Messages

46

XPiratez / Looking for some base management advice

« on: April 24, 2017, 04:17:34 am »

Hey everyone, I was hoping to get some tips on base management.  In vanilla I would rarely expand much, usually just a manufacturing base and (maybe) a few radar outpost type bases.  The far shallower tech and item trees made it easy to just stick a few soldiers in for defense with some laser weapons (or just leave them unmanned).  I could usually get everything I needed from activity around the main base or from terror/base missions, so I rarely even bothered with a secondary squad, but it's become obvious that ain't gonna work here.

What usually happens is I'll make a new hideout, buy 10 or so hands for defense, but then I always get tripped up by equipping them.  Most of the good stuff I can make or buy they're not able to use because it's too heavy or their skill is too low to make good use of it. Add to that the wealth of different armors and melee and throwing being actually relevant now and I just find myself getting overwhelmed with trying to manage it all.  I opted for low-weight/high-accuracy carbines and pistols, and nearly lost to a ratman retaliation.  I had to resort to panzerfaust spam in the end.  It was embarrassing!

I'm trying to figure out if it's better to transfer a few good girls from my main base to the others to act as aces in the hole for defense, or if I should start trying to build up those defense hands with some of the easier missions.  I don't really want to dillute my main squad by shipping the good ones away, but maintaining multiple squads just seems like even more of a logistical nightmare.  And it leads to the next problem I'm facing:

I'm starting to run into cash flow issues.  I thought I had a good handle on the economic portion of the game, but I find I'm mostly just breaking even with the bases I have, and it's a challenge to put together the funds to expand them or upgrade gear/craft.  I think part of it is I haven't made the secondary production base beefy enough, and I also tend to horde things.  I think "I'll save those for a rainy day", but then the day is never "rainy" enough.  I always think I can squeek by without dipping into the horde.  I'm going to try to work on that stuff on my own, but in the meantime any advice on managing so many bases would be welcome.

Also, speaking of bases, I'm not quite done with year 2 and appear to have a star god base.  Is that normal or am I just lucky in the bad way?  I went to take a peak at it and found sectopods and what looked like ethereals in red robes called Star God Guardians, and promptly GTFO'd.

47

XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: April 16, 2017, 02:29:22 am »

Have a strange minor bug, maybe with the map?  I'm still fairly new to Piratez, and thought it was a good time to start over, so I did a fresh install with the current version, started a new game, and this is the first landed mission

If the gal with the shotgun (Flotsam Icicle) exits the ship and goes south west (towards bottom left of screen) she'll see a nurse at 18, 38, 0.  If I try to shoot the nurse with the ol shotgun it won't show the animation for firing, there will be no impacts, but it will play the sound, reduce TU and ammo count like she fired.  If I try shooting at 17, 38, 0 it will give a "can't see them" message and do nothing, like there was no LOS.  If I shoot at 18, 37, 0 it will shoot like normal.  It will work like normal if I try shooting with a musket gal, or run up and melee.  If I run the shotgun gal into the enemy ship she can shoot the others in there.

Obviously not game breaking, but figured I should report it.  Really enjoying this mod, by the way.  I think it might have ruined me for vanilla

48

Offtopic / Re: cool soldier names

« on: March 11, 2017, 10:47:37 am »

"Ian McReady" (the McReady from "the thing")

Minor correction, his name was RJ Macready in The Thing.  I almost always end up including him at some point.  He actually killed the big brain in my last play through.  Ripley also frequently makes an appearances, and notable marines from Aliens (Apone, Vasquez, Hicks and Hudson).  I usually save those for a few particularly good soldiers.  I liked the nickname system they came up with for xcom 2012 and usually give them names along those lines.  Snipery names for high firing accuracy, heavy type names for high throwing accuracy, etc.  If I get one with high melee accuracy and crappy everything else I'll name them Merrill (swing away, Merrill).  And the total crap soldiers get names like Bait or Pawn

49

Open Feedback / Re: Thank you so much!

« on: March 11, 2017, 09:02:09 am »

I made a forum account in part to agree with this post and share my thanks as well.  I've been playing this game off and on since I found it in a second hand game store some 15-20 years ago on Playstation.  Openxcom has completely reignited my obsession with this game.  Just having some of the old bugs and limitations fixed (I'm looking at you, 80 item limit) would be enough, but the minor additions like seeing radar outlines when placing bases, or being able to auto-sell manufactured items just makes the game so much more enjoyable.  Many thanks!