TFTD Fanfic Discussion

[The Veteran]

Yeah that's all perfectly logical I agree. Hopefully Zager will swing by here sometime soon and give us some advice on how to proceed and a post on us actually doing it!

 

Deep One autopsy... Ugh... That's all we need as a post in the fic...

 

"But Dr Zager we HAVE researched the deep one autopsy! And we've done one alive! What is it you're expecting us to find!?"

 

"Well maybe its just me but I was kind of under the impression that these creatures have skin that could very well be adapted, modified, and recreated as some form af aquatic'plastic type armour... But maybe that's just me..."

 

Yeah... Or maybe the damn game has crashed and we have to go back three friggin years and start all over again with a flippin foreign patch on to make the research tree work properly!!!!!

[Zager]

I would imagine that Zager's character and his disciples have already worked out the theory but they refused to take it any further until now because of the moral implications of creating a weapon that humans would use to slaughter each other.

 

Moral implications? Heh. Dr Zager, aside from his vision of the perfect human society, is a believer in science for the sake of science. He just simply wouldn't make it available because, quite frankly, he doesn't give a damn about the rest of humanity.

[Accounting Troll]

A nice introduction for your character. I can see him having a few rows with the military commander of X-Com and the committee of funding nations. It also establishes how good a scientist he must be if the politicians are willing to tolerate his less than diplomatic behaviour

 

In view of his disregard of the laws on human genetic engineering and psionics, perhaps he will be the one who brings up the subject of selling alien artefacts to the highest bidder as a means of funding X-Com. A man who dabbles in illegal research will have contacts in the black market as he cannot aquire the equipment and biological samples he requires legally without facing some difficult questions.

[The Veteran]

Right there's a post and a half for you! Would have kept on going but if I don't sleep soon my eyes will fall out...

 

Right, firstly, I didn't mention it but the engineer dude? He'll be on board the triton too, non-combatant but he'll be able to use the wierd console in there (you know from the game with the sonar on) to control wee Bubbles. Bubbles is not a SWS by the way. Hence it being completely different in every way to a SWS! I'm guessing it'll either get nuked in the mission and XCom will deem it necessary to develop a prototype replacement or it will prove invaluable and XCom will feel compelled to develop a prototype replacement.

 

Now Zager worked on the original Tanks in the first alien war so I imagine he would take great pleasure in nitpicking over Denman's flawed genius in the form of Bubbles if it gets back intact! So there you are Zag, all yours the old R&D bit as per! Wait till we get back though mind, your character hasn't seen this thing yet, and 40 years is a long time to forget how invaluable that tank was!

 

Next thing, I don't know if we're ready to intercept this UFO yet or not so there are a few ways forward... It flies off, that's that, contact lost... We intercept it and land at the site, then it pans out however it pans out... We down it in water too deep to take the Triton and the divers into (over an aquatic chasm or something) It's up to whoever posts next, I'd like to see how it unfolds either way, hence me trying to prepare these people as well as possible for what seems to be a pretty hopeless mission!

 

Another thing is THIS LINK to XCommand, it'll answer all your UFOpedia style questions. Like superheated laser what? Is he making that up? And, what does a harpoon gun look like again? Or what other weapons do we need to bring into the fic before the next mission? etc and so on!

 

Lastly but not leastly, here's a list of all the characters in the fic so far, including a few I've introduced in that fic through necessity. Uria, your guy is already on this mission so if you're reading this topic then its your time baby! Go to it! DC Scott is on board but your new guy isn't as we'll want everyone to be a few ranks up on what they are now before we bring in any more experienced soldiers to dominate the team! Like I say below, the SGT is a filler in for the missing command structure that we'll need fairly imminently but I have no problem with keeping him/promoting him, whatever. Bottom line is, he's free for all, anyone can use him so I'm not bothered what happens to him. The new pilot is one of mine, feel free to interact as you blatantly need to in this next post! But I'll do most of the donkey work on him, I enjoy having Trigger as a pilot in the UFO fic!

 

List;

Jonathon Finn

My Character, Barracuda-01 pilot, profile to come

Sergeant Nielsen

Filler technically, just needed someone to take control. We could keep him if we decide to

 

Able Seaman Mark Reynolds

Accounting Trolls character. 30yrs old joined XCom March 2039

Able Seaman Brian Goldstein

Filler Recovered Crawley's corpse from the Hyperion wreck

Able Seaman Andrew Munt

My Character. 23yrs old joined XCom July 2036

Seaman Scott Gasvin

Dumb Commander's character. 29yrs old joined XCom August 2039

Seaman Dale Peterson

Filler alive

Seamen Richard Pritchard

Filler Kills and recovers only alien casualty from the Hyperion wreck

Alexander Milne

Uriaheep's character. 35yrs old originally joined SORESO October 2030

[Dumb_Commander]

Just one thing tough, i want that Gasving would survive three missions not to die in the curent one, you can injure him but dont kill him right now.

 

What if the soldiers find a stunned civilian on board of the USO.

[The Veteran]

Don't worry DC I have no intention of killing off anyone's characters except the filler. That's what filler is all about!

 

As far as stunned civilians go, yes, its a good idea for a little bit of storyline as that person (should they wake up) would know too much to return to their normal life... Right now though we'll have to wait until a terror mission for that. Remember, we can't engage USOs over land so if we ever down any they'll be in water... Hence drown!

[Accounting Troll]

We're really zipping along now. I'll try to continue the story later on tonight.

 

With regard to the possibility of civilians who know too much, there is an important factor to bear in mind - X-Com went public around 2010.

 

Ongoing operations, personnel lists and base locations will have to be kept secret for obvious military reasons, but this time round the people know that humanity isn't alone in the universe and that X-Com stopped the last invasion. According to the official timeline, the sinkings caused a massive public clamour for the reinstatement of X-Com. It follows therefore that successes against the aliens will be widely reported in the media to keep up morale on the home front.

 

Besides, how do you cover up a terror attack on a major city like London or New York?

 

Changing the subject slightly, there is a fair amount of background information in the paper booklet entitled "Profile of Jake Gaston" that was shipped with the original version of TFTD. Strategycore has the PDF version of the booklet in our files section here. It includes a conspiracy theory about the sinking of the Titanic and detailed information on the two classes of flying sub available to X-Com in the early days.

 

I'd like to bring Jake Gaston in as the supreme commander of X-Com in the days after the current mission as they are pretty leaderless at the moment.

[uriaheep]

I guess it would be nice to have a leader but it feels a little belt and braces at the moment which gives a realistic feel.

[Accounting Troll]

Post done.

 

I've set out the X-Com tactics for the opening stages of the system. They are using a buddy-buddy system at the moment, but I suspect that will change when they find out that the aliens have area effect weapons that work underwater. I've also addressed the problem of actually getting out of the hatch without being butchered by alien snipers as they will have noticed the approach of the Triton and had time to position themselves.

 

I'm using Gasvin to provide infantry support for Bubbles. I see Bubbles as a light tank that is faster than the standard sea tank because it lacks armour plating. A lone light tank that gets seperated from infantry support will quickly be surrounded and destroyed by the enemy.

 

There's an environmental theme in my post. Some of the seabed maps in the game are littered with barrels of toxic looking waste, and I like the way that suggests that maybe the aliens have a better right to rule Earth than we do because of our criminally negligent environmental record.

 

I have put in some speculation about the nature of the alien weapons to further my references to the lack of barnacles and the brittle hull in the exploration of the Hyperion. Some of the X-Com soldiers have scientific and engineering backgrounds, so they would probably figure out that the aliens are using sonic weapons from the effect they have. The real trick is in learning to use and manufacture the alien weapons - perhaps they are genetically encoded so that only their owner can use them - anybody else who tries using a particular alien weapon will unwittingly trigger a small explosive device that prevents it from falling into human hands.

 

Regarding the nature and crew of USO-1, the first USO you encounter in the game is always the TFTD equivalent of the small or medium scout. If it is the small scout, it will have a one sectoid crew. If it is the medium scout, it will have a crew of around six; either Sectoids or Gillmen. Gillmen are faster and stronger than Sectoids and they have better armour, so X-Com will probably take a real beating if they are up against Gillmen. The small and medium scouts in TFTD look identical in a mission, so at this stage the squad has no idea what it's up against.

 

Don't forget that X-Com doesn't have an alien containment facility at this stage, so there's no point trying to take prisoners.

 

 

A few other general thoughts:

 

Unlike in Enemy Unknown and Acopalypse, X-Com has a time limit in missions because oxygen tanks have a limited capacity.

 

The recovery of a USO is not going to be instantaneous. Some alien artifacts and a few alien bodies can fit inside a Triton, but recovering the hull of an underwater alien dreadnought is going to be a logistical nigtmare.

 

How does X-Com know when they have killed the last alien in a mission? They might have a general idea how many aliens crew a given class of USO, but until they have worked out a way of hacking into the alien computers (which is harder than it looks in Independance Day) and recovering a crew list, they have to spend ages carefully going over the combat zone.

[uriaheep]

Anyone thought of a way around "throwing" a grenade underwater. There were obviously grenedes in the game but it's imposible to throw anything underwater.

 

Small amounts of propellant perhaps??? Or shall we just forget them?

[The Veteran]

we need nades... We have to stay true to the game... I agree though its quite a puzzle how they actually work. Brings to mind though that you could only ever through the grenades, not the highj explosive charge.... So maybe each unit had a kind of sophisticated CPU-like fan built into the base or something? Don't know, its not an easy one. Lets just see what everyone thinks!

[uriaheep]

You can't even throw something like a spear when in water, so grenades are totaly impossible. It always brought a smile to my face when I first played the game. We would have to develope a similar system to grenade launchers on standard rifles and even this would give them such a short range that 90% of troops using them would probably be injured or killed.

 

It's a case of real physics or game physics again.

[Accounting Troll]

In this case, I think we are going to have to go with game physics and make up a pseudo scientific explanation of how the grenades can be thrown underwater. Whatever technology is behind this miracle can only work submerged as otherwise a soldier would be able to throw a grenade across a fantastic distance during terror and base defence missions, thus ensuring that you don't even miss not being able to use rockets.

 

Perhaps each human and alien grenade generates a small energy bubble that pushes water out of the way of the grenade, thus allowing it to be thrown underwater as if it was on land. Alien submarines could use a larger version of this energy bubble to allow them to travel at such great speed while submerged. We could suggest that this is one more piece of alien technology we discovered during the first alien war, but it had no practical applications for X-Com at the time.

[Zager]

We have to stay true to the game.

 

Why?

[The Veteran]

because that's what the fanfic's about. It's fiction from fans based on the game... We can't just write a story about XCom who are these cyborg cops who hunt vampires for fun. It isn't what we're here to do. As long as its possible and realistic we have to stick to the game. Maybe in this particular case its not realistic OR believable to throw grenades underwater but I think we need them and for one would like to keep them. Taking away grenades would affect a large section of our arsenal and we have to explain sonic alien grenades anwyay so why not our own?

[Dumb_Commander]

What about an launcher on the harpoon rifle and so on, but instead of powder to launch it, there will be an use of compresed air as a propelant. Lets take dart pistols and harpoon rifles for an example, these weapons use compressed air to launch its projectiles, why not to use the grenades same way. Only the air is much more compressed to give better results.

[uriaheep]

I wish I hadn't mentioned it now.

 

The problem underwater isn't just the passage of the grenade through the water it's the actual act of throwing. It's that, action that is not possible. For this reason I think we have to assume that X-COM had a grenade launcher of some sort and if it was an attatchment to their other weapons it may not have warranted a mention on the weapon lists.

[The Veteran]

yeah so maybe that's the way forward then? What everyone's been saying, DC summed it up pretty well. Just fire them off the harpoon rifles using compressed gas, same as the harpoons themselves... I reckon though we should leave that till the next mission now. Because we've just introduced these harpoon guns without mention of a grenade launcher, I'd suggest it isn't there yet! Remember we robbed these things off poachers So after the mission when we've seen a few alien nades people will be going huh? How do you use grnades underwater Then we can paste in this conversation to the fic! lol

[The Veteran]

Just edited your post DC, rather drastically I might add All the content was there for a good post, and even at that length it added something to the fic. Well done, you're getting there! Grammar and spelling however was a disaster Where are you from originally as I'm guessing that English is far from being your first language...

 

Points to note, Bubbles has two B's, that was your biggest slip-up!

 

Suggestions... Write your posts in Word or some other composer before you put them on here. They have spell checkers that would have ironed out most of the simple mistakes straight away. They also have some grammar checkers too... Otherwise, be sure to read your post back to yourself a few times, see how it reads. Chances are, if you pick up something that sounds a bit off, everyone else definitely will!

 

Good work though DC, don't mean to get you down, just some constructive advice to help you in your next post! Keep it up!

[Dumb_Commander]

Okay i posted in the fic. In the last part of post theres a sonic pulser landing couple of meters away fro Gasvin and Bubles. My charecter will survive so dont say that he died.

[Accounting Troll]

I think I'll have a go at continuing that tonight if I can find a way for Gasvin to survive X-Com's introduction to grenades. Well remembered about the exploding barrels

 

The aliens use ultrasonic weapons, so would they emit any visisble light at all? I know they leave a green trail in the game, but I'm afraid that's a case of special effects triumphing over good physics. It would make things a lot harder for X-Com if alien weapons don't emit light, as they wouldn't be able to pinpoint the location of an enemy from the muzzle flash.

[Dumb_Commander]

Gasvin only lost his consience. As for the sonic weapons, the aliens use a non lethal green targeting laser.

[Zombie]

The aliens use ultrasonic weapons, so would they emit any visisble light at all? I know they leave a green trail in the game, but I'm afraid that's a case of special effects triumphing over good physics. It would make things a lot harder for X-Com if alien weapons don't emit light, as they wouldn't be able to pinpoint the location of an enemy from the muzzle flash.

Well, sonic weapons probably wouldn't emit any light. In depths near the surface, the sound may irritate microorganisms and alge which could fluoresce and produce low levels of light. However, at deeper depths these organisms are probably not present.

 

- Zombie

[The Veteran]

We do kinda need them to emit some kind of light though don't we... We need to be able to see it, besides you can see it in the game and that's whta this is all about! Zombie, whiy don't you post something for us while you're here

[uriaheep]

We do kinda need them to emit some kind of light though don't we... We need to be able to see it, besides you can see it in the game and that's whta this is all about! Zombie, whiy don't you post something for us while you're here

 

 

Without wanting to sound nurdy, a sonic weapon could well leave a trail underwater. In air it wouldn't though, due to the movement of the air being invisible. In water, which is visible, the sonic weapon would create a bow wave so to speak as to make sound move along the molecules it has to agitate them. As they crash into each other they would create movement.

 

As we have to assume that the aliens can direct the pulse of the weapon this would create even more movement in the water thus creating the illusion of colour as the small amounts of light refract on the speeding ripples.