A hybrid farm in china. We've ended the first turn immediately to avoid reaction fire, effectively setting up the same trap that enemies set up at the beginning of every mission. Three hybrids were killed before we even moved.
Have we arrived in the middle of harvest? Don't worry, hybrids, by the evening there will be nothing on those fields, just leave it to us.
Sniping the farmers, heavy cannonning the drones, that's how you destroy farming communities.
MONATERS! A small zamboni group in Greenland. I get it, Greenland is really hard to infect, but if they close the one port they have, the epidemic can't spread outside! Just stop trying, zamboni plague! There were two zambonis in total.
Started building a science lab in Ainsley Harriott HQ. There's probably a lot of research that can be done with stuff that's stored in there.
Look at that, another Syndicate scout. Better luck next time, guys.
Cowboys who think it would be neat if someone other than them started fighting aliens through gorilla warfare. Such cowardice is no cowboy way. You should just meet the entire alien force at high noon and have an honorable duel where the fastest hand wins.
MONATERS! A reaper is making commotion in north Africa. Soldiers from Ainsley Harriott HQ are taking this one, because I've sold Drive-in & Dive. The Guy Fieri base is currently building a Skyranger. I should set up manufacturing in Harriott HQ too...
Ended the mission with negative one point, because the monster kept eating civilians.
Team Magma is having more trouble with their AI, what a surprise. Maintenance robots can't be that tough, can they?
We're in the very corner of the map. If this is the mission I think this is, this may be an ideal place to be.
Not quite the one I was thinking about, but it's still good. Why do maintenance robots at a Team Magma power plant need humongous buzzasaws? Do they saw anything here? If so, why?
We're overequipped for this mission. Light cannons are all it takes to destroy those pieces of junk.
I'm so glad we're not fighting those things. The robotanks actually have a ranged attack, making them a thousand times more dangerous than the sawbots.
Good jerb, Mr. Violin, you dun did it. He misfired with his grenade launcher, and blew up a gas pipe, setting himself and Mr. Turn on fire.
Oh my, a corridor full of killer roberts, whatever shall we do? We heavy cannon them, that's what.
Welp, here goes a good soldier. Thanks a fucking lot Mr. Violin.
I have several questions regarding this situation. First, how? The rest is irrelevant.
Advanced technology is for losers anyway.
Mr. Turn actually wasn't all that notable. It was a simple mission, but we haven't got anything besides points out of this. But have we? A new message from Team Magma has appeared in the research tab.
The simplest non-gimmicky chemical gun. It has low accuracy, and isn't especially powerful. Its secret lies in the damage type. Many enemies armored agains ballistic weaponry have absolutely no resistance against chem damage. We can now produce these gadgets ourselves.
Those furries are responsible for commissioning the bulk of furry porn, and they're the ones who can go the longest without washing their fursuits. Some of our soldiers may find those feats impressive, in which case those soldiers are to be shot without questions.
Cool new toys! I wonder how they compare to BlackOps gear. Of course we have to research them first.
So many UFOs in South America, and we can't do anything about that! I'm not doing night missions without any effective armor!
They kept going during the day. Caught a small UFO chilling in the Andes. I hada hunch and packed a bunch of heavy weapons, which will be effective against gazers who are packing heavy plasma.
Just one rocket, and no more heavy plasma danger.
The second gazer refused to die the simple way, so he'll die the explosive way too. Hi-ex, baby!
I can't believe Mr. Lanai is fucking dead! Let's get the hell out of here! We need more firepower for fighting gazers!
Shit.
Oh, that's beacause soldiers for Gordon Ramsay HQ have arrived. So it depends on the number of soldiers, huh?
I've decided to ignore massive UFO activity and a council member assassination to focus on researching trash. Those spiders are kill personified. They emanate the aura of kill and make soldiers kill.
Oh yes, hi-ex for enemies resistant to explosions. It's an actual weapon, not a demolition tool, which unfortunately doesn't mean that it's any easier to throw.
The Guyranger has landed in Africa to investigate a report of MONATERS! The Guyranger? That's right, we own a Skyranger now.
Those were only two chupacabras.
Oh yes, the first real laser weapon we've researched. It's lightweight and accurate, but not very fast. If we want to know how strong it is, we should research its clip. Or is it a battery? Batlip? Cli... no.
By the way, Mr. Skyscraper's power is maximum, he can only get stronger by yelling 'KAKAROOOOOT!'.
Mr. Zoku II has arrived in Jamaica. I'm so sorry...
What is this, a cavern mission? Unfortunately it is a cavern mission, and not even a one that quickly turns into a pleasant base raid. Well. at least not a pleasant one.
That's exactly why I hate those missions! A silacoid appeared out of nowhere and turned Mr. Health into mush. Fuck the caves, we're leaving.
The secret to alien superior firepower - a battery with red lights on it. If not for the lights, it could hold one or two more charges, but aesthetics requires sacrifice. We do need to research UFO power source if we want to make our own laser guns.
We've shot down something that may be a Syndicate aircraft. You know I'm not gonna miss a chance to rub it in.
Well, hello there. Those chumps are flying Dragonflies when we're already making a change for Skyrangers. Pathetic. What's even more pathetic is that there were regular agents on this plane.
I took Herr Kaos only because he's been just growing fat eating Doritos in Harriott HQ. He immediately proved he hasn't lost his edge by killing two guys with his SMG.
Yep, this was a scout. There was absolutely no reason for us to actually do what we just did. It was nice to see the non-threatening side of the Syndicate again.
Ugh, sewer mission. I hate those with burning passion, but not as burning as for cave missions. It's Cyberweb though, and we haven't had a chance to get to know them better.
Whoops, wrong mission. We're not prepared to tackle Team Magma zamboni outbreak, so let's get the hell outta dodge.
Sewer diving again, this time to bust some hollywood-style hackers. There's a table and a chair in one of those maintenance rooms, so we know this is the right place.
We've packed tazers and electric prods, because most of our enemies here won't be organic.
We've located the Cyberweb operative. Time to capture him and penetrate their backdoor.
A dart just bounced off, punching did nothing, tazer wasn't enough. We have to get this guy, but all we can do for now is blocking.
Ms. Zultan finally zapped the hackerman well enough. His gun looks scary, and I'm glad he seemed to be counting on his unarmed reaction attacks to save him.
This is why I hate sewer map. We have to cross the entire map twice to get to the last few rooms. We could just grab the technomad, but we still want to get the other enemies or their wrecks.
A robert zapped Mr. Dingo and...
...Mr. Dingo zapped the robert back. But then...
... a technomad zapped Mr. T, who then splashed the hackerman with acid from a chempistol.
Two more roberts have ambushed Mr. T and Ms. Buyer in a quite sneaky way for roberts. We've disabled the big one, and destroyed the sphere.
Yet another robertturret. I blame the map layout for this one. This probably wouldn't have happened if we could have more than three agents on that side at the same time.
Bad. I had never lost soldiers on those missions. We've recovered quite a lot of clues and artifacts:
-1 stun rod (that we really should have researched by now)
-2 lightning throwers
-5 cyberweb batteries (we've already had one, confiscated from Osirion)
-1 alien electronics
-1 Cyberweb technomad
-1 Cyberweb technomad corpse
-2 wrecked robertturrets
-1 wrecked robertsphere
Apparently we can't recover stunned Cyberweb roberts.
Basic interceptor. It has the same weapon slots, but the true upgrade is... everything else. It's significantly faster, has almost twice the range, and doesn't die to the weakest hits. What's more, it unocks the research for Avalanche launcher, an upgrade for our cannons.
Guy Fieri HQ is currently assembling a Skyranger for Gordon Ramsay HQ, then it's gonna make an Interceptor for Harriott HQ, I think.
Here's the stun rod. It's just like the electric prod, but with 100% accuracy instead of 125%, and 14 TUs per hit opposed to 20 TUs. It's actually usable, and if we had spare workshops, we would produce them in bulk.
Remember Red Dawn? We haven't closed that case yet. We're probably lacking in points department, so let's wreck their outpost.
It went exactly as you expected. 13 killed, 7 arrested, money recovered, 180 easy points got.
It's the damn mass UFO attack. We couldn't stop it, because our equipment is outdated, even by conventional warfare standards. We need to get those interceptors and Avalanche cannons.
Team Magma has been trying to make zambonis fire guns, but it backfired after the Syndicate and the Cyberweb decided to have fun with that.
Irrelevant now. The avatar is not actually a flying troll doll, but a human turned into an adult baby. Doesn't explain how it shoots lasers.
Young Shen had taken a look at some schematics we had got from Team Magma. Pulse weapons sound great with their damage bonus, yet without having their actual stats before my eyes, I can't pass a judgement.
Oh, and we've destroyed a Syndicate scout over the Atlantic Ocean. Ramsay HQ needs a plane as soon as we can get it.
We haven't questioned a zamboni knight yet, just a strix. Either way, I've never got this far into this arc, and I'm not sure what to expect. Probably villages of ghouls simillar to
Shogg villages.
There was a MONATERS! mission with just a single spider in Sri Lanka. I thought there was a second one, so I didn't take a screenshot.
More easy points. There's a hybrid farm somewhere in central Africa, and it's a big one - a lot of buildings and three drones.
Damn drones know who's the real threat. Ms. Leader is one of two agents on this mission capable of carrying a heavy cannon. Now she's crippled.
Her heavy cannon slug just glanced the target, leaving the actual wrecking to Mr. Emphasis. Fortunately the SMGs, designed to disable large targets, are also good at destroying armored enemies at long-ish range.
Orchards are amazing for gorilla warfare, as we've learned in one of the early Church of Dagon missions. I know as a fact that this one is full of freaky hybrids with chemical weapons. War crimes aside, they could easily pick us off one by one with simple hatchets.
There was actually just a single one in the orchard. The rest was hanging out behind it, and we've killed them all.
This machine gun is slow in auto shot, and a fast snap shot. It's more accurate in both modes than the standard BlackOps LMG. I'm actually interested in this one.
I used to be very much for two-handed SMGs, but not anymore. Rifles are better in everything, especially damage. Macro SMG is an exception, since it fills a completely different niche.
Time to equip Gordon Ramsay HQ. We can't leave the base undercooked like some fucking donkeys. Got Team Magma machine guns for other bases too.
This apparently passes for crop circles nowadays. Should we actually be reacting to those calls anyway? We're not gonna be hiding the alien invasion from anyone anyway.
Ack! Mr. Emphasis almost had his helmet blown off his head! We have a beef with MiBs, so since we're here...
...and since we're already prepared for making arrests, let's deal with it quickly.
50 points is more than nothing, but not much. There's actually more points for killing MiBs than for arresting them.
The first mission for the fucking donkeys from Ramsay HQ. I don't want to see half-cooked performance, just a fast clean-up work.
They're all rookies, but to make a firing line this huge, and still having to 'nade the target? It's good training for all of them.
They better get swole, because this is just the beginning.
Not sure why we're still using fake names. Mr. Chromolithograph is one of the best names so far, even less believable than Ms. Megafauna or Mr. Minor-league.
A hybrid settlement. I still have no idea what's the difference between a settlement and a farm. Both equally easy to deal with.
Ms. Clove's eavy cannon trickshot through the window was quite impressive. Always good to have fewer drones to fight.
This one hybrid's got a machine gun, meaning he might be someone important here. I want him back at Ainsley Harriott HQ.
I was right, he's a supervisor. He knows a lot of things regular workers can't know, including some information that may be vital to our operations.
Cult of Apocalypse clean up in Venezuela. Council salvagers are huddling together to make themselves an easy target, so we get lower score for this mission.
You know yur life has taken a weird turn when a global super-military lands their futuristic transporter near where you're chilling with your squad, kills you, and gets rewarded for it. When that happened to me last time, I had to reevaluate my life.
We've killed a council salvager, but who can confirm that he wasn't with the cult? That's what I thought. We've got some UAC guns, nothing else.
[Pumped Up Kicks blaring in the distance]
We've got an insane soldier in Atlanta. This is what Atlanta looks like, apparently. Let's grab this lad.
600 points for doing almost nothing.
MONATERS! A reaper on the north pole. We've quickly dealt with the problem by shooting it a plenty.
This suit is tankier than the armored vest, but doesn't protect from gunshots above the armor value. There's no reactions penalty, and it protects from smoke and to lesser extent fire.
How about we catch up on what's going on in all three bases?
Guy Fieri HQ, the first X-Com base. Safely located in the Himalayas, it's the most unsafe of three bases.
I've moved some facilities around to make future base defences easier. We currently have no interceptor here, but that's because we're building one for Harriott HQ.
This base has been through many disasters involving the Syndicate, that's why the dinernauts are so unequal in quality. It's home to some favorites such as Mr. Hatkat, Madame Abandonne and Mr. Silly.
Research wise it goes like this:
-UFO power source - a prequisite for many technologies including laser guns.
-Avalanche cannon - new missiles for interceptors, better at downing UFOs.
-Cyberweb technomad - progressing the Cyberweb arc, maybe getting some neat free tech too.
-Syndicate supersoldier - not gonna lie, I just want a combat analysis to know how to fight these dudes better.
Ainsley Harriott HQ is disguised as an unassuming beach bar in Jamaica. Currently I'm hoping to give it the abiliy to produce its own equipment, so it doesn't have to rely on shpiments from across the world. It has a MIG, but an Interceptor is on its way.
The soldiers of Harriott HQ may be seen as secondary characters in the whole story, but they have a plenty of impressive achievements to their names, such as ending EGGSALT for good. The large number of rookies is a result of recent losses during missions, and the number of high-ranking officers is the result of base defense related deaths of important people in Guy Fieri HQ.
The favorites here include Herr Kaos, Ms. Plume, and Mr. Minor-league.
Maybe we should build large living quarters after all, so we can hire scientists in addition to engineers. We're researching mostly trash here:
-Hybrid worker - they can tell us about alien operations, but as far as I'm aware it's all flavor text.
-Hybrid corpse - mostly flavor. Don't really care about combat analysis.
-Boomeroid - anthropod explosives. Its usefulness is hindered by the fact that we have to take it directly from anthropods' cold, dead hands.
Gordon Ramsay HQ, located on the eastern coast of South Africa. It was made to cover calls from Africa, which used to be inaccessible without the Skyranger. The base is equipped with a Skyranger of its own, and an Interceptor is literally being transported right now.
The fucking donkeys in this base are still raw. There was literally just a single mission, and not a hard one to boot. Nobody important is residing in Ramsay HQ.
This base isn't doing any research either.
The Interceptor from Ramsay HQ has shot down an alien scout ship, then engaged something larger. It got hit, got a few hits in, then the UFO escaped and landed in Greenland. Good Old Rub couldn't make it on time, and the aliens disappeared.
Those FUCKING BASTARDS are psycho-mutants created to kill X-Com soldiers. They have 28 armor from sides and back, and 38 from the front, with 80% damage modifier from ballistic weapons. There's no point even trying shooting them with conventional guns from the front. Lasers deal 130% damage, and cutting does 100%.
Blaster bomb version very lite. It can turn around the corner once, which is unique not only among explosive devices, but all weapons.
This is what the supersoldier told us about. Smartpistols are extremely fast and very accurate, but they lack smart magnum's kick. A magnum bullet could hurt a supersoldier, while the pistol will have trouble penetrating a regular Syndicate security guard's armor. Unlike the magnum, pistols are BlackOps products that can be bought on the free market.
Ugh, underground mission in South America. We're dealing with a zamboni hive, marginally better than a celatid infested alien outpost.
Mr. Pelican and some rookie got killed by a standard zamboni that was later destroyed with reaction shots.
Look at this, a boomer in a tight space.
Took the barely calculated risk. Nobody was hurt in the explosion. Well, nobody other than the zamboni itself.
Ghoul warriors are ffucking nerds. Using a medieval axe in modern times? What kind of bright idea is this?
My kind of bright idea, and apparently Mr. Jaw's too.
An infector and a ghoul. This will end badly.
I fucking hate caverns! Mr. Piece was killed twice. There's still the ghoul roaming around with his rusty sword. Another death soon.
More than one, it seems. The ghoul warrior has an AK-47, but he's not the main threat here. There's a strix upstairs, and we're grouped together for a nice combo kill.
FUCK THOSE CAVES! Yet another ghoul came out of the wall and stabbed Mr. Sheath. I couldn't have known there was a passage there.
The strix has fallen to two hits with Mr. Post's saber, then was ripped apart by minigun fire. The warrior died instantly to macro SMG.
Ms. Clove has found something interesting. I don't know what this slab does, but I'm not returning it, even if I'll have to suffer a curse.
Just so you know, I'm savescumming hard on this mission. I refuse to lose on this shitty unfair cave expedition. Mr. Way is dead, killed by a ghoul.
What was it, infector? You want hosts for your parasites? Fuck you, have sword.
This mission wasn't canon. In the actual story we recovered everything from an Osirion warehouse. Even the ghouls.
I wouldn't have savescummed if it was literally any mission other than the caverns. Fighting melee enemies is all about shooting them before they get to you, but in those fucking tunnels they can attack you from places you can't actually see. There should be no squeezing between walls diagonally, it's just bullshit. The game doesn't play fair, I don't play fair either.
Cattle mutilation in Freedomland. Time for Mr. Zoku II to shine. It was easy, but Mr. Zoku II wasn't the one who shone.
Technomads are pretty cool guys. Thye zap people and doesn't afraid of anything. They really are tough, being able to bounce darts off their polished heads.
Robertspheres aren't actually hard to destroy, especially on our tech level. Now we should focus on finally ending Red Dawn. Their memory reels have been sitting in our storage for way too long now.
We've brought down a UFO! It was over the ocean, so we're not recovering anything, but it's still a victory.
Avalanche missiles are a significant improvement over Stingrays, but a plane can only shoot three before having to rearm in the base. Standard interceptor can't fire Avalanches.
The red key card held the information on all members of Red Dawn. We'll immediately issue an order to arrest everyone.
MONATERS! A single rat in Mongolia. Come on, don't tell me horse archers wouldn't be able to deal with a single rodent of unusual size.
Hybrids wiretap phones, steal passwords, and stalk people onthe streets. I'm pretty sure they were just dumped on Earth by aliens because they were a failed project with no future. As they are now, I don't see any future for them either,
A worker has explained that they farm for their alien master, but he didn't know how that's supposed to help them.
The Cult of Apocalypse gives me Piratez-y vibes for some reason. Even though those factions aren't in any way rferenced there, I still can't shake the feeling that they do belong to XPiratez rather than here.
Easy riders are extreme anarcho-capitalists - they don't like the government, but that's not where it ends. They also don't like being employed, because any kind of hierarchy is literal slavery. They hate roads.
It took Young Shen way too long to figure out how to make a sharpened chunk of alien alloy. We can research swords, knives, and ninja stingers. Let's start with knives.
Commies terminated. The only early cult left is the Church of Dagon, but we haven't seen their base since that one time when we had to leave someone important outside. To think of it, I haven't seen them for a very long time now.
Thanks to Red Dawn termination, we can now research Syndicate bio research. Maybe we'll be able to make our own supersoldiers?
Speaking of Dagon, we've located an outpost in Africa. The fucking donkeys from Gordon Ramsay HQ are taking this one, meaning we'll have to rely on our technological superiority.
Don't hide missiles in your safehouse next time, fish amish. A stray bullet hit the missile rack and just incinerated a quarter of the map.
This is what really counts in the end. Donkeys are slowly gettin better, and soon they will be a force to be reckoned with.
This artwork was definitely used in XPiratez!
Luchadores are people who eat monster-flavored human flesh from zambonis, turning into super mutants. They're slightly tougher than other Apocalypse people, but not much. They don't actually do lucha libre.
I actually really like this pistol. It's not as fast or accurate as the smartpistol, but it deals much higher damage, and can do auto fire. Oh, what I would do for a pulse magnum!
Top shelf performance. Russia can go suck a big alien probe though. Fiancially, we're no longer stockpiling funds. We had to fully equip the third base, and upgrade equipment in the others where needed.
Our Interceptor has shot down a medium UFO over Siberia. The signal was jammed, and it went down after a single rocket, so I assume it was a Syndicate transporter. That's for the next time, though.
---
So, what have we done this update?
-Destroyed several peaceful hybrid communities, and abducted a mayor of one for probing.
-Subjugated a machine uprising in a Team Magma lab. Got rewarded with schematics for guns for killing unarmored enemies such as minotaurs.
-Acquired Skyrangers and Interceptors.
-Made Gordon Ramsay HQ fully operational.
-Started Cyberweb arc.
-Beaned a zamboni hive mission badly.
-Ended Red Dawn.
-Shot down a something.
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Topic: I don't want to believe - X-Com Files (Read 97332 times)