Messages

91

XPiratez / Re: Base Defense Facility Simulator (missiles/battleships/crackdowns, etc)

« on: February 04, 2021, 03:01:53 pm »

My base defense strategy is just to immediately shit out 7 more bases that just have elevator shafts. Elevator shafts are immune to destruction so any missile that hits one is wasted.  With 7 fake bases, there's only a 1-in-8 shot that the missile is even aimed at the right target. 7 elevator shafts, nothing else, immediately gives 87.5% protection without any defenses.

92

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

« on: February 04, 2021, 02:21:42 pm »

Freshness drain (bit of a problem with endgame armors) can only be offset with El Cigar afaik so it would synergize well with food heal. On its own Cigar's -6HP is worse than -25 freshness because both take around 2-3 days to recover but injured soldiers cannot pilot vessels. Resulting in Cigar being pointless, or at least figuring out its usage difficult. Not to mention all this Freshness juggle takes armor inventory space which to me is reason enough to ease the penalties and/or increase positive effects.

Death Sticks for freshness synergizes with Vampiric Swords, you don't care about minor health loss when you're just gonna steal it back from someone else and end the mission with full HP. But you didn't choose Red, so maybe you want to go home and rethink your life.

93

XPiratez / Re: Car Bombing

« on: February 04, 2021, 02:07:35 pm »

I have a similar tactic I use, which I call "Fast Action Response Team": Run around with a load of pre-primed gas bombs and just let them go off in your inventory. If there is an enemy, it is probably now dead or unconscious depending on your choice of gas. If there isn't an enemy, they're now unable to see you because of all the gas. Because YOU are protected from the gas, you won't ever accidentally kill yourself.

94

XPiratez / Re: Codex Popularity Poll

« on: February 04, 2021, 02:00:36 pm »

Most people only dislike red because of the lack of decent early game transport.  Freighters/Landed smalls are pretty hard without a shadowbat/worm/turtle.

Yeah, I could see "lack of early game transport" as a thing with red: There isn't really a transport that hauls more guys than your Airbus in there. On the other hand, I was already used to the 6-man team, so expanding beyond that didn't feel pressing, especially after Metallo.

I guess I'm biased to early game codexes since there's a lot of good stuff mid-game that isn't linked to codexes, like blitz armor.

I am not convinced Blitz armor isn't endgame. I still use Blitz armor clear into the endgame, because the next competing option is -25 TU. That's an extra 6+ tiles of ground you're not covering, which can be the make or break difference between introducing your opponent to the sharp blade of your axe and being unable to advance at all because you can't make it to the next cover. Blitz pretty much sits for me at the ideal balance between protection and speed. I'd like Swiftsuit even more if the inventory wasn't too restricted to carry a useful loadout, and Gold shield wasn't a worthless pile of junk not worth the cost of construction.

Blitz even has blue shield. The best kind of shield, as it is STRONK vs. both Piercing and Concussion, the most common and the most deadly damage types respectively. It only fails to provide protection vs. Daze, Bio, and Chem, but Daze isn't lethal anyway, Bio is uncommon, and Chem is both fairly weak (most Chem attacks have low magnitude), and highly telegraphed (Chem-spamming enemies are usually identifiable from the Strategic layer before you enter battle).

The scarab is pretty good for early game shootdowns of the weenies since the armor seriously cuts down on damage

Snake isn't too shabby at shootdowns, either: It's down one heavy slot, but it's got a shield, so you're often able to bring down enemies with no damage at all. Its only downside is its absolutely terrible internal layout, that apparently is full of unidentifiable holes enemies can shoot you through, and an unhealthy number of lights.

25mm cannon will take down necroplanes/wasps, 50mm/30mm or charger laser (green codex) will take down megapol.

I looked at Green codex and ultimately found it rather lacking.

Having Turtle AND Worm seems redundant, as Turtle covers all of your transport bases, leaving no real niche for Worm, since your shooting-stuff-down angle is covered entirely by Scarab already. Pestulator is just a double-down on what Biosuit already offers, and shares all of its flaws. Bonaventura seems largely inferior to Metallo, having weaker weapons, worse hull protection, and only +2 Dudespace. Saviour is similarly meh: The medkit is nice, but YOU are the one who is going to need it, and it cannot be used on yourself, since you've got no armor and a crappy gold shield, the worst kind of shield in the game, as its threat protection profile is good vs...well, absolutely nothing. It fails utterly vs. both Piercing and Concussion, which are, respectively, the most common, and the most dangerous. Every enemy faction fields at least one of damage types, usually both, so Gold Shields are worthless against everyone!

The main problem with the Green Codex is that it contains too much redundancy. Redundant equipment, redundant ship hulls. This kind of redundancy might be helpful to the Total Newbie, but not to me.

95

XPiratez / Re: Codex Popularity Poll

« on: February 04, 2021, 10:01:34 am »

Despite its unpopularity, I went with Red anyway.

My experiences:

Difficulty: Jack Sparrow

Playstyle: FLY ME CLOSER, I WANT TO HIT THEM WITH MY SWORD!

1. Blood Axe: Amazing weapon, I've gotten 20-enemy-in-a-turn killstreaks before with it. If it's a living enemy, and you get a bloodaxe to it, it won't be anymore. Period. Doesn't matter how many HP it has, even a Hell Baron will insta-die to this, because if it has so many HP that you won't kill it in a single strike, the TU-refill effect means that you are attacking at negative cost, so the beefier the foe, the easier it actually is to get a kill frenzy off of. It's especially brutal to High End Demons and Mercs, both are high HP enemies that have very little value alive.

2. Vampire Sword: Makes the bearer nearly totally immune to damage. Not because of its effects, but because enemies will shoot at everyone else but that guy, so you'll have to toss the sword to whoever actually took damage. Guarantees a high level of uptime because you can heal damage taken even without needing an injury, just hit someone with it. Now, it SAYS it costs morale on use...

Red was second choice but I've read some advanced weapons come with attribute penalties/damage on use.

...but it doesn't, really. High Brave makes you basically immune to the morale damage, plus when you kill somebody you gain morale anyway, so the problem solves itself, as this is a lethal weapon.

3. Moloch Armor: Eh. On paper, it's nice. Has the TU-leech effect of the Axe, and counters the stun, which in theory, combos to make the two even better. The problem: -50 TU: The -20 on the armor combined with the loss of another 30 from not having Blitz. While the armor would be otherwise great, none of this matters if you cannot get to the battle. The low TU cap also limits how much you can tank up to make it to your next victim, since you can only refill TU up to your cap. Also, it can't fly, which further penalizes its already extremely poor mobility. With the massive movement penalties on this thing, you're lucky if a gal wearing this can make it out of the dropship before the battle is over. I finish an awful lot of fights on turn 1 or 2. By the time turn 3 rolls around, it's either straight up over, or all over but for the shouting.

4. Metallo: Can absorb an amazing amount of punishment in a fight with only a few days of hangar time, good drop capacity. Probably the second best flagship after Fortuna, but only because the Metallo cannot into space, as all are too slow to function as interceptors.

5. Scarab: Deadly Superiority Fighter, but too slow to intercept anything, since most everything that can actually fight has speeds in excess of 3K, which means any interceptor with a speed lower than that is pointless unless your target is willing to be baited into chasing you (has the circle).

6. Scorpion Dropship: Good synergy with a bloodaxe rush, but don't use it to ship anything but well-armored or shielded troops, or you will instantly die as enemies spawn right next to you, sometimes facing so, so you can't move without instantly dying and you can't not move without instantly dying either. Being able to immediately introduce your axe to someone's face, though, can mean the battle starts and then ends in the same kill frenzy. Otherwise, probably the weakest link of the package.

7. Destructor Suit: Surprisingly effective as a scout, but the actual weapon is not to my taste: Too high of a firing cost, doesn't produce the effects I want, since I already have cheaper, more efficient ways to cause mass destruction at range. I'm more of a precision-oriented player, I prefer to destroy things in a directed manner.

All in all, I'm not entirely sure what other Codexes would represent a trade up from this.