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

[eatthepath]

I do dig the idea and effects of low visibility enemies, but this particular implementation is... very unsatisfying for me. I'll not make a war of it, though.

I did run into another snag though. My current game is in a state where the AI consistently launches a terror mission(at Witchave) that crashes when I try to land at it. "Map block is not the size specified in maps/area51base81.map is 20x20 , expected: 10x10"

[Dioxine]

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.

If it was possible, you would have it from day one I could put in the Pedia but I'm hesitatant to make so many articles... Maybe once you have all the members of a faction + slavery researched you'd get a detailed article?

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

The hurdle is: you need to find & research some cannons (ex. Heavy Cannon). If you can't find the actual weapon, try Data Discs and gun magazines until you get lucky.

I do dig the idea and effects of low visibility enemies, but this particular implementation is... very unsatisfying for me. I'll not make a war of it, though.

You don't have to play Smuggler missions. Invisible enemies in Cydonia haven't been implemented yet, and maybe they won't be.

I did run into another snag though. My current game is in a state where the AI consistently launches a terror mission(at Witchave) that crashes when I try to land at it. "Map block is not the size specified in maps/area51base81.map is 20x20 , expected: 10x10"

Whoops, map problem. Thankfully it's easy to fix: open up the Piratez_Planet.rul, find area51base81, change width and length to 20, try landing again, and be warned, this terrain is hard (but has some goodies placed on it - if you're lucky ). Good thing you've posted the full error message.

[pilot00]

If it was possible, you would have it from day one I could put in the Pedia but I'm hesitatant to make so many articles... Maybe once you have all the members of a faction + slavery researched you'd get a detailed article?

I thought so, but I thought of posting this in case you missed it. With so many details to fix/create/update a minor thingie might have slept from your mind.
Well I do not think there needs to be a pedia entry for it cause it will mess up the place really bad.

Regarding the craft weapon: I even regret for asking it. Seems a bit logical if you think about it: Just scale the damn thing up. I kinda thought of it but I was sure I would get something by researching automatics and the subsequent unlocks. It didnt cross my mind about the cannon, because I mostly never used them in vanilla.

EDIT: BTW there seems to be no research for the drone(?) wrecks and an innablility to recover them.

[Dioxine]

EDIT: BTW there seems to be no research for the drone(?) wrecks and an innablility to recover them.

Nah if you wreck it, the only thing of value left is a damaged grav unit (which IS recovered, just check your stores). There are two ways of getting a Pedia entry on them, the non-obvious one is Academy Engineer.

[Phoenix7786]

Heya Diox. I just made a vanilla back-up of openXcom, dumped your mod's contents into the clean openXcom's data folder, loaded the 4 .rul's and got:

Mod failed to load. piratez_planet
yamll-cpp: error at line 0, column 0: bad conversion

What went wrong?

[Dioxine]

No idea at all. You sure you've copied everything - terrains, maps, routes? Also what operating system, what Nightly?

[Phoenix7786]

Windows 7, 64-bit. I downloaded the openXcom milestone version about 10 days or so ago from https://openxcom.org/downloads-milestones/. I have not fiddled with any of the nightlies so I assume my download would have been version 1.0. I have your piratez version 0.9f.

[Dioxine]

It won't work then. Please read the install instructions. It is clearly stated that the Piratez mod needs 31 March nightly (newer nightlies will almost certainly work with it too), so you need to install a nightly first (it's easy, just dump the contents of the nightly archive onto the copy of OXCom folder you've created for Piratez). Also don't forget to delete SoldierName folder and replace it with the one contained in the mod if you want to have pirate names rather than your gals being named, for example, John O'Connor.

[Phoenix7786]

Haha you knew what I was going to ask (how to install a Nightly) without me having to ask I keep a vanilla archive of OpenXcom just for mods or for a clean start in case something horribly goes wrong.

I re-read your install instructions:

1.Rename your Data/SoldierName folder to something else.
2.Backup your original data, just in case. This mod will modify a lot of maps etc.
3.If you already have previous Piratez version, delete resources/pirates to get rid of any no longer used stuff
4.Dump the contents of the archive into the Data folder.
5.Enable Piratez, Piratez_Factions, Piratez_Planet and Piratez_lang .rul files (the last file contains all language data, ALL are required).
6.Compatible with Luke83's Extra Ufos: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2007.msg19079#msg19079 (although this makes the challenge easier due to better access to some rare ship components).

7. There is an alternate paperdoll for mask-less Smokey armor available in Piratez Alternate Armor folder. Just write it over same files in the Piratez folder if you want it.

I actually don't see anywhere where it says to download a certain nightly. Since this is just text and you can't hear my tone please don't think I'm getting bitchy or snappy. I just wanted to clarify that I don't see where it said to install a certain nightly and that was where I got astray.

EDIT: Ah wait the culprit is your piratez mod page on https://www.openxcom.com/mod/piratez doesn't list the nightly requirement. It's probably best to update that page then. I see it now on your piratez forum page.

[pilot00]

Nah if you wreck it, the only thing of value left is a damaged grav unit (which IS recovered, just check your stores). There are two ways of getting a Pedia entry on them, the non-obvious one is Academy Engineer.

Figured it as much when I unlocked the cyberdisc and I saw the drones in their base.I just thought you could use the wreck as autopsy matterial as with the other things.

BTW I managed to beat the shit outa a boomasaurus with fistycuffs. How awesome is that?
(yeah I needed to brag about it).

Oh and something else. Has anyone tried to hit a window with a hammer? For maximum hilarity try it with a soldier standing 3-4 squares on the opposite direction 2-3 floors lower 

[icefox]

Amazing mod.  Sketchy as heck, but I can have flying power armored doom soldiers running around loaded to the gills with explosives, carrying a stun pistol in one hand and a tricked out auto-aiming magnum in the other with my entire operation being funded by illegal booze sales, so, I'll roll with it.

And the tech tree.  My gods, the tech tree.  Holy crap.  How do you do it?  What kind of mind could conceive of such a thing?  What dark force of madness did you make a pact with to make that work?!

Ahem, moving on.  I noticed at one point that I can apparently buy a Deathchaser from the black market for $10,000... then sell it back for $1.65 million.  Doesn't seem like this is the intended behavior; fencing aircraft, while lucrative, usually doesn't quite have those kinds of margins.  I started with version 0.9.d and later upgraded to 0.9.f, if that makes any difference?  Deleted the resources folder before I did the upgrade, though.  A friend of mine reports the same phenomenon.

Also I'm a friend of eatthepath and had to listen to him going through catgirl hell, so I'm curious.  It just seems a very odd mechanic that people can only be seen from one angle; is there no way to make it so you just have to be close to them to see them?  I'm not hating, I didn't have that much trouble with smugglers (partially 'cause I knew what to expect).  But the fact that this proclivity is nowhere mentioned in the bootypedia entries for catgirls or smugglers in general only makes it more mysterious.

[Dioxine]

EDIT: Ah wait the culprit is your piratez mod page on https://www.openxcom.com/mod/piratez doesn't list the nightly requirement. It's probably best to update that page then. I see it now on your piratez forum page.

Dammit, the page asks me on every upload "which version of OXCom is the mod using". I wasn't aware that the page doesn't display than info, what kind of web design is that! Terribly sorry about that, and I will update right away.

BTW I managed to beat the shit outa a boomasaurus with fistycuffs. How awesome is that?

Hehe, it was a good idea to change how these fistycuffs work after all

Amazing mod.  Sketchy as heck, but I can have flying power armored doom soldiers running around loaded to the gills with explosives, carrying a stun pistol in one hand and a tricked out auto-aiming magnum in the other with my entire operation being funded by illegal booze sales, so, I'll roll with it.

Welcome to the forum, and thanks. Yeah that was basically the whole idea that started it, seeing a friend storming UFO with Magnum and a knife, booze came along as a natural extension to this Reservoir Dogs-like picture. Then I tried to make a custom sprite & paperdoll,  and thought, hell naw, I'm not doing this sh*t twice, plus 4 heads per gender is not nearly enough, hence the all-girl crew. The rest kinda grew from there.

And the tech tree.  My gods, the tech tree.  Holy crap.  How do you do it?  What kind of mind could conceive of such a thing?  What dark force of madness did you make a pact with to make that work?!

Focus, discipline, lots of playtesting. About the ideas? I have twice as much noted down to be possibly realized at some point. Like that guy from Mythbusters said: kids, what is the difference between science and f*cking around? Noting things down.

Ahem, moving on.  I noticed at one point that I can apparently buy a Deathchaser from the black market for $10,000... then sell it back for $1.65 million.  Doesn't seem like this is the intended behavior; fencing aircraft, while lucrative, usually doesn't quite have those kinds of margins.  I started with version 0.9.d and later upgraded to 0.9.f, if that makes any difference?  Deleted the resources folder before I did the upgrade, though.  A friend of mine reports the same phenomenon.

Whoops, no. It was made this way for testing and obviously I forgot to disable the "buy" option. You're supposed to build these craft. Fixed for 0.9.g

Also I'm a friend of eatthepath and had to listen to him going through catgirl hell, so I'm curious.  It just seems a very odd mechanic that people can only be seen from one angle; is there no way to make it so you just have to be close to them to see them?  I'm not hating, I didn't have that much trouble with smugglers (partially 'cause I knew what to expect).  But the fact that this proclivity is nowhere mentioned in the bootypedia entries for catgirls or smugglers in general only makes it more mysterious.

Even if I could make them visible from close-up (and I can't, the dirty trick I'm using doesn't allow for such control), it'd kinda defeat the whole purpose. They need to attack in melee, else they expose their position by shooting; if they'd be visible from close-up, they'd be intercepted by Reaction fire on the final approach and killed. Just like with B-2 bombers, you need multiple detectors lined up because these things are visible only from certain angles Inverse-crescent formation seems to work very well. About the Pedia: if you managed to capture one, you already know what to expect, amirite?
Catgirls aren't that dangerous any ways, with how poorly armed they are (unless the Smugglers retaliate with a home invasion, hehehe), he had the very rare misfortune of meeting Public Enemy Obi-One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l58DwSWk3e0

[icefox]

Like that guy from Mythbusters said: kids, what is the difference between science and f*cking around? Noting things down.

As a scientist, I salute you sir.

Even if I could make them visible from close-up (and I can't, the dirty trick I'm using doesn't allow for such control), it'd kinda defeat the whole purpose. They need to attack in melee, else they expose their position by shooting; if they'd be visible from close-up, they'd be intercepted by Reaction fire on the final approach and killed. Just like with B-2 bombers, you need multiple detectors lined up because these things are visible only from certain angles Inverse-crescent formation seems to work very well. About the Pedia: if you managed to capture one, you already know what to expect, amirite?

Catgirls aren't that dangerous any ways, with how poorly armed they are (unless the Smugglers retaliate with a home invasion, hehehe), he had the very rare misfortune of meeting Public Enemy Obi-One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l58DwSWk3e0

That's fair(ish).  I can certainly understand having to deal with dirty tricks.  Another of eatthepath's problems was that he ran into them while still early tier and had them murdering two squad members a turn wholesale.  Meanwhile I was wearing tac armor when I met catgirls and one of my pirates got moderately inconvenienced by a full turn of point-blank attacks.  That's the nature of the game sometimes.  One of the thing that's hard for gamers in general is to know when to retreat, since most games spoonfeed you difficulty increases, XCom included, but there's only so much one can control that.

I mention the pedia entries 'cause they often do tell you useful things about what to expect (like don't try to melee catgirls, explains why it took nine stunrod hits to take one down).  First time I met mercs I got utterly destroyed by them, but managed to capture one and run away...  and researching that one guy told me what they were vulnerable to and made it possible to fight them much more effectively next time.  "Oh by the way these guys are invisible" just seems like a pretty big omission.  But, oh well; I'm nitpicking one entry for one unit.

(Also, yes, fistycuffs are perfect.  Early game, a useful backup if you can't pack a handle or stunrod.  Late game, when Tawny Britches or whoever rounds a corner to come face to face with a cyberdisk, she just smiles and pulls out the knucks...)

Excellent work, and I look forward to what insanity the future holds.

[Phoenix7786]

Dammit, the page asks me on every upload "which version of OXCom is the mod using". I wasn't aware that the page doesn't display than info, what kind of web design is that! Terribly sorry about that, and I will update right away.

Hey I'm glad to be of help! Glad we figured out where the problem was at.

[Dioxine]

Hey, you can't know what resistances the Mercenaries have by simply looking at them. As for the invisibility...

Anyways, new version up. Biggest change is adding crew capacity for fighters (which also means new deployment map: so far, one size fits all, though). Some bugfixing & new stuff thrown in for a good measure.