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[10ebbor10]

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The planet Earth rotates slowly beneath you. From your stealth command vessel, you can see them clearly, squabbling in the dirt, unaware of the universe. They do not possess the gift, nor do they posses a physical prowess, like the Mutton or Chrysalid's did. Still, the scans indicate they may show promise, and so they must be investigated and added to the Ethereal empire.

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

Mission Profiles

Abduction : A basic mission that focuses on acquiring genetic material by abducting humans   
Raid : A basic mission that focuses on spreading fear by engaging in rampant destruction   
Infiltration  : A basic mission that tries to subtly contact sympathetic elements on Earth   


Alien Resources

3 VP
6 UP
3 EP

[10ebbor10]

Pre-Turn 0

The following things need to be decided:
- Main Base Location : This can be anywhere in the solar system
- Subsidiary Bases : Pick 2 nations from the map to place your secret bases in. You get bonusses if you deploy in these regions or their continents.
- Pick 2 designs

Spoiler: Map (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

[BBBence1111]

Xeno-Hydralids.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/652/952/987.png

Let's do it!

As for a Main Base, let's put it in the Sun. Let's see them try and take that.

More realistically, somewhere in the asteroid belt?

As for Secondary bases, Europe and Asia would make the most sense. We get the most of the continental bonuses that way.

[RoseHeart]

Anyone ever play Creatures? Love that game. Gotta hybridize 'em all!

[TheFantasticMsFox]

For places to put our base, I would stuff it in Mercury, as it is the planet that stays the closest to earth the longest, and most would expect the moon or mars or something.

For sub bases, I would go for SA and Asia. Lots of area to cover, and terrain is more favoring to the defenders when it comes to base assaults.

[BBBence1111]

SA is the worst option IMO. We only get 2 countries to use the continent bonus in. EU/Asia give 4.

[TheFantasticMsFox]

Thats fair, and in that case I would go for Asia and Africa. I dont think they would expect Africa, and Europe is overdone.

[Failbird105]

BOOM I'm in! Will look over the voting options in a bit.

Edit: Yeah, I agree with Asia and either Africa or Europe. Not sure on which though. As for the base... I worry that with straight up other planets there may be times when we just don't have access to our main base.

As for designs, I'm gonna go bring back some of the ones I made for the first game I think. S'gonna be a bit.

[TricMagic]

Is here.

[NUKE9.13]

Xeno-Hydralids are not the best T0 design. Walk before you run, or whatever it is that Xeno-Hydralids do for locomotion.

I have a question: will our bases provide resource benefits, or would we need to design a method of, eg, getting more VP?

[BBBence1111]

If I'm promised we're doing them at somw point it's okay.

Now here's an idea. Grab some vaguely humanlike aliens and give them angel wings. Put our base in the USA. Should win us the war right then and there.

[Doubloon-Seven]

Why do that when we can fulfill every alien invasion trope in existence? Little Green Men and Tripods and all.

As for main base location, Mercury sounds good.

Secondary base location should be Asia for possible region bonus and South American because reverse psychology, and as we all know, nothing happens in South America.

[10ebbor10]

I have a question: will our bases provide resource benefits, or would we need to design a method of, eg, getting more VP?

For now, no benefit. You can use designs/revisions to try and gain benefits.

[NUKE9.13]

M'kay. In that case, I suggest we do one design for a shipyard or something to get us more VP:

Mercurial Shipyards:
With the resources currently at our disposal, the number of ships we can deploy is strictly limited. Transporting ships across interstellar distances is simply not feasible; we need in-situ shipyards to build and maintain our fleet.
The Mercurial Shipyards are named such for two reasons: One, they are located in our main base on Mercury; Two, they are designed to rapidly change and adapt to our needs. All the equipment is modular, moving around on magnetic tracks according to the whims of the shipbuilders, allowing for ships of all sizes to be assembled or repaired. Attached are the necessary foundries, reactors, and labs needed to produce the various components that go into our vessels.
The Mercurial Shipyards are mostly automated, with management tasks being performed by Sectoids.

And, inspired by BBBence's suggestion of angelic aliens, I came up with this proposal:

Ophanim:
The Ophanim are a curious specimen. They are disc-shaped, and covered in dozens of eyes. They do not walk, but rather float in the air with the aid of the Gift (made easier by their lightweight bodies). Physically, they are incredibly weak, incapable of surviving more than two or three shots with even conventional weaponry. However, their capacity for the Gift is impressive, and- as one might expect- their vision is excellent. Between their various eyes, they are capable of seeing deep into both infrared and ultraviolet, can spot movement at incredible distances, and have excellent night vision (not all eyes can do all those things, rather they have several kinds of eyes specialised in different tasks).
Their psionic abilities include their ability to float, move, and communicate, but also the "Eyes of Fear" ability, where they stare directly into a target's eyes, causing them to become paralysed with fear for a brief period- this being their primary means of 'self defence', as it allows them to escape whilst their pursuer is frozen. It can also be used to aid in gathering research materials, as the Ophanim can track down subjects, freeze them, and summon Sectoids to subdue the target more permanently.

Ophanim are useful scouts, and thanks to their small statures and simple metabolisms can be deployed in large numbers. Their psionic abilities could be expanded in future, if desired.

I'd vote for putting our secondary bases in India and Nigeria (more specifically, dug into a mountain in the Himalayas, and underneath a lake in the African interior), with our main base on Mercury (near one of the poles, underground).

[Failbird105]

Well, I didn't really find any particularly good turn 1 designs to bring back from the first game that aren't our actual turn 1 design or just a bigger plasma guns. All I found was wonderful nostalgia over the Skin Crawlers, which remain my single best contribution to any arms race yet.

I feel like a cool idea though could be like, a being with a pretty much useless body and a huge brain focused entirely on psionics. Like, we're talking the squishy center of the Gatekeeper, downscaled and without the tentacles. We could use it to pilot our large robots and such, thus meaning they can't just straight up re-purpose the machines directly for their own use.

Also, I really want to use the Old-com Cryssalids for something, or at least their design. I found them while looking up other old XCom aliens and I just love the look. Something about the carapaced humanoid brute with a perpetual smile built into its skull is just really appealing to me. More so than the generic horrible bug monsters anyway. I guess because you'd expect the horrible bug monster to lay eggs in people, but not the hulking brute with giant rending pincers.

Doom could be another good source of inspiration for designs as well.

Edit: Hmm, wait, some ideas just came to me. Gonna try to cook up a few things.
Question Ebbor, do we have access to mind meld yet?