2.
An Underwater Adventure
Naming these chapters is harder than it looks; its not hard to make something related to the ocean sound profound and I'm torn between making a reference to something good or making a dipshit meme reference like this title.
I figured it would be helpful to give everyone a view of our global benefactors. There's not much in the way of borders so you kind of have to use your imagination. Dystopian enthusiasts among you will recognize Neo-Japan and Eurasia as references to Gundam and 1984 respectively. I recall hearing somewhere that the Euro Syndicate was a reference to the works of Neal Stephenson. The other names don't ring a bell for me.
The rest of the world isn't all that notable, aside from the fact that Alaska is an independent country. Dystopian authors seem to like this idea for some reason since it also showed up in Risk 2210.
UFOpaedia offers this impressively unhelpful map to give us a vague sense of the borders. I haven't the least idea why the hell Federated Korea's territory is listed as being in the South China Sea.
What was I talking about again? Anyway, money is getting tight, so I'm forced to sell off some of the loot from that last mission. The extra corpses along with extra specimens of the Sonic Pistol which I will have utterly no use for. Again I dislike the idea of XCOM selling something before they know what it is, but we need the money.
I beef up the science department. Medikits are dubiously useful at this stage of the game because the aliens kill so easily, but I feel we should get them out of the way in short order anyway. Gauss Weapons are something of a priority but realistically I can't manufacture any of them anyway until we have more money on hand.
Finally, an alien USO. My heart fucking stops cold when it slips away from the incredibly slow RaceWarSub immediately after I send it to intercept, but fortunately it touches down on the sea floor nearby and we're able to conduct operations.
This ain't gonna be no walk in the park though. USOs are always staffed to full capacity in Terror From The Deep.
I've elected to remain with value 7 for night vision underwater since its teal tint looks a lot like the Hidden Movement screen. Luckily teal is one of the few bright colors I don't mind all that much.
The aliens have set up an ambush. Unlike the last game where I explicitly stated that the alien ambushes were just luck and embellishment on my part, in this game they're the real deal. At least one alien will spawn in all four quadrants of the map, guarenteeing that you'll be ambushed from somewhere.
There's a richness to this game's art that I can't help but appreciate. For instance, the bubble trail left by underwater weapons actually lingers and will float up through the water tiles a bit before disippating. This is one of those things that helps sell what you're seeing as actually taking place underwater despite its goofy premise.
I keep the team huddled around the RaceWarSub because the nose of a Triton is one of the most common deathtraps in this game. Unlike the Skyranger from the last game, the Triton isn't elevated. Infact most of the time its lower that the surrounding hilly terrain, so aliens automatically have the high ground against you. It makes for terrible cover on the ground because its just a big block that gets in your way more than it does the alien's. Even worse, an alien in the right spot can pitch a grenade right over the other side of it and blow up whoever just stepped out.
The back of the sub doesn't offer much protection either though. Its aft section is completely flat, essentially an execution wall for you to line your troops up against if the enemy is beyond visual range like this. I have
@LullerDerbyRollin press his luck too much. He's ambushed from two sides and killed.
Niggermancer finally moves up enough for us to get a look at the enemy. Its an Aquatoid; essentially a Sectoid from the last game, except with somewhat better stats. Oh, and also the best night vision in the entire game, even including aliens from the last game. Aquatoids on TFTD's Superhuman difficulty can have something bullshit like 200% night vision, even in the "very deep" levels which I'll get around to explaining at some point. Fuck this game.
Niggermancer is low on Time Units since I pushed his luck to get vision on the Aquatoid, so I have JongleJingle frag the bastard. No, throwing grenades underwater does not work even slightly differently to throwing them on land. Why do you ask?
I try to have Overcast bomb the alien to the west but the reef its taking cover behind absorbs the grenade blast. This ends up leaving him stuck standing out in the open with no cover. I'm surprised he wasn't killed.
There are things lurking in the deep that every man fears. There are bullshit enemies and mixed crews in this game that will break even the saltiest XCOM veteran. But there is nothing, nothing I dread in this game more than the Sonic Pulser. It is the most powerful hand grenade in either game, being stronger even than the fucking Alien Grenade from the first game. Standard loadout for
every armed enemy in this game is a
minimum of two. Enemies armed with a melee weapon can carry a belt of up to
six. If you position two marines close to each other, an alien will throw a grenade at them. It is inevitable, even on the lowest difficulty.
I've had aliens take out half of my squad in one turn just with two grenades. I've also had aliens suicide bomb hallways just because the AI detected that I had two soldiers standing in a room so it would throw a grenade at them. Even if the grenade was powerful enough to blow the walls out of every fucking room in the submarine. I've had one lone survivng alien scuttle its own ship with five of my troops inside. TFTD players have all sorts of crazy stories about what the worst thing in this game is, but I think pound for pound the thing that kills most of your troops will be Sonic Pulsers.
@McMitch4kf finds this out first hand as an alien tries to throw a grenade between where he and Overcast are standing. Note that they're standing quite far apart too; the aliens can and will calculate whether or not your troops are standing just within the blast radius of grenades. Fortunately for Overcast the alien fumbles the throw and blows himself up along with McMitch. I actually hear two alien death cries so I suppose it was a net victory for us.
The alien Overcast was hunting slips up and steps out of the shadows. He plugs it.
R00T, Friend Computer and Niggermancer spread out to scout the north of the map, while Ghost of Null forms a kill team with Overcast and JongleJingle to take the south.
We finally make contact with the submarine on the ground. There's a lot less of those nice little situations from the first game where the Skyranger would land right next to a UFO and you could just storm the thing right off.
(Flying Sub Model by Sideshow Collectibles) (Flying Sub Orthographic Views by Fredrick Barr)
The shape and yellow color of the alien scouts is based on the Flying Sub from the now all but forgotten Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV show.
A side effect of their weird shape and structure is that these things are a bitch to secure, both on the outside and inside. Lots of blind corners that are perfect for ambushes. When you research the Sonic Pulser a lot of the guesswork on the outside can be eliminated by just throwing grenades over the submarine and blowing up anything that might be hiding behind it. I could do this with the basic Magnablast grenades, but that runs to risk of kicking up a bunch of silt (smoke) which would benefit the alien if it isn't killed.
Its a painfully slow crawl to get up to the doors of this thing. You can't just rush it like in the previous game since that will invite the alien suicide bombing tactic I discussed earlier. The only real countermeasure to this is positioning a bunch of reaction fire on the doors to gun down anything that comes through them.
For some reason, the AI will walk the alien within throwing distance, then prime the grenade and then throw it, in that order. Which means if your troops blast it the moment it appears, it won't fall over dead holding a live grenade in its hands. Though this can still happen if your idiots fail a reaction check when the allien appears, fail a reaction check when the alien pulls a grenade from its belt, but then ace the reaction check when the alien primes the grenade. This game plays Hell with your blood pressure like no other.
We make it inside finally but again due to the grenade risk we have to secure each room one at a time, one marine at a time. When both marines have a full set of Time Units to spend on moving around, then its safe(ish) to split them up in the same room and try to put some distance between them. They're probablly still fucked anyway about half the time though.
Ghost of Null not only fails to score any reaction fire on an alien, but he also manages to trigger reaction fire from the alien when he misses his first shot.
Overcast is in right behind Ghost and cleans house. I was actually certain this was where he would be killed no less than twice. First because he failed to take down the alien that killed Ghost in one hit, then because there were nothing to stop another one from coming up behind him after he killed the second one.
I manage to get Overcast some backup before he gets shot in the back, and the right side of the sub is more or less secure. An alien with a pistol randomly appears right in front of Gimmick Account. I think the OpenXcom night vision might not mesh perfectly with the way lighting works underwater in TFTD, who knows.
I decide to get a little ambitious. Considered HARMful is the only one carrying a Thermal Tazer currently in the submarine, but he doesn't have the Time Units to run across it and stun the alien. So my plan is to have him step into the room and throw the Tazer to Gimmick Account.
This plan runs into a small complication when it turns out there's another goddamned Aquatoid soldier just standing around in the engine room. Considered HARMful somehow doesn't trigger any reaction fire, so fuck it, the plan goes ahead as planned.
Hah, I am a genius!
Considered HARMful used up the last of his Time Units on that throw so I have him stick his nose in a corner while JongleJingle deals with the engine room alien. Uncharacteristically he has some trouble with it, so I risk having Overcast step in and take a shot. He nails it, marking his fourth kill this mission. The submarine is secured.
To my immense displeasure,
@Niggermancer is killed by a rogue alien with perfect timing.
I have Friend Computer and R00T close in on the reef I'm sure the alien is opening fire on us from. At great risk I might add; neither of them has any backup and they couldn't be further apart from each other. Nobody has any Medikits any I suppose. Catgirls Are Love is on the way to help. The first grenade is a clean miss.
I somehow fail to catch the second grenade, this time thrown by R00T. It makes it mark right in the center of the reef, and I hear two alien death cries. So somehow two of these goddamn things stayed hidden while my team swept the map, and Niggermancer paid for it.
Its a positive score, no doubt helped by the live alien capture. Aquatoid Squad Leaders don't provide a bonus to psionic research in this game, but they do increase your score.
Its at this point the difference between having a negative score and negative funding is made clear. This month was hardly impressive for XCOM, while the USA and Alaska are particuarly unhappy with the slaughter that was our first Terror Mission. But otherwise the Council is satisfied that XCOM is making some progress and willing to continue our funding. We cannot let our funding go into the red though.
We have less than a full squad left after only two missions. Recruits are ordered at once.
Newcomers:
@wtfNeedSignUp,
@Future Physical Violence,
@Johan Schmidt,
@Pissmaster,
@Just_Somebody,
@ChucklesTheJester,
@TerribleIdeas™,
@Allakazam223,
@Polyboros2,
@Radical Cadre,
@MoffAlbert,
@Pocket Dragoon
Clones:
@White Devil,
@Dark Edea,
@Honka Honka Burning Love
Yes, we're starting on the clones already. I need the manpower. I'll be going in the order listed on the Memorial menu and newcomers will always take priority as with last time. Anyone who's dead can suggest alternate names for their clones since I'm obviously not the most creative with them.
Research is rolling right along.
I also stock up on Scientists and Technicians to get shit done a bit faster.
While I'm at it I purchase three large torpedo launchers to outfit the interceptors with and sell off the useless Ajax Launchers and Gas Cannons. The large torpedo launchers fire "D.U.P Head" or Depleted Uranium Pellet rounds. I think this is supposed to be in reference to the idea that you can use depleted uranium as a tamper/neutron reflector in fission warheads, which will lead to a more energtic reaction (bigger bang) when the nuke detonates. DUP Heads have more raw damage than the Avalanche from the first game but a shorter range.
In real life, there are nuclear-tipped torpedos, but they are hilariously impractical. Torpedoes do not have the range that rockets and missiles do in reality, so the standoff range for a nuclear torpedo is already right on top of the submarine that fired it. Even worse, because of how pressure waves work underwater, a nuke detonated in the deep will instantly crush everything around it in a radius at least twice that of what its blast wave would reach on land. Submariners were told that if they had to use a nuke torpedo, they were to fire it with a delayed timer and then immediately bank away from the target. Obviously everyone involved knew that you were still fucked in that situation.
Supposedly submarines don't carry them anymore, but they haven't all been decommissioned so I doubt that honestly. The Russians are rumored to be working on a supercavitating design that would afford much less suicidal range. I'm inclined to believe the range thing has at least been mitigated somehow with the intermediate designs otherwise we wouldn't have built 5000 of the fucking things, but then again expecting the government to spend its money on logical things may be asking too much.
ScubaJace gets its first kill, the smallest type of USO known as a Survey Ship. Unlike the Small Scout in the first game this UFO is fairly large on the ground and carries a crew of up to 6, but you'll probably never see that since the Triton is slow as fuck and they die instantly to interceptor nukes.
Gauss research is largely complete. Heavy Gauss is honestly just not worth the trouble due to its immense weight and lousy magazine size. Production starts on our first batch of rifles so we can ditch the godawful Jet Harpoon guns.
Looks like the old shit will still be getting some use in the mean time.
Next time: Can we fuck up a Terror Mission slightly less? Maybe?
