Welll, the big project was launching the Pilgrim One to avert another potential Ulysses Event, and after that the main focus was building the solar and microwave infrastructure to turn the Lighthouse into the power supply for the whole continent and then some.
This was one of the things you accidentally bulldozed over in the early turns; Estovakia basically said "there's no way we can supply XCOM USEA without lifting the arms restrictions, and they're getting so much results it only makes sense," Nordennavic backed you up because "fuck yeah shooting down aliens," Emmeria rolled their eyes and said "fine", and now that's why Estovakia basically isn't working under arms restrictions right now.
Nordennavic sounds like my kind of country. I am tempted to Omake this. Somehow. Or write one about some sort collaborative project between the two countries. Estovakia could definitely use a hand right now...
They returned at the end of the Lighthouse war, and their mission was to prevent a second Ulysses like impact. I doubt they would have returned without destroying or diverting the incoming asteroid, which would have been an order of magnitude easier to do because of it's distance from earth.
I know that. I'm asking because it was a 7 year long deep space mission and was interested in details, in case they encountered anything interesting in the asteroid belt or if anything interesting happened.
Nordennavic sounds like my kind of country. I am tempted to Omake this. Somehow. Or write one about some sort collaborative project between the two countries. Estovakia could definitely use a hand right now...
Hm...I'm thinking maybe a Macmillan and Albastru-Electrice collab project, now that I've read up on the subject. Seems like a pretty obvious thing to do for both companies. Possibly with XCom-Anea also involved, maybe as the monetary backer. Now the question is what the project should be. Rebuilding the Chandelier? New Aigaions, or maybe an updated design? Something completely different? All of the above? Decisions, decisions...
That being said, part of the reason why Grunder is in such disarray is because shell companies are beginning to sell off shares, certain shareholders are requesting frankly contradictory things and there are apparently dozens of different orders for any single line. Things are very confusing, so very little is actually being done.
So, how much would it take to buy out the shares they are selling, in order to take over and restructure the corporation? I mean, from what is being described, Grunder stock prices are in free fall, making them vulnerable to outright being bought out.
Yes and no; Grundergram the name exists, Grundergram the series does not.
Wellll, the real problem is that Grunder poached a lot of the UAV-45 team to help them work on the MQ-101 drones, so even if Estovakia wanted to build more UAV-45s their project leads and engineers left the project.
Noncanon, mostly because Belka's ambassadors wouldn't really be going to individual companies.
They'd be ramping up the nationalistic rhetoric to higher levels, and while spy satellite feeds are down, individual border units are beginning to report a disconcerting amount of military units moving towards the forward bases.
Yehey! Strangereal Instagram exists! I surely hope Grundergram is ok when its mother corporation Grunder is having problems.
Oh my that means that just by hiring laid off Grunder personnel we'll get the minds behind the UAV-45! Yay!
So, does that mean Welewe Game Studio didn't receive any threat in letter form from Belka in your canon? And Belka is ok with the profit sharing deal with Welewe in exchange for Belkan cooperation in making the expansion?
I'm trying to write an omake that will depend on this answer.
So, how much would it take to buy out the shares they are selling, in order to take over and restructure the corporation? I mean, from what is being described, Grunder stock prices are in free fall, making them vulnerable to outright being bought out.
Might be cheaper and easier to just buy their facilities and designs from them. If they're selling. There may be more to this whole mess than meets the eye.
Now that I know the Gründer has its roots in Belka, due to some wiki-walking for my Omake, I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't some sort of attempt by Belka to screw with everyone else and delay their war preparations, maybe while stealing some R&D personnel and sending them home to Belka in the process. What better way to sabotage your opponent's industry, than by controlling a huge chunk of it, that you can have fall apart at any time?
True, the whole mess was started by Osea. But the timing on that, coinciding with the alien landing, feels suspect. Throw in the Belkan origins, and the fact that suddenly everything is going wrong at once (shell companies selling off stock, shareholders pulling in many directions at once, etc.), and things begin to seem rather suspect, at least to someone as paranoid as I am.
If this is what's happening, it's likely that the Grey Men may not have been as thoroughly dealt with as was thought, and it may even be possible that they actually have ties to the aliens. In the newer games, the Ethereals did a lot of kidnapping in secret, for years, before revealing themselves. Maybe here they made some contact with the Belkan government, or the Grey Men, before invading in earnest. Alien psionics would go a long way to explaining how they actually managed to nearly accomplish their overly complicated schemes. And it might allow them to push Osea into bringing the hammer down on Gründer.
It's, admittedly, fairly speculative. It's based far more on my intuition for patterns in stories, and a bit of paranoia, than anything like solid evidence. I'm not even sure if it's worth investigating, at least without more clues pointing to possible foul play. Need something more solid than wild speculation to work with. Still, it might be good, since we're already likely to be keeping tabs on the former Gründer scientists, to see if any of them just drop off the grid, or "die" under mysterious circumstances, with no body found. Just in-case.
In the first X-COM game (UFO Defense) you fend off space invaders in the eponymous UFOs, take their tech, start popping their bases on Earth, then finally finish the threat off with a strike on their base on Mars, where they keep their mind controlling master brain.
In the second X-COM game (Terror From The Deep) you fend off aquatic invaders from the eponymous depths, take their tech, start popping their bases, then eventually finish the threat off with a strike on Not!R'lyeh, where they keep their mind controlling master brain.
In the third X-COM game (Apocalypse) you fend off infiltrating mind control microbes from another dimension, figure out their biology and portals, then eventually finish the threat off with a raid on their homeworld, blow up the inter dimensional gate they're using as an invasion route.
In the fourth X-COM game (Interceptor) you fend off alien rivals for the resources of space, take their tech, then eventually finish the threat off with a raid into the alternate dimension they're using as a base, where you blow up the doomsday weapon they're preparing to destroy the Earth.
In the first-person shooter X-COM spinoff (Enforcer) you're a lone combat robot fending off alien invaders during the events of the first game, taking their tech, then eventually finishing off (a part of) the threat by boarding "the mothership."
Timeskip to 2012. In the reboot X-COM game (Enemy Unknown), you fend off space invaders in the eponymous UFOs, take their tech, and eventually finish off the threat by attacking their mothership in low Earth orbit.
In the first-person shooter X-COM spinoff (The Bureau), you're a lone agent fending off alien invaders decades before the game, taking their tech, then eventually finishing off (or rather temporarily disrupting) the threat by using a reverse-engineered UFO to fly through a portal to the alien homeworld and set off a huge bomb.
In the second reboot X-COM game (simply XCOM 2), you're a planetary resistance movement fighting alien invaders who have already won. You take some of their tech, then eventually finish off the threat by attacking their main base on Earth.
...
It is, suffice to say, a rather frequent genre convention of the X-COM game series that you start off fighting hostile alien forces with inferior 'merely human' tech, then take the aliens' superior tech, then eventually finish off the threat by attacking the aliens command center, invasion portal, or other strongpoint.
In this particular quest, we know the aliens originally arrived aboard a giant asteroid-like mothership or some such.
So we will probably need to take the fight to them in space.
Wellll, the real problem is that Grunder poached a lot of the UAV-45 team to help them work on the MQ-101 drones, so even if Estovakia wanted to build more UAV-45s their project leads and engineers left the project.
Ah. Bad news. On the other hand, the good news is that now WE can try to poach them all over again.
This was one of the things you accidentally bulldozed over in the early turns; Estovakia basically said "there's no way we can supply XCOM USEA without lifting the arms restrictions, and they're getting so much results it only makes sense," Nordennavic backed you up because "fuck yeah shooting down aliens," Emmeria rolled their eyes and said "fine", and now that's why Estovakia basically isn't working under arms restrictions right now.
I mean, honestly Estovakia got a shitty deal and while I do not support the way they tried to shoot their way out of it, I'm glad to see them brought back into the international community bringing that Villain Nation Superweapon Goodness to our side of the fight.
Might be cheaper and easier to just buy their facilities and designs from them. If they're selling. There may be more to this whole mess than meets the eye.
Now that I know the Gründer has its roots in Belka, due to some wiki-walking for my Omake, I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't some sort of attempt by Belka to screw with everyone else and delay their war preparations, maybe while stealing some R&D personnel and sending them home to Belka in the process. What better way to sabotage your opponent's industry, than by controlling a huge chunk of it, that you can have fall apart at any time?
True, the whole mess was started by Osea. But the timing on that, coinciding with the alien landing, feels suspect. Throw in the Belkan origins, and the fact that suddenly everything is going wrong at once (shell companies selling off stock, shareholders pulling in many directions at once, etc.), and things begin to seem rather suspect, at least to someone as paranoid as I am.
If this is what's happening, it's likely that the Grey Men may not have been as thoroughly dealt with as was thought, and it may even be possible that they actually have ties to the aliens. In the newer games, the Ethereals did a lot of kidnapping in secret, for years, before revealing themselves. Maybe here they made some contact with the Belkan government, or the Grey Men, before invading in earnest. Alien psionics would go a long way to explaining how they actually managed to nearly accomplish their overly complicated schemes. And it might allow them to push Osea into bringing the hammer down on Gründer.
It's, admittedly, fairly speculative. It's based far more on my intuition for patterns in stories, and a bit of paranoia, than anything like solid evidence. I'm not even sure if it's worth investigating, at least without more clues pointing to possible foul play. Need something more solid than wild speculation to work with. Still, it might be good, since we're already likely to be keeping tabs on the former Gründer scientists, to see if any of them just drop off the grid, or "die" under mysterious circumstances, with no body found. Just in-case.
In the first X-COM game (UFO Defense) you fend off space invaders in the eponymous UFOs, take their tech, start popping their bases on Earth, then finally finish the threat off with a strike on their base on Mars, where they keep their mind controlling master brain.
In the second X-COM game (Terror From The Deep) you fend off aquatic invaders from the eponymous depths, take their tech, start popping their bases, then eventually finish the threat off with a strike on Not!R'lyeh, where they keep their mind controlling master brain.
In the third X-COM game (Apocalypse) you fend off infiltrating mind control microbes from another dimension, figure out their biology and portals, then eventually finish the threat off with a raid on their homeworld, blow up the inter dimensional gate they're using as an invasion route.
In the fourth X-COM game (Interceptor) you fend off alien rivals for the resources of space, take their tech, then eventually finish the threat off with a raid into the alternate dimension they're using as a base, where you blow up the doomsday weapon they're preparing to destroy the Earth.
In the first-person shooter X-COM spinoff (Enforcer) you're a lone combat robot fending off alien invaders during the events of the first game, taking their tech, then eventually finishing off (a part of) the threat by boarding "the mothership."
Timeskip to 2012. In the reboot X-COM game (Enemy Unknown), you fend off space invaders in the eponymous UFOs, take their tech, and eventually finish off the threat by attacking their mothership in low Earth orbit.
In the first-person shooter X-COM spinoff (The Bureau), you're a lone agent fending off alien invaders decades before the game, taking their tech, then eventually finishing off (or rather temporarily disrupting) the threat by using a reverse-engineered UFO to fly through a portal to the alien homeworld and set off a huge bomb.
In the second reboot X-COM game (simply XCOM 2), you're a planetary resistance movement fighting alien invaders who have already won. You take some of their tech, then eventually finish off the threat by attacking their main base on Earth.
...
It is, suffice to say, a rather frequent genre convention of the X-COM game series that you start off fighting hostile alien forces with inferior 'merely human' tech, then take the aliens' superior tech, then eventually finish off the threat by attacking the aliens command center, invasion portal, or other strongpoint.
In this particular quest, we know the aliens originally arrived aboard a giant asteroid-like mothership or some such.
So we will probably need to take the fight to them in space.
I'm not disagreeing, though. Just being my usual pedantic self. You're kinda preaching to the choir, here. My main disagreement with you is about how we build our space ships, and where. Not that we won't need them. Thanks for the data on older XCom games though.
I mean, honestly Estovakia got a shitty deal and while I do not support the way they tried to shoot their way out of it, I'm glad to see them brought back into the international community bringing that Villain Nation Superweapon Goodness to our side of the fight.
And I'm doing my part to help, with the Omake I'm still polishing up (it's honestly ready enough to be posted, I guess, but I'm not entirely satisfied with it. Needs more of...something. Just not sure what, exactly.). Also, Macmillan Heavy Industries is definitely edging into the "villain" territory too, IMO. Wiki indicates they may have ties to the black market and be engaged in human cloning research. Amongst the many, many other things they do. So them and A-E working together is a fun idea. Especially with XCom's backing.
Also, my Omake will feature a cameo from someone most people probably won't recognize, unless they have a really good memory for names, and read a lot of fluff in games. Also, I may have found a form of solution to our lack of ground-based "Aces". Though the term "hero unit" kind of applies better, here...
The main issue is that, unless "Belkan plots" are considered serious by people like Long Caster, I don't know that we can justify that sort of paranoia, IC.
The main issue is that, unless "Belkan plots" are considered serious by people like Long Caster, I don't know that we can justify that sort of paranoia, IC.
Long Caster was personally involved in the latest Belkan plot (the Lighthouse War). He knows that alien forces that fought him are now sheltering in Belka.
And he's only one conversation with Blaze, Bartlett, and Pops away from learning what really happened during the Circum-Pacific War in all its horrible detail.
Which companies produce aircraft simulators? Are they made only by big ones like Grunder and Macmillan or is it by names that are still open for omakes?
That doesn't actually ping me, ya know. And I'm well aware of that. The only reason I haven't beaten War of the Chosen is because I tend to drag out my campaigns long after they should be complete with grinding, to prolong the experience. The one Chosen I killed, went down very fast. And, due to Resistance Orders increasing stats permanently, some of my units are starting to lag the game when they move, due to how high I've managed to jack their movement stat.
Honestly, I really should wrap up that campaign and try out the content in that fancy new free DLC tactical pack thingy. But Fire Emblem: Three Houses has it's talons sunk in me deep right now. So...
Alright, while I do kinda dislike double-posting, there's really no reason to keep sitting on this Omake until someone posts, and I'm basically at the "endless polishing if I don't post it" stage. Thanks to @Simon_Jester and @huhYeahGoodPoint for beta-reading and pre-checking for continuity flubs on the early drafts. You guys are awesome.
----- Heavy Metal and Electrice Guitar
By Nixeu
Commander Raynard Ball walked into the conference room set aside for the science teams, and sat in his favorite chair with a groan. It had been a rough week for him, and the rest of the XCOM Commanders. Damn Long Caster, he thought to himself. As the first Commander, the example he'd been setting with his workload was bleeding over to the rest of them, too. Didn't want to seem like they were slacking off, now did they?
He looked down the length of the table, to the pair of CTOs standing at either side of some new projector system they must have just installed recently, fussing over the settings. One, Albastru-Electrice's Aurel Azimov, was shaggy haired and heavily tattooed, looking very out of place in his suit and tie. Whereas Macmillian Heavy Industries' Theodor Thelen looked like he was born to wear a suit, sporting the haircut and physique of a generic middle manager or corporate ass-kisser. An unlikely duo, but they had apparently hit it off immediately when they first met, and both were significantly smarter than they looked.
Together, they ran what was, effectively, XCOM ANEA's science division, though on paper the two, and their respective companies were merely contractors. It was faster and easier to just use the existing teams, labs, and factories owned by Albastru-Electrice and Macmillan Heavy Industries, than to build new ones from scratch. Fewer issues with competition between XCOM and the tech companies for the limited supply of R&D types, as well. Thus, the two companies were now pooling their R&D talent and data, and turning it all towards the goals set by XCOM ANEA.
"Right. I've finally managed to squeeze an hour out of my schedule for you two. Give me the rundown on the major projects you two have been overseeing."
"Of course, sir. Aurel, hit the lights, please."
"Da". The room went dark, and the projector turned on. The conference table was suddenly covered by a layer of dark blue light, as the fancy new projector came to life.
"Frankly speaking, sir, Talisman and Garuda Squadron did a real number on the Chandelier," Thelen said, and a 3D model of the ruined gun sprang into existence over the table. It was then colored, mostly red, with a few sections outlined in green, clearly delineating the functional parts and areas, and the damaged ones. "If it wasn't for the fact that they now stand between us and the aliens, I would say that I wish they were less skilled at their jobs. The cooling systems are completely trashed, including the backups. So is the core, which is going to be a real pain to replace. To top it all off, the destruction of the core caused major damage to the rest of the facility. At least the iceberg is still afloat, though that's not saying much. Speaking of small favors, the boys from Albastru-Electrice's weapons division apparently have a lot of ideas on how to get it up and running again, as well as for improvements. And Aurel and his coworkers have even done us the favor of sorting out all the really crazy ones."
"Is good way to kill time. Weapons division has had much spare time on their hands, due to treaties," Aurel chimed in. "Bored weapons techs cause property damage. So we set them to work on various things. Busy-work is finally paying off," he added with a shrug.
"Yes, well, rebuilding will be quite a project, even with the two of our companies working together on it, and all of XCOM's funding." The image of ruined gun was slowly reconstructed, piece by piece, with an unfortunate number needing to be produced from nothing, rather than being taken from the remains of the superweapon. "It may take us some time to produce any significant results. And we may attract some negative attention from the enemy, as well."
"Would be easier to rebuild Stonehenge turrets. Smaller, much less work to make functional again. As shown by Oseans in Operation Dragon Breath. Still very big project, but will show results sooner, if each turret is worked on in-turn. Is another project bored weapons techs have been set to, to keep from burning down laboratory for fun. Would be very grateful for recommendation to XCOM USEA for job." Aurel interjected.
"Wouldn't be shocking if they already had you in mind, given how they seem to have taken to using your company's railguns and planes," Commander Ball said, "but I'll consider talking to Long Caster about it. Now, moving on, how are the Aigaion family of projects going?"
"Well enough, sir." Thelen said, "Project Gaia is actually slightly ahead of schedule. The facilities in which the Aigaion and its sister craft were constructed should be back online within the expected timeframe, and will run better than when they were first built, as well. The reconstruction and refurbishing teams are doing stellar work. Once they're done, we'll be able to construct large aircraft much more easily, including the new P-1115 Briareos, and any new support craft we develop alongside it." A new schematic, that of what appeared to be a large aircraft that resembled a manta ray made of steel, appeared above the table.
"There is bit of a problem, however," the Estovakian said, picking up where his more erudite counterpart left off, "with getting hands on needed APS. Gründer is collapsing, and scientists are leaving sinking ship like rats. We are not only group hiring the escapees. XCOM USEA is snatching every expert within reach, including APS talent, as are others." He shook his head. "With teams broken up and facilities shut down, APS will be even harder to get hands on, or improve."
"That's...not good," Commander Ball said, frowning. "An aircraft the size of the Briareos would be a sitting duck against the aliens without an Active Protection System. I'll call up Long Caster later, see about making APS research a two-way project. Well, technically three, but you know what I mean."
"Not everything is doom-and-gloom on the APS front, sir," Thelen said, "Macmillan Heavy Industries is currently in preliminary negotiations with Gründer to acquire the rights to many of their designs. They're playing hardball right now, but if all goes well, we'll have access to their schematics, if not all the minds who produced them."
"Excellent idea. If you can pull it off. Best not to assume success, though, and keep working on our own models. And the Cumulonimbus cruise missiles, with the accompanying targeting systems?"
"Better than feared, worse than hoped," Aurel replied, as an image of a large missile appeared above the table, then the casing disappeared, to reveal the internal structure. "Improving homing capability is not easy task. Especially without guidance drones. Still, some progress has been made. Now has 60/40 chance of hitting broad side of unmoving barn at expected distances."
"Well, forward progress is still progress, nonetheless. Keep at it, I'm sure you'll have it eventually. Thelen, what of the new piloting interfaces?"
"Wellll...we've stopped overloading the nervous systems of the rats we've been testing," Thelen said, looking chagrined. "Sometimes. Neural interfaces are apparently very difficult to tune properly."
Commander Ball sighed. "Thank you for not showing anything on the projector for that one, Thelen. I could do without seeing fried rat carcasses today. Keep working on it. Project Spartoi?"
"Frankly speaking, sir, I'm still not comfortable with that entire project. Trying to mass-produce Aces of Aces via cloning...it just doesn't seem possible. 'A tyrant of the air is made by circumstance, as much as he is born to fly.'"
"'Tyrant of the Air', by Solleret. Is song about Demon Lord of the Round Table. Is good song." Aurel said.
"I'm honestly kind of surprised you recognized that line, Aurel. Didn't think you listened to Norden metal ballads, especially not niche ones about military history." Thelen said with a grin.
"Is very good band. Should be considered Nordennavic national treasure."
"I'm more surprised you listen to metal, Thelen. It's honestly not that surprising that Aurel listens to it." Ball said. "He definitely looks the part of a metal-head." The Estovakian smiled at this.
"I listen to a lot of different genres of music, sir. And, like Aurel said, they're a damn good band." Thelen said, with a shrug. "In any case, Project Spartoi is progressing about as well as I expected. That is to say, not well. Engineering the raw reflexes was simple enough, but the level of coordination and spatial reasoning you want are proving very tricky to pull off." The CT scan of a human brain appeared above the table, with some sections highlighted in red, and a model of a human was shown, struggling to walk without falling down. "Reflexes, we can improve to some extent with faster nerves, but spatial reasoning and coordination involve messing with the connections and networks of various neurons. It's challenging, to say the least. I'm still thinking Project Odin would have been a better choice for mass-producing high-level pilots, sir."
"Bringing back an AI that nearly went out of control and could have wiped out humanity is preferable to trying to clone human pilots, or enhance existing ones, with the skills needed for the job, in your opinion?" Commander Ball said, incredulously.
"Well, it'd certainly be easier to do. We know it can be done, and the Ravens were taken down relatively recently, so remnants could easily be recovered, fairly intact. If Macmillan can acquire the blueprints from Gründer, it will be even easier. Human cloning and neural augmentation tech is still bleeding edge, sir, and is expected to be for some time to come," Thelen responded. "AI tech is comparatively simple."
"I'll take it under advisement. Anything else I need to know about?"
"Nothing too significant, sir," Thelen said, looking down at some written reports. "The weapons and part shipments are coming in on time, and exactly as ordered. Say what you will of black marketeers, they understand the importance of happy customers. Probably because the odds of ending up dead from poor service is so much higher. Especially when talking about customers with as much cash and power as our companies have.
"Speaking of which, that bootleg TLS production team Aurel told us about in Estovakia seems to be doing quite well, since Gründer apparently can't find their ass with both hands anymore, pardon my language. There's also some rumors about some scientists from Gründer disappearing, but they may have simply been quietly arrested. Worth keeping an ear to the ground, but nothing that might require action on our part.
"We'd still really like to work more closely with XCOM USEA, as well as any other development teams the other branches might be employing. It seems silly not to have all our teams working as a whole, rather than independently."
"Oh?" Commander Ball asked, eyebrow raised, "So you think Long Caster and the other Commanders would be fine with the moral implications of some of your experiments, and with both of your companies' links to the black market, and the criminal underworld in-general?"
The two CTOs looked at each other for a moment, then turned back to their commander, and shook their heads in unison. "Honestly, we're both still a bit surprised you seem okay with it, sir." Thelen said.
"Was very surprising, when you asked how much Albastru-Electrice's illegal arms sales had brought in last month. Nearly gave me heart-attack." Aurel added.
"XCOM ANEA simply doesn't have the same amount of power and support as the other branches. If we want to match their performance, we're going to have work hard for it. Not using the research your companies had already done, and were doing, as well as your more...unsavory connections, would just put us even further behind. We might have Garuda Squadron, but Long Caster's forces have us beat, hands-down, when it comes to talent in the cockpit. We'll make up for it with talent in the laboratory, and elsewhere. Whatever it takes to win this war." Commander Ball's eyes shone with an implacable spirit, and more than a bit of competitive drive. He stood, and stretched.
"I have a new project for the two of you to hash out, as well. See how the various pieces of tech you two have access to could be applied to ground combat. Tanks with EMLs would likely be a good start.
"You two have been doing excellent work, even if there have been some failures and delays. Keep it up." He said, on his way out of the the conference room. The two scientists grinned at each other, and began brainstorming on their new assignment, pulling up various models on their projector.
As Ball left the room, his aide immediately pulled him aside, clearly shaken. "Sir. There's been an incident involving a member of Spec. Ops Unit 2 and Windhover Squadron. Apparently, there was some sort of bet involving firearms and a can of kerosene. As a result, the firing range was set on fire, following a rather large explosion."
Commander Ball sighed. "Never a dull moment, with this job. Unit 2...the team leader there is Volikov Konstantin, correct? If I remember correctly, he was quite infamous during the war for his ability cause gas tanks to explode with gunfire, without exposing his position. He managed to destroy an entire airbase single-handed, without being spotted or even shooting a single person, or so the stories go. So, he's been sharing his tricks, has he? Good. If only he'd taught them some discretion..."
"Apparently, the member of Windhover Squad in question was doubtful of Unit Lead Volikov's supposed feats from the war, sir. Which is part of what caused the incident."
"I see. In that case, call the individuals in question, and their commanding officers, to my office, and brief me more on the details on the way. I'll meet with them immediately. If this is based on some sort of national pride pissing contest, I want that nipped in the bud, immediately." Commander Ball was off, his aide struggling to match his superior's pace.
Meanwhile, in the room he had just vacated, the two scientists were thinking up new and creative ways of killing aliens, grinning and laughing all the while. As different as they might be on the outside, one polished, well-spoken, and generally polite, the other rough, profane, and somewhat rude, they were same in the ways that really mattered: they both liked building things with really big guns, and watching those guns make things explode. Differences in nation, upbringing, and background were crushed under their shared love for destruction.
-----
Okay, so maybe the cameo wasn't as subtle as I had originally planned. For those who missed it, the Volikov mentioned is Volk, the leader of the Reaper faction of the Resistance in XCom 2: War of the Chosen. Hence the whole exploding gas canisters event. He taught his soldiers the Remote Start ability (which is even more useful and impressive in this setting, due to how often fights would happen on airbases). I figured if Ace Combat was having trouble providing muscle on the ground, XCom could pick up that slack.
There are a number of "named" recruits or characters from the games who could be added as ground-based Aces, though fewer than I'd really like. Not sure where Shaojie Zhang would be from, but Elena Dragunova is probably from Estovakia, and on Volk's special Ops team, and Peter Van Doorn is probably an Osean working somewhere in the IUN, possibly a former Osean general, or an IUN-PKF general.
As for Annette Durand, Geist, Betos, and Pratal Mox...well, they kinda don't fit this setting, really, except maybe Durand, but she wouldn't be notable. Psionics is still currently not something we have access to, and we don't have ADVENT soldiers to deal with, so no ex-ADVENT Skirmishers. Though I guess maybe Macmillan and Albascru-Electrice could end up creating Betos and Mox, if they get drafted to make super-soldiers, but I expect (or at least hope) they'll only share the name with their game counterparts.
Oh, yeah, I guess we could also pull from the Bureau. But I generally forget that game even exists, since I never played, and I've heard it's pretty bad. Hell, even the other games seem to want to forget it exists, since all the files on what happened got redacted or destroyed between the end of the Bureau and the beginning of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, according to some of the fluff from Enemy Within. And the game had basically no impact on the rest of the games in the new continuity. So...
Also, as for what the whole "Solleret" thing was about, I'm a fan of the Swedish metal band Sabaton (a piece of armor, for which a synonym is solleret) who mostly write songs about military conflicts. I can only imagine what they'd be writing about on Strangereal, given all the material they would have to work with. Hence, why I added an alternate universe version of them. Probably sounds a lot better than the random lyrics I came up with, though. I'm not exactly a songwriter.
And I swear, the naming alliteration on the scientists was totally accidental. 3/4ths of those names were pulled from random aviation engineers/scientists from Romania and Sweden, who you've likely never heard of. I'm not going to say which name wasn't pulled from Google and Wikipedia, but I think most of you can make a pretty good guess.
Edit: Thanks to @Icipall for catching a typo for me.
"Frankly speaking, sir, Talisman and Garuda Squadron did a real number on the Chandelier," Thelen said, and a 3D model of the ruined gun sprang into existence over the table. It was then colored, mostly red, with a few sections outlined in green, clearly delineating the functional parts and areas, and the damaged ones. "If it wasn't for the fact that they now stand between us and the aliens, I would say that I wish they were less skilled at their jobs. The cooling systems are completely trashed, including the backups. So is the core, which is going to be a real pain to replace. To top it all off, the destruction of the core caused major damage to the rest of the facility. At least the iceberg is still afloat, though that's not saying much. Speaking of small favors, the boys from Albastru-Electrice's weapons division apparently have a lot of ideas on how to get it up and running again, as well as for improvements. And Aurel and his coworkers have even done us the favor of sorting out all the really crazy ones."
"'Tyrant of the Air', by Solleret. Is song about Demon Lord of the Round Table. Is good song." Aurel said.
"I'm honestly kind of surprised you recognized that line, Aurel. Didn't think you listened to Norden metal ballads, especially not niche ones about military history." Thelen said with a grin.
"Is very good band. Should be considered Nordennavic national treasure."
"Wellll...we've stopped overloading the nervous systems of the rats we've been testing," Thelen said, looking chagrined. "Sometimes. Neural interfaces are apparently very difficult to tune properly."
"I see. In that case, call the individuals in question, and their commanding officers, to my office, and brief me more on the details on the way. I'll meet with them immediately. If this is based on some sort of national pride pissing contest, I want that nipped in the bud, immediately." Commander Ball was off, his aide struggling to match his superior's pace.
Also, as for what the whole "Solleret" thing was about, I'm a fan of the Swedish metal band Sabaton (a piece of armor, for which a synonym is solleret) who mostly write songs about military conflicts. I can only imagine what they'd be writing about on Strangereal, given all the material they would have to work with. Hence, why I added an alternate universe version of them. Probably sounds a lot better than the random lyrics I came up with, though. I'm not exactly a songwriter.
[X] Plan:Building Planes, Building Bridges
-[X] Think Tanks Status Report (15 Focus)
--[X] Locked In: Bulb Ship Analysis [40/120]
--[X] Locked In: Fighter Analysis [40/80]
--[X] As soon as they're acquired, laser weaponry is to be tested on alien fighter wreck to determine its effectiveness as an anti-alien weapon.
--[X] "How does the F-14X compare to F-22?"
-[X] Engineering Groups Status Report (15 Focus)
--[X] Locked In: General Engineering Group Project: Stonehenge Project Estimations: [2/5-15]
---[X] McGuiness and Mead are to collaborate on leading this project.
--[X] Project for Shen: Project Neighborhood Watch. Launch a polar-orbiting spy satellite or series of spy satellites for (at least) one overflight of Belkan space. Priority is on getting them on the air fast and to recover imagery from at least one orbital pass per satellite launch.
---[X] Objective is to gather intelligence on as many as feasible of the following, in descending order of priority:
----[X] Status and location of alien landing sites.
----[X] Status and location of Excalibur and V2 ruins sites, and any signs of reconstruction
----[X] Operational status of known uranium mines
----[X] Overall state of Belkan military and mobilization.
---[X] Hopefully this project can profitably utilize an IC budget this week. If so, it may draw up to 2000 IC; if not, the extra will be spent on Gunther Bay industrial aid at week's end.
-[X] Logistics Division Status Report (15 Focus) --[X] Locked In: Logistics Division Project: Industrial Market Manipulation [10/20-40] --[X] Locked In: Building Industry: Planes (2400 IC invested) (1500/2400 completed)
-[X] Pulford Status Report (15 Focus)
--[X] Ask about establishing ground forces for XCOM for security purposes, and in case the aliens start preparing for planetfall. Propose having the other XCOM branches do the same.
-[X] Bradford Status Report (15 Focus)
--[X] Create a liaison office that can coordinate with various national governments and factions in Usea
--[X] Work out chain of command for a base defense force utilizing a few squadrons of fighters (including new hires), land-based fortifications and air defenses.It is important to have someone capable of commanding those defenses who isn't Long Caster, personally.
--[X] Doctrinal clarification: any pilot or squadron grounded for any reason other than "plane not working" or "personally injured, incapable of flying" may be scrambled in defense of the base.
-[X] HR Status Report (15 Focus)
--[X] Locked In: Scientist and Engineer recruitment, prioritizing Grunder Industries.
--[X] In fact, start hiring more of everything. Highest priority is on Grunder Industries technical experts, pilots, and logistics personnel.
--[X] HR is authorized to hire more HR people.
-[X] Build Order
--[X] 6x F-14Xs for Salamander Flight and Rigel Squadron (Rigel will keep their EMLs as their special weapons) (14400 IC)
--[X] 12x EMLs for our Hellcats (24000 IC)
--[X] 1xTLS (3000 IC)
--[X] Induction Furnace, Mk I (50 IC)
--[X] Construction Crane Set, Mk I (1000 IC)
--[X] Spy Satellite Launches for Project Neighborhood Watch (2000 IC)
--[X] Building static defenses around the Gunther Bay area in general, and this base in particular. (6050 IC)
---[X] Roughly 75/25 split on effort between air and ground defense; these defenses are mostly anti-alien in intent.
-[X] Organize XCOM
--[X] Create a Training and Tactics Department. Get teachers, flight sim creators, air warfare theorists, and so on. Task them with systematization of all information on aliens and fighting them. Grant them permission to ask all pilots, AWACS, scientists and engineers for relevant info. (100 Focus)
---[X] Training and Tactics' first project will be to collate a handbook or series of handbooks on anti-alien tactics for ourselves and potentially other X-COM branches. Should include doctrine for fighters armed with relatively conventional missiles, and also for heavy axial weapons like the EML and TLS.
-[X] Mediate Disputes (100 Focus)
--[X] Pulford and Shen
-[X] Assist Project (25 Focus)
--[X] HR in hiring more pilots
---[X] Ask if your own pilots know any that they would recommend
-[X] Contact People/organizations for Orbital-Clearing Satellite Project (50 Focus)
-[X] Contact Mihaly Shilage, if he'd be willing to aid XCOM in your attempts to bring the Erusean Civil War to a close by helping you bringing ERF and Voslage to the negotiation table and help convince them to work together with IUN so that you could finish the Free Erusean forces without ERF annexing its old areas that have declared independence (25 Focus)
-[X] Start Project (210 Focus)
--[X] Contact Stephen Pulford, Rosa Cossette D'Elise and the heads of Republic of Voslage and Erusean Restoration Forces (and Mihaly Shilage, if he agrees). Start planning how to bring an end to the Erusean civil war and destruction of the Free Erusean Remnants without Erusea annexing the countries that have declared independence of them, like Voslage, so that you can concentrate on the alien threat together.
Yeah, uh, since the new winning plans have ballooned to the size of small updates, I'm probably going to change things in the next IC week so that the first vote is how Long Caster spends Focus, and then on to each department a la CKII-style quests, because this is just unmanageable.
you know, I thought I'd do better, but actually i'm going to start on splitting things up ala CKII-style quests right now, because each unfilled section is making me want to procrastinate. This update will cover the Research and Engineering branches.
January 25th
Think Tank Alpha: Research alien bulb ship [60/120]
Commander, we've made a critical discovery that I thought was worth halting our research project for.
Yesterday, we discovered our first alien specimen. Housed within the protruding bulb of the alien ship, it appears as though this specimen survived the shootdown and has continued to teeter on the brink of life and death. As we tore open the ship, it appears as though the alien was contained within a purplish-grey fluid, which we unfortunately contaminated by exposure to Earth's environment. Since then, we have focused on trying to ensure that the alien specimens do not become more contaminated than they already are, and have sealed them into sanitized containers.
The alien itself appears to be a small, grey, bipedal humanoid, about the size of small children. Its forehead is unusually large, and what appear to be eyelids indicate very large eyes. Its musculature is nearly nonexistent; you can almost see the bones through the skin! Moreover, this particular alien appears to have been internally wounded during the crashlanding, leading to yellowish coloration underneath what little skin there is.
However, that is not the most incredible finding, aside from the mere confirmation of truly biological extraterrestrial life; we have found that the alien was projecting some sort of purple haze that appeared to repairing its own wounds! Extraction appears to have slowed the process, and we can only surmise that the alien has not returned to full consciousness, but the alien does respond to stimulus; some of our researchers have even reported seeing things in response to alien contact! It may simply be a contact hallucinogenic, but upon discovering aliens and hearing of reports of mass hallucinations in the field, I am not quite so bold to declare that it is impossible for it to be something else entirely...
Commander, with your permission, we would like to study this specimen with all possible haste.
Switch research project to Sectoid Xenobiology?
[] [ResearchA] Yes
[] [ResearchA] No
January 28th
Think Tank Beta: Fighter Analysis [80/80].
Charlie Burns:
So, alien fighter analysis: finally pulled one of those guys open enough to see what was inside. When they crash-landed, it looks like the green sheen that completed the flying saucer our pilots reported broke, leaving the alien fighter's shape to best be described as a crescent moon with a cannon jutting out of the center in the same direction as the sweep of the tips. We opened them up using the cranes as a method to hold a giant electromagnet, which made things go a heck of a lot faster. As an aside, we can now get most of a fighter's worth of alien alloy, instead of the shards the scientists carried with them last time, so we've got a hell of a lot more alien alloy to work with now.
-19 Fighter Wrecks
+5,000 Alien Alloy
On the outside of the fighters, we've found channels and the ability to independently move sections of external alien alloys on the outside; where specifically the channels all led to is the center of the ship, but because the center of the ship is pretty much always a blasted wreck we couldn't figure out anything more. On the inside of the ship, the plasma cannon extends all the way from the back to the front along the spine, where at the base there appears to be a bulb connecting to a bowl shape whose explosive destruction seems to have destroyed the ship from the inside. There isn't any room for a cockpit with all those items in a straight line taking up nearly all the space not occupied by the armor in the alien fighter, but on one of the fighters we disassembled, we lucked out and maybe found out why. Apparently while all the alien ships have had some holes in them for liquid to leak out, it appears as though one of them didn't have any in the bottom of the ship. This gave us a sample of alien liquid to test, which, we, ah, accidentally immediately exposed to Earth's atmosphere as part of opening the alien fighter.
Dr. Amber gave us an earful about contaminating the sample, but she drew some anyway. I think Dr. Vahlen or Amber going to want to talk to you about it.
We've also been trying to power their alien cannons; we've been able to get something to happen, but we're still having trouble determining all the inputs and what we'd need to fire this thing. Still, though, destructive disassembly of a few of those cannons gave us a few insights into accelerator tech, especially after we asked Audrey Jones to take a look.
Anyways, boss, that just about concludes our research on alien fighters. We really can't tell you much more than that; I've got the strongest suspicion that whatever that bowl is, shooting the fighters seems to disrupt it enough to cause internal explosions. We'd have to capture a fighter intact to know anything in further detail, but...well, I'm pretty sure we all know the chances of that happening.
Magnetic Accelerators [10/30]
Alien Control Insight [10/???]
??? [?/???]
??? [?/????]
??? [??/????]
What does General Research Division Beta work on?
[] [ResearchB] Magnetic Accelerators [10/30]
[] [ResearchB] Gun Ship Analysis [40/100]
[] [ResearchB] Alien Alloy Fabrication [10/???]
[] [ResearchB] Bulb Ship Analysis [60/120]
[] [ResearchB] Rejoin General Research Division Alpha
Charlie Burns:
The TLS didn't seem to do much major damage to the alien fighters that wasn't already done; it sure didn't seem like it was doing anything but warming the whole fighter a bit.
F-14X gets chumped in a head-on fight because it lacks stealth and it lacks good ways to handle stealth. In a dogfight, the F-14X and the F-22 perform pretty similarly, only coming down to who's the better pilot.
January 26th
Long Caster found it a little worrying when his entire Engineering team packed their bags and all went to San Salvacion as soon as he approved. Long Caster found it even more worrying when none of them bothered to report back in over the next few days. He then made the mistake of mentioning this to anybody.
Within thirty minutes, the entire base had heard about it, and how Long Caster was worried about someone in Engineering.
Pulford merely raised his eyebrow. He was mocking Long Caster, and Long Caster's only possible response was to sigh and bear the smug, silent laughter.
On the third day, a report came back.
Along with a project proposal.
Stonehenge Project "Estimations": 1000% complete, bleeds over into Megaproject Stonehenge Technical Requirements [150/50], overcompletes to [100/100] required for Stage 1 Overcompletion, recieves 50% discount on IC costs.
Megaproject Stonehenge IC cost: 600,000. [High-Energy Physics: Magnetic Accelerators] required to utilize Alien Alloy cost reductions!
January 28th
Project Neighborhood Watch: [10/10] required to complete.
IC cost: negligible.
Results:
Two alien landing sites confirmed, practically right next to each other. The ship detected after the satellite was launched was tracked to land where the other heavily damaged shield ship had landed, and apparently tents and a makeshift road had been established to the landing site on the mountain. A few distinctly military vehicles have been spotted traveling towards along the path. No heavy armor or artillery sighted.
Excalibur ruins appear to remain ruins. No heavy industry spotted.
V2 ruin sites...Avalon Dam appears to remain destroyed?
Uranium mines appear to be open but no drastic movement in uranium transports in or out of the mines.
Belka as a whole appears to be mobilizing, but footage is blurry from space debris impacts, and eventually gives up about halfway through the third orbit.
Somehow the Lighthouse launch was exactly as anticlimactic as Blaze said it was going to be.
World Event: Yuktobania Reveals Gullfaxi Submarine
Designed as a counterweight to "Osea's dangerously reckless actions", Yuktobania has revealed one of their secret projects: the construction of another Scinfaxi-class submarine. The Yuktobanians have not been shy about its capabilities: it comes equipped with burst missiles and most notably, a high-power railgun, designation "Misteltainn". They are confident that should the aliens come equipped with shield ships that the Gullfaxi's Misteltainn railgun can defend the Verusan continent from alien aggression, and have graciously allowed an XCOM VERUSAN representative to oversee the Yuktobanian superweapon.
While the Verusan Federation, Republic of Emmeria, Federal Republic of Estovakia, and Kingdom of Nordennavic gave a positive reception to this news, the Sotoan Treaty Organization and People's Republic of Kaluga have decried the Yuktobanian weaponry as a threat to their continued liberty and have begun ramping up mobilization in response. The region appears to be tipping towards a flashpoint.
Okay, new priority. Find a way to get everyone to sit down and shut up and to point their guns at the bigass alien warships coming our way, instead of at each other.
Okay, new priority. Find a way to get everyone to sit down and shut up and to point their guns at the bigass alien warships coming our way, instead of at each other.
I've been informed not to expect these projects mentioned to bear fruit too soon. Which implies they'll be completed at some point in the future. If we last long enough. Aid from our side might help them happen sooner, but I'm fine with them running in the background, as it were.
Yes. Yes it is. Though admittedly the lyric is a bit...meh. But hey, I ain't a songwriter. I did kinda need to restrain myself from stressing too much over a throw-away line I put in purely due to being a fan. Normally, I'd avoid fan-boying out about anything but the subject of the story I'm writing about in an Omake, but I really couldn't resist.
Commander, we've made a critical discovery that I thought was worth halting our research project for.
Yesterday, we discovered our first alien specimen. Housed within the protruding bulb of the alien ship, it appears as though this specimen survived the shootdown and has continued to teeter on the brink of life and death. As we tore open the ship, it appears as though the alien was contained within a purplish-grey fluid, which we unfortunately contaminated by exposure to Earth's environment. Since then, we have focused on trying to ensure that the alien specimens do not become more contaminated than they already are, and have sealed them into sanitized containers.
The alien itself appears to be a small, grey, bipedal humanoid, about the size of small children. Its forehead is unusually large, and what appear to be eyelids indicate very large eyes. Its musculature is nearly nonexistent; you can almost see the bones through the skin! Moreover, this particular alien appears to have been internally wounded during the crashlanding, leading to yellowish coloration underneath what little skin there is.
However, that is not the most incredible finding, aside from the mere confirmation of truly biological extraterrestrial life; we have found that the alien was projecting some sort of purple haze that appeared to repairing its own wounds! Extraction appears to have slowed the process, and we can only surmise that the alien has not returned to full consciousness, but the alien does respond to stimulus; some of our researchers have even reported seeing things in response to alien contact! It may simply be a contact hallucinogenic, but upon discovering aliens and hearing of reports of mass hallucinations in the field, I am not quite so bold to declare that it is impossible for it to be something else entirely...
Commander, with your permission, we would like to study this specimen with all possible haste.
Yeah, I'ma say we research the Sectoid. Best to know our enemy better before we get much further, and we have no idea if our captive will be able to survive much longer. So, we study the alien.
On the outside of the fighters, we've found channels and the ability to independently move sections of external alien alloys on the outside; where specifically the channels all led to is the center of the ship, but because the center of the ship is pretty much always a blasted wreck we couldn't figure out anything more. On the inside of the ship, the plasma cannon extends all the way from the back to the front along the spine, where at the base there appears to be a bulb connecting to a bowl shape whose explosive destruction seems to have destroyed the ship from the inside. There isn't any room for a cockpit with all those items in a straight line taking up nearly all the space not occupied by the armor in the alien fighter, but on one of the fighters we disassembled, we lucked out and maybe found out why. Apparently while all the alien ships have had some holes in them for liquid to leak out, it appears as though one of them didn't have any in the bottom of the ship. This gave us a sample of alien liquid to test, which, we, ah, accidentally immediately exposed to Earth's atmosphere as part of opening the alien fighter.
Dr. Amber gave us an earful about contaminating the sample, but she drew some anyway. I think Dr. Vahlen or Amber going to want to talk to you about it.
Interesting. So yeah, looks like they're adjustable, and there are channels in the armor that may reveal a vulnerability. Design of the gun is interesting, but I guess the maneuverability probably compensated for the normal flaws with pure spinal mounts. That said, we might both be right, @Simon_Jester. A chance shot to the vulnerable core, or too much vibration setting off this alien liquid and making it explode, could be how these craft are downed. We're certainly detonating something inside, though.
We've also been trying to power their alien cannons; we've been able to get something to happen, but we're still having trouble determining all the inputs and what we'd need to fire this thing. Still, though, destructive disassembly of a few of those cannons gave us a few insights into accelerator tech, especially after we asked Audrey Jones to take a look.
Anyways, boss, that just about concludes our research on alien fighters. We really can't tell you much more than that; I've got the strongest suspicion that whatever that bowl is, shooting the fighters seems to disrupt it enough to cause internal explosions. We'd have to capture a fighter intact to know anything in further detail, but...well, I'm pretty sure we all know the chances of that happening.
Long Caster found it a little worrying when his entire Engineering team packed their bags and all went to San Salvacion as soon as he approved. Long Caster found it even more worrying when none of them bothered to report back in over the next few days. He then made the mistake of mentioning this to anybody.
Within thirty minutes, the entire base had heard about it, and how Long Caster was worried about someone in Engineering.
Pulford merely raised his eyebrow. He was mocking Long Caster, and Long Caster's only possible response was to sigh and bear the smug, silent laughter.
On the third day, a report came back.
Along with a project proposal.
Stonehenge Project "Estimations": 1000% complete, bleeds over into Megaproject Stonehenge Technical Requirements [150/50], overcompletes to [100/100] required for Stage 1 Overcompletion, recieves 50% discount on IC costs.
Megaproject Stonehenge IC cost: 600,000. [High-Energy Physics: Magnetic Accelerators] required to utilize Alien Alloy cost reductions!
Well. I guess we might actually have some ideas that A-E's bored techs might not have considered. Still, might be good to get the railgun experts in on this party. I'm willing to give them a call, see if they can help.
World Event: Yuktobania Reveals Gullfaxi Submarine
Designed as a counterweight to "Osea's dangerously reckless actions", Yuktobania has revealed one of their secret projects: the construction of another Scinfaxi-class submarine. The Yuktobanians have not been shy about its capabilities: it comes equipped with burst missiles and most notably, a high-power railgun, designation "Misteltainn". They are confident that should the aliens come equipped with shield ships that the Gullfaxi's Misteltainn railgun can defend the Verusan continent from alien aggression, and have graciously allowed an XCOM VERUSAN representative to oversee the Yuktobanian superweapon.
While the Verusan Federation, Republic of Emmeria, Federal Republic of Estovakia, and Kingdom of Nordennavic gave a positive reception to this news, the Sotoan Treaty Organization and People's Republic of Kaluga have decried the Yuktobanian weaponry as a threat to their continued liberty and have begun ramping up mobilization in response. The region appears to be tipping towards a flashpoint.
Okay, new priority. Find a way to get everyone to sit down and shut up and to point their guns at the bigass alien warships coming our way, instead of at each other.
So, first thought when I hear that we can heat the hull, and they're full of fluid:
Do we know the boiling/evaporation point of the goo? If so, how does it compare to the laser tests? Because boiling enemies in their ships sounds like fun.
So, first thought when I hear that we can heat the hull, and they're full of fluid:
Do we know the boiling/evaporation point of the goo? If so, how does it compare to the laser tests? Because boiling enemies in their ships sounds like fun.
I suspect we'd have to dump so many gigajoules of laser energy into the hull that it's far less cost-effective than just ringing their bell with railgun strikes until the interior is shaken into mush and confetti.[/quote]
I've been informed not to expect these projects mentioned to bear fruit too soon. Which implies they'll be completed at some point in the future. If we last long enough. Aid from our side might help them happen sooner, but I'm fine with them running in the background, as it were.
Yeah. I imagine that repairing Chandelier is a job on the same scale as repairing Stonehenge. And Anea may have more problems getting funding going than we do.
Interesting. So yeah, looks like they're adjustable, and there are channels in the armor that may reveal a vulnerability. Design of the gun is interesting, but I guess the maneuverability probably compensated for the normal flaws with pure spinal mounts. That said, we might both be right, @Simon_Jester. A chance shot to the vulnerable core, or too much vibration setting off this alien liquid and making it explode, could be how these craft are downed. We're certainly detonating something inside, though.
Given the crescent shape of the alien craft, I kind of doubt you can even hit the core directly with shots fired into the channels in question from most angles. And if active plasma exhaust or something is coming out of them, that would tend to degrade or prematurely detonate any gun rounds or missile shrapnel that did make its way inside.
I still think the main effect is vibratory. And note that the liquid is still there after the craft is explosively wrecked and crashes. It isn't burning or exploding in and of itself, it's just released from its container(s) by the explosion of some other component, probably a power plant or energy storage battery of some kind.
Well. I guess we might actually have some ideas that A-E's bored techs might not have considered. Still, might be good to get the railgun experts in on this party. I'm willing to give them a call, see if they can help.
I wonder where they got that railgun...*looks at Albastru-Electrice suspiciously*
Yeah that's a good idea. Albastru-Electrice is definitely in demand right now, especially since railguns seem to be THE killer app in terms of tech we can build off Strangereal's industrial base that has a reasonable chance of affecting the aliens, what with lasers being pretty well nerfed by all that armor.
I may be weird about this, but I want Burns' team to finish the study on the bulb ship. The fact that these actually contain living Sectoids, while the fighters themselves are (at least in most if not all cases) uncrewed drones strongly suggests that if we fully take the bulb ships apart, we'll learn some interesting things about their command and control setup.
Though admittedly finishing off the cheap railgun tech might legitimately take priority.
However, that is not the most incredible finding, aside from the mere confirmation of truly biological extraterrestrial life; we have found that the alien was projecting some sort of purple haze that appeared to repairing its own wounds! Extraction appears to have slowed the process, and we can only surmise that the alien has not returned to full consciousness, but the alien does respond to stimulus; some of our researchers have even reported seeing things in response to alien contact! It may simply be a contact hallucinogenic, but upon discovering aliens and hearing of reports of mass hallucinations in the field, I am not quite so bold to declare that it is impossible for it to be something else entirely...
OK, sectoid in a healing trance of some kind. Cool.
Charlie Burns:
So, alien fighter analysis: finally pulled one of those guys open enough to see what was inside. When they crash-landed, it looks like the green sheen that completed the flying saucer our pilots reported broke, leaving the alien fighter's shape to best be described as a crescent moon with a cannon jutting out of the center in the same direction as the sweep of the tips...
Ah-HA! THAT explains why our pilots only actually do much damage to them from the rear! From any other angle, shots fired into the "saucer" don't HIT anything. There's nothing really there, only a 'green sheen' that must be some kind of force field projected from the rest of the craft as an aerodynamic fairing or something.
On the outside of the fighters, we've found channels and the ability to independently move sections of external alien alloys on the outside; where specifically the channels all led to is the center of the ship, but because the center of the ship is pretty much always a blasted wreck we couldn't figure out anything more. On the inside of the ship, the plasma cannon extends all the way from the back to the front along the spine, where at the base there appears to be a bulb connecting to a bowl shape whose explosive destruction seems to have destroyed the ship from the inside.
The thing that blows up is a main reactor of some kind. Its power system involves plasma containment. Setting a system that actively contains plasma to vibrate is Bad News, because the plasma doesn't have to come into contact with the physical material of the magnets for very long to disrupt the symmetry of the containment- which, in this case, is enough to make the fighter go boom.
There isn't any room for a cockpit with all those items in a straight line taking up nearly all the space not occupied by the armor in the alien fighter, but on one of the fighters we disassembled, we lucked out and maybe found out why. Apparently while all the alien ships have had some holes in them for liquid to leak out, it appears as though one of them didn't have any in the bottom of the ship. This gave us a sample of alien liquid to test, which, we, ah, accidentally immediately exposed to Earth's atmosphere as part of opening the alien fighter.
The liquid is simply a coolant of some kind, or otherwise related to the mechanical function of the craft.
Hypothesis Two: The alien fighters aren't drones, at least not in the normal sense. Instead, they're piloted by brains in jars, and the jars break/splatter/shatter when the fighters hit the ground. Ew.
Anyways, boss, that just about concludes our research on alien fighters. We really can't tell you much more than that; I've got the strongest suspicion that whatever that bowl is, shooting the fighters seems to disrupt it enough to cause internal explosions. We'd have to capture a fighter intact to know anything in further detail, but...well, I'm pretty sure we all know the chances of that happening.
Yeah, I'm betting that's a live reactor of some kind, and probably also the source of the plasma bolts from the main gun, which is why they have to charge their shots.
Part of me wants to have Burns' team finish the analysis on the bulb ships because understanding them and what they do would be really nice, and they probably share some mechanical commonality with the Gun and Beam ship subtypes. Though I do get why people want to polish off the cheap Magnetic Accelerators tech.
Charlie Burns:
The TLS didn't seem to do much major damage to the alien fighters that wasn't already done; it sure didn't seem like it was doing anything but warming the whole fighter a bit.
I was afraid of that. Presumably these alien craft were originally designed to fight other, similarly capable enemies- that is to say, people with spaceships of their own, in space.
They're very likely to be heavily optimized for resistance to energy weapons, and that includes lasers. When you think about it, the alien hulls are thick, slab-sided constructs made out of high-density, highly refractory, electrically AND thermally superconductive alloy. That's just about the perfect combination for resisting energy weapons fire- arguably, a hull thus armored and constructed would be better than relying on an APS for defense, though having both at once would be nice too.
I guess we're lucky we didn't invest more heavily in tactical laser weaponry. It looks like it'll still be effective against 'earthly' enemies (e.g. the Erusean radicals or the Belkans), but against the aliens, at least for now, it's going to be a nonstarter.
F-14X gets chumped in a head-on fight because it lacks stealth and it lacks good ways to handle stealth. In a dogfight, the F-14X and the F-22 perform pretty similarly, only coming down to who's the better pilot.
This underlines the point that the F-14X isn't a better fifth-generation fighter, it's just a fifth-generation fighter optimized to fight the aliens... at the cost of sacrificing one of the key features of a fifth-generation fighter in general, namely stealth.
If we have to fight human enemies in high performance stealth aircraft, this is going to be a problem, since we're not made of money and can't easily maintain two entirely separate sets of aircraft, one for each role.
Another conclusion from this is that the F-22 is probably about as survivable against the aliens, since it has similar dogfighting performance. That's a good thing, but it also means that to get any better survivability than that, we either need preposterous ultra-maneuverability (superplanes may have this), or slather the things in a layer of alien alloy that might actually repel plasma bolts (though if it's as thin as we'd have to make it to keep the planes flyable, maybe not).
If we ever DO get one of those alien plasma cannon working, even in a static ground mount, we should test it against varying thickness plates of alien alloy to see about how much it takes to stop a bolt.
Long Caster found it a little worrying when his entire Engineering team packed their bags and all went to San Salvacion as soon as he approved.
Stonehenge Project "Estimations": 1000% complete, bleeds over into Megaproject Stonehenge Technical Requirements [150/50], overcompletes to [100/100] required for Stage 1 Overcompletion, recieves 50% discount on IC costs.
Megaproject Stonehenge IC cost: 600,000. [High-Energy Physics: Magnetic Accelerators] required to utilize Alien Alloy cost reductions!
I think we just got a fairly normal amount of research progression (100 or so), but it massively rolled over because "get Stonehenge started" isn't actually that research-intensive a project maybe.
All I wanted was a cost estimate- and for practical purposes they did get us a cost estimate- either 900,000 IC or 1,200,000 IC. Then they doubled down on that with on-site inspections and figured out that they could cut it to 600,000, and that if we could spare alien alloy (either to replace railgun components, to replace some of the mount parts, or both), they could cut it further.
Given that this is still roughly 12-13 turns of our entire current IC budget, we could probably stand to throw the engineering team at further reducing the costs with another round of Overcompletion (likely to take... I dunno, roughly two weeks?) before we seriousface start trying to fix the thing up.
January 28th
Project Neighborhood Watch: [10/10] required to complete.
IC cost: negligible.
Results:
Two alien landing sites confirmed, practically right next to each other. The ship detected after the satellite was launched was tracked to land where the other heavily damaged shield ship had landed, and apparently tents and a makeshift road had been established to the landing site on the mountain. A few distinctly military vehicles have been spotted traveling towards along the path. No heavy armor or artillery sighted.[/quote]Hm.
I wonder if the Yuktobanians could be persuaded to take their new superweapon missile submarine and carpet-bomb that Belkan mountainside with burst missiles. It would make a lovely target for test practice, don't you think? 😈
Excalibur ruins appear to remain ruins. No heavy industry spotted.
V2 ruin sites...Avalon Dam appears to remain destroyed?
Uranium mines appear to be open but no drastic movement in uranium transports in or out of the mines.
Belka as a whole appears to be mobilizing, but footage is blurry from space debris impacts, and eventually gives up about halfway through the third orbit.
Somehow the Lighthouse launch was exactly as anticlimactic as Blaze said it was going to be.
Huh. Wow. That went better than I expected, and revealed much better results. We should forward our orbital imagery to X-COM Osea, and the various governments of the Osean continent.
Hm. Improved Flight Sims may help us train up recruits to A-rank. It may also help us test out various doctrines. And it may be a route towards the ground telemetry-operated fighters @kilopi505 's so fond of, or to COFFIN setups?
Let's see, I think we should DEFINITELY brainstorm engineering projects.
Like, um.
1) [] [Engineering] Lay out ground defenses for base
2) [] [Engineering] Debris-zapping space laser installation
Nothing else springs immediately to mind that doesn't sound more like research than a design project. Was it Research or Engineering that did the work on the F-14X?
