Messages

61

XPiratez / Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?

« on: August 29, 2016, 09:49:21 pm »

Is there such a thing as a non-crucial capture? Who wouldn't want to capture and interrogate everything and everyone? Would that be any kind of proper play? You say strange things.
Also it's a version issue; it so happens that freshly added items can be hard to find due to limited number of places where they appear.

I wouldn't consider most unintelligent beasts to present as crucial captures (for example Reapers, Chryssalids, Celatids, etc), unless there is something that is obviously valuable about them. I don't think your average player starts from a vantage of wanting to play Pokeman and catch em all just cause.

62

OXCE Wishlists / Re: Solar's wishlist

« on: August 29, 2016, 09:42:00 pm »

If you really have to know, it wasn't worth commenting for the dual-pronged reasons of being a well-known improvement idea, and the reality that it needed an attention of a coder to happen (which just happened).

I didn't specify anything about having to know why the suggestion wasn't acknowledged; posts get missed or overlooked; that's not something I'm concerned with so much as the absence of implementation.

63

XPZ Strategy/Tactics / Re: Weapon Discussion Thread

« on: August 29, 2016, 09:40:46 pm »

Lol your reality-bending skills are getting rusty it's ridiculous to claim that Gauss is any kind of counterpart to Plasma, with Plasma requiring a ton of research to use, while Gauss being equippable off the first dead enemy who was carrying it. Gauss is a direct counterpart to laser, actually (well you can't make gauss ammo but you can farm it perhaps even easier than laser ammo).
There is a niche for solid slug armor-piercers, but it's not the Gauss that will fit that bill.

I didn't say anything remotely like Gauss was a counterpart to Plasma; I said that Gauss/Railgun style weapons make more sense as a step up from lasers as mid-late armour penetrating weaponry, than a step down from Plasma as mid-late brute force weaponry.

That said, Gauss/Railgun weaponry as is definitely cleaves closer to Plasma than Lasers in terms of power and overall effectiveness.

64

XPiratez / Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?

« on: August 29, 2016, 09:25:08 pm »

Well, Megascorpions are all dead by month 17, but Bandits can always show up on a Pogrom. I'll add extra venues of getting the animal poison, it didn't cross my mind that 1.5 years could be possibly not enough to catch a live Megascorpion.

Also mind blind playthroughs where it may not occur to someone that Megascorpions are a crucial capture; that they are isn't exactly intuitive.

65

OXCE Wishlists / Re: Solar's wishlist

« on: August 29, 2016, 09:21:01 pm »

You weren't the first guy here to come up with this, sorry for raining on your parade.

Well if so, I didn't see it (like some of the others in this thread evidently). Either way that I'm not some kind of idea pioneer on the subject per your claim is not something I'm distraught over. It's simply a feature I would have liked to have noted more interest in earlier, especially with pre-Crab repair times being such a PITA.

66

XPiratez / Re: Mansion Mission Reports (Please Contribute)

« on: August 29, 2016, 09:13:43 pm »

Bottom line, you definitely want to panic the mansion before you get heavy on captures.

I'd be interested in knowing how to ensure an enemy is stunned for 100+ turns without babysitting it; I'm aware of smoke but is it really that effective?

67

XPZ Strategy/Tactics / Re: Weapon Discussion Thread

« on: August 29, 2016, 08:56:15 pm »

As for Gauss getting buffed, I disagree. Lasers are the designated armor piercers already (with ~ -30% armor) and Gauss is the "high damage, brute force, unrefined" weapon (thus fitting well with Mercs).

That's more the purview of plasma.

I get that laser kind of has this niche with several of its weapons, but that said, gauss is going to tread on either plasma's toes, or laser's toes, and in balance it makes more sense for gauss to lean towards armour pen than brute force. Laser is early-mid game armour pen (excepting outliers like the Lascannon), gauss is mid-late game armour pen, just as plasma is the mid-late brute force counterpart to early-mid shotguns and conventional heavy weapons.

68

OXCE Wishlists / Re: Solar's wishlist

« on: August 29, 2016, 07:56:55 pm »

That sure looks familiar:

Being able to allocate Runts to expedite craft repair might be a good idea; if you need to limit the rapidity of repairs and the opportunity cost of not manufacturing goods with those Runts is thought to be an inadequate limiter by itself, merely cap the number of Runts that can work on each ship.

69

XPZ Strategy/Tactics / Re: I need some advice on strategy for early, mid, and late game.

« on: August 29, 2016, 07:46:11 pm »

Then we're in agreement. While I don't plan to make higher tiers, I'm content with their limited window of utility.

As for Contact research, you need to learn about Mercs or Mercenary Contract mission from someone (it's fully random).

They always struck me as being way too front loaded; broken if you get it early, mediocre to worthless if you don't.

For a threat that's credible out till the late game (assuming you don't mindfuck them with VD), they sure are bad at that point. Again, I think you should be able to adjust their gear; early game you're probably not going to want to replace their boom gun so no real difference (sure, you'll have them use grenades, but at this point they're _already_ shaming your gals so no big difference), mid-late you're going to have to for them not to be shit.

70

XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: August 29, 2016, 12:44:49 pm »

Encountered curious AI behaviour during a base defense.

Two Merc Captains and a Commando who literally would not move an inch, no matter how many turns passed (including after turn 20). The Commando was on the top right structure. The Merc Captains were on the third floor catwalk to the middle right, and bottom right respectively.

Two Commandos who paced back and forth constantly between two points (one was in the Access Lift (bottom left corner), the other was in the Hangar (3rd floor, bottom left corner).

71

XPZ Strategy/Tactics / Re: Weapon Discussion Thread

« on: August 29, 2016, 07:38:57 am »

More seriously I think Gauss should be overhauled to be the definitive 'armor penetrating' weapon.

Namely it ignores 50% armour (and maybe some Piercing resistance), but deals less damage.

If possible it would also be able to penetrate walls in the following manner:

#1: Gauss projectile connects with wall.
#2: Effective HP for purposes of determining whether or not it is destroyed is reduced by armour pen % (50). Gauss projectile damage is then applied to the wall.
#3: If the Gauss projectile destroys the wall, the post reduction HP per #3 is deducted from its damage. The projectile then continues on its merry way until all of its damage is absorbed by walls/targets.

The same process is applied versus a target: If the Gauss projectile overkills the target, it continues to travel after deducting the target's remaining health from the damage.


For example, a Gauss Musket deals 70 Piercing. It encounters a 60 HP wall. The wall's effective HP is reduced by the Gauss Musket's armour pen of 50% to 30 HP. The wall takes 70 damage and is destroyed. The wall's effective HP of 30 is deducted from the Gauss Musket projectile's power, reducing it to 40, and the projectile continues moving until it strikes and kills a Researcher with 30 remaining HP. The projectile's power is reduced by the Researcher's HP from 40 to 10, and continues to move until it hits a brick wall with 40 HP and fails to penetrate its effective 20 HP with 10 power remaining.


Basically you have Gauss weapons not unlike those awesome ones from Eraser, that are effectively inverse shotguns: most effective against low HP, heavily armoured targets, least effective against high HP low armour targets.

72

XPiratez / Re: Mansion Mission Reports (Please Contribute)

« on: August 28, 2016, 10:06:04 pm »

Ghost is actually not that great in close quarters. Since it's visible from 5 tiles away, you have to hide pretty far away from a corner to prevent people from seeing you when turning it. I'd say seductress/fairy is better because it also ignores armor but captures instead, and obviously ragnarok is pretty strong but since it can even overkill power armor, it's not that great unless you don't mind blowing up the loot. But ragnarok+wand of peace/rending is quite good. Witch outfit (for MC through the floors) would be where it's at imo. Scout with your puppets, get a few seductresses/fairies to stun to extra ones and proceed. Maybe Destructor for some tanking, but you can have the (armored) puppets do that.

I'm currently running an earlier version with the old invis while I wait for the kinks with the latest release to be fixed. That said, I systemically obliterate the map with mass telekinetic projectors to flush the cockroaches out of hiding, so there tends to be longer sightlines.

I don't have fairy armour.

I did actually use mass seductress during that successful run. However, I have pretty mixed feelings about the utility of Seduce given its high cost in TUs, Energy, Morale, etc, relative to the outcome and how I really don't want to have to deal with enemies getting back up and retrieving weapons when I'm running shit armour given how long the mission tends to go on, especially on JS Ironman. Mike Myers mass murder with ghost knives definitely afforded greater peace of mind; shock and awe also panicked the rest of the mansion, making it much easier to deal with.

If the Witch outfit is usable, I'm definitely running that next time (I was unclear as to whether or not it was permitted and didn't have it at the time of my first mission), especially given how it enhances the Telekinetic Projector, assuming I don't find that Mind Control is too powerful (which I'm leaning towards at this point).

73

XPiratez / Re: Mansion Mission Reports (Please Contribute)

« on: August 28, 2016, 09:15:12 pm »

This was from awhile ago, Jack Sparrow Ironman:

https://i.imgur.com/249104r.png

Telekinetic projectors and ghost daggers on ~40 VDSk / ~60 VDStr gals (my entire strike team) are basically made for this mission, allowing me to rip the place apart and murder its contents with ease alongside smoke grenades. Sadly didn't have EZ mode Ghost or Ragnarok Armour at the time which I would have gladly used.

Is Witch armour compatible with Mansion missions?

74

XPZ Strategy/Tactics / Re: I need some advice on strategy for early, mid, and late game.

« on: August 28, 2016, 07:37:13 pm »

Wow, what a 180 turn! You said they were useless, and now, after they started to require monthly pay, you're advertising them Shocking!

Actually, if you look closely at my prior statements, my opinion on them never changed.

If you consciously _rush_ Mercenary Commandos, and get them early, yeah, they're great.

If you miss their window of utility (i.e. the point I was at when they were available to me) they're pretty much crap, which is even stated in the quote you just cited.

My view is and has always been that they should be in some way upgradable or scalable so that they have a role beyond the early game, and that giving them an upkeep further diminishes their already questionable value beyond the early game.

75

XPiratez / Re: Voodoo buff ideas

« on: August 28, 2016, 11:56:01 am »

Things that can see _and_ shoot through walls sound egregiously unfun and retarded.