User talk:Doomreaver/Invasion

Here is all of the author commentary for this series. I wrote it in parts, so each part has it's own commentary. Feel free to leave comments of your own!

First Contact

Welcome to the XCom Project! I hope you enjoyed the first part. The idea started right after an attempt to run Ironman Classic difficulty where I lost half of my men in the first 3 missions (one in each of the first two, all four I sent in the third), or less then two weeks in game time. It was my own fault, as I made several critical mistakes that I knew better then to make. So I started from scratch and came up with the idea of naming the characters after the TSA and writing about it.

I nearly had a repeat of my last run on the first mission, getting Phil flanked by a Sectoid. Flanking gives ~50% extra chance to hit and crit. At this point in the game, a crit means instant death, and most shots have a base hit and crit chance of 25% or so, meaning Phil had a 1 in 4 chance of not being hit, and if hit only a 1 in 4 chance not to die. The shot missed entirely, and I was very happy that luck was with me for once.

One mission and one kill is enough to get a soldier enough experience to be promoted, so usually the first mission ends with 2 or 3 guys getting their specialization. It wasn't until the end of the mission that I realized Caroline Hardy got the killing blow on all 6 opponents. Sadly, no matter how badass, you can't get a Soldier promoted unless they meet Exp requirement and a certain number of missions completed. So I've got 1 Squaddie with an insane number of kills, and a bunch of Rookies feeling left out. Oh well. /Doomreaver

Girding for War

So this is my first part that is entirely invented by me. This game works on a sort of reverse difficulty, starting out hard when you have Rookie soldiers and no Alien tech. No in game event sparked this section, I just wanted to introduce the in game NPC's, point out how bad your starting position is, and highlight the fact that I was lucky to not lose anyone in the first mission.

Originally the first part mostly took from in game Cinematics to introduce the three NPC's, but then my beta reader pointed out how stilted that made it seem and made me realize it wasn't at all clear that most of them had just arrived. So I rewrote the whole thing, and am much happier with the result.

The second part in the Infirmary really didn't change at all. I picked Phil partially because I hadn't gotten in all the names for my men yet, and partially because it's Phil. In most of his self inserts he's the kind of guy who goes out of his way to check up on and help people, and from the start I had planned on giving him a lot of screen time because everyone knows who he is and I enjoy reading his stuff so much, so it just feels right. /Doomreaver

Midnight Run

This particular part ran across a lot of game mechanics that make little sense in real life. Firstly, it was the middle of the night, but I didn't even realize it until a few real-life days later while I was working on this part due to how bright nighttime is in game so you can see what's going on. Secondly, Vulpintaur got taken to 1 HP from his base HP of 5. Phil then used a medkit on him, and he was back up to 5 HP. Thus the part where he's severely wounded, but the miracle drug gets him back on his feet and he insists on providing cover fire. The game is not so silly as to eliminate recovery time due to medkits, so he'll be out of action for 2 in game weeks.

Phil once again proves his phenomenal luck. An Alien climbed up and around to drop next to him. Fortunately there where boxes between Phil and the Sectoid, so he wasn't flanked this time, but it was still only half cover and an extremely short distance, so it was amazing that he didn't get hit. Directly afterward I ruin it by trying to make him circle around to flank an enemy, only to realize that same ladder the ET used was closer then the long route, causing Phil to run over to it and run up it instead. This made him cross in front of an Alien on Overwatch, which means you fire on the first enemy to move in your field of view. Alas, his luck didn't save him and he got shot. It seems even a Rabbit's run out of luck eventually. /Doomreaver

The Biohazard

There is in fact a bar at XCom. You can see it in game! I decided on the name to it because it has a "Biohazard" sign on the side of the bar. This part took a while to write, because I consulted everyone who donated a character so they could decide their own backstory. Only Phil and Freya's creator took me up on that. Ironically, although it's a multinational organization, most of the characters are probably American due to the source material, so I made a point of specifying at least one foreigner.

Maximilian's backstory came from his eventual nickname "Matchlock", that he'll get if he survives to be promoted a few times. I wanted to connect him with old flintlocks to give a reason for his later nickname. Hawlsera, until this point, wasn't in the list of characters, but I knew from the start I'd want to include her because I really enjoy her writing, a TG soldier would make it feel more TSA, and her origin story occurred to me shortly after I thought to add her. Some of the delay was consultation on the details of modern day Transgender therapy and surgery, then having her read over it all to make sure I made no mistakes. /Doomreaver

Operation Splashdown

The last time I played the game on this difficulty I had a total party wipe on my first UFO mission, meaning all four of my soldiers died horribly. Now I have not only beaten the mission without losing a man, none of my soldiers where even slightly injured. This play through has created interesting conflicting reactions to in game events due to the nature of me writing on everything that happens. One the one hand, going through three missions without losing a man is amazingly lucky, and my goal is to beat the game with as few losses and setbacks as I can. On the other hand I've played up how outgunned and risky the whole thing is, so every time I get through a mission with no deaths and don't lose anyone makes me nervous the project will get boring as I curb stomp the entirety of the game.

This may sound like a broken record, but Phil had an event of insane luck once again. Green had shot and killed one of the first pair of Aliens I spotted, and I decided to move Phil up out of cover and take a shot at the Sectoid from the open. If he succeeded, it'd be dead and he'd be at no risk. Unfortunately, I had already moved him once that turn, so instead he walked out of cover and stood there 10 feet from the enemy in the wide open, basically asking for a horrible death, or at least a painful wound. It missed him. So I moved him up to nearby cover that had previously been just out of reach and took out the target. This is why his luck is commented on in the story, though the in game event didn't translate quite the same. /Doomreaver

Escort Duty

So the other shoe has finally dropped. Hopefully not to many people are totally pissed at me. The first three missions I breezed through with some incredibly lucky breaks, even though I expected someone to get killed at any time. I knew from the start I would lose people, and missions, in this run of the game. It was inevitable on this difficulty, and it sucks, but in the overall terms of the game it's mostly a setback. A bad setback true, I lost my best Soldier and Nigeria is panicked with riots on the streets, but in the grand scheme of things I can still complete the game, and probably even regain Nigeria's confidence. Maybe that's a comfort to Hardy and Morgan, as the fight lives on without them.

The actual events of the mission involved some incredible luck for the Aliens this time. Killing Morgan took a 5 damage shot, when attacks normally do 3-4 damage. Unfortunately the Sectoid not only hit Morgan while he was under cover (a 1 in 5 shot or so) but crit him (a further 1 in 10 chance), instantly killing him. At the end, the final Alien appeared outside of cover and stood in the open in sight of 2 of my soldiers, who both missed an 80% hit chance, then again a pair of misses. This is where I made the worst mistake possible: I got pissed off at the game and stopped thinking, just reacting. As such, I placed Hardy in a bad position to kill the damned thing, and forgot that a medkit can cure the poison. So although I couldn't control what the Aliens did, it is my fault the mission ended in failure, and I will endeavor to do better in the future.

I mentioned this last time, but this play through has given me an interesting duel perspective on the entire game. When I lost the mission, I was furious. But as I finished writing down the events of the mission I was also excited. I knew this was coming, and now it had dropped, all the potential story hooks and plans on how the characters would react started whirling through my head. Actually, I had plans for Morgan and Hardy's future characterization and development, now wasted, but rather then an opportunity lost, I see it as a chance to instead develop the rest of the men more. People who signed up expecting to be cannon fodder and who's characters I haven't made firm plans for now take on greater importance. /Doomreaver

Vengeance

So I actually wrote this part after I wrote "In Memoriam", the next part. It took a long time to finish In Memoriam, and when I finally did I advanced the clock in game from right after the mission that appears in "Escort Duty", only for another mission to immediately be declared. It was around 4-5 hours since the Council had given me the assignment at 12:15 AM. As such, I was tremendously careful during the mission, both because of the losses I had taken in the previous one, and because I didn't want to have to rewrite the entire Memorial service to add more dead people. Grenades and explosives, usually something you reserve for large packs, where used often and gleefully, to the point where I was completely out of them by the end of the mission. Again I had an Alien who had insane luck, dodging tons of high % shots (though that one at least had the excuse of cover unlike the last one). I kept my cool this time and kept my men under heavy cover, preventing it from landing a return hit, until eventually the numbers clicked and I dropped it. All in all a successful mission and a fairly easy part to write, which was good as it had been about 1.5 months since my last update due to school and I really wanted to post something. /Doomreaver

In Memoriam

This was, by far, the hardest part of XCom to write. I haven't been to a funeral in a long time and barely remember the last one I did go to a decade or more ago, so had little personal experience to draw on. Furthermore, while I knew in general what I wanted everyone to say, the exact wording was agonizing to nail down. Add to those factors a month long hiatus due to finals at college, and this part took a month and a half to produce.

I mentioned in the commentary on "Escort Duty" that I could have salvaged the mission. Guesz realizes this as well here, and that was the main topic of conversation. The soldier who requests a transfer was the one that was simply "Unclaimed Female Soldier" until now, and I decided to get rid of her, as she spent so long unnamed and unmentioned in the story it felt silly to name her and suddenly have her show up a bunch from her on.

As for why she went unnamed, it was mostly because I wanted all 12 of the starting soldiers to be iconic representations of the major settings. Sure there are lots of female TSA charecters, but I wanted people to look at the roster and have every name that wasn't claimed by a TSA member jump out and make you think "That's this setting/person!" Phil Guesz, our resident rabbit, was of course the first selected, as to me he's the most iconic name/author of the list. Then came Caroline from Metamore keep, with an intention to add Misha later. Rhiana Stonegate and Zane Brubeck where selected to represent FreeRIDErs naturally, then Freya Windscale, the android from Stormovik's UFAW setting, which is a bit more obscure, but he's a good friend and I have several stories in progress for the setting to had to include it. From there I was stuck, as the other settings that came to mind didn't have an immediate character jump out as representative of it, or if they did they weren't female (Or at least weren't always female... Paradise is fun that way). Most of the rest of my names where claimed by TSA members who showed interest in being cannon fodder (As several of them put it), but I still had two females unclaimed. Hawlsera became one, and the other sat there unclaimed until I said screw it and decided to have her leave, both to get rid of her, and because it was an interesting and possibly powerful story moment. Alas, looking back, I should have done Raven, who shows up a lot in Metamore keep, but also has a strong presence in the Blind Pig setting, and is probably fairly well known (Hard to say, I've only been around ~9 months at this point). Oh well, hind sight is 50/50. /Doomreaver

Nicknames

So this one was fairly quick to write for the most part, as I already had Misha and Phil's nicknames selected. Misha's backstory was also easy to create, as I happened to win him from Mexico and had heard of the Mexican Drug Wars before a real war that has being going on and off for years, look it up if you're interested. Rhianna's nickname stumped me though, partly because I couldn't think of a good one, but mostly because I couldn't contact Robotech_Master, her creator. He's the only one I didn't get ahold of before adding them to the XCom roster, so for everyone else I can (and often do) consult the person that my characters are either based off or created the stories that I'm referencing. Eventually I just looked up the species of her RIDE and used that. It's a shame she's the Lynx, her partner has a Leopard (A friend of mine got the two confused in fact) and that is a much more intimidating animal to be nicknamed after. I have nothing against Lynxes, it's just that if two guys wanted to kill you, I'd be more scared of "The Leopard" then "The Lynx." /Doomreaver

The Ides of March

So this is what I call a "House Keeping" part. It covers boring facts from the game like my end of month report, a satellite finishing, and the current panic situation, and tries to turn it into something interesting to read. Hopefully I succeeded and managed to give the Commander and the NPC's some character development. The current plan is to do this once a month at the end to recap the months exploits and bridge each month. /Doomreaver

Hardball

So I just noticed I started a lot of my author commentary with "So". Now that I've done so yet again specifically to point it out, I'll try to be more grammatically interesting :P. Besides, it's really unnecessary to add a so in front of a sentence that's perfectly fine without it.

I really learned a lot about how the game works with this part. The day I played the mission I was at work for 24 hours and the internet was down for the foreseeable future. Being extremely bored, I played a little XCom, at first on a different file, but I couldn't bring myself to care about starting another new game and playing two at the same time, so I fired up the file for this project. I was far from focused, mostly wanting something to do to entertain myself, and I got my ass kicked horribly. Obviously I was really annoyed at myself for this, and due to Ironman it was set in stone. Except I wasn't online and there was no online backup for the new file. I immediately uninstalled the game so I could later redownload it and retry the mission.

Upon reloading the game I learned a couple things. Firstly, the developers are fairly smart and my save scumming attempt was a failure. Secondly, the game saves at the start of every turn, not after every action. This is an important distinction, as it means that from now on when I make a misclick that would get people killed (Like Caroline Hardy in the previous month), I can reload the game and undo the misclick as long as I do so before the Aliens take and finish their turn. This is extremely useful knowledge, because oftentimes it looks like a soldier can see and shoot from cover and it turns out they can't once they get there, and because they sometimes take unexpected routes to a location that get them shot several times. Both problems can now be eliminated.

Back to Nigeria

After the fiasco of the last mission I decided to lower the difficulty on the game. I have never done Ironman or Classic difficulty before, and the later comes with several surprises that I can't adapt to without a lot of men dying due to the former. It was a mistake to do both in a single run, so now it's back to Normal difficulty, but still Ironman mode. This is most evident in this part, as the Thin Men die in a single volley, though I feel I did a good job of explaining it as the soldiers learning better how to kill them. See, the new enemy types all have four health, and your guns can do up to four damage total. On Normal, the chance is pretty good, on Classic, the chance is very low. Thus in the last few missions I was as surprised as the characters that they could eat grenades or a burst of machine gun fire and still blow their faces off. If I had known beforehand, I would have used more rockets and been more careful.

In this part I got hit by the panic mechanic. Right before Vulpintaurs death a Thin Man hit him with poison. This actually caused everyone except Brubeck to panic, firing wildly and unable to take actions like retreating, which would have saved him. One soldier, I forget which, even fired at another soldier as he had no other viable targets, though he fortunately missed by a mile. I've heard of this happening before with low ranked soldiers, an Alien does something or one of your men dies, causing everyone else to panic and kill each other and the next thing you know you've only got one soldier left, it's the enemies turn, and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. This event felt extremely silly, so in the story itself I said everyone fired on the Aliens trying to keep them under cover and save Vulpintaur, a much more sensible and heroic impulse then shooting each other in a sudden bout of madness.