In Progress X-Piratez! Ironman! No spoilers! Oldschool X-COM Total Conversion with mutant amazon pirates. Death to the star gods!

[Damned Registrations]

Man, all these walls better be made of gold bars.

Why use a 4-tile unit for artillery, when two peasants with mortars will do ?

The artilery is way, way stronger. Like, flatten a bunker strong. Can't take cover from a bombard in the trees if it destroys all the trees. It'd wreck a tank too, and is immune to weather effects. Mortars would be nice as well though, I won't lie.

Well, it's still turn 0 and we've taken our first casualty. To be fair, that's kind of why I brought this one along though.

We get our first kill as well; Pierre sinks a sniper shot through the elevator. The maid takes the bullet for the matron, but it's better than nothing.

Rat summoning is apparently an arced attack? Interesting.

That's helpful actually; it makes it easier to summon a rat under the elevator without getting too close. Sadly it's facing the wrong way and we can't turn it.

One of the zombie gals is carrying a fusion torch I bought for this mission. Since we've only got one entrance to guard, I figure cutting a sniping window here might be helpful. The south wall might be good too but this one faces more towards the center of the base, where I anticipate more enemies coming from. In general, I elect to keep this room upstairs. No sense losing anyone to reaction fire just for a peak down there.

*CLENCH*

Okay, that's fine. RIP Rat-friend.

This is also firing at a rat. Fuck, this mission has so many people it's hard to keep track. Note to self- take a shot of both rooms before every enemy turn to help figure out who was getting shot each time. And remember the old earth weapons box! It'll be satisfying to open them and find vibro swords that are now totally obsolete

Fuck, this was a cat I believe. Well, still better than losing a person, but this room doesn't exactly have bodies to spare. Honestly it's probably a writeoff. I'm not planning on doing a partial mission and retreating with prisoners and a bit of loot. But this room is so vulnerable and so poorly manned that holding it seems impossible. We'll have them go down kicking and screaming.

That priest fired some sort of charm attack and hit our plate gal. She's still standing... barely. Seems to just do stun damage.

It was this thing, whatever it was. Maybe this is the persuadatron the goblins are offering for like 2500 tokens?

Here's another new weapon. No idea what this is.

We send a rat on a scouting mission and it reveals some more terrain before taking a couple reaction shots and dying. This room it died in is a set of 4 elevators in their own little rooms, connected by either doors or windows. Basically a little security maze with lots of chances for reaction fire.

Our enemies are pretty clumped up under us here and have some terrifying weapons. I opt to try using a poison grenade on them- their choking resistances aren't that great, taking either 200% or the default 400%. Throwing would take too many TUs so our ogre just casually walks down there, drops it on the ground and walks back up the elevator. Hopefully the AoE doesn't seep through the ceiling and kill us all.

Our barely standing gal drops down the southeast elevator to open fire on the matron. I didn't trust that she'd go down to the grenade, and it sadly doesn't deal any TU damage. We put her to sleep with the tesla coil, which is plenty good enough. Strategically placed small mammals insured most reaction fire would have gone astray. Both have evasion equal to half their reactions, so for rats it's about 42 evasion, while cats have a whopping 85. Good luck firing a gun next to that. We still drew some reaction shots from the northeast but they whiffed.

Over here, we have a different sort of problem. Apparently the church keeps pet chryssalids. Because of course they do.

Over here we've got a reverend with a plasma sword and a neophyte with a flamer. They're too far to be a threat right now though.

Fortunately, in a stroke of brilliant insight and/or gross incompetence, I sent a nun to invade this church base. If that chryssalid gets in range, holy bolt will hit it for ~500 damage.

Our plasma torch managed to take the paint off the wall on the third shot, but Modron failed to take out the rock behind it with his bashing stick. Still, I'd assume the rock is softer than the wall, so this should be viable? Sniping the chryssalisk as it ran past would have been nice.

Poison gas grenade goes off and works like a charm.

This dude manages to get shot off on our goblin in the avenger plate, breaching the shields but not killing her.

Tight Note, the woozy plate gal in the suicide room, got hit again by a weird charm attack.

I believe at this point our ratmeister for this room died as well.

And the avenger goblin dies. Damn, I shouldn't have brought her along. That armour was so fucking cool and now it's gone. I could have saved her with the primed stasis grenade trick, but OTOH, it probably would have knocked out half my crew in that tiny space. Damned shame.

Honestly I'm surprised she didn't instantly die to this thing, these guns are insanely good.

Aftermath of the poison grenade. The priest that took out our plate gal is in a good spot for Pierre to take out. He makes the shot, but the dude is still standing.

Our ogre finishes the job with some painbringer rounds.

Kitty comes down for some scouting and... holy fuck this room is screwed. There's an exalt in there, a ton of enemies in general, and...

This fucker. I won't be trying to capture him unless we get lucky. That lightning tome is incredibly powerful. If he popped up the elevator and auto-fired it, he could probably kill or knock out like 10 people in one turn.

Well, if the enemies want to group up like this... we can hopefully make them pay for it.

Catgirl trainee here in mere camo paint manages to kill off this zealot with the heavy plasma gun. Just enough TUs to get back upstairs afterwards too. I'm not sure if the neophyte failed to shoot her because he lacked the TUs or the smoke and camo kept her out of his sight.

We got one shot off with the rosary, but it fucking missed. 95% my ass. Maybe if I had ducked it would have worked better,

Well, Horrid soup manages to knock it out at least. I want it dead though, not waking back up on turn 30 to cause a total wipe.

The neophyte was easily finished off, but there's another heavy plasma wielder down here. No LOS though and I'm not stepping out and risking reaction fire.

Welp, we've summoned our last rat. If the healer was over here we could perhaps turn her freshness into more rats, but she's in the wrong room. Still, 6 rats is a huge benefit. 100% worthwhile to get these outfits and bring them along.

Second round of digging and we manage to plasma cut through the rock and Modron bashes a wall down with the club. Seems our sniping spot is going to happen, and more safely than I expected- I won't need to have a gal with 2% remaining TUs standing in front of the opening when we manage to make it.

This is so much scarier now that I know chryssalisks are lurking around here. Makes the rats a bit of a liability as well. One or two we can handle, but if the enemy turns like 5 people into them and they rush us all at once, we might be fucked. I did bring an RPG with HEAT rounds in case they had some kind of heavy vehicle or turret, but that's not really going to be effective vs a swarm of these fuckers. Plus I don't want to destroy my cool laser swords!

Not sure who this is firing at. Again, I'll try to take some extra screenshots before end of turn while this situation is still a clusterfuck.

Hah, this fucker wasted his whole turn firing into a wall trying to kill the rat. The mental image of these zealots freaking out and firing plasma weapons everywhere trying to kill a rat is great. Best outfit ever.

Our turn (the rat SURVIVED!) and we've got a new problem. There's a chrsalisk over here too. Motherfuckers! I might have a chryssalid grenade somewhere, but it's probably not in this room. Not sure how to handle this. It's immune to choking, so that's not an option. We've got a healer catgirl with no real weapons, an ogre with a painbringer that will MAYBE kill it be quite possible just bounce the shots off, assuming he doesn't just die to reaction fire, and a very sleepy gal in plate who dropped her tesla coil. The ogre probably can't pick up the coil with enough time to spare to put the chrysalisk down either. Maybe we huddle on the far side of the room? Try to bait someone into killing it with friendly fire using a rat? Hope it goes after the cat and misses (fat chance?) Drop the stasis grenade on ourselves and hope we get passed by and wake up safely later (catgirl will die from overstun, her outfit generates stun each turn like she's drowning.) Tune in next episode to find out!

 

[Jaedar]

Over here, we have a different sort of problem. Apparently the church keeps pet chryssalids. Because of course they do.

Yeah, this is the real danger of church bases. They have SENSE, so cover won't help, they'll always rush you. And it's really hard to cover all the angles. Can't even fly to escape them, cus there's a ceiling in the way.

Honestly I'm surprised she didn't instantly die to this thing, these guns are insanely good.

I mean, I guess they're ok. For guns anyway. Maybe I'm sneering a bit from my ivory endgame tower, but if a weapon can't wipe out half a dozen enemies in a single turn on a good day it's not a good weapon. And there are precious few guns that can do that. It's like that scene from the matrix:
What are you trying to tell me, that I can wield star god heavy plasma rifles?
No, I'm telling you that when you're ready you won't have to.

We got one shot off with the rosary, but it fucking missed. 95% my ass. Maybe if I had ducked it would have worked better,

The stated hit rate is supremely unreliable if there's obstructions or awkward angles in the way (or even if enemies are turned 90 degrees away from you). And the fixed perspective makes it basically impossible to tell if you're trying to fire through a 3pixel wide hole or not, especially when there's elevation differences.

It's also really annoying when your units spawn in a bad configuration like this, with the support team separated from the heavy hitters.

 

[Modron]

The priest that took out our plate gal is in a good spot for Pierre to take out. He makes the shot, but the dude is still standing.

Poor guy probably hasn't gotten a steady enough diet of roots.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Only a matter of time.

So, it turns out we have a better option for the chrysalisk. Pierre and his sniper rifle. And his 143 firing skill. Side note- how the fuck have we not had a hero show up in this run yet? What a crock of shit.

Anyways, that LoS is clearly bullshit, no way he's making that shot from the tile he's on. He needs to go down, which means we need to kill that war maiden. Time for a little cosmetic surgery.

Do no harm? Who the fuck would take an oath like that?

Might even be able to take out this other zealot too. But first we take the shot.

Boom! Headshot, threaded past another zealot that was in the way.

Rather than try to knife the zealot, Echidna backs off and we drop our last poison grenade next to the priest. It's got a radius of 4, so it should basically clear that room. Or at least fuck up everyone in that room real bad.

I send one of our remaining rats to chill with the Cardinal. If we're lucky he'll try to autofire his lightning tome and kill like 5 allies at once. Also, god damn, thats a lot of high level enemies. Exalts, beastmasters...

There's even a fucking mage down here apparently. Did not expect that.

Over here we have... a soon to be dead zealot and chryssalisk that just woke back up.

The zealot went down to a simple bullet, and the insectoid monstrosity goes down to our holy wrath. Man am I ever glad I brought a nun for some reason. Though the chryssalid grenades would have been even better. Those things have a huge radius.

The rats are actually so vulnerable to smoke and have such low health I'm having trouble keeping them awake.

We drop down to finish off the zealot and find two more enemies, including yet another fucking chryssalisk. I think this is number 4? Did I mention the one that got ventilated when it tried to go up the elevator in front of like 500 TUs of combined reaction fire? That one fell asleep.

Anyways, we take out both the zealot and the priest with a volley of autofire at each, and have enough TUs to get back to safety.

Despite being at literally zero freshness, our ratmeister is at peak morale due to all these kills. Momentum is a big factor in morale in this game.

We set up as best we can in the doomed room. We will at least avoid the poison gas and maybe deflect some shots from here.

Over here we're basically just set up as a huge firing squad around the elevator.

Here goes.

Well shit. I was not prepared for whatever the fuck this is. I saw a weird red gun in the hands of a reverend earlier. Maybe this is that inferno pistol we won from the slot machines but were unable to actually use?

Hah! She didn't get instagibbed after all! Still totally fucked though.

This god damned hero of a rat not only wastes all this guy's shots AGAIN, he fucking gnaws on his ankles for his trouble.

So, this is certainly a clusterfuck. The long and short of it is that a bunch of enemies came up. The ogre deflected the priest's plasma shots and got my hopes up, but then an exalt came in and cut him down. Everyone got taken out.

Oh, and the fucking hero rat down here? Another soldier had to come by, shoot it with a fucking plasma gun, and merely knocked it unconscious. Fuck, I'd heal this thing if I could. It deserves a medal. Note to self: Name something cool in honour of the hero rat. Ooh, maybe our next ship. I haven't been naming the ships.

Alas, Perre dies to the fire and wounds. Unlike Cleve, we've got a stasis pod to keep his charred corpse in, at least. I think. He's one of the oldest Zone Stalkers we have, along with Cleve and... whoever the third one from that party was. Optimist maybe? Or Jaedar?

So yeah, everyone left alive in this room is on fire, and sitting in a pool of fire. Prognosis: utterly fucked.

The chrysalisk didn't actually rush to the elevator, strangely enough. It's definitely close enough to sense us. Maybe the AI is smart enough to only rush when it has enough spare TUs to get a kill too? Anyways, I've started using motion trackers at the edges of the room each turn. Between that and the rats, who have SENSE(Smell) 5 or so, nothing can sneak up on us in here. I've decided against making a sniper perch too. So long as we stay on the east side of the room, nothing can get a shot at us without first walking into our line of fire at close enough range it should be reduced to ribbons.

I brought one of these along in case it came in handy, but I'm actually relectant to try using it anywhere. Based on us chewing through the walls, this thing would be able to destroy the walls and floors, so we can't just drop it and use the floor as cover. Hopefully it won't be needed, but it's here in case there's like, some massive plasma turret guarding the command centre or something.

We've got some other toys as well. I didn't bring everything I could, or buy everything I could, but some stuff is honestly a bit too dangerous to keep on hand. I don't want someone reaction firing a quad rocket launcher at his feet because an exalt ran up to him. Annoyingly, I have an origami SMG sitting unused because A: We lack people with the bravery to make it hurt things real bad, and B: It won't go through golden shields like a plain old bullet will.

I didn't capture it, but this is the turn we smartly chose to shuffle over to one side of the room, so we don't get ankle sniped from 30 tiles away through a tiny corner of the elevator.

THIS is where the chrysalisk got wasted. Fucking thing didn't die though, and for some god forsaken reason nobody is willing to shoot the corpse. The mechanics of that are weird. Sometimes they'll happily hit the bodies, other times they only want to shoot over top of them. Spears seem to reliably hit the floor. Does... does the game model different firing angles for different weapons? Like it's hip firing guns but fires the spear from shoulder height? That'd be crazy.

Ah, here's the fourth chrysalisk. Got my timeline mixed up. No, I'm not going back to edit shit. This is already taking hours to write up a single mission.

I'm like 90% sure this cunt dropped his flamer to pick this up. Maybe because he was out of ammo? I dunno, but I don't like it.

I even brought our last 2 rimrider laser weapons on this mission. They're no fatties, but they got infinite ammo and high accuracy.

HAH! The flames went out already and it's not even smokey. The gal is totally going to survive. At least until she wakes up surrounded by enemies.

I opt to send a rat down to try get a look beyond our radar but it gets shot down right away. But if it drew the reaction fire, I suppose we can send someone down to get the kills...

Okay, apparently it didn't draw ALL the reaction fire. What do those thing cost to fire, like 15% or something?

Luckily, it rolled low and barely scratched us.

Painbringer doesn't have that problem. Firing 8 bullets at once tends to ensure something hits and rolls high.

Err, we don't have the TUs to get back to safety though. Whoops.

It's fine, our nun can take out the demon...

And gandalf (who I brought along after all, since zombie mode has high voodoo defense and lessened freshness issues) score a kill without damaging the furniture. I've got no idea which things in here are cosmetic and which are like, hypno panels or brainwashing pods or whatever.

Finally, we get an uneventful enemy turn.

RIP Catgirl. I think we got a pod for her as well, since her voodoo power was exceptional.

Morale isn't looking so hot now. Time to dip into the smokes. They won't get us enough freshness for another rat unless I really overdo it, but they'll keep her from going berserk or wandering down the elevator. This isn't the mission to try training her bravery.

Area overview. We seem to have cleared the tiles immediately surrounding us, but there's over half a dozen powerful enemies just that we know of wandering around out in the base. If I were naive or even remotely confident, I'd try heading out to find them, but we're going to be cheesy fuckers this time and came here until they come to us. We brought grog and canteens. We can wait.

Oh look, a fartbag has come to visit. We could probably capture it, but I'm not taking chances here. We already paid a heavy toll to get this far. We have to win.

Katana does the job nicely.

Several more turns go by. The waiting game has begun...

 

[std::namespace]

but this room doesn't exactly have bodies to spare. Honestly it's probably a writeoff.

4 elevators spawn is murder! it cannot be camped, there is no safe tile, they see your ankles, you often dont see their center
3 elevators have to be landmined turn 0, and the corridors leading to them
to landmine elevators you dont even need to throw the mines, just drop em and float up, wont blow, and since they trigger in 1 tile radius -> 1 mine per elevator

i once did a 24 fresh peasants 48 primed landmines academy base assault, in a convoy just like you =p
it works initially to stop the rush but academy is special longterm
would work here too

 

[turkishronin]

The mental image of gals just sitting at the entrance and drinking while waiting for enemies to come to them is hilarious.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's a virtue or something.

3 elevators have to be landmined turn 0, and the corridors leading to them

How could you possibly manage that? Fresh peasants can barely get across the room without running out of TUs. And they'd certainly be sniped to death as soon as they came into view. Did you have more than just 8 or so in the room?

The mental image of gals just sitting at the entrance and drinking while waiting for enemies to come to them is hilarious.

That is a great image; thanks for that.


Back to the action!


Having the rats on lookout is weird; I occasionally get to see enemies moving through shadowed areas I haven't even explored yet.

Turns are going by pretty quick with nothing to do but wait.

Hah, not only did she wake up, she's barely even hurt.

Luckily, the only other person in the room is facing away. It is a Beastmaster though, so the chances of taking her down with this rookie are slim to none.

We elect to pick up a nearby stasis grenade and take another nap instead. Maybe next time we'll find a nice weapon to pick up and use.

It seems the enemies are smart enough to not enter our line of sight but still know we're here and want to approach the lift. Unfortunately for them, they're too dumb to realize we can just walk up behind them and put ammo in their brainpan.

I decide to start looting the bodies under the lift and spot an enemy- a good reminder that just because nothing is on our radar, doesn't mean it's safe to come down here. Someone with less night vision might not have seen that neophyte, and if it had been something else instead, like a warmaiden with a plasma rifle...

Nonetheless, I continue my looting spree, albeit with more expendable troops. Still have no intention of running away, but even if we don't, I don't want powerful weapons lying around nearby. Last thing I need is to lose at the eleventh hour because some punk woke back up and found a helerium grenade to pull the pin off of. And hey, maybe the grenades will be useful for us!

Getting close to that special turn 20 mark...

I actually tried to capture this one, but it's quite hard to do safely. No matter. It's the loot we're really after. Also, yet ANOTHER fucking chrysalisk.

Aparently this is a 'Force Blade'. And it weighs only 4 units. Nifty.

I can't spy it's damage, but I can for the plasma weapons- the heavy deals up to 230! while the pistol deals up to 104.

The force blade apparently only needs 8 TUs to swing, and is quite accurate. I'll try shuffle it over to Lenneth, I can't imagine it's worse than the catgirl sword she's rocking right now.

Man, I've never seen anything eat that many reaction shots. Fucker got lit UP.

Well, here comes the welcome wagon. About to get more interesting soon.

Sure enough, we've got 2 enemies in the hall. The one we can see is facing us, so we won't try to take her out.

Next turn we got 3 more signals, and one is right on the lift. I'd like to take that one out, but it's probably not safe. We'll have to trust our reactions I think. I'm starting to hear some random screams and shit, so I think the morale on the shrine maidens and neophytes at least is starting to break.

It takes longer than I expected, but enemies keep trickling in over time and getting jacked by reaction fire. The plan is working perfectly.

My biggest concern at the moment is honestly just keeping morale up. We've got the meds for it, but the longer this takes the more I have to use each turn, leaving fewer TUs for reaction fire. And sooner or later I might forget someone and fuck up.

Makes sense, since there was a mage too.

This time I heard not just screams, but gunfire. Considering the kinds of weapons these guys are packing, that could easily kill even a high ranking enemy for me.

There's a dry spell of targets and I start to get antsy, thinking maybe I should head out and hunt them down after all. I still haven't seen exalts or the cardinal yet though. I think a reverend or two might still be kicking around as well.

We bag another zealot though. I'm sorely tempted to start taking hostages. There can't be that many enemies left and a live fartbag or even zealot isn't easy to come by. Those golden shields leave them easy to kill be hard to capture.

There's a new problem too- something is psi attacking us through the walls. It seems to be merely dealing stun damage though, and not a ton of it. Sister Francesca here is still pretty okay after two turns of attacks. Hopefully it's draining their morale and freshness more than mine.

HO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Well, this warrants collecting the bodies for sure. Can't believe we bagged the cardinal. I thought for sure he'd die under all that reaction fire. Good thing I swapped Francesca's battle rifle out for the linux; those EP rounds almost certainly made the difference between capture and death. The tesla coil and ninja stars were key too, for bringing the shields low enough for the elec damage to hit flesh to begin with.

Some fucker from all the way over here took a potshot while we retrieved their leader. You can still faintly make out the laser trail above the room.

Only 2 wounds. Nice. That means we can heal them without restoring many hp and risking reviving him. His lightning tome is built into the outfit, so we can't loot it and we can't disarm him. Knocking him out repeatedly is... probably not a good idea.

May as well grab the fart bag too. They can keep eachother company.

Belem Belle can keep an eye on them. Even if the cardinal gets back up with full shields, the wand should bypass them without being TOO lethal.

Ah, we finally spy an exalt as well.

A new problem; the rookie catgirl I had using the radar has hit 0 freshness, and can no longer recover enough TUs to use it twice in two different spots each turn. Annoying.

Hmm, aparently this weird gun is a shotgun. No idea what 'SR' is referring to. Space Roofles?

Since I don't want to deal with the cardinal waking up and vapourizing all of us, we're kind of on the clock now. I've started trying to snipe people by just jumping down the lift and looking for easy targets. Like these clowns!

Man, these base raids take forever, both in terms of ingame turns and the writeup afterwards. If the entire run didn't hinge on this so completely I'd probably skim over most of this to preserve my sanity.

We get a chance to capture the exalt. This is... insanely difficult to do, since they're melee blenders and their shields block electricity. And they can fly. This is a great chance to take one alive.

... and she vanished into thin air. Maybe the tesla coil just overkilled her, who knows. Maybe I should be trying to go after her morale or using choking attacks or something.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The beatings will continue while morale improves.

A fartbag! I was hoping taking down the cardinal would trigger a rout, but perhaps the fartbag is like a dog and is preventing surrender. Gandalf takes it out easily enough; even if it did reaction fire on us, we're practically chem and bio immune in the hermit outfit.

Man, turn 40. This is a slog.

It's time to head out and start taking control of the map I think. And we've really only got 2 people suitable for that; the platemail gals. Lenneth in particular is a cut above. Lets go hunting!

Well shit. This is not what I expected to find. Is this the real boss for the base? That's some beefy armour. I doubt my stun baton will even tickle him. Fortunately that pistol won't tickle me either. Still, to avoid him running away or dropping a grenade on us, I'd better try to take him out quickly. I'll do one swing with the sword to soften him up and then try some shield bashes and stun baton hits.

...and he died on the first swing. Whoops.

I mean he's fine! FINE. Totaly fine. He's just, uh, hibernating. Yeah. Govt. Generals do that this time of year.

We find a zealot next turn. The force sword is actually less effective at killing him than the fucking nekomimi one was. What the fuck? It must deal laser damage or something they're strong against.

Fortunately, good old fashioned bullets are still doing a great job. Seriously, I should have brought like 10 of these gyro guns. They're cleaning house from across the map through cover.

Eventually we make our way east along the southern edge and spot these two. It seems the noble woman ran quite far away from us for some reason. So much for that zerg rush AI.

The room they're in is a weird one, with a lookout tower in the middle and a bunch of soft cover.

I ducked into the tower, figuring I could handle anyone that barged inside in melee. And sure enough, exactly that happens. Though it takes me like 10 fucking swings to put this beastmaster down. This thing is clearly optimized for bypassing armour, not golden shields.

Again though, autogun is doing work. We did destroy one of these... display cases? though. Hopefully it's nothing important. Or maybe you're meant to do it to reveal loot!

I swear there can't be that many enemies left. We must have killed like 50 by now.

Aparently they had an exalt still standing. She got Angel here while she was playing popamole in the weird garden.

We can get back to her to heal but... I don't know where the exalt is exactly. There's a good chance it could kill Lenneth too, if these blades are as good at piercing armour as I expect. She might also just be flying, which would leave us unable to attack effectively.

I send in a rat to find her, and sure enough, there she is, hovering near the body.

Gandalf steps up to the plate once again. Problem solved. Can't believe I almost left her behind, we'd have been fucked.

Since we don't need to fight the exalt, no sense in sprinting around in front of a dude with a heavy plasma.

We send a catgirl down with healing gel instead.

We'll just stay holed up in the base of the tower and pop out to massacre these assholes on our turn.

Oh fuck, they sent a fartbag in to open the door and then opened fire.

Like, a LOT of fire. Over a dozen direct hits and dozens more misses.

Please, you can stop any day now.

I can't believe we even survived that, let alone emerged unscathed. We didn't even lose very much armour. Lenneth is a beast.

Angel nearly died from that single exalt hit. Probably the saving grace was that stun built up from low freshness and a few smokes. If the exalt had needed to swing a second time to knock us down we'd have died for sure.

Alright, not sticking around to see if they have more cannon fodder to send at me. The AI is clearly aware Lenneth is alone here and vulnerable, it's being super aggressive towards this spot.

Still barely a trickle of enemies emerging elsewhere, getting picked off each turn. This better end soon. At least all the kills are keeping morale high right now without drugs.

 

[Jaedar]

The mental image of gals just sitting at the entrance and drinking while waiting for enemies to come to them is hilarious.

Historically approved siege tactics.

... and she vanished into thin air. Maybe the tesla coil just overkilled her, who knows.

High damage energy attacks do that, didn't know tesla coil could, since it's only 110 damage max.

Base assault is doing a lot better than I expected. The comment about time is true, it can easily take hours just to play it.

...and he died on the first swing. Whoops.

Lightsabers are not non-lethal weapons

Fortunately, good old fashioned bullets are still doing a great job. Seriously, I should have brought like 10 of these gyro guns.

I had the same problem. One knows that the church is all about golden shields, and that guns are the perfect solution, and then you bring a bunch of stuff that isn't good at dealing with that anyway. "Toolbox" thinking is hard to escape.


So, any bets on total enemies killed by the end? I'm thinking just below triple digits.

 

[turkishronin]

Does the game engine even support enemies existing in triple digits?

 

[lightbane]

Which difficulty level are you playing again? It seems to be that playing on Superhuman or the one below is for masochists and insane 'tubers, as otherwise you're going to be fighting hordes of enemies that the OG game was never prepared for. Base missions suck and those crammed with enemies even more. Even better, you still have more bases to take care of.

 

[std::namespace]

How could you possibly manage that?

i probably didnt turn 0, but 4elevators is usually quite at the start
float up/down is 16 tu and drop is 5, rest is walking, its fiiine
the peasants dont need all to survive, there are about 60+ enemies on the map, if your mines take 2 enemies for 1 peasant, its fiiiine in theory
you wont win the academy base with peasants for different reasons, just stop the initial rush at 4elevators and kill alot of goons

She might also just be flying, which would leave us unable to attack effectively.

thats why plategrills carry supermagnums... and work in duples

 

[Jaedar]

Does the game engine even support enemies existing in triple digits?

I've seen multipart missions with like 200 enemies reported at the end. Most I've seen in a single mission is 120 or thereabouts I think. It doesn't even chug that bad tbh, space/void missions are a lot worse. I think the engine is just poorly optimized for large volumes of empty space?

 

[std::namespace]

i suggest not to attempt the merc base xD
i forgot how nasty it is

 

[Damned Registrations]

Blaze of Glory

Well, so much for 'trickle of enemies.' Thankully their aim is kinda shit and they don't all have heavy plasmas.

Gandalf guns down one zealot and ducks behind cover... only to find another zealot! No time left to escape.

I bring a catgirl in as a potentially sacrifical lamb. Hopefully anyone far away shoots the zealot in the back.

Halfway to the centennial!

Well, they did indeed shoot him in the back. Problem is, they did it with flamethrowers and an inferno pistol.

One BBQ Catgirl, served to order.

Gandalf took a fair bit of damage too. I can't recall zombie gal resistance to fire, but I doubt it's very good.

I'm starting to take dumb risks and make mistakes too. No way should Modron be out in the open like this just to finish off a far away enemy.

The zealots in here are dealt with. Hopefully this noblewoman is one of the last higher ranking units.

So the dude in 500 lbs of armour couldn't take a single hit, but this bitch can?

Managed to get to catgirl in time. It was quite a chore, we had to ferry the extinguisher off of Belle and most of the crew left there doesn't have a large TU pool to begin with, and is suffering from low energy levels.

But we've got worse news. Behind that noblewoman is a fucking exalt. I don't even want to risk trying to finish off the noblewoman. Hopefully she won't find us around this corner.

I pull Horrid Soup, who is in mere chainmail, and a rat forward to serve as exalt bait.

Lenneth has an exciting time during the enemy turn. Apparently they have more inferno pistols. And plasma rifles. And some kind of blue energy bomb.

She lived though! And this dumb exalt flew over here into the open.

ANOTHER exalt is over here. Thankfully I had a soldier waiting nearby with a painbringer.

Apparently their armour doesn't explode like I thought. Been a while since I fought these.

Catgirl lived, but with only 5 health and 0 freshness, we'll need to babysit her with a canteen charge each turn for the rest of the level to keep her alive. And she won't be able to move due to sleeping every single turn.

I try an aimed shot at the noblewoman but we miss. This smoke must be incredibly thick to be fucking vision that badly through so few tiles.

Lenneth the god damned mobile fortress has once again shrugged off an obscene amount of firepower, this time directed at her back. Job well done. Reward: More job.

She had at least these 4 enemies firing at her. Her energy is too fucked to sprint around cutting them apart though.

At least modron handled the other exalt, and Soup vapourized the noblewoman.

Lenneth tucks in here. Even if we need a few turns to do it, we can build her energy back up for another sprint eventually.

Soup hides in a corner as well. I don't trust that fog of war.

Turn went by very quickly. I'm getting hopeful.

Exalt has 4 wounds. It's a stupid risk since they'll be blenders if they get back up, but I decide to try and bandage her to keep her alive. I want that force lance tech!

Soup finds a neophyte and mage. Both get the Edison special.

I make the mistake of trying to kill this berserking shrine maiden from a safe distance, but the geometry catches all our shots. At least I kept enough in the tank to return to cover this time. Modron is the last one standing with decent recovery each turn.

Lenneth isn't even close to full power, but we've got enough to walk through the security maze and stab this bitch in the back. We'll either find enemies lurking in there before they find us, or kill the cunt and have a save room to hide in.

Really starting to empty out our beachhead to try cover all the angles. Makes me nervous, but even Grog has it's limits. Namely, it lowers freshness when used, so we can't use it to keep morale and energy levels up any more for the units that really need it. Wish I'd brought more canteens of wisdom. Note to self: make like 50 just for long missions.

I brought our other zombie gal over to heal the exalt, but she doesn't have enough freshness to use the power. Whoops. Luckily the auto-loadout stuffed a bandage in her jewelry slot I was too lazy to remove.

Despite the wounds and lack of armour, Gandalf is still one of our better fighters at this point. Those reduced effects of low freshness are making a big difference, letting her keep moving properly each turn.

Man, and I thought the rimrider base was brutal. I did not expect this much resistance when we started and I saw all those maidens and neophytes.

Lenneth has finally made it to the second entry point.

After patching up the exalt it's apparently still dying of overstun. It's a dumb risk, because if she's at like 5 stun over 1 hp she could get back up and kill us, but I decide to feed her a beer, and it stabilizes her. Prisoner GET!

Speaking of prisoners, the farbag got back up. I just shoot the fucking thing. We've got 4 people left here, and only one of them is really still dangerous at this point. We need this over yesterday.

Modron has been carrying around a stasis grenade this whole time. I realize it's healing properties might, ironically, get the catgirl back on her feet, so we leave it here with her.

Painbringer finally lets me down after 55 turns. The warmaidens have thick enough frontal armour to shrug some bullets off, and Ladson has shit accuracy from this range. Now he's a sitting duck.

Starting to poke my head in the various side rooms looking for what is no doubt some random officer that will never move.

Gandalf still cleaning house. Our trusty autogun is almost out of ammo though. Should be enough for 3 or 4 more kills.

Okay, after burning all my TUs to get here and save ladson, I MISS a fucking 199% accurate strike to the back of this cunt's head. MATH. And I spot another zealot nearby too.

Well, that's fine. He's more of a threat to the warmaiden than Lenneth, and it saves Ladson from being discovered by him. Turns out the painbringer missing so we had to run Lenneth over actually saved him!

Get fucked zealot!

Our frontal armour has taken such a beating it's weaker than our rear at this point.

A Fartbag! Problem though; they only take 60% from electric damage, and we've only got TUs for a single snapshot. We run back around the wall instead.

The stasis grenade has less healing oomph that I thought, only restoring 2 health. Still, it might be enough.

I decide to risk bringing Belem over. She's the last unit with decent freshness and I was relying on that wand of airlessness to put the cardinal down, but she's also the only one with a good weapon. The shredder will anihilate that fartbag if it rounds the corner and takes out our peasant.

Turns out we didn't even need her though; the fartbag stayed in place more or less and a volley of 5 elec bullets put it down easily enough. Still, this room looks spooky so we bring her over as backup.

Exploring these side rooms is taking longer than I'd like. We really don't have the TUs to spare uncovering all these little hidey holes. Wish I still had some rats kicking around to do this more quickly and safely.

Another big scary room. Might be the command centre?

These are really the only spots left on the map that aren't explored, and they're both 4 sector rooms.

This one looks like a nasty chokepoint. Hopefully there isn't a firing squad waiting around those corners. It's a good spot for us to overwatch from our end though.

I finally remember I have a full health gal chilling in here waiting to be revived by some beer. She might be a rookie but she's still got full plate and a lot of health left.

Well shit. It's a fucking Beastmaster in the other big room. Due to the way they work, we'll basically need to kill her twice. Autogun don't fail me now!

Final enemy count: 86. Only 2 of which surrendered. Jesus christ, zealots indeed. Over 3000 infamy in a single mission. And holy shit that's a lot of hypno panels. Voodoo schools will not be a problem!

Surviving roster. Lenneth gained literally zero xp. I think she only needs gun training at this point. And voodoo skill, obviously.

Holy shit that's a big paycheck. Not to mention, we've got enough laser and plasma weapons now to arm... well about 86 people apparently! Sadly, we don't get any of the smelly rags or essence back from the ratmeister outfits. And look at all these cool new guns! Quickfire plasma pistol? Space Rangers' guns? Those forceblades are worth a bundle too.

That is a fuckton of hold. I'll keep some around for presumed voodoo purposes. It's not that hard to get honestly, shrine ships give a ton as well.

Apparently that govt dude was in power armour? And he still died in one hit like a bitch. Some fancy prisoners here, including a reverend! I don't remember catching him, maybe he surrendered?

Wow, I expected us to have burnt more stuff than that. I guess all the laser stuff wasn't really useful anyways.

New title for base raid?

Indeed! Though +1 TU feels pretty insulting for what we just went through.

RIP Fallen soldiers!

Still salty about losing that avenger armour. I really wanted her to be my elite for underground missions.

Now for the long trip back.

Seems we'll have some reading for them to do by the time they arrive...

 

[Jaedar]

Saved run?
Force blades are kind of a game changer imo. Money ain't bad either, nor is capturing one of each of all the high ranking church members.

i suggest not to attempt the merc base xD
i forgot how nasty it is

I suspect a single hovertank could solo win a base assault against Damned Registrations right now.

 

[Gumsmith]

It's a Christmas miracle!

 

[std::namespace]

Cardinal: This fucker. I won't be trying to capture him unless we get lucky. That lightning tome is incredibly powerful.

lol he is the ONLY reason to go to church base...

chrsalisk

chrysalisk

sir, starcraft is that way

...and general died on the first swing. Whoops.

its a soft hummie, there is like 35 hp on him

Lenneth the god damned mobile fortress

custom tailored to rape church goers

I MISS a fucking 199% accurate strike to the back of this cunt's head.

how is that even possible? anyone know?

Final enemy count: 86

epic
epic for the win

Holy shit that's a big paycheck.

should have tried to sell-everything count...

imagine getting intercepted on the way back...

 

[std::namespace]

Force blades are kind of a game changer imo

why? what do they do that sabers from day1 dont?

Spoiler

I suspect a single hovertank could solo win a base assault against Damned Registrations right now.

well yeah if he doesnt know how to quickly strip blue shit

 

[Damned Registrations]

Unicorns are a type of satan worship, because they have horns.

what do they do that sabers from day1 dont?

Laser damage, for starters. Though that's not a strict advantage. But judging by the way exalts cut down my gals in plate, they also basically ignore armour entirely.

imagine getting intercepted on the way back...

Thankfully, ships are immune to interception on the way back.

its a soft hummie, there is like 35 hp on him

Yeah that became obvious after the attack; I thought he might be some kind of super buff dude in heavy plate. Apparently it was a nerd in power armour


When I started the LP, I figured it had to be ironman or I'd just get bored at some point and quit. I was worried, however, that we'd end up in some shitty situation where we were effectively waiting to die for 6 months or something, because the game lends itself to that sort of stalemate; you can be lacking the means to go on missions or make money, while still able to defend (or hide) a base. However, we've instead had some really, really close shaves that have been really memorable. I honestly was not sure I was going to pull off the victory here. Lenneth could have easily been taken out by an exalt or even just some low level grunts spamming fire or charm attacks. If we'd lost such a high ranking unit the morale snowball probably would have ruined us. This has probably been the biggest win since the Rimrider base. That had felt like a pyrrhic victory but turned out to be totally worth it; despite losing some awesome units, the guns we looted there carried us through a lot of difficult encounters. Here's hoping this reward is similar- the money alone could let me build 2 krakens, whole new bases, or spend half a year turtling and researching all our new toys. That Cardinal is going to unlock the next rank up for sure. Maybe it'll reveal some awesome new contacts.

People have been commenting that I'm on a wild goosechase hoping for high tech stuff, but some of it really does make a huge difference. The craft upgrades in particular, but also the Flak cannons, the EP rounds, plate armour and all our extra medical facilities that let us keep doing missions and training instead of having the best gals benched for weeks every other mission. I think for now I want to refocus on weapons- this mission really showed how imporant having long range, accurate weapons is. Smartguns, hopefully some better craft weapons, and some auxilliart ammo types. I've realized Mercs are weak to bio weapons and intend to exploit that in the future by arriving with something better than knives and blowdarts. Some Bugeye wizards would be a massive boon as well; in conjunction with the rats to see through walls, they could have really caused havoc on this mission.

Now then, let's enjoy our loot!


So, first off- I seem to have discovered a bug. By being slightly wounded and recovering before the convoy returned, I was aparently able to teleport some of our crew back to the base and redpoly them on another vessel. Neat.

Gandalf Z was defnitely the MVP of the last mission, (aside from Lenneth and the rat) and so has earned a stasis pod to sleep in.

In general, since we've got no dropship and lots of people need rest anyways, I decide to go ahead and do a ton of training. Recovery times should be pretty fast between our 3 medical facilities.

Sister Francesca may not have the voodoo power, but has racked up enough experience to be a credible threat even as a mere peasant. Impressive.

Since we're flush with cash, I can afford to stop making grog and focus on making gear. Lots of toys in the works.

Ugh. Lame! Gimme a ship already. Maybe I need long range interceptors first before I can unlock a better dropship? The kraken is nice, but I want something faster that can load up a tank.

Alas, my dreams have been dashed. Our new base will need to go next to the lake, not in it.

More goodies purchased from the market.

Grabbed this on the off chance it wasn't a facility but rather related to the T-D lockers we got from the codex. Nope. Just a shitty waste of space.

I like that I can repair this armour. I wish more armours had this functionality. I suppose it matches well with the concept of zerg rushing the enemy with peasants.

Interesting! Not what I expected from this. Was kinda hoping to unlock lightning tomes actually. Also, disappointingly, this didn't actually unlock anything at all for us. Guess we need to see the witch first or something.

Those old earth weapon boxes aren't so impressive any more. Was hoping for a vibro sword. At least we got a few rags, but not enough for another ratmeister.

Our loot is overflowing. Well, our look and the rubble I forgot to clear out. I sell off some imp corpses and metal ore for now. If imp corpses are useful, I'm sure I will get more while hunting them for essence.

Exalt gave me this dossier. Cool, but not useful.

And that's the month! Rating is once again too low for a promotion, which I'm fine with. The last one triggered some sort of government feud or something apparently, though we've not seen an impact from that AFAICT.

Another promising tech with no actual payoff. Blah.

Well, this actually gives somehting in theory, but a power station is a bit out of our price range at the moment. Also, we got plenty o laser ammo already, thanks. But presumably it'll let us craft big craft lasers.

Not sure about these. Might be really nice, might be utter garbage.

Dang, that's a lot of gun.

About to send Luka on a mission and noticed something odd- the crew type number is a 2, sandwiched in with the gals. Weird. Maybe it's just one of the oldest unit types that got added? The shade was like, #27.

Bit of a dissapointment here, this is basically on par with the gyro-auto gun I think. Probably better vs hidden targets but worse otherwise.

Incoming missile swarm!

Get wrecked!

Alright, mission time for our new doll. As you can see, excellent stats for a rookie, aside from the hp. Also, 0 bravery and voodoo power.

Sadly, the mission had literally one enemy who died to someone else. Apparently it was enough to trigger the promotions though. Congrats Jaedar. Also, we're now ruled by the dead, apparently. That seems fair, they outnumber us by quite a bit.

It's so tempting to go after these landed church ships. Both to stop this sway government crap, but also just to loot their engines.

Another bit of loot we got from the base raid. I swear I've gotten these WAY earlier in another run. Not sure how.

Well shit, those both seem VERY exciting. Tempted to go there instead of researching weapons like I promised. But no, weapons first, toys later.

Wait, what?

Why on earth would anyone do this?

A 'hopper' eh? Sounds like a viable target to me!

It put up a better fiht than I expected, but still went down easily enough.

About to send Luka out again, it occurs to me to check the titles for ones that would be good for gaining hp. The best option seemed to be some kind of gas grenade launcher. Should be easy to rack up kills, relatively safe to use, and pretty useful as well. There's some other low hanging fruit like Lady Luck and monster hunter as well.

Seem's the hoppers important client was an Esper! These guys are equivalnt to a reverend I believe. Hopefully they can kickstart more voodoo tech!

I'm trying out the uni-puma suit as well. Hopefully we don't just get wiped out by reaction fire or a hidden cyberdisk or something.

Well, the whipe failed to stun, but the gas did the trick when I accidentally stumbled into it on the way back. Of course, that drained our TUs so we're stuck outside now.

Another nice target! Not sure what that weapon there is.

Another fucking gas mishap. I really hate using this ship.

Also, our 'invisible' catgirl got shot at plenty of times and was hit once. Could be wildly unlucky berserk fire from the researchers. Could be that stealthsuits are fucking garbage. Who knows? The fucking researchers doing the shooting certainly don't have sniper as a trait.

Says nothing can see us on the belt gizmo. Here's hoping?

Jaedar rushes the enemy craft in case it has another esper or something inside. Empty though.

I don't trust this suit at all so we hide way over in the corner here.

Jaedar got shot in the back while covering the cockpit door. Apparently there was an entrance on that side. Figures. Also, this lame ass ship doesn't have an engine!

Esper got back up. This is basically a skeleton crew thrown together that wasn't currently in or recovering from training, so our options are slim, especially as she seems to resist electricity. I try the tesla coil but it's fatal.

2 osiron security seem to be the last enemies standing. We rush one and take the other out from the air with another catgirl rocking the gyro gun.

Surprised we didn't lose anyone there with all those 'random' lasers firing at our catgirls from the berserked researchers.

Damn, I assumed Luka's stats were already near capped but that's some crazy TU and STA gains. Very nice! STR as well. And HP went up a bit, but I was expecting that.

Apparently their melee weapons were medical slicers? Might unlock something cool. They also had some 'organ carriers'. I think we need a ghoul researcher to make use of either. Ghoul Towns are a top priority mission now I think. We've got good gear to handle them and the rewards should be nice.

Oh come the fuck on! I built this like, a week ago! My fault for not doing it at the start of the month I suppose. 1.5 million down the drain.

Another Luka mission, I discover that despite immunity to choking damage, we can still lose a lot of morale and some TUs. Strange.

More crazy stat gains. I'm really curious to find out the caps now. Our dojo training certainly won't get near them.

Dang, that's even nicer than the gauss gun in some circumstances. Could shoot through a thin wall with the double tap, and the damage will be quite reliable with 2 separate rolls assuming both hit, and it's effectively adding 40% of the firing stat to damage this way. Definitely want one of these.

... okay that's actually pretty cool. Consider my opinion on using piratey weapons changed. Morale loss from the ninja side of things sucks, but whatever, that energy regen and the overall stats are awesome. I wish it just said the numerical ranks. Like fuck if I know what iron or silver skulls are.

Just realized that Syns are the reason for this weird ass calculation for blowpipe damage. Around ~300 stamina should equate to dealing 0 damage with it if my math is correct. Maybe still kind of abusable if I take the right sort of equipment? Probably not. I'm too lazy to find the ideal stamina number. I'd have to like, go to wolfram alpha and enable javascripts or something.

Ah, the ninjas have arrived.

Well, it went down easily enough once I fired the missiles, and we've got enough cash to spare for that purpose. But there's a small problem- we can't reload the missiles until fully repaired. So this interceptor is effectively grounded for a couple days now, and they have a lot more jets flying around. Seems we need a fleet. Or a warship with some shields and guns good enough to replace missiles.

Caught a church ship doing it's 'sway government' shit too close to our base. Time to collect an engine. And a reverend, apparently!

Luka also gets to practice with the cannon on the neophytes. Just need to research a gas variant like those exterminators get. There's the spore launcher, but it's aimed with voodoo so... meh. Note to self; give spore launcher to ogre with blaster master. That shit will have obscene accuracy. A shame it's deadly rather than standard choking damage.

Oh yeah, we can check his armour stats now. About what I expected. Very hefty shields.

Fuck this stupid worm and it's stupid gas mines!

It even tagged Lenneth who was nowhere near the ship. And now our lines of sight are totally fucked. Ditching this thing to start another kraken after this mission.

Fuck, they had a chryssalid as well. I end up having to stab it with Lenneth using this shitty ninja dagger I'm trying to train radical with. Luckily it worked, this was scary as fuck.

I bust out the mortars after that. Fuck this ship, lulling me into a false sense of security with those neophytes toting mini smgs.

I brought rats along too and glad I did- these cunts were hiding ANOTHER chrysalid upstairs, just waiting for me to come in looking for the pilot. What the fuck?

I circled the whole ship with the rat, was confided they only had the monster left inside, and brought a catigrl to fly over and take it out safely from the air. So obviously a zealot popped out and killed her with a shotgun. Cool. Also, sidenote- rats killed by chrysalids do not turn into zombies, thankfully.

Fucking thing even survived a mortar strike. See, this is why I need a bombard. So I can take out the entire ship while it's still inside.

The good news is, the catgirl was just a trainee. She'd gotten some dojo stats, but no real experience yet.

And we got our engine! Along with some other goodies.

Betrayer title? I think we got that for killing a rat. No way the catgirl was inside a mortar blast. That kinda sucks, rats spotting for mortars would be a great strat, but the betrayer title has a hefty morale penalty iirc.

Apparently we could do this again? Doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd be expected to do more than once... I'll hold off for now and interrogate him instead. Hell, maybe the book is needed for a facility or something later.

Apparently I CAN craft these. Definitely going on the queue after we make the kraken. Even if the kraken can't hold one... ugh. New dropships please!

They're doing a ton of these now, with cruisers, terror ships, all sorts of scary crap. I miss the days of being able to send out a dropship to something like this and simply flee if it got back up to intercept us.

Not sure if this was from the reverend or a beastmaster. We still have a lot of prisoners to work though.

Damn, this is even better than I'd hoped. It doesn't actually boost voodoo power or skill, but it works in sea or space (quite well in space actually) and has both respectable armour and a shield! Will be great for space missions or underwater where the gold shields really shine and it gets extra mobility.

It's not even that hard to make. Aqua plastics are a bit rare but we can carve up some lobstermen to get them. We got lots of the other parts. Bugeye squad incoming!

This was a bit disappointing. It seems like a slightly better painbringer? The weapon damage is a bit higher, but not being able to simply buy dozens of clips would suck. I was really hoping for a bio smg like the scourge. Oh, and it's default ammo sets things on fire and deals a ton of morale damage. I suppose that's useful, but fire is annoying too.

Another neat UAC variant. Trying to do heavy mining with a goblin sounds like a pain in the ass though. But these underground missions have become way more appealing since I got the ratmeister outfit. A shame our worm got sold off. I should have transferred it to avalon instead, and at least used it for missions like this while we wait.

Turns out the tech tree viewer thing from the manufacturing page does spoil stuff. Not that 'fusion pwr' is much of a spoiler in this case. Also, do we really have 29% of the tech tree? Damn. That is.... something.

Anyways, this is the only production I currently really want to unlock. Fuck if I know what it needs though. I'd assume something like a casino or a more general progression marker like that industrial printer or a power source. I'm going to be stoked when I find this thing is ready to go some day.

School is in session! We got some nice candidates here. Ogres don't have much power variation, but gals do and Gandalf is way up there. Same with Belem Belle, Jaedar, and a few of our Bugeyes. Not sure how quitck this training is going to happen compared to the facility you get with the gray codex, but I'm stoked to see it happen at all. Also, I can finally see changes to skill from various training transformations.

 

[std::namespace]

Gandalf Z was defnitely the MVP of the last mission

who got the most kills?

 

[Jaedar]

Force blades are kind of a game changer imo

why? what do they do that sabers from day1 dont?

Spoiler

I suspect a single hovertank could solo win a base assault against Damned Registrations right now.

well yeah if he doesnt know how to quickly strip blue shit

Spoiler

He doesn't know.
As for force blades:
They have a much easier time killing fools in power armor or tanks, since they ignore 50% armor, and since laser tends to have a better modifier than cutting. Basically, they're a weapon you can use the whole way into endgame. You can carve up sectopods with them, no issue.

Also, we're now ruled by the dead, apparently. That seems fair, they outnumber us by quite a bit.

I think you had better note that king > generic royal.

Why on earth would anyone do this?

Genius loci only give cash, industrial scanners might be useful for something very important?

Seem's the hoppers important client was an Esper!

Damn shame they died, picking up a live esper would be great.

Jaedar got shot in the back while covering the cockpit door. Apparently there was an entrance on that side. Figures. Also, this lame ass ship doesn't have an engine!

See that fire? That used to be an engine. Congratulations on finally getting weapons strong enough to actually damage the ufos you shoot down!

 

[turkishronin]

I'm too lazy to find the ideal stamina number

The ideal stamina number is 180 and maximum damage bonus will be 32

 

[Average Manatee]

Just realized that Syns are the reason for this weird ass calculation for blowpipe damage. Around ~300 stamina should equate to dealing 0 damage with it if my math is correct. Maybe still kind of abusable if I take the right sort of equipment? Probably not. I'm too lazy to find the ideal stamina number. I'd have to like, go to wolfram alpha and enable javascripts or something.

Calculus, my friend.

Derivative is .36 - 0.002*Stamina which = 0 at 180 stamina, for a power of 32.4 (+5 base = 37.4). First time I've used this knowledge in a decade.

 

[turkishronin]

It doesn't make in-game sense though. Why would you put less damage with the weapon if you have more durable lungs?