XCom Files Episode 6: I am scared and confused · 5:34pm Mar 10th, 2016
We suffer our first death at XCom.
It's not who you think.
"This seems reckless, you know?"
"What do you mean?"
"We've already made contact. We're a resistance organization, though. Like, just talking to you is a huge risk for us. Having you fly a military vehicle to and from your large, covert base of operations seems like the stupidest possible way to go about a formality like a handshake. What if they track you? I mean, you can defend yourselves, but-"
"OH HEY LOOK AT THE TIME WE BETTER GO"
"Wait, aren't you going to give us weapons so we can defend ourselves?"
"HA HA NOT IN THE BUDGET WE'LL KEEP IN CONTACT."
Yeah. X-Com 2 has some serious plot holes.
Alright.
Alright so we better do something about that whole... "Mass harvesting of humanity for its genetic material and turning the excess into delicious burgers".
Ariamaki: "Yo, Mags. Glad to see you're back up and running."
Magello: "I was not coma. I just needed good nap. Feel much better now. Need to stretch legs."
MrNumbers: "So you guys are cool if I tag along, right?"
Galahad: "I'll cover you. Just follow my lead, my liege."
Ariamaki: "None of us have got a scratch, anyway, and we're frontline infantry. You fuck."
MrNumbers: "I'm sorry, would you like to go help Aragon sweep up? Wait- didn't you sneak onto the last mission?"
Ariamaki: "Hehe. Yeah. That was fun."
MrNumbers: "Serifina?"
Serifina: "Hrrm?"
MrNumbers: "I apologize for thinking you were just a whining nutcase in all your mission reports."
Serifina: "... thanks, boss?"
OPERATION BROODING THUNDER: THIS IS THE PART WHERE EVERYTHING GOES WRONG
MrNumbers: "Wait, did anybody else just get the worst sense of foreboding?
MrNumbers: "Huh. Hey, this looks kind of fun, actually. Like the old playgrounds back in Sydney."
Magello: "Australian playgrounds are made of lasers and death?"
Ariamaki: "I fucking knew it"
MrNumbers: "You know what? This might be kind of fun. Let's do this!"
"Right flank building clear"
"I'll check left"
"Safe as houses, push ahead slowly, try not to break cover."
"Everyone in position? I'm going to scout high."
Magello: "No... I am the death from above"
"You know... I have the strangest feeling we're not seeing something..."
AAARRGHH OH JESUS CHRIST HOW DOES A TURRET SNEAK UP ON YOU?!
"No."
MrNumbers: "... no?"
Magello: "For as long as man has looked upon the bird he has dreamed of flight. To see from the perspective of God himself. To watch with impassive glory over the kingdoms surrounding him, and to be untouched by them, for he is but ether defying gravity's surly bonds."
Galahad: "Oh, hey, Mags, you mind helping me with this?"
Magello: "Then we chanced upon the eagle and the hawk. Our wiliest hunters trained them, talon and beak, to rip and sunder even mighty wolves, to goad and to track. The power of speed and flight enabled these creatures, our winged brethren, to take down predators far larger and more powerful than themselves. But they were no match for the cunning and ferocity of an aerial predator."
Magello: "From the Great War we learned just how vastly significant the aerial advantage could be at clearing the fog of war. In World War 2 the Battle of Britain was fought not over the lands, but the skies themselves. The first Desert Storm is said to have been won and lost in hours, the first war won solely by air superiority. It is here we are confronted by an intelligence that surpasses the skies themselves, and travels through what lies beyond them. And they have been our downfall."
"But burn the lands and boil the seas, because you can't take the skies from me!"
Serifina: "What... what the actual eff just happened right now?"
MrNumbers: "Did Magello just quote Firefly?"
Magello: "Do not be ridiculous. Fireflies don't talk."
Okay, call me crazy, but I don't think that little speech of yours was enough to kill it. Just a thought. Maybe.
It's on overwatch fellas. I might not be able to pierce the armor but...
... I can still crack that whip, lads.
God I love Lightning Hands. I used to be so dubious about the pistol side of the Sharpshooter track, but I made a pistollero build once and I'm starting to appreciate just how insane their kill economy can get. For when you just need to finish something off without losing your chance to do some real damage.
"At least it's safe to advance now. I don't have a clear enough shot to do anything else.
"Човек , како глуп мораш бити послати официра на прве линије фронта ?"
Translation: "Hey, you kids aren't supposed to be here. This used to be a nice neighbourhood!"
Magello: "His pointing powers are so majestic..."
MrNumbers: "Ah, Serifina? Little help?"
WHY DID YOU MOVE SO FAR AHEAD YOU STUPID IDIOT
I saw every little bit of fog of war around these two arseholes, and thought Serifina was closer than she was. I didn't expect a pod reveal here. This was my first mistake.
"Well. Struth."
Well, mate, looks like you caught me with my daks down, and here I am without my Bowie knife.
"IT IS TIME FOR GOOD OLD FASHIONED DOGFIGHT."
"Stop shooting! Stop shooting! It's easier to dodge a sword than friendly fire!"
Magello: "You can dodge swords? I try to catch them between my pecs."
Ariamaki: "And we all know how well that worked out for you."
Magello: "Yes. Week off in bed with combat pay."
Serifina: "... oh you bastard."
Magello: "You are just jealous of my museum of sexy scars."
"If you muppets are finished?"
Those numbers are why I love sharpshooters.
"Yeah, I'm a bit out of practice with the fencing anyway."
"No, no, don't get up, I'll grab you a cold one from the eski, how's that?"
"Moving into an elevated position to get his 'mate' and... oh, ah. Hi. Hey there. Hello."
"Sssssssssalutationsssss"
"WHY DOES THAT SNAKE HAVE TITS AND A RIFLE? WHY TITS AND A RIFLE?"
MrNumbers: "Let's face it, that was bound to be someone's fetish."
Ariamaki: "Actually, I'd love to use her as a blow-up doll. Observe the blowing up process I'd use."
"Sorry, that was only a flashbang, if you want some deeper penetration I'll frag you all night long, though, baby"
"I am flying like Buzz Lightyear! Falling with style!"
Serifina: "The entire human race is in danger why are you the best it has to offer?"
Blue Paladin, Maki and Mags: "We have the biggest guns."
"You and me have faceoff now. You had face, now it is off."
"Gasp! The other officer is pointing at me!"
"Hey, Galahad, there's another sword bloke faffing about up here. Us snipers gotta stick together, right, mat-"
"Sorry, sir, but I can't follow you where you're going."
"Reckon I can at least honour that last request of yours, sir"
Magello: "For now we do not kill. Let us take a minute of silence for our fallen commander."
Ariamaki: "I don't think they're gunna let us, I'm sorry to say."
"SHHHH. SHHHH. SHHH. WE ARE MOURNING"
"I WILL SHOOT YOUR TITS OFF"
"I suppose I ought to do my part to shutting them up for our minute's silence. You know. Out of respect."
"Oh, uh, hey, baby, normally I love it when you slip me a little tongue, but I'm kind of in the middle of something here, 'kay?"
"I don't have a clear shot, lads?"
Magello: "Have I taught you nothing?!"
"Well, I mean..."
Magello: "The deadliest bullet is the bullet they do not see coming!"
"Oh yeah? What about just all the bullets in the world?"
Magello: "Is matter of luck."
"Maybe when we get that railgun tech, I'll manage to get a gun where the shots go in the direction the barrel is pointing."
"Is the snake with the giant mammaries dead yet? Is it safe to come down now?"
"OH SHIT HI, HELLO, YES, HI, I DON'T WANT WHAT YOU'RE SELLING SIR."
"Shhhh. Shhhhh. Shhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhh."
"Oh shit he's gone door-to-door salesman on me!
UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHERFUCKER!
"I ssssenssse a great disssturbancccce in the forccce..."
"OH GOD THERE'S MORE OF THEM I SEE THEM CHANGING TARGET"
That's my explanation for Serifina missing this shot and I'm sticking to it.
"You know what I've decided? God does not play dice. And he gave the all clear to the Old Testament, so you know he doesn't aim his standards high."
"Serifina, pick your target and stick to it."
"Deep breaths, keep your focus, measured responses-"
Serifina: "Oh, go suck a lemon, Prince Charming."
"Is picking all the targets an option? Because if it wasn't before I'm making it one now."
Beep
Oh fuck, okay, I'm not done killing these fucks downstairs and it turns out moving up just one more tile was enough to trigger another turret.
"Okay, okay I can do this. One at a time. No more snake ladies. Just two hybrid abominations and a giant railgun turret. Piece of cake."
"Hey! Hey, yeah, I got him! Guys did you see that? I got him?"
"I could not see. There was too much things in way. I will clear up. You do it again and I'll watch this time!"
"Okay Serifina I can see now you do it again and I will watch!"
Ariamaki: "Oh, good, just when this was starting to get boring."
"Serifina! Serifina shoot them now. Now, Serifina, I am watching. Serifina? Seri-
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-
Not just kill economy. Their AOE options are pretty fucking nutso as you head towards the back of the tree.
XCom 2 really delivered on the "lets not make most options suck" front. Building a pistol Sniper in XCom 1 was possible but it was an idiotic thing to do, a gimmick build; an actual SNIPER Sniper was so much better. Not the case with the Sharpshooter.
This was your most X-Comy X-Com mission to date. Missing a 90% shot? Yup. Accidentally triggering pod after pod after pod? Yup. Guy in cover, in an elevated position, getting picked off because fuck you human, that's why? Yup.
Depending on how turn order was going I feel like you also might have made one of the classic errors at the tail end there; you had Serifina shoot, then launched a 'nade at the dudes. "Correct" play usually dictates doing it the other way around if you're going to 'nade, because grenades remove a lot of cover, which increases crit chance, so Serafina's follow-up shot would have had a higher chance of murdering a dude. They also occasionally do four damage rather than three, so there was a non-trivial chance it might have actually killed that trooper outright, allowing Serafina to take a shot at the lancer, possibly killing him.
I think, anyway. I might be off here.
EDITED TO ADD: Oh! You probably assumed Serifina was going to kill the trooper (a 66% chance) outright and you wouldn't need to toss in a frag at all.
3801378
Exactly. I'm only halfway through this mission and, if you remember correctly, I was intending to save it for the first MEC unit showing up.
Things just keep going downhill from here, which is why I called it a part there.
... well... shit.
3801390 Thankfully, unlike its predecessor, XCom 2 doesn't completely dick you over if you're less than flawless. Even on Legendary it just sort of assumes dudes are gonna die and balances around that as acceptable gameplay.
And hey, could be worse. I think you're hitting this place early enough there's literally no chance of Mutons. Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't run afoul of more Sectoids yet, although I think there's always a two-pack or better of them guaranteed to be hanging out with the vial.
Ah, that was fun! Serifina's reaction to a pod with Snaketits is about what I expected.
RIP MrNumbers.
At least you still get to be the silent protagonist.
Man those slight over-extensions (even by one tile) really ended up tearing you a new one on this mission. I think this is why some people don't do the Blacksite mission until they have a couple exo suits so they can heavy weapon the shit out of whatever the most powerful enemies are.
That strategy can work, but you run the risk of higher tier enemies spawning. On my original bronzeman Commander run I waited to see how long I could put off doing the Blacksite (basically indefinitely). If you wait long enough, you'll be getting the same late-game bastards as you do in other missions. Sectopods, Gatekeepers, pods with 3 Andromedons/3 Archons. Fun stuff.
3801398
Well, it's just like you said. In my experience they're usually around the vial, he wouldn't have hit them yet. Also, wouldn't count out the Mutons just yet. I was right around the same level of Numbers' progress (I think I'd had enough supplies to outfit my rangers with shardguns) and there was a Muton+2 Pectoid pack in between the vial and the extraction point.
BLACK HAWK DOWN MAN GAME OVER GAME OVER
Dude, fuck turrets.
They were the worst
Also, I always imagined that you dumped all of your obselete stuff for resistance guys to find whenever you did a supply depot
3801423 You know, is it wrong that I actually kinda like turrets?
They're hackable. They're so easy to hit. Their range is easily predictable and evaded, although on a timed mission they can force unhappy routing choices. They explode real nice.
But mostly, I love them because I love the Defense Matrix.
Huh. And all this time I expected Serifina and her penchant for fear-hating everything that doesn't remotely look human to bite it first. oh well. RIP Numbers, we hardly got to see ye fire yon weapon.
3801490 I super neglected hacking my first play through or I might feel the same. Most of my specialists were medics
In my introduction, you compared me to Agent Smith. I feel it therefore appropriate to look at your corpse and quietly say:
"Goodbye, Mr. Numbers."
(That's your cue to mysteriously resurrect and stop bullets with your
debug modemind!)I kind of expected it will be you who will die the moment you character popped up.
Rant:
Also, the Gulf war was mostly won cus of GPS, albeit air superiority helped a lot as well. You cannot win a war from only the air. I think the only war that was won solely by air power was the second world war with the nukes.
Rant over.
We all know what truly happened. No need to protect her from her just judgement.
Welp, the game is coming up on an existential crisis now. Guess the wacky guerrilla organization sitcom is over...
Not looking good for Serfina either. D: C'mon guys! Fight!
3801641
No. That was Magello that got zapped into unconsciousness...
Snek
i.imgur.com/7RKlg94.jpg
3801685
imgur doesn't love us anymore.
3801652 And it is fortunate it was him and not Seri, because (and I don't know if this is what you did or not) Seri can use Revival Protocol to pick Magello right up, then he can shoot, and then she can also shoot because Revival Protocol only uses one action and does not end your turn.
3801693
Got it in one
3801579
It depends on what you mean by "winning a war", really.
World War II was NOT won from the air. The nukes ENDED the war, but a huge amount of air, sea, and land battles lead up to that point.
The Gulf War, the objective was to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait. Air power was a huge part of that and was utterly crushing for the Iraqi military. We also had tanks which they couldn't destroy.
The US lost a whopping 148 soldiers in beating the Iraqi military during Desert Storm. It was one of the most lopsided wars in history. 24% of our losses were due to friendly fire.
Then again, that has pretty much been the US military's MO in the Middle East - we take comically tiny numbers of casualties and crush them militarily.
3802024 It kind of always depends on viewpoint, but during the first gulf war the laughable losses were mostly due to GPS and the ability to navigate accurately through the desert (thought impossible due to it being a wide expanse of featureless plains), thus flanking the entire country and catching the army flat-footed.
Also the US have more modern equipment and more war experience under its belt, of course it can flatten some obsolete middle-eastern army with no problems.
And about the air force. It alone can never win a war. Yes it can be rather useful to have air superiority and just do whatever you want, but in the end you will need ground troops to gain any ground.
3802089
There's a difference between an offensive and a defensive war.
If someone is hammered so badly that they're forced to fall back, you can win a war from the air.
The problem is that if they are in their own territory, it is difficult to actually force them further back.
That said, you can wreck them pretty badly to the point where they want to surrender.
The problem is that if someone refuses to surrender, you're kind of SOL.
In Japan, the Japanese government surrendered for the good of the country.
In Germany, Hitler refused to surrender, but after he died, what was left of the military was willing to do it for the good of the country.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, their leaders went to ground and refused to surrender because they didn't give a damn about the good of the country, just of their own group winning.
If you're fighting someone who is truly interested in the good of their nation, you can win a war from the air.
The problem is, a lot of the people who seem to fight these days don't give a damn about that.
D:
Your people need to use more explosions. *nods sagely*
THiNGS DO NOT SEEM TO BE GOING WELL FOR OUR PLUCKY YOUNG HEROES
and by that I mean me
and by that I mean fuckfuckfuck don't let me die yet
3801504 I kinda expected to die first, honestly. My second guess was MrNumbers.
3802139 the germans surrendered at the point where most of their country was conquered by allied forces. Whereas the english didnt surrender despite huge losses of life. Air force can make it easier for your ground forces, but the only instance where air strikes won a modern war was japan.
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw1931-132449479479.png
SHIT
JUST
GOT
REAL
3802374 Hey, look at the good side! If the mod recycles the dead, you can say you were resurrected by magic. Into a rookie. Who can maybe at that time will become a psi operative. So, magic.
Does this mod recycles the dead?
3802682
lizardtits69
pbs.twimg.com/media/CYZzyycWwAAketz.png
Porn when?
3803031 Actually that was my first reaction when I saw them.
Then I just realized those are just simple chest plates. I had no Idea why they have no armor anywhere else.
Then I checked the artwork and realized I was totally wrong. Those are really tits. What the hell?
Also, to answer your question: This is the internet. It was probably created the moment they popped up in the announcement trailer:D
Do not worry. I cannot die, even when killed.