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[piratejoe]

Just pointing it out, I am willing to change to the 'lets all go to egypt' plan if, instead of egypt, the destination was Brazil...

[NUKE9.13]

I suppose we could target Brazil instead. I suppose it pays to heap on the Panic rather than spread it out for no reason.

Anyone object to changing the target to Brazil?

[sprinkled chariot]

Psychic overmind

Even pathetic sectoids can become danger, when many little gifts are united in one greater.

By placing many living sectoid brains in tube filled with Medical gel and nutrient paste, we let them unite in one psychic presence of horrifying power, power great enough to  project psishield around craft, fire searing rays of mental energy, or even straight up dominate weaker minds.

[NUKE9.13]

Strategy
NUKE's 'Let's All Go To Egypt Brazil': (5) NUKE9.13, Failbird105, Puppyguard, Sprinkled Chariot, Piratejoe

Shadowclaw's 'Screw people who like Niles and Robots': (1) Shadowclaw777

Piratejoe's "Portugal":

I'm going to assume everyone is cool with going to Brazil, and have edited the plan (and moved PJs vote) accordingly.

[Puppyguard]

I'm going to assume everyone is cool with going to Brazil, and have edited the plan (and moved PJs vote) accordingly.

Sure I'm fine with brazil. My only concern is they might have interceptors patrolling there due to panic, but let's try it and find out what happens.

[10ebbor10]

Either way, I'm planning to move the turn forwards, so you got a very short timewindow to swithc.

[piratejoe]

Even if they do, we can deal with three of them at once with our current fighter, unless of course, they made a new one that is cheap and extreamly good.

[NUKE9.13]

Well, that's assuming our Light Fighters are the equal of their Interceptors. Which I think they probably are. Besides, it's not like Small Scouts are defenceless. So I have high hopes that if they send two or even three Interceptors after us this time, we should come out on top without too much hassle.

[piratejoe]

Well, our new medium fighter was stated to be able to kill three of them, so their own own current non upgraded fighters cant be too much harder to kill, so we should be fine.

[10ebbor10]

Mission Type: Harvest
Craft(s): 2 Small Scout , 1 Medium fighter (4VP)
Unit loadout: 2 Sectoid (2xPlasma Pistols, 1xMeld container, 1xElerium Grenade) (2UP, 2EP)
2 Scout Drone (2UP)
Destination: Brazil

Mission executed.

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

Light fighter : Roughly half the size of a Small Scout, the Light fighter is a small craft that can be slaved to a nearby UFO to defend it. It's armed with 3 forward firing plasma guns, giving it a decent amount of firepower. Like the small scout, it is powered by a single Elerium core that gives it decent speed. Cost : 1 VP

Medium fighter Roughly 3 quarters the size of a small scout, the medium fighter is a small automated craft capable of independent operation. It's armed with 3 forward firing plasma guns, giving it a decent amount of firepower. Powered by an enlarged Elerium reactor, it's small size gives it greatly superior speed and maneuverability. Cost : 2 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 threatens, the container will perform an auto-sterilization cycle.  Cost : 1 EP

Aliens
Sectoid : A formerly 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. Integration of human DNA has brought their strength up to par with human baseline.
    - Reversable Mind Merge: Merge minds with an organic, intelligent friendly or enemy, giving or drawing upon them for strength
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.

Recruit Collaborators : A more complex mission profile that relies on the insertion of infiltrating units to make contact and recruit potential collaborators.

Alien Resources

3+1 VP
6 UP
2 EP

2 UP Token
1 DNA Token
Dark side of the Moon base [Hidden, Industrious]

Spoiler: PANIC METER (click to show/hide)

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   X

Revision phase
AABBCCDD

[NUKE9.13]

Alright then. It won't be used this turn, but we need to revise it now to have it next turn:

Basic Craft Obfuscation: By changing the profile of our craft, and the use of certain materials covering their hulls, we greatly reduce their signature on conventional sensors. We aren't making them totally invisible (yet), but it should be substantially harder for XCOM to detect vessels equipped with BCO measures.
BCO measures can be applied to all our craft, although it should be optional- we may, for whatever reason, wish to deploy craft without them.

Revision
BCO: (1) NUKE9.13

[piratejoe]

Revision
BCO: (2) NUKE9.13, Piratejoe

[Ardent Debater]

Revision
BCO: (3) NUKE9.13, Piratejoe, Ardent Debater

[Failbird105]

Revision
BCO: (3) NUKE9.13, Piratejoe, Ardent Debater
ECM: (2) Shadowclaw, Failbird105

Yeah I'll go for this, get a stealth upgrade and then make a good infiltrator alien next turn. Speaking of, I fixed up the infiltrator design, mostly the same, but works better for the DNA token, and is cooler.

In anticipation of the need for an infiltration unit, we looked all through our DNA banks to find something suitable, we found one. A creature we called the Faceless. It was capable of perfectly replicating the physical form of a being(just one) it took in the DNA of. Unfortunately, this was simply infeasible to reproduce with our current resources. Therefore, we took what we could from that base, and merged in the next best thing, we have introduced the DNA of a mimic octopus into the mix. The Skin Crawlers take a shape like its octopus side by default, with a faceless' head instead of the normal bulbous one of octopi. They have a set of eight tentacles, each of which are four inches thick at their base and 1.5 at their tip lined on their underside with suction cups, the tentacles each end a few inches early in a set of three short, viciously clawed digits kept from the faceless, these allow it to form hands, it braids two tentacles around eachother to form each individual limb, this makes them twice as strong as average, but obviously inhuman when not covered. A Skin Crawlers intelligence is equal to sectoids on a general level, but it has extra enhancements dedicated to social interaction and language, it still struggles to manage "slang" however. It cannot manage the perfect replication its the faceless could, but it can pretty much perfectly mimic human skin and hair colors in addition to the mimic octopus' ability to mimic the color of the ground around it, and can use the faceless shape altering to replicate a human face fairly accurately, but it remains somewhat in the "uncanny valley" as humans call it, the main problem is it can only do one expression at a time, bigger changes like for talking or going from open smile to large frown are awkward, but the smaller, subtler ones are well within its capacity. It has vocal chords, and can speak relatively well despite its face problems, albeit rather monotone.
Its physical strength is above human levels, however its lack of bones makes carrying heavy objects very hard(hauling along the ground works though). It can hold objects and is capable of precise manipulation on the level of any human.
In combat meanwhile, it can shed its disguise(basically just slipping out of its clothes) and then bloat itself up into a giant octopoid creature, carrying itself around rapidly on its clawed tentacles. It can technically hold and wield a gun with each tentacle, but needs to use two at a time to keep them steady. Its unarmed tentacles can be lashed around rapidly and, due to the faceless' elastic skin, stretch long distances to slash and grab at nearby enemies with vicious claws. It can also use the tentacles for climbing with its suction cups and to grab enemies in a tight grip and rip their weapons from their hands. Its mimic octopus camouflage lets it blend in effortlessly with the color and texture of its surroundings, however it can't wear armor if it is to do so, as such a thing would immediately give it away.
Typically a Skin Crawler wears a generic black suit outfit in disguise, and is equipped with a plasma pistol in addition to its primary weapon(even if said weapon is a plasma pistol).

I updated it to use an alien base, and merged in the mimic octopus afterwards instead of the reverse. This should be much more in the spirit of the DNA token.

[Shadowclaw777]

Okay first off, if we do not solely support our aerial this turn we get royally screwed. What happens if they send two-three ravens with maybe improved missiles or something?, we lose our Medium fight and two Small scouts while the enemy gets free research and we just lost all our crafts, we would of lost all of our progress and the enemy just gains a benefit out of it. Stealth materials are nice and all, but we really need more support for the aerial units this turn. The Medium Fighter can handle 3 Light Fighter, you could say that a LF could handle a human interceptor, however it's more likely that two light fighters are needed to counter a single interceptor. I just want to note that since we put everything into one basket, if we lose the aerial race this turn; WE get nothing out of it, while the enemy gets free alien resources.

So let you show you an actually effective revision that's suppose to help guarantee we have aerial dominance this turn. Otherwise guess what? That stealth technology is giving us no help to our egg-in-one-basket mission. The enemy has already showed the effort of having two interceptors, probably three interceptors. There going to send all of there three interceptors at the mission, aren't they because we only have 1 mission. We have to hope that our Medium Fighter can handle three interceptors with some light support from the Scouts?...

Electric Countermeasure (ECM): The enemy utilize outdated guided missiles to destroy our craft, while effective before they will soon realize it has no application and doesn't even work the way they intended. The ECM we as the aliens utilize more of the defensive mind that involves advance means of blip enhancement and missile terminal homers to make sure that their missiles can't get a lock-on our crafts, making them nearly totally useless in the sky. They could always try dumb-firing their missiles in the sky, but how effective would that be? The ECM is meant to be placed in the Navigation system of a UFO that can be activated on any moment, temporarily utilizing some power to make sure that the ECM is active. As noted its is quite effective at creating a "jamming" signal against enemy missiles which means that they can't lock on or be guided to our craft It can also be utilized by our own artificial drone crafts and they activate the ECM at their own discretion.
ECM measures are much optional, and as it is intended to be incorporated into the Navigation system of a UFO, it can be applied to all crafts.

Edit: Your using the logic that a Medium Fighter with Two Scouts can handle three interceptors and come out of top... that is a very large gamble to take. There are so many factors to take in here whether they upgraded their weapons, ship armor, etc. However this mission is really important because if the enemy has the possibility of getting aerial superiority over us, than we probably have two landed UFOs that get taken out by a Skyranger's team of elites and than blown up by a interceptor; and they still get research information out of the UFO salvage. The importance of making sure the enemy doesn't take any technology from us, is crucial. Which will likely happen if we don't try to ensure aerial superiority over the enemy this turn.