Part 19: Operation Blind Justice

Operation Blind Justice


After the last batch of missions a large scout seems like an ideal time to toss a rookie into the team and see how they turn out. This was also largely done because I had a good rookie sitting in the barracks and having a fair estimate of how the class assignment system works I felt like there was a strong chance I'd get the class promotion I was looking for. So say hello to our newest rookie;


Isis Tellar Will 37 Aim 80

Another fine rookie brought to you by my selective (if expensive) recruitment program. However with the money my base is now making every month spending double or even triple on recruitment to ensure the finest soldiers available seems well worth it.




Polsy



Some fun new things for this video. Firstly Carapace Armor is rolled out. This is usually a milestone in any of my games because this is the first real break point in soldier power. After you put the basic armor on people, you are usually out of the woods for one shot deaths. Typically if I take deaths it's before armor is out for everyone. Tactical rigging and Carapace armor ensure that even rookies can go into combat with enough HP to survive a LPR crit. 4 base hp, 2 from nano-fiber, and 4 from armor means they'll live through a 9 damage crit. From here on the casualty rate tends to dramatically decline, though I've been doing well enough to only have a few non-bleed out type of critical injuries.

Before getting to the mission you'll see that I fail an interception. Sort of. That was planned and routine in every one of my playthroughs. I don't tech up enough 99% of the time to have a phoenix cannon or laser cannon on my interceptors by this point, and the problem is even more pronounced now with longer research times and in particular with this game due to low scientist count (Although we're rapidly fixing that). This larger UFO is a guarantee in the third month, and I never shoot it down. It's important to launch at it and scare it a little, as even engaging it and retreating right away prevents it from radioing home a battleship to come blast a satellite out of the sky. If you have the tech and ability to shoot it down, you really should. It will likely result in a very tough mission this early on, but the salvage from the ship could be worth several hundred X-Com Bitcoins.

About the mission itself, well, I really expected to find more aliens than I did on this map. I apologies if it was a bit long and slow because of the enemy scarcity, but playing it I was sure that another pack of thin men or floaters was going to show up every turn until I was well inside the UFO. But that's how I play when I'm uncertain of anything, slow, methodical and make sure you never get complacent or else someone usually dies because you were being lax. The UFO set up at provided for a fairly routine and controlled capture of the Outsider. I took a somewhat less delicate approach to the capture than Guava might advocate, but it was perfectly safe and I won't be missing the 20 X-Com Bitcoins that the grenade might have cost me. Taking the outside alive is easily worth the cost.