File 2: The Four Cults and Our First Loss
*Begin Recording*
Sunny’s Log, January 5th 1997 to January 18th 1997
After our initial success capturing the Bullfrog, missions seemed to pop up all over the globe day by day, The commander bought a second car and outfitted a second squad to keep up with the flood of missions
The first mission of this month was done by Burnt Toast and Hound Smith, who were investigating disappearances on an island north of Russia. Sadly it was that time of year where it’s always dark there, but they brought flares and flashlights. Good thing too because as Toast threw their second flare…
Burnt Toast: What the hell is that thing?
Hound Smith: It looks like a gorilla. An Albino gorilla. An angry Albino gorilla
The best picture we have is the one they took, and even so the detail isn’t amazing
We would need a dead one to examine it in great detail but from what we can tell it’s some kind of Albino Yeti/Gorilla thing? We’ve given it the designation of Mongorn
Hound Smith: It’s alright, we have guns and it doesn’t. All we have to do is stay here and we can kill it!
Burnt Toast: Hound, there are more!
Hound Smith: Let’s see… three albino gorillas, at night, in the frozen wastes, with nothing but handguns. Hmmm…
At that point they made the correct decision and got the hell out of there.
It was disappointing to not have killed them but I think they made the right choice. There’s no way they could take down multiple gorilla sized creatures with our pistols and shotguns. Maybe if they had a rifle or a proper pump action they could take it but… Nah
Next up, Ice Mole and The Lone Badger went on our first ever Cult Aprehension mission in… Malaysia I think?
I would love to say that it was some kind of deep and difficult investigation where they solved a series of mysteries and uncovered the truth but uh… Actually what happened is they entered a nearby building to ask for questions and came face to face with one of the cultists, who immediately pulled out a stun baton and screamed at them.
The Lone Badger: I have a suspect. I think? He’s got a stun baton and he’s wearing like martial arts clothes.
Ice Mole: Sounds like grounds for a tasing to me.
Mole and Badger searched the building before hearing a noise outside. When The Lone Badger went outside he found the next cult member charging him with a Tonfa and a cluster of throwing knives.
Since they already had a live suspect, Badger did what he thought appropriate and blew him away with a shotgun
The next Cult Aprehension actually almost went very badly for us. While Hound and Toast were investigating they found a man with an axe threatening them. They took up positions on opposite sides of a courtyard, trying to lure him in so that they could tase him
But as they were lying in wait, another cult member snuck up on Hound
Hound Smith: Toast be careful he has a friend! (Sounds of CQC and two gunshots)
(If Hound had failed this CQC check he absolutely would have died)
Burnt Toast: You may have hit me in my left arm, but the joke’s on you. I’m ambidextrous!
Hound took a step back from the cultist and blew him away with his shotgun while Toast managed to take him down with the taser.
Both of them are currently in the Med Bay. I feel a little bad for them but they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Hopefully, by the time they come out, they’ll be tougher than they were
God, there were a lot of missions these past two weeks… Sorry, I’m only giving you the highlights but there were a lot of them. The next mission was Ice Mole and Badger again, and this time the mission started with a crossbow bolt breaking the back window of their car.
Ice Mole: I see the guy who shot at us. He’s on the second floor with an uh… Crossbow.
The Lone Badger: Alright check this out. I’m going to breach the bottom floor and use the door as cover. After he fires I’m going to close the door and tase him. Check it!
It was a good plan, and to his credit, it worked. Mostly. Badger missed both shots with his taser and had to fall back on old reliable.
The rest of the mission was pretty standard. Badger noticed a guy in the distance and kept an eye on them while Mole moved closer, hidden by a house. Mole came up behind him with the taser and that was that. Speaking of tasers, Mole got a medal for this mission, Tasemaster
The Tasemaster commendation is given out to soldiers who are good at bringing in people alive. I’d say Mole qualifies, keep up the good work buddy
Next mission was one of mine, we were out to investigate a cult called Red Dawn I think? There’s not a lot to say though. Two guys with baseball bats fronted up on us and tried to keep us quiet.
Dak Thornson: Oww! Bastard!
Sunny: Remember the taser’s in your left hand. We need at least one of them alive
Dak Thornson: Okay but does it have to be this one?
Now for something non mission related. The Quartermaster finally managed to open a channel of communication with our “higher ups” on personal protection. And they rejected our request for Kevlar vests. Said “we’re an investigation team not an army.” I heard the Quartermaster cursing all the way back to his desk. We have an order of leather coats coming in, but they won’t be here for a while
With all the pencil pushers freed up the Intelligence Officer went to work interrogating the cult members, and we went back to more missions, still as unarmored as we always were
This… is a bit of a weird one even for us. Reports of cattle mutilation by farmers and “aliens” which I think is a bunch of bullshit. But Crazy Achmed and Sam O’varr went to investigate anyways. And as soon as they got out of the car bullets were flying because the farmer had a shotgun.
Crazy Achmed: If you hide in the orchard hopefully he won’t be able to see you. I’ll get by this side of the barn you get that side. I hope we’ll be able to flank them
Sam O’varr: You’re surprisingly reasonable for a crazy person
Crazy Achmed: Oh that’s just my code name. I think.
The plan went off perfectly, and Achmed found another farmer on the other side and managed to tase him. He also found the cow body though and it’s… well. Look for yourself
(Content Warning. Next picture is a pixelated cow corpse)
The picture they took is horrifying. A cow on the ground violently dismembered… I kinda wonder if the farmers aren’t in a secre cult too. I find that a lot more likely than aliens.
The next mission me and badger teamed up and it was awful. It was nighttime, and a farmer with a shotgun was taking potshots at us from the second floor of his barn. We had to go all the way around to get to it because of the stupid fences in the way. His friend came at us with a pitchfork and tried to stab us, that was easy enough. But I was terrified that the farmer up stairs would get us before we got too close so I uh… Might have shot him with the snub nose pistol
As far as I’m concerned, better him than me. Also, there was this weird glowing… paste? Covering? Ooze? That the guys at home were really excited about. I’m waiting for it to be revealed that it was just reflective paint or something.
The next mission was pretty sad actually Achmed and Sam found themselves in a jungle looking into animal attacks and found more of those Mongorns
Crazy Achmed: I don’t want to try getting close to tase one of those. Can we even beat them with our guns?
Sam O’varr: Achmed there are civilians here! The Mongorn are killing them!
Crazy Achmed: Damn! Don’t get too close, but we have to try and do something!
(Sounds of gunshots and multiple animalistic roars. The gunshots stop but the roars continue, and grow louder and louder)
Sam O’varr:.. I’m out of ammo Achmed. We need to get out of here
Crazy Achmed:... Yeah. We do.
The next mission… The next mission felt like it was compounding on their earlier tragedy. Sam and Achmed were going door to door questioning people about the cult of Dagon when the door to Achmed’s house opened and he was staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
Crazy Achmed: I was wondering if you knew anything about the church of Da… gon…
(Sound of two shotgun blasts, one after the other)
Sam O’varr: Achmed are you alright! Talk to me!
Crazy Achmed: ‘malrigh. Jus gotta… stop bleedn…
Sam was on her way to help Achmed when a bullet whizzed past her head. She turned around and killed the cultist who shot at her in a single well-placed bullet. But by the time she made it to Achmed he was already dead. None of us were happy to hear the news, but I think Sam was struck the hardest by it
The final mission was so uninteresting that I would skip it if it wasn’t for the fact that we met a fourth cult on in. You probably know the drill by now, we drive into town and check some things out. A two-bit member of the cult takes a swing at us and we tase them. That’s basically what happened this time too with one exception
For some reason I can’t shoot through this damn fence. Every time I tried to aim I just, got my hand caught on it or the gun caught on it and it sucked.
The Exalt guy could shoot me through the fence just fine. So I borrowed his technique and tried to shoot through it from this angle
Worked like a charm.
I’m going to pour one out for Achmed, but we can’t sit around for too long. There’s 2 more active investigations we need to go on soon. But there is some good news. The Intelligence guys are working on cracking those cultists we brought in, and our Leather Coats arrived. There isn’t enough to outfit everyone at once but we move in teams of 2 so we have more than enough.
This is Captain Sunny, Signing off.
*End Recording*
(LPer Notes)
I was trying to get out of the first month without anyone dying... I might have been able to save Achmed if I had him fire his gun at point-blank range but as you’ve seen already, CQC checks are required to attack with guns at close range. I wasn’t sure if he could make it or not. He managed to kill his attacker though so you know what. I Salute you Achmed.
Also, I’m sorry if these seemed a little sporadic but… I went on 10 missions, had a 50-minute recording (some of that is when I left it running when I had to go do something) and we advanced the clock by 12 days. In a game measured in years. So I tried to just hit the highlights
Basically my plan on the research front, there are 2 different paths we can take to unlock more scientists. One, we research medicine and advanced medicine to unlock the Bio Lab building. Two, we interrogate one of each cult and research their methods to unlock the Intelligence Center.
I may have made a mistake by trying to get to the Intelligence Center first but I made my choice. At the very least I’m glad I got the leather coats. It takes another research project to get Kevlar vests and that would be another 10 days at least with our research. It’s why I want more laboratory room immediately
Gameplay Corner: Soldier Stats and Training
Being based on X-COM UFO Defense, Files uses most of the same stats as UFO Defense, with a few additions. This here is Sunny’s stats after his very first mission, with the darker part of each bar being his base stats and the bright part is how much he’s grown since then.
TUs and Stamina are two resources you spend while moving, or doing much of anything really in Files. Both of them recover at the start of your next turn, but encumbrance can reduce a soldier’s TU and Stamina regeneration. Low sanity can also reduce TU and Stamina.
Health is, you know. How much damage you can take before you die or pass out. Lowered health and fatal injuries will also reduce the rest of your stats, so getting healed can be a good idea if the fight can’t be ended immediately. In addition to lowering stats, Fatal injuries will slowly drain your health every turn and can be cured with medical kits. They’re represented by a blood drop icon.
Bravery is the stat used to decide if your soldier is going to fold and panic due to low morale. Morale is also a stat, but it only matters on missions. It starts at 100 and goes down due to damage and dead soldiers. Getting kills will restore morale. If it falls below 50, the unit has to make a bravery check to remain under your control, otherwise they panic or go berserk
Reactions is how easy it is for your agents to react when an enemy takes an action. The reason why Sunny managed to blast that bullfrog in the first mission is probably due to his respectable reactions. It’s also a component of the melee dodge formula and the damage formula for precision melee weapons like knives.
Firing, Throwing, and Melee accuracy all modify accuracy with different kinds of weapons. As we can see, Sunny is a crack shot. Sunny would get stabbled two dozen times in a knife fight before landing one himself.
Strength modifies how much equipment you can carry into battle, it can also be a damage modifier on some weapons, mainly melee and throwing for obvious reasons
Sanity is an addition to Files which wasn’t in the original UFO Defense. Sanity is slowly worn away when Soldiers are on missions, and is restored by staying at home. If the boys spend 20 turns in the depths of a hell portal, their sanity will probably be much lower when they get home. Low sanity reduces the generation of TUs, Stamina, and may have an effect on morale? Not sure
Another thing to note is that in X-COM Files your soldiers can train, passively increasing their stats as long as they stay in the base an uninjured. Training can only go so far, usually increasing their overall stats by about 10 points each (more in some cases) but it goes a long way to making rookies usable instead of the worst.
I don’t actually know how quickly training happens or what the calculations are for it, but you really should put every single soldier you can through training.
The Armory
To be honest the weapons you start the game out with are all pretty abysmal
For melee options, we have a combat knife and an electric stun baton. As you can see, accuracy and strength can modify the damage of melee weapons, meaning that someone with extremely high strength or accuracy can inflict a lot of damage with a knife. Naturally, this comes at a cost, having to engage the enemy at point-blank range.
This is going to be our bread-and-butter option for capturing enemies alive for most of the game. It has a max range of 4 tiles which is basically point blank range but has a very powerful electric stun that can put down weaker targets instantly.
The Glock is actually the pistol you start the game with, and it’s a bit of a weird one. Low direct damage, middle-of-the-road accuracy, and the normal range for a pistol. However, it does have something going for it, a high rate of fire, a large clip, and the ability to perform auto shots. In fact, I’d say the Glock is secretly the game’s first SMG.
The Colt is what I consider to be the early game bread and butter weapon. It is the strongest pistol that we can acquire right now and it’s basically the opposite of the Glock. In exchange for a slower fire rate and a smaller clip, the Colt has increased stopping power and accuracy. Every other pistol we have, the Luger, the Barretta 92, and the Snubnose may have a very slightly higher fire rate or clip, but in exchange, they lose out on some stopping power. I consider a 2 point Time Unit loss to be… well a lot less important than dealing an average of 6 more damage per shot
The Small Shotgun is basically everything you’d expect from a Shotgun but boosted to a hilarious degree. Assuming every pellet lands it does an average of 15 damage 7 times, which may be useless against a well-armored target but would utterly evaporate someone else. Sadly the farthest it can fire before its accuracy starts tanking is 3 tiles. It can shoot further but generally speaking it’s a CQC weapon. Also, it’s the same size as a pistol, so it is technically concealable, can be stored on a belt, and can be used with one hand. Technically we have a two-handed shotgun available too, but it only fires 5 pellets in exchange for a range boost. I’d much rather wait so we can get a proper pump action shotgun with range and power.
This is… a bit of a weird one. It’s basically an impromptu smoke grenade/stun weapon? If you fire the Fire extinguisher it makes a small smoke cloud where it lands and puts out any smoke, but if someone is hit by the initial blast it does quite a bit of stun damage. I’m not going to make this a part of anyone’s load out or anything but uh… Yeah.
I didn’t grab a picture of them because they don’t really show anything important but, we have 3 different classes of medical items right now. Medical Kits, Medical Bags, and Medical Packs. They are in ascending order of both size and weight, with the kit being 1x2 and the rest being 2x2 in the inventory. It uses the normal X-COM medical system so each pack has Pain killers, which restore morale, Stimulants, which reduce stun damage and restore stamina, and “Heal” which removes fatal wounds on Soldiers. Kits have 1 of each, Bags 2 of each, and Packs 3 of each. We can also buy individual Stimulants and Pain Killers for our soldiers but. Why would I do that?
The suit is the armor we start the game with and it is objectively the worst in every way. 5 armor is the absolute minimum that an entity can possess. It has good resistance to EMP weapons on account of not having any mechanical or electronic parts but it’s outclassed in literally every way by our next item
The Leather Coat isn’t that much better than the suit, to be honest. It’s only a 3-point armor increase across the board, but that may have been enough armor to save Achmed’s life, so make of that what you will. It’s also worth mentioning that the Leather Coat has a higher melee dodge than the suit, and provides resistance against cutting and incendiary attacks. It’s also cheap, so I bought a bunch and equipped almost the whole crew with them.
