Irismono's Campaign Report, Season 2

[Irismono]

September 1997

Calendar:
- Sep 1: Black Lotus Network message, as expected.
- Sep 1.a: Hired 5 Scientists for SunChild LLC. Started building an animal pen to hold monsters so that HQ doesn't get overloaded. I could probably have planned this base better. The general stores will have to move at some point.
- Sep 1.b: Opened the Reinforced Osiron Crate we got from the sting operation. It gives us... an MiB crate! Are these crates Matryoshka dolls?
- Sep 2: SLF in Australia. Carnwennan sent. It's a single megascorpion that kills a civie before we can get to it. Simple little excursion.
- Sep 2.a: Hauteclere arrives at EXALT Safe House. It's nighttime, so maglites go on and the agents deploy. Initial landing is pretty simple. One or two infiltrators that are easily gunned down before we drop smoke. We creep through the dark and manage to take out the entire enemy force unscathed and practically without taking fire. An exceptionally successful misison in that regard. 2 Psiclones and 3 Briefcases means the loot is good too.

- Sep 3: Crop Circles, this time in Alaska. Caliburn's turn for an easy mission.
- Sep 3.a: SunChild's scientists arrive and get straight to work on Autopsying things.
- Sep 5: Three more Agents finish training. We're again running out of agents rather than gym space.
- Sep 7: SunChild's Hanger is complete. I'm planning to put either an Osprey or a Dragonfly there once I have access to them. For now it remains empty.
- Sep 11: Black Lotus Safe House in China. The month has been very quiet thusfar, so I'm happy to get a team together for Galatine to take out. It's been a long time since I saw an urban environment for a safe house.

The house itself is clear, which means I need to track down the Lotus followers across the rest of the map. The dogs were incredibly helpful in that regard. One follower managed to sneak up and get a cheeky shot to graze one of our breachers, but aside from that the mission was flawless.
- Sep 14: We have so little happening this month that the SLF goes to Galatine. 6 Man Squad is a little overkill for a lone reaper, but that's not really a problem. Everyone gets a shot so everyone gets just a little bit of XP. We give it a few fatal wounds, then keep out of its movement range while hitting it with blunt rounds until it stops moving and is captured. Cavalier earned.
- Sep 15: SunChild's animal pen is complete. I transfer everything except the rat to their capable hands.
- Sep 16: Red Dawn Safe House in Russia. We've experienced a disturbing lack of outposts this month. Galatine deployed... but then redirected to a citizens vs. monsters, so Hauteclere gets to go instead.
- Sep 16.a: SLF in South America, Caliburn's turn to investigate something. They find a giant rat! It's stunned, and because there's 3 civilians on the map we earn a 100 point mission. Cavalier earned.
- Sep 16.b: Citizens vs. Monsters. Galatine, redirected from a safe house in russia, responds.

The saving grace of fighting muckstars is that they're very fragile. They also stun on occasion instead of just killing. The gangers prove pretty effective at dealing with the muckstars, and our own guns are effective too. BlackOps Snipers 1-shot without exception, and the SMG kills 80% of the time, which means ~2 kills per agent per turn, targets permitting. By the end of the mission some of the Muckstars were panicking and we got out with no injuries on our side, one live capture (completely by chance) and a 200 point score.
- Sep 18: Meet the Informant. The last one of these went poorly, but we have some better gear this time around.

Caliburn arrives to another ambush. The pair rush to a side building and fight from there until Captain Brown is hit by a shotgun blast from the upper story. He's in bad shape with 3 turns to live, so I make a rush for the medkit. Unfortunately, there's a Westman in the shadows who snipes the good captain before he can get to the car. Agent Rahmawati is able to finish the job, but this is our heaviest loss yet. Captain Brown didn't get as much field time as some of our other agents, but he was a solid soldier who had finished his gym training. 10 Total kills over 18 Missions. RIP

- Sep 18.a: Investigated by the CIA. They don't like us catching giant rats for our secret projects.
- Sep 18.b: SLF right around the corner. Galatine checks it out. It's a beetle, which is sent over to SunChild. Cavalier earned.
- Sep 18.c: Hauteclere's Safe House starts close to the building. A couple wounds taken in the brief firefight. This base had practically no loot unfortunately.
- Sep 21: I buy 6 armored vests for the Helicopter team. More will be bought once we have more money to throw around.
- Sep 21.a: Imposter!

- Sep 21.b: I sell off a whole lot of extra guns and corpses (mostly snakes) and manage to make 700k.

With the Money Bag we got from the Tavern and the money we already had, that puts us at a little over 2.4 million dollars, enough to build our Sci Lab. Since the project takes 26 days to complete, the lab will be done on approximately the 17th of October - no reason to build it over the corridor. A long time to wait, but we don't need its services immediately, and it gives us time to save up for scientists. I build it at MannCo Surplus.
- Sep 23: The drought is over! EXALT Outpost in Brazil means Galatine, newly armored, gets to have fun. I load up a crack team of Tanida and Sastrowardaryo, Snipers; Fo-hsing and Mun, Breachers; Kumble, Shotgun; and Bonnie, Dog. The drop zone is dark, the environment's suburban, and the enemy doesn't know what's hitting them.

We approach covered by smoke, as is standard, sniping what enemies we get vision of. A few turns in I spot an enforcer with a grenade launcher, and manage to stay out of vision long enough to stun him on the next turn.

A few turns later, Agent Mun sustains a full turn of fire from the other enforcer's Minimi and sustains no injuries. Shields really work wonders. Unfortunately, shields don't protect against grenades. Mun and Kumble both survived the blast, and the last few Infiltrators were easy clean up work. The Enforcer was our only live capture, and really the only one we needed. The mission was worth a cool 1.5 million. 10 Briefcases and a Money Bag. An amazing payout. Tanida gets a much-deserved promotion to fill Brown's absence.

- Sep 26: Apparently it costs 10 Grand to open an MiB Crate. MiB Crates also spoil E-115 if you haven't discovered yet, which is amusing. We get an Alenium Shard from this one. I'm not sure of the full range of possibilities, but this seems like a very good roll. (checked wiki, it's a 0.21% roll )
- Sep 27: Homicidal Maniac tells me about Crazy Hassan. I don't think I'll be contacting him just yet.
- Sep 27.a: Strange Life Form in Southern France. Perhaps one last hurrah for Hauteclere. It's a Reaper.
- Sep 27.b: Another SLF, this one in Australia. Caliburn goes to clear out a town full of spiders. No civilians, but two captures. A Flame and an Armored Spider.
- Sep 29: Red Tape Event grants us Colt Commando.
- Sep 31: Council Report.


Research this Month:
MannCo:
Mutant Metabolism (Sep 2) -> Science Laboratory (Sep 13) -> X-COM History: Xenonauts (Sep 16) -> Armored Vest (Sep 21) -> Red Dawn Lad (Sep 24), Osiron Goon (Sep 24), Osiron Boss (Sep 26) -> Secret Files (Sep 26), MiB Crate (Sep 26), Homicidal Maniac (Sep 27) -> HUMVEE (Oct 1) -> EXALT Enforcer

SunChild:
Zombie Corpse (Sep 8 ) -> Fat Zombie Corpse (Sep 13) -> Chupacabra Corpse (Sep 16) -> Zombie Evolution Hypothesis (Sep 17) -> Zombie Infector (Sep 26) -> "They Are Breeding!" Zombie Report (Sep 27) -> Death Spider

Not a ton of research projects done this month, but the items we did finish were significant. No new BlackOps gear, which I had planned to get, but we're doing well and the Armored Vests are already making a difference. Very quiet first half of the month and very profitable second half. We're currently sitting at 2 Million, with an extra half million available if I sell off my money bag. Most of that will be spent on Scientists for our new lab, but new craft and Base #3 are  also on my mind as big-ticket items. I suspect I'll be following psavlova's advice of going after Alien Containment to try and get the Deep One Communities prereq for Promo III.

One thing I'm a little unsure on is if I should be going after Cyberweb. I haven't even researched cyberinvestigations, and I'm not sure when exactly I'll need to. Cyberweb is probably my least favorite of the major side plots, so I don't mind delaying it, but if I'll need it for something I'd like to know that.

Priorities for October:
1. Staff Sci Lab as it comes on line - not full throttle out the gate most likely, but take advantage of the increased scientist count.
2. Start Research towards Alien Containment.
3. Continue craft and armory upgrades.
4. Intel Lab at SunChild, double their efficiency.
4. Hire more agents for MannCo.

[psavola]

- Sep 18: Meet the Informant. The last one of these went poorly, but we have some better gear this time around.
...
Caliburn arrives to another ambush. The pair rush to a side building and fight from there until Captain Brown is hit by a shotgun blast from the upper story. He's in bad shape with 3 turns to live, so I make a rush for the medkit. Unfortunately, there's a Westman in the shadows who snipes the good captain before he can get to the car. Agent Rahmawati is able to finish the job, but this is our heaviest loss yet. Captain Brown didn't get as much field time as some of our other agents, but he was a solid soldier who had finished his gym training. 10 Total kills over 18 Missions. RIP
...
One thing I'm a little unsure on is if I should be going after Cyberweb. I haven't even researched cyberinvestigations, and I'm not sure when exactly I'll need to. Cyberweb is probably my least favorite of the major side plots, so I don't mind delaying it, but if I'll need it for something I'd like to know that.

Two notes:
 - most of shady taverns are straightforward if you get a decent spawn (obviously you must arrive at night), and are good reactions/firing practice. You'll need to be careful with the crew that are closest to the entrance, because usually some westmen in the building see them and will reaction fire. The trick (for example if you arrive with HELI) is to shoot the visible westmen from the darkness of the back row of people (and possibly throw a flare in the main entrace). If you retreat back to the cover of darkness, you can reaction fire the rest of them until they surrender.
 - as I just wrote in another thread, the initial part of cyberweb (or alternatively: Mashinobi after you killed off Black Lotus) is very important for TNI, Helix, etc. But you will only need it after you have progressed along the zombie arc by clearing zombie infector and getting the MAGMA zombie mission and getting a zombie trooper. This is usually takes a while but is a major target for sometime in 1998. The earliest chance of cyberweb is after you have obtained Red Dawn Coordinator. So it's likely not in a couple of months yet. IMHO early cyberweb  missions are rather easy as long as you have patience and don't rush them (use sniper rifles to take down the robots unless they are in the dog range). Though you'll want an OSPREY to deal with them, just 6 agents can be a challenge.

[Juku121]

There should be the possibility of an Osiron crate within a MiB crate, so you can have an infinite loop of crates to open if the RNG gods are having one at your expense.

Maglites for night missions are a bit of a trap, since they also light up your agents. Not a problem vs Mongorns in the dark who have to walk up anyway. Big deal vs TNT-chucking Dagonites or guys in fedoras wielding grenade launchers.

You can route craft through empty hangars – crew, equipment and all. I don't personally like it because it's kinda gamey, but it's one way to make use of SunChild's hangar before it acquires a permanent resident.

What kind of 'blunt' rounds were you firing at the Reaper? They should be quite resistant to regular shotgun beanbags, to the tune of taking no damage at all on average.

It seems your rat acquisitions were not as covert as you thought.

I would go for more armour pronto, even to the exclusion of research. Armoured vests save lives (and veterans).

Are you using the auto-sell feature – your stores had over half a mil of old guns and corpses?

Should build some more corridors, I think. For base layout management, if nothing else.

What do you mean by MiB crates 'spoiling' Elerium?

Hassan is basically money for loot progression, so going for him sooner is better if you have the cash and engineers.

What's with the global Reaper infestation?

You're locked in with the Zombies now.

Cyberweb gives you the Tactical Neural Implant and some bootleg laser ammo. And a whole lot of crate-like loot. TNI is one of the better transformations and required for some advanced soldier type tranformations. Dimension X missions are probably beyond your arsenal right now, though. Warehouses and sewers are doable, I guess.

I would go for Dragonflies first, they should be easier to get than Ospreys. I think you should already have all the prerequisites short of Contact: UAC?

Also, I'd put more emphasis on getting better gear. BO Shotguns, Spypistols, maybe try out the BO LMG or PKM. Milkors and incendiary grenades, definitely. Perhaps a G11 or an OICW, although the latter are pricy. Miniguns, at some point. There's a lot of good stuff that's not gated behind Promo III.

Also, psavola.

[psavola]

I would go for Dragonflies first, they should be easier to get than Ospreys. I think you should already have all the prerequisites short of Contact: UAC?

The problem with Dragonfly which I haven't been able to overcome is that is has lighting which you cannot disable. I doubt it's practical if you want to go somewhere during night and remain concealed from turn 1. I suppose it could be fine for daytime missions such as environmental alerts, because it's more than double the speed of HELICOPTER and can cover half the globe. But because you cannot completely retire HELICOPTER for night-time cult missions, I have never really bothered with it myself. And I suppose it would be practically useful at most for 4-6 months until OSPREY so the time window for its best relevance would be limited.

[Juku121]

True, the Christmas-tree-like nature of the Dragonfly is something of a problem. But it's still better when you're not using night missions a lot, and much better for missions that don't involve the craft itself. Like a lot of Cyberweb stuff. And Irismono hasn't exactly been using the night very much.

Isn't Osprey kinda range-limited, so you'd still need a long-range craft if you don't base-hop? I guess Skyraiders come around soon enough after Ospreys.

[psavola]

Isn't Osprey kinda range-limited, so you'd still need a long-range craft if you don't base-hop? I guess Skyraiders come around soon enough after Ospreys.

You definitely should base-hop. Either that, or you need a second osprey (and crew) in the second base to cover most of the globe. You can't deal with all the cult forward bases and HQs unless you do. And it's difficult to deal with even Outposts without the second base and helicopter or similar.

Skyraider requires Alien Power Systems, i.e. a live alien researched, so it's not usually an early-game option unless you get lucky multiple times.

[Juku121]

Even two bases or two Ospreys won't cover all the nooks and crannies on the globe even if directly opposite of each other. Two Dragonflies can. You still need something to fly to the occasional mission in the boonies, and eight agents are better than six (or two!), unless you're massively invested into night-time fighting.

Dragonflies are also the first craft with cover for 3 directions and the opportunity to smoke the ramp instead of random fields. Could be a drawback sometimes, sure, but gives you options.

Good point on Skyraider requirements, forgot about those.

[Irismono]

There should be the possibility of an Osiron crate within a MiB crate, so you can have an infinite loop of crates to open if the RNG gods are having one at your expense.

BRB, bankrupting the X-COM Project with a series of increasingly smaller very-difficult-and-expensive-to-open boxes.

You can route craft through empty hangars – crew, equipment and all. I don't personally like it because it's kinda gamey, but it's one way to make use of SunChild's hangar before it acquires a permanent resident.

I'm actually considering this as an option for EXALT, since they may very well end up as my first take-down. They're also one of the cults I feel more comfortable finishing off before Promo III.

What kind of 'blunt' rounds were you firing at the Reaper? They should be quite resistant to regular shotgun beanbags, to the tune of taking no damage at all on average.

Regular shotgun. Most of the time I got nothing, but one or two got through and that was enough to make sure it KO'd before bleeding out.

Are you using the auto-sell feature – your stores had over half a mil of old guns and corpses?

On guns yes, on corpses no, though I'll be turning it on for some of them. The majority of the money came from ~30-40 each of Megascorpion and Asmodean Cobra corpses, the latter of which don't even produce blood plasma.

What do you mean by MiB crates 'spoiling' Elerium?

You can acquire MiB crates before you have significant exposure in-game to Elerium, and they mention it with the assumption that you know what it is. Not a big issue in the grand scheme of things, especially since the odds of getting an MiB crate are pretty slim early game.

I would go for Dragonflies first, they should be easier to get than Ospreys. I think you should already have all the prerequisites short of Contact: UAC?

Yep, and I'll want UAC at some point anyway so it's an easy grab.

As far as night missions go, I've done a few, but not many. Mostly this is because I don't really like the night vision palette. I'll probably be doing more, especially against Outposts (and Forward Bases once those are available), but for most ops I much prefer being able to see everything, since I find I make better decisions when I know what's going on. I'll do some fiddling with the night vision colors and see if I can find one that reads better for me.

Also, I'd put more emphasis on getting better gear. BO Shotguns, Spypistols, maybe try out the BO LMG or PKM. Milkors and incendiary grenades, definitely. Perhaps a G11 or an OICW, although the latter are pricy. Miniguns, at some point. There's a lot of good stuff that's not gated behind Promo III.

BlackOps Shotguns are high on the list, and I had a great time with the BlackOps Minigun last run, so I'll definitely pick that up. I got Incendiary grenades as a red tape event iirc, and have a good store of them, with Galatine having some available for use. I haven't done the acquisition yet, but I can give that to an intern at SunChild and have them purchasable in under a week.

Also, psavola.

Knew I messed something up

Going to do some thinking on craft priorities before I play October. Dragonfly's range, size, and especially cover are all advantages over Helis. Does Osprey require all four Cult Operations or just one?

[psavola]

Even two bases or two Ospreys won't cover all the nooks and crannies on the globe even if directly opposite of each other. Two Dragonflies can. You still need something to fly to the occasional mission in the boonies, and eight agents are better than six (or two!), unless you're massively invested into night-time fighting.

I've taken to building my first two bases around India and Colombia. With those osprey can cover every essential cult location except some parts of NZ/easiern Aussie/random Pacific isles (but Black Lotus is the easiest to deal with in any case, because you get the best Avatar capture chance in the jungles of ~Vietnam and don't need a Forward Base, and the cult HQ is also fixed to be in Japan) and some parts of the Arctic (certain locations of Red Dawn HQ are problematic, and this is why the third base could be somewhere in Greenland, for example). So IMHO it's not vital to be able to cover all the nooks and crannies but to cover most of the relevant areas which you really want to be able to get to with osprey.

[Juku121]

You can acquire MiB crates before you have significant exposure in-game to Elerium...

Ah, I thought the Elerium itself was spoiling somehow.

As far as night missions go, I've done a few, but not many. Mostly this is because I don't really like the night vision palette.

Ctrl+Home cycles through lighting levels, so you can have a mission with daytime visuals and nighttime sight ranges. Or an in-between twilight instead of deep night.

Going to do some thinking on craft priorities before I play October. Dragonfly's range, size, and especially cover are all advantages over Helis. Does Osprey require all four Cult Operations or just one?

Osprey needs all four, sadly.

Helicopters do have some missions where they're the biggest craft allowed. An upgraded van is probably sufficient for those, but you don't have that yet. And it's like three or four total.

A helicopter also allows you to take cover behind the thing and start firing on turn 1, unlike the Dragonfly. Sometimes it's useful, at other times the coffin wins out.

So IMHO it's not vital to be able to cover all the nooks and crannies but to cover most of the relevant areas which you really want to be able to get to with osprey.

Sure, but if you want to actually be a Council pet and do all the missions, you need at least three bases and a lot of shuffling, three strike bases... or you could just buy an extra Dragonfly for the occasional monsters in the Pacific.

[Irismono]

October 1997

Calendar:
- Oct 1: Sold Hauteclere, replacing it with a Humvee, named Almace after yet another blade from the Matter of France. Also purchased several armored vests and extra ammo for our weapons.
- Oct 1.a:

Yet another Meet the Informant. With the last couple missions both resulting in agent deaths I decide to take this one a little more seriously. I send the newly-arrived van with decent team. They pull up at night and it's once again hostile. No reaction fire first turn. I move the squad to take the lower level, with Agent Pavlova taking a luckily minor injury from a guy with a knife - should have checked with the dog. The clearing goes well. At one point I make a mistake with measuring time units and leave an agent on the stairs in clear view of a wounded-but-live enemy. The solution? Stun stick the agent so he's no longer a target and stim him back up when the coast is clear. Clean little maneuver imo. We manage to get out with two injuries and two captures.

- Oct 1.b: SLF in China. Caliburn investigates, and would you believe they find another Reaper? Crazy, I know. They've just started popping up everywhere, even in this rice paddy! Our two agents are easily able to take it out, saving the lone civilian in the process. Cavalier earned.
- Oct 4: Explosives Crates give us a total of 20 extra incendiary grenades. I'm going to do the acquisition project, but we are really not using them this fast yet.
- Oct 5: Lotus Follower turns out to be a weeb who tells us all about Katanas. Cross it off the classic weapons list.
- Oct 5.a: Mongorns are the least interesting part of this SLF. Instead, look at this neat lake that Galatine landed near.

From this point on I'm just selling Mongorn corpses. I've got more than I'll ever need for Anzugs already, and 36,000 per mission is nothing to sniff at.
- Oct 6: EXALT Outpost in South America. The Humvee gets her second assignment. It takes all the way until turn 4 to even find any enemies, and once we do it's an enforcer who is quickly taken down. Night time and a spotter fog really makes these missions a breeze, and we get through unscathed, with the last terrified enemy surrendering. Roughly 20k in disposable weapons, but no briefcases. 4 Psiclones.
- Oct 7: Another SLF. One spider, captured live.
- Oct 14: With three days left until the lab is done I start hiring. 15 Scientists doubles MannCo's current staff, and I take the liberty to hire a few more agents and a second Engineer as well. 1.52 million spent it total.
- Oct 17: Science Laboratory online. In recognition of our successes we are awarded $200,000. X-COM: Where the future is being made today.

The scientists join their fellows in learning about Machineguns. Agents Dravid, Malek, Kazakevicius, and Santoro report for duty.
- Oct 18: Red Tape event gives us the Flare gun... which we could already do the acquisition research for but alright, that's some extra points I suppose.
- Oct 18.a: Crop circles! This month has been mission-light thus far, which I don't entirely mind, but it's nice to have something happen. Caliburn goes. Carnwennan hasn't had much to do lately. We get our first MiB encounter here.

There are two of them, and one has a CAWS. The blast is nasty, but the agents survive and manage to bring in two live enemy agents and an utterly bewildered farmer. Cavalier earned.
- Oct 19: Dagon Outpost nice and close. I wait for nightfall, then send Galatine in to clean house and take names.

For the first time this campaign I bring a grenade launcher, toted by Agent Fo-hsing. This ends up being an exceptionally good call, as the blunt round I packed is used to KO the Priest that we spot on our approach.

The chosen gets rushed down with stun sticks, and the only wounds we take are from a couple of disciples that snuck up from who-knows-where. Just about a perfect mission. 5 Briefcases makes it profitable as well!
- Oct 21: Local SLF gives Almace some work. It's a small pod of zombies, easily dealt with. Cavalier earned.
- Oct 21.a: Would have preferred live rats, but this is fine I suppose.

- Oct 22: Cult Infiltration. I don't remember doing these missions before, so I don't know what to expect.

It doesn't appear to be a covert op, so Galatine, as my fastest craft, seems like the best bet. It turns out to be a very simple little mission. Just a few Black Lotus mooks that are easily shot, blown up, or mauled depending on the relevant agent. Do infiltrations do something bad if not stopped?
- Oct 26: Halloween comes early with Citizens vs. Monsters. Galatine packs a rookie and responds to what turns out to be Beetles vs. Bedouins. Tedious but ultimately easy mission. The dog got mauled a little by a beetle I thought had used all its time units, but otherwise clean.
- Oct 26: Almost simultaneously, a Dagonite safe house shows up in Northern Europe. This sounds like a job for Almace! The foolish cultists put a lamp post outside their house, making the mission trivial. Five more briefcases make it one of the more profitable ones as well. Effort to payout on safe houses swings wildly.

- Oct 28: We're now just one tech away from Alien Containment, but we don't have any regular prison cells left. I assign some interrogations to clear them out a little.
- Oct 30: SLF in South America to close out the month. I decide Almace gets this one. Mission will run in November.
- Oct 30.a: Free land surveys from the council. Our engineers are busy at the moment but they'll like that.
- Oct 31: Council Report.


Research this Month:
MannCo:
EXALT Enforcer (Oct 2) -> EXALT Operations (Oct 3), Simple Explosives Crate (Oct 4), Shiv (Oct 3), Kukri (Oct 4) -> Supporter of Dagon (Oct 4), Black Lotus Follower (Oct 5), BlackOps Shotgun Acquisition (Oct 4) -> Explosives License (Oct 12) -> Machine Guns License (Oct 19) -> Alien Biology (Oct 28 ) -> Brainwashed Farmer (Oct 29), Abducted Farmer (Oct 29), Priest of Dagon (Oct 31), Chosen of Dagon (Oct 31) -> Red Dawn Pioneer (Oct 31) -> Red Dawn Lad, Red Dawn Pioneer (Nov 1), Church of Dagon Operations -> Illegal Requisition Files, Money Bag, Westman, Osiron Goon, Sport Paraphernalia

SunChild:
Death Spider (Oct 6) -> BlackOps Rifle Acquisition (Oct 8 ), Kurki Acquisition (Oct 7) -> BlackOps Assault LMG Acquisition (Oct 8 ), Incendiary Grenade  Acquisition (Oct 8 ) -> Spikeboar Corpse (Oct 10) -> Zombie Infector Corpse (Oct 16) -> Grenade Launcher Acquisition (Oct 17), Grenade Acquisition (Oct 17), Trace Flare (Oct 19) -> Flame Spider (Oct 24) -> Armored Spider (Oct 30) -> Crowbar Acquisition (Oct 31), The Kludge Acquisition (Nov 1), Mateba Acquisition (Oct 31), HMG Acquisition (Oct 31), PKM Acquisition (Oct 31) -> Dynamite Acquisition, Flare Gun Acquisition (Nov 1), Agricultural Flamer Acquisition, PSG-1 Acquisition -> Revived Weapons

A lot of research-in-progress for the first couple days of November. I mostly wanted to start clearing out the list of random acquisitions and interrogations, I didn't get Dragonfly access, and Osprey is still a few projects away, but I'm not sweating it. Carnwennan is easily the weakest link in the current fleet, and will soon be replaced with something more effective. I actually like having both the Humvee and the Helicopter. For my own purposes I find the van deals very cleanly with safe houses, as four agents and a dog gets a good spread on weaponry. I still prefer the Heli for Outposts.

A lot of missions happened at night this month, half by happenstance, half by means of experimentation. I found that the blue night vision color played better with my eyes than the grey, but it does make variations in light level harder to see. Will continue experimenting.

The lack of missions was a little concerning, but the missions I did get were good. My barracks is actually getting pretty experienced now. Agent Fo-hsing has 100 Firing Accuracy, and Captain Tanida has 99 iirc. Their melee stats aren't anything to sniff at either since I've made sure to give agents more opportunities to stun stick or punch instead of tase this campaign. I'd really like to get transformations going, and I feel like I almost have enough money to do it now.

I'm stuck with the basic grenade launcher for the moment. TGL isn't until Promotion III and Milkor hasn't shown up in my loot pools yet. Basic has been doing work though, so I'm not complaining.

Priorities for November:
1. Alien Containment research, ideally build, most likely in MannCo.
2. Finish staffing Sci Lab at MannCo
3. Build Intel Lab and Prison Cells in SunChild to be active in December.
4. Get X-COM Bio-Enhancement online for veteran agents.
5. New craft, ideally.

[Juku121]

Agent Pavlova

There really should be an agent Psavola at this point. Especially given the baton-happy fellow agents.

I said you've got a Reaper infestation on your hands! I bet they'll evolve, too, if you don't get them under control quick.

An almost Yin-Yang lake in the Arctic? Wonder if these are Lotus Mongorns?

Infiltration means you've got a Manor on your hands somewhere. Best get scouting.

I found that the blue night vision color played better with my eyes than the grey, but it does make variations in light level harder to see. Will continue experimenting.

Ctrl+Home

Is there a plan behind all the weapon acquisitions?

[Irismono]

Infiltration means you've got a Manor on your hands somewhere. Best get scouting.

Figured it was something like that. Will get Carnwennan on it.

Is there a plan behind all the weapon acquisitions?

The plan is to make it easier to read my research options

[Juku121]

Hiding and reordering?

I usually just queue stuff up in a vague order of priority and distribute it across two-three bases. Doesn't really eliminate the problem, but lets me focus a little bit better.

[Irismono]

November 1997

Calendar:
- Nov 1: "For the Eyes of the Masters Only", right on schedule. EXALT is getting scared.
- Nov 1.a: Almace deploys to the SLF it started towards at the end of October. It's Chupacabras. Our sharpshooters are more than good enough to take them out before they endager us, but they do get a civilian. 90 Points but no Cavalier. Chupacabra corpses are worth a lot more as money then as plasma.
- Nov 3: More land surveys. This is great for us. Engies are sitll busy but more free loot is more free loot.

- Nov 4: Zombie "Hive" located. I don't love the sound of that to be quite honest. Dark caves sounds like perfect terrain for shotguns, so I take the snipers off, bring a dog, and send in Galatine.

Pretty much immediately we run into something unfamiliar. There's a pretty nasty fight. One of the zombies has a gun and manages to get Commissar Saimi pretty good with it.

We bring it down and learn it's a Ghoul. We take down another ghoul, then our pointman, Agent Bao, get absolutely mauled by a naked female zombie that runs in from around a corner. She goes down, but Saimi gets KO'd in the process, and I'm left with four awake agents in what's feeling like a very dicey mission.

I decide to wait a couple turns for Saimi to get back up, using the few stims I thought to bring down. It's a good thing I do, as the Strix gets up halfway through that process and needs to be stunned again. Fortunately there's only a couple zombies left after that, and we get out with one KIA, a live Strix, a live Ghoul (2 actually but I'll only need one according to the tech tree), and, most surprisingly, a Shogg Lantern.

That means I've actually got my Into the Dark prerequisite and (theoretically) won't have to do any Hidden Caves missions. Saimi, brutally injured, is promoted to Chief Agent. RIP Agent Bao.


- Nov 5: Cult Outpost in Tasmania. Almace gets this one since Galatine isn't in too good shape at the moment after that zombie mission. IRL I take a break before actually playing this one. Once there, Almace finds itself stuck in a corner looking straight up at a Ninja.

Perhaps foolishly I drop smoke and give it a shot. SMGs prove exceptionally good at clearing out the followers who rush out. While moving into the compound proper we almost get iced by a warrior, but manage to take him down with Sniper support. We corner the Witch as she starts panicking, and spot the final Warrior in a place where a skilled shotgunner can take him out with blunt rounds. Two captures, six briefcases, and that leaves Red Dawn as the only Cult with an Operaitons-tier enemy left to capture. We get some new promotions as well, since Saimi hit Chief Agent.

- Nov 6: Hired 10 scientists because I forgot to do it earlier
- Nov 7: Nice little point boost with anti-corruption ops.

- Nov 7.a: First Forward Base, it's in the US. Galantine is out looking for a Manor, so I recall it, load up, and send a squad out. We arrive in darkness, no enemies in human visual. This is a good start.

The dog spots a few goons, so my soldiers start taking them out, managing 3 kills and a stun before our smoke even pops. Another three go down the next turn, though we start taking fire - presumably from Liquidators. The enemy firebombs us, severely wounding Agent Saraki, so we send our own fire back, lighting up their front door. Captain Tanida sacrifices a turn of sniping to extinguish Saraki.


Bonnie discovers an Enforcer and his goons behind us, which warrants a stun grenade as Agent Mun has run out of regular ones.

The next couple turns are rough, as the fire means we're visible, but the amount of enemies means we can't really reposition. Bonnie manages to find two more of the Enforcers, who conveniently blow themselves up with a grenade launcher. She then runs back for medical, having also spotted the head honcho of this facility in the gloom.

The enemy starts panicking, 2/3 of the squad is currently wounded, and the fires finally go out. I pull back to the chopper to start healing and let the enemy work themselves out. Tanida and Bonnie, being the least damaged by this point, deal with the Liquidators that have been harassing us. The EXALT Master ends up being the only non-panicked enemy, so I send two agents to haul him in. One taser does the trick. Somehow we made it out without anybody dying. No Liquidator captures, but the Master is the only one we needed for progression, and the Base's loot is top quality. 9 Psiclones, 2 money bags, and a briefcase means the pull is a bit over 1 mil. There's also a Hi-Ex. Tanida once again makes it through an otherwise torturous mission entirely unscathed. I don't know how he does it.

- Nov 8: Land Survey uncovers 3 Reinforced Osiron Crates among other objects. Quite the score. I'm admittedly unsure how useful the contents will be, but an Alien Data Slate seems somewhat interesting.

- Nov 9: Alien Containment starts construction at MannCo Surplus, Scientists arrive.
- Nov 9.a: SLF in central asia, I send out Carnwennan on a whim. It's a single Chupacabra. Cavalier earned.
- Nov 10: Another money prize event. Not going to turn my nose up at 200k.
- Nov 10.a: SLF in the Arctic. Caliburn responds. We sell the Mongorn corpse.
- Nov 11: Dossier for Master Lo Wo from the Witch. This will be useful at some point.
- Nov 13: Lotus Outpost in Northern China. Galatine gets an all-new squad and deploys Night landing, Witch killed turn 1. Took a while to find and kill everyone, but got out more or less unscathed. Minimal loot.

- Nov 13.a: "Zombie Catacombs" sounds like another claustrophobic nightmare. It's only a 20 point loss, so I pass it for the moment.
- Nov 13.b: I get a storage warning on the way back from the Lotus outpost. Turns out that hording ammo boxes takes up a lot of space, and between that and a myriad of other small items (mostly from either land surveys or boxes, and thus not auto-sold) I make ~250k. Couple that with the extra money bag I had for some reason and the Intel Lab for SunChild is covered.
- Nov 14: SunChild gets an Intel Lab, Prison Cells, and a general stores to replace the current one for defense purposes. The lab will be online at the beginning of December.
- Nov 15: I completely forget to put people in Bio-Enhancement until late on the 17th... wish I had some of them for the 18th.
- Nov 17: EXALT Master spills the beans on David Vincent.
- Nov 18: Monster Terror in the Maldives. Galatine's crew changes out again and the fresh team heads into find... Werecats! The Alphas are so tough that even after going down they live through the entire mission. We don't do a great job saving civilians, but given how much damage Werecats do, I think the cautious approach I took was warranted.

- Nov 18.a: Crop Circles. Caliburn takes a rookie along to investigate. No MiB this time, which is fortunate. The rookie gets the capture credit.
- Nov 21: Alien Containment is complete. Now we just need to wait for Deep Ones or a military UFO event...
- Nov 21.a: Cattle Mutilation. Caliburn heads out with the same crew. We're now at the point where farmers no longer provide enough useful information to keep around.
- Nov 21.b: Red Dawn Outpost in the far north. The vets are back from their enhancement procedures, so Tanida leads Galatine into battle. Our initial position is fairly exposed, and Tanida takes a minor hit. We light up the enemy with a fire bomb and start picking off targets.
[img  width=500]https://i.postimg.cc/g0T2JZFJ/Screenshot-from-2025-05-22-10-19-36.png[/img]
We KO the sailor, lick our wounds, and start breaching the compound with shields, SMGs, and shotguns bared. Going into turn 6, the enemy is panicking, and a few turns later, it's over. Minimal injuries, minimal loot. The sailor is of course the catch here, as with him we now have access to all four Operations techs.
- Nov 23: Alien Party!

These are Dimension X rather than Martian iirc. Galatine joins in, with Agent Rahmawati filling Tanida's slot as Sniper. Anthropods have funky weapons, but go down like anything else. I unfortunately don't get any captures. Fo-hsing's stun bombs missed and they were remarkably resistant to beanbags.
- Nov 24: General Stores at SunChild complete.
- Nov 25: Red Tape gives us Throwing Stars. All Operations objectives completed.
- Nov 30: I continue clearing space in the cells. All of these are quick interrogations. SunChild's Prison Cells are now open.
- Nov 30.a: Council Report.



Research this Month:
MannCo:
Red Dawn Lad (Nov 3), Osiron Goon (Nov 3), Westman (Nov 2), Church of Dagon Operations (Nov 3), Illegal Requisition Files (Nov 2), Money Bag (Nov 2), Driver's License (Nov 2), Sport Paraphernalia (Nov 2) -> Storm (Nov 4) -> Alien Containment (Nov 9) -> Bewildered Farmer (Nov 10), Black Lotus Witch (Nov 11), Black Lotus Warrior (Nov 11) -> X-COM Bio-Enhancement (Nov 15) -> Black Lotus Operations (Nov 16), EXALT Master (Nov 17) -> Contact: UAC (Nov 20) -> BlackOps Premium (Nov 23) -> DRAGONFLY (Nov 26) -> Red Dawn Sailor (Nov 24) -> Red Dawn Operations (Nov 25) -> OSPREY (Nov 30) -> Westman, Disciple of Dagon (Dec 1), EXALT Infiltrator, Abducted Farmer (Dec 1) -> Workshop

SunChild:
Dynamite Acquisition (Nov 2), PSG-1 Acquistion (Nov 2), Agricultural Flamer Acquisition (Nov 2), Revived Weapons (Nov 6) -> Mongorn Corpse (Nov 8 ) -> Shambler Corpse (Nov 10) -> Asmodaean Cobra Corpse (Nov 13) -> Megascorpion Corpse (Nov 16) -> Giant Spider Corpse (Nov 18 ) -> Werecat Corpse -> Alpha Werecat (Nov 25) -> H&K G11 Acquisition (Nov 29), BlackOps Spypistol Acquisition (Nov 26), BlackOps Minigun Acquisition (Nov 26), BlackOps CAWS Acquisition (Nov 27), BlackOps Auto-Sniper Rifle Acquisition (Nov 27) -> Big Bone, Monstrous Tooth -> Muckstar Corpse


EXALT HQ is within reach. Not for December, but potentially for January. I have the funds to equip a team, so as long as I select them in advance and have an Osprey loaded and ready at SunChild at the end of December, I'll be able to open the new year by destroying a Cult. Into the Dark still requires Hidden Caves, though because I have the Lantern I don't think I'll need to actually do any of the missions. I just need a live Shambler. Zombie plot is coming along, but I can pause it where it is by not interrogating the Strix. 1-2 20 point maluses each month won't do me any real harm.

While I unlocked a lot of new gear at the end of the month, I didn't buy any. December 1st is going to come with a lot of purchases, but we have right around 3 mil in the bank so that won't be a problem. Our research team continues to grow, and I'm now thinking that getting a workshop base online is the next big step. I'll probably put it somewhere in Asia. Timing is in question with that one. A part of me really wants to get it started before the new year, but it may be better to wait. There's a lot of things that could happen in December, and with an Alien containment up I feel a lot more prepared for many of them. RNG will determine Promo III's exact path, but I now have significant parts ready for everything except Cyberweb.

(Tentative) Priorities for December:
1. Select team for EXALT HQ Assault, ensure they're loaded up with Bio-Ex, an Osprey, and the best weapons currently available.
2. Establish Manufacturing Base in Asia.
3. Research X-COM Rats and Alenium Shards. Both will provide further options for Cult HQs, especially Lotus.
4. If possible, acquire a Deep One, a Live Shambler, or both.
5. Work on getting Red Dawn, Black Lotus, and Church of Dagon executives to unlock HQs.

Advice and a situation assessment would be much appreciated. Are there any essential pieces of kit I'm yet to research?