Bay 12 Games Forum

Dr. Vahlen begins work on skeleton suits and makes a pretty racist comment about the aliens as evidently only seeing science as a means to an end, discarding life as needed to reach their goal. I could go on for an hour about humans with exactly that mindset, but...well, do we have any proof that the aliens are actually doing that?

Operation Vengeful Prophet
A small UFO is detected in Germany. Joining technical veteran and Assaulter Gaston Mercier are new recruits Molly White and George Robinson of England and Eduardo Castro of...some country I can't identify or find the flag of (it has three horizontal stripes, two red and one yellow, and an emblem towards the left). Hopefully the Religious/Mystic Name Curse won't strike...but if it does, we won't lose anyone too important.
Eagle-Eye Mercier spots a few of what seem to be Floaters. And I failed to notice where the UFO was, so half the team moved a bit past it/in the wrong way. Robinson kills one, but a whole mess of sectoids and thin men show up. White throws a grenade at a few of them, earning a rebuke from Dr. Vahlen, who evidently does not realize that sometimes explosives are the best way not to get eviscerated. Castro makes like an Assault and runs up to a floater that floated in behind him, almost taking it out of commission but forcing Mercier to finish it off with his pistol. Robinson gets shot by a couple thin men demonstrating quite unmockable aim, but White and Robinson get vengeance. The remaining sectoids are finished without incident.
Robinson...somehow gets poisoned, and triggers what seems to be another floater as he advances towards the UFO. The remainder of the rookies follow without incident, but Mercier comes close enough to an opening to trigger an energy enemy's creation. Robinson advanced for the entrance, encountered a Floater, exchanged shots, and died. White advanced a bit less, stayed under cover, and killed the Floater. The others advance, and surround the entrance of the ship. I try to have the squad Overwatch, so they shoot the energy being inside if it shoots, but evidently Overwatch does not work that way. So, White simply charges in and executes the bastard.
White was wounded, out of action for nine days. She and Castro became snipers for their reckless action.

I have a workshop built, so maybe we'll have enough engineers to make a gorram laser bigger than a pistol. The "Skeleton Suit," armor which incorporates a grapple thingy and also improves evasion, was perfected. I have us start work on those neat alien computers (maybe they're strong enough to play Dwarf Fortress at a decent FPS?), and Vahlen again cautions against explosives use.
I visit the Situation Room, selling 20 of the 34 sectoid corpses we have to collectors in the Council and noting panic levels. They're highest in the US and China; if there are abductions either of those places, I really ought to go to them. Close behind are India, South Africa, Canada, and Brazil.

The aliens begin attacking places outright, including Johannesburg. They're "terrorizing" there. It's evidently a Very Difficult mission...I didn't have any Skeleton Suits made, did I? Too late now. I need to assemble my new Dream Team for...
Operation Forgotten Heart
I begin by realizing that we have four non-rookies in a state to enter combat: Mercier the Assault, Endo the Heavy, Castro the Sniper, and King the Support. Well...they're no Dream Team, but they're what we have. Don't die.
We need to protect and save civilians above all else. Well...carp. This is going to be a clusterfrak.
Mercier approaches a building containing civilians when he spots two weird, vaguely arthropodian aliens. This is going to be such a clusterfrak. The new guys take a hit from Endo and a couple misses from the others before near-killing and poisoning Mercier and killing a civilian. Another dies elsewhere and a couple floaters show up. Mercier shimmies up a convenient pipe before killing a floater. Endo finishes off his crawly guy, King kills the other floater, and...Vahlen drops the z-bomb, aimed at the dead civilian who is now up and moving. Well, frak me with a scatter laser (if we ever get enough engineers). If these things are contagious...
A crit from Mercier and a burst from Endo destroy the zed, but there's probably more out there...the counter counts three civilian casualties. King sees another skittering beast and its zombie, letting Castro clip the skitterer. This zombie, like the last, comes right up to King. Guess they have something for the ladies...
Castro headshoots the zed, with a crit, but it's still shambling. King herself finishes the corpse off, only to have another shamble at her. Maybe she should move from the doorway?
The crawler sprints across the street, through the team, and into a building containing civilians. Counter: Six dead, two re-dead. One zombie seen, three unaccounted for.
Mercier and Castro kill the crawler, while Endo and King...nearly kill the zombie, who returns the favor by nearly killing King. Mercier finishes it off. Three re-dead, five unaccounted for. Endo spots a couple floaters inside a building; Castro blows one up, King heals herself, and Mercier gets missed by the other floater. The civilians flee. Endo enters the building, kills the other Floater...and we're done. Evidently, five got killed by either floaters or (non-contagious) zeds. All things considered, that went very, very, VERY well.
Everyone got promoted. King became a sergeant and got the nickname "Cookie" (who comes up with these things?); the others became Corporals. King and Mercier got hospitalized for 12 and 13 days, respectively. We got a couple "cryssalid" corpses (What happened to the guys who named Floaters and Thin Men?) and some more Floaters and weapon fragments. Oh, and panic in Africa is a non-issue. I immediately attempt to get some Skeleton Suits made, only to discover that they require--guess--more engineers.

We begin autopsy of the cryssalids and...egypt (why is it always Egypt?) requests some weapon fragments. We oblige, and get some credits in return. We learn a bit about the cryssalids, which makes them all the more terrifying: They take over humans with their embryos, which gestate within minutes to make new ones...
Expansion of the facility continues. We finish examining the aliens' power generator thingies.

Operation Crimson Night
More abductions. Japan, Nigeria, Argentina. Japan is offering engineers, but we've almost finished the workshop, and I fear the Difficult rating of the mission...Due more to panic than anything, we go to Argentina, which is offering a Support Sergeant if we help them. Man, we need to get another Skyranger or two.
Castro is joined by rookies Hamza Ajram of somewhere with a green flag, Roman Torres of Argentinia, and Jonas Schultz of Germany.
A couple of Floaters are almost instantly spotted, followed by a couple Sectoids. Even though Arjam has crap accuracy even within four spaces of a floater, the floaters are pretty easily dealt with...then two more show up. Torres proves that killing one of the sectoids that's psychically linked--however that works--kills them both. That leaves two Floaters, one of whom gets shot at by everyone but only hit by Schulz, despite his 45% chance to hit being one of the lower ones. The remaining Floater gets his revenge, floating into melee range and ripping him apart. (Technically, Shulz was merely shot again, but between proximity and coolness...) Torres earned a promotion by running up to the Floater and blasting it to bits.
"Everything by the numbers."
Chinese panic reaches the highest levels. Carp, forgot that. Should have gone for Japan...
Torres gets promoted to Support.

Elerium has been fully analyzed. It is impossible to make, but highly useful. We begin work on something called Titan Armor...
We get that Workshop finished! We begin using the extra engineers by making a Skeleton Suit and a Laser Rifle, but sadly lack of funds prevents us from making more.

The monthly report comes in. We're doing well, but there is room for improvement, as shown by China's withdrawal from X-COM and both Japan and India coming close...

Nigeria asks for laser rifles. Maybe when we can more freely manufacture the alloys needed.
We figure out the Titan Armor. Sadly, we don't have enough raw material or leads to do much of anything. And the game crashed again...