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

[Geneoce]

Loving the mod Dioxine. Burnt myself out on Xcom back in the day but your mod is awesome for giving the game a new field.

One issue came up in my current playthrough 0.86. After some time certain soldiers can not be assigned to the transport. New recruits can be assigned but clicking on the older troops does nothing. If someone is wounded or taken off the ship roster they become permanent base defense, even if I transport them.

Maybe due to the stat growth and stat bonus from the armor?

Also have a few other things I noticed balance wise but fun mod!

[Dioxine]

This weird (and rare) condition is as old as the mod, and it passes with time (or after a Base Defense?), I have no idea what could be causing it though. Some engine glitch I presume? I am certainly not removing stat bonuses from armor suits And if it's the cause, chances for repairing the bug are low (the devs rarely fix something that cannot happen in vanilla, and there no stat boosts to armor in vanilla).

Also if you have balance suggestions, don't hesitate to voice them. Thanks for the praise

[new_civilian]

Ok I tested this mod yesterday thoroughly and ...

wow. 

Some thoughts in random order:

-The consistency of the mod is good, everything looks, feels and works like it should, good work on that!
-The difficulty is MUCH higher, all old Xcom tactics no longer work, this is a NEW game, be prepared to relearn your combat procedures.
-The amounts of equipment is incredible and there are many unusual items like the WP grenade or the Molotov cocktail which work slightly different.
-The armor system is completely different and well-thought out.
-The craft maps are totally new and you have to relearn everything from scratch, this is not your standard "smoke gren then run out of the skyranger" anymore
-The new aliens! Wooooooo! Doom! Woooo! 

Awesome. I got my ass kicked, the difficulty level really means something now 

That's one incredible mod, dude. NOT X-Com anymore that's for sure! A Total Conversion indeed and a very well done one, hats off.

Ah, (has idea) one thing could (maybe) be improved: Could you change the globe-textures so that earth looks well more like an old map, I mean e.g. brown oceans and brownish earth colors everywhere? I think this would add to the TC, right noe Earth looks too "clean" 

[Edrick]

Don't know why, the third reinstall or so made everything work perfectly. God, I didn't remember how much I love your mod! The new Booty texts are excellent (and I haven't found any mistake yet!) and so are the new factions. I really mean it. I wouldn't mind reading a whole novel or novella of Piratez at all  (remember the good times when you got whole novellas with game manuals, like Elite?).

Suggestion: as I'm in love with TFTD armors (and I have bugged you many times about it), does it seem like a good idea to implement "elite" Deep Ones straight from the sea, where they keep their cities and USOs and factories and whatnot (or Aquatoids, when they're implemented as a faction), armed with scary stuff (from advanced firearms to Sonic and Gauss weapons) and armored with Ion/Magnetic Ion Armor? Maybe even a "rival" pirate gang of Deep Ones/Aquatoids appears? Thing is, I liked the "antagonism" feel of XCOM 2012 with your MEC against a Mechtoid.

BUG: I'm getting now a (minor) bug with my crew falling to the ground through craft stairs. As in, they get off the Bonaventura as if it was a clean fall instead of a ramp, and then they can't get back in rushing for cover or ammo.

[Dioxine]

Thank you, it seems that the mod is finally starting to come together... not a long stretch before a final version I guess? There still is more content needed, though, and it takes so much time... Anyway, all the suggestions are noted

@Edrick: No idea about that one bug; maybe your LIGHTNIN terrain files are corrupted somehow?

[Edrick]

Not the Lightning files, I replaced them and still not working. Thing is, not only craft stairs and ramps, but all stairs don't seem to work. My characters just walk through them without rising a tile. Any idea on what could it be due to?

[Dioxine]

This behaviour normally only happens when there's no floor below the stairs... So if the stairs are fine, something could be wrong with the floors... What's to blame? Strange mods? Settings? Or perhaps the latest Nightly? I have no idea.

[Edrick]

Updated to latest nightly, everything works perfectly now. Thank you!
Two unrelated questions, by the way. One, could we get as a poor man's Assassin Armour: a Space Cowboy Suit which increases firing accuracy by 5 and is crafted from Trader Booties? Two, are weapons which increase stats possible? For example, a "war banner spear" which increases Bravery?

[Dioxine]

There is a starting outfit with a small Firing Accuracy bonus planned. And no, equipment cannot change stats.

[new_civilian]

The Doom units are worth a release as a standalone race mod 

[Dioxine]

The Doom units are worth a release as a standalone race mod 

Don't let me stop you Just credit the original author, all I did was to steal his resources, add a bit of my own (mostly weapons) and make an OXCom-compatible stuff out of it. Besides the stuff in Piratez, there is also a Doomguy sprite I've never used, I can provide it too if you wanted to use it somehow.

[new_civilian]

Gee, thanks, I will try to come up with a worthy mod!  Have to check your readme for the original author. And no, the doomguy graphics are of no interest for me atm, all I want is new enemies to shoot at (and to be shot from).

[Duke_Falcon]

Sir!

This mod is awesome! I do not understand half of this yet but awesome.
Only a few questions:
- Why do I have so much chicks? Ten is enough... And where are the males?
- Is there a dictionary for the research menu? Nice titles but half of them I do not know what shall mean if ever researched... I mean I researched something about cooking and big book but instead of hot-dog I got high-explosives!
- May we have Cacodemons on OUR side? Pretty please?
- What the hell with those Humanists? They think they are strong but they quickly die in melee... Why we need such a bad activists?!
- May recruit the Avatar? Seriously! There are demons, magic... Ufos... Why not Avatar? Not the airbender, I like females better over bald man...
- There are really half-snakeman civilians?! I swear I saw them but hard to believe it...

[Dioxine]

Sir!
This mod is awesome! I do not understand half of this yet but awesome.

I take it for high praise, thank you sir.

- Why do I have so much chicks? Ten is enough... And where are the males?

I've been explaining this several times over. tldr, OXCom is unsatisfactory to implement both sexes yet, so a decision had to be made.

- Is there a dictionary for the research menu? Nice titles but half of them I do not know what shall mean if ever researched... I mean I researched something about cooking and big book but instead of hot-dog I got high-explosives!

Well, never heard of Internet Cook Books? An old slang for home-made explosives? Anyway this mod is filled with various references and the research tree is arcane by design. Otoh, the Pedia contains explanations of equipment and various game mechanics (and enemies) that goes far deeper than in the original game.

- May we have Cacodemons on OUR side? Pretty please?

MC them. Other than that, no.

- What the hell with those Humanists? They think they are strong but they quickly die in melee... Why we need such a bad activists?!

Glad you're dispatching them that easily. Wait till a run into a Terror filled with their tanks and Stormtroopers.

- May recruit the Avatar? Seriously! There are demons, magic... Ufos... Why not Avatar? Not the airbender, I like females better over bald man...

Our avatars are different. There will be an extremely hard to obtain combat unit, named Avatar of Death. However this is not implemented yet.

- There are really half-snakeman civilians?! I swear I saw them but hard to believe it...

Naturally. The 2600s Earth, since XCom has lost, is inhabited with a host of strange human-alien hybrids and other mutants (including super-humans you play the game as, and meet as Raiders - Ethereal's radical take on tailoring our species to their combat needs by increasing physical abilities, retaining cunning and adaptability, and dampening its psionic potential). Play the mod and do the research to uncover the full story (although some pieces are still missing since it's not 1.0 yet).

[cjones]

.86 rocks.  Loving it.  Just about ready to find me a star god. 

On a side note.  The cacodemon walking sound almost made me spray Dr pepper thru my nose.