I've tried something in this LP, that I haven't bothered with in my previous playthroughs of Aftershock. I've built defensives structures.
And now one of the territories proteced by a defensive structure has come under attack!
Not trusting the militia one bit, but curious to see how they compare with the militia you can encounter in help missions, we launch the mission.
A single human. Equipped with an assault rifle.
If we hadn't taken the mission on, the territory would definitely have been lost.
Ohwell, let's take a look at the opposition. We order the troops to form a firing line outside this factory in which we start.
Bee, the first at her spot, sees a Wargot Power armour.
Nasty creature. Better aim for the head, some critical hits there will keep it down, make it almost harmless.
And soon thereafter.
Another power armour! That's a first in my playthroughs.
It drops just as easily as the first though, and the two wargots that accompanied the power armours are no threat either.
Here's the glossary for the ordinary wargots and their scout drones.
Drones are quite harmless, but depending on the weapons they're wielding, you want to drop ordinary wargots quickly. Being knocked on your ass by exploding grenades or missiles can ruin your battleplan.
The mission briefing said it was a joint cultist/wargot attack, yet we've seen no cultists.. I send JoKa and Desmodus to investigate.
Ah, there you are. I send Gondolin and dextermorg to help clean up.
Easy peasy, just a few nicks in the armour.
Let's take a look at what new equipment has become available. The storyline hasn't progressed yet, I hope to advance it by the next update.
Plasma weaponry first.
The shotgun is quite effective as we saw in the last update.
Our scientists have also come up with a type of weaponry that's unique to the humans. We've seen neither wargots nor reticulans use this kind of weaponry.
It says non-lethal damage. That's not quite true. You can easily kill stuf with sonic weaponry. In my last playthrough, I remember a 9000+ damage critical hit from the sonic gun..
I tend to not use these weapons though.
We've also researched a bunch of new weapon add-ons which will help offset the poor accuracy of plasma guns for instance.
I've not depicted all accessories, the sniper scope for instance only fits on sniper rifles, and all snipers are already issued these. But the movement finder and underbarrel laser sights are new additions, which can be a great help in improving the accuracy of otherwise sub-par weaponry.
The cyborgs also get some love.
This is their default armour.
We've now researched an upgraded version.
Now, cyborgs wouldn't be much to look at, if you couldn't also give them new limbs..
These limbs give +1 to their respective stats. The advanced versions give a +2 bonus. You can also give a cyborg better sight.
I've given our sniper cyborg, Cassidy the reticule eye. The rest of the gang I've given infra-eye implants, to help spot those annoying muckstars.
Our psionics have also gained access to better equipment.
Psionic equipment is divided into several categories: circlet, collar, suit and vambraces.
Once I've produced them, Phoenix will get the Life-drain circlet, and Bee the Vivid image circlet. :twisted:
Bee has the trueshot vambraces, and Phoenix is in line to receive the life sink vambraces..
Phoenix will get the motivation collar, Bee the escape collar.
Both already have this suit of armour, which is the best available for squishy psionics. They'd better keep out of harms way.
Our pure-bred human troopers also get some new add-ons for their armour. Here is where wearing light, medium or heavy armour really makes a difference. Heavy armour comes with the helmet included, so it only has 1 add-on slot. Medium armour has an add-on slot for the chest piece, and one for the helmet. Light armour has two add-on slots for the chest piece, and one for the helmet.
So our sneaky gits, provided they have scout training (looking at you, JoKa and Sergiu64) will be getting sound dampeners and personal cloak fields, whereas most others will be getting the personal power shield. Except for Gondolin and dextermorg who gets infra-vision only, due to their armour slot being a helmet slot..
Finally, a quick look at the overview screen.
38 bases out of, I believe 39 possible. Almost all territory under our control, yet we're running a deficit. It's expensive to research the interesting stuff.
Yet, our surplus in ordinary supplies lets us trade with the psionic faction regularly and make up for our shortfall. As is also readily apparent, it's the tracks that are expensive, but without the tracks, we could only have a single base for all our production and research needs, and that really wouldn't work.
Now, back to playing so I can advance the storyline and we can get on with the mindfuck.