Messages

1

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 01, 2021, 07:38:23 pm »

11 Years in-game?  WTF?
I thought there was a time limit in the game, I been rushing to get finished by Year 4 because of the inevitable Stargod and Mercinary Crackdowns that'll just destroy you.

The game started in Jan 2601 I think, and ended April 2612, so yes, c.11 years! :-)

I was playing on the easiest level, I think, because I'd never lasted even a couple of years in the past so didn't think I would this time, either. Hard to remember for sure.

By the end I shot down everything that flew in my 8-base network. Battleships and Cruisers I used Dragons with plasma guns; for everything else Sabres with a combo of laser gun and Tesla. Silver Towers often got away, because they usually outran my Dragons. Sometimes a base attack occurred but by the end my bases usually had 5 plasma batteries and a repulsor so they never succeeded in landing. And once they did attack with some super fast ship, but I shot it down before it reached the base, and I never saw another. :-)

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 01, 2021, 05:18:39 pm »

@Gals
My pleasure, glad my 0-to-hero editing skills finally helped someone other than myself lol. I also practice many similar "mini-games" in my playthroughs just to spice things up. It makes the whole thing more personal and memorable! Perhaps you'd be willing to consider changing kills notation to reduce yourself the workload of noting every single kill. For example using same notation as the game uses for research costs: # many kills; = moderate; - some. Just to save updating every single number, it must be getting tiresome hehe.
I'm pretty stoked to talk to an SF author. It's essentially the only genre I can bare to read because it's so different to everything else. Much respect! It's no wonder those two traumatized you enough to affect your inspiration, they are widely remembered just for that

Thanks again - I just completed it! Building the Conqueror took some time, but luckily I had already built the 250 fuel capsules. So I went on the final mission, and it was quite epic. So that's around 12 months playing the same campaign with my rule that if I lose, I have to delete the save, but I made it! (It's how I played games like Doom and Hexen back in the day too - https://www.karldrinkwater.uk/2014/11/the-doom-wars.html and https://www.karldrinkwater.uk/2016/04/the-hexen-wars.html ).

X-Pirates may be my favourite game ever, just pipping Dungeon Master and Heroes of Might & Magic 3. :-)

By the way, you'll find details of my SF books at https://karldrinkwater.uk - Chasing Solace is the one with an alien called a Tentaculat (though it isn't the same creature, just the same name). The Lost Solace books are a sort of cross between Event Horizon, Pandorum, and Aliens, but with a big focus on AI.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: February 28, 2021, 11:10:24 am »

I added Cacodemon corpse to your main base but you won't be able to research it until you build Study or Personal Labs (recommended). My suggestion is nuking Data Centre and replacing it with Prs. Labs. I got Caco corpse tech by researching Arcane Tomes which to me seems like the most easiest and natural route. Only after that did mission that regularly spawn Cacos started appearing in my game.

Btw, why in God's name you emphasize kill counts after solders names of all things?

Awesome, many thanks, I'll have a go at this later on! Great suggestions.

The kill counts is something I usually update every 1st of the month in the early game (I am now getting sloppy with it as I accelerate the endgame). It's just a habit I got into in UFO and Xcom, where I might have a lot of soldiers and want to differentiate between the more important ones, and the ones I don't want to risk. It's also a kind of rank. So I can see at a glance that this soldier has 321 kills, so they aren't the one to rush towards the smuggler's ship and get sliced by the sudden appearance of the invisible Star God or Cat Girls! Or in missions with Chryssalids/Tentaculats (fun fact - I make my living as an author, and one of my SF books has an alien called a tentaculat, in homage to how many missions they ruined for me in Xcom). If I lose someone then the RIP screen immediately helps me to see how important they were to me. So it's just a fun shortcut. Same as I add O to the end of the name for starting soldiers, so I can always tell if they are one of the Originals. I do rename based on circumstances sometimes, but tend to find that many weeks later I cannot remember why someone is called "Susie Sci-shipkiller" or "Mandy Merc-survivor" etc. :-)

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: February 27, 2021, 12:57:34 pm »

Not sure about mars lander without more info, screenshots or just the save would help.

As to cacodeamons, 2 of the imperial probes landed missions have them, also B rank wiz biz bounty has them too. Probably some others i can't recall, but those for sure

Well I got the Mars Lander/Zubrin (turns out I needed to capture a Belter - by the time I had completed those huge spaceship missions maybe they'd all died in the past? But this time I captured one and carried it back and aborted. Took ages because there are so many units on the ship taking their go during the computer's turn!)

I also needed a Study. The description hadn't made it seem like it did anything special, but it turns out the Robo Parrot I'd had for years and the Imp Corpse could ONLY be researched if I had a study, unlike 99% of the stuff in the game. Once I built one that research opened up (which is why I thought I'd done the Imp Corpse, because I'd taken loads back to my base in the past but not had any extra research options).

Here's my remaining issue: it looks like all I need is a Cacodemon corpse. However, in the 11 years of in-game time, I have never seen a Cacodemon (despite doing a number of Imperial Probes, Dark One terror missions, Doomed Farms etc). Since your comment above I have played another 18 months in game, taking days in real time, where all I do is shoot down enemy ships and do terror missions while waiting for Imperial Probes. In that time I have had five. Three were Deep One missions, two were Dark One. They had different names (one was Atrium, I can't remember the other). However, there was still no Cacodemon! Just the usual humanoid soldiers, Imps and Pinkies. As such, I'm wondering whether the version I'm playing has a bug that stops Cacodemons from appearing? After nearly one and a half years real time playing a single game, I assume one would have appeared by now if it could! So I don't feel like playing another week/two weeks/month if it turns out I can't find a Cacodemon.

Therefore, my request: is there a cheat to either create a Cacodemon, or or complete the Cacodemon research? If not, is there a cheat to get the research for the Conqueror ship so I can sidestep the Cacodemon and just build one? Many thanks!

PS I have also attached my latest save, from today (after just completing another Probe/Dark One mission; I also have saves from just before it, and maybe an autosave from during it).

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: February 21, 2021, 01:12:32 pm »

Not sure about mars lander without more info, screenshots or just the save would help.

As to cacodeamons, 2 of the imperial probes landed missions have them, also B rank wiz biz bounty has them too. Probably some others i can't recall, but those for sure

Thanks! Maybe I don't need the Mars Lander bit (especially as I have everything to build a Conqueror once I "discover" it). I'll follow all Imperial Probes and do all those missions again and see if I can find a Cacodemon. I'm not sure what the B wiz biz is (I don't seem to get any more bounty missions so maybe have unlocked them all - the only one with a wizard mentioned I think is Escape Tower, where I have to blow open a shuttle full of enemies at the top of a tower?)

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: February 21, 2021, 12:29:39 pm »

Your missing haveing the right type of craft to go to Cydonia. Like in vanilla where only the avenger could do the mission. here you need either the Zubrin(shit low tech rocket that seats or the Conqueror that holds 36.

To find out what unlocks your missing to build them hit Q on geoscape and bring of the tech tree viewer and search for those craft and work backwards till you find what your missing. Mind that it could just be not having the correct buildings built, some tech need certain buildings to unlock critical gates.

Many thanks, I tried that (it isn't an area of interface I'd been able to work out). It says I have 76% research done.

There were two items under Mars Attack Vessel that were in red (which I think implies I haven't researched them).

The first was Mars Lander - but, weirdly, when I click on that all the dependencies are purple, implying I have researched them all. So no idea why the heading isn't done (maybe I misunderstood the interface)? So maybe there is something I need to do there.

The second is Warp Drive - which says I haven't completed Other Dimensions. When I click on that it suggests I haven't done Imp Corpse (but I am pretty sure I remember doing autopsies on them, they are really common, but I can double check that). The other thing it says I need is a Cacodemon Corpse. Where are they? I have fought the Doom monsters lots of times - in farms, in Terror missions, and following Imperial Probes to their bases, but I have never encountered a Cacodemon. Is it just a super rare occurrence? Thanks!

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: February 20, 2021, 10:07:49 pm »

Hi, I had been hoping to finish X-Pirates on my own, but I am stuck!

Brief history: I tried the mod a few times in the past, and loved it but never got far. Then I started a new game at the end of 2019 (freshly downloaded files) and was impressed at all the changes. I was much more careful and managed to actually survive! I never reload if things go wrong or it is game over, and came close a few times (e.g. when I spent a ridiculous amount of money on a "The World Is Mine" item, only to find that it wasn't the end of the game, just some points, and I was immediately hacked by someone and my account then dropped to -$250 million and I only just broke even and avoided a game over at the end of the second month ...)

Anyway, I have been playing the same campaign for around fifteen months, the longest I've ever played a single game. I thought I had reached the end of the game earlier. I have all four Cydonia codes, and have made 250 Hellerium Fuel Capsules. Nothing happened. So I looked at all the craft I have unlocked and realised I must need a longer range one. I had yet to build an Obliterator (the bomber one) so built that, because it has the greatest range out of all my possible ships. I finished it earlier today, loaded it with 250 Fuel Capsules and a crew, and launched, but there was only the option to go somewhere on Earth, not to go to Mars. So obviously it's not enough to have the codes, a spaceship, and enough fuel. There must be something I'm missing, but I have no idea what. I've reached that point where months and months go by with nothing new to research. Every time I do find anything (such as a Star God rebel on a smuggler ship, or some high rankers on the huge spaceship assault missions that have around 20 levels) I think ti will unlock a new bit of the tree, but it just leads to a description (e.g. golden chaingun, light gen) but nothing new unlocks. I have no idea what I am missing.

My game is stable: I have a fleet of Sabres (with Tesla and Laser) to take out smaller ships, and Dragons (with plasma) for the bigger ones. I make enough money just from my score (via shooting ships down) to add about 50 million to my account every month. My soldiers and Syn units are super tough (the gals wear Harbinger armour and have unlocked all the laser, gauss and plasma weapons). I have a tank that comes on some missions, and Blaster Launchers for Sitzkrieg. However, now that I built the Hellerium Fuel Capsules and ship, and got the codes, I just don't know what else to do. The only type of ship I have never shot down is the Silver Towers, is that what I need to do? It outruns my Dragons, and the Sabres just aren't tough enough to take it down (I lost all my craft trying to do that in an awful month, and spent about three weeks of real world time just to get back to that point where I had a fleet again!)

If I have missed something obvious I'd be grateful if someone could help. I don't want to just keep repeating the same missions for months and months more (real world time) and still not get anywhere if I have missed something, or I'll start getting frustrated, especially when I thought I'd reached the final stages! Many thanks.