Messages

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N2 Apocalyptic Edition 22-Oct-2022

« on: November 11, 2022, 10:53:50 am »

Thanks, that's an insanely cool option!

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N2 Apocalyptic Edition 22-Oct-2022

« on: November 10, 2022, 11:01:56 pm »

Can someone explain to me what exactly does:

"- OXCE feature: XCOM Apocalypse-style soldier equipping option (on by default)"

mean? I vaguely recall Xapoc having a drag-and-drop equipping (instead of the UFO/XCOM "click to pick, click to place" approach). But I don't think that's what the point above refers to.

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XPZ Strategy/Tactics / Re: [TOOL] Shipping Contact ID Sheet by Speed

« on: April 29, 2022, 07:32:06 pm »

Great resource Ivan. Invaluable for the entire pre-HD radar phase.

FYI - While the Marauding Army has landed and crashed markers set up, it is also set as Unmanned, so cannot ever actually have a land/crash site. Same for Imperial Probe, Ground Attack, Search and Comm Waves. I'd assume Roving Bands cannot crash as well, having 1pt of damage capacity, so any damage destroys them. Didn't try to tractor them - not sure if they can be forcibly landed.

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains

« on: April 23, 2022, 05:51:06 pm »

Uuuh? The update is not even a full month old and you're asking for the next one? The answer would be - yes, there is an update planned. In the fututre. Somewhere.

Well, I suppose you're right... tho that only works if the amount of books you have is high enough to occupy the workspace (more than runts/12). Nevermind then.

Well, you can have less runts working on this project to match a low number of books. With the rest doing something else - like for example making more books

Personally, I'm not in favor of events that are month-based, and believe that it's better game design if events are primarily based on the pace at which the player progresses through the game (tech tree).

I'd disagree. With the tech tree complicated as it is now, you'd probably miss a lot of things due to how RNGesus works. And besides - the world is evolving around you regardless of what your Brainers are working on. Having the entire world stuck at "Tech level 1", just because you havent researched the "Tech 2 Unlock" is preposterous, while at the same time universally present in modern games. Becasue balance reasons

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains

« on: April 19, 2022, 05:35:57 pm »

There's one small annoyance with OnlyRunts and that is, it requires too much micromanagement. If you have 100 pillow books and 100 workers, then producing 100x OnlyRunts will complete in 12 hours. So you gotta keep replacing the project over and over, several times per day, and the less pillow books you have, the worse it gets. Compared to Chateau de la Mort, you put in a production for a 100 and you're good for half a month.

If you set the order to more than the amount of books you have it will automatically use the books you get back and keep on working forever. Or at least until you run out of books (there's a 5 or 10% chance to not get the book back).

I feel like Cleopatra's Challenge event comes way too late. By the time it shows up (October or later) and the missions chain is finished, most of the rewards aren't relevant anymore, at least for expert players who, by then, are already in the space age.

I agree with that sentiment. But early on you'd most likely not have a crew good enough to attempt some of them (Shamblers and Werewolves are pretty hard). And the rewards are pretty mediocre. Since this is a short despawn time mission done with a very slow 'craft', you can't really choose the time of day (unless you use #43 trickery) which also adds to the 'fun' factor.


=============

And to jump on the whole Ubre naming bandwagon. If you're willing to accept Black Beard as a pirate name, then what issue do you have with Erotic Vag*na or Nice Tits (both actual Gal names that I rolled and ROTFL'ed). The naming is basically a throwback to the ancient times (for example Nordic cultures), where you got names from defining characteristics. Knot-beard, Bluetooth, Longshanks, Bloodaxe and heck, even Ragnar Lothbrok which basicaly translates to "Raven Hairy (or leather) Pants". And I think Hairy Pants is one of the actually possible combinations for a Gal's name.
As for the lore explanation, I'd assume they were only known as Subject #5323 or similar to the Academy, so they had to think of new names to call themselves. Without professions (like Smith, Fisher etc.), parents (so no Eriksdottir or somesuch) and no accessible lineage for a proper naming convention (so no Anna, Monica, Yoko etc.) they were left with names dependent on defining characteristics and/or associations. Seems pretty logical when you give it some thought. It does imply that they might have been taken by the Academy at a toddler age, so they never learned what their biological parrents actually called them. It is never explained at what age the Academy harvests its specimens, but it does make sense to have the least outside 'taint' not to skewer any results (which would imply very erly age).

...See? Anything can be explained with a combination logic and imagination.

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - L6 06-Dec-2020 Bag Of Tricks

« on: January 26, 2021, 08:16:58 pm »

Corect me if I'm wrong, but isn't this what the options parameter Explosion Height determines? If I understand it's workings correctly, it still does not change the explosion to a pyramid-shape as in XAPOC, just makes it less pancake-y. So, in essence, a Mini Nuke explosion won't reach as far up as it's diameter, just the number od z-levels that the options allows. IIRC the option is fixed at 3 levels, so I assume being 4 (or more) z levels above the explosion makes you immune to it.

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XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: December 25, 2020, 11:49:13 am »

I've never had issues with it and I used it quite extensively (MAG rockets FTW!). If you account for the reload cost, you will not be able to fire it twice in a turn anyway, even with 42% TU's. Plus, since it's use requires much thught and planning (having it's user in the right position at the right time against the proper opponent) I never use the 'hail mary' snapshot option - I like to maximize the hit chance for important shots.

On the lore side - if you fire it without really aiming (Snap) it still takes slightly more time to set up, due to advanced electronics, than it's simpler predecessor. While in Aimed you actually use the electronics for faster target acquisition/lock.

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XPiratez / Re: What's the deal with tiny drill?

« on: December 25, 2020, 11:37:55 am »

Do this:

Edit your savegame with any text editor and change value in lines:
      STR_TINY_DRILL: 1
      STR_MENACING_HULL: 1

to
      STR_TINY_DRILL: 4
      STR_MENACING_HULL: 4

This will give you 4 Tiny drills and hulls, so you can use each on a different codex.

And this

You will have to edit Piratez.rul. Find instances of "disables:" relating to the codexes and remove it. Basically, you have to re-make the research tree so that one codex choice does not block off others. Having all codexes unlocked will not crash the game or anything, unless you make errors while editing the file. Just don't complain about difficulty or weird interactions that wouldn't be possible if you were limited to 1 codex.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 28, 2020, 04:39:04 pm »

If warrior armor is the best you have, then prepare to have your backside kicked. Unless you like to savescum every single step. Expect to be outmanned, outgunned and underpowered. Depending on whose base it is, expect 25-30 enemies, decently armored, wielding plasma weaponry, with terror unit support and better stats (or at least as good as yours).

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 27, 2020, 10:16:49 pm »

I'd say he'll have to wait an additional month. It may be telling to look at the savegame - if the score from completed research is already added to current month score then he was too late. If it's still 0, then it was added to previous month, so the missions could trigger in current month. Or, you could dig deeper and just check if any of the relevant missions are upcoming (though there might be a case where they could possible spawn, but RNGesus chose not to).
Completely subjective evidence (research completed appearing AFTER the day changes in the calendar) would suggest that research is completed after midnight and counts for the day that started.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 26, 2020, 07:00:35 pm »

Look into Piratez.rul. More specifically "fixed user options" (somewhere near the end of the file). Remove the hardcoded option from the list and it will allow you to change it freely from options screen.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 12, 2020, 04:18:24 pm »

AFAIK 2x2 units never wake up from stunning. So you didn't have to babysit it at all.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 11, 2020, 12:48:10 pm »

On a different topic, how do you shoot down a silver towers?

See here: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3626.msg107447.html#msg107447
Basically same as Greep - 3 whalers/9 avalanche + tank craft. That's a setup viable only in the late game, when you have nothing else to spend your dolaros. Like I said in the post above - Towers are a last shot at getting a SG coordinator if you're getting ready for Mars and still missing the SG codes.

Supervision is a mission with a fairly low infamy loss, and the Towers are a fast ship so it doesn't last long - all in all, they're safe to ignore.

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - L4 15-Sep-2020 Mad Melee Massacre

« on: October 04, 2020, 11:43:18 am »

Some observation, why megapol cannot have their own issued weapons? for instance there is a space ranger pistol & rifle which are not used by space rangers since they do not exist - or gonna be implemented don't know - but i think it's very strange that a well enstablished and founded police corp uses rusty niners...ant least the rangers one might be rebranded as megapol pistol and so on...since RCF has a dedicated carabine...

1. Megapol from XPiratez and Megapol from XApoc are two (vastly) different organizations. Same with Marsec. Please stop mixing the games.
2. They are a police force. Period. They're reluctantly sponsored by the Govts, but I assume the sponsors are not really interested in having a strong police force outside their control. So they get shitty equipment. The 'plasma upgrade' is most likely funded from outside (big factions) or forced on the Govts by Star Gods - to "handle these pesky pirates wannabes once and for all".
3. Space Rangers are a membership organization, not a faction per se. It's mentioned in the Bootypedia that some (most?) high ranking members of other factions are also members of the Rangers. They're an evil mix between a gentleman's club and volunteer militia. They sure as hell can afford their own line of weaponry. And they are probably not going to share it with a bunch of dirty beastmen that call themselves the police.

They later carry also plasma weapons, but again these are a bit too excessive for them, how to replace with laser ones? the plasma should be an exclusive or mercenaries and star gods, while gauss might be a bit more common, though in the mid-higher factions, like mercenaries and marsec, though in xcom apocalypse the latter had theri weapons too, so some dedicated firearm may be a nice contribute

1. Plasmas -> see point 2 above.
2. Marsec does have their own weapons. Just because you haven't met them, doesn't mean they're not there. For the n-th time - play the mod more, before making suggestions.

Lastly - asking for total conversions (like the swapping of weapon types - which would require re-balancing the entire mod) or changes that are of a 'I don't like it' category is a nice way to get permanently ignored, at best. If there is so much that is wrong with Xpiratez that you have to complain about it on and on and on, then perhaps this is not the mod for you. You can either choose some other mod or modify XPiratez on your own - it's open source and easy (technically speaking) to do so. Dioxine is open to suggestions on how to improve the mod on a objective level - not to adjust it to everyone's liking.

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - L4 15-Sep-2020 Mad Melee Massacre

« on: September 27, 2020, 06:52:41 pm »

something more common

Have you ever seen a screwdriver in-game?
IMO the access to riot shields is fine - Megapol flyovers are pretty common, so the shields are mostly guaranteed, just don't expect to get them on the first try. Sa as with any other tech. If you're that impatient, then perhaps you can mod the game to start with all the research critical items in storage.

Only thing that is a bit illogical with the shields is that they're not a tool but a product. It's like learning smithing by examining a sword - sure, you'll know what's possible, but it doesn't really tell you much about the process itself.