Author Topic: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.  (Read 34903 times)

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #60 on: August 16, 2020, 10:08:01 pm »


The first issue isn't much of an issue.. We spot an alien from the start, so we drop smoke on skyranger level.. Once we do deploy in turn 3 I think (probably lay down smoke on ground level in turn 2), we see some snakemen, and when we have shot them down the mission is over..



Small UFO, not so many survivors and small map.. And not much loot left either..



Jees.. Two snakemen facing into the skyranger. Good we have a pre-primed smoke grenade to drop at skyranger level.. We turn, but it's not enough. While we can't see the snakemen, one of them is still spotting us.. Does the game calculate sight, so he sees through the level below the smoke and see our feed short into the smoke, while we with eyes high see too much through the smoke so we can't see them?

By pure luck the alien misses us, but this coulda been a total disaster.. With two pre-primed grenades maybe I could have managed to throw one out without getting a reaction shot.. But I think I would have gotten one against me if I tried.

In the real world, you wouldn't land in the middle of the aliens.. I understand they want to have small maps, but I really don't think it makes sense that aliens are aiming inside the skyranger as its hatch opens. Then it wouldn't land there.



30th of May we invent the Motion Scanner.. What should we research then? Base defenses seems unneeded. We can hopefully defend with soldiers for loot.. Plasma pistols and rifles seems a bit meaningless when we have heavy plasma available, which also is much easier to recover clips for. I guess we'll take fusion missile and get to fusion defense in case we see the need for base defense later on..

At 11:00 31st of May we see a snakeman terror ship approaching Europe.. This'll be the last UFO in May I'm guessing. We'll of course try to shoot it down to avoid a terror mission.. Hmm.. We never managed to catch up with it, and it never landed.. Strange..



Everyone seems to be pleased with our performance..

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #61 on: August 16, 2020, 10:38:40 pm »
Just 3 hours into June, we spot 2 new UFOs.. First a small scout on alien retaliation mission in Europe, with Ethereals.. Secondly, a medium scout on terrir mission in Australasia.. We send the Weinan team down after the last one in hopes of getting a ground day mission. If we don't we have the avenger there for plan B.. We'll send an interceptor after the retaliation scout in hopes of shooting it down before it sees base..

We manage to shoot down the small scout, but the terror scout didn't land before it was night.. We accepted a night mission to get some more loot this time..



A night mission always look scary.. But at least we're facing the map edge so noone is pointing their guns straight into the ranger..



Finally a mission against sectoids.. The house next to the deployment site here housed 4-5 sectoids though. We blew out a corner just to look in.. Saw one. Shot one. Saw another, shot another, saw two more.. We tried with a grenade, but one of them survived the grenade, shot past the flying suit closest and killed Nicolas in his personal armor..

Hrmpf.. About time the entire Weinan team had flying/power suits.. We created quite a lot last month but have divided them among the bases. Should have outfitted this team fully first..

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #62 on: August 16, 2020, 11:28:54 pm »
Alien Retaliation with Ethereal scout in Australia still.. Thought maybe they had moved on as they appeared in Europe.. Maybe I need to get to final mission before my bases disappear.. Ironman and base defense in main base sounds like high stakes.. We shoot the scout down over water.. Will like to avoid Ethereal missions until I know psionic strength of soldiers..

5th of June and we receive interceptors in Amazonas and Harare.. Now we have fighters with plasma beams in all 6 bases..

I feel we need to take another look at our soldier pool. At least so we have 14 known dudes on each of the bases with an assault team..

In Europe, the newest recruits are Shailene, Hudson, Hugo, Jet, Christian and Chris. That makes the full San Marino team now:

                   Starting stats                          Current stats
            TU Sta Hlt Brv Rea Acc Thr Mel Str PSt PSk  TU Sta Hlt Brv Rea Acc Thr Mel Str PSt PSk  Score
[Max cap*]  60  70  40  60  60  70  80  40  40 100  24  80 100  60 100 100 120 120      70 100 100+
Mel         59  59  36  10  37  63  68  27  34          74  81  52  10  38  74  75  27  58          6
Ryan        57  65  25  10  38  70  80  31  34          67  90  48  10  38  90  81  31  61          6
Hugo        54  66  34  40  50  53  64  29  23          55  66  38  40  50  54  66  29  23          5.5
Hudson      54  58  38  30  60  56  68  34  37                                                      6
Jet         57  53  31  50  30  62  73  27  27          61  66  43  50  34  66  79  27  35          7
Uma         60  57  26  50  32  60  53  27  37          70  74  38  50  35  69  55  27  47          7
Christian   58  55  34  20  59  64  54  28  31                                                      7
Jason       58  65  34  50  47  43  67  26  30          76  88  53  50  52  54  75  26  53          7
Shailene    54  57  26  60  50  46  56  28  38          55  62  30  60  50  47  57  28  40          6
Colin       57  64  38  50  50  42  62  28  21          74  81  48  50  51  49  64  28  43          7
Chris       50  64  30  40  57  60  56  33  27                                                      6.5
Keanu       50  53  30  10  49  70  58  20  40          75  94  60  10  51  93  58  20  66          7
Tom         51  58  25  50  44  67  65  27  29          62  79  42  50  45  75  65  27  43          7
Charlize    58  40  40  40  58  41  62  23  25          74  71  52  40  61  51  64  23  50          7
Harrison    50  58  32  50  57  53  80  37  20          77  85  56  50  65  64  84  37  45          7
Gal         53  44  39  50  57  61  77  27  37          66  65  45  50  57  68  80  27  53          8
Daisy       51  66  38  60  54  68  68  27  20          62  85  53  60  54  74  68  27  44          8
Christopher 53  56  35  60  54  66  73  27  24          68  76  52  60  55  74  73  27  51          8
Arnold      57  65  30  60  60  45  77  40  22          76  87  49  60  65  55  78  40  54          8
Sylvester   58  59  40  40  59  67  75  40  23          63  68  42  40  59  72  75  40  36          9


In Weinan the new recruits are Ben, Jeremy, Will, Charles, George, Vin, Roger, Famke & Lucy.

The full Weinan team is then:
                   Starting stats                          Current stats
            TU Sta Hlt Brv Rea Acc Thr Mel Str PSt PSk  TU Sta Hlt Brv Rea Acc Thr Mel Str PSt PSk  Score
[Max cap*]  60  70  40  60  60  70  80  40  40 100  24  80 100  60 100 100 120 120      70 100 100+
Ben         51  49  25  30  36  57  60  21  32                                                      4
Jeremy      50  51  28  10  35  70  68  25  20                                                      4.5
Will        52  41  34  40  31  59  78  30  30                                                      5
Charles     60  54  31  20  55  40  54  28  27                                                      5.5
George      57  62  35  10  50  48  74  25  24                                                      5.5
Halle       60  69  27  50  33  46  73  37  37          65  76  33  50  34  48  78  37  49          5
Vin         52  46  36  60  36  70  51  37  20                                                      5.5
Roger       59  46  40  60  37  63  54  33  37                                                      6
Famke       52  57  32  60  59  44  64  29  30                                                      6
Lucy        50  42  40  10  56  68  54  27  40                                                      7
Jennifer    57  52  30  30  43  52  74  24  32          64  71  41  30  48  63  77  24  37          6
Michael     53  42  26  30  50  53  63  22  40          58  63  37  30  55  59  64  22  55          6
Liam        57  63  31  10  46  61  50  26  30          70  74  44  10  48  68  50  26  51          7
Denzel      52  56  36  30  54  60  69  35  32          56  70  47  30  58  66  69  35  45          7
Eric        58  57  36  60  34  60  75  27  37          62  64  40  60  34  61  76  27  39          6
Sigourney   59  65  34  30  51  64  56  27  20          63  70  36  30  55  66  56  27  27          7.5
Kate        58  51  37  60  46  70  77  20  40          70  73  52  60  46  80  81  20  55          8
Michelle    60  42  39  10  55  67  55  31  35          76  73  55  10  56  84  58  31  57          8
Dolph       53  61  33  60  51  67  62  38  26          56  61  36  60  52  70  64  38  27          7.5
Bruce       58  61  35  60  58  69  58  34  32          63  73  41  60  63  73  58  34  34          9
« Last Edit: August 17, 2020, 09:42:53 am by humbe »

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #63 on: August 17, 2020, 12:41:21 am »
6th of June we research fusion missiles.. Hmm.. We can now build Hovertank/Launcher.. That might be a nice one to have.. Though a soldier with a blaster launcher takes up far less space. Fusion Defense next..

7th of June 22:00 we detect large scout heading to Australasia for terror mission. Scrambling Weinan team again to intercept it. A bit later we see a terror ship with snakemen coming for Europe. Better try to shoot down that one..

We end up shooting down the terror UFO, awaiting a bit to engage it to get day mission, and we manage to attack sectoid scout in Australia on the ground..
« Last Edit: August 17, 2020, 12:51:20 am by humbe »

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #64 on: August 17, 2020, 09:38:58 am »


A start towards the map corner. Buildings close though, so we gotta watch the windows. There were a couple of sectoids in the southern building, but none in the eastern.

Managed ok. Kept the dudes in personal armor within the skyranger until we had cleared the immediate area and they could move up on the roof. They didn't join the action though. Eventually camped the last aliens sitting above their entrance..


Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #65 on: August 17, 2020, 01:07:54 pm »


We were happy we started towards map border. We dropped smoke grenade and waited for it to go of.. And while we are waiting, a Chryssalid just walks up the ramp and turns Mel into a zombie.. Damnit.. That's it for Mel sadly. He was a good soldier, who in all his action had trained his rifling accuracy from 63 to 78, but positioned in front due to his low bravery and not so great reactions.

There were quite a few terror units around here.. Luckily most of our soldiers had flying suits making them invulnerable to those once they got out of the Skyranger.



Annoying having a Captain dying, but as he was standing in front of ramp, he was by definition expendable.. But a bit sad that I feel we had nothing we could have done to prevent it.

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #66 on: August 17, 2020, 10:22:49 pm »
10th of June, Carney finishes it's hyperwave decoder. We know have decoder coverage everywhere aliens may land, and on most of the ocean too.. We could drop an 8th base on Hawaii to reduce the biggest ocean gap, but shouldn't really matter. Not spending money on that now at least..

02:00 on the 10th another Ethereal retaliation scout in Australia.. We shoot it down over water again..

On the 11th 07:30 there's a small scout on infiltration mission in North America.. Launching interceptor there.. Does that mean we're doomed to lose US as a funding nation? Destroyed it.. I read that infiltration missions cannot be stopped, only delayed..

12th of May we finish researching Fusion Defense.. Grabbing Grav Shield next..

13th of May, 12:00 and we get Ethereal scout on retaliation mission in Europe. Sunk that in the sea too..

14th of May, at 14:00 we finish building a second avenger.

16th of May we research Grav Shield. I guess we can just research plasma rifles and pistols..



Not been much UFO activity in June, but the 19th we see a Supply Ship in North Africa.. Haven't seen an alien base mission since the scout, so I assume there is no base yet, so I guess this is the first ship of many that will now create a base. How many will there be?

There seems to be some issue that a troop transport done with a mission has to return to base, so each of our transporters will only be able to do one mission if we're trying to attack them on the ground. We can shoot some down to handle them later though..

We have an avenger ready in San Marino now, so we are able to mount two attack groups from there, 10 soldier strong each, each having 7 armors..

So far we've seen 2 supply ships and one battleship going to northern Africa. We've split the San Marino team in two, trying to share equipment, and are flying in the Weinan team. Additionally we have an Avenger in Australia, so we could summon a team from there, but they're all rookies.

We're sending the Weinan team after the battleship, as it's has a full 14 man crew fully armored.. Letting the two San Marino teams take a supply ship each..

At 21:00, before any of the 3 ships have landed, we spot a battleship with Ethereal's on retaliation mission in Australia.. Yikes.. If they attack the rookies over there, we might have a hard time winning. I guess we wan't make a base assault team of the Aussie soldiers.. Wonder if they have spotted the base or not.. We have shot down all their scouts at fair distance from the base, so I'm hoping not.. Maybe it's just a huge scout..



The first supply ship lands, and we send the skyranger San Marino crew over there to fight it. Sadly a night mission, but too early in the night to be able to wait until daybreak..

We throw around flares everywhere and manage to clear outside unhurt. We have left the senior command without armor, so they are moving out only in cleared areas to sniper positions.



The supply UFO seems a bit more tricky to camp than many of the others.. Trying out this way..

We've hidden a guy in flying suit up on top of the UFO. Each turn he'll move two turns forwards, turn right, lower down two levels, and then return. This uses 50 TU and only 8 stamina (as going up and down costs no stamina). Where he stands, the enemy has to go quite a bit out from the ship to spot him, and when he moves he's likely to spot the aliens when at the bottom level, and being hidden one level above, so he can go back up immediately without giving them a chance for reaction fire. Then he gets out of the way, in case some of the snipers miss.

The snipers here are 29 tiles from the entrance, but more important, at least 24 tiles from where the spotted on the roof will have seen last turn. That's a bit short, and we were hoping to put them further back.. (I guess we should have moved them a bit north.)

The idea is that the spotted shows whomever is getting close, and then they can snipe him down..



There's a similar setup on the other side, though with only 2 snipers.. But it was a tight fit here, so we were expecting most of the aliens to leave the other way..



We have put out two other guys to spot the area behind where the spotter comes down. If an alien is moving so far that he'd end up behind a spotter, we'll notice, rather than later being attacked by him..

This worked out pretty well.. Due to the a bit too short distance to the sniper team southeast, they got the chance for some reaction rolls, so they trained a bit of reaction, but that could also have created a death.. I first tried to have the spotters a bit closer to the ledge, but they were spotted once, so I decided to hide them a bit more. Nobody spotted them from there of the remaining dudes..

Took some time before all the aliens left though. Probably played until turn 50..



There.. Elerium storage refilled.. And good is that.. We use a ton to create flying suits.. Two more missions coming up.. Sadly night missions too..

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #67 on: August 18, 2020, 12:06:15 am »


The next supply ship landed in jungle territory, which had more hiding places for the snakemen.. I think an eager Jet explored a bit too far, being seen by an alien outside flare lightning. Critical mistake and he got shot dead..

After that we managed to clear the area and camped the UFO.

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #68 on: August 18, 2020, 05:00:26 pm »


We started pretty close to northeastern corner of the map, and the UFO is just next to us.. Establishing a spotter/sniper crew for the opening behind the pillars facing the skyranger ramp. Marked soldier will be spotting to see if anyone tries to sneak through on top, and the one just behind him will go down to spot anything coming from the UFO ramp.. Then we have 3 snipers located behind them that can hopefully target what is spotted, hopefully before target spots them. Looks a bit weak though, as aliens will need to be some distance from the middle ramp before they have line of sight, so the visibility gap between them once the alien comes into line of sight isn't huge.

The remaining crew is going south to try and clear the area around. Forest at night.. Not an easy job to clear it without casualties.

We also saw a Chryssalid.. Didn't think alien base missions had terror units, but I guess battleships maybe always have them? I guess the two guys without flying suits need to be especially careful.



Thankfully we managed to spot these 3 in our own turn, with enough TU left to shoot them down.. In their turn, a Chryssalid has moved towards us, but no plasma shots were fired.

After some rounds clearing the area south, we have established sniper outposts on 3 exits:




The fourth corner is in the corner of the map.. We'll just leave it be, though we must be careful we don't get surprised if anyone comes through there.. Especially not killing the spotter down southwest. That's Michelle, and she's a great soldier, so not really one for the spotter job.. I guess we should find someone to switch her with. Maybe position 2 up here too, as we've done northeast, so someone can spot up the side each turn..




Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #69 on: August 18, 2020, 09:26:33 pm »
Stay vigilant.. Tempting to just move spotters down and up and end turn, but also turning all the way around one see sneaky bastards like this one..



This Chryssalid was one tile past what I saw when I went down, and if I hadn't turned around I would have missed him.. Hrmpf.. He could take a punch.. We shot and shot, and while we missed quite a lot, we probably had like 6-7 hits before he went down.. No scream either, so he's likely stunned.. Watch out..

It's going great though. We've seen so many panicked messages from aliens, that not many of them can actually still carry a gun. Also seen berserkers not creating a sound likely because they have no gun either..



Finished around turn 40.. Yay.. That's quite a bit of loot for us..

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #70 on: August 19, 2020, 12:46:30 am »
04:46 on the 20th we see a terror UFO coming for Australia, so we shoot it down the minute it is over land.. Got the option of fighting the mission immediately with all the rookies on that avenger. Hadn't really planned for that, so opted for no..

They've gotten a lot of heavy plasma down there in case of retaliation mission, but their still lacking armor and some skilled soldiers..

But what to do with the alien base.. Should we just attack it to get rid of it? I guess it may create supply missions which is a nice source of extra loot. On the other hand, we're not exactly lacking. We're basically awaiting knowing psi strength of units, so less missions to fight while we wait might be good too..

We now have a massive 105 heavy plasma guns ;D That's 15 per base, enough to equip 75% of our soldiers. It's also 18 million worth of loot to sell.

Lets take a little inventory and see what we do have and what we should add to base equipment or not.

               Euro  US Asia Brazil Africa Australia Antarc  Total Floor(Total/7)
Laser Rifles     14   1   14      1      1      1               32     4
Motion Scanner    2   0                                          2     0
Medi-Kit         15   5   15             5                      40     5
Heavy Plasma     33   6   38      6      6     16              105    15
  - Clips        55  18   74     18     18     32     40       255    36
Blaster Launcher  1   1    6      1      1      1               11     1
  - Bomb          8   4   24      4      4      4               48     6
Small Launcher    4        3                                     7     1
  - Bomb         58       18                                    76    10
Alien Grenade    73  10   24      5     10     10     7        139    19
Elerium-115     288 200  400    100            89             1077   153
Mind Probe        1   1    2      1      1      1     1          8     1
Power Suits       2   2    2      2      2      2     1         13     1
Flying Suits     11   6   12      6      6      5               46     6
Personal Armor             7                                     7     1


Trying to give all the bases a decent base defense team with gear, we now have quite a bit.. Divided on 7, we have 15 heavy plasma, 4 laser rifles and 1 blaster launcher per base. That's quite a nice set of weaponry for our 20 soldiers. We also have a small launcher with stun bomb, though we are in no need of more live aliens.. Though barring anything else to research, I guess it would be fun to get some more UFOpedia entries in.

We've got less than half of the armor we'd like though. Flying suits take a lot of Elerium to build. Currently we've started production of 20 more, which will consume a massive 300 Elerium. We don't have Elerium yet to make flying suits for everyone. Will take a long time to produce too for that matter. Power Suits also have almost as good armor values though, and cost only a third of the Elerium, so making power suits for the masses sounds easier. We can be flying suit heavy for the assault teams, but power suit heavy for the base defense teams..

There's of course also the issue of a possible base defense mission happening while an assault team is off base. To feel safe we should really have a bigger team in the bases with assault teams (or reduce the number of soldiers we take on a mission). Having a lot of soldiers on a mission is very useful though. If we spot an alien and have two soldiers that can target it, we might miss and it can kill us next turn. Having three that can shoot him instead makes it a lot less likely that the alien will survive the turn. As for instance in the last battleship mission, the battleship have 4 exits from the center. We had a spotter and 3 snipers on 3 of the exits, and 2 men to cover if anyone tried to escape the back exit. That's 14 men. If we were to send less we would in that mission have 2 instead of 3 snipers for an exit. Which would normally be ok, but with a considerably higher risk of not being able to take out whatever comes out a given turn. If we can't take them out, we have to retreat the spotter and then we no longer have control of the area.

We could just sell all the extra stuff, but lets use it to make decent equipment for all the base defense teams for now.. Will try to give every base the following:
  - 15 heavy plasma, 30 heavy plasma clips, 1 blaster launcher, 5 blaster bombs, 1 small launcher, 10 stun bombs, 1 mind probe, 5 medi-kits and 5 laser rifles & 20 alien grenades, and flying suits/power suits for everyone (to start with, 2 power and 6 flying)

We're not totally there yet. We need some medi-kits.. We need some laser rifles, a few grenades, and a lot of armor. The assault teams will of course have priority on armor, so it will take a while before it's out there, but we'll try to split what's left over to give some protection.

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #71 on: August 19, 2020, 09:01:23 pm »
The terror mission we shot down and delayed got messier than expected.. We took down squad in avenger to fly fast, to prevent team from being away from base long.



We dumped smoke and waited a turn, but then Ryan was mind attacked and ran out of the Avenger, getting reaction shots from cyberdiscs. We eventually managed to clear the outside of the UFO, but there were many cyberdiscs and several sectoids, so we took several hits. Luckily we managed to mend them all with medikits, or the armor took it.. But then trying to camp the UFO, several of our soldiers started to panic, and Charlize was even under alien control a turn. We took several laser shots from own soldiers berserking or being controlled, and decided we just had to go in and kill of that sectoid leader the faster the better..

Within the UFO there were still 3-4 cyberdiscs and some sectoids.. Christian was sadly killed during the combat within the UFO.



The cyberdiscs also exploded, taking out much of the inside of the UFO, which is a likely reason why there wasn't any Elerium there. Though it could also have been destroyed in the crash. Ryan is out for 47 days, Chris for 16 days. Lets hope their psionics skill can still be evaluated.

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #72 on: August 20, 2020, 12:12:24 am »


I guess it's a question of time before they find the base and attacks it.. Not looking forward to a battleship full of Ethereals not even knowing psionic strength in squad, and likely also with a bunch of rookies.. Should we transfer more experienced soldiers down there?

Tempting to say the rookies will have to manage somehow..

26th of June we research plasma rifle. Later in the night we spot a medium scout with sectoids on alien infiltration mission in North America. We scramble US interceptor and shoots it down (over land).. As I understand, shooting down delays mission while attacking while landed does not, and I do want to delay infiltration mission.



Small ufo with sectoids where only a few survived, so fairly easy mission, though one of them had view into the skyranger and fired while waiting for smoke, so now Hudson is out for 32 days.. She did panic a lot against the mind attacks though, so we're guessing she's got a low psionic strength..

June 27th and we research plasma rifle clips too.. Plasma defense next.. Not that we need it..



Here we go.. Another supply ship. Think we might earn both loot and score leaving this alien base intact..



And yet another instance of shooting inside Skyranger in alien turn 1, as we are sitting in it waiting for smoke to become active. It is very tempting to start using that option for instant grenades, so it's possible to deploy smoke AND move out first turn, so we have a chance of spotting them before they spot us..

We thus lost Uma which was now positioned up front in the UFO.. We should be more careful to get expendable rookies up front. Uma had a fairly forward position as people in front of her have died, and due to her low 35 reaction score, but now that she had gotten quite a bit of experience, 73 rifle accuracy and 73 time units, I shoulda had some rookies in front instead..

Ich.. Small scout on retaliation mission in North America.. We sure do have some retaliation missions going on..

Four new soldiers are coming to San Marino to fill the ranks. Daniel, Val, Mickey and Jackie.. None very promising.

30th of June 16:00 we shoot down an Ethereal retaliation medium scout above Europe. It's on land so I guess we should make it a mission. Not loving it though..



It did turn out fine though. Only a few failed attempts at psionic attacks.. Helped that it was in daytime in fairly open terrain, so we could spot them from good distance, and kill them, fast as we outnumbered them.. All were outside the UFO too..



And that marks the end of June.. Everyone happy except Nigeria, so a decent funding increase.. Still we have much higher maintenance than funding income though. Forgot to fire some scientists in front again.. I guess we can get that list of unneeded techs to research even smaller and fire some before next month..

110 soldiers now in psionic training.. On average, should be 11 that is 90+ psi strength. Will be interesting to see who will make the psi team. Expecting next month to be a good month to redistribute soldiers, putting some of the rookies with high psi strength with the assault teams, and leaving some psi weaklings to base defense.

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #73 on: August 20, 2020, 09:37:33 pm »
It doesn't take long in July before we see some action. We spot 2 UFOs over Australia at the same time. One is a very small retaliation UFO towards the region, and the other is a scout for terror mission in Europe. We shoot down the retaliation UFO straight away with the Avenger there. It was close to our base, but wasn't in the air for long at least..



We send the San Marino team in the skyranger to intercept the terror scout, but as we are flying after it, we see a supply ship coming down for the base. We first try to scramble the Weinan team to handle that, but they are far away, and I don't think they'll make it. As the supply ship has more loot than the scout, we reroute the San Marino team to take the supply ship on the ground, and reroute the Weinan team to go after the scout, which now has already landed. We're guessing it'll come to late to handle them as is, but we have an interceptor in San Marino we can hopefully shoot it down with when it launches again..



Looks like a dangerous start. We decided to drop smoke both on level 0 and 1, but even as we did that on the same turn, some snakeman still got close enough to shoot inside the skyranger. We also did reaction shots but they missed. It looks like the armor took the entire hit though, so no damage done, but yet proven that there's no safe way to start missions.

Moved out and to the southeast and southwest corners of the map for the snipers, and a spotter on the UFO and a spotter behind the hill out west.. Managed rest of the mission fine camping the UFO, though a bit frustrating to see them berserking and blowing up my loot :)



Ended up with a 678 score for that supply mission, while the base is giving the aliens 5 score per day, which isaround 150 in a months time.. So this mission alone made it worth it to not destroy it.. Might be more missions in a month too..
« Last Edit: August 20, 2020, 09:39:45 pm by humbe »

Offline humbe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 135
    • View Profile
Re: My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.
« Reply #74 on: August 20, 2020, 10:46:49 pm »
I sent San Marino interceptor to await UFO launching, but the skyranger actually came there ahead of me..

Damn.. Right.. It was Ethereals.. Should have shot it down and possible killed a few of them.. They're panicking and berserking and controlling me.. Happily, the laser rifles haven't that big a chance to pass damage through a flying suit. They didn't start affecting us in their turn one when we stayed inside the skyranger though, and we managed to kill 4 going out. Had to use the last TU to do it though. Even Bruce who I intended to keep in the skyranger had to go out and take the final shot.

I'm really looking forward to getting this psyche evaluations..