IDEA: XCOM ACADEMY STORY

While waiting for the conclusion of the awesome XCom saga on Fear The Boot, I'm going to start my own little imitation! Basically it's a let's play, possibly with screenshots, signups and roleplay strongly encouraged since that's kinda the point.

However, this will be a somewhat different game than what the official storyline calls for. XCom is the Extraterrestrial Combat Academy; an international training facility to allow national armies to quickly adapt to the new threat. Of course, before we can teach, we'll have to learn...

Played on Normal, because the game will be fairly hard as-is with restrictions explained below. ( EDIT: Actually, from Mission 18 on, I've been playing on Classic with "plot" missions such as Site Recon being on Impossible )

) Two soldiers per squad will be "cadre" soldiers that get leveled up normally. One SHIV may be used instead of a cadre soldier.

Everyone else is rookies, who are sent to XCOM by various countries' militaries (or even NGOs) in order to learn how to fight the aliens. This is the primary (stated) point of the project.

Non-cadre soldiers who level up to Corporal are rotated out (fired) after their first mission with the Corporal rank, which is their graduation mission.

A tally of casualties vs. graduates will be kept. If after the council report the former exceeds the latter , I will be fined in nonreplaceables (I will sell half my corpses, alloys, fragments and elerium through the grey market).

The above rules will not apply for the first month, because the "cadre" soldiers have to level up some.

The "New Guy" bonus will only be bought immediately after the base defense mission, to represent tactical info gleaned from the base attack and base defense, and the fact that trainees helped defend the base.

Second wave options: Mind Hates Matter, Hidden Potential, Not Created Equally, Red Fog, The Greater Good, Aiming Angles, Training Roulette, Itchy Trigger Tentacle.

Mods applied: Roulette Rig (I get to see what the Training Roulette results are), My SHIV Is Special because I want to be able to rename SHIVs, and Revenge of the Sleeves because sleeveless armors look stupid.

The base is in Japan, because if we have a boarding school that teaches fighting aliens it might as well be in Japan. So the continent bonus is "Future Combat".

SO WHERE DO YOU COME IN?

Sign up to be in the cadre group, and tell me what class you want, and what look you want.

You can also call a "normal" soldier, who will be rotated in and out after a brief career.

Much like in a university, teachers also have a hand in the smooth running of things, so feel free to exert influence on research, construction and so on!

Off-mission RP is encouraged, it's why I am doing this in the first place!

Your character reporting for psi, mec or gene modification is entirely up to you. I may consider MEC conversion for gravely wounded soldiers that are knocked out and stabilized but not revived.

If you tell me roughly how your character should act on missions, I will try to comply (compatibly with mission objectives).

This is on a wiki specifically to make it easy to edit! Make your own pages, add to existing pages. There is no login requirement, even!

I don't know if I am going to focus on psi, mecs, gene mods or none, it largely depends on how the story develops!

Please pick your specialty since I will be cycling through derps quickly regardless, and the amount of name-retconning from rookie to squaddie is minimal.

I'm going to play this as if I was going in blind, so don't expect much in the way of minmaxing. My OOC goal is to find a way to subvert the ending.

Please pick a look for your derp! (Uniform color, etc)

PLANNED FORCE ROSTER

I'm going to rename the appropriate soldiers when they level up enough. In-game country may not match, but gender and class will (Until I find a way to edit the save file).

This is the current "faculty" for the X-Com Academy Project.

Name Class Home Color Notes Riley August Sniper Canada White Ambush sniper, interested in setting traps. Graduated. Victoria Noir Assault US Blue Seems keen on testing experimental warfare systems. Kite Winters Sniper Australia Purple May take on field medic duty as well. M K Borri Any Italy Yellow Is nominally in charge, but doesn't believe in leading from the back. Stephen Mako Support Canada Green Trickster, rather than field medic. Retired. Lilith "Lily" Foxoboro Heavy US Purple More Dakka! Jonny Flames Support England Orange Just kinda stumbled in on the whole thing Kip Hawley Support Canada Blue Battlescape control, expert gunsmith, and designated plasma sponge.

These are other notable characters.

Ray Shen, Chief Engineer

Ilse Vahlen, Chief Researcher

Alan Bradford, Central Officer

Lena Krause, Drill Sargeant

The Arms Dealers, arms dealers

The Councilman, who may not be as in charge as he sounds

All the other soldiers will use randomly generated name, and will rotate in and out, as specified above. I may do Operation Avenger with a leveled-up squad, if we even get there. If my character dies, I will either abort the LP or put someone else in charge.

ALIEN AUTOPSIES (In order of appearance)

ALIEN INTERROGATIONS

MISSION LOG (OOC NOTE: The first 3 missions are written fairly skeletally, narrative begins around mission 4)

Intro -- I join the XCom Academy, and experience beatitude.

Mission 1 -- The project is set up properly; we make first contact, and things go surprisingly smoothly, except for the part where we can't aim. (WIP)

Mission 2 -- We have three days to set up before the student body arrives. We catch aliens going grave-robbing, Vee starts kicking ass.

Mission 3 -- The main cast is properly introduced, and we down our first UFO, then board it. Yarr!

Mission 4 -- Are we bad enough dudes to rescue... some United Nations guy? Also, OH SHIT IT'S SLENDERMAN.

Mission 5 -- This is a Panzergrenadier. She grenadies panzers. We go to Bangalore, and catch Sectoids kissing.

Mission 6 -- Strike the Earth, Dr. Shen! We face the Council for the first time; they aren't unhappy, at least.

Epilogue -- Everything was going well, then disaster struck.

Mission 7 -- I don't want to go on the cart! Holy squid, Batman.

Mission 8 -- We trade a UFO for an interceptor; Bradford isn't happy.

Mission 9 -- We go for a twofer. Riley and Stephen are removed from the project as Bradford's takeover continues.

Mission 10 -- This is MY cave and MY boxes of scrap, dammit!

Mission 11 -- It's the terror mission. It doesn't go well.

Mission 12 -- Don't tase me, bro!

Mission 13 -- They let me fire a fucking rocket launcher?

Mission 14 -- Abduction? OBJECTION!

Mission 15 -- ...Mentlegen.

Mission 16 -- And now back to your regularly scheduled alien war.

Mission 17 -- The robots are coming! The robots are coming!

Mission 18 -- Explosiooons! No, seriously, explosions.

Mission 19 -- Maybe we shouldn't have bragged about our superior robots.

Interlude 1 -- So, how far along are we, and what's going on?

Mission 20 -- There's something strange in the neighborhood...

Mission 21 -- ...there's something weird, and it don't look good.

Mission 22 -- More Spy versus Spy shenanigans while we prepare for...

Mission 23 -- The Alien Base Assault!

Mission 24 -- That went better than expected, or did it?

Mission 25 -- That wasn't the alien boss... prepare for mind control!

Mission 26 -- Day of the Chryssalid!

Mission 27 -- Who let the rookies out?

Mission 28 -- We're being attacked!

Interlude 2 -- Politics, policy, polishing up, polenta.

Mission 29 -- Back to business! Ever vigilant, ever broke.

Mission 30 -- What better way to recover from a base assault than a terror mission?

Mission 31 -- What is the "overseer" UFO doing?

Mission 32 -- Robots Everywhere!

Mission 33 -- Pay attention, dammit!

Mission 34 -- The Overseer UFO assault, finally.

Mission 35 -- The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Mission 36 -- X-ALT sweeps week, by the look of it!

Mission 37 -- Nice UFO, we'll take it.

Mission 38 -- Some are easy...

Mission 39 -- ... some are hard.

Mission 40 -- Alea Jacta Est.

Epilogue -- And then you wake up, and wonder if it was all a dream...

Thanks