I've been keeping this thread in mind during my .99D game.
You got much farther than I did by June, so I'm assuming upfront that you're much better at this game than me.
You're right on the tribal outfits. Early game, melee girls all get one unless they really need the pirate uniform melee and morale bonuses. The energy bonus is huge when you need to run everywhere.
What I've found though is that early game it's not the melee or sniper girls who carry the team, its the throwers. Bows are better sniper weapons than sniper rifles against things like humanists. Against armor, theres javelins Anybody with decent throwing can get 100% accuracy on a javelin, and they're powerful enough to pierce carapace armor easily. Depending on how much ammo capacity, energy and armor is needed for the mission, throwing girls can take tribal, rogue, gym or durathread. Early game my throwers had the highest kill counts by far until a dedicated sniper caught up later.
That sniper, by the way, had a $300,000 ES Lasrifle bought after being lucky enough to unlock ES Contacts very early.
It's only now, with piles of lasers from my good luck with government ships and smugglers touching down near my base, that guns are starting to become more useful than sabers. My average pachyderm team is currently 1 ES lasrifle sniper with hoversuit, 1 longbow archer, 1 spearchucker, 1 saber, and 4 assorted lasers, MGs, GLs or UAC Plasma depending on the level of resistance expected. Everybody also has a handle, whip or prod. I should probably buy an advisor but keep forgetting. For the new generation of gun gals I've experimented with guerilla or nightops suits and nightfighting. So far the results haven't been as spectacular as I'd hoped. Even if a Gal can see in pitch black, I can't, and that's annoying. It would probably be better to switch over to warrior suits or green armors.
I bought a pigeon for the first time this game and don't see how its useful at all. I'll probably sell and replace with a purple turtle.
Rubber bullet shotguns are not good for capturing at all except to the extent that they train shooting. They are far too weak and unreliable. While the idea of shooting from 10 tiles away is nice, in practice the dropoff makes hitting at that distance difficult. Next turn, civvie walks a tile closer, takes ten pistol shots, and a gal is out of commission for a month.
