It's another design phase where everyone voted for one thing.
F-22 Raptor
"The gold standard of modern fighter aircraft, the F-22 Raptor is a stealth aircraft packing an arsenal of air-to-air missiles and a cannon, with vectored thrust and advanced electronics suites allowing it to eliminate targets with incredible precision, the only downside of this modern beast is its price tag. It can hardly be seen by radar, is hard to detect with thermal emissions, and even if you can't see it, it can most certainly see you, and shortly thereafter kill you. The US military isn't really in any major wars right now, so we're going to ask them pretty please can we borrow a handful of F-22s to defend the entire world against alien threats?"
Effectiveness: 5 - High
Cost: 5 - Expensive (60cr)
Complications: 2 - Minimal (Longer Repairs - Non-minor damage takes one more turn to repair than normal)
Another instance of "instead of designing new shit, let's just rip off existing designs used by existing militaries!". After contacting the US Air Force, we've convinced them to let us borrow some until this war ends, at a price. Each F-22 has 1 cannon hardpoint, 6 internal light hardpoints, and enhanced stealth capabilities - but that might not be as helpful against a way more advanced alien threat that could potentially detect the finest stealth fighters humanity can design, but oh well. For weight reasons, we won't be able to use the 4 external hardpoints if we want optimal stealth and flight range.
It is now the research phase. Now that there's actual stuff to research, why not see how the ayylien trash we've recovered works?
Balance: 190 credits
(you can rename the two alien species encountered so far (lizardmen and greys) to something else if you want)
Weapons:
-M16: An assault rifle chambered in 5.56x45mm NATO rounds. Has 20 round mags and questionable reliability since our suppliers either fail to trust us with actually decent equipment, or just hate us. Acceptable for medium range.
-Low/Infinite/Unreliable
-M9: A semi automatic pistol chambered in 9x19mm with 15 round mags. Compact, but short range.
-Low/Infinite/None
-Tavor-21: A bullpup assault rifle chambered in 5.56x45mm NATO rounds, and it's compatible with the same STANAG magazines used by our M16s. We've managed to procure a lot of 30 round STANAG magazines, primarily to use with it, but we can also load the 30 rounders into our M16s if we get desperate. The integrated M203 grenade launcher is quite heavy, but we've also gotten integrated reflex sights on these rifles.
-Below Average/10cr/None
Armor:
-Basic Armor: Surplus armor vests and helmets, worn over surplus camo. It might provide some protection from kinetic attacks, but who knows. Video cameras have been attached to the helmets, for live combat footage.
-Infinite Supply
Aircraft:
-Condor: A modified F-16, that has been optimized for UFO combat. Various modifications include heat resistant metals being used for plating, larger fuel tanks, and a lighter payload to reduce weight.
-1 cannon hardpoint, 4 light hardpoints
-Low/25cr/None
-F-22 Raptor: A fast air superiority stealth fighter, with 6 internal light hardpoints, and an internally mounted cannon hardpoint. It's expensive, but it'll be worth the cost, especially compared to the modified surplus F-16s we've been using until now.
-1 cannon hardpoint, 6 light hardpoints
-High/60cr/Long Repairs
-Blackhawk: A transport helicopter. Has a decent amount of room.
-Can carry 8 soldiers and 1 vehicle
-Low/50cr/None
Aircraft Weapons:
-Autocannon: A modified Vulcan 20mm autocannon that's used on our interceptors. It has enough ammo for 300 shots, and shoots quite fast, but it hasn't been tested for anti-UFO usage.
-Mountable on Cannon hardpoints
-Low/Free/None
-Sidewinder Missiles: Light air to air missiles. One per hardpoint.
-Mountable on Light/Heavy hardpoints
-Low/Free/None
Phase 1 Human Weapons:
-IWI Tavor-21: 8
-Remington 870: 1
Phase 1 Alien Weapons:
-Alien Orange Rifle: 4
-Alien Orange Pistol: 4
-Alien Beam Rifle: 4
-Alien Beam Pistol: 6
Lizardman Corpses:
-2 lizardman guards
-5 lizardman crewmen
-1 lizardman pilot
Grey Corpses:
-4 grey guards
-3 grey soldiers
-4 grey crewmen
-1 grey pilot
Phase 1 UFOs:
-1 Light Scout Wreck
-1 Scout Wreck
Condor-001: Available | Loadout: 1x Autocannon, 4x Sidewinder Missiles
Condor-002: Repairing (1 turn) | Loadout: 1x Autocannon, 4x Sidewinder Missiles
Condor-003: Repairing (1 turn) | Loadout: 1x Autocannon, 4x Sidewinder Missiles
Condor-004: Available | Loadout: 1x Autocannon, 4x Sidewinder Missiles
Condor-005: Retrieving (1 turn) | Loadout: 1x Autocannon, 4x Sidewinder Missiles
Condor-006: Available | Loadout: 1x Autocannon, 4x Sidewinder Missiles
Blackhawk-001: Available
Blackhawk-001: Available
USA:
-Crashsite-003: 1 crashed light scout, desert, expires in 2 turns, minimal estimated hostile count