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

[cjones]

Hello,

Dioxine, First let me say, I LOVE YOUR MOD.  I feel like a 12 year old again, playing xcom on my ps1 for hours.  This is THE BEST mod I have ever found, for any game.

I am hoping someone can help me out here as I am wondering if I am missing missions to complete the game, as I have reached a dead end in the research tree.

I keep getting map not found errors, usually some sort of CULTXXXXX map type, typically when trying to go after star gods.

I have downloaded every terrain pack I can get my hands on and still get missing map/terrain crash to desktop errors.  Is there a certain MAP pack I can download to fix most of this?

I wonder also, am I missing something, I have found Merc, Church bases but those are the only kind I have ever found besides the DOOM ones.  I capture Star gods both dead and alive (via Voodoo) and still cant research anything about them.  I have the death or glory researched, but when I captured the church commander it did not give me any special option. 

I have attached my save if anyone cares to take a looksee.  I know, its a messy game, but I actually am pretty strong, I can steamroll anything except star gods. 

Also, I feel like the Mod doesn't want me to manufacture anything for much of a profit.  I have been doing Finely Distilled rum for spending cash, but since I play without TFTD manu rules, I think my extra runts aren't making me any more money.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something, lol.

[Dioxine]

Thank you so much! Feels me with joy that you're having so much fun. My modmaking philosophy has always been, if you can do the best, why settle for less

Well now, let me see if I can help you with your problems.

1. Bases. No, it's just Random Gods hating you. Academy & Trader bases do spawn, the thing is, chances for a base of *any* kind being spawned are slim. There are no Raider, Govt, Smuggler or Humanist bases, though (but you don't need their highest ranks to complete the game... actually, they're missing any kind of real Commanders).

2. Star Gods. You need to capture the lowest rank - Star God Guardian - first (or catch the Public Enemy). Which is a problem as they're hard to distinguish from much more prevalent Operatives, and can only be found in larger deployments. Only after interrogating him (which requires only VooDoo), you can go up the command chain; catching an Operative is relatively trivial, then you have to find a Coordinator. And now that's a problem since there are only three missions when they appear:
- Sway Local Govt (very rare and you have to down a Cruiser)
- Base (very rare, either down a Cruiser or find the guy on the base)
- Retaliation Attack Run (nowadays Star Gods do not launch Crackdowns, but very rarely you can get an out-of-the-blue Star God raid on your base. This happens only if you shoot down several Star Gods vessels in a row. Down the Cruiser with Sabres or greet them at you base)

Once you have the Coordinator (along with the three remaining Commanders) interrogated, and Death or Glory! researched, you can research & build Teh Avenger. This last thing is pretty easy... but won't stay so forever, I'm thinking about doing away with the Avenger altogether and having the player to build a MASSIVE ship to get to Mars

Myself I'm using TFTD manufacturing rules, but if you don't want to use them (the game is definitely easier with them as you can run a veritable alcohol empire... but also less "true", so I can only admire not using them), break down your production amongst many bases and products. X-Grog gives you $16 profit per worker hour, Rum gives $14, Harpoon Tranquilizers $12, Darts $12.5, the rest you have to figure out by yourself (the total running cost of a fully stacked Workshop, about $10 per worker hour, has been already deducted from these).  Never throw more than about 40 Runts per each product and you'll have full profit. Diversification is the key to conquering markets

And finally I'm attaching a zip with all my maps, it's not a part of the normal mod but why I should leave you in your peril. The missing parts are probably Civilian's farms, they have never been uploaded to the modsite afaik... (you can always temporarily disable Piratez_Compatible_Terrain_Pack.rul to solve the problem with a missing map). I should probably add these maps to the next version...

PS. I love receiving people's saves, this really helps me understanding different playstyles and rebalancing the mod  accordingly.

[cjones]

Thanks for the map pack, I will try that tomorrow, and if that doesn't work due to my cluttered ufo install, I will take your advice on disabling the ruleset for that part.

Thanks for the info!  As for not using TFTD manu rules, I guess I like it better since it forces you to rely on raiding for your money more than just getting a bunch of seed money and making lots of runt factories, but of course, different taste for different people.  I will prob use TFTD rules on my next play thru.

Keep up the awesome work!  I feel like I met a celebrity, you responding personally to my question, hehe

[cjones]

Sorry,

One more quick question, how does the prospector work?  It says it is supposed to make you extra income, but I couldnt figure it out.  Is it a WIP?

THanks!

[cjones]

oh, and what is the Public Enemy?  I know thats a ranking for missions, but you mentioned catching one?

THanks!

[Dioxine]

1. The Prospector just nets you $400k per month (in "negative maintenance"), plus you can normally use it.

2. I'm not telling a hint here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l58DwSWk3e0

3. I see you're spamming VooDoo. No wonder, since it appears that limited range for psi-amp type device has been "fixed" and no longer works. Seems I gotta make pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain where the devs reside

4. And a general bloggy thing, new stuff is being developed:

[cjones]

Hehe, thanks.

As for the spamming of voodoo, allow me to express my thoughts on voodoo.

As everyone knows, PSI is basically game breaking in vanilla.  Mods to limit PSI to line of sight correct somewhat by handicapping the player a bit.  IMO this method doesn't really make sense without also disabling line of sight ability to target an alien another soldier can see.  Even taking into account the soldiers have communication headsets and maybe some sort of overall commander relaying commands to each unit, how would this work out?

Soldier A:  I see a muton at my 12 oclock

Soldier B:  I am 300 feet away and it is pitch black out, I will take a shot at your  "12 oclock"  .

Now in the case of the Piratez mod, the whole enemy sighted by another unit can be shot at by a third unit really makes no sense, since I doubt the pirates have such sophisticated comm tech.  That being said, perhaps a way to balance this would be, yes, another unit could take the shot, but at drastically reduced accuracy.  Its akin to me saying:

Pirate A (yelling across the battlefield):  Yarr!  I see a Landlubbing flabby on the roof of that building by the burnt out truck.
Pirate B( yelling back, possibly opening both pirates to detection by enemy and random reaction fire?) : I see the building, Imma shoot my minigun at the roof top at that blur I think you are talking about.



So, that being said, I originally limited psi to line of sight when I first started Piratez.  Then I noticed something, none of my piratez had psi over 60 and skill was apparently capped at 50.  I could Voodoo 90 percent of the EZ factions such as traders, acedamy and don't even get me started on Mercs, so easy to Voodoo mercs.  Then I noticed I had trouble Voodoo'ing other faction PSI users, the church and NEVER was I able to MC a star god.  I figured this was your attempt to balance voodoo without breaking the game and turned PSI line of sight off figuring why double handicap myself.

That all being said, I noticed yesterday, that I was able to SOMETIMES MC a star god if I was very close to it.  I playtested this and it worked again and again.  The same voodoo unit could MC a star god if close, but not far away.  This seemed to consistent to be a result of the RNG, so I figure that Voodoo in your mod has limited range based on voodoo str of enemy.

All that to say, yes, I spam Voodoo, lol, I know its potentially game breaking, but I figured since you appeared to have balances made against it, it wasn't totally against the spirit of the mod.

I appreciate your thoughts on voodoo usage, specifically do you feel that to keep in spirit of your mod, should I enable voodoo line of sight?  If so, prob a good idea to put that on the settings recommendations for the mod.  That being said, it may have said that and I forgot, lol.

Whew, Thanks, and honestly my next playthru I am going to LOS voodoo anyway and enable TFTD manu rules.   I just want to complete my current game first.

Thanks again for the great mod!

[cjones]

Oh, and on a side note, I installed that map pack, worked great!

Also, on another side note.  I loaded up my leviathan with about 20 rookies in pirate armor with top of the line stuff like future bows, force blades, light discs, tesla coils and didnt let myself use voodoo.  I slaughtered em!  of course i took some casualties, but since I am in process of creating a voodoo resistant force for my big star god push, figured what better way to separate the wheat from the chaff! I forgot how much fun it was without Voodoo!

Thanks!

[Dioxine]

No, I hate the LoS setting on the psi. My solution was to curb the maximum range of the VooDoo rod to 16 tiles (absolute limit, like with the Flamethrower): you can SEE enemies through walls and ATTACK them, which makes psi special; but then again, you cannot use this ability from too far away. Sadly, this feature was recently removed from OXCom.

Actually the original game developers included a mechanic for this: Psi weakens with range. But the penalty is too slight to make a real difference, ie stop Psi from being a gamebreaker.... although it does allow to MC almost anyone from a very close range, as you have discovered.

There are 3 solutions possible:
- pray to the devs to reintroduce the limiter
- pray to the devs to externalize Psi range penalty setting
- do a major overhaul of enemies to make them less susceptible to attacks, while not making the enemy Psi users too overpowering at the same time.

About the ability to shoot at any unit that's been sighted... well this is one of the cornerstones of a tactical squad game design.

And the final word... If I didn't want psi in my mod, there wouldn't be any I'm trying to keep it, but this requires a lot of balancing.

[Dioxine]

My pilgrimage succeeded, maxRange for psi amps has been (re)introduced to OXCom.

ALL HAIL WARBOY!

 Now you can use psi without breaking the game (I suppose )

and some more bloggy thing (in line with replacing all starting weapons with pirate-themed ones):

[cjones]

Awesome sauce, I may wait until I finish my current save, hehe, before updating.

Thanks!

[the_third_curry]

Out of curiosity, can psi-amps or psionics in general be given some form of range-based accuracy in Openxcom?

[yrizoud]

They already have. Exactly like in the original game.

[Brian]

See https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Psionics#Psionic_Formulas .  Your chance of success decreases by about 2% for every tile between you and the target.  Mind control has the same chance of success as a Panic attack from 20 tiles further away.

[the_third_curry]

They already have. Exactly like in the original game.

See https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Psionics#Psionic_Formulas .  Your chance of success decreases by about 2% for every tile between you and the target.  Mind control has the same chance of success as a Panic attack from 20 tiles further away.

Ah, I see.