Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle

[Ethereal_Medic]

Also, they do not negate all efforts, just force using as many brainers as possible, as soon as possible, which is forcing a single strategy - not good.

I wanna know how to affort more than 3 brainers in the early stages. They suck so much salary it's close to suicide having more than 3 at any given time until the first fights happened.
It's a vague strategy and with RNG included in how long a research topic takes the user runs into the odds that rushing those brainers can't cut the excavator-influence.

In worst case the score remains negative, you have to pay 5-6 brainers and run DEEP AS HELL into negative money and can't manufacture anything to squeeze money out of the extractor's.

[Dioxine]

If worst comes to worst and your score sucks by January 31, you can sack excess brainers and hope for a better February. With the Fugitive Search missions in January, tho, you're always guaranteed loot and research fodder. G2 will also include 2 more early missions to make 'Death in January' less likely.

[karadoc]

Always hire brainers at the start of the month, so that you get the most value out of their salary. Don't hire them mid-month unless you are rich. (You have to pay the full salary even if you hire them on the 30th and they haven't arrived yet.)

With that, brainers aren't as big of a cost as they seem. Their research generates a large amount of points, which translates into a large cash bonus at the end of the month. At the same time, you can use the research to generate new money making opportunities. ie. Warehouse missions, animal hunts, undersea missions, bounty hunts, etc. are all early-game techs which will give you more money, and can get them sooner if you have more brainers...

In previous playthroughs I've experienced pretty heavy financial stress from hiring too many brainers too soon; but in my current playthrough I've found that I can just hire as many as I can buy at the start of the month; because the end-of-month bonus pays the bulk of their salary. (That said, there's a bit of luck involved in that currently, due to the negative score bug thing. At least, that's what I've been told. I haven't noticed it happen myself.)

[edit]
By the way, there are ways to micromanage your research to avoid wasting brainer-days, which is pretty important in the early game. But I'm starting to feel like everything I've posted so far is a spoiler, so I'm just going to leave it at that.

[Ethereal_Medic]

I considered to hire them at the first day of the month.
Yes I use micro-management to get 'excellent' progression on the topics.
My concern is that we have to solve a problem that shouldn't even exist.
Why does dioxine has to add 2 whole missions (thanks for that tho) to balance this out? Is there no 'switch' or ruleset to just negate all influence done by enemy shippings?
Maybe limit it to the first 3 month so the player can get started.

If it's a bug why not hotfix so the available content can be tested instead of losing progress (and campaigns) to it?

[ivandogovich]

Yes I use micro-management to get 'excellent' progression on the topics.

Hmmm... while this may help you get through a tech faster, this is definitely not the most Efficient way to conduct Research.

The most efficient way is assigning one brainer per topic.  This ensures that when the research is completed, you have not wasted any extra scientist manhours on a project beyond the minimum requirements.  That said, I recognize there are times to rush a project to get critically needed tech, but making these the exception rather than the rule is the best practice.  I have actually been conducting my last campaign with this practice.  I will also caveat that at a certain point when I have 16+ brainers, and the techs are starting to get into the more expensive (10+ pts) range, I often bump up my research teams to 2 brainers per topic.

The other critical thing to keep in mind for research strategy for your end of month score and payout is the 2 for 1 topics.  All books and interrogations that give another topic are Excellent bang for the buck.  You get points for the base research of the book or interview as well as all the points for the secondary revealed topic.  I base 80% of my first year research on this alone.  Books are fast, and I build a second jail in the first base so that I can stack more captives for research.

[Ethereal_Medic]

And still there should be no need to follow this strategy if I consider to play on something lower than JS Ironman.

[legionof1]

I imagine "fixing" the error is more complex then it would first appear. Keep in mind the present problem arose from attempting to solve a lesser version of score deathspikes that had been present for a few versions before we caught on.

I'm guessing Dioxine would prefer to solve the whole shebang rather then simply rolling back a single aspect and not solving the root issues. And it not like it's a crippling or 100% reproducible game beaker. Even it does happen, a few minutes with a txt editor and a little save file knowledge can remedy the problem. This is the category of bug that hangs around for months or years in AAA titles. Low priority with known user end solutions. Small indies will generally acknowledge the problem exists but can rarely spare the effort to fully kill the bug. 

Be grateful Dioxine is more attentive to such things then 95% of the games industry.

 

[KateMicucci]

It's a better game than 95% of the games.

[Dioxine]

Thank you very much.

Have a new version, and a shipwrecked summer

See changelog on post #1 for details.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Sweet, time to give the mod (and another codex) another go.

[Marduk]

Are saves from previous version compatible?

Also the title screen still says G1.

[Roxis231]

- New: 8 brand new faces for Gals (to a total of 96)

Ok - Looks like my plans for a quick update today of my Alternate Graphics mod is shot.

I've got 3 morning shifts the week as well as a block of three days off - should have an update by next weekend.

[legionof1]

thks for the update.

Since Hangers are now destructible, what happens to a craft assigned to a hanger the goes boom? Also shame on you for removing fun and carefree use of the ridiculous size explosives. R.I.P dragon use. 

On a serious note, mind cluing us in on what the critical tiles in the hanger are? Even without heavy ordinance use hangers get shot up quite alot. Panicking bad guys end up tearing up ton of stuff too. Never mind if it's factions with battle tanks.

[Dioxine]

It's 'ordnance', 'ordinance' is a type of law You will see the critical tiles right away, they're clearly marked.

[legionof1]

horay for spellchecker and 2am posting  .