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Messages - bouchacha

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16
Feel free to correct me on anything:

Damage is first run through random chance variable (50%-150% for melee and 0%-200% for ranged), then modified by the armor damage resistance, and then has the armor value subtracted. Anything left over is typically applied as health damage. Damage resistance is typically more beneficial than raw armor values as a result.

Some damage type ignores these rules completely. Lasers are reliable anti-armor as they ignore 1/3 of all armor values and typically no enemy resists them. Chem applies significant damage against armor values *before* they are reduced by said armor values. Bio, charm, smoke and others ignore all armor value.

Melee has reliable damage variables and also most importantly does NOT trigger reaction shots from enemies. Each unit has a melee evasion stat, but this is reduced when flanking from the side and back. Positioning is therefore especially important and your melee gals will use a ton of energy to sprint into position and to swing their weapons. Make sure they have plenty of beer on hand. With proper equipment and positioning, you can one-shot sectopods.

Sometimes faster more fragile armor leads to more survivability than sturdy but slow outfits. You can't get shot at if you're behind cover or otherwise unseen, and you don't need armor if you're not getting shot at.

Capturing people for slavery is almost always the best way to go.

Training your gals happens by doing: accuracy with firing, throwing with grenades which damage enemies, etc. Bravery is reliably trained with seduction and using first aid (alcohol doesn't count) on both injured gals AND bleeding enemies. Bonus of resuscitating downed enemies is another target to shoot at as a way of training firing accuracy. Win-win. You can also seriously game the training algorithm by equipping weapons that have no chance of hurting an otherwise armored enemy (e.g. SMG vs Megapol). See more: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Experience

Seduction trains both Bravery and VooDoo Skill and you can stun out enemies in powered armor reliably in 1-3 hits. The downside is the Seductress outfit is very fragile. Keep a canteen on hand to reduce stun damage.

Research is not as important as in vanilla XCOM, especially with how expensive brainers are. More paramount is ensuring you have a steady and reliable source of income and that is based on selling loot and manufacturing merchandise. You should invest most of your money into expanding your manufacturing capacity early on.

You can safely sell any chips you loot as counterfeiting is not necessarily game-breakingly profitable and comes rather late in the game. Chateau distilling is an early game item that remains profitable for a long time and Apples are the primary reason to go after all missions happening in villages (typically LokNar assistance, but sometimes UFO crash landings). Apples also allow you to make Rum which is an extremely useful and versatile item you'll use into the late game so don't spend it all on Chateau.

Keep all integrated devices, optronic components, and force circuitry no matter how tempting their selling price might be. They're useful components in higher level manufacturing.

Crackdowns are faction specific so don't go after enemies you don't want to take on inside your base. This primarily means staying far away from Mercenaries and Star Gods shipping. Mercs are heavily armored and have sky-high reactions; while Star Gods are shielded, have dangerous Psi capabilities, and come with Sectopods.

There is a surrender mechanic which depends on the remaining morale of the enemy units. If you find that it hasn't triggered yet, it most likely is being held up by an enemy which doesn't or rarely panics (e.g. academy drones or attack dogs).

Enabling debug mode can help overcome some of the tedium present. Ctrl+D reveals the entire map, Ctrl+W teleports units to where you click, Ctrl+J stuns everyone, Ctrl+K kills everyone. This can significantly save time on missions which have an obvious outcome. Debug mode also acts as a great experimental lab for you to test out different weapons.

SMGs are typically not that great for your gals as their primary benefit (low-weight) only helps slaves and peasant soldiers. Exceptions apply to one-handed SMGs like Death Blossom which are a perfect side-arm for melee gals. Rifles with auto-shot capabilities are an excellent choice for standard issue equipment. Rifles have infinite range for aimed shots, this means that as long as you can spot the target, there is no drop-off by distance. Pistols are good for melee gals and infiltration missions.

Dropping explosives is 100% accurate and uses significantly less TUs than throwing (~4 vs. 30).

Dogs are near-perfect base defense units. Very fast, built-in Aye Phone, and their bite *could* potentially damage powered armor units with a lucky roll.

Some health damage helps reduce the chance that enemies will regenerate stun. Alternatively, smoke grenades are a reliable way of ensuring that stunned enemies stay down because they apply stun damage every turn so long as the enemy isn't choking immune.

17
The main advice I'd give is on base structure. Your main starting base will be more than sufficient to carry through all the necessary research (I don't understand the recommendation to make a dedicated lab hideout with dozens of brainers). Because of how many healing facilities stack and how much those contribute to research and manufacturing, it makes sense to have your first hideout also serve as the primary barracks, along with a limited workshop area. You generally can get through the game with one primary troop transport. I used the Metallo (red codex) for my playthrough and it was spacious (12 gals + 4 auxiliary) and fast enough to reach multiple missions within a limited time window. I kept a CRAB vessel as a secondary for space missions as well as to serve as a very reliable tank against heavy shipping. I found infiltration missions to be a pain and not very worthwhile so I generally ignored them. This is an example of a main hideout, it has space for 28 brainers, 40 runts, and up to 64 hands which way more than you'll ever need.


The second base should be focused primarily on manufacturing; both for income and to create equipment. I recommend ignoring the Mint because it's generally not worth it. Your manufacturing base will be missing out on some capabilities but this example can hold up to 320 runts and can create almost everything you'll ever need. A surgery room is highly recommend for upper level armor manufacturing.


If you really want to go HAM on making money, this base layout is 100% dedicated to churning out cash. It holds up to 590 runts and churns out about $38 million in profit every month. By the time you can build this you don't need it.


The rest of the world can be covered with tiny outposts like this one for radar and limited interceptor coverage. With M-Wings you don't need living space:


Your interception strategy should focus on using a bait vessel to tank (i.e. Crab) while 3 other interceptors pounce it with abandon safely. It doesn't make sense for every one of your vessels to be capable of downing high-threat shipping on their own so don't even try.

18
XPiratez / Re: Wonderful Gaming Experience
« on: June 08, 2018, 08:20:04 pm »
Oh no, not again.

Is this an on-going discussion? Happy to read what's already been said. At minimum the current method of CTRL+H after a strike would be better communicated if you saw it pop up in real time.

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XPiratez / Re: [MOD] Ivan's X-PirateZ Tweaks
« on: June 08, 2018, 02:26:42 am »
I'm a big fan of your mods Ivan

20
XPiratez / Re: Wonderful Gaming Experience
« on: June 08, 2018, 02:09:31 am »
You mention a very low resolution being a problem twice. You are aware you can scale up the interface in the options menu? Run the game at a high res, scale up the interface, use one of the filters to mitigate the ugly visuals, and you shouldn't have any issue viewing text. I play in 1600x900 at 1.5 scale and have never had a viewing issue.
Oh I know about that, but the bootypedia and manufacturing window are all locked at 320x240 or some scaling of which which tends to be way too zoomed in on modern monitors. When I complain about the resolution, I'm really talking about the screen real estate. Some Bootypedia entries struggle to fit in every piece of information. This is especially relevant for armors as they list a long list of resistances, skill bonuses, melee evasion, target size, exosuit status, energy recovery, night vision, thermal vision, camo rating, built-in weapons, etc etc.

Dioxine even helpfully installed blinky red lights onto the tiles that count for facility damage.
Well damn, I had no idea.

21
XPiratez / Wonderful Gaming Experience
« on: June 07, 2018, 10:31:01 pm »
I finally "beat" this mod and it has been a glorious experience. It took about 200 hours but I also cheated to skip over what I thought was needless tedium (e.g. searching for the last non-surrendering enemy in a ramshackle village before hover armor).

This is generalized feedback on the balance and overall experience.

Mint isn't very worthwhile and just adds busy work; you make almost as much money with selling chemicals and the like with the added bonus that you don't have to create the raw ingredients. Mints don't make any money while you're creating the raw 'ingredients' in the form of lower tier chips. Perhaps their numbers need to be tweaked to replace the battletank manufacturing? As a criminal enterprise, counterfeiting seems to make more sense lore-wise than manufacturing high-end military hardware. I'm confused by the extensive list of hellerium extraction recipes for ammo given that many require a superconductive wire and hellerium is buyable every early on in the game. I suppose it provides an efficiency gain but for the sake of everyone's sanity, why not just raise selling price? I also don't understand the need for extraction recipes like the money purse. It adds busy work without providing any other benefits. How I wish you could adjust engineer count from the main screen instead of clicking through each entry. Or for missing ingredients to be highlighted in the list. This is another way the 320x240 limitation for the engineering screen is so crippling.

This is more OXC feedback, but I wish Bootypedia entries were more detailed. Some weapons would be listed as 0 damage and you'd have to break out the calculator to figure out if it was worthwhile at all. The advice that you should try out each weapon in the battlefield (unsure if that was serious) is unrealistic given the "research > build > supply with ammo > use by someone capable > deploy against something vulnerable" chain that you have to travel. 320x240 is just way too small of a resolution for conveying weapon and armor information in the current entries. This is yet another hurdle to competently using VooDoo powers; they're too much of a headache to decipher.

If there was one feature I could request, it would be real-time on-screen damage indicators. I would love love love to be able to know if my hits connected, what they damaged (shields? armor? other?), and how much they damaged. This is important from an accessibility issue because currently the only hint you have is a sound cue. There is the CTRL+H screen but this is kept vague (perhaps deliberately) but is completely inaccessible if the enemy gets a reaction fire. I ended up using copious amounts of debug mode to test out weapons because otherwise the systems were too opaque. This is especially so when considering the daze mechanic since the CTRL+H screen and the ALT key typically lists damage as 0.

I'm genuinely and seriously impressed at how thematically consistent the whole experience is given all the different parts it's built from. Of course there's a nurse outfit and of course there's a seductress outfit. I couldn't get over how hilariously logical that the best off-hand weapon for a seductress to hold is a canteen of refreshment. I just imagined someone desperately quenching their thirst after a round of "seducing". I loved the bandit town and ratmen missions for their blatant hypocrisy; a bunch of inner city folks minding their business in run-down surroundings getting blown apart by highly-trained and well-equipped uber soldiers. Even the hunting missions being completely trivialized by hover armors makes perfect sense and (intentional or not) acts as a commentary on technology and hunting. Something else which impressed me is the quality of the writing throughout. Very consistent voice and generally very precise language.

I used a crew of 12 soldiers (+ HMP) most missions and never really had to reload magazines except for base assaults and the siberia mission. Similarly, despite casualty chains, the only time I remember losing a soldier to panic was during a Star Gods base assault and I didn't really pay attention to combat stress as a mechanic. Once I got lasguns, I didn't see a reason to use anything else for most missions. Custom lasguns with AP ammo are almost game-breakingly good. Autolasers wrecked any big targets (e.g. tanks and sectopods) while Heavy lasers and portable lascannons were too slow which meant a miss was catastrophic. Gauss weapons (except heavy gauss) were generally too slow to be worthwhile. With the exception of the Commando Rifle for quick long-range reaction shots, master weapons were not worthwhile once you have lasguns.

I'm sure Dioxine is tired of hearing this but there are way too many weapons that are useless and way too little difference between the rest. Especially since mechanics encourage you to use the same type of ammo (since totals of the same type get tallied up). End game gets dragged out with research specific people (e.g. mercenary engineer, and belter??) and I'm grateful that there's VIP kidnapping at least.

Some equipment I'm still unsure how to use. The destructor outfit is quite expensive to make and requires good voodoo stats but the ball of annihilation is quite lackluster (tested it against mercs). A lot of VooDoo equipment is way too situational and lackluster to be useful; especially considering how fragile VooDoo gals are and how much you have to invest in their training. I'm happy to get corrected on this. The Assassin outfit gives a tremendous bonus to firing, but its lack of a jetpack seriously limits the number of long-range shots it can even attempt during a mission. Dragonfly was a fantastic armor for snipers *if only* because the line of sight advantage from boosting up was so valuable. I felt the same about advanced power armor; way too slow to be of use as a frontline tank.

I picked Red Codex and mostly regretted it. Early game chainmail is amazing but the blood ax is annoying to build and is comparable to the slightly faster electro-sword.

I didn't like base defense missions as a mechanic. They don't come with much specific warning (hyperwave give you a hint of what, but not where) and the consequences primarily serve to set you back and add to an already lengthy gaming experience. It also added the logistical headache of requiring a crack team with good equipment parked at every base JUST IN CASE. I would love it if you could reclaim a lost base by invading it back! Similarly, I never was able to shoot anything down with base defense even though I had 4000+ defense rating. It would be cool if damage imposed would at least reduce the number of spawns; otherwise base defense facilities serve absolutely no purpose if they can't meet the hit point hurdle.

Big props to ivandogovich for his QOL mods. I can't imagine playing without streamlined armor manufacturing and I'm not sure why Dioxine doesn't implement that mod by default.

Overall, this was an awe-inspiring mod and easily my favorite gaming experience of the past year. I'm even considering playing through again although at over 200+ hours I am definitely not doing it without cheating in brainers and money. I am so jealous of your talents Dioxine! I gladly donated!

If I was to give advice to new players feeling overwhelmed, it would be:
1. Sell all your chips and ignore the mint
2. Melee is both satisfying and highly effective!!
3. You can pretty much safely ignore VooDoo if you want
4. Stay clear of mercs and star gods and their vessels until much later
5. Siberia mission is a pain but so worthwhile because AP laser ammo is the greatest
6. Keep your infamy up by shooting down shipping; even if you don't have the gals to pillage
7. No matter how tempting, don't sell optronics, integrated devices, or force circuitry

22
XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: June 06, 2018, 03:42:44 am »
I would love an entry like the ones for armor where all the damage types are listed next to percentages. Qualitative entries certainly are nice to read but they add a lot of ambiguity, especially when shields have no GUI presence besides flashing when hit.

23
XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: June 06, 2018, 01:38:53 am »
The entry isn't clear:


From experience, my melee gals had a tough time getting through the shields which leads me to think that type 2 shields absorb melee but not cutting (because it isn't mentioned above).

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: June 05, 2018, 10:04:47 pm »
But the resistances matter a lot! Type 1 shields (aka personal refractors used by the church) for example take only 50% damage from laser, 200% from fire, 250% from EMP, but get ignored completely by certain damage (e.g. cutting, piercing, daze). Type 2 shields (used by star gods and mercs I think?) are more of what you have in mind in that they act as a buffer for almost all damage (except maybe ranged cutting?) except fire ignores it and EMP deals 250%.

25
XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: June 04, 2018, 11:31:48 pm »
So is damage to shields penalized by the armor resistance? My reading of the description indicates that it's not the case (e.g. Type 1 shields protect against energy weapons).

26
XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: June 04, 2018, 11:11:13 am »
I just beat a star god hideout and only lost one melee gal to a sectopod because I was too aggressive. At this point, I had shields on everyone so instead of fretting about every mind control, I just ignored it because the AI is usually too dumb to really exploit it in such a small space (especially when everyone has shields). Everyone either had autolasers or melee (especially impaler spears) and holy shit melee wrecked the FUCK out of sectopods especially if I flanked them. Lasguns and autolasers usually took care of a star god in 1-5 shots. Impalers were also especially good because mind controlled gals would use the ranged attack which was useless unless you had good voodoo power (hint: they didn't) instead of the melee backstab.

I only managed to capture one coordinator and missed out on the operator though. What's a good way to stun these bastards? Their shields make it such a pain.

27
XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: June 02, 2018, 08:31:05 pm »
Is there a way to train VooDoo Power? I seem to remember seduction worked but that dress is way too fragile for latter missions.

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XPiratez / Re: Stuff I'd love to see in XPiratez!
« on: May 31, 2018, 01:52:16 am »
It would be neat to be able to execute demons in the manufacturing screens. Sometimes you get those suckers alive and you need corpses for certain items (e.g. blood ax).

Also, not sure if this is a bug but the tiers of purchasable components seems off. Currently, I can't buy optronics (even though I researched optronic smuggling?) but I can buy slave AIs and disassemble those. I can't buy integrated devices either, but I can make those out of optronics. Similarly, you can't buy heavy power couplings but you can buy reticulan fusion drives and disassemble those. And so on. If this is intended, it adds busy work for no real discernable reason ("why did I make 200 optronics again?").

29
XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions
« on: May 28, 2018, 04:06:11 am »
Is this a dumb idea?
Hide your bigger bases in less trafficked area (e.g. Antartica) and not include any interceptors (focus entirely on manufacturing for example). I figure no traffic + no interceptions = no crackdowns. Your interception fleet can be in tiny outposts with hideout shrouds. Your main/initial base can serve as the lightning rod for crackdowns but that's ok because all your veterans are parked there.

30
Very nice! I had no idea you could specify soldier types.

However, if Psi Str is capped at 60, any particular reason why you'd set the 'psi witch' designation at that?

Also, why do you find the 'psi training' statstrings useful when you can just sort in the Voodoo training screen?

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