Author Topic: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet  (Read 10159 times)

Offline eharper256

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #15 on: September 19, 2024, 04:45:53 pm »
Blacksmarsh is the first hub of Hexen II, so I'm always interchangably adding in an S or not lol. Which considering Doom is also referenced in XPiratez... well in any case my brain can't differenciate the two. :D

Take all the grading with a pinch of salt, of course. Availability is indeed a massive game changer, but since it's so random, I can't possibly use it as a metric for any sort of tier-based coding (well if I did I could only reliably look at weapons you could buy and the techs that unlock as such). Hence, it's entirely based on how I feel it performs stat wise in comparison to others of it's category with a minor pinch of "this is what it felt like on use".

For whatever reason, I don't think I ever used the DB much, and I've always found I highly value good range on shotties unless you can one-hand them with a melee weapon.

Offline Rokksta

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #16 on: September 20, 2024, 11:45:23 pm »
Starting Locations:
Blackmarch: Only in the first 3 months you will get a gnome 100%. Afterwards it will be a 7% chance per month
Theban: its a trap. The 12 clones are amazing, but you will get up to 3! goverment raids per month. You will lose the game if you don't know what you are doing.
Central Provinz: Its useful if you want to start your farming game as fast as possible

Siberia has a 7% chance per month for an ice lady

Bioplasma projector needs to recharge 1,5 months, which could be bad of you don't know it.

Don't forget the Overcharger! You can put it on the turtle or even 2 of them on the worm. Afterwards the worm will become a useful interceptor and it has still enough fuel to go around the world.

Peasant Revolution: The Revolution HQ is also more then 2 Dojos and also has some Workspaces for moneymaking. It also has the hidden function that ufos will stay visible even after leaving the radar. This building is amazing and the true strengh of this path. You will also get many events per month with free recruits. But peasents in itself have low strengh, so their usefulness is limitet

I was shaking my head after reading that you have only 2-3 bases in mid game. Get 8 bases as fast as possible in early game and fill them with farms. Your funds will thank you.

Offline eharper256

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #17 on: September 21, 2024, 01:12:37 am »
Hm, some stuff I didn't know here, so thanks, will update tomorrow.
>> I've gotten 11 gnomes by year 2, month 7, on Blackmarsh (and also +2 from Mad Gnomes, +1 Cinderella Project) so guess I've gotten lucky RNG.
>> Theban: Yeah I got that the governments didn't like you but wiki seems to imply it's a 1-off Ordinator attack. Hmm.
>> CP: Fair enough I guess.
>> Sib: Will add that.
>> BioPlasma is 1.5 months reload? Really? :o
>> Yep, that's valid, though as mentioned before I'm purely comparing base stats or else things get super complex consideration-wise.
>> True, I kinda ran out of space in that section.
>> Huh... I still only have 5 bases, and only 3 are significant (2 intercept bases). I've always made way enough cash from Infamy, loads of Courtesans/Exotic Dancers, Power Stations in each base, and constant Chateau Le Mort production in one base to cover all costs to point of not even needing to sell loot and wanting to buy gold (about 10 Mil a month net profit right now, and I've just finally started on Casino too with those spare chips). Japan base has 1 farm just so it can have bees for base defence and poison production lol.

Offline Vakrug

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #18 on: September 21, 2024, 09:55:08 am »
Bioplasma projector needs to recharge 1,5 months, which could be bad of you don't know it.
Pro tip: Go to vehicles management screen and disable "Bioplasma projector" by clicking on it. This will stop it from recharging (but saves already stored charges) and allows vehicle to refuel. Wait until vehicle is refueled. Go back to management screen and enable "Bioplasma projector" again. Now it can continue to recharge while vehicle is fully operational. So there is no major downside for 1.5 month recharge time.

Offline Rokksta

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #19 on: September 21, 2024, 10:43:47 am »
>> Theban: Yeah I got that the governments didn't like you but wiki seems to imply it's a 1-off Ordinator attack. Hmm.
Only the first attack is one and 100%. In the following months it will roll 3-times up to ~25% depending on the difficulty. If i read correctly you will lose 2 of these rolls if you go male path and reject the power.

>> Huh... I still only have 5 bases, and only 3 are significant (2 intercept bases). I've always made way enough cash from Infamy, loads of Courtesans/Exotic Dancers, Power Stations in each base, and constant Chateau Le Mort production in one base to cover all costs to point of not even needing to sell loot and wanting to buy gold (about 10 Mil a month net profit right now, and I've just finally started on Casino too with those spare chips). Japan base has 1 farm just so it can have bees for base defence and poison production lol.
Yes, but how many apples und courtesans you have depends on luck so i don't like it. More money is always better, especially in early game. Of course i will fill up the workspaces in the main base first before expanding.

Pro tip: Go to vehicles management screen and disable "Bioplasma projector" by clicking on it. This will stop it from recharging (but saves already stored charges) and allows vehicle to refuel. Wait until vehicle is refueled. Go back to management screen and enable "Bioplasma projector" again. Now it can continue to recharge while vehicle is fully operational. So there is no major downside for 1.5 month recharge time.
I didn't know that. Thanks a lot!


The weapon spreadsheet is more or less right, but the domestic shotgun is an good stun weapon in early game because of the rubber bullets. It is my standard loadout in non-lethal missions. You can also shoot many times on an armored enemy on the ground without them dying to train your soldiers. I use it until i get the assault shotgun or until i can produce stun darts

Offline eharper256

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #20 on: September 21, 2024, 12:06:05 pm »
Updated the guide with the suggested changes.

Also added Triton (wasn't sure when to place when I wrote the section before, but my game started seeing Reticulans in Year 2, Month 4, so I've added it now), the fact that S. America can spawn events if not in a country, and clarfication on a couple of other sections.

Also, can someone let me know if Crab uses the old Lightning sprite? Not able to build one at the moment but when I know more about it, it will also go in.

The old link will continue to work but will require an F5 if you view it online, or a re-download if you use it offline.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2024, 12:09:13 pm by eharper256 »

Offline eharper256

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #21 on: September 22, 2024, 03:31:33 pm »
Updated the Excel spreadsheet with a section on Throwing weapons, and Voodoo, as well as adding a couple of extra guns in general.

Underwater and Primitives section added to as well.

Offline ontherun

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #22 on: September 24, 2024, 02:29:17 am »
Updated the Excel spreadsheet with a section on Throwing weapons, and Voodoo, as well as adding a couple of extra guns in general.

Underwater and Primitives section added to as well.

Good to know! Would be possibile in next update to have the bounty prizes tier, please? And also some kind of guide on bulldings that can be upgraded and/or built over?
« Last Edit: September 24, 2024, 09:50:48 am by ontherun »

Offline eharper256

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #23 on: September 24, 2024, 08:36:08 pm »
Updated the Main Document with much more clearly written points on the bonuses of each Recruitment path, making that section 3 pages rather than 2. I might also do the same for the Codexes at some point (and elaborate on Reject Codex).

Good to know! Would be possibile in next update to have the bounty prizes tier, please? And also some kind of guide on bulldings that can be upgraded and/or built over?
Wish I knew the latter myself. :D

The Bounty Weapons are already on the list (that I have). Do you mean adding a full list of bounties in general and tiers of them?

Offline ontherun

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #24 on: September 24, 2024, 09:00:25 pm »
Do you mean adding a full list of bounties in general and tiers of them?

Yes :)

Offline Iazo

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #25 on: September 24, 2024, 10:09:18 pm »
Double Barrel Shotgun should be purple, not yellow. Especially since you rated Coach gun as purple, what.

It's INCREDIBLY effective for when you get it, and it's your loss for sleeping on it. It also allows you to punch way up, against any moderately armored HP sponge like werewolves, other mutants, zombies, and .6g ammo makes it the ultimate corner camping weapon, even against personal armor.


I also have a super-big beef with your starting location rankings. Turan green (? ? ?); India purple(? ? ??!!?) Cali green (?!?!?!?!)



Javelin. Yellow? What the...... You rated an arcing *gaussian distribution* weapon that you can throw 3 times in a turn for 90 damage each with a trained gal ... yellow.




Your advice is incredibly unorthodox in some cases. It's completely fine and reasonable in most circumstances, but then there are some insane curveballs you throw in that make me wonder if we are playing the same game.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2024, 10:32:40 pm by Iazo »

Offline Rokksta

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #26 on: September 25, 2024, 12:28:09 am »
The rewritten recruitment paths are much better. Thank you for writing this.

You have still forgotten the 50 workspaces in Revolution HQ, so its more like 15 buildings in 9 spaces  ;D

One thing that should be told is the salary. Gals have the highest salary and can ruin your economy, if you recruit to much.
Peasant/SS: 2.500,-
Cats: 25.000,-
Gals: 40.000,-

Since the Over-buildable buildings were asked:
1x1: Crew Quarters, Vaults, Security Corridor, Burrow, Outpost, Living Capsules, Love Clinic, Trap room, Fire Pit, Gas Chamber
2x2: Hangar, Large Quarters, Large Vaults, Plantation

Offline ontherun

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #27 on: September 25, 2024, 04:09:02 pm »
@Rokksta: thanks for the info!

@forum moderators: please make the thread a sticky one?

Sidenote: this guide do not applies to the old version prior to the N6 which introduced the cat path, see here.

Offline eharper256

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #28 on: September 25, 2024, 04:23:26 pm »
Stuff <snip>
Yep fair, as I did already point out, ratings are always subjective. I was considering just removing them, but I know some people find this sort of thing useful. I'm also always happy to re-evaluate stuff.

A few people have said DB is great so I'll raise that. I rank Coach Gun as really great for that effective range that even lategame shotties don't have, whilst still getting to use the Mini-Shotgun bounty prize shells too. I've even used the coaches later in the game purely as something that delivers reliable incendiary for the Poison Subway missions with the Slimes (flamethrowers are really not that reliable). For me, it was kind of mostly transitioning from the Coach into Smart Shotgun because that range is so valuable. Higher Accuracy at higher range also means that the Coach trained many of my troops' accuracy really quickly. So yeah, I really won't shift on how mighty the Coach is.

Turan is great but those potential theft events do make me cringe. I was poor for a lot of the earlier months of my playthrough, so I could see a random 500K theft just ending my run in that case. I'm happy to raise it to A-Tier though. That also affects the India rating; I was constantly being annoyed with running out of storage as well early on, so all these starting slaves are just a nice economic boost. Not to mention not having Gladiatrix as a prerequisite really annoyed me for a while (ended up savescumming Raider Boss interrogation to get it~ I have still never even seen a Church Beastmaster by mid year 2*). Cali, again, good lord 375K of early debt is not something I'd want, and catgirls, if you want them, are not too far on the Catgirls route.

Javelins... okay I'm not sure why they were C-Tier lol, will shift that, they are at least B-Tier. Problem is, Combat Bow overwhelms it, needs less strength, and has far better range, still gaussian, still 30 TU. Javelins almost immediate availability is nice mind, though it's only +5 prerequisites more for C-Bow. Aqua Javelin came to me when I already had Survival Bow. Also, making a giant chart like this, and the damage curve being some tiny numbers of the wiki mean I will miss that on occasion.

*= This is actually probably my only complaint with XPiratez; like heck am I going to go through to aggro of finding and capturing high-tier enemies 50 odd times for stuff like Academy Secrets and such because the RNG decided that the Esper was going to give Hint #69. No RNG, we save at 20 minutes to midnight and we will retry until you get it right. :P I really wish those kind of things had some kind of priority.

The rewritten recruitment paths are much better. Thank you for writing this.
You're welcome.

I've added the workspaces with next version (not pushed yet). It's just I had to find a creative way to get it in the space. I will have to see if we can get the salary and over-build info in there somewhere, thanks for that.

@Rokksta: thanks for the info!

@forum moderators: please make the thread a sticky one?

Sidenote: this guide do not applies to the old version prior to the N6 which introduced the cat path, see here.
Thanks for the sticky nomination.  :D

I do mention its N9.5.6 in the title. Yes, I still need to update, though I recall being insanely confused on the last time I updated when I suddenly couldn't buy Chemicals (as the Pharmacist had been added). ::)

Offline Iazo

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Re: XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet
« Reply #29 on: September 25, 2024, 04:43:06 pm »
Quote
Javelins... okay I'm not sure why they were C-Tier lol, will shift that, they are at least B-Tier. Problem is, Combat Bow overwhelms it, needs less strength, and has far better range, still gaussian, still 30 TU. Javelins almost immediate availability is nice mind, though it's only +5 prerequisites more for C-Bow. Aqua Javelin came to me when I already had Survival Bow. Also, making a giant chart like this, and the damage curve being some tiny numbers of the wiki mean I will miss that on occasion.

If you try to conform the weapons to some stats and rate them just on that, unfortunately you will miss a few subtleties.

Combat bow cannot even be compared to javelins. They do not fit in the same role. You are basically, I dunno, comparing the laser tommy to the heavy laser (Speaking of, yeah, you missed the fact that precision laser has a 50-200% damage roll, so you comparing it to heavy laser is another subtlety that bit your butt. A cat or a bugeye with a precision laser is a goddamed murder GOD, able to extract almost double the damage of a heavy laser. I rolled my eyes at that comparison, but forgot to mention it).

Back to combat bow. The damage component, or toHealth component of most combat bow arrows is RANDOM. That means, that the bow will do damage UP to the rolled power. The typed POWER is gaussian, but the actual DAMAGE which you should be interested in above that is not.For this reason, you should think of combat bow damage as aprox 0-100%, with an average of 50%. The math is more complicated than that because of course it is.

Javelin does not. Damage outcome is gaussian. You are looking at a true 0-200 roll with a very serious clustering around 100%, which makes javs extremely reliable at delivering predictable amounts of damage when you need it.

For another, Javelins can be used underwater, and they are extremely awesome at that. Further, Javelins fit in 1x3, and they can be backpacked and retrieved when appropriate, and fired onehanded, even by gals who are otherwise riflewomen, or heavy weapons operators, or melee specialists, or, especially shotgunners, who will likely find themselves at the exact ranges that javelins work. Combat bow is a commitment to 2h, in a strategy of plinking and bleeding, it is not an oportunistic tool of guaranteed death at range 11.

And finally, you really have not lived until you throw 4 javelins in a turn from hyenaback.

Edit: Re: Coach guns.

Ok, so. Shotguns are not rifles, nor are they SMGs. They are shotguns. For this reason, your insistence to hyperfocus on range misses two stats. Shotgun choke and shotgun ammo spread, respectively. Unfortunately, the online pedia does not seem to track these stats at all.

The point is that accuracy and range matter for ONE pellet. The rest of the pellets cluster semi randomly around the one. In principle, with poor choke and high spread, a long accurate range leads to one pellet being delivered, while a high choke and low spread can render even comparatively poor ranges on shotguns meaningless.

Not saying that is what happens, but you are hyperfocusing and treating one stat as the beall endall stat and missing the point.

On a more personal note, I would rate shotguns against their emergent stat I would call 'stopping power'. When an enemy turns a corner you want your shotgunner to drop him dead right then and thereon reaction, not compete with SMGs at delivering mediocre damage at midrange distances.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2024, 05:44:01 pm by Iazo »