After stripping shields, 2-3 HEAT rockets or AT rockets or even MAG rockets would do the trick. You can also fry it with a flamethrower, use R-Rifle on it or throw a couple of EMP grenades (hovertank is weak against EMP, so it's weird that it did nothing).
If you don't want to strip its shields, shoot it with chem until it dies. Might take a while though.
You'd still have 20 guns in your harvester regardless. Possibly more trained than your gals, too, with all these benefits Peasant Revolution provides. You'd also still be able to drive cars and tanks, so I don't really see how cancelling the gals would change much.
Also, where do you find enough gals to fill out harvester? I can do that in second year, but by then I hardly need so many at one place, plus I have a menace or can outfit my convoy enough to feel safe about sending it somewhere.
Yeah, I'm checking the graphs and there's a second spike of enemy activity in june. In Arctic and North Africa... That's very unlucky, I'm sorry. On the bright side, you've weathered it out and probably on your way to recover from it. The next few months should be a lot less harsh on the score.
Still, don't take too long. Ninjas don't sleep, and shipping will become more frequent in second year. You'll even get an event warning you about it.
After its creation, HQ only drains 450 score per month. It's only slightly more than a vanilla base, and if you can't handle it... well, I'm not sure what to tell you. Maybe you got unlucky and angered some excavators.
WADR the bulk of your article is what you've just said, and what I do, which is literally how this game is played (vanilla or otherwise): Do every mission possible and research as fast as possible. What's happening here is that there is apparently exactly ONE golden path to merely survive. One MUST unlock every mission type immediately or sooner while more or less disregarding all other research. One must also immediately (or sooner) accrue well over $1.7 million in monthly bills that are most certain to go unpaid in that first few months. One must ALSO research the requisites for Chateau before any of this or else you'll go broke (see above). By "immediately" I mean in the first month. The punishment for not immediately taking that exact path is basically being rectally violated by the game from the 4th month on.
Well, no, outside of max difficulty the game is fairly relaxed about straying from the "golden path" (and you don't need chateau on first month because 10 runts won't make much either way). Again, you get one big hit in April as ninja mobile fortress goes around and picks the spot for HQ, and then there's not much pressure after that (unless you get unlucky and a pacification or excavation mission is happening somewhere). Even on JS you can make quite a few mistakes and still pull through.
I'm curious on what exactly you're doing to get such a low score. Do you like, lose 10 gals on every mission you do? Do you ignore bounty hunting? It's pretty important. Maybe you could even post a save so we could see what's going on.
9. If you don't choose, the choice will be made for you. You won't automatically be deemed a lazy captain, but it does have a higher chance of being chosen.
10. Early-game you mostly get money from mission loot, score bonus in the end of the month, and producing Chateau. Chateau is a ways off, but it's important if you care about your finances and have a few dozen runts.
As for missions, as I've said, you should aim for technologies that unlock more and better missions (their techs are marked with !exclamation mark!; !!Bounty Hunting!! is extremely important and thus marked with two exclamation marks). But in first two months you're largely depending on your luck to get something nice like a temple raid or a landed craft. If that doesn't happen... well, you do what you can.
A temple raid can pay for 2-3 brainers, and an academy outpost will let you afford at least +1 brainer (that surgery unit is pretty valuable), for example. Castaways can be turned into brainers too, and it's a very cost-effective solution, but I'd advise against doing that if you didn't pick a gal route.
Score is simple: do your research and do your missions, save civilians if there are any and don't lose too many of your own soldiers.
11. It's normal. A lot of the missions have a low chance of featuring zombies instead of whatever you'd face there regularly. And yes, your early arsenal is far from ideal against chryssalids; the only weapons that can reliably damage it are assault cannon, gothic raygun and melee.
12. Yes, if you deploy at night, the Night Vision mode will automatically turn on. The personal lights are also on, but your armors don't really have them.
It's a big mod, and it's easy to get overwhelmed. It's okay to lose 5 months in too, since that's when the ninjas normally start their activity.
1. Generally it's a good idea to get interceptors as soon as you can, but it's not a pressing issue on second difficulty. You could probably live the entire first year without a single craft weapon and be fine as long as you keep researching and doing missions.
You can get an "interceptor" as early as in february, by crafting a Little Bird - but this little helicopter isn't very useful outside of shooting pedestrian traffic. Try to contact Car Thieves for the craft, and Krazy Hannah for craft weapons; this will be enough for civilian ships and other weak targets.
2. Captain choices give you some neat things like buildings and special manufacturing projects, but also affect the events you get when you play, both for better and for worse. None-of-the-above Captain is vanilla option, which doesn't give nor take away anything from you.
Ideas and Aspects matter mostly for events.
Spoiler:
If you collect all four Ideas, you will make your life more difficult.
3. Some techs don't give a lot of score, but most of the lore entries and numbered tips will give you 250 score each. Some techs will give you more (crowning, for example, is worth 1000 score). Science will also give you access to more and different missions, which is really your main source of score early on, so get as many brainers as you can.
4. Ransoming people is perfectly fine, you get money to spend on more brainers. You don't have to interrogate all of them right away. 6 brainers is... let's say it's workable, but you can have more.
5. Zombies need a medical facility present on the base.
6. Hunt parties can't be detected and shot down by enemy shipping. They're also much smaller - only 8 people compared to expedition with 25! That said, you should use your airbus since it's a lot faster to go around on it, and it has some cover.
7. Exploration stuff is event-based, so you don't get a lot of control over it. You just have a chance to get something nice every month. Having more bases in different regions adds additional chances.
8. Ghost means the character has enough stun damage to start taking HP damage every turn. This is Very Bad and will eventually kill that character if not treated.
Also hints on the reticulan vats mission? I have a batch of 12 well trained but inexperienced peasants and despite a good effort they didn't cut it. I get the feeling I was doing something wrong. I managed to take the center room and tried to hold out there, but they kept coming and the knocked out ones got back up.
1. After you stun someone, take your time to wrestle them into overstun. If it's a sectogre, wrestle them some more. They're by far the worst enemy to fight, since they're so tough. Wrestling only deals small amount of HP damage, but kicking them while they're down gives you valuable time before they recover. 1.1. Stand right on top of them and target yourself to avoid targeting wonkiness. 2. Bondage consumes 3 freshness per turn. A peasant who didn't participate in any battles before only has ~20 turns before she becomes useless, which is a pretty tight time limit. So I'd advise having them get some combat experience beforehand. 3. Loot everything. Electroguns one-shot just about everyone except sectogres, tazoguns deal a lot of HP damage, causing downed enemies to stay down for longer, canteens let you pick your peasants up, and melee weapons... they can stun people too, but I prefer wrestling. 4. As said before, if you feel like things are going dicey, retreat. Grab whatever smooth captives and elder you can and abort mission.
What I tend to do on this mission is have 2-3 people chill out in center room and stun\restun people, while everyone else runs around. After all I'm on the timer, not reticulans.
My first attempt didn't go that well either, because my group of trained, but inexperienced peasants ran out of freshness and were too slow, too sluggish, and too tired to do anything. By the second time I got my next group to be really experienced (some even had maxed-out stats), so it was almost a breeze.
The ranking is based on total of all people in the roster, no matter the type, so if you have 6 gals and 30 peasants, they'd rank as if you have 36 people in your roster (because you do). They also have same salaries for equivalent ranks.
And peasants are very much usable, but you probably don't want to hire so many in the first month. I did well with only hiring 10.
No, you need to kill enemies for it. Killing your own units will net you "betrayer", which kills bravery.
re: reaction gains: you can farm both street fighter and electrifier at the same time, since there're two pistols that have EP ammo (niner and manstopper). And killing unconscious people is rather easy too, since you can shoot the bodies until they die.
Bullet Magnet is achievable fairly easy by using a car, and, while gal of steel reduces reactions by 10, it and bullet magnet will both improve bravery for the faster approach speed.
At midnight I was stopped by a brainer handing me something called "city pass". Why? I wasn't planning on tourism right now, not there! She didn't care about my questions, though, and strolled away, probably to brain some more.
A stranded Gal sent an emergency broadcast, and who are we not to respond to it? She wasn't in a good shape, and after murdering some highwaymen, who also responded to the call, she was brought back to rest.
As the day was ending, runts at Legion Farm reported finishing the first Hunter-Killer. I got rid of the Airbus that was gathering the dust there and told them to make a second fighter.
13-Jan-2602
It was a tense day. First, a radar runt reported a military ship flying around. Thankfully, it was an escort, and it wasn't looking for us, and it did land, presenting a convenient target. Unfortunately, it was too far for Groove Sauna, so I sent in the Kraken.
The raid went a little awry, however. The cold weather slowed the gals significantly, the team was a mix of relatively fresh hands and peasants, and the Kraken was underequipped. Still, they managed to get a good start, killing a number of warmaidens. Rockin Hammer, feeling bold and expecting the rest to be inside, decided to run up to the entrance and set a little ambush. However, they were outside, and one of them wielded an RPG. First direct hit seriously wounded her, but her heavy suit saved her from dying outright. Second hit did her in. After killing the rest of warmaidens, an all-too-familiar blob of acid descended on one of the surviving gals. It was celatid, and it only narrowly missed her. Did not miss the second shot, though, turning Tragic Shazza into a pool of icky goo. She, obviously, didn't survive this. The team managed to get the celatid alive, so at least that's some good news.
Someone also spotted a bigger, meaner ship. Upon visual inspection (I sent a fighter to shadow it), I realized it was too mean for us to shoot down, and too smart to land.
14-Jan-2602
Nothing much, aside from another civilian car.
15-Jan-2602
Got woken up by those brainheads again. They tried to show me a "sniper" armor. Well, I can't call it an armor, but I liked it. Got night sights and those fancy things that help with aiming. Nothing much happened beside that. One civilian car again.
16-Jan-2602
Got woken up AGAIN by a brainer showing off the "peasant fusilier outfit". Ugh. Still, I did ask them to come up with something better, but I meant the armor, not the... whatever this is. At least it was a useful outfit, and she did assure me that it's most comfortable for them, so I made an order to make a few dozens of them. Radars spotted a megapol cruiser and an ambulance. Both were forced to land, but there was only enough time in the day to deal with ambulance.
17-Jan-2602
Another freighter! Manned by zombies again, no doubt. Groove Sauna landed and dealt with a cruiser. The Megapol once again wielded advanced weapons, but this time, we knew that and were expecting it. Got plenty of weapons for ourselves, including a genuine Stellar Empire plasma rifle! Now if only it worked... It was locked, like all the other plasma gals, and while brainers reassured me that soon they'll get all of them unlocked, they didn't say when that "soon" would happen!
Radar runt spoke about another big ship. Not like the previous one, but still to dangerous to shoot down.
And, after another round of sorting through personnel (peasants needed training, so I gave them one, with exception of Civilian Handling Team at Dioxine Labs), Groove Sauna was all set and ready to tackle another undead freighter!
Sadly, the mission was not without losses: a zombie trooper ran straight to the car and punch straight through it, killing Vita Goldstein. A few gals got set on fire, but survived.
18-22 - Jan-2602
Uneventful days. Brainers finally got the hang of interrogation and started to pass the knowledge to the runts. Runts, undeterred by knowledge, finished the second Hunter-Killer and started working on Spy Zeppelin, for, well, spying and them sneaky missions. Speaking of them - we can finally start looking for vulnerable mansions full of loot!
Oh, the bandits for some reason sent a mosquito fighter, probably to hunt innocent shipping. Instead, it found 2 fighters and Molester, which was a bit of overkill. Piloted by lone hitman, it did not offer any resistance on the ground.
23-Jan-2602
Another military ship! After some flying around, it landed, presenting us with golden opportunity. Unfortunately...
it was Mercenaries. Tougher, better armed, better armored, and generally not stupid. They opted to wait for us as much as we waited for them. After killing those few nearby and grabbing their guns, the girls took a few minutes taking potshots at whoever they saw, and dropping explosives left and right, but, after seeing a freaking hovertank with glittering blue shields, an unanimous decision to run away was accepted.
24-Jan-2602
Raiding academy outposts had become just as much a routine for us as running them was for academy. The academicians themselves hid around buildings nearby, wasting our time. Ugh, can't they just be cooperative for once?
Radars picked up another of those big ships.
25-Jan-2602
Brainers somehow managed to convince some magical shop to sell us supposedly nice magical things. I only had to take a look at price tags before deciding it was not worth it. Aside from two civilian crafts and an ambulance (which was shot over the ocean because the pilot just couldn't wait), there was also a sea adventure. The informants gave me that spot a few days ago, but only now i had time to assemble a team and send the Sauna in. Just as quickly they got out, mouthing "those damn sharkmen" off. Okay.
26-27 - Jan-2602
Only thing of note is the watchtower.
28-Jan-2602
A megapol interceptor gave our fighters a bloody nose and a few days of repairs. We did get a detective alive out it, though.
29-Jan-2602
Warehouse wars and ratman rodeo. Two last missions for the crews to partake in this month. Car drivers had a lot of fun, blowing holes in walls and people with their heavy machine guns.
30-31 - Jan-2602
And a quiet end to my term. Fifteen minutes before the end of month we had a third freighter shot down, and then I was told my (and future captains) reign is only to last one month. Well, so be it. Hopefully I didn't angered any future leaders enough to send me off to die or something.
As the New Year passed, I was chosen to be a new captain amidst the drunken celebration. How did it happen, I don't know, and before I could figure it out, radar runt ran in and told me about shipment being spotted. It was cutter manned by Church, and after it landed, girls quite readily followed suit on my orders. It was also an opportunity to test an armored car the previous captain had commissioned. It was armed with a 25mm and provided a lot of fun and fireworks!
Spoiler:
The mission was easy enough, but fighting at range with blunderbuss is... not a very fruitful endeavor. Wheeled MG did the job admirably, though.
Unfortunately, the driver had too much fun and accidentally shot one of our own, injuring her and herself to boot.
After the mission I took a nap and tried to sort through the inventory. For some reason we had still used blunderbusses - big, bulky and frankly obsolete shotguns. I replaced them with assault rifles and ordered runts to make a hundred of plastasteel clips alongside new armor. Whatever aircraft we had was also lacking - gunship without guns and only two ships worth of damn, the aptly named Molester and El Fuego, with a bunch of aircars that really overstayed their welcome. As soon as I can I'm replacing them with real fighters.
Later in the day I was informed about a plane flying around. An actual propeller plane! A target is a target, though, and it was shot down very easily, and I sent Groove Sauna in, but before it could land I received an urgent request of help. Once again, Mutant Alliance couldn't take care of it's own people and needed someone else to do the job, so I redirected the ship. What a busy day...
It was Church. Seems like they got themselves busy as well. Chryssalids were roaming about, the pink blobs of death and acid were hosing down the innocents, and whatever the fuck was sliding along the roads creating fire everywhere. To make things worse, it was dark, and nobody brought (nor bought) any flares, so the team had to rely and whatever lighting they had - a quiver of flame arrows and the car's headlight.
After minutes of carefully picking off the enemy it finally looks safe to come out and douse the stragglers. With car leading the way a few girls step out and eliminate whoever they find, but not before one of the... slidey fucks set the car on fire and made the driver freeze in fear. It was tough too, took a lot of grenades and machinegun fire to take down.
Spoiler:
Night missions against Church are always fun, especially without flares.
Luckily, we had another source source of light. The car did most of the heavy lifting, running circles around turtle drowning the enemies in explosive fire. For all their fancy gold shields and reactions, exalts fell easily to a few assault rifle shots.
Of course, it wasn't just exalts - the church loves their terror units. We had to pick them off very carefully with weapons we had: rifles, machineguns, grenades and even a few landmines. Then, after a few turns of going back-and-forth, the car was sent out as most expendable (and armored, and fastest, and... well, it had lights).
And probably the worst to fight the rockys. It's (on the right) fire completely debilitated the driver, freezing her in fear and letting rocky spew even more fire. Thankfully, the rest of the team was nearby, so I could peel rocky off in just three turns. Marza got overzealous and got caught in fire, but did not panic. After that, following mop-up was easy. As result, we got a bunch of hopefully useful bodies, as well as plasma pistol.
One of the mutants even survived somehow. Good on them.
After that mission, the plane was easy as pie. It was necropirates, who had no chance against our firepower.
Spoiler:
Necropirates in second year are a pushover. I did hold myself back a little so I could get a live one. I think I got four.
2-Jan-2602
Turns out we have a lot of money lying about in bags and purses, doing no-thing! I- I mean, our enterprise- could do a lot with this sort of money, so I made runts count it all. Pretty sure they pocketed some of it, but they did return with a lot of chips. I immediately sold most of them, however (the chips, not the runts) and, holding a good two million worth of $1000 chips, headed to mess hall. What's better way to waste money than gambling?
To my surprise, it was a good way to earn money.
Spoiler:
I didn't have to worry about money for the month, needless to say. But there still was a lot to be done - from refitting the fleet, to rearming the gals, to research. There was a lot of research. So many useful techs sitting just a few researches away, but together adding into insurmountable pile. I focused on unlocking missions and getting some nice weapons and armors - whoever goes after me can finish the rest.
Second cutter landed somewhere far from the hideout, and I, fearing it won't stay landed for long, sent a kraken instead. While right now it was useless as a gunship, having average speed and no guns, it was a solid transport.
3-Jan-2602
Having so much money in the pocket, I can afford buying components for the first two Hunter-Killers with their rip-off prices. I need them ASAP, as shipping is common and needs more than flimsy aircars to handle. Of course, replacing them was complicated by main hideout busy with everything else, and Legion Farm, the second hideout, not having nearly enough runts as it could handle. I had to pour a million and a half into additional living space, as well as wait some time before their workshop could be staffed fully.
Workshop finally finished the full plate armor! Quite heavy, but toughest of all that we have right now.
Two craft spotted, one civilian car and one of megapol. Both were shot down and raided. However, megapol cops were well-armed and put some hurt on overconfident girls.
Spoiler:
Ow. Ow ow ow ow. Plasma hurts! Nobody died, but I had to bring out the big (25mm) gun to prevent further damage.
4-Jan-2602
Relatively quiet day, only noteworthy things are a prepper camp (weren't prepared for us!) and another civilian aircar.
...well, somehow one of the radars also picked up a lot of roaming hordes seeking the hideout. Molester had a lot of fun strafing them, as well as target practice.
5-Jan-2602
Nothing!
6-Jan-2602
My informants got a hold of atrium location. It was an easy mission, but once again, the car driver had way too much fun with a cannon. I'm thinking of replacing it with something less destructive for the sake of loot. At least after razing the atrium and killing most of them the rest surrendered.
Spoiler:
Church is too zealous for their own good. I tried to quickly force a surrender, but instead ended up turning the atrium into ruins. The last priest, who was blocking surrender, was frolicking on the other end of the map while I was sending shell after shell in every room.
Another Church cutter landed for us. You'd think they'd learn.
7-Jan-2602
Someone shot down an ambulance. It was looking for us anyway.
8-Jan-2602
Right in the midnight a brainer comes barreling to me to talk about "peasant stalker outfit". Says it's good for stealth. I like it, but tell her to come up with something better. The peasants did suffer on the battlefield. They require the utmost care to be kept alive, and suffer greatly without any armor or support. The best tactic I found was to only send them at night, wearing the runts' outfit. Gives them chance to survive, and black color lets them blend in the dark somewhat. But they need something better! Hopefully brainer girls come up with said something soon.
After light fighting the ambulance was subdued.
9-Jan-2602
Another civilian craft raided.
Later at the day, radars picked up a slow, fat, lightly defended freighter. It was easily forced to land.
10-Jan-2602
The freighter was manned by zombies - hardy bastards who apparently could sense us from farther than we could see them, especially at night. Didn't help them much, though - most of them didn't have weapons and had to close range, and we were waiting for that.
Spoiler:
The zombies had me spooked right proper. Since I expected traders, i rushed out and placed everyone into position to go in next turn, subduing everyone inside:
However, my plans were dashed by zombies coming at me instead. Three of them surrounded Legionite, but only one took a damaging swing, which she survived.
I pulled her back and had everyone else (who had a gun) fire. Stunning weapons were dropped, and lethal implements were picked up.
Feeling rather tactical today, I decided to have my melee gals flank the zombies while everyone else laid down the suppression fire. Of course, zombies, being zombies, did not suppress, and before they could actually flank the enemy, enemy was all but dead.
Thank you. Removing the redundant vehicles kind of broke everything, and good at the time ideas now bite me back in the ass. This time it's guns that shared some of the ammo, and, since i removed the ammo along with guns, other entries did not like that.
I guess it's some leftovers that can be safely deleted from the manufacturing section.
Thanks for pointing that out; such things are easy to overlook. Those aren't really leftovers, just alternate recipes (take 4 boxes of minigun ammo and tape them together to get one pack for a tank, for example). But, since I forgot to write producedItems: in there, they ended up being faulty. I've updated the mod to hopefully fix that (and change that category to real one).