Update 2:
First Blood
Our first UFO is detected flying around northeastern Europe.
I decide to intercept with the Skyranger, and simply follow the UFO to its landing site rather than shoot it down. This ensures that we will acquire an intact UFO with no damaged parts. The UFO outruns the Amberlynn Reid for the entire chase, the Skyranger only catches up when it lands, so I don't have the opportunity to show off the Interception screens yet.
The mission begins. I clear Dear Leader and Ghost out of the way because I don’t want their heavy weapons dealing any collateral right now. Pictured is the enhanced UI Open XCOM EX displays to track your movement. The UFO is a Scout, the middle-sized of that class of craft. Crew averages between 2-6.
Our first alien! I’m out of the Skyranger first with Gynn and Agarathium flanking me. I open up first…
And draw first blood! It’s a surprise to me that any of my troops actually hit something on the first shot of the game, let alone score a kill. Agarathium1066 opens up next on the second alien.
Unfortunately,
@Agarathium1066 triggers reaction fire from the alien. If a unit has unused time units left over when it ends its turn, it can open fire during the enemy's turn depending on its reactions rating. He's killed when the alien returns fire. Our first blood is marked with the aliens' as well.
The situation rapidly deteriorates into a firefight. Gynn dumps a mag and gets them both.
The squad starts taking fire from a nearby rooftop. Gynn takes a few hits but stays on his (her?) feet. Chuckles moves up to replace his fallen comrade but only gives the enemy something else to shoot at.
Forgetful Gynn is now mortally wounded. This means the soldier will die in a set amount of turns if they receive no medical treatment. I have not researched Medikits yet so Gynn will have to tough it out until we clear the battlefield.
Our soldiers demonstrate the infamous accuracy that new XCOM recruits are known for. The rooftop alien ignores three different characters shooting at him. I’m too slow to catch it but Chuckles taking a shot at the alien draws reaction fire. Chuckles is now mortally wounded as well.
Fuck this, time to put the grenades to some use.
My time spent playing XPiratez has made me careless. Troops start with much higher strength in that game, so I’d gotten used to being able to throw grenades wherever I wanted. Unfortunately my character throws like a girl.
Eventually Pinainas manages to kill the troublesome alien with his Autocannon. The explosive ammo I loaded him up with is overkill, but whatever. OpenXCOM has this warning message if you have fatally wounded soldiers that might die when you end you turn if their wounds aren't treated (uncommon, but possible). Nobody has passed out yet so I feel safe enough ending it here, its not like we have anything to treat them with anyway.
Here’s our Rating, which determines how our funding nations will see our effectiveness. With it is the stat gains made by the troops, the loot we recovered, the promotions (quite a few!) and the surprisingly small list of casualties.
First order of business is rearranging our science corps a little to begin studying the alien technology we recovered. Here’s a shot of the soldier menu to show our wounded. The number next to their status is how many days they will need to spend in recovery. I also get work started on an Alien Containment.
Another UFO already.
This mission is taking place at night. You can clearly see just how fast the visibility drops off. Our enemies at this stage in the game, Sectoids, have superior night vision to human soldiers, some of the best in the game. Our soldiers are virtually blind. In the regular games, you’re reduced to throwing around electro-flares to light up the battle area. With the benefit of modern technology though…
Much better. You can set the night vision to be whatever you want within a spectrum of 15 colors. The game has it preset on the stereotypical Hollywood lime green, and you can also set it to a sepia-like color that mimmicks real world NVG equipment. I prefer this lovely blue color though, as its easy on the eyes and it reminds me of the future war scenes in The Terminator.
This UFO is larger than the first one we found but still a scout. Scouts average about 4-6 crew. I split the team up into four squads of two each. Two squads go around either side of the UFO, while the other two head off into the gloom to look for aliens hiding out.
They rapidly come to us.
A noteworthy detail is that those little windows on the sides of buildings aren’t just for show; your troops can both look and shoot through them.
Multiple aliens are hiding in the barns. While me and Chaos Theorist are engaged in a firefight with the aliens coming out of the craft, one of them opens up on us. An alien walks straight out into a showdown with Chaos Theorist, who missed his first few shots. Fortunately for him, the alien marches right past him inexplicably. He turns and waxes it.
The alien I was trying to flush out of the barn nails me with a good hit and now I’m the one bleeding out. I get him back even though I didn’t screenshot it.
Chaos Theorist, Friend Computer and Niggermancer storm the UFO. Niggermancer gets a kill.
@Chaos Theorist bites it when he breaches a door and triggers reaction fire. Niggermancer avenges his fallen comrade.
That was apparently the last alien inside the ship. Here’s a shot of the intact engine array, which contains the precious Elerium 115 fuel that is the key to all of the alien technology. Elerium cannot be mined or synthesized, so we have to preserve any of it that we recover.
I stupidly send my wounded avatar looking for more aliens in the barn. I suppose I get what I deserved.
@Honka Honka Burning Love also gets killed when an alien shoots him through a window he was walking past.
I take out my frustration on the barn with a few rockets. In between turns spent reloading, Lemmingwise avenges my death. Dear Leader takes down an alien. It’s stunned rather than killed. This would be a fortunate outcome if we had an Alien Containment facility at the ready.
Four soldiers are dead, and two are wounded. Gynn has made the rank of Captain but that morale bonus will be of no use to us until he’s healed and back on the battlefield in a month. Pinainas is our current highest ranking field officer, though only because I’ve been holding Dear Leader’s fire since rockets are expensive.
Might get some more soldiers named and ready, but otherwise think I'm done for tonight.
I swear the game is trying to lull you into a false sense of security so it can do me dirty.
