[Let's Play] UFO: Alien Invasion

[Force Lord]

Erg, forgot my camo. Urban camo requested.

[JonB]

Command Center, PLALANX HQ
Turkey, Greater European Union
02:00, 29 March 2084

dunn dunn DUNN DUNN

I snapped awake, realizing three things. First was that my phone was ringing. Second was that it wasn't a UFO alert. And thirdly that I had fallen asleep at my desk. Again.

It had been three days since we had secured the first alien vessel. The drop team, after they had come down off the party, had divided themselves into two squads based on their camo pattern. Dave, VortexEmpire, ForceLord and Alison all were in 'Blue' due to the Urban camo, while OmegaChief, Edi, Torben and Hawkwings were 'White' in their Arctic camo. I let them keep the organization.

The phone was still ringing, so I picked it up. "Director JonB."

"SirNitram here sir."

"It's 2 in the morning. You better have something good for me."

"Yes sir. Development of the Electromagnetic Rifle is complete. Academia Nut left a few minutes ago to go to Russia to acquire what he described as 'quality materials'. Sir."

"And to restock on his Vodka, I presume?"

"... Yes, Sir."

"Alright, I suppose he needed more after Blue raided his stockpiles."

"Yes sir, that he did. It was scary, watching him try to work while sober."

"I'll keep that in mind. Anything else?"

"We've sent the design specs to ForceLord for construction. He reports that he'll have the first weapon ready in 120h, with extra ammo packs 1/day afterward."



"Excellent. Now, why couldn't you have told me this in an e-mail in the morning?"

"Well sir, the research teams are working in shifts to keep up research at all times. We want to know what we should be focusing on now."

"Well, let me think. There's the Laser operations, the search for where the Aliens are coming from. In addition, there's the corpse that we recovered that needs autopsy. And the two alien weapons, the knife and grenade that you want to figure out as well. I miss anything?"

"No sir."

---

New Research time guys! Once again, our options are as such:

• Frikken Laser Beams – Laser Weapons from pistols to Aircraft sized. May be efficient to build and sell for additional money.
  Alien Origins – Where do they come from? Very important to open up the UFO research (once we get one intact)
  Alien Artifact: Kerrblade – Alien melee weapon.
  Alien Artifact: Plasma Grenade – It's a grenade, and can be thrown or used in our own Grenade Launcher. It's also using alien weapons against them!
  Alien Autopsy: Taman – We'll need to get to this eventually to figure out how to capture live specimens.

Your choice to research next guys! And you don't have to be a 'named' person in the LP to vote.

Everyone got what they wanted in terms of gear. You'll see it in action on the next mission. Hehe.[/i]

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm still saying alien origins.

[FaxModem1]

Frikken Laser beams. They're cool, they give our aircraft an edge, and we need the money.

[OmegaChief]

I vote yet again for Alien Origins, I mean come on guys, it's usful to know where they're coming from!

[Hawkwings]

Autopsy. We need to probe them before they probe us!

[Dave]

Autopsy. We need to probe them before they probe us!

[The Yosemite Bear]

we need to research cajun cooking, I'm sure there's a rescipie for cajun style alien mother-fucker in there....

[Torben]

This:

Autopsy. We need to probe them before they probe us!

Voted.

[SirNitram]

Wait, you want me to -touch- these things? I'm officially putting my meds on the R&D budget now.

[JonB]

4 votes for the autopsy, 2 for Origins, 1 for Lazer Beams. Alien guts it is!

---

"I want an autopsy on the aliens done right now."

I could hear SirNitram almost choke. "Y... Ye... Yes sir" he finally gagged out.

"Can you do the job, SirNitram, or do you find the thought of dissecting an alien so appalling?"

"Uh, no sir. I'll just need ready access to my meds. Sir."

Before I went back to sleep at my desk, I took a look at the rocket launcher that the ground team had handed to me after we came back from the mission. There was now an engraving on the side – JonB's BOOM STICK. I smiled, then went back to sleep, not caring to head back to the barracks.

00:00, 01 April, 2084
Command Center, PHALANX HQ
Turkey, Greater European Union

I watched the clock roll over, then checked PHALANX's finances for the windfall.





It didn't happen.

I checked again.

Same balance. 227,700c.

“MEETING OF ALL DEPARTMENT HEADS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

00:05, Command Center

I sat at the central table, holographic geoscape showing the sun on the other side of the world. “Our monies didn't come through. Apparently, the SecGen has 'allowed' the funding nations to 'charge for licensing fees' and such bullshit. We have about 1/5 the funds required to activate and upgrade an already existing base to the same capacity has HQ. I want opinions from the rest of you about what we should do.”

My second spoke up first. “Keep a reserve to replace battle losses. We may only have had one alien contact so far, but that's one more than anyone else has owned up to.” I nodded. “Alright, past that...”

FaxModem hummed. “We should consider building a dedicated UFO storage facility. Somewhere off-site, but nearby so we can take care of our own space issues. I expect we can have a site online in a week and a half. My boys have already sounded out a location and costs – 30,000c.”

RomanRepublic raised his hands. “I would feel better if there were some SAM sites adjacent to HQ, in case some alien gets too close, or if they come gunning for us directly.”

“While we're at it, why not build our own goddamn radar towers to cover the rest of the GEU and the MEA?” OmegaChief offered in return. “More radar means more area we can detect and react to UFO's for.

“Activate a second Base.” Academia suggested. “Keep it small at first – Command Center, Power Plant, Radar. See what finances we have left over, and expand it as we need too. I know that both my department and FaxModem's could use dedicated facilities.”

I thought about it. Had to make a decision sooner, rather than later.

---

Important decision time guys! Our own finances haven't come into play yet, so we need to decide what to do with our monies. I will be keeping a small reserve, but selling off excess UFO's should tide us over until May.

Right now, your options are thus:

1) Build a New Base. Tell me where and what to call it as well as what it should focus on. These will take 12 days to come online as that's how long it takes to build a Command Center and Power Plant.
2) UFO Storage Facility. We'll need this to store any captured UFOs so that we can research them, then take them apart for the resources. It needs to be placed near an existing base to maximize its efficiency.
3) Radar Sites. These areas provide Radar coverage for an area with a radius 1/4 the radius of a base radar. These I think should be used to cover gaps in major coverage.
4) SAM sites. These mount a pair of anti-aircraft weapons, and can cover the same area as a Radar site.

A thing to note is that we are limited to three sub-sites per base, so I'll need to invoke option one in order to build more Radar/SAM sites in the future.

Decide guys!

[JonB]

It was... politely suggested to me that I provide all of you with maps of the world to make your suggestions on potential base locations for. So - Ghetto Edit Time!


The world around PHALANX HQ. All images are at the same 'distance', so you can easilly guess how big base-radar coverage would be. This base covers most of the GEU and the MEA.


A shot from the North Pole. The lack of polar ice is not an indication of global warming, but to prevent people from trying to place a base on the icepack.


Roughly centered on New Africa, you can see PHALANX HQ to the NE while South Africa is part of Oceana.


The Revolutionary Countries / South and Central America.


North America with Greenland as part of the GEU.


Two-For-One shot of Russia and the Asian Republic.


Oceania has the widest territory to protect, no one Base will cover it. You'd need three.


Yes, you can put a base in Antarctica. But why would you? *cough*

There you guys go, hope this helps!

[The Yosemite Bear]

well you put a base in antartica so that kurt russel can be bad assed. take on lovecraftian horrors, and shape shifting alien infiltrators before finally committing scuicide by walking out into the cold.

[Hawkwings]

I vote for a new base. We should reward the Asian Republic for giving us so much money, so it should cover most/all of that country. I'd recommend putting it on Hainan Island, as that way we should cover all of the Republic, plus a fair bit of the Commonwealth of Oceania. As for what it should focus on and the name? A manufacturing base would be good for pumping out large quantities of weapons and selling them to the highest bidder. Name it "Killfuck Deathkill Land" or something similarly sourced from the soldiers.

[Torben]

Hawkwings' solution makes sense, and it will also allow us to cover the largest portion of Earth's population from terror attacks and such. Consider Asian area base seconded.

[OmegaChief]

I third the Asian base solution.

Needs a catchier name though.

[JonB]

I built the basic base to show you guys where the radar coverage would be for that island. Pic is below so you can all evaluate whether or not this is the right position:



(oh, and during the time frame I zipped through for that, only one additional UFO appeared. Was quite dissapointed.)

[Academia Nut]

*kerrr**kerrrr**kerrrr*

"Why the fuck does it make that noise?" Academia Nut wondered while swinging the captured kerrblade around idly. He had not yet received the go ahead to figure out the structure of the alien blade, but he would eventually. Considering how much it took to kill the bastards, he wouldn't be surprised if they needed to research how to make the tough yet wicked sharp material to make the scalpels necessary to perform autopsies on the corpses they dragged in.

Humming and hawing for a moment he then said, "Well I support a new base on Cuba, we could call it Rum Ru... err... yeah, screw it, we'll call it Rum Run. It'll be good for morale!" He then added on in a mutter, "Especially with this funding bullshit..."

[The Vortex Empire]

A new base in United America, 'cause we gotta protect all the real 'murcans!

[Torben]

The issue I see with a base in/near UA is simply response time. By the time we detect a UFO in this region, scramble fighter/dropship, and actually fly there, we will have most likely lost contact with the target. At least until hangars and fighters are purchased for the new base. Having another base near our command center allows us a broader detection/reaction zone and a higher likelihood of successful interception.

As for exact location - works fer me. Gives us a small blind spot that can be filled in later with extra radars and a large detection zone for likely contacts.

[FaxModem1]

Fax Modem votes for Asia as well.

"We'll need the funding. Also, a manufacturing base is our safest bet, we're going to need the supplies."

[JonB]

So far the votes are 4 for China / Asia Republic, 2 for America, 1 for Antarctica. I'll give it until this evening (about another 6 hours) for people to vote, then I'll build the base and advance the clock to the next mission / major event.

[Torben]

As for the name...

An old competitor in a hot-seat game of MOO2 named a class of super battleship "Puppylick 13". Due to the sheer random non-sequitur-ness of it, I have always tried to include it in any strategy game I play. As such, that is my recommendation.

[Dave]

I'll throw in another for China / Asia.

Gear it towards manufacturing -- labor's cheap over there, I hear.

[Torben]

I'll throw in another for China / Asia.

Gear it towards manufacturing -- labor's cheap over there, I hear.

You forget the time frame. By now, China will most likely own most everything. However, we will probably get enormous tax breaks by defending the populace from the slimy xeno hordes.