January the 1st 1999.
The challenge is ON! Exactly at 14:00 I received a report (
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,11659.0.html) of the first UFO, YAY! It was first reported over South America, so I sent out a welcome committee (my 2 Interceptors with the standard Stingrays + Cannons) to the south of Europe. One would patrol over Portugal, the other one over Italy (the very first UFO is guaranteed, I think, to arrive at the region of your base // mine is in Łódź // , so it does not makes sense to
chase it - you have better chances when you simply patrol).
Half an hour later (14:30) a second report - this time over Pacific. Since I did not quite know which direction this one would be flying into I decided to stay put and observe.
2 reports later (15:30) I had some clarity - the first UFO was already over North Africa (heading to Europe where my Interceptors were patrolling), the second one arrived over Japan - so it was heading West (from Pacific) probably somewhere into Asia. I decided to send my Skyranger in its direction (of course I first packed all the equipment and "reorganized" my rookies, so that the ones with the highest reactions can step out first from Skyranger).
At 16:30 I detected the first saucer over Spain - shortly after it slowed down a bit and I caught up with it over Madrid. However, it was extremely shy - it disengaged almost immediately after the dogfight had started and left at full speed towards the Atlantic Ocean. I kept my patrolling position over Spain (I definitely did
not want to shoot it down over water) and hoped that it would come back at some moment.
And indeed - an hour and a half later (18:00) it was again over Europe (France to be exact). I caught it over Bordeaux and this time managed to send 2 Stingrays in its direction - the first one missed, the second one successfully downed it -
"Ufo crash lands". YAY, Yay, yay.
In the meantime the other UFO was getting spotted over various parts of East Asia (China, Russia, Siberia). My Skyranger was already on the way, but I decided to send the 2 Interceptors in the same direction so that I get better detection coverage. And indeed around 20:00 one of my Interceptors detected the landed UFO in far-east Russia. Google Maps confirmed that the place is called
Aeroport:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/XHT59V25gshStFo69. I guess the Aliens must also have access to these maps - they chose their landing location very well. :-D
The additional bonus for me is that soon it will be day in here - so no need for a night mission (which without flares is usually quite a nightmare). I actually consider this very first mission, one of the most challenging in the whole game. You only have the 8 Rookies (against up to 9 Aliens), the default equipment, few smoke grenades, few rockets and most of all, nothing to make light (no flares, no incendiary ammo). If you are very lucky you might be able to put something on fire with the HE ammo of Heavy Cannon, I guess. However, you can't really depend on this. Therefore if the first very mission should be at night - it is quite a bummer :-).
In my case the UFO landed so much in the east that it will be full day before I arrive with Skyranger. On the other hand it will be still the 1st of January (the ETA says around 23:00), so I should still be able to sell the loot and use the cash for some investments before the end of the day. Since we want to go to Cydonia as early as possible, every day matters, especially at the very beginning.
So to sum up - the very small UFO is crashed over Bordeaux (I will recover it on the 2nd of Jan - there is around $500k of loot inside it) and the Medium Scout is landed in the Aeroport / fear-east Russia with the Skyranger will be arriving there any minute. Saving the game - I will come back in the next days with the report on my very first mission.
Cheers! :-)
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