I've discovered that I have had X-Com open for 25 hours. I'm not sure what percentage of that I was actually actively playing, but eh.
Operation Crystal Prophet
Dammit, what did I say about mystical mission names? It's bad juju.
Abductions. UK, Australia, Brazil. Most of Europe is panicking, South America is mostly fine, and half of Asia is already gone, so UK, even though the difficulty is tied for highest and the reward...actually, that heavy sounds pretty useful.
Our soldiers...we have five, but our options are limited. Mercier, Assault, our last front-line combatant. O'Sullivan and Snake Eyes, snipers. Deacon and Torres, support.
We spot some mutons when Mercier advances a little too far, a little too fast. Doesn't O'Sullivan have Squadsight? Anyways, everyone except Snake Eyes misses, and even a headshot won't put these bastards down (if it doesn't crit). The mutons fire, and the car most everyone else is taking cover behind explodes. Mercier, badly injured, retreats. More failed shots are followed up by WHY DIDN'T I SEE THE PLASMA GRENADE COMING?!? White...that's Snake Eyes? Damn, she's dead, Torres is in critical condition, and Deacon is at one health. Effing plasma grenades. Mercier pulls a Socks (ie, runs up right against the muton and blasts its brains out), and before we can even get a breather or look up if stabilized soldiers come back with us if we run*, three more mutons come out of a truck. Um...two of them killed one soldier, critically wounded another, and made two others have crappy low health. We blow one up--they're blowing up? Oh good, they're just Floaters. No, wait, a mix--one floater, dead, and three--erm, two mutons. Alright, I can deal. A lone sniper once killed three mutons on his--are those two bogeys? Of different kinds? Fuck the UK, fuck panic, fuck the new Assault, we're leaving.
And the game crashes. Neat, I'll be able to flee in terror half a turn earlier.
Alright, reload, White dead, Torres needs to be stabilized, but Deacon is right...wait, why are you out of medkit applications? Oh I give up. Two survivors is better than none.
*The wiki does not answer this question. As noted, due to game crashes and crash-related bugs, I did not find an answer.
The bad news is: We've lost five soldiers over two consecutive failed missions, with panic now spreading across Germany and Australia, plus Deacon is out of action for two weeks, plus Mercier--our only remaining frontline combatant--is out for five.
The good news is: Promotions for "Mad Dog" Mercier (Sergeant) and O'Sullivan (Corporal). And yes, O'Sullivan now has the Squadsight ability.
Let's see...Red-level panic across Europe, plus in Australia, plus orange-level in the US, China, and South America, plus yellow-level in Africa...we should move to Canada, people are chill there. And in Mexico. I wonder why.
Plasma rifles are perfected. We don't have enough anything to try anything else, though. We finish another pair of satellites, because I thought we would have more uplink capacity by now. Instead, I have them work on upgrading SCOPEs and making another SHIV. Those will be complete in a week, just in time for a council report. New soldiers should be arriving in two days, and another SHIV in 6.
The US asks for UFO power supplies. We have none.
Monthly report...Russia's left, surprised more haven't...a B? Despite our first-ever failures? Our successes must have been damn good. I celebrate by setting up a new satellite uplink and cursing our lack of alien materials preventing us from making Titan armor.
SCOPES upgraded. SHIV built. SABS (SABS Acronyms, Beginning with S) overwhelming. A UFO lands in Nigeria...wait, what?
I wish I had thought to visit the Officer Training School thing...
Operation Stone Gift
Lockdown. Saturn. O'Sullivan. Tracy Dunn, that new recruit. THUNDER-3. These are the people investigating the landing UFO...and one turn in, we discover that the UFO was about 90 degrees off from where we thought it was, judging by the crysalids coming up behind O'Sullivan's position. O'Sullivan kills one, Lockdown knocks another down to 1 HP, the rookie hurries forward to use her new arc thrower, Saturn and T-3 kill the third, and the second eviscerates Dunn (GODDAMMIT WHY DID I WANT TO CAPTURE A CRYSALID?!?), causing Lockdown to panic and...kill the crysalid. You know, constructive panic is always a good thing. O'Sullivan grapples to a decent vantage point, hoping to be able to move on to the roof of the UFO, then notices a few mutons and grapples back so the rest of everyone can advance. Dunn rises as a zombie who will turn into a cryssalid too soon for comfort, some bogeys we have never seen before because I didn't accidentally save scum sorta arrive, fukit I have some of my best soldiers...fukit I can't have three failures in a row...FOR GLORY AND THAT SUICIDAL CRAP! O'Sullivan and Saturn kill Dunn, again; people miss; the disk-shaped bogey gets right next to the SHIV and HOW DID IT FIT SO MANY TENDRILS AND GUNS INTO IT a ha ha it has 16 health no biggie just BACK TO THE SKYRANGER NOW! Ignore the three new mutons, ignore that the Tardisk (Aside: $10 bucks says this is a better name than what the game calls it) that is killing Lockdown along with the muton army, crap, don't panic O'Sullivan, or if you do panic by running back to the Skyranger, WHY ARE YOU PANICKING BUT SHOOTING INSTEAD OF RUNNING?
Everyone that survived after Lockdown's death managed to get back from the third consecutive failed mission. Saturn got promoted to Lieutenant. O'Sullivan got wounded for five days.
"Well...this is unfortunate. I have no doubt that, at the time of his death, Lockdown was our best man. Our best soldier, ever since Socks got killed. A lot of you started seeing him as a Second Castillo, after...after whatever operation he killed those mutons in, who cares? They all blend together, after a while. Not to put too fine a point on it, but considering him a successor to someone who had just died might not have been the best idea.
"Not that you have a lot of choices, I guess. So many have died. Socks, who had the highest xeno kill count of any soldier. Papa Clean, the record-holder before his death. Corporal Huang, a promising sniper, among the best we had at the time, maybe the best. Cookie. Snake Eyes. Castillo. Uncounted rookies. Now Lockdown. All in all, twenty have died.* Dunn died twice." *nervous chuckle* "Sorry. Now, we just have eight soldiers--half of whom have never so much as seen an alien--and a robot. And our scientific and engineering teams, and so forth, of course. Well...I'd like to say that we're going to win, but I just said some of our best have died, and yesterday I was telling you about these new weapons the aliens have.
"Here's the truth. None of us have been on more than four missions, we're running out of resources. On the other hand, the aliens keep ramping up the pressure, with more and deadlier weapons than they've ever had before. They're hitting harder, we're breaking. It sucks. Well...yeah, that's all I can say. We've stalled, the best we can do is throw more recruits and SHIVs at the problem, hope we don't lose...and we're on a losing streak. So, yeah. Why are we still fighting? Because we don't have a choice. We are the world's best chance for fighting off the alien invaders."
Groans.
"Sir, what have I told you about going off-script?"
"I don't want to use those when the big guys die, you know?"
"You caused a riot when Smirnova died. Why didn't that clue you in?"
*Creepy. Castillo was Death #10, Lockdown #20.
More abductions. I go for the ones in Canada because the others look tougher than I want to deal with right now. South Africa and Argentina are in much more panicky areas and offering better rewards...but a new lieutenant isn't bad, a new heavy is good, and fukit, I don't think we can handle a Very Difficult mission right now, so Moderate it is.
Rookies Heinrich Schneider, Rodrigo Martinez, and Jowar Jaitley join Mad Dog, Deacon, and O'Sullivan on this live-ammo training exercise. We start up, heading for what looks like a restaurant or gas station or something. A couple thin men poke out the back, a couple floaters are spotted when one guy heads in. The thin men hit Schneider, knocking him down to near death...He kills one thin man, with O'Sullivan pulling a Socks on the other and knocking it down to 1 health. Martinez does much the same, except that since he can fire his primary weapon after moving, he kills a floater. Deacon tries the same, but only knocks off half his health. Mad Dog finishes off the thin man, while one of the rookies...Jaitley! Jaitley finished off the floater. So we're done, right?
Nope.
We slowly, cautiously, advance. Suddenly, we see two mutons, one in reddish armor and not carrying a weapon. It also has 20 health! Let's hope it doesn't dish out correspondingly more damage than the Tardisk...we never find out, though, since we mob it, with Jaitley and Mad Dog pulling a Socks and the former getting the killing blow. That leaves one, lone, dead-meat muton against all of us. We kill it. Mobbed.
Schneider is out of action for two weeks, Martinez for nine days. The three rookies all got promotions: Schneider is a sniper, Martinez an Assault, and Jaitley a Support. Jordan "Yeti" MacDonald of Canada, another Assault, joined.
Panic in Argentina...Brazil...South Africa.
The red muton was termed a "berserker," due to my suggestion of "red muton" not going over well. Our scientists begin working on it. This teaches us very little.
We launch satellites in South Africa and Brazil, to lower panic.
Operation Hot Jester
Well, at least it isn't mystical.
Someone in Germany got captured or trapped or something. We're expected to save them. Let's do it...and pray it's thin men and not a tardisk backed with a muton army.
The rookie Jens Johansen joins veterans Mad Dog, Deacon, and O'Sullivan, as well as newly non-rookies Jaitley and Martinez.
As we start to move into position, or formation, or something, we spot a few thin men. They spit poisonous gas at half our squad, and one shoots...hard to tell...Deacon? One of the rookies in the cloud panics and kills a thin man. I always like a constructive panic. As we finish off the thin men, we spot a couple others across the...street? river? Definitely a street, but why are we so much higher than it? Is this a common feature of German cityscapes, roads ten feet below the sidewalks? Wait, there are sidewalks next to the street, then these things above?
We see a couple more--are the aliens just trying to empty out their stockpiles of thin men? Did the infiltration thing fail due to the infiltrators' eyes and tendency to dissolve into toxic gas when someone fist-bumped them too hard? Anyways, the thin men are numerous, and their aim issues are fixed, so they are able to kill Martinez. Which sucks, because we're low on front-line combatants and overfilled, so to speak, with support and snipers. Anyways, is that Mad Dog panicking over a semi-rookie being killed? We kill the thin men, and before we even down the last one Jaitley chats with some guys in suits, pointing the way to Hutch--the guy we're saving--and saying they were pinned down. I sarcastically wonder if they tried shooting them. Sure, there were a good number, but it was still single digits. And where's the rest of the security detail? These thoughts are interrupted by no fewer than four thin men opening fire on Jaitley, killing him. Mad Dog runs and guns for a couple, only to discover that no LOS existed between them and his final position. We kill all but one, then Johansen keels over from poison. I'm...being a bit stingy with medkits. We're not going to have anyone critically injured this mission, are we?
We advance in the wrong direction for a bit before O'Sullivan notices the big yellow arrow and moves in the correct direction. Once we get in earshot, we discover that Hutch has been basically complaining about us not getting there fast enough this whole time. Man, I hate escort missions. At least these idiots don't run directly at enemies. Anyways, three or four thin men drop in, all overwatching, one directly behind Mad Dog. Hutch watches the three soldiers dispatch a thin man each and suggests that his security detail be getting weapons for our supplier. Yes, for, not from, and yes, our supplier, not us. Gee, thanks. In another genius move, another thin man drops down alone, maybe 20 feet from O'Sullivan, AKA Miss "I Kill One Of You Every Round". At least Hutch thanks us and promises support for our project before we leave. Although the game crashed right after the latter promise...maybe they wanted backsies?
Reload, nothing special. Everyone gets promoted--O'Sullivan to sergeant ("Specter"), Mad Dog to Lieutenant, Deacon to Captain. Mad Dog will be out of action for five days.
Operation Blind Skull
Abductions. Screw the Very Difficult stuff, I'm heading to Mexico for the Moderate stuff. Gonna train up some...I forgot to hire new rookies. Oops. Oh well.
Specter. Saturn. Deacon. Yeti. Schneider. THUNDER-2. This is our A-Team, the folks who are gonna destroy this abducting force.
Except it crashed.
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