Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Let's Play UFO - Aftermath : Victory!

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Alright, welcome to this, my first attempt at a Codex LP.

Inspired by the recent X-com LPs I decided to replay a series of games that were themselves inspired by the X-com games, but which I have yet to see be the subject of an LP here. Being a naturally lazy sort of person, I had hoped someone else would do an LP of any of these games, but finally I manned up, and here we go.
I'm pretty certain I'm going to regret this decision, and it's entirely likely that I'll abandon this LP before long, but I can handle the name-calling and jeers so I'm good.

Table of contents:
1: Introduction
2: First mission, cutting our teeth
3: Mutants, aliens and UFO dogfighting
4: An update on the soldiers
5: Research, Area 51 and more recruits
6: A look at the roster
7: Lasers, plasma weapons and weird and unlikely mutants
8: Armour, mutant autopsies and biomass appearing
9: Aircraft upgrades, a secret russian facility and biomass researched
10: Proper soldiers now
11: Requiescat in Pace
12: Turning aliens into fine red mist
13: Aliens join the team..
14: The end..
15: Victory!


There are three games in this UFO series, and I'll start out with the first one. There are two reasons for this:
A) If contrary to my initial assumption, I actually complete this LP there's the possibility of moving on to the other games in the series.
B) This first game in the series has an option to auto-resolve combat missions. There's a "delegate" button that lets the local militia try to handle the aliens.
Anyhoo, on to the screenshot part:



Behold! The title screen! I'd hoped to catch the intro video, but apparently, windows7 and this game doesn't like eachother that much. Be prepared we might also run into some rather strange graphical glitches later on. In this game we will be playing the role of the "Phoenix Company" and our job is to combat alien invasion.
This is the background story:
Code:
On May 25, 2004, a giant spacecraft approached the earth. Silent, it hovered
ominously over the world and began to release great clouds of spores into the upper
atmosphere. Rapidly multiplying, the spores soon darkened the skies, and before long
obscured the sun completely. In later days, this period would be known as the
“Twilight.”.
The spores, having reached critical mass in the skies, began to rain down. Over the
course of several days, they began to clog and streets and bodies of water, smothering
people in their homes and burying animals in the wild. During the "Nightfall," as it came
to be called, most of the higher life forms on the earth were wiped out.
During the Twilight, all human responses were futile. Choosing caution over
aggression, the governments of the world didn’t realize how quickly the end could
come, and were buried alongside those that they governed. A few, however, did
survive, sealed in underground bases with stocks of food and oxygen. After several
weeks, the spores seemed to have disintegrated, decomposing and settling into the
soil. The world seemed safe again, for a time. This is where you come in: You must
gather together the remaining peoples of the planet, find out what has happened and,
if possible, get your revenge.

[EDIT]
Found the intro movie on youtube. Could've searched for it earlier, but apparently, I'm a lazy fuck who doesn't give a shit. :M



Of course, we play this game on hard difficulty, and me being a european, I decided that's where our initial base would be located.



This is a view of the Geospace. The territories outlined in light blue are those we currently control. The two white dots are our current bases, and the weird, broken-up circle with red and white edges is a mission. There are three kinds of bases currently available, military which can launch air interceptions or host a transport chopper for our squad, research which handles research obviously, and engineering in which we can manufacture new equipment. Later on we'll be able to construct anti-biomass bases to complement these initial three types.





We'll tackle the mission as soon as I get some volounteers for the first three recruits. :smug:
From the Geospace screen though, we can also reach the R&D screen which is broken up into two parts, the Research part and the Development part..




Not much to see in either yet.

And now, the recruits, accessible via the Squad button. There's currently 3 available. Two male, one female. I'll try to keep my recruits alive during these missions, but casualties will be unavoidable. It's not as simple to get new recruits as it is in the X-com games though, so do not expect that kind of bloodbath.
Here are the currently available recruits:





Each recruit has six attributes, three physical and three mental:



These attributes determine when a recruit is eligible for training and there's currently 7 different fields available for training in. Each training session improves a recruits skills, and cross training is possible, but you can only improve a skill through training once. So picking two trainings for upping your rifle skill for instance, will not give you +2 in said skill. Each level-up will see you with the opportunity to raise one of your attributes one level. The trainings available are these:









The skills and attributes are expressed on an eight-point scale which has these values, from poorest to best:
Awful => Poor => Average => Good => Very Good => Excellent => Heroic => Super-heroic
The manual claims that
Code:
It is not true that Average is 3 and Good 4. The differences between the various levels increase as one ascends the scale, so these descriptions are actually more accurate than numbers would be.

And here's a further dump from the manual, on the skills and attributes, so you can better tailor in which direction you would like to see your recruit advance
Code:
There are fourteen skills in all. For easier orientation, we divide them into four groups.
Combat Skills
The combat skills are only used when calculating the chance of hitting. Each skill
applies to a different type of weapon. For more information, see "Attack Resolution."
Marksmanship   Influences the chance of hitting with sniper rifles
Rifles	               Rifle skill influences the chance to hit with assault rifles.
Handguns         Influences the chance of hitting with pistols and machine guns
Launchers         Influences the chance of hitting with rocket/grenade launchers
and other heavy weapons
Throwing          Influences accuracy and range when throwing grenades and
other objects
Defense Skills
Defense skills are a motley collection. The first skill, Psi power, is half an attack skill,
Hit points are not used in any calculation in the game, and Speed influences many other
things beside defense. Still, defense is one thing these skills have in common. For more
information, see "Attack Resolution."
Psi Power          Psi power influences the chance to hit with psionic attack and is
also the measure of the ability to withstand them.
Hit Points          The number of hit points – the amount of damage the soldier can
withstand – is calculated from this skill.
Speed               Speed governs how fast the soldier walks, runs, handles weapons
and generally the timing of most actions.
Dodging            Dodging is the soldier’s ability to avoid being hit.
Detection Skills
This is the smallest group of skills. Both pertain to the chance of spotting or being
spotted. For more information, see the section "Spotting Enemy."
Observation       Observation is the ability to notice enemies.
Stealth              Stealth is the ability to avoid being spotted by the enemy.
Other Skills
The following skills do not fall into any of the previous groups:
Capacity            Capacity influences how much the soldier can carry.
Aliens                Aliens skill enables the soldier to hit enemies more effectively.
Medical              Medical skill is the ability to heal wounds in the field.
2.4.3 Attributes
Attributes are the fundamental statistics. The Skill values are derived from them. See
"Relationship Between Skills and Attributes," below.
Physical Attributes
Strength            Strength influences mainly Capacity and skills with respect to
heavy weapons.
Agility               Agility influences mainly Speed and Rifles.
Dexterity           Dexterity influences mainly Dodging and Handguns.
Mental Attributes
Willpower	        Willpower influences mainly Psi Power and Marksmanship.
Intelligence	Intelligence influences mainly Aliens and Medical skills.
Perception   	Perception influences mainly Observation and Stealth skills.
Alright you grunts. Can't be arsed to write any more right now. Instead, I now crave at least 3 volounteers. Pick a career path, tell me how you want your recruit to train and I'll try not to get them killed too soon. Let's get on with this LP, shall we?
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Current roster:
Bee
Storyfag
JoKa
PopeAmole
dextermor
Phoenix
spekkio
Gondolin
chzr
K. Slips
Korenzel
Sergiu64
EdwardRM
Garf

Waiting in line:

The honoured dead:
Gondolin, fried by an incendiary missile
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Nice! Played the X-COM games a lot, but can't recall playing this one.

Bee is a female Psionic. Psi Power is of course a priority, everything else is up to you. :P

TheUnFlickable said:
251636.gif

Cute!
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Crooked Bee said:
Nice! Played the X-COM games a lot, but can't recall playing this one.

Bee is a female Psionic. Psi Power is of course a priority, everything else is up to you. :P
Bee can certainly aim for psi power, but if my calculations are correct it'll take 6 level-ups for her to qualify for training.


But then again, it'll take some time before psi usage becomes an option, so you're in.
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Storyfag said:
Never liked Aftermath. It feld kind of meh after the original UFO/X-COM games. But sign me up anyway :salute:

Meh alright, but it has kept me amused. Storyfag is in.
You'll go the soldier/sniper route, if you don't have any preferences.
 

Pope Amole

Educated
Joined
Dec 26, 2010
Messages
138
As soon as you'll need new recruits, Pope Amole will be ready for duty. In those dark times you can't leave folk without faith in next-gen goodness.
 

dextermorgan

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2009
Messages
4,176
Location
Ελλάδα
What patch/mod are you using? I remember playing vanilla (no patches) when it came out and the game was terribad. Never finished and didn't really follow afterwards.

Also, sign me up for a scientific position.
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Enroute to the first mission, a new one appears.



An opportunity to expand is nice. We'll need some research bases to get up to speed, and preferredly as quickly as possible.
Anyway, zoomed in on the Geospace, we see the chopper is closing in on the mission.



And the mission load screen fires up.



This screen tells us what the objective is, but most maps and objectives are heavily reused, so I won't be showing this screen very much.
Alright, we've landed, and here the brave three-man crew stands ready for whatever may come.



In the upper left we see the time-control buttons. Pause is left-most, followed by slow speed, normal and quick. This game is RTwP and simultaneous rounds. The upside of this is that most tactical missions are quick to handle.
Right next to the time-control buttons there's the abandon mission button and move on to the next level buttons. Neither of which will see use in this mission.
On the top right, there's the messages button, equipment button (for the selected soldier), the objectives button and finally the game menu button.
In the lower part of the screen we see our soldiers with icons next to their portraits. The top-most is their level. Our recruits aren't exactly intimidating yet. The next icon is the time left until the qeued actions are finished. And then there's a run/walk indicator and a kneel/stand indicator. Right clicking on the weapon can switch between aimed and burst modes, if the selected weapon supports this.
On the lower right is the command panel where you can specify orders to attack, move, kneel/stand, cancel current or all orders and plot waypoints.
Here's a recap of our mission objective and a screen of said objective.




That pulsating mass is what we're going to destroy. Looks delicious, doesn't it?
Immediately after unpausing the game, we spot the first enemy. A danglefly.



Nasty flying bugger totes an AK-47 no less. It is quickly killed due to spawning right next to two shotgun-wielding lunatics though, and our crew spots their second enemy, a morelman. More info on the enemies when we manage to research them. :salute:




The morelman quickly falls to combined fire though, as it was only packing a small handgun. :smug:



The team kills another danglefly and a morelman before destroying the objective with a grenade.




Then comes the debriefing screen.



I didn't catch a screenshot of it, but both Storyfag and JoKa levelled up and trained their Perception and Strength attributes respectively.
On the way back, we spot another mission, and we review what new research projects become available:





In the next mission update, we'll be expanding with another base and get started on some research.
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Pope Amole said:
As soon as you'll need new recruits, Pope Amole will be ready for duty. In those dark times you can't leave folk without faith in next-gen goodness.

We welcome PopeAmole (8 character limit on callsigns) aboard, our up-and-coming medic:
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
dextermorgan said:
What patch/mod are you using? I remember playing vanilla (no patches) when it came out and the game was terribad. Never finished and didn't really follow afterwards.

Also, sign me up for a scientific position.

I'm playing the 1.4, no mods installed. Fresh from GamersGate where I bought the bundle some days ago.
And you're on the list of waiting recruits. Need some to spawn in the base, but you'll get in.
 

Pope Amole

Educated
Joined
Dec 26, 2010
Messages
138
Azira said:
We welcome PopeAmole (8 character limit on callsigns) aboard, our up-and-coming medic:

[PERCEPTION] But PopeAmole is 9 characters!
[INTELLIGENCE] That means it's a 9 character limit on callsigns!

Oh, and it's nice to be medic. Does that mean that Pope can heal people by laying his hands on them? If so, he really would've preferred to save that option for Bee only and not for those two hairy, greasy, smelly males... Perhaps it's even a good idea to do some prophylactical laying ons, because you know, prevention never harmed anybody.
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Pope Amole said:
Azira said:
We welcome PopeAmole (8 character limit on callsigns) aboard, our up-and-coming medic:

[PERCEPTION] But PopeAmole is 9 characters!
[INTELLIGENCE] That means it's a 9 character limit on callsigns!

Seems I need to get my head examined. Yes, indeed, a 9 character limit.
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
Welcome back dear readers! I promised you a base expansion so we could get started on some research, but I have much more for you than just that. :incline:
This game keeps throwing missions at me, so unless something interesting occurs, I'll just be showing the debriefing screens.
The intrepid team of 4 brave codexers set off to combat the mutant menace.



With great succes:



They do encounter larger and more exotic mutants though.



That prove interesting diversions, but little match.



And soon the team earns enough experience to start levelling up again. This time I did get a shot of the level up screens.




As you can see, JoKa focuses on the physical aspects of his training, whereas Bee is more the cerebral sort. :roll: Soon though, our R&D department has finalized the technology to start detecting UFOs.




The 4-man crew keep on killing mutants while we wait for UFOs to show up.



We don't have to wait long though, a tiny UFO appears in the night sky.




Followed shortly by a larger one.



The small UFO is quickly intercepted and shot down.






These last screenshots were taken with terribly poor timing, I'm sorry. In the view-screen you see the interceptors and the UFO in a dogfigt, and predictably, 3 interceptors against 1 tiny UFO ends in victory for the humans.



This also means a new type of mission, with a new type of enemy:





A tiny UFO only holds 2 aliens though, and at this point they're only armed with laser pistols which aren't that dangerous. Of interest though is that I hired dextermor in the meantime, a Pakistani sounding fella, strong as an ox, but not very bright. He's the fifth member of the crew now.



In the introduction I mentioned that you can "delegate" missions to local militia, and sometimes they actually manage to win their conflicts:



On our way back from recovering the downed UFO we get this message:



Seems we must really get our research up and going soon, if we want to get anywhere.
The missions don't stop on that account though, and on one mission I make a mistake which almost dooms the entire crew. This little mutant looks rather harmless, does it not?



Well, it isn't. It's a living bomb more or less, and it makes it all the way to our group of soldiers, wounds them all seriously, and Bee is KO'ed, but first aided to her feet later.



She'll have to spend a couple of days in the hospital though. Sorry about that..

Anyway, we've now, with the help of the milita, captured some territory, and with it another base. I quickly re-designate it from military to research, the retrofitting should be done in 24 hours.



On another positive note, the militia found a cache of weapons, including more powerful shotguns.



JoKa gets one immediately.
Our research base is now up and running, and here's a new overlook at what subjects are now available for research. Bear in mind, this is a semi-blind LP, as this game is 8 years old, and I haven't played it since it came out originally. So I'll be picking research subjects on a whim, but if you want a say-so, speak up.



Here's what happens if you send your interceptors after a UFO that's a bit too large for them to handle:







On this happy note, we leave our crew behind for now. They're currently in training, except for dextermor who doesn't qualify for training yet, and Bee who's recuperating. We'll check in on them later. Any bright ideas on what we should focus on research-wise first?
Oh, and I'm aware my writing sucks, but I'm trying to jam a lot of action and info into these posts on a short notice, before I start losing the motivation to keep doing this LP. I hope you can get some enjoyment out of it regardless. :M
 

JoKa

Cipher
Joined
Nov 22, 2006
Messages
689
Location
Nordland
nice start you got there, and i'm very :smug: about being the fastest to level up so far. i'd focus on alien weapons research-wise (i played the game ~5 years ago, so no idea if that's a good idea), faster killing > surviving longer.
godspeed, brave LPer!
 

spekkio

Arcane
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
8,273
Holy shit, Azira's LP. In before abandoning.

:troll:

Sign me up, I want to kill some low-poly 3d aliens.
 

Azira

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
8,518
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Codex 2012
@JoKa
Not quite the fastest as you can see in this post, but that shotgun sure is handy when mutants and aliens get too close for comfort. :salute:
@dextermorgan
Don't worry, I'll build you towards science. You've yet to level up, but you'll get there soon enough. :smug:
@spekkio
You'll be next in line after phoenix joins up. At the moment though, I feel confident that the LP will live on for quite a while yet. Not at the same rate it's going now, but that's because I had this morning and afternoon for myself.
I will endeavour to keep the LP alive, even if the rate of update drops to one or two a week.

OK, I promised you an update on our recruits, here it is:
Storyfag leads by example and has collected the most xp due to having been equipped with a more precise, long-range rifle than the rest of the group. The basic weapons we start out with, we have an endless supply of ammunition for. This is not to say that troops on the battlefield does not run out of ammo, it just means that our stock in the base doesn't run out. Better rifles such as the HK G3 which Storyfag is wielding has limited ammo, 11 clips is what we currently have, and seeing as he's the best rifle-shot, he got that one.
The xp is bound to even out later though. But for now, Storyfag has the most xp, and therefore he was also the one to get issued with a piece of combat armor we found on happenstance.




Storyfag has just completed training in the sniper role, granting him additional accuracy with rifle and "marksmanship" weapons, of which we currently have none.




JoKa has completed training in the soldier role, affording him extra skill with his trusted shotgun, and more speed and health to boot! He'll be the next to get better armor. He'd have gotten it first, if his carry capacity had been greater.. Maybe he'll be focusing on training his strength attribute now? :smug:




PopeAmole has finished medic training, and is eyeing sniper training for the next session. Bear in mind though that training takes time, time in which you cannot go on missions and might lose out on valuable xp. That said, the improved accuracy that comes with the skill increases from sniper training would serve the Pope well, towards getting a bigger bite out of the xp-cake.




Poor Bee is in the hospital, under the tender loving care of our chief physician, a long-haired and bearded fellow who calls himself "The Viking"... Bee is anxious to quickly leave the med-bay and resume her post in the field. She's up for scout training next, as the required attributes coincide with the plan for her to wind up with psionics training.



Finally we have dextermor, our resident sand-nigger. He's sort of like a mascot to the team, and hasn't built his attributes to the point where hes eligible for training yet, but after just one more mission I suspect he'll be ready.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom