Okay then, time to move forward again while I'm sick as a dog.We have a UFO over Nunavat headed for the US border, scramble Hobbie.
Central, Hobbie. Target has detected me and is going hypersonic for the US border.
Central, Hobbie. Minor damage to the bird. Target is down. He went in over downtown Winnipeg. Repeat, the UFO is down in a populated area.
Remain on-station. Strike is inbound.
Now we have some of the lovingly detailed devastation of an Enemy Within urban map.Operation Skynet, Winnipeg, Canada, 11:48pm, September 10th
Deployed: Micheal "Gispy D" Sanderson (MEC-3, mission commander), Admiral "Marauder" Ralwood (MEC-3), Lightning-1 (Spoonzer-3P), Lightning-2 (Spoonzer-3P), Lightning-3 (Spoonzer-3P), Lightning-4 (Spoonzer-3P)
"Skynet? Seriously? Somebody was being cute about this."
"It's the rise of the machines, Ral. Annette said good things about the Goliaths."
EXTERMINATE. EX-TERM-IN-ATE.
"Cloakies. Against us. This is not your day."
You are superior in only one respect! You are better at dy-ing!
"Muton heavies! That's serious!"
Danger, target is escaping!
Muton//animal is deceased.
ASSUME THE POSITION.
Love is shooting alien meatbags in the head at ten meters.
Floaters do not look up for danger. Just like humans.
EX-TERM-IN-ATE!
SON-OF-A-THAL!
"Target down. The SHIVs clean house pretty good."
HURT//MAIM//KILL
Hostile decloaking. De-stroy!
"Sectoids, red ones. Today is still not your day."
My vis-ion is NOT imp-aired!
Suffffffeeeerrrr The basic psionic attack, Mindfray, does damage and reduces Will and Aim. Late in the game the aliens are aware they don't have the moxie to try and mind-control your soldiers straight up and will usually attempt a Mindfray/MC combo."Oh come on, Annette hits harder than that when she has nightmares in the next room over!"
"Target down."
"Surprise MEC, sucker."
"Central, Strike. We're done here. I think we can call the Lightning a success."
I wouldn't really say a Lightning is a
great replacement for a live soldier, but they're tougher than they look and they do offer flight capabilities in a more resilient package than our Archangel suits. Their plasma cannon are about equal to versions we've developed for soldiers, but aren't as powerful as a P-beam or an Alloy Cannon. Or for that matter a PlasDMR in the right hands.
And I'd rather work with Lightnings than rookies.
The UFO went down real late, so the buildings it hit were empty, but still...that could have been an amazingly ugly mess. As it is, nobody was hurt. Six or seven hours later, and it would have wiped out several companies.