Messages

1

XPiratez / Re: Think's Think Tank & Suggestions

« on: April 23, 2016, 11:35:44 am »

4. Loot diversity
 So far in my one Mad Mansion mission I have found little loot of use to me, as I could only find some apples, meat and cutlasses, all of which became way obsolete years ago (besides apples) and I feel if Mad Mansions are to be worth the risk, they should give some very serious rewards (think Gauss, laser, plasma, gold bars, hellerium, armor, alcohol, electronics and other valuable materials, while also having some less technical rewards that may be useful anyways)

 You might have been unlucky, in the three missions I attempted there were many cash bags/money purses, personal computers (that you can disassemble in electronics), various outfits, treasures chests containing gold and gems (though I got none in the last mission I attempted), a lot of various alcohol bottles... Weapons and hellerium wouldn't fit IMHO, that's not the kind of things you'd particularly expect to find in a luxury mansion (vs. a smuggling UFO or a military base for instance).

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XPiratez / Re: Mansion Mission Reports (Please Contribute)

« on: April 22, 2016, 02:36:08 pm »

I found that with a bit of experience, you end up knowing which types of rooms may contain enemies so you can relatively safely skip many (like the "attic" rooms except towers and exec chambers, or non-kitchen in the ground floor).

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XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: April 22, 2016, 01:24:55 am »

okay i appear to be not recovering captives now. Save is a base attack with 2 certain stunned foes. One Marsec BG and one guild Security. Last guy can be stunned for finish as well.

 Same problem here, captured enemies don't show up on the end screen and in my base.

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XPiratez / Re: Mansion Mission Reports (Please Contribute)

« on: April 21, 2016, 09:00:45 pm »

" Speaking of which, try not to take anything not held by the gals, who knows where that extra stuff is going to end"
Wasn't clear enough to me.
I think it's my english, but the warning isn't highlighted enough to me

 Oh, that's what it means, I couldn't figure it when I read it first too...
 Maybe rephrase it something like:
 "Speaking of which, when preparing your vessel, try not to bring to the mansion anything the gals won't carry in their inventory, who knows where that extra stuff is going to end."

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XPiratez / Re: Mansion Mission Reports (Please Contribute)

« on: April 21, 2016, 03:33:46 pm »

The towers being randomly unreachable is fully by design. You can always destroy walls, so it's more of a limit to the AI than the player. A few less avenues to control is always good in such a mission. I'm glad the mission is liked, maybe I was too generous with the loot, though (although alternative ways of acquiring gems will appear, no doubt).

Note that towers were not the only unreachable areas, I've got a few rooms in the "attic" level that were unreachable except through the glass ceiling (it was fun breaking through though). Also if the towers can be unreachable by design, could there be some kind of hint about it - maybe a kind of solid metal door somewhere that can't be opened (act as a wall), afterall, how did the people enter the tower in the first place?

Regarding the loot, I didn't intend to say it should be reduced, part of the fun of those missions it the expectation to get all the goodies you find around when it's over

Good move on the pipe! I'm guessing anything that scales well with stats is primordial. Pipes and (barbed) daggers actually both scale decently and could be quite useful. Even the handle isn't bad for brave gals (and could net you a few VIP captures). Then any 1x1 explosives (bombs ftw!) for the ranged side of things.

I'm not sure trying to capture is a good idea in this mission, as it is quite long the enemies might regain consciousness and you'll have to chase them around in areas you've already explored, quite annoying...

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XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: April 21, 2016, 02:42:43 am »

Hi Dioxine, loving the mod - it's amazing what's been done with xcom (and Meridians changes too!). I've ended up with the same issue as the person who brought this up - crash on arrival at Siberian base. As it's my first play through I'm unsure about the importance of this mission - will there be negative effects from leaving it unactioned? Will it block completion of the game? (I assumed it was a faction base mission, and I've already completed one Academy Base mission).

Just trying to decide if I should continue as is or switch back to 0.98B. Thanks!

Same here, CTD on attempting the Siberia Base mission (2nd time it appears, didn't know it disappeared the first time...)

Save attached.

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XPiratez / Re: Mansion Mission Reports (Please Contribute)

« on: April 21, 2016, 12:57:10 am »

 I'm rather new to X-PirateZ (an aborted 3-years campaign and a now into 2nd year of another one which was upgraded to .98C halfway) and just discovered this topic, so I wanted to share my feedback. A small token of gratitude for making this truly astounding mod 

 I unfortunately haven't kept exact note of the result of my Mansion missions, I'll do my best to remember things as accurately as possible.

 I have played 2 mansions missions now, one around the 2nd semester of the 1st year just after upgrading to .98C and doing the research (the first mansion immediately appeared) with traders, the other early in the 2nd year with academists.

 I'd say each mission took maybe 3 hours real time. Overall they were much less tedious than I feared at first: it was mostly a matter of exploration, enemies rarely went into areas I had already explored, opening every little door is not necessary (it seems enemies are always in mid-sized rooms and they let doors open so they don't hide in a toilet for the whole duration of the mission...).

 The general setup of the mansion was nearly (but not exactly) the same both times:
 - Two basement levels, bottom one with a few small caves with mutant meat, top with long corridors and a few engineering rooms. Treasure chests were there.
 - Ground floor with white tint, big corridors, kitchens, a few conference rooms
 - 1st floor with red carpet that makes a squishy sound, lots of small corridors and closet-like rooms
 - 2nd floor with green tapestry, again with small corridors and rooms and a few larger restaurant rooms
 - 3rd floor with lots of attic-like rooms that aren't connected together (you have to go through the 2nd floor to reach each one) and a few "executive suits" and big conference rooms.
 - 4th floor is the roof, though you have small "towers" going several levels higher and containing arcane items-filled rooms

 There's one thing that didn't work too well though: both times some parts of the mansions were unreachable without breaking some walls, and of course some enemies were stuck there. This seems to be particularly the case for the small arcane towers where you find some high-ranking people : the only time I've been able to enter one (out of 5 over 2 missions) without breaking a wall was through a path going through the bottommost level (2nd subterranean level).

 I found the missions rather easy; I equiped everyone with just pipes (all in Maid outfits, not that I had anything else fitting), made 9 2-people teams that each explored on their own with about half of their TU each turn and smacked everyone they found (luckily I had some black powder bombs to open the unreachable rooms). As about noone is armored and pipes require only 8 TU, resistance was very weak; enemies seemed to have only weak firearms, nothing that couldn't be adressed with a few bandages. The only difficulty was at the end, when there were few enemies left to smack to regain morale, everyone started panicking until I found the last ones - though without firearms in hand berserking isn't really dangerous. But that's probably because of the "enemies stuck in unreachable areas" problem. Can't remember exactly how many enemies there were, I'd say around 40 (I play on 2nd difficulty level), mostly low-level, with 1 high rank (Esper), 2 mid rank (Medic) and a few engineers (usually in the basement).

 I also found the loot extremely generous, several millions $ are a real boon early in the game. In both missions the notable loot I remember (not counting a lot of mutant meat, exquisite lingerie, etc.) included:
 - Treasure chests (3 or 4 in the first one, only one the second)
 - Tens of money purses and cash bags (which contained a LOT of money chips)
 - About 20 personal computers
 - About 20 Chateau de la Mort bottles
 - A few illegally enriched uranium
 - A few Liber Occultus
 - A few wands of Airlessness

 Overall it's a nice change from the usual missions, I wouldn't do only those missions, but once in a while and for such an amount of loot, that's perfect. And I'd do one of those anytime over a base defense with their atrocious sewer chases...