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

[Balbinator]

Faction leader on a cruiser/base is guaranteed only on the highest level of difficulty.

Guaranteed only on the highest, but possible on others too?

I`ve managed to develop craft weapons BTW. Loaded save from 2 months ago, and interrogated all prisoners again and voila
Is it possible to have strings of bad luck in research tree/ projects results?

[Dioxine]

These research problems might've been caused by changed requirements over many versions of the mod; sorry for that but this is rather unavoidable Namely, if something you've already researched causes an (specific type of) "unlock" in a new version of the mod (but didn't in the old version), you won't get that unlock by upgrading the version. No bad research paths exist if you play same version start-to-end (all 0.9 can be considered as a single version, and research tree changes in the future should be minimal - again, sorry for your lost time).

As for the highest leaders, yes, every hideout assault, Cruiser and enemy secret base should spawn a faction's commander, eventually. As for the Church Cardinal, no extra unlock is needed, you only need to interrogate him once (in the old-fashioned way). Interrogating Star Gods requires an unlock first, but it's been the same since almost a year I think, so no worries about missing it out. Mercenary Commanders & Govt Generals are unneccessary to finish the game.

EDIT: 0.9.f uploaded, with nuclear fuel recovery fix, some minor improvements & a little extra hidden cool stuff. Enjoy.

[Alex_D]

It seems I have researched all it but

Spoiler:

a broken Star God Operative

.
In the mean time, I just installed 0.9f and intercepted a Trader's cruiser, and found a rather amusing crew (see screenshot).
Is the cruiser now a pleasure ship?

[Vesparco]

Is the cruiser now a pleasure ship?

Seems they're enjoying the elerium sauna from the reactor leakage XD.

Also I think I will stop a second the testing as I updated some of the versions in the current gameplay and I don't want to spoil too much the fun experience I am having (I'll restart eventually. Before that I would say that the mod has been amazing so far, with the  its content and flavours unique and refreshing. I'll be looking to a later release and in the meantime I'll try to craft some mods

[Dioxine]

@Alex_D: There is no such thing. If you have interrogated this guy once, you only need their Coordinator (commander-rank). Indeed he might be a bit hard to come by, try to provoke their Crackdown

[Ridаn]

Just found out that Chinese Dragon blast radius is larger than effective range it might be used on.
Now I consider going Cydonia.

[Dioxine]

Waking the Chinese Dragon isn't a safe thing to do Still I plan to up the damage a bit to get the "firestorm" effect on the battlefield (if you go over 510 damage, everything will burn. Even the things that are immune to fire).

[Alex_D]

Just found out that Chinese Dragon blast radius is larger than effective range it might be used on.
Now I consider going Cydonia.

I "tested" firing it inside the Bonny, and it really blew up everyone inside it and anyone in the rear and front cones ... except the two gals on the second level, which were left undamaged. The little mezzanine acted as a blast shield (explosion setting of 2). That little ship is really sturdy 

@Alex_D: There is no such thing. If you have interrogated this guy once, you only need their Coordinator (commander-rank). Indeed he might be a bit hard to come by, try to provoke their Crackdown

I see. I think I blew up my chance (pun intended) a few in-game months ago, when they attacked one of my factory bases. Not much of a defense team (only shotguns, about to be upgraded), only 10 swabbie gals and three battletanks and dogs. The defense was a messy success as all girls were trained in the Voodoo arts, albeit there were only two VRods and they have to share it.  I guess I have to wait for another in-game year for another chance.

Playing this game has been an amazing adventure.

[ivandogovich]

So...  I'm still trying to understand the whole slavery thing.

Trd Eng:
0/2/3

zero armor parts.
2 booty (Trader's Booty? - not worth too much, or can you get other things here?)
3 non uniques ( like wire or soylent, etc )

Does it make economic sense to slave them? or just interrogate more of them? or Ransom them?

[Dioxine]

So...  I'm still trying to understand the whole slavery thing.

Trd Eng:
0/2/3

zero armor parts.
2 booty (Trader's Booty? - not worth too much, or can you get other things here?)
3 non uniques ( like wire or soylent, etc )

Does it make economic sense to slave them? or just interrogate more of them? or Ransom them?

You're reading this correctly (Trader's Booty, yes). As for the economic sense, all three options are different yet about equally viable - depends if you need tech, cash or resources As the Bootypedia says, slaves increase your storage space (plus can be sold, albeit at much less than ransoming them). More on this, I am not saying - discover stuff for yourself

EDIT: Decided to add 1-2 crew to fighters, for RP purposes only (and maybe later on, with OXCom Extended, actual use of pilots). For now they all will be using a generic map, here's the project:

[eatthepath]

I've been playing this mod quite a bit the last few days, as have many of my friends. I really love it! My instinct is just to call it a game, not a mod, that's how impressive it is. Some of the artistic direction is not exactly to my liking, but I'm not the sort to get the pitchforks out over that. My only real gripe was some of the map design.

That was, until this fateful small ship showed up and landed. I don't get many landed UFOs for whatever reason, a chance to score big! Little did I realize I was stepping into catgirl hell.

Theatrics aside, fighting smugglers was really, incredibly frustrating. Searching here indicates that the behavior of the catgirls and ethereal only being visible from certain angles is intentional? I find it very hard to accept. Only with intense savescumming(something I haven't done for any other mission in this run) was I able to salvage this mission. I'm okay with hard missions, missions you should run away from, but having invisible people moving through my squad, slicing them up, one of them alternating between lightsabering and mind-controlling people... for a little while I was convinced that the game was glitching. It wasn't until my third or fourth attempt that I even knew the ethereal was there, and only through desperate cheesy time travel that I was able to research a catgirl and learn of their allergy to smoke before returning to the mission.

Getting a finally survivable outcome didn't feel like an achievement, it was just finally over. It doesn't really feel like having better troops or gear would even help deal with it, my only recourse is just to hug the left side of the map until I'm certain there aren't any more meleeists left. It was so intensely frustrating that it motivated me to register and post! 

It hasn't put me off the game, though. Still playing. Just afraid of the next smuggler ship.

P.S. I noticed there was a big chunk of the smuggler UFO I couldn't reach. I was puzzled by this until I realized that it's a smuggling ship! Hidden compartments and all! Great touch.

[Dioxine]

Thanks for the praise! And more so I'm happy for the fact that the Public Enemy secret mission gave you trouble (it wasn't your everyday Smuggler ship, my friend), I've been afraid it's going to be too routine - still IMO it's nothing a liberal use of grenades can't handle... Catgirls are kinda hard to tackle with guns, but they can be easily killed by the other 2/3rds of your arguments - melee & explosives (Bootypedia, Pinup #10: "Diversify your weapons"). I'm actually happy for them that the poor, weak things managed to give someone a fight. And MC is MC, VooDoo is no joke, you either brave it or flee. The guy is strong in magic, but he's only a single one (and the standard Star God weapon is way more dangerous than a humble lightsaber). However the notion that best troops & gear wouldn't help tells me simply you have no idea how the best gear looks like Maybe the early-game got too easy on the player over the versions, and you went there not toughened-up enough for something like this - I can accept my fault here

So in a nutshell, no mission was designed to let you win. These guys are supposed to fight for their lives, and in a mission like this, which turned almost impossible to win, you should have aborted. There is so much easier loot flying around.

[eatthepath]

Oh, I definitely ought to have aborted. I did a few times, but the mystery of both these enemies and trying to figure out the mechanic kept pulling me back. To say that no gear could have helped me was admittedly a bit of an exaggeration, but when a thing I can't see kills two soldiers a turn... it's not the difficulty, it's the sheer lack of information. Start on the wrong side of the map, and you don't know there's an exceptional threat until the invisible bastard starts mindcontrolling or knifing people.

I felt like I was fighting a bug. I know you said earlier on that catgirls are working as intended, but let me describe my experiences in some detail just to be sure.

Catgirl and the Public Enemy were both very hard to spot, only visible from certain angles. I didn't pin it down exactly for the cats, which seemed more generous, but for the PE he was only visible to people standing on the diagonal line leading directly to the left and only left of it. If a soldier couldn't see them, they couldn't shoot or melee them, even with clear line of fire. I tried force-firing on the location a few times, and shots passed through the target without impacting. Carpet bombing might have helped, but without a considerable portion of luck I wouldn't have had any clue where to toss.

I'm not asking for this mission to be easily winnable, or even winnable at all. I don't think you have to worry about the early game being too easy on the player either. I've had to be careful and pick my battles. Hunger for exploring the tech tree pushes me to capture everything possible, but threats have from time to time made me pass that up in favor of safety.

[Dioxine]

Nah, not a bug, just an abuse - let's be honest here, if the player abuses every mechanic he can, why should AI be forbidden to do so? I love how they're actually invisible, so the player can't break the rules - you can only see what your soldiers see! Just test-played that mission - yup, the guy is hardcore, and can scare the living sh*t out of someone who didn't met him before - just as planned. Felt great, like re-creation of the movie Predator, the way I had to spread out and franticly look in all directions, and set everything on fire to hopefully mark the invisible units. Catgirls are actually easier to find since they often have ranged weapons, but indeed I found the Public Enemy the moment he killed one of my squad Ironically, he was finally killed by a blast created by one of his mind-control puppets Daamn, I have to make a Predator-homage mission now, since this mechanic works so good!

[pilot00]

So...  I'm still trying to understand the whole slavery thing.

Trd Eng:
0/2/3

zero armor parts.
2 booty (Trader's Booty? - not worth too much, or can you get other things here?)
3 non uniques ( like wire or soylent, etc )

Does it make economic sense to slave them? or just interrogate more of them? or Ransom them?

My take on this (personal experience only Veteran difficulty, whats the name blackbeard?Third one) is that unless you need the storage space (AND YOU GONNA NEED IT) and you dont need to unlock their pedia entries, sell them right away. Once the Guilds large ships start to appear, have the bonny tail them till they land. You will get a crap ton of the common stuff. Now special things and super conductive wires are another matter (you can get the latter dissasembling certain weapons).

Speaking of slavery and interrogation can I place a request? I dont know if its possible to be made, if its not oh well, Ignore me, if it can be made it would solve a bit of a hassle though: Can we get a message of what we just got once we interrogate/enslave someone? Etc 2 x armor parts, 1 soy.

Now who do I have to pay to tell me how on earth do I get to design craft weapons?