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Fenn

With the advent of OpenXcom making it easy to play the 1994 classic X-COM: UFO Defense, I've been having a lot of fun playing this game for the first time, and have beaten it on the normal difficulty setting. For this AAR, I'm going to kick it up a notch:
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Max difficulty, no reloading - if a mission ends in total failure (and they will), if the aliens destroy one of our bases, I have to tough it out and keep fighting. Lurkers are welcome to post comments or advice, and to have soldiers named after them, though I will make no guarantees as to your namesake's lifespan. smile

Lastly, there's previously been an SG of the vanilla X-COM done back in 2011 - I encourage you to check it out, it's very entertaining. I will be going with a few small modifications for my run, for the sake of keeping things fresh for myself.

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Fenn · November 13th, 2016, 21:58

Part 0 - Setup and the First Base
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Let's get started:
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First off, the game prompts you to place your first base, free of charge. Some regions tend to see more alien activity than others, and lots of UFOs pass by the Arctic on the way to their destinations, but anyplace with lots of land coverage will do. Here I'm placing the base on Crete; the smallest circle indicates the initial detection range, so this location covers most of Europe as well as parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East

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Your first base comes well-equipped, including two Interceptors; the only facility missing is a Large Radar, which isn't necessary quite yet, and Alien Containment, which I order up right away in addition to a second General Stores and Living Quarters. You don't need to capture aliens to recover their weapons in this game, but you do need to interrogate live aliens for a few things.

Equip Craft lets you assign soldiers and equipment to dropships like the Skyranger, or armaments to your Interceptors. Both Interceptors come armed with a Stingray launcher (cheap mid-range missiles) and a Cannon (cheap short-range gun). We start the game with an extra Avalanche launcher (long-range missiles) and ammo, so one of the Interceptors will swap it for its Cannon in case we run into any larger UFOs early on.

Manufacture allows you to manage your Engineers, but we don't have anything to build just yet - we need to research something first.

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This screen shows basic statistics about our current base. I'm already running up against the storage limit, and that's without buying anything yet!

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We begin the game with eight brave soldiers. The Skyranger can accomodate up to fourteen operatives and turnover is high, so we'll be hiring more right away.

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I purchase what supplies I can; the rest will have to wait until the new General Stores are built in ten days. Ten soldiers and twelve scientists are also hired, filling up our Living Quarters as well.

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Lastly I should assign my ten scientists to something. Laser Weapons are available for research from the get-go and are very strong, but I prefer to start with Motion Scanners; eight Scientists get on that and the remaining two start on Medi-kits. The twelve incoming scientists will join them in a couple of days.

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Housekeeping done for now, it's back to the globe view. From here we can advance time and wait for UFO detections, send aircraft on missions, check graphs of UFO activity around the world, and build new bases. I still have $2 million lying around, so I put up a second base up in Canada for $800,000:

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This one gets just a Large Radar and a Hangar for now, since those take a while to build. Until I can pony up the cash for General Stores and Living Quarters, this place will simply provide radar coverage for North America.

Now we wait. Every radar station in a base will regularly UFOs within their range; aircraft out on patrol can also detect UFOs, if they're close enough.

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Several days go by with no news; looking at the graphs, there is indeed activity in Europe our scanners haven't picked up on, but it looks like Siberia's seeing the most of it. I send an Interceptor to patrol the area, but it can't find anything after several trips.

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Weeks pass. Research on Motion Scanners (can detect units that moved in the last turn) and Medi-kits completes.

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Finally, on the 21st of January, we detect a landed UFO in Europe. Landed UFOs have more intact alien goodies than the ones you've shot down, but more aliens too, and they can take off at any time.

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The Skyranger gets sent to the landing site immediately. This is going to be a night mission which isn't ideal, but going a whole month without attacking any UFOs can't look good for X-COM. Nothing to do but bring flares and hope for the best.

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Fenn

Part 01 - UFO Assault

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It's pitch black and we start out facing a building. Could be aliens in there. Bobchillingworth, rocketeer and our current strongest agent, throws a flare to check.

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Indeed, there was an alien in there! Farewell Bobchillingworth.

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Now we need to get rid of this Sectoid. AdrienIer might be able to throw a frag grenade through the window if he drops his flare first.

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Unhappily, he isn't able to get an angle from inside the Skyranger, and after stepping forward to get a better one the Sectoid wastes him in two shots. Now we have a primed grenade on the ramp - oops.

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This agent manages to pick up the grenade, and after a few steps manages to throw the grenade right on top of the Sectoid, where will explode at the end of our turn. Good work! There might be more Sectoids out there though, so Dp101 throws down a smoke grenade to provide some concealment and everyone else stays in the Skyranger.

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Luckily, the Sectoid dies from the grenade, and nothing happens on the enemy turn aside from mysterious door-opening noises.

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Stepping out of the Skyranger, it quickly becomes apparent that the pilot saw fit to land right next to the UFO. Small wonder we had a Sectoid so close! We spread out and start throwing flares around to improve our vision, and Dp101 spots another Sectoid lurking in a farmhouse. Dp's out of Time Units though, so somebody else will have to handle this.

Pal Bocklin has a Heavy Cannon loaded with explosive rounds; maybe he can blow up the wall?

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He did one better - a direct hit through a window off of a 28% hit chance! Nice shooting. Everyone else runs out of the Skyranger and does their best to spread out.

During the alien Turn 3, we hear something opening a barn door. Meanwhile a Sectoid steps out of the UFO and shoots...
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The agent that avenged Bobchillingworth. We don't have any Medikits yet, so Krystyna will probably perish.

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This guy got shot too, but managed to stay conscious. He's fatally wounded - taking 3 damage per turn - and will bleed out soon, so Mr.Duffy gets to scout for those Sectoids.

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Two Sectoids! Nothing a rocket can't handle:
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We know there's at least one Sectoid still outside the UFO, so we can't relax yet. The squad will split into three groups; two will circle around the UFO from the north and south, while the third will start sweeping the UFO from the north door. The south door gets trapped with a Proximity Grenade, just in case.

Duffy falls unconscious at the start of Turn 4, soon to expire for good. Meanwhile the door team opens the north door to find another Sectoid:
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Luckily he's facing away from us, and Ahmed Hussain takes him down with a burst of rifle fire. Turn 4 ends uneventfully, and Turn 5 opens with Krystyna Lewandowska's demise.

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This time, the entryway is clear - good thing too, DP101 was about to pass out from breathing in all the smoke outside.

The search continues on Turn 6. The next room looks empty, and Dp101's Motion Scanner doesn't pick up any aliens in there, so the breach team piles up next to the door.

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But in the north, our other rocketeer spies a Sectoid hiding in a garden. One of our shotgunners has a frag grenade handy and throws it at the Sectoid's feet, killing it next turn.

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Opening this door again, we find a Sectoid this time. Pal Bockin's close enough to use his Stun Rod and take it alive; will he succeed?

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No.

Luckily, shooting Pal ran the Sectoid out of TUs, and Lenie van de Berg manages to stun the alien. Dp101s's scanner picks up no more motion, so the UFO might be clear...

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A turn of searching later, and this Sectoid takes a potshot at a soldier, thankfully missing. We have two soldiers nearby, but one doesn't have a grenade and the other (by the house) prepss one but can't throw it far enough, so Ilaria here goes for an Aimed shot. It hits, but the Sectoid stays standing.

Illaria retreats into the smoke and the Sectoid doesn't shoot back on his turn; after some searching we have contact again. Ilaria goes for a 3-shot burst but misses all three, so the agent with the grenade throws his.

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The Sectoid blows up nicely, but there's still one more hiding in that building somewhere...

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While moving towards that corner to help out, an agent accidentally steps on the Proximity Grenade I left by the south UFO door. smoke

She's killed instantly and Dp101 is knocked unconscious. If I don't end the mission soon, he's probably going to die too.

Next turn we see the Sectoid leave the building. Our rocketeer tries to fire at it, but, well:
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He misses.

Our riflewoman Ilaria takes an Aimed shot but misses. Nobody else is in range to fire, leaving the Sectoid free to shoot at us as he pleases.

Surprisingly, he only shot twice at our shotgunner and missed both times; Toke Loyen ducks down and shoots the Sectoid, which really was the last one:

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Mission complete! And only the blood of seven agents needed to grease the wheels of victory.

Fenn · November 13th, 2016, 22:10

For the record, Dp101 did survive his ordeal:
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Though he'll be out of action for some time.

Quagma Blast · November 13th, 2016, 23:32

Fenn Wrote:Part 01 - UFO Assault

It's pitch black and we start out facing a building. Could be aliens in there. Bobchillingworth, rocketeer and our current strongest agent, throws a flare to check.

Indeed, there was an alien in there! Farewell Bobchillingworth.

Welcome to XCOM!

Quote:
Mission complete! And only the blood of seven agents needed to grease the wheels of victory.

Welcome to Earth, where we'll kick your ass even if we have to let you chop off our arm to do it!

I'll sign up to get killed a rookie named after me if you need it. Godspeed.

haphazard1 · November 14th, 2016, 05:14

Good stuff, Fenn! thumbsup

Please add me to the roster of future casualties. lol

As one of the players in that 2011 SG, it is good to see the classic version of the game still getting some love. I enjoy the modern Firaxis XCOMS, but they are quite different games from the original. The much larger numbers of deployable soldiers makes for a very different feel -- losing several soldiers on a mission is not the near-certain disaster it generally is in the modern versions.

Good luck, commander!

Molach · November 14th, 2016, 14:03

Good report. Landed large scout at night without any new weapons is probably _the_ hardest possible first mission. Good job on only 50% casulties.

I always went for laser weapons ASAP last time around...laser rifle x10 was then for a long time the squad loadout.

I see your home base is defensible. Must be a change in the new version(enemies enter through access lift and hangars, so here you have a nice bottleneck to slay them in. Are there any other changes here?

Having a soldier named Molach is good luck on any mission...

Fenn · November 14th, 2016, 15:53

Glad you all like it so far!

OpenXcom has an option to allow you to customize your initial base layout, which is what I did and neglected to mention. Otherwise I would have spent the first month dismantling the base and rebuilding it in a more sane fashion.

RefSteel · November 14th, 2016, 15:54

Yay, original X-Com!

I'd be proud to help defend humankind again and/or die horribly in the attempt!

Fenn

Part 2 - Base Management

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