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[10ebbor10]

Anyway, congratulations NUKE9.13, as you won the contest. Have a free token (that can be used to get 1 free point worth of any tech you currently have), and this short snippet.

Utilizing substance M, we have implemented the alpha strain modification in several human subjects (Age : 20-32, 50% gender balance). Mortality was elevated compared to control at 20% fatalities, a 50 percent point improvement compared to conventional trials. We have identified further gene  groups believed to be related to rejection, pre-screening of which should prevent additional failures and reduce waste of critical resources.

In the surviving subjects, the alpha strain modifications emerged in various strength. While most subjects showed significant expression, only one subject attained full expression of desired traits. Analysis indicates that traits function as expected, though unintended side effects have arisen. We expect that medical operations will be sufficient to deal with these issues pending gene resequencing.

In light of recent successes, we request permission to start Phase 2 trials.

Note : Experiment Methodology and data is included in addendum A. Vivisection reports are included in addenum B.

Comment: Limited reserves of Substance M greatly complicate phase 2 implementation. We suggests an increased priority of recovery operations.

[piratejoe]

Aww, I was hoping I would have won. Ah, either way I guess we all won...seems useful anyway.

[Wizgrot]

Okay, two more projects incoming. Any remarks, criticism or possible mods will be welcome. Very interested in why you do or not like them. Project Aquelarre incoming.

Revision project: Elderīs Denial (may need a better name)

It seems that the humans are using bits and pieces of our superior technology to improve theirs. They cannot be allowed to continue with this practice if we want to stop them from applying said stolen knowledge to the field, potentially ruining the invasion. I propose to revise our self destruct devices with powerful explosives to ruin any potential salvage from failed operations. A regular explosive charge, combined with the plasma from our main weapons will have the same effect of a plasma grenade, although with the zero zone around the soldier in question. If all seems lost, our soldier can always try to assault enemies and sacrifice himself for the greater good in the ensuing explosion.

This revision should include optional explosive belts than can be fitted to Skin Crawlers (as they have no weapons) or future species that have no need for plasma arms.

Optional: If our aliens fall unconscious, I think we should rig our self destruct devices to detonate to avoid live capture from Earthlings, although only when our soldiers are on ground duty. Confirm or deny this option if you vote for this.

Research Project: Universal Modular Armor (UMA)

Humanity is proven to be tougher than what it seemed at first glance. Their weapons, while very primitive, are managing to eliminate our troops before they close in, making their superior psionic or melee capabilities wasted against them. We need to improve the survivability of our troops if we want to have a chance to recover teams after a successful mission.

The Universal Modular Armor (UMA) might help us in that regard. Itīs base is a form-fitting bodysuit with areas of it covered by microscopical coils. Through a miniaturized elerium-powered battery, the coils create a strong electromagnetic field around in their surrounding area. This allows us to add armor by modules, armor parts which can be thinner or thicker depending on the mission needs or the physiognomy of the species currently wearing it. Since the electricity from the coils can carry through plates, it will be easy to create multilayer armor should we require it.

The research project includes a basic modules of armor to fit our three main species for now (Lesser Muton, Skin Crawler, Sectoid) and any we later deploy, including the theorized Chimera variant.

[BBBence1111]

Name the Elder's denial "Ackbar Protocol" instead. Because it's a trap.

[Failbird105]

I don't really sed the point in giving our skin crawlers armor. They can't do stealth or ambush when wearing it since the disguise doesn't affect the objects they have on them.

[SamSpeeds]

Yeah, until they get super sensors or something it's best to focus on Sectoids and future frontliners. Also the self destruct thing should definitely happen! Are we doing the light bomber as the revision? Or we could arm up the small scouts.

[TopHat]

Hmm. That Experiment 27 snippet is certainly intriguing; maybe it's related to that psionic signal we detected?

If we're designing universal armour there's really no reason to specifically exclude (humaniod-form, at least) skin crawlers. Even if it doesn't seem useful now, it may come in handy later down the line. Regarding the self-destruct, it's an interesting proposal, though at the moment I'd rather use our revision to directly increase combat capability or locate the signal.

[Shadowclaw777]

Here's an idea to trying attack xcom for next turn, I'm going to guess the Mutons are going to cost like 3UP+1EP; but this is without that logic yet (The Mutons require equipment point to deploy because of their innate armor and maybe plasma carbine?..)

1 free Crawler, 1 free Scout; 5 VP; 6 UP; 2 EP (we utilize the token we just go for a Vehicle Point token, we prolly don’t even need it. It just gives a extra light fighter for the Japan infiltration. Anyways this doesn’t add in the Light Muton’s cost into it. But the idea is utilize ECM and multiple fleets to scare Xcom into wasting their resources.)

Mission 1: Small Scout (FREE) + ECM Enhanced Size Target
Skin Crawlers+Scout Drones
Objective: Abduction
Location: Australia
-1 UP, -1 EP
Notes: Utilize ECM to increase the electronic signature of the Scout

Mission 2: Small Scout + Medium Fighter + 1 Light Fighters
1 Skin Crawler (FREE) and Infiltrated + 1 Sectoid (-2 UP)
Objective: Recruit Collaborators
Location: Japan
Cost: -3 VP. -2 UP
Note: Light Fighter should increase its ECM signature to appear larger, like the size of the Medium Fighter

Mission 3: Small Scout
1 Skin Crawlers, 1 Scout Drone
Objective: Recruit Collaborators
Location: Brazil
Cost: -3 VP, -2 UP, -1 EP
-5 VP, -6 UP, -2 EP

[Wizgrot]

Revision/Research project: Aquelarre

While individual sectoids do not have great psionic abilities, this Ethereal engineer has devised a way to plan around that.

Working based on the outstanding success that mental link development has proven to be, this takes it to a massive scale. We will secure a chamber in our Moon, and put thousands of the old generation sectoids available to us in life sustaining pods. We will then connect their neural cortex together and to a mainframe and communications array, like they were individual processing units of a supercomputer.
Their added psionic prowess will help coordinate the troops in the ground and triangulate the position of psionic forces. But thatīs not the true extend of their powers.

Any sector pod that wishes it might cease all action in order to act as an amplifier for the Aquelarre matrix. During this time, they will stand still, acting as a relay for the matrix, earning them a foothold on the planet and permitting them to unleash their full force on it.

This will enlarge the psionic prowess of the pod, allowing them to use powers barred by their flimsy mental capabilities. They wonīt be of use in a tactical situation, but their power would able us to affect the minds of the population at large, magnifying acts of terror and being and twisting the human perception towards their more emotional side.

As an additional effect, they might help as a way to make the Ethereals themselves manifest on Earth. An Ethereal might use the relay to establish a psionic alter ego on Earth that will be able to make use of their full power or engage in diplomacy, although the operation is so vexing for the podīs minds that it makes their brain burn after the contact is broken(either by the alter ego expiring or any of the sectoids of the pod dying).

Okay, so far this is a prototype for a psionic relay that actually has some utility outside of battle. About the effect, maybe it doubles panic that we cause in a mission, I donīt really know. Add more effects if you feel like it. I think this will be a very difficult design. While we might think of reserving it for later, as this is a “win more” design that we can use to end the game or put some more pressure into XCOM. I donīt know whether this is a revision or Research project, but I assume it is the later. This might be too ambitious. Hoping for some criticism.

Also, I would propose the self destruct project for revision.

[sprinkled chariot]

+ 1 to aquelarre, I would suggest investing some tokens in it, aswell.

[Wizgrot]

I would prefer if Aquelarre was delayed until GM decides to tell us the difficulty and if it would fall on Research or Revision.

If my self destruct gets approved, I believe we should try for a more spread out mission profile, since we wonīt have so much problems with humans recovering stolen equipment.

I can also write a ship self destruct device instead, if you feel like it, instead of the infantry one. It would allow us to commit to as many missions as possible while minimizing any fuckups.

[TopHat]

My own guess was that the Lesser Muton would cost 2 UP, having similar / slightly higher combat prowess (able to beat an X-Com squad one-on-one, as the skin crawlers can if they get the drop on them) and trading active camouflage and infiltration ability for resilience. The EP cost I hadn't thought about, though I note upon re-reading that the armour is external rather than carapace or subdermal like the Brute so that's a possibility. Maybe we should change it to such in the design; it would shift the burden onto more plentiful UP and allow them to wear any additional armour we do design later.

I have some similar ideas regarding this turn's missions but that can wait until the cost of our new unit is known. I would, however, suggest we focus on harvest missions this turn to gain a few more UP tokens to keep up with rising unit cost and the increasing number of UFOs we can deploy. The DNA will be nice as well.

Regarding the Aquelarre: It definitely seems very ambitious to me; if we want to make it soon maybe remove everything past the first paragraph or two and then revise the rest in later. Though as a warning it will suffer from the same flaw as my first amplifier proposal: namely, a large, easily-detected psionic signal at our main base. Whether that risk is worth the extra utility is the question.

EDIT - missions are sent out before revision, so we won't know if the self destruct will be voted in or, if it is, work properly before they're launched. Just something to keep in mind.

[sprinkled chariot]

They will get, that we are on moon, the first moment they capture random sectoid anyway

[NUKE9.13]

They will get, that we are on moon, the first moment they capture random sectoid anyway

That's not how XCOM games work. You don't discover the alien's main base after interrogating a Sectoid.

Aquelarre is an interesting idea, but not something we want to do right now. And yeah, as mentioned, doing it all at once would be overambitious. We should start with the basics, and work up.

[Wizgrot]

Elderīs Scorn

While our current air battles are going  very good at the moment, we cannot allow Humanity to recover more of the Ethereal technology if we hope to defeat them while they remain foolish and primitive. They already have on their control several of our craft, which they surely have used to improve on their puny "technology".

Elerium-115, our main energy source, has shown a remarkable stability when degrading it in a controlled environment, so its energy can power our ships and equipment. However, by rising quickly the temperature and the pressure of the engine, we can make it enter into a highly radioactive and volatile state, which powered with some plasma detonators installed near should release all of their energy with an explosive blast that should make most of the components useless and deadly irradiated, greatly increasing the cost and feasibility of salvage operations and killing troops near the area of the blast.
I propose to monitor our troops life signals and automatically detonate it if the tripulation dies or becomes unconscious.

With some luck we should have the following design installed in any ships that attack Earth this month. Taking that for granted, as the design is not in my opinion a very difficult thing to engineer, I have a different plan for this month, which relies more on doing as many missions as we can.

We should try to make them think we have made Medium Harvesters and are moving them to strike at the two locations we have hit: Australia and Brazil. Then we try to go as many places as we can, trying to infiltrate and Harvest for the goodies. Our main mission, if they decide to not take the bait, will be a Harvest in the UK (flesh bodies all around), with a Melt container that we can use to still get some DNA samples.

Next turn, if we commit to design a workable Medium Harvester, we can substitute the fakes with them to see if they can ignore the missions.

Mission: Harvest
Area: Brazil
Ships: Small Scout (increasing its radar signature to a Medium Harvester)(free)
Troops & Equipment: Sectoid (1UP)

Mission: Harvest
Area: Australia
Ships: Small scout (Increasing its radar signature to appear a Medium Harvester)(1VP)
Troops & Equipment: Sectoid (1UP)

Mission: Recruit Collaborators
Area: United Kingdom
Ships: Small Scout (1VP)
Troops & Equipment: Skin Crawler (2UP)

Mission: Recruit Collaborators
Area: China
Ships: Small Scout (1VP)
Troops & Equipment: Skin Crawler (free)

Mission: Harvest
Area: Germany
Ships: Small Scout(1VP) (Increased Radar signature to hide the Medium Fighter)+ Medium Fighter (2VP)
Troops & Equipment: Lesser Mutons (2UP) + Meld Container (1EP) + Drones(1EP)+Sectoids (1UP)

I respected Nukeīs idea to convert his point in a vehicle point. They can over extend or focus only on small craft. Either way, we end up winning. They have a total of around 6 vehicle points if Interceptors and Skyrangers cost the same points (1 each)and they havenīt got the balls to build only interceptors.

Tell me if there are any changes that you would do to the plan.



[/quote]
Mission: Harvest
Area: Brazil
Ships: Small Scout (increasing its radar signature to a Medium Harvester)(free)
Troops & Equipment: Sectoid (1UP)

Mission: Harvest
Area: Australia
Ships: Small scout (Increasing its radar signature to appear a Medium Harvester)(1VP)
Troops & Equipment: Sectoid (1UP)

Mission: Recruit Collaborators
Area: United Kingdom
Ships: Small Scout (1VP)
Troops & Equipment: Skin Crawler (2UP)

Mission: Recruit Collaborators
Area: China
Ships: Small Scout (1VP)
Troops & Equipment: Skin Crawler (free)

Mission: Harvest
Area: Germany
Ships: Small Scout(1VP) (Increased Radar signature to hide the Medium Fighter)+ Medium Fighter (2VP)
Troops & Equipment: Lesser Mutons (2UP) + Meld Container (1EP) + Drones(1EP)+Sectoids (1UP)

[/quote]