I've discovered how to build a flying saucer, which is interesting but ultimately of bugger all use, because my next - and final - step is to build a craft capable of flying a couple of dozen hardcore troopers over to Mars to kick alien butt. And I can't fit them in a dinky little saucer.
In the mean time, the aliens decided to terrorise Russia. Not to worry, my troops went to intervene!
As I searched the city for survivors (hearing a lot of humans die out of sight), I spotted a Chryssalid. These black scary things can turn your troopers - and human civilians - into alien puppets, and need taking out.
Cue the blaster bomb.
All this used to be fields. Then it was a road and a bit of a park. Now it's just a patch of burned earth.
The blaster bomb is a seriously nasty guided missile, which is the only thing that can punch through the walls of an alien spaceship. It has a large blast radius and I really can't think of anything surviving the detonation of one of these nearby. It's probably not the best thing to use in a civilian location.
We did win, and didn't lose any of our own people, but this was the mission result screen:
Hmm. Well two civilians survived anyway.
So, out of ten civilians, we let the aliens kill or eat seven of them, we blew one up with a blaster bomb, and just two of them made it out alive. Kind of reminded me of the Team America film.
It's not surprising that China has withdrawn from the project - they probably think it's safer if we don't "defend" them.
In another mission, Colonel Simon, the lover of cover, actually got fired upon! We're now encountering a new type of alien called a Muton, who are basically green and hard as nails, forcing us to upgrade our weaponry to have a chance of killing them, and even with heavy plasma guns they still take a lot of shots before dying - which means they often get chance to fire back. We've lost a few people to their guns and it's a little worrying. The sooner we get to Mars to finish them off the better.