XPiratez Information Compilation, Starter Guide & Weapon Spreadsheet

[deltarno]

As someone who has started many playthroughs (and has yet to finish any), many thanks for these!  I hadn't known about the different starter bonuses for different nations, so this will help with the nations I've never chosen before.

[eharper256]

As someone who has started many playthroughs (and has yet to finish any), many thanks for these!  I hadn't known about the different starter bonuses for different nations, so this will help with the nations I've never chosen before.

You're welcome, glad it's useful. 

[Carcer]

As someone who's been playing for a while (about a year) but is still learning stuff both your pdf and weapon excel sheet are very useful for me to get second opinions and stuff that I'm unsure if they're good or not. They're both also great for knowing the advice is current, a lot of other resources for the game are quite old and potentially out of date.

I was (un)lucky enough to get a base attack in late february and managed to get an assault pistol that I was surprised to be able to buy immediately after researching it. How would you rate them if thier only competition is ramshackle rifles, six shooters and the other early game junk?

[eharper256]

As someone who's been playing for a while (about a year) but is still learning stuff both your pdf and weapon excel sheet are very useful for me to get second opinions and stuff that I'm unsure if they're good or not. They're both also great for knowing the advice is current, a lot of other resources for the game are quite old and potentially out of date.

Glad you've found it useful!

I was (un)lucky enough to get a base attack in late february and managed to get an assault pistol that I was surprised to be able to buy immediately after researching it. How would you rate them if thier only competition is ramshackle rifles, six shooters and the other early game junk?

Oh for sure, in the case you get it at that point, it's a solid weapon. Assault Pistol does have one thing that's solid, and that's super-rapid fire with very low TU cost. And early on, that's invaluable.

Basically, the sheet is ordered in the order I found things, so if you find something wildly earlier than the position I have it in the order, you can automatically consider it better.

Also, everyone has 1-2 early scripted base attacks, so it might be that rather than you being unlucky. If you got any Dr. X notes as drops from that time, it's the scripted one. So hang in there. However, another reason I say interception as soon as possible is important is that a good interception setup can stop further base attacks if your can stop aliens and factions finding the base again.

[Psyentific]

As someone who's been playing for a while (about a year) but is still learning stuff both your pdf and weapon excel sheet are very useful for me to get second opinions and stuff that I'm unsure if they're good or not. They're both also great for knowing the advice is current, a lot of other resources for the game are quite old and potentially out of date.

I was (un)lucky enough to get a base attack in late february and managed to get an assault pistol that I was surprised to be able to buy immediately after researching it. How would you rate them if thier only competition is ramshackle rifles, six shooters and the other early game junk?

Assault Pistol is a pretty solid shooter, I'd rate it on the same tier as the Shiny Niner. It's a solid A-tier or B-tier pistol that's mostly held back by issues common to all pistols (ie low damage leading to poor performance vs armored goons). Definitely a cut above the usual six shooter/rusty niner/domestic shotgun schlock you'd see in the early months, but in turn obsoleted by something nice like Super Sawed-Off or Holo-Spikey SMG. The Assault Pistol upgrades via manufacture into the Smartpistol and Mini-Cougar SMG, so it even gets a second wind later on that most of the other handguns don't enjoy.

[Carcer]

It was a bandit attack that had 4 stormrats in it, they were hell to deal with without proper grenades.

A note with the throwing hammer, by the time church beastmasters show up a single thrown hammer will destroy their armor, I otherwise found them very hard to deal with without blowing up part the ship they were on and losing a lot of loot. Might be too specific for your list but thought I should share it.

[Psyentific]

Have you tried anti-tank rockets MAG rockets for that? They're great at cracking hard targets without much collateral damage. Beastmasters only have 40 armor and they don't have any piercing resists, so shooting them works just fine as long as you aren't shooting into the shield's strong resists. Regular old Smartgun /PS or HMG /MAG bullets should chew them handily.

edit: the Church Beastmaster has yellow shields which are strong against the AT rocket's explosion but ineffectual against the MAG rocket's pure kinetic energy.

[Carcer]

I did, but I felt I was blowing up too much of the loot.

A hammer is also much cheaper than a AT rocket and the chance of blowing myself up was nearly 0.

[termidor]

The thing with shields is knowing which type of damage to apply, specially those that bypass then. As it it a reasearch item I'm not going to spoil it, but for beastmasters in particular high powered piercing weapons ( for example light cannon, At rifle) counter then really hard.


Also in regards to the guide, I think it would be worth including two things on the reject the power path: gnomes can be farmed for all their research topics, and the second priest visit needs knowledge of shadowtech, Sivalinga resurrection (so purple lady is a hard require) and voodoo.

[eharper256]

Also in regards to the guide, I think it would be worth including two things on the reject the power path: gnomes can be farmed for all their research topics, and the second priest visit needs knowledge of shadowtech, Sivalinga resurrection (so purple lady is a hard require) and voodoo.

I do mention the gnomes can be used for research or recruitment. I did think about adding in the pre-requisites of Priestess; but I'm out of space for that section. Guess the CD guns aren't too important and could be cut, but something like that would have to go to any more info in that space.

One thing about researching gnomes in general is that whilst they're renewable and offer incredibly valuable tech... it can be really expensive in RP for the early game. Due to that 25 base cost, could be 37 if unlucky which is like 7 or 8 days gone even with 5 brainers which you might have at that point (as rejecting Codex means you're not even waiting for it to expand and implode for 2 months). So juggling when to research them is an interesting challenge I'd say. Guess I could mention this in the advanced tips section though.

[Psyentific]

The thing with shields is knowing which type of damage to apply, specially those that bypass then.

It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.

[Carcer]

Is that counting damage absorbed (25% resist lets 75% damage through) or is counting damage taken (100% means it takes 100% of that damage type.)

Otherwise thanks that will be very useful!

[Rokksta]

Is that counting damage absorbed (25% resist lets 75% damage through) or is counting damage taken (100% means it takes 100% of that damage type.)

Otherwise thanks that will be very useful!

Only the types with "Ignore" will bypass the shield and damage health directly (after armor). All the other types will be absorbed after multiplication of the listet percentage.

[eharper256]

It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.

This is a great idea actually, I'll make a version of this and add it to the guide.

[eharper256]

Okay, I've added an update to the main PDF, with the previously suggested progression requirements for Captain Ranks and Captain's Logs, and also a page with my redone version of Psyentific's brilliant shield chart idea.

I've flipped the colours so blue = bypass, green = good, yellow = less good, red = awful since I figure most often you're going to be referencing the chart to see what's good at killing it at a glance, but otherwise all credit to him for the idea.