Let's Play UFO: Aftermath

[CaiusWickersham]

Well, you wanted to be a scout.

Also, it doesn't help you're near the front of the group and thus you're on the front lines for the close encounters of the suicide bomber kind.

[FaxModem1]

(I'm not complaining. I am amazed he is still alive, though.)

[LaCroix]

"No Sir, you can't pass, there is still one person eating in the mess," the armored guard in front of the door said as the Chief of engineering demanded that his team were allowed entry.

"What? The mess seats fifty!"

"Orders from above. The mess is to serve only one person at a time until we get new orders. Same with the lavatories. All guards are autorized to use any non-lethal force necessary to enforce these orders," the grunt replied with a grin that dared the man in front of him to 'make his day'.

"I want to see that order! Who signed it?" The man raged. This base was sealed, and it wasn't as if they just could take a stroll to the next deli - they would be severely inconvenienced by that arrangements.

"Director LaCroix signed it. He told us to answer all questions towards it with the following words: 'All parts of a base are required to perform at equal standards.' "

[CaiusWickersham]

Afterblank is much more forgiving than XCOM in soldier casualties (we also had a bit of a bumper crop thanks to the Goodwill Mission). It also helps that transgenants typically don't shoot to kill.

[FaxModem1]

Hearing about Director's LaCroix's new orders regarding facility use, Gumbo was glad it wasn't applying to the on base clinic, at least not so far. He was conscious, and recovering from whatever...weapon the aliens used. Alone with his thoughts, he started to wonder how the autopsied aliens would taste with jambalaya.

[CaiusWickersham]

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COE FT GOOD HOPE

Gumbo and his fellow crewmate rest up from their exposure to Twilight spores courtesy of a sporeblower. Phoenix Company get paged out for a pilot recovery, leaving Gumbo as the only man in infirmary. An orderly comes by, scribbles something on his chart and leaves. A few hours later, two MPs come by, "We got a GOHMER here. What can we do with him?"
"He's soldier eligible, give him to that weirdo drill sergeant."

Gumbo's got solider and sniper training now since I don't like leaving soldiers idle. I've got more troops than I know what to do with and that means guys get rotated for training. Our bases have yielded up some sniper rifles -- Remington 700s and a PSG-1. Sniper rifles have a lot of power behind them, magazines hold a lot of shots, and a good marksman can hit a target from across the map if there's line of sight. Taking a base in Newfoundland showed off the sniper's worth by killing two morelmen from down a long hallway. Each took three shots rather than a quarter mag from an assault rifle.

After three days of training, Gumbo was finally put on a mission near Havana -- UFO recovery. A laboratory UFO had landed and brass wanted it intact. Before heading out, some eggheads attached a doo-hickey to their tactical vests. One of them said something about "letting them enter the UFO" as the chopper rotors went to full spin. Raelene and Wolfgang took out 4 Grays with their sniper rifles as the rest of the team made for the entry points. The devices appeared to work as they emerged in the cramped quarters of the UFO.

Phoenix Company lost its first man that day. The rookie sniper Wolfgang was killed by a Gray with one of their really powerful rifles, the ones with the green bolts. They got the UFO, but the man who helped them with several missions and capped four aliens just an hour ago was gone. The victory also helped the COE regulars secure the Havana base. Funeral services are to be arranged on arrival there.

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COE BASE HOUSTON

After finishing their assigned tasks (and doing an autopsy on the Flappers to clear up space), the science team got together their research proposals. Los Angeles sent over their proposals for final approval. Someone got an idea from researching the UFO access ports and needed approval from LaCroix to get it going. The alternatives were to keep building the enhanced light armor or start building human-sized copies of the alien armor.




Research results:


Along with a memo listing several projects:

Underneath was the comment "Which four in what order?"

[CaiusWickersham]

The atmosphere in Ft. Good Hope was heavy as Phoenix Company laid its first casualty to rest. Given the paucity of men, a recording of "Taps" was going to have to do for Wolfgang.
"All gave some, some gave all. Some stood through for the red, white and blue . . "
"Hey! I thought we were doing Taps? Who got us Billy Ray Cyrus?!"
The men of Phoenix Company looked to the offender at the stereo, "GUMBO!"

[CaiusWickersham]

The Los Angeles and Houston bases were dumbfounded at the silence from LaCroix and the department heads hastily drew up plans, figuring they'll deal with him when he decided to make new plans.
"Get the In-Base Transport project going. It'll be fast and we won't lose time with it."
"Get on the Gray autopsy, it'll only take 16 hours. After that, get some of the quickies done."




After they hummed Taps and saw Wolfgang into the furnace, the COE brass ran up to the gathered Phoenix Company, "Command has decided with no other business going on, you're heading to Area 51. Suit up."

The Area 51 mission is the first major chokepoint in the Aftermath plot. You have to do it to move everything forward eventually. It is also the first major test of your ability with the game. The base is a standard two-parter base mission, but it's crawling with aliens armed with the best weapons they have shown so far, including this little number:

This is labelled a "plasma gun" but it's more a plasma grenade launcher. It shoots a charge at your soldiers that will floor a lot of them fast if they're bunched up. If you used massed fire tactics, this will wipe out your team if you're not careful.

I promised to show off incendiary grenades and here's a great place for it. These things will blanket an area in fire and will probably KO if not outright kill a transgenant or alien standing in the fire. Given everything is pretty weak to fire, they're a great step up from regular grenades if you can get a lot of them and use them for big game. Acid grenades are just as good, blanketing an area with caustic goodness and wiping out tough transgenants and aliens quickly, but they're much more rare to find.

This is the goal of the Area 51 mission -- acquire this computer server and get it back to the entrance. The trick is carving out a path in the base and hoping there aren't too many aliens on the way there and back. The best way I can figure out to do it is get your whole party to the library entrance, get the fastest soldier with the least weight on him (that server is heavy) to the server and have him haul back with support in case some alien wanders on your path back. The server needs to get back to the entrance and everyone alive goes home.
As the soldiers took stock of their weight, Gumbo had the lightest burden of them all and had the best speed to make it back to the entrance with the minitower in his pack. They had fought past several grays to get here, spraying them with lead and high explosives. The rookie with the RPG-7s was a lifesaver, taking out three with one shot each. But he had no room with all his grenades.
The squad waited for the Cajun to get to the server farm and run back to them. As he passed, the rest peeled with him, meeting no resistance to the entrance and the Chinook beyond.
They returned with everyone alive and the information secure. The resident techs showed them their new toy -- a transporter system to take them to other bases. They were wired to every COE military base, but needed to take a Chinook to missions outside the base. Still, this would shave down mission times.
The In-base transporter tech is a good one to get quickly. Your soldiers head out to missions from the nearest military base rather than the last one they went to. With this tech, it may be best to have your border bases be military so they can launch missions beyond your borders quickly and you have a defensive perimeter for UFOs.
After cleaning up some downed UFO fighters, COE intelligence had found an alien base in northern Canada and Phoenix Company was sent to clear it out.

"Guys, it looks like it was grown here, and that part that looks like a ship seems to be the central location."

Boris, the resident Russian who had joined the team a few weeks ago, shouted, "Watch out! There's an ann-en!" He pointed to a gray when everyone looked at him with confusion.
Yeah, the accents can be bad. I have no idea why a Russian accent would turn "an alien" to "an aan-en" or however he says it. Any insight, Stas?
Amazingly, after killing several more aliens manning the base with some minor casualties (not Gumbo, for once), Phoenix Company secured the base and the COE was in a position to take Alaska or move south into central America.

The science team finished a couple more projects while waiting on LaCroix. Science finished two autopsies and Engineering had looked to the salvaged UFO hulls and figured out a way to improve the speed of the Eurofighters so they could better keep up with the UFOs and take less hits.



While interceptions are determined according to the RNG, the upgrades do help in a small way so they're worth developing.

[FaxModem1]

Gumbo started to chuckle evilly as the rest of the troops were confused at the sudden change in music, for they didn't know what his real plans were. He finally had the final ingredient for his masterpiece gumbo. It was one of the reasons he was happy to be a part of UFO: Aftermath, the availability of fresh bodies.