Messages

1

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: December 21, 2024, 03:43:23 pm »

Makes sense but seems kinda overtuned. Being able to share vision — reasonable. Knowing where I was on a unit who died without seeing me — much less reasonable. Staying spotted for more than one turn/even if you move — absolutely stupid.

Do they get full accuracy shots as if they can actually see to the tile? Or do they take the inaccurate shots that I take when I do sniper/spotter tactics?

It would be a lot cooler either 1) used the information to try and get actual vision rather than firing from across the map 2) they shoot/throw grenades squares in a 5x5 area where I took the shot from rather than the exact spot, and don’t get to follow me if I move.

That adds back counter play where, ideal is if a Gal has enough TU, you can take a shot on a turn and move away from that spot (which snipers/grenade throwers are going to have trouble with due to high TU costs, unless they are super size).

In that state I think it would be cool for all enemies to have the mechanic.

In either case, I don’t like that they know where I go when I move, and on subsequent turns. That sucks, right? Obviously coding this stuff is non-trivial or even impossible, in concept at least it could be improved.

As far as I understand, the spotter mechanic simply puts a flag on your unit in question that makes it targettable for all the Sniper enemies for a certain number of turns. They seem to be having an accuracy penalty if they can't see the unit, but it doesn't matter much when there are enough of them (of if they are throwing grenades or shooting RPGs). Worst case scenario, if the enemy who has spotted your unit was an Expert (or Master, I dont' quite remember) Spotter, the position of this unit is revealed to all enemy Snipers for the rest of the fight.

I get it that this mechanic is supposed to make the game more challenging, but I dunno. I don't mind when the difficulty is increased by pitting you against overpowered enemies from time to time, or limiting the number of soldiers you can take to a mission, or your equipment selection, or having you to fight an entire horde of enemies without warning, but Sniper/Spotter mechanic is just one things that... I wouldn't use as strong an expression as "ruins this game for me", but rather "greatly decreases my enjoyment". As soon as I start meeting Sniper/Spotter enemies, I stop thinking about tactics in general and start thinking in gamey terms. "Well, I have to make sure all my units end the turn under a roof so that they are not hit by grenades, and there should be solid walls between them and the direction in which I suppose the enemy can be". The moment any of my units remain in the (relative) open by the end of the turn, all the enemies from half a map away start shooting and throwing grenades at their exact position. Trying to prevent it makes battles exceedingly long and tedious.

It is the difference between giving the AI a reasonable (numerical, qualitative, positional) advantage on the one hand, and playing out the "Computer is a cheating bastard" trope. While I like (or can rationalize for myself) almost everything else in X-Piratez, the Sniper/Spotter mechanic is the one thing that makes me want to drop the game every time I start encountering it en masse.

2

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: December 16, 2024, 01:54:24 pm »

I had a fight with humanists and they all seemed to completely ignored smoke/darkness. Did they get some kind of vision buff?

Like nicedayright said, it is most likely Sniper/Spotter mechanic. It was one thing that's been driving me crazy until I understood they way it worked (it is still annoying as hell, mind you). I think most humanists except the most basic ones have both Sniper and Spotter. However, it is worse than them just sharing their fields of vision. As soon as a Spotter sees one of your units (or is hit by one of your units, or even outright killed by one of them without ever seeing the killer), all enemies will know the position of this unit for a certain number of turns (depends on how good a Spotter the killed enemy was), even if he runs half a may away from the spot. Snipers will be able to shoot at this unit without seeing him or even without a direct line of sight. As you are dealing with humanists, they will also be happily spamming you with grenades.

Therefore, if you are used to fighting at night (which is optimal for most enemies in the early game), you'll have to change your tactics. Fighting humanists (as well as Spartans, and most other enemies later on) at night is actually harder due to Sniper/Spotter mechanic, because as soon you hit an enemy at the edge of your field of vision, the humanists from all over the map will know the location of the attacker and start taking potshots at him and showering him with grenades. Hiding in the dark and breaking line of sight no longer works. You have to make sure the enemy is physically incapable of shooting/throwing grenades at your current position to feel more or less safe. Hiding in buildings or under densely growing trees may more or less save you from grenades, but not from rocket launchers. Be ready for some losses.

3

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 21, 2024, 08:36:51 pm »

Is being spotted tied to a specific spotter, or is it a general status/mark?

What I mean is, does it work like this: once a spotter sees your unit (or is shot at by your unit, or wounded by it, or killed by it), your unit is visible to the enemy snipers for the set number of turns, no matter what happens to this specific spotter? That is, if, e.g., a Master Spotter spots your unit (which apparently makes your unit visible for the rest of the battle) and is then killed, will your unit still be visible to the enemy snipers until the end of the battle, even though the enemy who has spotted it is long dead?

4

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 21, 2024, 02:33:47 pm »

IMO, catgirls are a harder route, and gals are the easiest one in general.
The main issue with catgirls is that not only do they have very low max HP, their armors are bad as well - less protection, harder to unlock, overpriced. In the early game stealth works and catgirls are great. Later, every enemy will have maphack (also known as sniper-spotter for some reason), so you WILL get shot and grenaded. Catgirls just can't survive that. They are great specialist units, but you can't have an entire squad of them, unless you want to have half of them dead every mission.
Catgirl outlaws you get from the cat path are 30k apiece. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it really adds up in the early game, especially since they are much easier to lose than gals.

How exactly do Sniper/Spotter traits work? I reread the related articles from Bootypedia every time I reach the moment in my campaign when enemies start consistently shooting/throwing explosives/firing rockets at me out of nowhere, but I am still not sure I get it right. Does it mean that every time a Spotter sees any of my soldiers (or is killed by one of them), all enemies having a "Sniper" trait will see this soldier for the set number of turns and be able to shoot at her wherever she is and wherever she goes? Even if it is night, there is no direct line of sight and she is half a map away in the middle of a cloud of smoke?

5

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 18, 2024, 12:53:18 pm »

How much infamy do I lose when I do not defend the locknars or mutant pogrums?


It seems like I'm losing a awful lot. Can I just land there and run to lose less?

100 for missing a pogrom, unless you have an agreement with a Mutant Alliance. Then it is 1000.

100 for missing a Lokk'naar protection. Later on there will be a variation of this mission that will cost you 250.

As far as I remember, despawn penalty is shown on the mission screen when you choose it from the Geoscape.

In other words, nothing much unless you commit to protecting them. You may want to put off these types of missions because pogroms are insanely difficult when you try them in the first couple of months, and Lokk'naar protection pushes the plot forward, and again, you may not be ready for it yet.

On the other hand, you will have to take these missions sooner or later for the same reason - otherwise the plot won't progress further.

6

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 11, 2024, 11:37:19 pm »

The "usual" ubers (Hand, Warrior, Veteran) have a base salary. But Lunatics do not. So that's the main benefit of this type of uber. As you say, and as the Lunatic article says, "They are a bit stronger than common Ubers". Which implies they all should have that trait, yet recruited Castaway Girls don't have it. I think you should report it as a visual bug in the bug report thread.

I don't remember if recruiting castaway gals ever gave them the said trait. I checked L7 and N5.2.1, and neither have that.

Yeah, the salary is what I've been primarily interested in. I was considering what's more profitable, to turn castaways into brainers or to hire them into crew.

7

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 11, 2024, 12:01:02 am »

I remember reading somewhere sometime that rescued and recruited gals are supposed to have the trait "Escaped Lunatic", sharing it with your original six gals. The X-pedia (at least its current version, which seems to be a bit behind the times) says the same: (Recruit: Castaway Gal; Person joining: Lunatic). However, in my previous run (using version N8 28-Apr-2024, if I remember correctly), the gals recruited this way were just usual gals, without this trait. Is it the way it is supposed to be?

8

XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: October 10, 2024, 08:57:21 pm »

The text for research "Hideout's Tunnels" apparently has been altered, now it doesn't fit.

9

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: June 24, 2024, 10:17:05 pm »

At the beginning of your turn, most Ubers will regenerate half of their TU's, plus 150 if your freshness is full (see armor's stats for nerds).
So for instance, an Uber with 100 max TU will regenerate:
50 TU + 150 TU with full freshness
50 TU + 50 TU with 1/3 freshness left, just barely hitting her max TU
50 TU + 0 TU with 0 freshness left
In this case, if she had 1/3 freshness left, with -1 regen, she would regenerate 99 instead of 100 TU. But is she was above 1/3, you won't notice anything. So all it does is shift the point where you start losing TU from low freshness.

Thanks, that's really helpful.

By the way, is this and other similar game mechanics-related info present anywhere in-game or somewhere else? Bootypedia seems to only have bits and pieces scattered throughout, and they are often hard to locate even if you know what you are looking for.

10

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: June 24, 2024, 01:14:57 am »

Can someone explain how time regeneration works? I've started to pay more attention to game mechanics in my latest attempt at playthrough, and what caught my eye was the description of the Oldtimer condemnation: -1 Time Regen every level except 5th and 10th. I've been looking all over the place trying to figure out how TUs actually regenerate and still have no idea how much of an impact this condemnation, when taken to a high level, will have. Especially since I don't remember seeing anything that could compensate for this loss, as time regen doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere else.
So, how bad is it? I really liked Silver Snakes in my previous campaign, it's a bit of a downer to see that using them has drawbacks.

11

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: September 30, 2023, 01:05:25 pm »

Only after quoting I was able to see this "i" stuff...

Oh, yeah, of course, my bad. I rarely post on forums, so I tend to forget about how formatting works.

There is a separate section for ufopedia articles in save files. STR_CATTLE_PROD needs to go there, probably.

As far as I understand, researched techs (including items) go under "discovered:" in the save file. When I add strings for any other item, they do appear as researched, entries for them appear in the Bootypedia and I can view their characteristics in inventory. When I add STR_CATTLE_PROD, none of this happens.

Hi,

yes, it is completely normal.

So, to clarify, there is just no way to get Cattle Prod researched and obtain its entry?
Thanks.

12

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: September 29, 2023, 09:53:38 pm »

There are lot of unresearchable items in XPiratez. You need different research topic to buy them and gain bootypedia article.
For the "Cattle Prod" it is "Contacts: Smugglers".
Xpedia for help: STR_CATTLE_PROD

What I'm talking about is this. As far as I can see, every item has at least two entries, looking like this:

[item_name]
[item_name]

E.g., Govt pistol looks like Govt Pistol (which describes how I can get research, which item I have to research to get and and whether this item gets destroyed and how I can get the tech for free) and Govt Pistol , which shows what research I require to buy it and how I can produce it.

As far as I understand, I get research entry [item_name] when I research an item or get information about it in some other way, and I automatically get an entry [item_name] after that.

In my case, it is true for all items I've seen so far, but not the Cattle Prod. Even if I cannot research an item right now, I can see what I have to do in order to do it in Tech Tree Viewer. For cattle prod, there is only one entry in the tech tree viewer (see screenshot).

I even edited the savefile to get the the Contact: Smugglers tech - and now I can by the cattle prod, but I still don't have the entry for it and cannot view its characteristics. When I specifically add the entry for the cattle prod (STR_CATTLE_PROD) into my savefile, it doesn't appear in the Bootypedia and I don't get to see the item's characteristics.

I don't care that much about the item itself, I am just curious if it is normal for the current build (Dioxine_XPiratez_N5.2.1) or specifically my problem, If it an issue only I run into (maybe due to incorrect installation), there may be other issues I haven't noticed.

13

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: September 29, 2023, 12:29:26 am »

I'm a relative newcover to X-Piratez, so maybe it's a stupid question, but why can't I research the cattle prod? I haven't noticed it to begin with, but it seems to be possible to research any item you own (except those that require special facilities, like slave AI), but Cattle Prod doesn't seem to even have an entry in the Bootypedia (at least search shows only the entry "Cattle Prod ", on how to buy or manufacture it). Is it a known issue or something only I encounter?