XCOM - Terror From the Deep SG

[haphazard1]

OK, Cakewalk posted that he would not get to the save until tomorrow. And after two days of meaning to play but getting stuck working late, I was ready to kill some alien scum!

So I am playing, and...lots of time is passing. Where are the aliens?

This is too much like last time...and yep, it's another port attack. Should be able to get there in daylight this time, though, which will help a lot.

Here we go...report to follow.

[haphazard1]

I start by checking our status. Cash reserves are very low (about $300K), but we now have an excellent 100 scientists. Four new aquanauts are incoming, so we will have good troop strength. It is February 16th.

3 days pass with no sign of alien activity, and Uberfish, Meiz, Kyan, and Brian Shanahan arrive to join our soldiers. Kyan and Brian Shanahan have quite decent stats and are assigned to the active crew on the Triton; Uberfish and Meiz are more typical recruits and are set to work scrubbing the base floors with toothbrushes.

By Feb 20th our research into the Transmission Resolver is complete, but we have nowhere near enough money to start building one ($1.4M). We need cash badly. I start the brainiacs on researching the Deep One corpse to open up Aqua Plastics and basic armor.

Everything continues quiet, and by Feb 25th we have completed Deep One corpse, Aqua Plastics, and Plastic Aqua Armor. Manufacturing of basic armor begins, but we need more engineers. After the Transmission Resolver, we need to find cash for another Workshop and then a Living Quarters (about halfway through the Workshop's construction, due to timing). No idea where we will get the money though.

Research is started on Sonic Blasta Rifles to give us more weapon options and eventually get to Sonic Oscillators to arm our Barracudas. If we can capture the appropriate live aliens we may want to change this path.

After 10 days of no activity, XCOM receives an alert -- aliens are attacking the port at Dakar. Some quick checking shows it will be daylight when we arrive, so I was able to dump the flares and load up some extra ammo clips instead. I also took as many sonic pistols as we had (7) with gas cannons for the rest. Lots of sonic pulsers were loaded as well.

While the Triton is heading to the terror site, a small USO appears quite close to our base. It wanders in the direction of Australia as Barracuda 1 chases it. Unfortunately we only manage one hit out of 3 double shots, and the USO is still moving with our ammo exhausted. I send out Barracuda 2 as the USO heads back north, and it knocks the alien craft down with the first shot. That's how it is supposed to be done -- Barracuda 1's pilots need some lessons, obviously.

The small is down, waiting for recovery. We can get to it after the terror attack, we need all the cash we can get.

The Triton finally arrives, and the pilot lands us in the middle of the southern edge of the map -- not bad at all. This guy is definitely an improvement.

Round 1

- Dicorion opens the hatch and sees nothing of interest. Once he steps outside and checks to the north, however, he spots an aquatoid on the roof of a building and a calcinite on the ground nearby.



Calcinites are the aquatoids' terror unit, they look like old-fashioned deep dive suits with the big helmets. Inside the suit is nothing but amorphous goo. They have no ranged attack, and are one of the easier possible draws for a terror mission. The aquatoids can be trouble, though -- note the sonic cannon the aquatoid is carrying, nearly as big as it is. Huge damage if it hits with that, and some types of aquatoids have MC abilities (TFTD's equivalent of Psi).

Dicorion fires an HE round at the calcinite and scores the first kill of the mission.

Plako fires at the aquatoid but hits the edge of the building for no effect. Amelia follows up and kills the aquatoid.

Refsteel is next out of the Triton and spots another aquatoid further northeast amidst some barrels.



He is 1 TU short of being able to fire. Amelia fires and misses; TheShiningOne hits the landscape twice; Novice hits the ground twice; Krill misses an aimed shot; Brian Shanahan misses; Mardoc finally kills it with his second shot.

IBT we hear one civilian die.

Round 2

- The troops sort themselves into something resembling order after the mad scramble to kill the second aquatoid last round. Bunching them up like that could be disastrous if an alien had a grenade, but leaving the aquatoid alive where it could see the whole group was not really an option either.
- There is a big, three level building to the north. That is going to be trouble.
- Refsteel spots another aquatoid on the roof of the building the other one was in front of.



He kills it with an HE round.

- Ug the Barbarian checks around the nose of the Triton to the west and spots an aquatoid/calinite pair on a sort of tower.



The aquatoid is facing him, so he freezes. haphazard2 tries for a grenade throw, but is one TU short. Ack! Several of our troops have too low of strength for their gear and are losing TUs to encumbrance.

Krill throws a pulser and lands it 1 tile from the aquatoid.

IBT the pulser kills the aquatoid, but also kills a civilian. -50 points for us. 3 more civilians die, and there is an MC attack on someone, not sure who (Refsteel or Novice, I think). Aquatoid MC...this is bad news.

Round 3

- Ug hits the calcinite with 1 of 2 HE rounds, but it is still up. selrahc misses, then Kyan fires an HE round which blows up a garbage can. Haphazard2 throws a pulser at the calcinite's feet.
- TheShiningOne opens the garage door of the building to the north and finds only a civilian inside. He moves through and opens the north door, and finds a calcinite waiting outside.



He would only have 1 shot to kill it, so instead Novice throws a pulser over the building and lands it perfectly on target. TheShiningOne backs up to get out of blast range. The civilian will probably die, though. More points lost.

IBT the pulsers go off and both calcinites die. And the civilian lives. We see two more calcinites moving around to the north. And there are three MC attacks, one each on Mardoc, plako, and Novice.

[haphazard1]

Round 4

- Mardoc panics from the MC attack. He drops his weapon and runs off behind a building where he can not be covered, and of course ends up next to one of the calcinites we saw IBT.



Amelia moves SE to get an angle around the building -- she is the only soldier who can get even 1 shot on the calcinite before it rips Mardoc apart.



Fortunately she is a good shot and one is enough.

- Krill spots the other calcinite we had seen moving IBT, a bit to the NE.



He hits it with one of two shots but it is still alive. haphazard2 tries a regular grenade throw but is badly off target. Refsteel shoots but hits the building, Novice fires twice and hits the ground both times.

IBT the grenade does nothing as expected. Another calcinite joins the one we saw.

Round 5

- Mardoc recovers from his panic, and checks the little building just in case. Oops.



He slams the door shut and runs to pick up his weapon. Amelia and Dicorian start moving up from the south to deal with this problem.

- Krill fires three snap shots and hits only once, but it kills the new calcinite to the northeast. Refsteel kills the other with an HE round, but unfortunately also gets a civilian in the blast. Another 50 points lost.
- Plako is moving NW and spots an aquatoid by a dumpster near the south end of a rail yard.



He is not in a good position so he freezes, while haphazard2 manages a perfect throw to land a pulser at the alien's feet.

IBT the pulser kills the aquatoid. A calcinite moves out of the building south of the rail yard, and we see some movement on the bottom level of the 3 level building.

Round 6

- Ug fires two HE rounds, and the second kills the calcinite.
- Plako spots another aquatoid hiding behind some barrels, but has no line of fire.



Brian Shanahan throws a pulser at its feet.

IBT the pulser kills the aquatoid. Another walks through the now missing wall of the building and fires a shot but misses everyone. Three MC attacks occur, two on Mardoc and one on someone (not sure).

Round 7

- Mardoc panics (again).
- Amelia and Dicorian are in position to clear that calcinite out of the small building. We get another instance of the corner bug -- note the door is still closed.



Amelia pops the door open and kills the calcinite with one shot.

- The movement on the bottom level of the big building turns out to be a civilian. Our soldiers are scouring the corners of the map and small buildings, trying to clear everything but the NW which will be the final area to deal with.
- We spot a sonic cannon on the ground. Maybe an alien panic event? Nothing was announced.



IBT...zzzzzz.

Round 8

- We spot a sonic rifle on the ground in the north under the big tower, and also a pistol in the NW.



Note the state of the area...XCOM can be a little hard on the local infrastructure.

- Plako advances and spots an aquatoid standing over the dropped cannon.



Plako fires but hits obstacles.
- Brian Shanahan spots an aquatoid on the dropped pistol tile. He kills it with a snap shot.

IBT there are three MC attacks, all on plako.

Round 9

- Plako is now under alien control. I move everyone within line of sight behind cover, hopefully we won't have to kill one of our own.
- Ug is advancing northward along the western edge of the map and spots a calcinite hiding on some stairs behind a building.



An HE round solves the problem.

IBT an aquatoid squad leader panics. We see him run into some flames, and then we hear an aquatoid death scream. I guess he committed suicide.

Round 10

- Plako is now panicking, but is no longer under alien control.
- Ug spots an aquatoid on the roof of the far NW building, but has no line of fire. TheShiningOne kills it with a shot from the 3 level building.

IBT - zzzzzz.

Round 11

- Selrahc finds an aquatoid hiding inside the far NW building, and kills it.



- Our soldiers are moving around trying to find the last aliens. Only a couple possible places left for them to be hiding....

IBT - zzzzzz.

Round 12

- One of the problem places on the port attack map is a closed room several levels up a big tower. The path up to the room is only one tile wide, and it is very easy for the stairs to get destroyed by stray shots. Then there is no way up to the room.



Note the civilian standing on the lower level of the path up, blocking the way. I don't want to shoot him (-50 points), so haphazard2 drops a pulser on the ledge (under the cursor). This should open up the room nicely.

IBT the pulser blows the wall out and sure enough there is an aquatoid inside. He is a soldier, which we find out when he panics. We also get a goes berserk message for an aquatoid medic, and are shown that he is on the third level of the big building. I had thought that area was clear since we could see all tiles....

Round 13

- Mardoc kills the aquatoid in the now pleasantly breezy tower room.
- Troops are moving up through the big building.

IBT the aquatoid medic panics. About time.

Round 14

- TheShiningOne reaches the third level and kills the aquatoid to complete the mission.



I am pretty happy with these results, although the 3 civilians killed by XCOM dragged down our score a bit. No losses, although Plako and Mardoc are confirmed MC weaklings.

One notable bit of loot: we got a thermal shok launcher. Need to research this at some point so we can more easily capture live aliens.

I have not sold anything. We are still desperately short of cash, and month end is almost here. Our funding will only give us about $200K net of expenses, so we are going to have to get money from somewhere. There is that knocked down small USO to recover once the Triton gets back and refuels.

[pling]

And remember that pling likes weapons that go BOOM!

Oh yes

I guess I got left behind to cuddle my new best friend on that mission tho! (The gas cannon ...obviously )

Note the state of the area...XCOM can be a little hard on the local infrastructure.

And it's all still adding up to XCOM being the actual threat, isn't it? That must be why they won't let us have rocket launchers this time

[Catwalk]

Very nice carnage! I'll try to play tonight, and I plan on recording the combat with DOSBox instead of text and screenshots, if that's okay. I won't record the tedious overland stuff, just doing a quick summary of that.

I'd like to offer a few tactical pointers, my apologies if this is common knowledge.

Spotting
When you and an alien spot each other simultaneously, initiative is given to whoever is currently playing. This makes it easy to spot aliens in daylight, and encourages aggressive scouting.

When entering the 3rd smallest subs, it pays off to have a large number of troops stationed to peek around corners. That way, when you open a door you can spot enemies safely without having to move and letting them react.

I've always found tanks to be particularly well suited for the scout role, or we can just use the useless rookies for this job. Always keep the valuable soldiers behind the cannon fodder ones.

Killing
Best way to take out aliens safely is to shoot at them from beyond their vision range. They'll never shoot back, so you can empty however many rounds you want into them. It pays off to set up a bunch of snipers as soon as possible in locations where they have a clear shot at most of the map.

Grenades are extremely useful in that they're highly accurate, highly lethal and do not trigger alien reactions unless they're facing you. If you shoot one in the back, it might return fire. Standard grenades and dynamite go a long way, but Sonic Pulser is just too good. I whole-heartedly agree with the plans mentioned above to get them ASAP.

Money
We'll typically have enough money from selling off loot, but if we want to speed up our game it pays off handsomely to produce Craft Gauss Cannons and sell them. Granted, it's less profitable in this game since we're skipping Gauss weapons. Particle Disturbance Sensors are also very profitable.

Recruitment
I always recruit soldiers en masse and sack or sacrifice the useless ones, it pays off nicely to start out with good stats and improve from there rather than having to train up mediocre stats. Once I get MC tech I do another recruiting spree, this time being more tolerant of lower stats if MC stats are good. It's crucial to have a good MC squad for base missions.

[uberfish]

Uberfish and Meiz are more typical recruits and are set to work scrubbing the base floors with toothbrushes.

Obvious case of misidentification, will be renamed/deleted next time I play a turn... I gave all the soldiers named after turn players good stats

Anyway that was another well played terror mission with good grenade use. Aquatoid terror raids can get very nasty if the aliens get ahead early, but their own morale is poor so getting aggressive after a good start to the mission was the right play. Shame we didn't get a Deep One mission.

Welcome aboard Catwalk, we could obviously use another player atm. TFTD isn't even playable without the scout-sniper and scout-grenade tactics you mentioned imo, alien accuracy and reactions are just too good You're welcome to try a video report if you want.

As for mass hire and fire - we don't have the cash atm because we rushed to double labs and are trying to scrape up a transmission resolver. Just use the mediocre troops as scouts, if they survive a few missions they tend to improve anyway

[Meiz]

Obvious case of misidentification, will be renamed/deleted next time I play a turn...

Yes, obviously (you did include me, right? )

[Krill]

Woot, three kills. One of them was a civilian, but I'm not choosy.

[antisocialmunky]

Wow that was nicely done. No casualties except civs

[Mardoc]

Yes, excellent play. Given how early I joined the crew, I was sure I'd be dead by now.

Sounds like I'm both a good shot and a psychic weakling; I look forward to the day I murder a million XCOMmies...I mean, dang, that will be a horrible tragedy of a day.