November 14, 1998
It's true. The first verified report of alien activity came in two days ago.
Yesterday, they attacked the city of Bombay and killed nearly a million people.
Today, the eXtraterrestrial COMbat project has been launched, with me as its commander. I have two months until the project goes live; among many other things, I have to decide on the location of my first tactical outpost and prepare it for battle. I have chosen the border between Russia and China; this will place me in the middle of the densest population center in the world.
The Council has approved the location of ASia-COMmand and will begin building it now. It will be ready several weeks before the new year, but along with staff and equipment issues I have been told that the entire base won't be functional until close to January anyway. After the initial supply rush, XCOM will be relying solely on the Council's monthly funding and whatever it can scrape together on the side. I loathe the idea of selling alien technology, but I might not have a choice.
I'm getting ahead of myself. Until AS-COM and XCOM are fully operational, I won't have much to do except study the footage of the alien attack on Bombay.
January 1, 1999
This is insane.
The Council has provided me with nothing
. They want me to lead the offensive against the alien threat with two jet fighters, eight soldiers and four million dollars? Every single one of them is insane. The various countries have announced XCOM's existence to the world, and I watched the speech from the command center alongside the barebones communications staff. The way they were talking, XCOM was going to sweep the alien invaders aside and bring this war to an end in a matter of months. The rising panic across the globe has subsided for now, but I'm not sure what kind of difference I can make with the resources they have given me.
I don't have much of a choice but to try.
The first thing I need to do is go over all the equipment the Council has placed at my disposal. I'll have to put together an attack team as soon as possible. There's only eight soldiers here right now; they'll have to do.
The standard-issue squad-level weapons. Despite being pistol-sized, those firearms are as powerful as semi-automatic sniper rifles; as a matter of fact, the only advantage the rifles have over pistols is their greater accuracy over a distance. These pistols will be the primary firearm of most of my attack squads.
And our heavy weaponry. The machine gun will be a valuable weapon; even though each round will do less damage than a pistol or rifle, a burst from that weapon will do far more damage in the same period of time. They won't be as effective against armored opponents, but reports over the past few months suggest that most alien ground forces don't wear heavy armor. The napalm cannon and rocket launcher, however, are too dangerous and cumbersome for standard use. I'll keep a rocket launcher in storage in case the aliens try another stunt like they did in India, but it won't be seeing standard use.
Proximity grenades, while theoretically useful, are harder to apply directly to the enemy and are hazardous to my own soldiers. I'll make grenades and smoke grenades standard issue, however; those devices are far more useful. High explosive packs are easily the most powerful weapons I have, and I'll be using them for demolition purposes. Alien craft are tough, but if we can crack a hole in one we can fill it with grenades without ever setting foot inside.
These remote-controlled heavy weapon platforms will be deployed on every mission. Field testing has shown these tanks to be highly resistant to alien fire, something human soldiers cannot attest to. I will be mainly using cannon tanks; the Council's tight budgeting has made every dollar count, and rocket tanks cost many a pretty penny.
Standard procedure up until this point has been to engage the alien threat as soon as it appears. However, I believe that we will have to observe alien craft undergoing their missions directly if we are to even begin to understand what they want from us. To this end, my interceptors will be under standing orders to avoid direct confrontations unless I deem it necessary. The insane price tag on AtA missiles might also be affecting my decision.
As a matter of fact, I'll be decommissioning our second interceptor. Without constant combat, our one interceptor won't need to be repaired or rearmed, and I won't spend money to maintain a spare we won't need.
Four million is looking smaller and smaller as time goes on.Of particular note here is how expensive each soldier is. You'll see later, but alien tech doesn't sell for much; replacing more than one rookie every mission is going to be at a loss. A total party kill, on the other hand, will be a disaster that will be nearly impossible to recoup without a few miracles. You might also notice that each scientist and engineer costs half a million dollars. Each.
With our leftover funds I'm installing several new modules. Research is going to be of vital importance in this war; without dedicated scientific minds we won't be able to understand anything about these aliens. To that end I'm installing a laboratory filled with every possible piece of analytic equipment I can buy. Once we receive February's funding we can hire some freelance scientists to use it all. I've also purchased a more powerful radar array and begun excavating a second entrance. Any alien that attacks AS-COM will be able to take the access lift right down into our nest of operations; I hope to be able to create a more secured approach before that possibility becomes a reality.
With the initial preparations and organization done, the only thing I can do is wait and allow my staff to keep an eye on our radars.
A tense week later, the radar picks up a small unidentified craft landing in Russia. The base is placed on high alert, and the Interceptor and Skyranger are both launched within minutes of identification. XCOM is about to strike the first blow of the war, and I can't help but shake the feeling that it will end in disaster. 
Author
Topic: Let's Play XCom UFO Defense - HARD MODE (Read 856 times)