X-Com tech level: we’ve got vans, late 80’s military rifles, and the ability to gene splice aliens and humans into functioning hybrid bioweapons
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hahaha
Well, we’re playing catch-up a bit, with all the backlog of screenshots and stuff I have saved up. I’m compressing it all as neatly as I can into little arcs.
In the present, I’ve just cracked space flight and hover-tanks. Back when I was fighting Red Dawn, I’d say the most advanced thing I have at that this point in the game is that fucked-up rickety-ass battery-powered door-opening robot.
The fact that I have an A.I. at all is due to some alien tech fuckery, standing on our forebear’s shoulders.
The A.I. Core
Alenium Shard:
According to Kiryu-Kai data, this strange crystal is apparently of unearthly origin. Moreover, its internal structure is incredibly complex, with a network of microscopic pathways filling it entire volume in a manner suspiciously similar to an organic brain. When exposed to eletrical stimuli, these pathways grow and reorganize themselves accordingly, forming new connections and breaking down old ones; in other words, it behaves just like a biological neural system. It is also able to store and release energy in a highly controlled manner.
The Kiryu-Kai experimented on these shards extensively and finally found a way to ‘awaken’ them, resulting in creation of some sort of consciousness. They did not have the time to find any practical applications for these, but if we finish their research, we might have a powerful tool to help us in our effort. Or perhaps a better term would be ‘powerful allies’?
Alenium Shard Awakening
The Kiryu-Kai legacy contained extensive documentation on development of thought patterns within Alenium crystals. Considering apparent lack of sufficient theoretical base and the disjunction of this knowledge from Earth science, such information can only be assumed to have come from some extraterrestial source. Effectively technical and start-up documentation, it should enable us to ‘awaken’ an Alenium Shard into a state of consciousness not unlike our own. Such an intelligence is capable of learning and self-improvement. Moreover, if sufficient care is exercised, it will be predisposed to align itself with us, although the process takes considerable time. Once mature, it achieves characteristics to easily link itself with a variety of technologies, like robots or intelligent weapon systems.
AI Unit
These Alenium-based AI units are used to control drones and other mechanized units. They can fit a number of chassis designs, which can be swapped in the same way as human armors.
An awakened Alenium Shard is automatically assigned a scout drone chassis to enable it to interact with the environment.
AI units work exactly the same way as human agents. Instead of human armors they have robotic chassis they can be plugged into. If no chassis is selected, the AI unit automatically uses the Scout Drone chassis, which comes with the unit at no additional cost. If an AI chassis is destroyed in combat, we can still recover the unit by the AI Unit Restoration transformation.
Since AIs have a degree of consciousness, we should think of them as living beings rather than machines, with their own needs, thoughts and preferences (though mostly simple or limited). For this reason, an AI takes one space in living quarters.
Have I mentioned recently how dope this mod is?
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The Cryptid Wars
The spiders keep coming.
In fact, strange, long-rumored monstrosities of all sort have been popping up en masse across the globe. No theories on why, all of a sudden, there are suddenly hundreds of these things appearing across the globe when typically you just have The One Chupacabra, The One Mothman, The One New York Rat.
One of the more difficult mission types are zombie hoards, where you land in the jungle or forest, dig in with mounted machine guns, and mow down wave after wave of zombie.
Our intelligence officer puts out some feelers, and their report is crystal clear:
This yields a single lead at an otherwise unassuming industrial plant in Nigeria.
Now, this mod has added stealth missions as a thing: You are limited to concealable weapons such as crowbars and knives, and are meant to explore the map until you encounter somebody on-site that is hostile to you.
We put together a team with Meauxdal, Shahczyk, Wisely, and Mr_Mechanical, who take the X Van. They have a pretty jacked-up loadout:
Meauxdal with a crowbar…
Shahczyk with a wrench…
Mr_Mechanical with a shiv…
And Wisely with a BOOM BOX
We get to WORK
There’s a lot of space to cover, but we eventually find a few guys.
Wisley stabs one until dead with his trademark shiv (that he carved from a cafeteria spoon etc).
He scopes out the bod.
Wisley obtains coing like waereo
The rest are as but a stiff wind before the unimaginable power of Wrench.
The boom box seems to like, de-moralize the enemy? And raise their panic level? Pretty strange weapon. Fun though!
In the basement level, we find a pretty interesting item…
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Da Rats
This opens the way for a new type of facility:
Rat Farm
This facility allows breeding Giant Rats for X-Com purposes. Constructing it requires 10 wild rats to start the colony. Attempted breeding has a 50% chance of producing a random number of offspring.
One facility allowed per base.
The gang’s all together…
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yes…YES
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Boom Box
This type of oldschool radio/cassette player can be found in possession of hip teens around the world. While much better sonic equipment can be bought for cash, only a genuine, used boom box has that electric urban sound (from the underground) which really gets your blood pumping!
If a need arises, it can also be used to smash people in the head, just like skateboards or mobile phones.
Stat-wise, it boosts the user’s bravery by 100% while also docking the enemy’s energy and morale.
I’m mainly using it to basically disable an enemy by blasting them with sick beats until someone with a blunt weapon arrives to beat them unconscious.
Song options are as follows:
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I love this thread
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can you make the boombox play the theme song to the 1987 Wisely movie “Legend of the Golden Pearl”
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Cults
The Council has tasked us to investigate a sharp uptick of cult activity across the globe. They suspect alien influence.
HOOO-le okay, lot of people here!!
This mission becomes, no bones about it, an unending massacre, where GherkinForce, Tegiminis, Gary, and Cuba dig in with SVDs and pick them off at a rate of 8 a turn.
We encounter some really wild factions here:
Westmen
Proudly calling themselves ‘refugees of modernity’, Westmen believe in the futility of human civilization in the face of various threats. They plan to create an alternative, based not on cities - as these can be destroyed easily - but on small, hidden communities. They speak highly of guerrilla warfare, but many don’t perceive themselves as soldiers. In fact, all they agree upon is that civilization is doomed and they had better be somewhere else when it happens. They steal any resources they can, and they call it ‘salvage operations’.
Cave Man and Cave Girl
These people take a very firm stand on the possibility that humanity has alien origins: they vocally deny it! They dress in furs and leather to show their ‘self-raised, self-reliant sentient species pride’ and they seem to follow a loose collection of New Age concepts, such as reincarnation beliefs or veganism. Although mostly well-educated, they seem to be rather easily manipulated by anyone with basic information control.
Easy Rider
Easy Riders originate from trailer dwellers around the world, or rather their most anti-government fringe. Their aim is total personal freedom, primarily of movement and privacy. They shun regular work, but often pick up odd jobs - legal or otherwise. They are mostly well-spoken and known for their talent to associate themselves with people in power, which helps their cause tremendously.
Luchador
There is a strange rumor on the streets: if you eat a Zombie, you will gain inhuman strength and vitality (and probably sexual prowess too). Well, these Luchadores actually went and did exactly that. And in their case, it worked! We’re not sure why, but some people manage to actually absorb Zombie blood and squeeze it for bio energy, receiving a sudden boost to their physical capabilities. This process is quite dangerous and painful (you are subjected to all sorts of physical stress and feel feverish for days!), but the results are pretty awesome, as you can see. It also decreases intelligence and may cause destructive behavior, so you’d better stick with our X-Com solutions.
Luchadores usually live in small groups and are fiercely territorial. Caution: they are also easy to underestimate.
Stormy
Some alien tech found its way to Earth’s black markets, including the so-called Storm: a cheap knockoff of Red Dawn’s serum. This very expensive substance proved not effective enough for serious customers, so the dealers decided to target insecure but determined (and rich) teenagers instead. Promised physical perfection, these teenagers became so motivated that some of them managed to activate the serum with strong will and dedication to physical activity. Now called Stormies, these kids maintain their subculture of physical abilities, combat prowess and free love - a subculture that was in fact created by the suppliers of this serum. So deep down, they’re just big nerds.
And honestly, we should stop this alien tech trade. Who knows what will be next?
Pinky Devil
This group follows a culture centered on occultism and fashion: praise Lucifer, look good. This, umm, religion doesn’t have many members, but they often take part in various rituals - from smashing windows ‘for Satan’ to really interesting orgies. Also they are often drugged, so watch out.
We don’t exactly know the tenets of their faith, because pretty much every member has their own version. They do however believe in demonic beings and they intend to reincarnate as such. Something does seem to be a bit off about them…
Wizkid
Cleric of Apocalypse
Clerics lead Outposts of Apocalypse, independent orders of Brothers. Curiously, they do not have any higher-ups; as anarchists at heart, these cultists are unwilling to form a complex hierarchy. Clerics are recruited from Brothers by a body of three or more older Clerics, based on intellectual and psychosocial abilities.
We bring em to the gulag and get to work. Lot of interesting odds and ends, certain groups using alien technology, but not much that adds up to a clear picture.
DaleNixon, Boojiboy, Cania, and Daphaknee are put on a few missions to capture high-ranking cultists.
Aaaand binga.
It’s taser sticks, a black bag, and we’re off to get some answers.
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Black Lotus
Our prisoner squawks. They are part of a faction called “Black Lotus” that’s active in eastern asia. They worship a living goddess that, hopefully, is an alien.
Our first major encounter is an utter shitshow, with Daphaknee being shredded by shuriken and Boojiboy fully cleft in twain by a katana.
Gary digs in at the top of a mountain with her M16 and has a real last-stand moment, ultimately holding out until the ranks start to falter, panic, and surrender.
Right in the nick of time, too, since ah…
Fatal wounds are how many points of damage you take per turn until healed. So, if one more turn had elapsed, she’d be dead.
We bring in our prisoners and set up a triage ward that spills out into the halls.
The interrogation tells us of the location of where we can find this “living goddess” of theirs. We’re gonna give the crew some time to lick their dozens of fatal wounds before we crack open that particular pandora’s box.
Like The Phantom, a new rook is bestowed the title of Boojiboy. The legacy.
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New recruit:
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Damn all these factions seem way cooler than X-Cops
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good to know the legacy will carry on. might have been literally cut down in my prime, but the dream continues. I died like I lived, afraid of a nerd with a katana doing something horrible to me.
you should number them so we can find out how many boojis there end up being.
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Do it with Roman numerals though
BoojI
BoojII
BoojIII
BoojIV
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I must admit I’d kill to play as any of these Cult of the Apocalypse factions. It’s hard to imagine wanting more from this insane mod, but different starting conditions would be cool as hell.
I actually forgot one faction here, it’s a pretty cool one too. It’s basically a Mad Max character:
Motor Man
These people feel that some kind of war is going on, and think we’ve already lost. But they also think nothing ever changes, and that humanity will survive somehow. Live fast, die young, steal the last drop of energy from a civilization doomed to ruination - that’s their motto. In practice, they travel between smaller towns and wherever they go, they spread chaos and steal what they need.
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The Golden Goddess
We follow our lead to a jungle temple in Laos, teeming with Black Lotus goons.
Now the the bog standard Black Lotus footman is this vaguely racist maybe paramilitary foot soldier with a coolie hat. Feel like this is like a Vietnam reference or something cause they all got shitty AKSU-74s and machetes (and sometimes QBU-88??), which, not great!!
8142 charges through the jungle, takes a round to the barrel and tackles the guy to the ground. The rest of the X-TEAM follows standard procedure of digging in by the humvee and picking off everyone with SVDs. The thick jungle makes it hard to spot them, so, Schroeder and 8142 scurry in to flush them out.
Basically makes this into The Predator but it’s a MAN-SIZED RAT OUT THERE
These jungle trees… once you cut them in half on level 1…
The other major enemy to contend with are Black Lotus Assassins, which are melee-focused, usually armed with a katana or shuriken, and ARE INVISIBLE unless you get within close-range. This makes fighting them, often, a shitshow, where they’ll always get the first hit in.
Black Lotus Assassin bio
Assassins are Black Lotus elites used for the hardest, most secret missions. They reside in Black Lotus estates, training rigorously and participating in mystic rituals. They possess a unique and mysterious ability to blend in with their surroundings completely, unless seen from up close. Assassins themselves cannot explain this ability other than as an ancient art that takes many years to master, but our tests point to a mental effect rather than true invisibility. In combat, Assassins use silent weapons like swords or thrown blades.
I also just now realized that these are all Snake Eyeses.
The battle rages for a time, until we see, well, a living goddess floating through the jungle, hurling electrical bolts at the humvee.
Tits completely OUT pussy OUT hair UP hair PURPLE orbs ACTIVE
Mr_Mechanical and Wisely leap out of the bushes with taser sticks and start trying to taze through her “shields”. Takes two people and an X-rat to break through and knock her out.
Back at the base, we start interrogating people:
So apparently the “The Golden Lady” is in fact a member of the cult that is possessed and re-shaped by this “deity”.
The Mandarin gives up the location of the Black Lotus HQ. We know our next target.
The boys in research start taking apart the bizarre items we found on the various assassins and footmen:
We begin training everyone on martial arts immediately.
The troops are ready.
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Black Lotus Avatar looks like she has two thumbs up emojis following her around.
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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: Team Grinchcore, led by Geoff, and The Bussy Busters, helmed by GherkinForce.
We clear the first few hallways with SVDs, nothing to get worried about.
8218 of the Bussy Busters 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.
KM of Team Grinchcore 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.
KM jankily moves up a set of stairs and opens a pretty innocuous door, revealing a cloaked assassin! A classic TftD closet lobsterman-style trap!
He takes two hits from shuriken, blowing out a tread, before turning his fucked-up rickety-ass arm-head to the assassin’s chest and blasting through his ribcage with the door-buster.
Drone Doorbreaker Shotgun
A projectile weapon to be used against locked doors and possibly enemies, equipped on the scout drone.
Roboys make do.
On the Bussy side, a shotgun-carrying Cuba 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.
8128 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. GherkinForce and Gary 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 Gherkin makes most shots count.
The purple-suit Mandarins start making an appearance, presenting some nice, juicy, high-rank targets for Team Grinchcore. Black Lotus morale starts its death spiral.
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. 
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Oh I have Guile hair hell yeah
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