--- Prisoners: West Asia ---
3PM Apr 1, Str 3, V.Light, 100% infil
Evac near jail
Wait, I brought 3 SMGs, 1 rifle and 1 shotgun? Uh...
That was so scrappy. The opening move was rocket to a pod next to a van: 2 instantly died. 3 Drones and 1 Sentry activated. Fleche Sentry dead, fail hack on Drone so shotgun it. Remaining 2 Drones taze, then die next turn. Squad regrouped and met Snek leader pod, which died to double max roll flame and frag. The last pod joined the fight early so the showdown was against 4 Advent goons. I could see no way to do this safely so took risks, ended up with less than expected wounds but the 7 HP flame tech should have been wounded (she killed 2 with a single flame). RNF got tanked by the flame tech while everyone ran for evac.
56% hack for small alloy failed.
Wounded: Sqd Spec, 14d
VIPs: 2 rebel, 2 rookie
Shinobi no longer Shaken.
Promotions:
- Shinobi -> LCpl. Blademaster (70 Aim)
- Assault -> LCpl. LR
- Grenadier -> LCpl. Needle
- Spec -> LCpl. Sentinel (70 Aim)
---
East Asia now Str 2. Sell 3 of 5 cores and other surplus items. Begin GTS construction. Now at $45.
10AM Apr 2, Scientist advisor to West Asia. I do worry how much I'm cutting into my research time, but I do need good mission timers to make progress with soldiers on Legendary. On the other hand... there are no HighValuePrisoners available anymore: too much Vig.
5PM Apr 2, "Counter Strategic DE: hidden" (recover item), 16d 23h, West Asia, Str 3, V.Light
5PM Apr 2, Lib 2 (Engineer from jail), 5d 14h, V.Light
Ok... I have 7 wounded and 13 healthy (of which 4 are rookie). Looks like the game's trying to tell me not to worry about finding missions. I really need the intel. I'm not desperate for this Engineer.
Send 5-man to stop the Strategic DE. Swap out Scientist advisor from West Asia - I don't have manpower to do any GOps here anymore. Switch West Asia to full Recruit.
4AM Apr 4, +1 rebel in East Asia. Switch East Asia to Intel. When did it reach Str 1??
1PM Apr 4, Research complete: Hybrid Materials. Begin Laser (9d).
5PM Apr 4, HighValuePrisoner (extract Scientist), 18h, West Asia, Str 3, V.Light. WAIT WHAT. No really, if it'll expire at 1AM Apr 4 then it must have spawned between Mar 23~25. Checking my logs, I did a GOp at 5PM Mar 24, so it must have spawned on 1AM Mar 25. What was I thinking? Ah I see, I detected a Lib 1, a UFO precursor, a Prisoner GOp and decided there weren't any more missions. Yeah I fucked up that one: I switched West Asia to recruit at 11AM Mar 25 so of course I didn't see this. Fuck me. Oh well, I got a good Supply Raid done instead so it's not campaign ending.
--- ProtectData: East Asia ---
10PM Apr 4, Str 1, 107% infil
3-man Recover Item from train!
Frag and shotgun a drone that got in the way. Evac flare and camp: couldn't throw it on the critical turn so smoke + flash + low cover will have to do for 1 turn while waiting for Firebrand to show up.
43% hack for Watch List succeeds, flashbang hits all of the 3-man pod that was guarding the objective. Snek misses at 12%, Trooper misses at 1%, Lancer camps. A 2nd Drone was the biggest threat as it came on the critical turn and was too far to shotgun. 2 frags killed it. I should have played safe and deliberately let the shinobi get flanked so it wouldn't stun.
Flawless. I don't know where I got the 2 Hair Triggers as loot.
Promotion: Shinobi -> Cpl. Shadowstep.
PoI is 2d for supplies.
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The following week in the strategic layer was erased by savescum:
Code: Select all
3AM Apr 5, assign Scientist advisor to East Asia.
7AM Apr 5, +1 recruit from West Asia. 70 Aim, 13 Mob (my do I get a lot of sniper candidates).
4PM Apr 6, S&G, 1d 7h, East Asia. Yeah that's the other GOp expiring from last time. Swap out Scientist advisor from East Asia, fly to PoI. No point super scanning until both GOps are around.
7AM Apr 9, PoI gives $64. Assign Scientist advisor back to East Asia.
7AM Apr 8 (oh, I must have crossed over the timezone for that PoI), +1 rebel in West Asia.
12AM Apr 9, a UFO landed - West Asia now Str 4, East Asia now Str 2.
4AM Apr 9, Prisoners (2 rebel 2 rookie), 6d 22h, East Asia, Str 2, E.Light - send 5-man, 2 rookies. "CQMedic" will watch over them.
9AM Apr 9, Tactical DE: Tac. Sense goes live. Swap out Scientist from East Asia. Set one rebel to Supply in East Asia (it's Supply Drop in 3d).
7AM Apr 9, +1 recruit from West Asia. 57 Aim. Debris extraction complete. Assign Engineer to GTS construction.
I think I fucked up a bit - the recruit bucket is only ever checked at 7AM. 1 soldier + 9 rebels meets the optimum recruiting of 3d. I've set aside a few to do intel and sure enough I still get a recruit roll every 3d. Oh and a S&G was found in West Asia thanks to this, it'll expire on 2AM Apr 13.
3AM Apr 12, Rendezvous, West Asia. The RNG really does toy with thoughts of savescumming - I shouldn't be surprised by East Asia not finding something immediately.
The great lesson here: NEVER expect every GOp to be detected. So what if a couple recruit rolls are missed? If the intel rolls are bad, even an unstaffed barracks will be idling away. Better to have too many missions detected than too few.
After scumming back to Apr 4, fly to PoI. IMMEDIATELY afterwards...
S&G, 7d 23h, West Asia, Str 3, V.Light - Send 6-man with 1 rookie.
My brain dissolves. Seriously, people complain about an incendiary's burn chance when the course of a campaign can be determined by extreme RNG in the earlygame strategy layer.
8AM Apr 5, +1 recruit from West Asia. 58 Aim, 7 Def, 15 Mob. Promising assault. Fly back to PoI.
8PM Apr 5, switch West Asia to Intel.
3AM Apr 6, assign Scientist advisor to East Asia.
9PM Apr 7, PoI gives $64.
10AM Apr 8, ProtectData (relay), 9d 19h, West Asia, Str 4, E.Light - send 6-man with 2 rookies including "CQMedic". Swap out Scientist advisor from East Asia.
11PM Apr 8, Switch West Asia to Recruit. I'm not going to get Lib 2 done at Str 4, not with my tech at this level.
Tactical DE: Tac. Sense goes live.
10AM Apr 9, HighValuePrisoner (soldier in van), 6d 21, East Asia, Str 2, E.Light. I'll need to get that counter-StrategicDE mission done to go on this.
I hate this Apr variance so much. Still, a LCpl isn't a bad thing when I'm short on manpower - Legendary brings in extra missions much faster so I'm stretched really thin.