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Messages - arbee81

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XPiratez / Taking Down Silver Towers
« on: November 10, 2020, 04:31:05 am »
I'm near the end of a campaign I've been really unlucky with stargod RNG.  No SG crackdowns, no bases, no battleships.  So I thought I'd take a crack at the silver towers and found myself woefully unprepared.  I came here and couldn't really find much in terms of a solid strategy, so I decided to figure it out and post it here for future lazy bastards like myself    ;D

I don't know this for sure, but it seemed like none of the silver towers in my game spawned as hunter-killers, so you can plan and influence which crafts it shoots at, which is nice.

My first attempt was with dragons and devastators with the heaviest damage stuff I could cram in them.  Then I realized none of them could catch a Silver Towers, lol.  That was a costly oversight.

Next attempt was with 1 Sabre with tesla cannons and meteor missiles, and 3 brave whalers with avalanches. I figured the sabre could tank shots and get in close to start hitting the shields, then the brave whalers could overwhelm it with 9 avalanche missiles.  I couldn't even drop the shields with this fleet.  The sabre didn't last long, and I'm sure some of the avalanches missed.  I was using a gal pilot, so maybe a lokk with max stats and an extra shield generator or two would make this more viable.  I couldn't make it work, though.

Third time was the charm.  This time I went with 4 sabres, all with tesla cannons and meteor missiles, and that did the trick.  If you're good at pulling damaged craft away until the UFO targets something else you can even keep all the ships alive.  I had to savescum a bit, but I wanted to see if it could be done.  I think the key is having high bravery pilots to make the quickest approaches and retreats.  And reactions, of course, to dodge the attacks.  The weapons are both 125% accuracy, so I don't think high accuracy is that important.  I had one sabre pilot that was either normal or mostly bold for approach and I had a hard time keeping that one alive since the fall back until it switched targets was so much slower.  Then reapproaching took a lot longer.  The sabres could take 4-5 shots before they were toast

At the time I had forgotten about medusa missiles.  6 missiles per launcher instead of 3, 100% accuracy (worse than meteor but good), and roughly double the damage to shields that the meteors caused.  Looks good on paper, but then those 9 avalanches looked good on paper too   :P  Haven't tried it, but it looks like a better option.

Assaulting the ship once it's down is a bitch and a half, but in the end I was able to bag an operator and the coordinator, so I was happy.  Speaking of operators, where else do they spawn?  This was my first time encountering one this campaign.  I figured a cruiser at least would have one, but none of the ones I assaulted did.  Just bad luck?

Also, I did this on L3.  I'm curious to hear what others have used to down these beasts

TL:DR - not an optimal strategy probably, but 4 sabres with teslas and meteors will get the job done.  Bring high bravery and reaction gals and do a little juggling in the interception window if you want everyone to come home

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XPiratez / Re: How to kill a blue-shielded hovertank?
« on: November 10, 2020, 03:42:26 am »
I've found a blast or two with a Fatty will take down the shields, followed up with an EMP grenade to kill the tank.  If I know there might be one of those tanks on a mission I'll always bring 2 gals with fatties just for hovertank duty.

I try to avoid them if I can before I have that stuff.  Blue shields take 25% from concussive, which is why your mortars didn't scratch them.  They also take 25% from piercing, so regular guns are out.  Laser, plasma, electricity, cut, and stab do 100%, so an intrepid melee girl or two might bring it down.  It's no picnic once the shield is down, though.  They're resistant to varying degrees to most damage types, even melee types. They take bonus damage from EMP and even more from warp.   Your best bet if you don't have either is piercing, which they take 80% from.  But even then it's a minimum of 90 armor everywhere, and higher on the sides and front.  37mm rifles have a chance, and recoilless rifles, but they're a tough nut to crack without EMP

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: October 12, 2020, 07:39:59 am »
I've been playing this mod for years and only found out about stunning robots during this playthrough, both on accident.  One was an academy drone, I think with a stun rod.  I assumed it was immune and thought whacking it would just train melee.  The other was a cyberdisc in an academy base.  Melee gal with an electro sword, all on her own, checking a part of the base I "knew" was empty, just to be sure.  Opened a door and there it was.  I couldn't remember if cut damage triggered the explosion, but figured she was a goner either way, so I went for it.  To my very great surprise it knocked the disc out.  Only problem was I had to leave her there to babysit.  Last thing I wanted was that thing waking up and coming from a place I thought was safe.  It's not a sure thing, it happened maybe 50/50 after that and lately it's been more like a third of the time, but I'm more in the late game and have more gals with maxed stats and skill/stat boosting armors.

I think I also got one of those terminator drones with a lasso

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: October 11, 2020, 08:48:51 am »
You overlooked armor damage on gauss.

I did forget it has built in armor damage, but I'm not sure it changes things much.  I haven't tried it, but I imagine it would take a good amount of hits to lower the armor enough to make much a difference.  Maybe if you don't have any of the big lasers or only have standard clips for them gauss might work better with the armor damage.  My head isn't made for that kind of math  :)

Has anyone tried EMP grenades against sectopods?  They have 50% resist, but it cuts through so much armor that it seems like it would still be effective.  I've only fought 2 sectopods this game so far, and didn't have EMP at hand either time to try it

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: October 10, 2020, 02:47:36 am »
I just did a little checking.  Sectopod front plate is 150, and gauss weapons do 50-150% for damage, so heavy gauss can't pierce it.  Sniper gauss on a very shooty gal has a chance to.  Sides and back are lower, but not by much.  135 and 110, respectively.  But first you have to get past their shields, which are blue and take 25% damage from pierce.

If I'm understanding the pedia entry for blue shields, then lasers do 100% damage to them, and lasers do 0-200% for damage, so some of the beefier lasers can damage them even without their natural armor pierce bonus, and even more so with the higher damage and increased armor penetration of the AP clips.  So AP lasers, or even adv clips seem like a good goto for sectopods.  Assuming running isn't an option, of course    ;D

Also, the marsec marines do carry the marsec lasguns, it's just not a guarantee.  I think I got one on my 3rd viper fighter

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XPiratez / Re: Approaches to Base Building
« on: July 04, 2020, 02:34:14 am »
Ha!  Spoke too soon.  The missile strikes weren't done, and now the hangar is gone.  Still got a pretty sweet access lift, though.  Suck on that, factions!

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XPiratez / Re: Approaches to Base Building
« on: July 04, 2020, 12:30:09 am »
I'm in a similar position, the last time I played missile strikes weren't a thing (or at least I don't remember them).  I recently had a base blasted down to the access list and 1 hangar.   There was no warning, but then I also didn't have radar at that base.  Would that make a difference?

In my case I definitely recently pissed off the church (some shrine ships landed in my backyard), and maybe the Guild (I shot down some passenger ferries, no big, right?).  Are the missile strikes always tied to something like that or are they random?  I had a church hideout assault around the same time that I assumed was triggered by the shrine ships getting sacked.  Is there a chance for missile strikes and a hideout assault to trigger from that, or maybe a chance of each from each ship?

My approach to base building before was to spam them out as quickly as I could and focus on establishing some basic defenses (hands and some gear) and then workshop stuff to make money, then build them out and specialize as needed.  Most of the time I don't even bother with radar until I get hyperwave decoders since my interception options are limited.  I'm thinking I need to slow down a bit and turn these more into fully fledged bases.  It's weird, I usually never bother with base defense buildings until the late game, even in vanilla.  But then I guess that's the point of the missile strikes, huh?   :P

And since this is a base building advice thread, I've been toying with the idea of surrounding the access lift and hangars with security corridors to block off the sewer layer and spread out the gals more.  The way I usually build bases is to have the hangars and access lift isolated so that the access lift is the only point of entry to the rest of the base on the main level, but then the gals are so densely packed around that corridor that explosives can easily take a few out each turn.  Has anyone tried the corridor thing and how did it work for you?

One thing Piratez always teaches me is that I really suck at base management

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XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports
« on: July 03, 2020, 02:55:06 pm »
Not sure if this is a bug or just unexpected behavior.  I was trying to transfer a craft to another base that had an empty hangar.  The craft was empty.  At the time I had started building a large barracks over two regular barracks at the empty hangar base.  When I tried to transfer the craft it gave an error that there were not sufficient accommodations for the ship's crew.  I did have more people than I technically had barrack space at that time, since the 2 barracks were being built over.  Once the large barracks finished I was able to transfer the craft.

At the time I thought it was quirk of the build-over feature, but figured I should report it just in case.  I didn't think to grab a save at the time, but I'll see if I have an old save from around that time

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - L2 - 21 May - Blood And Skulls
« on: June 19, 2020, 09:37:39 am »
Come on, the basic pirate outfit is dark pants, a button up shirt, and sometimes a piratey hat.  The rogue variant is pants, a matching cloak and a bikini top.  Blackhat is some kind of goth porn fantasy outfit.  The closest thing to colorful and flamboyant is the swashbuckler outfit, and that's pretty much shorts and a tank top.  The boots and gloves are an odd choice, I'll admit.  I can't see any of these raising an eyebrow with all the other crazy stuff running around out there.

The Zaxx mission is already restricting you to infiltration gear and no armor outfits, why do you want it restricted even more?  And what wouldn't alarm the church?  The bikini?  Rags?  Ganger?  The pirate outfits are the closest things to normal clothes they have

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XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports
« on: December 08, 2018, 04:29:40 am »
Good to know, thanks.  Ditto on the courier run description, just mentions guild and academy, and one just popped for church.  I'm just glad the church is back.  They took a very long hiatus and I need a cardinal.  I know I can buy one, but where's the fun in that?

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XPiratez / Re: Which mods do you guys use with Piratez?
« on: December 07, 2018, 08:18:01 am »
ditto on Ivan's stuff, especially the armor manufacturing.  Everything from Defender on is a royal pain without it

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XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports
« on: December 07, 2018, 08:04:35 am »
Not sure this would count as a bug, but I've got a church ship doing an influence mission.  I looked up influence to get an idea of the later waves, and it specifically mentions the Academy and Guild doing them.  So I guess it would be a bug if the church isn't supposed to also do them.  I don't know, I wasn't sure where else to mention it

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XPiratez / Re: How do you guys use Syns?
« on: December 07, 2018, 07:56:14 am »
Thanks for the advice everyone.  Sounds like I've been worrying too much over the low stam regen and small health pool.  She's been doing the sniper thing for a while, so I think her stamina is fine.  I'll try her with melee, and be a bit more reckless.  I like the kustom blunderbuss idea too.  I've got a couple collecting dust at the moment, so why not?

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XPiratez / How do you guys use Syns?
« on: December 05, 2018, 11:44:39 am »
I recently got a damaged syn in the loot from one of those orbital freighter missions.  Those missions are brutal!  Lost a few gals and everyone else came back wounded.  Lots of fighting in those grav lift shafts.  Anyway, once I did all the research and rebuilt her, I find I'm having trouble finding the best way to use her. 

The high TU, energy, and good resistances made me think melee, but the poor energy recovery and lack of inventory space for recovery consumables made me think twice.  Same problem for a dedicated thrower/bow gal.  Currently I'm using her a high mobility sniper, so she only needs to move a handful of times, then can sit and snipe while the energy recovers.  It works well, but I don't think it's really using her to her fullest.

I'm curious how others use them

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XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports
« on: December 02, 2018, 01:20:36 pm »
I'm raiding a downed science vessel and one of the gals is seeing an enemy inside the ship that she shouldn't be able to.  It looks like there's a missing ceiling tile on top of the craft.  Enemy #2 for Gorey Katana (I really love the names in this mod) is on the third floor of the craft by the doors.  The ceiling tile for the inner corner appears to be missing.  It's not near an engine so it should be from crash damage.  I tried a quick battle too just to see if it was missing there too and it was.  Or I'm missing something obvious, which has been the case with my previous bug reports   :)

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