That moment in time...

[Wimples]

It's January. You've shot down two UFOs. You've researched Tactical Sniper Rifles and Multi-Launchers (FMP), and are producing ammunition.

And then you have a base defense mission.

On January 14th. No HWPS. No Rocket Launchers. No High Explosives.

I had two flame throwers. Managed to melt the Cyberdiscs and overcame the mission.

I've never had a base defense in January. Has anyone else?

[ohartenstein23]

Don't think I've had one in January, maybe in February with FMP.  Focusing aerospace research I think, kept flamethrowers around for that very reason - the flamer soldiers were always the heroes of my base defenses.  Except for this one, when it was Snakemen, and I had no explosives.  Fire is the great early game equalizer in FMP, until you find resistant or melee enemies.

I've seen quite a few month 1 base defenses in TFTD LPs though.

[Arthanor]

According to the ufopaedia:

Starting on the first month, each shootdown of a UFO can trigger a retaliation mission by the aliens, with the chance being determined by difficulty level, at Easy being 4%, then increasing each difficulty level by 4%, until it reaches 20% on Superhuman.

So it is definitely possible. OpenXCom had a bug where it checked twice for retaliations (so you had almost double the odds of getting one!) before. I'm pretty sure it was fixed in the nightly, I know Meridian fixed it in OXCE+, but if you're using 1.0, you'll be up against that too.

[Hobbes]

I've never had a base defense in January. Has anyone else?

It's quite possible. It all depends on the RNG results. UFO is detected and shot down on the first days of January. Martians get mad and send another UFO to scout for Retaliation, your Small Radar fails to detect it, and the UFO overflies and locates your base. Base Defense mission follows, and unless you detect the Battleship that is zooming on your base, you'll have zero warning about it (Small Radars can really suck twice in a row) and if you're really unlucky it will be Sectoids with lots of mind control and Cyberdiscs, instead of Floaters and Reapers.

A classic experience. Slightly less humiliating than losing your Skyranger on your first Terror Site

[Slaughter]

Oh yeah it actually happened in my last two FMP games. Sectoids in both cases. Won one, lost another, but I had a embrionary base built at start.

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[Arthanor]

Yup, and given that in vanilla UFO, you are guaranteed a sectoid research mission in the region of your base, chances are that the first UFO you shoot down is a sectoid one. On superhuman, that's 20% chance of a retaliation and retaliations are the same race as the one that was shot down, so it will be mind control + cyberdiscs. Fun times!

Always order flamethrowers, rocket launchers, big rockets and HE packs on day one, so hopefully they arrive in time for the potential base defence. And some soldiers/dogs to replace early losses and help out defending!

In fact, mods like the FMP really help by giving you access to a pretty reliable close range answer to cyberdiscs which is perfect for base defence: Flamethrowers hiding in a closet and peaking out to BBQ cyberdiscs. With that, you don't need to worry about them blowing up, or having to get large rockets/HE packs on them and potentially putting soldiers at risk or damaging valuable loot.

[Slaughter]

yeah, flamers are so effective vs cyberdiscs its actually a little silly.