Let's Sperg Let's Play XCOM Terror From The Deep (Completed) - This is gonna hurt

I'm on a steady diet of Maine lobster and UltraMale Vitality, those lobstermen don't stand a chance.
I don't think last meals & "supplements" are present in recombinated extrusions; the abuse potential would be catastrophic.
Fill me up, fren.
It's a lot easier to administer corrective training in the field, when those in need of it volunteer.
 
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Reactions: TerribleIdeas™
It's a lot easier to administer corrective training in the field, when those in need of it volunteer.
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Yeah show me, Daddy.
 
14. Ain't No Pleasure Cruise

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Fuck this game.

Shipping Terror missions are the third and frankly the worst kind of Terror Mission in any XCOM game. Ever. Essentially, even though we see the aliens destroying a cruise ship in the intro, in the game they board ships and take hostages. When you arrive, the alien will just begin shooting the hostages. Why they don't bother to sink the ship once you get there I have no idea.

The developers uncharacteristically poured an incredible amount of effort into this level. There are two types of ship; a cargo liner and a cruise ship. The mission is two parts, because fuck you; the first part being the top decks of the ship and the second being the lower decks, each with 10-15 civilians present that will most likely die before you get anywhere near them. Each section is incredibly well-realized and highly detailed. Particularly the cruise ship which includes passenger cabins, bars, restaurants, a fucking casino, a goddamn movie theater and a swimming pool on the top deck. The crago liner is a miserable maze of crates strewn with explosive barrels and overlooked by numerous catewalks the aliens can just massacre your forces from.

The one and only time I actually completed this game I did so by downloading a mod called No Shipping Terror to disable these missions. Despite not using it this time, for some reason the game chose to give me none of these missions until now. Probably because all of their mission slots were taken up one Artifact Sites became a thing. I was starting to get a bit worried that I would be accused of cheating though since these missions are a major part of why this game is so hated and I haven't gotten a single one yet. I suppose I need not worry any longer. God damnit.

(I didn't catch the first briefing screen for some reason.)

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Oh goodie. Its at night too. And I forgot to have Johann Schmidt switch weapons to a Sonic Cannon since the DPL doesn't work on land.

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There's going to be a lot of dicking around with psionics on this mission because the levels are fucking huge and I want to get this over as quickly as possible. We dispose of two Bio-Drones and a few Lobstermen in the first three turns. Something like five civilians are killed right off; I'm not even going to attempt to rescue any of them.

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I'm making this shit look like it went by quick but this took turn after turn of fucking around with psonics and waiting for the Bio-Drones (there are fukcing four of them by the way) to expose themselves. Mind controlling a Bio-Drone is not quite beyond our team's abilities, but I need to have one of the psionic users wear the Bio-Drone down first, then have Pocket Dragoon launch one or two attacks as he's the only one with a score high enough to actually succeed.

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During this two-turn exchange of stpuidity, I had a Lobsterman Technician arm a grenade, then moved the Bio-Drone and his other mind-controlled buddy into melee range. The melee weapon was powerful enough to wipe out his buddy first, but not strong enough to kill the Bio-Drone, so I then had to take over the Bio-Drone, kill the Technician, causing him to dorp the grenade which then went off and killed the Bio-Drone. This may sound like fun but its honestly tedious nonsense.

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I finally have some room to spread out, so I sent TerribleIdeasTM to go take the bridge and spread out Gimmick Account and The valeyard to take that restaurant. While they're in transit, a mind-controlled Lobsterman shooting at one of its mind-contrlled buddies "accidentally" hits @Gimmick Account and kills him instantly.

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The Valeyard is given the task of safely disposing of our two mind controlled Lobstermen before moving on to the restaurant. Johann Schmidt takes Polyboros2 with him to deal with the passenger cabins, though I don't expect them to encounter much resistance as all of the aliens so far have been on the first two levels. Meanwhile, The Valeyard disposes of another Lobsterman upon reaching the restaurant.

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TerribleIdeasTM finds the last Bio-Drone hanging out in another restaurant. He gets a good clean hit on it but it's not enough to take it down, so the team mind controls it.

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That wasn't so bad, right? Yeah, right.

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Look at this fucking glory hole. There's a maze of crates, a catewalk overlooking us with three entrances leading into it, a central elevator shaft that can deposit troops either on the same floor as us or above us, two entrances to the same level, and two staircases to lead up into the catwalk.

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As if that's not enough, every route through those fucking crates has an explosive barrel in the middle of it and near where it ends. There are a total of five. @AmpleApricots is killed by a Bio-Drone because everything in this game has an overpowered reaciton score relative to your marines. Bio-Drones of course explode when they are killed, which would mean setting off every explosive barrel in this room, which by the way are convieniently positioned in a way that at least three of them will go off if one goes, if not all of them, and even troops at the very back of the starting area are vulnerable to being caught in the explosion as there's one right the fuck next to us.

Fuck this game.

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We mind control the Bio-Drone, because what the fuck else can we do? XCOM spreads out, the entire team nervous as hell about those explosive barrels.

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No less than two Lobstermen shuffle out of the elevator on the catwalk. A third one appears and snips @Radical Cadre's head clean off and lets his body topple hilariously down the stairs.

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I mind control the two on the catwalk and have one gun his partner down. The one that got Radical Cadre and escaped like a coward rushes out again. Officer @Johan Schmidt, deprived of the invincibility the DPL offered him, also has his head snipped off. Why the fuck can't any of these people get reaction fire?

Oh wait, all of our promising rookies died on the last few missions, and Johan has been on the DPL all this time which gives barely any stat gains. I hate this game so much.

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I about damn near piss myself when I have Dark Edea take a shot at the Lobsterman that killed two of his comrades, a Lobsterman that I haven't mind controlled that is standing right next to a cluster of three explosive barrels that could fucking kill everyone if Edea scores a hit on them. Fortunately the shot makes its mark and the Lobsterman is disposed of. Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of this stupid Bio-Drone, so I have it vaporize the crates between the troops and the door behind it.

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Meanwhile Cohcolate Wombat and chaosrevolutions have made it to the second level. They're quickly ambushed on the alien turn. Wombat manages to hold off his Lobsterman with reaction fire, but the second one rushes @chaosrevolutions from around a blind corner and splits him in half.

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Meanwhile on the ground floor I have Dark Edea finally get rid of that stupid MeleeOnlyLobsterman while I order the rest of my troops to hang back for the moment.

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At this range... I could try it.

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Oh

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SHIT

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To my utter shock, not only did that explosion not set off the other half of the explosive barrels in the starting room, TerribleIdeasTM has somehow survived that ensuing chain of explosions unscathed, without even being slightly wounded.

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Chocolate Wombat my be alone, but he's not without backup. Hiram and Willy mind control his two Lobsterman assailants, giving him plenty of time to pick one off. The Valeyard gets one that stupidly wandered on to the catwalk last turn.

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Another Lobsterman armed with a melee weapon drops down the elevator and obliterates @Chocolate Wombat, doesn't even leave a corpse.

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Its The Valeyard's turn to be the eyes for our psionic team. His efforts dispose of Wombat's killer.

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We get another one that wandered in to the starting area. Another Bio-Drone drops down the bullshit elevator shaft and kills @The Valeyard.

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Polyboros moves up to be our eyes this time. it takes two turns but the Bio-Drone is killed at a safe distance from the elevator. It takes its Lobsterman killer with it too.

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Another alien drops down and kills @Polyboros2. I didn't even see what the fuck it was. This fucking game.

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We have jack shit for troops left. Its literally down to just Dark Edea and TerribleIdeasTM.

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A civilian walks in front of the porthole Dark Edea was using to shoot at the Lobsterman. Right in front of it. Right in melee range where the Lobsterman is. Literally everything in this fucking game just exists to make your life Hell. I have Dark Eda just kill him to get to the Lobsterman because I am so fucking done with this shit.

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The last enemy on this map, another god damn Bio-Drone, attacks TerribleIdeasTM but he shakes off its wimpy melee weapon. Rather than blow it up I have the troops mind control it.

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Thank god its over. We lost almost everyone new. Again. TerribleIdeasTM is also wounded and out of action for ten days.

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We finish research on the Leviathan, the ultimate craft, and production starts right away. Not a moment too soon as I'm starting to reach the point where I'd rather fucking hang myself than keep playing this terrible game.

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We have the spare funds to fully outfit both bases with PWT defenses so I do that. It'll still be twenty days before the Leviathan completes construction and I'm not sure about launching the final mission right away so the defenses are probably a smart idea in the mean time.

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While intercepting a smaller craft the ScubaJace manages to catch up with a Fleet Supply Cruiser and down it.

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With the Triton on the way to the site, my latest batch of 20 recruits arrives. I went all out on ordering more of them because at this fucking rate almost all the troops on the Triton are gonna be dead in less than a week.

First Timers: @Gezkill, @Fougaro

Resurrections/Clones: @Shadfan666xxx000, @RabidWombat, @draggs, @RIPRhongoBongo, @Genichiro, @ditdatdot, @McMitch4kf, @Corn Flakes, @Precious Bodily Fluids, @Mooger Meng, @Peasant, @Some JERK, @Friend computer, @Swiss46, @Niggermancer, @JongleJingle, @Catgirls are Love, @SailingtheSaltySeas


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I suspect this is not the smartest mission to start a bunch of new rookies out on.

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I'm gonna make my best attempt to gloss over this mission because its more of the same shit.

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The advance up to the USO goes okay. By as @Honka Honka Burning Love is about to secure the main doors a Lobsterman bursts out and saws him in half.

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@StraightShooter2 meets the same fate when I send him in. I pull together a team consisting of myself, Just_Somebody, Thomas Highway and Neo-Holstein to take the main entrance in force. I use some creative positioning of my troops to avoid grenade throws.

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Using Just_Somebody to get vision on the interior, I have the Lobstermen slaughter each other.

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One of them "accidentally" scores a hit on @Just_Somebody and kills him. Even when we have the aliens under our complete control they still fucking kill recruits.

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Its really quite insane just how long the teamkilling has to go on before we finally run out of Lobstermen.

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We finally get the last of them.

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We lost a few people but overall this mission ate fewer recruits than I was expecting it to.

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At least we have something smaller for the recruits to chew on next.

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Watch like ten people die on this one because that would be just my luck.

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Nope nevermind.

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We knock out this Escort but it sinks in an area that's "too deep" for us to recover it at. Even though we keep diving to the very bottom of the ocean to get to those Artifact Sites and Alien Colonies. Whatever.

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I have zero idea why I wasted any time researching this useless device.

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An alien Dreadnought appears on another infiltration mission in the Sea of Japan. It evades the slow Triton and we have nothing anywhere near capable of shooting it down so its suffice to say we've lost another country.

Alien Infiltrations don't make a lot of sense in this game. In the first game the aliens were implied to use their psionic powers to subdue the leaders of the country and get them to sign a bunch of humiliating treaties with the aliens. Even though sometimes Mutons and Floaters would conduct Infiltration missions. Whatever. But in this game, the aliens don't have literal psionic powers they have "molecular control", which in typical grimderp fashion isn't mind control, it instead seizes control over your body while your mind is still aware of it. Apparently. So how the fuck are the aliens able to subtlely take over world leaders this time?

Whatever. Fuck you for thinking about anything, player.

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We get some more exposition on the alien backstory, which includes their giant city ship crashing into the planet as the explanation for why the dinosaurs went extinct (naturally).

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FUCK

Remember how I kept saying I needed a Lobsterman Navigator for the Transmission Resolver, and then I didn't? Guess what, I wasn't totally wrong, researching the Lobsterman Navigator does have it use. It will unlock the research option for The Ultimate Threat, but the final research option in this chain to research the alien city ship itself is only unlocked by researching a Lobsterman Commander. Which means by researching the Lobsterman Commander first, I only unlocked The Ultimate Threat, and not the final research option. Which means I have to fucking invade an Alien Colony all over again to go get another one.

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(The House of the Dead 2 - Chapter 2: Muddy)

Let's get this over with.

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At this point we know most of the aliens are clustered around the lift to the second part of the level. Two DPL hits obliterate most of them, I can't even make out precisely how many death cries I hear.

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A highlight of the battle is the team managing to successfully take over a Tentaculat, which only Pocket Dragoon is capable of doing after someone is able to whittle it down. The third screenshot shows its custom weapon portrait, made by modders for the OpenXCOM version specifically.

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It too much of a liability to keep alive, so we wax it.

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We're rocking and rolling straight through the aliens like last time.

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One alien tries to return fire on us, to no effect.

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We respond in kind, firing blind deep into the base and taking out most of the remaining alien force judging by all the death cries. Whatever's left is disorganized for sure.

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I attempt to save Neo-Holstein from being eaten by a Hallucinoid by having Dark Edea torpedo it. This works, from a certain point of view, since @Neo-Holstien is blown up by the ridiculous explosion radius of the DPL rather than being eaten by a giant jellyfish.

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The rookies fan out. This LZ is all but ours, we just have to pick off whatever's left.


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@Thomas Highway gets implanted by the Tentaculat that was hiding somewhere or other.

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The plan is simple, throw a grenade on to the Tentaculat, then bomb it with a DPL. The DPL will burst open the zombie and the grenade will finish the newly spawn Tentaculat off. Except the recuiters have decided to prank command by hiring a women's baseball team instead of trained soldiers, because four of my marines are all afflicted with girly throw. Plant Aqua Mammal finally manages to have range on the Tentaculats, but his throw goes nowhere near the intended target.

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We bomb it anyway, at least it'll kill the first one.

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The last enemy left on the map turns out to be the Tentaculat that burst from Highway's corpse.

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Somehow I doubt this is going to go over as easy as it did last time.

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This starts off with a bang because our women's baseball team needs to get rid of all of the active grenades in their hands from the end of the first section, because I turned on "Save Pre-Primed Grenades" for some reason.

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A Lobsterman rushes me and snips my head off because I'm a shitheel green Ensign with no kills and no reaction score. White Devil has more luck but his target slips away.

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The few old timers must split their duties between psionic attacks and stunning the ones we took control of since I can't risk leaving my useless rookies with no reaction fire in this deathtrap.

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@White Devil shortly meets the same fate I did.

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@Plant Aqua Mammal shortly thereafter.

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Running swiftly out of recruits, I switch tactics and start using the mind controlled Lobstermen I can acquire as guards. A room away another Lobsterman nukes the god damn wall and lbows a massive hole in the room its in. I hear a Lobsterman die. That had better not be the fucking Commander.

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Willy is wounded so I have Dear Leader take a minute to patch him up. We seize control of a Technician that wandered in and I have him ditch his weapon in favor of a Sonic Cannon from one of the fallen marines. Meanwhile the lunatic with the DPL nukes his own room a second time. And then a third. If after all this bullshit the only Commander on the map is fucking dead then I might actually just ragequit this shitfest right here.

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LullerDerbyRollin somehow manages to wipe out a Tentaculat, while @Forever Sunrise gets reaction fire on a Lobsterman but isn't quite as lucky.

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This lone Tentaculat, in an infuriating display of tactical genius, manages to take out one of our Lobsterman guards and then impregnate @Mary the Goldsmith. The Lobsterman it killed was still holding a melee weapon. If it had killed the other one, the melee Lobsterman would have had enough time units to kill the Tentaculat, burst the zombie and kill the spawn but the Tentaculat was somehow smart enough to take it out first. God damnit I hate this fucking game.

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I manage to coordinate Kane Lives and the other remaining guard to kill both Tentaculats. We are really running threadbare on warm bodies at this point though, and can't risk to have any of our psionic team members take up arms because we might need their psionics to seize the Commander if it shows up.

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A stun bomb flies out of the nuked room and lands right in the center of the main command squad. Willy, Dark Edea and even the fucking Lobsterman guard go down in one blow.

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Dear Leader is on his own now. But didn't the Lobsterman Commander have a stun launcher last time as well?

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Fucking finally. Pocket Dragoon seizes control of the enemy Commander and walks him on to cargo pad. Let's get the fuck out of this place.

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I panic for a minute because I realize just after I click the OK button that the game isn't recognizing Willy and Dark Edea as being in the retreat zone.

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Fortunately the game finally gives me a fucking break for once and does actually recognize them as being present in the mission loot. We lost almost everyone new again.

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Research on the Lobsterman Commander starts right away because I've had it with this game and I'm launching the final mission the minute we research it. Command tells the science team to pull out all the stops and hire experts to extract the information as soon as possible. After San Francisco sank beneath the ocean during The Big One of 2023, its status as the degenerate capital of the world was lost. Our new expert anal probers were born and raised in Dallas, Texas.

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Next time: The completion of the Leviathan and hopefully the last of the research we need to launch the final mission.
Neo-Schleswig will make the ultimate sacrifice
 
If @L50LasPak wants something to chill out with and decompress (heh) after TFTD, the obvious choice would be Apocalypse. In Real-Time mode. Give everybody dual disruptors and watch the fireworks.

Warning: it might be a pretty short playthrough. That game is easy in Real-Time mode.
Apoc is the perfect game for RP mode tbh. No Toxin C, no dual wielding disruptors and the game actually poses something of a challenge.

Sometimes.
 
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Reactions: TerribleIdeas™
15. The Stars Are Right

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It seems these days one can never be too superstitious. It is the impression of even the most rational of XCOM's staff, that the stars are almost right, and something terrible will befall the world soon.

Dear Leader, Pocket Dragoon and Willy confer over stacks of battle reports mixed haphazardly with copies of ancient texts and works once thought blasphemous or outright fictional. If the science team can't make sense of this shit, what chance do they have?

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Getting your lobster boiled, how they say, Texas Style, will make you say a lot of weird things, but the black speech that the translator spit out after the Lobsterman started babbling still needs to be decoded. The entire science staff complains of sleepless nights and waking nightmares when they nod off. The base is mostly a collection of lexorin junkies at this point. Even Command's booze cabinent is starting to run a bit dry. The science team says they need only one more step though.

Deep in the bowels of Vulcania the Technicians still work feverishly on the hull of the Leviathan. It ain't gonna be pretty, but it will get XCOM to the deepest part of the ocean. Nobody thinks to ask them about getting back though, so its unclear if they've built it with that in mind or not.

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The ScubaJace and ScubaTyce pilots still find mild distraction. But even alien activity has decreased somewhat recently, at least where we can see it.

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Might as well give the rookies something to do.

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Ah, this is a nice surprise. Another terrain type: Volcanic. Realistically speaking being this close to an underwater magma vent would instantly cook you alive even if it didn't melt your suit, but hey it looks pretty at least.

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Mostly just a bunch of wandering around and mind controlling enemies. Willy is still out of commission but Hiram and Dear Leader are more than capable of taking up the slack at this point.

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Everybody can't help but feel time is running out.

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This is it, we have the location of an alien city, in the Sigsbee Deep, Gulf of Mexico, some 14,000 meters below the surface. This is only a stone's throw from the massive Chicxulub Crater in Yucatan, Mexico, where the meteor that killed the dinosaurs is said to have struck. We now know the truth, that it was T'leth that struck our planet rather than a random meteor. And that apparently it bounced.

A supreme being lying asleep in an underwater city, and when he awakes the world will be terrible? Where have I heard this story before?

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Final research is divided between the various live aliens and alien corpses we still have, just for the hell of it.

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Command agrees with the officers that the recruits should be given some busywork while we await the completion of the Leviathan. A Hunter class USO is shot down in the North Pacific, it will be XCOMs next target.

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Hunters were the craft with the small entryway I thought were Fleet Supply Cruisers earlier, if you recall.

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Well that's entertaining. We don't even do anything on the first turn and a Tasoth loses it and nukes his buddy. Even the aliens seem to be living in fear of what's coming next for this planet.

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Getting to the submarine is uneventful, but when we actually get there its a different story. Gezkill is immediately mind controlled and runs out the door. I think I've forgotten to mention this entire time that you can't use psonics to take control of your own troops back in either game. LullerDerbyRollin is ordered to try and stay inside the Hunter and wait out Gezkill's mind control rather than try to taze him and risk getting shot.

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I figure that's the end of it when we take over a Tasoth Squad Leader hiding on the upper level. I have it kill its buddy and then let LullerDerby waste it.

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Seems I spoke too soon though, and Gezkill is controlled by another Squad Leader. He bombs @LullerDerbyRollin in the back.

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@Gezkill is understandably horrified when he comes back to himself, and runs screaming into the ship where he's shot and killed by the very same alien that had taken him over moments ago.

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Fougaro is sent up to find Gezkill's killer and manages to find the alien crouched on the very edge of the outside of the USO, where Gezkill couldn't see it. In the process of mind controlling it we detect one more alien outside which also falls quickly to mind control.

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Disturbingly, the two aliens we take into custody seem to be almost passive, as if they are fine with being sheltered in XCOM's containment cells.

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More target practice while we wait for the damn Leviathan to finish up.

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Some random research completes in the mean time.

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Finally. The sub isn't quite ready to go right away though, a few Medikits need to be manufactured first, some tazers need to be ordered, and Dear Leader agrees to wait a week or so for TerribleIdeasTM's psionic training to complete since he's otherwise so close to being able to use an MC Disruptor.

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USO activity is almost at a standstill. The aliens might be preparing a retaliation. Or worse.

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Some more miscellaneous research completes. The Gillman is of course a reference to the Creature From The Black Lagoon.

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Oddly enough, after the two deaths we had on the preivous mission we have exactly 26 marines to fill the Leviathan to capacity. I had ordered ten more but not named them yet. Thus, there will be no last call for marine names, as we have all that we need already. The final loadout will be at the end of this update.

If you missed out, once again, have faith that this won't be the last XCOM LP I do.

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More research. Note the Tentaculat's entry actually uses the word "Lovecraftian" to describe it.:story:

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The month has to end before TerribleIdeasTM's training can complete. The Council of Funding Nations wishes us luck.

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Can't help but feel I'm forgetting something.

Ah yes, I haven't named the Leviathan yet.

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Final Loadout:
Psionics/Scanner Team:
Captain Dear Leader
Commander Pocket Dragoon
Commander not william stenchever
Lieutenant HiramTheGrift
Lieutenant AwfulConceptsTM (TerribleIdeasTM)

Ordnance Team:
Lieutenant Shady Edea (Dark Edea)
Seaman Friend Computer 002 (friend Computer)

The Farmers:
Seaman Kane Lives A Third Time (Kane Lives)
Seaman Fougaro
Seaman Shadfan777xxx111 (Shadfan666xxx000)
Seaman BerserkWombat (RabidWombat)
Seaman dragggs (draggs)
Seaman RIPRRongoRongo (RIPRhongoBongo)
Seaman Genichiro the 3rd (Genichiro)
Seaman ditdatdotdut (ditdatdot)
Seaman McMitch6kf (McMitch4kf)
Seaman Corn Pops (Corn Flakes)
Seaman Purity of Essence (Precious Bodily Fluids)
Seaman Booble Meng (Mooger Meng)
Seaman Serf (Peasant)
Seaman Some DICK (Some JERK)
Seaman Liechtenstein57 (Swiss46)
Seaman Spookmancer (Niggermancer)
Seaman ChingleChangle (JongleJingle)
Seaman Catgirls are Harmony (Catgirls are Love)
Seaman BeyondtheBareBasalt (SailingTheSaltySeas)

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Next time: The reckoning awaits.
 

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View attachment 2281783
Final Loadout:
Psionics/Scanner Team:
Captain Dear Leader
Commander Pocket Dragoon
Commander not william stenchever
Lieutenant HiramTheGrift
Lieutenant AwfulConceptsTM (TerribleIdeasTM)

Ordnance Team:
Lieutenant Shady Edea (Dark Edea)
Seaman Friend Computer 002 (friend Computer)

The Farmers:
Seaman Kane Lives A Third Time (Kane Lives)
Seaman Fougaro
Seaman Shadfan777xxx111 (Shadfan666xxx000)
Seaman BerserkWombat (RabidWombat)
Seaman dragggs (draggs)
Seaman RIPRRongoRongo (RIPRhongoBongo)
Seaman Genichiro the 3rd (Genichiro)
Seaman ditdatdotdut (ditdatdot)
Seaman McMitch6kf (McMitch4kf)
Seaman Corn Pops (Corn Flakes)
Seaman Purity of Essence (Precious Bodily Fluids)
Seaman Booble Meng (Mooger Meng)
Seaman Serf (Peasant)
Seaman Some DICK (Some JERK)
Seaman Liechtenstein57 (Swiss46)
Seaman Spookmancer (Niggermancer)
Seaman ChingleChangle (JongleJingle)
Seaman Catgirls are Harmony (Catgirls are Love)
Seaman BeyondtheBareBasalt (SailingTheSaltySeas)

View attachment 2281809
Next time: The reckoning awaits.
:gunt:"GUNT".:gunt:

:story:

Perfect name to cap off this LP. Also I actually get to be in the final mission for a change.
 
16. Ocean Hunters

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Thank God its almost over.

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Much like last time, launching the final mission requires confirmation.



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There's a little cutscene of T'leth rising from the ocean floor. This won't occur until you launch the final mission. The analog version is once again just stills from the cutscene with some added flavor text, included here just for completeness.

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Unlike the previous game there is no original art for failing the mission, just more cutscene stills; this time from the defeat cutscene you can watch in the OP.

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(Ween - Ocean Man)

The Gunt has landed.

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In a game that has been so unfair, so brutal, so miserable in its open hatred of the player, what kind of nightmare could the final level possibly be?

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The only possible thing it could be just to piss the player off one final time: an anticlimax. The final mission is three levels long, and in all three of them the map is cranked up to its absolute maximum size, filled with tons of rooms, and barely any aliens. The overwhelming majority of your time is spent just wandering around waiting for something to fucking happen.

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Two of our troops fall under alien mind control and get grenaded, but the Mag-Ion armor shrugs the blow off completely.

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A DPL shot flies straight into the center of a formation, but only @draggs is killed, by no less than a direct hit.

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Of course every single alien soldier on this level is armed with a fucking DPL launcher.

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The amount of resistance we encounter is quite pitiful honestly.

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There are something like 100 screenshots of just this. My marines being moved around from place to place, exploring annoying out of the way rooms to track down every last alien. If you dislike the song Ocean Man, I had to listen to it for about thrity minutes straight since minimizing the screen to turn it off would fuck up my resolution. Because this final mission just wouldn't be complete without some kind of technical glitch.

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Does anyone else find this song kind of depressing?

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Like it just sounds so mournful.

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Just me, I guess.

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(Blue Oyster Cult - Subhuman)

This section is just a waste of fucking time.

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To begin with, @SailingtheSaltySeas is executed by his fellow marines, as an encounter with the Aquatoid Commander afflicted him with a creeping curse that will cast doom upon the entire mission if he is allowed to live.

(Sailing ended the last mission technically under the control of an alien, which seems to have fucked up how the game handles him on this section. I can click on him and access his inventory, but if I try to move him all of the pointers disappear, none of the controls respond, and essentially I had to reload my save about three times before I figured out what the Hell was happening. I probably didn't have to kill him, but I wanted to be sure the problem was solved for good.)

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@Niggermancer gets impregnated by a Tentaculat.

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The walls of this fucking maze are paper-thin, but not quite enough to be shot through in one blow in some circumstances, which allows for an infinite amount of ways for the game to waste your time. Fortunately our armor affords us protection against the insane range of the DPL, so we can just obliterate whole sections of this level if they become too treacherous.

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An infuriating amount of turns will be spent on blasting away at walls because finding a door would take forever.

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For some reason, despite being tight as an asshole this level has 4x4 Terror Units spawn in certain locations. There are very few double doors though, and because this game is brilliantly programmed the Terror Units don't even spawn anywhere they can access them, meaning they're stuck waiting around for you to come along and execute them.

This creature is a Xarquid, a Gillman Terror Unit that, like the Hallucinoid, used to appear on land missions despite being a creature that can only function in water. Rather than being a freezing jellyfish, its a giant nautilus that shoots lasers. It takes only two Sonic Cannon hits to bring down.

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Stand clear!

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Look at this bullshit. What game designer would ever think this is a good idea, especially in a game where you can just blow holes in the wall and bypass it completely?

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Any alien I find with a DPL I just have nuke the room its standing in so I don't have to deal with maneuvering around in tight corridors.

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At least we've finally found some fucking aliens on this level.

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The louder you scream the slower it goes.

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I'm gonna be honest with you guys, this is the worst part of the game right here. Even in levels where my troops were getting absolutely butchered at least something was happening. Even if I wasn't using any psionics at all (and I'm mostly just using them minimally) this level wouldn't be any harder, it would just be a bunch of blind ambushes.

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Like that. A Lobsterman peels @Fougaro's armor open like a tin can and eviscerates him.

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On and on it goes.

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After about ten entire turns of waiting around for a hint of where the aliens are, I blow open a section in the center that has no apparent door that I can find and see a Hallucinoid inside of it. Fitting that its hilariously pathetic water splash death cry is the last thing I hear on this section.

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(Bobby Darin - Beyond the Sea)

This is it, this is the level the entire game has been building up to.

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This is all that awaits you at the end: one very long, dark hallway, with less than a handful of enemies. It takes me a few minutes to realize I should probably turn night vision off and play this level as it was intended.

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They say if you stare into the abyss, the abyss will stare back at you. But when you stare into Terror From The Deep, nothing looks back at you, because there really is nothing there in the end.

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A Deep One, of all things, rushes @RabidWombat and unloads everything it has into him, managing to punch through his armor and kill him.

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Its little more than a bump in the road. I'm even able to stack up all of my troops like you see in these screenshots because of the protection their armor affords them and also the lack of good angles for the aliens to throw grenades from. I don't even really have to use psionics from this point on. But otherwise, that's all this last section is. Just a calm stroll down a gloomy hallway.

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Somewhere, beyond the sea, somewhere, waitin for me; my lover stands on golden sands and watches the ships. That go sailin.

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Somewhere, beyond the sea, she's there watchin for me. If I could fly like birds on high, then straight to her arms, I'd go sailin.

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Its far, beyond a star, its near, beyond the moon. I know, beyond a doubt, my heart will lead me there soon!

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We'll meet, beyond the shore; we'll kiss just as before. Happy we'll be beyond the sea and never again, I'll go sailing.

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I know, beyond a doubt, my heart will lead me there soon.

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We'll meet, I know we'll meet, beyond the shore; we'll kiss, just as before.

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This is, the ultimate alien. And yeah, its literally Cthulhu himself. Before you cringe, remember this game came out in 1995 when this kind of overt Lovecraft reference wasn't quite as widespread as its become today.

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It just a matter of destroying those glass tube structures. Most of them are within grenade range of each other, but you can shoot them as well if you really want to. I have Shadfan, Swiss46 and Hongobongo arm enough Sonic Pulsers to level the room.

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Happy we'll be, beyond the sea.


And never again, I'll go sailin.

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No more sailin. So long sailin.

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Bye-bye sailin.

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Move on out, Captain,

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Next Up: Post-Mortem
 

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Post Mortem

(Aqua Nox - Ambient Track)

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Well. That wasn't worth it.

This sucked to play, sucked to edit, and it even sucked to put together because I had some strange glitch where the screenshots of the stat screens would save as PNG files with limited color palettes. Meaning I had to hand convert them all to bitmaps to free up the color palettes, then paste the little faces in and save them all over again. Almost everything in this LP took an extra step that the previous one didn't, just because of the nature of this game.

Little things like that happened constantly throughout this. A lot of that you guys don't see because it happened all on my end. I normally wouldn't bitch about it, but seriously this game is cursed. If you're thinking about trying XCOM for yourself, I wouldn't reccomend playing this one until you've played the first game a few times. And played some mods. And done all your chores, maybe reorganize your closets and storage bins, call the folks, essentially do literally anything else with your time and put this piece of shit off as long as possible.

Putting emphasis on Beyond the Sea isn't just something I did because its one of my favorite songs; I am never playing this game again.

Anyway, statistics:

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And the list of casualties, once again not counting those who died on the final mission:

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And the survivor stats, once again not including faces:
1 Dear Leader.png
2 Pocket Dragoon.png
3 not william stenchever.png
4 HiramTheGrift.png
5 TerribleIdeasTM.png
6 Dark Edea.png
7 Friend Computer.png
8 Kane Lives.png
9 Shadfan666xxx000.png
10 RIPRhongoBongo.png
11 Genichiro.png
12 ditdatdot.png
13 McMitch4kf.png
14 Corn Flakes.png
15 Precious Bodily Fluids.png
16 Mooger Meng.png
17 Peasant.png
18 Some JERK.png
19 Swiss46.png
20 JongleJingle.png
21 Catgirls are Love.png

You said there'd be double casualties from last time.
Whatever. This game killed just over as many people as last time in only 16 updates and 38 missions versus the 20 updates and 59 missions of the last one. I think either way you can see why this game is so hated amongst its fanbase. And not the fun kind of hatred like Dwarf Fortress gets.

What were those melee weapons you never identified?
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Ah yes, the Vibro Blade and Thermic weapons, which are touted to be the main way to fight Lobstermen but in practice psionics is really the way to go. For some reason you need to capture a live Calcinite, a ridiculously weak and useless Aquatoid Terror Unit, and research it in order to unlock the Vibro Blade research, at which point you can research the other two weapons if you acquire specimens of them. The Vibro Blade is actually insanely useful, being able to perform attacks for like 5 Time Units a pop, meaning a marine could potentially perform like 12 attacks in one turn.

You'd think since these things look like power tools they'd be useful for cutting through walls, but actually they can't do that. All melee weapons in this game are technically reskins of the Stun Rod/Thermal Tazer just with altered stat types to make them kill. Therefore, they can't just target nothing, and trying to do this results in a "There is no one there!" message.

So to cap it all off everybody dies at the end in the final explosion?
Yes. Canonically T'leth explodes, kills everyone sent on the mission, and fucks up Earth's environment, which is the lead-up to XCOM: Apocalypse.

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What's next for the thread?
Proofreading and putting together a table of contents, which should not take me three weeks like it did last time on account of all of the screenshots having a set of standardized picture sizes. I can do that in a day. Edit: Done.

What will you play next?
I said Xpiratez, but I'm not sure if I want to leap into another game right away. I do have one idea for something different, but I'll need a bit to see if it'll work properly and screenshot okay.

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We'll see how it works out.
 
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