Let's Play UFO2:Extraterrestrials

[Zombie]

Heavy Cruiser Part 3

Picking up right where we left off, the next round the Bonesetter commander exits the UFO and I knew exactly what it was going to do and my mistake. I shouldn't have brought up Bomb Bloke and Crazy Gringo and put them together so close. The thing tossed a cryo grenade at us and it's currently 1000 feet in the air:

It hits BB for 18 freeze damage and CG is hit for 13. Ok, that's not too bad. But the commander was not done as it tosses another cryo grenade - this time I caught it in the act:

CG is hit again for 17 while BB got it for 20. CG is going to stim pack BB:

After these two heal each other up It's time to get back to business. Blade is going to start us off by shooting at it:

After he gets done shooting with his photon beamer (a few shots missed) then Zombie goes to town and all the bullets were absorbed. Time for Slaughter to shoot at it then:

Slaughter was able to hit it once for a whole 10 damage, but everything else was absorbed again. Jman wants to throw an inferno grenade at it and I'm honestly not sure why as we have other soldiers that need to shoot yet:

And that killed the commander and ended the mission:

Sorry BB and CG but you are going to be sharing a room in the hospital. BB lost a couple shields from that encounter with the commander so we need to start producing some more. Up to this point I'd just produce VT3000 shields "on demand" so to speak as I still have VT2000 shields available. But our stockpile is dwindling so we better manufacture a bunch more so we have enough for everyone x4. That way we can use these as backup for the next shield type whenever that becomes available. Right now our hangar at the Antarctica base has finished building:

I went to our base in Europe and transferred a golden eagle interceptor over to Antarctica and now it's time to manufacture another. Luckily it'll only take 4 days + 4 hours:

And this is what Antarctica looks like currently:

Well, this is a start but our defenses haven't even been built yet so I think we should put in 2 new hangars:

With a golden eagle requiring 4 days to build we can fill this base pretty quick if we wanted to. It depends on how our finances are. In the mean time, Crazy Gringo and Bomb Bloke are now fully healed so they are back on the transport at their usual roles - with new shields too. And now our research into the Sludge Suit armor has finished too:

And here's it's description:

Crazy expensive, weighs a ton and will probably take a long time to produce. Not sure how many of these I'll make as they aren't a general purpose type of armor but at least they have a better armor rating against mechanical and chemical. Time to research something else so let's do the Spitfire next:

It's not going to open up any new topics but it'll keep our available projects list shorter and easier to manage. After this is finished I think we'll go back to the heavy alien cruiser UFO topic. Speaking of such, back in the Geoscape our base in North America has just started shooting at a heavy cruiser that wandered too close:

The UFO makes a big mistake and heads north right near our base so out come the golden eagle interceptors:

It keeps heading north and a little bit east too. At one point I thought we were going to take it down over Hudson Bay but it moved over land at the last second:

I suspect this will be a snowy battlescape again so stay tuned for that next!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

There's a first time for everything and I suppose we were overdue for an alien's effective use of grenades. No big deal, we stayed frosty.

Speaking of which, slowly but surely, Antarctica is welcoming us.

While that's cooking, I find it amusing that our boys over at manufacturing find the Sludge Suit "Intense". A cheese wheel can be intense, this is mostly just a messy amalgamation of expensive sensors to synch-up in the end. Looks posh though.

Everyone ready? Good. Bring your shades and your snow melters and go liven things up out there! ?

[Zombie]

Heavy Cruiser Part 1

Yup, it's an arctic battlescape. Hobbes takes one step off the transport and immediately sees a Rider standing by a wall so he may as well just take a snap shot at it:

It did 23 damage which wasn't enough so Crazy Gringo auto shot at it. The first bullet did 21 and that was a kill:

It's now the alien's first turn and it's a busy one. We spot a Rider along the right side of the map almost right away:

It shoots at Hobbes and Slaughter with heavy photon beamer ammo hurting both but only for 2 and 5 damage:

Slaughter reaction fires back hitting it for 20 & 8 which killed it:

We have another visitor there too: a Bonesetter. Zombie reaction fires at it and the first is right on target and hits:

The damage was absorbed and the next bullet only did 3. There's one more shot on the way though:

It actually does 30 damage which was good. I thought that would be the end of the turn but no, Jman wants a go at it yet:

Always liked the photon beamer's "bullet" trail especially in the snow. Anyway, he hits all three times for 5, 18 and 24 damage which killed it:

Hobbes patches up Slaughter and we're back up and running again. Nothing happens for about 6 turns. There were a couple areas that showed some alien activity during their turn but I couldn't get a screenshot in time. The first area is along the right side of the map again and it's a Rider so Hobbes will try a snap shot on it:

It does 30 which kills it:

The other area is around the corner of the building near that first Rider and this is also going to be a Rider as well. Gimli is stationed there but there's no way he's going to walk around the corner to shoot. He's going to blindly toss a DG1 grenade there:

It only does 21 damage which wasn't enough for the kill. No sense in throwing something more explosive there so he's going to toss another DG1:

It was a weak spot kill for 76 damage! And it also takes out part of the building's side too:

During the alien's next turn a Bonesetter comes up the lift of the building above Gimli but Slaughter is all over it and immediately reaction fires with the first bullet doing 42 damage:

The second shot is on the way and it's a hit too:

The damage was absorbed and the last missed unfortunately. And now a Bonesetter appears on the ground where that first Rider was:

Slaughter is going to reaction fire at this one too. The first bullet does 39 damage which is encouraging but let's see how this second shot does:

It does 12 and the last was absorbed. That was the end of the alien's turn and both of these wounded bonesetters are still alive. Gimli is right there in the thick of it so he'll toss an incendiary grenade at the one on the ground:

It does a huge 45 damage which kills it:

Gimli is out of incendiary grenades but he does have an inferno grenade on him so he'll toss that on the bonesetter above him on the roof:

And that kills it doing only 31 damage:

Join me for part 2 when we kill a couple more bonesetters in the building by Gimli then deal with a couple more that came out of the UFO. Then we'll mess around with a UFO cannon, take out a Rider and yet another Bonesetter in the building west of Gimli. So stay tuned for that next!

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Heavy Cruiser Part 2

Somehow I forgot to save the game when I took a quick phone call so when I reloaded it was the beginning of the previous round again. I tried to approximate what happened before and it was pretty close. Anyway, during the aliens turn a Bonesetter appeared in the building next to us:

The soldier in the corner is Crazy Gringo and JFG is in the dust cloud there somewhere. The Bonesetter shot at him and missed which caused the hole in the wall. JFG isn't having any of that and reaction fired at it with his photon beamer. He does 12, 36 & 33 damage which killed it:

For the next couple rounds we hear doors opening and Bonesetter movement sounds from upstairs. JFG is up there and some of the team has already shot part of the wall out to make sure he has some type of "backup" and a quick means of escape in case things go pear shaped. He opens the door to the far room and yup, there's a Bonesetter in there alright as it shot at him for no damage. He'll try an auto shot:

He hits for 12 & 42 and the last shot missed. He tries to high tail it out of there (run 'n gun, or in this case, gun 'n run) but runs out of APs before he could get into cover. During the alien's turn the Bonesetter shoots at him but the damage was absorbed. It's our turn now so JFG gets into cover because CG is going to toss an incendiary grenade at it through the hole in the wall:

It does 29 damage killing it:

On the next turn we spot two bonesetters that must've just exited the UFO. Gimli is going to take an auto shot at the closer one first:

Well, he had to take two auto shots because the first set really didn't do much damage but he eventually killed it. Now Zombie is going to take some super long range auto shots at the farther bonesetter:

He managed to hit it twice and then only for 27 damage. So now it's time for Hobbes to do the same:

The first shot was absorbed but the second did a healthy 45 damage which killed it:

Why not just mortar them instead of shooting? Well, I want to keep mortar bomb usage low because I'll need them for the cannons. Speaking of such, the next round Gimli gets eyes on the closest cannon so BB can mortar it:

It only does 71 damage:

Normally I'd mortar it again, but this time I'm going to have Hobbes take an auto shot at it instead to save on bombs:

He does 17, 24 and 7 damage (with BB's damage that comes to 119 hp so far) but couldn't take it out. And as usual the thing shoots back and hits Zombie for no damage and Hobbes for 2. No big deal, as both of these soldiers have pale blue crystals which heal them up. Zombie will auto shoot at it now:

His first shot connects for 41 damage which destroyed it:

There! Now we have a little more breathing room to spread out. The next round JFG opens the door to the next building and spots a Rider inside. Crazy Gringo will shoot at it though as he's already set:

The first bullet hits for 36 damage which kills it:

Nice! The next round JFG goes upstairs and spots a Bonesetter up there so he'll take an auto shot at it:

The first is absorbed, but it doesn't look too fun for the Bonesetter with the blast going to it's face:

The second was absorbed and the third did a whole 12. So he takes another auto shot and the first is a weak spot kill for 75 damage:

Go figure. A couple turns later JFG opens the door to the outside hoping to catch a glimpse of the other cannon. He sees it, it sees him, it shoots him, but the damage was absorbed. I think we'll retreat a little:

And now BB can do what he does best: mortar the thing:

It does a massive 132 damage destroying it. Big boom time:

Join me next time when we take out another surprise Bonesetter in the last building below, then kill a couple more stragglers from inside the UFO plus a rare sighting of the commander outside. We have a promotion to take care of and then shoot down yet another heavy cruiser. Sick of them yet? I am.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

A winter wonderland... riotously colored by lavish energy weapons' discharge. My kind of story!

I'm also partial to a good sprinking of explosives to brighten up the generally unremarkable soundscape of such a place.

Even the industrial look of buildings is cold. Fittingly we are well equipped to change this sort of austere facade into something more worthy of note to the roving eye.

And if there's one thing that brazenly does not fit in this picture we're trying to paint in a sympathetic light is an alien vessel. Some adroit (mortar-delivered) strokes start the cleansing beautification process.

A little heavy handed? Perhaps. But there's additional work to be done and the world waits for no one.

[Zombie]

Heavy Cruiser Part 3

We've been hearing alien movement sounds coming from nearby. I think some were from inside the UFO but there's another one really close. Only one place we haven't checked completely and that's the lower floor of that far building. We open the door to the central area and indeed, there is a Bonesetter present. Blade will throw an incendiary grenade at it first:

It only does 6 damage. How about an auto shot of plasma beamer to the face then?

Blade does 32 and 44 damage which kills it:

Kinda pretty with the color of the flames, the alien death aura and the plasma beamer going off at the same time. A couple turns later we spot the UFO cannon on the north east side of the craft. BB previously tossed a grenade on it doing some decent damage which the combat log didn't pick up so now he is going to mortar it:

It does 82 damage and is destroyed (big boom time):

Technically I probably didn't need to mess with this but my intention is to set up a perimeter around the door of the UFO and I need to keep most of the soldiers out of harms way. If that cannon starts panic shooting at us it could go really bad. For instance, during the alien's turn a Rider exits the UFO and is met with reaction fire from Jman:

And kills it when the first blast does 59 damage:

You know, I've been very impressed with the photon beamer damage as of late. But it's spotty and unreliable as shown best by Space Voyager. And there was also movement to the left of that somewhere. We spot a Bonesetter ready to enter the room where Blade is. Crazy Gringo is around the corner and finds out he can toss an inferno grenade on it:

It's a weak spot kill for 77 damage:

At one point I almost contemplated tossing a grenade in the UFO to see if there was anything else lurking there, but I didn't want to set off those explosive barrels as that might destroy mt cover. A few turns later the commander pops out and tosses a cryo grenade at Hobbes for 13 freeze damage:

Really I should have put Zombie there with his cryo armor but both have pale blue crystals so they will get healed anyway. Well, Gimli is on a good perch so he'll start shooting first:

All his shots only managed to damage it for 10. Time for Crazy Gringo to come out of hiding to shoot at it then:

One shot missed and hit the explosive barrels which killed the commander and ended the mission (happened so fast I didn't have time to grab a screenshot, sorry).

Only one promotion this time and it's understandably CG. Let's allocate his points:

Two points went into throwing to get him to 95. He's only one point from maxing that stat out so we'll leave that for the next promotion. As for the other three points, I put one into agility, vitality and bravery to round that all out. Speaking of soldiers, I just noticed Bomb Bloke reached a milestone:

100 kills in 77 missions, not bad at all! Granted, most of them were with the mortar against a cannon, but sometimes we got lucky with incidental kills too. So he's been carrying 4 normal mortar shells and one sludge shell just in case we come across something that needs to go "now". Still quite a few xp short of his last promotion but I'm sure we'll have no trouble getting him that with all the cannons he's been taking out.

Back in the Geoscape now and yet another heavy cruiser UFO shows up near our main base in Russia so all the interceptors nearby are scrambled:

For some reason it decides to move between my main base and the aircraft carrier:

Not very smart as everything converges on it and it's caught in a crossfire situation. Needless to say, we take it out easily:

So we'll be going there next whenever the crash site is in sun so stay tuned for that.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Disproportionate use of force is another favourite here, so kudos for following suit, B-Team (Blade & BB)!

Going from strength to strength then, what do you think you get when having a certain Crazy Gringo play around with an inferno grenade? Bonus brownie points, that's what. Give that man a medal I say. (and so they did)

The alien commander says "cool it". Fat chance, spoil sport - in case you didn't notice, we've had quite enough of that, thank you. So why don't you take it easy yourself and warm up to us already. Blasted creature. ?

Sunscreen at hand? Load right up for brighter scenery!

[Zombie]

Ok, just a little update today. First of all, I was watching MetalCanyon's Let's Play of this game on YouTube this weekend and am up to the part where he goes to the final mission. I didn't go any further than this as I don't want to spoil the ending (obviously). But from where he is and where I am, I think I'm maybe 2 or 3 months away from finishing the game. That could change though as I'm constantly updating my strategies as I progress.

I also didn't realize that Steam has a global leaderboard for players with the most UFO's shot down (I'm #126 with 837 but it hasn't been updating so it may not work properly due to the recent Steam UI update). And the other is alien's killed (I'm a surprising #23 with 6878). Well, I guess it isn't that surprising as I'm running as many ground missions as possible to level up my soldiers and I doubt most people would go this far.

I ran into a little snag this weekend too. I visited a crashed UFO a couple days ago and recovered an advanced ship parts from the wreckage at the end. When I was in the Geoscape it didn't look like I recovered it for some reason. And then yesterday I visited a swarm leader UFO and recovered 3 advanced ship parts as the reward but they didn't show up at the base. So then I started thinking that maybe I should be equipping them on the interceptors to remove them from the inventory which may or may not encourage the game to allow you to recover them again. Long story short, I equipped 3 of the parts on the interceptors at my main base then transferred the last to Europe. And now I'm rerunning the swarm UFO leader crash site mission to see if I can recover the advanced ship parts.

I don't really know if I'm going to be keeping the previous runthrough and using that as a preamble (I did a bang-up job on it and was really proud of how I completed the mission). In any case, I'm taking screenshots of this runthrough too so I'll have something to show in case it works out better. So that's the news.

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

Wow, that's quite an achievement, Z! 

 

Hope the advanced parts solution works. Is there a reason why you haven't been installing them on the interceptors?

[Zombie]

6 hours ago, Space Voyager said:

Hope the advanced parts solution works. Is there a reason why you haven't been installing them on the interceptors?

Yes, the reason being that once you install them on an interceptor you can't take them off again. And it wouldn't make much sense to put them on a Golden Eagle (2nd Gen) fighter when there is a better one out there yet (the Thunderstorm - a 3rd Gen fighter - we'll be getting to that eventually). We've been handling the heavy cruiser UFOs fine so far but there are bigger UFOs on the horizon and we'll need those ship parts for these. And lastly, I didn't know if there was a 4th Gen fighter so I was holding off putting them on my 3rd Gen Thunderstorms. When I was watching MetalCanyon's Let's Play I noticed that he didn't have anything better than the Thunderstorm at end game so that gave me the impetus to start installing the advanced ship parts on them. Hope that makes sense.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Only another small update today. I was hoping to finish that swarm leader mission yesterday and I think it's down to just the bonesetter commander that's left now. Not 100% sure, but there aren't any door opening sounds anymore so the commander is probably camped out in some room. This is an alien supply vessel UFO so I'm unfamiliar with the layout too.

It was a slog getting to this point though as I had to mortar 6 smaller UFO cannons on the roof as well as the big central turret. There was also the issue of killing the multitude of Iron Rattlers + Trep spawns from the alien hibernation pods inside - they are easy to kill and provide some xp for the newer soldiers so that's always nice.

I did employ my previous new strategy of "gun and run" (read as "gun and run" not "run and gun" as they are totally different strategies) to good effect. my two "main" soldiers with the stun rod+pale blue crystal+distortion field generator+personal eternal shield also have a portable teleporter. So these two would teleport over to the 1x1 hole in the roof of the UFO which would drop them down to the lowest ground floor level where they could kill an alien and then teleport back out of there. Lather, rinse and repeat. Probably just easier to go to the two main doors and enter but I was hoping to lure the commander out into the open to kill or stun.

So that's where I'm at right now. Time to enter the UFO and clear it of "Rider Cannons" (Riders strapped to the walls which shoot at you like cannons) and then get rid of the commander.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

You do realize you can't exactly have a swarm leader without the swarming part, right?

I'm detecting the emergence of a certain... canon fetish here. It's not enough to have more than a handful outside, you also have to strap them inside. Them aliens are getting desperate.

And maybe they should, as at this point your tactics are clearly beyond them as you refine the art of ninja teleportation.

[Zombie]

Phew! I finally completed the mission just now. Turns out I was nowhere near finished where I left off yesterday. There were 2 normal bonesetters camped out in the buildings to the north of the UFO which I ignored (I guess I should've searched them out) but these two didn't come out to play until the commander was down. There were two bonesetters inside the UFO yet and then 3 more alien hibernation pod spawns: 2 Treps and an Iron Rattler. We did lure the commander on the roof where we were able to stun it. All told there were 60 aliens we killed (or more specifically "units") which probably included the cannons. And MikeTheRed ended up with 14 kills giving him a nice promotion.

Back in the Geoscape we recovered 3 advanced ship parts as usual, and back at base they were still there. So I guess it paid to redo the mission after all. The moral of story is to transfer those advanced ship parts off-base or put them on your Thunderstorm interceptors so that you don't have any sitting idle in your stores. Lesson learned the hard way.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

It's not like we don't welcome the XP farming from the available targets but 5 dozens to pulverize is stretching it.

That's probably partly due to playing cautiously, as I seem to recall those vat spawned ones only come "online" if you give them enough time to.

Given the efforts involved, managing those interceptor upgrades should be a little less fiddly of an affair. After all these are supposed to be the rewards, not further microing punishment.

[Zombie]

On 7/14/2023 at 6:08 AM, Thorondor said:

That's probably partly due to playing cautiously, as I seem to recall those vat spawned ones only come "online" if you give them enough time to.

Completely true. I play extremely cautiously as it almost eliminates running out of APs when moving and then being unable to shoot. And if the aliens come to you, you can fight them in the open where multiple soldiers can shoot at it. In the confines of a UFO, the corridors and doors are typically only 1 or 2 tiles wide meaning that only 2 or so soldiers are able to shoot at a threat, and it opens up the possibility of grenades being thrown by the aliens. At least the game allows this strategy and doesn't penalize you harshly from waiting (except for the spawns I guess).

I'm not really sure if time is the only variable which causes the aliens to come out of the hibernation pods. I haven't researched this but it seems like groups of spawns happen after you kill a "trigger" alien. Can't say if there are actual predetermined trigger aliens or if it's due to number of kills where kill #19 will not cause a spawn but #20 will. It's probably further modified by time, aka "turns": Kill alien #20 and then the spawn clock starts ticking... x turns later the spawns happen. And I think that only killing the original aliens present at the start of the mission will cause the spawn, not the spawn kills themselves.

I took this mission a little too far in terms of waiting as I think the last kills happened after turn 100.

On 7/14/2023 at 6:08 AM, Thorondor said:

Given the efforts involved, managing those interceptor upgrades should be a little less fiddly of an affair. After all these are supposed to be the rewards, not further microing punishment.

Installing the ship parts isn't fiddly by itself. It's how the game handles the ship parts in the stores. Could be a bug too as I can't tell if this is intentional.

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Where did I leave off now? It's been so long! Ah yes!

Heavy Cruiser Part 1

It's the first round on a train station map and we have a very hot landing zone with 5 aliens spotted. Zombie is the first off the craft so he shoots at a window in a building with a Rider behind it:

Didn't hurt the Rider but now it's able to be shot at directly by someone. There's a bonesetter way up on top of the roof of this building so Zombie will take an auto shot at it:

He took two auto shots but the damage was pretty low and he was unable to kill it. Darnit. Gimli wants to show you guys just how hot the landing zone is:

Yup, now there's 6! Ok, since Zombie created that hole in the wall below, Gimli will toss a normal grenade in there just to test the waters to make sure there aren't any more hidden somewhere:

It deals 27 damage killing the Rider (and there aren't any more nearby either):

One down, 5 to go. Crazy Gringo takes a couple snap shots at that predamaged Bonesetter on the roof. The first does only 4 damage but the second does 38 killing it:

And now there's 4 left. Blade was moving around trying to get into a position to shoot at something but all he was able to manage was causing a Bonesetter on the platform to shoot at him with it's heavy ammo. He took 7 damage but Slaughter and Zombie came out of that clean. How I would have liked to shoot holes in the train now, but we cannot let this pesky Bonesetter ruin our plans. Bomb Bloke is going to mortar it:

It hits one Bonesetter for 92 damage and another one for 132 damage killing both:

Better than I hoped! Now there's 2 left. The Bonesetter in the train on the left was uninjured, but now the wall of the train is gone (and the railing around the platform too) which gives Tammy the ability to auto shoot at it:

The first auto shot did decent damage but not enough to kill it. Of course it precipitated reaction fire from the thing, but the damage was absorbed. Tammy took another auto shot and managed to kill it and there was also a little friendly-fire accident with CG:

We patched him up and now there's one alien left: that pesky Rider in the train. Jman and JFG are the only soldiers with APs left and neither have a shot at it. I say we minimize our exposure so everyone just hunkers down for the alien's turn. Now there's 3 visible aliens and that Rider inside the train came a little closer to us exposing itself to a grenade attack from CG:

It deals 44 damage, killing it:

There's a Rider on the lower level by us at the front of the transport so Jman is going to take a semi-accurate auto shot at it:

His first shot deals 26 damage killing it:

Atta boy! The last alien visible is a Bonesetter inside the building on the second floor. Multiple soldiers took turns shooting out the wall so Gimli could get a clear shot on it:

The first bullet was absorbed, but the second did a massive 42 damage and the last did 18, killing it:

Well, that's 8 aliens dead in 2 turns. You would think they would have enough and retreat, but no. A couple turns later a Bonesetter comes down underneath the platform and shoots at CG who was standing behind a glass door. The first shot only hit the door destroying it and the second hit CG for no damage thankfully. We may as well let him shoot at it then:

A couple auto shots at point-blank range was all it took and now it's dead:

The next turn we spot an alien cannon on the roof of the UFO so BB pulls out the mortar again:

It does 160 damage, destroying it:

We can also see that one of the doors to the UFO is open. I considered sending in another mortar there, but without a confirmed sighting of anything it's going to wait. The next turn we spot a Rider in the damaged section of the train so CG will take a snap shot:

It did 53 damage, killing it:

Easy stuff. A couple turns later we spot another Rider on the far side of the platform across from Gimli. He can toss a normal grenade at it so let's do that:

It does 39 damage killing it. The blast also revealed another nearby Rider:

Not sure why it wasn't visible before but now it is... strange. Well, don't just stand there Gimli, shoot at it:

It does 32 damage killing it:

Join me for part two where BB mortars another couple cannons and another bonesetter, then we deal with yet more bonesettes with incendiary+inferno grenades. And finally a surprise sighting of the commander outside of it's normal habitat. So stay tuned for that next!

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Heavy Cruiser Part 2

If you recall from my last post, one of the UFO doors was open. Well, four turns later we finally get close enough to see there's a Bonesetter camped out in front of it. Nobody really has a clear shot on it so I figured we may as well have Bomb Bloke mortar it:

It did a nice healthy 127 damage killing it. Too bad there wasn't any collateral damage to other aliens inside. It was a satisfying explosion though:

The next round we spot the other close UFO cannon so BB will send a mortar there:

It does a pitiful 68 damage. Not enough to destroy it so we wait another turn. Now there's a Bonesetter that came out of the UFO door so Gimli is going to toss an incendiary grenade on it:

37 damage isn't enough obviously so Zombie thinks he can finish it off with an auto shot:

His first bullet was absorbed but then it hit for 16 and 46 damage killing it:

Take that, alien scum! With that out of the way let's get back to that other alien cannon on the roof of the UFO. Same deal as before - BB will mortar it:

This time it does 111 damage which was enough to destroy it:

The next turn there's another Bonesetter near the door to the UFO. It didn't come out of it though, it came from the darkness to the left. Gimli is going to toss an Inferno grenade on it:

It does 61 fire damage which is enough to kill it:

Looks like the blast destroyed some stuff too. A couple turns later and we get close enough to barely spot the UFO cannon on the north west side. BB to the rescue:

It's a weak spot hit for 162 damage:

Everyone thinks they can take a sigh of relief, but that isn't the case as the Bonesetter commander somehow made it on the platform.  Gimli is going to shoot first:

Everything was absorbed except for one shot that did a measly 6. Zombie wants to test out the sludge (chem) grenade against this thing:

The damage was absorbed? So he takes an auto shot at it and everything was absorbed too. Sad. Maybe Tammy will have better luck shooting at it:

Most of it was absorbed except for a couple shots that did a total of 8. Ok, so we aren't shooting at it to kill it, but for the experience. Still though, these things are tough mofos. How about a nice Inferno grenade from your friend Blade then:

Absorbed. Wow! It's bathed in everything too. Let's have Crazy Gringo shoot at it:

As expected, nothing did any damage. Everyone is out of APs so we hunker down the best we can and cringe fearing the cryo grenades will be thrown. The commander had other ideas and just moved into the cloud of flames and gas. Took 1 fire damage from it too. Whoop-di-doo. Ok Gimli, you are up:

The usual. All absorbed. Slaughter even got in on the action and managed to damage it a couple times. Nothing major though. Let's see what Crazy Gringo can do:

All absorbed again. Well, how about Jman and his photon beamer:

He ended up taking two auto shots as three missed completely. One hit for a whole 1 damage. JFG is going to toss an incendiary grenade near it hoping for some sort of splash damage:

Absorbed, but it was a hit at least. Blade is now up:

The first was absorbed but the hit looked brutal:

The next shot killed it. By golly, that was a lot of shooting and grenade action. Well, if we were not able to take it down with Tammy (who was going to be next) I still had Hobbes on standby with the stunrod (he's kneeling down between the seats in the train) or Zombie (he's below on the lift ready for stun duty too). EOM:

Wow, only two promotions. It's better than none. Let's allocate Tammy's points first:

Pretty easy - 3 went into agility and the last 2 went in vitality. What a beast of a soldier! Gimli is next:

He's already maxed in shooting and strength so I put 2 into throwing to inch him closer to max throwing too (one more point should do it and his max would be 94). Then one point goes into agility, vitality and bravery. Solid soldier and he'll only get better with more experience. Back in the Geoscape and we recovered advanced ship parts:

Which is what lead me to my recent testing spree concerning these parts. How do you equip them on an interceptor? Simple, there's a new button for that:

No rest for the wicked as a recon vessel shows up near our main base. The three golden eagles there are scrambled and intercept:

Who needs base defenses when you have a weak UFO with strong interceptors. This is UFO #158, should we nuke it?

Nah, let's visit this one.

Shouldn't be too bad (I hope). We'll wait till its light out then go over there. Stay tuned for that next!

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Alien Recon Vessel

This will be a nice short mission for once. I miss these as they are so easy to edit! This is an arctic landscape and nothing really happens for the first couple turns except for the occasional door opening sound. Crazy Gringo peeks around the corner of the building next to the transport and spots a lowly Rider. Time to shoot it:

Glad he took an auto shot as the first two bullets did very little damage. The last took it out easily:

During the alien's turn a Rider comes into view of Slaughter who is covering the other side of the building. He reaction fires at it with the first dealing 18 damage. The second shot is on it's way and the bullet aura looks kinda similar to a photon beamer:

You can probably just make out part of the Rider's head and feet in back of those two cylinders. This bullet does 40 damage killing it:

And it's just that easy! There's another alien present and this time it's a Spitfire which we haven't seen in quite a while. JellyFishGreen is in a good spot to take a snap shots at:

The first does 39 damage which wasn't enough so he'll take another:

This shot hit for 34 which killed it instantly:

Crazy Gringo does his due diligence by peeking around the corner and is surprised to see a Rider right there. Don't know why nobody saw it but CG will take an auto shot:

His first shot is a weak spot kill for a massive 77 damage:

For the next 10 or so rounds we have been systematically sweeping the building next to us. So far there's nothing, but when we open the door in the back to the outside there's another Spitfire nearby. Jman is going to take an auto shot at it with his photon beamer:

He actually had to take a couple auto shots as a few missed completely. His last was a weak spot kill for a massive 76 damage:

The next round CG peeks around his corner again and spots a Spitfire close to the door of the UFO. This time he's going to let Gimli take some long range snap shots at:

Everything hit and did damage except for one which was absorbed. His last did 38 damage which took it out:

Pretty death aura, no? A couple turns later CG peeks around the corner again only to spot two Spitfires right next to each other. He high tails it out of sight and will throw one of these new cryo grenades at them:

The blast kills both - one was a weak spot hit for an unbelievable 91 damage and the other received 64:

A couple turns later and there's another Spitfire in that general direction where most of the action has been at lately. Blade is going to take a couple long range aimed shots at it with his photon beamer:

Both did 10 damage. Well, Zombie will take an auto shot at it:

His first shot killed it and that was the end of the mission:

Easy stuff. We got $270k more space bucks from the bounty as well as a few more UFO components to sell (plus some photon beamers from the Riders). No promotions, but that's ok. Back in the Geoscape and our research finished into the Spitfire (seems appropriate). Let's check out it's description:

With that done, we only have one more item on our research list that has on hold for a long time it seems. Time to continue the Heavy Cruiser UFO topic:

Shouldn't take too long. Back on the globe and we just started shooting at a heavy cruiser UFO near our aircraft carrier:

And it stupidly comes closer which wasn't a good idea:

Needless to say we take it down easily:

So join me next time as we visit this heavy cruiser.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Coy no longer, aliens? Thinking it's party time, safety in numbers and all that? Think again - such barefaced daring will not go unpunished!

BB for one, is done with silly playtime and initiates implementation of the Level Playing Field directive.

You're not taking us for a ride here. It's all downhill for you now, so feel free to expose yourselves.

Cheeky bastards the lot of 'em; right down to their thick-skinned commander. We don't mind breaking a little sweat - all in a good days's work.

Let's have a hearty cheer for Captain Tammy and Warrant Officer Gimly!! *cheers*

Rotating right back out to send another message, packing thermos. Team spirit is a must and we're not running short of it.

We work diligently for our eggheads too, though they seem to spit fire at times when specimens we bring are left in a little less than pristine condition. ?

Time to cruise outta here - later guys! *ducks beaker*

[Zombie]

I'll preface this by saying I cut this mission down by a significant amount but it's still going to be a two-parter as there was a lot of action. After the second part there will be a recap/EOM summary, three promotions plus base updates and finally some soldier changes which was clandestinely in the making for a few months. You'll want to check that out for sure.

Heavy Cruiser Part 1

Desert map this time and during the alien's first turn a Rider comes into view in front of the transport and Tammy starts to shoot at it:

She kills it when her first bullet does 45 damage. But that's not it, as a Bonesetter shows up in nearly the same spot an again, Tammy starts to shoot at it:

She only manages to hit it once for 29 damage. But wait, Gimli wants to shoot too, with his first bullet hitting for 7:

His next was absorbed:

But the last dealt 38 which killed the thing. We spread out a tiny bit during our turn and during the alien's second turn a Bonesetter appeared in the usual spot again. JFG starts shooting at it with the first blast doing a decent 47 damage. His second blast doesn't look to be on target though:

Is it going to hit the fuel truck? Yup:

The subsequent explosion deals 68 damage killing the thing:

That's how it's done folks (with a little fortunate inaccuracy). When it's our turn again Gimli spots a Rider to the West of the transport. Let's try a snap shot from him then:

Hit hits it for 32 damage killing it:

Six turns later and we finally have spotted a couple of the alien cannons on the UFO. BB will mortar the closest one:

It does a pitiful 48 damage:

Well, now that the cannon is alerted to our presence I think we better take it out on our terms. Hobbes gets the nod to take an auto shot at it:

He does 28, 14 & 60 damage which destroys it:

We wait till our next turn to deal with the other cannon. Tammy snuck up on it from its temporary blind side so she'll toss a normal grenade on it to soften it up:

It does a decent 58 damage so how about a photon grenade next:

It only did 9 damage. Well, here again we should probably take this thing out asap so Gimli is going to auto shoot at it:

He hits for 17 and 62 which takes it out:

Four turns later and we have finally spotted the cannon on the Northwest side. You feel up to this BB? He thinks so:

The blast only does 66 damage:

Time for our secret weapon Slaughter who is going to auto shoot it:

He hits for 25, 7 and 25. Now, that's enough to destroy it but the cannon has to get in a garbage time glitch shot before going down damaging Slaughter for 5:

The next turn we can see the final alien cannon and there's also a Bonesetter on the ground. BB is going to try yet again to mortar the cannon:

It does a pi$$ poor 35 damage. Nothing is going BB's way this mission, may as well nuke it again:

This time it does a respectable 131 damage which takes it out:

Tammy is going to shoot at the Bonesetter then:

She was only able to damage it for 50 with all those shots. Time for Zombie to shoot at it:

His first bullet does 22 which kills it (death aura at no extra charge):

The next round Hobbes opens the door to the UFO  only to spot a Bonesetter close by. May as well auto shoot it since he has a 99% accurate shot:

He had to take two auto shots in the end and it was a fight to damage it enough. It's dead though and that's all that matters:

Join me next time for part 2 where we deal with a couple more Riders and then it's all Bonesetters.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

They're real sticklers for holding ground aren't they? Our troopers should get aiming bonuses as they needn't even move their sights to go on zapping them on the same spot.

You know what happens when people get bored - they get creative and truck along.

BB must've been tinkering with his mortar bombs en route but he needs to stay off the juice as the damage numbers just aren't adding up as they used to. Needing to have others finish up his work on the can's canons multiple times is just demeaning.

Get your act together, people - it's time to breach this thing!

[Zombie]

Heavy Cruiser Part 2

It's now that alien's turn and a Rider comes out of the other door only to be met with reaction fire from Blade:

This shot missed, but the second hit for 38 killing it. When it's our turn we open the door by us and spot a rider amongst some equipment/vats. Hobbes is going to toss a normal grenade in that mess hoping the blast will destroy some or all of it:

It does and that allows Tammy to get a clear auto shot:

Her first bullet hits for 36 killing it:

During the next alien's turn Hobbes spots a Rider wandering around at the left door, but it disappeared now. He'll toss a photon grenade over in the general direction to see if it's near:

Nothing. So I send Slaughter over there to investigate and he finds it. Time for an auto shot:

It does 28 damage which was enough for the kill. Also notice there are more soldiers around the corner ready to back him up:

Three turns later our two medics start reaction firing at a bonesetter that opened up the interior door leading to the hallway. The first shot looked like it was on target but "phased" right through:

Same deal for the other medic:

Nothing hit so when it's our turn again Slaughter is going to toss an incendiary grenade near it:

It does a decent 42 damage which was not enough to kill it so JFG tosses a normal grenade on it which deals a decent 35 damage and now it's gone:

Fur turns later we open the two doors to the right of the hallway and spot a bonesetter in the lift room. Gimli is going t toss an incendiary grenade near it:

The fire does 61 damage killing it:

The next round we open the door on the left and see another bonesetter there. It's back it turned to us so I bring Crazy Gringo right behind it for a point blank auto shot (remember where the alien is in relation to him):

His first bullet does 60 damage killing it, and now the bonestter corpse moves to a different location:

Strange stuff. A couple turns later and CG goes up the lift only to spot a bonesetter camped out in the corner cubby of the room. Normal grenade time:

The blast destroys the cover and that's about it. So Hobbes comes up and shoots at the thing hitting it for 10 and 43 damage:

At this point the bonesetter disappears somewhere. Ok, something must be buggy so I reload. I let a round go by and now the bonesetter is outside the room in the hallway. CG will again toss an incendiary grenade near it:

It does 24 fire damage so Hobbes springs into action wanting to try out one of these sludge grenades:

It does a massive 112 non-critical damage:

Two turns later and the Bonesetter Commander shows up, opens the door by CG, Hobbes & crew and does nothing. Odd. It gets caught in the chem gas too but the damage was absorbed unfortunately. This is a gift horse so CG is going to start off shooting at it:

After he's done, Slaughter shoots a bunch of times too. Heck, now BB is getting in on the action after scavenging a photon beamer off a corpse:

After BB is done, Jman picks right up where he left off:

Last man is Hobbes as he has the stun rod. He takes one auto shot at it for some extra xp, then pulls out the ol' rod for a little pokie-pokie action:

It's a weak spot stun for 106! And that wasn't it - there must be another bonesetter somewhere:

Speaking of the devil, a bonesetter shows up during it's turn and shoots at Hobbes hitting him twice for no damage. CG is going to shoot at it then:

The last bullet in his first shot hit for 41 damage which was good. Time for more:

And that killed it. Stay tuned for the aftermath of this mission next!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Teamwork makes the dream work. We leave no room for nightmare creatures even if it means going straight into their lair.

We'll burn the place to the ground if need be. We can't always hit what we think we see but, no matter, by now we've got this down to a tee - no alien shall escape scot free.

Even their commander was stunned by our performance. We must be doing something right.

[Zombie]

So here's the EOM report from the last mission:

I wasn't expecting any promotions at all but whenever you do some shooting at a commander it's a possibility. All were Captains too so this will be a good one. First up is Jman who's been one of our medics/rear commanders since I soft-retired Thorondor and Space Voyager:

Two points went into throwing to max that stat out at 99. Wow! Then of course two went into agility and the last into vitality. Zombie is next:

One point went into throwing to max him out at an incredible 101. That's a huge WOW! And then of course 2 went into agility and vitality. That should help him when stunning commanders. And finally my partner in crime, Hobbes:

If it's good for one, it's good for both as I've said in the past. Love his 99 shooting and now that his throwing is maxed out too, that should help back that up. Back on the globe and two hangars finished construction in Antarctica (finally):

Let's check the base out now:

Another hangar will be ready in 5 days and the detection section too. The workshops are 7 days away and I'm planning on adding two more at that time so it'll be 17 days till we are up and running. I should probably build a couple heavy rocket defenses here too, but for now it's a skeleton base. Back in the globe we just shot down a patrol vessel near our base in Europe:

I quickly start getting the squad ready to go back out when it's light out, but I think it's time to do a little reorganization on our soldiers. I'm not really happy how NKF turned out in terms of stats:

Don't get me wrong, he's solid. But his shooting is on the low side and I'm just afraid he'll end up like Space Voyager where he'll be relegated to regular human rifles to keep his shooting accuracy tolerable. Plus he's just going to be sitting idle until someone on the transport is soft-retired and until that time he's still pulling warrant officer wages. So it's time to do the unthinkable and fire him:

You're probably thinking I'm crazy. Well, I kinda am, but I have a plan. See, I hired a few new recruits with some unreal stats over the last couple months and I think one of them is worthy of the NKF name. Meet NKF 2.0:

Now those are some solid stats! Granted, perception is below 50 but everything else is 55 or above. That translates to 98 or more when maxed which is something I'm willing to train. Same deal with Pete, except his strength is a little on the low side. Say bye bye:

And meet the new Pete 2.0:

My hiring strategy has always been to filter everything out below 50. But I recently loosened my restrictions a bit. I don't care too much about perception (aka reactions) as I'm not maxing out that stat anyway. Same deal with bravery as I'm only putting points in that to get a soldier to 70+. I like a high throwing stat but for the number of times I toss a grenade or something it's usually at close range anyway where pin-point accuracy isn't necessary. So 50+ is still nice.

What I'm going to do is kit up these two rookies and stuff them on the transport in place of Crazy Gringo and Gimli temporarily. They will be the 2nd group off the transport (after Hobbes and Zombie) so they should be able to get some garbage time/cleanup kills pretty easy. Here's NKF's kit (Pete's is identical):

Don't worry, Thorondor and Space Voyager are immune to my firings and they will be back at some point. In the mean time stay tuned for that patrol vessel next!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

A trinity of Captains rise to higher power - for Earth!

Our ranks continue to be renewed and the learnings of veterans passed on to the new fighting wave.

Little by little readiness increases in our Antarctica facilities as well. Even the most remote locations in our planet shall be kept free from the otherworldly taint.

Stand united, brothers; we shall prove again our prowess remains unmatched. All aboard!