We're finally in a position to be able to research the plasma sniper rifle. This is the ultimate long range weapon. Coupled with the Alloy Cannons, our squads should soon be an even more formidable force.
A remarkably short word from Dr Vahlen, and the rifle is ready for production.
We are well stocked with all of the necessary resources, so we'll get one for each sniper on the staff.
I'm also buying a Skeleton Key, just so we don't need to dick around with it when we do come to need it.
A few Plasma cannons wouldn't go amiss, either: I'm buying five for our interceptors, one for each continent.
And our Nexus is finally operational, meaning we can launch satellites, satellites and more satellites.
I've totally covered Africa and China is calmer than it was. Note the limit in the top right. We have exactly enough satellite space for the rest of the world. Clever, eh?
A landing! This should be interesting.
I'm taking Ebo on this mission in order to get him a little more experience. Note Alex modelling the plasma sniper rifle. MMX has his big gun, too, so we're totally ready.
Fuck, that's an amazing mission name.
Another out in the wilderness map for us. I suspect this is a pretty big ship, but let's run it.
Noise indicates direction.
Shit, Mutons three.
Yep, a pretty big ship.
Double Suppression power!
Flan drops the Muton down in strength.
And Ebo finishes it off.
Alex spots a mechtoid squad: something to think about.
And they move into the main area, ready to fight, with Alex pinned in position. This could get interesting.
MMX is lucky, and the Mechtoid is about to get it hard.
Incredible. All that's left to shoot are two snipers.
Ebo takes that fucker down.
And the other is handled well by our resident master sniper.
Muton noises from the ship. I'll wait until people have stacked up.
A pair of seekers! That'll be pleasant.
Even closer still! It's a pity we don't have anybody with Bioelectric skin. That would have been very useful indeed to prevent them from cloaking.
Alex caps one, alarming the other.
And MMX reveals a new set of enemies! This is the Muton Berserker, a melee variant of the Muton. It's highly dangerous in battle, so the Assaults had better have their A-game with them.
Ebo takes down the other Seeker like nobody's business: I think we have a promising Sniper in the making.
Alex reveals to us the nature of the Mutons' positions. This should make it much easier to combat them. Garo will be an excellent guardsman against the two trying to get up the stairs, and MMX can take down the berserker.
In a stunning show of the AI being a crapshoot, the Berserker's right next to Alex. Let's see if we can't coax it out.
Garo jumping down to a position just outside one move's worth of tiles for the Berserker is enough for it to concentrate on him. However, looking at the chances he has, Garo won't be able to kill this thing in one go. We're going to have to play smart.
Using Run and Gun gives us an additional chance of making a critical attack. It's Garo's Colonel perk.
It's worked in our favour, too.
Alex is also about to land a critical hit. The weapon itself has a massive addition to the chance column: 35%. On its own! Everything else is pushing it right up to 100%. Because he's firing from cover, he also has a significant shot against the Muton, and though he's flanking it, the Order In The Chaos still counts its full cover as viable, so he gets more percentage that way.
All in all, a kill for the textbooks.
Two Outsiders! As this is a big ship, it's understandable that they'd have two navigators.
Look at those numbers. Mmmmm. Delicious.
Flan throws a grenade to let Ebo take the last kill. No promotions from this mission, but lots of elerium, alloys and weapon fragments
Time to autopsy the big bugger. This actually means we could look into try to capture this bastard, but we'll see about that.
"The men are calling this unit the 'Berserker'."
Essentially, it's a genetic stereotypical Viking.
This gives us a Genetic modification and an item, Combat Stims, which are essentially in-field drugs to make soldiers bolder.
Well, I'll leave it at that, I think.