Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N9.7.7 12-Sep-2024 Second Coming

[Starving Poet]

Someone could care less with the magic of 'cloning'.

Yes, that's fair, and it is for entertainment - but without it, all I would do was to simply have one of my radar bases with 120 hands in training with all those trainable stats near maxed anyway.  It was much more cheaty in TFTD than it is in Piratez - I've also lost less girls in 4 IG years in piratez than I did in my TFTD playthrough.

But I disagree with your view on merc tactics.  I lost two whole girls in carapace armor and a tank to a heavy gunship full of mercs.  Two.  And the whole point of the tank is to get turn 1 reaction fire in a craft without doors.   If I used fatties instead of XG Chainguns I probably could have avoided those deaths too.  I was just unlucky with the damage rolls.  If I was able to tame Cyclops, I could have avoided all those deaths, but I don't think it's in my codex choice. 

BUT the fairy suit IS - and if I had more fairy suits on the craft I probably could have seduced all the mercs in direct proximity of the craft before I moved the tank.  Or, I could use a craft with doors and skip the first turn entirely.  And, thus, avoid every death on that mission.  But I like using the tank because it's just fun.

Or, I could equip my first 4 girls with mag rockets.  Or I could have an extra BFG or 3 on the front ramp.   Or I could probably wear bigger armor for the girls in front, but if you've watched enough of my series, you'd know that I pretty much consider anything above a LC to be one-shot kills because I like my stat armor more than i like resistances so whether they have a heavy plasma or gauss sniper is largely irrelevant to me.   

And let me make this clear - this was a landing I should have aborted when I saw what was in front of me - I brute forced my way through it to see if I could.

What other real strategy is there to the other enemies?  There are two types of enemies in OXC - enemies you are 95% likely to kill in one action and enemies that are likely to survive and shoot back.  As far as I'm concernced, that's it.   The only thing special about mercs is that they stay in that latter category far longer than anyone else. It's tech up and overpower.  If they're melee, you fly.  If you can't see them, use large explosives.   Some are energy resistant, some are chem resistant, but it's the same story. 

You do enough mercs to unlock the merc captain weapon research (if you want) and that's it.  Once you get to Mars, just level the surface with your most powerful HE weapons.  You just spent 400 million building a spaceship, what's another 40 million in Chinese Dragons?

This isn't Xenonauts where every.single.enemy is a merc at late game - mercs are largely avoidable after just a couple missions.  Take your lumps, and then just ignore them.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Sums up my thoughts. Get the tech's needed and ignore them, thanks Poet

[legionof1]

Psi as a traditional weakness just does not apply. The 10-20 tile vision deficit when the vast majority of Voodoo is LOS at 15-16 tiles or less just leads to dead voodoo gals.

Being different to vanilla style psi is a wonderful thing overall. But claiming it as a weakness for mercs when getting in range to use it gets you killed? Bullshit. Only 3 outfits can reasonably avoid the vision deficit. Vampy,Ghost, and Fairy. All codex locked and only in very specific circumstances, ie fairy needs hard cover, vampy must be at night, ghost still loses to merc engineers and captains.

Being forced to abuse the AI to just play the game is not a healthy balance state. But that's the present state of the mod, skullfuck the AI or lose. The only reason i am still here playing is because i want to see the full and final product. It stopped being enjoyable a long time ago. Now all i really care about is the ending of all this effort, the quality of that end has stopped mattering. I know with reasonable certainty i won't agree with the result, but it's your project Dioxine and i respect if nothing else your time spent.   

[ohartenstein23]

Mercs have the advantage over open ground, guaranteed.  You are fighting a losing battle if you decide to engage or brute force through that, they're meant to make the standard spot/snipe tactic of vanilla dangerous.  If you can't break that advantage by fighting in closer cover, retreat might be the better idea.  If you can lower the engagement range to 10-20 tiles, the real trick to fighting mercs, all the voodoo weapons at your disposal can help even the playing field; MC'ing the ones that spawn close to your ship as meat tanks (Illusion), wallhack spotting and Seduction (Excess), even bigger meat tanks in Cyclops and Bio Suit (Communion), and crazy good scaling plasma, concussive, and melee damage (Destruction).  Tome of lightning is my personal favorite anti-merc weapon, at 10-20 tiles, you're practically guaranteed at least one merc neutralized per turn per tome you have.

Also, X-Com has always been about abusing the AI - it's simple and stupid at times, but it's always held the number and stat advantages.  Play on a level field, and you will lose soldiers faster than the AI.  I still don't think Mercs are anywhere near as bad as the balance state of TFTD, and I enjoyed the refreshing challenge they present compared to the other factions at say Poet's point in the game.

[Ethereal_Medic]

The green codex is the only way you can get cyclopses, red is not allowed to have them (because reasons).

Are you suggesting to use MELEE against mercs?! Like for real? Cover is not a given on many maps and is even more RNG than damage rolls.

[ohartenstein23]

The green codex is the only way you can get cyclopses, red is not allowed to have them (because reasons).

Are you suggesting to use MELEE against mercs?! Like for real? Cover is not a given on many maps and is even more RNG than damage rolls.

You use what you can according to codex.  And yes, melee vs. mercs is fun.  Hope you trained up gals well enough for it!

And my point about cover is just that - it's not always a given, so sometimes you just need to pack up and leave if the map is really bad for you.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Valid strategy. Retreat to fight another day.
Or until you get a decent cover-based map.
Or until you got enough tech to indirect-fire nuke them.
Or until you need them anymore and just do sentries/fighter crafts for easier encounters.

[legionof1]

I use melee against mercs when the opportunity presents itself, melee is the most TU efficient source of damage in the game. But the opportunity to do so is limited. The vision disparity against mercs makes crossing any amount of open ground potentially lethal. And you can't even make a educated judgment about the risk involved because you can round a corner see only one merc but the reality is 10 mercs in lethal shooting range.

You are not allowed to know what your risking until the reaction fire happens. Given that any hit by a merc is a kill or incapacitates a gal with any but a specific set of outfits, which by the way are not the same outfits to compete in camo/vision, it usually not worth even making the attempt. IMO the only viable strategy is find a blind corner or hatch and camp it with overwhelming firepower, then press end turn 30 times.

Mercs do not allow basic risk assessment of the tactical situation. Even stargods allow some assessment because you can see the majority of given maps spawns, even those you can't are unlikely to instagib a gal.

Present design mercs prevent player engagement with the tactical layer. 
       

[Zharkov]

In that case you have to teach us how to use voodoo-based tools correctly to outsmart camo'ed snipers with one-shot-squishies guns.
Everything with LOS (seduction) is very dangerous to use, faries are rare and voodoo-rod is locked into codexes.

I have to agree, psi either needs more love or better documentation.

[Ethereal_Medic]

I stated my thoughts several times.
Guess 'suffering' is the subtitle of the game, so we just git gud and abuse AI.

I'm looking forward to any changes and additions to make the game round and fluid.
Mercs are sorta a large stepping stone (boulder) for now.

[perekrylo]

Finally got to play some piratez, nice changelog, gj gj still lookin forward to 1.0 :3 _{those fucking dogs tho}

[Ethereal_Medic]

Try shotguns and a soldier with spare TU's.

It might stop them^^
Otherwise do easier missions.

[Dioxine]

Psi will be expanded in the final version, that is for sure. Which will make that merc weakness more exploitable. The final balance will also take into consideration their current advantage. I cannot however make the final balance before all armors and all soldier types, which are planned, are introduced.

From my own experience, brute-forcing through Mercs works, at least if they have Gauss, not Plasma. Brute force, melee, use decoys to draw their reaction fire and scout.

[perekrylo]

Nah, I'm just being careless. _{I actually fed a dog cause cqc wasnt there back then : D}
Also, weather forecast is much appreciated D, <3 <3

[khade]

Are the random assorted bug fixes found after the most recent release incorporated into the mod, or do we have to hunt them down or wait until the next update?