- Joined
- Nov 21, 2019
Hopefully Allakazam334 has more luck. Although, to be fair, the token orc always dies.
Let's Sperg Let's Play XCOM Terror From The Deep (Completed) - This is gonna hurt
- Thread starter L50LasPak
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2019
I felt it would be worth informing the thread that Null shut down the Ghost of Null robot in chat last Tuesday, apparently permanently. He said something about it talking too much, I guess it annoyed him. Said robot has died early in both of my games, I wonder if it was a sign.
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- Joined
- Sep 25, 2019
6. Big Catch
Relations are already quite low with Japan. This Terror Mission could be the last straw.
Its just Gillmen again, maybe there's a chance. That grenade throw does kill the civilian in that screenshot though. I have no idea why the Hell I didn't see him standing there when I was actually playing the game; I only just noticed him in the screenshot.
We're right in the corner so after those first two kills we have plenty of room to advance. Gillmen won't throw grenades at range, at least on this difficulty, so I take the liberty of putting a few storming parties together. @Polyboros2 is picked off by sniper fire.
We find these assholes standing around in the obligatory office building, but I'm not sure either of them are the sniper since it looks like they're both unarmed. We nail one anyway.
I luck out and don't kill any civlians with this grenade, but that was a really idiotic move. All of my troops are still carrying at least one conventional Magna-Blast Grenade for exactly this situation. I should really learn to follow my own pre-planning.
The Gillmen are more than a little outmatched against our veteran team at this point.
Keep those hits coming boys.
You thought I was just being dramatic when I called them storming teams, didn't you? Gillmen have terrible reactions. I'd bet actual money its worse than the Floaters they're supposed to replace from the last game. Combined with the fact that I have some of my best troops in the game at this battle with this game's plasma weaponry equivalent and this is nothing short of a slaughter. Terror From The Deep rarely stays this easy for very long.
Just_Somebody, despite his earlier fatal outburst against the Lobstermen, is performing exemplary in this battle.
@Chocolate Wombat has a nearly perfect kill lined up on a Gillman, but in a clear demonstration of this game's dickery there's of course a bunch of explosive barrels in the way. He nicks one, which instantly causes all of them to detonate right in his face and blow his carcass through the door he came out of. At least he took the Gillman with him.
To add insult to injury, that's the last enemy. Overall we could have done a lot worse this mission.
I take the time to rectify a small oversight.
@Plant Aqua Mammal volunteered a little while ago just behind Not William Stenchever and somehow I missed him completely. I immediately place Plant right behind Willy in the queue.
We've finished researching the MC Lab, which stands for Molecular Control. Apparently rather than using psionic powers the aliens instead have devices that control their Terror Units and slaves at the molecular level (?). The game claims only troops with "MC implants" can use or be affected by psionics, but the gameplay was not modified to match and psionics perform exactly the same as last time. I'm impressed that the designers actually came up with an even more bullshit way to explain psionic powers than the conventional trope.
Uh, what? I was pretty sure you had to interrogate a Lobsterman Navigator before this technology would be unlocked. I did do a Technician earlier, maybe that was enough? The wiki disagrees with me, all you need is Magnetic Navigation.
Fine, whatever.
My incredible stinginess with money (I always get the "I want to be rich." ending in STALKER) means I won't manufacture Aqua Plastics even though we probably have the funds to get away with it. We down two small subs in a short period of time though, which means the two of these should be enough to supply the raw materials for at least one round of armor.
I would say this is a routine USO recovery but so far the Lobstermen have been tough enough opponents that these missions are anything but routine.
We start a pretty good distance away but not too far, which means we can engage the enemy with a reasonable degree of accuracy without the fear of getting grenades shoved up our nose.
Like that.
This particular map tileset has these oil pipeline hookups protruding from the sea floor. Every tile of that stupid fucking thing is marked as an explosive barrel, so if that thing goes off there's about seven of them that will definitely go with it. That puffy stuff surrounding it also counts as rough terrain (denoted with a stock squishing sound) which means it takes something like double Time Units to walk over it. Moving a soldier into that shit essentially cripples their walking speed, and leaves them standing next to a bomb. Fuck this game.
When Thomas Highway engages the third Lobsterman he triggers reaction fire. For some reason the shot goes nowhere near him and kills @Honka Honka Burning Love instead.
On the alien turn we get some reaction fire on one of their scouts.
In retrospect I couldn't have asked for a better vantage point. In addition to starting in the sweet spot for distance we appear to have the high ground.
We eventually catch up with that scout.
I'm finally confident enough to have XCOM fan out.
This Lobsterman is pretty far away so I initially plan on just hitting it with one grenade to hopefully make it crawl away somewhere.
As if those exposed oil pipelines aren't enough, this map also features oil barrels partially submerged in the sand. They still explode like the regular variety though. After taking a direct sonic hit and a grenade right under its feet the alien's armor is heavily compromised. This lobster gets boiled alive.
So far we're still reliant on submarine recoveries for positive score. Given the alien starting locations in this game I wonder if its even possible for any player to get a positive score on a Terror Mission since the aliens often start right on top of them.
Things take a sudden turn when our radar detects a Large USO and I manage to intercept it with ScubaJace. Even if we nuke this thing until it glows in the dark recovering it would be a tremendous boost to our resources.
The ScubaJace pilot throws everything he has at it.
I'm not done yet though.
I have ScubaJace keep up the pursuit even though he's unarmed since it makes the alien craft a bit less likely to run away. ScubaTyce joins the battle in short order. I still don't know if three more nukes will be enough.
I jimmy the controls by switching between Aggressive and Standard attacks, using Aggressive to close the gap but switching back to Standard at the last second to avoid the accuracy penalty. We're down to only one more volley of missiles...
He nails it!
Large alien USOs have intensely annoying interiors, even the smaller models are filled with blind spots and killzones that the AI is adept at using to make your life a living Hell. This mission has great potential for reward, but also great potential for casualties.
Well there's the USO. I have a bad feeling about that choice of entryway though.
Right away we kill off a Lobsterman armed with a Thermal Shok Launcher (sic). We'll need a large number of troops to storm the USO so I need to avoid grenades and stun blasts at every possible turn.
Experienced veteran Thomas Highway leads the way down the western side of the submarine.
Two marines may be enough to down a single Lobsterman, but it leaves them rather vulnerable to attack from any others that choose to wander out of the gloom. I can't move up anyone to support Highway either since it would open us up to grenade hits.
White Devil and Not William Stenchever take up position around that hole in the USO incase anything comes out.
Oh fuck.
At least being this close to the RaceWarSub gives us plenty of options for support fire. Realistically I shouldn't have attacked with Willy at all since his Time Units would be better saved for reaction fire on anything coming out of the sub, but whatever.
It takes a few turns but I have Pocket Dragoon and draggs form another team to take the east side of the USO. I move up a third marine to support White Devil's team as he makes his way into the USO.
Thomas Highway and Shadfan are nearly done sweeping their side. Meanwhile, the misery of a Large USO recovery begins as a Lobsterman atomizes @White Devil with a dead on Sonic Cannon shot.
When it rains it pours. @Thomas Highway is killed, leaving Shadfan without backup for the moment as I try to rush another team up to support him.
Pocket Dragoon and draggs also get pinned down by another damn Lobsterman on the roof. Some alien USOs actually encourage this situation by including upper doors or grav lifts that lead straight to the outside. Great.
There's absolutely no way anybody back at the RaceWarSub can get a shot off at this thing, so I resort to grenades in the hopes that the Lobsterman is wounded enough that it will take. It appears to work.
Willy narrowly avoids having his head taken off while Pocket Dragoon engages another Lobsterman.
Its slow going but we're making progress.
Willy leads the team inside the USO now that White Devil is gone. Pocket Dragoon and draggs catch another Lobsterman at range. A grenade throw from Dear Leader is a clean miss, but its enough to get the desired effect of the Lobsterman moving away.
The team inside exhausts all of their Time Units without managing a kill when the first Lobsterman shows up. Willy and Plant Aqua Mammal are a prime grenade target right now since they're standing right next to each other.
Outside is a grenade juggling match as the team keeps trying to get rid of that Lobsterman but just can't stick the throw.
I used the last of their Time Units to move Willy deeper into the sub and pull Plant back to try and discourage a grenade throw. I guess it sort of worked, as @Plant Aqua Mammal is shot and killed rather than getting blown up.
This is pretty bad. Willy and Just_Somebody are flanked on two sides, with one Lobsterman shooting from some kind of armored balcony structure that exists purely as a fuck you to the player. I'm on my way with two more marines but I expect both of them to be killed before we get there.
Pocket Dragoon moves up. If we could just get someone from either side in that front door we'd be able to take the heat off the breaching team. @Just_Somebody is shot and killed by the balcony alien.
Speaking of that front door, a Lobsterman wanders right out and gets ready to snip Corn Flakes's head off. He thinks fast and tazes it.
Willy somehow narrowly avoids being killed by a third Lobsterman in the interior. He isn't able to take it down though. I make it inside and get a shot off at the one on the balcony, but its no dice.
Meanwhile the Lobsterman that's been subjected to Gulf War levels of carpet bombing is still outside trading fire with Dragoon and his team.
The battle to take the USO rages on with no further kills yet.
Trying to hit the Gulf War Lobsterman is basically impossible now with all the silt floating around. Pocket Dragoon becomes the first marine in this game to fully exhaust a Sonic battery in combat.
There must be something weird about the geometry of the alien subs that makes hitting a target inside them so difficult. I suppose that programming oversight makes for a suitably Lovecraftian "impossible architecture" experience, but its fucking annoying to say the least.
I take a shot at the Lobsterman on the ground floor and draw reaction fire. God damnit. Willy is once again without backup, though at least Mooger Meng and another marine are ready to move in on the next turn. How much longer can his luck possibly hold out though?
Fuckin finally.
RabidWombat and Shadfan are finally ready to breach the main doors of the USO with Pocket Dragoon close behind. Draggs will stay outside to make sure there aren't any more of them creeping around the reef. I rush RabidWombat up the ramp and have him take a shot at the balcony Lobsterman just to give Willy some relief.
Willy puts the distraction to good use, taking out the one on the ground floor.
Fuck! That first one that killed White Devil is still there!
Pocket Dragoon and RabidWombat lay into the last Lobsterman on the balcony. This guy just won't quit, advancing up on them for one turn. Eventually RabidWombat takes it down.
Finally. The score is high, and the loot is more than worth it. Just_Somebody was an experienced officer though despite his start as a team-killing spastic, while White Devil and Thomas Highway were both equally reliable. Its a notable loss, but hardly a setback in the scheme of things.
Pocket Dragoon for his leadership and skill is promoted to Just_Somebody's place as Commander. Willy for his incredible luck and gumption in surviving the USO breach that killed no less than three of his comrades recieves a hard earned promotion to Ensign but if I know this game he's going to get promoted next mission even if he stands around and does nothing. The other rookies move up in rank too. RIPRBongoHongo makes Lieutenant for some reason, I guess I've been using him as support fire a lot.
For once I'm happy to see this screen. It takes little more than selling off some corpses and extra Sonic Pistols to clear the space we need for all the loot.
Next Time: Armor.
Relations are already quite low with Japan. This Terror Mission could be the last straw.
Its just Gillmen again, maybe there's a chance. That grenade throw does kill the civilian in that screenshot though. I have no idea why the Hell I didn't see him standing there when I was actually playing the game; I only just noticed him in the screenshot.
We're right in the corner so after those first two kills we have plenty of room to advance. Gillmen won't throw grenades at range, at least on this difficulty, so I take the liberty of putting a few storming parties together. @Polyboros2 is picked off by sniper fire.
We find these assholes standing around in the obligatory office building, but I'm not sure either of them are the sniper since it looks like they're both unarmed. We nail one anyway.
I luck out and don't kill any civlians with this grenade, but that was a really idiotic move. All of my troops are still carrying at least one conventional Magna-Blast Grenade for exactly this situation. I should really learn to follow my own pre-planning.
The Gillmen are more than a little outmatched against our veteran team at this point.
Keep those hits coming boys.
You thought I was just being dramatic when I called them storming teams, didn't you? Gillmen have terrible reactions. I'd bet actual money its worse than the Floaters they're supposed to replace from the last game. Combined with the fact that I have some of my best troops in the game at this battle with this game's plasma weaponry equivalent and this is nothing short of a slaughter. Terror From The Deep rarely stays this easy for very long.
Just_Somebody, despite his earlier fatal outburst against the Lobstermen, is performing exemplary in this battle.
@Chocolate Wombat has a nearly perfect kill lined up on a Gillman, but in a clear demonstration of this game's dickery there's of course a bunch of explosive barrels in the way. He nicks one, which instantly causes all of them to detonate right in his face and blow his carcass through the door he came out of. At least he took the Gillman with him.
To add insult to injury, that's the last enemy. Overall we could have done a lot worse this mission.
I take the time to rectify a small oversight.
@Plant Aqua Mammal volunteered a little while ago just behind Not William Stenchever and somehow I missed him completely. I immediately place Plant right behind Willy in the queue.
We've finished researching the MC Lab, which stands for Molecular Control. Apparently rather than using psionic powers the aliens instead have devices that control their Terror Units and slaves at the molecular level (?). The game claims only troops with "MC implants" can use or be affected by psionics, but the gameplay was not modified to match and psionics perform exactly the same as last time. I'm impressed that the designers actually came up with an even more bullshit way to explain psionic powers than the conventional trope.
Uh, what? I was pretty sure you had to interrogate a Lobsterman Navigator before this technology would be unlocked. I did do a Technician earlier, maybe that was enough? The wiki disagrees with me, all you need is Magnetic Navigation.
Fine, whatever.
My incredible stinginess with money (I always get the "I want to be rich." ending in STALKER) means I won't manufacture Aqua Plastics even though we probably have the funds to get away with it. We down two small subs in a short period of time though, which means the two of these should be enough to supply the raw materials for at least one round of armor.
I would say this is a routine USO recovery but so far the Lobstermen have been tough enough opponents that these missions are anything but routine.
We start a pretty good distance away but not too far, which means we can engage the enemy with a reasonable degree of accuracy without the fear of getting grenades shoved up our nose.
Like that.
This particular map tileset has these oil pipeline hookups protruding from the sea floor. Every tile of that stupid fucking thing is marked as an explosive barrel, so if that thing goes off there's about seven of them that will definitely go with it. That puffy stuff surrounding it also counts as rough terrain (denoted with a stock squishing sound) which means it takes something like double Time Units to walk over it. Moving a soldier into that shit essentially cripples their walking speed, and leaves them standing next to a bomb. Fuck this game.
When Thomas Highway engages the third Lobsterman he triggers reaction fire. For some reason the shot goes nowhere near him and kills @Honka Honka Burning Love instead.
On the alien turn we get some reaction fire on one of their scouts.
In retrospect I couldn't have asked for a better vantage point. In addition to starting in the sweet spot for distance we appear to have the high ground.
We eventually catch up with that scout.
I'm finally confident enough to have XCOM fan out.
This Lobsterman is pretty far away so I initially plan on just hitting it with one grenade to hopefully make it crawl away somewhere.
As if those exposed oil pipelines aren't enough, this map also features oil barrels partially submerged in the sand. They still explode like the regular variety though. After taking a direct sonic hit and a grenade right under its feet the alien's armor is heavily compromised. This lobster gets boiled alive.
So far we're still reliant on submarine recoveries for positive score. Given the alien starting locations in this game I wonder if its even possible for any player to get a positive score on a Terror Mission since the aliens often start right on top of them.
Things take a sudden turn when our radar detects a Large USO and I manage to intercept it with ScubaJace. Even if we nuke this thing until it glows in the dark recovering it would be a tremendous boost to our resources.
The ScubaJace pilot throws everything he has at it.
I'm not done yet though.
I have ScubaJace keep up the pursuit even though he's unarmed since it makes the alien craft a bit less likely to run away. ScubaTyce joins the battle in short order. I still don't know if three more nukes will be enough.
I jimmy the controls by switching between Aggressive and Standard attacks, using Aggressive to close the gap but switching back to Standard at the last second to avoid the accuracy penalty. We're down to only one more volley of missiles...
He nails it!
Large alien USOs have intensely annoying interiors, even the smaller models are filled with blind spots and killzones that the AI is adept at using to make your life a living Hell. This mission has great potential for reward, but also great potential for casualties.
Well there's the USO. I have a bad feeling about that choice of entryway though.
Right away we kill off a Lobsterman armed with a Thermal Shok Launcher (sic). We'll need a large number of troops to storm the USO so I need to avoid grenades and stun blasts at every possible turn.
Experienced veteran Thomas Highway leads the way down the western side of the submarine.
Two marines may be enough to down a single Lobsterman, but it leaves them rather vulnerable to attack from any others that choose to wander out of the gloom. I can't move up anyone to support Highway either since it would open us up to grenade hits.
White Devil and Not William Stenchever take up position around that hole in the USO incase anything comes out.
Oh fuck.
At least being this close to the RaceWarSub gives us plenty of options for support fire. Realistically I shouldn't have attacked with Willy at all since his Time Units would be better saved for reaction fire on anything coming out of the sub, but whatever.
It takes a few turns but I have Pocket Dragoon and draggs form another team to take the east side of the USO. I move up a third marine to support White Devil's team as he makes his way into the USO.
Thomas Highway and Shadfan are nearly done sweeping their side. Meanwhile, the misery of a Large USO recovery begins as a Lobsterman atomizes @White Devil with a dead on Sonic Cannon shot.
When it rains it pours. @Thomas Highway is killed, leaving Shadfan without backup for the moment as I try to rush another team up to support him.
Pocket Dragoon and draggs also get pinned down by another damn Lobsterman on the roof. Some alien USOs actually encourage this situation by including upper doors or grav lifts that lead straight to the outside. Great.
There's absolutely no way anybody back at the RaceWarSub can get a shot off at this thing, so I resort to grenades in the hopes that the Lobsterman is wounded enough that it will take. It appears to work.
Willy narrowly avoids having his head taken off while Pocket Dragoon engages another Lobsterman.
Its slow going but we're making progress.
Willy leads the team inside the USO now that White Devil is gone. Pocket Dragoon and draggs catch another Lobsterman at range. A grenade throw from Dear Leader is a clean miss, but its enough to get the desired effect of the Lobsterman moving away.
The team inside exhausts all of their Time Units without managing a kill when the first Lobsterman shows up. Willy and Plant Aqua Mammal are a prime grenade target right now since they're standing right next to each other.
Outside is a grenade juggling match as the team keeps trying to get rid of that Lobsterman but just can't stick the throw.
I used the last of their Time Units to move Willy deeper into the sub and pull Plant back to try and discourage a grenade throw. I guess it sort of worked, as @Plant Aqua Mammal is shot and killed rather than getting blown up.
This is pretty bad. Willy and Just_Somebody are flanked on two sides, with one Lobsterman shooting from some kind of armored balcony structure that exists purely as a fuck you to the player. I'm on my way with two more marines but I expect both of them to be killed before we get there.
Pocket Dragoon moves up. If we could just get someone from either side in that front door we'd be able to take the heat off the breaching team. @Just_Somebody is shot and killed by the balcony alien.
Speaking of that front door, a Lobsterman wanders right out and gets ready to snip Corn Flakes's head off. He thinks fast and tazes it.
Willy somehow narrowly avoids being killed by a third Lobsterman in the interior. He isn't able to take it down though. I make it inside and get a shot off at the one on the balcony, but its no dice.
Meanwhile the Lobsterman that's been subjected to Gulf War levels of carpet bombing is still outside trading fire with Dragoon and his team.
The battle to take the USO rages on with no further kills yet.
Trying to hit the Gulf War Lobsterman is basically impossible now with all the silt floating around. Pocket Dragoon becomes the first marine in this game to fully exhaust a Sonic battery in combat.
There must be something weird about the geometry of the alien subs that makes hitting a target inside them so difficult. I suppose that programming oversight makes for a suitably Lovecraftian "impossible architecture" experience, but its fucking annoying to say the least.
I take a shot at the Lobsterman on the ground floor and draw reaction fire. God damnit. Willy is once again without backup, though at least Mooger Meng and another marine are ready to move in on the next turn. How much longer can his luck possibly hold out though?
Fuckin finally.
RabidWombat and Shadfan are finally ready to breach the main doors of the USO with Pocket Dragoon close behind. Draggs will stay outside to make sure there aren't any more of them creeping around the reef. I rush RabidWombat up the ramp and have him take a shot at the balcony Lobsterman just to give Willy some relief.
Willy puts the distraction to good use, taking out the one on the ground floor.
Fuck! That first one that killed White Devil is still there!
Pocket Dragoon and RabidWombat lay into the last Lobsterman on the balcony. This guy just won't quit, advancing up on them for one turn. Eventually RabidWombat takes it down.
Finally. The score is high, and the loot is more than worth it. Just_Somebody was an experienced officer though despite his start as a team-killing spastic, while White Devil and Thomas Highway were both equally reliable. Its a notable loss, but hardly a setback in the scheme of things.
Pocket Dragoon for his leadership and skill is promoted to Just_Somebody's place as Commander. Willy for his incredible luck and gumption in surviving the USO breach that killed no less than three of his comrades recieves a hard earned promotion to Ensign but if I know this game he's going to get promoted next mission even if he stands around and does nothing. The other rookies move up in rank too. RIPRBongoHongo makes Lieutenant for some reason, I guess I've been using him as support fire a lot.
For once I'm happy to see this screen. It takes little more than selling off some corpses and extra Sonic Pistols to clear the space we need for all the loot.
Next Time: Armor.
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NerdShamer
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2018
Can you skip the armor? It's a lot more entertaining when people are being turned into fish food for wrecking the Lobstermen's new RV.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
Holy shit, I poked a lobsterman and lived.
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
Least I was somewhat useful that life. Put my next sleeve in, Pale Doomguy.
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2019
Fuck yeah; when the going gets tough, the tough go cyclic.
And got promoted, probably just for surviving that movie-length gunfight.
Honka Honka Burning Love
In Clown World, the only god is the one who Honks.
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2019
God Damn it, even when the enemies in this game miss they kill someone.
AssManWaitingInTheSkies
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2021
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2019
Darn, didn't even go out in a cool way like Chocolate Wombat. Just plinked out of nowhere so the main characters know to duck for cover. At least I went out with 3 kills this time.
With how the casualties are going, I should get in another run though, clone up Polyorzhov if available.
With how the casualties are going, I should get in another run though, clone up Polyorzhov if available.
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2019
7. Synomium Dreams
First order of business is to clear out that other scout.
I'm relatively confident that the team is experienced enough to start compressing these scout recovery missions. Either that or I might be convinced to start skipping them altogether. They're still the best source of resources we have though.
I've equipped everyone on the team who can carry them with Sonic Cannons. They require a very high amount of Time Units to fire, but at the very least that encourages me to be more cautious since my troops still have time to return to their hiding spot. The Sonic Cannon demonstrates its power by instantly taking out a Lobsterman in one hit. Its impressive but hits like that will be uncommon.
This Lobsterman picked a good piece of cover. We'll have to do something about that.
Because the rock formations in this game are made up of individual slats, two on top of each other, per space, it can be rather difficult to chip away at them even with powerful weapons. Three Sonic Pulsers takes care of most of the small cover though.
Incase you thought I was exaggerating about how tough Lobstermen are, this one is still alive even after taking three grenade blasts.
Eventually it goes down though.
The sub breach goes well.
As I had correctly anticipated last time, Willy is promoted straight to Lieutenant.
The month ends, and our score is quite high between all of the successful USO intercpetions and recoveries. I estimate shooting that Large USO down, whatever it was, was worth at least 100 points even before we took over the wreckage. To my surprise Neo-Japan seems to have had a change of heart towards us. Free China and the USA still seem to think we're no big deal though, but at least they aren't continuing to decrease their contributions.
Oh god.
The first of many incredibly miserable and irritating new missions added to Terror From The Deep, Alien Artifact Sites are essentially the Cydonia mission from the last game, except transplanted into the middle of the game. The idea is that the aliens are activating some kind of powerful control device that does... nothing actually. If you ignore every single one of these you technically won't lose the game or face tougher odds. You do however take a fucking massive -2000 point penalty for ignoring them, so hypothetically only a skilled player can get away with neglecting them.
Simply flying to the site and then abandoning the mission the moment you arrive normally incurrs a penalty of -250 points, but in this case it incurrs an even higher penalty of -750 points. The only upside is that only 13 of them will ever occur, whether you succeed in destroying them or not, and they're fairly spaced out. Only a truly masocistic player will see all 13 of them though, as you can win the game long before you encounter the fourth or fifth one. If you're playing on a higher difficulty the game might be unwinnable anyway by the time the 13th is set to appear.
I'll play fair for now even though this game has no intention of doing so, as we're about to see.
We somehow had the good fortune to arrive during the daytime. Right away there are aliens lying in wait. A mix of Aquatoids and a new enemy, the Tasoths. Tasoths are something between a Muton and Ethereal from the last game. They have psionic powers, but there are fewer of them than Ethereals, and for some strange reason they have no Commander unit. Capturing a live Tasoth Squad Leader allows you to begin psionic research though.
In the original DOS copies of the game, if you somehow had a Tasoth Commander show up in your research list and then researched it, your game could become unwinnable. Researching the commander would (I presume) set the flag that you had successfully researched an enemy Commander related to the final mission chain, but because it wasn't the right Commander, the flag setting would be invalid. So you would be stuck with further research on the topic flagged as disabled but also with the final mission flagged as not researchable yet.
Dear Leader reminds everyone why he's in charge by sniping an Aquatoid standing in the darkness. The next turn he's confronted with a nightmarish adversary. This is it, the dreaded Tentaculat, the Flying Chryssalid. Yes, you heard that right.
The reputation of the Tentaculat is slightly overwrought. They can fly, which hypothetically makes them more dangerous, but then again flying only hypothetically makes the fucking Floaters in the last game more dangerous than the regular Sectoids so that's not as much of a concern as it appears to be. They also lack the badass armor of the Chryssalids, meaning they go down pretty easily and are perfectly vulnerable to grenades. Additionally, Tentaculats just straight up don't accompany any of the aliens on Terror Missions. They exclusively guard Alien Artifact Sites, Alien Colonies, and extremely powerful alien USOs.
The real danger of the Tentaculat is their number. Average is 2-3 outside, and at least 4 if not more inside. The game also has no problem spawning them inside closets and out-of the way locations. As well as... other locations, which will be elaborated on shortly.
I swear these things aren't normally that tough.
You know just once I'd like to play an XCOM game where my strongest officers don't have terrible psionic resistance. A Tasoth Squad Leader manages to insert the suggestion into Dear Leader's paranoid mind that the payment processors are sabotaging the site's SEO ranking. For real this time. He freaks out and tries to blow a hole in the doors, but thankfully the Sonic Cannon is such a clunky weapon that he really only has the Time Units to fire once even with his fairly large pool of them. Its only a matter of time before another attack convinces him that the rest of the team is in on it.
Knowing this, Pocket Dragoon (temporarily) relieves Dear Leader of command and takes over.
Tasoths may not be as tough as Lobstermen because, let's face it, nothing is. But they are at least on par with Mutons from the previous game, if not a bit tougher.
Dragoon and his second in command Willy know how tough the doors on the Triton are. They have nothing to lose by standing around. With the possible exception of their sanity. RabidWombat is targeted for alien psionic attacks while Dragoon bides his time and takes shots at Tasoths from the safety of the RaceWarSub.
God damnit these things are tough. RabidWombat is only panicking so far and has already dropped his weapon, but if an alien seizes control of him there's no doubt it will instantly resort to a grenade throw.
Pocket Dragoon and rookie Mary the Goldsmith play hot potato with a Sonic Pulser to ensure they both have enough Time Units to arm the grenade, throw the grenade and then get back into the Triton.
The tide is turning in XCOM's favor but only just barely at the moment.
They're harder to kill than they look, that's for damn sure.
We finally have some breathing room. Dragoon orders a still shaky RabidWombat to recover his weapon, fairly confident that we've staved off the alien psionic attacks for now. You'll notice here that Shadfan's Sonic Cannon is out of ammunition. Guess what. I didn't. He'll be walking around for the rest of this battle and some of the next one with an empty gun.
@Mary the Goldsmith somewhat heroically absorbs a Sonic Pulser, sparing her comrades from the same fate. That was one unlucky alien grenade throw; the nose of the Triton must fuck with their aiming and throwing just as badly as it does mine.
Rearming RabidWombat proves to be a mistake as he take's Mary's death poorly and paints the Triton with rookie @Kane Lives on his first mission.
Oh well, nobody's perfect. What worked for Dear Leader works just as well for RabidWombat. Dragoon and Willy still have an effective combat team.
HongoBongo manages reaction fire on an Aquatoid after it misses with a stun blast. Its probably the same one that took out Mary.
The map is slowly but surely being cleared. Not all of those poorly textured pryamids are actual structures, only a few of them and they're fairly quick and easy to secure.
Is that so?
This is still kind of dangerous, if this Tasoth comes back to its senses it probably won't hesitate to ram a grenade right down Shadfan's throat. Meanwhile Forever Sunrise clears one of those pyramid structures and somebody else wastes a panicked Tasoth Soldier wandering around.
XPiratez and The XCOM Files both have a system where panicking enemies will be automatically captured the same as if they were stunned which is unfortunately not the case here. But at least this situation resolves itself quickly.
This mission is not quite as difficult as a Base Assault mission from the last game and nowhere near as difficult as an Alien Colony Assault from this game, but there are still a fair amount of Tentaculats creeping around and plenty of Tasoths.
First order of business is getting Dear Leader and RabidWombat back on their feet. Yes, they're both spastics vulnerable to psionic attacks at the moment, but we need every single gun pointed in every direction we can manage right now. HongoBongo takes the team down the lift closest to Dragoon, while Shadfan leads a considerably less experienced and less supported team to the south. The best I can do right now is crowd the lifts and prevent Tentaculats from coming at us. They can attack directly above them if they really want to, but the AI has difficulty with this for some reason and tends to hesitate.
There's a long-standing myth that Tentaculats cannot damage drones, which is incorrect. They can do a fair bit of damage to drones with their attacks, but for some reason will hesitate to attack them I've found. Its still not worth having to dick around with drones in my opinion.
Awakening to find himself still underwater in a dark alien environment, Dear Leader understandably panics. Dragoon keeps shooting him up with the good stuff though so he can shake off the Thermal Tazer chills.
We pop down the final lift to pick off the occasional alien, but I don't dare spread my squad out until we kill at least a couple of those Tentaculats. That giant jellyfish thing in the third screenshot is a Hallucinoid, the large Aquatoid Terror Unit. In another sign of how shoddily put together this game was in the DOS version, the Hallucinoid used to appear on land, where it would be unable to move and therefore use its melee attack. This hilariously led to it never appearing underwater, where it was supposed to. Even though this has been fixed in subsequent versions, this thing is still basically just a Reaper that can swim except it has even less health.
When a Hallucinoid is killed its death cry is a satisfying stock sound effect of somebody splashing a bucket of water against a wall. Really brings home just how pathetic this enemy is.
I get a little ambitious and decide to send down one marine each to secure the bottom of the lift. @LullerDerbyRollin predictably gets inseminated by a Tentaculat on his second turn.
Meanwhile, RabidWombat wakes up screaming from a terrible nightmare about being trapped in an eldritch underwater labyrinth full of tentacle monsters. There's an awkward pause before Pocket Dragoon informs him that they have an eldritch underwater labyrinth full of monsters to clear out. RabidWombat doesn't really take this too well, even after Dragoon tells him that its not so bad, only some of the monsters have tentacles.
I take a big risk and have Shadfan, Mooger Meng and Corn Flakes drop down to deal with the Tentaculat and its spawn. I don't have a screenshot showcasing the zombie because its just a palette swap of the one from the last game.
Pocket Dragoon leaves RabidWombat to cry in a corner for however long it takes him to get his shit back together. He has a squad to lead. Dear Leader has by this point fully rearmed himself and is waiting on the level above to drop down if we need any support fire.
This attempt to advance leads to @Forever Sunrise becoming the impromptu star of his own hentai flick.
First order of business is to paste that annoying fucking Hallucinoid.
Okay, now there's two of them. You sure you thought this one through all the way boss?
Dragoon yells for draggs to head back up the lift and for Willy to get back as far as he can before he rolls a Sonic Pulser between the two ugly bastards. He dives for cover himself. I half expect to lose him in the blast, this is really close range for one of those jewels.
The gamble pays off, and even though everyone's Time Units are almost totally exhausted nothing tries to take advantage of the situation.
McMitch bags a Tasoth that took a swipe at him. I have the rest of the team stay put for now though, I'm willing to bet anything there's at least one more Tentaculat on this map.
There it is.
Evidently there's still a Tasoth Squad Leader in this fight. If I get the chance I'll take it alive incase this bullshit game doesn't recognize captures from the previous half due to the level transition. I know its not this one though since it went berserk last turn.
I'm expecting another Tentaculat on this map, but the Tasoths are losing their shit and I'm getting really impatient dealing with this fucking maze. I know how AmpleApricots feels at this point, even paging through my screenshots folder is starting to piss me off.
Mooger Meng embarasses himself by strugglnig to take down a Hallucinoid that's trapped in some kind of storage room while two other team members embarass themselves trying to take out a lone Tasoth that's pissing itself in the corner.
Corn Flakes stuns one that's cornered in one of those annoying upper levels that exist solely as ambush points. Shadfan plugs the one everyone else failed to take out earlier.
God damn it.
@Shadfan666xxx000 recieves a fate befitting his name once again. I almost lose McMitch too but somehow he shakes off a Tentaculat strike.
It takes McMitch's fire and support fire from Willy combined just to kill this thing. Meanwhile, Mooger Meng mystifies the world by somehow missing a jellyfish the size of a minivan that's stuck in a small corridor. Again.
RabidWombat, having finally recovered, was given the task of clearing out the upper floors much to his horror. He bags a Tasoth though, which should surely make him feel better about the fact that any one of these little nooks could house a Tentaculat.
It may have taken the man three entire turns but Mooger Meng finally splashes this jellyfish.
There's at least one Aquatoid waiting around somewhere on this map. Meanwhile, Shadman's gurgling husk finally walks out of the dark and into a hail of gunfire.
Surely that has to be the last Tentaculat, right? Yeah, right.
Dear Leader goes head to head with the Tasoth Squad Leader and somehow avoids getting shot in the face.
Son of a bitch this just never ends. Dear Leader has to chase this thing down to taze it. It even hits him with some kind of melee attack I didn't know Tasoths even had.
Up that stairwell is the control room with the alien Synomium Device in it. What is Synomium anyway? The game never explains it no matter what you research. Great writing there. My best guess is that Synomium was the original name for Zrbite before they decided to change it for some reason ("synomium" sounds similar to "elerium"). I didn't get a screenshot of the control room, look it up if its really going to bother you.
Even though I killed the last Aquatoid in this map, the scenario still refuses to end. It turns out that there is a 1x1 hole somewhere above the room above that lift in the floor in the second screenshot. Your marines can't go into it, at least not without a flying suit, they can't see up into it, and you can't even use the targeting vector box to scan for it by hand either because its surrounded by solid rock tiles that look identical to the fog of war spaces. It naturally has a Tentaculat hiding in it. Yes, I saved scummed when I found that out. Fuck off.
The grenade is powerful enough to flush the alien out but it immediately makes a straight beeline for Mooger Meng. I don't even care at this point, I'm just glad it finally moved somewhere I can shoot it. Mooger Meng survives four direct attacks by the Tentaculat but is not killed or zombified.
I'll take it.
That fucking sucked. For the record I probably reloaded about ten times during the whole ordeal, and easily half of that was trying to figure out where that last cheating Tentaculat was coming from. I still don't fully understand where it was even hiding, I just know blowing up that room drew it out. Capturing the Synomium Device intact incurs no bonus, it would have been nice if it was at least a random researchable item like the Alien Entertainment from the last game or something. As I suspected, the captured aliens from the first round are just straight up lost, its a good thing we captured a Squad Leader on the last run.
That immense positive score is nice and all but I'm going to blow it abandoning the next Artifact Site mission if one comes up. That was miserable and if I have the extra points to spend getting away with it then I don't give a fuck. This is a scenic tour of the game, not a 100% run.
Storage space is getting tight so we need another base. We're doing okay on money but certainly not swimming in it like we were last time.
We intercept a small scout and somehow manage not to vaporize it.
I guess that was the game's attempt to tell us that Tasoths have appeared now. Who cares, I just massacred like ten of them last time. There were obviously no promotions or casualties, and only draggs gained a tiny amount of stats so no victory screens here.
Much like the Plasma Cannon was last time the Sonic Oscillator is the best ship weapon in the game.
We're about a month away from obtaining air superiority over the aliens again, aside from their large warships. I'll do my best to stall so we can do at least one of every mission in the game before this is over though.
This is what research looked like when I last left the game. I'm probably going to cancel the Tasoth research for the moment and do the MC Reader first, like I did with the Mind Probe last time.
The ScubaJace pilot is delighted to give the Sonic Oscilators their first shakedown.
Next Time: More farming USOs.
Waiting List (As of this Post):
Jordi El Nino Polla
Super Sad Smile
AmpleApricots
RSU 1741
AssManWaitingInTheSkies
First order of business is to clear out that other scout.
I'm relatively confident that the team is experienced enough to start compressing these scout recovery missions. Either that or I might be convinced to start skipping them altogether. They're still the best source of resources we have though.
I've equipped everyone on the team who can carry them with Sonic Cannons. They require a very high amount of Time Units to fire, but at the very least that encourages me to be more cautious since my troops still have time to return to their hiding spot. The Sonic Cannon demonstrates its power by instantly taking out a Lobsterman in one hit. Its impressive but hits like that will be uncommon.
This Lobsterman picked a good piece of cover. We'll have to do something about that.
Because the rock formations in this game are made up of individual slats, two on top of each other, per space, it can be rather difficult to chip away at them even with powerful weapons. Three Sonic Pulsers takes care of most of the small cover though.
Incase you thought I was exaggerating about how tough Lobstermen are, this one is still alive even after taking three grenade blasts.
Eventually it goes down though.
The sub breach goes well.
As I had correctly anticipated last time, Willy is promoted straight to Lieutenant.
The month ends, and our score is quite high between all of the successful USO intercpetions and recoveries. I estimate shooting that Large USO down, whatever it was, was worth at least 100 points even before we took over the wreckage. To my surprise Neo-Japan seems to have had a change of heart towards us. Free China and the USA still seem to think we're no big deal though, but at least they aren't continuing to decrease their contributions.
Oh god.
The first of many incredibly miserable and irritating new missions added to Terror From The Deep, Alien Artifact Sites are essentially the Cydonia mission from the last game, except transplanted into the middle of the game. The idea is that the aliens are activating some kind of powerful control device that does... nothing actually. If you ignore every single one of these you technically won't lose the game or face tougher odds. You do however take a fucking massive -2000 point penalty for ignoring them, so hypothetically only a skilled player can get away with neglecting them.
Simply flying to the site and then abandoning the mission the moment you arrive normally incurrs a penalty of -250 points, but in this case it incurrs an even higher penalty of -750 points. The only upside is that only 13 of them will ever occur, whether you succeed in destroying them or not, and they're fairly spaced out. Only a truly masocistic player will see all 13 of them though, as you can win the game long before you encounter the fourth or fifth one. If you're playing on a higher difficulty the game might be unwinnable anyway by the time the 13th is set to appear.
I'll play fair for now even though this game has no intention of doing so, as we're about to see.
We somehow had the good fortune to arrive during the daytime. Right away there are aliens lying in wait. A mix of Aquatoids and a new enemy, the Tasoths. Tasoths are something between a Muton and Ethereal from the last game. They have psionic powers, but there are fewer of them than Ethereals, and for some strange reason they have no Commander unit. Capturing a live Tasoth Squad Leader allows you to begin psionic research though.
In the original DOS copies of the game, if you somehow had a Tasoth Commander show up in your research list and then researched it, your game could become unwinnable. Researching the commander would (I presume) set the flag that you had successfully researched an enemy Commander related to the final mission chain, but because it wasn't the right Commander, the flag setting would be invalid. So you would be stuck with further research on the topic flagged as disabled but also with the final mission flagged as not researchable yet.
Dear Leader reminds everyone why he's in charge by sniping an Aquatoid standing in the darkness. The next turn he's confronted with a nightmarish adversary. This is it, the dreaded Tentaculat, the Flying Chryssalid. Yes, you heard that right.
The reputation of the Tentaculat is slightly overwrought. They can fly, which hypothetically makes them more dangerous, but then again flying only hypothetically makes the fucking Floaters in the last game more dangerous than the regular Sectoids so that's not as much of a concern as it appears to be. They also lack the badass armor of the Chryssalids, meaning they go down pretty easily and are perfectly vulnerable to grenades. Additionally, Tentaculats just straight up don't accompany any of the aliens on Terror Missions. They exclusively guard Alien Artifact Sites, Alien Colonies, and extremely powerful alien USOs.
The real danger of the Tentaculat is their number. Average is 2-3 outside, and at least 4 if not more inside. The game also has no problem spawning them inside closets and out-of the way locations. As well as... other locations, which will be elaborated on shortly.
I swear these things aren't normally that tough.
You know just once I'd like to play an XCOM game where my strongest officers don't have terrible psionic resistance. A Tasoth Squad Leader manages to insert the suggestion into Dear Leader's paranoid mind that the payment processors are sabotaging the site's SEO ranking. For real this time. He freaks out and tries to blow a hole in the doors, but thankfully the Sonic Cannon is such a clunky weapon that he really only has the Time Units to fire once even with his fairly large pool of them. Its only a matter of time before another attack convinces him that the rest of the team is in on it.
Knowing this, Pocket Dragoon (temporarily) relieves Dear Leader of command and takes over.
Tasoths may not be as tough as Lobstermen because, let's face it, nothing is. But they are at least on par with Mutons from the previous game, if not a bit tougher.
Dragoon and his second in command Willy know how tough the doors on the Triton are. They have nothing to lose by standing around. With the possible exception of their sanity. RabidWombat is targeted for alien psionic attacks while Dragoon bides his time and takes shots at Tasoths from the safety of the RaceWarSub.
God damnit these things are tough. RabidWombat is only panicking so far and has already dropped his weapon, but if an alien seizes control of him there's no doubt it will instantly resort to a grenade throw.
Pocket Dragoon and rookie Mary the Goldsmith play hot potato with a Sonic Pulser to ensure they both have enough Time Units to arm the grenade, throw the grenade and then get back into the Triton.
The tide is turning in XCOM's favor but only just barely at the moment.
They're harder to kill than they look, that's for damn sure.
We finally have some breathing room. Dragoon orders a still shaky RabidWombat to recover his weapon, fairly confident that we've staved off the alien psionic attacks for now. You'll notice here that Shadfan's Sonic Cannon is out of ammunition. Guess what. I didn't. He'll be walking around for the rest of this battle and some of the next one with an empty gun.
@Mary the Goldsmith somewhat heroically absorbs a Sonic Pulser, sparing her comrades from the same fate. That was one unlucky alien grenade throw; the nose of the Triton must fuck with their aiming and throwing just as badly as it does mine.
Rearming RabidWombat proves to be a mistake as he take's Mary's death poorly and paints the Triton with rookie @Kane Lives on his first mission.
Oh well, nobody's perfect. What worked for Dear Leader works just as well for RabidWombat. Dragoon and Willy still have an effective combat team.
HongoBongo manages reaction fire on an Aquatoid after it misses with a stun blast. Its probably the same one that took out Mary.
The map is slowly but surely being cleared. Not all of those poorly textured pryamids are actual structures, only a few of them and they're fairly quick and easy to secure.
Is that so?
This is still kind of dangerous, if this Tasoth comes back to its senses it probably won't hesitate to ram a grenade right down Shadfan's throat. Meanwhile Forever Sunrise clears one of those pyramid structures and somebody else wastes a panicked Tasoth Soldier wandering around.
XPiratez and The XCOM Files both have a system where panicking enemies will be automatically captured the same as if they were stunned which is unfortunately not the case here. But at least this situation resolves itself quickly.
This mission is not quite as difficult as a Base Assault mission from the last game and nowhere near as difficult as an Alien Colony Assault from this game, but there are still a fair amount of Tentaculats creeping around and plenty of Tasoths.
First order of business is getting Dear Leader and RabidWombat back on their feet. Yes, they're both spastics vulnerable to psionic attacks at the moment, but we need every single gun pointed in every direction we can manage right now. HongoBongo takes the team down the lift closest to Dragoon, while Shadfan leads a considerably less experienced and less supported team to the south. The best I can do right now is crowd the lifts and prevent Tentaculats from coming at us. They can attack directly above them if they really want to, but the AI has difficulty with this for some reason and tends to hesitate.
There's a long-standing myth that Tentaculats cannot damage drones, which is incorrect. They can do a fair bit of damage to drones with their attacks, but for some reason will hesitate to attack them I've found. Its still not worth having to dick around with drones in my opinion.
Awakening to find himself still underwater in a dark alien environment, Dear Leader understandably panics. Dragoon keeps shooting him up with the good stuff though so he can shake off the Thermal Tazer chills.
We pop down the final lift to pick off the occasional alien, but I don't dare spread my squad out until we kill at least a couple of those Tentaculats. That giant jellyfish thing in the third screenshot is a Hallucinoid, the large Aquatoid Terror Unit. In another sign of how shoddily put together this game was in the DOS version, the Hallucinoid used to appear on land, where it would be unable to move and therefore use its melee attack. This hilariously led to it never appearing underwater, where it was supposed to. Even though this has been fixed in subsequent versions, this thing is still basically just a Reaper that can swim except it has even less health.
When a Hallucinoid is killed its death cry is a satisfying stock sound effect of somebody splashing a bucket of water against a wall. Really brings home just how pathetic this enemy is.
I get a little ambitious and decide to send down one marine each to secure the bottom of the lift. @LullerDerbyRollin predictably gets inseminated by a Tentaculat on his second turn.
Meanwhile, RabidWombat wakes up screaming from a terrible nightmare about being trapped in an eldritch underwater labyrinth full of tentacle monsters. There's an awkward pause before Pocket Dragoon informs him that they have an eldritch underwater labyrinth full of monsters to clear out. RabidWombat doesn't really take this too well, even after Dragoon tells him that its not so bad, only some of the monsters have tentacles.
I take a big risk and have Shadfan, Mooger Meng and Corn Flakes drop down to deal with the Tentaculat and its spawn. I don't have a screenshot showcasing the zombie because its just a palette swap of the one from the last game.
Pocket Dragoon leaves RabidWombat to cry in a corner for however long it takes him to get his shit back together. He has a squad to lead. Dear Leader has by this point fully rearmed himself and is waiting on the level above to drop down if we need any support fire.
This attempt to advance leads to @Forever Sunrise becoming the impromptu star of his own hentai flick.
First order of business is to paste that annoying fucking Hallucinoid.
Okay, now there's two of them. You sure you thought this one through all the way boss?
Dragoon yells for draggs to head back up the lift and for Willy to get back as far as he can before he rolls a Sonic Pulser between the two ugly bastards. He dives for cover himself. I half expect to lose him in the blast, this is really close range for one of those jewels.
The gamble pays off, and even though everyone's Time Units are almost totally exhausted nothing tries to take advantage of the situation.
McMitch bags a Tasoth that took a swipe at him. I have the rest of the team stay put for now though, I'm willing to bet anything there's at least one more Tentaculat on this map.
There it is.
Evidently there's still a Tasoth Squad Leader in this fight. If I get the chance I'll take it alive incase this bullshit game doesn't recognize captures from the previous half due to the level transition. I know its not this one though since it went berserk last turn.
I'm expecting another Tentaculat on this map, but the Tasoths are losing their shit and I'm getting really impatient dealing with this fucking maze. I know how AmpleApricots feels at this point, even paging through my screenshots folder is starting to piss me off.
Mooger Meng embarasses himself by strugglnig to take down a Hallucinoid that's trapped in some kind of storage room while two other team members embarass themselves trying to take out a lone Tasoth that's pissing itself in the corner.
Corn Flakes stuns one that's cornered in one of those annoying upper levels that exist solely as ambush points. Shadfan plugs the one everyone else failed to take out earlier.
God damn it.
@Shadfan666xxx000 recieves a fate befitting his name once again. I almost lose McMitch too but somehow he shakes off a Tentaculat strike.
It takes McMitch's fire and support fire from Willy combined just to kill this thing. Meanwhile, Mooger Meng mystifies the world by somehow missing a jellyfish the size of a minivan that's stuck in a small corridor. Again.
RabidWombat, having finally recovered, was given the task of clearing out the upper floors much to his horror. He bags a Tasoth though, which should surely make him feel better about the fact that any one of these little nooks could house a Tentaculat.
It may have taken the man three entire turns but Mooger Meng finally splashes this jellyfish.
There's at least one Aquatoid waiting around somewhere on this map. Meanwhile, Shadman's gurgling husk finally walks out of the dark and into a hail of gunfire.
Surely that has to be the last Tentaculat, right? Yeah, right.
Dear Leader goes head to head with the Tasoth Squad Leader and somehow avoids getting shot in the face.
Son of a bitch this just never ends. Dear Leader has to chase this thing down to taze it. It even hits him with some kind of melee attack I didn't know Tasoths even had.
Up that stairwell is the control room with the alien Synomium Device in it. What is Synomium anyway? The game never explains it no matter what you research. Great writing there. My best guess is that Synomium was the original name for Zrbite before they decided to change it for some reason ("synomium" sounds similar to "elerium"). I didn't get a screenshot of the control room, look it up if its really going to bother you.
Even though I killed the last Aquatoid in this map, the scenario still refuses to end. It turns out that there is a 1x1 hole somewhere above the room above that lift in the floor in the second screenshot. Your marines can't go into it, at least not without a flying suit, they can't see up into it, and you can't even use the targeting vector box to scan for it by hand either because its surrounded by solid rock tiles that look identical to the fog of war spaces. It naturally has a Tentaculat hiding in it. Yes, I saved scummed when I found that out. Fuck off.
The grenade is powerful enough to flush the alien out but it immediately makes a straight beeline for Mooger Meng. I don't even care at this point, I'm just glad it finally moved somewhere I can shoot it. Mooger Meng survives four direct attacks by the Tentaculat but is not killed or zombified.
I'll take it.
That fucking sucked. For the record I probably reloaded about ten times during the whole ordeal, and easily half of that was trying to figure out where that last cheating Tentaculat was coming from. I still don't fully understand where it was even hiding, I just know blowing up that room drew it out. Capturing the Synomium Device intact incurs no bonus, it would have been nice if it was at least a random researchable item like the Alien Entertainment from the last game or something. As I suspected, the captured aliens from the first round are just straight up lost, its a good thing we captured a Squad Leader on the last run.
That immense positive score is nice and all but I'm going to blow it abandoning the next Artifact Site mission if one comes up. That was miserable and if I have the extra points to spend getting away with it then I don't give a fuck. This is a scenic tour of the game, not a 100% run.
Storage space is getting tight so we need another base. We're doing okay on money but certainly not swimming in it like we were last time.
We intercept a small scout and somehow manage not to vaporize it.
I guess that was the game's attempt to tell us that Tasoths have appeared now. Who cares, I just massacred like ten of them last time. There were obviously no promotions or casualties, and only draggs gained a tiny amount of stats so no victory screens here.
Much like the Plasma Cannon was last time the Sonic Oscillator is the best ship weapon in the game.
We're about a month away from obtaining air superiority over the aliens again, aside from their large warships. I'll do my best to stall so we can do at least one of every mission in the game before this is over though.
This is what research looked like when I last left the game. I'm probably going to cancel the Tasoth research for the moment and do the MC Reader first, like I did with the Mind Probe last time.
The ScubaJace pilot is delighted to give the Sonic Oscilators their first shakedown.
I think your wish will be granted for now, I'm at least skipping the Plastic Aqua Armor.
Next Time: More farming USOs.
Waiting List (As of this Post):
Jordi El Nino Polla
Super Sad Smile
AmpleApricots
RSU 1741
AssManWaitingInTheSkies
Attachments
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2021
Man, those base and artifact missions are not fun at all, I'd forgotten how claustrophobic it feels in them. Put me back in if you get a chance, I'd love to blow something else up.
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2020
Thats exaclty why he is in charge
lol at least I didn't die on my first mission and I also didn't get raped, I'm gonna pretend that this is exaclty how my dead looked like:
Since you may need the extra meat soon I'll list some nicknames for my future clone(s)
- Mary the Bronzesmith
- Gary the Moldsmith
- Mary the Niggersmith
- Joined
- Nov 13, 2020
Sign me the fuck up. I do hope this time I won't get cucked by smoke. Smoke can't exist under water, right?
Right?
Right?
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2019
Shhh... No screaming, no tears, just dreams...
*ZAP *
Morale should now improve; or the tazings might continue.
Underwater, nobody can hear you scream.
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- Joined
- Sep 22, 2019
I'm told @RabidWombat is the culprit. Oh well, mistakes were made.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2019
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2019
Does your congealified DNA dinner paste taste like angy varmint and bitter disappointment?
That'd be why.
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2019
@Honka Honka Burning Love Hah, one of us called me getting tentacled!
Alright, jokes on Xcom I play Monster Hunter, so I can just keep coming back, round 3.
Alright, jokes on Xcom I play Monster Hunter, so I can just keep coming back, round 3.
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
Goddamn these are exciting, you never know whos gonna get fish raped next. Onwards on our conquest to murder every last Little Mermaid!