After The End: X-COM Apocalypse "LP"

[Arcalane]

Prologue:
The destruction of T'leth in the mid 21st Century marked the end of the second alien war. It also marked the beginning of a global catastrophe that wiped out almost all life that was left on Earth. Despite our best efforts, the city had surfaced, and when it was destroyed, released vast amounts of toxic gases into the atmosphere and the ocean. Given the location of the ship when it surfaced - in the Gulf of Mexico - the United States were overwhelmed by the toxic clouds in a matter of months, and vast amounts of sea life was devastated. The food chain was, at this point, more of a handful of shattered links. Human life clung onto whatever it safe ground could, fleeing the relentless march of the death fog that poured out of the shattered remains of T'leth. Some moved underground. Others fled into space.

To add insult to injury (or perhaps injury to more injury) the death of the alien at the heart of T'leth unleashed a psionic shockwave that covered the entire planet. Psionics were crippled and weakened to the point of requiring physical implants and focus devices to exert their wills, and even then were limited to targets they had to have line of sight contact to. Even then, human psionic capabilities were almost useless - only descendents of half-breed survivors from the First War, half-Sectoid/half-Human hybrids, had any chance of using psionic powers effectively.

Shortly after the nations of the world realized that the toxic clouds were spreading and could not be held back by any means discovered to date, a massive construction project began: the assembly of Mega-Primus. A vast arcology-city designed to hold as many survivors as possible, surrounded by a massive, layered barrier pyramid sandwiched between energy shields to hold back the toxic clouds. It was almost impenetrable... the only way in or out was through an airlock at the very highest point of the barrier pyramid, which the Star Liners used to ferry materials and people between Earth, Mars and the Moon. Of course, we never expected the threat to materialize within the barrier.

MEGA PRIMUS SATELLITE VIEW


Construction was finished around 2047, and people moved in in their thousands. Megacorporations control almost every aspect of life in the city... towering, rocket-like Nutrivend Hydro-Farms produce all the city's food supply. Sanctuary Clinic runs all the hospitals, Sensovision broadcast centers can transmit the latest shows straight to your head, Lifetree schools use psionic implants to teach students everything they need... or cause pain if they refuse to "learn". Megapol officers patrol the streets and skies in flying cars, Transtellar manages every aspect of travel, running the major transtube network and the starport. Even the waste processing, water-purification and cold fusion-based power generation facilities are owned by corporations.

Massive slums sprang up within the protective barrier... the Senate and Megapol could hardly evict people to certain death with their already shaky public images, and the underclass provided useful, cheap manpower, for tasks unsuited to robot hands. Unfortunately, with slums come gangs, and with gangs come crime syndicates. Psyke, responsible for the brain-degrading 'psi-clone', an implant based on old alien entertainment. Diablo, the largest and most violent gang, who muscled their way into the psi-clone trade. Osiron, the obligatory mafiosos, upper-class crime lords with extensive ties to legitimate business. Then there's the Cultists... mad 'prophets' who claim mankind's downfall is its own doing (well, we knew that already), and claim that a third invasion is right around the corner. The Cultists assembled several 'temples' within the city limits, squat white buildings that could be mistaken for Rescue Stations at a glance. Rumours said that the Cult performed bizarre rituals in the building and worshipped the 'superior alien race', hoping that they could somehow forge an alliance with the dead and forgotten invaders.

Then, on Tuesday, March 7th, 2084... the Cultists were proven right... after a fashion. Three strange pyramids appeared in the skies over Mega-Primus, and a large, seemingly organic "flying saucer"-style UFO emerged from one of them, indiscriminately bombarding parts of the city with unidentified weapons before retreating back into the gate it crawled out of. The damage was insignificant in the long run, but we knew this was just the start. As for the pyramids... the civilians called them Dimension Gates - a classic mistake in the understanding of dimensions as a concept - and a few attempts to fly basic probes into them resulted in little more than static and fragmented data, suggesting the craft were destroyed during transit, or on arrival, perhaps due to environmental conditions on the far side of the gates.

Anyway, where was I... oh, yes. In truth, X-COM had secretly been reactivated shortly after the Cult had arrived. We served as the Senate's agents of plausible deniability - we were a private army, a SWAT team, bodyguards, infiltrators, assassins... whatever they needed us to be at any given moment. It wasn't exactly glamorous, but the pay was good, and it was decent work for those who felt Megapol were too soft on the syndicates.

And now? The Senate needed us to defend the city. Mega-Primus was a peaceful paradise in a sea of toxic, corrosive gas, and they wanted it to stay that way, alien invaders be damned.

Well, we sure as hell couldn't refuse an order like that given the circumstances. The Senate activated a secret facility built under one of their old warehouse complexes, a facility uninspiringly named Warehouse One. We called it the Greybox, in honour of the very first X-COM facility.



You should've seen the look on the Commander's face when he saw the layout. We knew how any invaders would have to come in, and that an invasion was simply a matter of time... either from the aliens, or from whichever corporations we managed to piss off. Also a matter of time, to be honest. Not everyone was going to like X-COM's return... I mean, we were kinda single-handedly responsible for wiping out most of Earth's indigenous life forms if you think about it. Yeah sure the aliens would've wiped us all out anyway or enslaved us, but we were the ones who did the deed, who pulled the trigger. That made it our problem. That made us the problem. The X-COM name was pretty tarnished after that little fiasco.



The old biolab was torn down and relocated, as was the medical facility and training facility. New living areas and storage facilities would need to be built... we had to store everything down here, couldn't risk the workers in the warehouse upstairs finding anything they shouldn't after all.

The Commander also went through and reviewed our roster and inventory. Apparently we were issued equipment by a madman with no sense of logistics or useful vehicles. The Stormdog was stripped down and sold, and several personnel fired and replaced. Chiefs of Staff were appointed to all divisions; Chief Engineer Helen Jonlan, Chief Biochemist Ian White and Chief Quantum Physicist Frank Schultz. Whilst the BioLab was being rebuilt, Quantum Physics was set to work figuring out just what those damn Gates were.

Oh, and we hired an Android and purchased a load more supplies and equipment, plus a set of uprated engines for our ground and air vehicles, and a second APC. The Greybox and the Corps were starting to come together.

Now all we needed were soldiers.

~~

Psych Profiling:

Castle Team: Primary Operations, The Pros
Castle-1: Sergeant, actually the highest-ranked agent. Cool, collected, suave and snarky. The Lancer to Citadel-1.
Castle-2: Excitable and energetic Action Girl
Castle-3: Quiet, smart, snarky.
Castle-4: Average soldier?
Castle-5: Cool, ruthless and quiet.
Castle-6: Similar to Castle-3.

Stronghold Team: Secondary Operations, The Newcomers
Stronghold-1: Unknown
Stronghold-2: Unknown
Stronghold-3: Unknown

Bastion Team: Sniper Team
Bastion-1: Unknown
Bastion-2: Killed in action; used numbers are not replaced.
Bastion-3: Unknown
Bastion-4: Unknown

Fortress Team: aka Fort Team, the All-Android Heavy Weapons Team.
Fortress-1: Confident, maybe a little too reliant on his durability. Unshakable.
Fortress-2: Very competitive towards Fort-1. One-sided, Fort-1 mostly ignores him.
Fortress-3: Always toughing it out despite injuries and try to prove he can do it.
Fortress-4: Unknown newbie. The quiet one of Fort Team.

Citadel Team: Field Command/Officer Team
Citadel-1: Stern-but-reasonable authority figure. Bosses everyone around a fair bit, isn't afraid to take risks. Doesn't wear a helmet unless going into confined spaces.
Citadel-2: Nerdy support officer and motion sensor operator, The Smart Guy. Gives everything nicknames that sometimes end up sticking and/or makes very accurate guesses at their purposes.

Foundation Team: Secure, Contain, Protect - Capture Team
Foundation-1: Unknown
Foundation-2: Unknown
Foundation-3: Hybrid, Apologetic?
Foundation-4: Hybrid, Apologetic?

Other:
Hawk-1 Pilot: Calm and collected.
Phoenix-2 Pilot: Retired after the close shave taking down the first UFO. I don't blame him!

~~

Hall of Honour: For soldiers MIA or KIA
Bastion-2, KIA in Ground Operation 2, Chronos Block. "Brainsucked", became hostile. Terminated by combined fire from Castle and Bastion teams.
Valkyrie-1 Pilot, KIA in Air Combat.
Phoenix-1 Pilot, KIA in Air Combat.

~~

Ed: Psych profiling.

[Arcalane]

Opening Hours

Twenty five minutes. That's all it took for a ground sighting. I guess one of those "projectiles" was a landing pod of some kind, maybe a scout. We dispatched our ground teams. Apparently a security camera operator at one of the Rescue Centers picked up something weird. Those buildings are usually empty and run on a skeleton crew, so we were either looking at kids in costumes, or a genuine invader. Either way we weren't expecting what we did get.





--


Alright people, you heard the briefing. We don't have a BioTrans so it's shoot to kill. We burn the bodies before extracting.


Teams, in order of first post. As you can see our roster is a little thin.


"Castle and Bastion Team reporting in."


"Fortress, Citadel and Foundation copy. Let's move people... watch your spacing and take it slow."


"This is Citadel-2, my motion sensor is picking up... what the fuck is that? What is that?!"


"Looks like a basketball with legs!"
"Put that motion sensor away and shoot it you idiot!"


"Got it."
"Fortress-1 moving up. Foundation, watch our flank."


"Foundation-1, I see more incoming."
"Citadel-1 copies."


"Unidentified humanoid! It seems to be unarmed."
"Fortress-1 in position."


"Good thing these guys are easy to kill. Keep shooting them!"


"Citadel-1, there's one coming down the stairway."
"Copy, I see it."


"Humanoid appears to be demoralized, pursuing. Provide cover fire."
"Go go go!"


"Watch your fire Citadel!"


"Maybe this'd go faster if you could aim, Fortress."


"Humanoid neutralized. Move up, I'll cover."
"Got it, Citadel moving up."


"Ops, this is Command, we're not detecting any more unknown biosigns in the building. Torch the bodies and come on home."
"Citadel copies that Command. No sign of the landing pod."
"It probably self-destructed. Do a sweep after you're done with the bodies and head back to the APCs."
"Affirmative, Citadel out."


Pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Debrief was... short, to say the least. The android got some good snapshots of the hostiles from the ground and we went round throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck. So far we figure the little blobby orange things are probably a 'terror weapon' of some kind. Citadel-2 thinks they're like... he called 'em headcrabs or something. Ugly little things too. The blue guy seemed like some kind of soldier, probably a grunt. BioChem whisked his gun off to cold storage since it seemed to be semi-biological and they'd need it in good condition for when the lab was back in order, so we didn't get a good chance to figure out what that was.

Anyway! Not bad for our first sortie, although I think these new guys need a little more time on the range.

[Saphroneth]

Well, I see that's a different universe to mine... fair enough. That last "screw you" from T'Leth in the storyline is something I setup most of the LP to avert, and with the sheer havoc it inflicts...

Anyway! The third Alien invasion has begun, the old tradition of flattening everything in sight that can't be sold on the black market continues unabated, and XCOM has hired an entire hell's angel division for their fighter wing (yes, swarm tactics work best in this)

[VAE]

You have an SCP Foundation team?   
I wonder if we'll see the deployment of MTF's and use of D-class staff for dangerous operations too.

[Arcalane]

It's kinda hard to handwave a catastrophe of that nature away, let's be honest.



Opening Night
They crept in again, after night fell. Well, night as far as Mega-Primus was concerned. Day and night were strictly regulated, as the toxic clouds had ruined the ozone layer and turned the planet into a boiling greenhouse. Huge shutters closed over the pyramid as the sun rose, and opened again at night, high-tech floodlights illuminating the city as if it was daytime.

There were now three of the gates.


Unusually precise timing. 22:55 MPT on the dot. We scrambled the hovercars and Valkyrie.


Then another.


And another.


A fourth?


One more, for luck.


Creeping past the megamall, open 24/7 of course.


Strange. No weapons? Retreating already.


A long shot. Good try though.


One felt unsure of it's path. An opportunity was seized by the annoyed Phoenix pilots: their prey had escaped before they had even been able to give chase.


Missiles and laser blasts hammered the unfortunate scout.


Sort of like a croissant, wouldn't you say?


Terminal velocity meets terminal explosive.


Our first chance of grasping what their "ships" were... blown to smithereens. I cannot blame the pilots for their lack of control. It must be vexing to fight at night against a foe that runs and hides. They will be more vigilant next time, I am sure.

The soldiers stand ready... they likely deployed more of those theoretical pods.

The Phoenix pilots are so irritated, a taxi carrying a Cultist is blown to scrap by a stray missile. An unfortunate accident - the only witnesses are a pair of beat cops in a police groundcar, who are wise to X-COM's activities. The event does not break the news, though the Cult later demanded $5,720 in compensation. Clearly can't have been a high-ranking official.

We refused, naturally. The Cult are bound to latch onto this alien invasion and harp on about it as if it is all they prophesized, no point in paying them to shut up. It wouldn't work anyway.



Preliminary research on the Gates was finished. Proper examination of the data recieved suggested an antimatter implosion was responsible... since that can hardly be an environmental circumstance on the far side of the Gates, we surmised it to be part of the transit sequence. Developing adequate shielding from this threat would require time... and larger facilities.


We set the scientists to work designing their dream lab. Hopefully it'd shut them up for a few days.
Editor's Note: I am using the modified research tree included in ApocUtil in order to remove a dangerous bottleneck in UFO-related research as the Biotrans is essential to acquisition of the Retaliator and Annihilator, but normally requires the capture of a Transporter... failure to do so nearly killed my other LP. I suspect this may have some other changes included, but we'll see.


Then a call came in later during the evening. Psyke informed us that a hostile had been sighted at one of their slum blocks. We had no choice but to investigate. Rather than head in by land, we dispatched the Valkyrie.




Due to a communication error, there was a mixup in the dispatch and the Valkyrie was delayed by several minutes. Fortunately we were able to correct this quickly, and the investigation commenced.



Sweep: Psyke Slums, Chronos Block A

Standard procedure. We prepared to deploy.


"They're right in front of us! Open fire! OPEN FIRE! LZ is hot!"


"Four hostiles, we have them surrounded and in the open."


"Get it off!"
A crackle from the stun grapple, and the tiny beast is incapacitated.


"One of them got Austin! He's firing at us!"
"Then fire back! Why the hell did you have to be right, Citadel-2?"
"Don't look at me! It was just a guess!"
"Cut the chatter and shoot!"
"All hostile soldiers neutralized."


"Citadel-1, sighting on a new xenof-- what the fuck? Is... does it have a funnel for a head? What kind of twisted army are we fighting here?"


"Megapol really built that armour to last... Austin's dead. Dammit..."
"There was nothing you could do. Focus."


"That's the last basketball. Headcrab. Brainsucker. Whatever. Command?"


"Command confirms no more hostiles. Torch the bodies."
"Even Austin's?"
"Hold on... no. Bring him back, but be careful."
"I understand. Gudr-- Citadel-1, out."



Debrief was solemn. Barely two days and we already had our first man down... not to enemy fire, but friendly fire, not by accident, but because we had no other option. Even the android was glum. More of those strange launchers were recovered... footage revealed they launched some kind of pod that contained one of those 'brainsuckers', presumably in some kind of stasis. In the vicinity of a human target, it peeled open and the little bastard was ready to attack. None of the pods were recovered, nor did we find any sign of how the forces might have landed. It's possible they used some sort of teleportational device, but that is currently unverified.

Fortunately, we had fresh recruits rolling in soon, along with another android.

Hopefully our next few missions would be a little smoother.

[Arcalane]

Second Sortie:
The next intrusion was during broad daylight, early in the morning.


Pudding?


More pudding.


Pudding and croissant. Delicious.


We scrambled the Valkyrie and Hovercars.


The puddings make dropoffs. That beam must be how they deploy soldiers! Evidently why we had not sighted any means of landing.

The slums are owned by Diablo. The invaders can fester in those hellish hives if they want. I'm not pre-empting them.


Once again we were too slow. Almost too slow. A pudding is wrecked, and glides to the ground eerily.


Another croissant is pulverized by missiles. Acceptable losses.


Touchdown in the forest. Smoke pours from holes blown in the craft's exterior. The soldiers are standing ready when the Valkyrie enters the landing bay... it doesn't bother to deploy landing gear.


Because it's going out again with a ground team to investigate.


The Valkyrie pilot decides to obliterate another Cultist taxi. What a shame.


Nearly there.


Recovered.

Audio log:

Valkyrie Pilot: "Bioscan picks up n-- oh jesus.. I take that back, bioscan picks up one big-ass biosign. The... UFO is alive? Barely."
Command: "Anything inside, Citadel-1?"
Citadel-1: "Negative on that Command, no other movers. They must only be loaded with the troops they drop off, or the rest died on landing. Pilot, take us in close."
Command: "Citadel, do you see any way inside the craft?"
Citadel-1: "There don't appear to be any boarding ramps or other openings... we're going to rappel in through one of the breaches on the top. Castle Team, you're up."
Castle-1: "Castle ready for hot-drop, just give the word Citadel."
Citadel-1: "Alright, go! Be careful in there."
Castle-1: "Castle reporting successful insertion. Man, it's a mess in here... this thing really is alive. Or uh, was?"
Valkyrie Pilot: "Yeah, biosign is cold. It's dead."
Command: "What's the situation down there?"
Castle-3: "I'm no expert on aerial warfare but if it took concentrated laser and missile fire just to cripple this thing... there are no signs of penetration to the internals."
Command: "Pardon?"
Castle-3: "Command, What I mean is - it's like... it doesn't look like any of the shots passed through the armour and hit anything inside."
Citadel-2: "You think the guts of this thing wiped themselves out? Th-then... they knew we'd try to capture one of them, and we have no way of doing that until they hit the ground!"
Citadel-1: "Cunning little bastards, that's for sure."
Command: "Self-destruct?"
Castle-3: "Pretty much. Hmm. There's a bunch of... pods over here?"
Castle-2: "They must have been where the troops were held before beaming down. They're a total wreck though."
Citadel-1: "What should we do, Command?"
Command: "Call in an emergency crew and see if you can bring back some samples of the hull and some of whatever's left inside, then destroy the remains. We'll have the labs investigate later."
Citadel-1: "Copy that, Citadel out."



Editor's Note: I have also used an editor to increase the rate of fire of the autocannon, because otherwise it fires almost as slowly as the laser rifle, making it almost useless given it has less range, firepower and accuracy. Ammo capacity has been increased along with magazine weight.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Twink! *points*

;-]

[Arcalane]

There's no such thing as fair play in a war for the survival of the human race.



Now We're Really Slumming It


Why'd I have to go and jinx it?


Lovely place, eh?


Let's rock.


SOP; still no biotrans so burn the bodies and all.


Citadel-1 doesn't wear a helmet, because Citadel-1 is a motherfucking badass.


"Move up people, let's get this over with."


"You know, when they said people in the slums had a bad case of worms..."
"Well we sure as hell can't worm our way out of this one now."
"Big ones little ones some as big a rug..."
"Enough puns, shoot it!"
"Frag out!"


"Woo!"


"Fortress moving up, cover us."


"God damn that thing is ugly."


"It's gonna be as dead as it is ugly in a minute."


"Whoa! Watch that spit, shit's burning through brick walls!"


"Kill one worm, and four more come out!"
"Must be a momma worm. Kill 'em all."


"For the record those little pink bastards have voracious appetites and teeth that can bite through this armour. Ow."


"You okay there?"
"Y-yeah, I'm good."
"You two fall back to the APCs and patch yourselves up."
"Got it."


"Castle-3 and 5 falling back to medical."


"`nother funnelhead, snipe him!"


"More spittin' pink guys. I don't even want to know who came up with that."


"Ooh, messy."
"The fire rate governor was removed. Puttin' the auto back in autocannon."
"'course you two are the only ones who can handle the recoil..."
"They weren't lying about the job perks."


"What the fuck is that, and why is it trailing smoke?"
"Five creds says it's explosive."
"You're on, android."


"Hm. Maybe it only explodes if it gets close enough?"
"I don't want to test that theory. You can keep the five creds."


"Hello!"


"Ugh. I got chunks of whatever the hell that thing was on my armour."


"Alright boys, bioscan's only picking up the civs now. Toast the bodies and come on home."


Castle Team: We Kick Ass And Take Names.

[Arcalane]

Warehousing, or, Why Are There So Many Fucking Boxes In The Way?

So it turns out the aliens also got into a pair of warehouses at the base of the starport - one belonging to Solmine (a mining group based on Mars that harvests elerium from the red planet), and the other belonging to the Senate.




We start with Warehouse Eight, the Solmine one.

--


We get the drill okay?


Not the best arrival pattern from past experience but it'll do.

Turns out there's enough worms in the building to mulch three hundred football fields, and they're hissing up a storm right above us, so the troops take positions around an elevator...


Oh, look, a pink worm.


Fortress team deployed an area denial explosive device - aka incendiary grenade.


Fire might not kill, but the crossfire as you try to run for the exit doors is vicious!





Anyone could tell you that running from the androids is a pretty stupid idea, seeing as they have practically limitless stamina.


Last one. Jolly good.


Castle Team: Still kicking the ass of everything that moves.

~~

Warehouse Seven: Government.


Right next door. Blech.




That's... let's just say it's a good thing they aren't using lethal weaponry yet, especially grenades.


"Movement on the catwalks!"


"Got 'em."


"Damn worms."


"Fragging those boxes."
"Castle moving in..."


"Uh oh."


"Move it people!"



"After them!"


"Uhhh I think we just gunned down a civ."
"Idiot shouldn't have kept running back and forth in our line of fire, to hell with them."


"Momma's dead, fragging the babies."


"That coulda gone slightly better."


"Bioscanner's clean. Those funnelheads ran right out into a Megapol cordon and got turned into swiss cheese. Come on home boys."


Castle-1 doesn't mess around. Also apparently dead civs don't incur a score penalty. Fancy that.

[Arcalane]

Busy with other stuff. Have a filler update.


Base Status... we'll need a second base for dedicated research eventually, since the Large/Advanced labs take up as much space as the vehicle bay. I can find somewhere and just slather it in Security Stations and give it a couple of soldier squads (to prevent automatic loss if it's invaded), have manufacturing at the main base, and shuttle the odd bit of ordnance/artefactory back and forth now and then. Just gotta scope out the other base sites... yeah, we're limited to about eight bases total and some of the alternates suck hard.


For those wondering why I'm building the security stations.


Research progress! The eggheads have almost finished up their shopping list for a dream lab. Up next is that UFO we recovered since that's a Q-Phys thing not a BioChem thing, apparently.

Some of our toys;

Standard issue fragmentation grenades. Every member of Castle Team has at least one of these.


Stun gas. Works on humans too and it's rather slow-acting... plus I can't really get any use out of it yet what with no biotrans module.


Smoke grenade! The blue guys carry these religiously later on, and use them for fire/stun gas suppression.


Castle's "assault rifles". Ugh.


Bastion's LSRs. Terrible ROF.


Fortress' autocannons. Got enough barrels there, champ?


Foundation's stun grapples. Not much use yet.


Fortress' thermal area denial explosive devices, aka incendiary grenades.


Everyone's current armour.



I scoped out the other bases;


Oh god. Terrible.


Terrible!


I could make this into a hellish network of base defenses, actually. Yeah, let's see you walk past half a dozen defense stations before you reach the labs.
Hint: You won't make it.


Kind of terrible.


Mmm... fairly limited space, but I think I could work with that. The far arm would offer a good last stand spot to have the scientists hide in, but getting there from the wide center arms could be tricky in a fierce assault... scientists aren't exactly famous for their speed and stamina, and you can never outfit them with guns or armour. They literally have three options; run, hide, or die.


Big, but vulnerable because of it.

The bases are actually priced pretty well for their defensive situations. The large, open, hard-to-defend base is one of the cheapest, whilst the one that could be transformed into a hellish net of defenses is the most expensive. I'm not sure why #1 is so expensive but it would make an acceptable airbase, as would #2.

Oh, you can also see their locations relevant to the Greybox as the red box on the map up in the corner; the Greybox is highlighted in yellow.



Ed: oh. oh. that's just fabulous. god damn cult of sirius have a temple in spitting distance of the greybox.

[Saphroneth]

Isn't there some kind of bug related to the security stations?

Oh, and if there's any sort of plan to put people from the forum in positions, I'll go for a science one. Since in Xcom experience then research inevitably leads to BLAM, then things will work the other way as well.
Weapons will be tested on abandoned buildings. Well, we say abandoned... the squatters had it coming. As did the Cult of Sirius.

[Arcalane]

There's a cap on the number of active 'sentients'/'mobs' in the battlescape at any one time as I recall. Spamming secstations means that not all of their turrets will be online/active at a given moment, especially in the face of a large invasion when backed up by a large number of XCOM troopers.

As for scientists; I think the only way to rename them would be to use an editor, but you're welcome to pick one of the three Chiefs of Staff (Chief Engineer Helen Jonlan, Chief Biochemist Ian White and Chief Quantum Physicist Frank Schultz) and write from their point of view. The Chiefs were chosen because they had the highest Skill level in their particular field.

Interestingly, one of the other engineers is called Sarah Jonlan. Siblings on the engineering team perhaps?

Top 3 Killboard:
1st - Fortress-1 @ 11
2nd TIE - Castle-1 and Citadel-1 @ 7
3rd - Castle-2 @ 6

~~

Quick text update;

Adv. Lab design done, and we inspected the remains of the scout. A Diablo slum got raided again (twice, no less) but with no biotrans and three wounded I decided not to get involved. Diablo are a crime syndicate and a band of thugs. I'm not going to ask my soldiers to stick their necks out for those idiots, even if they are 48% infiltrated by the aliens already. Diablo's really a matter of 'when' they get turned, not 'if'... they're one of the least resistant to alien takeover, and are an obvious target, being the most violent and disorganized of the gangs.

The BioChem lab is back online which means we can start researching the BioTrans unit too, so that's top priority for now. The eggheads are looking into the remains of the scout's power source... if we can figure out what these things run on, we might be able to harness that power.

We just hired three new humans, two androids and two hybrids. The androids are going on Fortress team naturally, whilst the hybrids will be assigned to Foundation or Bastion. Things are looking nice and quiet so far.

Also my bank account is looking a little empty, but it's almost the end of the week which should mean cash incoming~

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Do I volunteer for position of chief RedShirt? ;-]

[Arcalane]

I don't know, do you?



Now for our SCIENCE and Fun packed end-of-week-1 update!


Eggheads are done with the shopping list.


Shiny! Bit wasteful in terms of space though. Hell of a price tag and build time too.


Back to work you scabs!



As we suspected; self-destruct.


Of course that's not to say it was thorough enough. Research on the remains of the power source are started.


Base update. Medical bay is back online so everyone is fit and ready to fight.


More UFOs. Predictably they escaped before our ships could get them. Again. I've stationed the Valkyrie and the two Hovercars in a Mutant Alliance (pro-Hybrid) owned slum near the spaceport. Hopefully that will help us get there sooner next time.



Jolly good. Engineering set to work building two on the double.


Now to figure out what this gun is. "Brainsucker pods"? Ech.


A little shaky at first but we're doing well. Enough for the Senate to increase our funding by 5% so I'm sure as hell not going to complain about that.


Oogh.


Lovely. The damage is from a stray laser cannon blast that took out some transtubes... those tend to have a sort of cascading collapse if you hit the wrong support, sadly, and it makes TransStellar livid. Which is bad, because if they hate you, you can't transport goods between your bases easily.


Ah, new toys. Well, the proximity mine is exactly what it sounds like, but I'll give a quick rundown on the rest;

Plasma Gun: A high-powered plasma-based sidearm. Think of it as the Magnum Revolver to the Lawpistol as the Colt M1911.
Heavy Launcher: Exactly what it says on the tin: A missile launcher. Now these puppies do have some actual guidance, so it's a little harder for enemies to dodge them and they're a lot more accurate at long range.
Marsec Armour Units: Okay, so, this stuff is lighter and weaker than standard Megapol armour in terms of defensive ability, but it has one big perk; the torso piece has a "levitation pack". Any agent wearing a Marsec Torso (even if the rest of their armour is Megapol) can fly freely, but suffer an accuracy penalty with any weapons they might try to use.
Plasma Multi-System: Essentially a gun for the Hawk that consists of four smaller plasma cannons. I think it can try to shoot down missiles and swat lighter targets out of the air.
Missile Evasion Matrix: A slight misnomer. What it does is reduce the accuracy of incoming missile attacks against the craft, rather than letting them truly evade missile attacks. An ECM unit, essentially.
Hawk Air Warrior: The biggest, baddest attack craft available. It has three gun emplacements, the most health and armour of any "native" craft, a pretty sizeable cargo area,.. and a $102k price tag. Ouch!

We are now down to $71k. Time to outfit the rest of the new meat now there market stocks have refreshed.

[Arcalane]

Newsflash: Two bronze and two purple UFOs invaded the city. We were able to shoot down one of the purple craft, but lost the Valkyrie and a Phoenix. We scraped together enough for a Hawk Air Warrior and will be funding ourselves on biotrans module manufacturing/selling to restock the bank account.

Hawk 1 is now en route to the crash site. Orders are to purge the craft and terminate all surviving crew.

[Arcalane]

Double update time!



Start Of Week 2:

Power source research complete!


Hmmm. So they're sort of beaming power... clever! Then the system is merely limited by the power bandwidth it can channel through, rather than how much power it can generate at any given moment. It's possible that we could easily disguise our own systems as theirs (assuming they have any way of monitoring where the power is going) and use it to fuel our ships down the line!


Cracking their propulsion system will give us an insight into how they navigate those dimension gates. Then we can start work on the control systems.


Time to refit.



...fantastic. The exact control method is currently unknown, but we do know the control is universally "alien", no matter who pulls the trigger.


We're gonna need a bigger lab.


Here they come.


Insanely tough.








I'd call it phyrric, but we only took down one of the four UFOs. Yeah, we lost that one pretty hard.



My First UFO, Or, Operation Counterstrike

This was it. The moment the ground teams had been waiting for ever since we first met the aliens. The loss of Valkyrie 1 only compounded their desire to strike back.


Complete elimination. No prisoners.
Hawk Pilot: "Place is busier'n a mall on Sunday, I'm gonna drop you boys just at the front since there ain't a door there and I don't want this to go pear shaped. I'll be circlin' 'til you're done. Hawk 1 out."


"Castle team ready."
"Bastion team, ready."
"Stronghold team, ready."
"Fortress team standing by."
"Citadel team weapons check complete, ready. Let's do this people!"


"Castle has found an entrance on the west side of the UFO."
"Spread out and get ready. Bastion, provide sniper support for Castle."
"Got it, we'll get 'em."


"A second entrance on the east side of the craft."


"I have company!"


"Waugh!"
"Jesus christ what the hell was that?!"


"...ugh. I'm fine. No major damage, no coolant leaks. I can still fight."
"Citadel-1 copies that Stronghold-3. You may withdraw at any time."


"Spitters, incoming!"


"Now that's what I call disproportionate retribution. Save some ammo for the rest of them you idiots."


"Yeah you better run!"


"This is Castle-3, we have incoming on the west entrance!"
"Castle-5, priming grenade!"


"Eep!"
"God dammit woman be more careful with those things!"
"I've still got all my fingers you ass!"
"Man they really made that Megapol armour tough huh?"


"Grunts coming down the center! Is that a gravlift?"
"Sure as hell looks like a gravlift."


"I count three... no, four!"
"Not for long you don't. Castle-1, priming grenade."


"This is how it's done boys. FRAG OUT!"


"Tough bastards, they're still standing."
"I count multiple fragmentation injuries on them. They will likely expire of their injuries if the crossfire does not kill them first."


"Brainsucker!"
"Got him."


"No more worms."


Hawk Pilot: "No more movers on the bioscan, the craft itself is still kicking... barely. I'm bringin' her down and gettin' out the tools."


Castle-6 doesn't mess around either!

Post-combat audio:

Citadel-1: "Alright, Castle team, Stronghold team, start sweeping the interior. Everyone else start collecting hull samples. Once the inside is clear we'll take as many spare parts as we can get our hands on."
Castle-1: "I'm picking up some faint biosigns inside still... looks like... man, what is that thing?"
Stronghold-2: "I found a couple of... I think they're eggs? They tried to spit something at us, but we managed to grab them and stuff them in the stasis bags."
Castle-3: "Man these are some big ugly things. There's definitely something in there though. What do you think we're looking at?"
Citadel-2: "Probably... I'm not sure why they'd send their young along on a trip like this but it could simply be a part of the alien lifecycle. See if you can detach it from the floor with the plasma cutters, I'm sure we can find a way to get it in a stasis crate."
Castle-5: "Yech. The skin's like leather."
Castle-2: "Enough chatter, let's get this thing in stasis before it hatches."
Citadel-1: "Anything else good in there?"
Castle-1: "Not y.. wait. These look like firing controls. Targeting data... trajectory calculations... to strike the Valkyrie with a direct fire beam weapon. Weapon status... green."
Citadel-2: "...w-what?"
Castle-1: "Weapon... status... green. No power feed from the craft but the weapon itself is operational because it has it's own dedicated power source. I... hm. Opening hatch... releasing control link."
A heavy thud resounds through the immediate vicinity of the craft.
Hawk Pilot: "Uhhh, was that gun battery s'posed to just slide outta that thing and drop into the trench? 'cause it just did."
Citadel-1: "Pick that thing up right now and haul it back to base. If that's a gun battery, then it's our key to hitting these bastards as hard as they hit us."
Hawk Pilot: "I hear that, deployin' the cargo winch and some gravpods. Haul that sucker up here and we'll get her secure. Y'know... I think it might fit in the front gun battery on this thing. With a little work."
Citadel-2: "Let's save that kind of speculation for later..."
Castle-1: "Alright, I think we're done wrecking this thing and looting the place. You boys got your samples, scans and bits for the eggheads?"
Stronghold-3: "Yep, we got 'em."
Citadel-1: "Then let's leave this for the cleanup crews and head on home."



Top 4 Killboard:
1st - Fortress-1 @ 12 - ~ "I would've gotten more if I weren't concerned about wasting missiles."
2nd - Castle-2 @ 11 ~ "Woo! Tearin' up the killboard! Look out Fort-1, haha!"
3rd - Castle-1 @ 9 ~ "You might be earning kill points, but I'm the one earning the style points."
4th - Citadel-1 @ 7 ~ "This is what I get for being an officer and staying away from the front line, huh?"

[Saphroneth]

Yeah, about that beamed power unit... we got an idea what the controls were, and so we took it outside the dome under telefactored robot control, and well... sorry for the one missing from storage. Turns out that if you turn up the power to full it melts, then evaporates, then it sets that bit of the polluted atmosphere on fire.
I'm just gonna say it. Don't turn the power up to full.

[Arcalane]

Good thing it was the Scout power core, no way I'm letting you near the Transporter one. We need that for our ships.

I did a little more research into the defenses thing, and apparently only three security stations can be active at any given time, I'm not sure if this is because of bugs or an intentional 'feature' to limit security station spam. I'm not too concerned either way, especially as far as my plans for the SCIENCE! base are concerned.

They are also only functional in real-time mode -- since I play in real time this isn't an issue, and the deactivated stations are still regarded as hostile, therefore serving as excellent decoys to draw enemy fire (especially given that they are also very tough) which there will be plenty of to go around when the time comes. Real-time honestly has so many perks over turn-based it's not even funny. I'd never be able to pull off that grenade throw Castle-1 did during the My First UFO sequence in turn-based.

Also, we did a mission at one of the sensodromes (remember when I mentioned Sensovision beaming stuff into your head? that's where they beam it in from) and recovered a live hyperworm - that is, one of those little pink voracious fellas. We managed to stun an anthropod (the blue "grunts") too but it seems it bled out during a firefight. Oh well. There's plenty more to capture later.

Either way the good news at this point is that I have all the basic pieces needed to commence the biological warfare research, which will eventually unlock the devastatingly powerful and effective toxiguns and toxin ammunition. I just need to get down to the business of researching them all!

Ed: I also stripped down and sold the APCs for extra cash, because the road network is awful on this map. They get confused and take hours to travel anywhere.

[Arcalane]

Mini-Filler Update:

So, one Hawk is no match for two Fast Attack Ships and a Transporter. There were... time travel accidents. Because we absolutely cannot afford to lose the Hawk.

Of course there's some good news too!



Again with the wasting of the space!


The techs tell me that the Multiworm corpse is rapidly decaying even in a high-powered stasis field. I ordered the biochemists to cut on it whilst they still could.



Vroom! This explains it. The transitional dimension or the process of simply entering the dimension gate must release a flood of antimatter, and in order to prevent it from annihilating on our ships we'll need to generate a field of some kind that wraps around our ships. Standard magnetic fields won't cut it.

What it doesn't explain is how they actually fly. I assume it's some sort of integrated anti-gravity system that's not worth mentioning.


Unfortunately we now have larger priorities than our craft reverse-engineering: the aliens have begun fielding lethal weaponry.

Well, I say lethal. Their aim is so poor nobody's been hit yet, but it's done some serious mischief to the terrain. Enough to raise concern from the Androids.

Either way we need to find out what it is and turn it to our advantage as soon as possible!



The eggheads got back to me about that dead momma worm and also filed a supply request for a bulk shipment of air fresheners. They also said something about "biological warfare" but I'm not sure if they were accusing me of it, or suggesting it as an actual scientific idea.

Then aliens showed up. I didn't take screenshots.

There were a couple more unrecorded missions prior to these two. Castle-1 earned his first medal and was promoted to Sergeant for being nearly killed by something, since medals are awarded based on 'victory points', and being injured awards a lot of victory points; 1 vp for each hp lost! Plus it's a great way to boost your Max HP quickly: that which does not kill you makes you a hell of a lot tougher.



This one was rough, but we bagged a live multiworm for our trouble.  The ground team also said they heard weird rattling noises they hadn't ever heard before, but couldn't find the source.



It would be poor show to ignore a threat to the government, and we handily dealt with those intruders. Stronghold team got in some good kills working with Castle team.

Killboard:
1st - Castle-2 @ 17 & 1st Medal~ "Wooooooooo!"
2nd - Fortress-1 @ 15 & 1st Medal - ~ "Plasma guns might look like handguns, but they pack more punch than those rifles and a lot more ammo per cell."
3rd - Castle-1 @ 11 & 1st Medal ~ "Ow. I feel like a bandage mummy... totally worth the medal."
Tied 4th Foundation-4 @ 9 ~ "Is it bad karma for the fourth man on the capture squad to have the most kills?"
Tied 4th Castle-3 @ 9 ~ "Probably. But you did at least try and stun them first, right?"
5th Fortress-2 @ 8 ~ "You won't hog all the android glory, Fortress-1."
Tied 6th - Citadel-1 @ 7 ~ "...quit rubbing it in, guys."
Tied 6th - Castle-6 @ 7 ~ "Quit slacking off, boss."

For the record, I'm tracking anyone who exceeds or matches Citadel-1's kill count. This will likely turn into exceed-or-match Castle-1's kill count later to keep things short.



Thinking of raiding the Cult of Sirius. Probably with Fort team using HE ammo for maximum giggles.

Also thinking of maybe trying a few more gameplay tweaks, possibly boosting the Laser Sniper Rifle's firepower (it's horrendous) and making it so security guards always show up (they'll still act as friendly/neutral/hostile according to faction relations, therefore helping or hindering as appropriate) instead of cowering off-map. Uncontrollable cannon fodder, yes, but they might be of some use. I could also enable controllable security turrets...

Having played Apoc to death I have to find ways to keep things interesting for me as much as I have to make it interesting for the reader.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

So... how are you keeping track of kill counts? Coz... if you're only keeping track of those who are higher than a certain level, how do you tell if someone else rises above that?

... and yes, HE sounds like lots of giggles.

[Arcalane]

In the soldier equipment screen, there's a second tab behind the soldier stats that tells you;

* How many days they've been with X-COM
* How many missions they've been on
* How many kills they've scored - whoever scores the killing hit gets the credit
* How much their stats have improved, overall, compared to their starting stats, as a vague % value
* How many medals they have*

I simply go through and note down anyone who has a kill count higher than Citadel-1's.

*Medals are awarded through vp as I mentioned before. See this page on the UFOpaedia wiki for a rundown on how VPs and medals work.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Oh, well, that would be easier than counting in real time, I guess. ;-]

[Arcalane]

Good news everyone! The raids went fantastically! So well, in fact, that we did two!

Oh and we earned like 15k in reward money for turning psiclones over to Megapol. They're an extremely addictive cybernetic implant that allows the user to experience anything they can imagine as if it was real. Given the detrimental effects on an addict's physical and mental well-being, the psiclone was outlawed. Megapol offer considerable cash payouts to anyone who turns over psiclones to be destroyed. The Cultists use them in their rituals, unsurprisingly.

RAIDING PARTY!


Knock knock.






Stronghold team go to secure the office...


Oh, hi.


Minimum safe distance, anyone?


Absolutely no equipment preservation or salvage worth mentioning on this mission.


Whew. A breather?


Rats in the tunnels!


Stronghold go to secure the tunnel entrance...



...and head down.


Anything in here? We never did find out.


I guess they ran in from elsewhere.






Temple of Humility indeed...



Buy One Raid, Get One Free!


We investigated, then raided.






Readyyyyy...

...they found nothing. Just a sad little psiclone sitting on a table.


Foundation-3 and Foundation-4 tagged along with Citadel team to flex their psi muscles. It didn't really work.


CEILING HYBRID IS OGLING YOUR INVENTORY. Wow, what a morale score. That's some mad psidef for a human too. Hell, he's pretty good all around.


If one lacks a door, one makes a door.


Readdyyyyyy... CHAAAARGE!


Castle-5 is through first.


Look at that girl go.


She unloaded half a dozen rounds into a cultist at point blank!


Hup, no running away for you bucko.


Smooth.


That's how we do it.


Home again home again...



Ed: We also bagged a handful more HE missiles for Fort-1's missile launcher, a mixed bag of grenades, some more ammo for the laser rifles and other guns... so all around things were pretty good. I might do a couple more unrecorded raids or try hitting the gangs (likely Diablo) to see if I can net some more psiclones, I had no idea they went for almost 5 grand a piece. This could seriously help get us back to a decent amount of funding before the week is out (it is currently Thursday) as long as nobody gets badly injured.

[Saphroneth]

What? Antimatter again? We've had that since 1999. Elerium is an antimatter containment crystal, and you can produce the stuff from it surprisingly easily.
Though I will admit, requiring no fuel at all is a new one on me.
I hope they don't realize they could turn beamed antimatter power into the adventure game method of waging war. Point, click, boom.

...right, now I thought THAT one up, I'm going to install Mind Shielding from the first Alien War into the walls of the QP Lab, my room, and the jacket I wear when going from place to place.
I mean, sure it means the jacket weighs eighty kilos, but an old repulsor from a Flying Suit sorts that out.

Hey, I heard a rumor somewhere that one of the corps is doing the same sort of thing, only lighter. Might want to look into that.

[Arcalane]

Citadel-1 and Citadel-2 already carry Marsec Torsos. I might order a few more in for Bastion Team so they can get to high-ground sniping locations more easily, or maybe just order some full suits and put the hybrids in some as well since Marsec suits are a fair bit lighter.

Trust me, I'm an Apoc Pro. I know what I'm doing.

I enabled the guards for a laugh;


A trio of S.E.L.F. guards decide to chill with Fortress and Castle teams on a slum mission.

They, like the aliens, swarm towards gunfire sources. Now that I've tweaked some relationship values the guards should no longer be apprehensive of aiding my forces in battle. Of course, they have no armour and the aliens are shooting back with lethal weapons, so this can only end in a hilarious body count.

[Arcalane]

First, some random mission shots;


Forts advance on a Spitter that appears to be paralyzed with fear.



Government security officers bravely attempt to fight off some alien invaders, but they are gravely outnumbered.


Fort-1 throws down a thermal area denial explosive device to break them up and buy Fort-2 time to repair. Androids do suffer from critical wounding!


Castle team rush to the aid of Senate security personnel.




BIO SCIENCE! Now to figure out all the pieces.


An odd choice of name given how it works, but as Castle have been showing, it works well in the hands of troops who can aim.

End Of Week 2!




Minilaunchers! They're pocket-sized missile launchers a little under half as powerful as the full-size launcher, but they take up a little over half the inventory space in terms of ammunition and the gun itself, and each reload is worth five shots to the heavy launcher's 1. Vastly more economical. Fort-1 uses one for long-range attacks. Power swords! Take a sword. Wrap it in superheated gas - aka plasma. Now you have a power sword. It actually works more like an extremely short-ranged gun in-game, but I am not complaining. Very powerful, but you need to be right next to your target.

[Saphroneth]

Sweet Kelvin's ghost. Self perpetuating power source.
Sub atomic particles.
Aaand the power generator is a multi-dee.
That's three shots in the Science Drinking Game, by my count.

[Arcalane]

Mini Filler #2!


Bastion team show off their new Marsec flight suits. We also convinced the Senate to have Megapol remove a series of power limiters and improve the focusing optics from the Laser Sniper Rifle. Bastion team can now really put down some long-range fire support.

Either that or they finally figured out the concept of headshots.



Aha! The source of the strange rattling, hissing noises, or at least some of them, have been found! And killed. They can fly. Well that's fabulous.


Prepping the Blackbox R&D Institute. Looks like we'll need to go psiclone raiding again to bolster our funds, as well as keep manufacturing and selling those funky disruptor guns for a little extra dosh. All our major main-combat operatives are already armed with them.

[Arcalane]

Current situation: game seriously fucked up. This is far worse than I thought it would end up, and at this point I don't think I can continue the game. The map, combat... everything have been continually screwing me over in every way, shape and form imaginable since the start of the game.

Yeah, I'm done here. I like a challenge, but when the deck is stacked against me this badly I don't even know what to say. This isn't recoverable at this stage.

I might start over, but I doubt it.

I think it boils down to succeeding too well early on and bringing on the heavier UFOs before I was equipped to handle them. Bleh.

Ed: Okay, now I've had some time to calm down, I'm going to hack things about a bit and give myself a serious breather period. I'm purging all active infestations from the city and dialling back the UFOs-in-alien-dimension count to keep things under control. Looking at the savegame specs in Apoc'd showed that on the order of two dozen buildings all had active/live aliens in them. Sometimes it was just a lone Popper or Anthropod, but there were a frankly disturbing number of chrysali around. I believe the alien lifecycle is such that the chrysali could hatch into multiworms, which would spawn four hyperworms upon death, which would then turn into more chrysali. Even if only one in eight hyperworms yields a chrysali that turns into a multiworm, that's still an extremely dangerous potential runaway situation.

Well, that's a guess anyway. I'm not sure how well they made this work per se.

Either way I wouldn't mind so much if it actually picked units besides the current best for invading, which makes things worse than they already are. I couldn't take any defensive action - that is, try to shoot down transport ships - without my air unit(s) getting turned into smoking wrecks. Even if I ran straight to the drop site they'd probably have time to spread out and infiltrate... ugh. What a mess.

I believe the problem largely stems from the fact I didn't shoot down the transporter scouts before they could drop their troops, and instead of immediately responding to the drop sites, I waited for the aliens to spread out. This counted as multiple successful tactical missions and caused my score to increase significantly faster than if I had simply shot down the scouts, or dealt with the drop sites the moment they occurred. As a result, enemy forces have rapidly outclassed my own troops in terms of armaments and other equipment.

Ugh, nevermind. Things are a mess now.

[techmaster-glitch]