OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => XPiratez => Topic started by: legionof1 on April 07, 2016, 02:45:07 pm
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So been really enjoying the mod so far, however after surviving for around 2.5 game years i have hit what feels like a severe impass. I have actually exhausted my available research options but for the occasional captured foe.
I lack the means to shoot down anything above medium targets(excepting freighters) in a cost effective manner. I lack laser, plasma, and Gauss weapons but for what i scavenge which has been extremely limited.
I have actually fairly high number of plasma type weapons lying around from standing off a reticulan base attack but cant research or use them.
I have also been suffering in the funding department all game and it has been exceedingly slow going getting coverage.
Ive also had very limited encounters with some factions which may be part of my problem. Ive seen probably less then 10 academy, church, or spartan ships in 300+ contacts. Raiders less then 30. Smattering of humanist.
On the other hand ive got reticulans, star gods, and traders coming out my ears. The star god ships are still out of reach in the air and the ground situation is pretty bad as well unless i resort to overwhelming levels of explosives which leaves very little behind. All my star god ground battles have been in jungle or heavy forest so explosion spam tends lead to fires hindering rapid progress and magnifying the morale problem. (Stand in fire or get seen and mind controlled). Every single one ive ventured so far has ending up aborting.
Also what gives with the grey robed star god units and missing more then 100% accuracy gun shots. And cat girls not existing for melee in diagonals to their facing. And really funky sight lines although i guess that's kinda intentional. Also i guess cat girls are more or less immune to stun since ive had ten gals beating on one with stun sticks to no effect. Single bullet on other hand.....
Armor is also an issue since nothing i can produce feels worth the TU penalty or the production time investment(need time for grog production to stay solvent most months) when anything i can bring down is almost a cake walk in outfit gear. So gals in guerilla outfits is what i have. Got battle rifles with PS ammo and long bows in support. Quality Grenades are relatively expensive since my chemical supplies are almost entirely tied up in craft missile production and im about to use up the last of my scrap piles so even that use may dry up.
Keeping rating up so far but at the mercy of what flies by has lead to some very close to failure months(about 1 in 3).
What should i do??? Do i risk everything and throw everything i have at a difficult target and risk wiping myself out either with casualties or to many expended items leading to lack of crucial supplies at some later juncture. Wait around until rng drops what i need in my lap??? Any ideas what tech im missing to produce laser weapons? what targets do i hunt?
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A save might be helpful.
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Great report. I've never made it as far in the game as you have, so I don't have any direct guidance or help I can offer with how to pull out of the vortex you seem caught in.
Live captives are important. There is a published table now with every research topic that each prisoner can give you available through a link on the Bootypedia Research page:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Research_(Piratez) (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Research_(Piratez))
Also what gives with the grey robed star god units and missing more then 100% accuracy gun shots. And cat girls not existing for melee in diagonals to their facing. And really funky sight lines although i guess that's kinda intentional. Also i guess cat girls are more or less immune to stun since ive had ten gals beating on one with stun sticks to no effect. Single bullet on other hand.....
Your encounter with Stargods and Catgirls is demonstrating an exploit used to make these units hard to spot and target. The game uses LOFTs to define target surfaces, and certain settings can render them completely invisible, or only visible from certain directions. A shot can only land if the target can be spotted, so shooting from other angles passes right through. Melee seems quite challenging too, with these units and may not be possible at all. What does work is area of effect weapons. Explosives as you noted, etc. I've not dealt with Star Gods, but catgirls are sensitive to smoke, and respond rather well to a couple of tear gas canisters. Stun Grenades and knock out grenades work well too, but may need more than one. Aye-Phones (motion detectors) help spotting these units.
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You need a few key topics in research to progress to advanced mid-game:
- Cybernetic Interface
- Chemistry
- Superconductive Circuits
- Surgery Room
Do you have them?
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Well after relenting(not knowing is part of the fun) and resorting to the tech tree viewer at some length i find that my problem is in fact that i have had next to no academy ships appear and therefore no chance to get a academy engineer. Therefore no laser tech, and many things from there Also i have apparently managed to go a huge amount of time without diplomacy because no mutant p to make a pillow book. Anyone know a reliable way to get some?
So yay holding pattern till rng graces me with an academy engi. Don't think i've even seen one this run.
Edit 1
In other news the scrap piles are now gone and intercepts options are now a luxury. Back to tailing shit half way around the world.
Edit 2
Oh yay another base attack. Wtf do we have a sewer/cavern level with connections to every single constructed tile if something goes down there your defensive base building means exactly dick. 3 levels to defend and the caverns have to many connections to watch at once if something goes there in the first turn its gone till it pops up somewhere else.
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Ugh Academy Engineer only? OK that's stupid. Replacing that prerequisite with any engineer.
Base attacks are intended to be hard else people just farm them for easy $$$ and experience. Be careful with shooting stuff down to avoid getting attacked, although so far into the game, the Crackdowns will be happening anyway. Unless you're not up for a maximum challenge, I'd advise restarting.
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no mutant p*** to make a pillow book. Anyone know a reliable way to get some?
Well, you happen to lead an all-female-crew in various states of undress, so go fetch a camera and I'm sure we'll find some way ;D
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Well, you happen to lead an all-female-crew in various states of undress, so go fetch a camera and I'm sure we'll find some way ;D
And it's not really a joke. :)
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Base defense has been mostly a time consumed problem rather then a true threat since I've opted to compensate for neglible fixed defense with mass fire power. The hangers and lift usually go boom and most potential loot. This does however mean every Tom dick and torpedo lands. So frequency... :'(
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Base attacks are intended to be hard else people just farm them for easy $$$ and experience. Be careful with shooting stuff down to avoid getting attacked, although so far into the game, the Crackdowns will be happening anyway. Unless you're not up for a maximum challenge, I'd advise restarting.
One suggestion:
Could the default crackdowns starting in the second year be removed completely.
The increasing number of base defenses made sense in UFO, because you should hurry to stop an alien invasion and feel that time is running out. However, in PirateZ there is no need for time pressure. If you keep a low profile and do not shoot down anything there should not be retaliation. On the other hand, the more shipping you shoot down the more retaliations you get is fine (already implemented).
Like in the above post described, in PirateZ you can get stucked easily by bad luck and lose some months, but there is no need to punish the player for that.
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Yeah well, how can I tell if the player is keeping a low profile? And with hundreds of kills and dozens of landed ships looted and Pogroms thwarted, does it still count as 'low profile'? Let's not kid ourselves. So I decided that if the player survived till late Year 2 (this depends on diff level), he'll be widely known and thus targeted.
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Base Defense is annoying more than hard, give everyone a healing item, take up a roof, then its a ladder game in the sewers.
For midgame it farms the most heavy power couplings.
If its hard its because of the Sewers taking 80+ turns to find one scout drone instead of being normally hard. It also is more likely to cause lag due to the larger size of the maps since the sewers make a new floor with data on them as opposed to roofs which only connect zones.
I just don't like that its hard to prevent base attacks because of the tediuos sewers. You either need to have a sucky base, or get lucky with a sabre.
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Academy Provosts, and Engineers need to be captured, and then captured again to be interrogated. Some of these need a bit of base attack/defense farming.
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Well, you happen to lead an all-female-crew in various states of undress, so go fetch a camera and I'm sure we'll find some way ;D
I request the option to produce my own mutant p*** to make money!
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Yeah well, how can I tell if the player is keeping a low profile? And with hundreds of kills and dozens of landed ships looted and Pogroms thwarted, does it still count as 'low profile'? Let's not kid ourselves. So I decided that if the player survived till late Year 2 (this depends on diff level), he'll be widely known and thus targeted.
You could use the accumulated monthly rating and if it's above a certain value, the attacks start. There is a graph for that so that number should be available.
To prevent the farming with base defences: could the troop deployment be changed to have more/only units that give no loot? Terror units that explode on death for example.
Exploding suicide robots come to mind... Anyone here played System Shock 2? Remember the exploding protocol droids?
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I request the option to produce my own mutant p*** to make money!
Sounds like you need Pimpcraft:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Manufacturing_(Piratez)#Merchandise (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Manufacturing_(Piratez)#Merchandise)
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Sounds like you need Pimpcraft:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Manufacturing_(Piratez)#Merchandise (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Manufacturing_(Piratez)#Merchandise)
I see this is already taken care of 8)
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Mutant porn isn't a good source of money is it?
Ah you mean pimping. With the mint its a great way to get some money. If you don't mind a little less inventory space.
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You could use the accumulated monthly rating and if it's above a certain value, the attacks start. There is a graph for that so that number should be available.
To prevent the farming with base defences: could the troop deployment be changed to have more/only units that give no loot? Terror units that explode on death for example.
Exploding suicide robots come to mind... Anyone here played System Shock 2? Remember the exploding protocol droids?
Like I was a coder, lol. I can only work with what engine I have. And this is too intricate for negligible gains. Play lower diff levels and build up faster.
Also, sadly, suicide droids are impossible ATM. Could use droids with primed explosives maybe. But the factions of this game generally use cheap humans/mutants instead of expensive droids (except the Academy).
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Update time the mutant p issue has resolved itself through finally getting access to self production. So yay glorious interrogations in my future. Still no academy engineer but hey snaged an esper so here come the vodoo.
Bad news is that 2 secret bases got built by the traders in the same month. This might be the death knell. Gona try to pull off some assaults and maybe i can stave off doom a while longer.
Edit 1
PARISE BE TO RNGEUS. academy engineer after nearly 3 years. Let's get this show on the road.
Edit 2
First base assault down even managed to snag the guild-master alive. Now to do the other guild base. Oh and church base has turned up in the mean time.
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Glad it's fixed to be any engineer with next version. The original/TFtD had some roadblocks like that, and it could stall you horribly.
In xpiratez, sometimes you hit the engy a little too hard with your stun weapon, and not see another for months. If it's any engineer for the research requirements, not just academy, problem fixed.
Thanks Dioxine! :)
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welp yay for more tech tree RNG blockage. Academy is still the fuckers in question. Specify needing to interrogate engineer to move forward in the laser field. Also apparently im missing advanced chemistry because ive never had a toxigun drop nor gotten lucky on other routes(to many things on data discs). Only ever seen ghouls once so...and they dont come on ships. So guess i actually start doing pogroms to try for wider enemy ranges. oh joy. Also still missing Pirate straits and eurasian autonmy so niether russian files or forgery. At this rate i might very well make cydonia with rifles. Got half the codes already. Incidentally tesla coil weapon holy hell i love it. I can stun big things and no ammo to boot.
Update
Yay progrom payed of even it did take 25 turns to finish because one guy hid in a stack of crates inside one of the tiny huts in the dockyard tileset. Apparently you can open the door to the hut visually revel every tile in it but not see a guy behind the crate stack. I frankly though it was bugged. Debug mode to the rescue. Turn out the dude was just not moving from his hiding spot. I think that spot is more then just visually glitchy. Also had a downed freighter with a single corpse in the rooms below the exploded engines yet the decking was intact.
Anyway advanced chem got done and with it school graduation was finally doable. The tech tree has opened up again. Oh and the humanists kindly donated me tank tech after 4.5 years. I was all worried when they hit me with the biggest base attack craft. Turns out the spawns gave almost all the high tier units as leaders and instructors which are pathetic even with plasma guns. Tanks also not much of a challenge at this point. Mercenaries have put up a base so now the final run is potentiality available. Though i still dont have a fogiest idea how i would manage the star god base that been in Madagascar since year one with vip alive.
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I've run into similar problems with the tech requirements. I've captured and interrogated everything that comes in up to medium sized ships to the point that I can't interrogate any more. All the "free research topics" are used up. And the only items that give me any more of those random ones are the humanist files. Except I've exhausted the academy engineers too. I've yet to come across AND capture the top tier units with the exception of a guildmaster, but the 2nd one captured doesn't give me a research topic for his code, despite the fact that I've researched The Solar Governor and had the game TELL ME to do that.
Idea? I mentioned this in my own post on the tech topic, but I'd like to reiterate here since it's a possible solution: Some tech should possibly be unlockable thru sheer numbers.
I have taken apart about 150 different laser guns. Of varying types. If my Brainers can't figure out how they work and how to make them after breaking them down DOZENS of times, they're all fired. And maybe tier it? So it takes X for laser tech, and 2X for gauss (though this may be a simpler technology, though 2X still makes sense since they seem to be higher dmg), and since Plasma is final tier (?) make it take 10X or maybe even not possible thru simple disassembling them?