My first real OpenXCom challenge. Superhuman Ironman vanilla.

[humbe]

Another terror ship heading for Australia.. Guess we'll have to shoot it down with the Avenger there.. Happy about placing the Avenger down there in the first place ..

When 3rd of July comes, our scientists research plasma defence.

Hmm.. We have the option of sinking that terror ship in the ocean. We're going to have to shoot it down regardless, and we'll get no Elerium for it, and we're not currently short on cash.. There could very well be another sectoid leader making psi attacks there, and all those cyberdiscs can also be nasty.. Dropped it in the ocean.. And soon after, we got yet another small scout to shoot in the ocean on a Ethereal retaliation mission down there..

5th of July we research Mind Shield and start on Laser Defense..

6th of July we shoot down a medium scout on sectoid retaliation mission in North America.. Though we shot it down over Australia, so at least far from that base.. Guess the Weinan team will be the ones to go down and take the ground mission of what remains..

Wasn't much to clean up..

[humbe]

There's lots of Ethereal retaliation missions which I keep trying to shoot down over water.. One I shot down over Africa but skipped the ground mission.. Also some small scouts with various other missions which I destroyed in the air..

First workshop is done in Antarctica base.. Starting to produce more laser rifles there.. Stuffing equipment all around so each base have a decent set of equipment if a base defense mission should arise.. Now got 7 flying suits and 2 power suits for each base without an assault team, and creating some more. Heavy plasma all around, and some alien grenades, a blaster launcher each and some psi-amps for when psyche evaluation is complete..

[humbe]

17th of July we spot an infiltration UFO in North America.. We set off in the San Marino avenger to get there fast, thinking we'll fight it on the ground, but then we come to consider that shooting it down may delay infiltration, so we shoot it down and fight it on the ground. Only 2 sectoids alive though, and both were killed when we exited the Avenger in turn 2.



We let one get a reaction shot in though, which was totally unnecessary.

A bit later we got a medium scout retaliation mission in North America, which we also shot down and fought with the San Marino team..



Daniel got killed here, but he was a rookie, so while it's always sad to lose someone, his replacement will probably be more skilled.

On the 20th of July we spot a medium scout with snakemen on Alien Research mission in South America.. It's currently over the pole, and it's soon daytime down there, so this sounds like a mission we can fight on the ground in daytime without shooting it down..



It went very well.. No aliens got to shoot at us.. Nice cover for us to hide behind and get mutual surprise..

The 24th, yet another alien research mission in South America.. This'll be a night mission unless we shoot it down though.. I think we'll just shoot it down..

25th of July and we have finished researching the final alien we had captured live. We have nothing more to research. Dumping 125 scientists.. Leaving 25 to research the odd alien we may capture alive.. That should cut down on monthly maintenance cost..

After awaiting on crash site until day, we start the mission.. And again a snakeman moves into sight of the hatch and shoots inside. Luckily the armor takes the first shot, and the other one misses.. And Val with his 58 reaction manage to reaction shoot and kill it.



After we got deployed the rest worked out fine though..

[humbe]

Later the 25th, as we are returning to base, an Ethereal retaliation mission in Europe with a large scout comes. Maybe we should have sent the fast avenger to sink it in the meditteranean, but we sent the interceptor, and ended up shooting it down over land.. Previously we've thought Ethereals on a medium scout.. Might be quite a few more in a large one. Should we risk it or leave it be?

While contemplating whether to attack it we get this:



A terror ship full of Ethereals.. We're certainly going to shoot it down, but do we take that mission? It's actually right over Australia at the moment, and we do have an avenger there, so we set it to intercept to see if we can catch it over the indian ocean.. Even though the Avenger has a higher max speed than what the UFO is travelling at, we don't catch up before it's over Russia.. We just tail it for now delaying engaging it until it's over the Baltic Sea.. At least that one is sunk.. One less UFO to worry about.. Only around 6 days until we get psyche evaluation, so lets await that before engaging many of them..

Do not engaging them hurt anything but my score? My score in Europe is great compared to the alien score.. I think I'll let it go..

One consideration. When the month change we get to decide who to keep training.. That's easy in the antarctic base where we are only training half now, we'll switch and evaluate the rest too.. But I'm guessing we'd want to kick some soldiers with poor psionic strength.. Maybe we should hire a lot of new soldiers now, so we could evaluate another bunch, and have a lot more than we want, so we can kick a lot while keeping as many as we want.  It would be nice to continue training the good ones, but they can also train while on missions.

We end up hiring 120 more soldiers. It cost quite a few bucks though, so not much in plus now.. Have started producing laser cannons to sell in both San Marino and in the new workshops in Carney now..

The 27th we spot a medium scout of floaters on abduction mission in south east asia.. Finally a mission we can engage on the ground for decent loot.. We'll send the Weinan team after this one.. It's fast approaching night though, so I'm guessing this will end up as a night mission...



It just landed, but sunrise is approaching.. We've seen some of these landings stay for quite a few hours.. I think this may just be within what I can wait out until morning.. Right we were.. Day mission.. Yay



Went pretty smooth..

On the 31st of July we have managed to gather around 4 million in credits, which we hope to be enough to stay positive after the end of month.. We spot a large scout on infiltration mission in North America though. Maybe we manage a last mission before the end of month.. We shoot it down just north of Australia on land.. But while waiting for daybreak there, we get another ethereal large scout on retaliation mission in Australia, which we shoot down over land in Australia..

We'll likely engang that one after psyche evaluations.. Practically enough, the skyranger moves about as fast around the world as the earth rotates, so once in the light, I can travel straight west and I won't start a night mission.. We engage the infiltration scout at 21:43.. Will be last mission this month, and just in time to sell the loot before end of month as loot magically appears in base right after mission..



There.. We did seem to get a couple of hits that seemed to be taken care of by armor.. Or wasn't really a hit.. Not sure if everything that looks like a hit actually is.. Trying to get into partial cover if I can which might be helpful..

After selling loot we have 6.61 mill credits before end of month..



Good we got those extra credits..




A sad sight.. The San Marino team has an average psionic skill of 35.. The Weinan team have 41 on average. That's not very good luck :/.. There's many soldiers with better skill elsewhere, but they are all rookies.. Looks like we'll have few experienced soldiers in our psi team..


                   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+
Val         53  60  27  10  58  49  58  29  35   8  23   57  65  31  10  59  52  58  29  37   8  23  5
Mickey      54  42  32  40  34  61  66  34  36  35  18   62  57  36  40  34  64  66  34  43  35  18  5
Jackie      54  58  38  60  57  44  71  26  25  34  21   59  65  46  60  57  46  71  26  34  34  21  5.5
Ryan        57  65  25  10  38  70  80  31  34  31  24   73  95  56  10  42  96  86  31  69  31  24  7
Hugo        54  66  34  40  50  53  64  29  23  40  21   65  70  47  40  51  58  69  29  35  40  21  6.5
Hudson      54  58  38  30  60  56  68  34  37   4  16   60  69  42  30  60  60  68  34  40   4  16  6
Jason       58  65  34  50  47  43  67  26  30  81  21   81 100  60  50  57  62  77  26  65  81  21  8
Shailene    54  57  26  60  50  46  56  28  38  44  19   65  74  40  60  51  51  57  28  48  44  19  6
Colin       57  64  38  50  50  42  62  28  21  16  22   80  92  57  50  54  56  64  28  54  16  22  7
Chris       50  64  30  40  57  60  56  33  27  22  23   50  72  39  40  61  66  57  33  35  22  33  8
Keanu       50  53  30  10  49  70  58  20  40  25  17   80  99  60  10  54 104  58  20  70  25  17  7
Tom         51  58  25  50  44  67  65  27  29  46  19   70  85  47  50  47  81  65  27  53  46  19  7
Charlize    58  40  40  40  58  41  62  23  25  47  18   80  93  59  40  70  66  64  23  63  47  18  8
Harrison    50  58  32  50  57  53  80  37  20  95  17   80  91  60  50  65  70  84  37  49  95  17  8
Gal         53  44  39  50  57  61  77  27  37  40  20   74  70  55  50  61  75  81  27  62  40  20  8
Daisy       51  66  38  60  54  68  68  27  20  35  24   68  93  61  60  54  81  69  27  54  35  24  8
Christopher 53  56  35  60  54  66  73  27  24  10  22   78  86  57  60  58  85  74  27  62  10  22  8
Arnold      57  65  30  60  60  45  77  40  22  46  19   80  96  59  60  71  62  80  40  64  46  19  8
Sylvester   58  59  40  40  59  67  75  40  23   8  22   68  74  42  40  61  78  76  40  44   8  22  9

Ben         51  49  25  30  36  57  60  21  32  25  23   61  59  29  30  36  63  66  21  41  25  23  4
Jeremy      50  51  28  10  35  70  68  25  20  79  18   52  55  32  10  35  73  68  25  23  79  18  4.5
Will        52  41  34  40  31  59  78  30  30  61  24   56  48  35  40  31  59  78  30  36  61  24  5
Charles     60  54  31  20  55  40  54  28  27  25  18   61  58  33  20  55  40  54  28  27  25  18  5.5
George      57  62  35  10  50  48  74  25  24  65  18   57  62  35  10  50  48  74  25  24  65  18  5.5
Halle       60  69  27  50  33  46  73  37  37   8  23   65  76  33  50  34  48  78  37  49   8  23  5
Vin         52  46  36  60  36  70  51  37  20  67  24   52  46  36  60  36  70  51  37  20  67  24  5.5
Roger       59  46  40  60  37  63  54  33  37  11  22                                               6
Famke       52  57  32  60  59  44  64  29  30  34  18   56  63  38  60  59  49  65  29  34  34  18  6
Lucy        50  42  40  10  56  68  54  27  40  67  17   50  47  42  10  56  69  54  27  43  67  17  7
Jennifer    57  52  30  30  43  52  74  24  32  49  16   69  78  49  30  52  72  78  24  47  49  16  6
Michael     53  42  26  30  50  53  63  22  40  20  20   71  76  48  30  61  62  64  22  62  20  20  6
Liam        57  63  31  10  46  61  50  26  30  51  19   78  81  51  10  51  73  50  26  55  51  19  7
Denzel      52  56  36  30  54  60  69  35  32  79  23   67  83  52  30  58  70  70  35  51  79  23  7
Eric        58  57  36  60  34  60  75  27  37  33  16   62  64  40  60  34  61  77  27  39  33  16  6
Sigourney   59  65  34  30  51  64  56  27  20  19  24   68  79  40  30  55  69  56  27  40  19  24  7.5
Kate        58  51  37  60  46  70  77  20  40  28  22   73  82  54  60  46  84  81  20  57  28  22  8
Michelle    60  42  39  10  55  67  55  31  35   0  22   80  79  57  10  56  87  60  31  63   0  22  8
Dolph       53  61  33  60  51  67  62  38  26  40  17   60  69  46  60  52  75  65  38  34  40  17  7.5
Bruce       58  61  35  60  58  69  58  34  32  60  22   65  77  43  60  63  75  58  34  38  60  22  9


Ich.. So many soldiers patiently trained by being careful on the battlefield, and from the 19 soldiers of the San Marino team, only 2 of them have psi strength above 47 !!! That's some bad odds. There's 8 from the Weinan team, which is also below par, but the Weinan team is far less trained..

What to do.. Good we hired a lot of new soldiers though, to get a decent chance of getting a decent group. Not sure what happens if you transfer a soldier set to train at a local psi lab, but as we've put another set of soldiers to be trained, we can move the ones trained around freely.

[humbe]

Bah.. Checking an old savegame, I see that among the MIA soldiers in the San Marino team, there was 2 soldiers with PSI strength of 100 and 1 at high 90s.. Why on earth did I lose all the good psi ones..

[tarkalak]

Bah.. Checking an old savegame, I see that among the MIA soldiers in the San Marino team, there was 2 soldiers with PSI strength of 100 and 1 at high 90s.. Why on earth did I lose all the good psi ones..

Psykers are easily seduced by CHAOS.

[humbe]

Only Jason and Harrison from San Marino team have decent psionic strength.. While the Weinan team have better average, they have zero good ones that we can train to avoid being controlled.

Our soldiers haven't gotten any worse from knowing their psionic skill of course, but now we're facing more Ethereals, and eventually final mission in Cydonia, and then we'll face a lot more aliens trying to attack us with psionics

Getting good enough soldiers to be psi immune is hard, but if we rather shoot for:
  - Immune against mind control against everyone but commanders that are close (20 tiles).
  - Immune against panic attacks against all non-commanders, except for leaders that are close (20 tiles).

From UFOpedia we see that Ethereal Commanders have attack strength of 87 and leaders have 71. Adding 0-55 random, they can roll up to 142 / 126.
Our Psionic Strength + Skill / 5 then needs to be at least 112 to avoid commander mind control, and 116 to avoid panic attack from leader.
Allowing it to happen up to 20 tiles away, they will have at least 10 penalty, meaning we can get away with 106 defense to achieve the goal above. 106 defense can be achieved with:

100 psionic strength, 30 psionic skill
95 psionic strength, 55 psionic skill
90 psionic strength, 80 psionic skill
85 psionic strength, 105 psionic skill
80 psionic streength, 130 psionic skill
75 psionic strength, 155 psionic skill
70 psionic strength, 180 psionic skill

The goal may be a hard one to reach. I'll have to be very patient if all the soldiers I bring to final mission should fulfill those criteria.
One could lower the bar, saying we'll have to live with leaders being able to panic us and commanders being able to control us, but leaders should not be able to control us.. Then the limit becomes 20 easier, and thus 100 less psionic skillis required. Every soldier with 80+ psionic strength can easily be trained to fulfill that.

While there are lots of commanders and leaders at Cydonia, there are only ever 1 commander on a mission on earth, and only a few leaders, so as long as troops are immune to psi attacks from ethereal soldiers, we should be able to cope. While not immune to leader/commanders, having a high value reduce the chance of it occuring. For instance, a soldier with 80 strength and 30 skill, has a mind control defense of 116. An Ethereal commander thus have (42 - 16)/56 = 26/56 =~ 50% chance of success. A leader with 16 less attack strength will be down to 10/56 =~18% chance of success.

We'll try to set the cutoff point for eventual Cydonia crew to be psionic skill 80+. We'll create a psi-core of 80+ soldiers which we will use to handle all Ethereal missions on earth, and which will be the mainstay of our Cydonia attack force. We'll also try to get some 80+ soldiers spread around for base defense.  In total among our first trained 110 soldiers, we have around 20 that are 80+. We're training 110 other ones at the moment, so we expect around 20 from those too..



We handled the Ethereal scout we had shot down as soon as the month changed. We put all the decent psi strength soldiers in Australia aboard the avenger, with a few decoys in front. Went well.. Got a wounded one, but he only had 69 psi strength, so will not make the psi team regardless.



This stat increase screen is pretty nice too.. Haven't noticed it before. I guess it's new in OpenXCom. General skills increase fast.. We have to work for the rest. But interestingly, psionic skill is trained even with only failed attempts, so we can stuff a lot of psi trainees onto ships just to try and fail before we shoot down aliens.

We've decided to transfer the avenger from Alice Springs over to Harare, and then transfer all the psi strong soldiers down there too. Then they can organize a psi team, and with an avenger they can reach out to most of the world pretty fast. We'll keep the Weinan and San Marino teams as backup teams, to handle non-Ethereal missions when needed, but we'll prefer to use the psi-team to train them fast. We may also send some high strength psi soldiers to Weinan and San Marino teams just to follow on any missions to train psi skill..



Once all transfers have started, we of course spotted 2 UFOs. One Muton terror scout. I guess San Marino team may fly down there and take a day mission on the ground. There's also a a snakeman retaliation scout on the way to antarctica. Can't remember us having shot down anything down there, but ok.. With the Avenger and Interceptor in Harare and Alice Springs trading places, we have no interceptors down there. I guess we can try Weinan and Amazonas interceptors to see if they manage to catch up to it..

We managed eventually to catch up to the small scout and shot it down.. It was close to base though, and have been there for a bit.. Lets hope they didn't see it..

Then the Mutons land and we have our first Muton mission..



No waiting for action here I see.. I guess drop smoke and wait is likely best.. If that's enough smoke to hide us at least..

[humbe]

There were 3-4 in the building on top there.. And the rest was in the open outside the UFO out west. We lost a rookie we put in front to scout, but everyone else managed alright. Smoked worked great this time around..



This wasn't what I hoped to spot.. If these guys come for my main base I may actually be in trouble.. They are so psi weak that they can be controlled easily by any Ethereal.. Even the soldiers.



Not helped by the main team not being at the sight.. Only rookies are left at the base.. Though quite a bit of them.. If they are going straight for our base, they'd get there first, but thankfully it was just scouting and it left the base alone for now.. Though did it locate our base so next time will be for real??



This wasn't what we'd hoped to spot either.. I guess this means we're losing US or Canada as a contributor. Likely the US.





We don't really feel rigged to handle all this activity at once.. We managed to quickly scan our psi-squad and get them out towards North America.. Weinan team is also on the way.. San Marino team is still refueling.. Shot down supply ship (or was it terror ship?) over the water.. The other we shot down over Baja California.. The scout got shot down in east US. I guess the San Marino team might eventually get to battle there.. The battleship we don't feel like shooting down, but the new psi team is on the way over to attack it on the ground.. Not that we expect it to stop the infiltration mission sadly, but at least we'll get loot, score and training..

[humbe]

The battleship fight is not easy to do safely..

We only brought one decoy rookie with no psi strength. He died on the first tile of movement in the mission, as a cyberdisc saw him through the smoke and shot him underneath from the side. Thankfully that depleted enough TUs on the cyberdisc for others to get out and take it down without more reaction shots. There were more cyberdiscs around the deployment area, but we managed to get them all in the deployment round.

We managed to clear the outside of the UFO without further death's or injury, but we got a few shots after us. We are now in control of the outside, and can camp the exits or enter the UFO.

Although this is the start of my future psi-squad and everyone is 80+ psionic strength, we get a handful of psi attacks against us every round. They have managed to mind control one of the soldiers at least once, and several has been panicking and berserking. Thankfully the berserkers have not hit anything, and the controlled one had only a laser rifle and didn't manage to pass armor on his targets.

We have quite a few armed with heavy plasma though, as we haven't had time to transfer laser rifles to the team yet. If we storm the UFO and these are controlled or berserking while close to others, there will be disaster..

So what to do? Camp or storm? I've seen no indication of the enemy trying to leave, though it's still fairly early. In any case, we'll likely be camping for quite a few rounds to be able to take most of them on the outside, and during all these turns, we may be controlled or berserking, and eventually we will harm a fellow soldier.. Maybe we just have to storm it..

Many of the officers might be on the top floor though. We have a blaster launcher so we could potentially create a hole in top to enter through, and try to get rid of those officers first..

[humbe]

Camping the UFO.. The guys with clear view to middle has just come down from hiding behind wall on level above..

Decided to storm the UFO, rather than keep waiting and see if we shoot ourselves..




This is high stakes poker.. We had a turn just outside doors below.. Noone had come out for many turns, so no special reasons they should do it this turn, but if they did they'd have enough targets to grenade.. We opened the door and immediately saw a cyberdisc.. Full auto and we blew it up.. We went in from other direction and saw 2 more discs and shot them down too. Then we ran in and took positions as you can see above.. This can backfire easily though..



Next turn one of our guys panicked and ran down to expose an alien down there, that somehow didn't shoot at us at all. We could easily take him down next turn..



On the floor above, another unit panicked and ran to the room on top there, blocking the entrance with a leader inside it.. Thankfully though, that leader panicked, so couldn't shoot him the following turn..



We got a few reaction shots when aliens came out into the hallways.. Here we see the commander on top and the last leader out right.. We could easily shoot down both.. Glorious victory.. High stakes invading this UFO, but doing it fast and overwhelming in numbers, we limited the time in which we took risks at least..



I couldn't hope for more.. Just lost the decoy we sent out first.

[humbe]

The Weinan team finally got to Mexico to fight the supply UFO we shot down..



We sadly lost Jeremy as he got out of the Skyranger, but the rest survived. There were some mind controlling bastards here, and our crew have no resistance so we went guns blazing as fast as we can to clear, using all our guys. Now that all are identified as psi-weaklings we're not treating them as royalty anymore.. Work for a living..

There were a few turn ends, where I expected aliens to come around and kill a soldier or two, but we managed to keep them alive.. Medi-kits saved Liam and Denzel, who are out of action for 32 and 8 days..



A decent score.. And quite a bit of loot..



When the San Marino team got ready, we sent them out to finish what was left on the ground after we shot down that scout..



Easy...

The Harare Psi-team have now started to get some equipment.. All in all, they count 23 soldiers. Spot for only one more on the Avenger. They're fully armored. Two in front in power suits, to be able to drop sideways of exit fast, and the rest in flying suits.. (Though fairly easy to get around in flying suits too on the Avenger, so I guess we may soon give all flying suits). All have laser rifles, and they have smoke, proximity and alien grenades for support.. Hmm.. I should buy some flares too.. 15 medikits should suffice, and 15 psi-amps are a few short, as we want to give everyone one, but plenty to start training most of them. We'll likely just use front 8 to handle the mission, and leave 15 in the Avenger to train with psi-amps.. We also have blaster launcher, stun launcher and mind probe for support if needed..

The current psi-squad members are:


                   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+
Jessica A   56  59  29  30  45  65  61  21  35  80  19                                               7
Chuck       54  61  29  50  40  58  54  23  26  80  16                                               5.5
Jessica B   51  58  40  40  42  48  59  31  35  81  22                                               5
Karl        50  65  31  10  33  45  76  38  38  81  23                                               3
Jet         53  64  29  10  48  54  75  21  27  82  21                                               3.5
Christian   51  53  37  20  53  66  76  38  21  82  16                                               6.5
Jennifer L  57  44  25  10  60  46  52  25  35  84  24                                               6
Rose        52  48  37  50  43  50  63  32  33  84  17                                               5
Mel         54  65  30  10  46  61  76  37  37  84  20                                               5
Nicolas     58  40  30  30  38  42  57  37  24  85  24   61  45  34  30  38  44  57  37  24  85  24  3.5
Steven      53  49  33  50  46  47  58  27  35  87  16   57  55  33  50  46  48  58  27  40  87  16  5
Russel      59  62  25  30  32  65  77  36  36  87  24                                               6
Matt        57  61  39  30  52  55  50  38  21  89  22                                               6.5
Jean Claude 54  57  34  30  41  61  80  23  20  91  21                                               3.5
Orlando     51  49  32  10  34  68  53  25  23  91  21                                               4.5
Viggo       56  62  38  20  34  50  77  40  30  95  17                                               4
Sean        59  47  25  20  31  68  74  24  30  95  16                                               6
Dwayne      54  56  29  40  31  59  67  32  34  96  23                                               5
Wesley      57  63  34  50  40  43  59  21  26  91  22                                               5.5
Lucy        56  46  35  50  54  54  72  38  37  98  22   59  53  35  50  54  54  72  38  37  98  22  7
Clint       59  43  35  20  50  66  70  33  39  98  22   62  45  35  20  50  66  70  33  43  98  22  8
Jason       58  65  34  50  47  43  67  26  30  81  21   81 100  60  50  57  62  77  26  65  81  21  8
Harrison    50  58  32  50  57  53  80  37  20  95  17   80  91  60  50  65  70  84  37  49  95  17  8


They all do have 80+ psi strength, but other than that, they have a lot to improve..

Next up, we're considering taking out the alien base.. I'm guessing we'll soon get another one in the US after the infiltration mission..

[humbe]

We went to the alien base, but noticed there were poor lighting there, and we did not bring flares. We decided to go right back and await flares coming in. With nothing happening that was zero score, so we only wasted an Elerium unit or two to travel back and forth..

In the meantime, another battleship with Ethereals were on retaliation mission in Europe, but didn't attack base this time either. Then we saw a large scout with floaters.



Should be an easy mission. However, we brought no expendable rookies along. All we have are 80+ psi strength which we'd like to keep for now.. But being careful that works out ok.. It also helps having a boatload of psi-amps with us.. Whenever we spotted someone, we could do a ton of panic attack attempts. If we managed to get their morale down to zero, we knew they would panic next turn and we could end turn fairly safely.




Here we can see that we did the mission with the first 8 soldiers, which mostly gained some accuracy/reaction (we camped the UFO exit, standing on top of UFO so we could shoot anyone coming out in the back), and the rest which gained psionic skill by doing panic attempts. It seems to work to keep panicking the same unit even though his morale is already zero.

We want some rookies on the psi-team, especially in fights where we don't expect much psi-attacks against us. We also have a ton of soldiers with poor psi-strength, and we've bought a lot of new soldiers to train, so the low-psi strength rookies are very expendable. Sending 7 soldiers from Great Falls to fill up the living quarter in Harare, being the first set of rookies to bring with us.

The alien base in Africa is a snakeman base, so safe from psi-attacks.. But they do have fast moving Chryssalid, so better have some meat shields in front of anyone we'd want to keep. Now.. How many meat shields to send?

At the alien base our forces will be deployed split in two groups, so might need a few to cover the exits of both teams.

[humbe]

We ended up using all the 7 expendables sent from Great Falls in the team.. We were scared about the Chryssalid's, and want a strategy to avoid them. They can move from outside sight range and kill a soldier in an open desert environment at daytime, and in this base with a thousand corners that isn't even lit, they have way too many places to hide for there to be any safe place to put a soldier on the floor.

There are a few rooms in the base that is two storage tall, so we could hover at second level in flying suit.. However, we'd then need to get to such positions. But we figured, what if we cover up all 8 tiles of the lifts in the rooms we start with? Then there's no room for the chryssalid to take the elevator, and he can't attack from the level below.. Still sounds a bit dangerous with snakemen coming in and shooting up, but if we move down each turn and shoot everything we see, then hopefully few snakemen come below us with TUs left to shoot.



We put the remaining dudes next to the elevator to be close in case we needed some extra people to go down and shoot a turn, or to get a bit better view of what happened below, but it might just have put them in extra danger from snakeman shots.. In any case, it worked like a charm. Anything moving into range have used enough TUs to not reaction shoot when we dropped down from above (or possibly mutual surprise saved us a few times).. We sent the 4 in the elevator down. Looked around and went back up each turn.



Here we found a chryssalid to shoot. Several we saw just underneath us later and we could just shoot them from directly above..



Eventually there was carnage below.. While our troops still have poor psionic skill, we did attempt a lot of mind controls, and among a ton of attempts we did manage some mind controls. This was very useful to drop weapon in hand and scout a bit.. We also tested a blaster launcher.. Think we mind controlled 3 different dudes with blaster launchers.. Good neither of those understood they could just fire them up the elevator or our team had been toast.. But due to the mind control, we learned of how the base was layed out without ever having walked away from the elevator..

Eventually, noone else showed up, and turn timer was short enough to indicate only 1 or maybe 2 left.. The expendables was sent to look for the last one, and found a snakeman without a weapon.. Probably the reason it didn't walk up to us..



Wait.. Who blew up my Elerium? Sadly, the expendables stole all the rifle training using this tactics, but it's more important to up psionic skill and general stats at this time..

[humbe]

Got Ethereal retaliation scout towards South Africa.. Intercepted with psi-team.. One of the 2 expendables we sent in was killed as he was panicked and moved in front of the UFO exit. But none of the psi-team was panicked or controlled this time around.. Lots of good psi-training trying to panic ethereals...

[humbe]

Shot down a very small harvest scout, and we get a large sectoid scout on retaliation mission in US, which we shoot down and engage with the psi-squad..



We start of with an alien looking in, but dropping smoke in avenger cuts line of sight and saves us. But we use yet another turn to smoke level below, as we dare not use TUs to throw while sectoid can possibly reaction shoot. Especially as we'd have to arm it first..

In turn 3 we move out, and sadly, there's a sectoid directly underneath the avenger which shoots one of our expendables dead.. Next one manage to see him though, and then we can start mind controlling and soon the mission is easy.



We ensure all of the psi-squads get some psi training before we complete.. Panic attempts is very useful as you can keep doing them even though their morale is at 0, so everyone get their training.



Not a lot of loot as we had to shoot it down, but the training value is great...

Next up, we detect a large scout with mutons.. Again the psi-squad jumps into action..



Managing to see mutons in the jungle is horrible..



We found 2 outside and mind controlled them to do scouting for us.. Can you spot them?



In the very first turn we deployed we actually managed to map out the entire UFO with mind control.. We found a few more next turn, but then everyone was unarmed, and we could do another practice run of psi, reaction and accuracy..



This was a terror scouting mission, so we let it land, so much more loot this time around.

The psi squad now has 30-50 psi skill, and against mutons and sectoid at least, they now are very useful to control them. Getting more skill makes a big difference though. Especially when trying to mind control people from a distance. We managed to control mutons close to avenger fairly easy this time, but the ones we detected far of we did way many tries before we managed to control them, so we didn't always have capacity to mind control everything we saw..