The Exquisite Corps: XCOM: Enemy Within - Part 30

Oh no.

That's Corporal Mister Caravella to you, Dan!

Oh my.

Thirty whole minutes? Don't strain yourself too hard, there.

The video length shows the difference between Alex “analyzes everything ” Navarro to Dan “fuck it” Rykert

Hoo boy...

I saw the video length as sat hovering over the play button for a long time. It could only mean one thing ...

The longer the pre mission stuff dragged on, the greater my anxiety grew.

Then an abduction mission popped. I had to pause for a while to make a cup of tea to settle the nerves.

But of course Dan pulls it out in like 19 minutes. Good Lord, my heart is still racing. I need a lie down.

@rigas: Could you at least use spoiler tags in a post like this next time? You describe how much fun you had, enjoying the tension and then proceed to tell everyone else the result of the mission?

Dan was great.

Surely this comment section won't turn into a shit show about how short Dan's episodes are or criticizing his play style, especially considering he did great.

@ottoman673: You're probably right. But in the weird universe that it does, let's just hide in this bunker I've constructed for the both of us...

I don't understand why they always skip text. New discoveries and new stuff to use during missions was always the highlight for me.

I'll be here waiting for the "Excellent" mission rating count for each commander.

Thank you in advance, kind sir/ma'am.

I think if they do a mission so quickly they should do a second one or we'll be here until October.

Man, I like this series so much. Waiting a week for a 30 minute episode is a bit anti-climactic, though. Wish they'd do another missions in cases such as these.

The Alien Stasis Tank is another Grey Market item that can be sold at no penalty. Try to check the Grey Market after each big alien ship mission. They leave you with a bunch of vendor trash.

@solongwrex: @vinny Got an alien surgery you can sell too. $85 of junk from the 6x statis tanks and 1x surgery.

Don't call me surely

I love this series. Except for Dan.

O man here comes "the fixer"

33 minute episode?

EDIT: I'm not trying to be a dick, but the mission was over at 25 minutes in. If you are going to schedule time for Vinny and Dan to record something together, have the previous commander read their letter, lay video clips on top of the previous letter, have Dan write a letter, and put in the intro and outro music, isn't it worth the effort to play the game for 50-60 minutes instead of 25-30?

@quipido: I agree. However, another novel approach would be to actually watch the content before reading the comment section. It has a 100% success rate of avoiding spoilers.

Let Dan be Dan, and let probability judge him one day :)

Dan checked out of this feature last November. Just say aliens abducted him or something and finish it without him.

Personally I think Dan's eps are great and are totally worth the sudden onset angina!

Ah, "George Smith", the new hire Dan left for the others to rename because he was in a rush to get through his episode. Then Vinny forgot and assumed Dan liked it so much they had to keep it. And now Dan is confused why they have someone named George Smith in the squad.

@do_the_manta_ray: I agree. I wonder why they decided to keep episodes of this feature so short.

Dan needs to conserve his time and energy for all systems goku which if that's the trade off I support.

If no one dies and the mission is successful I don't care how long the video is.

@vinny

Both of your fancy new ships are on the same continent, consider spreading them out so they can intercept the big ufo in one additional continent (and maybe build more Firestorms). Also consider putting your best UFO busting weapons on them.

@parsnip: Their best ship weapon is currently the Laser Cannon, don't remember if that's enough to take down the Overseer. Of course they've discussed researching the Plasma Cannon several times, thinking it's a new weapon for the heavies so they might eventually get that one.

Yes, of course, I actually read ExCorps comments first always because they are so juicy, especially the Dan episodes, all in good fun. I was just a bit upset with the general disregard for others in that post.

Why don't they just use the new fighters to drop bombs on the aliens, you ask?

I look forward to this show every week and seeing a 33 min episode is a let down. I don't want to come off as negative, it's because I enjoy the Exquisite Corps that I crave more of it. Hopefully with all the other GBEast shows ending, y'all can knuckle down and put some hours into trying to finish this one up before E3, so that the second half of the year can be open for new, great GB content.

Dan the Dasher strikes again!

You're gonna need to research the EMP cannon if you want to take the special UFO down. It's the strongest fighter craft weapon you can build without taking down another battleship.

Vinny, I would like to remind you that if you ever want to upgrade XCOM's grenades to do more damage, you need to stun an alien that has grenades. At this point, Mutons or Heavy Floaters are the main things you'd want to stun.

Also a reminder that David Letterman's MEC suit is underleveled compared to Dirt Bike (Dirt Bike's suit is level 2, Letterman's is level 1). If you're not careful, Letterman may end up dead the way Gerstmann did because his MEC just doesn't have that much HP (each MEC suit upgrade gives more HP and another ability). I'd recommend spending all of your Meld upgrading one or both of the MEC suits. Please don't build another MEC suit, you're giving me a heart attack every time you almost click it. Just upgrade the 2 MEC suits you already have.

Also, instead of giving every single human soldier the Carapace/Titan armor, please please at least consider researching the Skeleton/Ghost armor, which give less bonus health but gives increased dodge + increased movement (3 extra tiles) + a hookshot move to grapple up to higher elevation. Your way is fine also, but if you think you have some units that are either rarely take enemy fire or would just really benefit from extra movement, it can be good on those units.

Let's go back to the comments of the post episode 50 P4 ER. Yep, people bitching about how short they are and that they deserve longer episodes rather than saying thank you for the content.

@ronald: Except nobody here is "bitching" or saying they "deserve" longer content.

@quipido said:

Hey, don't spoil the comments. Some of us read them in reverse-chronological order using the Latest setting and then you just tell everyone what's going to be in a previous comment.

Again Dan has a great mission. Too many people give him shit.

Is Dan doing a bit?

I don't understand how this keeps happening. Mission accomplished?

I want a montage with clips from all of all Dan's missions with him singing the "You're Welcome" song from Moana now.

Dan is so good. And lol @ 30 minute episodes being "too short"

I'm glad that even Vinny is openly questioning how little thought Dan is putting into his squad's loadout and how little thought or caution is going into a lot of Dan's tactical choices, but sadly at this point in the campaign they're upgraded enough that even Dan will have a hard time throwing missions. Normal difficulty just doesn't ask very much of the player, but maybe that's for the best with this feature since each player only gets to see the game once every 3 weeks.

I'm absolutely positive Alex has so many more "Excellents" than Dan because of how badly some of Dan's early missions went where he got soldiers/VIPs/covert operatives killed and had to abort the mission. Really only his last couple missions have been without major losses.

That would work, but if memory serves, there's a couple ways they could do take on the Overseer ship:

• use an Earth jet fighter (Raven) with plasma or EMP Cannon or Fusion Lance, but you would need to buy a lot of 1-use modules because your fighter basically has to dodge every single shot and land every hit
• use an alien fighter (Firestorm) with laser cannons, but you'd still need to buy the modules that prevent the enemy from escaping because the DPS on the lasers isn't really high enough for the fight
• use an alien fighter (Firestorm) with plasma cannon, this should be enough to take down the Overseer without the aid of modules, unless you get an above average number of misses
• use an alien fighter (Firestorm) with EMP or Fusion Lance, but this is generally kinda overkill since plasma usually does the job

The "spam a bunch of modules" route is there if for some reason you really want to rush the campaign, but honestly the Exquisite Corps can probably wait until they get Plasma cannons and they'll be fine.

Obviously the crew is free to make a 5 minute long episode if that's what they want to do, but this is the shortest of all 30 E-Corps episodes, and they have set a precedent of doing two mission in an episode in the past when one of the missions was something basic and quick. I don't think it makes it any harder to keep the other commander's in the loop.

Obviously if they spun the globe at the end of this episode and got the Overseer UFO again, I would not suggest that they try to fit that in, and Vinny usually seems to know when to let longer missions wait for next week if they pop at the end of an episode.

Ol' "Bare Ass In The Breeze" Ryckert.

I just wanna say they should absolutely be getting the Ghost armor between those two, since it's basically an upgraded Skeleton suit. It has higher HP and defense, not to mention the amazing stealth ability that you get a generous 4 uses out of per mission. I barely ever used Titan armor in my run since I ended up unlocking Ghost within a couple missions of it (and Psi armor soon enough).