Part 7: Base

Base




My grooming has paid off, and Prof is the first to learn a new skill. Athletic makes a soldier fast enough to keep up with vehicles. That's pretty important for a scout, since this allows him to spot for the vehicles without dragging down the group speed. It's also great for outrunning enemies after you alerted them, getting out of a pinch, and for a lot of cheap shenanigans. I'll prioritize weapon skills for the rest of my group, but Athletic is my standard pick for a secondary skill on almost anyone.

In the Tactic Room, we get a new info blurb.

Sorry that it looks kinda shitty, but this particular blurb didn't want to play nice with upscaling.

Now let's take a look at our new ride.

The BTR is the first vehicle with fixed weaponry, and inventory slots that can only take ammunition for the guns that it has. For example, you can't fit 7,62 boxes in its slots since it has no gun that uses this caliber. Simple, right? The other weapon is a smoke launcher, which I think is kinda useless. It sure does its job, and creates a thick cloud of smoke which blocks the line of sight. But I just never found myself in a situation where I wanted to use it. You may think that a smoke launcher is great to cover a vehicle before it gets shot to pieces, but there is a small delay before the launcher will fire. And that is often just enough time for the enemy to destroy your vehicle anyway. It's nice that this weapon was included, and you probably can create a scenario in which it's useful, but I won't.

Let's talk about the general performance of the BTR. First and foremost, it's no tank. The armor looks spiffy in the picture, but it can still fall victim to concentrated small arms fire, 7,62 machine guns, and you really don't want it to get hit with a shell. Its main draw is the range of the 14,5 gun, which allows you to engage infantry and Humvees at a pretty safe distance. The gun will also quickly smash through Humvees and is a real threat to other BTRs, so it's great for hunting or ambushing those. But to be honest, the BTR will not be valuable for too long. The first light tanks aren't that far away from here, and their appearance will reduce its life expectancy pretty hard.


My vehicles took a bit of damage, but I still have enough time left to glue more armor to the BTR. This may have saved its life during the next mission.

Let's swing by the lab, and laugh about me for making a small mistake.



Last time, I set my lab to automatic so that I don't have to deal with the item production. But I forgot to set it back again, and the game chose to upgrade David's health. This is a waste, since David will become a bench warmer in the future. His light weapon skill will become trash in a few missions, and it's better to leave him behind at that point. It's not too troubling though. In general, you'll get enough time to upgrade your active squad.

Our last action in the base, is trading.



Oh god, are you kidding me, Wlad? A fucking T-55 this early in the game?....You asshole...



The T-55, is the most common battle tank in the game. It comes with a 125mm cannon, two 7,62 machine guns and a smoke launcher. It can stand a lot of punishment, and will also dish out a lot of it. There is more to say about it, but I'll get to that later.

Getting a tank this early, would kinda break the curve while also being super hilarious. But there is one problem, it's sooo damn expensive. I literally would have to trade away all of my vehicles to even get in range for a bad trade. And then I would have to trade away all of my gear to afford extra shells for it. It does come with a few rounds, but those won't last long. So yeah, with a heavy heart, I decide not to trade all my stuff for the pleasure of stomping through the next mission. It was a close decision though.

However, I still trade with Wlad.




The AK74 is the only assault rifle in the game, and a pretty sweet weapon. It also uses the heavy weapon skill, for some reason. But since it eats ammo pretty fast, I'm going to stash it until enemies start to carry it. Or at least until I have a good stash of ammo myself.

There is also a RPG rocket in there, because I'm going to get a free RPG in the next mission. The last items on the list are 40mm fire grenades. They may sound awesome, but I only get them to conserve value. I'll talk about grenade launchers in a second.


Lastly, I trade for more machine gun ammo and clear out some of my trash. I just don't like it when my tabs get too cluttered with stuff that I don't use. In Wlad's tab, you can also see a new weapon system for the Humvee.



Sporting a 40mm launcher on a Humvee, sounds sweet in theory. But in reality, it's not a good weapon. Your vehicles aren't smart enough to lead their targets, so a moving target will never get hit by a grenade. 40mm explosive can be used against moving infantry to an extend, but it's just not worth it, imo. Grenade launchers can work pretty good against static targets, but I really don't like to restrict the use of units in such a way. The M60 is just more flexible. Also, the launcher will eat grenades like candy, so you need to pack a lot of ammo if you really want to use it.

Well, this concludes our business at the base for now. The next mission is recorded, and will be the first one that's really large. It also has a lot of vehicle combat, and some really lucky stuff that happened to me. Stay tuned!