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[10ebbor10]

I told the other side this, so I have to tell you too.

The guaranteed 6 does not include difficulty mofifiers. So, uhm, if you try to put your base inside a Police Box or Wardrobe, or something silly like that, you may get a penalty.

[NUKE9.13]

In other words, a base in the literal center of the earth is... not the best idea. Probably plentiful penalties.
I, uh, don't have any great alternatives at the moment. I mean, I can think of several ideas, but none that have an original feel to them (and aren't Ludicrous).
...I'm just gonna vote for the dark side of the moon. Convenient location, but hard to detect.

The scout drone sounds fine. Although I'm a bit leery about leaning too heavily into tech-based solutions to our problems; our strength is the variety of species we can deploy. But a simple scout is fine, and should be helpful on Harvest missions. And sure, we can upgrade it later.

Design:
Scout drone: (5) Shadowclaw777, piratejoe, Puppyguard, Greatness942, NUKE9.13
Base:
Inner Core Base: (5) Shadowclaw777, piratejoe, Puppyguard, Greatness942, Sprinkled chariot
Dark Side of the Moon Base: (1) NUKE9.13

[sprinkled chariot]

Design : chryssalid
Horrifying and vicious arthropod : ambush predator, fast, agile, , armed with venomous claws, somewhat damage resistant and most important of all - capable of rapidly increasing own numbers, as every victim becomes incubator for more chryssalids. And on top of it, it senses living creatures bio electricity, so there is no escape.

TlDR : excellent selfmultiplying terror weapon
Dark sewers of cities, jungles, forests, any place except arctics is perfect for them to thrive, also it cant give xcom any new toys in case of interception.
Also, as we are experts in genetics, we somewhat already have expertise in this area.

[Shadowclaw777]

Design:
Scout drone: (5) Shadowclaw777, piratejoe, Puppyguard, Greatness942, NUKE9.13
Base:
Inner Core Base: (4) piratejoe, Puppyguard, Greatness942, Sprinkled chariot
Dark Side of the Moon Base: (2) NUKE9.13, Shadowclaw

Sadly my plan has been foiled by Newtonian physics once again, we could probably due a base underwater since with our technology that's really possible, but I guess to not create as much conflict the Lunar Base seems fine.

[Puppyguard]

Design:
Scout drone: (5) Shadowclaw777, piratejoe, Puppyguard, Greatness942, NUKE9.13
Base:
Inner Core Base: (3) piratejoe, Greatness942, Sprinkled chariot
Dark Side of the Moon Base: (3) NUKE9.13, Shadowclaw, Puppyguard

Curse you physics!!!

[sprinkled chariot]

Design:
Scout drone: (5) Shadowclaw777, piratejoe, Puppyguard, Greatness942, NUKE9.13
Base:
Inner Core Base: (2) piratejoe, Greatness942,
Dark Side of the Moon Base: (4) NUKE9.13, Shadowclaw, Puppyguard, Sprinkuhled Churiut

Curse you physics!!!

[10ebbor10]

Ethereal Design Turn

Dark Side of the Moon Base: (4) NUKE9.13, Shadowclaw, Puppyguard, Sprinkuhled Churiut

Guaranteed Roll : 6

Located somewhere on the Dark side of the Moon, the Ethereal base is shrouded in mystery. So shrouded in mystery, in fact, that some say not even the Ethereals themselves know what it looks like.

Scout drone: (5) Shadowclaw777, piratejoe, Puppyguard, Greatness942, NUKE9.13
Scout Drone: A small drone (about the size of a basketball) that utilizes tiny amount elerium to pulse so that it hovers over the ground, and can emit more of the elerium fuel to fly distances of 5-10m off the ground and than hover on its new flying position. Equipped with advanced photoreceptors so that it can track the location of enemies and notice movement in the visible color spectrum, and a shock taser probe Gun on the frontal head of the Scout Drone that horrifically stings when it attacks a biological unit, equipped with a heavy amount of sedatives to make the organics to pass out for future experimentation. The Drone is quite small and can fly, with some maneuverability but this isn't the priority of the design, which makes it a difficult target to hit but is very lightly armored and can't handle attacks from kinetic-based weapons. It would serve as the scout/reconnaissance role for the aliens and maybe has some ability to act as a light skirmished during combat

Normal : (4, 2) Above Average

The scout drone is the newest addition to the Ethereal arsenal.  The silvery-metal spheres may look innocent as they dart across a battlefield, but they're highly effective hunters. Equipped with an array of sedative injectors as well as a powerfull shock weapon, the drone can make quick work of any unprepared opponent. It posseses an excellent sensor suite and great mobility, but short range and near-non existent armor restrict it to a skirmisher and scouting role. In addition to it's combat capabilities, the Scout drone is also highly effective in gathering up ordinary humans.

Spoiler: Equipment (click to show/hide)

Vehicles

Small scout : One of the tiniest vessels at your disposal, the Small scout is both cheap and reliable. Powered by a single Elerium core, the vessel makes decent speed, while carrying up to 2 units to their destination. It's equipped with a plasma turret for self defense . Cost : 1 VP

Equipment

Plasma Pistols : A basic simple sidearm that has been used in many pacification operations. The plasma pistol is a dependable bit of equipment that is light but not particularly powerful.

Elerium Grenade : The elerium grenade is powerful handheld explosive. Cost : 1 EP

Meld Container : A container filled with the precious Meld, a substance that consists out of billions of cybernetic nanomachines that automatically capture, catalogue and analyse any foreign DNA they find. Greatly increases the effectiveness of recovery operations. If capture threathens, the container will perform an auto-sterilization cycle.  Cost : 1 EP

Aliens
Sectoid : A weak species with a limited capability for the gift. Nonetheless, their simple biology allows to easily clone these creatures and deploy them in great numbers.
Cost 1 UP

Scout drone : A small but fast scout drone armed with powerfull short range non-lethal weaponry and powerfull sensors. Effective at hunting down humans as well as spotting threats, but lightly armored.

Cost 1 UP or 1 EP

Mission Profiles

Harvest: A simple mission profile that involves a UFO landed in a secluded area to capture humans other lifeforms for analysis in the main base.

Alien Resources

3 VP
6 UP
2 EP

Dark side of the Moon base [Enigma]

You have now entered the Mission Planning Phase.

Using your available resources, create as many missions as you want to attack any of the places on the list below.

Example

1 Small Ufo [Harvest mission]
2/2 Sectoid Squads
2 Meld Containers
Nigeria

Africa
---> Egypt
---> South Africa
---> Nigeria

Asia
--->Australia
--->China
--->India
--->Japan

Europe
--->France
--->Germany
--->Russia
--->United Kingdom

North America
--->Canada
--->Mexico
--->United States

South America
--->Argentina
--->Brazil


AABBCCDD

[NUKE9.13]

Mission Type: Harvest
Craft(s): 1 Small Scout (1VP)
Unit loadout: 1 Sectoid (Plasma Pistols, Meld container) (1UP, 1EP)
  1 Scout Drone (1UP)
Destination: Egypt

Mission Type: Harvest
Craft(s): 1 Small Scout (1VP)
Unit loadout: 1 Sectoid (Plasma Pistols, Meld container) (1UP, 1EP)
  1 Scout Drone (1UP)
Destination: South Africa

Mission Type: Harvest
Craft(s): 1 Small Scout (1VP)
Unit loadout: 1 Sectoid (Plasma Pistols) (1UP)
  1 Scout Drone (1UP)
Destination: Nigeria

Total cost: 3VP, 6UP, 2EP

The loadouts are obvious. Sectoids do the lifting of Meld (where available) and shooting of hostiles, whilst Scout Drones help to acquire living specimens (and, you know, scout).

The destinations, however, are less obvious. Plan A is to hit all of Africa this turn, on the basis that XCOM is unlikely to be running interceptions there- I'm assuming they have multiple interceptors, which will be working to cover as much of the globe as possible. Then next turn, hit Africa again, because they'll never see that coming.

Also, sorry about not including a base description. I'll get right on that.

[Puppyguard]

Nuke's Plan A(2) NUKE9.13, Puppyguard.

[NUKE9.13]

Ethereal Dark-Side-of-the-Moon Base: Earth has a convenient natural satellite that is tidally locked, meaning one side always faces away. This should serve well to bamboozle the Earthlings' primitive attempts to discover our base, whilst being relatively nearby (as compared to Mars, for example).
We selected a site for the base and quickly started construction. Strangely, we uncovered the remains of an Earthling craft that had been launched roughly 80 years ago- but there are no signs of active lunar missions at present, so we should be good.
The base follows standard patterns; it is made up of interlocking hexagonal buildings which house various facilities. All the essentials are present- generators, factories, cloning vats, hangars, research labs, specimen containment.
The buildings are formed out of alloy frames and walls, covered in bricks made of processed lunar material- causing the base to blend in with its surroundings that little bit better.
Notably, the base is ripe for expansion, as more buildings can always be added.

This look okay for a base description? It's pretty bare bones, so if somebody wants to write a more comprehensive/exotic description, please do. This is intended as a fallback if we can't think of anything better.

[piratejoe]

Nuke's Plan A(3) NUKE9.13, Puppyguard, Piratejoe.

I like the plan, although I would rather hit a location like Asia or America to really hit their funding, your plan states why that might not be the best idea. Of course, they also might just find our UFO's anyway when its their turn and it depends on where they placed their first base to see if they could actually do something about it. Next turn if we can, we should make a medium scout UFO.

Also, isn't the mission type we started out with technically a abduction mission?

Edit, just noticed that you wrote 80 years ago for the space craft we found. Nice reference to the arms race that started it all.

[sprinkled chariot]

We don't have proper terror weapons to cut from funding by creating panic.

[piratejoe]

I know, but just our unchecked activity will do damage to their funding and cause some minor panic anyway. Also I just realized, we might be detected in Africa anyway, just due to the simple fact that Europe is where everyone who plays the original xcom almost always starts...Still, the plan is good, however, if we get UFO's shot down in Egypt, I'm calling they went the classic Europe start.

[Failbird105]

Nuke's Plan A(4) NUKE9.13, Puppyguard, Piratejoe, Failbird105.

You know what, fuggit, joining.

So, I'd assume we can use revisions on our aliens, which leads to a question, do our sectoids know how to mind meld?

[10ebbor10]

So, I'd assume we can use revisions on our aliens, which leads to a question, do our sectoids know how to mind meld?

They know how to do a Mind Merge, if you mean the XCOM ability. A revision could certainly improve it, however.

If you mean the Vulcan Mind reading thing, no, they don't know how to do it.