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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 03, 2015, 05:01:25 pm »

guess its time to start yet another game just to test how the changes to the morale system now feels. ill give an opinion at some point

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95 - 27 Sep - Combat Stress

« on: October 02, 2015, 02:07:25 am »

the reason why i brought up the whole Panzerfaust was mainly to both give a hint to a beginner on what might work against the really tough enemies and also a way for unprepared newbie to have a chance with the generally VERY strong enemy in base defenses that either requires melee suicide runs to kill or long range explosives.

however i can also see the point of letting the player figure this out by himself. thus rewarding experiementing and actually reading the bootypedia.. its was mainly a suggestion to possibly avoid a situation which a beginner to piratez can see as an unfair situation. at least i struggled dealing with the white armored academician on 2 diff games... was it esper? until i simply just went F it and bought a set of loaded RPG's at the first minute of the game in order not face that hell of a situation again.




my starting setup after multiple attempts turned into getting barracks asap alongside either some rpgs or panzerfausts in order to deal with these nasty situations 3-4 cattle sticks depending on what the rookie stats were. as trivia i split my starting troops into 4 categories. which are melee, ranged, thrower and stickman(aka garbage). after i get the barracks i immediately proceed to get hands in order to reach a 25-30 hand crew depending on what my current situation is in order to keep a full 18 man crew going on majority of the missions.

on research i have been fairly split. which im finding amazing considering i have been experiementing with it for a while now.

flintlocks and bombs are an ASAP research in order to replenish the amazing black powder bomb supply.

after that i generally pick the research depending on what i feel i need in the near future

overall i have not found a truly the best research path. which i have to give a hats down for.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95 - 27 Sep - Combat Stress

« on: October 01, 2015, 08:57:58 pm »

yay  replies! sorry for the shit grammar on the wall of text. i noticed alot of mistakes  now that i read it afterwards..

ok....

on the barracks..

my main issue with it was that it was basically a must have every game first and foremost. kinda turning into a mundane task with no variety.(i like having multiple options).. but after seeing the reasoning behind it i cannot really argue against it that much.

although i still  don't like how the first pogrom is overly hard compared to the 2nd one(you will have the barracks done). just feels like a bit too unfair and artificial to my tastes imo. there is a fine line between hard and just unfair sometimes, although its really not that bad here considering you can just skip it.


and yeah. i consider GO and academicians are a bit too valuable definitely imo. the others i consider fine actually considering the risk/reward.  after thinking dropping em both by 10k would make me quite satisfied with the hostage pricing considering the other fairlyvaluable ones are more dangerous  while some other easy capture targets are far less valuable than these 2 considering they are workers or some unknown no social status creature like ratmen(fuck these guys. always making me disapointed on pogroms).

the other solution to the above would be increasing the value of hands like 15k a gal a little bit to make brainless suicidal rush capture missions less rewarding,although i guess that is a playstyle too and increasing the value of hands might cause bigger problems to the game..
i consider the hostage value mainly an early game problem when a little bit more money is valuable and  encountering academicians and Go's are common


overall though. after hearing the reasonings on all of these things. i can understand why you made the specific choice. and i would def accept no changes to any of the mentioned now too. considering they are just minor nitpicks coming from my own game philosophy(otherwise i would not be enjoying it as much as i am)

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95 - 27 Sep - Combat Stress

« on: October 01, 2015, 05:49:54 pm »

Decided to register just to give my opinions on the mod so far and the recent controversy


first and foremost. i have been burning alot of my time with 0.94. the overall array of options you have is quite daunting but overall i quite enjoying the game quite nicely.

considering i am the type of player who restarts his game because im a dumb perfectionist when playing games. ill just say some opinions about the early game.  i played with the reccomended advanced options on difficulty 3 mostly

during the early game. you are basically forced to buy a barracks first and foremost just because your living space is completely full without the possibility of getting a full ship there really is not much variety of choice there. just feels like a newbie trap for no reason. this very same reason is also why the first pogrom will be REALLY hard and is usually better to just skip(another newbie trap) generally put. before the pogrom you generally get to do 1 small ship. which more than likely wounded some of your folk. forcing the first pogrom to be unmanned generally.

base attacks can also end your game really fast if the player is not prepared to face a full plasma weapons and some insanely strong enemies that guns and black powder bombs won't work on.

i almost feel you should provide the the player with 2-3 panzerfausts right at the beginning. possibly dropping the starting money because of this. why panzerfausts? because they are consumable so they won't get abused as hard as something like rpg would with black market bought ammo. it obviously won't help the people that waste em right off the bat. but it will at least give the player a hint on what they shoiuld possibly use to face to stronger opponents.



now for some lack of info to the player

first comes in on the ship interceptions. although mainly because of vanilla. i did not attempt to even try facing large ships first few times because of fear of losing that VERY important ship. then later i found out that cargo ships can be fairly easily taken down with stock weapons.... lets just say that the first few attempts felt so much harder because of this. might have just been my fault considering i read the bootypedia fairly lightly(mostly weapon info to determine loadouts and buildings)

 some Hostages are FAR too rewarding right now. i feel there is something wrong when i believe i should go full stun weapons on a crashed small and just go ham without caring about casualties that much. (1 academian is worth 4 rookies in cash after all) you need to drop the value on some of the easier to catch targets by i think. this could be somewhat compensated by increasing the price for more dangerous targets like the securities.

now on the new stress system..

i feel in its current state its very detrimental to the game. i see it only as an arbitary time limit which can turn some mission VERY frustrating(love those mass 3 story apartment maps already...)
 this kind of system can also cause frustration by causing random factor which unlike the other things randomized in xcom is not in a very controllable example: i can just decide to not take the risk shot and back off. this is not an option with the stress system considering how heavy the penalty is for ignoring it.


so how should this be fixed?

 easiest solution. removing it entirely. in its current state it adds nothing and turns a good game into a frustrating experience for many. but i think you are probably not the type to just take away a hard worked system you made

so how to possibly fix this? you must find ways to make it interactive with the player. 1 of the reasons that can cause frustration ( and in more serious non game cases serious depression) is when player does not have enough control on things. earlier i did see the battle banner mentioning.  you could possibly make a a completely different role of xcom soldier if you truly go all out with this system. soo.. some ideas..

battle banner:

aimed shot(or melee however you want to balance it)  if used on a friendly. provides em a boost in morale. if used on enemy. decreases their morale.

as you can look above. this system could be expanded on enemies too. as an example-.. an enemy which is fairly strong overall but has a fairly low morale. aka you could make certain enemies weak to this type of attack.( although also need to make sure to balance it for capturing)

one step further would be to also create enemies which are focused on controlling the morale of battle. things like morale bombs or just Voodoo attacks unaffected by the usual Voodoo resistances.

it definately would be interesting to see a whole new set of weapons/items wholly based on morale control with em generally getting power from bravery

overall. you need to make the player feel they can control the morale through their actions and choices.. and not feel like they are slaves to it like the current feels right now.


for now i will be playing 0.94 thank you.

feel free to ask more opinions from me. i may not have beaten the game but i probably started like 7-8 games so my early game info is fairly extensive with my current game on sep 1st 2601 with an enemy base destroyed and a landed heavy gunship beaten.  im  at the point that i feel i should just make another game on higher diff because its feeling too easy now.