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[10ebbor10]

To clarify, (as an observer) ebbor: is the month end bonus a token or a permanent increase in capacity?

On a side note, you know how I said that the month's end bonus was one of those tokens that got locked to a design? I kind of forgot to inform XCOM of that, and I don't want to revert the entire turn, so I'll just go ahead and unlock yours too.

[NUKE9.13]

They designed a mission profile focusing specifically on air support.

So if we designed/revised an air-to-ground weapon for our ships, they wouldn't use it?

Also, now that we have infiltrated a country, can you tell us what that does for us?

[10ebbor10]

So if we designed/revised an air-to-ground weapon for our ships, they wouldn't use it?

If you make a dedicated ground to air platform, it would be used. Provided of course that isn't being distracted by any enemy presence.

Also, now that we have infiltrated a country, can you tell us what that does for us?

Infiltration has multiple effects :

1) If you drive the country to panic while it's infiltrated, the chances of it surrendering to you instead of simply leaving XCOM go up.
2) If XCOM builds a base in an infiltrated country or region, there's a significant chance that you'll know.
3) At higher levels of infiltration, you may be able to get extra resources from them.
4) You can design mission types that rely on infiltrants from your cell.

[piratejoe]

So, we can either spend a revision to make an air to ground weapon and basically make a light bomber, or a revision telling the AI pilots "Oi, you have antigrav and plasmacannons, over there are Xcom squads. FIGURE IT OUT!!!"...


Welp, I had an idea for a heavy fighter that might do well for ground support then.

Heavy Fighter: The Heavy Fighter is a Medium fighter with more armour, and two turrets. One on the top of the craft for dealing with anything above it and one at the bottom for attacking ground targets. Naturally, should it need to for any reason, like say a turret breaking, it can do a half roll to switch the turrets around. Naturally, such changes will come at a cost of maneuverability but that shouldn't be a issue for the heavy fighter due to its armour and its turrets. It can be used for air support and help the enemy find a nice non solid state to sit in.

Alternatively.

Light Bomber: The light bomber is a Medium fighter with its front armament ripped right out and instead equipped with two heavy turrets at the bottom of the craft to blast away at anything below it and the AI told to use said turrets for destroying things on the ground. There is also a normal turret on top of the craft made to just simply to help protect the craft against any enemy aircraft that decides to try and take it down. It is slightly more armoured then the Medium fighter, but not by much as to not reduce the aerodynamics by much more then we already have.

And considering this vein of thinking...

Tactical Bombing: By bombing key military assets, we can reduce the will and ability of a nation to protect themselves against our power and strike out against Xcom and their antics. The goal of these missions is the destruction of ground, air, and naval forces in the targeted nation by sending out craft to blast any military instillation they come across, such as military air bases, naval ports, and barracks. Along with this, we are to strike out against any mass of soldiers or military vessels out in the open sea. Of course, primitive aircraft are to be watched but not engaged unless they approach and are attempting to attack. After all, things on the ground and in the sea are the targets of this mission, not things in the air.

Edit: So, our fighters took at least a couple of minutes to destroy the enemies fighters? because it seemed like it was only at most one...considering they saw the ground battle as pointless and thought that the skyrangers that shot down our UFO and in that same vein of thought probably where providing ground support weren't worth shooting down...

[TopHat]

Speaking of air-to-ground, here's one of the revisions I was working on:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Based off of our light fighter, two of the plasma cannon have been removed and the craft has been up-armoured, especially around the front and over vital components like the antigrav unit. The main changes come under the hood, with the programming: although still capable as a dogfighter, this is no longer the craft's primary role, with it only engaging craft which directly threaten it or the UFO it is slaved to. It's main role is now to engage enemy ground forces, making use of its advanced flight to hover either above the battlefield or just above the ground, as required by the situation.

The armament has been mentioned as overkill so has been replaced with some frontal armour (it sounds like most air combats have been head-on); this should hopefully increase survivability significantly. The primary role has also been changed to what can best be described as a flying tank. I've used the light fighter over the medium as it's half the price and should be almost as effective.

I'm actually leaning towards using our design to build a facility to locate this psionic signal now and making the new ground unit next turn. The reason being that I think that with sufficiently crafty use of our new ECM we should be able to gain a slight edge this turn, and the source of the signal may well be short-lived.
Something like this, maybe?:

Spoiler: draft Mission proposal (click to show/hide)

Spend one UP token on anything.

Mission type: Harvest
Mission craft: 1 small scout (1 VP)
Unit loadout: 1 Sectoid (1 UP)
Destination: Australia
Note: Scout is to use ECM to appear ~ twice the size.

Mission type: Investigate psionic signal?
Mission craft: 1 small scout (1 VP), 1 Medium fighter (2 VP)
Unit loadout: 1 Skin Crawler, elerium grenades (2 UP, 1 EP)
1 Sectoid (1 UP)
1 Skin crawler, infiltrated (3-2=1 UP)
Destination:
Note: fighter is to use ECM to appear the same size as a small scout.

Mission type: Harvest
Mission Craft: 1 small scout (1 VP)
Unit loadout: 1 Sectoid, meld container (1 UP, 1 EP)
1 Scout drone (1 UP)
Destination: Russia

This appears (to X Com) to give the same VP spend as before, though they will probably suspect something is suspicious (maybe that some of the craft are undermanned) given the lack of fighters.
Mission 1 is a decoy and will hopefully draw away as many forces as possible, by launching a repeat attack on Australia or Brazil. Mission 2 is the actual mission; by disguising the fighter we should be able to trick them into sending an insufficient number of aircraft into a battle they will lose. Mission 3 will either be ignored, draw away an interceptor only (in which case it won't be captured if it crash lands) or draw both an interceptor and a Skyranger, in which case our main mission will almost certainly succeed.

Though come to think of it @Ebbor if we successfully locate the psionic signal will we have to design a new mission to investigate it on the ground? Because having to spend a second design slot on something otherwise useless seems a bit harsh for what is probably a one-off event.

[Kashyyk]

The action report just solidifies our need for a frontline combatant.

(1) "Brute" Medium Infantry: Kashyyk

[NUKE9.13]

Okay, so, yes, we need a combat-oriented unit.
If we do do a frontline combatant, I'd prefer not to do the Brute. For one thing, we don't have enough human DNA to do it- as mentioned previously, DNA tokens are one use only. For another, an unmodified Muton would be more powerful. For a third, humans have this nasty rebellious streak.

But... we could also just avoid getting into fights in the first place:

Basic Cloaking Device: The Earthlings consistently detect the passage of our craft through their atmosphere. Given the pitiful state of their sensor technology, this is an embarrassment. Therefore, we will fit some of our craft with this new creation.
The BCD projects an electromagnetic field around the vehicle, like our ECM, but more subtle and complex. It influences the passage of light waves, causing them to travel around the craft (and then continue on their prior trajectory) rather than reflecting off of it. This significantly reduces the radar signature of the vehicle to the point where- given the Earthling's archaic systems- all but a concerted effort to scan a specific area will fail to detect it.

With regards to the psionic activity... I'm worried that if we spend our design tracking it down, any mission we launch will be unlikely to succeed due to a lack of serious upgrades. On the other hand, I worry that it may expire, and we will lose our chance to find whatever it was.

[TopHat]

I think we can afford to wait a turn for a new combat unit - we lost that action primarily because we were outnumbered and because of their close-air support. As I've said above, I think it'll be possible to trick X-com out of that local advantage for a turn through clever use of our new ECM and the sacrifice of a small scout or two, thus levelling the playing field. Plus we may gather a DNA token by delaying which would greatly improve the new unit, as well as whatever unknown benefit we get from exploring this activity. As such, here's my proposed design:

This new facility, manned by a powerful Ethereal, serves to amplify their psionic senses, enabling them to detect (and send) psionic signals from further away and with greater accuracy. It is hoped that the near side of the Earth will be covered at the least, although anything even as complex as a simple mind merge is almost impossible at that range. Naturally, whilst in operation the facility itself creates a very strong signal, but it's not as though the humans have the capacity to detect it.

As well as hopefully detecting this signal, the facility might also be able to serve purpose as a communications system of sorts, as well as providing a basis for smaller hand-held and ship-based amplifier designs we may want later. I'm still not quite happy with the description, though.

[NUKE9.13]

Now, I'm as big a fan of built-in-handicaps as they come, but the line "Naturally, whilst in operation the facility itself creates a very strong signal, but it's not as though the humans have the capacity to detect it." applied to our main base is not something I can get behind. Because the humans could acquire that ability, and I'd like for it to take them more than training a single psionic who then says "Oh btw there's something big on the moon" for them to find the keystone of our operation.

[TopHat]

Fair enough. I'd considered that it'd probably be a side effect anyway, so might as well mention it now and then revise a patch later if the facility proves useful enough to continue using. Come to think of it, I suppose we could remove the sending function, essentially make it the psionic equivalent of a passive radar, which would remove the risk but also the potential future utility for communications or long-range Gift use. Something like this, maybe?

The Gift is a powerful tool, and any use of it outside our control should be closely monitored indeed. This new facility provides the means to do so, amplifying weak psionic signals to enable the operator to more easily observe them. Using the motion of the Earth's surface relative to our position on the moon, this enables and such signals to be triangulated with far greater accuracy than previously possible.

Come to think of it, either design would be useful for identifying X-Com's base the minute they begin successfully messing with psionics (or possibly even capture a powerful sectoid).

[Shadowclaw777]

I guess it's time to get a' voting.

Basic Cloaking Device: (2) NUKE9.13, Shadowclaw
Heavy Fighter
Light Bomber
Tactical Bombing:
Brute:
Psionic Amplifier:

[Puppyguard]

Basic Cloaking Device: (3) NUKE9.13, Shadowclaw, Puppyguard
Heavy Fighter
Light Bomber
Tactical Bombing:
"Brute" Medium Infantry: (1) Kashyyk
Psionic Amplifier:

We might be able to downsize the cloaking device later and attach it onto heavy infantry.

[sprinkled chariot]

+ 1 to cloaking device

[TopHat]

The cloaking device seems very nice, but if we do get it we'll have to put off either the new frontliner or a locator for the psionic signal off for two more turns. Granted the former will be less important with the cloak, but even so that's still something to keep in mind.

... we could do a stealth revision for the small scout instead. We'd only be able to use it on that, but I doubt we'd want to use it on much else at the moment (if it adds cost, as seems likely). A full design would be required later to expand it to the universal system when we get UFOs, but the experience here should help with that. On the downside, we wouldn't be able to use it this turn, though that could happen anyway if we roll poorly for it.

Basic Cloaking Device: (4) NUKE9.13, Shadowclaw, Puppyguard, sprinkled chariot
Heavy Fighter
Light Bomber
Tactical Bombing:
"Brute" Medium Infantry: (1) Kashyyk
Psionic Signal Amplifier: (1) TopHat

[SamSpeeds]

Basic Cloaking Device: (4) NUKE9.13, Shadowclaw, Puppyguard, sprinkled chariot
Heavy Fighter
Light Bomber
Tactical Bombing:
"Brute" Medium Infantry: (2) Kashyyk, SamSpeeds
Psionic Signal Amplifier: (1) TopHat

We need NEED a frontline fighter, for REAL. We can't keep getting stomped or barely scraping by on the ground. I'd vote for a fighter upgrade or a Plasma Rifle for the revision. I mean, we probably won't get the durability to beat their railguns in one turn, since we'll still need Heavy Armor for that, but we need to start now! Plus, we already have cloaked units (until they get infantry infared or something).