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[GentlemanRaptor]

Update #2

No rest for the wicked, because look what popped up as soon as the crew got back:





Going on today's road trip is the King George IX and Darkening Kaos buddy-cop duo! One's convinced he's the rightful king of England! The other thinks he was hired on as a janitor! Together, they purge xenos!





//BEGIN BATTLESCAPE TACTICAL RECORDING//

ASSIGNED TO OPERATION:

KING GEORGE IX

DARKENING KAOS



King George IX: I say, old chap, what a lovely night for a hunt! A bit of sport, you know? "Most Dangerous Game" and all that.

Darkening Kaos: Uh, hunting? I thought we were being contracted out for a spot of cleaning work.

King George IX: A clever euphemism, dear boy! Cleaning, in this instance, means ruthlessly running down the enemy like the dogs
they are and watching as the vitality drains from their very being! Jolly exciting! Just like back in merry old England!

Darkening Kaos: Ah, sure. Yeah. Whatever you say. Let's just finish up and get back to base. I've got reruns of Friends to catch up on.





Darkening Kaos: Got one! Hang on...



Darkening Kaos: He's down.

King George XI: Nothing like a bit of bloodsport to get the adrenaline flowing, hm?

Darkening Kaos. I hear something...there's at least one more around. Where could he be?





Darkening Kaos: Fuckin' finally! Eat shit and die, wanker!

BANG BANG BANG

//END BATTLESCAPE TACTICAL RECORDING//

'

That wraps that one up. Kind of irritated that I couldn't get captures - but the first kill was actually on reaction fire, and the second the guy was so close that he would have gotten a bit stabby next turn. Well, maybe time for some -



GODFREAKINGDAMMIT CULTISTS WHY ARE YOU EVERYWHERE. Well, time to load up the ol' X-COM silver coupe and get back on the road.

This mission starring Joachim Duncker, secret Nazi drunkard, and Mapother II, international man of mystery!



And for those wondering where Niamey is, it's here. Middle of Africa. Bloody cultists. But, before the plane touches down...







We've got modest armor! Wish this had happened pre-mission, but oh well. Essentially, leather coats provide the most basic protection possible - they might, and I emphasize might, save you from a melee attack.

Back to the operation at hand, here's who we're up against:



Church of Dagon, huh? Now, where have I head that name before? Dagon, Dagon...oh. Well, hope you lot liked TFTD, because guess where we're headed eventually! T'leth beckons...





Our weirdly identical heroes, everyone.



Duncker: Vell, here ve *hic* are. Now vere could zey be...

Mapother: Let's get to searching.





Duncker: Zere's somebody up zere...







Mapother: Did he just jump off...

Duncker: Hey! Hey, you! Have you seen Hermann Fegelein?

Mapother: Wha-Fegelein? He's been dead for - God knows how long at this point!

Cultist: Fegelein? Uh, no, no Fegelein around here. Say, would you be interested in our lord and savior, Dagon the fish god?

ZZAP



Mapother: Going by the reports, there's at least one other around here -





Duncker: Got him. Didn't know anything about Fegelein? Feh. Liars, all. I'll get ze truth eventually...



Another case solved by Joachim Duncker, secret Nazi!

And I'm gonna call it here for now - next update probably tomorrow!

[Greatness942]

Pretty cool!

[Mephansteras]

Nice successful missions, excellent.

[Darkening Kaos]

     Nice work, GentlemanRaptor, great teamwork between me and the pommie git.  But geez, I really hate the bug hunts, {one of the reasons I never finished tftd}.
     And if I didn't go through a whole magazine of ammo on that second guy, obviously need to try harder, because that last statement of the mission was absolutely spot on.

[scrdest]

Spoiler: Dossier - Merrick, S.C.R. (click to show/hide)

Name: Steven Calvin Ross Merrick
Gender: Male
Age: 26

Biography: Steven had been never intended to be a special agent. Making his way to a job interview in an ad agency in his favorite black suit and tie and wearing menacing large glasses to shield him from the glare of the Australian sun, he got lost and, having asked a passerby (Researcher [EXPUNGED] on a cigarette break, reprimanded) for directions 'to the Agency', bungled right into our offsite offices.

He managed to bullshit his way through minor tasks for several months (claiming the superior salary as the reason for staying) before the discrepancies were found in our HR files, but his adaptiveness and ability to blend is impressive enough you may want to consider recruiting him as a field agent instead, Director. If his penchant for desperately pretending he knows what he's doing gets in the way, he can always serve as a meatshield for the actual agents.

[Hanzoku]

Spoiler: Personal Log, Han Zoku (click to show/hide)

So, first mission for this new organization. When the FBI told me I was being reassigned, I had felt pretty sorry for myself. Sure, the X-files and Mulder jokes were wearing thin, but being shipped off to Australia to work for some no-name group on a shoestring budget was a pretty big step down. Funny enough, my first mission sends me back to the good ol' US of A. Ended up running into two guys from some organization named EXALT that were of the 'shoot first and talk later' mindset. I ended up having to shoot one, and then in a burst of insanity decided to take a glorified cattleprod to the one with a knife. Luckily, he wasn't much on CQC, and I electrocuted him enough to make him drop the knife before he could use it.

We came up with a sample of something strange that the eggheads are taking to call 'Psiclone'. No idea yet what it is or what it does, but maybe we cracked a new drug ring before they could properly get off the ground? Be nice to have something good come out of this. Anyway, my partner and me got promoted to Sergeants straight away, so I guess I'll be in charge on field operations, as soon as the medics clear me for duty again.

Get this though - we're such a shoestring operation that they're having to scrape the barrel just to get us kevlar vests. I don't want to depress the director by pointing out that at the FBI, we have a warehouse full of the damn things. Makes me want to make a quick run and see if I can't get a buddy to hook us up. The leather coats are... well, better then shirt sleeves, but lacks that whole 'able to stop a bullet' that makes the vest useful.

Also, I'm worried about the sanity and stability of my fellow agents, which makes me worry in turn about my own, since I've been assigned to the same agency. One things he's the King of England, another is near constantly drunk, even on the job. The third is a full out assassin. He talks constantly in euphemisms about 'cleaning up' and even mops around the base, but I saw his mission recording, and he killed two men without blinking. In fact, he enjoyed killing the second because he (quite logically) was hiding from the blood-crazed murderer hunting him down. This caused D.K. to execute him with extreme brutality for making him miss his Friends reruns.

[GentlemanRaptor]

Sorry for the unexpected delay - very busy. Should be able to put the update up soon-ish - the gameplay is done, it's just getting the pictures together.

[GentlemanRaptor]

Update #3



And we've got more hostiles sighted already! There really are no breaks for our team of rejects and crackpots heroic, indispensable agents!



We'll be sending Anja Galena and Brion Drake on this one. The leather jackets aren't quite in yet, so they'll have to make do.



Conveniently, Tasmania is right in our backyard, so it's just a short hop on a puddle-jumper for our agents.







Our two dapper heroes.

//BEGIN BATTLESCAPE TACTICAL RECORDING//



Who recognizes this tileset? Yep, the TFTD tilesets are in here, and they're blended in with the regular ones pretty well. Makes for some nice variety.

Drake: Alright, let's do this by the numbers. Check your corners, and stay frosty.

Galena: This isn't Aliens, Drake. And besides, the Drake in that movie kicked it as soon as they ran into a Xenomorph.

Drake: ...given the circumstances, yeah, probably not wise to tempt fate that way. But these guys aren't aliens. I think.

Galena: Yeah. Can't wait to get my hands on a live alien, though. Oh, they'll pay…

Drake: Moving right on, let's get to searching the area.

Galena: Hold it! I see one -

BANG BANG BANG









Drake: We need to take them alive! And maybe not cause collateral damage that makes it immediately obvious that a secret government agency was here!



Galena: Look, another one!

Drake: Hold fire! Follow my lead and move up. We need to take this one in.

Galena: Yeah, yeah. I know how an investigation works. We need leads that are better than just corpses. I'll try not to start any fires with my taser.



Drake: Hold here. We wait for him to come to us.









Drake: And...now!



ZZAP



Drake: Nice work. Just...ease off on the trigger-happy stuff, yeah? Most field agents and soldiers don't take kindly to random explosions.

Galena: Yeah. Yeah, I'll keep that in mind.

//END BATTLESCAPE TACTICAL RECORDING//



Another happy ending. It's worth noting that neither hostile on this map had firearms - they were both carrying electrical stun rods, just like the ones X-COM uses for live capture. Lots of early-game enemies favor melee, to make early-game captures less painful (and lethal).



Fortunately, the coats and a new shotgun for Drake came in shortly after the op, so on the next mission we'll be well equipped.





And our hangar is done! Now we can send three teams away at once, as soon as we get a new car for the hangar.



And there we are. Our operational flexibility is now a whole lot better, and being able to tackle three missions at once will be very useful when we start getting hit with multiple simultaneous ops.



And now, I get to show off a mission added in a recent update to the mod - cattle mutilation missions! A classic element of UFO lore, these missions see your agents tasked to investigate, well, a cattle mutilation. Exactly what it says on the tin.



Han Zoku, FBI superstar and tinfoil-hat owner, and King George IX, victim of a glitch on Ancestry.com (and possibly brain damage), will be handling this one.



This one's also right in our backyards, conveniently. Bloody aliens! Get out of Australia!



So we're actually going in to abduct local civilians who may have seen what was going on. Let's lock and load! (N.B. The time limit isn't quite working as yet, but the mission is easily completable in ten turns anyhow.)





The wonderful, swanky leather jackets now adorn our agents.

//BEGIN BATTLESCAPE TACTICAL RECORDING//



King George IX: Well, time for a jolly old manhunt! They'll give up soon as they lay eyes on me!

Zoku: Ah, sure, George. Whatever you say.

King George IX: It's "Your Majesty", "Your Highness", or "Sir", to you, peasant. Mind your tongue.

Zoku: ...yeah. Let's just get going.



Zoku: Well, they weren't kidding when they said the cow was mutilated. Poor thing's had its head torn off!

King George IX: Well, old chap, let's get moving. I'll check the left side, and you take the right. If you see an unruly peasant, just shout!







Zoku: Yeah, I've got nothing. George?



King George XI: I've found one! Ungrateful serf! Get over here!

Urist McCivilan: The light...no! You're one of them! You won't take me!



King George XI: He's headed your way, old chap!



Zoku: Hold still…

ZZAP



Zoku: Got him. Wait, I hear someone…



Zoku: Gah! Where'd you come from! Hey! Get back here!



ZZAP



Zoku: Stop resisting!

//END BATTLESCAPE TACTICAL RECORDING//



That's a wrap, boys. Two traumatized civilians abducted by a shady government agency for interrogation! Hooray for X-COM!





And we have Kevlar now!

Alright, gonna call it here. New update soon!

[Mephansteras]

Excellent!

How long before the game starts killing off agents like extras in a movie?

[Rince Wind]

Can't wait to see my agent (die?) in action.
*grabs popcorn

[Yoink]

Bloody aliens! Get out of Australia!

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!


_{Also PTW I guess.}

[GentlemanRaptor]

Excellent!

How long before the game starts killing off agents like extras in a movie?

Right about when we start getting "monsters of the week" and cultist bases. Some of those encounters can be nasty, especially with the gimped weaponry X-COM starts with. Getting the van unlocked is an important early-game step, as bringing 4 meat-shields fresh recruits is always better than two.

[scrdest]

I've gotten this mod thanks to you GR, and dear god, yes, Cult Safehouses, the immediate upgrade, can be brutal already. Also, Zombies, one of the Envi Alerts, in early game are ridiculously bullet-spongey until you are granted the divine powers of the Most Holy Magnum, although they are more of a waste of ammo than a threat.

[Chiefwaffles]

Zombies are painful to go through for almost the entire early + early-mid game for me. Getting ~>10 zombies on a map, some being tank versions, is the bane of my existence.
They're not particularly difficult to fight, but they take forever to kill. I usually have to use 3-5 soldiers to kill a single regular zombie in one turn, assuming I have okay luck aiming-wise.

And the best cultist bases are the ones where you land facing the base and amassed cultists. So much death.

[Solarius Scorch]

I can't believed there's an LP of my mod here on the Bay! So exciting!

I hope you continue, as LPs are invaluable source of feedback... Plus yes, they're good for ego.

BTW Slaughter also has an LP: http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/lets-play-the-x-com-files-0-5-2b-alpha-blind.112132/