IGdood presents a Let's Play: The UFO Trilogy - FINISHED IT ALL

[IGdood]

I think they're Reticulans. Researching the Earth Folklore and Reticulan Language reveals info on the Reticulans coming to Earth with their biomass and a reference to the bad ending from Aftermath. Something made the Reticulans into stupid, feral beasts with the ability to use lasers. The Biomass is mostly dead, but humanity has regressed to the point where any history between the first game and the second game has been lost, which is strange. I guess part of the storyline is finding out what the hell happened.

So previously the cultists decided to go on the offensive against us shortly after their discovery.

The base looks brighter, and the squad is squeezed into a tiny room because reasons.

Psi vision reveals nothing.

Although I surmise that Psi Vision doesn't need to be toggled on to see through walls. Svala spots a presence from the entrance.

The Cultists walk into an ambush. Close quarters cancels out the penalty from using Snapshot firing mode.

I couldn't put David by the doorway because of positioning issues. He couldn't trade places with Neil.

These poor suckers didn't last more than a few seconds. They were so surprised by the sudden onslaught they didn't lift their weapons.

They also say funny things to themselves such as "RUN AWAY"

We end up chasing the last cultist outdoors. He turns around and tries to fight back but takes a few more lasers to the face.

I thought that was it, but when they meant base defense they meant the entire base including auxiliary structures that the player has built.

I move the squad to smaller building and find that the cultists have already taken up positions inside.

Just kidding, upon hearing my men's footsteps they rush out and proceed to get slaughtered.

The loot is good this time.

Lovely assault rifles.

The manmade laser weaponry from Aftermath show up.

Aww, can't use sniper rifles without sniper training.

A better shotgun with burst fire.

That will probably chew up anything.

Hellz yeah, better medkits.

Shit, something is coming to us in 14 days.

The other techs that reveal the storyline would be very interesting.

Researching grenade techs would allow the factories to automatically replace grenades after usage.

The cultists are expanding, and so must we.

To Russia!

Mowing down Potheads like it's nothing. Burst fire on assault rifles is based.

I like how a captured Reticulan can be told to shoot its former comrades.

Before building the more advanced labs, a base needs to have a certain "Knowledge Level". Building libraries increases the knowledge level of the base.

Maybe a school is more effective than a library...?

Shiiiieeettt, damn cultists are expanding close to my territory.

But first, let's remove some wild Reticulans from Iberia.

Little buggers have made the derelict UFO their home. Gotta go in and clear it out. I am reminded of the nightmare that is microslug accelerator with no cover.

Or rockets.

But Gagan gives 0 fucks and blows the inhabitants away with his trusty desert eagle

Stuttgart is like my low-tech research base. The labs there do not require a knowledge level.

>Shuriken

>Katana

Someone was a weeaboo.

Time to bring pain to the cultists.

Holy shit, what happened to you?

See, this is why we can't have nice cults.

We begin the mission by blasting the shit out of a Cultist Cyborg.

David clears out rooms.

I'm not sure what an Atoll is but I think I should give it some space.

It survived a frag grenade whereas the cultists did not.

The atoll spawns tiny bugs that move extremely quickly (they fly, you see) but die rather quickly.

Burst fire shotgun kills the Atoll.

Clear one set of buildings, move to the next...

Note the Biomass.

Things take a turn for the worse when I let Gagan and David get overwhelmed indoors.

Wanted to get Gagan to lure the cultists away from David, who is hiding in the room.

Only one guy followed Gagan out. The rest...ran into the room where David was and ate shotgun pellets.

Gagan executes a psionic.

Check out that loot!

Whhhhyyyy

A medical lab lets us do many things with autopsies and medkits.

Checking out the new gear...

That's a big gun.

Fotuntely Jayashree finally completed her Sniper training, level 1.

And here are some tentative paths for the other squaddies.

Build build build

Oh shit, these guys are expanding quickly.

We'll take the fight to them.

With a squad of 5.

Barrett Sniper Rifle you scary.

I mean, the aim time is very long, but with a spotter Jayashree can seriously wreck shit from afar.

So many research projects.

This game is definitely more complex than XCOM.

Edited June 14, 2014 by IGdood

[IGdood]

Big update incoming.

One day, Mother Russia will be free. Today is that day!

Poor Eric gets ragdolled and critical'd by a Muckstar, but fortunately there weren't that many enemies.

Muuust get medic Level 2 for Neil

Considering turning Eric into a gunman. I have a feeling I'll need heavy weaponry soon.

Actually wait, Leader would be a better specialization.

Obviously Svala already has a set path.

Jayashree continues her way of the sniper. David focuses on stealth.

Factories left idle will drain upkeep. I should just make them churn out ammo all day and all night.

Help a certain faction, tread on someone else's toes.... We don't want that now, do we?

We're really expanding into the east.

Need new people. I'll take Sven Thompson.

Oh dear.

Awwwww yiiiis

Now, to the African front.

Look, greenhouses! Jayashree takes up a good sniping position. Unfortunately, the squad overkilled the mark.

Let's try this again.

I hate wildlife.

FULL AUTO

And some random screenshots of missions that either consist of kill everything or capture some random mutant. The Laputian nation expands some more into the British isles, the Baltics, Scandinavia, etc...

Hellz yeah Flechette

Gonna give this guy a katana one day.

More troopers! More troopers!

Almost there...

I'm going to love these

Machineguns require the Gunman training to be used. Fortunately Rochan here has the skill.

Hungary for more land.

I don't have a machinegun so Rochan gets an AK-47.

This poor fellow never knew what hit him.

Return of the 2-level bases.

FULL ON ASSAULT. LEAVE NONE OF THESE POTHEADS STANDING.

Considering making room in Stuttgart for upcoming advanced labs and factories. Gonna move all my low-tech stuff to Moscow.

I just reinforced a stereotype, didn't I?

Almmoooost there.

Technician + Medic for Betty, perhaps?

Sven has some ways to go.

Another random battle in the desert.

Ahhh shit there's too many of them.

Mutants/transgenants are slow, fortunately.

Put some distance and restart the bulletstorm

Another base. Take up positions at the halls and send Sven on a scouting run.

BLAAARRGH

Heh, a Y-shape.

And stay down.

Flatsters are unbelievably tough to kill. Fortunately they're there to distract you. They might send the occasional lightning bolt over but for the most part they just crawl around your squadmates' feet like a doggy.

We have reached the limits of our empire...?

Interesting. So this is what happened after Aftermath that sort of explains why the Biomass is mostly gone and the Reticulans have gone nuts.

New research available: Cultists and Advanced Medikits.

Medic level 3 sounds godly. Reanimate? Holy shit.

More help needed in the Baltics

I hate Psi Paralyzers

Schools are better than libraries. Too bad I can't demolish libraries if there is a lab that requires knowledge to be built. I have to demolish the lab, then the library, wait for the school to be built, and then rebuild the lab.

Oh come on...

Advanced Weaponry? I'm interested.

If grenade launchers are as awesome as they were in Aftermath...I'm in.

Eric is going to be an awesome leader.

Not all bases have more than 3 slots. That means 4/5-slot bases are best for building places that require a very high knowledge level.

More research shenanigans.

[IGdood]

For some reason I still don't feel so inclined to use Psi Weaponry.

I AM HEAVY WEAPONS BORG, AND THESE ARE MY WEAPONS

Let's test this baby out.

Even a charging Morelman isn't able to get close thanks to the huge stopping power from the machine gun. Stopping power is actually showing itself with powerful guns like this one and the Barrett since it actually makes things flinch hard and occasionally ragdoll over the place.

Flanking monsters and turning hallways into a death zone are always fun.

Bye bye laser pistol.

Easiest mission ever. Didn't encounter any enemies. Only ran across the map.

Running low on money...shit.

But hey, research has a price. I'll just have to reset diplomatic relations with the regular humans to 0 and build it back up again with resources that I have a lot of.

>target body parts

Wait, she's not actually targeting heads only?

One of the funnier missions from Glasgow, Scotland.

I was to assist local NPCs in killing off Reticulans, but before I could get into the 2nd floor they finished it for me.

Got a lot of low-tech resources from the Humans. They gave me 5k, which should last me awhile.

AP bullets. YISS

RESEARCH AND MANUFACTURE ALL THE GOODS

I'm going to like this one very much.

Didn't notice Brainmen had a mouth on the abdomen.

>Flatster

>Dangerous

Had to rebuild everything in London because I couldn't replace the Library with a School while the Psionic Lab was still online.

Malaga currently houses some low-tech research and production but eventually will become my Energy Weapon research compound.

How nice, it's a an organized theocracy. I have a huge urge to stamp out the cultists now.

This sounds shady.

Fight fire with fire, I say.

Maybe I should give this to Svala.

So the HK 69 is one-handed? I think Neil is about to get very, very useful.

Meanwhile switched Sven's gun because I like to make my guys varied.

>can only make batteries

Colleges need a knowledge level of 1 to be built, after which they add 4 knowledge to the province for a total of 5. Stuttgart just got a lot more high tech.

Maybe if we keep expanding, we'll eventually find more low-tech mines. -12 is going to kill me one of these days.

Based Jayashree just headshotting everything.

I like it when new maps show up.

And Jayashree does it again, killing off the entire map's enemies (who were all conveniently bunched into a corner)

Maybe David should be a Ranger? His stats are...so balanced that I can't train him in anything.

Construction in Stuttgart just can't get any faster. I WANT MY ADVANCED WEAPONRY NOW

This is like a squad size upgrade, I assume?

I pick range over speed. The game only lets me research one of two upgrades

Oh yeaaaaaah

Researching the past

HNNGH WEAPON CUSTOMIZATION UNLOCKED

Shotguns + underbarrel grenade launcher = shotgunner doesn't have to be useless in long-distance combat

Take away a machine gun's weakness and you have a death-spewing machine. Rochan just got a lot deadlier.

FInally found some low-tech resource mines.

Sven's the new shotgunner/grenadier because he has Trooper training. David doesn't have the stats for Trooper training so he gets an AK-47.

Unfortunately, aimed fire takes way too long for a grenade launcher (probably because it was seriously OP as fuck in Aftermath when they didn't distinguish between fire modes). By the time Sven lobs a grenade the monsters are all dead.

The squad gets more badass with all these new toys.

After playing this game, I'm starting to think XCOM is a bit bland and streamlined.

Random mission against Reticulans.

>Gagan

>getting ragdolled by a laser weapon

>Sven finally gets a grenade off

>Aliens die

>grenade comes down 2-3 seconds later

Maybe he didn't need to aim in such a high arc...?

>change to quick fire mode instead of aimed fire

I guess that was the key all along.

XM8 Assault Rifle? Wasn't that on Future Weapons or something back in the day?

I think XCOM based the starting assault rifle on that design too.

Oh yeah. Alien ship countdown hit 0.

And then shit hit the fan.

DEFEND THE LAPUTA AT ALL COSTS

This reminds me of the XCOM Base Defense from Enemy WIthin.

JUST LOOK AT ALL THOSE HITPOINTS

FUCK YOU RNG. FUCK. YOU.

The entire squad is scattered across the ship and the game decides in its infinite wisdom to spawn Neil with the enemy.

Somehow, Neil manages to avoid being seen in plain sight by the Wargots (whose voice acting and language sound like Jabba the Hutt) and he runs off.

[IGdood]

This is what happens when I play SRW.

I end up getting sidetracked for half a month.

TOO LATE, SUCKAS. You can't reach me behind the glass.

RUN JAYASHREE RUN

REFORM, REGROUP, RETURN FIRE

MAKE THEM FUCKING PAY

Rochan begins a barrage of death.

Sven manages to grenade himself by firing the grenade into the light post in front of him. Damn you quick fire, of all the times to screw up it had to be now.

He's also ragdolling, so I can't issue him any orders until he gets himself back together.

Did I also mention that the Wargots are all targeting him? They're also shooting glowing orange balls, so I assume it's plasma or something that can kill quickly.

Sven gets healed after losing a chunk of health, so the Wargots decide that Neil must die.

Ouch.

Neil takes a step back, stops his bleeding, and Sven ends up getting shot up.

Well, while all the bastards targeted Sven and Neil with their arm cannons, the rest of the squad take them down slowly.

Man, can't they shoot Rochan? He's the guy with the most health.

Wargots on the right are put down.

GRENADE THEM ALREADY

HE SHOOTS

HE EXPLODES MONSTERS

The counterattack begins.

Poor guy's running around in circles.

That guy looks very dangerous.

Fortunately the RNG was kind and he gets ragdolled. Of course the squad continues blasting away.

>Doppler Scanner

>Grenade Launcher

They had a grenade launcher?

New research get

Cultists pls

New tracks linking the border bases can be built now that we've got more low-tech resource income. Medical factories will allow us to replenish our medikits.

And we need a new medic because relying on Neil for all our healing duties is risky. Plus, he needs to stay in the infirmary for FOUR days thanks to losing almost all his health last time.

Linette will be chosen.

She can probably make for a great leader too.

The Wargots then decide to blitz THREE of my provinces. Things are going to get ugly around here because now I have to complete 3 missions against a potentially lethal enemy. Hope I have enough squaddies to cycle with.

I think Paris was the 3rd one

Alright, let's kill some Wargots.

[IGdood]

Fresh Wargot corpses, made to order.

But before that, I discovered more of the lore that I didn't notice because I didn't watch one thing: the intro of the game.

Recall that at the end of Aftermath the Council of Earth agreed to the deal to move a portion of the Earth's population to a spaceship called the Laputa.

Here's a bullet point list of things that I learned:

> The inhabitants of the Laputa were not told why they were moved off Earth

> The Laputians actually do not know how to operate the Laputa to its full extent, all they were told was that the Laputa was the new home

>The Laputa under the player's control is the 2nd one. The 1st one was destroyed when pro-Council of Earth crewmen fought against "mutineers" who sought the truth of the matter.

The mutiny occurred sometime when the Biomass (and the renegade Reticulans) began dying off. Not much was elaborated on in the intro. The Council of Earth had apparently disappeared also around this time. I think that's what sparked the mutiny. The mutineers sort of panicked since the Council of Earth stopped sending messages to space and decided to figure out the truth.

After survivors from the 1st Laputa (now destroyed) escaped to a 2nd Laputa via escape pods, they decided to piece together the missing bits between Aftermath and Aftershock. This is what leads to the beginning of Aftershock where the Laputians settle down and "recolonize" Earth.

Anyway, back to the Wargots.

They thought they could get the jump on us Earthlings. They were wrong.

Just kidding, my squad's getting their ass handed over to them in an escort the refugee mission. I accidentlly deleted some screenshots, but the Wargots have a fuckton of area denial weaponry via incendiary grenade launchers. They also have mechs with dual plasma launchers.

I wasn't sure if I was going to win here, hence why Betty is upfront drawing fire from the mech. Unfortunately the rest of the Wargots seem to want Jayashree dead, hence her low health.

It took awhile to kill the Power Armor.

Research topics studying our foes begin to appear.

They just can't leave us alone, can they?

Sniping undetected is always a blessing.

I spoke too soon. Launching grenades while undetected is not a good thing.

But, that's what the rest of the squad is for. Finding and killing the culprit.

These scouts have some sort of small gun attached to them. They barely do damage but they're very hard to hit.

SNIPER LEVEL 3 GET

You're going to get bored from all these defense missions.

Tough Wargots are tough. This is probably the time where firepower alone won't win shootouts. Svala is now a dedicated stunner.

All that noise from guns attracts attention. Getting flanked sucks. The squad retreats into the building..

Fortunately for them the Wargots aren't the sharpest minds in the galaxy. In their eagerness to spill human blood they ran through their own flames and right into bullets shot at close range.

It's like they're trying to drive us deeper into the building. Rochan stays in the flames because he can take it. Everyone else runs further in to regroup. Assuming they survive, they're going to spend a long break in the infirmary...

Rochan charges out of the building and fills all the Wargots outside with copious amounts of Pb.

ALL THESE RESEARCH TOPICS

Next defense mission where I test out smoke grenades.

Was hoping that generating a lot of noise would lure Wargots over but they didn't take the bait. Instead they retreated after I deployed smoke.

You cunning AI.

ROCHAN LEADS THE CHARGE.

FALL BACK. TOO MANY FLAMES

But, fortunately flames don't discriminate between friend and foe, and paralyzing the suckers in their own flames works wonders.

That totally looks like the XCOM rifle.

TROOPER TRAINING GET

If we keep expanding to the east, we're going to hit cultist territory soon enough.

Muckstars camping on hills? Are they getting smarter?

Dammit Sven, how do you pull off these things

As if machinegunners can't get anymore overpowered

We can make better armor now.

Might be cool.

BLACK KATANA CYBORG NEO-SAMURAI COMING RIGHT UP

Let's hope the NPCs are useful here.

TOO MANY HOSTILES

RUN THE FUCK AWAY

RUN. AWAY.

I'll just wait for them to find me here. One by one. Oh look, a scout.

This was funny as shit.

What is this, Super Smash Bros smash attack?

Looks like the human militia have to face the brunt of the Wargot force. Time to help them out.

What IS THAT?!

Took a huge chunk off Eric's health.

Once again, Rochan kills everything else.

Neil's back with his BOOMstick.

I need another sniper. The Barrett actually makes Jayashree quite inaccurate (for a sniper anyways). Plus, it's always good to have 2 of each role.

Looks like the Reticulans powered up. Those plasma launchers are back.

They still die pretty easily.

Even this guy. And we all remember how hard they were to kill back in Aftermath

Awww yeah

I swear these bloody Wargots just won't leave us alone!

Today is Gagan's turn to shine.

*SCHWING*

*Scout dies*

*CHOP*

*Wargot goes unconscious*

Note to self: Charging into a barrage of projectiles probably isn't the best idea, even for a Cyborg.

2nd note to self: Neil shouldn't be told to shoot grenades when Gagan is in the fray chopping enemies in close combat

GOTTA REVIVE HIM

TL;DR: Cultists are nutcases and must die

Let's increase squad size.

[IGdood]

And one more update before I go back to SRW Z

Down with the Reticulans! Even if they have rocket launchers!

Yeah I bet they'll really hurt once they pull out microslug accelerators.

Useless human militia NPCs are useless

Damn thing is lobbing plasma balls

Just some pics on what I've conquered

Lel, headshot

Note to self: Flatsters will bite you to death in packs

Finally we can build Implant Factory

>Dodging bullets

Nice.

I bet you're getting bored of the endless Wargot missions.

Medium armor looks pretty neat.

Cyborgs have inherently high health, so their implants are stat boosters instead of providing armor.

Jayashree begins scout training.

>Cultists working with Wargots

LET'S DO THIS...soon

Medium helmet is like the same except with a facemask.

What is this

Nowadays we're faring a bit better against the Wargots, but somebody usually ends up losing half health.

Close quarters motherfucker

Raveena's using a laser sniper rifle. It's rather accurate (opposite of Jayashree's Barrett) but is a bit lacking in damage.

Getting ready for the temple mission.

Let's hire some foreign help now that my relations with the other factions are at their apex.

Only a cheap a 4000 and they send over someone with a high level and high stats.

Man, what's the whole point of me grinding and training the squad?

And to top it off, Jerzy here comes with Heavy Armor, something I can't even research.

ALRIGHT, WE FUCKING GOT THIS

The main force is probably across the bridge.

We'll check out the houses on our side to make sure we won't be fighting on two fronts.

Psionic snipers, fuck.

Raveena goes down. Shit.

The cultists charge en masse. The machine guns open up.

WHY WON'T THEY DIE. WHY.

More cultist cyborgs show up.

They somehow tanked all the machine gun shots and proceeded to rape the everloving fuck out of my squad with dual-wielding submachineguns.

When Rochan's health goes down in 4 seconds, you know it's serious business. The Cultist Psionics manage to panic Raveena so she ends up shooting Betty. Betty isn't great with her gun.

There's just no stopping them. Neil's grenade manages to stun most of them, and I take the moment to move everyone back into the landing pod. Jery gets left behind when I abort the mission.

We needed more explosives. If mines existed in this game, I would've turned that bridge into a death trap before luring the cultists over.

Wargot Probe cutscene.

Doesnt really give anything useful.

NEED MORE HP

And as if the game wants to answer my wishes, mines are available.

Uh...blowpipe?

Ron will replace Jerzy as the second gunner.

Since he's a trooper I suppose he can use a grenade launcher too.

PKMG accuracy leaves a lot to be desired though, but I guess a stabilizer can fix things.

GAGAN WILL DODGE BULLETS SOON

THE RETICULANS HAVE ROCKET LAUNCHERS

Let's help the villagers to not die.

Somehow we managed to keep Jerzy's heavy armor.

Wait, what? The mission just started!

Raveena and Linette need to git gud.

Can't even build basic psionic stuff and now we can research the advanced psionic lab?

Flatsters are truly the Stunfisks of the day

A bonus to grenades? Neil might as well take Trooper level 2

It's gonna take a lot of research to get to Drones.

Those cultists won't see this coming.

This will help our cyborgs see better.

So the Wargots are fanatics. This explains why they struck it up so quickly with the cultists.

>Enemies can use mines too

Aw man...

Why can't I hold all these research topics...

The Barrett is already inaccurate for a sniper rifle. A silencer would make it worse, so here's a flash suppressor.

Blowpipe --> Airgun

I suppose they're useful when you don't want a psionic using a paralyzer or poison gun. I think the psionic weapons would have longer range though, and they don't need commando training.

Betty will now be a lot more useful as the technical trapmaster.

I got bored.

Tell me something I didn't already know.

AWW YEAH

Build build build. I wonder how far I am on the tech tree.

[Rehab]

The base and faction management stuff in this game seems pretty cool.

I happened to pick up UFO: Afterlight on sale. Only one I have so far, not sure if I should wait until getting one of the earlier games to start the series or just fire it up.

Regarding the cultist base assault mission, it seems like the game is suggesting you take them on before you actually expand near their territory (mostly because of the Wargots harrassing you, if I've interpreted it correctly, but still). Do you know if it's possible to just conquer all their shit anyway?

[IGdood]

The base and faction management stuff in this game seems pretty cool.

I happened to pick up UFO: Afterlight on sale. Only one I have so far, not sure if I should wait until getting one of the earlier games to start the series or just fire it up.

Regarding the cultist base assault mission, it seems like the game is suggesting you take them on before you actually expand near their territory (mostly because of the Wargots harrassing you, if I've interpreted it correctly, but still). Do you know if it's possible to just conquer all their shit anyway?

I don't know if you want to wait. Aftermath is pretty clunky. Aftershock is pretty modern, reminds me of XCOM

I read that if you conquer all their territory before you do the base assault mission, they automatically gain control of some of the player's territory randomly later on.

I was thinking of giving a scanner to Jayashree, but Wargot equipment is heavy as hell.

Scuttlebugs are just...bugs. Exactly as it says in the name.

David and Betty are ready to tear shit up.

Temple Assault, take 2.

The squad takes positions. Rochan and Ron will cover the minelayers. Jayashree, Neil, and Gagan wait in the back.

Unfortunately instead of emerging from the houses (which I expected) the 2 cyborg guards are already outside. They spot the minelayers and I have no choice but to kill them. The resulting noise draws the main cultist defense force from across the bridge. Fuck, I only laid down 2 mines!

The mines don't seem to do much. Then again it was only 2 damn mines. AP bullets are working wonders though.

But wait there's more!

David, Neil and Betty pull out the heavy artillery and begin plastering cultist paste across the wooden floor.

Cyborgs who do manage to get close get sliced before they can do too much damage with their dual-wielding SMGs.

Incendiary rounds too based. The pathfinding is pretty bad in this game, so the AI ends up stalling in the flames.

Neil seems to be able to keep the damage under control.

And of course these assholes have to ruin the perfect defense.

Jayashree makes a run for it.

Gagan rushes in to stop them...

....and manages to get knocked out after the first 2 slices. However, his sacrifice buys enough time for Jayashree to get into a new firing position.

Ron is now covering the rear while Rochan continues pouring it on the bridge.

I think the Cultist Psionics are all snipers or something, because they suddenly drop David. Well this can't be good.

But miraculously we managed to hold them off, albeit Neil has also been downed.

Jayashree manages to make it to Neil and grab the basic medikit off of him. She doesn't have medical training so she can't use the advanced ones. Imagine if nobody had a basic medikit. The irony would not be lost on me.

Well, she manages to bring the bomb trio back, which was a relief.

As for Gagan...

"I"LL BE BACK."

With the gang slightly worse for wear, they trudge on. I seriously hope there won't be anymore enemies.

Perhaps I spoke too soon. Regardless, Jayashree gets revenge on TWO laser-rifle wielding cultist psionic snipers.

The access codes are in there.

DIE YOU PIECE OF BIOMASS DIE

Those cultists were packing heat, but superior training and tactics won the day. Gagan's going to spend a long time in the hospital.

Found another accelerator that can buff the inaccurate PKM.

Took a lot of waiting for me to finish all these floorplans.

So THAT's what the cultists were using. Devices that automatically fuck with any enemy in your line of sight. A good sniper would've been able to impair her target from halfway across the map.

Almost sounds borderline OP.

Researching access codes just unlocks yet another long research topic. Although... 10 days = final mission topic?

GAGAN IS BACK FROM THE SICKBAY (with no disabilities too!) and is ready to undertake the final level of commando training.

The Psi helmet reminds me of the Rebellion helmet from Star Wars.

TERMINATOR

RPG user who can dodge = \o/

SO... a single psionic can be wearing all these debuffing and buffing devices? Nice.

Example image of infrared:

Not very useful for the outdoors, I must say.

>another floor plan

I swear, how extensive is the research tree?

>3 types of Drones

>10-15 days each

I hope they're worth it.

Dem legs

I'm going to be running out of land pretty soon.

Heavy shield for the drone...?

This is new.

The projects pile on

Drones are a part of the squad, not an item. The core is fitted to a chassis (the latter also taking a very long time to produce)

That's...really a lot of chasses.

And I was wondering when I'd be able to build my own scanners.

Heh, it looks kinda cute.

After finalizing the design, 3 drones popped up.

I name them SHIV

More implant research

All these deection devices!

Random mission with SHIV

The Drone (when selected) quickly gives detailed information on a target's health bar and resistances.

The little guy who could! SMG'd the power armor to death.

Let's refit it with a heavy machine gun

Shotgunner with dodge = cool

Looks like the cultists have reached our borders.

Time to push back.

[IGdood]

This is going to be fun to use.

Hopefully subsequent random missions won't be tough like the Temple one. Betty replaces 2 mines with a repair kit.

Random funny set of pics where HEAVY MACHINE GUN SHIV blasts the shit out of an armored Wargot.

Night Vision devices are integrated into helmets.

Wargot grenade launcher ammo is a lot easier to carry than a human RPG ammo. WIll see if they pack the same punch.

Sonic Weaponry.

Does about 0 damage, but can stun. So it's like a non-psionic paralyzer.

I wonder what goodies the devs have up their sleeves this time.

Let's start the attack.

SHIV too fun to play with

But a little drone can't handle everyone.

NOOOOOOO HE KILLED THE SHIV

Night vision example.

Plasma Shotgun example.

Shame there's no bright projectile.

I hope there isn't another tier beyond "Advanced"

This looks much smaller than the Wargot version.

Combined Wargot/Cultist battle? BRING IT.

This is the greatest firing position ever.

And there's the mark.

One too many machinegun bullets pushes him off the ladder and he falls for a big ouchie.

Linette has to go save his ass so we can kidnap him.

They just can't touch us.

Alright job done.

I wonder if I'll ever use these.

>Finish a 10-day research

>Get assigned another load of projects

AND THEN SUDDENLY NEW ENEMY

Sure is a refreshing change of pace from Wargots, although being bullet-resistant really sucks.

SG Stars are like living sawblades.

Not sure what SG Defenders do, they just float around and get shot.

SG Spiders are slow, but accelerate when they get shot. They also deal large amounts of damage in melee. They also take forever to kill. SG Cloud....takes 0 damage from everything execpt for lasers.

KILL IT WITH FIRE

When the Fighter Drone Core doesn't cut it....SEND OUT THE DEFENDER CORE.

[IGdood]

UFO Aftershock was one of the most crashworthy games of the day when it was out and unpatched. Even when it got patched, the crashes were so bad and frequent that the developers made fun of themselves in the options screen with a button that does nothing because even they didn't know where some of the bugs came from.

I've had a pretty good no-crash streak with this game thus far, but maybe it's because I'm close to the endgame. The crashes are coming in every 15-20 minutes and sometimes the missions bug out with disappearing enemies that I'm supposed to kill.

At the moment all I'm doing is manufacturing and researching stuff and waiting for the damn spaceship parts to be finished (22 days!?)

That aside, let's continue this.

There's s many tools I want to try out but every one of them takes a day or two to produce and I'm getting attacked every 8 hours. Not fun at all.

>research psi weaponry

>turns out i already have these things from fighting cultists

Advanced implants can be further modifued via the Compose action.

With these scanners....Jayashree looks like that SPT icon from Super Robot Wars J.

A hovering shotgun.

Finally. I can add bling to my armor and sniper rifles.

The Ultrasonic gun looks a lot cooler than the Laser Sniper Rifle. Not as accurate, but the additional stun damage will help.

They call them...Starghosts. And we're only fighting their minions and psionic manifestations. The actual bodies of the Starghost masters are on a ship way out of reach.

This cutscene unlocks autopsies of Starghost beings.

The Space Program factory allows us to build spaceship parts for a transport that will carry troops to the Wargot ship. Unfortunately spaceship parts take forever to build.

I'm pretty much skipping a lot of filler missions where I'm escorting or shooting. Instead I'll post pics of new equipment in testing or just really cool-looking action shots.

The Wargot launcher is much more efficient than the Reticulan one. Same range, faster rate of fire, and similar damage.

Starghosts give out such strong psionic signatures that Svala can spot them from across the map. And not just question marks too, she can tell what they are.

Jayashree kicks even more ass than before since the sniper scope essentially offsets the inherent inaccuracy of the Barrett. Now she's as accurate as Raveena with the Laser Rifle.

That's like...41 days.

If Warp weapons are as powerful as they were in Aftermath, then maybe I can OHKO Starghosts.

Ultrasonic Rifle stuns if it doesn't kill, but Raveena is so good with it that she ends up killing the poor bastards anyways.

Scanners tell you where enemies are (but doesn't identify them) for about 3 seconds. You can set it on repeat by queueing up orders but that takes too much effort and ultimately is a waste of time.

Also, while Fighter and Defender cores can equip more than one weapon only 1 weapon will show up in battle and you can't make them switch. That means no scanner + gun combo, which is stupid. The infrasight addon is passive though so you can use that in addition to a 1-slot gun. If you have light/medium shields (not the heavy shield) you can also use that in conjunction with an active item.

Also, Scout Drone + shotgun = lightning fast bruiser who can OHKO light targets like cultists before they can see it

More autopsies...I like how they said it's a large shuriken. I said the same thing too earlier.

As I don't need some of the low tech buildings anymore Moscow is now renovated into a high tech base.

More upgrades for a guns. Finally, machine guns will be even more accurate!

Svala just got even more useful.

These cyborgs are going to be OP with their extremely high stats.

It's funny how you don't unlock armor upgrades until the lategame. This suddenly makes Light Armor useful again because thye can take 2 upgrades.

Wearing medium armor lets you take a helmet upgrade, whereas heavy armor only allows for 1 armor upgrade (the helmet is a part of the armor). Not to mention, heavy armor requires specialist training.

Ron has been retrained as a dual-wielding ranger. I initially thought that you can dual-wield any combination of weapons as long as they're both 1-handed. Turns out you need 2 identical weapons.

I see why that Cultist Temple Assault Mission was so fucking hard. Dual-wield lets one heavy soldier slaughter an entire squad of Wargots. One spray = 1 dead Wargot. In close range with snapshot + AP bullets + burst fire you can down 4 Wargots in 8 seconds. No joke.

As spaceship parts are built you add the modules to the frame.

At this point my squad is pretty much established and set in stone so I don't think I'll be experimenting with more psionic builds.

Random picture of a Drone lasering Reticulans. They couldn't hurt it.

This is a strange item. Psionics can't wear armor or any equipment that can be upgraded with addons. This means that characters with high willpower exhibit a strong psionic signature...?

This looks interesting.

I wish XCOM had stuff like this, but that would make the game too easy.

Light shields provide more balanced protection than heavy shields.

The weaponry looks so awesome now that they're decked out with upgrades.

Augmenting augmentations.

Almost done....

I remember this baby from Aftermath. Will make healing much easier.

Medium shields are a balance between Heavy and Light shields in terms of protection between damage types.

Almooooost doooone....

These helmets look cooler than ever.

Warp Resonators are extremely short ranged, but they can probably kill off anything.

Warp Rifles are like any other rifle except they take awhile to aim.

SHIP COMPLETE. TIME TO ASSAULT THE WARGOTS. I could've built more but I think 8 squaddies are enough to handle any situation.

The Wargot ship looks more like an asteroid.

[IGdood]

After fending off so many attacks during the near hundred or so days of researching and building spaceships, finally the ball is rolling again.

Note: I had to restart the whole damn assault stage because apparently bringing drones on the team will cause the game to bug out where your squad members start disappearing and the missions don't show up (more on that later). Now the drones are wasted weight on the spaceship (I could've brought more medikits) but I am confident that my squad is elite enough to not get too banged up.

This is actually NOT a gamebreaking bug. It's only gamebreaking when you put a drone in the squad on the Wargot ship assault mission.

As the cutscene ends we're automatically thrown into a mission where we disembark and shoot Wargots.

Jayashree clears the way since nobody can detect her and she headshots every Wargot with precision.

Meanwhile Gagan just sprints and cleaves heads.

I was expecting a torrent of enemies. Instead all I got were a few scattered guards.

For those of you who want to play this game, be sure to save BEFORE you assault the Wargot ship. Otherwise the yellow dot in this screen does not appear and you can't do any missions. The only thing you could do if the bug shows up is move the spaceship model around like the globe back on the Earth campaign screen. The game also froze twice for me (even without drones!) so save every so often during the mission.

This is essentially one really long multi-part mission. Just fight your way through and blow shit up.

Sometimes you see 3 enemies, sometimes you see none. It's just not challenging. I was expecting something as insane as the Temple Assault. Maybe fending off all those Wargot attacks thinned out their population?

The Starghosts are also here, and they will attack Wargots.

Warp rifles mince the shit out of Starghosts.

Dual SMGS OP

There are some parts where you can't access a particular room filled with enemies. However the objective is to kill everyone so you have to shoot upwards from the bottom floor.

The strand is just a beam of light that you have to destroy by force-targeting the area where the beam is coming out of. It's guarded by....... ONLY 3 BASIC wargots.

And this one was guarded by nobody. Just walk in and shoot the beam and walk out.

Seems like the game's pacing suffered greatly in the mid/lategame. During the time where you're supposed to build a bunch of shit and research a bunch of shit, your guys gain so many levels that they end up wiping the floor of enemies.

When all strands are destroyed, you press a button that equates to "BLOW THIS SHIP UP" and receive a visual message from the cult leader saying that nothing changes and blah blah religious fanatic rhetoric.

Wait, that ship was alive?!

Let's get sneaky.

ANNNND the Reticulans who were chasing the renegades from the first game are finally here, and they're about to crash on Earth.

Wait if you have a fleet, can't you just land all your ships and help me blow all the cultists and starghosts to kingdom come? In fact, why don't you just blow the starghost ship into pieces?

>Another Wargot ship

Let's move the story forward

The Starghosts will permanently destroy a territory forever now.

Man, why do we humans have to do everything?

Let's go, elite squad!

Walking onto a ship as opposed to walking inside brings back Aftermath memories.

This level confused the shit out of me. It's not too clear where the floors merge between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and I actually thought I was doing something wrong until I realized the map was bugged out (only 2 out of 4 teleporter pairs were working). Fortunately, reloading a save (instead of restarting the entire mission) fixed it.

Sven and Eric pretty much steamrolled through the tight corridors and weird alien geometries

Svala's psi powers are so good she detected everyone on the map......except the people who actually mattered.

And by people who matter, I meant the cultists who weren't being killed by the Reticulans and potentially could hurt us.

Fortunately they look even worse off than the usual armored cultist fare and went down quickly to plasma shots and quick bursts of AP bullets.

Hello, Grey. Nice job killing all the other cultists. Say tell me, why did you need us again?

And we're getting lost.

Ah here we are.

>intrepid native.

[IGdood]

AND THE GRAND FINALE OF UPDATES (for aftershock, at least)

My labs have been idle for awhile, it's good to see them go back to work.

Wait, whut?

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh they're just normal humans with shit armor and shit weaponry.

While Ron deals with a squad of 4 by himself, the rest of the human mutineers are slaughtered like animals.

Even Neil himself can take on this rebellion

The Wargot ship turns out doesn't have Wargots. It's the Starghost ship that was sending off all its minions here, and its similar to the Wargot ship.

So...

...why can't the good Reticulans just nuke that Starghost ship?

I think this is the last research topic.

>death obelisk

This enemy type is bugged as fuck. Occasionally they suddenly disappear but the game doesn't recognize them as killed. Then you either force a victory through a console command or abort the mission which results in the area getting glassed and lost forever.

Starghosts can't climb and they rely on close combat so shooting from a roof is a good way to kill them all without getting hurt.

But then there's SG Clouds which are immune to everything except energy weapons. Warp Resonators can blow them in 2 shots.

Pillars of Death send out a black pulse when threatened, but since my guys are standing right outside the radius...they can shoot it while laughing. It does take quite a lot of shots for the pillar to die though.

Okay, this is probably one of the weirdest theories I've heard, but after thinking about it for a moment (actually, 7 seconds), this is actually pretty damn cool.

If you didn't catch all that, here's the TL;DR version.

Spaceships are creatures named Myrmecol because fuck it, that's why. Myrmecols psionically influence entire populations of whatever planets that strike their desire and bend them to their whim without the individuals' knowledge (think indoctrination from Mass Effect). These "pets" of the Myrmecol then accompany their master.

A female Myrmecol seeds a planet with Biomass, which then generates a large pulse signal that tells male Myrmecol from far away that she's ready to breed. The male Myrmecol arrive with all their pets and do battle with each other as well as any other 3rd party species caught up in this bizarre pre-mating contest. The last male standing will mate with the female.

In other words, we're here to stop them from fucking each other, and to do that we need to kill the female. No female = male will leave with his starghost pets.

She's on the moon.

Let's not question how we manage to breathe on the surface. Let's just enjoy watching Reticulans die hard.

Defeated the surface guard, moving on to level 2.

They're getting steamrolled so hard it's not even funny. Half the squad is just tagging along while Ron, Eric, and Gagan just shit on the Reticulans.

I'm not sure what these fleshy things are but the objectives say to shoot them until they bleed so that's what we'll do.

That looks slightly disturbing.

Level 3, and suddenly new enemies!

A Myrm Octopus is even faster than a SG Star and while its melee attack is weak, its poison HURTS.

It also doesn't help that thanks to weird map design (or a bug?) the Octopus will sometimes dive through the floor for a short time before suddenly coming back up. Fortunately bullets go through the floor on this map.... for some reason.

Myrm Angels are like Flatsters. They don't do anything besides fire the occasional lightning bolt.

Unlike Aftermath which was exceedingly difficult, the enemies here are just pushovers.

That's the female Myrmecol, by the way.

Fun fact: A single strike and the subsequent venom from a Myrm Octopus was enough to take a good chunk out of the cyborgs' health. Good thing the Confusion Projector from Svala sometimes stalls them for long enough.

There's no boss battle. You just put a character on the green tile and it launches an ending cutscene followed by the game freezing and crashing to the desktop.

If you move your whole squad onto the green tiles, the game freezes and crashes.

So the outro shows a dude in heavy armor putting a bomb near the female myrmecol and hightailing it out of there with a cyborg and a psionic.

That's a teleportation pad.

The guy who narrated the intro returns in the outro, saying that humanity now looks to the stars to explore and hopefully meet with other aliens. With the Reticulan knowledge archives in human hands, faster than light travel can be possible for them. Humanity will meet others with peace, but they will be suitably prepared for those who find the concept of peace "alien" to them. Earth will rebuild and blah blah blah typical good ending.

That concludes Aftershock. The final entry to the series, Afterlight, will be next.

And that's it for the 2nd game in the series, folks!

Overall, this was a pretty good game until the pacing suffered catastrophically in the lategame and the player's forces ended up steamrolling the enemies. Even the Starghosts were pretty easy to kill once you figured out that they were close combat oriented and your squad has good agility and/or snipers.

Compared to Aftermath, it certainly got a lot deeper even with the addition of something as simple as Quick fire vs. Aimed fire and that friendly units can block each other's line of sight and shots. I remember vividly how in Aftermath my shotgunner couldn't "ambush" Reticulans because he took so long aiming his gun that the Reticulan would shoot at the same time he did. In the end, snipers ruled in Aftermath because you could just "blob" through a map thanks to everyone shooting through each other. The developers seemed to give up in Aftermath's lategame balance by giving every Reticulan a rocket launcher and near perfect accuracy.

Aftershock got a bit too easy in the end and I would've liked to use the drones more if I wasn't so afraid that they'll cause story missions to bug out. IN fact, I think that the most dangerous enemies I've faced were the cultists because they had the same combined arms tactic that I had. Their psionic snipers utilized the "debuff within line of sight" mechanic of circlets all too well, and they were more advanced than the player until the end game. Hell, the cyborgs tore my forces up with dual wield AP SMGs and it didn't help that they had superior numbers and tech.

This isn't to say that Aftershock is bad; it's far from it. The module upgrade system on the weapons and armor really helped in immersion and tactical planning. It also allowed the player to tweak a character's effectiveness to their heart's content. Some of the additional items felt poorly implemented (scanners that only activated for a few seconds) but others really added to one's tactical options (mines and their fuses, grenades and grenade launchers...etc) The base management and campaign was also refreshing to handle and was another element to think of.

Storywise, I would say Aftermath could give XCOM a run for its money with the detail in the research subjects and piecing the bits and shreds of information from the previous game as well as the whole Myrmecol mating ritual. I mean, what if the Ethereals of XCOM are doing the same thing? XCOM 2 material? Maybe. And the link between the Ethereals in XCOM to the "true Ethereal" in The Bureau (aka XCOM: Declassified)? Would really like to see an expansion to that maybe a 2nd expansion pack (Enemy Beyond?)

Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling at this point. I'll start Afterlight sometime tomorrow. Stay tuned.

[IGdood]

Let's get started with Afterlight.

The story is set during the events of Aftershock and possibly after. When the Reticulans took Earth for their Biomass experiment (which all turned out to be part of a cosmic creature mating ritual/master plan) they not only built 2 Laputa space stations for the humans, but they also moved a select 10000 of them to Mars where they were put in cryogenic stasis.

Those 10000 are tasked with terraforming Mars into a new Earth. Of course, the facilities only have enough food and water for 20-30 characters at the moment so there's your arbitrary headcount limit.

This is the story of the Martians.

We're thrown in the thick of things. We have control of Gene here in her basic spacesuit. No running and no crouching or prone stances.

No weapon either. It looks like characters now follow 2 experience trees: Scientist and Soldier.

Green tiles have been replaced by white tiles. The tutorial wants us to move there and so we shall.

Oh hey, there's a gun from a dead guy.

That thing looks massive and this laser looks puny as hell

But it died.

So aside from teaching some movement controls not much was going on. The settlers were excavating something and accidentally activated an automated defense drone which resulted in an unlucky guy named Jurgen dying.

These graphics actually look really nice.

The center object is my base. The big + signs are assets like mines. Flags are unexplored territory that can be captured. Red circles are combat missions; you may remember them from Aftershock.

Everyone's got a name this time, it seems.

Well, good thing we don't have to have a shootout every time we need to annex new territory.

Our earlygame enemies are robots.

We have to worry about fuel now. Makes sense, as we don't have military bases across the planet (like in Aftermath) and a giant, self-sufficient space station (like in Aftershock)

Oh shit. Things just got DEEP in this game.

Not only does the player have to manage the characters in the squad, but also the characters doing the research and manufacturing. Every character can be used for any occupation but all of them have some sort of specialty training that lets them do some things better than others. Hopefully the game wouldn't muddle things too much and put warriors into research positions and vice versa.

Also, base construction is now a feature for the player.

I feel like I'm playing the Sims.

I wonder if food and water management will be important...?

Do I have to fill these facilities soon?

A cleaner, more high tech version of the resource management interface.

First things first. Let's get the basics going. Research easy techs, build up the weapons.

There's not that many Earth guns here.

I'm not sure what to make of the new character design. Looks....cartoony.

EVERYONE has a personal biography. Whoa.

I'm not going to post them all at the moment, only the 4 active duty soldiers in the squad.

Ute Heinemann is one of the only veterans in the colony and a survivor from Aftermath.

I hope she won't be like the "Jaegen" of Afterlight.

Harald seems like a tough guy.

This looks new.

This interface looks familiar.

Seems like helmet and armor are combined into one space suit slot.

However, the slots seem smaller in number compared to previous games...

Like in Aftershock's beginning, the humans here don't really know what happened to the Council on Earth.

[Rehab]

Heavy noncombat/simulation elements, you say?

[IGdood]

Heavy noncombat/simulation elements, you say?

Maybe.

Alright, let's get this shit organized and summarized so I can refer to it without having to go through 5 tabs in-game.

20 people in the colony so far. Thousands more sleeping because not enough food and water to feed them.

The "Military"

Location: Residential Sector

Task: Killing shit in the name of the Mars Colony

Ute Heinermann - Special training in anti-Reticulan combat. All-rounder with noticeable agi.

Harald Zamyatin - Stability (prevents knockdown); high strength and dex.

Diego Ramirez - Heavy equip training (rockets!) ; str and agi.

Samantha - No skills; dex and intuition. Intuition is the new version of Intelligence but with added benefits to dodging, snapshot supporting, manipulation, and charisma.

The Researchers

Location: Lab, but trains at University.

Task: Researching principles and tech.

Willhelm Schrooten - No skills, but starts with 2 points in Science and Technical.

Fernando Ramirez - Earth tech knowledge.

Inge Heinemann - No skills.

Agnieska Yoshimori - No skills, but comes with 4 training points.

Science Skills that can be learned:

Medicine - Medical healing in combat, bonus to medical research.

Earth Tech - Bonus to researching techs of Earth origin.

Reticulan Tech - Bonus to researching techs of Reticulan origin.

Planetology - Bonus to researching planetary techs, speeds up building geosondes.

3 skills for 3 unspecialized scientists. Alright. Agni learns medicine, Inge learns Planetology, Wilhelm learns Reticulan.

Notes: Willhelm may be able to hybridize and back someone up from Technical.

The Technicians

Location: Workshop, but trains at Polytechnics

Task: Manufactures things unlocked by Science.

Jacqueline Wells - No skills, has 5 training points.

Mary Osakwe - No skills, has 4 training points.

Edgar Barker - No skills, has 4 points.

Neil Barker - Civil engineering.

Technical Skills that can be learned:

Surveyor - Bonus to mining station construction, used for dismantling and adjusting land mines in combat.

Civil Engineering - Bonus to construction inside the base. No use in combat.

Suit Handling - Bonus to spacesuit production, enables repairs of spacesuits in combat.

Driving - Bonus to vehicle speed, enables use of homing missiles.

The Field Archaelogists/Explorers/Medics

Location: Scientific Bay. Those assigned to explore Mars will also be placed here.

Task: Exploration...?

Note: The characters assigned here have viewable stats as well as military training. I would surmise that this pool is where I would draw my medics from. If I assign a character from the Researcher or Technician pool here, they still don't have a stat view tab. This is probably because they don't have military training.

Hikaru Yoshimori - High only in Intuition (low everywhere else), has Planetology,

Tadeusz Yoshimori - Average everywhere with utterly Pathetic willpower (his biography notes that he's airheaded). Has medicine. Oh dear. Is this guy going to be my medic?

Gene Lawrence - No skills, 2 points in science. No strength, but is speedy.

Mark Wells - No skills, 2 points in science. Where Gene is more of the speedy, smart one of the Explorers, Mark's stats are more strength based.

Gene learns Medicine too.

The Builders/Miners/Combat Engineers

Location: Technical Bay. Those assigned to planetary outposts outside of the Base will also be placed here.

Task: Mining, manning outposts...field engineer?

Note: Looks like I'll get my drivers and mechanics from here.

Pauline Lasalle - No skills, only good stat is Dex. No STR and average elsewhere.

Benet Haradze - Surveyor, only good stat is STR. No AGI, average elsewhere.

Oliver Svensson - No skills, good STR and INT but crap elsewhere.

Vera Schrooten - No skills, average stats.

Oliver and Vera are assigned suit handling training.

Geosondes/probes need to be established in areas with flags in order to draw your borders. The explorer group takes care of these tasks.

Mines and outposts can then be built in mapped areas. The builder group takes care of these tasks, and they do it faster because they can learn how to drive.

Nothing I can do here.

Future medic-in-training is added to the squad. He gets a laser weapon.

We're worse off than I initially thought. We don't even have starter medkits.

Can't do missions either without fuel...

One of the scientists pressure me to build additional labs because there's too many idle scientists. No resources, so I can't do anything back at Base.

Looking around the storage yields weapon modifications.

One can see a tinier building on the globe now that the Fuel Mine has been built.

Neil reports that out new Fuel income is "Tiny".

Now we can undertake missions. Let's go!

Not being able to run is going to make our exploration of the red planet a little slow.

Ute sounds like an old German woman.

Harald and Diego sound rather generic.

Samantha is a bit enthusiastic.

I want to strangle Tadeusz since he sounds like Rebellious American-Accented Teenager #1. Oh wait, that's what he is.

The drones have lightning guns, but fortunately they do little damage. Harald charges in (well, walks slowly because he's wearing a spacesuit) with the buzzsaw.

*WHIIIRRRRRRR*

Airhead teenager kid here shoots Harald by accident.

Drone spotted below...and it dies.

Fortunately we didn't have to walk for too long to find the remaining drones.

Aimed Burst Fire is still powerful as usual.

I like the new Results screen. Goes to show who did what in detail.

There's a loot screen too. I'm going to assume we don't have the advanced carrying capability that the Laputa has.

The newly explored territory is named "Ute's Butchery." How apt.

It is now safe to send a science team to prepare it for Metal Mining.

New objective: Build a satellite because we lost contact with the Laputa.

Oh hey, there's even an Obituary.

New research topics here, but let's go with Firearms first.

Researched medikits but can't make them. Need more resources....

And before I can end the day, someone/something sabotages the base. Probably damn Reticulans.

[IGdood]

And we continue.

Oliver Svensson is added to the squad. We need a technician after all.

Defend the water supply. Gotta have our 8 glasses a day.

These graphics look really impressive. Did I say that before? Sorry if I did, I tend to repeat myself.

Harald proves to be a great distraction, though compared to Gagan from Aftershock he doesn't seem as...great? For starters he can't run thanks to wearing a spacesuit and melee attacks don't hit as quickly in this game (every 2.5 secs vs. every 1 sec in Aftershock).

We can collect a finite amount of bodies, nice.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to scout out and "claim" the territory leading to the aqueduct?

Those conversations are actually more or less hints and tips on what the player should do next.

Already on it, bosses. The Explorer team is on their rover setting up Geosondes to claim the white territory. Unfortunately the entire team only has one rover so you can't send 4 characters to 4 different places.

The Field Engineer team operates on the same principle: one rover driven out to sites of raw materials.

Next main mission: Return to the excavation site where poor Jurgen was killed. Bring lots of troops

Building and scouting commands can be queued up.

And of course the Reticulans would show up as early game fo----oh I misheard that, they're allies.

But they're the renegade Reticulans and they haven't gone insane unlike the ones who stayed on Earth.

The Reticulans propose an alliance and offer to send some of their soldiers over. They're also busy fighting the drones.

Hooray, we can manufacture healing items. Medikits use first aid kits as ammunition, so I guess that's another complication.

Those are pretty generous terms for a fledgling colony like ours. Gladly accepted.

Been awhile since we've had aliens on the team.

Their nicknames are...yeah.

Tabbie is a standard combat Reticulan, a laser rifle-toting bastard. Unfortunately his superiors didn't think to send some of that glowy armor with him.

Oghie can be a crappy scientist or soldier. He really needs babying but since I'm lazy I'll send him to do research where he can slowly build up his science stats.

Welcome aboard, grey. And remember: We will be watching.

Constructing new buildings like these unlock more training options. In previous games you could train as whatever as long as your characters had the necessary stats.

Construction doesn't progress unless someone is assigned as a Civil Engineer. Neil here is the only one qualified so there he goes.

Workshop production is hampered though.

You might notice that there are more little buildings on the globe now. Kudos to the Field Engineer team. We also have access to some chemicals.

Alright, let's send the squad over to the excavation site.

Posting some research notes. After going through them in 3 games it gets a bit repetitive but sometimes it's different.

Let's see if we'll be able to contact the Laputa in the early game.

Can't build robotic equipment yet (need a Drone Assembly) but will do as soon as possible.

Ancient Earth ammunition is limited so we have to build our own Martian bullet-spewing guns.

Weaponsmith training will make our production go fastah!

We're here, and now it's time to avenge Jurgen.

Light resistance so far, an advancing firing line clears the elevated area.

And that gives us a good firing position.

Can't reach that guy so we have to go down to the platform....

You're a big guy.

It has twin lightning bolts and inflicted quite some damage to Harald.

I thought enemies would "bleed out" and die after they get knocked over. I remember Wargot Sentries dying after they're knocked "Unconscious" in Aftershock. It doesn't work that way anymore apparently. Call it a stroke of luck, but I sent only Ute back to finish off the mech and when she did, the game spawns a fuckton of unknown enemies from the big orange pillar in the screenie. Fortunately Ute made it out unscathed from these "Beastmen."

Well, looks like something activated the portal to another world and now we have to deal with a new foe.

There's a new mission where the objective is to clear out the Beastmen.

Meanwhile distributing level up points. Good dexterity for everyone is priority.

By the way, our aqueduct is under attack again.

Just a few annoying drones. They were easy to eliminate.

Now we expand north.

I split the squad into 2 groups so they can sweep both levels. Friendly fire occurs much easier in this game. Another reason a melee character is even more disadvantaged here compared to in Aftershock.

The Shooting Range has been unlocked. Good thing these new buildings only take up a tiny bit of space, about 4 tiles...?

Everyone in the squad undergoes Toughness training. Tabbie the Reticulan doesn't have that option so he undergoes Psionic Training.

I seriously wonder though. Does human anatomy training imply there will be human enemies in this game, or is it an option where the Reticulans end up becoming enemies later on and this makes Tabbie more efficient at fighting my squaddies?

Oliver had disappeared to learn how to repair suits; that's why he wasn't in the previous mission.

Who better than a war hero from Aftermath to become the squad's leader?

Harald will be a tank. Mostly because he's worried about his fellow squaddies' tendency to shoot the guy with the buzzsaw instead of the combat drone he's sawing apart.

Diego will be a gunslinger.

Survival methods is the equivalent to researching Alien Biology or something from past games.

Drones available this early?

I hope the scanning devices will actually be useful here.

[IGdood]

There are just so many things to do....

Just realized, I don't see a bar telling the player how much longer a research topic will take.

Time to fight back the bloody beastmen. If you don't handle a mission in a neutral/owned territory for sometime, the aliens will take it.

SOON.

To take back Cydonia, we have to destroy camp supplies. The red arrows can be easily seen in the distance.

I expected more guards.

They're armed with only pistols, so at mid-range they were easily dispatched.

Oliver sets down some dynamite and POOF.

I was out of dynamite so the team had to shoot the boxes. Wasted a lot of clips.

Many spoils to bring home.

The aqueduct is under attack for the third time.

Diego's gun is out of bullets and we can't make anymore, so he gets a homemade gun.

Detector devices can now be made. There's a metal detector and a doppler scanner.

A Mars simulation site allows for the development of better spacesuits.

With the excavation site back in good hands we can rebuild the geosonde.

Upgrading the water tank gives us more time to do other things in case our aqueduct is lost.

Sometimes the squad may be busy training or healing or something.

I was wondering if we'll ever get belt inventories and just larger inventory spots in general for some of the heavier characters. Turns out it has to be researched first.

There's also battle armor, which sounds great.

Allying with the Reticulans gives us access to a limited amount of their tech.

Drones can gain exp and level up? Hell yes!

Upgrades are free, fortunately.

Ute's going to miss that old gun. Maybe one day we'll be able to manufacture bullets for it...?

Oliver can use more inventory space. His combat abilities are pretty poor at the moment so he gets the scanner.

Environment hostility isn't a problem so far but I have a feeling it'll become very important soon. We can make the new armors now.

The drones even have faces now. This game really went for "cute" in the art direction huh...?

Spare parts are like first aid kits for the drone. A turret is needed before it can equip a weapon.

The squad begins to sweep nearby territories of enemies. The task was easy as these Martian drones are rather slow and stupid.

This is the 4th time the aqueduct is under attack

I just thought this was really funny.

I shouldn't laugh at my own guys getting shot.

The Reticulans offer psionic weaponry in exchange for 1 unit of chemicals. Since resources are counted as rates instead of an actual number in storage it means my net input of chemicals will decrease by 1.

The excavation site needs defending....again.

I have a strong feeling of deja vu. Maybe it's because I'm sweeping the upper level for a good firing position like last time.

Good job Tabbie, how did you manage to shoot your ally?

Are you a double agent?

New resources might appear in scouted territories now that we know how to mine/harvest/collect them. Wait no, we actually have to research topics on getting those first.

Robots level up, but that only lets them use items that boost their stats. Their stats don't go up on their own.

The characters don't really trust the Reticulans.

One day, we'll break the alliance. But today is not that day.

Drone is ready for combat. He is named Robbie 1 by default.

That's a lot of satellite dishes.

>research fossil fuel origin

>what's the point?

I don't know, but it was a Simple topic...

You look cooler than your Aftershock counterparts. Must be the rover wheels.

Now we have to defend our other territories or something. Well, it's more like discovering an enemy "base" and we have to go after it.

Robbie 1 replaces Harald for the time being. I want to see what this lil guy can do.

Our suit resistance is too low, and that worries me.

As soon as the mission began we were rushed by a lot of drones.

Robbie's accuracy isn't so hot, but that's because he only has one firing mode: Aimed Burst.

Everyone's suit punctures rather quickly, and health begins to drain. Good thing I brought a lot of first aid kits. Suit repairs only last for a few seconds before the environment puts holes inside again.

They fall like wheat to a scythe. Inaccurate lightning is no match for bullets!

That's just part 1 of the level.

We're a little banged up from the environment but we'll live.

This color scheme is giving me headaches.

Diego's rate of fire is pretty good even without snapshot. Since range isn't too big a deal around corners and hallways he and Robbie take point.

In big rooms like this the 2-handed gun users provide covering fire.

The objective is in the next room.

We must've killed all the drones on the surface. There's not much resistance here.

This reminds me of those Dreamland file missions from Aftermath. The difference is that the mission is completed after the character picks up the object.

All this for a battery.

With the completion of the satellite the story is pushed forward.

I was expecting Laputians but then...

>they appear to be a religious group

Oh hell no, NOT THE CULT

Out of morbid curiosity, I ask them for help.

Their response was....surprising...?

With some training, Harald will be good.

Psionic weaponry now requires ammo. Also 3 items have been combined into one: Confusion, stunner, and crusher. The modes are selected the same way guns can be used for snapshot/aimed/burst

Gotta keep pushing north.

[IGdood]

>double turret

We're going to need some extra construction space soon. I'm sure not all future buildings are small.

Time for an upgrade. Hopefully it'll get us better people to communicate to.

I wonder if an alliance with the Reticulans actually influences the training options and research topics one can choose.

We can finally run in our spacesuits. That should speed up missions nicely.

I have yet to encounter a "nature force". Are they referring to the environmental hostility ratings?

We've got a lot to build.

The light battle armor looks rather bulky, like they strapped a bulletproof vest onto the regular spacesuit

The transport suit is a regular suit with a giant backpack.

Oliver is a happy camper.

SUDDENLY A FAMILIAR FACE

It's the scientist from Aftershock, and looks like she's more than eager to help us out.

>still at war

Looks like this occurs during the war with the cultists/wargots/starghosts....?

Psi weapons make pink sparks fly out of targets. Yeah we're defending the excavation site again.

I have to run my missions at night now. The environment is more forgiving then.

Earth data received = more research topics?

This mission shows up when a territory is being attacked and there's no aqueduct involved.

Found the beastmen. Gonna give them a firing line.

I still can't tell if that's a mouth or just bad texturing on the helmet. Maybe it's like a gas mask?

Target's here, time to kill the cap'n.

Tabbie takes one in the head and crumples to the floor. Alive, but stunned.

The captain is the only competent member of the Beasts. After his death we retreat to the UFO

These stat names are just renamed versions of the human stats. I'm not sure which does what but I'll randomly input chips that improve them. Every type of chip improves 2 stats.

Ah, the appearance of the capture missions. Lovely.

Thank you RNG for starting me off on high ground.

Someone got knocked out and the mission ended so I guess I don't even need to walk to the target I need to capture...?

Looks like they're bringing out the scanners too.

I should increase the drone's accuracy.

The beastmen have really conquered a huge chunk of Reticulan territory. Good for us since that means we can grab ex-Reticulan land.

Excuse me sand tornado you're kind of in my way.

Shooting it doesn't hurt it. Walking next to it sometimes gets your characters hurt but only by a smidge

New enemies include giant worms and spiders. And they actually hurt the drone by...using tail whip? Biting? Can't tell, it's like a weird lashing animation.

The sound of gunfire attracts some beastmen, but they're easily killed.

Well, at least the corpse collection will be varied.

The Laputians have defeated the fanatics at this point in time. Good for everyone.

Heh, rebels? Then again, they technically did rebel against the pro-Council guys in the first Laputa ship.

Researching Earth tech gives us...some military tech that should probably be useful.

But first, laser weapons.

Getting attacked...again.

It's another underground Martian drone base. Time to clear it out.

Just like before, a rush in the beginning but not as bad as last time. Also there's a Nature Force in the back.

The lightning stuns Robbie hard. It seems to be rather susceptible.

But either way nothing really new so I'll skip to the results screen.

You have gotta be shitting me. Who made that decision?

Drones don't heal on their own. Even outside of a mission the player has to manually use a spare part to replenish the drone's HP. During a mission a trained technician could heal a drone.

I am reminded to make requests of the Earthlings.

They comply...sort of.

[Rehab]

Fuck, I want to see the playthrough but at the same time actually kinda want to keep some indeterminate amount of the game secret

Can't pick

Edited July 30, 2014 by Rehab

[IGdood]

Prepare to mourn.

I'm gonna look forward to double machine guns.

Being able to repair Robbie-1 in combat would certainly be a blessing. Too bad I keep forgetting to restore his health bar at the end of each mission.

I performed many missions over the days, namely expanding territory. Most of them were the same, but after I expanded my territory to a sizable amount (~25) the enemies started getting stronger.

It wasn't pretty.

Looks like a standard drone mission right? The environment hostility is pretty high, but I think my squad can take it.

Just a bunch of crawlers, no big deal. Ute and Diego take the high road.

These drones packed bigger guns (like the Mech's weapon) and gave Harald a hard time. Fortunately their health was still pretty low.

I don't recall seeing Mechs in missions aside from the one with first contact with the Beastmen.

Mechs ain't so tough. I'm just worried about suits getting punctured left and right. Ute and Diego proceed to rape.

The others finish off some crawlers and.....whoa.

2 mechs in a mission? Unheard of.

Kinda hurt, but we got a mech wreck so that's awesome.

I got kind of confident so I sent the squad on another mission close by without resupplying. The hostility rating is lower at night and I didn't want to wait.

The drones are busy electrocuting Nature Forces (and it works against them...) and there seems to be a new drone.

I wasn't sure what it could do and I didn't want to know what it could do so...it died quickly.

Oh. Shit. 3 Mechs.

Fortunately they're missing at this distance.

Unfortunately Diego and Ute ran dry on bullets. Didn't think to give them a knife either so all they could do was hang around and draw fire.

Samantha got hit pretty badly, then Harald landed a critical and sent a Mech tumbling down the cliff. It survived, got up, and continued shooting at us. Damn determined robot.

Samantha finished it off, and the mission was complete.

Imagine my disappointment when the game told me that the regular robot gun was incompatible with the Battle Turret. What

No rest for the weary. The Beastmen were attacking a mine and we're off.

Suit punctures all around even at night because it was a pretty bad area. Good thing the objective was just to kill these 3 guys.

Additional domes available. Now Neil can busy himself.

If we are to fight in ever more dangerous environments, we're going to need these.

Noble Metals can now be mined in previous territories thought to be "empty".

Alien Biology, Interrogation...I think I can see where the game wants me to go...

Time to focus our efforts on crystals.

We'll need these for dissections and other research topics.

It is strangely comforting to see the little rovers go about their business, wiggling in place to build mines and outposts...

Well, I wasted a research topic. No crystals = no lasers.

A little unclear on what to research next, so I put the appealing-sounding ones in the list.

Yes, how could I have forgotten that heavy suits require special training...? Well, that'll need some time.

Oohh yeaah, I wonder what new goodies I'll get this time?

Warp weapons and more resources? Nice.

It seems that the game wants you to train your scientists in everything so I guess I'll do that. The points have been building up.

I didn't look at the warp rifles yet.

I didn't repair Robbie.

I thought it was just a mission with Beastmen soldiers and captains.

How wrong could I be?

We only had to kill 1 guy.

As usual, I let Robbie take point.

Oh hey, a new enemy called a Shaman.

Seems to be armed with the regular Beastman pistol and died rather easily.

New enemy called the Chief.

He's the target and he...

....he nearly one-shotted Tabbie from that distance. From a lower height. That must be godly stats or training.

Tabbie gets healed and the next second the Chief goes after Robbie. 1 shot to disable, another shot to shut Robbie off forever.

Yeah nah, we're not going to stick around to fight that guy. A bullet barely does any damage to him.

But the Beastmen were smart. They knew were going to withdraw back to the UFO so the rest of the Chief's lackeys were waiting there on our way back.

The Captains are fairly competent and managed to stall us.

Ute and Diego just shred everyone.

Until the chief shows up. Oliver was there to repair Ute's suit and Tadeusz was there for healing. Unfortunately Chief shoots quickly and accurately, and Ute's health couldn't keep up anymore.

Harald goes in to see if he can do heavy damage to the chief. The buzzsaw barely did anything. A little more than a bullet.

Unfortunately Tabbie takes one in the head and....dies. Fuck.

This was supposed to be an ordinary mission! Holy shit!

FUCK, RUN!

Fortunately the Chief managed to not kill Harald.

It's like he was taunting us, wanting us to come back for a second serving.

We lost 2 good soldiers today.

We lost a valuable piece of territory too.

And now they're going after the one right next to it.

Ute's alive but she'll be in the infirmary for a long time.

There's no option to ask for more Reticulan troops.

Damn it, we're going back with warp rifles and heavy suits.

Until then, all encounters with the Beastmen will be avoided.

I think we'll lose a lot of territory, but we need to catch up in our tech.

[Rehab]

Whether they were a double agent or not, Tabbie's sacrifice has made him one of us

Give that grey the military funeral he deserves

[IGdood]

Whether they were a double agent or not, Tabbie's sacrifice has made him one of us

Give that grey the military funeral he deserves

Definitely will. He fought hard for the colony just like everyone else.

We need moar crystals!

Next time....NEXT FUCKING TIME we will have our revenge.

Oghla is here to sub for Tabbie.

>Soldier level 1

Good luck.

Diego comes with heavy equipment training so he's the best candidate for using the warp cannon.

Suddenly two additions to the team appear. It's like when PoR threw Rolf and Mist at you.

Well in this case it's more like Dolph and Macellan.

We got a lot of research to do and not enough time.

Let's see the Beastmen try to penetrate this.

Gonna give everyone one of these. They won't be able to hold as many items but the protection from the environment and enemy weapons is worth the trade.

Reticulans incoming! Must be the ones who were pursuing the renegades from the previous game

Things were a little heated there but looks like it's time to backstab the boys in yellow. I wanted their resources and mines anyways.

Crystals are just what I needed.

Dammit Oghie!

Claude will have to go into combat instead. Hope he lives.

Turns out being too high will still impair one's accuracy. Samantha will have to go back down.

Reticulans are no match for us. Even a moderately-powered shot can knock them to the floor.

The only problem is that there's a lot of Reticulans, Reticulan psi powers let them detect you from a distance, and psionic weaponry negates physical objects, so taking cover doesn't work. Poor Claude gets stunned a few seconds in.

Venting our rage on the renegades

Executed this sneaky bastard who was shooting us through the walls. Blasted psionics. I miss Tabbie.

That hut has about 7 Reticulans in there. Harald charges in and saws them apart.

Harald gives 0 fucks about stun damage

LET THE SPARKS FLY

One of them had a rocket launcher. He died anyways.

Okay, maybe I got a bit risky there but still.

ALL THAT LOOT.

Didn't know Reticulans used mines either.

First blood.

And the new Reticulans honor their word and offer an alliance as soon as I made war on their renegade faction.

They also send in 3 guys with slightly longer biographies.

Oghie also deserted us and went home, presumably to get shot sometime in the future. I wouldn't have wanted to fight against Tabbie.

This is Billie. He's about as interesting as Tomas from Shadow Dragon.

Prakhti has the unfortunately nickname of Preggie but she'll be a good sub for Tabbie.

Zattie is....meh what the hell she's generic.

Turns out the Battle Turret can't be used unless you have 2 guns in the inventory. You can't just assign it and only equip the drone with one gun.

Well Robbie is back with a -2 at the end to symbolize the two guns.

We're ready for the Beastmen once more.

The new Robbie is pretty weak, but the twin guns pack a big punch .

The Alchemist lobs grenades and seems to have spotted us long before we have spotted it.

Bastard dies quite easily.

Harald charges a captain and almost loses. Still satisfying to see the bastard get ripped.

Poor Robbie seems to be a grenade magnet.

Surprisingly didn't come across any Chief enemies.

[IGdood]

Throw out some bodies, look a the guns and ammo...

Smell detector? That explains why the Beastmen always manage to find us.

This probably also explains why Beastmen can get the drop on us more than half the time.

Shotguns and sniper rifles now available!

NEED MORE RESOURCES

I can use some Reticulan equipment. I've got too much Beastmen material anyways.

No special training needed to use Reticulan rocket launchers.

Beating up on drones is a good leveling technique. Might also find valuable stuff too.

Mechs! Mechs everywhere!

Mechs are actually pretty resistant to buzzsaw attacks.

What's with the green?

Nice, rare drop.

We can produce grenades now!

Faster aiming is always good.

Another sniper in the future.

I wonder how many more buildings there are in the tech tree?

The beastmen come again.

Grenades and bullets started to fly as soon as we hit ground.

C'mon chief! COME OUT. COME OUT SO I CAN BLAST YOUR HEAD OFF

Only a few officers, nothing more.

Completing her training, Preggie here can be an alternative medic.

I'd like to see how shotguns are in this game.

Time to expand. For the metals!

This place is crawling with enemies.

Ute draws fire.

The bots just keep missing. Not that it's a bad thing.

Claude finishes off things so Harald can go slice other things.

Even in the hands of a green recruit a shotgun still hurts up close.

Also rather accurate in this game.

>Made heavy armor not too long ago

>another new replacement

That research went by very quickly.

I'm thinking of the Beastmen from No Game No Life for some reason

This would speed up territory development.

Cutting open worms...because why not?

What about the air pollution?

I believe i have to beat the game in a year or something?

Now every province has a new building option....the science team has their hands tied up for this one.

There will be yet another faction: The Martians

I've got enough fuel. I can use the metal. Thanks, Reasonable Reticulans!

Suddenly a new girl shows up.

She'll go into the workshop.

Psionic protection would be very useful

Maybe this will let us shut down those gates? Repeated Beastmen attacks are annoying.

Passing some new equipment around...

Yes, we have to defend the Hyperspace Gate again. I lost count.

IT'S DA CHIEF. KILL. KILL KILL!

GRENADE AWAY

WARP CANNON, FULL POWER!

Ding dong the chief is kill

The remainder aren't even worth mentioning.

VREEM

Chief #2 appears!

Chief #2 is kill :)

Diego is beast.

Big rifles. That's what the chiefs use.

I didn't even realize there were multiple types of worms.

[IGdood]

Just when you thought the update is done, WAIT THERE'S MORE

>lack of fuel

What.

Looks like I'll go abuse the Reticulans instead then..

Nice.

For clarification:

Blue = us.

White = Neutral

Red = Beastmen

Purple = Good Reticulans

Yellow = Renegade/Bad Reticulans

Green = Martians

The scanners aren't really helping much. Doppler only tells you things that are moving but doesn't let you target them unlike in Aftershock.

Curious as to what other Earth technologies there are.

Sweet, we can build a new Lab and Workshop to incorporate the growing crew.

New ammo types allow for even better fine-tuning of troopers.

Somehow this increases our metal so...yeah

This may be useful. I'm going to bet there's a "Martian Technology" training option down the line.

Ute can pack an even heavier punch now.

Silencers? Bring it.

Insufficient resources is a state of being that I have to get used to.

We can shut down the gates now. Turns out we needed to blow up their fuse boxes.

With the new lab and workshops we can focus on 2 topics at once. This speeds things up a lot.

Time to continue our war with the Reticulans.

I hate capture missions.

Samantha provides covering fire while the trio of badasses move in to sweep.

Shifting positions.

Shielded bodyguards don't stand a chance!

I don't have a stunner...but Diego was careful enough to not kill the guy.

Captured guys no longer get up and join your side it seems. I couldn't just leave him there so the rest of the village will be wiped out.

Harald is too badass.

>Diego has been controlled

>Diego pulls out the Warp Cannon

DIEGO NO

FUCK, KILL THE CONTROLLER

Diego's mind is free....fortunately.

Drones have always suffered from inaccuracy. Laser guns will help.

Researchin' shit and stuff

Today's mission takes us to the snowy peaks of...I don't know it looks pretty.

I think I can finally call these guys the equals of the squads from Aftermath and Aftershock.

Harald dodges rockets like it ain't a thing.

Reticulans get stunned hard by grenades it's funny.

Apparently researching radar doesn't give new items. It's a structure you can build in your territories to give you advance warning of attacks or something.

There's different spider colors?

So busy...so buuusy.

Oh shit they're attacking the base!

Well let's get ready...assign points to Preggie...

Defend our home!

Who are these new enemies? They seem to be melee enemies...and they look dangerous. EVERYONE KEEP YOUR DISTANCE!

I'm prepared to lose Robbie-2 here. Damn worms aren't visible unless you're facing them and they're 2 feet away from you.

The rollers are impervious to gunfire. We're flushed out into the open.

And into the sights of a chief and his followers.

Fuck you, Diego will end you.

It takes a Warp Cannon to kill chiefs and rollers

Next step: Shut the hyperspace gate down.

Just inch forward a little at a time...

The worms don't show up until they're too close. They're like the anti-sniper.

Rollers always show up in the worst possible places.

Yes, I did in fact know I was running towards the Beastmen.

WARP CANNON.

Turns out there were no Beastmen, only wildlife. And that thing looks like a giant fusebox

[Rehab]

Can the game (and the other ones in the trilogy too, I suppose) play out differently depending on which sides you decide to ally with and destroy? Not just the canonical ending in the first one, like can you destroy one or another faction in 2, and do things go differently if you side with the renegade Reticulans (you monster) in 3?