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[GlyphGryph]

New Poll up, btw. Pick our next research goal after motion scanners!

Commander Griffin, Log 3
Still no sign of any aliens. To entertain myself, I had Fragbait and Azurro undergo "basic training", which I told them we all had to undergo. This involved locking them both in the hangar with a single stun rod dangling from the a rope ten feet above the ground, and saying they had 2 hours to knock the other person unconcious, or they'd have latrine duty for the foreseeable future and/or be dismissed from the squad. They both seem very eager to either fight some aliens or avoid cleaning toilets, so watching their antics on the security camera for over an hour was certainly the highlight of my day, before I got distracted by something interesting actually happening -

By which I mean, the experimental weapon has arrived! It is an autonomous rocket tank prototype called BRO. That stands for something, but I honestly couldn't be arsed. Bro is a fine name for such a beautiful piece of machinery, and I can't wait to field test the thing.

Commander Log 4
We had first contact today! We engaged an alien vessel and/or weather balloon in Southwest Europe, and shot the thing down!

Unfortunately, no wreckage was discovered. Either because it was a balloon, or it crashed into the ocean. The world may never know.



Commander Log 5
No further signs of alien activity. Maybe it was a balloon after all. Or maybe Finland isn't the epicenter of world alien activity, and we should have built our base in Madagascar like I originally suggested. Ah well. The eggheads finished inventing their motion scanner thing, and I've assigned the engies to start cranking them out. I've decided that if we're going to fight aliens, we should definitely have sci fi weaponry, and so the scientists should get to work inventing LASERS. And not the normal kind that kids use to blind pilots, but laser GUNS. They seemed a bit taken aback by my enthusiasm, but said they'd see what they can do.

[Phantom]

Wait, Motion Scanners? Skip those, take Medi-kits! The new Heroin.

[breadbocks]

Beeline for laser rifles, then stop there and grab medkits. If you don't have alien alloys to study by then, keep working on lasers.

[GlyphGryph]

Commander Griffin, Log 6
Wooh, we had a real fight on our hands this time! It was no weather balloon, but an honest-to-god flying saucer!


It took both interceptors to take it down, but it finally went crashing to earth, and we headed out to salvage what we could and make sure the bug eyes were dead. We landed outside some farmhouses, and I activated the tank. We couldn't see anything through the windows, so we lowered the ramp and BRO began rolling out... only for a bolt of some green explosive to fly at it, hitting it square in the side, and we all ducked for cover as the thing exploded in a shower of sparks and flames.


Piece. Of. Crap. So much for field testing... I'm going to recommend they send the next one with more armor. I hope they send another. I really wanted to shoot something with that...

Well, we all just stood there for a few moments, looking at each other. I quickly took the lead, and pointed at one of the kids who's names I never learned, then gesture with my thumb out the door. I saw him gulp, stand unsteadily, and then run down the ramp, a shower of green death following him. I gestured to code, and he nodded, jumping out the back, turning, following the path of the shots and downing the alien with a single snap shot. God damn it, I love that man. Whats-his-name seemed very relieved to still be alive, but I just glared at him. If he'd spent his time shooting instead of running, I wouldn't have had to risk one of my valuable soldiers in that maneuver!



We all moved out of the vehicle, and I motioned for everyone to remain perfectly quiet as they took their positions. I thought I saw some movement to the north, and waved one of the mooks over to investigate it. One of the green bullet things winged him, and he fell to the ground screaming in pain - we'd found our next alien. I yelled for him to shut up and quiet down unless he wanted the alien to finish him, andmotioned for Codec to take the shot again. He nodded, hefted the rifle to his shoulder, and fired... once, twice, three times. As the alien scrambled for cover, the first two shots barely missed him, but the third hit him squarely in that freaky bulbous head. But the thing stayed up! It was obviously wounded, but it was already readying its weapon to retaliate, and we had a wounded man out there to recover. I yelled for an open fire, and bullets began ringing out around me. I took aim with my own rifle, clipping the monster as I moved down the ramp, but it still didn't go down. Fragbait, readied his heavy cannon, and launched a single round towards the enemy, ripping off one of its arms... but it still struggled back to its feet, trying to aim its weapon with a single spindly limb.


Finally, he went down from a stray bullet fired from one of the mooks. I'll probably have to ask him what his name is when this is over... Nah. I'll call him Sparky. Go Sparky!

We heard some strange sounds from the alien space craft, and everyone began moving towards it, trying to take cover behind the hedges. A single shot flew out, leaving a mess behind where one of the mooks once stood - our first casualty. We fanned out - Me and Tony swung west to take cover in a nearby shed and fire upon them from the windows, while everyone else fanned east. The mook that had been winged earlier managed to drag himself to a nearby hedge and send a few bullets into one of the aliens, downing it - I'll probably have to think of a name for him as well. Damn. How about... Survivor! I like it. Survivor... And then Sparky surprised everyone by managing to kill the second! I like this kid!


This isn't over yet, though... an alien has spotted me and Tony creeping through the barn and opened fire. I ducked my head just in time, as the green bullet tore a chunk out of the nearby wall, and then stood back up and returned fire. No alien bastard shoots at ME and gets away with it! I managed to nail him, but not to take him down, and my gun jams. I step away from the window, and give Tony the thumbs up. He hefts his rocket launcher, leans out the window, and lets loose.



Meanwhile, Team 2 move towards the UFO, and the last person left for me not to care about eats a facefull of fiery death. Wonderful. To make it worse, Azurro nearly does as well! But despite the burns and bubbly skin, he soldiers on. What a trooper! Still, the alien keeps darting in an out of that door, making him almost impossible to hit. I tell the men to move up and watch the door, and open fire the moment it opens, but Fragbait radios in some bad news... another alien is moving to the left of the UFO. I tell him to fall back, but I have a feeling someone important is going to die soon - there's just too many of them.



The alien darts out of the doorway again. Codec clips him, but the alien returns fire. Survivor, surely realizing he would bleed out long before we finished the mission, valiantly threw himself in front of the bullets, saving Codec's life at the expense of his own. Or the alien just shot him, but I prefer to remember whoever that was as a valiant hero rather than a bullet magnet, if you don't mind. His family, if he had one, would be proud.

Azurro, ignoring his own wounds and seeking revenge, chased the fleeing alien inside the shuttle, saw that there was in fact more than one alien inside the shuttle, and promptly ran out even quick than he ran in. Lucky, never one to miss an opportunity, primed and tossed a grenade through the door before it managed to snap shut again. A deafening explosion killed the alien, but took poor Azurro with it, and Sparky was wounded from shrapnel. This mission was quickly becoming a bloodbath, and there were still at least two of the bastards left alive...

Team 2, or what was left of it, rushed inside the downed saucer. Fragbait led the charge, putting an autocannon round into the alien. The other opened fire as well, but when the smoke cleared... it was Sparky, once more, who had taken the alien down.

Meanwhile, me and Tony attempted to sneak up behind the alien, only to have Codec injure it, and Lucky land the final blow. We searched a while longer, and found no more sign of alien presence.



The aliens were real alright, and deadly. Today, we lost several good men, a tank, and Azurro. Far, far too deadly.

(The only promotion this mission was my being promoted to Sarge, despite getting no kills. Still, at least the promotion went to the right man!)

[GlyphGryph]

New Poll

Commander Griffin, Log 7
Upon returning to base, the eggheads told me they had successfully worked out the concept of laser weaponry! My dreams of my very own zap ray had finally come through! When I asked to try the weapon out, they just sort of looked around sheepishly. Apparently they had only "developed" it in the theoretical sense, but they seemed sure that creating a working prototype of a laser pistol was just around the corner. I was going to tell them to hop to it, but one of them reminded me that we'd just secured a huge batch of alien tech, and they seemed keen to get access to it. There were a few options available... I'd have to take a moment to think about it. I kind of really wanted a laser weapon, but those green fire guns the eggheads referred to as "Plasma weaponry" weren't bad either...

Options:
Laser Pistol
Medi-kit
Heavy Plasma (and clip)
Plasma Rifle (and clip)
Plasma Pistol (and clip)
Alien Grenade
Sectoid Corpse

And with that, I'm done for tonight!

[Tarran]

You might want to reset the poll, since with your new one all votes that went into laser weaponry are now in Medpacks despite people not even voting for it.

I say go with laser pistol, then rifle, then medpacks, finally get going with Heavy Plasma because that stuff is able to down most enemies in one hit.

[Phantom]

Wow what difficulty are you playing on?
Easy?

[GlyphGryph]

Veteran or Genius (I forget which I decided on), why? I'm pretty sure sectoids don't have this high a reaction speed or take this many hits to go down on easy most of the time. I normally do the hardest one, but I figured people might want a chance to live through more than a single mission, especially since I've dedicated myself to no save-scumming.

And yeah, I thought I reset the poll, but I didn't. Should be fixed now.

[Phantom]

Veteran, why? I'm pretty sure sectoids don't have this high a reaction speed or take this many hits to go down on easy most of the time.

And yeah, I thought I reset the poll, but I didn't. Should be fixed now.

I was really doubting the difficulty when I read a few guys survived hot searing plasma on this difficulty without armor.

[breadbocks]

Get used to insane numbers of killed men. This game is a complete meatgrinder. Do like I said earlier, and get laser rifles, medkits, and hp. No point in getting the rest yet. After that alloys if you can, and nades if you can't.

Also, hot damn. The men's stats are insane.

[Phantom]

Hey, at least he doesn't have to cope to the deadliness of TFTD.
Hell, I still need to choose who has to die at the end blowing up the *CENSORED.*

[Tarran]

Veteran, why? I'm pretty sure sectoids don't have this high a reaction speed or take this many hits to go down on easy most of the time.

And yeah, I thought I reset the poll, but I didn't. Should be fixed now.

I was really doubting the difficulty when I read a few guys survived hot searing plasma on this difficulty without armor.

Phantom, the answer why they survived is; The RNG. He is truly random. Just because Xcom operatives usually die after one hit even in Power Armor and rarely survive one hit doesn't mean that the RNG wouldn't give GlyphGryph a lucky streak.

Though considering GlyphGryph's long lucky streak, I fully expect a Unlucky streak.

[GlyphGryph]

Mind you, my super expensive rocket tank DID get destroyed in the first 2 second of the battle, and it was worth more than all the soldiers who died.

Poor poor BRO...

And I dunno, I never found the game to be much of a meatgrinder on Veteran, though it DOES get there on Genius (and if you go any harder, expect to order new soldiers every month).

I was actually surprised at how many men I lost this mission  - it was mostly do to tactical mistakes and impatience on my part.  Of course, the important thing is that no one important got killed.

[Tarran]

Mind you, my super expensive rocket tank DID get destroyed in the first 2 second of the battle, and it was worth more than all the soldiers who died.

Well, that's bound to happen considering the Aliens had Heavy Plasmas and the tank is such a big target. So I don't think losing the tank early is that bad of luck.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, but one freaking move?

Anyways, to those questioning the researching of motion detectors first - its the most profitable item in the game until you can manufacture laser cannons. If you want money ASAP and don't want to spend your time being poor, you should start building them right away, especially since I've got no idea if you guys are keen on drilling for the laser cannon.

Also, my personal vote for the next is plasma rifles or heavy plasma. I never did like laser weapons, as they are simply hands down inferior. Obviously its up to you guys though. And they DO lead to the amazing Laser Cannon cash cow.