Messages

181

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99 - 7 Jun - First Impressions

« on: June 26, 2016, 02:53:22 pm »

Wow. ok. I thought I'd checked every tile of the ship...  I didn't notice that there was a secret room with an automatic door!

That is a much safer spot for the equipment. And thanks for helping me find it. That protip is strong. I rarely use the minimap in most cases, but it certainly helped here.

182

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99 - 7 Jun - First Impressions

« on: June 26, 2016, 02:16:22 pm »

I've recently got the Bonaventura; but I'm having a weird problem with it...   I can't find my spare equipment during ground missions!

I have often thought that it sucks how vulnerable the spare equipment is, just lying on the ground where it can be easily blown up by a stray rocket; but now that its hidden away somewhere I'm realising how much I rely on being able to access it. In my previous mission, I ran out of ammo during a Reticulan base raid; and in my current mission, I'm pinned down by some heavily armoured enemies that I wasn't equipped to face. I'd usually just grab a more powerful weapon from the equipment pile, but I can't find the pile!

Is this a bug? Is the equipment hidden somewhere? Or is this a new feature of the Bonaventura, designed to protect the equipment?

183

XPiratez / Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod

« on: June 23, 2016, 02:45:33 pm »

As Bloax mentioned, its available in his latest executable build here: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.0.html
Down load the linked file in the first post and use it replace to the one in your OpenXcom_XPiratez folder.

Thanks for the tip. Done, and fixed.

184

XPiratez / Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod

« on: June 21, 2016, 02:29:58 pm »

I am adding [search] to:
- new research
- new manufacture
- ufopedia
- stores
- buy/purchase
- sell/sack
- equip craft
- inventory
- maybe memorial ?

Did I forget something?

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but search is missing from transfer between bases. ("ship")

185

XPiratez / Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod

« on: June 21, 2016, 02:25:41 pm »

I got a negative score once in my current playthrough. It didn't bother me much. Certainly it didn't bother me as much as in the next month, when a country adopted the zero-tolerance policy.

I don't think you need to add more early-game missions.

Actually, I'm wondering if maybe the early game missions open up too many research options. In my current game, I still haven't got the Bonaventura; but I do have some pretty advanced tech, and a seemingly endless amount of research opportunities. From early missions and landings, I've got guild and academy engineers, guild rep, church matron, and stacks of different low ranking captures. I even managed to capture an ESPer who happened to be standing right outside my ship at the start of a progrom. I've seen cruisers land - but decided not to try to take them on yet. I'm starting to think that I could probably win the game without ever shooting down a single ship!

Maybe that's all fine; but I'm not deliberately trying to play the no-shooting-down-ships strategy. It's just happening because all these other resources are presenting themselves to me. And I'm a bit worried that I'll leap-frog over most of the air game by getting advanced ship tech before I get basic ship tech.

As I said, I still don't have the Bonnie, and I'm not sure what I need to research to get it. I can however research fighter construction and heavy attack craft... so I don't have a shortage of ships as such.

[edit]
To clarify, I'm not trying to suggest that something should be changed. I'm just sharing my thoughts and experiences. I'm not dissatisfied with how my playthrough is going, and I expect that other playthrough will be different and interesting in other ways.

186

XPiratez / Re: "Getting Started" for /r/xcom

« on: June 19, 2016, 04:39:23 am »

This is the part where I realize I should have been packing handles instead of pipes all along.

Wups.

In my first playthrough, I got pretty much all my capture using the cattle prod. But this time, I've discovered the glory of the handle. They're small and light and quite effective. I put a handle in the quick-draw slot of almost all my soldiers; just like I give a bandage or medkit to everyone.

Not every soldier can reliably face-rush enemies to stun them; but they can at least re-stun enemies who wake up, and get a few melee points bonus as a reward.

The reason I didn't use them the first time around is that I was put off by the 15% lethal damage. I thought it meant 15% chance of killing the enemy outright, or something like that. I avoided using the handle to avoid killing the targets I wanted to capture. (I read it as 15% chance of causing death; but now I understand that it is 15% of the attack's power is subtracted from the target's health. 15% chance of an instant kill did sound pretty powerful for a killing weapon; but I assumed that there was some other kind of balancing offset like a saving-throw or something. I just didn't test it out because it didn't sound like it did what I wanted it to do.)

187

XPiratez / Re: Balance of bows and bullets

« on: June 19, 2016, 01:39:30 am »

After shooting from a bow, look at the hit log (Ctrl+H)... from many angles, all shots will just always miss.

Ok. I've been doing this a little bit recently; and I have noticed that sometimes shots that appear to hit have actually missed. (I've also noticed that some shots say "0", which I presume means a zero damage hit. I sure could have used that info in my first playthrough when I was trying to work out whether particular enemies have high resistance or just heaps of health!)

I presume this is a bug... and I expect that it's possible to fix. Is this something people want fixed, or is it so entrenched that people are use to it and the game is balanced around it and so it should just be left alone.

I'll probably have a few spare hours up my sleeve next week, and I could have a go at fixing it if there is interest. (I haven't looked at the code for this game, but I know a bit about programming, and about projectile motion. So I might be able to fix it.)


Incidentally, I suppose that this problem also affects acid flasks... which might explain why their effect often seems lacklustre. (In my first playthrough, I once threw a heap of acid flasks at an armoured car so that I'd have a better chance of killing it with auto-fire boarding gun & other weapons. The strategy was surprisingly ineffective.) I reckon acid could afford to be more accurate or more powerful, and bows could afford to be slightly less accurate (but probably not less powerful).

188

XPiratez / Re: Balance of bows and bullets

« on: June 15, 2016, 11:42:01 am »

It's a good point about ubers being suited to different weapons than humans. (Although the bows are relative strong even when the girls are still weak.) I generally agree with Arthanor's thoughts on this.

I'm unaware of the arcing accuracy problem in the game. Is it something to do with hit-detection not working correctly? Whatever it is, I presume it is fixable...

189

XPiratez / Re: Balance of bows and bullets

« on: June 13, 2016, 11:47:21 am »

Let me just clarify that I'm not trying to advocate for a nerf. I'm just saying that my current style of play makes me wonder if a nerf might be warranted, because my bow soldiers are outclassing my other soldiers. (ie. I've been using bows with far greater success than I expected, and I'm wondering if bows are too good, or if its just that I'm using bow-friendly tactics.)

I'd be ok with a nerf, but what I'm really looking for is a discussion.

190

XPiratez / Balance of bows and bullets

« on: June 13, 2016, 05:33:38 am »

In my first playthrough, I didn't use bows much - because I kind of assumed that rifles would be more powerful.

However, this time around I'm feeling that bows are super-strong. Their accuracy is very high and their damage is respectable - but most importantly, they can hit targets from behind cover. I find it a bit absurd that my archers can fire arrows over the top of the airbus to hit targets that they can't even see, with close to 100% accuracy; while at the same time, my soldier with a blackmarch SMG can only get ~60% with a couching aimed shot.

Meanwhile, muskets and other low-tech firearms are completely overshadowed. Better guns are plentiful, especially if the player is using bows and melee to conserve ammunition.

I want to feel like my tech is progressing forward; but at the moment I'm thinking that I'm probably going to be using bows against anything that isn't heavily armoured for a long time. I'm thinking that maybe bows could afford to have their accuracy reduced a bit. I imagine that it's easier for people to dodge longbow arrows than dodge bullets!

What do others think about this?

191

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99 - 7 Jun - First Impressions

« on: June 12, 2016, 02:25:09 pm »

What is a megascorpion sting, why does my craft consider it to be a tank (taking 4 spaces, no less!) and why does it make my battlescape crash upon load?

Megascorpion stings come from dead megascorpions; but from what I've seen they only take around 0.1 each; not 4. What makes you think it is causing the battlescape to crash?

I need to ask what influences your score in the early game, started a game, did well enough with the spawned events, ignored the shipping as I needed hands to heal, at the end of the month, my score was -1500.  I don't know the inner workings of the game well enough to dig out the things giving that score, so here I am.

I know that there are some shipping missions that the factions can do which will lower your score. My guess is that there was a whole lot of negative missions going on outside of your radar range. If that's what caused it, it's essentially just bad luck - because there's nothing you could have done about it. (There are worse things that can happen than getting a low score though...)

192

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99 - 7 Jun - First Impressions

« on: June 10, 2016, 05:58:55 pm »

Even if people don't ignore the instructions, I think it's reasonable to expect that a fresh install will use the game's recommended options. It would be confusing and tedious to have to manually change a whole lot of options after freshly installing a game just to make it run as intended.

In my view, the config file needs to be included with the game. It's better to say "when upgrading versions, don't overwrite your config file" compared to "before you play the game for the first time, change this long list of settings, otherwise things won't work as intended."

193

XPiratez / Re: The slow grafix revamp

« on: June 07, 2016, 12:14:14 pm »

I don't think it needs more sticky-outty-bits. The thing that makes it look non-organic (to me) is the rounded-metal shoulder pieces.

I don't have a strong opinion about how it _should_ look. (Actually, I kind of prefer the first version with the shorter spikes.) ;  but I could suggest that having a ridge in the centre of the shoulder pieces would make it look less machine-made. Like /\ shape instead of ∩.

194

XPiratez / Re: How to build the Conqueror?

« on: June 05, 2016, 09:35:33 am »

I'm finally coming to the end of my first playthrough, still on 0.98B.

For the last month I've just been building vaults and enslaving everything I can get so that I can store the stuff I need for the Conqueror. (And at the same time, building up the money I need.)

I've finally got all the materials, and I'm sure that if I sell some of my spare weapons and chips I can get the money within a day or so. However... I'm kicking myself that I didn't notice that the Conqueror requires 100 workshop space!

I usually don't even look at workshop space, since very few things in the game need it. So I just didn't notice it. And the base I've been setting up for the Conqueror is not my factory base; I decided it would take too long to get the storage capacity high enough in my factory base, since it has zero vaults, and zero free spots. (It's 100% slave based storage. Enough to build a Dragon, but not a Conqueror.) I'd need to sacrifice my industrial printer to build the vaults, and so I decided to use a different base instead.

So now, I've got everything I need except the workshop space. I've decided to trash one of my hangers to build an industrial printer so that I can build the Conqueror.


I don't mind that the Conqueror needs a ton of resources and a specialised base; but I just wish I'd known it was coming. If I knew that's what I'd need in the end game, I would have set up a base for it in advance. My last two bases are interceptor launch pads, with training facilities, basic defences, and manufacturing. I could easily have created a second factory base instead; but I just didn't think I would need it.

195

XPiratez / Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod

« on: June 05, 2016, 02:08:38 am »

I'm really looking forward to that search feature. I presume it will be included in the next version of the mod, and I guess that the next version isn't far way. So I'll wait. But this feature does make me think that maybe I should set up my computer for compiling the source code, so that I can get this kind of thing early and perhaps contribute some improvements of my own.