Messages

1

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.3: Mysteries Ancient And New

« on: July 16, 2024, 03:39:45 am »

The doors of cars / van should have windows of course, easily breakable. Also, they should have a front window and the car should also have a rear window. You won't be safe inside.

I currently can't think of a way to make this work in an elegant fashion, simply because of how X-COM's art works. Any vehicle would end up looking more like the initial craft from X-Piratez and not like a typical earth car.

map cell placement seems like a more likely solution, but I'm no technical expert so I'll leave that to those who are. For what it's worth, I've found map placement to be very impactful even in UFO defense. The main difference is that UFO defense's progression is much faster, with smoke grenades available from the start and tiered up weapons and armor available early on.

2

The X-Com Files / Re: AH-6 weapons

« on: July 14, 2024, 02:12:33 am »

Miniguns are your best bet. AH-6 can handle cults but I wouldn't put it against UFOs.

3

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.3: Mysteries Ancient And New

« on: July 14, 2024, 02:09:33 am »

PS: how do you get gang wars missions? i might have jump over them, those are very fun to watch

They can spawn any time Red Dawn is active. They're pretty uncommon but odds are you'll see one during the first few years.

4

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.3: Mysteries Ancient And New

« on: July 13, 2024, 04:07:05 am »

Throwing my two cents into the craft landing zone/enemies close to craft debate:

Occasionally I find that enemies spawn a little close to the early game cars and vans. This is challenging, but not unmanageable, and mostly occurs on a) Strange Life Forms, where skipping is at most a 90 point penalty and most enemies are melee only and b) missions with large numbers of human enemies, which you shouldn't be taking on with anything short of a Humvee or Chopper in my opinion. Most high point value missions managable by small vehicles are ones with either a small number of enemies to a large number of civilians (Lunatics, Reptoids, etc.) where you're unlikely to encounter the foe turn 1, or ones with lots of both civilians and enemies (Gang war for example), in which case you really are rolling the dice.

Having lots of empty space is not fun in my opinion. Jungle Maps are their own special hell due to dense foliage yes, but the biggest challenge with missions like the Durathread factory or ice sheet UFOs is all the open space. Smoke mitigates, but from a tactical perspective I prefer having cover and LOS blocking terrain. If the enemy can see you and doesn't have stuff blocking their shots you're in trouble. X-COM usually wins at Sniper duels.

Early game it's definitely a challenge, but that's part of the trade-off for using exposed vehicles. The single biggest upgrade I experienced craft-wise was the Osprey and Dragonfly level where I finally had craft with corridors. Side doors on the Skyraider and Skymarshall were another upgrade, but that initial security from enclosed craft is as valuable as the extra units in my book.

5

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: July 05, 2024, 06:45:29 pm »

Ah, a pity. It was a cool AAR.


I hope you return to XCF in the future, and tell us about your v2.0 campaign then.

I certainly plan to, XCF is probably my favorite OG X-COM Mod at the moment and I very much enjoyed writing AARs. I just need to take some time off to play something a little less intense. Maybe Elden Ring

6

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: July 05, 2024, 04:56:02 pm »

Decided to go after the hybrid base.

Went disastrously.

Mission was fun initially but enemy gas grenades and some poor layout meant my squad got shredded with no real chance of escape. Partially RNG, partially tactical misjudgements on my part. That's X-COM I suppose.

Ended up turning on debug mode towards the end just to have a look at the base. It's a really cool design, reminds me of Cydonia with the funky auditorium.

With that I think I'm going to put this particular campaign to rest - the situation is far from salvageable, but irl I need a break and I think I'd rather return with a fresh start.

Also, while mucking about in the settings I finally figured out why promotions weren't working. It was "automatic promotions" in OXCE being turned off. I think this happened when I played 40k a few months back. Once I switched that over and debug-ended the mission I ended up with every single remaining squad member leveling up.

All in all I enjoyed this campaign, but like I wrote earlier I need a break, from X-COM in general, not just X-COM Files.

7

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: July 02, 2024, 09:43:21 am »

After the success of the Base Assault, I was ready to take February relatively easy. A few missions, lots of research, aim to clean up a manor. The game had other plans.

To open: Hell's Kitchen now has 140+ alloys in its storehouse, and two workshops. It's a little short on Engineers for those workshops, but that's only because when I built the second workshop I didn't have enough living space. Another quarters is under construction. I need advice on what to do with all these alloys. A few more vests for HQ is likely in order, but I've got other options as well, including the Raven, the Skymarshall, various HWPs, and (right around the corner) Personal Armor.

Asylum Apparitions went about as smoothly as it could have. The last ghost took some time to track down, but it's not a particularly dangerous mission if you're well equipped, which I was. Missaoui brought a flame glove which proved very powerful. I've kept one in the back of the land rover for further use.

Following that I got my first hybrid purge, the mission description of which made me question whether or not we were the baddies. The hybrids were not too difficult to deal with. Star Trek uniforms, alien drones (I've now got Flying Drones again, yay!), I managed a couple captures, both a worker and supervisor. Had some rough wounds from a gas grenade that one was carrying, but no KIAs.

Strange Life Forms were mostly run-of-the-mill this month, but I did finally get a Bullfrog. I like the way bullfrogs move, it's a fun little animation. Also had a couple standard Zombie Shoots.

Red Dawn was terminated February 8th, and Natasha Morozova's dossier was extracted at the same time. Now to wait for the mission to pop. I got a T'Leth Embassy the same day, a mission I was hesitant to approach due to the prospect of Aquatoids vs barely armed agents. Somehow I managed it though. The Aquatoid showed its face early, missed its first attack, and then we killed it with bullets. Ideally would have captured but that didn't happen this time around. Took out the Deep Ones and managed to capture the Sorcerer. Overall a clean first mission underwater. I really love the artstyle of TFTD and felt right and home in the environment, though also pretty terrified. This mission netted our first batch of Aqua Plastics, a major development!


On the 10th I had a UFO land in Canada after I had sent my Jet out to take a look at (wasn't likely to shoot it down given the size, just wanted a peek at what the Ayys were up to). Seeing the landing I scraped together a squad (wounds from the Hybrids and Red Dawn were still lingering), and went out to investigate. My jet got there first and I discovered that you can in fact land jets now. That's pretty cool, but I wasn't prepared for it so the mission got lost and the UFO flew away. Likely for the best.

Sea Monster hunt spawned. It ended up being a Hallucinoid. Again scary but managed the kill.

A little later I got a Syndicate Monster Lab. The bat turned out to be invaluable. Syndicate Security wasn't too bad to deal with, but narrow halls and limited visibility were a pain at times. Fought hard, cleared the upper halls, then was mildly surprised when most of the base just surrendered. Got a couple more scientists, a Security chief, and some Monsters inc. files.

Had a break for a few days during which Elerium got researched. One of the Syndicate goons also told us about Dr. Alpha. I got the "Hybrid Infiltrator" event on the 17th, then Aqua Plastics shortly thereafter. Sonic Weapons are now within reach.


There's a Hybrid Embassy in Australia. I'm not sure how early I need to take it down, but I know I can't leave it for too long. The remaining Cult Manors aren't too big of a deal at the moment, but I should probably put them on the to-do list as well.

20th of Feb I got the Cyberweb Portal. Fun mission, scored a couple Mysteks. Had a few close calls but Tritanium protects. Got 900k in salvage after deciding to sell off the Cyberweb weapons. I don't think I'm going to use any of them.

Hot off the heels of the Portal mission, the 21st was a busy day. The M.A.G.M.A. Lab, a Deep One Attack, and an SLF all spawned more or less simultaneously. I dealt with the deep ones first. Nothing too complicated, right around 400 points. The SLF ended up being Zombies, well within the Landrover crew's capabilities.

M.A.G.M.A. Lab was fun, and very explosive. Saw a couple zombie variants I hadn't met before, had the bat fly recon to spot everything, lost a soldier to an infector that dropped in from nowhere, and blew up basically every explosion-prone object on the map.


Just as one soldier leaves us, another joins. Welcome Raddus, the Hybrid Oddball! Raddus was the very first Hybrid Worker we interrogated, and he's now joined the Kitsune's regular crew as its newest Junior Member. During the month of February he displayed the usual rookie traits of being very slow and a bad shot, but I have faith that he'll improve.


His Bravery is admittedly a little low. I plan to make him a medic once he has the STR to support that role.

The rest of the month was UFO Hell. First a night landing by a small craft. We went it, cleaned house, lost a senior agent (Mortar-man Jones) and killed all the aliens. No Captures, which was sad due to its slightly larger size, but we did secure 37 alloys.

Had a brief Cattle mutilation, then more UFO activity. This time a medium landing in Greenland. I sent the Kitsune, took one look at the three level craft, and left. The UFO took off, flew around for an hour or two then landed again. This time I actually went for it. Best decision so far this run I suspect. Håland got two kills as she stepped off the ramp and we only accelerated from there. Cleared the outside, then moved in under smoke to prep for breach.


The sectoids had a welcoming party. A cannister gun soldier with incendiary ammo. It burned a couple people, who ran off to the Kitune for the fire extinguisher while everyone else went inside. Entering the engine room, the dog, Boo-Boo, bit plasma and died, but was quickly avenged by Agent Habibi and his SMG. The other alien in the room was clobbered with a stun rod, and upon examination turned out to be an engineer. That alone would have made the mission a success in my eyes, but things got better. Using the motion tracker I detected the presence of an alien on the elevator outside. Senior Agent Atanasov made a daring Kukri Raid and was successful despite getting shot. Here he is getting patched up by Håland:


With the bat leading, the squad equipped stun rods and went up the elevators. The middle level was clear, and the top layer was a breeze. All three sectoids, including two leaders, were stunned, leading to a total of 5 live alien captures. In addition to this we scored over a hundred alloys and several weapons for research.

This mission happened on the 26th. Over the next 48 hours an additional 3 or 4 UFOs went into Greenland, including a large. Given the wounds on the medium I decided not to pursue these, but the amount of focus there is causing me some worry. What sorts of missions could they be performing? I assume research, but I can't be certain. Do alien bases have ship landings preceding their establishment? If so, what kinds? And is it even early enough for Alien Bases to generate?

I had planned to take out a manor this month, but it never happened. Finances are amazing right now, and I'm flush with alloys, though I'm sure that won't last long. I need guidance on what to spend alloys on (and what to save them up for.). I think another base would be a reasonable investment, though admittedly Psionics, and thus Psi Labs, are around the corner, and I should probably save up for those. My current weapons are having no trouble with Sectoid flesh, and even armored enemies are going down pretty quick.

Now to end things off, here's the score:

8

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: June 30, 2024, 04:54:16 pm »

Mission Report: Red Dawn HQ

---
The sun was setting.

Council Salvage had showed up, the Kitsune had taken the first batch of prisoners back to HQ under guard, and X-COM's presence on site was limited to a few agents and an AI Drone's black box. The half dozen squad members were gathered in the top floor of one of the bunker towers. Their charges, the two captive hybrid envoys, were kept in one corner. One was still dazed from the taser Dae had pulled on him in the underground. The other, who had ordered the surrender after he found himself the only remaining executive, sat picking at the lapels of his suit, glancing up occasionally at Senior Agent Kopp.

Kopp had set his shield down in the opposite corner, alongside the better portion of his grenades, but he was still the most well armed man in the room. Even Sousa's shotgun, while dangerous, was nothing compared to the cluster of crystalline petals that Kopp was absentmindedly turning in his hand. Energy crackled between those petals, less than it had a few hours ago, but enough that the Hybrid knew not to make any threatening moves.

X-COM's growth had been meteoric. In a few short years they had dismantled an organization that had been nurtured for almost a decade, counting the time before the Soviets fell apart when many of the cult's enforcers had initially been contacted. And now it was clear that they were still nascent. They had only the faintest beginnings of understanding the powers they so clearly possessed. To do so much with so little however... it was terrifying. Not that he would have to deal with it for much longer of course. Secret organizations always had the most pleasant interrogation techniques. He was sure this one would be no different.

The storm rose crackled. Outside, the roar of an engine signaled the arrival of their craft. Kopp looked up from his meditation of the Storm Rose and nodded to another agent - or perhaps the better term was soldier - and went to retrieve his shield. The hybrid rose. There hadn't been a chance of escape before, and there wouldn't be a point in trying now. He had called the defeat - now he got to face the consequences.
---

Tried my hand at a bit of creative writing. Not my best, but it felt fitting. This is the end of a major act of the campaign. All four cults are effectively dealt with now, and as soon as researchers are free it will be made official.

Red Dawn HQ was a very successful mission.

First turn was standard. Toss smoke and wait. An armored car rolled up to the ramp, so turn two started with me attempting to figure out grenade logistics, before realizing this was a golden opportunity to try out my secret weapon. I am very pleased I did.


I researched the storm rose after the Black Lotus raid, then recently transferred it to mission control. This is the fist time I've used a psi weapon this campaign, and I am satisfied with the decision. Flame glove always felt a little risky due to middling throwing accuracy in my barracks. Storm Rose uses firing accuracy plus psi strength. Agent Kopp is far and away the best candidate for this weapon, given his 90-something aim and 101 Psi (100 natural plus original member if I'm not mistaken). One burst from the rose killed the tank, and he got several other 1-2 shot kills throughout the mission, ultimately gaining the "Sorcerer" commendation.

The surface fight went decently. Taking the first armored car out right away helped immensely, the other two required a combination of grenade launchers, gad grenades, and a few sniper shots to deal with, but they went down. Had a few pioneers and lads from the towers, and one of the executives showed his face and got flower-powered:


At this point i could have snatched the data and run away, but I decided to keep going. The squad had taken a smattering of wounds from the cars, but medibot Typhon and healing gel both made that a relative non-issue, at least for the duration of the mission. Once the cars were down I moved the squad into the underground, a process which went faster than expected. Squad in transit can be seen here:


Once underground there were a few rough turns. A Pioneer with an SVD took out the medibot, and Lava the Dog took a few shots that could have hit someone else. Fortunately the dog survived, and the bot's wreck was recovered. Another enforcer was taken down, numerous lads and pioneers dropped to our steady advance, and the panics started on 11 into 12. On turn 10 I got my first view of the Hybrid envoy, who slowly advanced up the hallway over the next few turns before being one-tapped with a taser and stuffed into a backpack.


By turn 20 the whole base was in panic, and last envoy apparently lost enough morale to surrender as well. Since I had already taken out all the enforcers, the mission ended with a total of 13 surrenders in addition to my singular capture. 632 points, 2 memory cards, one of which was sold, two envoys, some miscellaneous Red Dawn, and a pile of durathread. Research will commence shortly, I'm probably sending some of the captives to Kiryu-Two to split the load. Given how many Pioneers and Red Ops I nabbed, I'm pretty much guaranteed to exhaust the remaining research topics from those units, meaning I'll be free to get rid of their manor whenever I please.

Overall this was a great mission to open the month with. Right before the HQ spawned I got the notification for Asylum Apparitions. I've sent Richter to lead the ghostbusters on this one, they're much better equipped than the first time I ran the mission. I'm mostly looking forward to the music.

9

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: June 30, 2024, 03:03:43 pm »

Very well; I added a Tritanium Vest on Fixer's interrogation.

Feel free to add one STR_ALLOY_VEST item to your save if you like, it won't be cheating.

Excellent, feels like a solid reward for the Hacienda & Cruise ship. Will add the vest once my squad gets back from Ghostbusting.

10

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: June 30, 2024, 09:20:18 am »

What's your issue with the M.A.G.M.A. Factory?

Meant M.A.G.M.A. Lab. Took until now to research an infector so I haven't had access to it. I wouldn't say I have a problem with it per se, but the way its introduced feels... I guess a little dissonant compared with the way missions are usually introduced. If it came in the form of a "Provide Security Services to M.A.G.M.A. Corporation" topic or something similar I think it would feel more... I hate to say 'immersive' but that's the best I've got. Very minor thing really.

Jarheads are good to get (as corpses), because they lead to a useful piece of kit.

Figured as much, saw that the tech tree lead to another X-COM History topic and those usually lead to something useful.

Psi Strength isn't easy to raise, especially by that amount. The main sources of extra PSTR are commendations and eating cake. Literally.

'Bane of X' might be the most accessible of the lot, and can be repeated for different factions. Note that the same level of 'Bane of X' doesn't stack, so you'd need 'Bane of X' at level 3, 'Bane of Y' at level 4, etc.

Dagonization is usually looked down upon, but can give you +5.

Ayala has a few Bane-Of's already, all at Level 1 I think. I'll check but I might be able to increase some of them. Cake is something I hadn't heard of, but might be an option once I get psi labs, it looks to be related to dreaming which I already got the prerequisite for thanks to Lo Wo. Dagonization is definitely looking like an option as Ayala is plenty brave enough and his sanity is very high. It's going to take a while no matter what however and he's never going to be a psychic giant.

Knowing all classic weapons just disables the freebie event where you're given knowledge of one of them.

Makes sense. Would be cool if it gave you a bonus - maybe a pop up from the chief engineer or the quartermaster complimenting you on your thoroughness.

Now that you've got a flying rat for a friend, are you also lookig to recruit the non-flying ones?

It's been an option for a while but I don't have too much interest in pursuing them to be honest. I just don't particularly like the rat sprites. Maybe if I could give them hats or vests. I also think dogs should have more color options for their durathread vest - a blue would look nice alongside the tritanium vests of the regular agents.

I thought you'd killed EXALT? How are you still getting their missions?

Two lingering manors which were both set up before I took them down. I've left one up intentionally for those melee training missions and free Psiclones. I'll probably take down the other one.

11

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: June 29, 2024, 05:46:44 pm »

January has past.

The invasion has begun.

This month's theme is... monsters!

First off, this is the most screenshots I've shared with any post thusfar. I really think I should learn how to embed properly. Will look into that before I play February.

There have been several dossiers I've been waiting on for a while now. Natasha Morozova, David Vincent, and Dr. Alpha being foremost. I am still waiting on all of these. Hopefully they'll show up soon.

In the meantime, January was a very busy month.

The very first event to pop, minutes after midnight in fact, was a Reptoid Assassination attempt. My car was too slow and I missed it, leading to a really rough score hit to open the month.

Second to pop was an Osiron Hacienda, a mission type I haven't played before. A mansion sounded ripe for bombardment. I sent the Kitsune, and packed the mortar. The mission went very well, and had a surprising amount of opportunities for melee xp faming. We started by taking out the wall guards with snipers and TGLs while the motar set up and the shields and smartrifle team moved in under smoke, minigun following slightly behind (Jankowski is a captain now, and has a stupid amount of TUs, so I kept him back a turn in case of explosives). We crashed the gates with a Hi-Ex and started taking heads. By turn 7 there was mass panic among both goons and capos. I swapped a sizable chunk of the assault team over to stun sticks at that point. Eventually we reached the upper floors and the boss came out to meet us with a machine gun that did nothing against Tritanium shields. Stun sticks brought him to his knees and he was brought back home for interrogation.

During the mission, an errant napalm grenade splashed Lava, the dog. Fortunately the mortar man had just run out of ammo and was going back to the Kitsune anyway, so Lava's life was saved. I found the incident more amusing than anything else.

Score for the mission was ~480. In treasure alone we got just under 3 mil. 15 Osiron crates were secured, as were several black ops weapons (sold some that I don't use), a couple rocket launchers, and a "Photonic Spear", which sounds very fancy, and is worth over a full million by itself. I haven't sold it, it's hanging in my office until the eggheads know what to do with it. We took a few wounds that mission (Lava being the most grave), but had no KIAs.

The Osiron Fixer turned out to be absolutely useless. He gave us a cool dossier, but al his supposed knowledge was stuff we already knew. Disappointing. I wish he produced a Tritanium vest upon processing, especially since it's mentioned in his UFOPedia article.

I ended up skipping Red Dawn HQ this month. The Hacienda left a few particularly important people wounded and I didn't feel like dealing with it. It's on the agenda for February however.

I started doing a lot of the mission-unlocking researches this month. Cyberweb Plans, some Syndicate projects, the M.A.G.M.A. Factory prompt (which feels... particularly inorganic compared to several other progression quests). None of these actually popped this month unfortunately.

The Osiron crates had some nice stuff. A Mind Probe, some more Zrbite, and an MiB Crate being the most notable, at least by my assessment. The MP won't be researchable for a while, and I was extremely disappointed to learn they aren't worth 300k anymore. Worst deviation from vanilla by far (I jest, but I loved that random aspect of Mind Probes). The MiB crate was interesting to research, but had a fairly boring Black Ops gun inside.

The next major op was Manor-3, a level 2 Dagon manor. It was very much like other manors I had been to, with two exceptions. One, the "Jarheads", regular looking chicks with Milkors and rifles, until you shoot them. When you shoot them they become literal brain-in-jar robots with psychic energy hand attacks. I managed to capture one, and took another couple as corpses. Beyond that the only highlights were the reinforcements, who weren't too difficult to deal with, and that time when Jankowski got jumped by a Gilldog, then killed it with a Kukri. Probably the most fun I've had at a mansion yet. As it was Ayala's 75th mission, he got his promotion to Comissar afterwards as well (that's where I've decided the limit is. Chief Agent will probably be whoever out of Ayala and Richter hits 100 missions first)

Another mysterious donation netted 2.5 million this time. I was tempted to build more bases but satisfied myself with an Interceptor for Kiryu-Two and upgrading the Intel Center at Coast Wizards. Money is really not an issue these days. I even commissioned additional motion scanners for all bases.

St. John's, Canada got really hammered this month. I have a certain dread of St. John's as a mission location from playing XCOM 2012. There's a mission in that game where you investigate disappearances at St. John's and it turns out to be a whale full of Chryssalids. Amazing mission, one of the few places where you feel as scared of NewCom lids as you do of oldschool lids. Digression aside, two monster attacks in the same town in one month? This is getting out of hand!

The first attack was Spiders, with a lair underneath. Mission went alright, one major injury (Agent Jones the Mortar Man got bitten underground), but we cleared out the spiders and had minimal civilian casualties. Failed to capture the queen unfortunately. Got Spelunker commendations all around.

The second monster attack was Muckstars. This mission went very well, so well in fact that no civilians died. After clearing the landing zone we tracked the last couple Muckstars to a small house, where they stayed while we slammed it with TGLs. Very clean.

The crew at Kiryu-Two did a storm bust. It went pretty well up until the top floor. The dog got shot point blank by a Stormy. Otherwise it was perfectly fine.

West Men ambushed the stealth vehicle. Overwatch was extremely overpowered. Despite outnumbering us 2-1, the Westmen got soundly beaten. The last remaining one surrendered and finished off the Westmen interrogation list. Future Westmen will be sold in all likelihood.

Back at Mission control I noticed two things: 1. Despite meeting all other requirements, Commissar Ayala's PST is too low for him to go to Ninja school. Is there any surefire way to raise his PST by around... 20 points? How is PST raised in general? 2. I now know all classic weapons. Does this do anything for me?

Third major monster attack of the month was... Chupa-[expletive]-cabras at night. I'll keep the story short. We won, but lost a dog. Also lost an agent to friendly grenade launcher reaction fire. I forgot to drain his TUs. Ended up with a mild negative score due to the amount of dead civilians.

In happier news, Council salvage teams presented us with some free land surveys, one of which contained a live Shadow Bat. On the 25th, we welcomed our first ever X-Bat, Andariel. At the same time we detected our first alien craft of the month, a very small signature over the Atlantic. The craft was tracked as it journeyed into Canada and was eventually splashed by Interceptor Martinez' Dream, piloted by Agent Illes, who can now be credited with the first Alien Craft kill by X-COM personnel. The craft survived the impact and Kiryu-Two was permitted the privilege of clearing the site. One sectoid scout with a plasma rifle, easily eliminated. Scored one alloy and a mind probe.

That was the last major mission of the month as it turned out. I sent the Kitsune out for a melee training run on some EXALT goons, which was profitable. Using EXALT as my training bait means I'm getting 1-2 Psiclones per mission, which is either 22k per unit, or a Gun Kata. I am yet to have anyone train Gun Kata admittedly, but I might send them over to Deep Simba or something.

Speaking of Deep Simba, on the 28th, the last two gyms were completed for a total of 5. The base now has a full 50 rookies in training and is already posting good results. Two rookies were identified as Pilot school candidates. The base also has a medbay and will thus be able to execute Bio-Enhancement on any rookies who meet the stat requirements. I did a brief survey of Psi Strength at DS and discovered several 90+ and one 100. I'm very pleased by that.

The month turned with a very nice 3500 points. Cult Manor-4, the only one I didn't know the location of, was revealed to be in Argentina. It's another EXALT Manor. I will probably eliminate it next month but keep Manor-1 around for training missions. Red Dawn is my big priority next month, as well as making sure I'm geared up for Undersea ops.

12

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: June 29, 2024, 01:12:24 pm »

I suppose you got the Kiryu-Kai shards, too? Osiron crates and Hybrid Embassies are probably the most accessible sources of new shards. But nothing is guaranteed, as always.

Pretty sure I did yes.

Also, just got a Monster attack that I somehow managed to save all Civilians on. Muckstars are surprisingly easy to take down when they hide in TGL-vulnerable houses. 700 point boost is very welcome.

13

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: June 29, 2024, 12:18:42 pm »

Your bot likely got vaporised - there's a threshold where overkill crumps the target so hard there won't be even a corpse left. Since that's what gets resurrected, your little brave AI is no more.

That's what I feared. Looks like Vortex is one for this history books, up there with Agent Martinez - Commissar Richter's first partner in the Covert Ops division and the first X-COM agent lost to plasma fire.

AI crystals are kind of a pain to get hold of, so this stings.

Fortunately I have more than just the initial one. Got some from Osiron crates a while back meaning I have a total of 3 AIs left standing. Hopefully I'll be able to find more. Just took down a Hacienda to kick off the new year (full report will be in next post) Didn't get any shards but did get some other cool stuff.

14

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: June 28, 2024, 05:29:47 pm »

Well a lot of money was spent, a lot of research was done, a few soldiers got pilot training and... very few missions were actually completed.

December was an intensely quiet month that managed to be my highest scoring yet, mostly due to Metamorphs. 2k in one drop is a lot and I'm thinking maybe I should have saved it for later. Still have the mansions of course. The rest of the points came from a few missions with civilians (Lunatic, SLFs, things like that), several of which I managed Cavalier on. The month featured only one loss, an AI unit... more on that momentarily.

I'm doing some rearrangement at HQ. I've invested roughly 1.5 million in rebuilding the small warehouses into a big one, the extra investment being in temporary warehouses in the space I usually leave to form the security gap. Another half million was spent on an Interceptor. A full million was dropped outfitting Deep Simba with an arsenal to defend itself with. There were some other auxiliary expenses. A new hanger here, a storeroom there, ultimately was left with around a half million in the bank - enough to cover day to day operations. Sold off some elerium and ufo power sources to afford a batch of scientists for Coast Wizards, which is now partially operational.

A lot of little projects got done this month, as well as Hybrid Network and Deep One Communities.

Only one mission this month was really notable. The military shot down another bloody UFO. We stormed it, took 3 captives, Kopp (Ninja School graduate) got a kill turn one with his Kukri. Still no Engineers unfortunately - not sure if they just don't spawn on these scouts or if I've been unlucky with my caps. Big win is the alloys, which were sent to the Kitchen to be turned into shiny shirts.

On the mission, Vortex the Scout-bot got shot running an overwatch and immediately crumpled. This was expected, that's what he's there for. What wasn't expected was when I got back and found that the AI resurrection project wasn't available. It still isn't. I'm not fully sure what happened. Vortex was sort of the star bot for a while, having been the drone that appeared on all three Cult HQ Assaults to date. Is there a limit on resurrects? Or was the alien plasma gun to blame?

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.3: Mysteries Ancient And New

« on: June 28, 2024, 05:02:31 pm »

I think Zombie dogs would make a great addition to something like the vampire castle. Zombie leaders get zombie pets!