Attack notification

[Tualha]

FROM: Tualha Bradley, CiC, PHALANX
TO: Yuliana Shevchenko, President, Russian Federation
    Ulrika Müller, Prime Minister, GEU
    Ho Yang Bin, President, Asian Republic
    Walid Yusef, Caliph, Middle Eastern Alliance
    Joseph Kumbatta, President, New African League
    Suhendra Simanjuntak, President, Commonwealth of Oceania
CC: Elizabeth McKenzie, President, United America
    Manuel Ramirez, President, Revolutionary Countries

Leaders of the nations of Earth,

I’m sure you share our sorrow and shock to learn of the recent tragedy in Novosibirsk. Over five hundred dead civilians, two companies of Russian troops wiped out, and no survivors, in the course of an attack that lasted three days. And all this from one small scout ship, manned by only four aliens.

Had PHALANX known of this attack while it was ongoing, some of these losses might have been prevented. We stand ready to defend the people of Earth against the alien menace no matter where they live.

It is true that we currently only have bases in United America and the Revolutionary Countries. In future months, we plan to expand our coverage to the entire globe. We would prefer to guard Earth everywhere now, but budgetary constraints make this impossible.

Noting the reduction in planned funding out of the Russian Federation on the first day of the attack, we attempted a flyover of Russian territory, but we could not spot the incursion. I’m sure you’re all aware of the difficulties in using radar to detect things on the ground. When the alien ship took off, we spotted it, shot it down, and killed the crew, but it was already too late for the people of Novosibirsk.

Ladies and gentlemen, if aliens land in your nations, please, let us know! Don’t try to take them on yourselves. We all saw how poorly that worked in Mumbai. PHALANX boasts elite troops and specialized equipment. There is not a soldier in our ranks who has not killed at least one alien, and we have yet to lose a single soldier in battle. We are the experts in this area.

I remain, your humble servant,
Admiral Tualha Bradley, CiC, PHALANX


Seriously, is there a way to find an ongoing attack outside of your radar coverage? I saw that Russian funding had gone down at midnight; I loaded from my earliest save, about a day previous, and looked for the UFO with aircraft, but it must have already landed. No sign of the attack on the ground. I managed to catch the bastards when they took off, three days later, but by that time Russia was seriously pissed; they’d gone down from 61k per month, gradually each day, then steeply at the end to about 40k. Why the heck don’t they tell PHALANX about these things while they’re happening?

[Noordung]

lets say only shado... oops phalax have this special radars that can detect ufos but they just wont share their technology.

[Tualha]

What, they wouldn’t know what’s going on, over the course of three days? No one in Novosibirsk has a telephone? Does Twitter no longer exist in 2084? Even if the aliens somehow suppressed all local communications, the sudden silence would be deafening. There’s no way the national government wouldn’t know about an attack within hours. They ought to show up on the map and the player ought to get a message.

[anonymissimus]

Only terror missions are reported to Phalanx it seems, and it's not possible to detect the missions by flying over the spot it seems, I also tried that. I follow UFOs if they happen to fly through my radar range until they land. Saracen are good for this, as they can flee from harvesters in case that they attack. Other than that, I get advanced radar as quickly as possible (first research priority) and then build bases and radar towers.

[Tualha]

It does seem strange that other attacks aren’t reported. Is this an intended feature?

Radar towers seem fairly useless to me. They cover so little area, especially the inner area where you can initially spot UFOs.

[anonymissimus]

Without any doubt. Would be too easy to get nations happy early on.
Once I have the most important nations covered (North/South America, Europe and East Asia/China) it's more important to fill the gaps in the outer radar, to not loose UFOs I have spotted once. They fly at least half of a circle before they land so it's highly unlikely they won't ever fly through any of my inner radars. The towers are very useful for this.