The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die

[Wheels]

THERE'S NINJA TRAINING IN THIS GAME?

[mharr]

I think there might be *everything* in this game.

[Mothra]

There is literally everything in this game.

[Büge]

We begin training everyone on martial arts immediately.

Ninja Scroll, you say

Can we get the training to have poison sex organs?

[Mothra]

Look we found crates upon crates of these ancient martial texts with every Black Lotus raid we do. LOT of unexpected and exotic positions depicted, including a few that involve manifesting tentacles from we assume an extra-dimensional nether-realm. We're uh, studiously reviewing this material... for training...

[Mothra]

Black Lotus HQ



According to our big tidd intel officer, Black Lotus is governed by an "extraterrestrial intelligence" via a "psionic amplifier", that focuses its mental abilities to the point where it can take over individuals.

If we can destroy this amplifier, "The Golden Lady" can't do jack, and the Black Lotus clan is toast.

We pile into the humvee and head out.



(Okay I'M SORRY THE TITLE CARD IS SO HORNY one of the downsides of this mod is the random and constant big tiddy horniess.)



We rope down two different elevator shafts, two teams: Slimer Squad 6, led by Wheels, and The Goblin Corps, helmed by Buge.



We clear the first few hallways with SVDs, nothing to get worried about.



Mongrel of the The Goblin Corps moves through the ventilation system, coming upon several huge PLA supercomputers hooked together to function the psionic amplifier with our shitty, shitty human technology. At our best, we can approximate some tiny sliver of alien tech, just barely enough for the Golden Lady to reach out across the big empty and take hold of a willing mind.

Quantum Computer Early Prototype

This device is a prototype of a quantum computer. It uses quantum mechanics (quantum superposition, quantum entanglement) to transmit and process data. Theoretically, this allows you to process all possible states simultaneously, achieving significant superiority over conventional computers in terms of computational speed. Unfortunately, the design has a number of significant drawbacks, notably that the cooling system is extremely inefficient.

Mharr of Slimer Squad 6 shambles raggedly past these rudimentary geoscapes, used by Black Lotus for the same purpose as X-Com: To keep an eye on their cut of the world, and hungrily eye that of their enemy.

Mharr jankily moves up a set of stairs and opens a pretty innocuous door, revealing a cloaked assassin! A classic TftD closet lobsterman-style trap!



They take two hits from shuriken, blowing out a tread, before turning their fucked-up rickety-ass arm-head to the assassin's chest and blasting through his rib cage with the door-buster.

Drone Doorbreaker Shotgun

A projectile weapon to be used against locked doors and possibly enemies, equipped on the scout drone.

Robits make do.

Back Gobside, a shotgun-carrying Grath is Having A Time Of It™ fighting his way to some kind of missile launch bay. He takes a lot of hits in the process, but, he gets there and sets some dynamite.



Mongrel finds some stockpiles of PLA missiles and grey market arms. Also, a peek at what we're pretty sure is the psionic amplifier.



The fight to secure that psi amp is a brutal one. Buge, Wheels, and atog trade actions popping into the hall, firing off rounds, and ducking back into cover. They take some hits, but that martial arts training is actually helping quite a bit - the footmen can't see us most of the time.

This dope new weapon from the lab doesn't hurt neither:

Hydra Laser

A light assault laser, relatively low-tech, but powerful and precise.

We basically could only afford to build one of these things, and one clip for it, but Buge makes most shots count.



The purple-suit Mandarins start making an appearance, presenting some nice, juicy, high-rank targets for Slimer Squad 6. Black Lotus morale starts its death spiral.

Wheels finds this pretty little thing on the corpse of an assassin, puts it to use swiftly decapitating the last Mandarin, retroactively avenging Zara. He then does the thing with the scabbard where it slides up all the way and angles in etc etc

A two-handed melee weapon, modeled after traditional Japanese swords but with latest materials technology. Requires good melee weapon proficiency to be handled correctly, especially against armored foes.

With the head of the snake cut off, the body withers.



A lotta REAL rugged wounds from this raid. The fact that assassins almost always get the first hit in leads to some pretty dire close-calls, not to mention long, long recovery times.



The lab picks apart the psi amp until they work out a way to use it in tracking high-ranking members of the clan. From there, it's just a matter of air strikes and assassinations.



Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy.

[Mothra]

(Also for the record Wheels is Defenestration)

[mharr]

Man, everything about that arc is actually pure Rebelstar. Lumbering robots with door buster guns that'll mess you up if you get close, laser rifles, totally-not-lightsaber techno swords and a smash the central computer base assault mission. The Speccy couldn't stretch to procedural map generation or fog of war though. About the one thing missing is horrible tiny patrol bots that are basically pistols on wheels and only die to critical hit accuracy.

I've always loved the careless way XCOM just sell off 'spare' absurdly dangerous future tech to whatever crime family or banana republic shows up first with the Benjamins. A plan with no long term drawbacks!

[Mongrel]

Mulder & Scully gotta get paid, son.

[Büge]

We rope down two different elevator shafts, two teams: Slimer Squad 6, led by Wheels, and The Goblin Corps, helmed by Buge.

Goblin Corps!? Now yer talkin'!

Buge, Wheels, and atog trade actions popping into the hall, firing off rounds, and ducking back into cover. They take some hits, but that martial arts training is actually helping quite a bit - the footmen can't see us most of the time.

We basically could only afford to build one of these things, and one clip for it, but Buge makes most shots count.

[Mothra]

Dohhh Buge you card

[Wheels]

Wheels finds this pretty little thing on the corpse of an assassin, puts it to use swiftly decapitating the last Mandarin, retroactively avenging Zara. He then does the thing with the scabbard where it slides up all the way and angles in etc etc

[Mothra]

We get a little more background on Black Lotus as we pick apart the artifacts from our raid, and process (e.g. legally torture in a hideously inhumane fashion) the remaining prisoners:





X-Com has been warring with Red Dawn over grey market Soviet arms, digging up classified Kiryu-Kai files to copy over the shoulder of the 1980's JSDF, and achieving such stunning original research as our innovative "iron pipe" tech.

Meanwhile, Black Lotus took a more pragmatic route: They made a deal with a would-be alien invader - one separate from the sectoid menace we face - to essentially put an alien in charge of their alien war. A real "enemy of your enemy is your friend" approach. In doing so, they've achieved the impossible: an honest-to-goddess psionic human - the "Black Lotus avatar" we captured at the jungle temple in Laos.

Fuggin... was able to fly and shoot laser beams and shit... pretty dope...

Psionics

The legions of Black Lotus were highly-trained and disciplined, merging martial arts with these new extra-sensory concepts to achieve impossible abilities, like the near-invisibility of the assassins, strange no-ammo hand-held fire-and lightning-lobbing devices used by the Mandarins, the inexplicable psionic personal shields used by Black Lotus witches, and well, the ascension into a demi-goddess. With the right training and the right controls, X-Com agents might be able to get to that level with time. We'll see.

Like any responsible imperialist pigdog, we move in with force, loot the place, and re-brand this Black Lotus research as X-Com Originals™. The Council is amazed.

Our analysis of the co-called 'psionic powers' shows that such effects apply to all living creatures - humans, other animals, even plants - but the results vary according to the recipient's level of consciousness. To put it simply, beings with more complex neural activity are more accessible to an aggressive psion, but on the other hand stronger sense of self partially shields a mind from external influence. Humans with their strong ability for thinking with symbols are generally quite resistant to psi, as they can confront invasive mental patterns with rationalism and introspection (well, most humans anyway). Simple organisms are easy to affect with psi, but their behavior is often too hard-wired to be affected anyway, or too alien to reprogram them easily. Therefore, the best candidates for psionic domination are animals with complex brains but relatively poor level of abstract thinking.

Global Expansion

The Black Lotus HQ is repurposed into a third base of operations, which we've named "The Shatterdome" due to its location along the Pacific Rim.

For now, our primary base, the repurposed silo Red Forest in Siberia, serves as the logistical and strategic hub. This is where we launch our strike teams (in our shitty rink-a-dink van and humvee).



The South American Dantero Bay is our second base, a coastal research/prison black site named after the Tigre dantero cryptid of Venezuela.



And now the Shatterdome, which we've set up as a manufacturing plant and archive for all the artifacts, arms, and alien tech we've found so far. It's outside of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.



This gives us decent coverage of the globe, as well as appropriate parallel operations for all the research and processing we're doing.

Kitsune-106

Continuing with the theme of standing on the shoulders of the Kiryu-Kai, some interesting files turn up during the archival move to the Shatterdome:



Oh that is some low-hanging fruit right there. Low-effort, big-returns, that's the X-Com way.

A little bit of coordination with the Japanese government (or more to the point, that block's Councilman), and we track down where on Earth this thing tanked in the 80's.



The manufacturing bay at the Shatterdome gets to work restoring this junker, and after re-christening it the "Mutavore", it's ready to go. We've got our first craft capable of going toe-to-toe with a medium UFO.





Can carry 15 people, one light missile launcher, and one cannon. Essentially a hybrid interceptor/dropship. Not bad at all.



First engagement with a UFO goes well, the thing's hard to hit and takes a beating.





Puts a hole in an E.T. real nice-like.



Kinda ugly on the battlescape, but I ain't complaining.

Dragonfly

Beyond the Mutavore, we've eaten enough other fish in the pond that we've been approached by a company called the "Union Aerospace Company" for better-than-average arms.





This opens up our options on the grey market. In particular, there's a pretty sweet dropship that would do nicely for the Red Forest. You know, a slight upgrade from having our troops pile into the four-wheel drive humvee and trek across the Siberian wastes for days on end.



Holds 8, goes way faster than the Mutavore, takes a lot less to repair.



Looks a lot cooler on the battlescape too.



Takes plasma grenades no problem!!!

These UAC guys make some good-quality product! You just don't see corps with that kind of work ethic nowadays, no sir.

[mharr]

Gitta love the UAC logo being the classic Asteroids ship.

[Angry Beaver]

But can the UAC sell us a Big Fucking Gun?

[Mothra]

It's in the files and the wiki! Just gotta figure how to get one. Looks like most of the Doom stuff isn't available yet.

[Upthorn]

I was wondering when we were going to get upgraded from cars and vans. Was not expecting quite so fast an escalation

[Mongrel]

I was wondering when we were going to get upgraded from cars and vans. Was not expecting quite so fast an escalation

Was a bit of a jump, eh?

[mharr]

I've been inspired to install this and follow along at a greatly reduced pace. Still in the 'four disposable idiots with crossbows' phase for the moment. I see you've skipped over a lot of early missions that consist entirely of driving into a giant pack of cryptid terror weapons, making a quick sketch of one, then immediately noping out to an official rating of "meh, good enough I guess".

[Mothra]

I've been inspired to install this and follow along at a greatly reduced pace. Still in the 'four disposable idiots with crossbows' phase for the moment. I see you've skipped over a lot of early missions that consist entirely of driving into a giant pack of cryptid terror weapons, making a quick sketch of one, then immediately noping out to an official rating of "meh, good enough I guess".

Yeah, I'm collecting stuff into arcs, otherwise it would be a million "kill wave after wave of chupacabra" mission posts.

I'd recommend picking one of the easier difficulties, just due to how freaking often you have to get into battle. Anything to speed up combat encounters is for the better.