Egghead: "Oi, commander! We fixed him, we fixed the Birdvig!"
Commander SQ IV: "Wasn't he blown into several pieces? I swear, if every single finger demands a separate room..."
Egghead: "Nah, we fed what was left of him that gangster chryssalid burger we made a while back and he kinda became whole again! Lemme show ya!"
Zombie Birdvig: "Arghhh... riiiibs... borgar..."
Commander SQ IV: "Great job, he's just like he was before!"
Zombie Birdvig is decent at shooting, but he can't hold a gun because his arms still haven't reattached correctly. He isn't very fast either. His psi-strength is amazing , so he's getting psi-trained to get psi-skill to match.
Neo Zoku was supposed to be a cloned supersoldier, a part of the Neo Birdvig project. For better or worse, the DNA sample was contaminated with sectoid blood when the council transporter hit a sectoid scout ship on its way to Guy Fieri HQ. The resulting hybrid is a natural fighter, but his hybrid muscles leave much to be desired.
The problem with naming hybrid is that instead of actual names to diffrenciate their gender, they have dorky alien names. Whatever. Agent Bug Wind isn't fantastic at combat, but can run like wind.
Hybrid soldiers will be named differently than human soldiers. As a tribute to a rogue hybrid from the future, they will all get a surname of Mox. Pratal was my top boy, and I don't care he hasn't been created yet.
We have to keep an eye on one of the hybrids, you know which one. Yup, Euphonium Mox; I can't trust a hybrid that can't even commit to being a tuba.
Oh, Meridian is on a hunt! We'll have to intercept him and bring him home for questioning, but that's during the day. There's something else requiring our attention.
Just have a look at the first hybrid we've ever deployed. I still don't know if it's a man or a woman, but that's not important. What is important is the fact that we need more personal armors for weak-ass rookies like him/her.
It's this kind of Syndicate lab, huh? No, let's not do it.
We're in China, looking for Meridian the Hunter. His drone has come to investigate our plane. Didn't know there would be drone, so I only packed stunning weapons. Stunning weapons and a laser tank.
Stun rods deal eletric damage, good against roberts of all kinds.
Damn, Meridian's got plenty of toys for avoiding getting caught. I wish I could say we've got plenty of toys for catching baddies.
Let's play it semi-safe and take cover whenever possible; we're more or less going melee against the roberts, unless we can get Crab to the place.
Holy shit, a grenade drone! Fortunately only Ms. Troop got injured and not even seriously.
The drones explode? I'm so glad we took stun rods instead of swords! Don't you worry, this explosion was mostly explosive barrels the drone was hovering over.
No idea why Ms. Feast was still in the Guymarshall, but she dropped her stun rifle, picked up a laser gun and some 'nades, and waited for her turn.
It's Meridian! He's got some weird explosive crossbow that he used to blast Crab.
There goes Zombie Birdvig, destroyed with Meridian's Grenades. He can take so many darts and so many stun rod whacks, holy shitoli!
Finally we've got him. Everyone who got close got blasted to some extent, but everyone is alive. Well, except for Zombie Birdvig. Now all we have to worry is hunting down all the drones and making sure Meridian doesn't wake up.
Here we go! The last drone got ambushed and stunned inside a warehouse of some sort. Unfortunately captured drones don't even count as loot.
Indian countryside, a sectoid scout UFO shot down by Troll Doll Beta.
The ayys keep hidingin bastard spots, and I'm not happy about it. I could have finished in two or three turns, but instead we have to run to the opposite end of the map, because the pilot decided to land the plane in the least convenient spot.
That's the worst UFO layout I've ever seen in my life.No doubt we'll get ambushed and lose someone.
Just kidding, the sectoid navigator shot its laser gun but missed, which gave us the chance to put some stun darts in it.
The anti-grav module is... eh. Flying is cool, but it exposes soldiers to enemy gunfire, and this suit doesn't protect against gunfire at all.
Megaworms are photosynthetic, yet they still eat people like their lives depended on it. You know why it is? They're dicks. Killing them with fire seems to be prferred way of disposing of them, just like with most Dimension X monsters.
He's back, worse than ever! He's a good shooter, but that's it, really.
To get inside the Syndicate's main HQ we need to make use of hybrid gadgets and probably tons of guns. If the CEO was a hideous mutant, their real overlord will probably be something even more grotesque and powerful.
As I said, floaters are a huge waste of effort on the aliens' part. They suffer the very same disadvantages that our soldiers with anti-grav units would suffer - no armor and ignoring covers out of cockiness.
The floater navigator has told us about light fighters. Huh, I thought those were just armed scouts. These little things hunt transport crafts whenever they can, but any armed interceptor can take it in a dogfight. Shooting it down is worth 125 points.
Futbol spandex is impossible to get off without killing the creature, which begs for a question what mutons do when they need to go. Under the spandex is a bootleg Thanos, not nearly as dummy thicc as the original, but still a big guy. For you.
Sonic-blasta rifles are light, extremely powerful and accurate. The downside is that the accuracy starts dropping at 18 tiles at aimed shot or 14 at snap shot.
A homicidal madman has told us about greasers, the last subculture of the Cult of Apocalypse. They just don't care about the alien invasion, so they do what they did before.
Research research reasearch!
The jump armor is a modified version of the personal armor. Same resistances, slightly worse armor, and of course an anti-grav unit. This is actually worth our time - good for storming hard-to-reach places, getting high ground for sniping, completely negating certain enemies' attacks.
Finally some action! Osirion is selling alloy ammo in the Falklands. Of course they've brought bloodhounds to the party.
Here they come, getting zapped immediately after showing up.
Killing enemies with environmental hazards have always been something I loved doing in vidya. We won't have to deal with that bloodhound anymore.
The boss is down too.
Actually the whole wave is dead. To think that in the past it would have been an actual battle instead of a one-sided slaughter.
We've actually stunned an attack dog, but we don't get extra points for that. Boo! Piratez gives extra points for capturing a dog!
Anyway, we got some ammo for HMG and CAWS; also for a spypistol we're never gonna use.
Ready to fillet some gillmen?
The soldiers certainly are. You can see just how much eager the lads and lasses are in this here night-vision photo. I would have completely missed the gilldog had it not been for this feature.
That deep one hit Ms. Troop with its sonic-blasta rifle almost killing her. Good thing we always have heals on our soldiers.
One more neat thing: hybrids, such as Calculator Mox here, have innate psychic powers that they can use even without a psi-amp. Unfortunately they still need psi-skill that can only be developed by training.
Triple danger! One deep one was trying to stab Crab with its spear to the expected lack of effect; Mr. Gnoblin has interrupted a janissary's attack; Mr. Polish got a few cuts from a deep one's aqua plastics axe.
The outcome. It should be no surprise that all three monsters were dealt with quickly. Mr. Platelet lives up to his name by healing woulds on Mr. Polish.
One janissary survived the battle, but we've sold it to a true seafood connoisseur.
We've shot down an excavator over Madagascar. Something attempted brain-tickling from out of sight, and initially I thought it was just a sectoid, but then I saw the glowing shields...
So it comes to this, huh? The map is an incredibly dense tropical village, very bad for fighting real threats. I had Communist Mox drop her gun, because apparently her hybrid brain is the feeblest.
Is this how it ends? Maybe Communist Mox will save us all by somehow overpowering the ethereal with a heavy plasma?
Oh, and this isn't an excavator but something much smaller. Good.
Thanks, Communist Mox, you helped a plenty. Actually she redirected the next shot, but that's a bit too late.
It took so much to break through the shield! Mr. Tune-up finally did it and killed the ethereal.
Fuck all over! Mr. Deformation just killed two soldiers better than him while going berserk, Mr. Tune up and Communist Mox were ambushed by ethereals, I don't know what's going on anymore!
That was for the best. Managed to get Mr. Kilometer, Mr. Digger and Ms. Broom out, but the rest is either dead or anally probed. We've recovered the ethereal corpse for what that's worth.
There were also Mr. Tune-up and Communist Mox. Rip in rip everyone.
Meridian's drone, extremely dangerous, but not the toughest. After that we've researched Meridian himself, but he knew nothing we haven't already known. That was a huge waste of time then.
Oh, great, now we can try to shut those guys down. It's been a long time since they last were a threat, so I'd like to see what they have prepared for the final battle.
Oh look, another base. We've got gazers, sectoids, mutons, now probably floaters. We really should assault one of those bases. And by one of those bases I meant sectoid one. I would still prefer to have a steady supply of laser guns to deal with cyberdiscs though.
(I actually checked and both South American bases are gazers. They use cyberdiscs instead of holodrones though)
Now this is an excavator, staffed with sectoids to boot. This month we missed a terror mission (which I forgot to mention), and lost a whole bunch of soldiers to a tiny etehereal ship. We really need to up our game.
Sectoids are upping their game too. We've never seen this kind before, so I don't want to vaporize it with Crab's laser cannon.
The sectoid in power armor only has a plasma pistol, so we should competely focus on killing really dangerous ones, like those sneaky guys on the ground.
Shot the guardian with the Asuka after breaking its shield, then a few turns later it passed out. Alien alloys are always good loot.
Gee, I wonder if the aliens are planning to use alien hybrids for their plans; why else would they implant hybrid embryos in women. Also, that floater is straight up stabbing that person in the head! What kind of examination is that? It's not even looking!
Man, there's a lot of tiny fighters flying around the Oceanian alien base. Butterstorm Too shot them all down, but their presence might be troublesome for any potential base assault operations.
USO swam straight into our trap. We still don't have aquatic suits yet, but we're stacked on sonic pistols and sonic-blasta rifles. This time I haven't made the mistake of taking a drone underwater, because even though I had a Coealacanth made, I forgot about ammo for it. Whoops. We also have electro-flares.
The place is somewhat lit up now. That's how we spent our first turn.
Here we go again. Mr. Chromolithograph put some Jell-O on Mr. Platelet. We're not retreating just yet; we need this aqua plastics.
Darkness certainly makes those missions harder for us. Aquatoids can blast us from the other side of the map while we have to get close enough to see them.
Good fucking job, Mr. Dip. Hopefuly the one aquatoid standing by the USO will pass out from its gas cannon wound before it gets a chance to kill anyone, or at least it won't hit anything because of injuries.
Ms. Gnelf is dead thanks to Mr. Dip's atrocious fucking handling of the gas cannon. The aquatoid ran back into the USO, but it was to late for it.
I'm so pissed right now, you won't even believe. The shots were supposed to be redirected at point-blank, but every single time the last shot from every single aquatoid was accurate and instant kill. We've sworded all of them as a revenge, but...
Mr. Chromolithograph and Mr. Recognition were amazing soldiers who didn't deserve to die this way. Ms. Gnelf was a part of Gnelf-Gnoblin-Gnome team, and I'll have to see if Mr. Dip can be tried for killing her. The biggest kick in the nuts is the three units of aqua plastics.
Thanks to the ethereal ship mission we're forced to go back to tritanium vests in Ramsay HQ. They should be enough for hybrid farms, but not so much for aliens. Personal armors will be arriving from New Kitchen in a day or so, but we need those points now.
Yeah, it's a rookie training mission with almost every soldier being a hybrid too weak to hold a gun bigger than a rifle. Incidentally, we need anything bigger than a rifle to destroy a drone.
Civilian Mox was the MVP of this mission. Being the strongest of hybrids, he gunned down a drone with a macro SMG, then tanked another drone's laser with his shield until Ms. Broom could destroy it with her heavy cannon. He's gonna need this stamina.
Research ship has landed in Malaysia. Immediately Mr. Pacemaker killed a sectoid standing the closest.
Got too hasty again. Ms. Troop and Mr. Assist, both great soldiers, rushed in with no regards for their TUs, and now they can only hope to survive the encounter with this sectoid navigator/leader/whatever.
Holy shit, I did it again! Ms. Troop blasted two sectoids with two UAC rockets, burning through her TUs, and now she can't move. She's blocking the only elevator tile, so nobody can come to her rescue.
Okay, she was fine again. I gotta be more careful, no doubt about that.
First kill for Zamboni Birdvig!
This is the situation right now. Mr. Gnome and Mr. Nephew confirmed that the room to the south are empty. Mr. Dip checked another room, and was instructed not to proceed inside so he doesn't get melted by a sectoid with a canister gun. Mr. Assist and Neo Zoku aren't able to see what's in the room they were assigned to, because Mr. Assist sed his time to blast a sectoid with his heavy cannon. Mr. Gnoblin, Mr. Punctuation, and Calculator Mox are guarding the security point or whatever you want to call it.
There's a few sectoids outside too, and I think Crab may not be able to do it on its own.
Cockpit cleared. Both the boss and its bodyguard went down to Mr. Assist's buckshot.
Crab vaporized a sectoid soldier, then Eel Mox sniped the last one with his rifle twice. Great mission, great loot, great stat gains. Calculator Mox even got bravery for all the tickling he/she had to endure.
So it's not tritanium, aqua plastics or terramite. The choice of material wasn't exactly working for Meridian, becasue it failed to shield the drones' circuitry from our lasers. Should have just bent your back and ask ethereals for some cyberdiscs or something to assist you.
These lanky assholes have no business being alive, and we're doing them a favor by killing them. They really are quite frail, but their shields can take ridiculous amount of damage. Ethereals really aren't strong, being unable to reliably overpower an untrained hybrid, but they still pack heavy plasma, probably levitating it with the force.
One of the lamest Marvel superheroes, a guy with a bow... Wait, no, we're talking about a plane this time. Range and speed are actually the same on the Hawkeye as on AWACS, but the Hawkeye can hold nine soldiers or five soldiers and a tank. It doesn't have improved detection chance or range though, and we need to make it ourselves. All things considered it's pretty shit.
Oh, T'leth was at war with ethereal hybrids. The USO just happened to get yeeted across dimensions while carrying the key to the alien base on Mars. I'm fine with that explaination.
Stealing from fish, giving to those in need! We are those in need. Yes, I just want to rob travelling deep ones, is it such a bad thing?
Russia is unhappy about that terror attack I had ignored. Suck it up, Ivan, I had a lot of work on my hands!
Yeah, sure thing, hybrid worker, I really needed you rubbing it in. There have been so many council member assassinations that they should really stop getting bothered by that anyway.
The Cyberweb case has been going for far too long now. We've got our toxi-suits, so we're ready to...
...die. Apart from regular ion guns, the technomads are packing warp guns, boomeroids and acid pistols. As soon as anyone moves we're beaned.
Sike, you thought! We've got crab whose 90 front armor can tank anything the Cyberweb can throw at us in the first turn. Resistance to chemical weaponry is also a good bonus.
Technomads pop out of their suits after taking some damage, but they also drop their guns, which hopefuly leaves them completely unarmed.
In a stroke of genious I've brought EMP grenades to this dimension. We'll clear the roberts out soon enough this way.
Zamboni Birdvig was just not meant to be. He was probably blasted with a warp rifle.
As far as I know we're fireproof, so their napalm failed to do much damage. Eel Mox and Mr. Nephew cleaned up those unarmored hackermen who were blocking our sight, then we got back to killing.
Look guys, a super-cool mecha! Crab destroyed it with a single shot, so at least we know that won't be a problem.
The actual problem is the abundance of warp guns on this battlefield. I've lost count of how many of our dudes got killed, but it's a significant number.
I've been clenching my ass so hard the entire mission. It's not over yet, but the biggest threats have been neutralized with rockets. The real problem is that the technomads use their roberts as spotters for sniping us from beyond our line of sight.
We have to push just a little bit further. The hackermen are panicking big time, I know we can do it!
Mr. Gnome found a vat room full of vats of various shapes and sizes. We should get a room like that too.
Jesus Crust, this was bad. Mind that each technomad had to be killed twice, so the number of kills wasn't all that impressive.
Everyone who survived, including Crab, grew as a person significantly.
Mr. Hare and Ms. Troop were great agents, not elite but great. Yet again we've lost valuable personnel, which seems to be the theme of this update.
We can now research gaining access to Cyberweb HQ which hopefully isn't in Dimension X, and even if it is, I hope it isn't in an open field like this fortress. Of course that's for the future.
---
What an update that was... okay.
-We've captured Meridian the Hunter for nothing, not even a combat analysis; acceptable losses;
-Assaulted a USO and got three people killed; unacceptable losses;
-Encountered a UFO manned by ethereals; complete fucking disaster;
-Took over a Cyberweb fortress in Dimension X; everyone died, but it was worth it;
-Lost two Birdvigs in a single update;
-Learned that sage tea doesn't differ much from peppermint tea, just smells worse.
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Topic: I don't want to believe - X-Com Files (Read 90918 times)