No artifact mission in the near future I'm afraid, but one should come up eventually.
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UPDATE 24 - Retaliation
At the end of the last update, both teams were feeling confident after succeeding two flawless recoveries.
Gauss Rifle, for which research had been stalled for more than four months, finally completes. It is inferior to our current sonic weapons, and is only a stepping stone.
A very large sub shows up on Atlantic-1's sonars. It is going at full speed, at a shallow depth, and is heading straight for our base...
Aquanauts barely have enough time to prepare when the sub touches down and aliens start pouring in the airlock.
Hovery starts in the worst possible spot. He quickly retreats behind the doors.
While moving toward the airlock, aRyan sees a thermal shock bomb fly right past him and hit the wall. The blast dazes him seriously but isn't enough to render him unconscious.
He turns right and finds the shooter. He answers with a blast of his own weapon, and the gilman dies.
Azira V begins to scout the base for any early intruders, but is shot down by something hidden to the north.
RIP Azira V
, the cloning VATS will have your replacement ready in no time.
anus_pounder opens the door leading out of the closet he was hiding into, finds the culprit and kills it.
Hovery and lightbane take position near the main doors, and lay out proximity mines in the walkway.
Meanwhile, Gondolin explores the back of our defensive line and finds a Deep One.
Shepard goes EXTREME on it, and drills it to death.
TripJack spots another Deep One at the far back of our base.
A pulser ends the talented sneak's career.
The first proximity mine explodes.
The second follows right afterward. Gilmen are heard screaming in agony.
Hovery opens the main door, and ends up face to face with two aliens.
He shoots the first one with a point blank snap shot.
Then takes care of the other one!
A turn passes, and lightbane opens the main doors again. A gilman is standing right next to him, but falls quickly to point blank sonic fire.
A gilman manages to open the main door, and is promptly shot down by a reaction fire from Hovery.
Few turns later, aliens have decided to launch an all-out assault.
Hovery shoots one down, but doesn't have enough TUs to continue his killing spree..
aRyan, in the corridor leading south, takes careful aim, but hits lightbane instead of an alien.
RIP lightbane mk3
, you should have had a suit of armor and survived, but I forgot to equip it when the sub appeared.
The next turns, the northern aliens rushes through the doors. Now visible to any incoming hostile, Hovery falls prey to a rifle's sonic blast.
RIP Hovery
, you were shaping up to become an excellent sniper.
Oscar shoots down the alien that made it through the main doors.
Doors are opened to allow our snipers in the southern corridor a line of fire. aRyan, with no soldier in the way this time, hits the rifle wielding gilman easily.
Black IV tries his luck at the unarmed alien, but misses.
The next turn, Black IV opens the doors and finds an alien right in front of him. He shoots it down.
Since alien can and will open doors even with soldiers standing behind them, I change my tactics a little. Black IV will wait in ambush a little way from the door, and rush to open it at the beginning of each turn.
It works well, and aRyan has no trouble shooting down one gilman.
anus_pounder shoots down another.
But not before eklektyk tried his new M.C. reader. This alien is the weakest of all gilmen, but is still better than most of our snipers...
Another turn, another batch of alien charge blindly from the airlock.
aRyan shoots one.
The two other snipers miss their shots, so kazgar steps up and drills the Deep One.
An alien makes it all the way to our doors, and Banelion does a very risky reaction fire. The blast passes between two soldiers, and hits the gilman in the head. Banelion is asked to stop such dangerous behavior and look away.
More aliens are killed in what the team now refers as "the corridor of death".
The "corridor of death" claims another victim.
kazgar is now opening the doors, so that Black IV can have enough TUs to do two reaction shots if an alien manages to go all the way past the doors.
With such an easy target right in front of him, kazgar doesn't hesitate and tears the alien apart.
Alexandros joins the front door team, as they get ready to take the fight to the aliens. He witnesses the utter destruction.
A Deep One shows up. No need to waste ammo on this one, kazgar deals with it in melee.
A gilman makes it past the doors, and Black IV shoots ! He misses and hits the wall right in front of Alexandros.
The second reaction fire finds its target, but our secure perimeter is now breached.
kazgar discovers an unarmed alien ready to try his luck.
Zdzisiu shoots it down.
Yet another alien, although this one seems to want to run away.
No mercy from kazgar. He is killed from behind in a horrible manner.
Turns pass and no more aliens come knocking on the main doors. Time to start going after them.
It doesn't take long. kazgar finds a panicked gilman still in the airlock, kills it and the mission ends.
This defense mission went very well. We lost a few soldiers but killed many in return.
Selling the loot almost doubles our current cash reserves. If the end of the month committee doesn't cut back our funding, we should be able to commence a full blown Gauss Cannon manufacture very soon. Once that's set up, money concerns will be over.