Let's Play UFO Extraterrestrials - Finale

[Donaroriak]

Sign me up good sir... I too want an embodiment with a horrible character portrait ;-)

 

[lightbane]

"What do you mean that I must rest until my partially burned spine is grown back? That was nothing but a flesh wound!!"

Also, you should use the new character portraits, the vanilla ones are terrible... Still, cool update! But be careful, once you go full retard with Steam, there's no turning back...

 

[dextermorgan]

"What do you mean that I must rest until my partially burned spine is grown back? That was nothing but a flesh wound!!"

They told you it was your spine? I guess they didn't want you to get upset and complicate your recovery... From a severely ruptured colon and torn sphincter.

That's right son. You dun got raped probed.

 

[Azira]

I've got another update in the works, should come online within a few hours. I've update the roster on page 1 as a teaser..

 

[Crooked Bee]

In the enemy turn, a purple hovering alien spits corrosive acids at Bee! She takes a serious hit

but remains standing.

 

[Black]

Aw shite, night mission already? Better spam nades, or else!

 

[Azira]

night mission, terror mission

Last time we were just about to start a night mission. How hard can a night mission be you ask?
Let's find out.



We've barely moved from the entrance to our transport and we've already encountered 3 aliens and CrimsonAngel is sucking dust..
This mission would be a proper nightmare if I hadn't brought plenty of grenades.
CrimsonAngel isn't dead yet, so we try to patch him up using a stimpack.




Seems we need to develop a proper medikit.. Stimpacks can be used to recover from damage, but they cannot seal critical wounds.



Here we see that Desmodus Rotundus has also taken a dirtnap. These aliens mean business!




Lucky for the rest of the team, there's only 7 aliens in total, and the rest are soon killed.
Black and korenzel level up.




I'm really warming to grenade spamming and I'm seriously considering making a few more of you into dedicated grenadiers.
Storyfag's and Eklektyk's wounds aren't severe fortunately, they will soon be back in business.




I'm going to work with spotters and marksmen and some grenadiers. Those experienced (korenzel and Eklektyk for instance) will hang back a bit, letting the greenhorns take the incoming fire, and in return kill the offending aliens from a distance. Tough, but I can barely afford to lose our most experienced soldiers, as they are also those with the best accuracy.



Back at the base, the alien containment facility is finally finished. Now we just need to capture some aliens so we have something to stick into the facility.
The end of the month comes, and cash flows into our coffers.



Emboldened by this influx of cash, I decide to commission a new base to house our interceptors, as per korenzel's advice.



This new base sets us back 950.000 cash however, so for now it's only these two bases. I've built this second base in a territory right next to our primary base, as it'll take some time for a detection system to be built in the new base. Therefore, I need to have the interceptors close to our headquarters, for them to be helpful in bringing down UFOs.




Research on the chaser finishes, and we can see that it's rather vulnerable to our armaments, and it won't be carrying heavy weaponry if the UFOpedia is to be trusted. That's a small comfort.
We immediately shift research to developing better medikits. We can't keep up the current losses.



While waiting for the research to finish, we spot another scout class UFO and scramble our interceptors.






If we shoot down UFOs over water, they disappear. I want to be able to salvage the wreck however, so I withdraw the interceptor the UFO is firing at enough, so the UFO follows it over land. Once shot down, we send in the ground crew.












I grenades! And I seriously prefer day time missions. This was so much less of a hassle than the night time one, though I suspect that luck also plays a part. Anyways, I'm not complaining, only one soldier wounded, 70.000 cash made from bounties and some nice loot to boot! And three promotions as well.





Warcupine and Eklektyk improve their shooting accuracy to become marksmen, and DamnedRegistrations is groomed to be our second grenadier. He hasn't used his pistol once yet, as grenades seem much more effective. The only time they don't work well is when the annoying larva aliens hover above ground, so I cannot ignore shooting accuracy completely. That, and there will be more hovering alien types later..
Back at the base we finish building our second workshop.



And shortly thereafter, research on the medikit finishes!





They're darn expensive however, so I decide to only produce one of the for now, as we're already running low on cash. Scientist and technician salaries are draining funds rapidly..



We soon spot another scout class UFO, but this one is on the ground. Suspicious! We'd better take it out and fast.



Another night mission! This time however, I do not skimp on the grenades..











And we manage to round up and kill all aliens without losing any soldiers! Warcupine got wounded by a larva however. He seems to be doing that a lot.. Anyway, more promotions were awarded, and we spend the levelup points.






Shooting accuracy across the board, except for korenzel who keeps up improving on strength and throwing accuracy. That 75+ looks delightfully close now.



korenzel is also outfitted with our first (and so far only) medikit built! Noone is stronger or better protected, plus korenzel hangs back and lobs grenades, so I didn't think anyone would be better suited to having the 'kit.





Research finishes on the laser pistol, and we can now research the laser rifle. We're seriously running low on cash however, and we need to be able to pay our soldiers, so we cut back on all research and production until the end of the month.




This isn't ideal, I'd want better arms soon, but we have to make do. And then again, grenades seem to serve us well so far, even if they do cost 500 a piece.
Scout UFOs aren't the only type around however, and we soon spot a larger type, the fighter.



We scramble our interceptors, but before they can reach it, it lands and a terror site mission appears!
Nothing for it, we need to act on this. We scramble the transport and start saying our prayers.




"Move in pairs". That sounds reasonable. But I think I'll do better than that and only split the team up in two groups of four, at least in the start of the map until I've killed the first handful aliens.




Just outside the transport, DamnedRegistrations spots a chaser and misses the mark with his first grenade. Lucky for us, he doesn't receive any critical hits and his second 'nade takes down the beast.



The alien movement phase is noticeable longer, and there's a second hidden movement phase for the civilians as well.



We soon spot a new type of alien, the snakeman looking Vipons. They're large units, taking up 4 squares. A fact that can be exploited at some parts of the map, and it also means they're easier to hit. Unfortunately, they can also take quite a punishment.




First Pope Amole fires a stun rocket, doing zero damage! Then Eklektyk auto-fires at the beast twice before felling it. This is why we need to move in pairs. One soldier might not be enough to take down one of these, at least not with our current armaments..



Warcupine finds a larva and takes damage.. What's up with this larva fetish of his?! At least he kills the offending alien with a grenade, but he also reveals a vipon a bit further inside the building.



Black easily disposes of the wounded alien, and the soldiers cautiously advance.



Inside the building, during the alien phase Bee is targetted with some kind of morale draining attack which originated from this lumbering creature called a hallucinoid. Like the vipons, they're also large, presenting an easier target. This particular one however, is hiding behind some benches.




Benches that do not protect against grenades it seems. Note however it took 150 damage to fell this beast. We'd better keep on our toes.



DamnedRegistrations finds himself face to face with a chaser who, lucky for him, displays amazingly poor marksmanship.



He repays this with a grenade. How I love those explosions. :twisted:






We enter the large building, finding human corpses but no aliens




Until a larva ends its turn outside a window within view of Black.
The next couple of turns are spent looking for what seems to be the last alien.



And in the corner of the map, we find a chaser trying to put the hurt on Storyfag without much success. He presents it with a live grenade as a thank you present.



Seems this terror site wasn't that terrifying. And since we healed Warcupine of the damage he'd taken from the larva, he doesn't have to spend time in the hospital when we return! I'd better try and remember to heal everyone as soon as possible, to save on hospital time.



Black maxes out his shooting accuracy. Each soldier is premade with a maximum rating for each skill, so while Black's shooting accuracy cannot go higher than 88, that doesn't mean that Eklektyk has the same maximum. I decide to also boost Black's reactions, in the hopes that I can get some surprise rounds into aliens in later missions.



Pope Amole receives a strength boost as he's lugging around a rocket launcher, the rest goes into shooting accuracy.



I noticed Warcupine's reactions were shit poor, so I boosted them as well. If he wants to get up close and personal, we'd better make sure he has the reflexes to go with that.



And Eklektyk.. 97 shooting accuracy! Again, we boost his reactions to get more pot-shots in the alien turn.



And finally we continue building DamnedRegistrations into one powerhouse of a grenadier.



We got a few more research topics from this mission, but they'll have to wait until march.






Another fighter type UFO is spotted, this time it's shot down and the team is sent to deal with any survivors. This will be a daytime mission, but what types of aliens will we find, and will there perchance be a commander amongst them? We'll find out next time.

 

[Ovg]

If you need some meatshields Fat Boobs is ready to go.

Male, female, tranny or whatever.

Melee/Stormtrooper

 

[Storyfag]

Can you try and take a screenshot of a crashed/landed UFO?

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

Figures that I'd be among the first to die, and if I read correctly people should start dropping more often so re-enlisting is the only option.

 

[Azira]

Can you try and take a screenshot of a crashed/landed UFO?

The reason I haven't is that we've currently only taken scout size UFO's, and all aliens were found outside them. The fighter we've just shot down should have a few aliens inside, meaning I get the chance to honour your wish.

 

[Medic]

Sign me up as Medic. Assault rifles, nades for storming shit and other stuff.

 

[Ulminati]

Warcupine singed up to blow shit up, not to shoot it. Gief grenades NAOW!


As an aside, this has to be the ugliest-looking game I ever saw :gfxwhore:

 

[Black]

Hey, Eklektyk, it seems we have to show those rookies how things are done

 

[Damned Registrations]

Looking good so far. Hope my gunmanship skills will be used somewhat with the laser pistols. 15% TU's for a shot is pretty paltry.

 

[eklektyk]

Hey, Eklektyk, it seems we have to show those rookies how things are done

Fine with me.

For a moment there I thought I'll need to reenlist to keep killing xenos....

hot action and lots of emotions.Only thing missing is some xeno geting stuffed with stun rod....

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Well that was Anti-Climatic.

 

[Black]

WHERE'S THE UPDATE

 

[korenzel]

I believe maximum values for stats depend on a soldier's starting ones. Since I mostly hired soldiers with either good shooting or throwing, I could usually cap these at near one hundred, even though it's not really needed to hit ninety-nine percent of the time.

I think you should start preparing for the first UFO swarm, by having at least four decently equipped interceptors. The monetary reward is extremely useful in a game where I found myself constantly short of funds. You can also get some useful (overpowered) items, which are better off sold than used as they break the game.

 

[Azira]

Update shouldn't be too far off, and yes, preparing for a swarm would have been a good idea but I haven't had the cash to expand to yet another base with 2 more interceptors, so we'll have to see if the initial two can cut it.

 

[Azira]

Update is a bit delayed, but I've updated the roster. I just need to arrange the screenshots and write comments.

 

[Azira]

Damnit, I'd hoped to finish the update before I had to go to work for this evening. I'll try to wrap it up when I comes home, as the update is almost ready.

There's a UFO swarm, the death of a squad mate, and a base defense mission! M:

 

[Black]

Hear that, eklektyk? You died!

 

[Azira]

If I were to start the game over, I'd do some things differently, but restarting the game now would be poor form for an LP, so we soldier on.
I've had requests for pics of the UFO's, and we'll get such in this LP. Let's start out with an explsion though, everyone loves explosions, right?



This is warcupine using 3 grenades to kill a single chaser. That's right, 3. Better work on his throwing accuracy, this is embarrasing..



Here we see part of a crashed UFO of the fighter type. It's pretty badly damaged from the crash, and a single alien was found dead inside. There were two live ones that were blown to bits with 'nades.



Unless the missions turn out to be interesting in one way or the other, I'll probably just show the results screen, just as Storyfag skips the floater mission details in his Enemy Unknown LP.




Bee and Storyfag get well-deserved promotions both.





The next mission sees us recovering a scout type UFO, this one mostly intact. As we near the crash site, a chaser exits the UFO and eats a grenade. Inside the UFO, the last alien is found, and Black throws it a little present.



Getting through missions without outright losing teammembers isn't too hard at the moment, but we do take a lot of punishment, and quite often people get KO'd and need between 25 and 40 days of rest in the hospital afterwards.. If I didn't have a healthy pool of volounteers, we'd be hard pressed to assault downed UFOs.




We finish building more labs in our main base, and we now have 50 scientists to whom we can assign projects. Scientists are expensive however, so they will be used sparingly on select projects, at least until I get to research the plasma type weapons, so I can sell some of the loot I get during missions. I strongly suspect however, that I need to capture an alien commander to get to research plasma, and I have yet to see a single commander.
They're easily distinguishable during mission, due to different skin-colouration.



Sometimes there are aliens waiting just outside the transport when you land.



Sometimes they're standing close together.



Presenting a tempting target for our grenadiers.



We need someone with better throwing accuracy than Storyfag however.



korenzel lends a hand.



A mission without any wounded. I like these desert maps, as there's good visibility paired with strategically placed objects to hide soldiers behind.





Storyfag, Warcupine and korenzel all level up. The stat increases were distributed before I read that Warcupine desired higher skill with the throwing of explosives, hence his increase in shooting accuracy.




We finally finish research on the laser rifle. Looks useful, but I've yet to produce any.





Eklektyk and DamnedRegistrations grow ever more deadly. And yes, higher reactions is worth it.



This map was a nasty surprise. Two vipons just outside the transport.. DamnedRegistrations finishes them both off with two expertly thrown grenades. One of the vipons managed to retaliate and injure korenzel, but only slightly.



These purple circles are the attack animation when hallucinoids target your troops. It's some sort of psychic attack that drains willpower and can cause paralysis. Paralysis only lasts a single turn however, so unless you insist on moving your troops in one-man formations, paralysis is seldom that big a threat.



There were a lot of enemies on this map just waiting to assault our transport it seems.



In some maps there are human made buildings to explore. Aliens can and will use these buildings for cover and you will have to flush them out.



Forgot to take a screenshot of Black's promotion, sorry about that.



The end of the month comes, and the Patria territory in particular seems less than content with how we're handling the alien attacks..



Patria is a very large piece of territory and almost all of it outside our radar range. Ohwell, can't be helped. We'll expand their way as soon as possible, but for now, they get to nurse their butthurt.



More fighter type UFOs show up and are shot down. There's a small exploit in this game, in that when your interceptors land, their ammo is immediately restocked, and when you re-launch them, the UFOs will have picked a different target in the meantime, making cycling your interceptors out of harms way much simpler.



We manage to capture a few aliens, yet none of them are commanders, so we only keep one of them alive for questioning.




Bee and DamnedRegistrations are both promoted.



This is a fighter type UFO seen from the "south" side, where the entrance is. We don't get to see more of the inside of the UFO however, as the aliens rushed outside and die in our crossfire and grenades. If only there were such a thing as grenade reaction fire..





Storyfag and Eklektyk continue their career ascent.



A couple of missions back, we had a lot of injured soldiers, meaning we needed to fill the vacancies with some of the newcomers. This means easy promotions.






Then again, promotions are promotions, and every skillpoint someone improves means they get that much more useful and deadly.




Now we're talking! This is heavy equipment, which means troops armed with one of these slow down to walking pace. But this puppy packs a punch, and it can fire in bursts.. :twisted: I immediately order the production of 10 of these, even though they're pricey, in the hopes they will improve our deadliness.






Research into the live chaser and dead vipon also finishes, and we get some more info on that account. Apparently, the aliens we've encountered so far are engineered for war, which begs the question, who engineered them, and will they be joining the fray as well?



Here I actually see the improved AI in action. The chaser cannot shoot at us, as there's no line of fire, so instead it chucks two plasma grenades at Donaroriak.



Lucky bastard he is, he manages to cling to life, and we finish the mission shortly thereafter.




Eager to improve the efficiency of our interceptors, I order research into better weapons for them, and our first project finishes, a marginally better cannon. It's not much, but at least it's a step in the right direction.



Another fighter UFO recovery. This one took heavy damage upon impact.



So heavy that the remaining live aliens didn't manage to hurt our soldiers noticeably.




Ashery and Storyfag are promoted.



And this is the thing korenzel talked about. A UFO swarm. And we currently only have 2 interceptors and radar cover for less than half the globe. We're still going to try and nail the leader however, as 920.000 cash sure would help things a lot.
I didn't count, but I believe I saw about 7 or 8 UFOs in that swarm, meaning a lot of recovery missions (some of the UFOs were shot down over seas, but far from all).






Anus_pounder, Black and korenzel all earn a promotion.





Fat Boobs and Warcupine level up, and this time I start improving Warcupine's throwing accuracy and strength.



Two crashed UFOs and an undamaged fighter. The red bars next to our craft is current health, the yellow bar is remaining fuel. You cannot lose a craft by letting it run out of fuel. It'll automatically return to base when reserves are low, and once it does, you cannot change its orders.





Ashery and DamnedRegistrations are promoted.



If you look closer at this scout UFO, you can see it has purple lights flashing, and not blue. This means that this UFO is part of the swarm. Unfortunately, it was not the leader, so we did not receive a reward when it was shot down.




Anus_pounder is promoted.




Fat Boobs is promoted.



These two scouts were not the leader either.



Anus_pounder takes a shot directly to the face and crumbles.



Storyfag tages revenge.



Here I caught the hit animation of a laser blast. The heavy lasers are nice for killing stuff. Who would have thought?



No promotions, but injuries sustained..





This is what you see when you use a medikit to patch up a KO'd soldier. You can stabilize the grunt, but they won't rejoin the battle.




korenzel receives yet another promotion. With strength and throwing accuracy at maximum, I decide to build action points, so we can use korenzel as a scout.



Fat Boobs...

We hardly knew you.





As a slight consolation, Lightbane and Pope Amole receive promotions.



Another UFO of the fighter type shows up, and I scramble the interceptors expecting another UFO crash recovery. I'm surprised however, when the UFO circles the interceptors and makes for the base!



This is the base attack resolution screen. If you have base defenses in place, they get a chance at shooting down the offending UFO before it lands and the aliens assault the base. In this case, there were no defenses.

Ruh-roh. Better scramble our transport and take the base back..
10 days however, I don't exactly feel rushed. I guess this is put in place to allow you to get the best and brightest soldiers ready? I don't know. I scramble the transport immediately anyhow, as there's currently no crashed UFOs to scavenge.





We get a new "mission loading" screen, as this is a base defense mission.




We start in a hangar and immediately fan out. For some reason, I didn't take any screenshots of the actual fighting inside the base. It was pretty non-descript. A few hallucinoids, a couple of vipons and about 4 or 5 chasers. An easy mission.
Note, that even if you do not fully expand a base, the map you're fighting on will be the same size. Instead of actual rooms in the base, you get earthen tunnels. I guess this represents the groundwork being in place, ready for your expansion later.. It also means more hidey-places for the aliens of course, but rooting them all out wasn't too much of a hassle.





Drakron and Ashery are promoted.



And our base in Seathopia is back to normal, interceptors included.



The turn of the month sees a much needed influx of cash. It seems a territory with a base in it has a max income of 467,999$, compared to 292,500$ in a non-base territory. That's 175,499$ extra I'd like to lay my clammy hands on.
A little math reveals that a base consisting of the compulsory power unit, two hangars and a radar, together with two interceptors will cost 185,000$ a month in upkeep. So such a base in a territory, compared to no base in said territory would mean a meagre loss of 9,501$ a month. Now, outfitting such a base will cost 1,040,000$ for the facilities, and 360,000$ for the two interceptors, totalling at 1,400,000$. If the interceptors come fully equipped that is. If I also need to buy weapons and a shield, they will cost 89,000$ more each, raising the total cost to 1,578,000$. This is a one-time investment however and will also mean that you get better radar coverage, meaning more UFOs spotted and better chance of shooting them down, leading to greater profits from bounties and loot. M:
All in all, I need to expand as soon as I have the spare cash.



That said, I immediately commission a new base built in the Pulsar region, meaning to expand to Patria next.




To further facilitate keeping our skies clean, the scientists wrap up research on the laser cannon. Now this looks like a proper upgrade to the ship cannons. I need to produce 4 of these for our interceptors as soon as the current project (the heavy lasers) finishes. Too bad I never caught the leader of that UFO swarm, I could have used the 920,000$, and it would've been fun to show you the unique equipment reward one gets as well. There will be more swarms however, so I'm certain I will get to show you that some time in the future.

 

[Black]

I found that base defence missions are really easy if you just choose to defend the hangar doors. Most of the aliens come one by one, getting obliterated by soldiers with semi-decent reactions.