XCOM adventures 1 · 7:26pm May 3rd, 2016
Now, sadly, I doubt I'll be up for the narrative amusement that others have managed. Yet I do hope that some of this will amuse some of you. Today just some introductions. I got most of the ponies from the post over on Equestria Daily. Though I have tweaked and changed things here and there. Most of the FimFiction peoples I grabbed from the helpful MrNumbers. Though most of the review folks are my own work. Which was tricky as I wanted comedy but didn't want to offend. I also started the game a few times until I got a starting squad I liked. About a third (maybe just a quarter) of my current soldier pool is other online friends, mostly from a furry muck I spend less time on these days. I wanted primarily ponies for this game, so just started a new game until I got a squad I liked. We will see how the army turns out after more recruits.
Anyway, the first mission had four soldiers blowing up a giant gaudy statue for glory. No other reason really.
Big Mac was wounded in the line of duty and got promoted to Field Medic.
Also wounded in the line of duty and promoted to Operative, a sniper/hacker class.
Not wounded, but a terrible shot. Which apparently means we promote her and give her a minigun and explosives.
Promoted to Sabotuer, sneaky hacky guy. Not what we expected from a knight, but as you can imagine XCOM can't be picky. We consider it lucky to recruit someone who is intelligent enough to know how to both hide and use a computer.
Most of the pony bios are a bit on the mean side, but they are mostly fictional so it doesn't bother me as much. There may be some tweaking as things continue. Or I might just sacrifice the troubling ones for brief tactical advantages. One of the things tactical/strategic video games have taught me is that I should never be given the power of life and death over other creatures.
I'm sure Horizon would assure us that he has no idea what caused the previous XCOM mission he was on to fail so catastrophically, but nobody can seem to find him at the moment for comment and all the communication lines on the base seem to be tied up for some reason. Oh well. Back to mission planning.
The current full lineup of soldiers ready to die at my command:
As mentioned elsewhere, our starting Engineer is a Ms Applejack. Who is staying home to handle the maintenance and day-to-day tasks while her brother Big Mac goes out to save the world on a regular basis. In the week after the first mission she cleared out a room and immediately started building new equipment there. Hopefully when she's done she'll let us know what the heck the room is for.
I can assure you that, were I to assure you of anything, my reassurances would assuredly be those assured by the uttered assurances.
Also, Operative makes all the sense.
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The funny thing is that it's letting me have duplicates of soldiers from my pool. So I'm toying with the idea of an all horizon team.
Until then, you are getting sent out on missions with Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle.
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So the squad is... not a changeling, not an egghead, not a chicken, and not a robot?
(Also, you (with an assist from a recent reminder of Arad's Stardust) have done something rare: you've gotten me play a video game! Well, the XCOM Enemy Unknown Demo, anyway. It seemed like the game itself would be pretty fun, though honestly, your recaps are more amusing to me)
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That's cool. Hope you enjoy it. Xcom2 is a better game by a moderate margin, but a lot of that comes from the fact that they fixed a lot of the really annoying flaws in the first one.
And yep about the squad. I just got five people teams, so Cadance's is now also a member of Team Pony (and horizon). Hmmm.. I don't have a Chris in the soldier pool yet. I should fix that so I'll have someone else to put in Team Review when I bump it up to six people.
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I am perfectly fine with this. Just make sure Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle are the meat shields.
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The theory is that the enemy will be so confused by what we aren't that they won't be able to figure out that we're enemies until it's too late. Unfortunately, I am insufficiently non-wounded to declare this theory a success.
Also, there is tree sap in my everything.
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The operative class has a sniper rifle and a gremlin. You are perfectly equipped to never have to get near anything you interact with, shooting or hacking. Scootaloo has a sword and Sweetie Belle is a medic. So not meat shields, but so far you've emerged unscathed in missions where much of the rest of the team has been wounded.
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I am even more fine with this.
Though if you do send out an all-Horizon team, I will absolutely require screenshots.
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The only tricky bit is I'm pretty sure I can only get two, maybe three, duplicates. So filling out a entire team might be tough.