Also, forgot one thing.

I'm aware of the difficulty bug in this game; After the first mission the difficulty drops down to Beginner. This is fixable, and I will try to do so if it's requested that I play on any difficulty higher than Beginner.

Maximum difficulty, save scumming allowed up to three times per (in-game)month.

Name your first team of operatives after characters from MLP, starting with main characters and moving on to secondary and background characters.

cant wait to watch

I await for the purge.

>How many operatives am I allowed to use (per mission/overall)? Am I allowed to recruit replacements, or is what I start with all I'm allowed?

Use as many as you think you'll need, but try not to go over-the-top with things. Recruit all you like.

>How many bases am I allowed to have?

Not too familiar with the game, so I'll just say that it should follow the same principle.

>Where shall my bases be located when I make them?
>On what Difficulty shall I play?

The second highest.

>Am I allowed to save scum at all? If not, am I still allowed to save at the beginnings of missions, or only at the end of each month?

Yeah, but I'd go for some kinda limit to save scumming,

>Finally, what will the names of my operatives be**?

As fun as it is for just friends to be in there, I'd go for a mix between pony characters and other various fictional characters. But I have to offer up my name, of course.

>>99790
Trust me, he doesn't want to do this. I tried it once, and watching Pinkie fall under alien control and shooting Flutters in the head was horrible.

>>99785
Play on the highest difficulty you can manage without having to save-scum. Never save-scum. Only save at the end of each session, and resume from there. Other than that, do what you want as far as recruiting and bases go.

Also, I wanna die! Put me in the front lines!

>>99826
>watching Pinkie fall under alien control and shooting Flutters in the head was horrible.
my sides, oh that's funny in a horrible way.

Alright so, I did some digging and found a few things for the Windows/Gold Edition that I can use to get things running smoothly. For those who don't know, there are two versions of the game when you buy it from Steam: The DOS Version (comes with DOSBox) and the Gold Edition (for Windows 95). The former is built playable right out of the box with minimal fuss so if you want to play it yourself, that's the version to use. The latter... is not. It's not compatible with modern computers due to DirectX updates or something like that.

So I've taken the liberty of patching it to hell and back. Why? Because this bug:

>>99787

... isn't present in the Gold Edition. That's ultimately what I'd like to eliminate most, because otherwise I may as well just play on Beginner.

So, here are the following things I've installed for this let's play:

UFO Extender: http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=User:Seb76#UFO_Extender

This is a very customizable patch that fixes quite a few bugs. It also has a lot of other features, the majority of which I won't be using. The only feature enabled that is not present in the original game is the door mechanic from Terror from the Deep*.

Geoscape Speed Fix: http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242035086

All this really does is stop the Geoscape in Gold Edition from running at Ludicrous Speed.

Combo X-COM Game Folder Patch: http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/combo-x-com-game-folder-patch/

Fixes a number of graphical errors which you guys won't get to see much of, and an assorted list of glitches in terrain function.

PSX Soundtrack: http://www.xcomufo.com/x1music.html

A version of this game was released on the PSX. It had a new soundtrack. You guys won't get to hear this, but I'm linking it anyways.

Anyways, I've got roughly 40 pony names in my list thus far in case we go for that for naming.

>>99826

I am fully prepared to witness the horror that is Rainbow Dash going berserk and gunning down her best friends against her will.

*In UFO Defense, in order to open a door you must also walk into the space just behind it. This is an entirely blind movement and can provoke reaction fire. In Terror from the Deep, you can do that OR open doors without walking through them, allowing you a glimpse of what's inside. UFO Extender adds that functionality to the Gold Edition of UFO Defense, thus making things a pinch easier for me.

One base only, in Antarctica on the highest difficulty

>>99841

I see what you did there.

January 1st, 1999

After much deliberation between the representatives at Geneva, it was decided that the first and only X-COM base of operations would be in Antarctica. With so little terrain worth covering and since we're so far from any civilization, it is likely that we've been set up for failure. Nevertheless, we've decided to try and make the best of things here at Nowhere. Our scientists have already begun researching what little we know about the aliens and their technology.

Right-o, so we're off to a bad start here. Antarctica was the only place to get a vote, so Antarctica it is! Smack dab on the South Pole, in fact. Shown here is our starting base, which I'll be leaving alone for now but will receive some major improvements in the future.

I've started construction on several buildings which will be completed before the month's done: Two Living Quarters, a Large Radar System, an Alien Containment room, a General Storage area, Missile Defenses, and a Hangar in the top-right corner. The more Living Quarters you have, the more Technicians Scientists and Operatives you can have at any given base. The more General Stores, the more equipment you can keep in your base. The Large Radar System can detect UFOs outside of the range of our Small Radar System; since we're in Antarctica we need all the extra range we can get. The Alien Containment is a must, as without it we are unable to capture live aliens for research. Missile Defenses provide some defense against incoming raids. And finally, the Hangar is where your aircraft are stored. There's a very good reason for me building an extra one despite having three.

Right off the bat I've sold off a number of things I consider worthless: the cannons our Interceptors would use at short range, for instance. They'll be replaced by Stingray and Avalanche Missile Launchers, which are far more effective, if also more costly. I've also bought plenty of smoke grenades, electro flares, and a few stun rods. In addition, I've recruited twenty scientists. All of those will take some time to arrive at our base.

Our ten scientists have been put to researching Laser Weapons and Medi-Kits. The former unlocks Laser Pistols, Rifles, and Heavy Lasers for research, all of which are useful in the early game. The latter allows us to creat Medi-Kits, which are used to patch up wounds and revive unconscious operatives. It won't come in handy for a while: Aliens at this point in the game will kill our soldiers outright in a single shot. Once we start getting some armor made, however, it will be the difference between a wounded operative living through a mission or bleeding out from a fatal wound.

Finally, there's the matter of our operatives: Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Flower Smiles Cheerilee, and Spike. Each of our soldiers has eight stats: Time Units, Stamina, Health, Bravery, Reactions, Firing Accuracy, Throwing Accuracy, and Strength. I'll spare you the in-depth details about what these do and go with the gist of things:

TU: How many actions you can take per turn. The more TUs, the more actions you can take. TUs refresh at the start of each turn.
Stamina: How much energy the operative has. If he or she runs out of energy, she can take no actions. Stamina refreshes at the start of each turn.
Health: How much damage an operative can take before they die. If they take a hit and survive, be sure to check them with a Medi-kit for wounds, or else they could bleed out.
Bravery: How well an operative responds to stress. Low bravery will lead to panicking if things start going wrong.
Reactions: How well an operative reacts to alien movement. High reactions will lead to your operatives firing during the enemy's turn if they spot an alien moving, provided they have the TUs for it.
Firing and Throwing Accuracy: How accurate your soldiers are when it comes to firing and throwing. The higher the number, the more likely they are to hit what they were aiming at.
Strength: How strong an operative is.

January 1st, Friday

Not even 24 hours of activity and we've already seen alien activity! A UFO was spotted on our radar system in the dead of night. We sent one of our Interceptors to take the craft down. Unfortunately, it was completely obliterated in a single shot from the aircraft's Avalanche Missile Launcher.

This is not a good thing. A downed UFO, when recovered, will give us many resources such as alien equipment, UFO construction material, power sources, and aliens (live or dead). A destroyed UFO gives us... nothing. With our poor starting position and this early in the game, every downed UFO is a major missed opportunity. I'll be putting that Avalanche Missile Launcher away for now and sticking with Stingrays instead.

January 4th, Monday

Both the scientists we've recruited and the equipment we've purchased from our superiors have arrived. The scientists have been put to work researching the aliens' weaponry. With any luck, we should be able to replicate that technology soon.

~~~

January 8th, Friday

A second UFO was sighted last night. One of our Interceptors tried to engage it, but it proved too quick to fire upon. However, we pinned it down not far from Nowhere and have sent our operatives to engage the enemy and recover the landed craft.

This is a double-edged sword for us. A crashed UFO will have some of its resources, most likely the navigation systems and power sources, destroyed upon crashing. At the same time, a good chunk of the aliens manning the UFO will also die, making it much easier to recover the UFO; it's entirely possible for the entire crew to be dead on arrival, resulting it an autocompleting mission. With a landed UFO, we will be able to recover everything, provided those things don't get damaged in the crossfire between our soldiers and the aliens. At the same time, the landed UFO will be fully manned.

As a precaution: Missions can take place during the day and during the night. During the day, visibility is clear: Aliens will easily be able to spot you, but at the same time you will easily be able to spot aliens. During the night, visibility is heavily restricted by Eggheadf War: Aliens have a much easier time hiding. This does not benefit you nearly as much as it does them, as they typically have a longer viewing range than your operatives, but it's not entirely stacked against you.

No screenshot, unfortunately. Did not think to take one, though it would've been nice.

TURN 1

We've arrived at the Northeast-most section of the area. Frozen tundra and large pools of ice water are visible to the west and south.

Twilight Sparkle has left the safety of the Skyranger, checking to the west and east before departing off the east edge and taking cover behind the aircraft's wheels. It should be safe for the rest of the team, but for now only Applejack and Rainbow Dash shall accompany her.

ALIEN PHASE

Alient movement was heard coming from somewhere nearby. It sounded like a door was being opened. The aliens may have begun departing their craft to see what's going on.

TURN 2

Due to the presence of the ice water pools, our way northwest has been blocked off. However, Twilight Sparkle has spotted the alien craft just southwest of our Skyranger. The three departed operatives have all begun moving towards it. Twilight and Applejack are armed with standard issue pistols, whereas Dash has a much more effective rifle. Should any aliens be spotted, Dash will ideally be the first to engage.

ALIEN PHASE

No movement. No sounds. There may not be that many aliens onboard the craft.

TURN 3

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash closed in on the alien craft, scanning the north and eastern sides of it. Applejack then took the lead and spotted an alien directly to the south of the landed UFO. She quickly fired at the strange creature, dropping it in a single shot.

During combat, you may have up to four options for attacking: Aimed Shots, Snap Shots, Auto Shots, and Throwing. Aimed Shots have subtantially higher accuracy than the other two Shots, but consume the most TUs. Snap Shots have decent accuracy and consume very few TUs; often a player will end their turn with their operatives having enough TUs for a snap shot so that they can be used for reaction fire during the alien phase. Auto Shots have low accuracy and higher TU consumption than Snap Shots, but result in three shots being fired instead of one, increasing the odds of your target being hit. Finally, Throwing is for tossing explosives or passing equipment around.

Other equipment, such as Medi-kits, have other uses unique to them. I'll get into that as they come up.

As a final note, crouching will consume 6 TUs, but also improves your accuracy when firing. Doing so is a very important tactic early on, when your soldiers might have difficulty hitting their targets. At later points in the game this might also mean the difference between a near-miss and a guaranteed hit.

ALIEN PHASE

There appears to be one more alien left alive. It may be within the UFO or hiding behind the western edge.

TURN 4

Applejack headed directly South, then turned West to scout the edge of the UFO. The entrance has been discovered. Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash closed in on the entrance, though it may be another turn or two before we can enter.

ALIEN PHASE

Silence.

TURN 5

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash have arrived at the UFO's entrance. Twilight is ready to fire if an alien opens the door in front of her, though she could easily be killed if the alien shoots first. Rainbow Dash has taken up a better position by flanking the side of the door. Applejack is close behind them.

ALIEN PHASE

More silence.

TURN 6

Twilight Sparkle has stepped forward and carefully opened the door to the enemy craft. Inside, she has found... oh... holy... shit.

Seven aliens are clustered about in the UFO. Each of them is well armed, and while they aren't currently away of us, any one of them could fire upon Twilight if she took any action here.

This is not something we were expecting at all. Twilight and Rainbow Dash have both primed the grenades they are carrying, readying to throw them into the enemy craft next turn. It will likely destroy the power source and navigation, but there is no way we'll be able to take on such a force this early in the game.

ALIEN PHASE

Silence. Oh gods help me...

TURN 7

Twilight Sparkle once again approaches the vessel, opening the door carefully. Only four of the aliens inside are visible, and all of them have spotted her. She hurriedly chucks the grenade into the craft and flees, but not before taking a serious injury. If we do not finish this mission soon, she will die.

ALIEN PHASE

Several aliens have died from the explosion. However, there are still several left alive.

TURN 8

Twilight Sparkle is in no condition to fight. Three turns from now, she will die from her injuries. Rainbow Dash copies her maneuver, but retreats from the doorway before tossing the grenade in, ensuring that the aliens will not fire on her as she does so. Hopefully this will be enough to finish them off.

ALIEN PHASE

Two grenades later and several aliens have been killed, but the craft is still manned. We will have to send our operatives inside to deal with the stragglers.

TURN 9

Rainbow Dash appears to have sustained a minor injury from one of the explosions. She opens the UFO door and proceeds to fire upon the aliens, taking out one but missing the other and getting shot in the process. Not good. She doesn't have the TUs needed to retreat from the doorway, either.

ALIEN PHASE

Surprisingly enough, the aliens did not fire upon Rainbow Dash, sparing her from an ensured death. She may still have a chance at survival.

TURN 10

Twilight Sparkle has lost consciousness. If we do not finish this fight in this turn, she will die. Rainbow Dash once again opens the door to the alien craft, killing the only alien visible to her. She then enters the ship, moving along the wall. An alien fires at her multiple times but misses each shot, sparing her life and giving away its location. Applejack quickly closes in on it and kills it with her pistol.

MISSION CLEARED (SEE SCREENSHOT)

Surprisingly enough, we recovered the Power Source and Navigation Systems despite the use of live grenades! Note that we recovered less corpses than there were aliens: In this game any item caught in the radius of an explosion will be destroyed. Dropped equipment, corpses, and unconscious units all count as items. If one of your soldiers loses consciousness and is hit by an explosion, they will be instantly killed even if they would have survived the explosion otherwise. Explosions are very, very dangerous.

Applejack was promoted to Seargent, making her the de facto leader of Nowhere's soldiers. Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash both sustained injuries. Twilight will be recovering for the next 41 days, while Rainbow Dash has 27 days until she's ready to fight again.

As per my preferred playing style, I will not be recruiting any new soldiers unless one of my current eight dies. We will be fighting with only six units until Dash recovers and seven until Twilight is back in the fold.

TOTAL KILLS:
Twilight Sparkle: 02
Applejack: 02
Rainbow Dash: 03

TOTAL RECOVERY TIME:
Twilight Sparkle: 41 Days
Rainbow Dash: 27 Days

DEATHS:
None

TIMES SAVESCUMMED*: 01

*About six in-game days after the mission, I accidentally closed out the game window. Luckily I had the foresight to save during this mission, but unfortunately I have been forced to savescum because of my stupidity. Amusingly enough, this has caused me more harm than good; originally this mission went off without much trouble. Dash and Twilight both had far less severe injuries, with the former only being out for a week instead of the rest of the month.

January 8th, Friday

We've recovered many strange alien weapons and artefacts from the UFO we recovered. They are completely unlike the Laser weaponry we believed the aliens used; it will be a long time before we are capable of understanding these strange new weapons.

The aliens resemble the strange little beady-eyed creatures from popular fiction. Perhaps these are the creatures who inspired the design of the Grays. Our scientists have dubbed them "Sectoids".

Research on the laser weaponry we believed the aliens used has made steady progress. Our engineers have begun manufacturing Laser Pistols in order to replace our outdated firearms, though we believe this is still a far cry from the equipment the invaders actually use.

Sectoids are the first aliens you will likely encounter while playing. They are the easiest of all the aliens to take down, though they're still very dangerous. Visually they resemble Grays, being small, brownish-gray humanoids with giant black eyes. While they aren't particularly durable, they are very dangerous in large numbers due to their equipment and, in later missions, the presence of Mind Control-wielding Sectoid leaders.

As noted, the Sectoids we fought came loaded with Plasma Weaponry. The standard Pistols/Rifles/Cannons in this game come in three stages: Our own earth-based tech, Laser Weapons, and Plasma Weapons. Plasma Weapons are essentially lategame equipment, so the fact that the aliens started out with this is a major sign of why UFO: Enemy Unknown is such a brutally difficult game. The fact that Twilight and Rainbow Dash actually survived their injuries is down to luck and nothing more, honestly.

I've taken the liberty of selling five of the six recovered Sectoid Corpses. We'll need the last one for study, but the rest will give us a little breathing room to stay afloat.

~~~

January 14, Thursday

We have begun sending out our Interceptors to scout the neighboring continents, but no alien UFOs have been sighted in the process. However, just today one came close enough to our base and was caught by our radar systems. Interceptor-1 was dispatched to engage it, forcing it to crash land in the region nearest South Africa. Our operatives, equipped with the laser weaponry produced by our engineers, have been sent to recover it.

You don't need radar to detect enemy UFOs; patrolling aircraft can do so as well. That said, this is not a very effective tactic. The only reason I'm employing it is because of our location. If we were somwhere that usually saw more alien activity, our Small Radar would be more than enough early on.

TURN 1

Applejack's forces have been issued four laser pistols, which have been distributed between her soldiers as well as she could manage. Cheerilee and Pinkie Pie will have to make due with their Rifles. Every soldier has been issued a Smoke Grenade to provide cover when needed, and though they aren't necessary due to our Alien Containment Room not being finished, Applejack and Spike have both been issued a Stun Rod.

Cheerilee is order to head to the front of the Skyranger, Applejack takes the lead, exiting the Skyranger via the ramp. She scans west, spotting the alien craft. It appears to be much larger than the previous one. She then scans east before departing off the eastern edge of the ramp. As she goes to take cover behind the Skyranger's wheels, she spots a Sectoid at the far edge of her vision. She fires two snap shots at it, injuring it but not finishing it off. It fires back three times, but misses with each shot.

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy head down the ramp to join Applejack, but do not depart it.

ALIEN PHASE

Applejack sustains fire from three aliens, only one of which she initially spotted. Two plasma bolts strike her, finishing her off. Our commander is dead.

TURN 2

Fluttershy steps off the ramp of the Skyranger and opens fire on a Sectoid just north of the UFO. It dies in one shot. This appears to be the one who finished off Applejack; Fluttershy has avenged her fallen leader. After that she circles around the nearest wheel and faces South, spotting a second Sectoid. Two missed shots and two hits later, it too dies.

Pinkie Pie follows in Applejack's footsteps, finishing off the first Sectoid we spotted and bringing their total deaths to three.

Rarity and Spike leave the Skyranger to back up Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie respectively.

ALIEN PHASE

The sound of a door opening was heard from the west. An alien may be moving around in the UFO: The door is in plain sight, thus cutting off any chance that one might have left the craft.

TURN 3

Cheerilee, having realized that her rifle is not loaded (Doh!), have opted to loot the Laser Rifle from her commander's corpse. Fluttershy and Rarity begin circling around the north of the UFO, in order to make sure that no aliens are hiding behind it. Pinkie Pie heads south to check the tundra surrounding the Skyranger, while Spike and Cheerilee head towards the UFO.

ALIEN PHASE

A door was heard opening again. There must be plenty of movement inside the alien craft. Hopefully this isn't a repeat of our first mission...

TURN 4

Fluttershy and Rarity finish their manuever, sitting between the north and western edges of the UFO. Next turn they'll head around to the south end to finish their search. Pinkie continues south bound while Cheerilee and Spike flank the entrance to the UFO.

ALIEN PHASE

Damn these aliens and their doors.

TURN 5

Fluttershy heads further west in order to get a good view of the western edge of the UFO. A Sectoid hiding just next to it fires upon her, seriously injuring her. She tries to retaliate, finally downing it after five consecutive misses. We're on a time limit now.

Rarity heads south down the now safe western edge, intent on completing their maneuver herself. Meanwhile, Spike carefully opens the door to the UFO, coming face to face with our fifth Sectoid. Another is spotted not far behind it. Spike opens fire; it is impossible to miss the alien right in his face and he downs it in two of three shots. He then retakes his position outside the door. Cheerilee moves to where he was standing and kills the second Sectoid, allowing the two to enter the craft and take cover easily.

Finally, Pinkie Pie continues her south bound journey. While perhaps boring for her, it is entirely necessary.

ALIEN PHASE

Nothing. The remaining aliens must be hiding.

TURN 6

Fluttershy's wounds might have stabilized, as she does not appear to be bleeding. Still, she holds her position. Rarity finishes her maneuver, covering the southern edge of the UFO without incident. Spike and Cheerilee, meanwhile, head further into the UFO. There is a branching path here going north and south; they head north and flank a nearby doorway.

Pinkie Pie, having seen the southern edge of the are, now heads west by northwest.

ALIEN PHASE

Nothing...

TURN 7

Fluttershy is, in fact, bleeding out! However, it's at a slower rate then Twilight did. She should last 14 more turns, more than enough to finish this mission.

Rarity heads to the UFO's entrance. Pinkie Pie follows suit.

Spike enters the room on the other side of the UFO. He spots two Sectoids and opens fire on them, but is unable to hit either. He retreats from the room, but is unable to go further than the doorway, preventing Cheerilee from trying the same. That doesn't prevent her from opening fire on the Sectoid nearest the blocked entrance: nine shots and two hits later, she kills it.

ALIEN PHASE

A door opened. Another alien may have joined the remaining one in the big room, or that one could have retreated down the southern path in the craft.

TURN 8

Spike returns to the room, spotting two aliens; the first one he saw and a new arrival. Both have their weapons trained on him. He swiftly retreats from the room, hoping to lure them closer to the door so that he and Cheerilee may get the drop on them.

Cheerilee has different plans, however, and opens fire on the aliens from her vantage point behind the door. Nine more shots and she succeeds in killing one of the aliens, but fails to kill the other. Neither reacted to her presence, it seems.

Pinkie and Rarity have entered the UFO and are making their way up the southern end of the ship. With luck, they'll be able to flank the aliens by the next turn.

ALIEN PHASE

Yet another door opening. How many aliens remain?

TURN 9

Pinkie Pie and Rarity flank the southern entrance to the big room in the UFO. Spike and Cheerilee head inside, but do not head much further than the entrance they used.

ALIEN PHASE

Nothing. Infuriating.

TURN 10

Pinkie Pie and Rarity enter the big room, covering Spike and Cheerilee as they flank a nearby door to the innermost room of the UFO.

ALIEN PHASE

Nothing again...

TURN 11

Cheerilee heads inside the innermost room, where the UFO's Power Source sits. No aliens were initially spotted, so she moved along the wall to get a glimpse of what was behind the Power Source. Upon spotting the last remaining alien, she fired upon it, killing it.

MISSION CLEARED (SEE SCREENSHOT)

Another success, more armaments and UFO construction material. Unfortunately, Sergeant Applejack was killed and Fluttershy was seriously wounded, putting her on the recovery list.

Strangely enough, Pinkie Pie was made a Sergeant for this mission. All she did was half-avenge Applejack, really. Still, that makes her the new de facto leader of Team Nowhere.

Due to the death of Applejack, a new recruit is being brought in.

KILLS:
Cheerilee: 04
Rainbow Dash: 03
Fluttershy: 03
Twilight Sparkle: 02
Applejack: 02
Pinkie Pie: 01
Spike: 01

TOTAL RECOVERY TIME:
Twilight Sparkle: 41 Days
Rainbow Dash: 27 Days
Fluttershy: 10 Days

DEATHS:
Applejack

TIMES SAVESCUMMED: 01

>>99785
How do I get it if I lack money?
Legally of course...

>>100003

Do you have a friend with $5?

>>100004
Not that I know of...

>>100005

Well that's a shame.

Ask me how to get it sometime tomorrow, then. I might have $5 then.

>>100006
Alright then Dragon.

Haha, great stuff. What difficulty are you playing on? Also, more screenshots!

>Applejack's face when this game~

Heh... Cloud was kinda right. Good thing they're just names and the avatars are actually little soldier dudes. It's still rough to read though when you imagine it like it sounds. Poor AJ.

>>100032
>Difficulty
Superhuman, the highest difficulty.
>More screenshots
Alrighty then.

Got a bit of critique on it last night and I feel like giving the missions the same treatment as the rest of the game might be better than doing play by play commentary on them. Will result in more posts overall, but it might be more interesting and will definitely lead to more screenshots.

January 16th, Saturday

The new recruit has yet to arrive. With Applejack dead and Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy in our infirmary, I'm not so sure we have the manpower to recover another UFO. We'll be able to test that hypothesis soon, unfortunately. A UFO has been sighted nearby. Judging by our Interceptors' reports, it's the smallest we've seen thus far.

Alien UFOs come in several varities, each with their own purpose. So far the only UFOs I've encountered are Scouts, though larger UFOs will invariably come into play before long.

Small Scouts: These resemble a cross between the classic flying saucer and a lunar lander. During combat missions in the Battlescape, they have two levels: The ground level consisting of the outside landing gear and a vertical lift into the aircraft, and the interior of the aircraft itself just above it. They are manned by a lone alien soldier regardless of difficulty, thus making them very good missions for capturing a live alien soldier. That said, they are also exceptionally easy to destroy outright; even Stingray missiles have a decent chance of destroying them in one hit. Trying to attack them with Cannons is also difficult, due to their exceptionally high movement rate and ability to retreat near-instantaneously from your Interceptors.

Medium Scouts: These resemble classic flying saucers to a greater degree than their smaller counterparts. During combat missions they have only a single level, a large octagonal room containing various equipment and anywhere from 3 to 9 aliens in total, depending on the difficulty. These aliens can be ranked either Soldiers or Navigators. Due to the UFO's construction, entering one of these is typically suicide for the rookie you send in, as movement will provoke reaction fire from the aliens. This is one of the moments where importing the door opening mechanic from Terror from the Deep greatly benefits me. Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash would likely have died with live grenades still in their hands if it weren't for that mechanic.

Large Scouts: These UFOs are essentially much larger versions of the Medium Scouts, though they're cross-shaped rather than octagonal. While they only have one level like the Medium Scout, they are much more complex in construction. The UFO consists of four rooms. The entrance is typically facing east, with a door north leading to the Navigation Room and a door south leading to a small... for lack of a better description, panic room. Said panic room also connects directly to the other side of the Navigation Room. Finally, the ship's power source is located in the ship's center and can only be accessed normally by going through the Navigation Room. Despite the complexity and great capacity for alien combatants (3-13 depending on the difficulty), the Navigation Room's entrances are actually somewhat forgiving compared to the Medium Scout's singular room. This is largely because the doorways leading to it are partially obscured when viewed from inside the Navigation Room, allowing X-COM Operatives a chance to sneak inside provided there are no aliens right next to the doors.

I'll be doing writeups of various other UFOs as they appear, of course.

January 17th, Sunday

After nearly two days of aggressive chasing, our Interceptors lost track of the enemy's scout and were forced to return to base when their fuel ran low. This will leave us largely incapable of engaging the enemy until they can be refueled. Fortunately, new recruit Thunderlane has arrived at Nowhere, bringing us back up to eight operatives.

Construction of several facilities at Nowhere has completed, expanding our Living Quarters considerably. Our Missile Defenses should provide us with some level of defense against alien raids, but it seems unlikely that it will make much difference. The cost of maintaining our base rises with each new construction; we may need to dismantle some of them to cut down on expenses if our funding dries up.

This game has several resource mechanics, one of which is funding. Successful defense against alien activity around the globe will result in universal approval from your superiors and in turn a significant increase to incoming cashflow. Failure to do so will result in the leaders of nations you fail to protect reducing or outright cutting off their funding entirely. If this continues to happen, the nations you are not protecting may sign a non-aggression pact with the aliens and permanently cut off their funding to your endeavors. Why do I bring this up now instead of at the end of the month, when we'd see actual funding changes? Well...

Every facility you build at your base not only costs a large amount of money to construct, but has a monthly upkeep that is automatically paid off. Irritatingly enough, the DOS Version of the game and the unpatched Gold Edition actually punishes you for dismantling facilities with what's known as the "Paying for Dirt Bug". The upkeep of an untouched tile on your base is $0/month. The upkeep of, say, a Hangar (a 4x4 building) is $25,000/month. However, the upkeep of any time that had a building dismantled on top of it, provided you don't go to construct something new in its place, will be $80,000/month. For dismantled Hangars that's $320,000/month, a massive hole in your wallet compared to simply leaving the Hangar unused.

January 18th, Sunday

Our Interceptors were refueled in record-breaking time, and without a moment to spare. Another UFO was sighted nearby. After several hour of chasing them through the night sky, the alien craft finally crashed. Unfortunately, it landed in a section of the Antarctic circle under the cover of night. The low visibility will be a major hindrance in our ability to recover the crashed scout.

While the game's globe is surprisingly accurate for its time, being an actual globe with traversible poles instead of a donut or cylinder-shaped world, the way it handles time is rather basic. All points in the world are subject to 12-hour days and 12-hour nights, no matter what. This is most bizarre in the arctic and antarctic circles, where you'd think the days and nights would be much longer or shorter depending on the seasons.

Anyways, we're moving on to our third UFO Recovery Mission...

Trying something different this time around.

Last time I updated, I don't think I really explained much about the game's combat. Let's start with the interface for the Battlescape. The viewing area is largely self-explanatory, I feel. There's our Skyranger and our recruits. The icons at the bottom, from left to right and top to bottom, are as follows:

>Lift Movement Controls

These allow your soldier to move up and down alien lifts. Doing so takes up TUs and can easily put you in harm's way if you're not careful, but is often necessary to complete missions.

>Camera Elevation Controls

These allow you to adjust which level on the Z-Axis you're looking at. As most buildings and aircraft in the game exist in three-dimensional space, you will find yourself using these from time to time.

>Map Viewer and Crouch Button

The former allows you to view a top down version of the currently visible map, highlighting all visible points of interest: X-COM Operatives, Civilians, and Aliens. The Crouch Button does exactly what it sounds like, causing your currently selected operative to crouch. Doing so increases their accuracy with all weapons and makes them harder to hit, but costs 6 TUs for both going down and getting back up and locks them in place until they cease crouching.

>Inventory and Center Buttons

The former opens up the selected operative's inventory, while the latter centers the camera on their exact location.

>Switch Operative Buttons

The top button will switch to another controllable operative, while the latter does the same and locks out your previous selection from the lineup, preventing them from coming up again by pressing either button. You can still select an operative who you've cancelled on manually.

>Show All Layers and Options Button

The former toggles all layers not on the plane you're currently viewing. Doing so can obscure the viewing area and as such is off by default. The latter allows you to adjust the game's animation speed, scrolling speed, and save your game.

>End Turn and Abandon Mission

The former does exactly what it's described as. The latter will immediately end the mission, remove any equipment not inside your own aircraft from the game, kill any civilians present if it's a terror mission, and eliminate any operatives not currently on board the aircraft you came in on. If there are no living operatives inside the aircraft, then it is lost as well, along with all equipment onboard.

Finally, there's the four buttons in the bottom-left corner of the screen. These control how many TUs your operatives will reserve for firing.

Top Left: Free Movement. No TUs are reserved.
Top Right: Snap Shot: Enough TUs to perform a single Snap Shot are reserved.
Bottom Right: Auto Shot: Enough TUs to perform a single Auto Shot are reserved.
Bottom Left: Aimed Shot: Enough TUs to perform a single Aimed Shot are reserved.

The object southwest of this Sectoid is an Electro Flare thrown by Cheerilee. Electro Flares are vital to your survival during night missions, as they illuminate blind areas. That Sectoid would have gotten the drop on us during the Alien Phase if I hadn't thought of doing this. Four shots after I took this screencap, Cheerilee killed off that Sectoid, thus preventing a potentially fatal encounter for our team.

Rarity attempted the same maneuver in the northeast and... was not so lucky. Rather tragically, Spike ended up paying for her failure with his life.

Two failed attempts in a row now. Thunderlane and Pinkie Pie both completely missed this newly revealed Sectoid using the same tactic, while Cheerilee missed all but one shot and failed to kill it. Cheerilee's ensuing death brings our death count up to 3. Pinkie Pie managed to finish it off next turn.

--MISSION CLEARED--

We took serious casualties in this surprisingly short mission, but if it weren't for tactical usage of Electro Flares it could have easily been much worse. As it stands, however, we only have three active operatives... one of whom is a total rookie who, thanks to his low bravery, may end up panicking during longer missions.

After this, it's just going through the resource management motions. Sell excess equipment you recover (eight operatives means eight of a weapon and no more), sell corpses you don't need, buy more Electro Flares and such, and recruit new operatives to replace the dead ones.

KILLS:
Cheerilee: 05
Rainbow Dash: 03
Fluttershy: 03
Pinkie Pie: 03
Twilight Sparkle: 02
Applejack: 02
Spike: 01
Rarity: 01

TOTAL RECOVERY TIME:
Twilight Sparkle: 41 Days
Rainbow Dash: 27 Days
Fluttershy: 10 Days

DEATHS:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike

TIMES SAVESCUMMED: 01

January 19th, Tuesday

Our scientists have forwarded our findings on one of the alien threats facing us. The results of their autopsy on the Sectoid corpse we've recovered are... well, let's just hope we can recover a live specimen in the future.

Yeah, the autopsy doesn't really tell us much about our alien invaders. Mostly it just raises questions about their nature. Thankfully the scientists in the X-COM universe are very pragmatic about mysteries like this. Image spoilered for those who don't want to see alien organs from a game released nearly two decades ago. There's no gore, trust me, but the sight could still be unsettling to some.

January 24th, Sunday

Our new recruits, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, have arrived. In addition, Fluttershy has recovered from her injuries, bringing our UFO Recovery Team back up to six. Our radar and Interceptors have not picked up any activity in the area. Hopefully now that we've finished construction of our Large Radar System, that'll change soon.

Small Radar Systems and Large Radar Systems are complementary, rather than the latter making the former obsolete. There's a third radar system we'll research later one which does do that to both of them, but for now we need both buildings. As a note, there is no point to building more than one of each radar system per base. The extra buildings don't actually increase your base's detection capabilities.

Screenshot unrelated, though I just wanted to say: Laser Rifles! We should have a few of these ready before the end of the month.

January 26th, Tuesday

Our Interceptors crashed a scouting UFO within sight of our base! You can't hide a place like this very easily in Antarctica, our position could easily have been compromised just now. Our recovery team has been sent to finish off the aliens present and stop them from reporting our position while they have a chance.

As a note, that is not actually a problem. While some scouting UFOs do try to find your base's location after a certain point, there is no threat of a crashed UFO doing so. I'm just being needlessly dramatic.

Screenshot unrelated, it's our base's new layout. You'll note the missing Hangar and Living Quarters, which has both been dismantled. The reason? To cut down on the number of entrances to our own Access Lift, thereby making it easier to defend our base in case raiders manage to get by our meager defenses.

Unfortunately, the other Hangar needs to get up to the top, too, and I'm now kicking myself for the poor placement of the Large Radar System. Oh well.

Mission time.

For future reference, the actions I've described during my turn by turn commentary are exactly what I do at the start of each mission. Thunderlane here stepped down one space on the Skyranger's ramp, turned left, then right, before finally walking off the ramp to his current location.

That's when he spotted that alien. Despite it being in his apparent line of sight, he completely overlooked it for a moment. Five misses later and his sixth shot actually killed it.

As you can see, Thunderlane has a new toy in one of his hands. That's a Smoke Grenade. Like the grenades, it can be primed to explode in a set number of turns (1+ means it'll explode in that many turns, 0 means it will explode on the enemy's turn). After that, if you have the TUs for it, you can throw the grenade.

While grenades do count down to detonation while held, they don't explode unless they're on the ground when the turn ends. You can abuse that mechanic to set up grenade relays, throwing 0-Turn grenades from one side of the map to the other. I won't be doing that.

Why does he have it primed, then? Smoke Grenades release a cloud of smoke when they blow up, dealing no damage but producing a medium-sized dense smoke cloud. This cloud obscures everything within it, providing some level of cover for those hiding inside it. This is a double-edged sword, however, as units who end their turn within smoke will take stun damage from it and may eventually lose consciousness.

Thunderlane can't throw the grenade due to his low TUs, so instead he drops it at his feet. It'll still go off when I end the turn.

And the benefits of this tactic are made clear! There were five Sectoids inside that UFO, and now four of them have died to Pinkie's laser pistol. Only one of them managed to fire back at her, and the plasma bolt from its weapon barely grazed her on its way out of the UFO. She's unharmed and could, potentially, finish off the last alien on her own. But I'm going to try and let Thunderlane pick up that kill.

... the mission didn't end there, unfortunately. As it turns out, there was a sixth Sectoid inside the UFO. Thankfully it's so close that Thunderlane could probably press his laser pistol into its back.

--MISSION CLEARED--

Thunderlane and Pinkie Pie did remarkably well this time around, and good tactics prevented any casualties from assaulting the entrance to the medium scout. Well, that and the infinitely useful door opening mechanic from Terror from the Deep.

KILLS:
Pinkie Pie: 07
Cheerilee: 05
Rainbow Dash: 03
Fluttershy: 03
Thunderlane: 03
Twilight Sparkle: 02
Applejack: 02
Spike: 01
Rarity: 01

TOTAL RECOVERY TIME:
Twilight Sparkle: 41 Days
Rainbow Dash: 27 Days
Fluttershy: 10 Days

DEATHS:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike

TIMES SAVESCUMMED: 01

January 28th, Thursday

We've received reports of alien terrorist activity in Lagos, Nigeria. We're not exactly ready for this, but our hands are tied. We can not effectively cover the majority of the African territory, and repelling the invaders would be a great boon to our relations with the continent's factions.

Fuck.

I completely forgot this. You are almost guaranteed a terror mission in your first month of play, no matter what. The aliens you run into during Terror Missions are more varied than you'll likely find onboard UFOs. If it's Sectoids leading the terrorists, for example, they'll bring their own unique Terror Unit with them. For the Sectoids, that's the Cyberdisc.

>>100094
>throw smoke grenade
>reaction fire from 3 cyber discs
>every laser shot finds and kills a soldier inside the craft
>turn 1 defeat
I hate cyber discs so much.

Enjoying this so far. I have to say I liked the turn by turn format for combat a bit more but both are good. This way we do get more pics, which is nice. I've never played this game so I like how you explain all the mechanics and other things when they become relevant. Subscrib... Wait, can't do that here. Umm, watched?

did you know that you are the best, Dragon?

Terror Time!

So, right off the bat we see a new alien. These are called Floaters, named as such because of their flying capabilities. Yes, only a month in and we're already being pitted against aliens with near-unrestricted movement. We won't get the ability to do so for a long time, and even when we do, it's by constructing fairly expensive armor for our operatives.

Despite this massive advantage, Floaters are actually even less intimidating than Sectoids. Why? While Sectoids later in the game can use mind control to devestating effect, Floaters are a case of What You See Is What You Get. Higher ranked Floaters do have higher stats, but they never get new tricks and never really rise about the threat level they present.

Also, they're very squishy. Not quite as squishy as Sectoids, but enough so that one or two shots from a Laser Pistol or Rifle is almost guaranteed to kill them.

Time to explain something about night missions: vision range.

Outside of additional light sources, your operatives have a viewing range of up to eight spaces away. Aliens, meanwhile, have a viewing range of up to twenty spaces away, identical to the viewing range all units have during day missions. In addition, aliens are programmed with a rudimentary ability to "remember" the location of an operative they've spotted for a few turns, allowing them to fire at him or her even when that operative is no longer in visible range of any alien. This gets particularly painful very late in the game, when mind control comes into play. Finally, on Turn 20 the aliens get to take a sneak peek at the entire map for one turn, giving them the locations of every one of your operatives.

This isn't much of a problem for now, but once mind control comes into play it will probably be responsible for many deaths.

... though for now it's just responsible for Rarity's death. Employing the smokescreen tactic isn't failproof, obviously.

... I honestly have no idea what caused this explosion. Stray plasma bolt blowing something up? A poorly thrown grenade? In either case, watch for moments like this during the alien phase. They can tip you off to the locations of aliens you haven't yet seen.

One of the few luck-based bits of gameplay in X-COM: UFO Defense is the damage spread on weapons. The reason for this completely mundane screenshot is to showcase just how much it can vary. Rarity was killed by a single plasma bolt. Here, Scootaloo had been hit by one and took no damage.

The damage spread in X-COM: UFO Defense is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it means any unit can potentially survive any attack no matter how poorly armored they are, with one exception we'll be getting to later. On the other hand, it also means that any unit can potentially be killed by any single attack, no matter how well armored they are.

... and to reinforce that, here's another screenshot. Scootaloo finished off the alien who tried to kill her, sustaining only a minor injury from it and without any bleeding. By all rights she should be dead from that since she's only wearing Coveralls, but I'll take any break the game is willing to give me.

Finally, several turns in, we stumble upon the Floaters' Terror Unit: The Reaper. Before Mass Effect made them giant cuttlefish god-spaceships, they were large, bipedal reptiled with a nasty bite and not much else.

Large units are oddly unique in X-COM. They take up four spaces, and each space is considered a valid target to hit. A missed shot still has a chance of hitting one of the other parts, thus making them much easier to hurt than small units. In addition, while each section of the creature can be targeted individually, all sections share the same HP pool. Finally, any attack that hits multiple tiles, such as an explosion, will hit every sections of a large unit, resulting in four times more damage than a small unit would take. A live grenade could easily kill a Reaper outright, despite it having a much larger health pool than the small units it would typically kill.

There were three of these Reapers in that building. Apple Bloom killed the first one pretty easily, and killed the second one with reaction fire after it ran up and bit her. She and Pinkie finished off the third one from the distance, which would have been the end of the mission...

--MISSION CLEARED--

This mission went both surprisingly well and very poorly. How so?

The Good: Only two deaths in a terror mission! Floaters are fairly easy to take down and sticking to good tactics could have prevented those deaths, but this is actually quite good for Superhuman difficulty. Also, Scootaloo took a plasma bolt to the face and didn't even get scratched. The second time it happened, she almost completely shrugged it off.

The Bad: Six civilian deaths. Apple Bloom is seriously wounded, too. Thunderlane's death, which I hadn't covered, was pure stupidity on my part. I had him running blindly towards an area I believed contained an alien, and his death ended up being confirmation of that.

The Ugly: This was the first mission I actually found myself wanting to savescum on. At around Turn 12 or 14, a Reaper bit Apple Bloom, dropping her health in half and causing her to bleed at a rate of 2 HP/turn. This would not have been a problem if the only aliens left were the Reapers in the building she and Pinkie Pie raided, but a lone Floater remained once they were dead. I do not like to play "Find the last Alien", and after 30 turns of not being able to find the damned thing, I finally spotted it... hiding beside a tree. In a spot where I had definitely looked for it. Over 20 turns since Apple Bloom, the operative I'd wanted to save by finishing it off quickly, had died.

This is the one time in this LP where I have savescummed to prevent an operative's death, and it will continue to be the one time where I've done so. Playing X-COM is fun. Playing "Fine the last Alien" is not, and that terror missions often come to making a choice between leaving the mission area (which treats it as an automatic failure) or spending 20-40 turns scouring the map for a single enemy combatant is, to me, one of the game's biggest flaws.

KILLS:
Pinkie Pie: 09
Cheerilee: 05
Rainbow Dash: 03
Fluttershy: 04
Apple Bloom: 04
Scootaloo: 03
Thunderlane: 03
Twilight Sparkle: 02
Applejack: 02
Spike: 01
Rarity: 01

TOTAL RECOVERY TIME:
Twilight Sparkle: 41 Days
Rainbow Dash: 27 Days
Apple Bloom: 21 Days
Fluttershy: 10 Days
Scootaloo: 03 Days

DEATHS:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike
Rarity
Thunderlane

TIMES SAVESCUMMED: 02

(USER IS A DIRTY CHEATER.)

>>100173
Consider investing in medkits when you can, you would have been able to save Applebloom without reloading if you had a few.

>>100174

Agreed. Next time I load up the game, I'm dropping everything I was researching and getting those medkits asap.

I'm really enjoying watching this thread, I haven't even closed the tab since I opened it!

Nice work, this is very amusing.

Could you try to make it clearer what is actually going on in the missions?

>>100173
>USER IS A DIRTY CHEATER

Wait what?

>>100190

Just a bit of a joke over the shameful display of savescumming this morning.

>>100187

I could try, though I'm not sure where to begin. Maybe laying out what the mission entails, what's happened up to the point where I take a screenshot, and such? Hm...

>>100191
>savescumming
Might I ask what that is?
I have yet to play the game even though you generously gave me a copy.
I have it installed but I was helping my Uncle move all day.

>>100193

Depending on the game, it can mean one of two things:

1. Reloading from a previous save file in order to force in-game behavior to go the way you want it to. Example: Saving your game before taking an action in X-COM: UFO Defense, then abandoning the mission and reloading that save until the outcome of said action is one you desire.

2. Making backup copies of your save file(s) in order to bypass the game's Lose Condition. Example: Making backup save files in Nethack so that when you die, you can just swap in the backup save file and it's as if you never died at all.

>>100196
Oh...I do that in fire Emblem games all the time...

Really enjoying watching this, as my knock-off may have hinted. But your style of more screenshots is making it much easier to get in on your action here.

January 29th, Friday

Oh for the love of...

Within hours of our grim success in Lagos, Nigeria, an alien scout landed within a stone's throw of our base. Between the Skyranger's flight back to base and the refueling time, our position has definitely been revealed to the aliens. Our Interceptors forced the UFO to crash once it tried to take off, and operatives Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were sent to recover what they could.

No screencap for this mission. Eight Sectoids died to just Pinkie and Fluttershy. Smoke grenade screens, making heavy usage of the door opening mechanic, letting the aliens waste their TUs moving around so they wouldn't get any reaction fire, being very cautious in how I approached the UFO and the surrounding area, and just being doggone lucky (no aliens were looking in Pinkie or Flutter's direction when I spotted them, meaning no reaction fire from aliens I hadn't seen yet)...

It was honestly the easiest mission I've had yet. And yet, this coupled with the 30-turn grind trying to find one Floater during the first terror mission is why I wasn't in the mood to keep playing today. Last time I mentioned aliens spotting our base, it was just me playing up the fact that my Interceptors chased an alien UFO right up to where our base is. This time around, the UFO was spotted already landed, right next to our base, and was there for a very long time.

For those who don't know what I'm getting at, I'm fully expecting a base invasion soon. I've never had one of those before on account of only ever playing on Beginner before this (and thus not having to deal with overly aggressive aliens), and my base isn't really optimally designed for one. I'm down to 2 active non-injured soldiers, neither of whom have any armor. The strongest weapon I have, period, is a Laser Rifle.

If we actually do get a base invasion, I really don't think I'll actually be able to prevent a loss at this point.

And yet, describing it that way makes it sound fun to me. Now I'm looking forward to it.

Before I finish for the night, though, one final update.

We've hit the end of the month! Apparently the few UFOs we've shot down and recovered, coupled with the terror mission in Nigeria, was enough to please all those factions. It's kinda uncanny, really, between that and the inexplicable breather mission...

Oh well. That's all for tonight.

If you can get Medkits and Personal Armor ready by the time they actually launch an assault, you might not be so worried. Laser Rifles and Personal Armor make a pretty damn good team.

Also, Pinkie Pie is a killing machine.

February 3rd, Wednesday

It's been several days since an alien scouting craft was spotted just outside of our base. In all likelihood we'll be attacked before the end of the month. In the meantime, our scientists have begun working at all hours to uncover all the secrets of the strange alloys from the recovered UFOs.

Right-o, medikits are already being manufactured, and as soon as we've finished researching alien alloys, we can move on to Personal Armor. The protection that provides our operatives is a substantial increase over the basic Coveralls that they normally wear, and while it won't always stop them from dying in one hit, it will prevent them from dying more often than they would without it. Also, Personal Armor grants any operative wearing it immunity to fire, which is very handy at times.

As for the screencap, I just wanted to show the interface that pops up when you intercept an alien UFO. The screen on the left shows you the alien UFO, how close it is to your craft (at the bottom), and whether or not it's in range of your weaponry. On the right there are several buttons, which determine your aircraft's behavior.

Left to Right, Top to Bottom:

Standoff: You try to maintain your distance with the alien UFO without also letting them escape.
Cautious Attack: You try to engage them with your long range weapon (Avalanche Missiles for starters) or medium range weapon (Stingray Missiles for starters). Your aircraft will only move in as close as it needs to, with priority set to long range first.
Standard Attack: The same as above, but with priority on medium range weapons, thus requiring your aircraft to move in closer to attack.
Aggressive Attack: Your aircraft will attempt to considerably reduce the gap between itself and the UFO, bringing it into range of your short ranged weaponry. Unless you're using Cannons or similarly short ranged armaments, this is not really necessary. There's a bug in the game where the last shot of your long/medium range armaments will always miss due to your aircraft backing off once it's fired which can be circumvented by switching to Aggressive Attack until it hits, though.
Disengage: Your aircraft tries to flee the UFO. Only really necessary if not doing so could destroy your own aircraft.
View UFO: Allows you to get a look at the front of the UFO you're engaged with. This is very useful, as it can help you tell the difference between UFOs within a single size category. This gets even more useful late in the game when Large UFOs become more prevalent. The difference between know you're engaging a Terror Ship or a Battleship with Avalanche Missiles will often be your own aircraft surviving with much damage versus being blown up in a single shot.

Finally, there's the window with our Interceptor on it. You'll note that it is partially red; this signifies how much damage it's taken from enemy fire. If the entire aircraft turns red, it will be destroyed, so be sure to disengage if you feel you're getting in over your head.

In any case, once again it's time to recover a downed UFO...

New recruits Sweetie Belle and Big Macintosh are put to work. Sweetie Belle provides us with our smokescreen, and Big Macintosh showcases his prowess with a kill on the second turn. There won't be much new to see with this update, I feel, but I'll try to bring up notable moments when they happen.

Part of the reason Big Macintosh got that kill the previous turn was that when he caught sight of that Sectoid, it was facing away from him. He wasn't quite so lucky with this one, however, and it fired in reaction to his movement. Missed entirely, too, hitting the snowbank in front of him.

Cover is actually quite useful in this game. Aliens will use it very often, ducking out of sight after firing in order to prevent you from getting a clear shot on them. You can use it for the same purpose, of course, and unlike the player, the aliens don't understand the concept of destroying enemy cover to prevent its use. They can still do so if they have a clear shot at you and miss, but if you're behind cover their only response will frequently be closing in to attack.

Be very careful if they do, though! If they end their turn without attacking, chances are they have enough TUs left over for reaction fire. It may be better to use indirect fire, such as lobbed grenades, to take out aliens from behind cover.

Scootaloo actually spotted this one first, but Fluttershy took the shot due to having a more accurate and powerful weapon. Unfortunately, there's one thing I neglected to take into account: Laser Rifles are two-handed weapons, whereas Fluttershy has a smoke grenade in her hand.

Short of taking a good look at your operatives' sprites to see how they hold their equipment, the only real way to tell whether or not a weapon is two-handed or one-handed is to see if it loses firing accuracy when you have another item in the other hand. The penalty isn't too severe, but it's still noticeable. The sectoid still died, of course, but she might not have missed her first and second shots if I'd been smarter about letting my equipment distribution.

I had Fluttershy pass her unprimed grenade over to Big Macintosh, then sent him to toss it into the downed UFO. You can probably see why he didn't do so. The smoke inside is already thick enough to make doing so pointless, and the presence of two Sectoids staring right at the entrance means he'd eat a lot of reaction fire in the process. Instead I had him back off and Scootaloo threw her own explosive grenade inside from a safe distance. The explosion killed the nearest one, and if that Sectoid's lack of a visible weapon is any indication, led to the remaining aliens panicking.

Since I haven't explained this yet and really should have, here's the cliff notes on the four bars at the bottom of the screen.

Green: Turn Units.
Yellow: Energy/Stamina.
Red: Health.
Purple: Morale.

That last one is what I'd like to talk about here. Every time a soldier dies, or is hit by mind control, or any number of events in-game, they have a chance to lose morale. Higher Bravery means there's less a chance of them losing morale when this happens, though the best way to prevent morale loss is simply to prevent morale-loss incurring events from happening. The presence of squad leaders (even just having one stay in the shuttle) is one thing that can be done to prevent morale loss, for example.

Once a unit has lost half of its morale, there's a chance of them panicking. A panicked unit instantly loses all TUs for the turn and has a chance of dropping their held weapons or running about seemingly aimlessly before said TU loss. Morale loss can also cause them to fly into a Berserk rage, firing blindly at the area around them, potentially killing their own team mates or civilians and thus causing even more morale loss.

Aliens are also capable of panicking or going berserk. If that happens, it's typically to your benefit, though at the same time a berserk alien may fire on your team much more than they would otherwise (more shots = more chances to be hit).

In any case, Scootaloo finished this alien off on her own two turns after the explosion.

--MISSION CLEARED--

Another breather mission, honestly, though this one was less harrowing than the previous one due to the presence of more operatives to work with and actual cover to hide behind (the last mission took place on an almost completely flat chunk of ice and snow). Unlike last time the aliens actually did get the drop on me a few times here, and Pinkie Pie took a minor injury because of that, but no casualties again.

That said, all we've really faced thus far are Sectoids out on scouting missions and one group of Floater terrorists. As such, we haven't actually gotten to go up against either of the things that make them much more threatening: Mind Control-wielding Sectoid Leaders, and the Cyberdisc terror unit.

The former can target any of your operatives remotely so long as the location of the operative they wish to target is known to the aliens, and with continuous encounters during a mission, the locations of your soldiers will almost always be available to them. This means continuous mental attacks, which you won't be able to combat until much later in the game.

The latter... well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Hopefully it's in a terror mission and not our own base.

As a final note, Pinkie Pie is starting to scare me. You'll see why in the kill count.

KILLS:
Pinkie Pie: 18 (!!)
Fluttershy: 07
Scootaloo: 05
Cheerilee: 05
Apple Bloom: 04
Rainbow Dash 03
Thunderlane: 03
Twilight Sparkle: 02
Applejack: 02
Spike: 01
Rarity: 01
Sweetie Belle: 00

TOTAL RECOVERY TIME:
Twilight Sparkle: 41 Days
Rainbow Dash: 27 Days
Apple Bloom: 21 Days
Fluttershy: 10 Days
Pinkie Pie: 04 Days
Scootaloo: 03 Days


DEATHS:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike
Rarity
Thunderlane

February 11th, Thursday

Our scientists have finished studying the alien alloys which we've recovered from downed UFOs. They've taken what they've learned from it and are now testing the material for use by our own operatives.

Researching Alien Alloys is a necessary step in the game. It opens up Personal Armor for research and is one of the keys to unlocking UFO Construction, which in turn opens up the research point for the game's first non-purchasable aircraft, the Firestorm. We'll get into that later, of course.

Also, we've finished manufacturing our Medkits (though we only have four) and are nearly done creating Laser Rifles for our team. It's only a matter of time before we're fully equipped to handle anything the game will throw at us at the moment.

Our team's up to six units now, with both Pinkie and Rainbow Dash fully recovered.

I'm not going to be covering every downed or destroyed UFO anymore now, and will likely only bring one up if something new or notable happens during a mission. When that does happen you can expect to see more about it than that, of course.

With that said, unless something else notable happens during this latest UFO crash, consider this post to be a bonus for today. As it turns out, your own smokescreens can backfire on you rather horribly! Big Macintosh did not spot this Sectoid until after he was within only a few tiles of it. Thankfully there was no reaction fire, but I'll try to play even more cautiously now because of this.

One more bonus update. First off, Rainbow Dash illustrates the effectiveness of the Rocket Launcher, one of the weapons you start the game off with. If you really need some serious firepower before you have access to Laser Pistols and Rifles, or think you might run into large clusters of aliens, taking this thing along is generally a good idea. You don't lose anything but carrying space on your Skyranger for doing so.

Secondly, Pinkie Pie, um... sort of... vanished. While walking through the smokescreen set by Big Macintosh, she teleported out of it and, apparently, is now outside of the playing field's boundaries. Attempting to switch to her freezes the interface, though it unfreezes if I switch to another operative. So... yeah. This game does still have some glitches, even after the extensive patching I've done. Not sure what else to say on that.

>>100325
>Secondly, Pinkie Pie, um... sort of... vanished. While walking through the smokescreen set by Big Macintosh, she teleported out of it and, apparently, is now outside of the playing field's boundaries.
Fourth wall broken

>Plays game that Dragon generously gave to me
>Can't figure anything out
>Everypony dies on first mission
>Mine Countenance Whereupon

>>100325
Well, what did you expect from Pinkie Pie?

Also I'm kind of worried about the death machine she's becoming! As far as updates go, I'd still like to hear a little narrative about each downed UFO mission. If they're getting tedious it's fine not to cover everything.

>>100341

The game's one big learning experience from start to finish, I feel.

Even I'm still learning things about it, and I'm the one running the Let's Play.

>>100325
>Secondly, Pinkie Pie, um... sort of... vanished. While walking through the smokescreen set by Big Macintosh, she teleported out of it and, apparently, is now outside of the playing field's boundaries. Attempting to switch to her freezes the interface, though it unfreezes if I switch to another operative. So... yeah.

Oh, don't worry, she just had to leave for
a while to prepare for the upcoming
Summer Sun Celebration. I assume she
got back to you already?

Also, I think it's just natural to stop
reporting routine missions after a while.
I'd like to hear whenever you have one of
those, though, even if all you say is how many of those you had in a session or something.
It would tell how frequent they actually are and stuff. But of course, just a personal opinion. Still enjoying this.

This LP could do with more narrative and in-character, yeah.

Good so far though. I know it's still early and all.

>>100358
>The game's one big learning experience from start to finish
Especially since they give you no directive whatsoever.

>>100325
Generally speaking, a good way to bolster the horrendous accuracy and pitiful stopping power of the rifles and pistols at the start of the game is a rocket launcher or two, naturally, and an autocannon.

Autocannons loaded with incendiary rounds are your best friend. Point at the general area of suspected alien activity and spam like crazy. Also good for burning down pesky buildings and setting fire to forests and undergrowth. And clearing out UFOs, in a pinch.

One other tactic I'd recommend having been recommended repeatedly is crowding a whole bunch of troopers around a UFO entrance in a firing line, preferably without direct line-of-fire into the UFO, and then waiting for the aliens to come get you. It's cheap, but it can save lives and also train your recruits to have crazy reflexes, which means they'll be better at reaction fire. Besides which, the aliens automatically know where all your units are after about twenty turns, so it's a waste not to take advantage of blatant AI cheating.

So um, where do you get the game?

>>100369
It is on Steam my friend.

>>100369
A quick and easy step-by-step to making it nice and shiny like Dragon has it is here : http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2218181

I've been spoiled by modern interfaces so although I'm not going to use any of the UFO Extender features that change gameplay, I'm going to try a lot of the interface enhancements.

>>100373
>features that change gameplay
All I know of gameplay changes is the XcomUtil program, which has some odd effects. Such as making certain units completely immune to pistols.

Februrary 19th, Friday

The construction on additional buildings in Nowhere, particularly the new Hangar and Large Radar System, are nearing completetion. Our scientists have devised schematics for personalized armor made of the strange alien alloys we've recovered and handed them off to our engineers. With any luck, we'll have a full set for our operatives by the first of March. I fear it may be too little, too late, however.

A massive alien aircraft was spotted near our base, traveling at incredible speeds. It circled our base once before starting to leave. At this time one of our Interceptors tried to engage it, but was crippled within a single shot. It will be in repairs for a very long time, I imagine.

... I don't think we're going to make it through to the next month, let alone stand a chance at repelling these invaders. Not unless we start making some serious progress with studying the aliens and their technology. Hopefully our continued research on the mysterious element Elerium-115.

The only real reason to research Heavy Lasers, I'd like to point out, is to unlock Laser Cannons (an aircraft-mounted weapon). I'm doing it mostly so my Interceptors have an easier time taking on UFOs and won't have to rely on keeping a healthy supply of Stingray Missiles.

As for the UFO we just ran into... note the stats in the image. Very Large and with a top speed of 5,000 km/h? The only ship capable of that is an alien Battleship. Unlike Scouts (which typically go on scouting missions) and other UFOs (which typically have their own purposes), Battleships can be seen embarking on almost any kind of mission. The one we just encountered, given its behavior, was specifically sent to search for our base. Note that I said search, not destroy. Battleships do not actually come equipped with the capability to find your bases while searching, and as such will leave them alone after circling one or two times. I don't particularly know -why- they do this, but I can hazard a guess: it was sent to provoke me into wasting my Interceptors on it. It can obliterate them in a single shot, two if I'm very lucky. Even if I somehow managed to equip it with the most powerful anti-aircraft weaponry in the game (which I won't have access to for a long while), actually getting a shot in would be a coin-flip.

I'm going to need much stronger aircraft if I'm going to be taking these things on, which is where researching Elerium-115 comes in. It's essentially the game's Unobtainium, so to speak. You can't produce it yourself, you can only recover it from alien aircraft or bases. It's absolutely vital to producing higher end equipment, too, so don't sell it off. Finally, it's one of the four keys to unlocking the Research topic "UFO Construction", the others being Alien Alloys, UFO Power Source, and UFO Navigation. Researching all five of those will unlock the New Fighter Craft topic, which is what we're shooting for now. We'll also want to start researching some anti-air weaponry, but so long as we don't have to fight anymore Battleships, Stingray and Avalanche Missiles should suffice, I hope.

And a picture of what a Battleship looks like via the View UFO command. There are three levels to the ship, a lot of corridors and rooms, and a lot of aliens inside, should you manage to either crash one or catch it as it lands. This may be the same Battleship from before, or a second one. I can't say for sure, but I did encounter it after the first one.

February 27th, Saturday

Our radar has gone silent. Interceptors sent out on patrol pick up no signs of alien life. There are no reports of terrorist activity anywhere around the globe. I should be taking this as a relief, but the inexplicable absence of our foes troubles me.

Our engineers have finished outfitting the eight operatives under my command with personalized combat armor. We've been stockpiling missile defense systems and armaments in preparation for the attack on our base.

They were coming. They have to be out there. Why aren't they attacking?

... seriously, nothing is happening. Nothing is happening! I have half a mind to send my Skyranger out to tour the world on the off chance that I might stumble onto an alien base, but I get the feeling that my base is going to get crushed the moment I do.

... okay, I believe we have a location to investigate. It could be that alien missions have been going undetected in the US, but I'm banking on there being an alien base there. In either case, it's being frequently hit, so scouting it out a few times next month should be a good idea.

Still only running with a single team?

>>100424

Only two people actually voted on how many bases I'm allowed to have, and I tend to prefer only eight operatives per base. Still, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to recruit more and cycle them out. Somewhere in the neighborhood for four recruits and splitting the teams into sixes might suffice for a while.

Gonna need more Personal Armor and Medkits for that, though.

March 2nd, Tuesday

... Alien terrorists have attacked Mexico City. I find myself at an impasse. If we leave our base undefended to answer the distress call, it will surely be attacked by the aliens scouting our location. But if we don't respond to the threat and make good on the demand to cover North America to a greater degree, our funding there would reach even further lows, perhaps to the point of being cut off entirely.

Granted, that can only happen if the aliens actually succeed in a diplomatic mission in the territory, but I don't want to take the chance that they'll try. Besides, how fun would this game be if I completely ignored missions and twiddled my thumbs on the Geoscape?

... I should have just stayed in Antarctica and twiddled my thumbs on the Geoscape. The massive smoke cloud in this image is only partly the result of my smokescreen. The rest of it? Cyberdiscs.

The Cyberdisc is the Sectoid's Terror Unit. Unlike the Reaper, which is only marginally difficult to deal with at worst, the Cyberdisc is arguably the most terrifying early game enemy you're likely to encounter (and I pray for you if you meet the ones you're unlikely to encounter). It is a floating mechanical disc, reminsicent of a flying saucer, that can fire up to three fairly accurate plasma beam shots per turn. This is not the only thing that makes Cyberdiscs so deadly, however.

Upon destroying a Cyberdisc, the machine crashes into the ground and explodes, damaging everything caught in the blast radius. This can include X-COM Operatives, civilians, and other aliens (including other Cyberdiscs, setting off a chain reaction).

There were two Cyberdiscs here. One of them, improbably enough, was on top of my Skyranger when the mission began. I did not find that amusing. The other was right outside of it, and ended up using my smokescreen to make itself impossible to see unless one of my operatives was very close to it. Rainbow Dash ended up stumbling onto it, necessitating that it be destroyed immediately no matter who died to do so. When she failed, Pinkie Pie took her turn. When Pinkie Pie failed, Big Macintosh moved in. He succeeded where they failed, preventing their deaths. But he got caught in the explosion and... well, that's why there's a corpse next to Rainbow Dash in this image.

After a month with two breather missions and general inactivity, this terror mission has really turned out to be what Superhuman difficulty is all about. Terror Missions have a variable number of aliens in them depending on the difficulty; this is about 18-26 on Superhuman.

Roughly 12 or so of the 18 aliens on this map already had their weapons trained on my Skyranger from the start, or were within a stone's throw of it. Fluttershy downed two Sectoids standing right next to each other here...

... this mission did not let me catch a break. At all.

OH COME ON!

By the time I took this screencap, I had killed 17 or so aliens. In return, they had killed 5 of my operatives: Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh, Fluttershy, Sweetie Belle, and Twilight Sparkle. In addition, they had seriously wounded Pinkie Pie, who would not have lived were it not for the medkits I'd brought along.

What's going on here, you might wonder? The only saving grace to this mission. As Scootaloo passed by that window, the Sectoid Medic outside of it fired a stun bomb at her in reaction. It ended up knocking itself out and ending the mission by doing so. Hooray.

I can't say I didn't see this coming. I can only say that I wish I hadn't sent them out there.

When the Skyranger returned from Mexico City, the only ones manning it were Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, and Sergeant Pinkie Pie. The Sergeant was leaning on the shoulders of her fellow operatives as they carried her through the hangar doors into the access lift of our base. A large hole had been burned into the torso of her armor, and the less said about her injuries, the better. She will be recovering for the rest of the month, I feel.

Still, that was not the worst of it. As Rainbow Dash gave me a report of the incident, the Sergeant lifted her head and mouthed something... I don't know what it was she said, but the look in her eyes told me what she'd witnessed. With the exception of Rainbow Dash, every last one of her closest friends had fallen around her. She'd been handling the stress as well as anypony could be expected until now, but seeing Twilight, Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh, Sweetie Belle, and Fluttershy all die right in front of her seems to have broken her spirit. If Rainbow Dash's testimony is accurate, she was like this even as they were leaving. Even when she recovers, I don't think she'll be ready to go out there again for a while.*1

... as I relayed the report to our superiors, I was told that we'd done a good job in defending the city from the alien terrorists, and that if we keep up the good work we could see an increase in funding. Our new recruits also arrived, and with any luck we won't have to send Pinkie out on another mission for a long time.

Not much to say about this, really. The game just kicked my flank for getting complacent, and it's going to keep on doing so for a long time now.

I need to get back to making more Personal Armor and kick my research up a notch again.

Kill Count (Living Operatives Only)*2:
Pinkie Pie: 20 Kills
Rainbow Dash: 11 Kills
Scootaloo: 06 Kills

Recovery Time Remaining*3:
Pinkie Pie: 16 Days

Deaths:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike
Rarity
Thunderlane
Twilight Sparkle
Fluttershy
Apple Bloom
Sweetie Belle
Big Macintosh

*1: Half-serious about this. Having Pinkie on site during missions, even if she just stays holed up in the Skyranger, provides the group with some resistance against losing morale. On the other hand, I really don't want to risk her now.

*2: I lost count of how many kills anypony got in the last mission, largely because of how many operatives died after scoring a kill or two. So I'm just going to stick to whichever soldiers are still alive from now on.

*3: Also lost count of minor injuries I've had, so switching to "how long until they've recovered" seemed like a better idea in hindsight.


TIMES SAVESCUMMED: 02

You forgot that, too.

Geez, I've never touched Superhuman difficulty, and you're doing this with a team of 8 and a single base in the worst location you could possibly pick? That's... Okay, that's ridiculous.

If I may: Flitter and Cloudchaser as operatives.

>>100541

Up to 14 operatives now, if only so I'll have some base defenses beyond stacks of near-worthless missiles. Flitter and Cloudchaser are among them, as are Cloudkicker, Spitfire, Soarin, and Surprise.

>>100493
See, this skyranger-camping bullshit here is why you always pack an R/C tank and send it out first. To soak up turn 1 reaction fire.

So what actions of yours are still up for suggestion?

>>100548
I agree with this. You should use some a HWP sometime.

>>100549

Well, if you can find anything that hasn't been suggested yet, bring it up and odds are I'll do it. Beyond that, I might reconsider one or more of the conducts I've already got in place if folks insist on it.

For example, I'd been toying around with setting up extra bases consisting entirely of the starting access lift and attached radar systems, since UFOs actually flying near Antarctica seem to have almost completely dried up. It was also suggested to me in private that I build additional bases very close to my current one in order to make it into a sort of "mega base", in order to allow for more active aircraft than my current maximum of three.

Both break the "Only On Base" conduct, but if anypony feels like having only one base at the South Pole is too big a handicap, I'd probably be willing to give either a shot.

>>100548
>>100549

Funnily enough, I never actually knew how to use HWPs, and never considered it important enough to learn*. Thank you for the suggestion! I'll figure that out asap. Right now I've got another update in progress though, so it'll wait until after the current mission.

*I once said the same thing about smokescreens, electro-flares, using anything but Pistols and Rifles... I am not a clever pony, heehee.

i am watching this thread now! i will try to learn how it works so i will enjoy it more

March 9th, Tuesday

Another new type of UFO was spotted today. The Interceptors were sent out to attack it, while the Skyranger has been deployed in North America to scout for alien activity. Sadly, neither action bore any fruit; the UFO was far too fast for our Interceptors to keep up and there has been no activity in the North American territories lately.

Given the size and top speed of the UFO in question, this one is a Harvester. Harvesters aren't much tougher than Large Scouts. While their damage threshold is twice as great, their weapon systems are much shorter ranged than the Large Scout's, allowing your Interceptors to fight them with Stingrays safely.

Harvesters go on... well, Harvest missions. They often land in rural areas, signifying that the aliens on board are abducting cattle, then leave. Failure to stop them from leaving counts as a failed mission. At the same time, they much so much faster than your Interceptors that it can be difficult to actually track them.

March 16th, Tuesday

Our scientists have finished researching the alien craft's power source, and have concluded that we can adapt it and our knowledge of alien alloys to produce even better combat armor for our operatives.

Power Suits are a massive step up from Personal Armor. They offer enough protection to completely ignore damage from conventional weapons and Laser Pistols, provided the operative is shot in the chest instead of the sides or back. All that really means is that you have less to worry about with friendly fire, though. The increased armor also means they can typically withstand more attacks from plasma weaponry and explosives. It won't make your operatives invincible, but it will save their lives from time to time.

There's only one armor upgrade left after this, and we'll probably be seeing it soon if I can research Power Suits and the rest of the UFO-based research topics quickly.

... I did have an image for this post, but in viewing my folder it seems to have disappeared. Instead, have this totally appropriate image of our Sergeant in PARTY Armor instead.

March 26th, Friday

Another terrorist attack, this time in London. Nine operatives were to be sent to deal with it, but Sergeant Pinkie Pie was added back to the active team on her own insistence. I had no choice but to comply with her wishes.

Against my better judgment, I'm sending Pinkie with the rest of the untrained rookies on this one. Hopefully it's not a repeat of the last mission, but I'm not going to take any chances this time, If it starts going sour, the soldiers leave.

Of course it's a Sectoid terror mission. At least this time it's at night and I don't seem to be a sitting duck for every single alien on the map, though. Rainbow Dash takes this Sectoid out handily.

Surprise demonstrates the Auto Cannon and what it does with incendiary ammo. A shot from an incendiary ammo-loaded weapon can illuminate nighttime battlefields temporarily, and is also capable of causing fire damage to targets. Personal Armor renders our team immune to fire, but aliens can still be harmed by it to a degree.

... see? Completely unharmed, all of them! Surprise's temporary loss of sanity proved to be completely painless! Eheheheh... she's going to get mind controlled any moment now. Crap.

Our team is pretty spread out now. Not necessarily a good thing, but for the most part operatives are watching each other's backs. Even if somepony dies, there's a good chance that there'll be reaction fire in response. Or not, in the case of poor Scootaloo.

Unfortunately, if you look closely, you can see a little bit of hair near the bottom-right. That's our Sergeant. I'll be sending somepony to help her out shortly, but for now she's on her own.

Also, Surprise didn't get mind controlled! Apparently I took out the leader, too, since the attempts completely stopped.

... in all honesty, that should have been it for our Sergeant. I'm shitting bricks over here at how well this turned out in my favor. That alien is dead.

Trixie spotted a Cyberdisc at this location. She autofired on it, mostly missing it but killing a Sectoid she could not see behind it. Soarin then did the same, missing it as much as Trixie did and also killing a Sectoid behind it that he could not see. Finally, Sergeant Pinkie Pie destroyed the Sectoid herself, blowing it up... and killing a third unseen Sectoid in the process. This is going to be how the game is for me, isn't it? Depressing lows mixed with hilarious highs? I can live with that.

--MISSION CLEARED--

Most of the mission after this was just cleanup. Only three aliens remained by the four-alien combo in the last post, and while they all inflicted serious injuries on the operatives who went to attack them, they died pretty easily.

Notable moments I missed:
>A Sectoid walks right up behind Braeburn and promptly drops everything it was carrying. Zecora used her stun rod to capture it, making it the only alien to survive this mission.
>Sergeant Pinkie and Soarin attempted to kill a Sectoid at close range and it just. Would. Not. Die. Pinkie finally killed it after six or so landed shots, but not before taking serious injuries herself.
>Spitfire took a serious injury as well, and a good chunk of my turns were spent trying to deal with the alien who inflicted it without getting too close. Rockets were fired. Areas were set on fire. A grenade was tossed in. Nothing seemed to hit the poor bastard. Finally, Rainbow Dash just ran up to it and unloaded a ton of laser fire into it with her sidearm, dropping it dead.
>Fancy Pants finished the mission with 2 health after narrowly surviving a flurry of shots from the final cyberdisc and scored the winning kill.

Overall? A definite improvement over both terror missions I've been on thus far. I kinda got carried away with the Incendiary fire, but in the end it ended up helping more than anything else.

Finally, we've got a new round of promotions! Sergeant Pinkie Pie (or as I've taken to renaming her, Pinkamena Diane Pie) is now Captain Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash and Spitfire are both Sergeants, too.

KILLS:
Pinkamena Diane Pie: 24 Kills
Rainbow Dash: 14 Kills
Spitfire: 02 Kills
Zecora: 02 Kills
Soarin: 01 Kill
Trixie: 01 Kill
Fancy Pants: 00 Kills?! (Wat.)

CURRENT RECOVERY TIME:
Fancy Pants: 25 Days
Pinkamena Diane Pie: 14 Days
Spitfire: 12 Days

DEATHS:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike
Rarity
Thunderlane
Twilight Sparkle
Fluttershy
Apple Bloom
Sweetie Belle
Big Macintosh
Scootaloo

SAVESCUMMED: 02 Times

>>100607
Fluttershy noooo!!

>Spitfires face when

>Apparent lack of Doctor Whooves
I am ashamed with you Dragon.

Final update for tonight, since I realized how close we are to the end of the month and just finished it off instead of waiting 'till tomorrow.

Investigating Spain next month is something we'll be doing, on top of our occasional patrols in the US. I don't really expect to find anything, though an alien base would be a great find right now.

Since we've hit April, the game's going to start phasing out Sectoids and Floaters for even more difficult to fight aliens. While they'll still be around, they'll be much less common then they used to be.

Finally, we're up to 80 Scientists and 2 Laboratories at Nowhere, which means we'll be grinding through research topics pretty quickly now.

... damn it, I don't want to stop playing tonight. Curse you, pacing!

>>100607
What are you going to do when you loose all the named ponies?

>>100616
Start in on the OC's. Or wait, based on this game's high death rate, maybe the OC's should have been first in line...?

>>100616

I will never run out of background ponies to recruit, Colgate~

>>100612

... and Doctor Whooves, too~

>>100616
>loose
I got a funny accent shuddup.

>>100617
>>100618
This does not bode well for Ponyville.

>>100607
You cannot get carried away with incendiary fire. Seriously. You need to learn that buildings are the enemy. They exist solely to be full of horrible things like snakemen and mutons and reaction fire spamming flankholes.

Further thoughts:
-How are you handling squad management? Have you sorted out who out of the troop you have is best suited to fire support/sniping/scouting?
-If Surprise gets mind-controlled regularly, you may want to start leaving her unarmed in the skyranger as MC bait. Aliens (AFAIK) always mind control attack the lowest defense score.
-On that note, have you started/made immediate plans to start into the psy research tech? For that matter, do you have any captive aliens yet or are they all sold?
-I for one am all for more radar installations. You'll have much better aircraft in a while, so you're not exactly inflating your own deployment range. But that's just me.

Goddamn it, you got Big Mac killed. And you made Moony sad. I warned you this would happen. Right at the start, I warned you.

But otherwise, great stuff. If you want more bases, go ahead. I'd rather this go on for as long as possible, as opposed to an abrupt 'game over'.

Well, you've got me back into the game after a couple of years of not playing it. Oh god I suck, your tactical prowess is something to behold. I shall be monitoring this thread for pointers.

>>100660
I second this. You've made this pretty damn challenging already, no need to be masochistic.

>>100620

Fair enough. More fire, then!

>Squad Management

Didn't give it much thought, but I went and sorted the soldiers out based on their rank and most relevant stats (Bravery, Stamina, and Throwing Accuracy were left out).

Name / Rank/ TUs / Health / React/ Acc/ Strength
Pinkamena/ Capt./ 66/ 50/ 47/ 74/ 54
Rainbow Dash/ Sarge/ 63/ 41/ 30/ 60/ 35
Spitfire/ Sarge/ 60/ 35/ 36/ 70/ 39
Soarin/ Squad/ 51/ 38/ 30/ 42/ 29
Surprise/ Squad/ 58/ 31/ 48/ 48/ 25
Zecora/ Squad/ 58/ 35/ 48/ 59/ 42
Fancy Pants/ Squad/ 58/ 36/ 60/ 48/ 27
Trixie/ Squad/ 58/ 27/ 46/ 53/ 43
Braeburn/ Rookie/ 51/ 34/ 42/ 45/ 36
Cloudkicker/ Rookie/ 60/ 34/ 38/ 52/ 21
Dizzy Twister/ Rookie/ 56/ 38/ 35/ 43/ 38
Flitter/ Rookie/ 57/ 26/ 58/ 46/ 34
Cloudchaser/ Rookie/ 58/ 25/ 37/ 62/ 23

Outside of things like Trixie and Zecora being surprisingly strong (and thus most likely to be carrying spare ammo/grenades for others), none of them seem particularly exceptional for any given role. It'll be a while before I see any improvement in that regard, I feel, if we don't keep having a death rate of 1-5 operatives per mission.

>Surprise

Good call. I was going to say that she's not too dangerous to my squad with the Auto Cannon, but she's still wasting its ammo and getting it away from her once she's targetted is impossible, so the most I'll be letting her carry from now on is a smoke grenade (and electro-flare, if necessary). Once I can actually progress on PSI Research I'll be able to find out just how bad she really is at this and see if I can't salvage her.

>PSI Research

Since I haven't managed to capture a Sectoid Leader or any Ethereal yet, I haven't been able to do this. I've been too preoccupied with getting access to the Firestorm to research Mind Probes, but that's something I'm going to be doing now. Once I do, it's just a matter of time. Ideally I'll have one before the beginning of June.

>Radar Installations

Thank you.

New update coming later today. Still playing atm.

April 4th, Sunday

With the excess funds we've accrued over the past three months, we've set up Radar Station Alpha on the island of Crete. Ideally this will give us a better idea of how much alien activity is in the region, allowing us to better respond to the threat the invaders pose.

It costs $1,000,000 to set up a new base consisting solely of an Access Lift. A Small Radar System and a Large Radar System cost $500,000 and $800,000 respectively. All in all, this base cost us $2,300,000 so far and will continue to be a drain on our funds each month it's in use. At the same time, it provides a substantial bonus to our detection area. One or two more of these around the globe will pretty much alert us to all major alien activity in the future, especially once we unlock the final radar building.

Also, we are now at the penultimate step to creating a new aircraft for Nowhere. UFO Construction has finally been fully researched, opening up the New Fighter Craft topic. Researching this will unlock the Firestorm for construction at our Workshops.

To compare it to our Interceptor, here's the actual stats for both:

Name/ Max Speed/ Accel/ Damage Capacity/ Fuel Capacity/ Cost
Interceptor/ 2,100 km/h/ 3/ 100/ 1,000 (???)/ $600,000 per month
Firestorm/ 4,200 km/h/ 9/ 500/ 20 (Elerium)/ Construction Materials + Elerium

The only area that the Interceptor really shines compared to the Firestorm is in fuel consumption. This is partly because the Firestorm uses Elerium instead of basic fuel, and partly because of a bug causing Elerium-fueled aircraft to return to base upon hitting half fuel capacity regardless of how far they are from that base.

As such we'll be wanting to keep one of our Interceptors and replacing the other with a Firestorm. Once we've begun construction on it, we'll need to get back to researching things we've been leaving behind: Finishing off laser weapons, starting on plasma weapons, and getting our Power Suits.

April 26th, Monday

Construction of our new alien interception aircraft, the Firestorm, has finished. It is fueled by the Elerium recovered from alien UFOs, requiring us to continue attacking them in order to keep it active. Unfortunately, we haven't seen a single UFO in nearly two months now. They have to be out there, of course, but where?

Yeah... if we don't get a terror mission this month, odds are our funding is going to get slashed.

Good news, however! We've researched the Plasma Rifle and its ammo clip. While it doesn't have the infinite ammo of the Laser Rifle, it is superior in both damage and accuracy. The only other drawback is the firing rate: Assuming you try to get the most shots in per turn, the Laser Rifle is capable of 7-9 Shots (2 Auto+1 Snap vs. 3 Auto*1), whereas the Plasma Rifle is capable of 3-6 (3 Snap vs. 2 Auto).

I won't be replacing it entirely, but the setup I do want to have is Plasma Rifles+Laser Pistols for anypony functioning as a Sniper, and Laser Rifles for almost everypony else.

*1 This is dependant on the TUs of the operative wielding the Laser Rifle. The game uses percentage-based calculations for determining the TU usage of weaponry, and rounds down while calculating. The Laser Rifle costs 34% of your TUs per Auto Shot, but it rounds down when calculating. So having 60 TUs would mean that Autofiring would cost you 20 TUs per attempt, whereas having 62 TUs would mean each attempt would cost 21 TUs. This is one of the few cases where having higher stats can actually be slightly detrimental to you, heh.

No screenshot because I lost the one that would be attached to this one. My fault.

April 30th, Friday

The aliens have finally made their move, this time on Havana, Cuba. Captain... Pinkamena, as she insists on being called, has demanded that our Rookies accompany her to the terror site in order to gain on the field experience. I have no idea what she's planning, but I've sent the Heavy Weapons Platform we ordered earlier this month along with them. Hopefully it proves useful to her.

Welp, here's the only mission we've had in April so far! Radar Station Alpha is not going to be enough, I feel.

... and then X-COM crashed on me for the first time. Time to find out just how much progress I've lost...

...

...

ALL OF IT! Damn it, Dragon, you forgot to save in order to prevent crash losses.

Well, this time around I've actually done things slightly differently, by which I mean I frontloaded all of my buying and this time around. We spotted a UFO for a change, but it got away. Also, we got a terror mission... in Los Angeles... on April 20th.

Damn it, X-COM, you're ruining my continuity.

Okay, so here at Los Angeles and not Havana, we get to see our Heavy Weapons Platform, the Tank, in action. In a moment, I shall demonstrate why I went for the rocket launcher instead of the cheaper Cannon-based model.

... this is why. Buildings, as has been stated, are our enemy. And what better way to get rid of our enemies than rockets? And unlike our operatives, the tank is a machine and can't be mind controlled, thus making it impossible for it to turn around and kill all of our operatives at the aliens' behest.

While turning around to scout the area, our Tank discovered... an... alien... FUCK!

This is a Snakeman. A Snakman has only one leg, resulting in it having poor mobility. That said, statistically speaking they are superior in almost every way to our rookies, and there are likely more of them than there are operatives in our current squad. That is not why I'm afraid, though.

This is a Terror Mission. Snakemen have a terror unit that puts the Cyberdisc to shame. It has no ranged attacks whatsoever and unlike the Cyberdisc, it does not explode when killed. Still...

Cloudkicker managed to off a Snakeman discovered by Dizzy Twister (now the proud owner of the Auto Cannon). Through a window. From the Skyranger. In one shot. Damn.

Unfortunately, Dizzy Twister was killed during the alien phase, because I was being dumb and had her standing on the ramp instead of in the smoke.

Do you see that shadow figure, right next to the Snakeman? THAT is why Snakeman terror missions are so dangerous. The Chrysallid, as it's named, has the highest TU count in the game of all aliens. It rarely provokes reaction fire, too. It has a melee attack which is not terribly powerful on its own, but even if that attack MISSES, it still counts as a hit for the secondary effect.

That effect is zombifying any living being it attacks. This instantly kills the target, turning it into an alien combatant. The zombie can use any weapons that its former self wielded in their hands before dying, but otherwise will only use melee attacks. Killing that zombie... causes it to transform into another Chrysallid.

There are thirteen civilians on this map (I savescummed specifically to find out once I discovered our first Snakeman). This means that though there are a minum of 6 Chrysallids on this map from the start, by the end of the mission we may have to face up to 19-23 Chrysallids, assuming they do not attack any of our own soldiers.

Smoke grenades during Snakemen terror missions are a mixed bag. Remember, the aliens can use your own smokescreens against you. Making too much use of them could easily get you into a situation where you stumble blindly into a Chrysallid's outstretched arms.

To showcase how much damage they can take, I had our tank fire a snap shot at it, then Cloudkicker Auto Fire her rifle on it, and finally Rainbow Dash attack it with her Rocket Launcher. It took three hits in total to actually kill it, and doing so cost us the Snakeman's equipment.

And yet I consider it worth it. We don't want to take any chances with...

... crap. Note the shadowy figure at the bottom left section of the screen.

As a final note, the durability of Chrysallids is not entirely a bad thing. The accuracy of your operatives improves, not by how many aliens they've killed, but by how many hits they've scored on aliens. Even if they do no damage, it still counts as a hit. Chrysallids take a lot of hits to kill, making them decent training dummies. That can kill you in one hit. Never mind that suggestion.

... in hindsight, maybe trying to set these Snakemen on fire would've been more productive than the one at the top of the screen. For actual takedowns, Incendiary ammo is really weak.

Luckily, Pinkamena's got the answer to our troubles! Grenades. In the sink. Between that, the fires, and occasional bursts of laser fire, the Snakemen inside were quickly dispatched.

We're down three operatives now. Trixie, Cloudchaser, and Dizzy Twister are all dead. We're not out of the woods yet, either; I've seen a chrysallid wandering in and out of sight on the southern section of the map, and Cloudkicker is facing off against a Snakeman with only the now unarmed Tank backing her up.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a screenshot for this... Cloudkicker finished off the Snakeman without much hassle, and the Tank discovered the final Chrysallid in an alleyway. Given the Tank's sheer size, it easily blocked off one of the entrances, allowing Cloudkicker to pick up the final kill.

-- MISSION CLEARED --

The report from Captain Pinkamena unsettled me. The alien terrorists are unlike anything we've seen before. Between the deadly Chrysallid, as she called it, and their Snakeman masters, it's a wonder the mission went so well.

Our superiors are pleased, despite the damage we inflicted upon the city in response to the terrorist threat. That in itself worries me; our Captain is the one giving these soldiers orders on the field, and it seems this was her idea. She claims it was the only way they could truly deal with the aliens threatening them, but...

Despite the fact that earlier I said there were 13 Civilians, only five of their deaths seem to be counted against us. Strange.

Overall? This was about as well as it could have gone. None of the Chrysallids got even close enough to attack our operatives, thanks in part to good bad tactics on my part. Unfortunately, Dizzy Twister, Cloudchaser, and Trixie died because of those same tactics, really. Snakemen are resilient enough to withstand a few hits from laser fire and explosives occasionally, though they'll fold much easier once I have Plasma weapons.

No promotions this time, unfortunately.

KILLS:
Pinkamena: 27 Kills
Rainbow Dash: 16 Kills
Cloudkicker: 04 Kills
Flitter: 02 Kills
Spitfire: 02 Kills
Zecora: 02 Kills
Soarin: 01 Kill
Braeburn: 01 Kill


RECOVERY TIME:
Spitfire: 5 Days

DEATHS:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike
Rarity
Thunderlane
Twilight Sparkle
Fluttershy
Apple Bloom
Sweetie Belle
Big Macintosh
Scootaloo
Dizzy Twister
Cloudchaser
Trixie

SAVESCUMMED: 03 Times

>burn down and blow up nearly the entire section of Los Angeles that the terror mission took place in
>get rewarded for it

Vandalism is fun!

Last update for today. Was planning on doing two months instead of one because of nothing happening during April, but then the game crashed and everything turned out better than expected.

>>100698
>mine countenance whereupon Pinkamena's slow descent into Colonel Badass

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ColonelBadass

>>100667
Two quick notes there regarding the stats.

1: High Strength? Heavy weapons. The better their strength is, the further you'll be able to move your HW guys in a turn, and that's good.
2: Throwing Accuracy is apparently surprisingly high even for rookies. Abuse the hell out of this.

>>100701
Do you see now, my dear friends? Buildings are the enemy.

Good job getting through a Snakeman terror mission relatively intact and holy balls Pinkie is terrifying. Can nothing stop this madwoman? Let's hope so.

January 1st, 1999

They said this operation would be...unconventional. They weren't kidding. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting. A tiny tin hut on the ice, maybe? A big glass dome? Another ugly little polar research lab? I certainly wasn't expecting this enormous underground base with steel walls and aircraft and experiment labs and...

I think I may be in a tad over my head. It's exciting, in a frightening kind of way.


January 2nd, Saturday

Woke up to a crowd in the mess hall. Somepony shot down an alien already. Everypony seemed confused about the whole thing. Is this really a good idea?


January 3rd, Sunday

Not much to say. Everypony settling in. Research teams are friendlier than I expected. Project manager's a new guy, doesn't sound too happy about the base. Ordered a whole lot of new equipment and then took a gang of techs out to build...something.

Twilight nerding out over the preliminary research. Expected as much.


January 4th, Monday

A sudden change of pace. The new stuff the boss ordered in arrived, much faster than anypony expected. Now the base doesn't feel quite so abandoned with more people packed into the empty habitation block. Maybe we need a housewarming party.

On a side note, now we actually have enough equipment to issue the whole eight-person "encounter team" at least a rifle and sidearm each. That makes me feel a little better. That the storeroom's knee deep with flares and smoke grenades, not quite so much. Just how does our manager's mind work?


January 8th, Friday

02:00

Woken up by the scramble alarm for the first time. Was a bit of a panic for a minute there.

Director says our patrol spotted and down a UFO, semi-intact. Not quite sure just how useful that is, but anything's better than shrapnel.

We've got our first orders. Arctic weather uniforms on, rifles in hand, packed onto that skyranger in ten minutes. Let's hope nopony gets frostbite.

16:00

[/i]We weren't prepared for this. Considering that, I think we did okay.

The aliens themselves aren't very intimidating to look at, but they seem to be considerably more well-armed than we are. Fortunately, the crew were dazed and injured by the crash. One still managed to drop Twilight as she was attempting to clear the craft, and Dash somehow injured herself with one of her own grenades, but we have a medical ward for a reason.

Not only did we clear the alien craft out, we managed to recover what our director claims is valuable technology. The research staff seem excited enough about it, and Twilight almost had to be restrained for her own good. Some people don't know when to take it easy. You'd think after taking a wound like that to the back, she'd be less excitable.

AJ got a promotion courtesy our Director. I don't want to say the authority went to her head, but at least she made the most of it and organized an inventory of the storeroom. Director seemed pleasantly surprised at just how disciplined our new commander can be. I hope the rest of us can live up to that standard.

Suddenly feeling real good about this project.[/i]

Just an idea I had. More to come on following events, assuming nopony has any protests. Or I could just delete this whole post if you prefer. Don't want to steal OP's thunder unfairly or anything.

>>100774
>mine countenance whereupon a story before bed

There's quite a backlog to get through so apologies in advance for textwall. Posts will get much more manageable after this.


January 10th, Sunday

After the week-end report and debriefing, AJ brought me in for a private meeting. The two of us, Twilight, and the Director, as well as the head of our R&D department. It was...not what I was hoping for.

Our very first encounter with a downed alien vessel, and what little information we have is all disheartening. They have technology far beyond our own. Their smallest craft can outrun the fastest supersonic interceptors we can build. The construction materials alone are a century ahead. Their computers are indecipherable. And despite the fragile bodies of these "Sectoids" themselves, they have terrifying weaponry capable of putting a hole clean through any of our operatives in a single shot.

The worst part is, we have no idea where they came from, or what they're after.

AJ respectfully demanded better equipment. The weapons we have right now are effective, but considerably lacking, and our equipment consists of cold weather jackets and flares.

Twilight insisted she be allowed out of the medical bay, if only to help the research team. I can't help but feel sorry for her. Our sharpest mind, and all she can do is listen to her own monitors beeping all day long. I'd trade places in a second.


APPLEJACK IS DEAD.

January 14th, Thursday

With four laser pistols, two rifles, and a whole bushel of smoke grenades between us, away we went in search of another downed UFO. I spent the whole ride wishing the damn aliens would crash somewhere other than this frozen wasteland. Somepony...I can't remember...said we should draw lots to see who was going to open the UFO door this time. AJ joked that it'd be her. Can't lead from the back, she said, that'd just be cowardly.

Why the hell did she go first?

I can hardly remember much of the mission now. AJ walked down the ramp, took a look around the jet and started ordering us out. I think she took a shot at something we couldn't see from inside the plane.

Then they shot her.

Fluttershy took charge most of the mission, rushing out of the plane and gunning down two of the aliens before any of us even made it off the ramp. So much for calm and organized. The whole team was a mess, and I was too shocked to do much.

And then I turned to look past the plane and saw that little gray blob standing there with his ugly green gun in his hands and his big beady eyes staring at me like he knew I'd be next and I pointed that busted old rifle right at him and pulled the trigger until he went away.

It didn't help. I was mad. I wanted to kill that freaky alien thing and all his friends and then blow the damn ship up too.

The rest of the mission...I guess I just zoned out. Followed Rarity to the UFO. Nopony else to shoot. Nothing to do. No more sectoids for Pinkie.

Just snow.

I wish it would stop snowing.


January 16th, Saturday

Director promoted me to Sergeant. What is that man thinking? He says we need a leader for the team, we need somepony to keep the combatants organized and boost morale...should I have argued with him? I feel like this isn't right somehow.

What would AJ want me to do?

>>100784
January 18th, Sunday

Mission #5 (I think)
Sgt Pinkie Pie, Cheerilee, Rarity, Spike, Thunderlane

As the apparent leader of Team Nowhere, I've been told to keep my eye on operation reports. Let's just see how that works out.

This time, we've at least got a laser pistol for every operative. Loading the skyranger up with flares and smokes feels...naive. I have a feeling we're going to need far more than the meager equipment we have.

Our newest rookie is antsy about his first combat experience, and the rest of the team are all scared without AJ or even Fluttershy to lead them. The closest we have to a commander right now is Cheerilee, who seems eager to avenge our fallen friends...

Post-mission log

Are we just cursed?

It's just Rarity, the new boy, and me. Three of our friends, including the two most skilled and experienced combatants we have, are still in medical. Everypony else is dead. Rarity locked herself in her room and refuses to come out. I can't say I blame her.

At least I could say AJ's death was just a terrible accident. I know I got Cheerilee killed. Just because I couldn't shoot straight.

What the hay kind of commander am I?
Surviving: Sgt. Pinkie, Rarity, Thunderlane.
KIA: Spike, Cheerilee.


January 19th, Tuesday

Twilight was ecstatic. The research team finally finished compiling the autopsy data on the Sectoids. Our first ever examination of a real life alien creature. The results could change history. She really seemed happy about such a breakthrough.

I told her to get those laser rifles built as soon as possible.

I've never seen her look so...crushed.

>>100785
January 24th, Sunday

Director's shuffling the base around like his own little lego house. The man is some kind of insane, but he knows how to keep the place running and get us the money we need, so I can't complain. Besides which, he's taking our progress just as rough as the rest of us and coping better than anypony.

Sometimes I envy that man.

In more important news, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo just arrived. More new recruits. I look forward to not getting them horribly shot like Apple Bloom's big sister. At least they're both eager young girls and well-trained.

Fluttershy's back on her feet. Now at least I have somepony to fall back on in a pinch. I don't think I can take being a leader. Shooting sectoids, sure...but not command.

With all that out of the way, the one bit of truly good news. This morning Twilight woke me up and practically dragged me outside, still on crutches no less, to see Fluttershy vaporize a snowman from fifty feet away.

I think I'm going to like these laser rifles.


January 26th, Tuesday

Operation Counter-recon
Attending: Sgt. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Thunderlane, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo.

One of our pilots downed another UFO scouting around near the base. Director's going crazy over the possibility of alien raids. I remind myself to meet those pilots one of these days; we really don't give those guys enough credit for the job they do.

It's a shame the new rifles aren't ready for action yet. The one prototype we have blew up five batteries and put Twilight back in the infirmary, blind and deaf; thankfully it was only temporary. Somepony needs to keep an eye on our egghead, for her own safety.

Post-mission report

I'm beginning to hate this snow almost as much as I hate these aliens.

Thunderlane volunteered to be first off the ramp. Boy's cocky, if not a very good shot. Other than a few panic moments, the mission went off without a hitch.

Thunderlane's complaining that he didn't get a chance to stun that one alien, though. Claims beating the crap out of the little gray monster with a cattle prod might have been therapeutic.

I can't object to the idea.

Surviving: Sgt. Pinkie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Thunderlane, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo.

>>100786
January 28th, Thursday

Operation Defend Lagos
Attending: Sgt. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Thunderlane, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom.

Nigeria want our help. Apparently, these aliens are also terrorists, and they've landed right in the middle of a city. What a perfect chance to harden up our new recruits a little, and give everypony a chance to pay these murderers back for all our lost comrades.

And this time, we have a full team AND better weapons. They won't know what hit them.

Post-mission report

That...could have gone much worse.

The laser rifles performed just as well as we'd hoped. Twilight will be proud.

On the other hand, we definitely weren't expecting these...whatever they were. Not sectoids, that's for sure.

We weren't expecting the giant stomping teeth-monster, either. Damn thing put Apple Bloom in the infirmary, but at least she's still alive for the moment. I can't say the same for Rarity. Bad management and stupid decisions can get people killed, but sometimes, it's just dumb luck. Nopony could have seen that shot coming.

Scootaloo managed to lose two fingers on her left hand and still shoot her attacker to death, walk back to the plane and stroll into the medical bay with a smile. Nurse still wants her to stay put for a few days while they fix the wound. Sometimes, these plasma wounds almost fix themselves.

And one more thing...whatever the heck these "floaters" are, they go boom just like the snowmen.

I might sleep a little better tonight.

Surviving: Sgt. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy
Injured: Scootaloo, Apple Bloom
KIA: Rarity, Thunderlane

Damn, does anypony even remember how Thunderlane died? What do I tell his folks?


January 29th, Friday

Operation Nowhere Fast
Attending: Sgt. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy

Our birds shot down another scout, and I took Flutters out to scour it clean. Director didn't want to destroy all that valuable tech equipment. Said it was a minimum risk operation. Good call, Director man.

I think I cured Fluttershy of her...vendetta against the aliens. After seeing me gun down the entire crew of that scout ship like something out of a mafia movie, I can't say I'm surprised she's a little more hesitant about going into battle again.

I love my laser rifle.

Arglefargle still not done. Sorry it's so much at once. Just four more missions to go after this, I'll be skipping over most of the in-between stuff the OP is covering like base management and whatnot. Again, sorry.

>>100774
>>100784
>>100785
>>100786
>>100787


You are awesome.

>>100753
Oh and one more thing I forgot to mention.

Are you mass producing laser rifles and selling them? I believe it's one of the most lucrative things in the game. Never have to worry about lack of funding again.

>>100753
>High Strength = Heavy Weapons

Good call.

>Throwing Accuracy

Alright then. I'm not really fond of abusing the throwing mechanics (particularly grenade relays, which always struck me as kind of silly), but making better use of them to pass equipment around can't hurt.

>>100790

Wasn't before, doing it now. Until I can get more alien alloys production on anything else has ceased and those 40 Engineers I've got aren't doing anything, so I might as well put them to work.

Just checked the sell price for Laser Rifles. Wow, that's... nearly twice as much as it costs to make them. That's a pretty big profit.

>>100792
Laser Rifles aren't just absurdly high priced, they also don't cost elerium like some of your other, more important equipment will, such as the power armour and its successor and the later craft and weapons/ammo.

As natural as it is to just grab plasma weaponry as soon as you can, I'd recommend at least keeping a whole bunch of laser pistols around as sidearms, and stockpiling at least a dozen or so rifles in the base. They're cheap, they're decently powerful, and they have unlimited ammo.

And actually, I was thinking more of the explosive-chucking applications of all that throwing accuracy. It can be easy to overlook. Explosives never really stop being useful even later in the game. Explosions always hit the weakest armour, whether it's at a tank or a snakeman or whatever.

Though if you feel the need, it's totally possible to chuck an unconscious soldier back towards the Skyranger for medical attention, or throw a medkit forward. Easier to just have plenty of medkits, really.

I won't argue with you on the grenade-relaying though. That can go hilariously wrong way too easy.

>>100787

February 3rd, Wednesday

Operation Lawnmower
Attending: Sgt Pie, Big Mac, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Fluttershy

We have two more new recruits. Fortunate, considering we're currently understaffed with three soldiers still in the med bay. While this is only a scouting craft, it's still large enough to be a serious threat for any recovery team. I don't want any more sloppy mistakes.

Post-mission report

I think we have a few...issues that need to be addressed.

The new recruits have demonstrated an impressive synergy so far, and Big Mac is an uncanny shot. They'll surely be valuable additions to the team. I just wish everypony else could be as motivated as these two.

I had to remind Fluttershy how to hold the laser rifle she helped Twilight field test, after she managed to score several holes into the side of the UFO trying to hit a single sectoid. She seems much more nervous lately after our...outing. Is it me she's afraid of? Or is the stress of all these deaths just starting to get to her like it got to me? I might have to consider taking her off the flight list for a while and let her recover at base. We'll see.

At least we got through this mission without incident. If only every deployment could be so manageable.

Surviving: all.


February 11th, Thursday

Operation Oatmeal
Attending: Sgt. Pinkie Pie, Big Mac, Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Fluttershy

Twilight claims our research division is steaming ahead. We'll have body armor made out of those spaceship hulls any day now, she says. Furthermore, we now have laser rifles enough for the squad and the first production batch of medkits. I'm feeling exceptionally confident about this mission, despite Fluttershy's continued nervousness.

Post-mission report

Big Mac learned an important lesson about smoke grenades today.

Rainbow Dash taught our enemy an even more important lesson about high explosives.

And I learned an important lesson about poking delicate alien mach
Nothing more need be said. End report.


February 21st, Sunday

In light of our most recent mission, I've discussed with the Director as to purchasing more heavy weaponry. I have a feeling it may prove of considerable use in future operations.

The Director seemed unusually eager to agree with my suggestion. He's awfully skittish about something but he's not letting on as to what. The recent activity of massive alien craft near the base may have something to do with it; that thing's gone and got everypony on edge lately.

Twilight has also announced that they're drawing up the designs for this new personnel armor her team came up with. I can't wait to have more protection for our operatives on the battlefield. Enough people have already died on this project.

>>100812

March 2nd, Tuesday

Finally, after weeks of radar silence and tedious monotony about the base, these damn aliens got tired of waiting. My, are they ever over-confident this time.

Mexico City: Operation Contreras
Attending: Sgt. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh, Sweetie Belle

This is big. Sectoid terrorists have landed in force in the middle of Mexico City, one of the largest urban centers of the North American continent. There's nothing covert or sinister about their operations now; this is a bold-faced challenge to our plucky team.

Nay. This is war.

Post-mission report

Rainbow Dash, hastily dubbed Corporal for the time being, has been put in charge of what remains of the team while the Sergeant is hospitalized. The only other survivor, Scootaloo, is demolishing the armory shooting range.

This mission was not a success.

March 10th, Wednesday

Post-mission report

I failed.

When we mobilized for the Mexico operation, I had faith. We had a team full of experienced, disciplined soldiers and brilliant minds. Our enemy was over-confident and sloppy. They wouldn't be expecting such skill as we had gathered over the past two months.

As we approached for the drop, I knew...I knew without doubt that we were doomed.

Cyberdisc, Sweetie Belle called it when we first saw it. Large, metallic, circular, and constructed out of pure malice.

When it took three of us just to crack the first one open, I should have pulled the mission then and there. Let Mexico deal with them. Let them call in the army or something. Surely a few hundred pounds of bombs would finish those monstrous things off without any more casualties.

I don't even have a badge to mail back to Mac's family. At least we could bury his sister. Both of them.

Twilight...wasn't ready for combat. She never was. She should have stayed in the labs where she belonged and kept up the great work. I should have ordered her to stay...

I should have sent Fluttershy back with her. Poor girl was terrified the whole mission. I think seeing me snap broke her spirit somehow, she was never the same...and now she's gone, just like AJ. Just like Cheerilee. I got her killed. I got them all killed.

Scootaloo is the one I feel worst for, strangely. Dash is a strong girl, and I know I can...deal...with all this. But Scootaloo had to lose her two closest friends on this mission and she doesn't even have the luxury of blaming herself. I'm not surprised she almost destroyed the shooting range working off her frustrations. I just hope I can reign them both in, keep these two friends I have left grounded before they fly off and get themselves killed too.

I'm not sure I can stop myself, though.

Surviving: Sergeant Pinkamena Diane Pie, Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo.
KIA: Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh, Sweetie Belle

>>100814

March 26th, Friday

London: Operation Octane Jello
Attending: Sgt. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, Spitfire, Zecora, Soarin, Trixie, Fancy Pants, Flitter, Cloudchaser, Cloudkicker, Surprise, Braeburn, Dizzy Twister

A fresh batch of rookies and three hardened veterans, laser rifles and armor for the whole team, and our new weapons. These damn sectoids are going to regret everything they've done.

Post-mission report

Watching these freakish little gray horrors burn to death is much more satisfying than watching my own friends die around me.

Surprise was enthusiastic about using the autocannon, but after her performance today, I'm not sure about letting her handle heavy weapon support in future. Furthermore, the prospect of what our research team suggests was mind control of some kind...damn, is this just going to keep getting worse?

I almost feel sorry for those three grays who tried to use their own tank as cover.
I don't feel quite so sorry about the bugger who blindsided me through a window. I'm going to be eating left-handed for at least a week.

As an aside...I'm not sure how to feel about Scootaloo. She got herself killed, that much I can surely say. I think she just couldn't take the death of her closest friends.

Is that how I'm going to end up?

Surviving: Captain Pinkamena Diane Pie, Sergeant Rainbow Dash, Sergeant Spitfire, Soarin, Surprise, Zecora, Fancy Pants, Trixie, Braeburn, Cloudkicker, Dizzy Twister, Flitter, Cloudchaser
KIA: Scootaloo

[i]In much lighter news, after our Director saw fit to promote me again, I decided to exercize my authority a little. We now have two competent team leaders, one a seasoned veteran of half a dozen separate missions, and enough bodies and equipment for two six-man teams. Dizzy has been given Autocannon Duty from now on, and Rainbow Dash continues to haul that rocket launcher around like it's her own personal Mjolnir. I've also had a brief talk to the Director about some...heavier battlefield support.

>>100817

April 20th, Tuesday

Los Angeles: Operation Steel Angel
Attending: Captain Pinkamena, Sgt Rainbow Dash, Sgt Spitfire, Trixie, Dizzy Twister, Cloudchaser, Braeburn, Zecora, Soarin, Cloudkicker

Between Dizzy's autocannon, Dash's rocket launcher, a whole squad of laser rifles and our new Heavy Weapon Platform, I feel like this mission might just go well for once. It'll be nice not to come home alone.

Post-mission report

Before we even unloaded the plane, Cloudkicker demonstrated just how inferior our technology really is by blasting one of those repugnant 'snakemen' into a sticky mess with a single shot from her rifle. I'll keep my eye on that girl. She shows promise.

Another promising development is the tank. Soldiers are fragile. Soldiers get tired. Soldiers get their fingers shot off. Soldiers die. But the tank?

Our tank likes to make snakemen cry.

Leaving Dizzy standing out with no cover was a stupid mistake, but I can't say it's the first such nor that I believe it will be the last. I only hope her sister will forgive me.

However, after having seen the snakemen's biological weapon...what the team have nicknamed "Chrysallid", I feel a new justification in my actions. A single one of those insectoid monstrosities shrugged off rockets, napalm, high explosives and repeated laser blasts. Clearly, I have been severely underestimating the enemy.

From now on, no holding back.

Cloudchaser spotted three snakemen in a building. No clear lines of fire. Nopony wanted to breach that door. Not even Rainbow Dash. They all asked me what to do about it.

I educated the team on the proper usage of high explosives for clearing residential areas.

Cloudkicker rushed into an alley after that last Chrysallid without backup. I don't know whether to have her sent home for such reckless behaviour or give her a promotion for taking down a Chrysallid by herself.

Surviving: Cpt Pinkamena, Sgt Rainbow Dash, Sgt Spitfire, Cloudkicker, Braeburn, Soarin, Zecora
KIA: Cloudchaser, Dizzy Twister, Trixie.

From now on, there will be no breaching. There will be no flanking. There will be no drawing lots to see who opens the door.

From now on, we will make our own doors.

Finally done with the current backlog of missions. Sorry about the huge post-spam. Also curse my notepad for its constant formatting problems. Hopefully these will all turn out readable.

> Vandalism is fun!

Yes, yes it is.

These in-character reports are beautiful.

Dragon, I can't wait for more updates!

May 1st, Saturday

Radar Station Alpha has picked up its first UFO since it finished construction. It was sighted over Africa, not too far from our first terror site. Given the impressive range of its detection, I've decided to use our excess funds to construct another radar station near Havana, Cuba. I... am not entirely sure why I picked that location, but it should provide good coverage of the surrounding region.

I requested that our superiors suspend Captain Pinkamena from duty. Instead she has been given clearance to do as she sees fit on missions. I... suppose there's no use in complaining. So long as the aliens are driven back, it'll be worth it.

I sent the Firestorm to take care of this one. It got there much faster than the Interceptor would have, and while we did lose sight of the UFO for a moment, it came back into range and was promptly gunned down.

I'm just happy we had another UFO sighting that we can actually respond to.

Also, we've finished researching the Mind Probe. The Mind Probe is an item that allows operatives to check the stats of any alien still in their collective line of sight. Mostly this is useful for determining good targets for psionic attacks, whether or not the aliens are on the verge of panicking, or picking out appropriate targets to capture alive. It is the only psionic-based equipment that requires no training to use, but subsequently offers no experience for using it.

Early on in the game Sectoids will frequently be carrying these when found in/near landed or crashed scouts. They're very profitable eatly on, but after a while the aliens will stop carrying them entirely, necessitating that you manufacture your own if you run out. The cost of doing so is outrageously high.

I would be using these for our latest mission, but we were already in transit when the research was finished. Drat.

For future reference, I'll be cycling through operatives every mission or two, in order to promote more even experience distribution. The roster for the current mission is as follows:

Captain Pinkamena Diane Pie
Sergeant Spitfire
Zecora
Surprise
Braeburn
Thunder Cracker
Lemon Hearts
Doctor Whooves
Colgate
The Tank

Anyways, onto the mission! I sent our Tank out to scout, whereupon it was promptly incinerated by three shots from Heavy Plasma. That... could have gone much worse, actually. In any case this tells us that there's an alien right outside the Skyranger. While I'd have loved it if we could keep the Tank, we can always buy a new one so losing one is not that big a deal.

Thunder Cracker*1 shows us how it's done, though! That alien has no idea she's even there. It was swiftly dealt with by Doctor Whooves, one of our newest recruits.

*1: Yes, there's a background pony with that name. I think that's pretty cool, that we named a background pony after a Decepticon.

Zecora's got our Auto Cannon now, and she's putting it to slightly better use than Surprise did during her first terror mission. Already we have the alien UFO spotted. It's only a matter of time before we take down the aliens still onboard.

Meanwhile, Thunder Cracker continues to prove useful, sniping that Sectoid's pal with her Laser Rifle through all the foliage. The other one will meet its end soon enough.

Thunder Cracker goes three for three now! A lucky toss towards the brush at the bottom of the map revealed a hidden Sectoid, lying in wait to ambush us. She swiftly took care of it with auto fire, killing it for good!

... or... not? As it turned out, she'd only knocked it unconscious. It got right back up the next turn. Thankfully she finished it off for good after that.

Surprise spots the final alien on the map, and Spitfire finishes it off with a single shot from her Plasma Rifle from halfway across the map.

If you were ever wondering just why aliens seem to be so ridiculously accurate, that's why. Plasma Rifles are amazingly accurate in and of themselves.

-- MISSION CLEARED --

We didn't recover much, unfortunately, and the amount of alien alloys received is kind of pitiful. If we don't start recovering larger UFOs soon, we won't have the alloys needed to manufacture new aircraft or Power Suits, not to mention other necessities.

Nopony was harmed, miraculously enough. Except for the Tank. Rest in peace, you magnificent steel angel.

KILLS:
Pinkamena: 27 Kills
Rainbow Dash: 16 Kills
Cloudkicker: 04 Kills
Flitter: 02 Kills
Spitfire: 04 Kills
Zecora: 02 Kills
Thunder Cracker: 02 Kills
Soarin: 01 Kill
Braeburn: 01 Kill
Doctor Whooves: 01 Kill


RECOVERY TIME:
(none)

DEATHS:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike
Rarity
Thunderlane
Twilight Sparkle
Fluttershy
Apple Bloom
Sweetie Belle
Big Macintosh
Scootaloo
Dizzy Twister
Cloudchaser
Trixie
Tanks - 01

Savescummed: 03 Times

May 5th, Wednesday

Another Scout was spotted within range of Alpha. Both our Interceptor and the Firestorm were sent to take it down. However, they lost sight of it as it headed through the Arctic Circle.

The fuel capacity of our attacking aircraft has just demonstrated how limited our range is. We can effectively hit any target in the southern hemisphere, but prolonged dogfights in the northern hemisphere are impossible and hitting the northern most points of the map are out of the question.

We... might need to upgrade our Radar Stations to hold Interceptors if we're going to try and respond to every threat. Alternatively, we can be more picky about what we go after. If it goes too far north, we back off.

We've finished researching the Plasma Beam! As noted in the screenshot, it is substantially powerful. Each shot from the Plasma Beam will do twice as much damage as a Stingray missile. In fact, it is so much more powerful that equipping two onto an aircraft means you might never recover another small UFO again; they'll likely be blown up as soon as they enter the appropriate range. It also has longer range than the Stingrays, though overall each shot has less of a chance to score a hit. Two other things make the Plasma Beam shine, though: It can fire 100 shots per excursion compared to the six and unlike the majority of interception weapons, does not actually consume materials for ammo.

The price to produce one is very costly, however. Every Plasma Beam produced costs $226,000 and 15 units of Elerium-115. The latter is absolutely necessary to fuel our Firestorm and future aircraft, so we'll only be able to produce one of these for now.

Researching the Plasma Beam also turned out to be the final key in unlocking Hovertanks for construction. Manufacturing one of these is even more expensive: $850,000 per unit, 30 Elerium-115, and 5 Alien Alloys. We may want one in the future, but it's on hold until we can get a steady supply of Elerium. We can produce alien alloys if necessary, however.

Right now there's nothing absolutely urgent to research, so I'm dividing my team between Alien Grenades and interrogating one of the recovered aliens, a Sectoid Soldier.

May 10th, day

Our scientists have finished interrogating the Sectoid Soldier. While most of what we learned from it was already shown to us during combat against their race, their goals in this invasion have been made clear. We can not permit the Sectoids to have a continued presence here. The longer they remain, the stronger they will become.

... something does trouble me about our intel, though. The scientists speculate that the race is a hive-mind. Usually with hive-minds there is some kind of leader figure, even if it's in name only. We have seen no such beings for the Sectoids; even their apparent leaders are virtually identical to the common grunts, implying some level of modularity in their ranks. Who or what issues their orders?

For future reference, researching live aliens will reveal new information about the alien threat. There are several different ranks, and researching them will provide information as follows:

Any Live Alien: Unlocks the Alien Origins research option.
Soldiers and Medics: Reveals information on the various alien races.
Navigators: Unlocks the third radar system for research and reveals information about the various alien missions.
Engineer: Reveals information about the various alien aircraft.
Leader: Unlocks a vital research topic for the endgame IF you have already researched the Alien Origins, and if the Leader was a Sectoid, it will also unlock the Psionic research tree.
Commander: Unlocks a vital research topic for the endgame IF you already researched the one unlocked from a Leader. If the Commander is a Sectoid it will also count towards unlocking the Psionic research tree.

In any case, our current research line looks like this:

Power Suit (60 Scientists) -> Plasma Defences -> Snakeman Engineer -> Alien Origins -> New Fighter-Transporter
Alien Grenade (20 Scientists)

Depending on how fast the 20 working on the grenade finish, we'll have them working on the first line as well.

As Power Suits are expensive to produce (5 Elerium-115 and 5 Alien Alloys per suit), we won't be making them for a while. Our production line looks like this:

Laser Rifle (30 Engineers): 20 per order
Alien Alloys (10 Engineers): 50 per order

May 21st, Friday

After several failed attempts to hound the UFOs spotted in the Asian territories, we have suspended usage of the Firestorm above the northern hemisphere. However, we have succeeded in forcing one UFO to land. Hopefully this means we will be able to loot its Elerium without much trouble.

Mission Team:
Captan Pinkamena Diane Pie
Sergeant Rainbow Dash
Zecora
Cloudkicker
Flitter
Lemon Hearts
Fancy Pants
Soarin
Colgate
The Tank (II)

Unfortunately, our operatives could not toss smoke grenades while the Tank was still in the Skyranger. Pity.

This time no aliens were nearby to snipe it on the way down, however, allowing it and Rainbow Dash to do a little demolition. Occasionally the environments we land in will be jungles, like the last mission. Here, it's strictly rural, which means things like this odd building.

As a reminder, this is a large scout that we forced to land, rather than one we forced to crash. There are a ton of aliens on board, and failure to play cautiously would lead to a ton of deaths. I'm using a lot of tricks here to ensure my squad's continued survival.

... also, I just learned that the tank takes fire damage. Why this surprises me, I'm not sure. In either case, we might need to be a little more careful with that Auto Cannon.

Lemon Hearts discovers the first alien! I can't tell what it is! Thankfully, Soarin is back on the Skyranger with his Mind Probe. He uses it, and...

... oh no.

Welcome to the fourth race in UFO: Enemy Unknown. The Mutons.

Mutons are towering manlike aliens. Rippling muscles, purple faced, clad in bright green bodyarmor. They're the shock troopers of the invaders. Much like the Floaters and Snakemen, what you see is what you get. Unlike the former, however, these are genuinely terrifying combatants because of how good they are. This one here took a heck of a beating from Lemon Hearts just now. You need only look at how high this one's stats are to see why they're so formidable. Stat for stat this one is twice the soldier our own Pinkamena is, with her only advantage being that it has pitiful armor compared to her.

It took Lemon Hearts and Colgate firing multiple times on it to kill it, after it had already been seriously wounded. These things are scary.

Rainbow Dash opened up the door and, upon spotting a Muton inside, let the tank deal with it. I'm not taking any chances with these guys if I don't have to. Let the tank deal with it!

Minor amusing glitch. If you stand on top of a hay bale, you can see into the room above it. And shoot into it, too. That is actually more useful than it sounds.

Captain Pinkamena spotted a Muton Sniper up here while it was firing upon our tank. She and Colgate made quick work of it.

Our goal here is to capture this Muton—he's a navigator—and unfortunately, we don't have any stun rods with the operatives inside the UFO. So right now we're trying to smoke him into exhaustion. Not the best way to bag an alien, but he's thrown away his weapons so I don't see the harm in it...

At least until his engineer buddy turned out to exist. Cloudkicker is going to be recovering for a long while now.

Taking both of them out would be a great boon, but strictly speaking we only really need the navigator. Thankfully, they both seem to be unarmed, in part thanks to the navigator having a panic attack and Rainbow Dash's skillful pistol fire knocking the engineer unconscious for a turn.

-- MISSION CLEARED --

Overall, another pretty successful mission. Mutons are nasty brutes to go up against, so playing things as safely as you can is neccessary. We avoided losses again, though Cloudkicker took some reaction fire during my attempts to capture the Muton's navigator (which alerted me to the presence of the engineer, in fact).

Flitter, thankfully, was nearby and -did- have a stun rod. She took both out in the same turn.

With that Navigator in tow we'll finally be able to research the third radar station and can start dismantling our old ones.

KILLS:
Pinkamena: 27 Kills
Rainbow Dash: 17 Kills
Cloudkicker: 05 Kills
Spitfire: 04 Kills
Zecora: 02 Kills
Flitter: 02 Kills
Thunder Cracker: 02 Kills
Soarin: 01 Kill
Braeburn: 01 Kill
Doctor Whooves: 01 Kill
Colgate: 01 Kill
Fancy Pants 01 Kill
Lemon Hearts: 01 Kill


RECOVERY TIME:
Cloudkicker: 13 Days

DEATHS:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike
Rarity
Thunderlane
Twilight Sparkle
Fluttershy
Apple Bloom
Sweetie Belle
Big Macintosh
Scootaloo
Dizzy Twister
Cloudchaser
Trixie
Tanks - 01

Savescummed: 03 Times

May 24th, day

Our scientists have finished interrogating the "Muton" Navigator. These aliens are... horrifying brutes unlike anything we've ever seen before. What's worse is that their unsettlingly human appearance, befitting their nature as shock troopers. I'm assuming this is why our operatives gave them such an odd name.

The navigator apparently responds to a higher authority named "Ethereals". Could that be another race of aliens? What exactly is an... Ethereal?

S'right, I dropped all the research I was going through to get to interrogating that Muton Navigator. It took far less than expected, and we may have our final radar station, the Hyper-Wave Decoder, available for construction before the month's end.

You do a lot of savescumming. How bad were the results before you resorted to that?

>>100979

... the savescum counter is the total number of times I've savescummed over the course of the entire game. I thought that was clear.

>>100980
Mea culpa

Random suggestions time!

>>100920
Protip: if you don't hear a scream when an alien/soldier drops, they're unconscious, not dead.

>>100925
The hovertank's good and all, but the rocket mounting on the old one is more useful, I find, in most situations. Hold off on wasting elerium until you have the endgame rocket launcher to mount on your hovertanks.

>>100926
And here's the highly subjective bit. If I were you, I'd be producing considerably larger batches of Laser Rifles. Making them in bulk and selling them nets higher gains. Then again, you may not have space for that.

Which is where the subjective comes in. I'd recommend picking one of those radar bases you're setting up for manufacturing duty and cramming it full of nothing but workshops, and maybe have an interceptor hangar at the other radar base. No troops and no defences beyond that. Though just how long-term a plan like that would be is anypony's guess.

On the one hand, a base full of laser rifle factories will make you millions, and you could almost ignore the national funding entirely. On the other hand, I don't know how comfortable you'd be with that given the "only one base" thing so....it's up to you. You may have plenty of room for additional workshops at Nowhere, in which case just expand a little.

>>100914

May 1st, Saturday

I have officially been given full authority over the military personnel of this project.

As much as I respect that our Director is still in a supervisory role, and I accept that his judgement is often sound, I appreciate the option to supercede his decisions if the need arises. It's difficult to know just how to fight a war when you spend all your time behind a desk, far away from the action.

Let him carry on with his management, and let me deal with killing aliens.

I've also had precious little time to oversee yet more new recruits. Let's just hope they're ready for the furnace.

Even better, our tech department got the plasma rifles working right on time. So far, they've proven a bit more manageable than our laser weaponry, and a whole lot better at putting big steaming holes in oaters.

Since they're still experimental, I'll be handling the beast myself so we can train the rookies on them later, and Spitfire insisted she'd be testing one too. No reason to stop her. Girl's one hell of a shot.

Operation First Blood
Attending: Cpt Pinkamena, Sgt Spitfire, Zecora, Surprise, Braeburn, ThunderCracker, Lemon Hearts, Doctor Whooves, Colgate

The new squad arrangement works well so far. Surprise seemed a whole lot cooler this whole mission without that defoliator to lug around, didn't even freak out once.

We all had a bit of a scare when the tank rolled down the ramp and got shot to slag. I told them that's what it's for. The more ammo those gray little freaks waste on our steel, the less ammo they have to shoot at us. Thunder Cracker showed some impressive agility out of the plane and managed to bag us our first ambusher, with a little help from the Doc.

As an aside, not sure what I was thinking letting our good Doctor come along on this one. Not too sure he's even medical, for that matter.

When I asked Zecora if she felt comfortable with a bit of deforestation, she torched us a nice clear path right to the crash.

"Nopony likes Cameroon," she told me.

My dutiful sergeant also proved just how lethal these new plasma weapons can truly be in the right hands. Spooked Surprise for a minute, but I think they're getting over the incident just fine. All well and good, Surprise could use a friend like that. It also puts more weight to the doctrine of 'runners and gunners' I've been discussing with my team leaders. As much as I respect Dash's pathological need to charge the enemy headfirst and blow it up, having our fire teams stand and our scouts avoid contact has given us much lower fatalities so far.

Surviving: all.

--END REPORT--

>>100927

May 21st, Friday

After the better part of a month with little activity, we finally managed to chase one of those damned scouts down and force it to ground undamaged. This, I believe, will be our first attempt to cleanse a scoutship intact. Despite our new replacement heavy weapon, the intelligence we've gained from interrogating the sectoid survivor, and the new armor technology our science team are promising, I've still cautioned the team on this one.

We are taking on a whole UFO full of armed, alert, prepared aliens. This won't be as easy as the usual cleanse-and-salvage.

Operation First Blood pt2
Attending: Cpt Pinkamena, Sgt Rainbow Dash, Zecora, Cloudkicker, Flitter, Lemon Hearts, Fancy Pants, Soarin, Colgate

Buildings are the enemy.

The rookies need to learn this lesson quickly. We do not trust buildings. We do not look at a house or apartment block or hangar and think we can handle it. We do not let the alien menace use something so disposable to their advantage.

Buildings can be rebuilt. Steel and concrete and wood...these are unimportant things.

Soldiers can not be rebuilt.

I feel a small relief we didn't have to lose a second tank, though. They may be disposable, but they cost a fortune to replace and seeing it mow through the landscape and the aliens alike always cheers up the troops.

As to the new alien threat, I have little to say. These "Mutons" are physically intimidating and extremely resilient to firepower...but so were Floaters, once upon a time. A Muton may be big and ugly, but it still goes down if you spray plasma in its face. I think I demonstrated that quite sufficiently.

In fact, this mission couldn't have gone better. We didn't suffer a single major injury, we dispatched a brand new alien threat with little incident, the team held itself together flawlessly, and we seem to be developing even more skilled snipers. Even Sergeant Dash managed to show a little restraint breaching the UFO. On top of all that, we managed to capture a live Muton and recover a whole craft full of intact gadgets. The science team will be thrilled.

AJ would be proud of me, I know.

Surviving: everypony. Even the tank.

Addendum; Flitter is absolutely right. From now on, nopony enters a UFO without a stunner. Never now when they'll be useful.

--END REPORT--

Further suggestions as to weaponry/tactics only if the OP desires. Don't want to micromanage needlessly. Just how are you organizing your loadout as is, are you still going with plasma snipers and laser rifles on everypony else?

>>101011

Indeed, no hovertank for a while then, and that's a good idea. I'll give it some thought; currently Nowhere is flooded with missile defenses, which I planned on replacing with Plasma ones soon. I can probably stand to cut down on a few of them to make room for more workshops (and the necessary living quarters, if I don't have enough already). I know I'll definitely have the spare room once I replace the small and large radars with the Hyper-Wave Decoder.

>>101015

All equipment suggestions are welcome, heehee.

Current Core Loadout: Laser Rifle, Smoke Grenade, Grenade, Medkit, Stun Rod (any soldier without the strength for all that loses the stun rod, then the grenade, then the smoke grenade, then the Medkit)
Sniper Loadout: Plasma Rifle+Laser Pistol, Smoke Grenade, Grenade, Medkit, Stun Rod (any soldier without the strength for all that loses the stun rod, then the grenade, then the smoke grenade, then the Medkit)
Heavy Weapon Loadout: Auto Cannon (Incendiary)/Rocket Launcher, Laser Pistol, Medkit, Smoke Grenade, Grenade (Zecora and Rainbow Dash (with Flitter as an alternate if one isn't available) fill this role, and have a high enough Strength for it)

Night missions see an electro-flare added to each loadout, replacing the grenade or smoke grenade if need be. Pinkamena, with her astounding Strength stat of 59, carries 3 grenades and 3 smoke grenades each (replacing one of each with an electro-flare for night missions).

Past this point I'm mostly running blind. I know how useful some equipment I haven't touched can be thanks to the Terror from the Deep equivalents, but up until now I'd never gotten this far on any difficulty. Any loadout suggestions, even if it's just asking me to try something new to see how it works, are appreciated.

>>101033
Oh wow. TFTD? From what little I've seen and everything I've heard, don't rely on TFTD to accurately portray original X-com's balance, everything 'equivalent' was broken to hell for that sequel.

That's a fairly large loadout, but lack of laser rifle ammo nicely streamlines things. I would have cut Medkits to only every other trooper, but you're using fairly small squads anyway.

My biggest recommendation, really, is just making sure that whenever you're sending troopers into a UFO, they all have a stunrod and preferably a plasma weapon rather than a laser rifle. On an open battlefield laser rifles are fine and dandy, but you really want that extra power in closer quarters. But I don't know how you'd want to handle that, considering the amount of equipment shuffling that entails.

I'd suggest getting rid of much of your base defenses until you have fusion defenses and a gravshield. Anything less than that is very rarely ever going to stop a base assault, so it's just wasting money really.

Just as an aside note, having your squaddies run around in circles during your last few turns if you have one or two aliens cornered and dealt with will help train up their strength and endurance. Equally, having them flank doors and catch aliens coming out will increase their reactions and make them more likely to reaction fire. But that's just in case you feel like grinding for stats. I don't know how much leeway there is for that on Superhuman mode.

>try something new
I'd suggest trying to take an entire UFO alive, just as a challenge, but you haven't researched stun grenades or the small launcher yet. Surprised you haven't found one yet.

May 26th, Wednesday

We've sighted yet another new type of UFO, this one over central Africa. The information received from our radar matches information we've received from the various terrorist attacks across the globe. I believe we may have found a similar aircraft, then. If so, bringing it down would prevent another attack.

Terror Ships, as the game calls them, cause Terror Missions when they land on a city. They then vanish off the radar entirely, signifying that the ship has left its troops behind, which is why you'll never see a UFO anywhere during those terror missions.

They're faster than any of the aircraft we already have, but will slow down when nearing their target, allowing us to intercept them. Thanks to their substantially high armor, it is impossible to destroy them outright, but we can safely crash one with a Plasma Beam.

... however, it flew north again. That tears it, we need more Interceptors. Radar Station Alpha's getting an upgrade.

May 31st, Monday

... we've received reports of a terrorist attack in Nairobi, Kenya. Damn it, we could have prevented that.

Unfortuately, when I said the UFO had "gone north", I mean way north in the arctic circle. None of our aircraft can get up there and neither Alpha nor Bravo can cover the area, giving the aliens the ability to go unseen if they pass through their on the way to their targets.

That's quite the flight pattern on that UFO, though! From central Africa to the arctic circle, likely down across Asia, and back to West Africa. If only our own UFOs had such fuel capacity.

Mission Team:
Captain Pinkamena
Sergeant Rainbow Dash
Zecora
Sergeant Spitfire*1
Lemon Hearts
Thunder Cracker
Flitter
Braeburn
Fancy Pants

Already we've spotted two of the Sectoid terrorists' Cyberdiscs. This is a good sign and a bad sign. It's good because this could be our chance to capture a Sectoid Leader. It's bad because this is even more blatantly a trap than our first Sectoid terror mission.

*1Cloud Kicker would have been the third sniper on our team, but she's still recovering. As such, Sergeant Spitfire is taking her place.

See? Trap. If that was their leader, I'm going to be a little angry.

There's not much we can do on this turn now, unfortunately, except try to snipe those Cyberdiscs from the Skyranger. Also, new tactic: Since the inside of our Skyrange is so plainly visible, I'm going to detonate a smoke grenade inside of it. This will probably bite me in the flank, but I am not losing going to lose operatives to the welcoming party again if I can reasonably help it.

There goes our second tank. Thankfully, none of our operatives were harmed and since the Cyberdisc is down there and has likely wasted all of its TUs, we can safely demolish it.

There are probably 3-4 more of them on the map, however. And with such a wide-open area surrounded by such tight corridors, I really don't think there's much sense in trying to go look for them.

... something I've noticed: No mind control attempts. Damn it, we really did kill the Leader, didn't we?

Ugh... Here's a map of the entire visible battlescape. Note the kind of toasty brown marks surrounding area our cursor is over. That is the result of 4 Cyberdisc explosions on top of our own rockets. Four unseen Sectoids were also killed in these explosions. And we haven't been hit with mind control attacks at all the entire time.

That first one killed was definitely the leader. I was really hoping to capture the bastard. But no, he had to go and be allergic to rockets.

The rest of the mission was just a slog of hunting down aliens and trying not to get my operatives killed.

-- MISSION CLEARED --

This mission... ugh. I had high hopes for this one! They were dashed instantaneously. The leader died in the first goddamn shot in the game, and the rest of it was spent trying to diffuse the trap before it could fully spring on us. By turn 10, all but one alien was killed, and he revealed himself by blindsiding Pinkamena with an explosive from behind. She lived and finished the mission herself. Spitfire, who was trying to provide cover fire for our operatives back near the Skyranger, did not.

Thanks to the loss of Sergeant Spitfire, Thunder Cracker has been promoted to Sergeant. This is going to require some team shuffling now, since he was the third sniper for both teams. Alternatively a new recruit could fill in the vacant position.

I hate Sectoid Terror Missions.

KILLS:
Pinkamena: 29 Kills
Rainbow Dash: 21 Kills
Thunder Cracker: 09 Kills
Cloudkicker: 05 Kills
Flitter: 03 Kills
Lemon Hearts: 03 Kills
Fancy Pants 03 Kills
Zecora: 02 Kills
Soarin: 01 Kill
Braeburn: 01 Kill
Doctor Whooves: 01 Kill
Colgate: 01 Kill



Recovery Time:
Pinkamena: 16 Days
Cloudkicker: 04 Days

Deaths:
Applejack
Cheerilee
Spike
Rarity
Thunderlane
Twilight Sparkle
Fluttershy
Apple Bloom
Sweetie Belle
Big Macintosh
Scootaloo
Dizzy Twister
Cloudchaser
Trixie
Spitfire
Tanks - 02

~~~

I actually did have more done today. Played all the way up to very late June, in fact. Then we got a terror mission in Perth, and upon attempting to land there, the game crashed again.

The latest save I had, frustratingly enough, was just after this mission. I lost an entire month of progress. Admittedly dull progress, since there was virtually no alien activity and they kept abusing our inability to head north upon being sighted.

To do list for next play session:
>Hire new recruit
>Buy more smoke grenades and electro-flares
>Buy a third tank
>Build Hyper-Wave Decoders
>Research Small Launcher, Stun Bomb, The Lightning, and the Grav Shield
>Recruit more Engineers
>Manufacture more Personal Armor
>Manufacture more Laser Rifles to sell

Heh, kinda get little twinges of emotion if I read this as happening how it sounds and not how it looks to you. Confound these ponies; they drive me to feel.

Sorry to hear about the game crash, Dragon. Hopefully if it happens again it'll have the courtesy to do so shortly after a save.

>>101112

It only seems to happen just before trying to initiate terror missions, but I'll be saving before every mission from now on.

I was playing this game today. I was on the last day of the first month and then BOOM. Sectoids attacked my only base.
>mine countenance whereupon

>>101124
I suggest session-end save and a pre-mission save in leapfrog fashion, just to make sure that something horrible doesn't happen and corrupt your save file or something.

>decide to load up the save file I made just after that mission
>play for a bit, with some neat stuff for tomorrow/today's update in store
>check Pinkamena's injuries to see if she'll be up and running for something I have planned
>She'll be out for 32 days?!

Right, I forgot the game randomizes recovery time to a certain degree upon finishing a mission. Cripe.

>>101096

May 31st, Monday

With Cloudkicker in the infirmary for another four days, Sgt Spitfire volunteered herself to fill out the shooting team. I can't argue with Spitfire's uncanny ability to incinerate sectoids from half a mile away.

Operation Clear Water
Attending: Cpt Pinkamena, Sgt Rainbow Dash, Sgt Spitfire, Zecora, Lemon Hearts, Thunder Cracker, Flitter, Braeburn, Fancy Pants

Much as I agree with our Director's desires to capture an alien commander alive for interrogation, my first priorities are always to our soldiers. He'll just have to be patient if he wants another sectoid to torture.

As we rolled the tank down the ramp to face those first two Cyberdiscs, my sergeants took the time to trash talk our little gray friends for the rookies. Dash is always antsy at the start of any mission, always wants to be first out, said her launcher needed a little exercise after letting the tanks do most of the work for the last month. Only Flitter wasn't laughing.

I wish I'd shared her cynicism now. We knew this was an ambush, just as we knew the last one. But she knew we were over-confident.

The mission went as smoothly as could be expected. We lost another tank, but that just got the team ticked off. Without the mental attacks of the previous sectoid terrorists, or the horrifying biological weapons of the Floaters or our Snakeman nemesis, Cyberdiscs are surprisingly unintimidating. Careful flanking and a few well-placed plasma shots, and down they go. They almost seem to be more dangerous for their sectoid friends than anypony else, more than half the aliens killed were standing next to exploding Discs. By the time we got to sweeping the area clear, everypony was getting angry and impatient.

We got careless.

Should have seen that gray sneaking up on our plane. Should have been paying more attention. I'll be spending another two weeks in the infirmary because of that one grenade, and I'm the lucky one.

Surviving: Cpt Pinkamena Diane Pie (injured), Sgt Rainbow Dash, Zecora, Thunder Cracker, Lemon Hearts, Flitter, Braeburn, Fancy Pants
KIA: Sgt Spitfire

I've promoted Thunder Cracker. He's an excellent shot and could be a decent squad leader, which is more than I was when I made Sergeant. Director's bringing in another replacement to fill up our ranks. Frankly, I almost feel sorry for the new rookie already.

Spitfire...had her military funeral. With nopony to ship her body back to, and not wanting to just ditch her in the ice, we had the research lab cremate her in the plasma collector. She made it clear she didn't want to leave a corpse for anypony to mourn over, and I think she'd be pleased to go out in a nuclear-powered fire.

Unfortunately, I'm in bed for at least the rest of the week, so Dash had to break the news. I've ordered Surprise off active duty for the week, though...just in case.

--END REPORT--


Suggestions: Get a backup tank. Find some spare time to research the laser tank for later. Oh god will you want the laser tank later. Also keep trying to find that base they no doubt have somewhere up north.

>>101131
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

>>101134
>>101135

Don't delete and repost. Let me get that for you.