Messages

31

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2

« on: December 17, 2016, 08:55:46 pm »

Can someone tell me about current entry point to the aerial combat?
I mean, of course I got it up to getting Aircar, this part is very straightforward. But how do I get early craft weapons?

On an unrelated note, "Contacts: Builders' Hall" is available awfully early for its own description text - description says about facilities, but in the beginning, you won't get any (I guess they're all locked by other prerequisites), so the only thing you'll get from this tech is workers' hiring.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 12, 2015, 11:40:09 pm »

Well, at least there's a time-based progression for that, my late-game (Jan 2nd year) base defenses had the only "non-combat" unit being a trade rep (one per entire army), others were all security/pest control guys/bodyguards.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 05, 2015, 10:40:35 pm »

These mercenary guys sure can take a lot of punishment, huh.

*looks up their stats*

*faints*

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 05, 2015, 06:08:45 pm »

I might add some extra bonus to that, like -10% enemy armor or something... any suggestions? But nothing really major.

Oh, just add 1 or 2 points of damage, and that will look fine while not really being a gamebreaker. Regarding high-velocity projectiles, we can always say that Smartpistol is high-tech enough to qualify for damage bonus

I might also change the damage of Commando Rifle from 50 to 40 + 10% Firing Accuracy, indeed it's more of a Rookie Rifle now

Yeah, that would look more appropriate.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 05, 2015, 06:01:49 pm »

but I am failing to field any mid-field rifle even though I want to

As I remember my early-game tries, I always use Blackmarch SMGs as "mid-field rifles" during early stages. They are accurate enough to either work at visual ranges, or to provide fire support from a bit beyond visual ranges. Not to mention easy accessibility, which is rather important early.

A bit later, you can usually get Scoped Rifles, which are much more useful than (rather underwhelming) Hunting Rifles. Especially with plastasteel ammo.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 05, 2015, 05:49:07 pm »

Also, Smartpistol is upgrade of Assault Pistol, so why wouldn't it be able to use its ammo?

Well then, why smartpistol's own ammo (which is plastasteel) do the same 25 damage? It supposed to have better damage

PS: Regarding the entire Smart<etc> line of weapons, I absolutely don't mind Smartrifle in comparison to Commando's Rifle - the latter is superior in damage and accuracy, but it doesn't have autofire, while Smartrifle have a very nice autofire mode - and it's a very useful thing in certain combat situations.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 05, 2015, 05:24:07 pm »

Well, a trained person still can get 2 aimed shots per turn, the cap is 100 TU and a gal who started with ~80 can get to that very quickly.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 05, 2015, 05:02:45 pm »

@Dioxine: Looking at starting weapons, it seems like the X-bow is a pretty great one, which is kind of odd. 30 base damage + 10% of firing makes it 36 damage for a good shooty starting gal, and it's got pretty good snap and aim shots (44% TUs for 2 aims a turn is great compared to most guns which can only do one). Plus infinite ammo.

Wait until you get to longbows.
Also, it's not 44% TU, but fixed 44 TU.

Well, I think it's sort of reasonable that mutants can show great results with primitive weapons (thanks to great strength, which in x-bow case allows handling of larger x-bows). But in this particular case it's true that x-bow pretty much breaks the progression, considering that it's available very early. In my opinion, it simply needs to be nerfed to only 1 aimed shot (up TUs to 51?), and/or require a bit more stamina - stamina usage is a great limiting factor for longbows, x-bow could use that too.

PS: Speaking of plastasteel ammo, I'm always baffled by this (is there any reason Smartpistol can use Assault Pistol's ammo?):

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 05, 2015, 04:52:37 pm »

Yeah, and if someone will somehow manage to draw a research graph, it would be great 
Although it's not really that required, the mod works pretty well with "just keep researching and you'll eventually get to the good stuff" approach.

But on a serious note, it would be great to have a place to put down some FAQs, beginner guides, and so on. Although (multiple hoorays to Dioxine in that regard), again, mod works pretty well even if you just play and learn the ropes by trying.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95A - 3 Oct - Star Gods' Revenge

« on: October 05, 2015, 02:15:26 pm »

By the way, many of new UFOs need some LoS fixes with regards to diagonal walls. E.g. I regularly shoot guys on 2nd floor of Supply ship from ground level through "holes" in floor along diagonal walls, in Fighter ship its diagonal piece of inner bulkhead can be seen though and shot through - and there are probably more issues that I forgot.

I'll try to get screenshots next time I meet one of those.

[Spoiler]

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95 - 27 Sep - Combat Stress

« on: October 02, 2015, 11:51:49 am »

That's some... neat base-building they have there. Would be a shame if something happens to it.

Spoiler:

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95 - 27 Sep - Combat Stress

« on: October 02, 2015, 08:10:46 am »

on research i have been fairly split. which im finding amazing considering i have been experiementing with it for a while now.

After a few experiments, my early research priority is always ammo production + acid. Acid blunderbuss ammo (which, with some expedience, are always available in 3 months at the latest) is a thing to tear down absolutely everything that's not highly resistant to acid. Blunderbuss in general has monstrous point-blank range damage output at a low-ish AP cost, and using acid ammo with them is enough to kill tanks, armored guys, and generally just about anything except people with hazmat protection.

And beyond that, as already was said, armor research is the key to (eventually) get highly-trained troops that can do just about anything.

PS: I'm playing Piratez with a self-imposed restriction "never use a gun until it's been researched", and after you get some experience - it's not really problematic to be prepared to an early base defense. Though generally I prefer not to attack early ships too much, as this seems to greatly lessen the chances of having a base defense in the first place.

PPS: On the note of more and less useful weapons: can we have a redesign of Stun Grenades? With 40 stun damage, they are UTTERLY useless in about every situation imaginable. Damage this low means that unless the enemy is completely unarmored, it's not going to do anything noticeable unless target is extremely weakened though repeated shots or acid. The standard grenade mechanism means that you'll need lots of TU to throw them. All together, it results in them being absolutely useless to harpoon gun (same AP, more ranged stun damage per turn, you just need a bit of accuracy) or to cattle prod (which will actually work against armored targets, unlike stun grenade).

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95 - 27 Sep - Combat Stress

« on: October 01, 2015, 09:15:06 pm »

First pogrom difficulty is highly dependent on enemies. Humanists can be deadly (early instructor(s) with laser pistols together with armored mil. police? ohhhh boy...), spartans have high potential to be deadly (one heavy weapon guy walking on your team can do a killing spree in a single turn), but on the other hand, early bandits are a joke, since they are equipped even worse than you and their early units all have bad stats.

As for academicians' captures - well, someone has to be the sectoids of Piratez, and at the moment it's academicians. Although they quickly become much more deadly (but not tougher), so it somewhat mitigates the issue of very easy raids.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95 - 27 Sep - Combat Stress

« on: October 01, 2015, 01:35:23 pm »

Another thing of the mod that could use some redesign - is the night vision.
It's great that my gals can see well in the dark (extremely so with night-ops gear), but the problem is - I, as a player, can't see anything at all on screen. And it's only half of a problem that I can't see well where to put my troops, but I also can't see enemy moves even if the game showing them (because it's friggin' dark).
So even if I go on a mission packing night-ops gear, after some initial turns I end up never even bothering to turn off the lights even for enemy turns (much less for my own) - it's much more important to actually see where enemies are popping up, rather than to be safer due to staying in darkness.

It's not really a mod's problem, rather it's the way openxcom draws darkness (without any means to reduce it) - but in the original game, there's absolutely no reason to turn off the lights (aliens will see you anyway) or to stay in darkness; so the problem was not noticeable there.

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XPiratez / Re: [TOTAL CONVERSION] Piratez Extended - 0.95 - 27 Sep - Combat Stress

« on: September 29, 2015, 07:27:56 pm »

Speaking of Darkness Dungeons, their devs also have to handle similar problems with two game mechanics that I find totally okay.

There are two very important differences in DD:
1) You can give up any time while not in combat, and you can attempt to give up any time while in combat. "Any time" is crucial, in XCOM you can give up only when most of your team is back in the craft, otherwise you incur heavy losses.
2) The player is given active counters on resource drain (food/heal for hp, stress heal/torch for stress - and also passive random virtues for stress).