Messages

106

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 29, 2019, 04:32:09 pm »

Now, regarding this, the question (for me) is: Do we find the SAME things multiple times; or do we find them in a sequence and, when all are found, maybe we find  3 printers in a row, etc?

\

No, that is completely random. It is somewhat skewered since some designs are the same, just rotated 90 degrees. But there is no sequence or anything. I would have added a screenshot, but when I take it, it just pastes an empty black image in Paint.

107

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 28, 2019, 04:23:27 pm »

I am into savescumming, as repeating the same blunder REEEEALY got on my nerves as soon as I realized what it is. So, A Cutter is a 3 windows craft, and the Cutter is a 4 windows one? I will do that.

Sentry - 3 windows (1 in the middle), Cutter - 4 (2 in the middle).

108

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 27, 2019, 06:16:53 pm »

I'll keep an eye out. I already have a "Cutter Documentation." Is that it? I know that the industrial Printer is quite important.

While it does help you with a image of how the craft looks like*** and it's stats, the documentation is unrelated. Many shippings can generate a different map when a tactical mission is attempted (a landing, a crash or w/e) - I think Cutter has 8 possible layouts, with equal chance of each one to appear, so you may need to do a couple (or many - depending whether RNGesus loves you or hates you) before you get the one that has the printer. On the battlescape it looks like a purple slab with some yellow tech-gizmo next to it. IIRC the layout prevents it from being destroyed by power source explosion. If you are into savescumming, you can save in geo, before starting the mission, and each time you start there will be a different layout.

***Careful not to mistake it for a Sentry, which has 3 'windows' instead of Cutter's 4 windows. Might make for a costly mistake - Sentries are faster and more deadly (though slightly more fragile).

109

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 27, 2019, 04:39:04 pm »

Also, I think you can get industrial scanners from certain ships. I faintly remember getting some from guild freighters and/or supply ships.

One 'type' (map layout) of large scout (in Piratez known as Cutter*) has an industrial printer. Many larger craft have them as well, but it may be difficult to get at them without better tech. Some other sources exist as well.

*2700 speed, small-size shipping, if you want to identify them without a decoder.

110

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

« on: March 21, 2019, 05:39:21 pm »

One thing I always thought would be cool in xcom games, but that I don't know if its even possible to implement in OXCE: have certain missions have a kind of trigger in them, a kind of condition that once satisfied, would "unlock" a special mission on the map, that wouldn't otherwise normally spawn. Then you could, for example, do a mission with a special condition tied to a kind of switch in the map, that once activated, would give you, say, coordinates to a secret enemy base, which would then spawn as a mission on the map if you activated that trigger.

Piratez does this (in a way - limited by what the engine allows) with special items that are gathered after a mission - for example Siberia Research. Or the entire GDX questline. After you research a given item, mission that gives is removed from spawn pool, so can be considered one-off. Some missions can be repeated until the item is researched, but this is only done to defend against freak accidents. Eg. you somehow - say, too much nukes - destroyed all the research items while actually winning the battle.

The problem with such 'one-time-unlocks' is that custom missions (or missions in general) are time consuming to create and one-offs are a lot of effort for little gain.

Personally, I would consider hacking a bit too 'techy' for piratez, but I guess adventure can be had in different ways.

111

XPiratez / Re: Translation – Czech 0.99J12 (99.8%)

« on: March 13, 2019, 08:35:17 pm »

HK is Hunter-Killer - a type of fighter produced by Piratez. REE is Rare Earth Elements.

112

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J12 - 24 Feb - Wetworks

« on: March 06, 2019, 10:44:11 pm »

i want to say thanks(again?) for this awesome mod, Dioxine!
i have a question though:
did you try making bows with pocket-hold or offhand-hold ammo?
paying reload-times for a bow doesn't make sense to me.

It makes complete sense to me.
A) In reality quivers do not hold a lot of arrows - sport shooting quivers (placed at the hip/belt) hold 10-12 arrows (these are thin, light and not very long). "Historical" quivers held from 10-20 (belt quivers) to 20-40 (back quivers) - depending on the size of the bow (and thus arrows). Piratez-wise we can assume the quivers used are the smaller kind worn on the belt (so they do not take any actual equipment space).
B) Most of the time quivers were not worn in a way that was readily accessible - they usually had covers, strings, etc. that would keep the arrows protected in transport and/or from falling out during movement. Thus, the 'reload' of the bow is (I always assumed) the time-cost of preparing another quiver to fire, not the cost of 'reloading' the bow with a new arrow (which is factored in TU of a shot).

Also a question regarding "pocket-hold" - how do you expect holding a bundle of, say,12x 50cm arrows in a pocket without them interfering with movement and/or getting damaged? I once forgot my quiver to practice and had to shoot arrows held in a cargo-pants side pocket - doable, but forget about moving and bloody difficult to draw new arrows.
"offhand hold" (ie. you hold the arrows with the same hand that you hold the bow with) is good for 3-4 shots at most - impossible to hold more and still maintain a comfortable grip. And even then your accuracy suffers, because you don't have a sure grip.

113

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J12 - 24 Feb - Wetworks

« on: March 06, 2019, 05:42:13 pm »

Hello, everyone!

Could anyone please describe me home camo works?
I think, 26/8 means the enemy spot me from 26 tiles at day and 8 at night.
Does it mean 8/2 make soldier almost invisible?

Basic sight range (for most units - there are exceptions) is 40 tiles in daylight. At night it's 9 for baseline humans with no NV equipment, 12 for gals, more for NV or mutants (sectoids/hybrids see really good in darkness). Zombies are blind (they have Sense, which detects living beings even through walls) so camo is useless against them.

Some enemies (as well as armors) have a Spot:X statistic, which reduces your camo and/or invisibility by X (up to 0 - camo can't be negative) for both day and night.

Invisibility is somewhat inverse of camo - 8/2 is the maximum range you can be seen by day/night. Invisibility:5 means you can't be spotted when you are 6+ tiles away from an enemy (barring Spot:).

114

XPiratez / Re: [MOD] Reincarnation 0.2b

« on: March 02, 2019, 07:17:54 pm »

Except that, with the mission generator already stuffed with a huge amount of stuff, locking a tech (even a not very important one) behind a single mission and/or capture seems a bit counterproductive. I assume the reason behind VIP kidnapping and Saya reward is to make the research largely independent from missions, since they are too random. If anything, the reward could be items that are rare/lategame tech - nuclear lasers, defender armor, Python HSR etc. for the easy-medium missions, with Impalers, Gattling Lascannon Parts, gems and perhaps even an Orb for the most difficult ones. That way you have some reward (that works for a time), but without upsetting the general tech balance. Of course setting up the missions to be in line with the reward is a pretty daunting task in itself.

Plus, the unique missions are pretty time intensive (modding wise) when you consider the gameplay gains. And if you put the unique enemy in a regular random tileset, much of the 'uniqueness' is lost. If done this way, most of these missions would work exactly like Zaxx's Assasination mission.

115

XPZ Strategy/Tactics / Re: Extended Piratez general FAQ/Strategy Guide

« on: February 24, 2019, 10:58:00 pm »

No. You get all 1st tier (A1, B1, C1) prizes and can manufacture (claim) them as long as you have enough tokens. After you do 1st tier (manufacture then research) you can do the respective 2nd tier (A1 -> A2 etc.). Basically - you can get all the prizes at badge level D (for Zaxx, Jack and MA), if you have enough tokens. But you need to do them in order. Only research that adds new prizes is unlocking a new client (Red Mage for example) but AFAIR that requires badge C. Missions do not unlock prizes.

116

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: February 20, 2019, 05:13:24 pm »

Well I don't want to sound harsh, but do it better...

Oh, that's not harsh, not by your standards. You are right - it could be done better, but the time investment of un-fun days of sitting in front of an Excel sheet crunching numbers is far greater then the net gain in... I don't know? Realism? That's not why we're here. I was honestly just curious whether it was a conscious design decision to make some things exceptionally hard (or others easy) to manufacture.

But to argue some of the points brought up by other posters:

The only way to abstract superior techniques/tech within the engine is lesser time costs.

But wouldn't the improved manufacturing techniques be offset by increasing complexity of high tech items? I mean - better tools mostly allow making simple items faster. Or large batches of more complex items. I.e. - using modern tools to make a single assault rifle would probably take much more time than it took to make a musket with more primitive tools. Sure, *if* we set up a robotic assembly line we can make 100 ARs in the time it takes to hand-craft a single one. But that's not the scale Piratez operate on.

I mean, if the gals are making the platemail out of plasteel sheets, then it kinda makes sense for it to take so long, while making power armor can be considered mostly just connecting and assembling salvaged power armor parts with armor plating and an helerium battery.

That's why piratez platemail is an opposite example - you have pre-made parts (chainmail) that you just attach plates to. Testudo takes raw plastasteel. And yet the first takes more time. Same for Boarding Gun (new item) >>> Custom Shooty Gun (modification, but more time consuming). The point is valid though - modifications are generally easier than making completely new items from scratch. I think there's even a #XX hint
about it.

With the boarding guns, maybe the gals are actualy handcrafting every single part because boarding guns aren't commercialy avaliable, they're all hand made, and making stuff out of nothing but basic materials takes a while, regardless of how simple it is.

If you haven't noticed, 80% (or so) guns available to manufacture are not commercially available. What makes some non-standard items harder than other, assuming both are made of raw material and of similar tech level and complexity? Besides, while boarding guns are not commercially available, they are available nontheless as Sky Ninjas use them as well.

117

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: February 19, 2019, 10:22:45 pm »

This is a question for Dioxine, but perhaps someone else already has the answer: Why are some items so insanely expensive in regards to workshop hours? I mean, a Boarding gun at 1250 hours takes almost as much as HPA (1500) or Portable Lascannon (1500), which are most likely much more intricate constructions. Strangely, the Super Shooty Gun takes only 400 hours, but if you take into account the 2xBG + 2xCSG  required, the total comes to 7000 hours. Which is more than assembling an entire Deliverator (6500) takes and almost double the time an X-Plasma takes (4000).
Reaper rifle (which takes just some scrap metal) takes more runthours (1600) than Custom Snipin Gun (900) or Python HSR (1200). Plate Mail takes 5500 hours* even discounting it's prerequisites, compared to Testudo's 4000.
I know this is somewhat balanced versus the material costs, but the numbers on some pieces of equipment seem 'a bit' off.

*Realistically, making a plate mail takes significantly less than half a year of 24h/day work. *YES*, I know Piratez is not about realism, I just found that piece funny.

118

XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: February 17, 2019, 08:56:11 pm »

I gotta ask... So what? it's still accessible, you just have to walk around. Sure, you can't use the side door (unless you get creative with a pickaxe), but it's not like the second APC is completely blocked.

ps. LOL at the selected gal's name.

119

XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: February 17, 2019, 08:32:56 pm »

The switch only works for the craft equipment loadout selection, it does not work for the crew equip screen.

120

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - J11 - 27 Jan - Slaves, or Soldiers?

« on: February 11, 2019, 11:17:35 pm »

Trivia: is the ramshackle rifle supposed to be a FN FAL tribute?

I have no idea where you see the similarity to FN FAL, other than both being rifles. If anything, it looks (and feels, stats-wise) like Norinco type 85 submachine gun, and that's what I always imagined it to be. Yes, the caliber is different, but this isn't Jagged Alliance.