Terror from the Deep (repurposed).

[Daveman]

My first encounter with the Lobstermen (on a Terror mission, no less) is one of those gaming memories that's stayed with me. I remember opening the sub door and one was in plain sight not too far away. "Oh, a new alien type, cool." I thought as I casually had one guy drop to his knee and fire off a burst at it with a recently issued Gauss rifle. Said Losterman then turned around and lobbed a grenade right inside the sub. The 4 guys in the back were still alive and after taking turns patching each other up they managed to get out and kill a few before I had to abort the mission.

I started calling all of the melee weapons lobster forks, since even when you get the alien weapons (sonic?) they were still much more effective at killing them, provided you got close enough.

[dbt1949]

I try my best not to take on lobstermen until I have the H-to-H weapons or mind control. Lobstermen are very susceptible to mind control.
If I have both the lobstermen become the easyist in the game. Mind control three or four and walk them up to one or more of your me and line them up. You can take two shots with a sonic cannon unaimed. The hand drill works even better. Good way to advance rookies and such.
I'll abort downed ship missions and postpone alien colony missions until I can handle the lobstermen. I'll take on terror mission tho. Or try reloading my last save hoping I'll get another type alien.
Tsoths with their mind control and the biodrones are probably even worse. Nothing like coming face to face with a biodrone, shooting it, have it explode killing your guy. They don't do that with the hand drills or stun weapons. Tsoths are unpredictable. They may go down with one shot or it may take 3-4.
With mind control if I can't get to a spot or kill them by the next turn I'll have them either shoot one another or throw their weapon away. Still leaves grenades tho or lobstermen pinchers.
I have had aquanaughts have 200+ kills by the end of the game.

[GreenGoo]

In Xcomutil, how are the difficulty settings numbered?

1: Easiest
5: Hardest

or
5: Easiest
1: Hardest

Or something else entirely?

[NickAragua]

I'm pretty sure it's 1-5 in order of ascending difficulty (so, 1:easiest, 5:hardest).

[GreenGoo]

I'm pretty sure it's 1-5 in order of ascending difficulty (so, 1:easiest, 5:hardest).

Thanks. I'm home now, so I can check myself. Will post back with confirmation...probably.

[Bakhtosh]

That's a case for high explosives. With the xcomutil mod, the big charge can knock holes in the wall/door. This will give you either a firing angle or a place to throw more grenades.

[GreenGoo]

I have yet to see a calcinite. Since they are required to begin researching the hand to hand weapons, I am still without a good shell cracker. May is just about to end. Getting annoyed.

[GreenGoo]

So here I am at May Month End. 5 months into the X-com project and we are progressing well, just having had our best month yet at 3,300 pts for the month and an increase in funding from nearly every nation.

Surprisingly, no terror missions occurred at month end. I did shoot down a small UFO close to my main base, and after slaying the 3 living gillmen in the area, recovered what was left of the sub, which wasn't much.

Research of an MC reader and living Tasoth opened the door to MC disruptors. These entered the manufacturing queue so that I will have some available when the 10 'nauts I've just sent away on a month's MC training will have something to play with when they come back.

Currently researching in a non-efficient manner, having 70 scientists working on magnetic navigation, 5 on a corpse of an alien type I haven't seen before, but looks like a jellyfish and another 10 researching...something. Man, can't remember what.

Second base off the east coast of Africa is coming very close to being online, with 5+ storage units already made and a living quarters and workshop in the works. Construction time has been artificially extended due to the modular nature of base building and the need to produce the securest base possible. Expectations are that construction will really ramp up now. The intent is to have a large manufacturing base with just a few 'nauts acting as garrison. I may also put in an MC training module to keep people sharp. This would be the 3rd training room, as a 2nd has already begun production in my main base.

Financially, my maintenance costs outstrip my X-com funding by a significant amount. Once I have craft gauss weaponry and a factory base running, money problems should go away permanently, which will also allow me to hire more scientists.

I've hired on another 10 rookies to replace the weak minded. The weeding out process will continue, and I fully expect to be hiring more soldiers in the near future.

Still using sonar rather alien tech, so contacts are still spotty. No real goals outside of continued base expansion and heading towards alien sub construction, picking up other useful techs along the way.

[dbt1949]

Interesting. I always work on just one project at a time and I found the optimum to be 90 scientists. The extra 10 to make 100 didn't make any difference.
Having played enough to know which research projects are the most important I save the others for later in the game too.
After getting ahead money wise I start adding engineers. I usually leave them at 30 until later in the game.

[GreenGoo]

Yeah, nothing was immediately pressing. The research is definitely linear, in that each additional researcher helps as much as the first, so there is no reason to spread out your researching across multiple projects. I think I started multiple projects just *because*.

On a boat for a Terror at Sea mission. Already lost 1 'naut to a grenade, but managed to heal the other wounded 'naut. Lobsters again, but easier now that I have sonic weapons. Lobsters and bio-drones. Still a pain to reach some of them, as they hide out in rooms with good LoS to everything.

I'm almost read to cheat add a calcinite just so I can get started on vibro blades/thermic lances/heavy thermic lances.

[The Rocketman]

April report

April 6: Terror site 3: Aliens attack Port Said in Egypt.
This mission is acted out by the book, nice and clean. My opponents are gillmen and deep ones, and I've outfitted my men with sonic cannons and pastic aqua-armour.
Aquanauts worthy of praise:
An aquanaut named Claude is covering a side section, and reaction fires a gillman on the other side of the map - who makes a move in front of a window - earning him the nickname "Marshall". His partner mimicks this move next turn, and he'll be known as "Deputy".

Meanwhile Edward is able to capture a deep one, using a tazer. His icecold nerves will have him known as "Freezer". Unfortunately, the deep one later wakes up in Freezer's backpack, and kills him. He will be the only casualty of the mission.

In the end I use xcomutil to locate the last alien, who's hiding behind some crates (in a room I had already cleared I thought).

Mission was a thrilling succes. I've captured 3 live aliens and killed 11 more, saved 9 civvies, and only lost 1 aquanaut due to a deep one waking up in his backpack. But my equipment and tactics have proven sound.

Bolstered by this succes, I plan an attack on the colony next to my base.

April 19: Colony attack
After 1 completely failed attempt, I reload the mission (breaking my Ironman rule!).
Constant MC attacks force me to abort the mission. I drag a snakeman corpse back to my triton, and leave "Deputy" behind on the bottom of the seabed, under Molecular Control. We can only hope his death will be quick and painless!

Morale drops, for having left 1 of our own behind...

April 22: Terror site 4: Manilla
Again, I reload the mission after a disastrous try (in which 10 men die in the first couple of turns due to a grenade / rocket shot at my triton, blowing out the backside and killing all men inside).

I face my first lobstermen, and learn the same lesson GreenGoo has learned. Even though I carry sonic weaponry, I'm still outclassed here. I kill 1 lobsterman, and lift off again, leaving the civilians to die.

It's obvious the aliens have moved up in technology and battle prowess, and I'm quickly slipping into a situation I no longer control.

Monthly rating OK, and I lose funding from Neo Japan, Free China and Iceland.

[The Rocketman]

May report

May 1: Terror site 5: Shippiing lane attack
My first terror mission on a ship, and what a completely excruciating experience it will prove to be!
It's quickly clear I'm facing snakemen who enjoy utilising MC combat, and bio-drones that combine pinpoint accuracy, lighning-speed reactions and an explosive death into the most deadly cocktail yet.

I learn that snakemen can survive grenade blasts, and have to pay for this lesson in blood. Aquanaut 1 down.
Another aquanaut quickly becomes an alien ally, and starts firing at his friends while still inside the triton. Luckily he only wounds them, and I quickly kill him off.
Another one bites the dust due to a sniping bio-drone.
A grenade is lobbed into my triton exit path, and 4 men are heavily wounded (but survive the blast!).
Another aquanaut is set up to reaction fire a bio-drone, but this doesn't work at all. Despite have high reflexes, a superior crouching position and all time units, the bio-drone floats into the room and kills the aquanaut in 1 shot. This is a tactic I won't be repeating.
The drone goes on to wound another marine, who I can heal quickly, but he's finished off a few turns later by the same drone. This thing has gone on a killing spree, dammit!

At the end of PART 1, I have to reload a couple of times to succesfully kill 1 remaining bio-drone who's holed up in a small room, killing any who enter or move in its sight. I kill it by blowing up approximately all the walls around it. A wonder the ship is still afloat...

Part 2 of the mission begins with 9 (of 14) survivors. Apparantly I lose 1 or 2 men somewhere due to being unconscious and suffering fatal wounds. I must have thought they were already dead, and it frustrates me that I could have saved them had I paid more attention.

This part ends with me having 5 aquanauts alive (all of them wounded!), and all survivors are nicknamed -T1- as a badge of honour. I have had to kill 2 MC'ed marines, and others are killed in regular combat.

A bloody mission, which had me often think of aborting, but I'm happy I persevered. Although the cost was huge (9 aquanauts killed!), I've saved 13 civvies and killed 29 aliens. Rating OK


As my men are returning to their Base, I only have 4 active aquanauts left, as everyone else is killed or in sick bay. I quickly refill their ranks, but by sheer luck no more combat takes place for the remainder of the month. I'm not able to shoot down anything larger than a small uso, and even they keep escaping my barracuda's. I will have to upgrade my interceptors in the near future.

Research goes smoothly, with magnetic ion armour, thermal shok launchers and the research of the vibroblade all complete at end of month. These are tools I will desperately need, because as the last terror missions have shown, I am at this moment outgunned and outclassed...

Monthly rating OK, Iceland once again lowers its funding, and Free China signs a pact with the aliens. The gloves are off now, having lost one of the largest countries in the world.

[GreenGoo]

Go get'em killer. Great read.

[The Rocketman]

June report

June will prove to be a turning point in the war. Whereas before I’ve been trying to hold out and survive, starting from june I'm taking the fight to the aliens.

June 1: Shipping lane attack:

This mission is the exact opposite of the one I had in may. My enemies are weak, gillmen and Deep ones, and I let out a cheer when I spot them! My men on the other hand are well outfitted: it will be the first test of their new ion armour.

The aliens can’t touch me. Deep ones don’t even dent my armour, and it’s only the gillmen’s grenades that cause some wounds (but no kills). The ion armour proves formidable in every respect.

Highlight is an aquanaut that falls through a floor (I didn’t see the tile had been blown off by a previous explosion), and he drops in a room with 3 gillmen and 1 deep one. He tosses a grenade, and hides behind what's left of a staircase. After the smoke has cleared, ALL of them are dead, and my guy isn't even wounded! (I didn't exaggerate this story, it was a truly phenomenal moment).

In the end I've done a perfect run, losing not a single aquanaut, and saving the lives of 10 civilians.

June 13, 21 and 22: These missions were all identical. A medium USO lands near the coast of Africa, and my men assault it. Those creeps sure like Africa...

Notes:
* Tatiana earns the nickname of "10.2", having killed 10 aliens in 2 missions. Also, it's a private joke that has something to do with my work since it's a common code we use (nothing to do with police or anything, it's something nerdy with environmental laws )

*Astra "Drillboy" gets his nickname by killing a couple of aliens in 1 turn with his drill, giving me a particularly Bioshock 2-feeling.

In all these runs, I lose 1 aquanaut to a grenade, have a couple of wounded, but gain lots of intact USO's and kill 37 aquatoid creeps.

June 30: MANTA research done, but it'll be a while before I can start manufacturing one, since you need lots of workshops and a free sub pen (which I didn't know).

End of month Rating: Excellent! Korea signs a treaty with the alines, but other than that my funding's raised for the first time!

[The Rocketman]

July report

July follows on the same positive vibe as June, and starts with an automatic discovery of an Alien Colony. The beginning of the month my base expands (general stores mostly, since I got a lot of stuff raiding the medium USO's), and I find out that my best aquanaut (nicknamed "Ace" for a reason) has low MC strength, naturally. Bugger. I add *- to the ones with Molecular Control strength below 50, the others get *+ behind their name. I will try to only use the ones with *+ for missions with possible MC attacks.

July 13: I attack my first colony with 10 aquanauts, not knowing what to expect (since I've never actually played TFTD this far).

One guy kills a snakeman with a rocket launcher, consequently picks up the rocket launcher and starts blasting everything in sight until he's out of ammo. Part 1 ends perfectly.

In Part 2 I clear the entire map before finding the synomium device, and I manage to stun 2 or 3 lobster commanders guarding it. I blow it up, and use xcomutil to end the mission since I don't want to waste any time looking for the last 2 alien stragglers, or running all my men back to the exit.

The attack went perfect. I will admit that by now I have given up on Ironman-mode, and am loading more often.

July 15: Gauss cannon research is done, so I can finally start making money by producing it en masse. Perhaps I should have started research on it sooner, since money has really been a big issue till now.

July 18: Attack on a small uso with lobstermen, goes smoothly.

Victor Kustenko gets nicknamed "XX", for being the first with 20 kills, despite having only average stats actually. He's just a regular joe, but apparantly he has a knack for killing

July 27: I realise I need a live snakeman for MC generator research, so I plan on kidnapping one. I land at an Alien Colony, and in only 4 turns I've stunned and dragged back a snakeman body to the triton. I flee with tentaculats and giant jellyfish closing in on the sub, suffering some wounds. But it's worth it, I get out with all my men and my prize!

End of month Rating: Excellent again, all nations raise their funding.

[GreenGoo]

Thank goodness you're posting. I've taken a bit of a hiatus. Lots of work around the house plus firing up Torchlight again after some time off. Plus steam has been giving me some difficulty that I haven't diagnosed yet.

Great read, as always.

[The Rocketman]

Thanks, much appreciate it I know I'm not much of a writer, especially not in english, but I have a great time reading you AAR, so I hope some people will like mine a bit as well.

[Bakhtosh]

All of those Medium subs are probably supply ships landing at an alien base. Have your Triton patrol the area where you keep finding those subs, and it will probably pop up.

[GreenGoo]

Thanks, much appreciate it I know I'm not much of a writer, especially not in english, but I have a great time reading you AAR, so I hope some people will like mine a bit as well.

Wow, you're not a native English speaker? Your English is great! There is a slight tone to it that identifies it as somewhat "foreign", like an accent when a language is spoken. That's all it is though, a tiny nuance to your writing. Otherwise it's very good. Congratulations.

[The Rocketman]

Nice of you to say Goo!
Bakhtosh, you hit the nail on the head. As my aquanauts will learn in august, those alien scallywags have indeed built a new base in Africa. But shhh, I'm not supposed to tell this yet!

[The Rocketman]

1 Thing that's been bothering me so far, is the lack of terrain variation. So far I've had terror missions in ports and cargo ship liners (so no passenger ships, or hotel resorts), and underwater I haven't seen the airplane, atlantis, lava or drilling platform scenery. I reckon I've done some 20 battles so far (not including base assaults), so the variation is pretty poor.

[GreenGoo]

It must be random and you're just having bad luck.

I've had both cruise ship and cargo ship terror missions, 1 beach side resort terror mission, and underwater I've see lava and airplane (at least twice). Not sure about the rest. Oh yeah, 1 colony assault so that had different tiles obviously.

[shadowheart]

I recently started playing TFTD again after a few years, and was googling for information on stun/MIA-bugs when I stumbled upon this thread. I've thouroughly enjoyed reading the posts in here, and I'm eagerly waiting for an update

Before reading this thread I had never seriously considered playing the game in an Ironman style, but I got so inspired by this thread that I scrapped my ongoing game and started a new one going hardcore Ironman (although on Beginner level, because it all did sound kind of scary). I have to say that I have probably never enjoyed this game so much since maybe the first few times I played it all those years ago (although I have enjoyed this game very much in more recent years too). Playing the game in Ironman style brings a whole new level to the athmosphere of the game. Before, when I used to save/load quite a bit (save every turn, load if essentially anything went against me), I could sometimes run around somewhat recklessly and I hardly ever hesitated to walk around corners because I knew that death (through reaction fire) could be fixed by loading. Now I find myself acting a lot more cautiously; I find myself using grenades a lot more instead of looking for clear shots all the time, and running from cover to cover, avoiding open space at almost all costs, among other things. Terror missions are now also a lot more scary, because death really is permanent. I'm in May so far, and I can proudly say that I haven't loaded a single time (except after having saved and exited the game, of course) so far. I have yet to face the horrors of Lobstermen, Tasoth, Bio-drones and MC, however *shudders*. One funny highlight was when I tossed a primed particle disturbance grenade onto an open field (because I didn't need anymore), forgot all about it and ran right into it with the very same aquanaut that threw it in the first place (yes, he died, the poor sod). I had a good laugh at that

Heck, I even got so inspired by all this that I created an account on Octopus Overlords just to make this one post (although, who knows, I might stick around).

I'm not trying to steal this thread or make it go off topic, I just wanted to share

[GreenGoo]

Welcome aboard Shadowheart and thanks for sharing your enjoyment of the game with us.

It really is a timeless classic and holds up unbelievably well despite being so pixelated that at times I'm not sure what I'm looking at. Terror suffers from this more so than X-com, due to the underwater environments, imo.

I salute your ability to play Ironman. I haven't been able to come close to that. Terror is just too unforgiving, and I don't enjoy having my entire team wiped out each mission. Of course all that means is that I'm not good enough at it.

I will be returning to this thread with updates, but currently Torchlight is eating all my limited play time right now. Luckily Rocketman is doing a great job of keeping us entertained, and Bakhtosh has his new X-com AAR thread going on, so there is lots of X-com activity right now.

[Bakhtosh]

Goo, to be fair, playing Ironman on beginner is a different game than playing on Inhuman.

[shadowheart]

No doubt about that I'll probably give a higher difficulty level a go as well later.

[Bakhtosh]

TFTD is hard enough. Those who play on the top two tiers are masochists.

[GreenGoo]

TFTD is hard enough. Those who play on the top two tiers are masochists.

Agreed. If you tried to do Ironman, chances are you'd just go broke and lose. If you did make it to the end by some miracle, you'd be going on the final assault with a full team of rookies in all likelihood.

Having tried many, many times to run a cargo ship terror mission in Ironman style, I realize that my tactics are just not good enough to succeed in TFTD in Ironman mode.

I just don't like blowing stuff up. And that puts me deep in the hole when it comes to beating the xenos.

[The Rocketman]

August Report

What a month! The aliens are kicking into overdrive, and their activity is off the charts!

August 1:
My second base, Zebra (near the south pole) is my MC training base. As I'm transferring my 10 screened aquanauts back to my main base Troy, X-COM goes on red alert! Alien activity has been detected, and there's no time to lose! I have 8 men on active duty in Troy, and quite a few of them have low MC scores. However I don't have a choice, and I load up the old triton and go in. This is my first alien activity mission ever, so I have no idea what to expect.
The first part is on the bottom of the sea, where the aliens have built some strange pyramids which seem to be excellent sniping positions for their Tasoth. Throw in a couple of aquatoid creeps who enjoy toying with my aquanauts' minds, and a couple of tentaculats for good measure, and we have a full party! It's dark and my men are scared, but I can clear the topside with only 1 casualty. Manuel -T1- (remember, -T1- is a mark of honour among my men, marking the 5 survivors of my most horrible terror mission so far) is knocked unconscious by a grenade, and bleeds to death on the bottom of the ocean. His friends are unable to get to him in time, and have to watch him die... Particulary cruel is that the alien responsible for Manuel's death is the last alien on the map. No quarters are given by either side!

The second part I admit, I reload from the start. On the first try I get overwhelmed by tentaculats, who in turn create other tentaculats, and I'm unable to stem the tide.
On my second try I'm ready for those floating horrors. The layout of the map is a true maze, with a big central room with multiple alcoves filled with snipers and tentaculats. 2 men are knocked out by stun bombs, and I'm able to revive 1 of them. My men drop a whole bunch of aliens, but a lot of them are stunned instead of killed by the sonic blasts. I hate it when that happens, since this means that they can wake up later and come after me from the rear. However none of them do, and I finally kill the last hiding alien.

Total tally: 38 kills, 1 death, 3 wounded, the alien beacon destroyed. Great work, but I only have 4 active aquanauts left until my MC trained batch returns from station Zebra. Luckily they arrive before I get into the next fight.

Aug 5 My barracuda's shoot down a Terror ship, thereby averting a new terror mission! 14 men are send on a raid.
After advancing a bit, Orski finally succumbs to the alien mind poking, turns around and starts blasting at my 2 snipers positioned on the triton's roof. During most of the mission, both sides keep shooting at each other, only causing wounds. "Drillboy" meanwhile is sneaking up to the uso, but instead of staying in cover, he panicks, drops his gear and runs towards the uso's bay doors. Quickly thereafter a tentaculat comes out and turns my favourite melee guy into a mindless zombie The alien mind may not win in a fair fight with my men, but with moves like this it still shows it's ruthless mind-blasting tactics.

Another tentaculat floats out of the uso, and I quickly lose my advantage near the USO's bay doors, facing 1 zombie and 2 tentaculats with just a few men out in the open, and my snipers pinned down by the MC-controlled aquanaut. After failing to kill these threats, and remembering the total slaughter even a single tentaculat can cause, I believe I have no choice but to shoot a rocket towards this zone. My rocket slightly misses its mark and kills one of my own men. Luckily it also downs all the aliens.

The rest of the mission is a mop-up, and near the end aquanaut Orski drops out of the mind control. I'm glad I didn't have to kill him, but he won't be on any high-profile missions anymore!

Aug 6 My barracudas, armed with sonic oscillators, manage to make their first clean kill. Everyone in Base Troy lets out a cheer, since my men don't need another mission so quickly. I start building a 3rd base near Japan and name it "Toranaga" after the genius warlord of old Japan (from the novel 'Shogun', which I rank as one of the best books ever). I also take the time to take a good look at my aquanauts so far. It seems 9 out of 18 have low MC scores, so I will have to start recruiting more agressively soon to find more aquanauts suited for MC combat. I plan to recruit 20 new aquanauts near the end of the month, and send them straight to the MC labs.

Aug 14 Assault on Alien Colony near Brazil.
For my second assault I bring a load of new toys: MC disruptors (which will prove less than stellar results, frankly) and the floating sonic tank. The tank will prove to be awesome! I think I read somewhere that one should not rely to much on tanks, but he was gravely, gravely mistaken! The tank has a whole lot of hit points, but more importantly it acts as a tentaculat-invincible magnet. The entire mission goes a lot smoother than my first assault, and I only lose 1 man because his melee drill attack didn't kill a lobsterman in time. But man oh man, is that sonic tank great! I find the roof above the synomium device, and I blow it up from above. I then use xcomutil to end the mission.

Aug 16, 18 and 24 I shoot down a crapload of small subs searching for my base, and go on 2 missions to salvage some uso parts. When up against tasoth, I let my tank do the scouting, and snipe the snakemen from far away. They never fire a single shot. The second mission is against lobstermen and shows the power of the vibroblades as most kills are made with this crude but effective drill. No losses on my side.

Aug 27 Furball day! The ocean is filled with USO's, and all my interceptors are at one point in pursuit. 1 barracuda shoots down a large Fleet Supply Cruiser, a small cruiser and an escort sub all in 1 sortie! It's a close call though, since that last little sub was on a mission to scout my base and my barracuda was running on fumes at that point

I launch a mission to raid the downed Supply Cruiser. Unfortunately it crashlanded among a ship wreck, and the entire terrain is littered with great sniping positions (parts of hull, cabins, cargo space or even an old control tower). It's lobster time again, and I have to take them out at long ranges. This mission is a lot of fun, resulting in a lot of great firefights between the dug-in lobster snipers and my men. Sonic blasts and grenades shower the battlefield. My little tank gets blasted by a grenade, a rocket and 2 sonic blasts and is finally reduced to a piece of scrapiron. All lobsters turn out to be holed up outside, and the big USO is totally empty.

Aug 28 Another uso recovery mission. For the first time ever for me (this means, since '96 or something?) I fight near an oil drilling platform It's a nice change of scenery, but over all too quick.

End of month Rating Excellent! Everyone raises their funding, and X-COM can look back at a fantastic month. The aliens have thrown a lot at us, and we weathered the storm. With 20 fresh recruits into MC training, and my casualty rate slowing down, the war has proceeded in our favour.

[The Rocketman]

September Report
Sept 1 Alien Activity, again on the first of the month. Knowing what to expect now, I’m much more comfortable going in. Christel, who has been quietly rising through the ranks, earns the moniker “Cleric” for healing 2 wounded aquanauts in a row, and surviving a point blank shot from the sniper who caught the other 2. It’s one of those pesky tasoth who hides in the big pyramid and shoots through small windows. Those guys are difficult too take out or even spot.

In part 2 the aquanaut Grigoriy covers a corner, but a tasoth who rounds the corner is too quick on the draw and hits him in the chest. Though wounded, Grigoriy takes aim and blasts the tasoth’s head off. He may not have been the fastest draw, but his aim was spot-on. “Gunslinger” will be his callsign.
The synomium device is destroyed by my sonic tank, which attracts tentaculats like moth to a flame. With mostly the same results. No losses, good mission.

Back home in Troy, I take a thorough look at all my aquanauts. I decide to finally fire all those with an MC strength below 50. Among them are my beloved 2 Greg’s: Greg “Ace” and Greg “Traitor”. Both are veterans from day one, and I’m sad to see them go. “Ace” most of all, because despite his low MC strength, he has been the captain of my troops, with some 20+ kills. And “Traitor”, well, he was the first victim to the alien’s mind control attacks, murdering his colleagues… He was a good reminder not too underestimate those aquatic freaks. Still, at least they’ll live out the War.
In total I fire 11 aquanauts.

Sept 5 Research on “The Ultimate Threat” begins.

Sept 11 Shot down my first Dreadnought today, with 2 barracuda’s! 1 of them was 85% damaged, but I kept him in the battle, desperately wanting that kill! When sending the triton over for a recovery mission, it discovers Alien Colony 6 by accident. Handy
The Dreadnought clean-up goes smooth, no losses and 15 kills. Lobstermen.

Sept 15 Maiden flight of the MANTA. Without any trouble, it quickly downs an alien Fleet Supply Cruiser. The following day I raid it, and Hans Seidler (one of my 2 remaining T1’s) gets wounded twice. The guys call him a “Magnet”, and it sticks. This month he’ll be in sick bay, but afterwards he’ll quickly rise through the ranks and ultimately end up as my aquanauts’ Commander.

Sept 18 I build a 4th base near Mexico (Eldorado, after the mythic city of Gold. It’ll be an extra interceptor base.

I also plan a raid on an alien colony, but as I’m waiting with my triton for it to become daylight, I discover 2 more colonies right next to it! These aliens are getting pretty productive…
By the way, I can honestly say that by now I’m back into Ironman-mode. The sonic tank, magnetic ion armour, MC-screened aquanauts and DPL launchers make for a formidable force.
In Part 1 of the colony assault I lose my tank to a rocket, and the blast badly wounds a nearby aquanaut. Part 2 however goes extremely smoot: I stay on level 2, quickly locate the roof of the synomium device room, drop some stun bombs through it, destroy the device and capture the lobster commanders. Use xcomutil to end.

Sept 24 I drop some rookies for a Supply Cruiser recovery mission. They seem to suffer from low strength, and since every aquanaut carries a vibroblade, medikit, grenade and ammo, the going is quite slow. My tank takes a beating (4 or 5 sonic blasts, lots of stun grenades and lobster claw attacks) but shrugs it off. 8 Kills later I’ve got some experienced rookies and a whole lot of stuff to sell!

Sept 29 Finally, research has finished on T’Leth, the Alien City!

Monthly Rating: I lose Egypt to the aliens, everyone else remains happy with my performance.

[NickAragua]

Man, that T'Leth mission was rough - every time I do it, I wind up running out of ammo for my guys, so I have to scavenge from dead aliens. I especially regretted bringing a PWT tank, it basically wound up just being a warm body to put in front after the first part.

[shadowheart]

All this playing and reading about X-COM (both 1 and 2) makes me want to start writing an AAR myself based on my ongoing game, but I'm already so far into it...

In either case, I started a new game on veteran (the middle difficulty) a week ago. I found out that on beginner, aliens have a 50% penalty to both firing accuracy and armor (never knew before exactly how alien stats were affected by difficulty), and therefore I started thinking about starting over on a higher difficulty. Then my save got corrupted, and instead of going back, I took the opportunity to start over on veteran. I'm still playing ironman, and it's going fairly well even now (in August)! Only major incident so far was when I lost an entire team (including the Triton!) of unarmored rookies to a landed Hunter (medium-sized USO) filled with Disrupter-armed Gill Men. Those Disruptors made quick work of my poor unarmored aquanauts, and the loss was hard to take even though they were all rookies

[The Rocketman]

Awesome shadowheart! I wish I had the balls to have kept playing ironman after a loss such as that! It makes for a much more interesting read

[The Rocketman]

October report

20 recruits have been screened for MC strength, and I have to sack 11 of them. Among them Carlos Carlos, who besides having a funny name, had 16 kills in 3 missions. But 2 of them have an MC strength of 100, so that’s promising.

I sent 20 fresh recruits to the MC screening labs. Seeing the previous results, I expect half of them to be fit for actual combat duty. Makes you wonder who the lucky ones are

Oct 1: Alien Activity, off course! It’s like those underwater freaks adhere to a strict calendar! I do wonder if the game couldn’t have randomised this a bit more, since I always have a skeleton crew in my main base Troy (because I foolishly built my MC labs in my other base, Zebra, and lots of aquanauts are still in transfer to Troy on the 1st).

I can send only 10 men, and it’s nighttime again, great. Tom Hand -T1- gets blasted by a grenade, but I can reach him with a medikit that turn. Luckily, since he has only 5 health left (after healing him). If I’d had been a tad slower, poor Tom would have bled to death that turn. Tom’s on a lucky run, because in part 2 of the mission he is shot by a tasoth during his own turn, and is left with 2 health! Another aquanaut runs to the rescue, but has to use ALL his time units to kill the tasoth with his drill. Seems like Tom’s luck hasn’t run out yet…

When my tank spots 2 tentaculats I have my men shoot a rocket into them. Afterwards it appears that the blast tore down some walls and has actually killed an extra 2 of those floating brains, that were hiding behing the wall. 4 dudes with 1 shot, not bad.

Right afterwards the morale of a tasoth nearby must have plummeted, because one of my men who’s guarding a corridor suddenly finds a dropped plasma gun behind him!! I freak out, since I totally assumed the room was clear for that aquanaut. I search for the panicked tasoth with 2 men, but don’t find it, and move on, thinking I must have missed the gun lying there when I got to the room. I’m proven wrong some turns later, when I DO find an unarmed tasoth running around there!

In poker terms, this mission ranks as a straight flush: Good cards, but a whole lot of luck too

Oct 2: A dreadnought searching for my base is downed with 2 barracuda’s and a manta.
That day I also use xcomutil to automatically fight the recovery mission of a downed small cruiser. It works nicely, but feels a bit like I’m cheating. Still, these missions are so easy that it feels a waste of time to do them.

I also attack the downed dreadnought (no rest for my men the first 2 days of October!), and find it has crashed near a sunken treasure galley. This makes for a nice change of scenery, and soon explosions and plasma blasts rock the old ship and it’s forgotten treasures as lobstermen desperately defend their large uso. My DPL guys are – literally – having a blast, and practically destroy the dreadnought. My men board from all angles, and it’s a thrill to fight in this hull where not a section remains complete. Gaping holes in the walls, ceiling and floors make for a nervous room-to-room fight with these lobstermen. It reminds me of a modern version of Stalingrad.

3 of my men (Emilio, Stuart and Alfredo) are meleed by lobstermen near the end of the mission. They all survive and kill their attackers, and the new names they’ve earned are “Rocky”, “Rocky II” and “Rocky III” off course.

Oct 4 – 9 I shoot down a lot of small cruisers, and assault some of them with by-the-book combat. This is dragging the game out a bit too much actually.

Oct 10 Manufacture of the Leviathan has finished! While I can now theoretically reach T’Leth, I plan to train my veteran aquanauts a bit more in MC combat in November, since they still can’t mind control a single alien. Their MC stats as well don’t seem to improve. Bug or feature…?

Oct 20 The previous days I keep downing small subs, and raid them for some zrbite which I seem to be running out of. Probable cause of this are the Magnetic Ion Armours which I’m making for everyone; these things soak up zrbite.

On the 20th I raid a supply ship, which my Leviathan brought down. That new sub is an absolute beast! Incredibly fast and well-armoured, this baby would even beat the Millenium Falcon (in an underwater battle, but still…).

The aquanaut Astro takes 2 shots to the chest, but shakes it off and drives his drill into the soft flesh of 3 lobstermen. This impressive feat will have the others call him “Fisherman”. “Rocky” meanwhile finds himself hiding behing the back of a lobsterman (ran out of time units at a bad time), but his comrades keep the lobsterman panicked with MC attacks so Rocky can kill it the next turn.

The rest of the month I shoot down a battleship and lots of small uso’s, but I don’t raid them anymore.

Rating: Excellent, funding is raised.

[El Guapo]

I wonder how they do the MC training. "I command you: Do my laundry....."

[The Rocketman]

November Report
I start the month by having my 10 aquanauts with MC scores above 90 spend a month in MC training. I hope they will prove valuable for the assault on T'Leth.

Nov 1 My fourth Artifact Site lights up on sonar. My team moves automatically: in the first 3 turns 2 tentaculats and 2 Tasoth perish, and 3 more tasoth panic. My triton has landed right next to the elevator, so in 6 or 7 turns I have evacuated everyone (and killed about 10 aliens) and start part 2.

In part 2 the aliens actually launch a pretty good counteroffensive, and "Rocky I" is killed by a tasoth with faster reactions. Gunslinger is not as easily surprised, and a snakeman riding an elevator to his level is quickly dispatched of. Rudi Krause gets shot in the back, because he didn't notice the wall behind him was actually a door :/ He's not even hurt though, and the guys will call him "Hunchback" from now on. At the highlight of the mission, my tank is surrounded by 5 tentaculats (!) and methodically kills them off while they try to mate with it. Or whatever it is they do, I don't really want to know...

These missions have become a piece of cake.

Nov 5 To test my new bird - the mighty Leviathan - for a combat drop, I land it near a downed medium USO (a hunter). It seems the USO crashlanded near a sunken greek city, so maybe it is the fabled lost city of Atlantis? I have never fought in this landscape before, and it's a joy to blast every priceless piece of pottery - could be the title to a new Prince of Persia actually - to smithereens! 1 rookie, with full morale and MC strength of 52 is put under Molecular Control in just 1 attack! I may have to fire the aquanauts with a score below 60 now, it seems.

The mission goes smoothly, except for 1 loss inside the USO.

Nov 17 Even with all my interceptors in the air/oceans (by now, about 8!) I can't shoot down all the USO's, because there are simply too many! For those of you who have seen the 3rd episode of the 1st season of Battlestar Galacty (where the Fleet is attacked by Cylons every 3 hours or so), this feels very similar. My barracudas and mantas are being repaired, rearmed and refueled non-stop, and constantly engaging the slimy subs all over the globe.

Nov 20 At this point 5 shot down USO's (escort subs, but also a dreadnought) are in close proximity to each other on the sea bed, all of them were searching for my base. These guys are my top-priority, I will let every other sub get away if I spot one that's on a Base Attack mission.

Mission Rating Excellent, funding increases again

[The Rocketman]

December Report
My 10 extra-trained aquanauts have finished their additional MC training (and I put 'MC' next to their names). Results however, are quite disappointing. While their MC scores have increased, it's nothing spectacular, and I feel I have wasted a month in preparing them for T'Leth.

Dec 1 Alien Activity 5 lights up, but I ignore it, because I'm heading for the Big One!

This is my list of aquanauts that will hopefully destroy the Alien Menace:

Captain "Magnet", 20 missions, 29 kills

Commander "Cleric", 17 missions, 55 kills
Commander Malory, 17 missions, 26 kills

Lieutenant Miguel "T1" MC, 15 missions, 24 kills
Lieutenant Tom Hand "T1", 11 missions, 22 kills
Lieutenant Astra, 15 missions, 20 kills
Lieutenant "Hunchback", 14 missions, 27 kills
Lieutenant "XX" MC, 8 missions, 27 kills

10 more Ensigns fill out the ranks, among them "Rocky II", "Gunslinger", "Fisherman" and "Rocky III". ALl of them veterans, with kill ratings up to 21.

Finally, 2 FLoating Sonic Tanks will provide support.

Space aboard the Leviathan is extremely limited, so my men are outfitted with just the bare necessities:
7 scouts: armed with sonic blasta rifle, thermic lance and medikit
7 gunners: armed with sonice cannon, vibroblade/thermic lance
4 heavy weapon guys: armed with a DPL launcher and 5 rockets.

My 6 MC-skilled aquanauts receive a molecular disruptor.

All of them wear Magnetic Ion Armour, but noone has any spare ammo, so they'll have to loot the bodies as they go. No grenades either, there's just no more space

My men say their goodbyes, and board the Leviathan with the eyes of the world watching them. Let the final mission begin... (Obviously, some small spoilers will be revealed now).

Part 1:
Dark, twisting corridors form a maze filled with aquatoid aliens with DPL launchers. My first tank is destroyed in the first few turns (by just one lucky explosion), and "Hunchback" survives 2 consecutive rocket blasts! He hasn't stolen his name, but is severely wounded.

Part 2:
Long corridors, big rooms, and lots of deep ones (which can't even hurt me, excellent!) and lobstermen. This part starts off bad, because apparantly everyone has lost their ammo, and it's lying (or floating!) in the first room. Because I'm stupid, I drop some of the ammo clips on objects my men can't walk on, and so 3 men don't have any ammo.

I encounter an alien I've never seen before: some kind of superfast squid that can shoot sonic blasts! They take a lot of damage, but bleed like all the others. I'm also happy for the MC disruptors I brought. For instance, at one point Tom Hand rushes a lobsterman to drill him to death, only to remember his thermic lance is still in his backpack when he reaches his foe! Luckily the MC squad panicks the lobsterman, giving Tom enough time to grab his drill and tear the lobster an extra hole.

Another advanced tactic: my remaining tank blocks a lobsterman holding a DPL launcher (betting that it won't fire it's rockets so close to itself), my MC squad hammers it with panic attacks, and "Fisherman" rushes in for the fatality.

My men are shot at quite a bit (and hit!), but noone suffers any wounds so far. Also, they have so many time units, that sometimes I walk into a room, see 2 aliens, and promptly kill them both.

Part 3:
Ah, after hours and hours of gruesome (and long!) combat, I've reached the finale. And this is it, since there's no "SAVE GAME" option anymore either!

The corridors of the ancient alien city are completely filled with those squid-like tanks, lobstermen, giant medusa's and the occasional deep one. Hunchback, still wounded from part 1, takes a blast when he appears in front of a door and is finally killed. His luck ran out today. Others are stunned by the barrage of stun bombs the lobstermen are desperately shooting, but all of them are awakened by medikits.

For the first time ever, I succeed in molecularly controlling a lobsterman, which has me laughing out loud as I let it throw it's weapons away, and let it run into my men, holding their spinning drills!

Finally, I locate the mastermind of this invasion, and destroy it's life support beams one by one...
As the Alien Horror knows it's defeated, it lets out a million-year-old scream, setting of a giant chain reaction inside T'Leth. The huge city explodes violently, a blast so large it can be seen from outer space... My 17 remaining men had no time for goodbyes, and are never heard from again.

Magnet, Cleric, my 2 remaining T1's, XX, the Rocky's, Gunslinger and Fisherman... They all rest on the bottom of the ocean, among many of their fallen brothers.

The only survivors, after 11 months of war, are those lucky enough to have been sacked because of low MC strength, but everyone else is pretty much gone.
A bittersweet ending.



This is the first time ever that I've completed TFTD, and wow, what a ride it has been! I thank you all for reading, and I hope someday another game can capture the magic that this one has.

[shadowheart]

Awesome! ... and congratulations on your first time completing the game!

Myself, I'm still on my ironman game on veteran. I'm in the beginning of January (ie, played 1 year), but I'm going to assault T'leth soon. I could go to T'lth right now, but I'm going to spend a few more missions building up stats before I go, because I have a feeling I will need it when taking it on ironman style. I am feeling pretty confident though, as the game has actually become extremely easy after I gained access to MC. December was a highlight month, as I decided to go all-in and take out as many alien bases as I could, finishing with a score of roughly ~14k. Surprisingly though, I've lost 4 countries to alien infiltration, among them the US (boo!) and Scandinavia (more boo!), but it doesn't seem to be hurting me particularly much (yet).

[NickAragua]

Congrats, Rocketman, on finishing the hardest of the X-Com games.

[The Rocketman]

Thanks, it did feel good to finally complete it.

I as well was very surprised by the drop in difficulty at the end. In my opinion, the game is structured a bit like this:

1) Beginning: no armour, lousy weapons vs easy enemies: difficult
2) After 2 or 3 months: plastic aqua armour and some sonic weaponry against easy enemies: medium difficulty but quite fun
3) After 3 of 4 months: enemies start using MC attacks: game becomes difficult again
4) Soon after: more difficult enemies start appearing (lobstermen especially), and aquanauts still have lousy armour and basic weapons: extremely difficult, almost undoable! (Especially when facing MC attacks as well).
5) After developing ION armour: difficulty drops to medium (or hard, when you don't have vibroblades).
6) After researching MC strength: easy
7) Other stuff researched like MC disruptors, sonic tanks, magnetic ion armour and DPL launchers make the difficulty drop to very easy.

So difficulty rises quickly in steps 3 and 4, but drops significantly in 5 and 6 again. I now realise I always quit before after starting stage 4. A lot of handy research is at this stage needed to quickly get to 5 and 6 I think, otherwise you're in for a very rough ride.