Let's Play UFO - Aftermath : Victory!

[Pope Amole]

Armor, of course. Pope is lvl 7 already and I don't really want to see him martyred soon. B-sides, since we can use trophy weapons, we're not really tight on this front, now, personal protection on the other hand...

 

[lightbane]

Armor, of course.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Go for armour. You won't need alien weapons that soon, much of the Earth-weaponry remains useful for a long while.

 

[Azira]

Votes! I've also linked it in the introductory post, but here, have a link to the intro video.

 

[korenzel]

You seem to survive well enough even without advanced armor, so go for guns.

 

[Orgasm]

I'm mostly doing this LP for my own amusement anyway.

Whom are you kidding?

 

[Fafnir]

Armor, of course.

 

[Azira]

6 votes for armour, 1 for guns. Armour it is then. I expect the next update will be up in a couple of hours.

 

[Azira]

New armour, mutant autopsies and biomass

Last time we had a vote, and focus on armour won out 6-1 against focus on weapons. The question wasn't about what to research as such, but what to start producing first, as the research was easily done.
Our researches quite quickly summed up their knowledge not only in the field of armour, but also in current weaponry, namely plasma and psi weaponry.






This leads us to be able to produce our own first suit of hybrid armour.




Compare this to a suit of heavy armour that our soldiers recovered in a base expansion mission, and you can see the stats on this most basic human/alien hybrid armour is quite inferior.



The advantage of the hybrid armour over heavy armour though, is that it does not hamper mobility. Equipping heavy armour slows a trooper just as if he was carrying heavy weaponry such as RPGs.
Our troops seem to fare well, despite not having the new armor issued to them yet.



In this picture, we see a new kind of mutant, the Deathbellows. This one's nasty. It "shoots" swarms of insects that do DoT in an area effect. Basically, get a heavily armored tropper caught in such a swarm, and you can only watch him die horribly as the insects seem to ignore armour. I did not deploy heavy armor in this mission, but one of the troopers got caught in the edge of the swarm and went KO. (not pictured) These mutants can be safely engaged at distance, making sniper rifles that much more effective. You just need to have a fast spotter, as, for some reason, this mutant manages to stay hidden until you're almost right next to it.





We also see a new mission here, to recover a downed fighter pilot. What was nasty about this mission is that our group spawned right in the middle of several car crabs, and a mutant called a slimethrower. Both of these mutants have relatively short ranged attacks, if they hadn't well. I doubt the mission had ended in succes. You can see 6 of each type of mutant in this screenshot, and there are more off-screen.
During this and a couple of other missions, our researches uncover some facts about some of the mutants we've encountered so far. I'll let the descriptions speak for themselves:















These autopsies allude to future weapons doing warp and lightning damage. How useful they turn out to be has yet to be seen. As korenzel mentioned, the currently deployed weapons seem to be serving me well so far, so I am in no hurry. I want better armour first and foremost, as it'll save me from having to stop every so often to apply first aid to the troopers.
And better armor is what they shall get!




This is a definite compared to the first alien/human hybrid armor produced. As you can see in the second screenshot, there will be to further iterations of this armor to produce, once I encounter it on the field of battle and manage to bring home a KO'ed alien wearing it.
This last screenshot in this update shows us two patches of biomass that are spreading in asia and the north pole.



The aliens deploy UFOs called "planters" which seed the biomass. If the biomass reaches one of the bases, that base is lost forever. Our priority now, research-wise, is to gather a sample of this biomass, so we can come up with a counter to it. Unfortunately, no "gather a sample" missions have yet cropped up, but they will come.
I hope to show just that in the next update. In the meantime, do you want a small update on how the recruits are coming along? Everyone on the list is now in, and there's an unnamed recruit waiting for a proper callsign, or for the death of one of the regulars, whatever may come first.

 

[spekkio]

First LP and already turning into a whining attention whore?

:disappointdad:

PROTIP:

Never edit older posts (some people may miss your valuable edits), self-bumping is the way to go.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Sign Garf up then too!

 

[Azira]

First LP and already turning into a whining attention whore?

:disappointdad:

I learn from example, spekkio.

@GarfunkeL
Right, the unnamed meatbag shall now carry your proud callsign.

I hope to get another update or two up tonight. Have to write them first though. I've got 55 screenshots that I'm sort of happy with, now to affix some halfway meaningful commentary to them.

 

[Storyfag]

Protip: I write comments as I take the screenshots. With my attention span, I tend to forget what happened during a mission if I don't do that!

 

[Crooked Bee]

do you want a small update on how the recruits are coming along?

Yup!

 

[Sergiu64]

Sure on the recruits if it doesn't slow you down too much. Oh yeah, can you get my guy to use FN Five-Seven Tactical? Kinda like that handgun from other games.

 

[Azira]

@Storyfag
That's sound advice. I might start doing that. Up until now though, I've had a clear idea of what I wanted to do with the screenshots I take, and remembering where what goes haven't been difficult. Yet.
Keeping notes is sounding like a better idea by the moment though.

@Bee
Much obliged. An update on the roster will follow after the scheduled update gameplay wise, which should be online within 5 minutes.

@Sergiu64
I'll take a look at the handgun. Handguns in general are only worth it during close assaults in this game, and then a shotgun is often much more effective, but I'll gladly let you tote the FN5/7 around and have you storm the enemy if that is what you fancy.

 

[Azira]

Aircraft upgrades, secret russian facility, biomass research

Last time we saw that our blue planet had been seeded with a sinister biological agent dubbed "biomass". If left unchecked, this growth will cover the entire globe, oceans included, and destroy all life from bacteria through to complex, multi-cellular organisms.
Now, we wouldn't want that, would we? So we continue our valiant fight against the alien invaders.



The biomass is spreading at an alarming rate. We need a sample of it taken from a mission inside the infected area though, before our research can continue. And such a mission doesn't show up for quite a while. So our group must make do with other missions and research.





Missions are rarely completed now, without at least one of the group going KO during the mission, and so The Viking is kept busy.
Our researchers are likewise kept busy. Denied a sample of the biomass to study, they turn their attention to the many corpses of mutants they have lying around.

















Studying all these mutants turn out to be worth the effort though, as our scientists are beginning to be able to piece together a larger picture.




So. The mutants are created as a result of this "seeding" with what becomes the biomass. Does this mean we can consider the mutants rough equivalent of white blood cells in the larger organism that is to be the biomass? This sounds more and more like something Frank Herbert might have written.
Mutants isn't the only thing being researched, and our intercepters receive some love as well, as do our radar capabilities meaning we should be able to more efficiently counter the planter UFOs, and hopefully hinder any further seeding of biomass.








Our personal arsenal also sees some minor upgrades.





The only one of these that actually sees uses is the psi crusher, as it is more damaging than the alien equivalent. Both the laser rifle and plasma shotgun are technically inferior, as the alien laser rifles and neostadt shotguns outperform them.
Finally, we get a mission inside seeded area. There, we spot some weird new mutants (you've already seen the research results for some of the biomass exclusive creatures, the muckstar and scuttlebugs).




The mutants remain relatively minor threats when compared to the aliens we now know as Reticulans. Our mission into the biomass infected area immediately leads to new research avenues, that we are quick to take advantage of.








This breakthrough isn't a moment too soon, as we can see from this picture.



One of our bases is almost overrun by the biomass, and before we can install one of these biomass repulsors, it is lost.
We rush to install repulsors in the bases now closest to the growth.




Not depicted is two bases near greenland also being retrofitted with biomass repulsors. This should buy us much needed time to research and develop better arms and armor.
While all this is going on though, we receive urgent news:



A secret russian facility holds secret that we need to uncover to properly fight this alien menace. So, our top soldiers are handpicked, all decked out in "sun" armour and sent to retreive the package. They receive a warm welcome indeed.




This is the first time we encounter reticulans wearing armour surrounded by blue and green energy fields. The reticulan armour is colour-coded by the energy field. From weakest to strongest they are grey, yellow, blue and green. The one above is much harder to bring down than those encountered in previous missions.



There are several of them, right next to our entry point and most of the squad is quickly KO, despite having our top-tier armor. Only luck (and a frustrated reload after losing the entire squad, hey, I never said I was ironmanning this thing) saves us from losing a teammember within the first 10 seconds of this mission.
The mission is a two-parter. For some strange reason though, no aliens are encountered in the second map. Here's a picture of JoKa with our objective. A mysterious suitcase..



And the result of the mission speaks for itself.



All soldiers wounded, 5 of them KO during the fight.
A very positive side-effect of this mission is that now we have both the blue and green armours ready for research, and our boys in engineering is hard on the task. Once we deck out the team in the bio-suit (the green iteration), they will be rocking the finest armour mankind will create during this conflict.
In the end, this update didn't quite span 55 pictures, as I culled some of them during the writing. My focus is primarily on the progression of the game, and on the research topics which is what I found most enjoyable myself when I last played the game.
If there is something you want to see explained in more detail, feel free to chime in.

 

[GarfunkeL]

You were damn lucky none of the Reticulans had alien missile/grenade launchers. I remember that mission with dread, not having alien armour at all and then getting brutally raped by their missile launchers when entering the compound.

 

[dextermorgan]

How do you feel about the game so far? Also, is my trusty RPG-7 effective at weeding out the kafir?

 

[Azira]

@GarfunkeL
They did have both missile launchers and plasma throwers, which equal grenade launchers, and yes, they hurt like heck! That's also the reason 5 of the team went KO. I only succeeded at this mission by sniping from afar. That way, the plasma throwers are delightfully inaccurate, and the missiles travel slow enough that you have a chance to move out of harms way. Not completely though, as we did take heavy damage time and again.
As to the entrance to the compound, I had the team take up camping positions just outside the main gate. Two people wielding shotguns and the rest with rifles/sniper rifles meant that any single reticulan that tried to move up on us died before getting the chance to fire a single shot. Was dicey though, and I did reload once on this mission.

@dextermorgan
It's my second time playing this game, and I'm having fun. :D As to your soldiers efficiency, I gave him a plasma thrower instead of the RPG-7. It does slightly less damage, but can fire several times for a single reload and it doesn't slow your character to a walk. He's inaccurate with it, but the splash damage makes up for this.

 

[Azira]

Proper soldiers

Alright, you wanted an update on the current roster, and let me just tell you. Most of these are proper soldiers now! The 7 soldiers on the bottom left of the screen are all returning from a mission, hence the helicopter icon in their portrait. The 5 soldiers that were wounded in the assault on the secret russian facility are still in recovery, hence the small light-blue cross on their portraits.



Storyfag continues getting even more awesome as he racks up the kills and experience. He's suited up with the sun armour, giving him a decent all-round protection, and he wields the sniper rifle with deadly precision. His marksmanship, psi power and observation skills are all through the roof, he's also the highest levelled trooper of them all. Level 13. And he started out a mere level 1 those many missions ago.



Bee is an impressive soldier in her own right. One level behind Storyfag, she cannot claim the same extraordinarily high skills as he, but she fulfills her role as well as any. She was the first to be given the human-developed Psionic Crusher. The description of this weapon seems to suggest it has an area effect. This I cannot confirm yet, but what I can confirm is that Bee is deadly with it.



PopeAmole is no mere medic now. He's a trained killer, always in the frontline dealing death with a shotgun, and then patching up his allies once the dust clears. Like Storyfag and Bee, he has qualified for and completed all available training sessions, so now he will focus on improving his efficiency with the shotgun and the medipac.



Lucas has earned a spot among the elite by virtue of spawning with just the right attributes. Only level 9, but he has already completed all training courses. Very good skills all over the line, except for observation, aliens (which gives a bonus to all damage inflicted) and medical which are excellent. Lucas serves as a support character, armed with the multi-purpose alien laser rifle.



chzr is so far the last soldier to complete all training courses. Her skill with the sniper rifle earns her a spot in most missions if she's out of the medibay. She has heroic observation skill, vital for a sniper as it enables her to spot enemies further off. She and Storyfag are the reason the whole team weren't raped horribly in the assault on the russian facility.



Phoenix has been fitted with the sun armor and was awarded a place in the strike team that infiltrated the russian facility. He still has a few levelups before he can take the last two training sessions, but he's vital for the team as it is already.



Gondolin has more mediocre stats but is only level 7 still. His speed is very good though, meaning he can keep up with the rest of the team when on away missions. His poorer aim doesn't matter as much as falling behind would, and he'll level up soon enough with the current rotation.



Sergiu64 was spawned with the altogether wrong combination of attributes. He was level 6 when drafted into service, yet didn't qualify for a single training session. After he leveled up to 7, he could train as a soldier, which improves his speed enough to put it at very good. He still has quite some way to go, but he's good with a laser rifle. We'll soon see how he fares with an FN 5/7 handgun.



EdwardRM.. What can I say? His attributes qualified him for sniper training out of the box, so I could've stuck him with a sniper rifle, and probably should have. Instead I gave him a laser rifle and told him to try and keep up with the rest of the team. His poor speed means I don't use him unless it's a low-risk mission. Still, given time and experience, he will be as mean a killing machine as the rest of them.



dextermor has heroic skill with launchers and only excellent with throwing, and still I gave him an alien plasma thrower reliant on the latter skill. The reason for this was speed. Being limited to walking speed is no laughing matter. Though I presume he could keep the launcher in his pack and only take it out when needed. If that allows him to run with the rest of them, I will let him do that on his next mission.



spekkio! He's the second psionic on the team, toting one of the alien-made psionic weapons. Not quite as effective as the psionic crusher, it still easily damages the otherwise heavily shielded officers of the reticulan race. In his backpack, he's carrying an FN P90 for backup use, same as Bee. It hasn't seen use yet though, as the psionic weapons hold 50 charges each mission and I have yet to run out. Only 1 levelup away from acing all training courses.



JoKa. Heroic skill with the shotgun, and excellent speed. He's first in, last out. He was the one trusted with the task of picking up the mysterious suitcase in the russian facility. His wounds from that mission were severe enough that he is currently residing in the medibay. He'll soon be out slaughtering aliens again though. He's my #1 point man.



Korenzel is also just 1 session away from learning all that the training courses aim to teach. He's a solid core fighter, and armed with the alien laser rifle, he can safely kill most enemies before they get close enough to pose serious threat.



K. Slips. Started out rubbish, same as Sergiu64, but has improved since then. He has excellent psi power and will probably be issued a psionic crusher as soon as spekkio and Lucas has theirs.



And finally, the newest member of the team, Garf. His attributes qualify him for psionic training immediately and he will also be issued a psionic crusher ASAP. Until then though, due to his speed, he's been issued with a sniper rifle.

 

[Azira]

I do not expect to be able to update tomorrow, and possibly not friday nor saturday. Come sunday though, I expect to be able to produce an update, however small it might end up being.

 

[anus_pounder]

From the looks of it, I don't think you'll need new recruits anytime soon, but w/e. Signing up as whatever you happen to need at the time of recruitment or psi, though I think bee has that covered.

 

[lightbane]

Lucas has earned a spot among the elite by virtue of spawning with just the right attributes. Only level 9, but he has already completed all training courses. Very good skills all over the line, except for observation, aliens (which gives a bonus to all damage inflicted) and medical which are excellent. Lucas serves as a support character, armed with the multi-purpose alien laser rifle.

Let's hope you can give him a better armor than the one he's currently using as soon as possible.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Nice fighting there.

Bee is an impressive soldier in her own right. One level behind Storyfag, she cannot claim the same extraordinarily high skills as he, but she fulfills her role as well as any. She was the first to be given the human-developed Psionic Crusher. The description of this weapon seems to suggest it has an area effect. This I cannot confirm yet, but what I can confirm is that Bee is deadly with it.