First off, we finish research on the final tier of armour. With this you can fly, have 360 degree vision and you'll be better armoured than anything short of Predator armour.
I will have to build 7 of these, for all but the heavies.
To do that, I set up a secondary workshop in North America. Right now the bottleneck is in engineering, not research.
We run a couple of UFO sweep missions to rack up some cash. We'll need a lot soon.
We finish interrogating an alien leader, and beans are spilled. Also, now we need to capture one of the rarest types of aliens. A Praetor.
You only find those on either Battleship UFOs or in Alien Fortress bases.
To help this along, our cryptology centres come online, which means that when we spot a UFO, we'll be privy to it's class, mission and complement, no matter which of our radar arrays pick up their signature.
This is the third and final tier of vehicle we will get. This one will hover over obstacles and water, has a lot of TUs and proper armour. Also, we can instantly fit it with the big mag cannon, which will blow shit up. Fun!
We start one up at the earliest opportunity.
This research project unlocks new visuals for our base again. I think this is it though. Don't remember any more visuals being upgraded later.
With the workshops in NA up and running, we ship alloys and alenium to that base, and order engineers, so we can start producing armour and interceptors there.
It takes a couple of days though.
First project is the new flying armours.
Our new Mag MGs are also coming off the production line.
The wait is over! Funny random fact, the 22nd of april is my actual birthday. Not 1980 though.
Our Marauders catch up to the battleship over the seas. I tail it until it's over land.
Buckle up guys! We're going in.
This is random. The praetor might be killed when you shoot down a Battleship. We got lucky here. It survived.
Then again, a praetor has this "aura of dread" thing, that has a random chance of affecting your soldiers each turn. If you are hit by it, your TUs are reduced by 30. If one of our heavies get hit by this, they do not have TUs enough to fire their gun.
The Battleship has a special layout, with two barricades with teleportes put down in front of the UFO. I actually prefer assaulting this type of UFO rather than the Carrier.
The inside of the ground floor of the UFO, and an outside view.
In general, rush the UFO so you can step through then back again on a teleporter, which will prevent the aliens from using it. Then you can move all of your soldiers up next to the teleporter and hit "end turn". You'll get a fresh 100TUs to rush the next teleporters and repeat.
As seen here.
This UFO has 4 floors. They seem less dangerous than the carrier, as there seems to be fewer aliens per floor.
This is the top floor, and the dude in white armour is our prime target.
Again, gather round, then breach on the next round.
I used the machinegunners to take out all other targets on the bridge. Then chuck stun and electroshock grenades at the praetor. Whiskeywolf get's the final blow in.
Surprisingly smooth. And yummy new research options!
The Singularity Core can unlock a true Fuck You button. We will have to get at least one more core though, as research will spend our first looted core.
A minor UFO cleared, for more cash.
This is the new armour. Blueish and slick. With a jetpack. Our snipers are now officially done, gear-wise.
Fusion explosives cap out our explosives types.
The final UFO xenopedia infopage. The Battleship can outrun all we got, except for our Marauders.
I seem to have hit the cap in some countries, and if UFOs there manage to do something before I shoot it down, relations will drop slightly. I guess that's the reason there are red numbers on this screen.
Our first hovertank comes online. I ship our hunter scout-car to the NA base. Then we can put the hovertank in our transport.
So, the singularity core will let us research two things. An interceptor that'll fuck up anything in the sky, and a hand-held cannon that will fuck up anything on the ground.
I prioritise the latter. It'll be Fun for the final mission.
With two production bases, we got two Marauders going simultaneously. We want to be able to catch a new Battleship wherever it spawns on the globe.
Ahhh.. Now we're cooking with fire. This is a literal Black Hole Cannon.
It's expensive though. And requires a singularity core to produce. Hence why we want to get to those Battleships when they show up.
Funny thing, researching this Hyperdrive does nothing aside from give us a Xenopedia entry. I cannot help but think something else was planned but had to be scrapped/streamlined.
Our team in their new duds. Looking sharp guys!
Not invulnerable though. When I get new toys, I tend to overextend. Again. Will I learn?
It got us a singularity core though.
On the way back from the crashed Battleship, I clear to smaller UFOs. We're strapped for cash, with what we've been spending.
Funny thing, the crashed (second) Battleship had a dead praetor inside, so we were spared the aura. And the autopsy finished just before the interrogation.
Interrogating the immortal unlocked the final research option. Before we do that, I want to get some other stuff done first.
This thing of beauty. We want one for each of our heavies if possible, before we tackle the Endgame mission.
Even with max strength, just equipping this beast will hamper your TUs. And it takes 120% TUs to fire. Meaning it is only possible with the Predator armour, as it gives a discount on firing modes.
