Messages

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N11 22-Mar-2025

« on: March 25, 2025, 12:00:21 pm »

I don't really agree with "stealthiness" stat of the weapon affecting spotting. If a guy got dropped by a minigun volley in the middle of the junlge, with no one else to see it, and before he could radio anything, why shouldn't it be considered stealthy?

If a guy got shot by a spy pistol, but lived and yelled at nearby allies that he got shot, why should that be considered stealthy?

IMO it's entirely correct for the "died instantly or not" to be the deciding factor.

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XPiratez / Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet

« on: March 24, 2025, 08:41:28 pm »

Speaking of catgirls. Something the guide should probably mention, is to never, NEVER go catgirl recruitment without a codex. It is impossible to get assault clone catgirls or the best catgirl armor (termicator) without one. Don't ask me how I know

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XPiratez / Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet

« on: March 24, 2025, 10:04:56 am »

Airtruck should be your research priority number 1 in the early game anyway, and Dutchman is absolute crap in comparison. It has open windows everywhere, and you start right next to them. The whole map will reaction fire on you before you get to lifts anyway. Airtruck also lets you camp inside on the second floor plugging the lifts, making melee enemies in mixed lists trivial (raider/necro bloodhounds, narlok chupacabras, etc). Dutchman doesn't, because then you will get shot through the windows.

No codex also means no shadowtech cars, which severely gimps early to mid airgame, forcing you to research elerium-powered crafts, and that takes ages.

Codex rewards are also not even remotely "minimal", lay down that Cali crack you started with. Agressor armor + rayguns or 3 free super-lunatics are crazy good.

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XPiratez / Re: Stuff I'd love to see in XPiratez!

« on: March 23, 2025, 06:52:45 pm »

I mean, that's just the natural consequence of x-com metagame. No matter how many different types of soldiers a mod has, there are only two actual roles they can fill - chumps drawing reaction fire, and snipers killing stuff. Ogres are the best chumps thanks to their hp/armor/psi stats, so you end up filling half your squad with them. If you nerf ogres, it will be high HP freaks instead.
No matter what you do with balance, there will never be a valid reason to run "a little bit of each". You pick the best chump type, and the best sniper type, and run exclusively those.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 22, 2025, 08:17:12 am »

That's the standart "Govt Enmity" mission. There are multiple ways of provoking them - reaching boss rank, associating with Aurora or catgirls, etc. Most of these attaks stop if you research *Family Ties*.

Their dropships have only 750 hp, so having a couple SAM sites will generally stop them before they land (no score penalty this way).

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 18, 2025, 07:15:04 pm »

Menace crafts aren't one-of-a-kind, there's a way to get many of them later in the game (when they are already obsolete...)

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XPiratez / Re: Sky Ninja's Airfield - advice

« on: March 18, 2025, 07:07:16 pm »

To add to the above, you need gas masks if your armor doesn't have them, and you need cigars as well. Poison grenade spam from across the map is absolutely ludicrous since there are no obstacles.

If you are using rum as your main medkit type (generally a good idea), consider bringing extra advanced medpacks too, since they have better stims.

Upgraded fortresses are basically impossible to do cleanly because of the nuclear mortar spam, so better do the airfields with subpar equipment than let them sit and upgrade.

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The X-Com Files / Re: XCOM Files Timeline

« on: October 26, 2024, 12:40:21 am »

Yes, they do indeed happen. However, 20% per month is quite low, they still need to actually find the base (no instant retaliations in files), and since radar base spamming is meta, the chance of them targeting a base that's important is even lower.
It is, of course, possible to get very unlucky, but usually they aren't an issue.

Gazers had done a retaliation, and they were impossible to beat on the poster's low-level weapons

Were gazers themselves changed at some point? They die like chumps to any explosives, even regular earth grenades.

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The X-Com Files / Re: XCOM Files Timeline

« on: October 25, 2024, 08:12:37 pm »

Also worth mentioning that you can simply ignore aliens after the invasion starts. They don't cost you a lot of score, and you will easily be in the positives as long as you are progressing some other plotlines. Terrors are quite rare, and unprovoked retaliations basically don't exist.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 21, 2024, 04:05:11 pm »

Even if it is night, there is no direct line of sight and she is half a map away in the middle of a cloud of smoke?

Yes, once you are spotted, it doesn't matter if you move, smoke up, etc. For shooting they at least take the no-LOS penalty. For grenades, there's no penalty, so they will land grenades from 60 tiles away perfectly below your feet. I've recently done a ninja airfield, and had literally 19 grenades thrown at me from out of LOS on enemy turn 1.

Forget about doing tactics in this turn-based tactics game. It's hard cover or nothing.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 20, 2024, 10:17:01 pm »

I mean, when do you usually get ironcat, second summer? At that point everything is already running around with lasers, rending guns, plasma and whatnot. A new player going in blind is probably going to unlock it even later than that, because the requirements are, to put it lightly, counterintuitive.

If you just compare ironcat to peasant legion armor (unlocked ~6 months earlier and ~8 times cheaper to manufacture), it's very telling.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 20, 2024, 09:37:37 pm »

IMO, catgirls are a harder route, and gals are the easiest one in general.
The main issue with catgirls is that not only do they have very low max HP, their armors are bad as well - less protection, harder to unlock, overpriced. In the early game stealth works and catgirls are great. Later, every enemy will have maphack (also known as sniper-spotter for some reason), so you WILL get shot and grenaded. Catgirls just can't survive that. They are great specialist units, but you can't have an entire squad of them, unless you want to have half of them dead every mission.
Catgirl outlaws you get from the cat path are 30k apiece. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it really adds up in the early game, especially since they are much easier to lose than gals.

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Released Mods / Re: [TFTD] [Expansion] TWoTS+ Release (v.2.62)

« on: October 20, 2024, 07:02:40 pm »

Right, I think the second stage counts as underwater for armors, but not items, which is jank.

I'm not sure what that would even mean technically mean (would you essentially only be able to use dual-use items, because you can't bring underwater-only items to stage 1?).

I think the desired behaviour is that you can bring anything, but will have to re-equip between stages. It is possible to bring underwater items on land missions, you just can't use them. At least that's how it works in vanilla TFTD, I'm not sure custom mod itemgroups allow the same behaviour.

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Released Mods / Re: [TFTD] [Expansion] TWoTS+ Release (v.2.62)

« on: October 20, 2024, 04:45:06 pm »

IIRC multi-stage missions can sometimes have surface restrictions for one part and underwater ones for the other (biolab, for example). The dual-purpose filter can be useful there.
Overall agree, though. "Surface" should include surface-only and dual-use, "underwater" should include underwater-only and dual-use, and "dual-use" should include dual-use only.

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Released Mods / Re: [TFTD] [Expansion] TWoTS+ Release (v.2.62)

« on: October 17, 2024, 04:18:54 pm »

Barges are very doable if you have enough exosuits for the whole squad. Early on most aliens there are armed with shard guns. Mind control is surprisingly harmless if you use harpoon weapons - exosuits are impervious to them, while aquatoids die easily. Hallucinoids are the only real issue, you need some heavier weapons on reliable peoples' backs.
I've done plenty of early barges on SH, and I would much rather fight aquatoids than gillmen. Xarquid oneshots are much harder to avoid.
MC-shielding is, again, an overkill. Nothing before the ancient dungeon truly requires it.