Hoo boy, it's gonna be a long one.
First thing of note: I finished off an escape tower mission by having Lightbane possess the dog inside the craft and maul everyone to death, rather than cut my way in. Two discoveries; the first is that 'bugeye voodoo' counts as a weapon for the purpose of titles, and the second is that kills made with possessed enemies are credited to the unit that possessed them! This makes sense thematically, but I'd have never expected the engine to handle that properly. Very cool. As a result, Lightbane now has the slasher and primal titles.
Found out ninja apc turrets are great for training the gal of steel title. Totally on purpose, of course.
Very curious about this whole plot/tech line. The way water or space missions would work was somewhat intuitive, but I've got no idea what some hell dimensions might be like, or what sorts of loot or enemies or allies might be accessed through it.
Well this is new. And alarming.
Man, the way camo/stealth is handled is so weird. I somehow have half accuracy to hit this person I know is there who is within my LoS...
But full accuracy for shooting directly through them.
Ninjas seem to have upgraded their weaponry. This is one of those fancy heavy carbine things. I think we researched it ourselves, or from a scroll maybe.
The plasma gun isn't so great vs armored targets (at least if you're not an ogre) but it works just fine on these unarmored ninja gals.
Altogether a decent result.
Ooh, a proper emp grenade, not a minibomb. That might come in handy. Or we could research it and make more?
In retrospect, not sure what country they were trying to sway here. Closest one is rogue fields and it's quite far off.
Man, that particular city cannot catch a break.
Oh, I remembered to recruit the castaway. Tits Randy's 3rd incarnation will surely be the winner.
Interesting. Would have been nice to know that...
Before this had already finished. Ah well.
Between the warning from the black mask research and the fact she keeps paying me fucktons of money, I'm thinking this is probably a trap. Mind you, even if it's not, this isn't a high priority right now. As much as I want new voodoo toys, I want to get ahead of the tech game even more, and start clearing out these enemy bases before we're overwhelmed. Going to keep focusing on armor and craft for now, along with more imediate voodoo results.
Not exactly an impressive piece of equipment. Maybe it's actually accessible pretty early, or usable in stealth missions or something? I could see it being useful for a ninja built peasant, but they kinda lack the TUs for that...
Welcome to mutant culling mission number two! Or three? It's the second in this last month at least. Interestingly, the map seems to be a kind of rural area with lots of open space. It's neither the one we got last time, nor the one we got when we did the govt defense mission in this same city. Weird.
Now that I know what weapons they use and what to use on them (mostly) I'm pretty confident we can win this. I don't quite have a full crew, but we've got 2 gals in mesh armour, Luka, and 3 bugeyes in cybermage gear. Everyone has shields that can totally shrug off the background chem effect, and basically are immune to both chem and bio. The enemies don't have the mundane weapons that would pierce them, so I'm really only concerned about electric damage piercing purple shields, which those weird blue energy beams might be dealing. Also, I've got an idea! Reaction fire can't normall happen upon opening a door because both parties are surprised at once, right? But what if you've got someone with sense watching the door and they see the enemy before they open it? I'll get first strike right?
These are the guns I'm concerned about. So I'll target the ones wielding them first.
First turn is pretty noisy. Also, I just remembered chrysalids will be here too, and that wand of pain won't do shit to one of them. Should probably give the door guard a spear.
A new type of enemy! Makes sense they'd have beastmasters, since they work with chryssalids and thos weird rock things.
Accidentally let Lenneth get tagged, and sure enough, those blue beams go right through the shields. Oh, right, lasers do that too. Probably just laser guns then. Derp.
This guy again, and with the same gear as last time.
The EP rounds aren't doing as well as I'd hoped. I think we might want something with a bit more armour pen.
They don't seem to have any fliers, so all we gotta do is play popamole.
I may not know what the specs are for the blue shields, but I've got data for 3 others. Them each having different weaknesses seems like a safe bet, so if I exclude the types that slip through the other three, the ones that might work here are... Bio, Chem, Cutting, Daze, EMP, Plasma and Fire. Man, this game has a ton of damage types. Also, none of these would be terribly convenient for capturing this dude, since he resists everything except cutting, which isn't exactly the capture element.
Still, time to do some research.
Welp, plasma gets stopped.
EMP also gets stopped. I think I knew that from trying it on a hovertank before.
Fuck, I left a bugeye outside! The shields are shrugging off a lot of attacks... but eventually he's just overwhelmed. These guys all have spotter/sniper so he's eaten all the guns on the map right now.
On the flipside, I managed to snag the beastmaster!
I didn't get a screenshot and the message at the bottom is misleading, but I confirmed that daze will go through blue shields by using a stasis grenade. Alas, I only brought 2 of them, and no other big daze weapons that might be enough to knock the guy out easily. Also forgot to bring fire weapons, so can't even test that.
Popamoling continues.
Finally get a visitor. Spear does the trick, though it did get to take a step first. Maybe my SENSE overwatch theory is no good?
Man, these guys are numerous and like to clump up like crazy. Wish I had a safe spot to set up a mortar.
Having a bugeye pop out and scout every turn for me is so nice, but it's also one of those things that makes turns take a lot longer. Warlord finally seems to be approaching the ship though!
The bugeyes do have a major drawback- they lose 3 freshness per turn. Good thing I brought a lot of smokes.
Turn after turn of gunning down like 2-3 enemies each time. I've had to refill ammo multiple times by now.
This zombie apparently set itself on fire by walking through the flames over there. Man, tracking all these down is going to be a total pain, and the mission won't end until I do.
Apparently these guys leave a trail of fire while moving. Neat.
Fortunately, I think their range sucks, so we can just pick them off with sniper rifles.
Another beastmaster shows up. Corpses are pitling up like crazy.
Was starting to be a lull by floating one tile higher reveals that no, there's still a ton out there.
These guys definitely have some kind of crazy regen or something, the captive one keeps getting back up, and seems to be doing it more frequently as time goes on. I decide to start shooting him instead of using the taser bit. At least it's free training? I'd really prefer to have an extra body free right now though. Wish I'd brought that rod of bliss. I should make an extra.
It's been so long that even the expert with lots of freshness is tapped out. Thankfully the constant stream of kills is keeping morale up.
I swear these guys are fucking multiplying. Even accounting for regen waking them back up when they go down 'wounded', there's just so fucking many of them.
It drags on...
and on...
And on... I literally went 10 turns without anything noteworthy happening, except that I've been massacring them for ten turns.
I used up all the rounds of the custom snipin' gun, so I had to switch to the old one for taking out chrysalids and other targets from afar. Also, there's so few enemies with weapons left I decide to leave lenneth out here to snipe.
Huh, another rocky. This one came nice and close, and merely got knocked out. I think they're immune to bleed.
The beastmaster I kept shooting ended up dying. Shit. I mean, he was getting back up every fucking turn, that shouldn't happen to a low hp target taking massive stun damage. These things are weird.
Kenny goes insane and stands outside to get shot at. Lovely.
Another beastmaster arrives. Well, we can replace our captive I suppose.
Warchief is here too. Are they finally going to converge on the ship? These are the last 4 autogun bullets, btw. I brought 280. Given the reliability... they probably downed about 60 enemies. Plus all the sniper shots, plus some extra from other guns.
It's a good thing Luka and Lenneth are effectively immune to freshness loss.
Finally another chrysalid shows up. I'm not sure how many are out there, but we've already killed 5 or so. The warchief as already gone berserk multiple times, so it should be over once I finish off the zombies.
Look at this shit!
Warchief ends up over in this house. I'm tempted to try run over and just punch the fucker out, but that's too far even for Luka to do safely, especially with maybe more enemies back there.
I decide to move Luka down here instead. No flying enemies to fuck us over this time. Though the bugeye might go berserk and stab us...
Naturaly, the warchief has fucked off to who knows where.
We do spot another zombie though.
Angel went crazy this time. Thankfully, she didn't run all the way out of cover, and the enemy that ran into her was no threat.
I ran up to kil the chryssalid, only to find a second fucking chryssalid right behind it. Are they all just chilling in the map corners for 50 turns? That whole 'enemies zerg rush you after X turns' thing seems like bullshit.
A THIRD fucking one of them after I get close enough to stab the second one. We don't have the TUs to safely run away either. Fuck.
Thankfully, it didn't rush at us, and instead ended up over here, where we could snipe it.
I'm loathe to do it, but I think I need to send Luka out onto the map to hunt down the remaining zombies. The AI clearly can't handle maps this size and is just stuck in a corner somewhere. And only Luka has the NV to not get fucked while doing this.
Enemies still going berserk all over. Or taking shots at Lenneth. Hard to say.
Well, it's not a zombie but maybe this beastmaster is the last sane Eridian? The warchief went bonkers already, but we damaged him somehwat, while this guy has been untouched.
Well, I killed him... but I have made a grave error. I let our energy get too low. Luka's stun recovery is balanced at 300 energy. Above 300, and we recover stun each turn. Below 300, and we gain stun each turn. Energy recovery is based on freshness. We're going down, and won't wake up for quite a while, if ever. In retrospect, doing the math... I think about 15 turns and she'd have woken back up.
We spot a zombie over here too. At least we have a goal.
Nothing for it but to send Lenneth out. I don't have any guns that would be good vs a chryssalid, so we're rocking the vibro spear and a prayer.
Manage to get all the way back to this far corner where the fucking warchief is hiding. He almost certainly spotted us getting into position here, but it's the best cover I can get nearby, and he'll probably go berserk or insane anyways.
Or this could happen.
Well that's not good.
We have JUST enough TUs to take him down with the sunblades I brought along. Obviously, this was super fucking lethal, so the whole reason I took a bunch of risks instead of just carpet bombing everyone to death is now moot. No warchief captive for us.
Thankfully we're carrying rum, so we can recover most of the wounds. We're in dire straights though, our freshness is really hampering our energy recovery and even TU recovery now.
Time to send Risin Angel out as well I guess. We have to use a fucking painbringer because these guys resist lasers and we're out of other decent longer range weapons. Well, except the shredder, but we've got no energy for that.
I sent one of the bugeyes out here as well, to try pull Luka back incase this goes completely to shit and we have to flee. Losing Luka is not an option, she breaks too many game elements, letting us fight things we shouldn't. Like mutant cullings, apparently.
Okay then. They must have started running out of ammo too after 70 turns or so.
Apparently he had a vibro-ax. Not terribly exciting, unless it cuts through walls like butter, which it might. Also, this guy's gun is the first one I've seen where the ammo won't display damage values. Weird. Maybe it's amazing?
What a fucking clusterfuck. It was going so well for the first 40 turns too.
Risin Angel picks a real shit time to go insane. Though it wasn't in their description, I think the Eridians are incapable of surrender. Sure wish I'd known THAT bit of info before trying to scour the map for chryssalids instead of picking off all the snakemen from a safe distance.
Lenneth isn't close enough to intervene either. Between the freshness loss and torso wounds, we've got fuck all for energy recovery.
Snakeman, or chryssalid? I forget which is was. I think snakeman though. Taking down Angel seems to have boosted their morale, even though it should have been shitcanned after their leader died.
Some fucker is all the way over in that barn trying to snipe me. Sniper is such a bullshit trait. I mean, we have it innately too, to be fair. But still!
Oh, and Kenny over here, whom I'd been trying to get set up to launch a mortar into the blackness wherever I see guns firing, kept going insane and berserk and eventually fired the mortar at himself. Despite totally lacking the TUs to even do that. Cool. Good to know that can happen.
Not exactly helping my morale here guys. Thankfully, the last bugeye still alive is nearby and since we don't need to revive Angel now, I can give the canteens to lenneth to recover some morale. And patch her last wound.
Well, this was the last turn. The bugeye kept going insane each turn. Wanna guess how it ended?
