OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => XPiratez => Topic started by: arbee81 on April 24, 2017, 04:17:34 am
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Hey everyone, I was hoping to get some tips on base management. In vanilla I would rarely expand much, usually just a manufacturing base and (maybe) a few radar outpost type bases. The far shallower tech and item trees made it easy to just stick a few soldiers in for defense with some laser weapons (or just leave them unmanned). I could usually get everything I needed from activity around the main base or from terror/base missions, so I rarely even bothered with a secondary squad, but it's become obvious that ain't gonna work here.
What usually happens is I'll make a new hideout, buy 10 or so hands for defense, but then I always get tripped up by equipping them. Most of the good stuff I can make or buy they're not able to use because it's too heavy or their skill is too low to make good use of it. Add to that the wealth of different armors and melee and throwing being actually relevant now and I just find myself getting overwhelmed with trying to manage it all. I opted for low-weight/high-accuracy carbines and pistols, and nearly lost to a ratman retaliation. I had to resort to panzerfaust spam in the end. It was embarrassing!
I'm trying to figure out if it's better to transfer a few good girls from my main base to the others to act as aces in the hole for defense, or if I should start trying to build up those defense hands with some of the easier missions. I don't really want to dillute my main squad by shipping the good ones away, but maintaining multiple squads just seems like even more of a logistical nightmare. And it leads to the next problem I'm facing:
I'm starting to run into cash flow issues. I thought I had a good handle on the economic portion of the game, but I find I'm mostly just breaking even with the bases I have, and it's a challenge to put together the funds to expand them or upgrade gear/craft. I think part of it is I haven't made the secondary production base beefy enough, and I also tend to horde things. I think "I'll save those for a rainy day", but then the day is never "rainy" enough. I always think I can squeek by without dipping into the horde. I'm going to try to work on that stuff on my own, but in the meantime any advice on managing so many bases would be welcome.
Also, speaking of bases, I'm not quite done with year 2 and appear to have a star god base. Is that normal or am I just lucky in the bad way? I went to take a peak at it and found sectopods and what looked like ethereals in red robes called Star God Guardians, and promptly GTFO'd.
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Welcome to the wonderful dilemas of PirateZ!
Yes you are luck in the nasty RNG way for getting such an early StarGod Base. Easier might have been academy or guild. Best to just leave it alone to late game.
Now your overall question is pretty deep but I'll throw some ideas out.
My first base has the Only Lab you are likely to ever get in the game. Therefore it kinda makes sense for that first base to be a primary research base. I double it up as my main assault base as so much of research depends on interrogating prisoners for the first couple years. I'm in April 2602 and have 2 prisons, workshop space for 90 runts, 16 brainers and about 18 gals based here. I use the runts to make weapons/armor/ammo, and when not on a project like that they are making med supplies for cash. I've got lots of workers and slaves to make up for not building vaults. I have two hangars, on for my Menace Class and one for a Jetbike to do ID on contacts and take down civilian shipping.
My second base is built to make cash and ships. 2 hangars. One with an interceptor that I will shift out while building other craft. I do have a second strike team here, geared up for hot environs and undersea missions as all are wearing Chiller suits. Lots of underwater weapons on the craft but also some shotguns etc for overland missions. This B-Team is for helping train up replacements for the A-team. They can also provide some core defenses to bases during crackdowns. Both bases have a couple dojos for passive training. I have about 190 runts here making X-Grog here for 3+ million per month. With my monthly expenses at about $5 million and income around $1 million, this goes a long way toward making up the expenses of my operation. Income from sales during idle periods at the main base, plus the monthly bonus keep us even or a bit over.
I have also thrown out 3 more bases for radar coverage. I have 70% of the land masses covered, and am waiting for my Hyperwave Decoder project to finish so I can get some good intelligence on what is going on out there. I'll drop two more bases for coverage on the poles and need to get coverage on South Africa at some point.
After Hyperwave Decoders, I need to build out another cash generating base. Workshops and barracks are good enough with one money facility (still, mint, etc) until I can get Printers and Factories. By end game I'll probably have 3 Factory Bases, and printers in two others.
Another consideration is a secondary research base. Here is an example of a research base that I have used in the past. https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Research_(Piratez)#Research_Base Realistically, you may only need to build to a capacity of 20 extra brainers, and if you do, you will probably end up idling them at some point. I'm not convinced this is critical for campaign completion but is an option to consider. There are some other interesting configurations here: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Hideouts_(Piratez) (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Hideouts_(Piratez))
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For base defense, there are two things you need: A weapon designed to take down power armor - like a recoiless rifle early game - and then standard weapons that can take down everything else. If you're facing mercs, early on... Well... Cutting damage is always good.
There is a good chance any invader is going to be able to kill you in one shot, pretty much all the way until late game, so focus on armor that will boost your combat ability.
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Hey guys. Poet, I'm watching your LP now, I'm about 30 episodes from live, and Ivan, I've seen you commenting on all sorts of xcom vids. Small world, huh?
Ivan, your advice is very helpful, thank you. It confirms what thought, which is my production base is just too small. I have 110 runts total there, which is enough for money OR gear, but not both. Do you staff the radar bases?
I've recently unlocked the dojo, but I'm wiped out on cash from starting a mint and putting in a few decoders. I was thinking that I need 3 production bases. One just for money, one for gal gear, and one for craft and their armaments. Just seems daunting trying to manage and defend all that, but then again that's half the fun, right?
The star god base is actually the third base. I had a trader base that I (if I'm being honest) save scummed my way through, and they set up another one. I'm waiting until I have some better gear and gals before trying that one so I can do it right.
Poet, thanks for confirming my basic approach to the defense is good, I think I just need better hands. Even with a smartrifle their accuracy was terrible. I'll prioritize the dojos, shift some gals around, and start on a second team. I think I need to slow down a bit too. One thing I've noticed from your LP and others is that I'm too reckless
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2 and 1/2 bases devoted to production is about right. Though i tend to divide up the "1" base devoted to money making among the tracking bases. Having them do something even if it is just a still or a chem refinery, is far better then just being a vision post. Also slightly more resilient to being attacked in early to mid game period when you cant really afford defenses/garrisons. Leaving them unguarded and then losing them is less painful since its only a fraction of the total income engine.
You do need to devote one entire base to gear/craft production simply because getting all the prerequisite structures to build everything takes up to many tiles do do anything else there at the same time. I tend to build this base with only a single hanger to more easily accommodate the eventual 3x3 factory building in a defensible layout.
Starting base ends up being my research and troop staging base. About 30 runts are here to process prisoners/loot.
I also specialize a base as a training facility/interceptor base with spas, voodoo schools, and ~4 hangers. Gals here get rotated through pilot duty using it to supplement normal training. Ship out to join the ground troops as needed/when maxed out on most training.
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I really like legionof1's approach, though I've never done that. Might try that a bit this campaign (Distributed manufacturing).
Poet gave great advice on the base weapons. I've been reluctant to hire defenders in all the bases due to the huge salary increase due to scaling (each officer is more expensive and all the security troops would add more officers). "Slave Soldiers" are supposed to be a cheap alternative, and I may throw a few out there. Maybe 10 per Radar base just to fight rats. That said though, I haven't been seriously bothered by rats. Recent waves I've just mowed down the slow expeditions for pilot training.
Once the Hyperwave Decoder is up, the player has a lot more strategic flexibility. You can see crackdown waves scout for you base. You can shift your B-team over there, etc. The easiest way is to Transfer an entire vessel over with crew/weapons etc. You can even do an "In Air Transfer" where you launch the craft to patrol, then transfer it (in your base interface), then tell it to return to hideout. That may be faster. Just need to have enough stores/barracks etc.
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I really like the idea of having a ship dedicated to a rapid response hideout defense team - I wish I'd thought of that. If you build new bases with always hangar + hyperwave decoder + barracks + storage space at the very least, then you only need to outfit base defenders once, and just keep that team's gear up to date. Or even a hybrid system where you keep some auxiliary units at each base with a few gals training in the dojo with basic rifles/armor, and let the rapid response team carry the melee beasts and heavy weapons. You just need to be attentive to your radar screens and have a fairly fast transport - the Deliverator or Drakkar would be perfect for that.
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And where do you plaece your bases? Any hints for "minimum bases to maximum land coverage without gaps"?
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I wouldn't worry too much about base placement as long as you don't have huge radar overlaps - 8 bases is plenty to cover practically everywhere but the middle of the pacific ocean, and you can get spy zeppelins to cover the gaps.
I usually place my first three bases in Europe along the Mediterranean, in the Central US, and in Southeast Asia, then just fill in around the edges as I see fit.
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Do the slave soldiers get any good? I was intrigued by them, spent a while building one up but he was still worse than even a starting gal. After he got killed I haven't really bothered except for the superhero costumes. Maybe I'll get a few for each base to use as suicide bombers
I also like that idea of a fast response base defense group. I definitely need to focus on building up my workshops more. Currently it's hard enough to keep one group outfitted and still pay the bills. I'm looking forward to the challenge, though
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The slave soldiers only standout features are low upkeep cost, and slightly higher maximum psi STR, 70ish vs 60ish i dont recall the exact values. Beyond that they are weaker then a gal. However there outfits are actually better then 85% of the gals options in terms of heat/cold resist. I could see a batch of slaves setup to handle things like warehouses/temples and monster hunts in the mid game to take time pressure of the A team.
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With manufacture, the more the better. Every runt should be a money maker. One base should have Factory and enough living space for 350 runts. That base alone can churn out almost 40mil/month, even if you just buy the plastasteel. The downer about factory is it has no printer and printer is critical for most advanced ammo and such. So for my other bases, I prefer to have printer, extractor, refinery and several workshops. Not as large a runt capacity but far more versatile. My present game I got around 600 runts plugging away.
Military-wise, eventually you may want to have a dedicated base with spa, surgery, mess hall, med bay and 3 or so voodoo schools as main assault team base, and leave original base as pure research/manufacture with only a defense crew. I like to field 3 assault teams, and when a gal gets to max stats, rotate them out to other locations. Those with 120 firing and high reactions get fighter pilot duty.
In recap: one insane manufacture base with factory and 350 runts. Original heavy research base with 30+ brainers. One main assault team base with max heal boost and training. One fighter base with 3-4 hangars. Any spare space dedicated to manufacture with some secondary research.
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BTW, battletank m1 has the same $/hr as m1a if you buy the plastasteel, so there's no need to fuss around with buying stuff. also, upgrading to luxury barracks allows you to fit 520 runts into the base and will shoot down most crackdown ships.
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Are there buildings you need for research, that are not obviously research buildings?
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Many cultural things (i.e. persuasion) need Mess Hall. A fair number need Library. Some hacking research (disks) needs either cpu core or your original lab. Only one (Blood of Life) needs either surgery or original lab. And a few techs specifically need cpu core.
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I did a recent update of the Function Table adding in the Mess hall etc here:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Facilities_(Piratez)#Function_Table
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Hey everyone, I was hoping to get some tips on base management.
In vanilla I do everything in my first base, all the research, all the manufacturing, etc etc. I set up additional bases as Storage Facilities to hold all the crap that ive got piling up, whether its alien alloys or e115. And I make them double as radar outposts too.
In piratez I was forced to make a second and a third base for manufacturing. My secondary has an industrial printer. My third has a factory.
My first one doesnt have anything special but since its the place I launch attacks from I need on-demand manufacturing without a shipping delay. Also since its my research facility due to the unmovable Laboratory I need my prisoners there too, so thats the only place ive got a prison (I eventually built a second prison cells building due to wanting to capitalize on slaves).
In piratez I was forced to upgrade my storage facility bases with a few extractors and about 30-50 runts each. And all they do is mine Hellerium. Because late game you're going to need at least 25,000 Hellerium racked up and probably more in order to have constructed the 500+ Hellerium Fuel Cells necessary to build the endgame ship (I say more because it probably needs extra hellerium to boot, and also because hovertanks require fuel cells to build and they're worth it).
Usually bases like these are stocked full of Power Stations so that they make money for me just sitting there, but since ive got runts mining hellerium and making no money on their own it offsets it.
Note: if you have alot of Hands you need to either get them killed off in suicidal charges (blaze of glory as it were) or just sack them, a few revisions ago salary bonuses were instituted for hands and the ability to demote their rank was removed (from the engine itself).
TL/DR the higher their rank the more they're draining your pocket dry arbitrarily. Keep your number of hands Low and kill off the senior officers so that way they don't start charging you like 100,000 or 400,000 per month.
You should never have more than about 15 hands at the primary base, and no more than 3 at radar outposts (supplement their combat ability with tanks, and base construction with those fire pit structures). If you dont keep them under thumb they'll bleed your operation dry, the brainers already eat up too much as it stands.
(in my personal modded version I got rid of most of the salary increases, they just go up to about +40K per month tops. Plus I made brainers cost 25K salary like vanilla)
BTW, battletank m1 has the same $/hr as m1a if you buy the plastasteel, so there's no need to fuss around with buying stuff.
Why buy plastasteel when you can make it?
My secondary base has the printer and the mint. Just about all they do there is either counterfietting chips, or doing Scrap Metal + Chems = Plastasteel.
Then they ship the plastasteel to the base where the factory is, and it gets used to manufacture the battle tanks.
Otherwise I typically have a big surplus of it flowing in from attacks, it often makes me have to ship it away from my primary base, so fabricating plastasteel in addition to that - the Battle Tank manufacturing gives me somewhere to invest that plastasteel into without simply selling it (though I realized that Boom Gun ammo is also rather profitable to put it into also).
And where do you plaece your bases? Any hints for "minimum bases to maximum land coverage without gaps"?
Pictures related. Though ive got 7 bases, two of them are bargain basement and dont have hangars. My first base was setup smack dab in the middle of Europe.
Also I HIGHLY encourage you to do the following things for game start:
* Sell your standard radar so you fly blind for the first few months. You'll be able to advance well enough from popped missions anyway. Even though you could follow ships to landing spots its rare that any of them land, so its no benefit to you to track ships until you can shoot them down. That starting radar system will give you I think ~300,000 bucks to work with at the earliest part of the game where it is dreadfully needed.
* Temple maps are money hauls, even into the start of late game. If you club/harpoon everybody like you're supposed to - you can net probably 500-700K per mission, but you're going to make less than that because you're going to want to interrogate as many of them as possible until their tech options dry up. That's how in early 2604 I ran out of data disk topics. NEVER KILL SHARP GUYS, they're 40k and barely armed.
* Reticulan Plasma Charger is the best starting aircraft gun, you can shoot down civilian traffic without blowing it up (ive only seen this happen once maybe?). You go in and club/harpoon civilians and ransom them, especially Sharp Guys. Later on Charger Laser is ideal but its harder to get to than it used to be. Gauss Cannons are the serious anti-ship weapon and you can get those long (long) before you're able to actually use gauss on the ground.
* Dont build radar AT ALL (anywhere) until you have Overcharged radar, and even then only at your primary attacking base. Between Missions and whatever crosses that radar that you can chase it will "do well enough" because of its wide spread. The radar that the "outpost" facility has is pitiful but if you have a craft at those radar bases it still allows you to go right after someone vulnerable who gets too close, I could care less whether it had radar or not, I just like that it has lodging and space to provide base assault defense without me having to make a barracks and vaults.
* rush Hyper Wave Decoder tech, and feel free to build THOSE in all your bases. Thats why you dont want to waste money outfitting bases with dedicated radar systems, its money that will be tied up until you eventually sell them because you got your HWD up and running (early game, first year, you do not want money tied up in things, Power Stations are the only exception id make). And I got mine going rather early into midgame, I forget when but I had HWDs in 2602 without a problem.
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First thing I did last night was transfer some good gals to my production base, made a few slave soldiers and bought bombs for them and got some attack dogs. Good thing too, because not a day later a spartan crackdown ship starts looking for that base. They would have decimated that base before, now it has a fighting chance.
Thanks for the tips, Scorrpio. Much of that is still unavailable to me, but it's helpful to know how others approach these problems. Having the main strike team separate from the main base just seems... wrong somehow, but I see the logic. Main base is already getting cramped and I know I have a long way to go
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Having the main strike team separate from the main base just seems... wrong somehow, but I see the logic.
It means you're going to have to do ALOT of shipping, of everything that is research noteworthy, and you're going to have to keep a close eye on your base stores and end/mission loot/sell for anything you picked up that's research worthy. You could end up missing something that even gets sold that you didn't know you needed to research.
Keeping your attack force at your research base means anything you picked up - right away go check the research menu and see if your research options changed. Sometimes research prereqs pop even if you just get an item, without researching it and that would change no matter where you had the stuff (item which has 0 research cost, no ufopedia entry, has needsItem: true, and Gives One Free).
But otherwise keeping the attack force at your initial base is sorta essential unless you want to 2x increase the micromanagement hassle. Also those Shipping Costs add up eventually.
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That radar idea is interesting, though you do get those easy academy landings the first few months, and I've had a few random missions with landings that really paid off well before I had any better radar options. Not consistent or reliable though.
I couldn't hack it with so few gals. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but on anything but those civvy ship raids I rarely walk away without at least one gal injured, and those injury times are long before you get proper healing facilities
How do you get reticulan plasma chargers early? I'm just starting to see reticulans now at the end of the second year and they're a handful for the trained gals with decent weapons. Or is this what you meant?
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In piratez I was forced to upgrade my storage facility bases with a few extractors and about 30-50 runts each. And all they do is mine Hellerium. Because late game you're going to need at least 25,000 Hellerium racked up and probably more in order to have constructed the 500+ Hellerium Fuel Cells
That is an insanely inefficient use of runts.
A single runt assigned to hellerium takes 750 hours and $100 to produce an item that can be bought outright for 20k.
Or, for comparison, make that 1500 hours and $200 to make 2 Hellerium ($40k to buy)
Same runt assigned to make plastasteel:
Single batch is 1500 hours, 50k cost, 25k for chems, 6.25k for scrap. Sell value at 4.5k * 50 = 225k, or almost 144k profit.
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That is an insanely inefficient use of runts.
A single runt assigned to hellerium takes 750 hours and $100 to produce an item that can be bought outright for 20k.
Or, for comparison, make that 1500 hours and $200 to make 2 Hellerium ($40k to buy)
Same runt assigned to make plastasteel:
Single batch is 1500 hours, 50k cost, 25k for chems, 6.25k for scrap. Sell value at 4.5k * 50 = 225k, or almost 144k profit.
meh, I modded it - 1000 hrs and produces 5 units per thing
forgot about that, guess thats a strategy that only works for me then
though now I see what you're getting at
(while im at it I really need to get to pulling out the hellerium from all those lasclips ive got)
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meh, I modded it - forgot about that, guess thats a strategy that only works for me then
@RSSwizard:
Wow. That will completely skew your perspectives, and makes a lot of your advice suspect.
Any chance you might abandon your mods and play the game as designed?
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At least he freely admits the cases where he does personal modifications when it's relevant to the discussion.
I've muddled with hellirium myself to speed up the end game cause i don't feel like grinding "treading water" score while i process 250k hellrium. As good as this is to play another ~100 hours after i know i will win without fail is not something i care to do. I might not run the modification all campaign, but can anyone here say they have never used debug to find that last foe ever? Even Merdian was technically modding the game for his own enjoyment how many times during his LP? Even if those changes got incorporated later, that was still editing the mod.
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The end game grind for hellerium shouldn't take you ~100 hours if you've built up some industry, just however long it'd take your factories to pump out 500 million dolaros worth of battle tanks or whatever you prefer - took me only 8 in-game months of mostly skipping missions and shooting down crackdown craft for fun/score, and that wasn't all-out moneymaking either. The score bonus means you could probably do it even a bit faster if you didn't want to skip missions. If you recast it as a challenge of your moneymaking enterprise and not a tedious minigame, then it becomes much less of a chore.
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Sure but at least for my part i like to proceed directly to final mission once i know i have won, not faff about half a year plus. The content options of a given playthrough are explored i want that to be the end. All it takes is one significant error for a critical base to go by bye setting progress back alot. By that point in play i'm prone to making those types of errors from inattention to detail.
The end of Player engagement and the end of the game need to happen at the same time. Right now at least for me they don't. Hence i mod the mod.
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All is fine with modding to skip problems created by the game being quite unfinished. Modding to get direct buffs and extreme savescumming are another thing. But it's good RSS Wizard admits it, since it informs me that his musings on improving this or that are worthless for me.
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My base setup by the end of second year is
1. Main base for attack (~30 best gals, 1hangar), research and some minor crafting (mostly processing whatever strike team collects).
2. Main craft base with couple of hangars. I use it for making aircrafts and everything else that I'm going to use myself.
3. Rookie base with a Spa where I recruit, filter and train new recruits. They sometimes fly on missions with lower-tier enemies.
Other 5 bases are pure money-making crafting, interceptors and radars. Maybe with some garrison in case of crackdown.
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My base setup by the end of second year is
1. Main base for attack (~30 best gals, 1hangar), research and some minor crafting (mostly processing whatever strike team collects).
2. Main craft base with couple of hangars. I use it for making aircrafts and everything else that I'm going to use myself.
3. Rookie base with a Spa where I recruit, filter and train new recruits. They sometimes fly on missions with lower-tier enemies.
Other 5 bases are pure money-making crafting, interceptors and radars. Maybe with some garrison in case of crackdown.
Isn't a setup of 2x dojo and 10 hands better? Add some dogs and/or Sentryrocket-turrets to the garrison.
Unless spawnpoints are total garbage, you can decimate the intruders with the turret quite easy.
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The turret is some what poor in base defense even if it spawns well. 3 way points is not sufficient to allow it to influence a different floor from it spawn position. And a lot of the normal HWP spawn points are behind auto close hatches.
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I'm finally turning my bad base habits around. Bulked up my main production base and a secondary money base with a still to churn through apples.
Added a few radar/intercept bases and decided on 5 decent hands, 5 suicide slave troops, 10 dogs, and one hwp if possible for defense. Probably overkill, and still working on actually putting all that together, but I think I've got a fighting chance now.
And of course, there hasn't been even a whiff of a crackdown since
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Has anyone tried Fire Pits and Gas Chambers? Are they efficient? Are they fun?
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They are unfortunately somewhat situational at best. In the case of the gas chamber stargods, dark ones, and power armor the damage is nullified often leaving the player at a vision disadvantage from the smoke. Similar case with fire resistant mobs for the fire pit, although that resist is more rare.
Without good Thermal vision you put your self at a vision disadvantage against almost all factions. Prior to thermal vision they both where much better. As it is now i would never build either.
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Any way we could research CCTV and get visual on the whole base. Guess if we can figure that out, might be fair for the computer to get some access too, in their bases,, and that might cause base attacks to be harder.
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If we were to get CCTV, we can also give it to the interior of UFOs if they are landed and disable them if they crashed. Also there is the possibility of outside cameras on your/their craft giving vision to the vicinity. The possibilities...
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For bases, I'd probably require an actual room to get benefit, if possible, a requirement of someone physically being in the room, and whichever side had control of that room can see pretty much every major area, security cameras in the sewers are likely to have a spotty coverage.
Still powered larger UFOs could have a security room, where if you can clear and control, you could see the rooms of that UFO. This could also go with internal lights going out if the reactor goes, and emergency lights for fun.
Invisible units probably would just show up as dots on your map though, unless you got actual visuals.
This is assuming any of those are possible.
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Fire pits are bad - I tested them on stream. While the fire is nice, after one bombs goes odd, the AI doesn't want to path through it so it forces enemies into the sewers - significantly prolonging the fight. It sort of negates the whole purpose of having a trapped choke-point in the first place. I assume the gas would be better though, since it doesn't screw with pathing.
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No it doesn't screw pathing, but the number of factions/units that mostly ignore daze damage is quite high and if one bomb goes off you have a smoke cloud filling an entire base tile. An lo and behold the same guys that ignore the damage have either sense or 60% thermal vision. So against the most threatening factions your shooing yourself in the foot.
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Sounds like the player needs 'other' ways to bottleneck invaders.
Firepits are not that great to a degree but gas chambers do wonders to stop enemies inside the sewers.
I would like to have a building that deploys 1 defensive unit (turret) to help defending your base.
Stuff like this:
Maschinegun-Pit = Turret with heavy maschinegun (just like the carryable item but can shot 2x a turn)
Rocketlauncher-Bunker = Adds 150 defense value with 90% hitchance. Can shot HE Rockets just like the sentryrocket-turret but with less power, more area effect and no waypoints.
Laser-Gatling Defense = Adds 250 defense value with 100% hitchance. Can shot laser like the fatty but more powerful and 2x a turn.
Bomblauncher-Pod = No defense value but this thing can shot a blaster launcher 'rocket' OR a stunbomb like the items and with no power-loss over the distance travelled.
The 'map' for those facilities has to be like this:
The deployed item 2x2 has to be in the middle of the 'building', small and 'narrow' walls stops it from moving so it can get more than 3 TU's for turning and firing.
It's kind of a variation of the basic corridor-tile but no ladders to climp and open connections to the adjusted tiles.
The frontplate has to be strong enough to soak up damage (to a degree since 99% of crackdowns uses plasma weaponry only)
Sides and rear weaker and the HP pool should be 100+.
The tile could have 1-2 spawnpoints for hands.
Stuff like living space and storage space can be added if needed.
Thoughts?
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Has anyone tried Fire Pits and Gas Chambers? Are they efficient? Are they fun?
If you call 'fun' that this basetile will 'shot' on your own soldiers, I guess not.
Firepit does quite some base-dmg for burn-type but the gas chamber is better in most cases. Sadly the smoke-screen the gas chamber creates stops your vision. Maybe the smoke-fix of the current patch has solved the issues with camo-smoked targets.
If you place a trap, you have to leave a 'save' passage in your hideout construction if you go for cleaning the remaining forces.
Otherwise you have to pass through your own firetraps and gasbombs.
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With both Firepits and GasTraps, the hidden bombs can be spotted using the mini-map. This makes it possible for the player to navigate through them to some degree.
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With both Firepits and GasTraps, the hidden bombs can be spotted using the mini-map. This makes it possible for the player to navigate through them to some degree.
To some degree :)
Try navigate through those 'traps' by using the vents or the sewers. You'll get hurt/stunned 100% of a time due to narrow passage ways.
Base Defense needs some work @ some day since RNG for unit deploys and missing feedback for the player where on the map the suicide flashbanger with a primed barrelbomb will spawn makes my experience with Hideout Defense a very bad time.
Every enemy faction spawns with a full arsenal of plasma weapons (1-shots your gals until decent armor available) and with a full set of "terror units".
They frequently use the sewers and taking ages to move to the next ladder and the player can't climb down into the sewer himself or garantees a situation where your hand fails to kill the foe with a reactionshot while his gun garantees a kill. The cost of TU's to move is too high. You can barely affort to move 2 tiles or run out of TU's for 2x snapshot.
Following Factions shouldn't be allowed to field plasma-weaponry at any stage in the game. Dark Ones, Humanists, Mercs, Provincial Govt., Raiders and Spartans.
All 'true' plasma weapons should be assigned to no one else than Academy, Traders, Church and Star Gods.
All other factions need thier own set of weapons to stop situations where Minor Factions kick your ass with weapons they never had access to before.
Only trusted personal with deep connections to the star gods should have the gift of using plasma weaponry and not a bunch of Raiders, Spartans and Nazis having these toys.
The guns are voodoo-locked so how are those goons able to fire them? Most of them can't even use proper laser guns but crackdown your turf with plasma scorchers and blaster launchers?!
In other news:
High-tech weaponry for those minor factions while fighting a crashsite cruiser/heavy gunship and other stuff can sport plasma weaponry and microwave cookers because:
If the player can shot down a cruiser/hv. gunship he will have the tools to fight the upcomming battle but a crackdown is something a player can't influence unless he has the technology to shotdown the sentry/fighter and rolls a 20 to avoid been spotted anyway
Plz fix OR give us real defensive base-buildings to fight the plasma-ownage and RNG-Unitdeploy. Samsites and flak-cannons could have a secondary usage for hideout defense other than failing to gundown assault-transporters and boarding torpedos.
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Complaints about hideout defense difficulty aside you will likely never get your request. Enemy equipment is determined by map/craft so all hideout defense are the same gear set because they are perfectly identical as a far as the engine cares. Actual terrain is pulled in from a separate piece of code. Same with units. It is presently an all or nothing setup.
To grant your request, at a minimum you looking at make a clone of hideout defenses setup code for every faction. So something like 20 copies, if the engine can even understand the copies at all which i strongly suspect it can't.
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So the least time-consuming solution could be better buildings that offer defensive tools like maschinegun nests / rocket towers and stuff.
My complains aren't pulled form thin air tho. If it's too much work to equip every faction accordingly, just give the player a better way to fight plasma-weaponry during times where the hideout can barely bring laserguns and chainmail/full-platemail at best to nullyfy plasma-dmg.
I bought quadlaunchers/chinese dragon for each hideout to even the odds.
I will try to use landmines/proxy mines in my future crackdowns to give feedback for this strategy.
I expect 1 bomb in the sewer and 1 bomb next to the door should give enough warning where the sewer-rats are crawling.
Just those vents tho... can't realy use bombs there with all the loot randomly chilling on the ground there...
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I find dragons a bit too difficult to use in base defense because the radius is so large. On normal maps it's easier to get the angle needed to not get caught in the blast(because square blast propagation). Bases have lots of straight lines of sight and the dragon radius is is almost exactly the size of the base from edge to edge.
To easy to kill yourself and still not clear a hanger or elevator, again due to blast propagation being square.
I tend to use panzerfausts instead. 120 base damage with 25% armor pen is usually sufficient for most things. The poor accurate range cap doesn't matter as much in bases closer quarters. Small aoe size is a bit a mixed blessing, your unlikely to blast yourself on a fumbled shot at close range but harder to hit multiple foes in the hanger areas.
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Already using panzerfaust with the stated benefits.
Blastradius indeed spreads extremely hard but it's the last straw I can grab against superior foes.
I can't be the only one having issues with hideout defense and the artificial difficulty spike with overpowered enemy weaponry.
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Alternate deployments for factions are possible, as long as they use their own craft for attack. If it's a Cruiser, well, then the defence will be against a Cruiser crew, with appropriate equipment.
I can't be the only one having issues with hideout defense and the artificial difficulty spike with overpowered enemy weaponry.
To be honest, I think you are.
Sure, these aren't the easiest missions around, they can be lost when extremely unlucky; but the amount of, let's be honest, whining from you is completely unjustified by the actual difficulty. I think base defence in Piratez is easier than in vanilla.
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KK, guess I'll just deal with it.
In regards of vanilla base defense. I found those much easier since it was easier to stack 3-4 hwp's in your base and several rookies for cannon fodder while the weaponry was on mostly equal terms with situations of laser VS plasma or plasma vs plasma.
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I defiantly concede that base defense is a tricky proposition for a much longer time period then vanilla. The gap of time where your floundering about with subpar tech is lengthy. You also never quite achieve parity in all aspects of combat(vision, armor, ect) at once compared to vanilla marginal superiority in all aspects.
Base defense remains a credible threat from start to finish, even if the vocal minority of us here on the boards dismiss the challenge. I don't think my hundreds of hours on this mod over the last year is a common level of experience. Plus fuck knows how many hours with the original/openxcom in the past 22 years(i feel old).
It's like expecting an Olympic marathoner to have a problem with a 2k run. Joe average will struggle while to the Olympian it the morning jog before breakfast. Different frame of reference, different viewpoints with neither necessarily objective.
Hell, there's probably less then 20 people with more then then bare handful of posts to the piratez forum. Vocal minority indeed.
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Piratez has a lack of predictability, especially for us who haven't played hundreds of hours of it.
This effectively translates into "difficulty".
I think base defence and many of the missions are wildly hard to gauge in terms of loadout and enemy positioning.
This can be fun, but I have to agree with legionof1.
I doubt the impression of veterans really reflect the experience of newbies.
As fun as this mod is, there are some very frustrating elements to it that are not easily adressed.
Things like base defence require a lot of experience to deal with and prepare for, and can set a player back a long time due to the loss of a base.
This doesn't ruin the game, but experience can possibly make it seem like less of a challenge than it actually is.
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I am aware of that, but despite reductions of difficulty in many places, this mod is aimed at veteran player. These reductions are less about making it more accessible as about making it less tense.
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So after starting this thread and getting all the great advice, I was able to get a better handle on the base management stuff. Expanded to global coverage, ramped up my manufacturing, shifted gals around to have some experienced ones at each base in case of a crackdown, worked out a standard base defense loadout, actually got it all manufactured and shipped out.
Then after I don't know how many in-game months, I finally got a crackdown. And they wiped the base out. LOL. In my defense, it was the newest of my bases, really just a radar outpost type base. I hadn't transferred anyone good there, it was just new hands stuck in a dojo and half-trained at that. Plus it was a stargod crackdown. At the point I'm at, only my A team could have repelled this attack. I actually did better than I thought I would, but there were a bunch of cyclops and most of my weapons just tickled them. In the end all I really lost was a few mil and some time.
I did notice one thing I was curious about. The base in question was in antarctica, and when they were searching for it I had a ship spawn in Africa, with the crackdown flag, and it literally flew slowly over my African base as it was headed south. I thought it was actually going to attack the African base and held my breath waiting for the base defense screen, but it just kept moseying south.
When they're searching for a base, do they wait until they're in the actual area or is it scanning from spawn point to despawn point?
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The common crackdown goes like this:
Sentry-class scans the area. A fighter-class scans the area again. A medium to large craft scans the area and the final step is a vessel that does the actual attack against the found hideout.
If a ship with 'crackdown' flag bypasses a region that is not the actual target area, you don't have to worry. That's why the hyperwave decoder is so great. You can read the target area and prepare as needed.
In your example the actual mission was "Antarctica Crackdown" and the enemies started to spawn above africa to fly over to antarctica for the actual mission.
Getting crackdowned by star gods rather early in the game is tough.
A fly-by of a crackdown ship doesn't reveal your hideouts outside the target area.
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A fly-by of a crackdown ship doesn't reveal your hideouts outside the target area.
Well that's a relief. Now I can move all the crap I hastily transferred out of there back. haha