Messages

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - K2 - 2 Nov - Ice Ice Cool

« on: December 02, 2019, 08:11:34 pm »

If anyone is cheating, it's the player.
Force-firing a thin wall with autoshot to hit an enemy standing behind it (which we spotted with an aye-phone) is some next level stuff the A.I. could never do.

The current state of the A.I. is absolutely fine.

It could if it were programmed to. AI is usually handicapped because playing against an opponent that does what you can do, while also having the numerical and statistical advantage, is rarely fun.

I was referring specifically to the map hax anyway. I can do sniper/spotter, but I don't get permanent vision on the target for X turns. It's a cheat which is a workaround for how much harder is to teach an AI to pay attention and remember things in a human like way. AI almost always operate with perfect information. They know everything, but they are programmed not to act on that information.

I'm saying the AI cheats, and that's fine, because it's not smart enough to win fair.

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - K2 - 2 Nov - Ice Ice Cool

« on: December 02, 2019, 04:44:25 pm »

It's more a matter of working with the AI's limitations. Vanilla the best tactic is a bunch of sharpshooters hanging back and one speedy spotter finding targets for them. Frankly it's still the best tactic, but the key differences are that there are a lot more maps and scenarios where it's less optimal, and the enemy can do it too, to a degree. It's unfortunate that the AI has to cheat to accomplish it, but it was never designed to do otherwise, and strong "fair" AI is far more challenging to write and demanding to run.

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J5 - 11 Jun - Applied Chromatics

« on: June 19, 2019, 01:48:38 am »

Yeah, I don't mean there's a single way to play, only one way to win, that's not a game but a puzzle. I mean that you can't just cheese the game. Delving into it's mechanics doesn't reveal an unbeatable strategy or unit or item that you spam and the game is effectively over. The design expects you to understand how it all works.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: June 17, 2019, 11:20:27 pm »

How to add my large music collection to recently installed X-Piratez?
The old "musics:"-section from pirates.rul is gone? 
I found a file "en-US.yml", where some soundtracks are listed. How can I add new GMGEO34.. etc musics now?
Also I hope I can simply add GMGEO34.FLAC  now!

en-US.yml is the text strings, probably for the jukebox feature. There's more than one .rul file as far as I know, the music probably got moved to someplace else.

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XPiratez / Re: Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J5 - 11 Jun - Applied Chromatics

« on: June 17, 2019, 11:14:48 pm »

No, it definitely doesn't have to.

The game gives you the option to play one way or the other; or anything in between.
A true mark of good game design.

What I'm getting at is an issue I frequently see in Japanese games where the game has great depth, but is balanced for people who can't figure out how to do more than press A. If one base can provide everything you need, then two bases is twice what you need. Six is total overkill. It allows things to scale to such a point that either the game has no challenge whatsoever, or it's so hardcore that you have to use every resource possible or you fail. Final Fantasy or Dark Souls. I find that games quickly become boring when actually delving into their mechanics and developing their optional features just makes you unstoppable. I LOVE that Piratez says "nope, even three bases isn't enough, keep working on it", and that even when you have maxed stat troops there are still things that will laugh and slaughter you. Piratez EXPECTS you to use it's full mechanics and features, and that's the greatness of its design. If you want to have a high level of manufacturing and research and troop development, you need to spend a lot of space on it, and probably set up specialized bases. Those slots have a meaning beyond "maybe I'll build bases all over the globe for the heck of it" and become part of a meaningful question "I need more space, probably need to set up a new base, now where should it be and how do I specialize it?"

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: June 17, 2019, 08:45:12 pm »

Quick question.

Does the stun minilauncher hit the under armor or the front/side/rear armor?

Explosions hit under armor when they are directly under the target or within three tiles (as I recall). Beyond that point they go against whichever side is facing.

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XPiratez / Re: Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J5 - 11 Jun - Applied Chromatics

« on: June 17, 2019, 08:42:25 pm »

^^ yap, but it`s absolutely ..not worthy ;


old, previous R&D:   

~21th.century old Earth Lab =: 15 smart girls,  / @ 1building,room

R-D now: 

== so 16 girls-researchers  @ 2 rooms... :/

Exactly. Research is something you have to devote resources to. I feel like if you've played Piratez this long you have to realize that Dioxine intends you to have to use ALL your bases, and ALL the space allotted to them. If the game is hardcoded to allow X bases and Y space per base, then a good game design has to come up with ways to make all of that space meaningful. You can basically get by in vanilla on one base, which begs the question of what all the others are for or what the whole concept of base building was supposed to be. Piratez always gives you more stuff than you can deal with so you have to make choices.

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XPiratez / Re: Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J5 - 11 Jun - Applied Chromatics

« on: June 14, 2019, 12:24:30 am »

..but bad link on mediafire, (wrong url)

..and why this "Old Earth Lab capacity 15->12" ? :/(

I would assume it's to push the player into joining the Mutant Alliance or doing the Doctor X storyline earlier instead of just staying out of the whole thing untill the early core techs are all discovered.

Edit:
Nevermind, it's explained on the very line you quoted. You can build lab expansions to get more brainers on the job.

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XPiratez / Re: XPiratez Testudo formation

« on: June 10, 2019, 05:16:45 pm »

Haha. True enough. Some of my hands did got blow up with an "unexpected" enemy RPG. I do wish this mod will have some extremely strong shield so the "true" Testudo will shine once again. lol.

I don't believe this is possible as XCOM does not model ballistics, it just fakes it fairly convincingly for 1994. No matter how strong a shield is, it's only an armor value for the unit holding it. Everyone in the AoE has to take the damage roll using their own armor values, and if the blast is close enough it goes against "under" armor automatically. Testudo only works against non-AoE projectiles.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: June 02, 2019, 02:39:06 am »

Hmmm... I see some yummy SG ships out there. Would shooting some down trigger immediate retaliation, or not just yet.? Them hombres come for Supervision lately, quite often. I even saw a Silver Towers.

As far as I understand it, shooting down any Star God ship means rolling for a potential retaliation. And if any other group has located one of your bases previously and not yet acted upon that knowledge, they can sell that knowledge to the Star Gods and they can just hit you with no warning. So, don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: May 29, 2019, 12:31:08 am »

I think using healing items also has a chance of training bravery, as well as using a few certain items like ropes.

You're right, those are OXCE/Pirates changes. Being a medic is good for bravery, and I've never used ropes, but if Bravery is on their training modes list, it will work.

Edit: I realize that you probably don't understand how XCOM stat growth works. Whenever a unit successfully does something on the battlescape using a primary stat like Firing, Throwing, Melee, etc they have a chance to gain 1-6 points in that skill. So long as they are gaining primary skills, they also have a chance to gain secondary skills, like Strength, or Time Units. This is completely separate from Martial Training at a base which works however the modder configured it, or "training" transformations like militia training for peasants which are a completely different mechanic which has no bearing at all on stat growth, it just sets stats to certain levels or adds specific flat bonuses as configured by the modder.

Also the grenade/bomb actually has to hit something. In vanilla just throwing it was sufficient, in OXCE you actually have to hit an enemy (or neutral?) to get EXP. That's what makes the Red Barn simultaneously one of the coolest and lamest missions.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: May 29, 2019, 12:18:38 am »

Whips? Hunting bows? Electro lassoes? I find that gals get good in what you have them do pretty much on their own. You can also just throw grenades at people. Hallucinogenic gas grenades are fantastic in general and can be used to kill or capture for the whole early game.

Secondary stats will go up on their own so long as they're collecting experience and aren't capped. Just send them on lots of missions and have them do things. Clubbing civilians is always good for some EXP.

Bravery goes up because the gal passed a panic check and rolled a successful stat gain for bravery.

Skill gains stop at the cap. If a gal is at cap or above, (individual skill gains don't actually respect the cap) she will never gain in that skill again. Effectively every gal's final maximum will be somewhere between cap and cap+5.

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J14a - 1 May - Saints and Sinners

« on: May 23, 2019, 12:00:04 am »

I find melee against zombies a somewhat risky affair since if the zombie doesn't die, you're in for a world of hurt. And then the troopers and sentinels can just be incredibly difficult to approach to begin with since they tend to be well armed. The mage's villa mission in particular is really hard to rely on solely on melee and electropulse ammunition can make it a bit easier to approach.

I tend to have an entire melee squad. Nothing lives against 12 swordswomen, especially when their minimum damage rolls get into the 70s.

I feel like Dioxine is secretly a ninja fan.  Ninja's gear is just so much better than piratey gear xD

Nah, it's just the pirate gear goes into some really brutal guns, but their swords are all early one-handers. The Fuso's massive damage as a two-hander and it's scaling on melee rather than strength makes it a devastating weapon, but only in skilled hands, and only if you really commit to it due to it's massive inventory size.

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J14a - 1 May - Saints and Sinners

« on: May 22, 2019, 10:01:26 pm »

As mentioned above the electro-pulse munitions are helpful for stun but I find them also very good against zombies as all zombies have a critical weakness to electricity, and a good number of Zombies are very dangerous and hard to take down.

Zombies are phenomenally resistant to firearms in general, but like most creatures other than roaches are somewhat powerless without their heads. Swords are very effective, Highlander style.

That's actually true of most of the game. A Fuso sword on a gal who's spent some time "handling" people can hit so hard even damage resistance can't save the target.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: May 22, 2019, 09:53:00 pm »

Upon reflection, I think the flag that determines if a hideout is found or not is only looked at the end of each month. It may also be possible for the game to allocate multiple parallel crackdown missions to a single region. If that's true then enduring a single attack may not dissuade the others, but we'll need someone familiar with the nitty gritty details to chime in.

Missions go into the pool at the start of the month, and are checked off as they trigger. This is why it's impossible to get a new mission type until the month after it is researched. I suppose if you aggroed multiple factions and they all rolled a crackdown in the same month they'd chain up. For what it's worth, it doesn't matter what faction actually finds you base and who assaults it. Ratmen could wander by right when you pissed the Mercs off and bam, they pencil you on to their calendar for a beat down.