[TOTAL CONVERSION] The Piratez Mod - 0.9.j - 9 May - Holiday Edition

[Dioxine]

Well, this is sort of "after the end" story so even if it's total conversion, it is tied to the original story, so there definitely will be more aliens (no worries though, they won't overtake the main flow of the game). Plus I like Lovecraft a lot

Meanwhile, 0.81 is up, before I have to take a few weeks break. A few new guns and few bugfixes, and new living quarters maps, but mostly it is a rebalance; sort of an experiment to see how the new balance influences gameplay, especially in regard to living quarters and shotguns.

And a customary screenshot:

[Imeryak]

I have a few suggestions for this mod:
1) Skyranger upgrade system. You buy old, barely flying rubbish, then you upgrade it with engine (elernium fuel and in-air time boost), navigation  sistem (radar range boost), strengthening of the hull with plastasteel (speed and acceleration boost), armor plate (toughness boost) and weapon slot, and then you have something you can actually use. Not the best craft, but reliable old friend.
2) 3x1 belt slot for melee weapon, because it's awesome to have a cutlass or stun rod on the belt. Or even double the fun with two 3x1 belt slots, Arrr.
3) Elerium charge for a mortar for a late game. Mortar is awesome, but pretty much useless after midgame.

[Dioxine]

1. This would be awesome but sadly is impossible - a craft cannot be upgraded since it's named & numbered. So each upgrade would have to be built from scratch. But a Skyranger research tree... yeah why not, I'll think about it, after all, it has one advantage - no Elerium dependency. And if you sell the Bonaventura to buy Skyranger, you're $2M richer. There is a problem though - it's a jet and the jet technology has gone backwards between 1990s and 2600s - elerium-powered crafts are plentiful and vastly superior so why worry.
This makes me think... of course I know that Bonaventura is so good there is a wasted "getting better ships" potential here... but then again, it has to be that good because the game is hard. Either that, or we could switch it to a super-crappy transport (even below Skyranger level) + a very tough (but slow - 2000 speed or so) fighter in 2nd hangar... I don't know, I got used to the current arrangement, but maybe the drive to get a better transport could provide more fun?

2. I thought about it, but... it'd invalidate the knives, and it'd also create a "best of both worlds" soldier equipping pattern... sword + 2-handed gun... why bother with pistols? Even worse, a 3x1 slot could hold most long arms...

3. Definitely. It'll be either that or advanced (manufacturable) mortar, but 200 HE elerium shell will be added.

[XCOMFan419]

I think I will be playing around with Piratez for my third playthrough. I think I will enjoy it.

[Imeryak]

2. I thought about it, but... it'd invalidate the knives, and it'd also create a "best of both worlds" soldier equipping pattern... sword + 2-handed gun... why bother with pistols? Even worse, a 3x1 slot could hold most long arms...

then how about to change some  melee weapons size to 2x1? Knives is lighter, so only strong elite pirates will prefer sword-like weapons to daggers or other short weapons. Maybe nerf swords to slightly-better-than-knife level, and add 3x1 size two-handed swords

Spoiler:

and 3x2 size greatswords, which require a lot of strength to hold it and TU to swing, but deal a LOT OF DAMAGE. Bloody carnage ftw.

[Dioxine]

Hmm, that is a good idea. Even better, knife has one crucial shortcoming - soldier's Strength is not added to the damage. There is 2x1 pipe but it is notoriously inaccurate, meant for those who have low Melee skill. Making a small cutlass (and advanced follow-ups) that relies on both skill and strength... yeah.

About the hidden part - it is already prepared, I'm just waiting with the release so I can put new melee weapons along with a new, melee-heavy faction which still needs some effort to be finished...

So maybe it's a good time to ask the audience, which faction I should work on now:
1. The mystery melee faction - goofy but challenging in new ways;
2. Smugglers - nothing really new but a colourful, mixed faction; no retal/terror
3. Tribal Deep Ones (no retal/terror - mainly because I don't want them to fly any ships)
4. Tribal Sectoids (no terror, but some of them still can be swayed to Star Gods cause, so retal on)
5. Aquatoids (just another faction on Earth, but with Sonic guns and at least 3 new ships, no terror, retal on)

[Edrick]

I'd personally go with Deep Ones (if Deep Ones are also accompanied by Gillmen, Lobstermen and Tasoths). They look the ones with most interesting mechanics: how are supposed to interact with them without ships? By raiding their villages?

[niculinux]

+ 1  for smugglers. A njve distraction from terror mission, tnough these may be not much frequent in piratez, because they do not defend anithing but they power and blood thirst!! Plus they mY be the faction that carries the most various loog in the game, and a bit more abundant. They smuggle right?

The less terror mission may be also an interestin option, maybe instead thers may be more base defence mission and less terror missio ..everybody may want the poratez...dead!!!

As for the 33x1 belt, i'd leave the daggers...and add machete, to those may be applied the strdngh factor, thei damage in only slashin, not thrusting.

[Dioxine]

Quick answers:

- There will be less EXTRA terror missions, so the chance of more than 1/month happening will decrease; around 1 terror / month is however hardcoded.
- Deep Ones (Gill Men): adding extra races is not a problem, the most work would be put into a new terrain...
- After consideration, there will be a couple new 2x1 melee weapons, but never to make pipe/knife useless. I might even add more accuracy to the knife, currently it's somewhat underpowered. Machete, yeah, sounds okay
- I'm planning to overhaul lasers to simulate their armor piercing nature. Not to get into details, lasers will deal less damage than now to unarmored/lightly armored troops, and more to heavily armored ones. Pirates and raiders are lucky with their 20 armor counting as "unarmored"

Now how I plan for the Deep Ones villages to work: slow UFOs called "Probes". They have 1 HP, so you either blow it up, or follow it to the landing (which can be a Deep One village or whatever). Con: the village maps cannot be random (although I could prepare several variants). Pro: there is no way to make them random anyway, unless I'll add "deep one village" as a global texture type (like Farm or Forest)... but then it will be just normal terrain for crash recovery, without any actual Deep Ones.

[Imeryak]

- After consideration, there will be a couple new 2x1 melee weapons

Weapon sprite can be actually larger than two cells can fit. This will be confusing for items on ground, but looks fine when equiped on soldier.

[Dioxine]

Nah it doesn't look nice... and creates quite a mess on the ground. Although if I wanted 1x2 cutlass (still not sure), making a new sprite would be as simple as saying hello in Japan. So worry not.

Meanwhile - Smugglers have been chosen for the next faction to appear, in part because I still dread working with new tilesets This shouldn't take too long, though, and the Deep Ones are next. I'll try to outfit these Smuggler ships with a VERY varied loot, from valuables to crafting items to weapons/ammo piles, hopefully also suits of armor and craft weapons; if everything goes right, you shouldn't be able to tell what the next Smuggler ship is going to carry.

The smuggler ship:

[Yankes]

I saw this ship somewhere before... probably long, long time ago.

[ivandogovich]

... maybe in a galaxy far, far away....
 

but yeah... that is a gorgeous ship!

[Alex_D]

Hi (first post here)

I'd say first thanks Dioxine (and all of the contributors) for creating such total conversion. It's really a new game indeed.

I have been playing with the mod for the past few days, and I just got update 0.81. I had to do some little surgery to the savegame so not to mess with the base layout I had before.

A question: How do I provide ammo to the Mercenary guy's gun?

Thanks

Alex

[Dioxine]

Thanks man! It's always nice to hear some nice words Sorry about making bit of a mess with living quarters suddenly smaller, but experiments are needed...

Answer to your question: If everything works as it should, the mercenary has unlimited ammo (he takes care of that himself).