Messages

1

XPiratez / Re: Everyday is Caturday Challenge Run

« on: April 17, 2024, 04:45:26 pm »

the fucking money is the real hamstring imo. this playthrough is expanding and scaling up way, way later and much slower than I usually do in a Gals or Peasant Rev run, just because the cats are so goddamn expensive. normally you'd fill the gaps with peasants or m*le soldiers and use those as chaff while the cats provide stiffener, but can't do that because gimmick run. you wind up paying millions in upkeep just for garrison troops. Even if you turn a base into a grog/weed/chateau etc. profit manufacturing center, you end up losing all that money it makes just paying for the garrison.

all the tactical considerations can be worked around; you can skimp on weight, get indoors and out of LOS and so on. but there's no fix for the economic layer, once you're doing every mission and selling everything you can, that's it, that's all you get.

2

XPiratez / Re: Everyday is Caturday Challenge Run

« on: April 07, 2024, 12:06:51 am »

Mister Bones says "The ride is starting!"

3

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle

« on: April 05, 2024, 09:14:21 pm »

I want to say the game is great. Designer is brilliant.

But I feel like there is no point in shotgun scutter shots. Even with above 100% hit chance, more then half of pallets missing the target. (Which defeats the purpose of a shotgun - do tons of damage to an unarmored target.) So I end up always loading AP rounds even against an unarmored enemy. What about you guys? Do shotguns work for you?

this is addressed in one of the hint texts. the displayed %%tohit for a shotgun is the probability to hit with at least one pellet, not many or all.

4

XPiratez / Re: Everyday is Caturday Challenge Run

« on: March 25, 2024, 09:25:05 pm »

"I think I'm Quite Content with what I have right now, I do not need-" I am interrupted, unable to finish my sentence. An unintentional mistake- but a fatal one. "Only Content? Oh that will not do. Dear, could you go get the gray box on the counter? I believe our Queen expects a higher standard of us..."

Gods save me. The empress wont.

I'm getting a bit of an Overlord vibe here; this whole scheme has gotten away from itself and now The Captain is merely along for the ride.

5

XPiratez / Re: Everyday is Caturday Challenge Run

« on: March 14, 2024, 10:55:26 pm »

some absolutely brutal missions in this session. nice to see that people are starting to run out of redos and dying-for-real.

6

XPiratez / Re: Everyday is Caturday Challenge Run

« on: March 13, 2024, 06:52:49 pm »

begun, the cat-puns have...

7

XPiratez / Re: Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle

« on: March 13, 2024, 06:49:02 pm »

Cats 4 Life gets recruitable catgirls off the market (same as buying Hands for Gals Are Superior) as well as a unique craft based on xcomfiles' Kitsune. There's also access to the Golden Pistol and the other nekomimi golden weapons. One of the big bottlenecks for Cat Path is that both the unique craft and unique weapon consume Neko Nuclear Batterys which are quite expensive. Catgirls are pretty decent as rare recruits and have a good niche as auxiliaries (and cute mascots) but they struggle as mainline troops due to their low health and low armor. They've got all the speed and killy-ness of a melee gal but all the fragility of a peasant. If you haven't done Peasant Revolution yet, I would recommend doing so. It's especially flavorful if you start in Red Revolution (Venezuela) for the extra revolutionary recruits from that country's starting event.

If you're interested in Cats 4 Life, check out the Everyday Is Caturday thread; Yugian is doing a let's play with this gimmick.

8

XPiratez / Re: Everyday is Caturday Challenge Run

« on: March 11, 2024, 09:16:54 pm »

What I meant with the burrow spam, see attachment - the same base within a month or two. When you build a burrow (or the corridor in my case), after it finishes, you can expand from it. And after you start expansion you can build on top of the corridor(or burrow), which 1. doesn't cancel already started project. 2. speeds up construction.
As a result, if you want to have 3 libraries close to each other, you don't need to wait 40 days until first one finishes, then start second, and in 40 more days finally start third library, you can start them almost simultaneously on prebuilt corridors/burrows.

You don't need to build out Burrows (or Security Corridors etc.) to open more accessible tiles for building. Go to Options, click Advanced button, scroll down to Geoscape header, and check the Allow Building Queue setting. It's still very useful to clear out the rubble (ie turn it into burrows) and build more burrows/extractors though. The burrows especially because almost everything can be built on top of a burrow.

And much like never realizing molotovs Murder Academy drones, Never figured using the hammer to clean up the bus. I just need to commit that to memory. And habit.

It works because burn damage (and the fire effect) bypasses armor to damage HP directly, and because robots as an enemy category tend to have lots of armor and very little health. Same reason lasers are great against terminators. Stuff like this is what I love about Piratez; no matter how gud you git, somehow there's always room for more.

9

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle

« on: March 09, 2024, 02:58:11 pm »

I chose gray codex and finally got my first weird gal.
So I'm trying many different wands and cane.
But all of these spend a lot of Freshness.
Could you tell me how to refresh quickly? I have luxury spa already.

There's a few Freshness-restoring consumables like the Buddha-X Smokes and Cigar El Commandante, but for the most part what you've got is what you've got. Managing your freshness is a big challenge for voodoo-heavy gals.

10

XPiratez / Re: Everyday is Caturday Challenge Run

« on: March 09, 2024, 02:54:57 pm »

I stumbled across this from the forum thread and had a lot of fun watching along. I've always thought Piratez would be great fodder for a Lets Play so I'm excited to see where you take this all.

11

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

« on: March 08, 2024, 08:23:20 pm »

Spitfire Ammo/Gas
damage: 20 choking just like flintlock gas balls

Spitfire Incendiary would be another good one. It could use the same stats as LACC /WP, just with the spitfire's more accessible spray-n-pray shooting. Something like this would be fantastic for lighting up night maps.

In terms of advanced ammo variants (from Extra Cannon Munitions tech), at first I was thinking an /EP ammo might be fun and interesting, but then I realized there's an even better 'spicy' option. The Spitfire is mostly used by Spartans and sometimes Humanists, so wouldn't it be fun to give them Anti-E511 ammunition? I think that having special anti-mutant ammo for their unique gun would be a very flavourful midgame upgrade for these mundane humans. It would also push the player to use this otherwise fairly niche weapon for its unique capability; anti-hellerium ammo is otherwise only found on the exterminator's autocannon and manufactured ammo.

12

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle

« on: March 08, 2024, 08:12:46 pm »

On an unrelated note, I keep getting the "Idiot" condemnation for my over reliance on the spikey SMG and I'm feeling a little attacked. It's a great weapon, I swear!

do you use it for the shooting, the melee stun, or both?
is the chem ammo any good?

13

XPiratez / Re: Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle

« on: March 04, 2024, 03:45:21 am »

Don't camp doors for more than one turn, and if you do it should only be to farm reaction fire XP. If you have the safety, the cleared map space to camp for a turn then you should be breaching the craft/building and finding more enemies to kill. Since reaction fire uses the leftover TUs from your turn, that means the TUs you're reserving for reaction shots could instead be spent taking the shot on your turn or positioning yourself out of LOS. General tactics you want to remove as many enemies from the map as fast as possible. You want to avoid situations where the enemies can encounter you on their turn. Your own reaction fire is a mitigation against this, not a desired outcome, because it inherently means you're in a situation where you might get shot.

14

XPiratez / Re: rss sprites, the legend continues

« on: February 08, 2024, 03:01:43 pm »

Personally I think the Six Shooter item/gun should actually be Removed from the game entirely. Maybe the Ol Revolver stats just get averaged between the two. I don't really like there being a police revolver either, but I guess its like a snub nose version. There should be some kind of Revolver Carbine instead because for a short time the Zip Gun used revolver ammunition (several different kinds) and now it just uses Ol Rifle stripper clips. There should be something that shoots Revolver ammo at a higher accuracy in exchange for being a two hander.

...I think there should also be some kind of machinegun that fires 5 shot bursts with OlRifle stripper clips, similar to the Japanese machinegun from ww2.

Ol' Machinegun:
Ammo is Ol' Rifle Clips, shooting is slightly worse than Assault Machinegun, can only shoot in 5-round bursts (Auto and Snap) so it has to reload after each shot. Maybe something like Auto 5 with 40% accuracy and Snap 5 with 30% accuracy, costing 40% and 30% of TUs respectively with a fairly fast reload because your Gal is just jamming a clipazine in the top. Ideally one wants to capture the feeling of reloading your Super Sawed-Off after every doubletap, but with an MG.

A lot of the revolvers and handguns can be cleared out imo. I agree that the Ol' Revolver and Six Shooter should be merged; i never use them because the autopistols are strictly better.

15

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: February 03, 2024, 01:47:21 am »

You should use pre-priming, it's a very robust feature. You can pre-prime a timed explosive to go off on the second turn (or more) so that your bomb-holder has enough time to deploy first turn, then run to position and throw 2nd turn. It's a great way to get heavy explosives downrange and encourages the 'terrain remodeling' mindset, as long as you don't forget that your unit is holding a live bomb.