XCOM: UFF Defence
- ShadowSpectre
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Re: XCOM: UFF Defence
I'm going to do what I can to fast-track this playthrough to its conclusion now. We're in the late game and we have almost everything we could need to do the final missions.
Time to readjust to reality. I perhaps had too much knowledge of the occurrence of the base defence mission to truly be able to say I handled it properly; swapping Alex to Titan armour over Archangel, removing Pure's Arc Thrower and so on. At any rate, it's not a bad thing to have some degree of knowledge gained by reading around your subject. I just happened to have a lot of it.
I also have a new medal to award. The Star of Terra is a unique medal given to me for defending the base from the aliens. The name's one used in several different settings; Mass Effect has one, for example.
The two powers it bestows are very much group boosts, but one is definitely more blanket than the other. The experience power is excellent for training; Pure would be brilliant, with his not-quite kills. However, the other power is defence and will boosting, an excellent pair of traits. This will be the power I assign to this award. Also, sorry for the difference in size; I missed the screenshot, so I'm using an image I found on Google of the same screen.
I'm not so sure what to rename it, however. For the moment, I'll go with this, but I am willing to take suggestions on this; I will award it next post.
Our next order of business is to start testing subjects for psychic abilties. There is a correlation but not a guarantee that subjects with higher Will stats are psychic. It takes ten full days to test a subject, so we should be careful with whom we test.
I'm going to try and get the more experienced soldiers in first to try and limit the amount of time we're without our important troops.
Pure goes in. He also misses Christmas. Garo gets all his presents.
Another Firestorm has been completed somehow. The base recovered from the damage really quite quickly.
All countries now have a minimum of two Firestorms. We're set.
I'm going to be giving the secondary Firestorms EMP Cannons. There is a slightly higher chance of recovering nondamaged equipment from UFOs crashed splashed with this weapon.
Oh my God. Fucking doing it.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! And Seekers basically don't turn up again!
The Hyperwave Uplink is complete. It won't actually do very much for a few days, but when it does...
This gives us our final few objectives before the last mission. I'm going to end this post here and keep it brief. We'll get on point next time.
- ShadowSpectre
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Re: XCOM: UFF Defence
In the nature of completing this as fast as possible, I'll be making several short updates.
You might be a little surprised to hear that we're actually going to let this UFO slide. Yeah, it's the Overseer, but it'll come back again and again. We can use this as down time to reassess strategies.
Seeing as I'm fast-tracking all the way, I'm going to be looking into research.
Capturing an Ethereal is the best occurrence for the research team because we can extract information about everything from them; I hope to be able to do that, but it's not necessary at this point. If I don't, it isn't a problem.
We've just completed the Advanced Construction project, meaning the last facility to be constructed should be possible in half the time.
Oh my. I think we have a winner.
Well. Pure is our saviour.
It's important to note that he isn't unique; we can have any number of psychics on our team at once, and we will probably benefit from testing more people. I'll be putting them in soon.
However, this doesn't make them any less important. Psychic soldiers are key to the game's plot; obviously, as aliens are psychic, discovering that we, too, have that capacity is a massive step forwards in combattting them. They're so important that they have a little symbol next to their name when they have psychic ability points to spend and their little class cymbol changes to suit their new powers.
All psychic soldiers receive an additional option in their menu for their psychic abilities, making the list seem incredibly dense; I think there should have been a better way of doing this, it looks a little uncomfortable.
Similar to standard abilities, the first one is set; Mindfray is a basic 5-damage ability that inflicts penalties against the target's aim, will and mobility. The best part is that it doesn't rely on the user's aim, only the will stat. The chance to hit is a simple chance based on the difference between the stats of the two involved. As a result it's amazing when there's cover in the way. Sure, it's not the world's greatest damage, but it's effective as an alternative to Suppression. Indeed, at lower difficulties, you can completely forgo Suppression against organic enemies in favour of Mindfray.
Notably, however, it doesn't affect robots; AI don't have psychic abilities because that's a massive crapshoot because we're anthrocentric.
I'm going to put SK into the tanks to test him. That'll take another ten days, in which I hope to be able to use Pure in the field.
The Council notes we let a UFO go. Whatever. Happy New Year.
Within moments the Overseer turns up. Let's get 'em.
Firestorm with a Fusion Lance. Literally unbeatable.
Take note of the new information we have; the Hyperwave Uplink has transformed our interception capabilities into one where we can genuinely control the battle. We know what's there, we know the numbers, we know the type of map. It's a sure sell.
Squad ready. I've decided to start using Chitin plating a lot more. It's excellent stuff, adds four HP and halves melee damage.
There's a joke in there somewhere, but I can't find it.
There are loads of high ranking troops on this map, as you saw from the Hyperwave Uplink.
Mindfray looks like this in the field. Also note how many goddamn abilities Pure has. Literally run out of hotkeys.
The discussion screen doesn't add anything new.
It is one of the coolest things to flit across the battlefield, though. Doesn't appear to do much at first; just a measly five damage.
However, the next turn gives us some insight into what's going on. Take a look at that penalty. Pure's mindraped that poor alien.
Mindfray and the psychic abilities have a short cooldown to prevent them from being an alternative to pistols. However, they're still short enough to be staple. It's a fine balance for your needs.
I'm moving Alex up to support Pure's squad. Dabir and MMX are rough and ready to deal with anyone over there.
Oh man. That's a corridor of death if ever I saw one. Sectopod inside the UFO.
Dabir mans up.
He misses, alerting the Ethereal to his unmistakeable presence.
The item in the middle is a plot device: you'll see what it is later on.
This Ethereal made a remarkable mistake in trying to close the distance to MMX.
Ouch.
It'll be hard moving up properly, but we have to.
MMX lucks out against the Sectopod.
That's not all that terrible.
Slammed for a fair bit of damage.
I'm putting Dabir here as a bulwark against the Ethereal in case it tries to attack MMX who is going to take a beating as it is.
Dabir can still take a shot at the Sectopod in an attempt to lower its efficacy.
Next turn, it hits Dabir for a huge amount of damage.
Dabir's reaction is lacking.
MMX takes a slamming.
AND he's mind controlled for the privilege. We aren't capturing this Ethereal.
This makes the rest of the mission pretty moot.
Dabir drops the Sectopod to manageable levels.
"Stop smoking."
Garo's skills are legendary.
Flan deals with the Elites.
Dabir's reaction shot against the Sectood kills it but damages Pure and MMX in the process. This would have been so much easier if Alex could have been involved.
The rest of the UFO is cleaned up.
Pure heals up MMX because holy shit.
We still have three more opponents to face, however, we've only killed ten.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
Garo dispatches both drones.
Alex doles out some hurt and hindrance.
The rest, as they say, is history. A simple conclusion to a fucking irritating mission. We return into a double cutscene special.
CRAAAAATE
FINAL BOSS APPROACHING
Notably, however, it doesn't affect robots; AI don't have psychic abilities because that's a massive crapshoot because we're anthrocentric.
This makes the rest of the mission pretty moot.
- ShadowSpectre
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Re: XCOM: UFF Defence
Let's take a look at the truck.
- Garoslaw
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Re: XCOM: UFF Defence
I sort of wish there was a possibility of making that the images load after you click the spoil button.
Saves on the bandwidth you know?
Saves on the bandwidth you know?
- ShadowSpectre
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Re: XCOM: UFF Defence
- ShadowSpectre
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Re: XCOM: UFF Defence
... where is SK?
Gollop.
There's not long left. We can do the final mission in the next month. The end is in sight.
- ShadowSpectre
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Re: XCOM: UFF Defence
OH MY GOD
EAT THAT, PSYCHICH SHITLORD
Fuck it, I'm not going to do it. I can't be arsed.
- ShadowSpectre
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Re: XCOM: UFF Defence
However...
- ShadowSpectre
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Re: XCOM: UFF Defence
ALEX WON THE GAME
... but now what?
It's over. It's all over. Thank you for sticking with me for this. It's been a pleasure.
- ShadowSpectre
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