Behind the Eight-Ball Playthrough

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I'm stuck researching a reaper corpse instead of stuff that helps me kill things.

You got unlucky getting sectoids and floaters combined so early on, and in terror missions/base attacks. But there's a thing you can do: if you see any new alien types, don't just kill them, blow up their corpses, too. Can't research what doesn't come home. Call it Sergeant Wimples making a tactical decision. You could even seed in some tension and conflict within the command structure leading to this insubordination, and an attempt to explain it off to command as necessary for X reason/event that happened in the field. I was aiming for the live snakeman, but I guess the rocket missed and hit the already dead snakeman behind me instead.

[Wimples]

You got unlucky getting sectoids and floaters combined so early on, and in terror missions/base attacks. But there's a thing you can do: if you see any new alien types, don't just kill them, blow up their corpses, too. Can't research what doesn't come home. Call it Sergeant Wimples making a tactical decision. You could even seed in some tension and conflict within the command structure leading to this insubordination, and an attempt to explain it off to command as necessary for X reason/event that happened in the field. I was aiming for the live snakeman, but I guess the rocket missed and hit the already dead snakeman behind me instead.

Lol! I reserve the right to blow up chryssalid corpses. I've seen them get stunned, get up and get blown up by proximity grenades and still survive. I should have advanced weapons by the end of February and alloy stuff by April if I don't miss my guess. That'll be about the time Snakemen, Gazers and the rest of them come on the scene. Hopefully I have some flying armor by then.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

"The exo-skeleton of this creature is...surprisingly vulnerable to explosive ammunition." This is the sort of valuable research we're getting by studying the aliens.

In Vanilla, Chryssalids take base damage from explosives but have 34 armor including under armor. This means a 70 damage explosive hit does 36 damage, while a 50 damage explosive hit does only 16 damage. The minimum damage a proximity grenade can do to them is 1, but with a health of 96, they can stun with 15+ health left. They can get up almost dead and still be tougher than your own soldiers.

[Wimples]

They have the same armor as cyberdiscs, iirc. I need to produce a compendium of what armor all the new alien types have (Gazers have 50 in front, spitters 45 in back, etc). I tried a single battle last night for the ethereal order and mutons (obliterators), but the psi skill on the best troops isn't high enough to mind control anything super tough. I'll have to wait for them to appear on my other playthrough where my soldiers are almost maxed.

What I wish we had in the FMP was an advanced proximity grenade. 95 or 100 base damage as an explosive. Researched after alien grenades. Cost of 1 elerium to produce. It'd be a nice upgrade, similar to elerium rockets over large rockets and alien grenades over regular ones.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

The game needs a proximity high explosive, alien proximity grenade, and proximity blaster charge. The proximity blaster charge should be particularly expensive and have a small blast radius so it only kills the thing that stepped on it.

[Wimples]

The game needs a proximity high explosive, alien proximity grenade, and proximity blaster charge. The proximity blaster charge should be particularly expensive and have a small blast radius so it only kills the thing that stepped on it.

Sounds good.

The Adventures of Wimples, Private Reaver (Back in action), and a Starving Poet
January 29th.

We had two engagements since the last time I was able to write. The first was a few floaters inside the fastest small UFO we have ever recorded. We couldn't get close to shoot it down, but it did land in Spain. We lost a soldier to injury, and I almost died after the floater tanked two of three shots from me before I was able to shoot more. We really need heavier weaponry...

We welcomed Private Reaver back into the fold and immediately detected a small UFO landed in Spain. Why Spain, we will never know. It was the middle of the stinking night again, and the grays were ready for us. Immediate fire drew our attention to not one or two, but FOUR grays right outside the craft to our left. Rockets from Nunnery and Starving Poet disposed of them all, fortunately. We were able to clean up about eight aliens before randomdude#4 was shot and killed. Private Reaver, feeling good after killing one gray, tossed a flare to expose the perp. I was able to put him down with a carefully aimed shot. He eventually woke up later to be gunned down by Reaver.

After the Reaper corpse was researched I immediately split our scientists into two groups: Tactical Sniper Rifle and Heavy Cannon. We are producing some rifles now, and they promise me that heavy cannons will be shortly behind. From there I plan to split them on auto cannons and advanced rocket launchers. That should keep them occupied if we meet a new group of aliens. From there we will need to research topics that help us develop a containment area so we can start capturing and interrogating live ones. I'm suspicious our scientists are unionized, and not in a good way. Upper level management is keen on making sure we sell every piece of alien equipment we get lest we research that and use it against the aliens themselves. I smell a rat...

[Wimples]

No terror mission or Lab Ship in January, meaning I'll likely see both in the beginning of February.

Find the January Monthly Summary attached, along with soldier stats.

[Wimples]

So the Lab Ship is going to be a do-over...


The first turn went like this:

Starving Poet - under alien control. (It's always the one carrying the rocket launcher...)

Second turn: We all got out of the ship, lost a guy to reaction fire after kiling one and hitting a second. Killed the second Sectoid. Starving Poet killed a second guy with reaction fire using the rocket launcher. He gets mind controlled again and then kills captain clark and himself. Reaver then goes berserk and blows himself up with a poorly aimed high explosive round from a heavy cannon...

[Starving Poet]

My true colors have been revealed.

Sent from my LG-H872 using Tapatalk

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I finally got a promotion! I guess I'm a PFC now? I'm enjoying how long I was still a rookie. If you don't hire too many more soldiers, I might get stuck at squaddie rank.

[Wimples]

I finally got a promotion! I guess I'm a PFC now? I'm enjoying how long I was still a rookie. If you don't hire too many more soldiers, I might get stuck at squaddie rank.

I'm not sure whether to staff soldiers in my expansions or just use my one team to intercept as many missions as I can. If I go with the budget cut theory then I'd just have one squad of troops for everything and you'd remain squaddie for eternity.

I'm still trying to figure out how to assault a Lab Ship. Going inside was a squad wipe. The people upstairs had better firing angles than I did. I may just hang outside and snipe everything to death like I usually do. I could always chuck proximity grenades up the lift to thin the ranks and then try getting in... I've got four out of ten people that aren't being messed with psionically...of the six that were, two are dead, two are in the Skyraider and Reaver and Starving Poet are wandering around the forest.

[Wimples]

The Adventures of Wimples, Private Reaver (currently insane), and a Starving Poet (also insane)
AAR 8: Why is my mind jelly?
Landed Lab Ship

We finally faced a true threat from the grays. This was the second biggest ship we had seen, only to the ship that landed and assaulted our base mid-January. It was shaped like a giant steering wheel. Our soldiers reported panic attacks right away, and were unequipped or given tasers without ammunition. The situation became critical very quickly, as five of our soldiers became ineffective, running around the forest without weapons like chickens with their heads cut off. It became 5 on....however many aliens were inside the ship.

One of the first aliens we killed had a golden ring around its head. We do not know the significance, but the mental attacks slowed somewhat after it was killed.

Not having the manpower to enter the ship and clear it, we stayed outside and listened for the door to open. Each time it did we sniped the aliens. After awhile two more of our soldiers became mentally unstable. One of them died, while the other one was able to drop their weapons before succumbing to panic.

We have learned that once we killed nine to ten aliens that the aliens themselves will start panicking. This worked in our favor as aliens walked out one by one without weapons. We gunned them down. Once the aliens were dead the mind attacks stopped. This is a seriously disturbing development.

Our managers were extremely happy with the results of the mission, as we made 3.6 million dollars from the sale of the aliens and their stuff. Their love for money is going to get us all killed at some point...

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I'm not sure whether to staff soldiers in my expansions or just use my one team to intercept as many missions as I can. If I go with the budget cut theory then I'd just have one squad of troops for everything and you'd remain squaddie for eternity.

You might want to staff soldiers in your other bases in case they get attacked. On the other hand, if "budget cuts" lead to one of the interception bases being lost, the ensuing insurance fiasco with the aircraft company will probably cause command to sort something out.

[Wimples]

I could always stuff them with HWPs. I have yet to use any in this playthrough.

Latest mission was Hybrid/Alien meeting. Two more corpses to research, then containment, then alloys.

Or should I include Alien Entertainment/Food/Surgery/Examination Room as part of the corpses that must be researched first? Choices, choices.

[Wimples]

The Adventures of Wimples, Private Reaver, and a Starving Poet with explosives
AAR 9: Outnumbered 5 to 1
Alien/Alien Hybrid meeting

Something is seriously messed up. Our next report of alien activity was slightly outside of London. Rather than a UFO, we landed next to a mansion. A mansion full of aliens shooting....human weaponry? The aliens sort of looked like us as well. I'm not sure what is going on, but it seems like the alien threat started long before the UFOs we started spotting in the past few years. For a force of this size to accumulate that much weaponry and a large house unnoticed is an amazing feat.

Fortunately, these hybrid aliens are terrible shots and even worse soldiers. We took some shrapnel hits, and Starving Poet got shot in the head multiple times, but nobody died. Starving Poet will be in the infirmary for awhile. There were no less than fifty aliens with four grays mixed in. We did get attacked mentally a few times, which leads me to suspect that the grays had some leaders on site. We will need to capture one eventually.

With such a target rich environment, it was a good time to test out our new explosive weaponry: Heavy Cannons and Advanced Rocket Launchers. They performed extremely well. I want to see how they fare against armored targets at some point.

Starving Poet recorded 10 kills this mission, even with his head wound.
Private Reaver killed 7, and I killed 10.