Campaign Report

[Juku121]

Cool read!


On the topic of shields, I looked and discovered that for some reason they're front-armour only. Not sure why. But they add to melee dodge to even it out. Personally, I tend to also add (left) side armour, and even had a Xenonauts-style script I proposed to Solarius at one time. For regular armoured vests, the frontal increase is significant, but it's the same value (+10) for Tritanium vests, and that's condsiderably weaker in comparison.

If you're still using BO Pistols, Smartpistols will be something of an upgrade.

I wish I could share your excitement about BO Assault Rifles, I always found them lacking. They don't have the same universality as genuine assault rifles, with their nerfed aimed accuracy, poorer snap shots than the BO Rifle and only one extra shot in aimed mode. The G11 eats their lunch when it comes to autofire, and there are plenty of other mid-range automatic weapons around. The only thing they have is two (crappy) aimed shots per turn, and if you need those, a dedicated snap sniper like the SVD is leagues better.

Once Smartrifles come into play, they outclass pretty much any other conventional rifle that doesn't have a special gimmick (G11's super-fast auto shot, Pulse Rifle's chem rounds, etc).

KS-23M is supposed to fire a heavier, more lethal stun round. But 22 stun damage with +50% to health once it penetrates armour (which it does worse than regular, 25-damage beanbags) is not particularly better than 25 damage with +35% health. It does have slightly more damaging buckshot, but that's also pretty minor in comparison. Perhaps if you don't yet have BO Shotguns or CAWS, it might be an upgrade.

Miniguns have a very special property: they strip armour even without doing damage. Fire a couple of bursts at an otherwise invulnerable Sectopod, and it'll start feeling the pain.

[Irismono]

Miniguns have a very special property: they strip armour even without doing damage. Fire a couple of bursts at an otherwise invulnerable Sectopod, and it'll start feeling the pain.

That is fascinating!

Almost done with June, but something popped up that I definitely need some guidance on. In the meantime, it's been a rather eventful month.

First off, got my AIs woken up. Somehow I have a flying drone chassis, don't know how that happened but I'm not complaining. Little scouts are already pulling weight as spotters. No real CQC this month though I think that's about to change.

Started the month with a live shambler capture, which was immediately followed by Spiders. I ended up with a regular spider, a stealth spider, and a death spider. Into the Dark appears like a possible route now.

Big mission of the month was a landed UFO without military support. Radar detected a flying object with high speed and I tracked it until it set down in Colombia. Osprey was deployed. Mission was at night due to necessity. 6 kills, 1 loss (rookie), no captures despite trying for them. Alloys were sent to Hell's Kitchen for production into Tritanium Vests.

Had an EXALT outpost raid as a rookie training mission. Brought the Minigun along on a vet. I love it just for the sheer number of bullets it produces, though map positioning made it difficult to use.

On the 25th, Lo Wo was found. The fool walked out with his katana and got hit with 3 tasers practically from the ramp. His assassin bodyguards got one of the squad, but overall the cost was minimal. Whole thing was over in 4 turns.

Now, for what made me pause:


I don't recognize this mission type and it worries me. It's out of range of my Osprey unless I transfer, so I'd have to use the same team that just nabbed Lo Wo, and they're flying back. My only other option would be my 2-man team.

Edit: Image link doesn't seem to be working, image is attached.

[Juku121]

Looks like you're on track for Promotion III now!



The flying drone likely came from the Osiron Warehouse. IDK why they have yet undeveloped X-Com tech lying around...



The Reptoids are the real rulers of Earth, come to end your campaign.

Nah, it's probably a couple of lizard boys in a kitchen, room-to-room combat with somewhat dangerous weapons, but not anything special if you've killed Sectoids before. Take dogs/rats/motion scanners, finding them in the labyrinthine mini-mansion is the most annoying part, especially with all the civilians around.

Two agents sounds a little risky, but that goes for almost any mission. 6-8 should handle it okay. There are only a couple lizards around, and they are eminently killable.

[Irismono]

The flying drone likely came from the Osiron Warehouse. IDK why they have yet undeveloped X-Com tech lying around...

That sounds likely. Little odd but a flying unit is a flying unit, regardless of its... dubious origin.

The Reptoids are the real rulers of Earth, come to end your campaign.

Nah, it's probably a couple of lizard boys in a kitchen, room-to-room combat with somewhat dangerous weapons, but not anything special if you've killed Sectoids before. Take dogs/rats/motion scanners, finding them in the labyrinthine mini-mansion is the most annoying part, especially with all the civilians around.

Sounds good. The 2-Agent team are easily my best. They should handle it no problem.

[Solarius Scorch]

The flying drone likely came from the Osiron Warehouse. IDK why they have yet undeveloped X-Com tech lying around...

It's basically Hybrid tech...

[Irismono]

Just finished with Reptoids... that was exhausting.

Realized my car was too far away so went in with the Dragonfly at Japan Base, same Squad that beat up Lo Wo.

Mission took like 40 turns, lost a dude to each of the Reptoids, even after Bug Hunt came into effect it was a slog. Score ended positive because of how many civilians never even encountered the Reptoids.

Btw is this the EXALT Base Map? It looks like it.

In the end managed to live capture both of them and sent them to the Alien Containment at Mission Control.

[Irismono]

See attachments for June Score and the best ammo crate opening to date.

Nothing much to report in June after the Reptoids, except that an understanding of Metapsychology has been achieved. Psi Strength is now visible on all units and there are a few standouts, for good or bad:

• Agent Habibi, a humble Shieldman, 99
• Agent Kopp, one of our original members, 101
• Agent Missaoui, one half of the Anzug duo, wielder of the G11, 93
• Agent Jankowski, Medic turned Minigunner, 93
• Agent King, who helped take down the first Cyberweb lair, 96
• Agent Younis, a frontline grunt, 9
• Agent Moroz, whose very first mission was a UFO, 91
• Agent Ayala, my chief sniper, 9
• Three Rookies with 90+

And all that's just at Mission Control. The highest overall is Kopp, no real surprise there. The lowest is Agent Lebna at Kiryu-Two, with a mere 2 Psi Strength.

I am now prepping for EXALT HQ. As expected, it spawned in as the month rolled, and I started prepping the Osprey. The manufacturing base has been hard at work and has produced, with current alloy supplies, half a dozen Tritanium vests, as well as some knockout grenades. We'll be bringing those along with most of our gas grenade supply. I'm bringing 14 Agents, a Dog, and Vortex the flying Drone. Arguably a scout would be better given the architecture of the base, but I like how the flying drone looks.

The Tritanium suits are going on our four shield guys, our minigun, and Ayala, who is arguably the most veteran unit on the mission. I've got two grenade launchers on board, and almost everyone has an explosive of some sort on their person. We have a motion tracker in addition to the dog.

I've double checked equipment. I think it's time to launch.

[Irismono]

I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but this is about as flawless an HQ Attack as I could have dreamed for.

Few bad wounds. Jankowski got 6 fatals total while mowing down the enemy. Fortunately we had healing gel available. First few turns were spent forming into 6-ish man teams (plus the wildcard squad of Shield, Dog, and Drone, then I systematically blasted my way through the mansion. Very early on I taser-rushed the brainer, taking wounds but successfully downing it. Also managed to take out several Enforcers and a Master within the first 10 turns. I suspect this good luck is what lead to the eventual surrender of the entire base. Once all the Enforcers had been neutralized I was left with very little to clean up.

Didn't time it, but it went pretty fast as well, even with a break for dinner about 2/3 of the way through. Managed to not use any gas grenades - the only time I had enemies grouped up were the ballrooms that span two levels, and I had grenade launchers and a minigun to take care of those.

Now feeling much more optimistic about Lotus etc. Red Dawn now sounds toughest just due to the APCs. On the bright side, I'm now a step closer to promo III, and I looted a couple unspent RPGs, which may come in handy.

Now to play July proper. I don't think I need to worry about Score this month.

[Juku121]

Spoiler" Drones @ Solarius":

It's basically Hybrid tech...

Wouldn't it be more immersive to replace the loot with actual Hybrid tech, STR_ALIEN_DRONE_TERRORIST? The X-Com drone is a repurposed, X-Com specific version. It even has X-Com in the name!

Ahem. It seems you have things well in hand. I guess you had practice beforehand with the Reptoid mini-mansion, managed to take out enemy leadership early on, and indoors usually disables the most dangerous part of EXALT weaponry, the grenade launchers.


This mini-EXALT HQ the Reptoids were in gets used for a another somewhat annoying mission, too.

[Irismono]

July is done!

I ended my last post saying that score would not be an issue this month. I was oh-so-wrong. See attached images for the first mission after the EXALT HQ.

Cops vs Zombies that went really smoothly until it didn't. -723 score with one man escaping. Saw my first Zombie boomers, they were easy enough. Cops got their butts kicked but I was expecting that. What killed 7/8ths of the (mostly rookie) squad were the sword zombies, which I assume were Vampire Knights. They spawned far away on the map edge, and only really approached once everything else was dealt with. When they did approach however, I found that none of the guns I had worked. This craft didn't have a minigun, and even if it did, nobody on board had the combination of strength and aim to effectively wield it. The zombie took several SPAS-12 rounds to the face and didn't even stagger. Thinking that a dog, a minigun, or both would have saved those guys.

Somewhat fortunately, no vets were on board. I had just finished the Sick Bay for Base 2, so anyone who was anyone was getting their Bio-ex done. Still a big loss with a large cost, but we'll recover.

Shortly after I completed the Brainer interrogation (got it alive), which lead to the Terminate EXALT project, which was quickly completed. I have a few Psiclones in storage which I may keep around. Haven't researched gun kata just yet and it's on the back burner.

After the hellish zombie mission I got an easy zombie mission. No civilians, nothing worse than a fat zombie, just a comfortable and modestly profitable shooting trip with the Mission Control Rookies and a few choice vets as chaperones. That was a nice little score boost and cash infusion, soon to be eclipsed by the month's later missions.

Had a monster city attack event that I ended up evacing from turn 1 due to night conditions and insufficient weaponry. Not happy about it since it was another -400 points almost. Had that and the Zombie disaster not happened there's a good chance this would have been a 2000 point month.

After this however I realized that Alien Origin is an option for Promotion 3, and Alien Origin is exactly what Kiryu-Two had been working on when it wasn't preoccupied with Lo Wo or a random gun I found. Also at the start of the month I started building a standard lab in Kiryu-two to continue building it into a full second base. I can't make use of the full 25 lab space yet, need more living space, but it would be critical to the events of the last week of July.

Dagon is in sights finally. Got a Forward base, stormed it, lost a shieldman but scored a Sorcerer. Shortly after finished the Skyraider research and began building a hanger in my manufacturing base. Given how close Promotion III is I suspect I'll be skipping from Skyraider straight to Skyranger, unless there's a good reason not to. Also discovered on the way to the Forward base that Dagon set up another Manor (Manor-6) in a very inconvenient location. It's still level 1 and it's on a flight path, so it's very much a priority target. It is within easy range of the Osprey, I just need to draw away fighters long enough to land and kill.

Towards the end of month I noticed that the local EXALT manor (which is now level 2 by the way, what a pain) had deployed a car to infiltrate somewhere. Now I've seen these before but never had the chance to intercept them. This time I did, thinking that at minimum I could interrupt the mission. I sent the private car with now-Captain Richter (promotions seem broken so I've swapped them back to manual, Richter has been on over 70 missions so the rank seemed fitting). Richter stepped out into a Brazilian suburb, and proceeded to Auto-Sniper down the entire complement of EXALT goons by himself, while taking no injuries. He scored a couple psiclones and a very modest score. This mission was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it was very cathartic.

While Richter was on his South American vacation, the Galapagos got attacked by... more Reptoids. Fully expecting the worst I crewed up the Osprey at Mission control and sent in a crack team, mostly Senior Agents. This mission went way faster, and I managed to find both the Reptoids in the same room. I unfortunately lost both Senior Agent Plamenova and a dog named Rico. Rough loss but we got some cash for the corpses and weapons and managed to avoid civilian casualties, resulting in a score that put us further into the green.

Incidentally, I've noticed something about Reptoids that may or may not be a bug. They do not seem to use doors. Never in either mission can I recall hearing door sounds on the alien turn, only on the civilian. From what I can tell, part of why the first mission went so poorly was that a civilian wandered into the kitchen and let the Reptoids out, at which point they started wrecking havoc. If this is intentional that's fine, but it definitely feels a little weird. Also I'm painfully familiar with the tiles of this mansion now. It is not a map I enjoy at all. If it was maybe 1/2 to 1/4 of the size it would be a lot more bearable. I also don't wholly like the spawning locations, since even with the relatively small squad size of 8 your squad ends up spread over multiple levels, and thus more difficult to coordinate effectively.

Wrapping up, Kiryu-Two finished its science lab and large radar, and welcomed 20 new scientists, tripling its research rate. Alien Origins was completed a couple days later. Then came Summary Report #3, and finally Promotion III, triggering, with impeccable timing, on Midnight July 1st.

Overall a good month, but a painful one with some tough losses. Next month is going to be a lot of research and a lot of gearing up. Ideally I want to take down a second cult before the year's out, if not all four. New craft, especially fighters, are going to be a priority.

Now that I have Promo III, are there any absolutely critical projects or standout pieces of kit I should focus on? Besides being able to purchase all the cool explosives of course.

[Solarius Scorch]

Cool read!

Spoiler" Drones @ Solarius":

Wouldn't it be more immersive to replace the loot with actual Hybrid tech, STR_ALIEN_DRONE_TERRORIST? The X-Com drone is a repurposed, X-Com specific version. It even has X-Com in the name!

I assumed Osiron had repurposed them already; they couldn't easily sell them otherwise.
The real reason is to reward the player for this mission, without unnecessary acrobatics.

Incidentally, I've noticed something about Reptoids that may or may not be a bug. They do not seem to use doors. Never in either mission can I recall hearing door sounds on the alien turn, only on the civilian. From what I can tell, part of why the first mission went so poorly was that a civilian wandered into the kitchen and let the Reptoids out, at which point they started wrecking havoc. If this is intentional that's fine, but it definitely feels a little weird. Also I'm painfully familiar with the tiles of this mansion now. It is not a map I enjoy at all. If it was maybe 1/2 to 1/4 of the size it would be a lot more bearable. I also don't wholly like the spawning locations, since even with the relatively small squad size of 8 your squad ends up spread over multiple levels, and thus more difficult to coordinate effectively.

Must be random chance, Reptoids are not special in any way.

[Juku121]

Ouch! I suppose your good luck had to run out eventually.


A dog wouldn't have scratched the Vampire Knight. They can do ~3 damage at most to it, under ideal circumstances. You might have managed to Stun Rod it if you dogpiled the thing, or maybe some high-melee skill agent with a big can-opener weapon. Fire is a common weakness of those vampires, especially as it can make them panic and not come after your agents, since it's a melee unit.


Gun Kata is only really valuable if you do it early, before maxing firing accuracy, and in general the tradeoff is not really worth the bonuses you get from it.


Skyraiders are considerably faster than Skyrangers, which might be handy in some circumstances. But its main draw is that you can get it without Promotion III, although the other requirement is equally difficult.


You are not alone in hating the mansion map. Piratez players can tell you all about it.


Promo III gives you heavy football gear tac armour, gas grenades, mortars, tactical grenade launchers and smartweapons (if you've found them before). Tanks, better undercover cars/armour, napalm and underwater weapons might also be worth a look.

It also unlocks another of the four classical transformations, Combat Pilot Training.

HLA and Advance Intel Labs give you a chance at acquiring a mid-game super transport craft, the Kitsune. The other nice craft is the better Skyranger, which is one of the best crafts for immediate cover on the tactical map. Osprey-sized, too. You might still want the Kitsune first.



@Solarius: It's still weird that these are called X-Com drones, but I suppose I see your point.

Reptoids and doors could be a patrol route issue (or lack thereof), Solarius might want to take a look.

[Solarius Scorch]

@Solarius: It's still weird that these are called X-Com drones, but I suppose I see your point.

Well, they are now...

Reptoids and doors could be a patrol route issue (or lack thereof), Solarius might want to take a look.

It's the standard Endless Mansion terrain, it's like a decade old; I don't think it has any relevant problems that haven't been found yet. But of course, I am open to reports.

[Irismono]

August, what a month!

This month was a little rough score-wise. Had a few missions with high point penalties that I had no way of getting to in time, and so lost out on. Did a manor to make up for it, but I'm pretty sure this is my lowest scoring month to date (December '96 excluded)

Month started with a zombie mission in New Zealand. Nothing too difficult or special there. Second mission of the month was a cave exploration, which got me a Broken Shogg Lantern and a small pile of Shambler corpses. Not difficult, just a slog. Is there any good loot to be gotten from those? Because if there isn't I don't see much reason to do more now that I got my Into the Dark prerequisite.

Had another Civilians vs Monsters, this time it was spiders and it went decently well. Netted around 100 points after all was said an done, and a pile of spider corpses.

After that we got an environmental alert, the enemy was spitters, which look like uglier Snakemen. Lost a guy to their acid but took them down. Felt a little bit like a waste of time to be honest.

After that the explosives I had ordered came in so I went and attacked Manor-6, the Dagon one in the inconvenient location. After the first couple turns of scuttling, throwing smoke, and breaching the fence the mortar rain started and it was glorious. Mortar and especially TGL are amazing weapons. See screenshot for first use of Mortar, I was very impressed. Ended up losing two units to Gillman artillery before I located and obliterated them. Flying Drone proved useful clearing the top level of the manor safely. Ultimately got around 200k in cash and 600 points

Next major event was a Cyberweb manufacturing, a mission type I'd seen pop up a few times but never pursued. I've got to say that I like the map. It's interesting, very vertical, but manageable in size. Many robots were destroyed, some loot was taken, and I only lost one agent to robot lasers, albeit a Senior.

Had an Osiron stakeout. Sent the 2-man, failed to capture anyone but secured a crate. Took some nasty wounds, but Anzugs and healing gel kept them alive.

Towards the end of the month I tracked down Manor-5. It's a level 1 Red Dawn manor in Siberia, within Radar of Kiryu-Two. I intend to take it out next month, after assaulting Black Lotus HQ. For those purposes I moved the Osprey to Kiryu-Two at the end of the month. I'm bringing gas grenades, and intend to camp in the elevators for as long as necessary. The squad has two dogs and the drone, which I'm switching to Scout mode, mostly to preserve the flying drone in case something bad happens to it. BL doesn't have a lot of open space anyway.

I don't fully understand how the Black Lotus deployment zones work. Ideally I want to have a dog in each room. Is there a way I can set up my craft to ensure that happens?

In other news, Hell's Kitchen is cooking up a Skyraider. I've decided to skip Ranger for my eventual Marshal, since its only big upside over the Osprey appears to be Range. The Raider will replace the Dragonfly as my general strike craft. I think I would be comfortable taking on manors with 10 guys rather than 16.

I researched High level access and the advanced intel lab. I haven't been able to build any yet due to a money shortage. I'm really hurting for an Africa base right about now, same issue.

I'm feeling significantly better about the invasion. Advanced Flight is well underway, and once I find some Aqua Plastics I'll have a ton more research available to me. I'm actually considering building a bio lab at my manufacturing base so that it can do bio-extractions, but I'm unsure how much of a distraction that would be.

[Juku121]

That's why you want global base coverage - for detection and transport-hopping, if not actual strike bases. Or you would, if Kitsune wasn't so good.

Hidden Caves mainly give you certain beasties if you want them. No good loot to be had.

You might want to take spiders alive, spidersilk vests are pretty nice.

Deep Ones Gillmen are one of the more dangerous Dagon/underwater enemies, with a strong arcing attack.

Start site spawning is random, I don't think you can 100% make a unit start somewhere specific. If you had more dogs, maybe you could try playing the odds by studying Quick Battle patterns. Not sure it'd help, really.

Skyrange is a pretty big advantage, exemplified by your inability to reach missions at the start of this report. 14 vs 10 agents is also not insignificant for tougher missions. Skymarshalls require research and alloys, which are kinda hard to come by earlier on, so you might be waiting for a while. But really, getting the Kitsune will give you the best of both worlds.

Bio-extractions in quantity can take quite a few days. Depends on how many 'extractrables' you're coming home with. I remember taking a week or two after sweeping full complements of Zombies and Spiders from two missions.