It's been a while. Let's fire up the ol' $20, see if we can get our money's worth out of it (and also not let what skills we have get rusty. And use the royal we for some reason.)
Alright...a couple more satellites would be useful. So would better weapons and armor, but we're pretty much out of alloys. Hm. If only we had some nice UFO crashes. Let's head to Mission Control to skip ahead why are there abductions? Huh.
Mexico, Moderate but minimal panic and the reward is 200 credits when we don't have much to buy. 20 alien alloys or 2 Elerium or something, maybe.
UK, max panic but Very Difficult. Four engineers as a reward, which I guess is average.
Australia, max panic but Very Difficult, only offering scientists (which have been idle ever since we ran out of raw materials to prototype with) and in a continent where half the people left.
...
UK. Don't make me regret this.
Operation Flying Scepter
Due to our remarkably limited numbers (note to self: Hire more rookies), we send everyone except Mad Dog, who is hospitalized. Specter and Schneider the snipers, Deacon and Saturn the supports, Yeti the heavy, and THUNDER-2 the loveable android companion over-rated deathbot.
I've never had the game crash while in briefing, this should be interesting. Where did it save?
And another thing forces me to reboot.
The mission begins with a bunch of random songs playing. I promptly alt-tab to pause YouTube tabs before returning.
Two mutons are quickly spotted. One is missed by two soldiers and THUNDER, the other shoots Schneider, who I put on Overwatch instead of having him move for cover. (Between his lack of a grapple and my lack of a mouse wheel, I didn't have many options...although in retrospect, they were mostly better than what I did.) O'Sanchez moved from her perch atop a building to one where she could see the mutons (who were inside said building). Yeti, firing the first rocket anyone's fired in a long time, missed, striking and shredding both mutons (intended) but also Deacon (unintended and easily-preventable if I had remembered Yeti's rockets before moving him). I also discovered that you can't leave a soldier's move half-done if you want to go back to him, so I basically screwed Deacon over...although at least it means they're less likely to gib Schneider. The shredded mutons were quickly killed, however, leaving Schneider to swing back onto the building and wonder if this at least counted as her cardio for the day.
We moved in, sweeping the building, but were interrupted by some thin men, who, angry at having been seen, moved out of the indistinct but possibly indoor area next to the convenience store (?) we were in and into an area they could kill us. Thin men being a joke by this point, they didn't survive the turn. Deacon...I try to get him to heal Schneider's wounds, but he kinda sprays the medikit stuff in a random direction. Maybe he should take up kickboxing, or maybe he should have shot Schneider in the other side.
I see a couple of shapes inside. I can't identify them, but one has an ungodly number of health bars. I then squint closer and realize that they are two mutons and one of those berserker things. I wish I had the shredder missile...ah well. I move Specter into a position where she hopefully have LOS to the things and...well...she does. The red berserker moves into melee range with Specter, and, well...I'll need to be training Schneider more soon, won't I? (C'mon, crash, crash...is it bad to hope the game crashes in my favor? I mean, it's just to undo the effect a bug had on my tactics.)
Miraculously, the Red Berserker only reduced O'Sullivan to 1 HP. Saturn is on the roof by now, and hurls a smoke grenade to protect the sniper's new position (aka, far away from the berserker). THUNDER claims a second muton. Deacon takes a potshot at the berserker, so it runs over, hops off the building, and...chases Schneider, who it should have been barely aware of due to being shot and its previous quarry running into a cloud of smoke? Deacon shoots again, activating Intimidate and drawing it towards him. The berserker takes off maybe two-thirds of his health...geez, either my armor is awesome or these guys are overrated. (Aside from health. Goshdangit, when you can't get the whole team on it they're hard to kill.) The last "normal" muton takes a second shot at the SHIV and destroys it, making me wish it hadn't gone for the 50-50 chance of hurting the berserker. Deacon shoots again, which goddammit why do you get so many free moves?!? I exploit this ability by having Saturn shoot at the berserker, getting it to run towards him, hopefully causing him to continue the chase. Yeti polishes off the muton, who he reduced to 1 HP last turn before dealing a 7-damage crit and uttering the excellent line "Dead and gone," which would have been even better if X-Com supported special corpse stuff for overkill. The berserker runs towards Deacon...into a building, WTF?...it attacks Deacon through the building, critically wounding him! And Saturn for some dumb reason doesn't have a medikit! Saturn shoots the berserker, leading him to hunker down behind over from the berserker right next to him as Specter takes the more productive (and hence approved) form of panicking. Sadly, she misses. Yeti runs forward, hoping to be able to finish off the bastard, and spots three more mutons who move into position. The berserker moves and, amusingly, its animations make it seem uncertain which of the two low-health, foolishly-advanced snipers to kill. Less amusingly, the mutons hurry forward, one pulling a Socks (hey, that's our schtick!) and killing Saturn, causing Schneider to replace him in the un-productive kind of panic. Yeti, my sole non-dead/dying/panicking squaddie, fires a rocket, finally finishing off the berserker and knocking off most of two mutons' health. Specter finished off one; Yeti, whose assault on the previous mutons emptied his primary weapon, advances and kills the other with his grenade. The last muton maneuvers right into Specter's headshot...just a little too late for Deacon.
Crash.
A screwup gives the kill to Schneider, but nothing else changes.
Specter was gravely wounded, out for 16 days. Yeti and Schneider are out for a bit over a week, 9 and 8 days respectively. Specter also became a lieutenant.
Panic in the US. Glad the rest of North America was pretty chill. We sell a few spare alien corpses, and also some damaged UFO parts that it turns out have no value except to sell. Darn vendor trash. Since we're down to four soldiers, all in the hospital, I hire a round half-dozen new recruits. While I'm thinking about it, I purchase Rapid Recovery. Checking the Memorial, I realize that Deacon was the second captain, after Socks, to be killed. Or be a captain. All we have now are a few lieutenants and a squaddie. And a crash. And six new squaddies, if no one attacks for three days. Of course, if they attack in two, we'll only have Mad Dog, and if they attack before that...we'll have nothing.
Monthly report. France withdraws. B overall. I don't think I would have given myself a C, not the over-a-thousand-credits I received. (Although, yay achievement.)
Big UFO in Brazil. Game crash. Okay, seriously?
Maybe you can figure this out. After it "stop(s) working," Steam gives me a message that the game failed to start because it was already running. Any ideas?
Anyways. Council report. Same deal. Large...scout, landing? Well, I remember what happened last time we met one of these. And it's in Brazil, which given the image piecewise shared...for the first time in the history of the X-Com project, I'm not even sending the skyranger.
Aw, come on, another crash?!?
Ooh. Australia leaves this time. Game saved.
Ooh, abductions! Let's see...Canada offering scientists we don't need, France offering a support (which we do) and also being more panicked...also, Canada is Difficult rather than Very Difficult...France. And don't make me regret protecting you frog-eaters!
Operation Accidental Save Scum Dark Grave
Rookies Juanita Delgado, Mustapha Ghalib, and Gabriel Valez (a guy, incidentally, and also the one with the arc thrower) join Mad Dog, Yeti, and Schneider to deal with alien abductions in what I will pretend is Normandy even though it's Paris. I also give Yeti carapace armor and a SCOPE, because he didn't have those for some reason. Thought he did last mission...anyways. These four men, one woman, and poor rookie being teased about his name will kill as many aliens as they can find, and then (if their threats whilst on the Skyranger are true) find whoever names missions and give them a stern talking-to.
"It could be worse...they coulda named it Dark Prophet," Mad Dog points out. Yeti and Schneider nod; the others look confused. Yeti and Schneider move, Overwatching. Mad Dog advances, noting a berserker and a muton, who advance. Yeti and Schneider open fire, Yeti with his LMG and Schneider with his pistol, but both resoundingly miss. Gabe shoots the berserker, causing him to intimidate by advancing (dammit, when do I get to move my soldiers for being shot at?), causing the poor guy to panic since the bastard's right next to him. Thankfully, it's the productive kind of panic; even more thankfully, this means he hit twice! The muton shoots Schneider, knocking off all but one of his hit points. Two more mutons and another berserker are seen maneuvering just a bit in the distance.
...
Crap. At least the big guy briefly forgot that a 5-foot step is neither required nor takes up your whole turn.
I'll give it another round. If things go swimmingly, we'll continue; if not, we cut bait. (Yes, "fish or cut bait" originally referred to two jobs that had to be done by fishermen. I fully expect us all to be put into bait-cutting or desk work or something if things continue along this line.)
Yeti shoots the first berserker, and Schneider headshoots it, managing to deal only three damage. "What more do you want, you pathetic sniper?" you can almost hear it ask. "Do you want to press your weapon against my pathetic head? Well, do it!" I also notice that Schneider is not carrying a laser sniper rifle, for some reason. Mad Dog Socks the berserker, triggering an Intimidate. Sadly, rather than having the berserker try to figure out how to advance on someone right next to him, Mad Dog panics. And not the productive panicking, which might have finished off those last three bars of health; he ran. And not the smart kind of running where you get away from the scary thing; he hops down on the other side of the wall from the berserker, barely better than before panicking. Delgado socks the bastard and how do you miss from less than a foot away?!? Ghalib manages to hit the bastard, amazingly, and he dies. The same muton from earlier snipes Delgado down to 1 HP, the other berserker advances on Gabe and...doesn't attack...
I've made my decision. Back to the skyranger!
We all retreat, except Mad Dog. A muton and the berserker advance; Yeti blows them (and a car) up. The berserker survives. Schneider shoots him, causing Intimidate to...are you fucking running AWAY FROM THE SKYRANGER?!? Not you too, Delgado!
...I think this mission may be too screwed up to run away from.
Mad Dog recovers, Runs, Guns, and Socks the berserker, causing the least effective Intimidate since the time one of them sort of shuffled around with its free movement. Gabe hits, Ghalib misses, sadly since it had one freaking hit point left. The berserker kills Gabe, Delgado kills the berserker, and Mad Dog is still too terrified to run to the Skyranger. Dammit, you two, if you had run onto the Skyranger or something Gabe would be alive! Yeti fires his shredder rocket into the distance as a last "Fuck you," and we abort.
Schneider is gravely wounded and will be out for five days. Delgado was wounded and will be out for four. Gabe...well, everyone regrets making fun of him now.
Now, I have a riddle for you. By the time the Skyranger gets anywhere after abductions are being reported, people are gone, so basically all we're doing is killing aliens and maybe stopping...oh, half the abductions in one of two or three locations.
In one mission, we do so, killing one berserker and nine mutons, but we lose two good soldiers (and medics) as well as an expensive and effective robot. In another, we only lose a recruit, but we fail to kill more than a muton and a pair of berserkers.
Which, good viewer, is the success, and which the failure? The one where we killed more mutons and saved a fraction of the sbduction victims, or the one where we didn't get our forces basically gutted?
Brazil is offering to trade four laser pistols for five engineers. That's a better than 1:1 exchange rate, but we have plenty of engineers to do the basically nothing they're doing, and nowhere near enough alien alloys to waste on that.
The satellite uplink is complete.
A big UFO in Brazil damn near destroys the interceptor there. Even with a Dodge matrix being used, it is red from tip to tail when I abort.
Satellites are completed and launched in Argentina and France. We are now covering all of South America (letting autopsies and interrogations, if we had any, be completed instantly).
Terror attack in Buenos Aires. Very Difficult. Ignore, or as I call it, "Pre-emptively Abort". Argentina withdraws from the Council, much to my lack of surprise. Brazil panics. I think this means our satellite there isn't getting launched...
More abductions. All Very Difficult.
UK: Three panic bars, four engineers.
Mexico: Four panic bars, new Assault lieutenant guy.
Egypt: Four panic bars, four scientists.
Operation Bloody Rain
Pack your metaphorical sombreros and prepare to become piņatas, we're going to Leon!
Specter, Mad Dog, Yeti, Schneider, Delgado, and Ghalib are enjoying suffering this Latin American "vacation" and...well, at least one of them's probably going to die, let's face it. And let's hope that bloody rain is from flying sectoids or something...
Delgado spots a pair of mutons inside near the building part of the gas station we landed by. One smashes through an interior and an exterior window to get out; the other uses the door. Specter ascends to the cover over the gas pumps and sees...two more mutons and a berserker. Then what I think is two more berserkers approach. Botched supressing fire (?) blows up the gas pump Delgado is next to, and another finishes her off.
The snipers on top share a meaningful look.
"Skyranger?"
"Skyranger."
Canada, Mexico, Egypt, and the UK are panicking. Well, on the bright side, that has to be some kind of record, right?
I order a new satellite to replace the one Argentina evidently stole, as well as a squad of SHIVs and a few Phoenix cannons. Heck, might as well do something with the credits we have, right?
Egypt requests scatter lasers. No.
A large UFO lands in South Africa. Sadly, no. Maybe if our squad of SHIVs was finished. South Africa panics just before we do.
A very large UFO scanning for something is spotted near...South Africa. Do they think District Nine was a documentary, or at least something addressing a real-world problem? Eh. Interceptor, intercept!
Well, the good news is that the Interceptor didn't crash. Guess what did?
I should stop. One Pyrrhic victory and two failures (with a combined casualty rate far lower).
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