Let's Play UFO2:Extraterrestrials

[Zombie]

We zone into a desert map again, this time with a hot landing zone with the first sighting of a giant bird of prey (BoP). Zombie starts shooting at it with his ultra ak ammo and it seems to be doing decent damage:

He was somehow able to take it down without it shooting back. Everyone fans out and eventually I make sure Space Voyager covers one side of the transport while Thorondor covers the other side as these two have the photon beamers. Round two and there's another BoP who launches a Sentinel:

Zombie and Sorbicol help each other to finish the two off and then we see a Nh'Minol (from now on called Minol). Seems like a job for MikeTheRed and the mortar:

Not crazy damage by any means, but it's still a kill and that's what counts at the end of the day. A couple rounds later and a BoP shows up and launches a Sentinel. Zombie starts on that first (primarily auto shots this mission unless I note otherwise):

After taking that out I wanted to see how a photon beamer fares against the BoP so Space Voyager shot it dead:

Decent damage! Two turns later and a Minol is spotted so Sorbicol readies a grenade:

Damage was decent too so at least that works. Four turns later and another BoP is spotted over the maze and Sorbicol tries an auto shot:

Great accuracy and excellent damage too! Next round a Minol appears from the maze:

Zombie takes it out since it was next to him. @Thorondor since we have a maze, I tested nuking it with the mortar multiple times to see if it gets rid of the metal security cover. Nope:

Back to the mission in progress. Zombie sneaks forward and spots a Minol hiding just outside the maze, so he backs off and throws a grenade at it:

The next round another BoP shows up:

Zombie doesn't have a shot. Nook (who is also in the maze with Zombie) doesn't have a shot either. I check soldier after soldier to see if they have a shot. Nope. Crap we are in big trouble now! The only option I come up with is to retreat and hope that somebody can take it down with reaction fire. Zombie retreats with no problem but the BoP shoots at Nook for 2 damage. As a last resort I check Thorondor who is clear across the map and he somehow has a shot. His first was a critical hit for 77 damage:

Still has plenty of action points left so he snap shots it again and kills it. Saved our butts this guy! Nook gets healed up and we are back in business. Not much happens for a bunch of turns. UFO doors are opening but no aliens are exiting. I take that as an indication to advance. Kret opens the door and gets blasted by a Minol for no damage so Zombie takes it out:

A busy enemy turn as two Minols show up and are taken down by Zombie via reaction fire. The last Minol appears when Zombie stepped inside the next room:

And that was it. EOM:

15 aliens this mission and I think we did a fantastic job against these new races. I'm going to start on researching the Sentinel as I know that gives us a new rocket but after that I think it's time to start on the light alien cruiser as that provides some goodies.

Not sure what aliens will be on the African UFO, so this may be another test for us. Stay tuned, it's starting to get very interesting now!

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

Almost missed it two posts back - I got promoted for 0 kills! Love that! Keep me safe and promote me nevertheless.  

[Thorondor]

Point taken on The Amazing Maze, Zombie. Sturdy as heck, as suits a mandatory bottleneck.

BoP and Minol, welcome to the party - zap, zap!! Hope you liked the veritably electrifying experience of meeting us, invader scum!

Speaking of which, we've got some more Beamers to show for our efforts, so it might suit us to start spreading them around some more so the squad can better hold its own against these new miscreants.

Africa beckons; what novel fauna shall we run into there?

[Zombie]

On 11/14/2022 at 10:17 AM, Thorondor said:

Speaking of which, we've got some more Beamers to show for our efforts, so it might suit us to start spreading them around some more so the squad can better hold its own against these new miscreants.

Half the team has photon beamers right now while the other half have standard rifles or the mortar. I'm not ready to completely swap over unless I know what type of aliens we'll be facing. The photon beamers are really heavy too (40 vs the rifle which is 23) and with the worse accuracy the soldiers that carry these have to have better armor to survive non-kill reaction fire or what not. And photon armor is heavier too. So it kinda snowballs out of control after a while. Some of our older (aka "temporarily unused") soldiers have strength in the mid-to-high 70's which almost precludes them from carrying them. If we are on a mission where the aliens are carrying photon beamers and I need the extra fire power I'll scavenge them off the corpses to use.

This next mission was another desert landscape (non-maze thankfully). FullAuto and Pete are currently on vacation so we welcome back Bomb Bloke (who now has the mortar) and Slaughter (dedicated mule and protector for BB). Everyone spreads out and during the alien's 2nd turn they flood us with 3 Birds Of Prey who each launch a Sentinel:

Oh boy, Sorbicol kills a BoP and then Zombie starts working on it's Sentinel:

There was one BoP and Sentinel who were on the ground so might as well mortar them before we get carried away:

Kret started on the last BoP/Sentinel combo and when he was out of action points Nook finished them off:

During the next alien turn they send yet another BoP who launches it's Sentinel along the close side of the map. Both are on the ground though so you know what time it is:

Yup, and with the fuel tanker truck and gas pumps there was a huge explosion:

No collateral alien deaths unfortunately - they must be wising up to my tactics. Same round, and we scout a little bit and find a Minol who was just outside of the explosion so Zombie takes an aimed shot at it from halfway across the map:

Dead. The next round Kret has a line of fire on a Minol:

Took a couple shots but he killed it. Zombie saw some activity out of the corner of his eye during the alien's turn and I accidentally walked him too close to a Minol which shot him (no damage). Zombie was able to kill it though:

The game was acting strange the last couple turns and when I checked the task manager there must've been a memory leak in the game somewhere so I think that was the reason for the strange movement Zombie took. What I wanted to do was spot the alien, then immediately get behind the sandbags and toss a grenade on it. Everything worked out in the end anyway.

Slaughter killed a BoP/Sentinel combo the next round and then spots a Minol:

Sorbicol was halfway across the map twiddling his thumbs so let's have him take a long range shot at it:

A bunch of turns later and we have mostly scouted the entire map so it was time to head to the UFO. Zombie starts us off with seeing a Minol inside, while Thorondor was rounding the corner of the UFO to help if necessary:

The next turn Slaughter is given the honor of auto shooting another Minol inside the second set of doors (be careful!):

Zombie kills a Minol with reaction fire during the alien's turn. When we opened the door Kret gets shot:

Nothing visible, so Zombie goes inside after we patch Kret up. There's the culprit:

Easy kill for Zombie, and that was the end of the mission:

No promotions but that's ok. Back in the Geoscape and we shoot down a light cruiser in Germany(?), with a couple missiles hitting at the same time for a big fireball:

We'll be going there next!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Roger on the Beamer constraints, Zombie. Makes me wonder about the handling issues of "heavier" variants of such weaponry.

Those dastardly BoPs were really trying to swarm our position. Things seemed a bit hairy there for a moment, but BB always loves an opportunity to employ scorched earth tactics.

And what is it you say? A cookout in Germany in August? Count me in!

[Zombie]

I guess I forgot to post an update yesterday, well, I'll just lump in some extra stuff to make up for it. Airport map again. It's like a constantly rotating selection of 6 map types and that's it. Quite boring. First turn and Nook spots a Nh'Teol:

Cool, we'll be dealing with weakling aliens again. Well, Nook didn't have a shot with his photon beamer but could lob a grenade in there so let's try that instead:

Note to self: seems like everything can explode in this game. During the aliens round Zombie went crazy shooting at everything he saw and causing another explosion:

There is another Trep visible just north of the building. Bomb Bloke wanted to nuke the control tower on round 1 but he was too far away, so it's time:

Excellent! We still have to deal with that Trep though. Kret is pretty far away but an aimed shot is still accurate:

Nothing happens for a few turns after this except for exploring. Slaughter strolls into that small electronics room in the terminal and gets shot by a Nh'Teol:

Honestly, I'm not sure why I thought that was a good idea as it seems like there's always an alien in there. Maybe the new policy should be tossing a grenade in there before walking all the way in. Or maybe mortar the wall and shoot at it from afar? Anyway a Nh'Teol comes out of the UFO and was spotted by my team. Sorbicol was kneeling by the building and decided to try and toss a grenade on it:

It worked! And that was it:

No promotions again. Back in the Geoscape and it's time to deal with research as the Sentinel finished:

Let's check out the description on this thing:

New ammo? Yes please! Might as well start research on cryo technology then:

One day later and that topic completed too:

Here's the description:

I don't really get the expansion of things when cold but meh, if it works I'll be happy. We'll start researching the cryo rocket then:

While waiting for that to complete our engineers produced another suit of photon armor so let's give that to Sorby:

Nice, now Sorbicol, Kret, Nook and Zombie all have photon armor (plus Space Voyager and Thorondor). Slaughter and Bomb Bloke do not, but they are never in serious trouble due to them being back line troops. I still need more VT2000 personal shields as I only have enough for the troops on the transport and more suits of photon armor as well. What's this? Cryo rocket finished so soon:

Here's the description of that:

Ok, now I need to produce some of these too. We can produce a few of these in between projects just to make sure we have a small stockpile, right now it's all mortars. I guess it's time to research the light alien cruiser now:

This will take a while to finish. Our European interceptors shot down a recon vessel in Africa:

So on to that next!

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

The description of the cryo missiles sounds nasty! I don't know about the scientific fidelity though...  

[Thorondor]

It's not exactly the first time our eggheads come to conclusions we find puzzling, Zombie.

The general gist of it seems to be that the inner core of Sentinels tends to produce significant heat, said head causing expansion. Its distinct outer layer, when hit with our new cryo ammo contracts, excessively constricting the innards and the excess pressure - unable to be released - triggers the thing's explosives.

Rocket science? Blasted theory. What we enjoy is firing it for effect. The results tend to be pretty self-explanatory.

[Zombie]

3 hours ago, Thorondor said:

The general gist of it seems to be that the inner core of Sentinels tends to produce significant heat, said head causing expansion. Its distinct outer layer, when hit with our new cryo ammo contracts, excessively constricting the innards and the excess pressure - unable to be released - triggers the thing's explosives.

Got it! The way I was reading it just seemed backwards.

Let's go to this next mission, which turns out to be a farm map. It's during the day too which is nice. We land near the UFO so this should go pretty quick. A couple rounds in and a Nh'Teol exits the craft so Space Voyager takes an aimed shot at it:

Took two shots though, but that's ok. The next round Space Voyager starts to explore the North side of the map and bumps into another Nh'Teol:

Auto shot this time to make sure it will not survive. Slaughter (who was covering the side of the UFO) rounds the corner and sees two Treps:

Slaughter took out the one close by but could only injure the second one in the air. Sorbicol was there to mop up the mess:

Next round Slaughter books it over to the small building to cover that area and provide backup for the breach team and spots a Trep:

No line of fire on it so we'll wait till it moves and hopefully it'll solve the problem. It does:

Slaughter kills it easily, and then nothing happens during the next 3-4 rounds. Kret joins Slaughter and he decides to peek in the door to the building. Big mistake:

Here again, this is a known hot spot for alien spawns so you would think I would learn by now. Maybe we need to mortar the place or toss a grenade in there due to all the explosive drums. Next time I visit this map I'll try some options. Kret deals a monster critical hit and then Slaughter runs over there to patch him up:

Sorbicol, Zombie and Thorondor are the breach team this time and we have a busy alien round when Sorbicol kills a Nh'Teol with reaction fire and Zombie gets in on the action too (and getting injured too):

Thorondor patched him up good as new. Meanwhile Nook was helping out Space Voyager along the North side of the map and sees another Nh'Teol:

Auto shot it dead and that was the end of the mission:

No promotions again. Back in the Geoscape and it's the end of the month so let's see how we did with the governments:

The EU and South America finally gave us some huge bonuses and North America also increased their funding to the max so I think we did a great job. We had some extra cash due to manufacturing photon cannons for profit so that covered the salaries of the new engineers. Our research into the light alien cruiser finally finished too:

Let's see how menacing these things actually are:

Their accuracy is trash, but if they can get a shot to connect it'll certainly do some damage. Now the question becomes what to research next. I think we should research ship shielding as right now we are running around without shields and medium cruisers are showing up almost all the time:

Nothing happens in terms of UFO's so we actually complete our shield research:

Let's check out what it does:

Oh yes, I'm glad we did this first. I immediately paused our current manufacturing projects and started work on making some of these. They take a long time to produce so this is going to take some time to equip all our fighters but at least I have two bases cranking these out. What to research next though... I think we'll go with the alien flight control as that'll give us better interceptors:

And then an alien recon vessel is detected over the Atlantic. We wait to engage till it's over land but missed Thorondor's neighborhood by a little bit so France it is:

Oh, in case you are wondering why all the interceptors have a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark inside it's because the game is warning you that your interceptors aren't fully equipped - we know this as shielding just became available. Once you get an interceptor a shield the arrow will disappear. So it's all good.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

What a show of generosity on our part. Alien doles out 7 to Kret, he pays back 85. You got 2 from a critter, you give back over 10 times that as well. So charitable!

Maybe it's such displays that motivate others to so willingly follow suit, as seen in this August's EOM funding round. Sunny people!

Meanwhile we have the evildoers' purposes laid bare - a ship of kidnappers.

By the power and the fury of the Roaring Earth Launcher in the sky we shall make them repent!

Pertaining to more earthen matters, in our next outing we'll show them they cannot have La Vie en Rose at our expense.

[Zombie]

Before we get on with the mission, I have to mention we have a few more new recruits to introduce. Do we really need more soldiers? I think so. Here's the thing: stronger and tougher aliens have already made themselves known and it will not be long till they will be more frequent. While the going is good (and easy) we should try to train up new recruits now so that they will not be put in unnecessary danger later. Eventually we'll be getting a better transport that can hold more soldiers and it would be nice having all soldiers contribute. More soldiers on a mission also means we need more soldiers back at base to defend it in case of attack (it could happen if a UFO spawns right on top of us). So the four new recruits are Jman4117 (Jman), Tammy, JellyFishGreen (JFG) and BladeFireLight (BFL). For the time being we'll be concentrating on Jman and Tammy:

With that out of the way it's time to go on a mission with these two. This time it was a farm map and for the first turn or two it was quiet. Jman eventually spots an Trep and gets into position to take some snap shots at it:

Please take note of the direction Jman is facing and also look at Nook who is to the left and which way he is facing. This is going to be important because after killing the Trep and ending the turn a Nh'Teol sneaks up on Jman and shoots him in the back:

And I even had Thorondor standing behind the hedge instead of kneeling in the break to cover his back. Dummy me. In my defense I was really worried about kill stealing and I just know if given the chance Thorondor would mop up the entire map himself. He's that good (same with Space Voyager). Anyhow it was an easy kill for Jman and after that Thorondor patched him up good as new. A few turns go by - we really didn't spread out too far as the Jman mishap had me worried. We did spot a Trep but Jman was out of action points so he wasn't able to shoot at it:

But the Trep came closer next turn making it easier:

Meanwhile, along the other side of the map Tammy and company were guarding the house and Space Voyager spots a Trep in the air and lines up an aimed shot:

Kret took a peek inside the building and found a Nh'Teol in a back room after it shot at him during it's turn. Tammy was kinda out of position for a kill though:

I withdrew Kret outside and got Slaughter to patch him up while Tammy made a mad dash inside:

I wanted to have her throw a grenade near it but she didn't have enough action points anymore. Next round then:

Yup, that's the way to do it: toss a grenade in there blindly and let the explosive barrels do the rest. Fast forward a bunch of turns since nothing was going on except incessant door opening sounds in the UFO. Tammy made her way to the far side of the UFO while Jman was covering the other side. Eventually I just had to take a peek inside with Kret to see what was going on. Not much, but he did spot a Nh'Teol:

From here on out, it's a case of learn from my mistakes and apply that to your game. Don't get flustered and don't fall into the trap of following an alien deep into their own craft. Stay outside and whittle down the numbers until there's only a couple left then enter if you must. So yeah, Tammy runs in there all gung-ho and sees a Nh'Teol and gets ready to throw a grenade on it:

It died but Tammy hurt "himself" in the blast so, I tried to save face and had Slaughter book it in there to back her up and provide some heals:

That turned out to be a good idea because the next turn the aliens sent everything our way:

Well, since you're in there Tammy you may as well start shooting:

That's the nice thing about being so close as auto shots are crazy accurate and guaranteed to kill. With one down it was time to blast the second:

And that was it. It kinda worked out in the end as there were not any more aliens holed up inside the craft yet. Not sure how we would have fared if we had to tough it out for another round. EOM:

To the victor go the spoils (and promotions)! First is Jman:

Double promotion for him so I dumped a full promotions worth of points into shooting and then two on strength and one in vitality, bravery and throwing. And here's Tammy:

Triple promotion for her so I put only 6 points into shooting, three in strength, two in bravery and throwing and then one point into agility and vitality. Decent stats already! No rest for the wicked though as we shot down a light cruiser in Europe:

Some of our interceptors have shields now which is good. I'm trying to crank these out as fast as I can because I want all our legacy interceptors fully kitted out before the golden interceptor research finishes. That way it'll be a hot swap to minimize downtime. Plan on seeing more of Jman and Tammy next episode!

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

Boosting our numbers while the going is good. Check! Don't jump the gun when breaching UFOs. Check!

Talk about playing with fire. Complete rookies thrown straight to the front lines. They got their first blood alright and some cuts and bruises in return.

Don't think I ever saw anyone climb straight to Corporal, so good on you Tammy! Crazy girl wanted to raze the entire UFO all by herself. She's got some spirit this one. ?

So, Jman I hope you've learnt something from that. You better, 'cause us vets can only do so much baby sittin'.

Now drink up. I hear we've got another customer to take care of and you two drew the short straws.

[Space Voyager]

Wooohooo, GO TAMMY! Triple promotion!

[Zombie]

Another farm map. Sick of this yet? I learned from my previous mistake with that small building where an alien tends to spawn - this time I nuked it with a mortar and I'm glad a I did because there was a Nh'Teol inside:

Ha! Jman started to explore a little and spotted a Nh'Teol.

Unfortunately he didn't have enough action points to do anything. But Bomb Bloke still did so mortar time again:

Which revealed another Trep. Nothing more we can do this turn anymore so we wait to see what happens. Actually another Trep shows up, so Tammy starts shooting one of them:

She kills it but I want Jman to get a kill too. No ability for him to shoot at it decently but he can throw a grenade in there which kills the other one. Next round Tammy and Jman tag team a Trep and kill it:

A couple turns go by and Jman was able to kill a Nh'Teol exiting the UFO with a grenade:

It wasn't exactly accurate but got the job done. What was really concerning was the sound of a Nh'Teol walking around nearby, probably in that black area to the south. For this reason I pull Jman back hoping that if we can spot it that he can toss a grenade on it. First we need to make a hole in the hedge to get eyes on it. Space Voyager used his photon beamer to blast a couple holes into the hedge and when he spotted the culprit he backed off to let Jman do his thing:

He couldn't throw it exactly at the aliens feet but one tile away should be sufficient. During this, I advanced Tammy so she was kneeling by the close corner by the door. After killing the alien Jman ran back to his previous position. And then the aliens came out in full force:

Jman really didn't have a good way of tossing a grenade that far without advancing into the line of fire so I was hoping Tammy could take out the two Nh'Teols around the door with a grenade:

Doable, but it only killed the alien inside the craft. Now I was starting to worry about the Trep on the roof because if we couldn't kill it, it might come down to attack Tammy. So I had her toss a grenade up there which killed it:

Jman finished off the injured Nh'Teol with an aimed shot and that was the end of the mission:

More delicious promotions! Jman is first:

The thought process behind this was as follows:

1. When I put one point in shooting he was at an even 80 - sounds like enough for the time being
2. His strength was a little low and I'm constantly concerned about this stat the most because if it's not high enough you can't wear better armor. Two points seems ok, though I would prefer it to be above 70
3. He's been throwing a lot so an extra point into that should help to increase his range
4. Vitality was lowish so it's good to beef that up now.

And here's Tammy:

Again, one point in shooting got her to 81 which is solid. One point into strength got her to 72 which is also good. Might as well put a point into bravery right away as it bumps her up to 67 and the last two can go into throwing. Very happy with how these two are improving so far. Back at base and out scientists finish research on alien flight control:

Let's check that description out first:

Kind of an interesting take on navigating in space. I don't fully agree that this is a reliable way of positioning because if you move too far away from the cone of x-rays you'll lose that signal as a navigation beacon. Lose too many and you're stuck though I'm sure computers can come up with a good guesstimate based on speed and trajectory. Anyhow, what we are after is the golden eagle so let's get everyone on that project:

By this point all of the interceptors in Russia and Europe have shielding so now it's just a matter of producing more to transfer over to North and South America. Not so worried about these bases as alien activity there has been lower now that we have defenses to clear the skies. But the priority is still to manufacture, transfer and equip all our interceptors globally with shielding and then begin upgrading to the new golden eagles.

Before any of that can happen a recon vessel spawns in the most unlucky spot ever: right between my bases in Russia and Europe because not only are the defensive systems shooting at it but also the interceptors too:

Next up is that!

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

6 hours ago, Zombie said:

Another farm map. Sick of this yet?

- Zombie

Far less than when I was playing the original X-COM! Glad it is you playing, reading the AARs is far less time consuming and you make it all really interesting. Kudos!

[Thorondor]

Alien Flight Control - let's just concede, Zombie, that the gist of it is, as usual, acceptable within the realm of fuzzy science. ?

Meanwhile, on the field we're perfectly happy to go on farming aliens. Knowledge accrued even allows for the blind firing of high explosives with 100% success ratio. Now that's progress!

If we add to that the improved interceptors which are on the horizon and I'd say we're pretty golden. ?

Code word is "Green" for Recon loser cleanup detail. Buckle up!

[Zombie]

On 11/21/2022 at 4:57 AM, Space Voyager said:

Far less than when I was playing the original X-COM! Glad it is you playing, reading the AARs is far less time consuming and you make it all really interesting. Kudos!

 

Desert map this time, at least it isn't farm. First round Jman spots a Nh'Teol lurking around some walls. No way to shoot it so let's grenade it instead:

The next round two Treps show up:

Tammy killed one and Jman took the other down with a critical hit:

During the alien's turn yet another Trep shows up which Jman kills with reaction fire:

Close by Tammy is up to her neck with Nh'Teols:

Since there is one right next to her, let's use a grenade:

Ok, maybe not the best choice, but in my defense I thought the sandbags would absorb the explosion and remain standing. Nope, they were destroyed and the Nh'Teol survived the explosion too. She had to kill it with an auto shot which left her short to deal with the other Nh'Teol. Jman has her covered with a 99% accurate snap shot:

Well, make that two snap shots. These Nh'Teols seem tougher for some reason, normally they drop in a stiff breeze. Another Nh'Teol shows up during their turn and Jman again kills it with reaction fire:

Do you see why I like soldiers with better reactions? Anyway a Nh'Teol comes busting out of the UFO in a full sprint and shoots Tammy for some damage. But she has a grenade, so let's tempt fate again:

This time it dies and Tammy doesn't get caught in the blast. EOM:

Ok Jman, let's see what we can do with you:

I mostly just spread the points around as I wanted a soldier good in everything. Back in the Geoscape and our research finished:

Awesome! Here's the description:

Aluminum-lithium alloy? There are some drawbacks to that alloy though so I wonder why not use the gold standard of 7075 aluminum which is alloyed with zinc? That's the typical aircraft rated alloy used. Just to note, Al-Li components are connected via friction stir welding (I'm sorta familiar with this as AvE tried doing this with his Bridgeport milling machine on YouTube) so it's not like normal welding will work on this either.

We decided to start researching the roaring earth launcher next:

I may not be using this much but it can come in handy if there are too many crashed UFOs on the map at once and they are all too far away to visit consecutively. We shall see. Before that though, we shot down a medium cruiser next to our base in Europe:

I thought it was going to try and take over that base so I sent out all my interceptors and was able to take it out. That's next!

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

As my "knowledge" of alloys is limited to Forged in Fire show  , I did a Wiki search and Al-Li alloys do seem to be used in planes, too. I have absolutely no idea whether they have any advantages over other alloys though.

[Thorondor]

I thought some prior close calls might have given some indication of just how potent these grenades' splash damage can be, relieving you of cover in the process and all that, but let's just call this extra data gathering.

Tammy can handle a little singeing, she won't hold it against you.

Golden Eagles, may their flight bring swift ruin to the invaders. Our pilots are gonna love 'em speed devils. They'll look great in the selfies alongside those sexy forward-swept wings too.

It's up to us to muddy our boots, lads. We'll handle that cruiser now.

[Zombie]

On 11/23/2022 at 1:01 AM, Space Voyager said:

I did a Wiki search and Al-Li alloys do seem to be used in planes, too. I have absolutely no idea whether they have any advantages over other alloys though.

Weight savings mostly because Lithium is lighter than most of the other common metals used in aluminum alloys (such as zinc and copper).

Desert map again. We spread out a little and Tammy sees a Minol by a fuel truck:

Grenade + fuel + alien = big boom + dead alien. Tammy also killed a BoP the next round. A Minol comes charging out of the walls during it's turn and Thorondor easily takes it down:

Gotta love reaction fire! We spot a BoP in the air and one of the only soldiers in a position to fire is Thorondor again:

Two aimed shots didn't take it down though. Space Voyager (who was even further away) was able to finish it off:

Kret killed a BoP with reaction fire but we did see it deploy both of it's Sentinels so those need to be taken care of:

Slaughter took them both out with well placed shots:

Kret moved one tile closer and spots another BoP, time for Thorondor to take some 91% accurate snap shots at it:

We didn't move closer and apparently the BoP Thorondor killed deployed a Sentinel so Kret kills it with reaction fire:

A turn or so later and we spot a BoP on the other side of the map. Tammy takes it out:

Quite a few turns later now. We waited a few turns to see if more aliens became visible but no. So we carefully start to clear the West part of the map. Eventually a Minol is spotted and Jman is in a perfect position to toss a grenade on it:

Many, many turns later and most of the team has met at the UFO doors. We open the outer door and see that the inner door is open too. There must be a Minol in there somewhere so Jman gets lucky when he throws a grenade in there blindly:

Excellent! A few turns later and Tammy was able to kill a Minol down the straight hallway on the left side:

That room to the left of Tammy is a hot spot for aliens to spawn in and it has some alien "equipment" in there which makes it hard to spot anything too. Let's avoid that by tossing a grenade in there blindly:

That's how it's done safely! Because we killed a couple aliens the past two turns I felt it was time to pull back a bit to let our other soldiers cover. Yup, two more Minols approach:

Jman kills the first one in the back with an auto shot:

And Tammy finished off the last one. EOM:

Grats Tammy! Time to allocate points:

It would take 4 points to max out her shooting and that's a pretty big investment so I decided to only do 2 points to get her to 89 and the rest went into throwing, strength and vitality. Back in the Geoscape we shot down another medium cruiser in Greece though:

Jman and Tammy have some decent stats already so I decided to bench these two for the foreseeable future. The rationale behind this is that while the going is good and the aliens are still weakish we need to start training up JellyFishGreen and BladeFireLight. So expect an appearance from these two next mission.

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

We like a good opening with some targets in sight but this time around it sort of felt like we were getting rushed almost.

Several BoPs and a couple of Minols hanging about. Maybe they heard our thrusters coming in and decided to stop by for a meet and greet.

Sergeant Tammy, is it? Some people better start saluting you properly now. How about that!

Don't let it go to your head though. Hierarchical respect is something the aliens won't show you and we're on call to pay them a visit again.

[Zombie]

Airport map this time! First couple turns and nothing happening. But we did see a Trep wandering around just North of us. JFG was in a pretty good spot so he blindly tossed a grenade where he thought the Trep went:

Not very good accuracy, but he was standing. And then of course, big explosion as the heli went up:

And the damage was absorbed. Sometimes you just can't win. That's why we have two rookies along so maybe BFL will have better luck. He kills the Nh'Teol and then during the aliens turn BFL and JFG use their reactions to shoot at more aliens. There's still two Treps inside though so he killed one with a grenade and goes after the other with aimed shots:

Busy place. BB probably should have mortared the place to open it all up but it worked out. Nook spots a Nh'Teol by the UFO so BFL kills it with an aimed shot:

After this it was exploring so not much happened for about 5 turns. We gained entry into the terminal building via shooting out a window in the break room/cafe. Space Voyager decided to toss a grenade in the left room as aliens always seem to be in there:

Nothing happened. Combat log was empty so I guessed that the room was empty. Wrong:

When am I going to learn? Mr T has enough for a snap shot, which connects but only for 13 damage. Crap. He backs off as far as he can and crossed his fingers. Got lucky as the Nh'Teol walked right up to him and did nothing:

He gets revenge by dealing a critical hit for 80 damage. Meanwhile JFG has his sights on a Trep so he prepares to throw a grenade on it:

Make that 2 grenades and both do little damage. Ok BFL you are up:

A couple turns go by as we assemble in front of the main UFO doors to breach. The secondary door inside is open and when we peek inside there is a Nh'Teol which JFG kills with two snap shots:

Three turns later and we spot a Trep just inside the main door so JFG gets ready to blast it with an auto shot at point blank range:

Four turns later and Nook was trying to hide in the room on the right when a Nh'Teol shot at him for no damage. He smartly withdraws but sees another Nh'Teol who was trying to get to our troops in the anteroom. Blade goes for the kill:

Now I send JFG inside to hopefully take care of that alien in the right room. He doesn't get far because a Nh'Teol shoots at him (for no damage) from down the hallway. Here it is in the dying shot:

He didn't have enough action points left to make it to the anteroom so he hides in a corner of the hallway. During the aliens turn the Nh'Teol comes bursting out of there, completely ignoring JFG (and BFL) and rushing into the anteroom:

Gimme shot for Blade but he closes the distance to auto shoot it at point blank range in the back ending the mission:

Awesome, BFL and JFG are both triple promoted! May as well allocate the points the same way for both:

I figured a full promotion + 1 point in shooting and another promotion in strength would be sufficient and then 3 in throwing and the last in bravery. They both seem solid so far. More promotions will make them even better. Back in the Geoscape and our research finished:

Here's the description for that:

A GBU bunker buster bomb? Yessir! Though we aren't going to immediately start manufacturing these as they are expensive and both of my production bases are busy (Europe is manufacturing a golden eagle and at my main base we are producing personal shields, photon armor and mortars because we are lagging in soldier defense and extra mortars are always a necessity). We are running out of things to research now (besides the medium cruiser) so let's get going on the aliens:

Useless topics but it keeps our scientists busy at least. I put the roaring earth launcher on the manufacturing list but as you can see it'll be a while till we get to them as a golden eagle takes forever to build.

I'm seriously considering adding another workshop in Europe to make it go quicker. Before we splurge, it's the end of the month so we may as well wait to see what we can afford as the governments can be fickle sometimes:

Europe finally maxed out it's funding to us so that's good. Africa and Polar aren't really happy but they didn't cut much so I consider that a win. A couple days later and we have a swarm again. I managed to shoot down most of the stuff but the leader is heading to South America:

We wait till it comes closer and triggers our defenses, then send up the interceptors after it has been softened up a little:

$1.29 million for taking it down and another $2.58 million for mopping up the crash site. I need the money. There's still a small cruiser buzzing around. Normally I'd wait till I down all the threats but in this case we really need to visit the swarm leader so we are going to have to risk it. I can always send some interceptors as protectors until it gets back to base. Swarm leader is next to stay tuned!

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

Aliens tried to communicate with Thor, but it ended badly for them. Perhaps that Nh'Teol asked for a lighter or something...

[Thorondor]

I'll let you in on it. Since the Nh'Teol went to the trouble of coming all the way over I tried the diplomatic route with the following:

"You've gotta' ask yourself a question. 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya... punk?"

You know the answer to that one. ?

Hey, Corporal BLF, points for style for you too, buddy - added ventilation on one of them critters point blank is always a plus. Makes a bit of a mess though, right?

Speaking of blowing new holes in things, that Roaring Earth bomb means business. Need a light indeed and we sure will like to paint some targets into oblivion.

You heard the latest reports. There's plenty to shoot at; we're swarmed with the bastards.

Hooowwwwwwlll!!! We're the wolves here, let's go thin that herd!

[Zombie]

This was going to be pretty long post so I decided to split it up into 2 parts: the first being the mission and the second being the aftermath. It's a desert map in the dark so we have to be a little careful. First round Tammy spots a Trep in back of the ship (technically the front) and kills it with an auto shot:

A few turns go by and by this time Thorondor has moved close to where the Trep was. During the alien's turn Mr T's keen eyes catch two Nh'Teols moving around:

Ah-ha! (Capture the flag anyone)? They were not visible during our turn so Thorondor moves a little closer to get eyes on them:

Normally I'd have BB mortar them but that would set off the semi truck too which may hurt someone important. So Mr T decides to use a photon grenade:

Easy as it gets! Thorondor backs off not wanting to push his luck. During the alien's turn Kret kills a Nh'Teol with reaction fire:

And Space Voyager blasts another:

Awesome show of reactions. A few turns go by as Jman and Nook advance where the last alien was killed. Nook spots a Nh'Teol and Jman tries to throw a grenade on it:

Couldn't quite throw far enough and the accuracy wasn't exceptional either. Jman knelt down so the accuracy was much better and the grenade took it out. Nook backs off a little, then advances during our turn again which reveals another Nh'Teol in almost the same spot as before. Grenade time for Jman:

This time he was able to toss it directly under the thing, killing it. Nook moves a little more and is startled by a nearby Nh'Teol. If I played my cards right Jman probably could have thrown grenades on both, but alas he was out of action points so it's up to you Nook:

Four turns pass as we explore the rest of the map and assemble near the UFO. A Nh'Teol peeks out and hurts Nook with a photon beamer, and Tammy retaliates by throwing a grenade on it:

We move forward to the doors and prepare to breach the next turn. The aliens have other ideas and send an assault themselves. Most of it was covered by Jman and his insane reaction fire which killed two Treps. There were still two aliens in the anteroom though, Tammy is going to auto shot the Nh'Teol next to her and then go after the Trep:

Jman enters the UFO next turn and shoots at a Trep down the right hallway but doesn't have enough action points to do much else except withdraw to the anteroom:

Tammy decides to check the other hallway next turn and surprises 3 aliens. Two Treps were kinda clumped together so grenade time:

It did 27 damage to one and was absorbed by the other. Time to withdraw to the safety of the anteroom. Next round another grenade:

Tammy kinda got stuck inside the UFO as her action points were too low to fully withdraw. Jman joins her inside to hopefully provide some backup. It was all for naught as two different Treps attack both of them:

Ok, probably a bad idea but the Treps have a weakish melee attack especially with our photon armor and shielding so most all of the damage was absorbed. Tammy kills both of them. Jman was a little injured but decided to stay put as we wanted to clear out that room on the right as it's a good stronghold.

Not sure if there's an alien in there so Jman tosses a grenade to check:

It destroys the "furniture" giving the Nh'Teol a clear shot at him (no damage). He kills it with another grenade and then Kret rushes in to administer first aid:

All patched up now so he's good to go and has a buddy as backup too. The next round Jman explores the middle room a little and comes up empty handed so he exits into the left hallway. Then an unfortunate mis-click on my part sent Slaughter into the jaws of the beast deep into enemy territory. Almost reloaded but decided to let it play out. Jman kills a NhTeol with reaction fire and then Slaughter was hit not from the Nh'Teol right in front of him but another one:

He turns around to reveal it:

Not sure why Jman couldn't see it, maybe the wall in front of him was blocking LOS but now he has a clear shot. After it died Slaughter made a hasty retreat to get into a safer area. One alien left (this is where I dropped my final save) so it's up to Tammy to toss a grenade on it (btw, this Nh'Teol was camping inside this lift room for many turns as she saw it along with the two Treps):

And that was thankfully it. EOM:

Lots of kills for Jman and Tammy again which earned both another promotion! This is exactly what they needed. Allocation of points is the next post along with the rewards and a menagerie of other things which I'll try to pare down a little so it's not so scatterbrained.

- Zombie