Let's Play X-COM: UFO Defense!

[Hawkwings]

FUCK. TERROR. MISSIONS.

Also, White Haven is officially awarded a coupon good for a bottle from the Private Stash.

[Peptuck]

Also, White Haven is officially awarded a coupon good for a bottle from the Private Stash.

Seriously, he deserves it. He brought down three cyberdiscs and a house with a sectoid in it. He fired off so many rockets he had to run back to the Skyranger for reloads.

[The Yosemite Bear]

also we need to start researching alien grenades and shock launchers....

sure they are a lot of resources to build, but they give the opportunity for massive enemy causualties...

[Karza]

Wow, that went well. For me those damn sectoid terror missions tend to turn into complete clusterfucks thanks to the leader with psionics. Too bad he wasn't captured, that might postpone X-Com's entry to the mindfuck business by quite a lot. Granted, identifying and capturing that bastard is always a tad... harrowing.

[The Yosemite Bear]

are you sure he wasn't captured?

We did capture an alien alive in the last terror mission, and he had a pistol like all good officers...

[Vendetta]

are you sure he wasn't captured?

We did capture an alien alive in the last terror mission, and he had a pistol like all good officers...

It'll be the one with Weemadando's bootprints on it, and he was a medic.

Given that no psionics were recorded on this mission, the leader probably bought it in the opening rocket volleys.

[Peptuck]

Given that no psionics were recorded on this mission, the leader probably bought it in the opening rocket volleys.

I'm fairly certain that the one Ohma got in the alley was the leader. It was immediately after that that we started taking fire on the aliens' turns, and since we suffered no psionic attacks, it meant we got the leader by then, as the leader will psi the shit out of you if any of his troops have line of sight with anything you control. The other aliens were too close to the LZ to be leaders.

[Setzer]

Well, if there's still room for one more, I can work in the supply department. I'll be the lord and master of the storage rooms!

[Karza]

Well, this thread finally made me take up UFO too . First two months no casualties, one terror mission and a few crashed UFOs recovered, then came March and all hell broke loose. First a sectoid-crewed Harvester was caught intact on the ground, and in the resulting psionic clusterfuck 60% of the team died, but at least a leader was captured so psionics are now in the pipeline for X-Com too. Beware you gray fuckers, you'll get a taste of your own medicine in a few months. The next operation was assaulting a Terror Ship that was shot down over Sahara. The result of that was an even worse psi-clusterfuck exacerbated by having to fight cyberdiscs at close quarters (ouch). Casualties on that one were tolerable, merely 70% .

It's such a lovely game .

[PeZook]

I am not quite sure how the hell you can beat the game without save scumming out of casualties: before long, aliens turn into psionic snipers, while fresh rookies can't shoot for shit, so get even more horribly slaughtered during missions...

The endgame is tedious enough as it is without having to train your psykers again and again and again for six months each so that they have an actual chance of surviving an ethereal encounter.

Also, my scientists are full of shit. "We are fighting a losing battle on earth". Yeah, with a 90% UFO shootdown rate, and aliens dependent on Earth for their food supply I'm sure their limited amounts of ships and manpower won't run out. Not at all

[Peptuck]

Well, this thread finally made me take up UFO too . First two months no casualties, one terror mission and a few crashed UFOs recovered, then came March and all hell broke loose. First a sectoid-crewed Harvester was caught intact on the ground, and in the resulting psionic clusterfuck 60% of the team died, but at least a leader was captured so psionics are now in the pipeline for X-Com too. Beware you gray fuckers, you'll get a taste of your own medicine in a few months. The next operation was assaulting a Terror Ship that was shot down over Sahara. The result of that was an even worse psi-clusterfuck exacerbated by having to fight cyberdiscs at close quarters (ouch). Casualties on that one were tolerable, merely 70% .

It's such a lovely game .

Somewhat cheaty method of dealing with psionics: Save at the beginning of the mission and play it normally. Figure out which of your guys the psi troops like targeting. Reload the mission, disarm him and leave him on the Skyranger/other transport.

90% of the time they'll target him and only him, leaving the rest of the team unmind-raped.

[Karza]

Somewhat cheaty method of dealing with psionics: Save at the beginning of the mission and play it normally. Figure out which of your guys the psi troops like targeting. Reload the mission, disarm him and leave him on the Skyranger/other transport.

90% of the time they'll target him and only him, leaving the rest of the team unmind-raped.

Yeah I know, but that and savescumming are the sort of tricks I'm just temperamentally opposed to. Anyway, the casualty rate goes way down once I get my own guys psi-trained and kitted with power armor.

The endgame is tedious enough as it is without having to train your psykers again and again and again for six months each so that they have an actual chance of surviving an ethereal encounter.

Been a while since I was far enough to have psykers, but as I recall the guys with good psi strength pick up the skill pretty quickly in the field. Just have them sit back in the transport spamming mind control on anything spotted by the more expendable soldiers.

[PeZook]

You could also have everyone unload their guns, send a rookie out of the transport, look which of the guys are being mind-raped and then have everyone else lock & load.

On later missions, you can have only that guy unload his gun.

I just save scum, though

Some people apparently don't like me, though, and made an x-com remake with battlescape saving disabled by default.

"Because it takes the fear away, and you should be afraid!" - and not have a job, kids or obligations, apparently

[Karza]

I just save scum, though

Some people apparently don't like me, though, and made an x-com remake with battlescape saving disabled by default.

"Because it takes the fear away, and you should be afraid!" - and not have a job, kids or obligations, apparently

Don't get me started on that . Even though I prefer to play X-Com and games like it without saving mid-battle, sometimes I do in fact need to unexpectedly leave the computer RIGHT NOW so I want the option to be there.

Restricting saves always seems retarded to me. There are good reasons to have free saving and it's not like keeping your finger off the save button is so monstrously hard if you want the extra challenge .

[Vendetta]

You could also have everyone unload their guns, send a rookie out of the transport, look which of the guys are being mind-raped and then have everyone else lock & load.

On later missions, you can have only that guy unload his gun.

I just save scum, though

Some people apparently don't like me, though, and made an x-com remake with battlescape saving disabled by default.

"Because it takes the fear away, and you should be afraid!" - and not have a job, kids or obligations, apparently

XcomUtil allows you to go all the way the other way and turn of psionics.

Of course this does mean you can't complete the last mission in one turn any more with chained psi attacks. Because they're just as game breaking when you get them as for the xeno scum.

[PeZook]

I always found psionics horribly annoying. Oh, you built the psi-lab on the 2nd day of the month? No psi for you! Wait 60 days before even knowing the statistics on your guys!

[Vendetta]

Psionics and (less seriously) the Blaster Launcher basically break the game at the tactical level, they're just too powerful and fuck over the normal tactical balance of play. (Though in your hands at least the blaster launcher has the limitation of expensive to build ammo)

[PeZook]

Psionics and (less seriously) the Blaster Launcher basically break the game at the tactical level, they're just too powerful and fuck over the normal tactical balance of play. (Though in your hands at least the blaster launcher has the limitation of expensive to build ammo)

Once the first alien base appears, Elerium effectively ceases to be limited and rare, though.

[Vendetta]

True. It's a pity supply ship piracy doesn't do anything more than tick the aliens off and get them to do retaliation missions more often.

Being able to starve a base out and then take it on with a weaker garrison would have been cool.

[MJ12 Commando]

Once the first alien base appears, Elerium effectively ceases to be limited and rare, though.

Well you can just shut the bases down ASAP without supply ship raiding, which is equally valid for the challenge of things.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Karza your not the only one, I got a steam account just so I could legally download a game I bought originally on 3.5" floppies....

[Peptuck]

Short update today. Prince of Persia calls.

-

The mood back at Skynerfed was a somber one as the team disembarked. Though they had stopped the alien invasion, taken one alien alive, and Colonel Haven was now sprouting three inches of spontaneous beard and had all the female base crew swooning over his impossible rocketry manliness, the team had suffered their first casualty. And more importantly, they'd lost another rocket HWP.

"FOUR HUNDRED GRAND!" echoed repeatedly down the hallways from Commander Wong's office.

It is currently expected that it will take us a week to replace the lost HWP.

In the meantime, our crack team of fifty of the best and brightest scientists in the world are hard at work trying to figure out the small launcher and how it operates. When asked for a progress update, Commander Wong received the following report:

Code: Select all

 From: Doctor Surlethe, Head Scientist, X-COM
To: Commander Michael Wong, X-COM
Subject: Progress report on study of Artifact #22, "Small Launcher" 

We have no fucking clue how this thing works.

Doctor "Yosemite" Bear immediately grabbed the box containing our sedated and cryogenically frozen prisoner and carted it off to our new Alien Containment facility, cackling madly the whole way there.

On the engineering front, Chief Engineer Fnord reports that his staff has cranked out more than twenty laser cannons, which have been eagerly purchased by various customers who are unaware of the defective design that will cause them to break down in a couple of months without X-COM-supplied parts. Profits from these sales are believed to be in excess of $2 million.

Two laser cannons have been mounted on Interceptor-02, piloted by Phred. Coalition's Interceptor, meanwhile, has been modified to carry six Avalanche missiles, giving it enough firepower to punch a hole in the sun.

For Vodkaville, we have almost finished construction of its radar array and the stores facility to contain munitions for its Interceptor. Once that is complete, we will begin construction of the remaining general stores and workshops, and begin moving new engineering staff in.

No new contacts occurred during the remainder of February. However, with the success of our rescue of Brasilia, we believe that the Council of Funding Nations will be pleased by our efforts.



What the Christ. Fuck you too, China! See if we ever save your asses from anal probing!

[Hawkwings]

Code: Select all

From: Hawkwings, Remote Tank Driver, X-COM
To: Commander Michael Wong, X-COM
Subject: The most recent HWP 

I'm sorry sir.  Ever since the base doctor posted guards equipped with guns breathalysers at my station, I haven't been able to focus on my work.  I'm certain my performance would rebound to pre-prohibition levels (and possibly even higher) if this impediment in my working environment were to be removed.

I'm just sayin'...

[Tasoth]

if you have a spare interceptor, have it patrol china for a bit. Assuming it can reach there. Ten to one, there's a base there.

[PeZook]

Being able to starve a base out and then take it on with a weaker garrison would have been cool.

Yeah, I thought it would be cool as well. After all, alien technology is utterly dependent on Elerium: what is a base commander gonna do without it, use sticks?

Though I actually think it should be entirely possible for Earth to win a war against the aliens by classic attrition: an "achilles heel" type of villain weakness was already a cliche way before 1993.

Also, while Cydonia is already absurdly easy (Four blaster launcher tanks + five blaster launchers for infantry = instant win), I find it amusing they didn't simply load a huge pile of nukes into the elevator and sent it down for the aliens to choke on