Mega Primus needs you - Lets Play X-COM Apocalypse!

[OmegaChief]

Exactly Hawkwings, they can't kill/rape/experiment on people that are already dead! Or take over a city tha's a giant smoking crater, this defence plan is GENIOUS!

[Force Lord]

Rifle or autocannon please. Let's see how long I'll last on the ground.

[Vanas]

As a poor expandable hoo-man, I'll take one of those laser sniper-rifles you mentioned. Nothing helps the morale on the front line than a beam of sizzly death flicking on and off a millimetre from their left ears.

[phred]

Sign me up as a pilot for whatever craft we wind up using to demolish defend the city. Preferably option 1, so I'm not screwed out of a job when we start taking the fight to them.

Also, name the base something appropriate. The Epicenter, or Ground Zero come to mind.

[Darkevilme]

Sign me up. Gimme a pistol and laser rifle, those with rifles tend to last marginally longer.

oh yeah and while i vote we have interceptors as our primary striking force i suggest we have a griffon located in the senate just in case that gets attacked and we cant get to it quickly.

[Torben]

I'll take defense in depth for a thousand, Alex.

Please give my clones grenades and other things that make the boom. YAY!!

[Narkis]

Sign me up as a hybrid psyker psionic. Or if we don't want any, as the guy with the stunner.

And my vote goes to Defense in Depth too. The city looks like it could use some restructuring.

[KrauserKrauser]

I'll take walking casualty/stepping on mines duty. I want to see how many times I can die and come back. Let's see if I can reach Jean Grey levels of resurrection.

[Tasoth]

Oh hell yeah! I love the shit out of Apocalypse! Sign me up and hand me a Tommygun Marsec machine gun!

[Ford Prefect]

Can I be the field commander again?

[MKSheppard]

I like the fact that early weapons, like the marsec Machine gun remain pretty well useful into the endgame.

[Nephtys]

Tuesday, March 7, 2084
Status Update, Col. Nephtys, X-COM Intelligence

ATTACHED FILE: Mega-Primus Map




Our equipment orders have arrived, along with our first batch of soldiers. Command has placed orders for only two MarSec Phoenix HoverCars to supplement the two we've already had in service. Our single Valkyrie will remain on standby as a troop transport for rapid deployment. It's been decided to fortify the city's defenses with a large number of cheap armored vehicles.


We've spent nearly all of our discretionary funding to purchase four Griffon AFVs, six Stormdogs and six Wolfhound APCs, all for about the price as a single brand new Valkyrie Interceptor. Not a bad deal really, but we're dead broke until we produce results. Vehicle garrisons have been placed through several strategic points in the city in underground garages, where statisticians have predicted the most likely points of attack by alien forces. If the Aliens should reappear, we will scramble our armored vehicles and the modified stormdog groundcars to ambush their UFOs.



The first location is the Nightingale Tower hospital complex, operated by Sanctuary Clinic. It is the city's chief medical facility, and near the current location of a Dimension Gate. Our theorists are still researching these gates, and if there is some way to predict where they may reappear.

The second location is in the garages of MegaVision TWo, a broadcasting station for the Sensovision corporation. It is near another Dimension Gate, and close to the Aldous Huxley Empourium, Mega-Primus's largest shopping district.

The third location is in a secured garage of the Transtellar Spaceport. This is a vital strategic location in Mega-Primus, where offworld Elerium shipments and other valuables are brought in. We must protect the spaceport's vulnerable landing fields as well. We also will have coverage of the Meteor Kings Gravball statium. Go Meteors!

Next we have a small garrison stationed patrolling the freeway near Hypermart Zone, a subsidiary of the Nutrivend corporation. It is a central shopping district for consumables, with well frequented recreation centers. The safety of these civilians will be ensured by a small stormdog division.

We've stationed a Griffon AFV directly in the senate building garage. Should the aliens attempt to force their way in by air or land, it's sonic 'Rumble Cannon' is capable of demolishing any known defense.

And finally, we've placed a small detail in the Cityclean Two complex, a sewage reclaimation plant run by EvoNet Inc. Although not of particular importance, it is adjacent to the Temple of the Apocalypse, the massive headquarters of a particular organization that is of growing concern.


They call themselves 'The Cult of Sirius', and have gained thousands of new members in the wake of the last alien incursion. They foolishly worship the aliens as gods, and condemn X-COM's actions in fighting the alien menace. They've already tried to lobby our termination to the Senate, and may attempt more in the future. We're going to keep a close eye on these bastards. Who knows what kind of treachery they may be capable of?

While we're waiting for our new Android and Hybrid reinforcements, our squad has been completely outfitted and ready. We've split these 11 soldiers into three teams, to be transported into battle aboard Valkyrie Interceptor 01 'The Welcome Wagon'.


Team A: Stark, White Haven, VX-145
Team A (The Expendable Three) is equipped for combat at all ranges. Stark is Grenadier/Close Combat Specialist, backed up by sniper White Haven and Machine-Gunner VX-145. This team is designed to be versatile, ensuring that at least two thirds of the team's equipment will be wrong for the job at hand.


Team B: Mr. Coffee, Karza, Omegachief
Team B (Subtlety Squad) is equipped for heavy combat. Mr. Coffe and Karza are equipped with fully automatic high explosive autocannon, while Omegachief supplements them at close range with an M4000 Machine Gun. They've all signed waivers, disavowing X-COM of any damage or loss of life caused by stray fire. I don't think that's going to stand in court though.


Team C: Edi, Vanas, Kryten
Team C (Filthy Campers) is equipped for long range shooting. Edi protects the team up close with a Machine Gun, while Vanas and Kryten get myopia from spending too much time looking through a sniper scope. Also, Vanas is rumored to live in a van.


Team D: Acidburns, Forcelord
Team D (The Carebears) is specially equipped for capturing aliens. Acidburns carries non-lethal stun weaponry, while Forcelord's assignment is to make sure Acidburns doesn't die doing something stupid.

---

Hopefully, we can hold out a while with these troops and what equipment we have. Ideally, reinforcements and new equipment will be ready before the aliens return in force. Hrm. Well, It's 22:05, so I'm way overdue to get off duty. X-COM Intelligence, signing o---


off-- damn it to hell!

LOG TERMINATED

[JonB]

Hybrid Psyker please!

Seeing as we have the Defense in Depth already set up, I petition for an alpha strike on those sectoid hugging Cultists. They're hiding something, I know it! And the only way to find out what it is, is to ask them directly. With guns.

[OmegaChief]

Alright, action against the Xeno scum already! Let's wake them(And everyone in the nieghbourhood) up wih machine guns.

I also voulenteer to ask many questions of the cult, my machine gun has a clip large enough to hold several hundred questions after all.

[Dave]

Sign me up as the local expendable crewman (again).

[Nephtys]

Today's Installment: In which a lot of people die.

Wednesday, March 8, 2084
Status Update, Col. Nephtys, X-COM Intelligence

I don't envy the poor bastard who needs to explain this to the Senate, but I'm compiling this log of what happened on night of March 7th, approximately 22:00 hours until now. Anyway. 22:05 hours, a flotilla of six UFOs were detected in the night sky, appearing out of the 'Dimension Gates'. Four appeared in the North-Eastern sector, near the Nightingale Tower hospital complex. Two were of a strange cupcake-shape, and two appeared to be nimbler, small cigar-shaped craft. Both were easilly larger than any of our aircraft. Two of the cupcake-type ships also appeared near the Transtellar Spaceport. Our ground crews were on alert, and responded in good time. We have desginated the smaller cigar ships 'Type 01' UFOs, and the cupcake shaped ones 'Type-02'.


The defense of the spaceport is our number two priority, so these two UFOs must be destroyed quickly. Fortunately, Griffon AFV 01 and 02 were both on station to scramble, engaging the targets with their Rumble Cannon turrets. The base's tank group, nicknamed the 'Heavy Armor Brigade' nearly overheated both their barrels to maintain a heavy fire on both alien craft.


Both UFOs took only a couple of hits, before disintegrating mid-air from the powerful blasts of the cannons. This highlights both a strength, and a weakness of our defense preparations. Pro: Our Rumble Cannons have a lot firepower. Con: Our rumble cannons have a lot of firepower.

---


Meanwhile, we had two Wolfhound APCs equipped with surface-to-air missiles defending the Nightingale Towers hospital complex. They scrambled immediately and recklessly opened fire upon the aircraft.


A missile went stray and blew up the intensive care wing of the hospital. Oops. We later determined that one of the vehicle pilots, Phred, was drunk at the wheel. Naturally, this has been covered up as... um... unexpectedly powerful alien ECM. Yeah. That sounds about right.


Because of the uncanny aim of our pilots, one Type-2 UFO slipped past our lines and activated what we believe is some form of transport beam. Aliens were attacking the city directly with their ground forces!


MKSheppard's Griffon AFV gunned it's engine in pursuit of the remaining alien craft, after destroying one of the smaller UFOs with a single shot. Phred fired another missile after the Type-2 that just finished beaming down aliens. It missed and blew up the fourth story of the Babylon Apartments.




And then disaster strikes. MKSheppard fired his rumble cannon at full power on the fleeing UFO as it flew by Eden Mansions, the most luxurious apartment community in the city, home of much of the city's financial and business elite. The UFO jinked out of the way last minute, and the sonic blast directly hit a crucial support member in the building's structure. A chain reaction of secondary explosions soon colapses the entire foundation, destroying the whole complex. Finally, the UFO was hit and spun out of control, crashing through the dome of the Megatribe Warriors GravBall stadium.

---


The last remaining UFOs made a direct course for the Senate. we had to stop them before they could attack the building. Although the council was not present, having the capitol building damaged wouldn't look good on us. Especially considering we probably just killed several thousand people at Eden Towers. Fortunately, Darkevilme's Griffon AFV just happened to be parked in the underground garage, rolling out and attacking the alien craft as it made it's run on the building.


A direct blast staggered the Type-2 UFO off course, before the missiles from Xenocide Central's airborne hovercar squadron finished it and it's consort off. The craft exploded in mid-air, leaving little remains.
---

Valkyrie Interceptor 'The Welcoming Committee' landed at the transport site to prepare and engage the alien menace in close combat. Except our extensive sweeps found no trace of live aliens. What happened? We confirmed an enemy transport into the city, where could they be?


Oh. Right. We blew up the entire goddamned city block. All the aliens were killed in the wreckage of Eden Gardens. That'll teach those scumsucking aliens not to mess with X-COM! Or at least, the inaccuracy of our vehicle crews. Our attempts to salvage the Type-2 UFO also proved a bit less than entirely successful. Although the craft was recovered, it seems that the aliens destroyed the entire interior with a self-destruct mechanism.

Well. At least every alien died gruesomely. However, this also means our alien-to-civilian casualty ratio so far is probably about 1:2500.

---

Anyway, We won! Damn straight we won, whatever the news media says about colateral damage. I don't care that the GravBall league is pissed at us for all the damage the UFO caused to their stadium. We extracted it's wreckage very thoroughly, and it's probably no more than a week before the dome is going to be repaired. So they can go pay their own repair bill. Same with the hospital. The aliens and their.. jamming systems... are to blame.

The Government is fortunately not going to charge us for destroying Eden Gardens. We've erased what video logs we've attained, and managed to make it look like the aliens blew it up.


Hopefully, the video manipulation will be... um. Convincing enough.

---

Oh, one more thing before I finish this log. We recieved a message a few minutes ago.


These people can go to hell.

LOG TERMINATED

Next Time: Our well-armed troops enter a building full of aliens and fusion reactors. Uh oh...

[Ford Prefect]

lol photoshop. If there is something appealing about Apocalypse, the city setting makes battles seem a lot more interesting. Maybe a little tragic, too. Just a little.

[Netko]

Heh, the good old "We had to destroy the city to save it" tactic

This thread motivated me to install Apoc again. Its a blast - literally since I've equipped almost all my guys with autocannons set on auto - the collateral damage is... above average. A mix of explosive and incendiary ammo with a few heavy explosives gives a nice renovation potential, especially in those heretical curtain-loving Sirius temples.

Nephtys, can you share the mods you made or how to change the necessary files? Some of the improvements (like the ground vehicles being not useless) sound very promising.

Oh, and sign me up for ground pounder duty, possibly a machinegun wielding psycho (I don't want to see anything but autofire ). Autocannon extreme property renovation would be preferred, but I see that there is a lot of applicants for that position already.

[GuppyShark]

I loved the city battles in Apocalypse, the infantry building combat not so much.

Please sign up GuppyShark as an anti-aircraft vehicle commander, SAM-equipped AFV sounds promising.

[JonB]

Pro: Our Rumble Cannons have a lot firepower. Con: Our rumble cannons have a lot of firepower.

I'm sorry. I have to say this. You can punish me later, but...

This. IS. X-COM!

Collateral is just part of the butchers bill.

[OmegaChief]

And so we continue the proud X-Com tradition of saving the world by blowing it up.

[CaiusWickersham]

In the spirit of goodwill, I will volunteer as a soldier for X-COM. I'll take a human soldier with an assault rifle.

[MKSheppard]

The game itself had more than a few problems. A lot of it's most anticipated features such as complex cyberpunk corporate diplomacy, multiple alien factions, etc had to be dropped. However, I've patched and modded a lot of features back into the game. For example, I've modified the ground vehicle system to make land vehicles viable against the alien menace on the strategic map. Likewise, I've also added some weapons back into the game that were cut, such as the Dimension Destabilizer.

Link plz.

[Coaan]

Sign me up, I'll take a Hybrid Psyker with a laser rifle.

[The Yosemite Bear]

can I be a man in black?