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UFO: After Blank: Difference between revisions
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''Afterlight'' can be bought on [[Steam]]. The whole trilogy can be bought and downloaded without [[DRM]] from [http://gog.com GOG.com].
{{tropelist}}
* [[Action Bomb]]: The Ballon Fish in ''Aftermath''.
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* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Heavy Power Armor in ''Aftermath''. Provides a lot of protection and allows you to use powerful heavy-armor-only weapons, but limits you to a walking speed, and generally is only available after the Reticulans introduce Warp weapons, which cause more damage if the target is wearing more armor. Heavy Armor has a Warp weapon protection level of 0%, and warp weapons almost never miss.
** The heavy armor becomes [[Awesome Yet Practical]] when combined with the portable turret. The turret has effectively [[Bottomless Magazines]], can fire faster than any other weapon after it's been set up (so you always shoot first), has a higher DPS than any other weapon, and is effective even at extreme range. The turret can ONLY be used with the heavy armor, so using one limits your mobility greatly, but there's no better choice for defensive fighting.
* [[Base
* [[Bee-Bee Gun]]: the Deathbellows. See also ''[[Demonic Spiders]]''.
* [[Biological Mashup]]: Several types of Transgenant basically consist of alien chunks grafted onto human corpses.
* [[Boom! Headshot!]]: Level 3 Sniper Training in ''Aftershock'' will let your snipers target the torso, arms, legs, or head of humanoids. The latter has... [[Instant Death Bullet|predictable effects]] when combined with an M82;
{{quote|
* [[Boring but Practical]]: Regular assault rifles and sniper rifles can serve you very well for the first half of ''Aftermath'' and remain viable weapons for fast troops later on, especially once your troops get their rifles/marksmanship up high enough. Even the basic Remington sniper rifle can take down most transgenants and Reticulans quickly at long range, at least until you encounter Deathbellows.
* [[Can't Catch Up]]: If soldiers can't catch up literally (low speed ratings), they often wind up showing up at firefights too late to kill anything and thus can't catch up figuratively (no kills means no leveling up).
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* [[Charles Atlas Superpower]]: Without the HWPs and high casualty rates of ''X-COM'', this tends to happen to every soldier you command as long as their Speed and Capacity ratings aren't already more than two levels behind the squad maximum.
* [[Cool but Inefficient]]: The ZVI OP Falcon sniper rifle, a clunky-looking gun with shotgun power at rifle ranges, a two-bullet magazine, and enough time between shots and/or reloads for a Reticulan to fuck up your vantage point with an incendiary rocket.
** Laser weaponry in ''Aftermath'' ''sounds'' good; [[Frickin' Laser Beams]] with a very high rate of fire. But its low single-shot damage output tends to let the enemy return fire before they're killed so you'll generally reach for the plasma and gatlings instead.
** ''Afterlight'' tends to avert this: instead of using old-model bullet weapons, you only have a pistol, rifle, sniper, and shotgun model for projectile weapons. After the incredible amount of choices available in ''Aftershock'', this seems like a step back, until you realize that those four models are really all you need (barring laser/plasma/explosive weaponry, of course).
* [[Copy Protection]]: Physical copies of ''Aftershock'' are protected by StarForce, known for its malware-esque modus operandi. Thankfully, every legitimate digital version (and obviously, most of the illegitimate ones) has shaken this off.
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** If you're too aggressive against the Cult and wipe out all of their bases before researching their collaboration with the Wargots, you'll never be able to proceed past that point. Speaking of which, if you hold off on researching vital techs, you can quite handily prepare yourself for major upcoming events... though that might be good for for some.
*** This particular bug has been "fixed". If you wipe out the last Cult stronghold before they're supposed to be wiped out, they'll randomly reappear on three base provinces. ''Any'' three base provinces. ''Including yours''.
* [[Determinator]]: Humanity's [[Planet of Hats|hat]] in this universe. Every other race in the galaxy is more advanced, or more numerous, or simply more powerful, but humanity wins out every time because they ''[[Unstoppable Rage|just]]'' ''[[Defiant to
** It certainly helps that humanity has the remarkable ability to make use of any new technology in a disturbingly short time. The best advice the aliens could have used would have been to outfit their weapons with self-destruct mechanisms. As it is, they can expect any new-to-humans technology they field to be used against them in as long as two weeks and as short as ''six hours''.
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: The {{spoiler|Myrmecols}} are ancient, star-faring beings so powerful that they can mind-control ''entire planets'' on a regular basis, while the inhabitants don't even ''notice''.
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** In the early game in ''Afterlight'', lasers fall by the wayside to rifles. In the late game, laser cannon can rule the world; Martians and Beastmen Matriarchs are very weak to them, and very resistant to projectiles.
** M82a Barrett .50 calibre sniper rifles, and the katanna when fighting Wargots, are close enough in Aftershock.
* [[In
* [[Katanas Are Just Better]]: For absolutely no logical reason whatsoever, it's a melee weapon in Aftershock. The insane cultists like to charge at you with them, often not wearing any armour. In this case, katanas do not stop bullets. Not even ''slightly''. Pipes and combat knives are available for more [[Combat Pragmatist|practical-minded troopers]].
** In the right hands, Katanas ''are'' just better. A level 3 Ranger with Superhuman agility will move insanely fast to close to combat distance, and with sufficient strength (generally Very Good or better), they can kill almost anything in seconds.
* [[Kill It
* [[Mecha
** Also a mid/late game option in ''Aftershock''. There are three flavours, and all are useful for spotting, scouting hazardous areas, and generally drawing enemy fire away from your less-expendable troops.
** The Wargots have one, called the Wargot Scout, which are effectively cannon fodder for your troops.
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* [[The Red Planet]]: ''Afterlight'''s setting. Of course, by the end of the game, [[Terraform|it's not]].
* [[Road Cone]]: ''Aftermath'''s aforementioned bad ending.
* [[Sealed Evil in
* [[Secondary Fire]]: There's the standard single shot/burst modes for most guns, and extra fire modes can be added by attachments in ''Aftershock''. Options include underbarrel shotguns, plasmaguns, grenade launchers and single-shot dartguns, for all your [[Instant Sedation|quiet]] [[The Paralyzer|takedown]] [[Perfect Poison|needs]].
* [[Sequel Difficulty Spike]]: In ''Aftermath'', you're almost literally thrown new recruits every week, and you'll likely have a hard time running out. In ''Aftershock'', you have to pay for new recruits, and the better your relation with a particular faction, the better (and more expensive) the recruit, but you're never likely to run out of meat for the grinder. In ''Afterlight'', you start with 12 potential soldiers. After about a month and a half, you get one extra soldier, and two weeks later, you get two more. In addition, 8 of those original 12 soldiers are also scientists and technicians. You'd better get used to protecting your people and quick.
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*** Hybrid/parasite/etc. type Transgenant lifeforms are more of an "oops", an example of why exposing things to Reticulan Biotech without being very careful is a bad idea. The Biomass itself has it's own defensive systems that are even more "starfish" like. The Muckstar especially - a spiked ball that attacks with [[Shock and Awe|an electrical discharge]]. In Aftermath, it rolls along on spikes rising out of the Biomass. Why? Nobody really knows. In Aftershock, the Muckstars have adapted to float around on their own (seeing as most of the Biomass is gone) using gas-filled compartments.
* [[Starfish Language]]: While most aliens' languages have some sort of vocal component (Reticulans use both sounds and telepathy), the Martians' "spoken" language is extremely hard to decipher (being a complex interface of individual Martians' electromagnetic fields), and the process is portrayed rather realistically: first you raid a ruined underground city for their scientific records (which mostly consist of empirical facts about the universe and mathematics), then you learn how to write their language, and only after that can you nab one of them and communicate with him to learn their "spoken" version. After doing this, you can begin peace talks with them.
* [[Video Game Flamethrowers Suck]]: [[Averted Trope|No]] [[Kill It
* [[Wave Motion Gun]]: Warp weaponry is the peak of Reticulan engineering. It uses a method the humans can barely comprehend to tear targets up by warping the space said targets occupy. As such, the Reticulans make them into Rifles and Pistols. The Humans, on the other hand, make [[Big Freaking Gun|Resonators]] and [[Over Nine Thousand|Demolition Devices]], and then later, ''Warp Medkits''.
** Interestingly, the Warp weapons work on the principle of crushing inorganic objects to injure people. This introduces a crippling weakness to the weapons: targets that don't wear armor. No armor provides a startlingly effective 90% resistance to Warp weapons. Of course, given the fact that not every Reticulan in a mission will carry Warp weapons, it's a brave soldier (or a stupid one) that doesn't wear armor against them. Or a [[Butt Monkey|scout]].
** The Alien Microslug Accelerator is the single most horrifyingly powerful gun in the Reticulan Arsenal. If you see one, it's very likely that it's already been fired. If it's been fired... might as well start the mission over.
*** The Collapsible Plasma Gun is more powerful per-se (single-shotting any Green Alien Armor), but the fact that it takes long to deploy and that aliens use them for offense rather than defense really cuts down their effectiveness.
** Afterlight has the Warp Cannons, shipped straight from Earth via express-spaceship in please-handle-with-care-and-don't-disassemble cases, and the [[Exactly What It Says
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: What the Reticulans eventually come to regard the humans as in ''Aftermath'', to the point that they actually offer humanity an opportunity to surrender instead of annihilating them. [[Multiple Endings|Canonically]], humanity accepts.
** The Reticulans even base one of their late-game weapons designs, the Collapsible Plasma Gun, on human portable turret designs. The Glossary description for the weapon [[Lampshade Hanging|remarks on the irony]].
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[[Category:Real
[[Category:UFO Afterblank]]
[[Category:Video Game]]
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