[TrashMan]

Ah heh. It was no fluke... You seriously have 0 MC strength

Impossibible!

You have to schedule me for soem MC training then.

[Scotty]

IronBeer jumps up to the second level, and takes down both targets with a shok bomb. Live brain captured!

Hellyeah! That was what, 4 captures this mission? Too bad the don't count for experience tho. (captures indeed don't count, right?)

My understanding is that just by swinging and hitting things you get experience.

[Gortef]

Wait so on that one mission I stunned one of the two aliens, which then dropped a stun grenade that stunned both me and the another alien.

Talk about a situation straight from a comedy show.

Sort of, but more comical: you ran up there, shouted "hey look at me!" and it shot at you with the grenade launcher. "Slapping it in the big bald head" was a bit of flourish I threw in, due to you being right next to it, no tazer was involved.

Ah...

[NGTM-1R]

Impossibible!

You have to schedule me for soem MC training then.

Strength isn't trainable.

[TrashMan]

This pathetic clone of mine is not worthy to carry my name.
My mental fortitude would make even a SPEHS MAHRINE librarian green with envy.

[Scourge of Ages]

Aye Scotty, you are correct, firing explosive weapons nets firing experience for everything caught in the blast. I don't know if he gets credit for "kills" however.

Sorry Trash, we didn't catch the problem until MC training started. I guess the boys at the cloning vats just plum forgot to put that part back into your brain. Don't worry though, most men go on to lead full and happy lives even without the use of a functional MC gland. It may negatively impact any future careers in rap music though.

[Scourge of Ages]

That was a fluke!
August 1st : Researched the ammo to the disruptor launcher. That means that I'll be able to assault that base at my convenience. Orrrrrr... the new alien artifact site we just detected in the Mediterranean. Fun with brains, soon!


Hmmmmm. Artifact sites don't seem to be permanent, and I missed it. Oh well, there's still that base.

August 4th : Alex Heartnet takes down another Battleship in the North Sea. I'm not sure what the aliens are doing in the area, but I'll make sure they don't get to. Squad 1 dispatched.

Hey look at that. A brain. How interesting. Trash, kill it.


To fire a disruptor torpedo, you assign it a number of waypoints, outlining its path.


The torpedo has a really good turning radius, so it can get around and into almost anything. Wisdom is to give the path a wide berth around anything that it could hit accidentally and explode.


Waypoints done, now hit the Launch button... zzap, zzap, zzap, zzap, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Yes. Multi-kill. Splendid.


Oh interesting. More brains. Men?


Squish. Squish. Two more down, good work!

Spoonzer Gamma scouts the entire exterior of the map, spotting Lobstermen for the squad camped at the Triton, who shoot all of them, even sniping from clear across the map. Finally, the exterior is clear, and the squad moves forward toward the breach in the hull of the sub, like a terrible school of death-fish. Or perhaps a pod of murder-whales? Something dangerous, at least.

Everyone lines up near the huge holes in the bow of the ship, and prepares to attack. We've not seen any activity, but we can hear it. They keep opening and closing doors and stuff.

TrashMan, soften 'em up a little.


Dekker sounds the charge. The Spoonzer goes first into the breach, with the other soldiers splitting between the second level and the bottom level. Spoonzer Gamma spots a Lobsterman Technician armed with a shok launcher through a hole in the floor. A few shots knock it out, but don't kill it.

Dekker and CommanderDJ land, spot a Soldier near the entrance door to the sub, and shoot it dead.


The MC readers indicate that there's a Technician somewhere on the second level, and it's freaking right out, panicking and going berserk. Readings on sensors mounted on the Triton also return at least two more contacts moving around in the sub that we haven't seen yet.


Carefully weighing our options to deal with the two lobsters staring down the Spoonzer, Dekker chooses the nuclear option: Ravenholme's Cousin fires a disruptor torpedo into the enemy sub, slips it past Spoonzer Gamma, past the two lobsters, and into the bulkhead behind them.

The bulkhead crumbles, but the lobsters survive. Gortef blasts one, and IronBeer stuns the other.

The previously panicking Technician un-panicks and shoots at the Spoonzer. The shots... sort of phase through it. It was weird, I don't recall including the ghost package in this model, but it's good news nonetheless.

Gamma shoots it twice, and Polpolion comes in from the lower level to finish it off. On the alien's turn, a Lobsterman comes through the second-level door and attacks the Spoonzer, right in front of our line of soldiers. Two reaction shots put it down.


Note carefully how the Spoonzer is parked right on the lift? On one of the hidden movement phases, we caught a glimpse of three brains on the top level. This prevents them from coming down and murdering us. When we're in position, we can storm up there, or else nuke 'em through the lift (you can do that).

There's one.


And two.


Annnnnd three. One shot each, and back down the lift, those brains won't get us today!


All three go down, and we enter the bridge and stun the Navigator. Complete!


The seas are quiet for some time, allowing us to finish research in peace. Behold! The P.W.T. Cannon, the final answer in USO blowing-up.


Also available are P.W.T. Defenses, which will allow my two expansion bases to operate with less fear of invasion.


Also a UFO-brain thing that managed somehow to not explode when we killed it was returned for autopsy.


Hmmmm. It's actually exactly what it looks like: A UFO brain thing. Interesting, and terrifying.

August 21st : The Lobsterman Navigator we captured earlier had some very interesting things to say. After careful interrogation, the scientists have compiled a report.


Well, that explains how they got here, and why they're jerks, and what really happened to the dinosaurs, and what's with the Gillmen, but there's a question still: What are they planning? Make that two questions: How can we explode them?
The Navigator didn't have answers to those questions, but implied that a higher-ranking lobster might. They usually hang out around the control centers of alien bases, so... Let's go nab a commander!
Seriously... Any one of us could get MC'ed... you want us to wade into battle empty handed? I might as well cover myself in butter and pain a bullseye on me.

Ah heh. It was no fluke... You seriously have 0 MC strength
But the beauty of the disruptor launcher is that you don't have to be anywhere near the thing you want to explode. So you could sit right next to the Triton, lobbing high-explosive death all day.

Which you'll see in action, episode after this one:

July 26th – Large USO spotted, Battleship class. But this time, we can take it. Alex Heartnet leads the two Mantas on a strike mission. The ferocity of the attack was striking, and the Battleship was downed in the Baltic Sea, near Copenhagen, Denmark.


Deploying this time, for the first time, are four captured MC Readers. They will allow us to poke and prod into the minds of any aliens we lay eyes on, and get their rank and status and stuff. Not extremely useful on its own, but we're hunting a commander here. It'll help to know which one to hit, and how hard we'll need to hit it.

Ha ha ha, those crazy Danes. They built an underwater research base right where we shot down a OH **** BRAINS KILL IT.


*whimper* Spoonzer Alpha shot at it, but missed. Trashman steps up to the plate, fires, and misses. But, he hit the pipe it was hiding behind, which was apparently filled with high-explosives. The blast wave liquifies the brain's squishy parts, which was most of its body.


Soldiers move to scout out each of the research pods, each one more cautiously than the last.


THIS IS WHY WE'RE CAUTIOUS! (Son of Ravenholme gets it in one shot though, so we're cool.)


And Scotty spots a Lobsterman, shoots it, and draws return fire. Seeing an excellent opportunity to test out the MC Reader, jr2 fires it up and takes a peek inside. Eh, just a soldier.

BRAAAAAAAAAIN! It tries to do who-knows-what to Spoonzer Alpha, but doesn't get anywhere. The tank however, takes offense at blows its insides outside.


The Spoonzer performed fantastically, taking more damage than three Coelecanths, at least, and dishing out far more. Unfortunately, one of the several lobsters inside the sub charged, and dug straight into the Spoonzer with its bare claws, and ripped out the control mechanisms. Combined fire, and a stun bomb from IronBeer took down the Lobsterman Technician (I wonder if that's how it figured out how to kill a Spoonzer?)
Foolish aliens, for every tank you rip apart, we can build four more to replace it. We will bury you!

Around the back of the sub... Frickin' BRAIN! Attacked my squad, but Son of Ravenholme and Mongoose shot it dead.


Son of Ravenholme takes a sonic cannon shot to the side, but survives with only a single fatal wound, which is patched up in short order.

Saw some movement up here during the alien move phase: at least two brains and a lobster. Dekker authorizes the use of grenades, lots of them.


Two grenades go up, Son of Ravenholme preps another, but can't get in to position to throw it that turn. He moves into the open next to Dekker, and gets ready.


The grenades blow, but nothing dies. One of the lobsters gets a little annoyed though, and charges down the stairs. Before anybody can even blink, it claws Ravenholme to death, and then Mongoose splatters its guts into the water.


TrashMan grabs Ravenholme's live grenade and chucks it up onto the second level. It doesn't blow.
Is it a dud, or did Ravenholme accidentally hit “8” instead of “0” on the timer. That's probably it. Trashman ascends, and finds two targets. Brain.


IronBeer jumps up to the second level, and takes down both targets with a shok bomb. Live brain captured! I think there's another still up there though, wandering around. Just to be safe, the firing line descends, hopefully out of range of its groping tentacles.

Next turn, ever so carefully, Gortef heads up onto the platform. He spots the brain, and shoots it once and adds it to the collection of corpses.


On the alien's turn, the final Lobsterman comes down the lift and gets blasted into unconsciousness by IronBeer. Mission complete.


None of the Lobstermen were a commander though, so it definitely looks like we're going to be attacking that base sooner or later.

[Scourge of Ages]

Suiting up for the base assault will be: Spoonzer Elites Gamma and Epsilon, CommanderDJ (field commander), SpardaSon24 (trooper), Ravenholme's Cousin (Trooper), Scotty (Pilot, stunner, psi ops), TrashMan (heavy section), IronBeer (heavy section). These soldiers have some of the best reaction stats, or have requested to carry the heavy weapons and can safely stay away from the front lines.

SpardaSon24 is transferring back from Eight Samurai to join the assault, so we need to wait until he gets here. In the meantime, we shot down a small sub carrying Tasoths near Eight Samurai! Squad 2 go!

Well this is some interesting terrain. It seems we've stumbled on some sort of ancient shipwreck. There's pottery and treasure chests everywhere. Hope it survives, there's probably some archaeologists who'd like to study it all.


Our first catch of the day! Little, yellow, anthropomorphic, underwater dinosaurs, looks like. Spoonzer Delta takes a shot, hits, draws return fire. z64556 exits the sub and lands a shok bomb dead center on target. It's still standing. Grandson of Dudeski does enough damage with a gauss rifle to put it to sleep. Sleepy-sleep, not dead-sleep.


Spoonzer Delta spots another, and this time one-shots it. Better than lobsters, for sure!

Well, the rest of the mission wrapped up pretty snugly, despite me forgetting to re-equip the squad with sonic cannons, and only having gauss and sonic rifles. We even captured one of the Tasoth soldiers. To the cutting room!

August 25th : Triton 1 launches against the alien base, with the assault squad aboard. Orders are to take no prisoners, kill 'em all.

Scratch that. Need the Lobsterman commander alive. Take 1 prisoner.


(Apologies, Fraps was a little wonky, and I didn't get every pic that I wanted, just... use your imagination or something?)

First target spotted is a giant jellyfish. You may recall the Hallucinoid from NGTM-1R's thread, page 15. The kill goes to Spoonzer Gamma. Nothing more is seen or heard from the aliens yet. Tension mounts.

Wait. Aquatoid toting a disruptor launcher, killed.

Spoonzer Epsilon exits the other direction, and gets three contacts, one Tasoth, one brain, and one unknown in the dark.

Epsilon splashes the brain, and TrashMan and IronBeer eliminate the other two with gusto, leaving massive burnt and blasted areas on the ground.

Ha! TrashMan comes under molecular control, but just as planned, he is currently unarmed. I put all his extra ammo on the other troopers for safekeeping, Trash doesn't even have a grenade right now.

The Spoonzers continue to scout and secure the area, while MC attacks continue. Trash is taken every turn, and SpardaSon24 was panicked once, but other than that this has gone fairly smoothly so far.

I'm pretty sure the elevator is inside this huge building in the center of the map, but I won't feel confident about moving on it until 1) whatever's launching all these MC attacks is killed, and 2) the structure is cleared of brains.


IronBeer has been putting the disruptor launcher to very good use, demolishing everything with surgical precision.


The Tasoths are starting to panic. That's a good sign And the Spoonzers continue to clean up...


These brains fail to realize that they cannot zombify tanks, but the tanks can definitely destroy brains. And they do. The tanks will be handling the vast majority of combat this mission, for precisely this reason.


Satisfied that the immediate area is clear enough to start grabbing disruptor bombs from some of the aliens around, CommanderDJ leads the squad out of the Triton.

Turns out it was not quite as secure as I had hoped. A lone Aquatoid had crept close enough, and threw a grenade at the squad. Thankfully, while it didn't land at anybody's feet where it could have damaged the precious under-armor, it still compressed CommanderDJ's right arm armor pretty hard. The armor repaired and re-sealed itself pretty quickly, but DJ's arm needed a bit of medical attention.

I guess we killed whatever was launching all those MC attacks, probably all those Tasoths in the center area, and TrashMan regained his composure. The squad begins to move toward the lift. No additional contacts.

Brains! But the tank should be able to safely eliminate them.


One long bughunt later, we finish off all the defenders, and descend as a team to the next level.


I hate this part. All the team members start off split off from each other, with no idea of what's around the next corner, or between them and the next small group of friendlies. Case in point: BRAIN!


Taking no chances, IronBeer nukes it. And everything around it, just to be sure. SpardaSon24 makes contact with IronBeer, hopefully they'll be able to carve out a defensible position somewhere. CommanderDJ's team just him and TrashMan, really is also scouting out safe territory.


Spoonzer Gamma spots a Lobsterman Commander standing out in the open, and shoots it twice for some damage. CommanderDJ squares off against another lobster, armed with a shok launcher, but does not kill it and is knocked unconscious himself.


TrashMan hits him with a stimulant from the med-kit and brings DJ back to the land of the waking, albeit a little woozy.

Gamma has spotted an additional Lobsterman, and it's carrying a disruptor launcher! Better safe than sorry, IronBeer disrupts it in the face, but it survives a direct hit! On the plus side, it doesn't retaliate, the Commander doesn't die, and I hear a brain go squish, one that I didn't know was there.


The Commander takes a few swipes at the Spoonzer, but it is made of sterner stuff and easily survives.

Scotty finally lands a bulls-eye with a shok bomb and the Commander goes out cold. Meanwhile, CommanderDJ was knocked out again while scouting down a level, and TrashMan dares not go down there after him. Spoonzer Epsilon is en route though, to clear the area.

When the tank arrives, there's nobody there... TrashMan descends the lift and pumps a whole kit full of stims into DJ, but he's still down.


I say again: the tanks go first. Always. Especially when there's the possibility of brains. This is why:


I'm getting glimpses of alien movement in the darkness, and can hear some of the Lobstermen start to panic. The fear-cries from such a terrifying creature echo through the water in the facility and start to damage the calm of some of my soldiers.

The squad has finally formed all together, and they move out slowly through territory cleared by one of the Spoonzers. We move toward an area that looks promising, and that is too narrow for the tanks to get to.


This must be it. Surrounded by lobster commanders, weird spinny thing, looks important.


CommanderDJ drops a grenade on it from above, and yep that's the thing.


Although... If I manage to actually secure the whole base, I'll get a boatload of salvage. Scotty pumps a few shok bombs into the chamber and knocks out the commanders, IronBeer and TrashMan fire torpedoes to clear out the surrounding areas. The Lobstermen are kind of clustering together, and a combined force, including Scotty dual-weilding shok launchers, knocks most of them down pretty quickly.


(You might not be able to see it, but there's a whole mess of them to the left of this screen, and there're a few more hidden near that one in the center)

Even after all that, there's still something left. I don't know where.

CommanderDJ finally finds the last brain. He shoots it. It survives. Well, crud.


TrashMan and Iron Beer both fire long-shot torpedoes, but they both impact obstacles before hitting, and do nothing.


Against all odds, the brain just sits where it was, and DJ finishes it off. Complete, and a huge sigh of relief. No losses! Plenty of damage and injuries, but no losses! Another fun fact: each tank starts every deployment with 99 rounds of ammo. Spoonzer Gamma ran out.

[NGTM-1R]

Another fun fact: each tank starts every deployment with 99 rounds of ammo. Spoonzer Gamma ran out.

What.

I've never gotten a tank below 70.

[Scotty]

I am a boss.

Um, I've actually got to ask.  Am I the only trooper/pilot so far who's been in all of the X-Com Let's Plays who hasn't died at all yet?

[Scourge of Ages]

What.

I've never gotten a tank below 70.

To be fair, quite a bit of it shooting holes in walls and terrain to make way for it, and it's accuracy was getting pretty low, what with all the damage, so missed a lot too.

[z64555]

z64556 exits the sub and lands a shok bomb dead center on target. It's still standing.

Hey, I thought I had the "Extra Potent" bombs? Must've been a logistics error...

[Goober5000]

Hmmmmm. Artifact sites don't seem to be permanent, and I missed it. Oh well, there's still that base.

Well, that's not cool.  You get something like a 2000 point penalty for ignoring those; that's twice as bad as ignoring a Terror Site.

[CommanderDJ]

I was worried there for a second. Thanks for healing me, TrashMan!

[Spoon]

I like how the tanks are called Spoonzer's even in this LP

[IronBeer]

Thanks for putting me on super-vengeful brain-killing duty. I can imagine laughing manically as I pulverize those scourges of my other life!

/brofist all around.

[Scourge of Ages]

Um, I've actually got to ask.  Am I the only trooper/pilot so far who's been in all of the X-Com Let's Plays who hasn't died at all yet?

In mine at least you've survived every engagement, even as a footsoldier. You've been wounded, but that's different.

I like how the tanks are called Spoonzer's even in this LP

But of course! Tradition, don't ya know?

Thanks for putting me on super-vengeful brain-killing duty. I can imagine laughing manically as I pulverize those scourges of my other life!

/brofist all around.

Word, bro. Brain killing is good for the heart. And even though it's everyone's duty, it's gratifying to put one who enjoys it to work

[Scourge of Ages]

August 27th : Spotted and shot down a sub in the Mediterranean. It's just a small, which'll be a nice change of pace from my base-busting. The recovery went really well.

I discovered something interesting while browsing ufopaedia for an answer to Scotty's question above. When firing explosive weapons, you get shooting experience for every target caught in the blast. And sure enough, after that base attack mission, TrashMan has 91 firing accuracy. So in an attempt to power level some of Squad 1, I passed around the disruptor launcher until I ran out of torpedoes.

August 30th : Examination of the live Tasoth proved very enlightening.


We've discovered much more than before about the function of MC implants, how the aliens can even influence human minds despite our not having MC implants of our own, and most importantly, how we can turn the aliens' own implants against them. The concept is drawn up, and the eggheads of Eight Samurai are going to start engineering a prototype MC disruptor ASAP.

A Very Large sub, Dreadnought class, was spotted in the south Pacific, and in a pitched battle with Eight Samurai's and Barrier's (my newest base, near Australia) Mantas, was brought down in the Sea of Japan.

Squad 2 attack!

So it's another shipwreck map. Unfortunately, we won't be able to preserve too much of it this time. Showing a tasteful disregard for history, z64556 just blows the carp out of the top deck of that ship.


vvvv


While the squad stays in the Triton for the first round, Spoonzer Delta takes the brunt of the punishment from the enemy outside. It's mostly shok bombs though, and a hallucinoid.

z64556 really hates old timey ships, and this time nukes the bottom deck, where the tank had spotted an Aquatoid. Examination of the carnage, reveals... three bodies. Nice!


Lilith and two seat-fillers enter through a breach in the second level, while NGTM-3R leads two others through another breach on the bottom.




While securing the exterior battlefield, Goober5000 faces off against an Aquatoid soldier carrying a thermal shok launcher, and loses. He's knocked unconscious, and Moloch has to come pick him up.


OK, I see what NGTM-1R was talking about with the thing with the Aquatoids not facing us. This guy just paced back and forth, right in front of Azrael, didn't bother looking over. Weird, but I don't mind.


Cleanup proceeds smoothly, with the last three kills on the bridge going to the first soldier to arrive, Lilith. Mission complete!

September 1st : End of month report...


Hmmm. Looks like Goober was completely right, the Euro-Syndicate were not at all pleased about that artifact site that went un-invaded.

Updates on the intelligence front: The captured Lobsterman commander hasn't been extremely forthcoming in the initial interrogation, but the scientists did extract two very important pieces of information: He does know where T'leth is, and none of our current vehicles are even going to be able to approach it.

We're going to need a new sub. The researchers hastily start to compile all our current data and designs, and come up with a brilliant new flying sub in a matter of days: the Leviathan. This'll definitely get us to T'leth, wherever it is.


Bust out the rubber bands, we're going to press that Lobsterman for every bit of information he can give us.

Also September 1st : Hey cool, another shipping route attack. Squad 2 is right there, so takes off. Could be fun.

[z64555]

I had a bad experience with 1400's sailing ships in Universal Studios. I'd rather not talk about it. 

[Scourge of Ages]

Our first catch. Sweet, looks like it's going to be just Gillmen and Deep Ones. Piece of cake.


While Spoonzer Delta scouts, soldiers disembark the sub and move toward the interior of the ship. Grandson of Dudeski is able to knock down the sniper on the conning tower, and Delta blasts another Gillman standing dangerously close to some explosive barrels.


A single Gillman who had been right next to the Triton this whole time, but escaped being noticed by Delta, threw a grenade at the squad. It missed, and hit the barrels it was hiding behind instead. The barrels, though they combusted, also blocked most of the sonic blast, protecting our soldiers. The Gillman was not even close to being able to survive.


Scouting a corridor, z64556 comes under fire, and takes some wounds. He stumbled upon a whole squad of aliens in that room with the stairs. He can't take them all, but other soldiers are rushing to assist.


6 aliens in that squad, split up just a little. These little silver dots are alien bodies, z64556 got the last kill of that batch.


Make that 7, there was a Deep One on the landing at the top of the first stairs that Lilith shot.


*knock knock* room service! Who ordered the noisy death? You? OK, here you go.


A few more enemies, and we head below decks to finish up clearing the ship.

The Spoonzer heads out from the lift, and spots a few enemies. This Gillman took a couple of reaction shots, but missed badly. NGTM-3R took it down with a sonic bolt to the knee. You could say his adventuring days are over.


There are some other Gillmen on some containers that the Spoonzer eliminates, and a couple of aliens that Goober and company handle.


There's another small squad of enemies behind these containers, and z64556 pops up the lift to blast one, and then back down. NGTM-3R gets another, Spoonzer Delta takes out the Deep One, and Lilith got one on reaction fire that was foolish enough to go down the lift last turn.


Ah, fuel storage. The safest place to hide on a ship during a firefight.


Deep in the bowels of the ship, we find living quarters for the crew. Goober5000 finds an engineering station or something with a Deep One in it. Don't know what it was doing in there, but it did not survive.


A couple more Deep Ones, and the mission is over, a superbly executed mission with no deaths. Every soldier performed exceptionally.