed was a Phantom Commander. It was. Finally it was time to board the UFO, kill the three guards below, plug the lifts and take out the aliens upstairs. Easy, right?

 

 

32 aliens are a lot to deal with but OVNI and Baldhor shared equally in the kills and both are in the 5000+xp range. 200 more points and both will be promoted. Dunno how long this will take, but there's two battlecruisers and a couple cruisers on the map yet so I'm assuming if we get to two of those we should have enough. As always, after killing the last alien on the map I dropped a save and used that as my reload point to try to get 4 decent "rares".

 

Recently I was all about Auto-Docs, and don't get me wrong they are awesome to have. But I started thinking long-term as to how to kit out my soldiers for the last missions. My biggest concern is shielding. Particle shields are great and all, but they are consumables so if you use them all up in the first few missions you're going to have to get by without them. That doesn't sound too appealing to me. Not only that, but I usually carry 5 of them in the backpack of each soldier which means a lot of potential space is being used for something that isn't going to be there forever. I could be using that space for more ammunition and grenades, right?

 

There's one "rare" in the game that's a kludge fix: the personal ethereal shield. See, it has 50 shielding points and it automatically refreshes at the end of a mission. Sounds perfect. The only issue is that I don't have enough of them to equip everyone right now. And even if I could get 4 of them from the swarm I still wouldn't have enough. If I would have known this previously I would have tried to get everyone one of these asap but it's probably too late for that. And the game is never going to give you only 4 of these as a reward, there's almost always other items on the list too.

 

I did the best I could and got a reward of 1 distortion field generator (provides 15% concealment which means less damage), 1 Auto-Doc and 2 personal eternal shields. Not perfect, but I think I can make that work if I give an Auto-Doc to the soldiers with the distortion field generators and keep that crew back a bit from the action. What would be prime is one of each of those, but I can't put that many eggs in one basket.

 

 

Anyhow, that's the reason why it took me a little to post this: I was formulating a strategy and identifying what was needed then trying to fill in those blanks with reloading till I got something usable. Keep tuning in, we're in the home stretch now folks!

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

That's what I call five-star handling, Zombie - from interception to downing to cleanup.

 

And to really rub it in, you've needed only a two-man wrecking crew for mopping up 16 aliens apiece. Sure, I notice a Phantom did nick OVNI but that's just to show the ladies during downtime.

 

Loads of cash for the one UFO and walking out with the right sort of gear was very well played. It's just good sense to make the best of the time you have, particularly as the endgame is in sight.

 

Staying on the lookout!

[Zombie]

Back again, I've been reloading the end of the last mission for probably 100 times or so just to see if I could get a better selection of rares. Nope, best was what I got - though I did equal it one time and got 2 eternal shields and 2 auto-docs on another. Oh well, it was worth a shot at least. Because there are a couple swarm UFOs in Syrtis Maior (which are a continent away from my main base) they were just too far away to reach before disappearing (even with a fully fueled transport ready to go). I ended up going after the cruiser which crashed not too far away. It was preachers and inquisitors again which was welcomed. OVNI was hit by a preacher (again!) but it was only for 4 points of damage so my guys were able to patch him up fully and give him another particle shield to replace the one which absorbed most of the shot. The rest of the mission went pretty smooth and you can guess what happened:

 

 

That's right, dual promotions of Baldhor and OVNI to Captain! Took a little work but I think that was worth it. Here's how I allocated the points:

 

 

The points really spent themselves for Baldhor, I stuck one point in Agility to get him to 100 AP, then put two into vitality (which maxed him out in that stat), and the last two obviously went into throwing. Easy stuff. As for OVNI, it was the exact same point allocation. He's a little lower in throwing true, but he also isn't gimped in reactions which means he'll be my overwatch guy.

 

I'm still thinking on end game stuff though. Inventory space is going to be at a premium and I need as many spots available as possible. So my latest thought experiment is whether my soldiers even need an advanced mind shield anymore. Everyone has at least 74 in bravery and if that's enough to prevent "psi" attacks I wouldn't need the shield. The shield is "intended" to go in a unified 2x2 slot on the belt and that means you can only put one 2x2 item in there or one 1x1 item. The only 2x2 items in the game are the mind shields, sensor bomb, ammo for the chemogun and flamethrower and pistols of course. Sensor bombs are old tech so that isn't going to be used and pistols are kinda situational. I could see it being used for Chemogun ammo as I've been using that fairly regularly but the Chemogun itself is a bulky 2x4 weapon and 8 mark III chem grenades have a lot more damage potential. Would be interesting to see what bravery level is necessary to completely negate those mind attacks.

 

Another idea I have is to get everyone an Auto-Doc. I know, I know, I made a big stink about them in my last post. But think of it this way: if nobody can get a critical wound anymore you wouldn't need the bulky 2x3 medikit - only the compact 1x1 stimpack. Well, you wouldn't eliminate the medikits completely as they heal 70 damage where the stimpacks do 35. But you could carry 2 of the stimpacks for the identical healing potential and still have 4 spots open. That's a good savings and more food for thought.

 

I'd still like to have a shot at more eternal shields though. Perhaps I can stick around the map for a little while longer to see what will happen. In the meantime, there are two more soldiers I'd like to level up to Captain. Check them out:

 

 

Mephistoex is a beast with 97 in both shooting and strength (and 82 throwing!) while Kathlene has 99 shooting and 96 strength (80 throwing!). If I could level these two up most of the points would be going into agility and vitality with maybe a token point into throwing. Having 4 captains means I could have 2 on each team as backup. It'll be another slog getting them both to that rank as it's close to 1900xp necessary which I'm not sure if anyone is interested in prolonging the agony. I could do the legowrk "off camera" so to speak, but then again, it might be interesting yet.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Attention on deck! Captains Baldhor and OVNI now on premises.

 

On the subject of inventory puzzling there are a lot of variables on the table alright. You're the stats man, but it seems to me the general gist of it is picking just one main weapon that can effectively deal good damage to the largest range of enemy types then complementing with a few grenades of another kind to cover your bases. I'd probably leave out pistols entirely at this juncture given limited usefulness.

 

On the healing side of things your idea of swapping out medkits for stimpack sounds reasonable and if you're truly considering going for another two Captains you may have a fair chance at the extra Auto-Docs along the way.

 

If there's one thing we know about finales in these games though, is the propensity to play the psi card as a means of inflating "difficulty", so think twice before relinquishing those mind shields.

 

The fine Captains need to keep their heads screwed on straight.

[Zombie]

On the subject of inventory puzzling there are a lot of variables on the table alright. You're the stats man, but it seems to me the general gist of it is picking just one main weapon that can effectively deal good damage to the largest range of enemy types then complementing with a few grenades of another kind to cover your bases. I'd probably leave out pistols entirely at this juncture given limited usefulness.

 

If there's one thing we know about finales in these games though, is the propensity to play the psi card as a means of inflating "difficulty", so think twice before relinquishing those mind shields.

 

Yeah, it was just a thought experiment about eliminating the mind shields. There isn't much else you could put in it's place anyway. If a high bravery could mitigate a successful psi attack you probably wouldn't need it for the final missions (assuming you kill the aliens close enough to you fast enough). Mind shields weigh 8 which isn't too bad, but consider that chemogun ammo only weighs 6 and I know I could get a use out of that, if only for a select few. Plus chemogun ammo "clips" contain 8 charges in a 2x2 area (1040 damage) whereas even if you could cram 4 mark III chem grenades into that spot it would only be 640 damage. Then again, the chemogun itself weighs 30 so it isn't exactly light, but it sure is useful. Would it be for the final missions though? I could bring one along just to test. If it ends up being situational I could just drop it on the ground and pretend it was never there.

 

On the healing side of things your idea of swapping out medkits for stimpack sounds reasonable and if you're truly considering going for another two Captains you may have a fair chance at the extra Auto-Docs along the way.

 

My priority is the eternal shields though, those will save a lot of space and weight. Only four of my soldiers don't have an Auto-Doc, so technically you would only need 4 advanced medikits (carried by soldiers with the docs) in order to patch them up decently. In reality, you could probably get by with a couple as long as you heal the wounded first with the stimpacks and use the medikits just for critical wounds only. If you keep these guys in the back out of harms way you might not need the medikits anyway.

 

Speaking of inventory and weight, I was just playing around with the personal anti-grav system (-25% weight in a 1x1 area) and the personal jet pack (-30% weight but in a gigantic 3x5 size - equivalent to your entire backpack space). So I put a jetpack and antigrav unit on a soldier, and wow. First I was impressed you could actually do that and then further impressed by the fact that the weight reductions stack (separately unfortunately). Check out the carrying weight of Owl:

 

 

Next was to test out if the anti-grav units stack with themselves. You betcha they do!

 

 

You need about 12 to get your weight of armor and particle rifle down to 1. Once you get to 1 it can't get any lower by adding more units. But this does eliminate some issues with training up low strength soldiers once you get the units: just give him/her some more until you can carry what you want. Wish I knew this sooner, but hey, I do now!

 

So there's your tip for the day. I'll be back later with a recap of my continuing adventures.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Wow, Zombie, Captain Owl can really fly now.

 

That multiple personal anti-grav system induced cumulative weight reduction is just bonkers. Cranking it all the way up to 12 is extreme and rather impractical for the inventory space it takes, but fun to see and good to know all the same.

 

And roger on the eternal shields - who knows what damage you may have to soak up if you happen to be at the tip of the spear.

[Zombie]

Time to get caught up now that the forums are somewhat stable.

 

So my guys went to visit a battleship which was phantoms and terror floaters. Broken record, but at least there was some xp to be had. This was on a golf course map which gave my soldiers some protection sitting in the back of the transport due to the line of small shacks close by. The aliens just seemed to gravitate to my ship and Mephistoex and Kathlene mopped up the outside easily. The inside was a little bit tricky again as there were three phantoms camped out in the bridge. Mephistoex and Kathlene both tossed mark III chem grenades in there killing them all. Take that. EOM:

 

 

Back in the Geoscape everything went quiet again. The first thing that happened was the end of month so let's take a look at that:

 

 

Not too bad all things considered. I think the reason why Patria wasn't very happy with me was because I couldn't get to one of those battleships I shot down over it. Oh well, the swarm is gone at least. The next thing that happened was a battlecruiser with preachers and inquisitors. Outside it was easy. Inside was again tricky. I couldn't resist taking a screenshot of a normal preacher and a commander standing right next to each other:

 

 

As you can see, the commander is a greenish color and has a yellow border around the visible aliens icon. There were three preachers camped out in the bridge(?) (room to the left) so I had one of my soldiers run up to the door to open it, then tried to run back to the middle but a couple of the things reaction fired on him and inexplicably they both missed. No problem, Mephistoex and Kathlene both tossed mark III chem grenades in there. The last two preachers then came running out from below on the right and were killed with point blank particle rifle shots. EOM report:

 

 

Needless to say, with all these mid-to-high xp aliens Mephistoex and Kathlene are making great progress on getting a promotion (both are at 3850xp currently). I just shot down a battleship near Seathopia (just east of my main base) and that'll be next on my list. Fingers crossed for more phantoms and terror floaters.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

The preacher and his commander were probably debating the most profound aspects of theology by then, like which of them would make the best sacrificial lamb, when you unceremoniously popped in and settled the matter for them, Zombie.

 

I see you've tempted fate yourself here and there but the RNG gods favour you still.

 

The end of month report shows a very healthy overall balance. Funny how ship maintenance costs alone drain the entirety of the state funding accrued. Good thing they really splash the cash in UFO bounties when those swarms appear.

 

May the battleships keep coming!

[Zombie]

The end of month report shows a very healthy overall balance. Funny how ship maintenance costs alone drain the entirety of the state funding accrued. Good thing they really splash the cash in UFO bounties when those swarms appear.

 

Yeah, my biggest expense by far right now is ships. They are necessary though and I wouldn't be able to shoot down the big stuff effectively without them. Other than that, bases and soldiers are chump change and with my stockpiles of necessary items (like particle rifle clips, chemogun ammo, mark III chem grenades and particle shields) built up I don't even have to utilize my technicians. As long as I visit one or two battleships/battlecruisers per month I'll still be in the green.

 

That battleship was unfortunately chasers and hallucinoids so xp was basically nonexistent (my two soldiers maybe got 100 xp for the whole mission each which was pitiful). End of mission summary:

 

 

Next up was a scout UFO which had only preachers. I've been seeing a lot of these lately, but I will not complain as the xp is ok. After killing all the roving preachers outside the ufo, the last two inside the ship always head straight for your transport. I set up Mephistoex across from my transport with a chemogun at the ready and patiently awaited their arrival:

 

 

Nearly point blank chemogun shots are very lethal especially when they overlap. End of mission:

 

 

When we got back to base it was quiet on the globe again. Eventually we shot down a battlecruiser over Seathopia and a scout over the south pole (Syrtis Maior).

 

 

Obviously we went to the battlecruiser first which had phantoms and terror floaters. About time we get some xp again. EOM:

 

 

Another excellent rating and some more cash and xp for Mephistoex and Kathlene. Can't complain about that. The scout was next which was preachers, inquisitors and a lone larva outside the ship. I assumed the last two aliens inside the ship were preachers as they made a beeline for my transport but no, they were both chasers. Kinda surprised to see that behavior out of chasers but it meant I didn't have to trudge across the map to finish them off. End of mission:

 

 

Mephistoex and Kathlene just cracked 4400 xp so they are making progress on their promotion. The latest development on the globe was a battleship was just shot down. I sent my interceptors out en masse (but staggered so they would arrive at approximatley the same time) to take it out over Patria:

 

 

One of my interceptors was about 66% damaged but other than that it went fine. Hoping for some more xp so fingers crossed!

 

- Zombie