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[cganya]

The Skyranger lands between two buildings next to a street. Civilians run for their lives from a heated, but one sided fire fight. The rear ramp falls to the ground as Mario's tank rumbles to life. "Lets get out there and turn the tides grunts!" Darkwind calls out as Mario descends the ramp. The feeling of determination was thick in the high-tech drop-ship, These soldiers did not come all this way to lose.



Mario moved down the ramp. Alien and human gunfire alike could be heard all coming from the west and northern directions. Mario immediately spotted a little gray man next to a floating disk, firing down the street to the west.



As Mario reaches the bottom of the ramp the aliens turn their attention to him. Waves of green fire arc towards him, much of it simply deflects off his thick armor. A large green blast flies through the air towards Mario's tank, slamming into it fiercely.



"Crap! I'm down to 50% integrity commander, that shot hit my main camera and turret systems." Mario quickly moved his tank to avoid a second large green blast. "I can't take too much more of this..." Smaller green blasts deflect off of Mario's tank from the right. "Hold on, there's one right beside me!"



"I'm on it!" calls out Spartan as he steps out onto the ramp to take a couple shots at the nearby alien.



He fires off two shots before the aliens from the street begin firing towards him. He takes rolls off the ramp to the west and takes cover behind the landing gear. He notices that a little gray man was moving to flank the Skyranger. "Another one to the west, out in the open!" He calls out to the rest of the team.



Steve's clone follows Spartan out of the Skyranger and takes a short moment to aim at the alien.



He Takes it down quickly and gets behind the ramp before the floating disc can set it's weapon to crispy fried human.



"I'm right behind you Spartan." Hugh Mann calls out calmly as he follows Spartan's path off the ramp. He dives onto the ground and Takes aim for the little gray man's big round head.



With a couple quick pulls of the trigger he melts the face off the alien.



"These laser weapons are a god send!" He exclaims excitedly.
"Don't get cocky soldier. Their weapons haven't gotten any weaker just because you have a fancy new toy. Lets take out that floating thing before it rips us a new asshole." Cerapa commands as he, Argatson and Gogandantess take aim from the Skyranger's ramp.



They begin to spin their barrels, unleashing all hell into the floating disk and the building behind it. Only three shots landed solidly against the floating disk; two armor piercing from Gogandantess and one high explosive round from Cerapa.

"Hah, you should have learned by now that there is only one way to take the things down. allow me to demonstrate!" Sarah Newman puts heavy emphasis on the last word as she slings her rocket launcher over her shoulder. She takes aim and bids the alien heavy weapons platform adue as she launches a heavy rocket towards the war machine. The resulting explosion fills the view of the heavy weapons team, encompassing the entire side of the building. A secondary explosion rekindles the rocket's fireball, filling the street with smoke.



"And that's how you do it!" She cheers happily.
"Good work Newman." I mention through the radio. "Keep it up. Mario, move ahead and clear the street."
"Yes commander." Mario replied as he coaxed his remote tank into motion.

Mario moves his tank onto the sidewalk. As he does so, however, several green blasts fly toward him from around the house!



"There's another one around the corner here guys." Mario calls out as he turns his tank towards the alien, lining up what was left of his most armored side.

"We can't get to you very quickly Mario, can you wait for us to flank?" Responded Darkwind.
"Commander?" Asked Mario.
"Can you take him out Mario? If you aim a bit to the left you can kill it without compromising any possible civilians in the building." I directed
"I think I see what your saying commander. My turret is a bit wonky but I think my targeting system is still functioning."

Mario takes aim with his rocket turret and aims for the lamp-post next to the alien.



He locks his target and fires off a rocket. It flies past the lamp-post and down the street. "What the?!" Mario exclaims as he hits the skill switch for the rocket, disarming it. The rocket slams, relatively, harmlessly into a building down the street. "Commander, my turret is whacked, I was aiming at the ground!"
"Concentrate on scouting then Mario, we'll have to get it fixed once the mission is over." I replied.

Just past Mario's field of vision, a large green blast bolts towards his tank. The second it slams into the tank Mario's camera feed fizzes out and goes black. In large print letters the words "SIGNAL LOST" illuminate his face. "N-No! SHIT! Guy's I'm gone, watch out!" He stammered as he tried feverishly to reconnect the signal.



"Mario, how long till you're back up?!" I call out to him across the room, concern lining my words. This is the first time we lost such an important tactical advantage in combat.
"Chances are slim commander, both backup cams are fried and I'm not getting anything on my instruments. I'm a really big paper weight right now..." He replied as he continued to work his controls.
"Be advised soldiers, your mobile armor unit is down. Proceed with caution." I reported through the radio.
Roll Fizzlebeef and Tiberius look at each other worriedly as they listen to the radio, Hugh Mann curses and takes care to get behind more cover.
"Well lets not waste time people. I want someone to get behind that last alien son of a bitch." Cerapa commanded, trying to break up the tension.
"On it!" Replied Gogandantess enthusiastically. He was ready to show the team he was smarter than the average rookie.



"OK Gogandantess. Once you get your eyes on the alien, don't be a hero. Let me know where it is and I'll toss it a little explosive gift, got it?" Darkwind explained as she pulled a grenade from her belt and got ready to arm it.
"Got it Captain, just give me a moment to get around here." He replied.



Steve moves closer to the street and scans the area for hostiles. He is just about to continue moving when he spots a little gray man in an alleyway next to the damaged building across the street.



"Hostile spotted!" He calls out and drops to his knee. "Over in the alleyway." Steve fires off a couple rounds towards the alien but has difficulty getting a good angle. Nerveless he manages to land a non-lethal shot.
"Hold on... I'll give it a shot." Replied Cerapa.



He takes aim with his auto cannon. As he does so, Memories of his fallen comrades dieing flood his mind. He fires his auto cannon but his aim had wavered.



Cerapa grunts, his auto cannon suddenly feeling twice as heavy. He kneels and sets it down in front of him for a moment while he tries to steady his nerves.



Hugh Mann moves up behind Steve and lines up a shot on the pesky alien. Taking care to aim over his teammate's head.



He places his shot perfectly between the buildings and between the eyes of the wounded alien, sending it to the ground with an audible thump.



Darkwind spots movement through the eastern building's window. It was the alien they were trying to flank coming around the corner! She raised her rifle and with one hand shot the alien through two sets of windows before it passed from view. The alien collapses, a moment later a huge explosion rocks the building followed by fire and smoke coming around the corner.



Darkwind takes a quick look around her, several teammates were crouching close by. "Shit! that would have killed us all! Fan out! Get your asses into some cover!" She commanded.

Cerap regains his composure and picks his weapon back up. "OK lets start moving forward. The hostiles definitely know where we are. Lets not let that last." He directed the heavy weapons team to set up a firing line under the Skyranger but instructed Gogandantess to continue assisting Darkwind's team.



"I see one over here Captain, It's in the on the western street." Hugh Mann calmly reported to the Darkwind and the team over the radio.



Argatson takes aim and was about to fire when a civilian burst out, of the building just ahead, into imminent crossfire.



Argatson, Spartan and Hugh Mann open fire, Argatson lands a hit but the alien manages to return fire. The green fireball bolts across the air and sinks into the screaming civilian's shoulder. The panicked woman falls to the ground and writhes in pain for a moment before going still. Hugh Mann yells out as he redoubles his efforts. With the neutral out of the way he lands a hit on the alien and brings it to the ground.



"Damn! Civie down!" Hugh Mann calls over the radio.
"Keep your heads down and worry about finding hostiles first. I'll take a look west on this... wait, fuck." Cerapa finishes his sentence in a whisper as he spots a floating disk to the north east across the street.



Cerapa notices the floating disc rotate towards him and he bolts for cover. Roll Fizzlebeef steps in and takes aim with his laser rifle.



He kneels and fires twice quickly placing both shots on the floating disc. The floating disc tips off it's axis and slams into the ground. A second later it explodes into a huge ball of fire and smoke.



"Huzzah! Target down!" He cheers over the radio. "Not bad for a medic eh?"
"You're right, I owe you a round when we get back Fizzlebeef." Cerapa replies with relief.

Cerapa quickly steps around the corner of the building. The ringing of the explosion leaves his ears and is replaced by the screaming of panicked civilians ahead of him. Two women run out of a building, across the street towards him.



Steve meanwhile had made his way into the north western building and peered through the far window. He spots another little gray man across the western street. "Found another one, it's in the yard across the street." He reported before taking cover away from the window. "I think it spotted me." He calls through the radio.



Darkwind and Spartan Take aim at the alien, waiting for it to leave itself open as it focuses it's attention on the window near Steve's clone.



They seize their chance and open fire. Darkwind's shots fail to connect but Spartan's both hit right on target. Spartan cheers as he earns his first career kill against the alien menace.



A third civilian comes from up the northern street, following the others.



Cerapa opens the green roll up door and yells out to them "Get in here! It's safer here! Get off the street!" One of the women understands and runs towards the door. The other two continue to run down the street towards the Skyranger.



"Hey, I think I see another alien standing over the one we just shot down." Spartan reports over the radio.



"I got it." Calls out Argatson. He takes aim and lands a solid shot on the little gray man. dropping it into a heap with the other alien.

Gogandantess clears the building across the street from the Skyranger. Somehow the second floor managed to survive much of the rocket blast.



The ground team spends the few dozen minutes thoroughly searching the area, calming civilians. The last alien firearm burst had long since silenced. The clean up crew came in with med-kits and tractor trailers. In a quick and efficient hour all surviving civilians were treated and sent to hospitals while any sign of the alien threat, save the ensuing destruction, was packed up and on the move back to X-Com's base of operations. Darkwind could have sworn however that there were more alien weapons than she counted in the clean up crew's inventory.



MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
--------------------

Cerapa:
Health + 3
Firing Accuracy + 1
Strength + 3

Spartan:
Kills + 1
TU's + 2
Stamina + 1
Health + 1
Strength + 1

Hugh Mann:
Kills + 3
TU's + 2
Stamina + 3
Health + 4
Firing Accuracy + 3
Strength + 4

Gogandantess:
Rank UP! - Squaddie
TU's + 2
Stamina + 4
Health + 2
Strength + 2

Roll Fizzlebeef:
Kills + 1
TU's + 3
Health + 3
Strength + 5

Steve - Clone 1:
Kills + 1
TU's + 2
Stamina + 4
Health + 1
Strength + 5

Argatson:
Kills + 1
TU's + 3
Stamina + 5
Health + 2
Firing Accuracy + 1
Strength + 4

Darkwind:
Kills + 1
Health + 3
Strength + 5

Sarah Newman:
Kills + 2
TU's + 4
Stamina + 2
Health + 4
Firing Accuracy + 1
-------------------

Accolades:

Positive:
Go-To-Guy - Hugh Mann - most kills in mission
High Score - Hugh Mann and Mr. Apple - most career kills
I'm not in here with you, you're in here with me - Cerapa - failed to resist alien mind attack but resisted panicking/mind control
Roidrage - practically everyone - skyrocketing strength increases

Negative:
Bad Habits Die Hard - Darkwind - no increases to firing accuracy despite several kills
Late Bloomer - Spartain - finally got a kill
Hey! Where's My Name?! - Tiberius - no stat increases at all (probably too busy stealing things )
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

so facebook decided to change the IMG tag code on me. it used to be simply:

["IMG]http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy74/cganya2/non%20x-com%20lp%20stuff/X_Com_Trooper_by_drcloud.jpg[/IMG"]

now it's:

["URL=http://s779.photobucket.com/albums/yy74/cganya2/non%20x-com%20lp%20stuff/?action=view&current=X_Com_Trooper_by_drcloud.jpg]["IMG]http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy74/cganya2/non%20x-com%20lp%20stuff/X_Com_Trooper_by_drcloud.jpg[/IMG"][/URL"]

(i stuck in quotes inside the code tags so they wouldn't do their stuff)

i wonder if the new way even work properly?



edit - apparently it does. and holy crap that picture is huuuge. same artist as the one who i cropped my avatar from.

[Mephansteras]

Well, at least Darkwind is killing stuff even without an accuracy boost. Still lame that her most important stat isn't growing, though.

i know. I even checked and 70 is by far not the limit. She's just being stubborn i guess. interesting in that, that's how i picture her personality

Hehe. Yeah, maybe she's a little too confident in her abilities.

Glad to see we didn't lose anything other then the tank, though. That was a pretty painless Terror mission, all things considered.

[cganya]

Well, at least Darkwind is killing stuff even without an accuracy boost. Still lame that her most important stat isn't growing, though.

i know. I even checked and 70 is by far not the limit. She's just being stubborn i guess. interesting in that, that's how i picture her personality

Hehe. Yeah, maybe she's a little too confident in her abilities.

Glad to see we didn't lose anything other then the tank, though. That was a pretty painless Terror mission, all things considered.

simular to chuck norris, i have two speeds. suck and win

[rickvoid]

Okay. I'm still alive, and I plan to continue my sidestory. Just been busy.

Cerapa's psych interview should be more interesting now...

[Zilvara]

Zilvara looks around the base as the soldiers are out on there mission and sighs as she takes a walk around looking at the different areas and thinking that they really  might have a problem with this if the troops are out where is the defense for the base..

planning thou the thought as she heads from each room she comes up with a thought of filing a report of this to the commander as it would bring up problems with the base if the soldiers where out on a mission and no one was here to protect the base personal from a attack on everyone here at base.

heading in to the firing range she checks to see no one is even near this area and pulls out her little item that the engineers cooked up and figures it was worth it to get some practice in and sets up a target and spends some time tiring it out before smiling and putting it away later and heads out of the range quietly leaving behind the target and a neat tight grouping at a good distance shot. Forgetting to put away the target so that to leave no evidence behind

[Mephansteras]

Hmm, good point Zil.

Anya, how many soldiers do we have at this point?

Also, what are your plans for other bases? It might be more manageable from an LP standpoint to simply focus on this base and only provide general overviews of activity from other bases. Since you'll have dozens of missions from other bases eventually it might help keep you from getting burnt out on doing write-ups.

That does, however, make it difficult to move the more experienced troops around to even out the experience between bases.

[Heron TSG]

I volunteer Gogandantess to lead a crack-commando team of elite soldiers on a daring mission to colonize the opposite side of the planet. We'll leave the cities for the main army to take care of, but the Second Base can take out flying saucers and such.

[LegoLord]

One thing to take into consideration is that it's always good to have some soldiers back at base in case of an attack.

[cganya]

Hmm, good point Zil.

Anya, how many soldiers do we have at this point?

Also, what are your plans for other bases? It might be more manageable from an LP standpoint to simply focus on this base and only provide general overviews of activity from other bases. Since you'll have dozens of missions from other bases eventually it might help keep you from getting burnt out on doing write-ups.

That does, however, make it difficult to move the more experienced troops around to even out the experience between bases.

as for zilvy's point; there are two problems.
1) base defenses cost money, money we need right now for other things
2) base defenses at this point are really inefficient/ineffective. In order to sufficiently "defend" the base at this point we would need 4+ missile defenses.

so in light of that I plan on investing in a second HWP (cannon this time) to assist the extra soldiers on base if an attack were to occur (has never happened to me before)

as for other bases. I will bring that up to vote in my next post. I think for now we should work on setting up "listening posts" in two locations (namely, east Europe and east Asia)

right now we have 17 soldiers including myself. 18 if we count the scientist who will become a soldier once heavy lasers become available. That is almost two Skyrangers full of players.

Once the secondary bases become large enough to warrent their own Skyranger/Interceptor team; I will propose that I hire a new compliment of soldiers for each base and transfer a high rank and low ranking officer to each base. For this i would need to have a total of 6 ranking officers. 2 minimum for each base. Currently we have 4 ranking officers.

[Zilvara]

smiles was just playing it out and was figuring it be a while anyway before we could and setting the story for futther development for later smiles
as for what i was doing in the range well that you guys will have to roleplay out with your stories to find out
winks and giggles

[cganya]

While waiting for the Skyranger to return I received a message from our construction engineers. The new storage facility was complete and ready for use.



I don't think they could of had better timing.

Once the Skyranger returned to base I had the head repair technician meet me there. I welcomed the victorious team back to base. The team was all smiles. Even Darkwind couldn't help but crack a grin.
"Team; your mission was a stupendous success! I want you all to enjoy this night. The mess hall attendants have been instructed to setup an open bar tonight. You have all earned it, dismissed!" I happily declared, I was met with cheers. Cerapa stayed behind for a moment. "Commander? May I have a word?" He asked quietly.
"Of course sergeant, how can I help?" I asked with a bit of concern. Cerapa's face had grown cold.
"During the mission... I think I know what happened to Tamunshin on her last mission. I would like to have a meeting with the new psychiatrist as soon as possible. While I refused to falter during the mission; I felt something I haven't felt since the first days of my demolition training." He trailed off while he thought out his next words carefully.
I looked at him, the smile gone from my face. "What is it sergeant? You have my confidence." I reassured him.
"Fear." He looked at me grimly, his face was chiseled like stone. In the time I have known him he never once cracked under pressure. His superiors recommended him to me for this very reason. "I fear no mortal enemy commander. But when my enemy is in my head, I have no eyes to stare back into."

I told Cerapa that he can expect an appointment with Dr. Gableman soon and told him to go join the others in the mess hall. I turned my attention to the repair techs and the disabled heavy weapons platform. "Whats the synopsis?" I asked as I approached them.
"Commander, Your pocketbook isn't going to like this..." He replied. He went on to explain, essentially, that it would cost more to fix than to just replace it. I cursed the alien antagonists, that tank cost half a million dollars. However, better a tank than a soldier, tanks are replaceable.

With a bit of help from Auraluna, I arranged for the purchase of a new tank, along with plenty of rockets for it.



I held an impromptu meeting with Zilvara. I told her plainly that we needed some more funds and that I would likely need to dip into the research material pool to get it. The funding nations were keen on getting their hands on this stuff too and we had first refusal on everything. In particular they were interested in the current focus of our research. The alien spheres were similar to large precious pearls and fetched a very high price. I convinced her to part with two of them that were for all intents and purposes, identical to a third. She also consented to selling the excess corpses, they were too busy with other projects to preform a complete dissection. She decided to keep the freshest, most intact corpse and part with the others. We agreed that, for now, we would not need more than 10 examples of each different alien weapon and that the excess would better serve the base as liquidated funds. She seemed defeated but I promised her that in return she would receive more manpower in the laboratory.



I continued onto Manny's office and had a chat with him about our now outdated, and outclassed, weapons. We agreed that the laser weapons outperformed the conventional weapons in every possible way. He stipulated, though, that a laser weapon could never replace our conventional heavy weapons in delivering explosions. I agreed readily with him and signed off on the liquidation of our conventional rifles and pistols. I also decided to sell our excess med-kits as per my economic plan for my engineer's "down time".



Once back at my quarters I sent another message to Auraluna, requesting that she inform our recruitment operatives that we were in need of 10 more scientists.



While scientists were particularly expensive, Zilvara and I agreed. This was evolving from a quiet conflict into a true war. This war was going to be won by the side with better technology and they had a head start.

I received a couple reports from Auraluna that I had requested about the base and the expected transfer times for what I had ordered.







On the 22nd of February I awoke to banging on my door. I got up out of bed and cursed at the noise maker. I opened the door to see Mario in his wheel chair. "Is Zilvy cutting up your tank again Mario?" I asked annoyedly.
"Wha? Commander, why is my sister here?!" Came his annoyed reply.
I rubbed my eyes and took a second look. Myroc stared back up at me with anger in his eyes. "What? your sister?"
"Yes my sister! Sarah Newman! I want her out of here, This job already took my legs, I wont let it take my sister too." He sounded adamant.
I stared blankly at him for a few moments, dumbfounded. "Wait she's your sister? Shit..." I gave myself a face palm. I should have recognized her from the hospital, we had crossed paths in the hallway. "Myroc, I can't kick her out for being your sister. She has been an excellent soldier and without her help, we could have lost more soldiers. You should be proud."
"I told her not to dig into it but she wouldn't listen. She stuck her nose where it doesn't belong and now she's in the line of fire!" He rambled, not caring that he was in the presence of his commanding officer, not that I minded.
"Listen Myroc, you have two solutions." I interrupted him and held up two fingers. "One, you convince her to resign."
Myroc scoffed at the suggestion. "She'll never listen, never has."
"Two." I interrupted him again more sternly this time. "Make sure the aliens are too busy shooting at you to bother shooting at her. Your choice."
Myroc stared me defiantly in the eyes. I stared back until he grumbled a response. "Fine, I'll go talk to her." He wheeled off; I closed my door and went back to bed for five extra precious minutes.

On the 24th the new batch of scientists arrived. Zilvara seemed more positive now that she had extra help on the "mind probe" project. How do these scientists even come up with this stuff? Just because it seemed to respond to thoughts, I'll never understand.

The next day, the replacement tank arrived. Amazing, the aliens haven't caused any extra trouble while we lacked heavy armor. Did they overestimate our resources or did they have no way to relay information from the battle-zone?

At the end of the month the funding nations' representatives arrived. They quickly assembled in the meeting room and I met them there. "Welcome gentlemen. In-front of you is a summary of our research and anti-extra-terrestrial activities. I hope you will find them to your liking." I took my seat while each representative looked over the documents.
"These new laser rifles sound amazing. Are they really that good?" Asked the USA representative, I could see that the German and Australian representatives were also keen on my answer.
"Better sir, They have proven to be effective against even the alien armored units." I replied with a smile.
"But that same war machine easily disabled your own mobile armor. Videos have leaked out over the internet showing this failure." The French representative seemed not all that pleased, several other representatives agreed quietly.
"120 civilians were killed in the alien attack on Bangkok. My reports show me that X-Com forces did not arrive for hours from the first emergency calls." Added the Chinese representative. "I look like a fool to my superiors for insisting that we continue our funding."
"We received notice of the alien presence in Bangkok quite late. Once our public relations campaign goes into effect, civilians around the world will know how to best report an attack. Until then we are drawing up tentative plans to setup additional "listening post" bases to act as an early warning system. We suspect that this will cause our response to alien activity to increase and be more timely." I replied calmly, trying to ignore the disdain I was receiving from the Chinese representative.
"Why has X-Com not shared these new weapons with any world governments so that they can properly outfit their militaries?" He continued to drill.
"The aliens so far have only been sending task forces onto our planet. We do not yet know the extent of our enemy's numbers but I ask this: If the aliens had a massive force ready with it's current level of technology. We would have been invaded months ago. What we are dealing with so far is guerrilla warfare. The aliens must not have the numbers to challenge us outright and so far they have failed to return from a combat encounter with us. We have deduced that the aliens have a non-existent system of relaying information back to their superiors on the fly. To support this, we have noticed that in combat they have little in the ways of tactics and are easily out-maneuvered." I pause for a moment. "To return to your question; to supply the world with these weapons would unnecessarily disrupt the world's economics and incite human against human conflict. The world at large is not ready for these advanced weapons and should not give into their lure as a knee-jerk reaction to an enemy we are so far handling quite well."
"How well you are handling the alien threat is inevitably up to the people of the world, and their leaders. Don't forget that commander Snow. We will continue to watch you, be sure that you are still worth our funding by the end of the next month." Warned the Japanese representative. "Lets try to not have a major city attacked this month and then we'll see how generous our nations are."

With that, the meeting was complete. The representatives left for their respective nations. I left for the mess hall to get a stiff drink and calm my nerves. I looked at the funding report they had given me and winced at it. At least it was an overall increase.





TO BE CONTINUED
---------------

How is everyone enjoying the story so far? Let me know if you want more detail somewhere or feel I am ignoring something. I love comments ^.^

We have some things to discuss:
1) We have some extra cash hanging around but not too much. Should we dump it into setting up some listening posts? Where would it be best to put them? I personally think central/east Europe and central/east Asia (central/east China specifically). I'm just going to ignore anyone who suggests the arctic or antarctic.
2) Base Names: Should I stick with my naming scheme or should we get some player suggested names in there? Any suggestions?
3) Backup Tank: Should we invest in a cannon tank for base defense and temporary replacement of the rocket tank for when it gets wrecked in combat again? I sure think so.

This is how our current funds look:



So please: comments, discussion, votes.

[Heron TSG]

A list of good listening post locations...

1) Switzerland
2) South Africa
3) Near Bangkok
4) Hawaii. (not much land to cover, but the ocean usually has a few ships flying over it.)

[cganya]

A list of good listening post locations...

1) Switzerland
2) South Africa
3) Near Bangkok
4) Hawaii. (not much land to cover, but the ocean usually has a few ships flying over it.)

I was thinking in the Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine border area, would get plenty of coverage of Europe and a decent bit of Africa (all but central-south) and halfway to china

Thailand while it did get attacked is not a funding country. placing a base there would cover half of China and the northern tip of Australia. I think that later (possibly 1-2 months) we could set up a listening post in central Australia. A central-northern-eastern post in China would cover the very important Japan and some of the often neglected Russia. Just my thoughts

[RAM]

I would tend to invest in more scientists and engineers, but I wouldn't take my advice...

[Mephansteras]

Europe is obviously the next most important part for a listening post. Your location is probably fine.

Btw, I enjoy the end-of-month write ups. It's interesting seeing how you justify the various nations changes in funding.

A cannon tank is probably a good investment. They make good base defense and a back-up scout tank is always good.