OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => XPiratez => Topic started by: eharper256 on September 14, 2024, 02:18:27 pm
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As I'm that guy who automatically writes guides and summaries for things as I go along (I have several Steam Guides for that reason), this topic links to a big 26 page compilation of information to help you with playing XPiratez!
Testimony from the Mod Author themselves: I had a lot of fun reading your guide myself, especially the Captains' descriptions, it's really rewarding when the love I put into making the mod gets returned and spread around :) It's also probably the best researched guide I've seen, I didn't see a single false claim.
Last Updated: 01/12/2024 for the new N10 patch
Get it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qmALl2Xud7xOIjLpRXaf_Xz6IfusINrA/view?usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qmALl2Xud7xOIjLpRXaf_Xz6IfusINrA/view?usp=sharing)
Notably Includes:
>> All of the Starting Locations and what they give in one place (events & regional bonuses too). Updated 20/10/24.
>> Captain Ideas, Aspects, and then each as a whole including all of the types. The events and bonuses in summary that they get. Updated 20/10/24.
>> All four Codexes and their bonuses in summary. Updated 01/12/24.
>> Craft and Interceptor Progression. Updated 27/09/24.
>> Recruitment choices comparison for routes (i.e. Male/Gals/Cats/Peasant/Sectoid/DOLLS). Updated 26/11/24.
>> Reference charts for shields, armour terminology, and captain progression. Updated 16/11/24.
>> Hints and Tips for both newer XPZ players and some more advanced ones as well. Updated 16/11/24.
Includes a lot of my thought processes on each of these as well as pretty formatting. :D
If you think any of my thoughts are horribly off-base, feel free to let me know and I'll add corrections.
There is also a Weapon Comparison Excel Sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eFMsh58jxKg9YgsLlsvEX9mg4qCC34Ck/
This includes comparison between fire modes (Snap/Aimed/Auto), Damage expectations, accuracy, and range, catagorised by weapon type, and presented in the order I found a copy of that weapon.
This is INCOMPLETE, as I obviously haven't tried everything.
Additionally, the online XPedia is WAY out of date (2 years or so), so here's a re-compiled one for N10:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x4q6Y85TWucgCbajoDbKvWYSdJ8rx5Sf/view?usp=sharing
When it opens on Google, click the Down Arrow to Download it and place in your \Dioxine_XPiratez\ root for the images to work.
Hope you all find it useful. ;D
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>N9.5.6
But there's N9.7.7 out now hehe
>increase base storage capacity by 18 Tonnes
1 unit of storage space doesn't equal 1 ton. It's got more to do with volume than weight, but even then it's never been clear how much of what it's supposed to be
>Gnomes are fantastic pilots
No, they really are not. For pilots, the only thing that really matters are reactions and firing skill. Gnomes have 130 firing cap, but only 70 reactions, which is worse than ubers with 100 reactions and 120 firing. The best are outlaw catgirls with 131 reactions and 130 firing caps.
>Samurai Training Book. Pretty great for Peasant army
Wrong, it's the best for catgirls, because the book allows you to instantly buy Fuso Plate Armor for catgirls, which is otherwise a mid-late game tech.
>get instant access to Fireball Launchers
Researching countries is easy, researching Contact topics is hard. In other words, no, you don't get instant access to those.
>free research for one cowboy related item.
The Sheriff's Handbook can be researched continuously until you get all its topics.
>Flame Cannon Uses Chems to reload
No, it uses Hellerium.
>Non-Profit Lab
Lazy-ass (later through Voodoo: Excess), Rational or Progressive captain. Mage can't get it because Might disables the lab.
>but gets some unique ones
Ultimate Captain gets no personality-specific events, except one. Every month there's a 63% chance you get 666 score and 666k funds. Should also mention that this captain can't progress through any advanced Dr. X storylines.
>Illusion & Destruction Magic
Excess, Illusion, Destruction. Each codex gets 3 types of magic, not 2.
>Admiral Outfit has 40% resist everything
31%
>EL FUEGO
Is sub.
>It’s bad
Each ground battle with the Little Bird starts with extra 12 Glamour, which also gives +144 mission score at the end, assuming you finish before any decays. There are many other crafts that bring extra glamour or other items with them, but you don't mention these important bonuses.
>so not sure when this is used
The whole point of Piranha is that you can obtain it very early if you have enough tokens. I use it extensively because with a trained nekomimi pilot it's untouchable.
>Carries 24 (!)
You know what also carries 24 hands? CONVOY. It's my favorite ground transport and you can get it super early. You never mention it tho.
>Below shows max on-spawn stats
The recruitment max stats are basically meaningless, so I dunno why you're showing those. What matters the most are the gym training stat caps (the stats you can reach through passive training in the hideout), and the final stat caps, the stats you can reach with enough ground battle action.
>36 accuracy lol, and that is the MAX
Again, those stats don't matter at all. You don't show what the actual stat caps are.
>the online XPedia is rather out of date
The mod zip file comes with Xpedia 2.1.zip file. You're supposed to extract it, and then run xpedia.bat to run a local version of xpedia.
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- And I just updated to 9.5.6 lol, ah well.
- Eh, semantics, it helps my brain to think of tonnage. As you say, not really clear to begin with.
- The approach speed from the super bravery is very important earlier when everything has a tiny range and you've got a Tiger with 4x 14mm. But yes, early on I had a Gnome and Catgirl, then switched over to two catgirls later. The 8 Gnome squad is now the elites of my second base.
- Fair enough, I missed that, will update that.
- Well, I tended to get Captain Rank way quicker than I researched countries. Not enough Scouting Expeditions I realise in retrospect, but eh.
- Missed that, will update.
- Think that was something that snuck in from the very old Codex reference on the online UFOwiki. Will fix.
- In game shows needing prerequisite as needing either Excess or ?None-Of-The-Above?, and then NP lab itself has requirement of Odiousless Captain. You're right about Mage not having it, though, didn't see Might disables. But Lazy-Ass shouldn't get it either, unless I'm horribly reading that wrong?
- Hmmm... this is where I got into a bit of a loop, I've intepreted ?Leave-Me-Alone? Captain as being the Ultimate Captain. But that's also including Flawless Captains, isn't it? i.e. "Furry Friend" as an example event. Will amend. Still, Ultimate doesn't disable ?Leave-me-alone-Captain!? as far as I can see so the prequisites should still activate.
- That was just running out of space lol.
- That's me being a Tax-Trainer and automatically rounding 9 down to a 0 when I'm not paying attention lol. Will fix.
- I think that's the old wiki creeping in there again. Fixed.
- I was viewing it purely as an interceptor there I think. But actually that's not mentioned at all on the wiki entries that I can see. Don't think I ever dropped with it as I went straight from Airbus to Big Bird so I wouldn't have noticed. :D
- True, this is probably a bad statement; I didn't get Car Thieves until after I got Tiger, and I prioritised Jack tokens on Silver Snake because it's amazing on Gnomes, so by the time I got it, it became kind of useless there.
- I entirely ignored Ground Stuff other than as prequisites. At the early stage, Convoy seemed useless as I had like 9 hands total.
- To me, I wanted to see the immediate potential benefits. Yes, anyone can be good in the long run, but the less feeding and reloading RNG rolls required, the better.
- Yep, I did that, and then provided it for people to use. Just thought it would be handy to include. (shrug)
Thanks for the feedback, but it's good it's only fairly minor stuff. Will amend and update for tomorrow, but it's now 1am lol.
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I really like your rundown of the aspects and personality types.
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I really like your rundown of the aspects and personality types.
Thankyou, glad you like it! ;D
I've just updated the PDF with corrections just now. May need to F5 it if viewing online, or download it again.
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Great work!
Can I, please, request a "What to do with with Dr. X" analysis? I know, this is tough request, I tried to figure that out on my own with mediocre results.
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>But Lazy-Ass shouldn't get it either
Yeah, you're right. Lazy-Ass doesn't get the required Odiousless Captain. Sorry about that.
>I've intepreted ?Leave-Me-Alone? Captain as being the Ultimate Captain
The way I see it, they are:
None-of-the-above Captain=Odiousless Captain
Doesn't-Like-This-Game-Captain=Classless Captain
Leave-me-alone-Captain=Flawless Captain
All-of-them-Captain=Ultimate Captain
But I was also wrong here in that, besides that one special event, the Ultimate Captain also gets all the events of the Flawless Captain, which are quite good. Plus some events related to the idea you get from researching a codex.
>I went straight from Airbus to Big Bird
I don't think anyone uses Big Bird, because in the beginning you only have 2 hangars. So you gotta use 1 hangar for a vehicle with weapons, and one hangar for a troop carrier. And for a troop carrier, the Big Bird doesn't have enough range. Basically, AIRBUS can get farther and faster (reach more mission sites), which is more important than having more crew space. Once you get more hangars, options expand, but until then, Big Bird is a Bad Bird.
>I entirely ignored Ground Stuff other than as prequisites. At the early stage, Convoy seemed useless as I had like 9 hands total.
I mean, GUNWAGON is the earliest interceptor you get and with a Nitro it takes care of most early-game bandits. Only got 9 hands? Try putting them on Hyena Mounts then. Or fill the craft with dogs. CONVOY is slow, but nothing beats a whole platoon of units lol. You know, some armors bring glamour on a mission? Even 2 Glamour each? Put 24 of those on a Convoy, and that's 48 extra Glamour per mission hehe. Or WINTER QUEENs with their 5k credit chips, or BRAINERs with Personal Database. Greed pays~
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SNIP Stuff on events
Jolly good, at least I got some of that right lol. :D
I don't think anyone uses Big Bird
:o I used it for MONTHS (like March Year 1 to Oct Year 1, and sold the Airbus. From Germany area, could reach all but Australia, and about 1/2 of South America, so it could nearly everywhere. Then went Catgirls path, and around June it it moved to my second base in Japan for the beta team whilst Firefox became my main transport. Bought a second Airbus briefly in second base to do the X-Lab mission, though that wasn't a huge priority since I already had books from Mutant Alliance Favours since they were always spamming me with missions.
I mean, GUNWAGON is the earliest interceptor you get and with a Nitro it takes care of most early-game bandits. Only got 9 hands? Try putting them on Hyena Mounts then. Or fill the craft with dogs. CONVOY is slow, but nothing beats a whole platoon of units lol. You know, some armors bring glamour on a mission? Even 2 Glamour each? Put 24 of those on a Convoy, and that's 48 extra Glamour per mission hehe. Or WINTER QUEENs with their 5k credit chips, or BRAINERs with Personal Database. Greed pays~
Sure, I can see that strat working, though I'm all for elite small teams just to save on the admin overhead myself. I obviously took a weird tech route compared to what some do. Didn't have Hyenas until after my Flagship (and already had an Armoured Car at that point). Briefly had one girl ride one with UAC Chaingun for lolz.
Great work!
Can I, please, request a "What to do with with Dr. X" analysis? I know, this is tough request, I tried to figure that out on my own with mediocre results.
Haven't actually done the X-Stuff yet myself, but sure, I might add it when I do. Glad you like it! :D
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I don't think anyone uses Big Bird
The main usage of Big Bird is "Mansion Invasion" mission. Other large crafts allowed there are mush farther away in tech tree.
Glad you like it! :D
And this is another tough request: analysis of allowed vehicles in special missions. I mean not just a long list, but some important and unintuitive use cases like with Big Bird.
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The main usage of Big Bird is "Mansion Invasion" mission. Other large crafts allowed there are mush farther away in tech tree.And this is another tough request: analysis of allowed vehicles in special missions. I mean not just a long list, but some important and unintuitive use cases like with Big Bird.
Yeah that could be good.
I actually didn't unlock Manion Invasion until like Jan Year 2, so I could use Fortuna (and I could use my Firefox which I still have too). I see it also allows Snake and Shadowbat and Airvan; think this one is less requiring an Infiltration Vehicle like some of the bounty missions, just that it has to be VTOL, since you drop through the glass roof of the mansion (or at least that's implied in the map design). But yeah, it's another point for Big Bird. :D
It's just the outfits that are more limited. Fortunately again for me I had two Catlooters and my ace melee catgirl has an Unipuma with Nekomimi Blade and Spypistol as her default anyways, and a couple of Witch girls at this point.
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Dear eharper256, thi is really great! Might i advice to chance the thread title in "xpiratez quick reference starting guide" or some thing? Please keep it up and updated, moreover, i'd be very happy if you please join the discussion in often in " Extended Piratez general FAQ/Strategy Guide (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=4102.0)"!. Heavy loads of thanks!
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Dear eharper256, thi is really great! Might i advice to chance the thread title in "xpiratez quick reference starting guide" or some thing? Please keep it up and updated, moreover, i'd be very happy if you please join the discussion in often in " Extended Piratez general FAQ/Strategy Guide (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=4102.0)"!. Heavy loads of thanks!
Glad you like it. :)
Feel free to pin this document or add a link to the FAQ if you credit me, though that seems more like an extended Let's Play thread with extra tips at the moment? Me and a chap on one my discords have been keeping a few (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/612020320211042324/1276204980612894792/image.png?ex=66eaf502&is=66e9a382&hm=22dc68a8aded763d6fbb3c35f6959422d852867ae588187f69e5c6a44669b593&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1071&height=675) fun (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/312645790080434197/1282461897270104187/image.png?ex=66eaa5f7&is=66e95477&hm=562104e5f32dbe4fa24ee04a09cd46e40b30258a451d57a4558fcd16a1495ef0&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1067&height=675) visual (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/312645790080434197/1282461898956210196/image.png?ex=66eaa5f7&is=66e95477&hm=9f79e7c5ed0922069651fb7467e44448cdc533f1cb7df525c9167f04dedcc3aa&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1233&height=675) records for that sort of thing, though.
It's not purely starting stuff (and I'll probably add more as time goes on) so I think it would be a bit misleading to change the title to that for now.
Incidentally, if people are interested, I've also been doing a weapon comparison spreadsheet in Excel that I can upload for people who have it. Since this has been more popular than I first expected. It's obviously incomplete at the moment since I only add a weapon when I have access to it (right now, 120 rows of guns with all their stats).
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Glad you like it. :)
Feel free to pin this document or add a link to the FAQ if you credit me, though that seems more like an extended Let's Play thread with extra tips at the moment?
Sort of, i see more an hybrid between playtrough and a guide, kinda intercative, but i happen to like it :)
It's not purely starting stuff (and I'll probably add more as time goes on) so I think it would be a bit misleading to change the title to that for now.
OK, a more straightforward title would be more easy to rmembre and searched through the forum :-\
Incidentally, if people are interested, I've also been doing a weapon comparison spreadsheet in Excel that I can upload for people who have it. Since this has been more popular than I first expected. It's obviously incomplete at the moment since I only add a weapon when I have access to it (right now, 120 rows of guns with all their stats).
Oh, yes please! 8)
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Here's the Weapon Comparison Excel Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eFMsh58jxKg9YgsLlsvEX9mg4qCC34Ck/
Compares the Snap/Aimed/Auto/Damage including the Accuracy and Range and stats involved. Also includes lots of my thoughts about each one specifically and uses my usual colour coding (Purple S/ Blue A / Green B / Yellow C / Red D).
As mentioned above, not fully complete (I'm at late-laser tier right now, and I've been adding stuff as I've got it/used it). Will update it in time.
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Here's the Weapon Comparison Excel Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eFMsh58jxKg9YgsLlsvEX9mg4qCC34Ck/
Compares the Snap/Aimed/Auto/Damage including the Accuracy and Range and stats involved. Also includes lots of my thoughts about each one specifically and uses my usual colour coding (Purple S/ Blue A / Green B / Yellow C / Red D).
As mentioned above, not fully complete (I'm at late-laser tier right now, and I've been adding stuff as I've got it/used it). Will update it in time.
Blackmarch.
I have to question the value of grades when they are so dependent on availability, which is highly variable in piratez. The combat shotgun, for example: often unused because by the time you encounter enemies with them you have something better, but it only requires Merchants to buy. If you do get one early it is probably the best shotgun you can buy (and buy ammo for). Similar case with the domestic shotgun: it has many superiors, but when your choices are the domestic and the ol shotgun, the domestic looks pretty good.
I do think you are significantly underrating the double barrel shotgun. 20x10x2 for 32% tu is basic security armor killing firepower anyone can use.
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Blacksmarsh is the first hub of Hexen II, so I'm always interchangably adding in an S or not lol. Which considering Doom is also referenced in XPiratez... well in any case my brain can't differenciate the two. :D
Take all the grading with a pinch of salt, of course. Availability is indeed a massive game changer, but since it's so random, I can't possibly use it as a metric for any sort of tier-based coding (well if I did I could only reliably look at weapons you could buy and the techs that unlock as such). Hence, it's entirely based on how I feel it performs stat wise in comparison to others of it's category with a minor pinch of "this is what it felt like on use".
For whatever reason, I don't think I ever used the DB much, and I've always found I highly value good range on shotties unless you can one-hand them with a melee weapon.
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Starting Locations:
Blackmarch: Only in the first 3 months you will get a gnome 100%. Afterwards it will be a 7% chance per month
Theban: its a trap. The 12 clones are amazing, but you will get up to 3! goverment raids per month. You will lose the game if you don't know what you are doing.
Central Provinz: Its useful if you want to start your farming game as fast as possible
Siberia has a 7% chance per month for an ice lady
Bioplasma projector needs to recharge 1,5 months, which could be bad of you don't know it.
Don't forget the Overcharger! You can put it on the turtle or even 2 of them on the worm. Afterwards the worm will become a useful interceptor and it has still enough fuel to go around the world.
Peasant Revolution: The Revolution HQ is also more then 2 Dojos and also has some Workspaces for moneymaking. It also has the hidden function that ufos will stay visible even after leaving the radar. This building is amazing and the true strengh of this path. You will also get many events per month with free recruits. But peasents in itself have low strengh, so their usefulness is limitet
I was shaking my head after reading that you have only 2-3 bases in mid game. Get 8 bases as fast as possible in early game and fill them with farms. Your funds will thank you.
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Hm, some stuff I didn't know here, so thanks, will update tomorrow.
>> I've gotten 11 gnomes by year 2, month 7, on Blackmarsh (and also +2 from Mad Gnomes, +1 Cinderella Project) so guess I've gotten lucky RNG.
>> Theban: Yeah I got that the governments didn't like you but wiki seems to imply it's a 1-off Ordinator attack. Hmm.
>> CP: Fair enough I guess.
>> Sib: Will add that.
>> BioPlasma is 1.5 months reload? Really? :o
>> Yep, that's valid, though as mentioned before I'm purely comparing base stats or else things get super complex consideration-wise.
>> True, I kinda ran out of space in that section.
>> Huh... I still only have 5 bases, and only 3 are significant (2 intercept bases). I've always made way enough cash from Infamy, loads of Courtesans/Exotic Dancers, Power Stations in each base, and constant Chateau Le Mort production in one base to cover all costs to point of not even needing to sell loot and wanting to buy gold (about 10 Mil a month net profit right now, and I've just finally started on Casino too with those spare chips). Japan base has 1 farm just so it can have bees for base defence and poison production lol.
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Bioplasma projector needs to recharge 1,5 months, which could be bad of you don't know it.
Pro tip: Go to vehicles management screen and disable "Bioplasma projector" by clicking on it. This will stop it from recharging (but saves already stored charges) and allows vehicle to refuel. Wait until vehicle is refueled. Go back to management screen and enable "Bioplasma projector" again. Now it can continue to recharge while vehicle is fully operational. So there is no major downside for 1.5 month recharge time.
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>> Theban: Yeah I got that the governments didn't like you but wiki seems to imply it's a 1-off Ordinator attack. Hmm.
Only the first attack is one and 100%. In the following months it will roll 3-times up to ~25% depending on the difficulty. If i read correctly you will lose 2 of these rolls if you go male path and reject the power.
>> Huh... I still only have 5 bases, and only 3 are significant (2 intercept bases). I've always made way enough cash from Infamy, loads of Courtesans/Exotic Dancers, Power Stations in each base, and constant Chateau Le Mort production in one base to cover all costs to point of not even needing to sell loot and wanting to buy gold (about 10 Mil a month net profit right now, and I've just finally started on Casino too with those spare chips). Japan base has 1 farm just so it can have bees for base defence and poison production lol.
Yes, but how many apples und courtesans you have depends on luck so i don't like it. More money is always better, especially in early game. Of course i will fill up the workspaces in the main base first before expanding.
Pro tip: Go to vehicles management screen and disable "Bioplasma projector" by clicking on it. This will stop it from recharging (but saves already stored charges) and allows vehicle to refuel. Wait until vehicle is refueled. Go back to management screen and enable "Bioplasma projector" again. Now it can continue to recharge while vehicle is fully operational. So there is no major downside for 1.5 month recharge time.
I didn't know that. Thanks a lot!
The weapon spreadsheet is more or less right, but the domestic shotgun is an good stun weapon in early game because of the rubber bullets. It is my standard loadout in non-lethal missions. You can also shoot many times on an armored enemy on the ground without them dying to train your soldiers. I use it until i get the assault shotgun or until i can produce stun darts
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Updated the guide with the suggested changes.
Also added Triton (wasn't sure when to place when I wrote the section before, but my game started seeing Reticulans in Year 2, Month 4, so I've added it now), the fact that S. America can spawn events if not in a country, and clarfication on a couple of other sections.
Also, can someone let me know if Crab uses the old Lightning sprite? Not able to build one at the moment but when I know more about it, it will also go in.
The old link will continue to work but will require an F5 if you view it online, or a re-download if you use it offline.
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Updated the Excel spreadsheet with a section on Throwing weapons, and Voodoo, as well as adding a couple of extra guns in general.
Underwater and Primitives section added to as well.
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Updated the Excel spreadsheet with a section on Throwing weapons, and Voodoo, as well as adding a couple of extra guns in general.
Underwater and Primitives section added to as well.
Good to know! Would be possibile in next update to have the bounty prizes tier, please? And also some kind of guide on bulldings that can be upgraded and/or built over?
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Updated the Main Document with much more clearly written points on the bonuses of each Recruitment path, making that section 3 pages rather than 2. I might also do the same for the Codexes at some point (and elaborate on Reject Codex).
Good to know! Would be possibile in next update to have the bounty prizes tier, please? And also some kind of guide on bulldings that can be upgraded and/or built over?
Wish I knew the latter myself. :D
The Bounty Weapons are already on the list (that I have). Do you mean adding a full list of bounties in general and tiers of them?
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Do you mean adding a full list of bounties in general and tiers of them?
Yes :)
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Double Barrel Shotgun should be purple, not yellow. Especially since you rated Coach gun as purple, what.
It's INCREDIBLY effective for when you get it, and it's your loss for sleeping on it. It also allows you to punch way up, against any moderately armored HP sponge like werewolves, other mutants, zombies, and .6g ammo makes it the ultimate corner camping weapon, even against personal armor.
I also have a super-big beef with your starting location rankings. Turan green (? ? ?); India purple(? ? ??!!?) Cali green (?!?!?!?!)
Javelin. Yellow? What the...... You rated an arcing *gaussian distribution* weapon that you can throw 3 times in a turn for 90 damage each with a trained gal ... yellow.
Your advice is incredibly unorthodox in some cases. It's completely fine and reasonable in most circumstances, but then there are some insane curveballs you throw in that make me wonder if we are playing the same game.
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The rewritten recruitment paths are much better. Thank you for writing this.
You have still forgotten the 50 workspaces in Revolution HQ, so its more like 15 buildings in 9 spaces ;D
One thing that should be told is the salary. Gals have the highest salary and can ruin your economy, if you recruit to much.
Peasant/SS: 2.500,-
Cats: 25.000,-
Gals: 40.000,-
Since the Over-buildable buildings were asked:
1x1: Crew Quarters, Vaults, Security Corridor, Burrow, Outpost, Living Capsules, Love Clinic, Trap room, Fire Pit, Gas Chamber
2x2: Hangar, Large Quarters, Large Vaults, Plantation
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@Rokksta: thanks for the info!
@forum moderators: please make the thread a sticky one?
Sidenote: this guide do not applies to the old version prior to the N6 which introduced the cat path, see here (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=4133.msg164120#msg164120).
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Stuff <snip>
Yep fair, as I did already point out, ratings are always subjective. I was considering just removing them, but I know some people find this sort of thing useful. I'm also always happy to re-evaluate stuff.
A few people have said DB is great so I'll raise that. I rank Coach Gun as really great for that effective range that even lategame shotties don't have, whilst still getting to use the Mini-Shotgun bounty prize shells too. I've even used the coaches later in the game purely as something that delivers reliable incendiary for the Poison Subway missions with the Slimes (flamethrowers are really not that reliable). For me, it was kind of mostly transitioning from the Coach into Smart Shotgun because that range is so valuable. Higher Accuracy at higher range also means that the Coach trained many of my troops' accuracy really quickly. So yeah, I really won't shift on how mighty the Coach is.
Turan is great but those potential theft events do make me cringe. I was poor for a lot of the earlier months of my playthrough, so I could see a random 500K theft just ending my run in that case. I'm happy to raise it to A-Tier though. That also affects the India rating; I was constantly being annoyed with running out of storage as well early on, so all these starting slaves are just a nice economic boost. Not to mention not having Gladiatrix as a prerequisite really annoyed me for a while (ended up savescumming Raider Boss interrogation to get it~ I have still never even seen a Church Beastmaster by mid year 2*). Cali, again, good lord 375K of early debt is not something I'd want, and catgirls, if you want them, are not too far on the Catgirls route.
Javelins... okay I'm not sure why they were C-Tier lol, will shift that, they are at least B-Tier. Problem is, Combat Bow overwhelms it, needs less strength, and has far better range, still gaussian, still 30 TU. Javelins almost immediate availability is nice mind, though it's only +5 prerequisites more for C-Bow. Aqua Javelin came to me when I already had Survival Bow. Also, making a giant chart like this, and the damage curve being some tiny numbers of the wiki mean I will miss that on occasion.
*= This is actually probably my only complaint with XPiratez; like heck am I going to go through to aggro of finding and capturing high-tier enemies 50 odd times for stuff like Academy Secrets and such because the RNG decided that the Esper was going to give Hint #69. No RNG, we save at 20 minutes to midnight and we will retry until you get it right. :P I really wish those kind of things had some kind of priority.
The rewritten recruitment paths are much better. Thank you for writing this.
You're welcome.
I've added the workspaces with next version (not pushed yet). It's just I had to find a creative way to get it in the space. I will have to see if we can get the salary and over-build info in there somewhere, thanks for that.
@Rokksta: thanks for the info!
@forum moderators: please make the thread a sticky one?
Sidenote: this guide do not applies to the old version prior to the N6 which introduced the cat path, see here (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=4133.msg164120#msg164120).
Thanks for the sticky nomination. :D
I do mention its N9.5.6 in the title. Yes, I still need to update, though I recall being insanely confused on the last time I updated when I suddenly couldn't buy Chemicals (as the Pharmacist had been added). ::)
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Javelins... okay I'm not sure why they were C-Tier lol, will shift that, they are at least B-Tier. Problem is, Combat Bow overwhelms it, needs less strength, and has far better range, still gaussian, still 30 TU. Javelins almost immediate availability is nice mind, though it's only +5 prerequisites more for C-Bow. Aqua Javelin came to me when I already had Survival Bow. Also, making a giant chart like this, and the damage curve being some tiny numbers of the wiki mean I will miss that on occasion.
If you try to conform the weapons to some stats and rate them just on that, unfortunately you will miss a few subtleties.
Combat bow cannot even be compared to javelins. They do not fit in the same role. You are basically, I dunno, comparing the laser tommy to the heavy laser (Speaking of, yeah, you missed the fact that precision laser has a 50-200% damage roll, so you comparing it to heavy laser is another subtlety that bit your butt. A cat or a bugeye with a precision laser is a goddamed murder GOD, able to extract almost double the damage of a heavy laser. I rolled my eyes at that comparison, but forgot to mention it).
Back to combat bow. The damage component, or toHealth component of most combat bow arrows is RANDOM. That means, that the bow will do damage UP to the rolled power. The typed POWER is gaussian, but the actual DAMAGE which you should be interested in above that is not.For this reason, you should think of combat bow damage as aprox 0-100%, with an average of 50%. The math is more complicated than that because of course it is.
Javelin does not. Damage outcome is gaussian. You are looking at a true 0-200 roll with a very serious clustering around 100%, which makes javs extremely reliable at delivering predictable amounts of damage when you need it.
For another, Javelins can be used underwater, and they are extremely awesome at that. Further, Javelins fit in 1x3, and they can be backpacked and retrieved when appropriate, and fired onehanded, even by gals who are otherwise riflewomen, or heavy weapons operators, or melee specialists, or, especially shotgunners, who will likely find themselves at the exact ranges that javelins work. Combat bow is a commitment to 2h, in a strategy of plinking and bleeding, it is not an oportunistic tool of guaranteed death at range 11.
And finally, you really have not lived until you throw 4 javelins in a turn from hyenaback.
Edit: Re: Coach guns.
Ok, so. Shotguns are not rifles, nor are they SMGs. They are shotguns. For this reason, your insistence to hyperfocus on range misses two stats. Shotgun choke and shotgun ammo spread, respectively. Unfortunately, the online pedia does not seem to track these stats at all.
The point is that accuracy and range matter for ONE pellet. The rest of the pellets cluster semi randomly around the one. In principle, with poor choke and high spread, a long accurate range leads to one pellet being delivered, while a high choke and low spread can render even comparatively poor ranges on shotguns meaningless.
Not saying that is what happens, but you are hyperfocusing and treating one stat as the beall endall stat and missing the point.
On a more personal note, I would rate shotguns against their emergent stat I would call 'stopping power'. When an enemy turns a corner you want your shotgunner to drop him dead right then and thereon reaction, not compete with SMGs at delivering mediocre damage at midrange distances.
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No need for any eye-rolling, I have precisely one successful (and still in progress!) game. Of course stuff will be missed!!
I do appreciate you pointing this out. If there's not enough data, strangely enough, we will end up with flawed conclusions (funnily enough, science is like that).
Again, yikes that's a subtle difference when you look at the wiki, and one with zero context (literally just a tick). :o
As you say, no in-game or wiki data for chokes, so we therefore can't base spreadsheets on that (if someone wants to datamine all the choke data for me go ahead, but I don't have that time!)
Unfortunately, I just have many more Heavy Lasers than I do Precision Laser (actually I have precisely 1 Precision Laser, and 2 cells for it lol). Nothing has dropped any in a while, not to mention to mention I'm the kind that goes (sigh "guys we can't have this many zero damage rolls!" lets reload the save). If there's one feature of New X-COM that Old X-COM should back convert, it's predictable damage and less RNG influence, IMHO. If Dioxine added Gaussian damage and to-hit to every weapon tomorrow I'd be the first person out there praising the shit out of that. :D
Yes, I do hyperfixate on range a bit. But I think it's understandable; more range is more safety and more time saved, and with how it progresses, you are constantly in danger in XPiratez, and I want to get away with less than 10 save reloads in a single tactical, and most enemies wiped out before round 10 if I can help it. I only get 3-4 hours of play a day after work, I don't want to spend it all on one Mutant Pogrom.
In any case; I will add some changes based on this.
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Damage outcome is gaussian.
Pyramid, not gaussian ;) (you'd need 3 rolls for gaussian distribution)
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Man, just saying, reloading your game repeatedly is no way to play the game, and git gud as them kids would say.
You will form very bad habits, and are ABSOLUTELY get horrible skews in your results by playing that way. You will take way more chances. And value your unit's lives a lot less.
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I'm pretty sure it's the traditonal X-COM way to hover over the quickload whilst praying to the RNG gods. :D
When I was young, I had much more tolerance for surprises in games, but then I also had much more time to spare.
I don't reload anything when it's clearly my tactical error in judgement, or if it's a few misses here an there. I've turned up to several missions and gone "nope" and just left. I have a few casualties and I have no problems with that.
It's just when stupid shit happens; like the entire squad surges out and everyone misses all their 90% chances. Or like, a no-armour enemy survives a full barrage of autofire, and you're like "I don't have the TU's to waste on that shit". Or, as I mention, a rare interrogation that I may not get another chance at in weeks NOT giving me the correct info for VITAL progress. That's just artifical difficulty and dragging out needless hours and it can go die in a fire.
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Play the way you want as long as you have a good time. My current campaign is at difficulty 1 and I reload a lot in the battlescape because I keep forgetting to double check TU costs or energy.
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Play the way you want as long as you have a good time. My current campaign is at difficulty 1 and I reload a lot in the battlescape because I keep forgetting to double check TU costs or energy.
Yes precisely; if you love to go Ironman, go Ironman. If you love to reload every time a shot misses, do that. As long you're all having fun at the end of the day, that's all that matters. :)
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If you love to go Ironman, go Ironman. If you love to reload every time a shot misses, do that.
The difference here is that "Ironman" player have rights to speak about game's difficulty and overall balance, while the latter don't.
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The difference here is that "Ironman" player have rights to speak about game's difficulty and overall balance, while the latter don't.
Thats like saying Jack Sparrow Players don't have the right to speak, because the game is balanced on Davy Jones
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Thats like saying Jack Sparrow Players don't have the right to speak, because the game is balanced on Davy Jones
Well, you'll be happy to find out that Dioxine does not balance around JS.
Now, that out of the way, I didn't mean to start a holy war between saving and ironman, BUT I think it is fairly common sense that you need to note in your guide somewhere if you write a guide assuming saving and realoading, because thst ABSOLUTELY impacts the level of risk you, as a player, are willing to take while devaluing contingency solutions to almost worthless.
If you write a guide, assume the player does not play aiming to extract top tactical value from saving and loading, because that is not how the game was designed in the first place.
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I'll chop this discussion off now if we can, guys. Because I've seen this one before and it never ends well. :-\
I'm just here to present a guide, and help people, regardless of how they choose to play.
EDIT: Already ninja'ed by Iazo I guess. ;)
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I'm just here to present a guide, and help people, regardless of how they choose to play.
And that is why you should focus on objective stuff, not at "which gun is better". Main difficulty in XPiratez is not even "which path to take", but "what paths are actually available?" Good example is "Cats for life" path. If you are a new player and not follow update notes, you may never know that such path even exists, because it becomes available later at the game and gets invalidated as soon as you pick other alternative available much earlier. (Cough, cough... Gudrun paths... Cough, cough...)
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Updated both the main document and the spreadsheet.
Main document now has two FULL pages of helpful hints and tips for starting out, as well as the Interceptor (Necroplane) section expanded quite substantially with more notes.
Spreadsheet now has a couple of extra things, updated the throwing weapons now I know more about them, and some basics for the Voodoo Rod which are still subject for change (can anyone confirm if these work the same as ye olde psi-amp? They have no damage stats on the generated wiki so I'm guessing so, and testing is inconclusive right now).
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Pyramid, not gaussian ;) (you'd need 3 rolls for gaussian distribution)
Pyramid distributions are still gaussian distributions; they're symmetrical with a mean and variance. To sate my professor's soul, one and even zero dice rolls are gaussian distributions as well, despite the former looking flat and the latter being unplottable.
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(can anyone confirm if these work the same as ye olde psi-amp? They have no damage stats on the generated wiki so I'm guessing so, and testing is inconclusive right now).
I can just say that no matter which formula I use to calculate the success chance of a psi-attack, the obtained number never equals with the number I get when I press Alt.
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I can just say that no matter which formula I use to calculate the success chance of a psi-attack, the obtained number never equals with the number I get when I press Alt.
Yeah, ALT also reports a presumably entirely off number for Rod of Hellfire and basically most voodoo stuff from what I can see. Choking Wand is absolutely way better than it reports, Firebolts is way worse (well actually incendiary type damage in general always feels way weaker than the raw numbers imply).
Incidently, I've added "research Bounty Hunting early" as a tip and someone on my discord says that's gone in the most recent patch lol. Guess I need to update again.
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(well actually incendiary type damage in general always feels way weaker than the raw numbers imply).
That's because most use the default fire damage, and the power of the weapon is actually a factor of its aoe. There are exceptions like Willie Pete grenades (white phosphorus) which do initial damage based on their power like most weapons.
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That's because most use the default fire damage, and the power of the weapon is actually a factor of its aoe. There are exceptions like Willie Pete grenades (white phosphorus) which do initial damage based on their power like most weapons.
Riiiight... no wonder then. Tip #80 only says stuff about targets on fire (which I always assumed was like a status effect added as a hit on top of the power, not the whole damage!).
Updated my version and discovered bounty hunting now needs rank 2 (!).
I'm not sure how to feel about that actually, it would feel odd to me not being able to start getting tokens in Februrary... and seems like it's really clogging your ability to get early infamy, no wonder one of the guys on discord was having trouble with it, that's quite a difficulty increase.
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Apparently I was bored, so I analysed shotgun choke data rather than playing the game this evening, go figure. ::)
Here's a dump of my findings, will update the spreadsheet eventually:
Edit: This was all incorrect as it was based on out-of-date documentation so it's deleted.
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A mistake. You want high choke but low spread.
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A mistake. You want high choke but low spread.
Not according to the programming notes literally in the documentation:
#shotgunSpread: Defined on an ammunition type as a number between 0 and 100 with a default value of 100. With shotgunBehavior: true, this is approximatley the percent of pellets after the first #that will hit the same tile/target as the first at the maximum accurate range.
#shotgunChoke: Defined on a weapon type as a number between 0 and 100 (or higher) with a default value of 100. Used only for shotgunBehavior: true, acts as a percent modifier to the 'accuracy' of #the pellets from shotgunSpread - 100 means only the shotgunSpread value defines the spread pattern, 0 gives maximum possible spread regardless of the shotgunSpread value.
Higher spread means more pellets hit same target, choke is merely a % modifier to that initial value.
Admittedly, it does sound counterintuitive, but the numbers also match. The Domestic has a 70 (x0.7) choke, the Police has 110 (x1.1), for example. This is then based on the shells having 15-45 base spread in most cases. (with the shells in that previous example we end up with 25 * 0.7 = 18% chance for each pellet to hit on the Domestic, or 25 * 1.1 = 27.5% on the Police).
A low spread, say 15, plus high choke, say 130, in the documents, just means that the atrocious base spread of the shell is mildly mitigated from 15% to 19.5%.
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Not according to the programming notes literally in the documentation:Higher spread means more pellets hit same target, choke is merely a % modifier to that initial value.
Admittedly, it does sound counterintuitive, but the numbers also match. The Domestic has a 70 (x0.7) choke, the Police has 110 (x1.1), for example. This is then based on the shells having 15-45 base spread in most cases. (with the shells in that previous example we end up with 25 * 0.7 = 18% chance for each pellet to hit on the Domestic, or 25 * 1.1 = 27.5% on the Police).
A low spread, say 15, plus high choke, say 130, in the documents, just means that the atrocious base spread of the shell is mildly mitigated from 15% to 19.5%.
I'll preface by saying that I don't fully understand how shotgun spread actually works, or whether higher or lower spread results in more pellets hitting the target.
I think that lower spread results in more pellets hitting based mostly off of the XPedia entry for .6g Buckshot (https://xpedia.netlify.app/##STR_BUCKSHOT_HV) suggesting it has a tighter grouping (20 shotgunSpread) compared to the standard .8g buckshot (35 shotgunSpread). There's some discussion in other threads on this forum about it, but I still couldn't fully understand how it works.
Other discussion here:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=6541.msg102313
and here (I think this is from when the code used in OXCE was being written):
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4834.0.html
And I believe this is the section of code in OXCE that handles the spread calculations:
https://github.com/MeridianOXC/OpenXcom/blob/oxce-plus/src/Battlescape/ProjectileFlyBState.cpp#L783
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Ok, I asked the developers because this is really getting in the weeds. So far it seems that the documentation might be wrong because it does not seem to describe what the code does.
That said, the code pretty strongly makes an argument that how you calculate it is wrong. It is not simply choke*spread, it is choke*(1-spread)
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Thanks for finding the relevant code snippet, I didn't have that available of course, so:
secondaryImpact = proj->calculateTrajectory(std::max(0.0, (1.0 - spread / 100.0) * choke / 100.0));
I plugged this into Excel to do the calcs, and double checked with Windows Calculator on Scientific so we can correctly honour the brackets:
If it's high Spread and High choke (lets say 50 and 120), it will be: ((1.0 - 50/100) * 120/100)= 0.6
if it's high spread and low choke (lets say 50 and 70), it will be ((1.0-50/100) * 70/100) = 0.35
if it's low spread and high choke (lets say 15 and 120), it will be ((1.0-15/100) * 120/100) = 1.02
If it's low spread and low choke (lets say 15 and 70), it will ((1.0-15/100) * 70/100) = 0.595
std::max is usually a function to pick the largest/maximum of two values in C++. CalculateTrajectory is using voxels to trace paths as we might expect. Earlier in the code, CalculateTrajectory is used to create the origin point of the shot using the units accuracy. std::max here is always going to return the calculated figure since it's greater than zero, but since we're referring to the old CalcTraj for the origin point, I'm guessing this is showing the maximum possible deviance between 0 (i.e. hitting the same place as before) and X (what is generated here).
This is assuming a fair bit and I'm quite an amateur coder so I could be horribly wrong.Which means that higher final decimal is bad. Oddly enough, yes, that means the documentation is wrong, because going by these formulae, the best option is High Spread, Low Choke (lol). Although the fact that there is a comment of "// identical with vanilla formula when spread 100" implies that 100 spread is... well if not good then at least identical to the standard shot.
Alternatively, if I'm wrong in that assumption and 1 is the desired target rather than 0 (i.e. the closer to 1, the less trajectory deviance), then yes, Low spread is overwhelmingly the most important factor (to the point where Choke's effect is diminished in comparison). That does have it's problems too, since really low spread and high choke ends up values over 1.
- Alternatively Alternatively, if the original notes about these number affect rough % chance to hit to same place is correct and this is just a % chance to hit the same tile then yes, you're spot on, though this is also odd since this code looks like it's tracing trajectories and doesn't say anything about percentages.
Or you know, I could have just spent an hour wasting my time lol. Let me know if the devs get back to you! (and if the notes in documentation are wrong, shoot them for me as well since bad comments are the devil and any dev should know that) :P
Edit: Number 3 is correct! Thanks to the devs for confirming
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Which means that higher final decimal is bad
Higher decimal is good. 1 = 100% accuracy.
calculateTrajectory(accuracy)
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Hence me giving three possible conclusions, since I don't know which is right? ::)
I really feel like everyone's out to get me here or prove me wrong here for some reason. I don't give a monkey's about being right. I'm just trying to make sure I get accurate info for an accurate guide. I enjoy taking murky waters and turning them into a blue lagoon via guides. :D
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Well, from being a bruteforce barbarian and shooting many, many shotguns, I can tell you with some certainty that high choke and low spread makes the shotgun shots all go roughly the same way. The reverse ends up with you basically just spraying randomly in front.
You can test this using the sawed off shotgun, the DB shotgun, .6g and .8g.
A sawedoff with .8g will pretty much just shoot EVERYWHERE. A DB with .6g will clump the shots and they'll go pretty far all in one direction.
Otherwise, you'll just have to trust the 'a guy told me' source. Or not.
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Otherwise, you'll just have to trust the 'a guy told me' source. Or not.
Yep, I'm defo inclined to believe you, and your option is certainly intuitive. It's just that's it's super weird to find all these notes everywhere implying it's the opposite. :o
In any case, I've also done an extra addition tab ready for the weapon chart, including the choke values with that weapon formulae from the code (above) included and assumed as gospel. Not released as of yet, I want to add more stuff before I throw it out just on that. (I mean, it's relatively unimportant in the grand scale of things).
Something absolutely goes out of whack past the maximum range for shotties, though. Not sure if something was changed for the newest patch; but I really swear Smart Shotgun has turned absolutely dire at longer ranges where it used to be very good.
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Ok, I asked the developers because this is really getting in the weeds. So far it seems that the documentation might be wrong because it does not seem to describe what the code does.
Documentation updated: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=4834.0
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Documentation updated: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=4834.0
Thankyou very much! :D
Good to know it ~IS~ supposed to be less spread that's better. :)
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BIG main guide update, now with quite a bit of expansion to what each Primary Captain and Codex does in much greater detail.
As a result, the captains section now use 3 pages total, and each Codex gets it's own page.
There's also images for each Captain, Codex, and Route, mostly from the game files. Because everyone loves pretty pictures.
Yes, the images for the codexes are tomes from Age of Wonders 4; I tried to pick ones closest to the in-game description of the ascended codexes. And also, yes, I don't use the direct image for the captain class in question because actually I wanted the document to be SFW for people. I picked ones that fit that captain's theme or were from a related topic.
I'll do the updated weapons spreadsheet soon (TM).
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recycling (pirating?) graphics from other games because they fit is perfectly in keeping with the x-piratez spirit
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It looks nice. Good work :)
But the Catgirl Tourists and the Cultural Exchange are not Cat-path exclusive. They are the cheap ways for the other paths to get some catgirls. I would not advice to use it on the cat-path. Cultural Exchange is best used on the Gal-path.
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Might be useful for the guide, but... using the Zeerust Carbine Grenade Launcher can train Throwing on a gal. Maybe it's common knowledge, but I just realized it
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recycling (pirating?) graphics from other games because they fit is perfectly in keeping with the x-piratez spirit
The modding spirit in general; can confirm, am modder. :D Though I do love AoW4 as well and it has lots of pretty book pictures (https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/NatureTomes.html?type=tome_of_roots) that are fairly easily available.
It looks nice. Good work :)
Thankyou. :)
But the Catgirl Tourists and the Cultural Exchange are not Cat-path exclusive. They are the cheap ways for the other paths to get some catgirls. I would not advice to use it on the cat-path. Cultural Exchange is best used on the Gal-path.
Yes, you're right. It's just you get the Nekomimi tech prequisite wildly earlier on the route (and not need to gamble on interrogations or discs). Maybe I'll reword that a bit, but it's fairly minor.
Might be useful for the guide, but... using the Zeerust Carbine Grenade Launcher can train Throwing on a gal. Maybe it's common knowledge, but I just realized it
Interesting factoid I guess. I assume the Alpha Rifle does the same then. I wouldn't really count on it as a dedicated throwing trainer tool though, reloading an underslung grenade is a reasonably high TU cost. Javelins or Shuriken (or spears) almost certainly take that cake.
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Weapon Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eFMsh58jxKg9YgsLlsvEX9mg4qCC34Ck/) updated with the shotgun changes and a few extra guns.
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Weapon Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eFMsh58jxKg9YgsLlsvEX9mg4qCC34Ck/) updated with the shotgun changes and a few extra guns.
Don't want to be an ass, but... I can't tell the weapon tiers. Colorblind as fuck, sorry! Excellent work, tho. I do enjoy reading the guide. Everyday I learn something new, or recheck something.
Edit: Maybe an extra column with the Tier?
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Don't want to be an ass, but... I can't tell the weapon tiers. Colorblind as fuck, sorry! Excellent work, tho. I do enjoy reading the guide. Everyday I learn something new, or recheck something.
Edit: Maybe an extra column with the Tier?
That's fair enough. My one old gaming buddy sees both red and green as blackish so always said to me for most circumstances it's fine as long as red and green are not "adjacent" tiers, but I guess that is only the one type of colour-blindness.
I have used filled in box conditional formatting symbols before to help one other chap (i.e little box with four segments) but for some reason, those always get removed on Google Sheets which is notoriously bad for conditional formatting compared to Excel (I make these on Excel and then upload them to the drive).
Glad you're enjoying it, that's the main thing! :) The tier's are all kind of subjective in any case and you can usually come to the conclusions yourself with the descriptions.
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You really should exchange Domestic Shotgun from Red to Green and Ol' Shotgun from green to red.
The reason being that domestic, as bad as it is, is much better than ol' shotgun for obvious reasons, not least of it being allowing three snaps per turn. This makes it decent for lokks in caves when you might not have military shotguns, or even for rats in caves. Or spiders.
It is really not that bad. Whereas ol' Shotgun is reallly really bad.
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This is kind of why I put that big pink disclaimer up top for this version. Take ratings with a big pinch of salt.
However, it's a valid point, so I knocked Ol Shot to C and put an extra note on Domestic. When I saw my first Domestic, I already had 2 Coaches, which are wildly superior, except for the utility niche of rubber shells.
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There should be a mention regarding countries spanning more than one region. Ex. Turan is half in Central Asia (ew), half in South-East Asia. Ghostgates has a small eastern portion in South-East Asia (useful for tax evasion hehe), and Thebes has a tiny coastal sliver in Europe.
Regarding Siberia, there's a 25% event for a one-time Ice Lady in the first four months (once you get one, the script stops), in addition to the recurring 7% one.
And the -$500k event in Turan only occurs in February. From then onward, it's just the -$100k one (though it does have a high trigger chance).
Oh, and you're using a Grey codex image for Lazy-ass, which is Green-aligned.
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Well, the guide is getting more and more fleshed out. I can see, that you have written down quite a bit of my advices, which is nice. Thank you for that.
With that said I don't like the tier lists, because it will be very different depending on playstyle and difficulty. But it is ok to keep it. It is your guide with your advices.
On another note I am missing the Shark Jetbike on your guide. You can get it very fast (if you have the money) and it will be one of your fastest vessels.
Keep up with your good work.
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There should be a mention regarding countries spanning more than one region. Ex. Turan is half in Central Asia (ew), half in South-East Asia. Ghostgates has a small eastern portion in South-East Asia (useful for tax evasion hehe), and Thebes has a tiny coastal sliver in Europe.
Regarding Siberia, there's a 25% event for a one-time Ice Lady in the first four months (once you get one, the script stops), in addition to the recurring 7% one.
And the -$500k event in Turan only occurs in February. From then onward, it's just the -$100k one (though it does have a high trigger chance).
Oh, and you're using a Grey codex image for Lazy-ass, which is Green-aligned.
It's a lot of extra explaining and paragraphs for a relatively minor stuff. One of those fun things about making guides is know what minor stuff you can happily snip out; and here, I have zero lines to use before it gets knocked on to a third page for the starting locations, so some compromises were made.
Yes, I already explained that for images. I can't use most of the actual green ones since they have the habit of being naked or topless and we want as SFW as possible.
Well, the guide is getting more and more fleshed out. I can see, that you have written down quite a bit of my advices, which is nice. Thank you for that.
With that said I don't like the tier lists, because it will be very different depending on playstyle and difficulty. But it is ok to keep it. It is your guide with your advices.
On another note I am missing the Shark Jetbike on your guide. You can get it very fast (if you have the money) and it will be one of your fastest vessels.
Keep up with your good work.
Yep, Tier lists are very love it/hate it for everyone and that is always the case. Some people do like having them, though, so I always keep them even if they are subjective. I'm always happy to adjust tiers with reasonable arguments though.
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Would be good to add specific rank up requirements.
And looked at the gun excel and oh boy. The issue with making a tier list is that having a stated hierarchy make it very easily disagreable. Submachine gun at lowest tier is definetly one take to have, but a quick math analysis show on shorter ranges it soundly beat other low tier smgs, and that's without talking about size and weigth plus one handed usage. Domestic shotgun also is arguably more usable than birdshot against enemies with some armour till mini shotgun research. If you want to have a systematic approach, I would recomend using the gun comparison tool to get a better understanding of relative weapon balance beyond gut feeling.
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The most important stat for shotguns is damage. A shotgun is basically a save-or-die armor check; the target gets hit by 1d6 20-damage pellets and if it can't ignore 20 damage then it's going to die. Smaller damage (ex. birdshot) means less targets are vulnerable, bigger damage means more things are valid targets. The blunderbus, heavy shotgun and CAWS are all good against Uber Gal-tier enemies while the lighter shotguns are mostly good against normal humans.
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I'm not going to continue any debates about the worth of a tier-list. It's an already too long and rather unproductive discussion. If you hate it, please just ignore it. It will always be subjective. :-\
I'll consider adding the rank-ups and other tech milestones (captain's log etc.) though.
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As someone who has started many playthroughs (and has yet to finish any), many thanks for these! I hadn't known about the different starter bonuses for different nations, so this will help with the nations I've never chosen before.
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As someone who has started many playthroughs (and has yet to finish any), many thanks for these! I hadn't known about the different starter bonuses for different nations, so this will help with the nations I've never chosen before.
You're welcome, glad it's useful. :)
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As someone who's been playing for a while (about a year) but is still learning stuff both your pdf and weapon excel sheet are very useful for me to get second opinions and stuff that I'm unsure if they're good or not. They're both also great for knowing the advice is current, a lot of other resources for the game are quite old and potentially out of date.
I was (un)lucky enough to get a base attack in late february and managed to get an assault pistol that I was surprised to be able to buy immediately after researching it. How would you rate them if thier only competition is ramshackle rifles, six shooters and the other early game junk?
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As someone who's been playing for a while (about a year) but is still learning stuff both your pdf and weapon excel sheet are very useful for me to get second opinions and stuff that I'm unsure if they're good or not. They're both also great for knowing the advice is current, a lot of other resources for the game are quite old and potentially out of date.
Glad you've found it useful!
I was (un)lucky enough to get a base attack in late february and managed to get an assault pistol that I was surprised to be able to buy immediately after researching it. How would you rate them if thier only competition is ramshackle rifles, six shooters and the other early game junk?
Oh for sure, in the case you get it at that point, it's a solid weapon. Assault Pistol does have one thing that's solid, and that's super-rapid fire with very low TU cost. And early on, that's invaluable.
Basically, the sheet is ordered in the order I found things, so if you find something wildly earlier than the position I have it in the order, you can automatically consider it better.
Also, everyone has 1-2 early scripted base attacks, so it might be that rather than you being unlucky. If you got any Dr. X notes as drops from that time, it's the scripted one. So hang in there. However, another reason I say interception as soon as possible is important is that a good interception setup can stop further base attacks if your can stop aliens and factions finding the base again.
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As someone who's been playing for a while (about a year) but is still learning stuff both your pdf and weapon excel sheet are very useful for me to get second opinions and stuff that I'm unsure if they're good or not. They're both also great for knowing the advice is current, a lot of other resources for the game are quite old and potentially out of date.
I was (un)lucky enough to get a base attack in late february and managed to get an assault pistol that I was surprised to be able to buy immediately after researching it. How would you rate them if thier only competition is ramshackle rifles, six shooters and the other early game junk?
Assault Pistol is a pretty solid shooter, I'd rate it on the same tier as the Shiny Niner. It's a solid A-tier or B-tier pistol that's mostly held back by issues common to all pistols (ie low damage leading to poor performance vs armored goons). Definitely a cut above the usual six shooter/rusty niner/domestic shotgun schlock you'd see in the early months, but in turn obsoleted by something nice like Super Sawed-Off or Holo-Spikey SMG. The Assault Pistol upgrades via manufacture into the Smartpistol and Mini-Cougar SMG, so it even gets a second wind later on that most of the other handguns don't enjoy.
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It was a bandit attack that had 4 stormrats in it, they were hell to deal with without proper grenades.
A note with the throwing hammer, by the time church beastmasters show up a single thrown hammer will destroy their armor, I otherwise found them very hard to deal with without blowing up part the ship they were on and losing a lot of loot. Might be too specific for your list but thought I should share it.
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Have you tried
anti-tank rockets MAG rockets for that? They're great at cracking hard targets without much collateral damage. Beastmasters only have 40 armor and they don't have any piercing resists, so shooting them works just fine as long as you aren't shooting into the shield's strong resists. Regular old Smartgun /PS or HMG /MAG bullets should chew them handily.
edit: the Church Beastmaster has yellow shields which are strong against the AT rocket's explosion but ineffectual against the MAG rocket's pure kinetic energy.
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I did, but I felt I was blowing up too much of the loot.
A hammer is also much cheaper than a AT rocket and the chance of blowing myself up was nearly 0.
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The thing with shields is knowing which type of damage to apply, specially those that bypass then. As it it a reasearch item I'm not going to spoil it, but for beastmasters in particular high powered piercing weapons ( for example light cannon, At rifle) counter then really hard.
Also in regards to the guide, I think it would be worth including two things on the reject the power path: gnomes can be farmed for all their research topics, and the second priest visit needs knowledge of shadowtech, Sivalinga resurrection (so purple lady is a hard require) and voodoo.
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Also in regards to the guide, I think it would be worth including two things on the reject the power path: gnomes can be farmed for all their research topics, and the second priest visit needs knowledge of shadowtech, Sivalinga resurrection (so purple lady is a hard require) and voodoo.
I do mention the gnomes can be used for research or recruitment. I did think about adding in the pre-requisites of Priestess; but I'm out of space for that section. Guess the CD guns aren't too important and could be cut, but something like that would have to go to any more info in that space.
One thing about researching gnomes in general is that whilst they're renewable and offer incredibly valuable tech... it can be really expensive in RP for the early game. Due to that 25 base cost, could be 37 if unlucky which is like 7 or 8 days gone even with 5 brainers which you might have at that point (as rejecting Codex means you're not even waiting for it to expand and implode for 2 months). So juggling when to research them is an interesting challenge I'd say. Guess I could mention this in the advanced tips section though.
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The thing with shields is knowing which type of damage to apply, specially those that bypass then.
(https://i.imgur.com/YkwuGAy.png)
It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.
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Is that counting damage absorbed (25% resist lets 75% damage through) or is counting damage taken (100% means it takes 100% of that damage type.)
Otherwise thanks that will be very useful!
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Is that counting damage absorbed (25% resist lets 75% damage through) or is counting damage taken (100% means it takes 100% of that damage type.)
Otherwise thanks that will be very useful!
Only the types with "Ignore" will bypass the shield and damage health directly (after armor). All the other types will be absorbed after multiplication of the listet percentage.
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It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.
This is a great idea actually, I'll make a version of this and add it to the guide.
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Okay, I've added an update to the main PDF, with the previously suggested progression requirements for Captain Ranks and Captain's Logs, and also a page with my redone version of Psyentific's brilliant shield chart idea.
I've flipped the colours so blue = bypass, green = good, yellow = less good, red = awful since I figure most often you're going to be referencing the chart to see what's good at killing it at a glance, but otherwise all credit to him for the idea.
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Okay, I've added an update to the main PDF, with the previously suggested progression requirements for Captain Ranks and Captain's Logs, and also a page with my redone version of Psyentific's brilliant shield chart idea.
I've flipped the colours so blue = bypass, green = good, yellow = less good, red = awful since I figure most often you're going to be referencing the chart to see what's good at killing it at a glance, but otherwise all credit to him for the idea.
It wasn't my idea; I don't know who the original creator was. It was pinned in the discord back when that was still extant.
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A quick suggestion, maybe it can be a good idea:
A short cheatsheet on SHIELDS resistances, and some non obvious concepts like Camo, Sense, Pain Res, and XL targets (as some trappings state to be)
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A quick suggestion, maybe it can be a good idea:
A short cheatsheet on SHIELDS resistances, and some non obvious concepts like Camo, Sense, Pain Res, and XL targets (as some trappings state to be)
I literally just added in the shields chart (lol).
But sure, I also did an extra quick update on the same page adding in common terms seen on Armour; as you say it's fairly useful reference to have as well.
I included some of the standard values for that stat as well as the terminology. Though I'm not 100% sure on the normal Day spot distance~ 30 tiles sounds right but I could be wrong.
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Pretty sure the daytime sight distance (and maximum possible) is 40 tiles
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If you have too much time, you could make an armor spreadsheet like the weapon spreadsheet ;D
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If you have too much time, you could make an armor spreadsheet like the weapon spreadsheet ;D
I absolutely don't lol. I work full-time, see irl friends at least once a week, and maintain multiple guides and I should be doing work on various mods and stuff lol.
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Am I blind or have you not done comparasions for some of the heavy weapons like like cannons, LACC or the various missile launchers?
No pressure of course if you haven't, just don't want to go mad looking through the weapon list endlessly.
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A quick rundown of various explosive weapons, starting at the more common and/or lower tier cannons:
A quick aside, but I will assume that all cannons are shooting HE instead of Piercing. You bring them for the boom, not the dakka, so they will be judged accordingly.
Assault Cannon: D-tier with Cannonballs, C-tier with other ammo. It's slow to shoot and slow to reload, so you'll usually only get one shot every other round. Pretty bad with the round shot cannonballs, but pretty decent with the explosive, incendiary, and chemical cannonballs. Cannon HE is the same 60 damage as a 40mm Grenade Launcher, but much heavier, less accurate, and slower to reload. Accuracy scales off bravery. Better used as armament for a Gunwagon.
Mini Cannon: D-tier, similar to Assault Cannon but smaller and worse. Similar mobility to the grenade launcher, but worse damage.
Spitfire: C-tier, a fun little shoota that sprays small explosions everywhere. More of an autogun that explodes than a real launcher. Typically seen in the hands of Spartan Heavys. Ammo belts can be worn on the head for true rambo style. Suffers from mediocre damage and struggles to penetrate mid-tier armors.
Light Cannon: B-tier, an average and reliable antipersonnel explosion projector. Can reliably chunk Osiron Security and other mid-tier armored goons. Slightly less damage than a grenade launcher.
LACC: C-tier, often seen in the hands of Osiron Security. It's like a Light Cannon mixed with a rifle, or a superheavy rifle with optional explosive shots. Special mention to WP ammo, good for lighting werewolves and ninjas on fire. Beaten by LC and other larger exploders, while the heavy automatics have better mid-tier kinetic shooting. That said, I respect its power to punch through Tac Armor and it has killed many gals.
Autocannon: Unrated, haven't used the oldxcom AC
Man-Portable Autocannon: C-tier, effective fire support but lacks mobility and punch. Can pretty much always put 3x autocannon shots downrange and the arcing fire helps it do so out of LoS. Park it on your flagship's roof and use it to demolish houses. Becomes B-tier when being used to deliver special ammo types: AC-GAS ammo excels against Deep Ones and Lobstermen (or unprotected humans), and rare AC-CRY ammo lights zombies, 'lids and vamps on fire.
Grenade Launcher: A-tier, genuinely one of my favorite guns. Never leave home without a grenade launcher (or two!) in your squad, and sprinkle your explosions around liberally. Park your grenadiers on elevated terrain, kneel for extra accuracy, and enjoy your budget artillery. The more exotic ammo types (shoutout to Black Napalm and 40mm Gas) help it stay relevant throughout the midgame, and later upgrades into Smart Grenade Launcher and 40mm Hellerium, Fusion, and EMP help keep it relevant even further beyond. It's single shot so you get to experience the tactile joy of reloading every shot, but the ammo is 1x1 so you can bring as much as you can carry.
Assault Grenade Launcher: B-tier, sidegrade to Grenade Launcher. Same damage, 8 round clips, better for frontline assaulting rather than fire support.
T-T Grenade Launcher: B-tier, upgrade to Grenade Launcher's indirect fire support role. More damage and more accuracy but without the exotic payloads. Would be A-tier if it had gas, EMP, and fusion shells.
Blizzard Pocket MLRS: C-tier, same punch as a Grenade Launcher in a meme-y package. Will yeet six rockets downrange and create some terrain gaps and smoke clouds for you to exploit, but struggles as an anti-personnel weapon.
RPG: A-tier, the other one of my favorite launchers. Never leave home without an RPG (or two!) in your squad. RPG /DP is an all-purpose problem solver that can be relied on to remove just about any battlescape trouble spot. I like to think of it as my "Bypass Encounter" tool. Its biggest advantage is the 1x2 ammo which can fit in the quickdraw slot and the belt slots; this allows it to reliably reload-and-snapshot or reposition-and-snapshot in most situations, so the RPG is very responsive for quickly putting a rocket on target. Upgrades to Advanced RPG.
Quad Launcher: B-tier, as seen in Commando. Slightly less damage than RPG and shares the same "reloads carried on belt" utility. Can pack 8 rockets while doing so instead of 3+1, but lacks the spicer ammunition to retain utility as the game progresses.
UAC Rocket Launcher: C-tier, mostly a mook weapon for doomguys. Similar 'portable light rocket launcher' niche as the RPG and Quad, but worse damage; only slightly better than the 40mm grenade launcher. Still worth using if it's your only rocket launcher.
Recoilless Rifle: B-tier, the complimentary weapon to RPG's "solves almost every problem". The R-Rifle does not produce any explosions which is why I put it in B-tier. Instead, the R-Rifle is a specialist weapon - This thing is your poor gal's lascannon. The basic R-Rifle shells deal slightly more damage than a Heavy Gauss with 40% armor penetration on top of that. If it's too heavy for the RPG to crack, get the R-Rifle. If it is at all vulnerable to piercing damage the R-Rifle will kill it. This thing is also the reason why you can safely discount the kinetic ammo on the mid-calibre cannons like LC and AC; in any situation where you would prefer a kinetic to an explosive you can skip straight to the R-Rifle.
Rocket Launcher: B-tier, the RPG's big sister. Suffers from larger ammo that must be carried on the back, so it's slower to reload and a bit more awkward to deploy. Generally able to fire every other turn in a shoot, reload & reposition, shoot cycle. Very killy, but not as mobile and responsive as the RPG. Becomes A-tier with upgraded ammo such as Anti-Tank Rocket, MAG, Gas, EMP, etc. When you absolutely need to remove a cluster of Deep Ones, Gas Rocket. When you absolutely need to remove a merc hovertank, crack the shield then use an AT Rocket.
Panzerfaust: A-tier, panzerfaust my beloved. Single shot, 20kg, fits into any empty back slot just like a sword. Same damage as the Rocket Launcher's ordinary ammo with 10% better armor penetration. A single shot rocket launcher that can be added to any gal loadout that can carry it. Arcing trajectory, so a miss usually hits somewhere nearbv. Sprinkle a few into your loadouts, they'll come in handy.
LASS: B-tier, as the Panzerfaust but RPG-sized instead of Rocket sized. A panzerfaust for your peasants and slave soldiers; give him two, point him towards the enemy and tell him not to come back.
Mortar: B-tier. Shares many of the rocket launchers mobility and reload problems, and so can usually only fire every other round. What a shot though. Damage is midway between RPG and Rocket, but has a large area effect and can reach the entire map. There are very few times when I feel justified grabbing the mortar (because other explosive projectors usually get it done quicker), but the few times you grab the mortar you will enjoy the show. Mortar Acid shells are excellent anti-structure munitions, while Mortar Gas will remove any unprotected biologicals (and especially deep ones) with extreme prejudice. Upgrades into Servo Mortar.
Hand Mortar: A-tier, for gals only. What if you didn't have to "set up" the mortar? What if, after emptying it, you could bludgeon somebody with it? It's so lovingly orky.
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Am I blind or have you not done comparasions for some of the heavy weapons like like cannons, LACC or the various missile launchers?
No pressure of course if you haven't, just don't want to go mad looking through the weapon list endlessly.
No you're right, I haven't ever got around to it.
I mostly agree with @Psyentific's opinions on this one though, that's a nice write-up they've done. Some extra thoughts of my own:
My personal opinion is that the RPG is your lord and saviour; easy SS-Tier. I've managed MERC Terror missions and their hovertanks, when I REALLY shouldn't be able to, all due to the combo of Heavy Laser barrage from my Catgirls to clear the shields then a Gal nailing it with the RPG. In any case, my Gals, and others with space available, will carry an RPG in their Backpack for me.
As mentioned, the standard X-COM Rocket Launcher is generally less desirable due to big ass ammo and general bulk (B-Tier). I'm also a bit less of a lover of the standard grenade launcher but it's a still fine enough A-Tier because no-one dislikes arcing fire and small ammo.
Honestly part of the reason I've not done a list for this, though, is that I've not actually tried many of the niche ones, I probably should (my XPZ run is on a break at the moment). But frankly, the above and of course, standard hand grenades (especially stick grenades for their simplified use) usually manage to solve most problems that need explosives to solve. :D
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I literally just added in the shields chart (lol).
But sure, I also did an extra quick update on the same page adding in common terms seen on Armour; as you say it's fairly useful reference to have as well.
I included some of the standard values for that stat as well as the terminology. Though I'm not 100% sure on the normal Day spot distance~ 30 tiles sounds right but I could be wrong.
Thanks! Honestly, it's a nice thing to have for a quick reference!
@Psyentific: If you like the RPG, the Advanced one is.... oof! Amazing. And this is why I like this kind of threads: I'm not using the Grenade Launcher, but now, I'm giving it a shot.
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Thanks to both of you, very helpful. I really should start adding more explosive weapons to my normal loadouts.
With the LACC and the light auto, I like to equip one of each to my A team with AP ammo since I don't really have anything with better armor pen when they start becoming lootable from enemies, and its much cheaper than using a LASS or panzerfaust when high AP is needed
edit: Would you use a kustom handcannon over the LACC or Light cannon? I assume its an immediate yes over assault rifles or AMGs?
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Thanks to both of you, very helpful. I really should start adding more explosive weapons to my normal loadouts.
Thanks! Honestly, it's a nice thing to have for a quick reference!
No problemo. The more useful the better. :) I will eventually get around to an explosives section and actually completing the melee tab.
edit: Would you use a kustom handcannon over the LACC or Light cannon? I assume its an immediate yes over assault rifles or AMGs?
Kustom Handkannon is THE go to weapon for my Gnome elites (along with Linux), I do mention that on the sheet, as they're adding 15% of their 180-200 Bravery to each shot so doing like 72 a shot and with their nearly endless stamina they can constantly run to get into range. Is it an instant replace for AR's? Not really, it's shorter ranged and wants to badly use the double-fire up close where possible, it's a WH40K bolt-pistol, basically.
There MIGHT be a transitional point where, if you only have say the Battle Rifle as the best AR, and you DON'T Have Plasteel/Aqua rounds for it yet, that it might be best to temporarily not use AR's, but nearly all AR's have at least 15% armour pen, so that's quite rare. I found myself still using the occasional Light Cannon in mid Year 2, though mostly I was transitioned over to Heavy Lasers, Golden Rifles, and Custom Lasguns at that point.
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Kustom Handcannon is exactly what it says on the name, a handcannon. That is, an overgrown handgun. I use it as a heavy sidearm for melee gals, same niche as Shiny Niner and Laspistol but bigger and meaner. Whenever someone Over There is giving a melee gal trouble and it's not practical or safe to close and melee, instead he gets the handcannon.
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Not sure if this is really in the scope of this thread, but what are the important techs/capabilities I should have by the start of year 2? With how the tech tree is I'm never sure what I really need to be pursuing and whats side stuff.
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Not sure if this is really in the scope of this thread, but what are the important techs/capabilities I should have by the start of year 2? With how the tech tree is I'm never sure what I really need to be pursuing and whats side stuff.
Since that's also related to Captain type, and what YOU want to do, and what you started with, I can't really give you a precise "THIS". However, Captain's Log #2 should IDEALLY be done, or approaching completion at month 12. I included that in the progression section, so you can look each of the items there up in the Xpedia or the in-game tech tree viewer. I managed it with 2 days to spare at the end of November (barely getting the "good" bonus, phew!) mostly because Smugglers Contact took a while, had stuff like Plotting and Onsen for quite a while.
I myself had got everyone in Tactical armour at that point, had 3 bases with a 4th being considered, an infiltration team, an underwater team, and then two primary squads. I had my Flagship around month 8-9, and a Hunter Killer/Corsair by month 10 end (a Tiger and a Buckaroo were still in the sub-bases). As I was dumbass captain, luxury spa was also in place in my main base. Primary fireteam was 7 gnomes and a 5 gals (I had Germany start so I had lots of Gnomes). Secondary team was 10 Catgirls, 5 gals. I cycled in some elite peasants/damsels that had joined via events when wounded. Underwater team was 2 gals and 5 peasants.
Firefox was transport in base 2 (previously primary transport as I was on catgirls route), and as I was grey codex, Jellyfish in Base 3 was the Underwater team's ride, and I was getting my first witches trained up in Minx outfit. I was predominantly at mid-tier weapons, the big laser transition started a little later.
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Thanks for the write up, I'm... far behind a lot of that, but I guess some of that has to do with difficulty settings, assuming you play on a higher difficulty than I do.
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Good thing about the mod is that there is no really that much preassure to get things - so long as you keep your research filled up and expanding it is usually okay, and there is also quite a lot of RNG involve as for example guild stapler can block quite a bit if it doesn't appear in warehouse missions quickly. I would recomend never the less to set some aims, like for example heavy suits or AC with 25mm as they are things that make quite the difference.
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One thing to note is that I did the start of that game on N9.6.5 patch rather than N9.7.7, which did add quite a bit of useless filler tech to the start (I updated and suddenly couldn't buy Chemicals in Year 1 Month 11, and I was like WTF) and mysteriously made it so that Bounty Hunts were not unlockable until captain rank 2 (you could get them straight away, and personally I dislike this change as they're good score makers early), and it made all radars longer ranged and into hyperwave decoders by default (just as I had built proper Hyperwave Decoders lol).
But at the same time, 9.7.7 felt like it also really eased up on the combat pressure I was feeling until I started seeing MERC terror missions.
I'd actually argue that 9.7.7 slowed general progress to the point that the Captain's Log's are now pretty hard objectives to get in the expected good timescales, and yes, there are quite a few bottlenecks. Guild Stapler for me was actually found only in the UAC underbase mission (where it's guaranteed); for me, getting Maid Outfits was very difficult (I had 1 whole brothel mission, where they're expected to be found, in like 8 months).
I'm also a prolific save scummer (lol)~ I do not accept a turn where I had too many injuries and/or 90% misses and start it again. In one case I had to reload a Humanist Manor turn 9 about 15 times, because this bloody one idiot would keep walking out of his tiny room and detonating his Panzerfaust at his feet, killing 5-6 catgirls each time (and himself)~ not a tactical problem as he could never see more than 1, it's just how they were unfortunately positioned. In the end, I just had to yolo my own RPG at his closet to kill him before he did it. Stuff like that.
Unfortunately, the game really does become unwinnable if you delay too much early on with injuries and skip too many battles recovering (as I mention in the FAQ). Or you accept a loss more than 1 unit later on, since you can't afford to drop your veterans like flies, the score impact is too high.
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I think I'm doing ok/good then.
And yeah I'm also save scumming since I want to actually see the game and figure it out, though mostly only once or twice a mission. I'll do an ironman run when I'm not trying to figure out what the hell I should be doing.
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Updated the Word document partially for N10, adding in the most important new stuff, the Sectoid route, and the DOLLS subroute on their own page.
Not 100% sure I've got everything in there so please feel free to point out anything you think I've missed.
The XPedia was also updated to N10 version if you don't want to compile it yourself.
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Updated the Word document partially for N10, adding in the most important new stuff, the Sectoid route, and the DOLLS subroute on their own page.
Not 100% sure I've got everything in there so please feel free to point out anything you think I've missed.
The XPedia was also updated to N10 version if you don't want to compile it yourself.
Excuse me, but in the guide is told that aggressor armor is unique to red codex, but actually i remember it was not anymore since prior to N6 version, please someone.might confirm?
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Excuse me, but in the guide is told that aggressor armor is unique to red codex, but actually i remember it was not anymore since prior to N6 version, please someone.might confirm?
Current requirements to research it are:
Red Codex
Aggressor Armor (i.e. one of the ones you get for opening Red)
Metal Armor
Smoke-Ops Gear
Thermal Exchange Mesh
Party Dress
Soldier: Uber Gal
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Current requirements to research it are:
Red Codex
Aggressor Armor (i.e. one of the ones you get for opening Red)
Metal Armor
Smoke-Ops Gear
Thermal Exchange Mesh
Party Dress
Soldier: Uber Gal
ok so my fault, nevermind, bu i remeber it once was not red codex exclusive, pheraps things changed again. Anyway, sorry!
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Don't quote me on this since it was before my time, but I think Red Codex used to give Metal Armour or Chainmail or something, and Aggressor might have been seperate then. But N6 was a LOOONG time ago lol. :D
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Aggressor Armor can be obtained from gambling. It doesn't have any research requirements. There's a separate research topic for manufacturing; only red codex can research Aggressor Armor Production.
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Yes I suppose you could get lucky to grab a few from gambles, as is the case with many things. But otherwise obtaining them is indeed locked to red.
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Don't quote me on this since it was before my time, but I think Red Codex used to give Metal Armour or Chainmail or something, and Aggressor might have been seperate then. But N6 was a LOOONG time ago lol. :D
It used to give some sort of chitin based armor I think? Whatever it was it wasn't great beyond the very early game.
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No, you straight-up got four suits of chainmail before it was changed to aggressor (aggressor didn't even exist back then). It was pretty busted: immune to shotguns, resistant to small arms and lasers and very effective against all sorts of melee threats, all in march or february if you played your cards right.
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Small update with some corrections and fixes (notably to Reject Codex stuff, I realised you must do Primal Hunts in it for your Crowning which I missed before, so I clarified that).
Also reformatted the main post since it was a bit messed up from various edits over time. Now more clearly laid out.
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How do you think the infantry laser weighs up vs the hydra? You lose auto on the IL but do what looks to me significantly more damage and I think its more accurate.
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How do you think the infantry laser weighs up vs the hydra? You lose auto on the IL but do what looks to me significantly more damage and I think its more accurate.
Different roles, really. Hydra is often available early, and is effectively laser SMG that's defined by the autofire since it's only 10% less accurate than the snap.
Infantry Laser is an upgraded Hunting Laser, so it's a mobile Sniper with a decently accurate and cheap in TU's Snap shot. With an accurate user, it's solid.
If you can get Bank Favours => Military Supplies early from Zaxx, they're fine, though Lasguns are superior, even moreso when updated to Custom Lasguns, since they fit both sniping and close range roles well.
Good catch about it missing, though, I added it.
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I got hydras just before I unlocked military supplies, I think I got lucky with bounty missions then.
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I got hydras just before I unlocked military supplies, I think I got lucky with bounty missions then.
Absolutely, that's 2075 Zaxx Tokens for the whole setup, assuming you took the direct path and ignored Black Adder and Scoped Magnum and other stuff.
First few Hydra's appeared around month 4-5 for me when I was playing. Ammo for it was scarce for a while, but it was a staple on my Gal Bianca for a while.
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Hydra Laser is a mid-range auto shooter, same sort of niche as the Autogun and Tommy. I use it a lot when I'm bootstrapping myself into the midgame, it's not great (ex. Assault Laser does the same thing but better) but a bad autolaser is still better than no autolaser. As for how the Hydra Laser stacks up against other mid-tier autoshooters...meh? I'd run a gyro-stabilized autogun or a laser tommy over a hydra. Once you've got your choice of lasers and automatics the Hydra Laser falls off firmly into the "mook gun for enemies" category, but when you loot a Hydra off the first Humanist Instructor you kill it's the tightest shit.
For the infantry laser, what's already been said is accurate. Just like it says on the nameplate, it's a shitty lasgun for your infantry. Some laser is better than no laser, right? Same niche as the ol' rifle, hunting rifle and battle rifle, same 'tier' as the battle rifle. That is, a mostly-mobile single shooter for mid to long range that's equally good for kneel-and-aim or move-and-snap fighting styles. Just don't expect to get more than one shot downrange (2 snaps max) per turn.
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What does mean that [S-Tier/A-Tier/B-Tier/C-Tier/D-Tier] related to starting locations?
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What does mean that [S-Tier/A-Tier/B-Tier/C-Tier/D-Tier] related to starting locations?
It's a standard tier-list. [Purple > Blue > Green> Yellow > Red]
In my opinion, better colour denotes a better starting location, and then I explain the reasoning for that below.
i.e. UK is great because that's a lot of good supplies to kick-start your early game. Egypt is great because of clone licences for extra early game troops. Germany is great because you constantly get free Gnomes joining. China sucks because 75 Sectoweed is a tiny amount even for Hybrid route. North-East USA sucks because Optronic Parts are totally useless to you in the early and mid-game and easy to get in late-game. etc.
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I'd like to propose adding air combat chance to hit formula. This is usually very hard to find and people have often asked for this.
Chance to hit in % = (Weapon accuracy * (100 + 300 / (5 - UFO size)) +100) / 200 - 0.5 - UFO dodge + craft hit bonus + pilots to hit bonus
Where UFO sizes are:
Very small = -1
Small = 1
Medium = 2
Large = 3
Very large = 4
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In my opinion, better colour denotes a better starting location, and then I explain the reasoning for that below.
got but actually how about some more simple classification system, because how we can tell one color means good and one bad? I did not get the meaning of that letters :'(
Ah please sir, update the ship list, in the guide prospector (https://xpedia.netlify.app/##STR_MINING_SHIP) is missin :( and swordfish (https://xpedia.netlify.app/##STR_SWORDFISH) has a crew space of 5, not 6.
@Ultimoos: maybe post it in the main xpiratez thread :)
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It's already there, berried under dozens of pages ;)
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I'd like to propose adding air combat chance to hit formula. This is usually very hard to find and people have often asked for this.
Chance to hit in % = (Weapon accuracy * (100 + 300 / (5 - UFO size)) +100) / 200 - 0.5 - UFO dodge + craft hit bonus + pilots to hit bonus
Where UFO sizes are:
Very small = -1 Small = 1 Medium = 2 Large = 3 Very large = 4
Could do, though that formula is whack and has too many brackets and that 0.5 is a bit weird.
I'm guessing it's supposed to be:
(Weap Acc * (100 + (( 300 / (5- UFO Size)) + 100) /200)) - UFO Dodge + Craft Bonus + Pilot Bonus
But it can be summed up as Medium size Baseline, smaller harder, bigger easier. Then dodge and hit bonus applied.
SNIP
Re: Prospector- Probably because I never got around to getting one yet. My save is on hiatus at the moment.
Swordfish- So it is. Could of sworn it used to be 6, maybe it changed. Will fix in a future release.
Colours: Well I inherited this from my other steam guides. It's pretty simple. Blue and Green are universally "Good" colours, Yellow mid, Red bad. Very common colour language, can't really be simpler than that. Purple as S-Tier is the only sort of confusing one, but as it's above blue it's also used semi-often in lots of guides.
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This formula was recreated from code someone posted. That suspicious 0.5 exists because results differ by 0.5 from what is written in a pirate tip. I do not remember what number it was. Results for a 100% hitting weapon are as follows: Very small - 75%, small - 88%, medium - 100%, large - 125% and very large - 200%. Formula itself is very wacky but you can just multiply those numbers by weapons chance to hit and then flat add the bonus percentages from craft and pilot.
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I had a lot of fun reading your guide myself, especially the Captains' descriptions, it's really rewarding when the love I put into making the mod gets returned and spread around :) It's also probably the best researched guide I've seen, I didn't see a single false claim.
Weapon tiers do suffer a bit from savescumming bias (this bias puts higher value on damage output, lower value on reliability, for obvious reasons; eg. without savescumming, Tommy or AMG are only mid-tier because they tend to leave you with very little TU to correct your error if you miss both bursts, which does happen a little too often for comfort). It's not a judgement, just a note. It's definitely not worth losing progress due to danger you could not predict; and this savescumming bias is much lower than the usual, you do try to be fair. And I did get a new perspective on some issues, like how scoped rifle or harpoon carbine are disappointing.
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leaving you with little TU and possibly requiring the expenditure of a reserve asset (heavy melee sprinter, cross-map grenade launcher etc) is something that i consider a feature of the gun, rather than a malus. it's little 'accidents' like that that help to spice up gameplay. sometimes you lay down three auto-bursts and...the target's still up - now what cap'n?
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I had a lot of fun reading your guide myself, especially the Captains' descriptions, it's really rewarding when the love I put into making the mod gets returned and spread around :) It's also probably the best researched guide I've seen, I didn't see a single false claim.
I was noticed by Sempai! ;D
Thankyou for checking it out, and I'm glad you appreciate my research. It's something lots of people have always liked in my Steam guides (even when they get annoyed with tierlists) so I'm glad that continues to be the case.
And yes, I entirely understand and confirm that this is the best feeling for any modder (I'm a Classic Doom Modder, so same era I guess). :D
Weapon tiers do suffer a bit from savescumming bias (this bias puts higher value on damage output, lower value on reliability, for obvious reasons; eg. without savescumming, Tommy or AMG are only mid-tier because they tend to leave you with very little TU to correct your error if you miss both bursts, which does happen a little too often for comfort). It's not a judgement, just a note. It's definitely not worth losing progress due to danger you could not predict; and this savescumming bias is much lower than the usual, you do try to be fair. And I did get a new perspective on some issues, like how scoped rifle or harpoon carbine are disappointing.
For sure, an ironman list would look entirely different, and yes, I do try to be fair with savescumming.
I guess with Tommy and AMG I tend to also view those with the lens of "you should be dashing as close as possible to abuse bursts and auto, whilst also being as safe as you can, but prioritizing alpha strikes", so therefore they also tend to fail less often.
I always used to play original X-COM very aggressively compared to some people (I can't stand moving 3 steps and spamming overwatch every turn), and really appreciate New-X-COM's assaults for the same reason. Best defence is a good offence and all that, but it's probably not a strat that works on Superhuman Ironman too well lol.
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I'll just say that if you sprint THAT close, not even the best dakka weapon can compare to a good melee weapon :) But this is apparently the part of the mod you have little experience with yet, seeing you don't mention axes or hammers, and think that Barbarian Sword is a great weapon (it's decent, of course, but it's more a trickster's tool than a serious melee option) :)
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I'll just say that if you sprint THAT close, not even the best dakka weapon can compare to a good melee weapon :) But this is apparently the part of the mod you have little experience with yet, seeing you don't mention axes or hammers, and think that Barbarian Sword is a great weapon (it's decent, of course, but it's more a trickster's tool than a serious melee option) :)
Ah yeah, the Melee section is still incomplete AND vastly out of date. I do appreciate it's great.
Barb Sword was AMAZING for me in months like 2-5, when that part was written. Dashing right in and spin-attacking three enemies is why Selene is still my top gal, kills wise. Most of my melee gals are running Tech Blades or Vibro-Blades now, and I do have one silly Gnome who's always running around with a Loli-Chainsaw in her Skivvies, and a very powerful melee Catgirl, Katara Pouncer, with a Quicksilver Cutlass.
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I guess with Tommy and AMG I tend to also view those with the lens of "you should be dashing as close as possible to abuse bursts and auto, whilst also being as safe as you can, but prioritizing alpha strikes", so therefore they also tend to fail less often.
I always used to play original X-COM very aggressively compared to some people (I can't stand moving 3 steps and spamming overwatch every turn), and really appreciate New-X-COM's assaults for the same reason. Best defence is a good offence and all that, but it's probably not a strat that works on Superhuman Ironman too well lol.
I like to play defensive. Thats why i like the tommy, because it allows me to make some 3-shot potshots before going back in safety. The shotgun often has not enough range or killing power like against ninjas.
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Never underestimate the humble hammer. Number one tank killer for year one, and if you can find a suit of flying armor somewhere its incredibly funny to cheese zombies or hunting missions
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Are you absolutely sure that the hybrid path offers no special craft? I remember there's a pirate version of the Sekar, with a Pedia entry and all, but perhaps it's bugged or something?
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Never underestimate the humble hammer. Number one tank killer for year one, and if you can find a suit of flying armor somewhere its incredibly funny to cheese zombies or hunting missions
Similarly in this vein, a crowbar (ie Mr Handy) and pistol (or 1hand SMG) is a surprisingly robust loadout for a scout-type unit. Any obstruction that costs more than 3 tiles to walk around is instead more efficiently crowbar'd out of the way. This is particularly prominent on urban, suburban, and farmland-type terrains with their fences, hedgerows, building walls and so on. This helps the player build a habit of going through the obstructions and making your own doors instead of using the map chokepoints.
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Though most gals can feasibly do that barehanded.
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Are you absolutely sure that the hybrid path offers no special craft? I remember there's a pirate version of the Sekar, with a Pedia entry and all, but perhaps it's bugged or something?
Today, I equipped a Gal with a Flying Harness and a Hammer in a Escape Tower mission. Full TU, I breached the ship's door with the Hammer and got 2/3 reaction shots untouched just standing atop the door so everyone who pass under me got bonked, and the ship's roof covered me. Hammer is amazing
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Are you absolutely sure that the hybrid path offers no special craft? I remember there's a pirate version of the Sekar, with a Pedia entry and all, but perhaps it's bugged or something?
The Pirate Sekar is there, yes, but it's not unique to Hybrid path looking at the tech tree. Hybrid path just means you can qualify for it without Reticulan Elder (I think), and it's still a fair way off due to requiring Reticulan Power Systems and Persuasion. If you focus it you can get it earlier, probably around August, I guess, though I haven't played the route to confirm that. It's still a fair bit later acquisition wise than say, the Firefox or Harvester are potentially available though.
Similarly in this vein, a crowbar (ie Mr Handy) and pistol (or 1hand SMG) is a surprisingly robust loadout for a scout-type unit. Any obstruction that costs more than 3 tiles to walk around is instead more efficiently crowbar'd out of the way. This is particularly prominent on urban, suburban, and farmland-type terrains with their fences, hedgerows, building walls and so on. This helps the player build a habit of going through the obstructions and making your own doors instead of using the map chokepoints.
I kind of assume this comes under "Standard X-COM tactics" you should know. I did this all the time in the base game, though with a Laser Rifle. Though Mr. Handy is cheap to use, and it may not be obvious to some people, so I could add it to the tips section in theory.
Today, I equipped a Gal with a Flying Harness and a Hammer in a Escape Tower mission. Full TU, I breached the ship's door with the Hammer and got 2/3 reaction shots untouched just standing atop the door so everyone who pass under me got bonked, and the ship's roof covered me. Hammer is amazing
Works well with any melee weapon really, no one expects death from above lol. The Hammer is solid for a Gal to use, though, for sure.
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Hybrid has two unique crafts: SEK-SKOUT and SEKAR. While researching Reticulan Elder is required for both, the Reticulan Elder topic currently does *not* unlock the crafts.
The problem here is that, Reticulan Elder is pretty hard to get. Yes, Life is Hybrid allows you to produce Reticulan Files early on, however, hitting Reticulan Elder with the Files will still require 12x Reticulan Files on average. This means the player needs 120x Personal Database before he can buy SEK-SKOUT.
120! I doubt the player will be able to get 120x Personal Database in the early game.
Which means, even though SEK-SKOUT is meant to be an early game Hybrid Path craft, you can't actually get it early. This seems like an oversight. Did Dioxine forget to add the "unlocks"?
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Stuff
Yep, the requirements mostly confused me, so this is why I went with "From what I can tell, doesn’t give a ship" in the guide.
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The guide seems to imply you get loads of research topics for settling in certain places (like north africa, or outside a country). But as far as I can tell, you get one random research from the list, not all.
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The guide seems to imply you get loads of research topics for settling in certain places (like north africa, or outside a country). But as far as I can tell, you get one random research from the list, not all.
Ah yes, I can see how you might get to that conclusion, my bad. I'll think about changing the wording for those.
That said, I could have sworn that being in no country gave the full selection, since that is in my notes when I checked just now, so I either got confused at the time, it's changed since then, or I read something that implied that myself. Weird.
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Today, I equipped a Gal with a Flying Harness and a Hammer in a Escape Tower mission. Full TU, I breached the ship's door with the Hammer and got 2/3 reaction shots untouched just standing atop the door so everyone who pass under me got bonked, and the ship's roof covered me. Hammer is amazing
Personally I prefer to breach the roof and drop in knockout or hallucinogen grenades. The hammer isn't exactly non-lethal and they *are* civilians.
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That's a lot of extra steps.
I just punch them with gauntlets.
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I'm trying to remember the first flying armor that gets gauntlets, but I don't think it's a grav harness.
Usually I've got at least a couple grav harnesses from gambling or raider buzzards long before I ever research a grav module.
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Hybrid has two unique crafts: SEK-SKOUT and SEKAR. While researching Reticulan Elder is required for both, the Reticulan Elder topic currently does *not* unlock the crafts.
The problem here is that, Reticulan Elder is pretty hard to get. Yes, Life is Hybrid allows you to produce Reticulan Files early on, however, hitting Reticulan Elder with the Files will still require 12x Reticulan Files on average. This means the player needs 120x Personal Database before he can buy SEK-SKOUT.
120! I doubt the player will be able to get 120x Personal Database in the early game.
Which means, even though SEK-SKOUT is meant to be an early game Hybrid Path craft, you can't actually get it early. This seems like an oversight. Did Dioxine forget to add the "unlocks"?
I first thought that to, but then I realized that Reticulan Elder is one of the free researches of Take Me To Your Dealer, if you go the hybrid path. It seems like you are supposed to research that often.
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hello
can you please help me with information for condemnations?
meaning - full list, requirements for getting and mb with evaluation of condemnations
for now - i do not understand how to get traditional and radical perks for my fusion training
there is also second question: you will never get blossom book if you dont start in Fuso? As far as i understand this book is necessary for some kind of training (iron gals?)
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for now - i do not understand how to get traditional and radical perks for my fusion training
Traditional is killing people with pirate-themed weapons:
- Air Musket
- Anchor
- Aqua Trident
- Assault Cannon
- Bayoneted Musket
- Black Powder Bomb
- Blunderbuss
- Boarding Gun
- Boathook
- Boom Keg
- Clockwork Gun
- Cutlass
- Dagger
- Flintlock Pistol
- Flintlock Rifle
- Fuso Knives
- Glittersword
- Grav Cannon
- Handcannon
- Jezzail
- Kraken Cannon
- Laslock Pistol
- Laslock Shotgun
- Mini Cannon
- Musket
- Peg Leg
- Pepper Pistol
- Poisonous Tentacle
- Quicksilver Cutlass
- Rapier
- Rope
- Saber
- Slaver's Cane
- Cat Paws
- CD Cannon
- CD Pistol
- CD Rifle
- Fan
- Fuso Sword
- Harquebus
- Haxxor One
- Heavy Carbine
- Hero Sword
- Kustom SMG
- Ninja Pack o' Death
- Ninja Sickle
- Ninja Stars
- Ninja Stick
- Sawed-Off Blunderbuss
- Sudoku Blade
there is also second question: you will never get blossom book if you dont start in Fuso? As far as i understand this book is necessary for some kind of training (iron gals?)
You can still get the book eventually, kind of - after researching Prize: Dating Saya, a random event can spawn each month that gives you a random research from a list. Book of Cherry Blossoms is one of those random researches. But also, I don't see anything it's actually necessary for - it only unlocks the Sun Martial Rituals research, but that one can also be unlocked with Contacts: Romanica (as in, Book of Cherry Blossoms is unnecessary if you have Contacts: Romanica)
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Yep, Falsche has the right of both questions there.
One other thing, though: Sun Martial Rituals (and Iron Warrior) is only for Male Soldiers anyways (it's why I say Fuso and Romanica are good if you're on a Male Path).
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It's 100 kills with each category of weapons for a gal to be eligible for Fusion Arts Training, I believe.
so many ... ((( will check if worth it
thx a lot
and yes - im on couple path (meaning men+women)))
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still cant get it
but recieved new (for me) condemnations - joker and idiot =)))
also thx for Sun Warrior tips - got Romancia contact
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For Fusion Arts, you also need the following laundry list of tech:
Contacts: Fuso · Fan · Fuso Knives · Fuso Sword · Lokk'Naar and Narlock beliefs · Martial Arts Training · Ninja Gal · Ninja Scroll · Ninja Sickle · Ninja Stars · Ninja Warrior · Party (Dep.) · Peasant Militia · Prize: Mutant Martial Arts · Sudoku Blade · Tools & Blades · VIP: Jill
Have a Dojo/Spa/Dungeon/Revolution HQ in that base, and NOT have Military Drill already (Ruler Captain), and obviously only for Gals.
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Thanks for the compilation, I havent played in a while and completely forgot the country perks and the captain personalities.
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Thanks for the compilation, I havent played in a while and completely forgot the country perks and the captain personalities.
You're welcome, glad it was useful. :)
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You're welcome, glad it was useful. :)
Honestly? If I got asked about it, this guide should be added to the mod download. Like a strategy readme. Keep up the good work, bud
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Honestly? If I got asked about it, this guide should be added to the mod download. Like a strategy readme. Keep up the good work, bud
Thankyou buddy, those kind of comments are always a nice start to a morning. ;D
I got Dioxine's offical stamp of approval, so it's close enough. :P
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Thankyou buddy, those kind of comments are always a nice start to a morning. ;D
I got Dioxine's offical stamp of approval, so it's close enough. :P
prosit!
Maybe for next xpiratz update. might be added a page/half page on how to get non-black market resources?
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prosit!
Maybe for next xpiratz update. might be added a page/half page on how to get non-black market resources?
I just noticed you edited this. What resources were you wanting a guide to specifically? There are ALOT in the game, so it would need a very specific focus.
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I just noticed you edited this. What resources were you wanting a guide to specifically? There are ALOT in the game, so it would need a very specific focus.
yes, i was thinking of most common used, and the important ones, whether possible :)
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Trouble is, most common used forever is like Scrap, Databases, Elerium, Chemicals, Slaves, Glamour. Which are mostly like "play the game, lots of stuff gives it to you", except maybe Glamour not being obvious (well it is obvious if you go with the mindset of "go cool, go risque" that the game is pushing, but not obvious if you think on a pure OG game mindset).
Then there's stuff that's semi-important early, but basically obsolete after a while, like Chitin and Necroplane parts.
Then stuff that's high-tech and useless early game but often important later, like Alien Alloys, Optronics, Power Couplings etc.
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From where I am in this my first(*) playthrough, resources were/are not a problem. Chemicals, plastasteel and the likes have each become available on the market before I needed much of them. You can guess what power sources are going to be good for and that you won't need to keep very many of them.
Bounty stuff caught me by surprise. It says that Jack will pay well for Narlock Scepters, and 32k was good money at the time. However, that experience taught me about the "bounty" tab in the fencing menu and I never again sold anything from that list. So I guess that's good game design? Teachable moment, early enough so that not much harm had been done at that point?
Next are the not-quite resources like cigarettes and energy drinks. I kept a good handful of each; not out of clairvoyance, but because the game had educated me to expect a sudden demand for not just a few items, but dozens at a time.
Old boots! I cleaned out the lot of them. Felt a little bad about it, but they took up so much space.... however when the time came, there also were a few events (not quite random, I suppose) to give me more boots. So it was all good.
The only thing that really bit me was rope. You cannot make or purchase a simple piece of rope, would you believe it? Rare loot, too, and no event to help me out, either.
I'm not sure what (if any) of that needs to be included in the guide. Not selling things that might come in handy later is just common sense; Bounty items in particular are just a special case.
--
(*)strictly speaking this is my second playthrough. First time around I had my Hideout in Cleopatra's realm, and the negative 2000 score from a successful base defense sent me into a death spiral.
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The only thing that really bit me was rope. You cannot make or purchase a simple piece of rope, would you believe it? Rare loot, too, and no event to help me out, either.
Actually, you can make rope... See attached.
Maybe you hid it by mistake?
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Why would you want to use rope tho? There are better stun weapons.
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Bravery training.
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Maybe you hid it by mistake?
yes indeed, this is so.
Why would you want to use rope tho? There are better stun weapons.
The context was resources. If the runts need rope, you can't slip them a substitute.
Oh, I wasn't aware that using the rope trains bravery! I've had some of my gals dancing nekkid in the moonshine while others completed the mission very very casually.
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Using a first aid kit also trains bravery, so work in pairs, trios, or fours and let the most cowardly one be the team medic.
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Using a first aid kit also trains bravery, so work in pairs, trios, or fours and let the most cowardly one be the team medic.
And put her in a nurse outfit! :)
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And put her in a nurse outfit! :)
Great! In that case this exploit would be partially justified.
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Using a first aid kit also trains bravery, so work in pairs, trios, or fours and let the most cowardly one be the team medic.
Even works if you patch up enemies, which I somehow prefer to treating wounds on my team. It's a matter of opportunity, though, as you need treatable enemies AND a hand to spare AND both in proximity to each other. It has happened but you can't really plan for it.
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I have to say I've never deliberately tried to min-max any stats like this.
Then again, I guess I do play at Difficulty 2 usually, maybe it's needed for higher ones.
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I do it a lot, but mostly because I like saving lives (even enemies); any Bravery training is just a bonus.
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Several of the Piratin' Tips make it quite clear that bravery is important for voodoo defense. Also plenty of weapons with bravery bonuses. I think it's quite natural that one looks for ways to improve it. Always having bandages (&c) so you can treat the wounded is easy, but for me it hasn't translated into much of a stat increase. Deliberately drawing out missions that could be finished in four turns, just for the morale checks, feels silly. Yet here we are. Had I known about rope earlier, I would certainly have given it a try.
Back to topic: while you give the Blackmarch SMG a solid A rating, your description is not exactly an endorsement. For me, it's one of my favorite weapons (or at least used to be). More powerful cartridge than the RCF carbine though no AP bonus, much faster, but ultimately limited range. I've used it as a plinking gun, snapshots rather than autofire, as I feel that this yields more hits per TU; also, there's a decent chance that one hit will be enough. Four snapshots (or two aimed) with a comfortable 20% TU to spare.
The only clear benefit of the carbine in that comparison is it's truly unlimited range. Well, and that even a rookie soldier can get off an highly accurate shot.
The Assault SMG is even faster and more accurate, but the Blackmarch delivers 20% more buck with each bang, and that's really quite noticeable. Like Assault Pistol vs Manstopper.
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The Assault SMG is even faster and more accurate, but the Blackmarch delivers 20% more buck with each bang, and that's really quite noticeable. Like Assault Pistol vs Manstopper.
Assault SMG's ammo ignores some of the target's armor, for what it's worth.
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Fair, but I don't compare it to the RCF carbine though? Are you talking about the UAC Carbine? I partly rated that well because when I got it, it had the ability to immediately buy it from the store which was very valuable. Whilst at the time I think I only had access to a single Blacksmarsh. TBH, I don't think I used RCF carbines much at all in my last game, I transitioned straight from Auto-Rifles/Battle Rifles to Advanced Rifles on most of my Assault Rifle girls, and then not too long after to Advanced Lasguns.
Statistically, auto-fire in X-COM is nearly always a better deal, and with SMG's you're always supposed to be dashing to a closer range for the most part, it's just the Blacksmarsh is sort of a hybrid AR with a higher range than usual. It's a solid gun though, I had a few of my 8-strong Gnome Brigade main it for some time until I could manage to squeeze Linux Origami on them to exploit the massive bravery bonus.
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Fair, but I don't compare it to the RCF carbine though?
[...]
Statistically, auto-fire in X-COM is nearly always a better deal,
Nah, it's me who compares it to the RCF. I think your description is quite reluctant for an A-rating and was throwing some sentences your way, that you may perhaps include the next time you update that document.
I get the impression that my typical firing distance is much farther than yours; which probably means that I'm more eager to close in all the way for melee.
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Except for snipers or those with infinite Aimed range guns, mid-range is generally best for most combat in my experience. I'll have some dedicated melee girls of course (on my last game, my Gal with the most kills is a melee girl and is only a dozen behind my initial starting gnome's insane kill streak).
Since RNG's historically always love to screw me over, I'd rather make more rolls than bet on single ones, hence my preference for auto-fire. :D There's no "correct" answer here, though, everyone plays different.
I do see what you're saying about the Blacksmarsh description, but the comments aren't neccessarily a review, just things I thought of. A-Tier still means A-Tier. :D
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Several of the Piratin' Tips make it quite clear that bravery is important for voodoo defense. Also plenty of weapons with bravery bonuses. I think it's quite natural that one looks for ways to improve it. Always having bandages (&c) so you can treat the wounded is easy, but for me it hasn't translated into much of a stat increase. Deliberately drawing out missions that could be finished in four turns, just for the morale checks, feels silly. Yet here we are. Had I known about rope earlier, I would certainly have given it a try.
Back to topic: while you give the Blackmarch SMG a solid A rating, your description is not exactly an endorsement. For me, it's one of my favorite weapons (or at least used to be). More powerful cartridge than the RCF carbine though no AP bonus, much faster, but ultimately limited range. I've used it as a plinking gun, snapshots rather than autofire, as I feel that this yields more hits per TU; also, there's a decent chance that one hit will be enough. Four snapshots (or two aimed) with a comfortable 20% TU to spare.
The only clear benefit of the carbine in that comparison is it's truly unlimited range. Well, and that even a rookie soldier can get off an highly accurate shot.
The Assault SMG is even faster and more accurate, but the Blackmarch delivers 20% more buck with each bang, and that's really quite noticeable. Like Assault Pistol vs Manstopper.
Bravery is important and you shouldn't ignore it. But that doesn't mean, that you need to go out of your way to train it. Your soldiers are getting wounded often enough. Just have healing things that actually trains bravery (I'm looking at you X-Grog!)
You are actually getting even penalized for drawing out missions because of Glamor. It is, like you said, silly and not worth the time.
The reasons why I like the RCF more:
- Its cheap
- You can buy it quickly
- Its accurate
- It ignores 25%! of the armor
In my experience the RCF is killing ninjas with much more ease, than the SMG's.
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- It ignores 25%! of the armor
Don't underestimate the worth of sheer power. Ninja Gals are at the breakeven point where either weapon does about the same damage per round. Any more armor and the RCF is, let's say, not quite as inadequate.
IMO, the accuracy only matters for rookies. A good shoot with 100+ accuracy will benefit more from getting off two aimed rounds rather than one; what does matter, though, is the RCF's truly unlimited range. Using the BM-SMG beyond something like 30-40 tiles is frustrating even for the best marksman.
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@eharper: I think it would be worth mentioning that the Mini-Cougar is a single-handed weapon.
Seen as a main weapon, I totally agree with your lukewarm assessment. What makes it unusual is that you can pull it from the QD slot and wield it in one hand.
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The mini-cougar is literally the best 1x2 sidearm in the game, direct upgrade to (and manufactured from) the smartpistol. Death Blossom beats it out in terms of one-handed SMG damage, but the blossom can be a bit awkward to store in inventory.
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Oh is it? Don't think I got to test it very long before I went on hiatus for that campaign. But it does still have an A-Ranking on the sheet.
Generally, my pistoleers favoured revolver types for impact and SMG users were mostly Gnomes for me, who get most mileage out of a Linux Origami.
Don't think I'd usually keep a sidearm on anyone unless I just had loads of weight spare (or it was a rare Rocketeer gal), but I guess there's indeed some use in that function.
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Don't think I'd usually keep a sidearm on anyone unless I just had loads of weight spare (or it was a rare Rocketeer gal), but I guess there's indeed some use in that function.
"I guess there is" -- yeah, me too. I guess there is, there has to be. It's not hard to imagine the circumstances, after all. Heck, I've personally experienced these circumstances, and not only once. Yet still: in the loadout screen, I always pick something else.
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...(or it was a rare Rocketeer gal)...
A rare Rocketeer? If it isn't a mission where I know that I can stun everyone, there will be at least one Rocketeer Gal in my squad. :D
There you can see again, that everyone is playing different and there can be no answer for everything.
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Rocketeer gal? Rare? Whatever happened to "Don't leave the base without an RPG"? Don't be stingy with those explosives, try to cause at least two booms every deployment!