Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N10 24-Nov-2024 Aurora's Dawn

[Dioxine]

Could you give me some insight in what the work you need to do would be like? Not just with the current subject but in general too, but no need to put too much information on it, just the bullet points.

I don't work like that. It really depends on what catches my fancy. Current candidates to pick from are:
- 'Invisibility' outfit - akin to the Catgirls.
- X-Gauss weapons - six or so are planned, so probably not all of them
- Battle Standard, nuff said. Pixellating from scratch is the bummer.
- Gal-piloted Mini-Mecha to replace X-Sectopods. Probably too much work for now, but, who knows...
- Defensive facilities (Gas Chamber and Fire Pit), for those who don't want to sweat.

After this, on to 0.96, which will expand the Bandit faction into 3 separate factions: fallout-style Bandits, creepy Mutants and dumb Beastmen.

How will that interact with incendiary weapons fire damage? Did enemies take morale damage only on hit? It'd be rather sad that a bodyguard who panics because he is set on fire, then recovers because of his high bravery even though the fire is actually killing him. Or maybe he's just that brave...

Bodyguards? Fire damage? Puhleezzz.... Powered Armor is immune to puny weapons like that. Although the Morale impact of fire weapons will be slightly lessened, yeah. Not by much though, the Morale damage is scaled to damage taken, and if someone takes serious fire damage, he's losing like 50 or more Morale.

[Solarius Scorch]

Please don't make the Handle give morale. I'm using it a lot and wouldn't like to see enemies regaining their battle readiness because I'm trying to stun them.

[Boltgun]

Please don't make the Handle give morale. I'm using it a lot and wouldn't like to see enemies regaining their battle readiness because I'm trying to stun them.

I think it's meant to give moral to the gal using it no? For the joy of hitting with a stick.

I'm fine with enemies regaining morale faster, panic hit them harder than you because they never pick up their weapon again so this balances things out. (I hope this is fixed one day)

[just_dont]

Another thing of the mod that could use some redesign - is the night vision.
It's great that my gals can see well in the dark (extremely so with night-ops gear), but the problem is - I, as a player, can't see anything at all on screen. And it's only half of a problem that I can't see well where to put my troops, but I also can't see enemy moves even if the game showing them (because it's friggin' dark).
So even if I go on a mission packing night-ops gear, after some initial turns I end up never even bothering to turn off the lights even for enemy turns (much less for my own) - it's much more important to actually see where enemies are popping up, rather than to be safer due to staying in darkness.

It's not really a mod's problem, rather it's the way openxcom draws darkness (without any means to reduce it) - but in the original game, there's absolutely no reason to turn off the lights (aliens will see you anyway) or to stay in darkness; so the problem was not noticeable there.

[Solarius Scorch]

I think it's meant to give moral to the gal using it no? For the joy of hitting with a stick.

Oh... oh. I get it now.

I'm fine with enemies regaining morale faster, panic hit them harder than you because they never pick up their weapon again so this balances things out. (I hope this is fixed one day)

In theory they should, but the system is shaky at best.

Another thing of the mod that could use some redesign - is the night vision.
It's great that my gals can see well in the dark (extremely so with night-ops gear), but the problem is - I, as a player, can't see anything at all on screen. And it's only half of a problem that I can't see well where to put my troops, but I also can't see enemy moves even if the game showing them (because it's friggin' dark).
So even if I go on a mission packing night-ops gear, after some initial turns I end up never even bothering to turn off the lights even for enemy turns (much less for my own) - it's much more important to actually see where enemies are popping up, rather than to be safer due to staying in darkness.

Yeah, I actually play in the dark, but it's not very comfortable. But I still do!

It's not really a mod's problem, rather it's the way openxcom draws darkness (without any means to reduce it) - but in the original game, there's absolutely no reason to turn off the lights (aliens will see you anyway) or to stay in darkness; so the problem was not noticeable there.

It's not as much a software problem as a hardware problem: LCD monitors suck. Back in the day of the original game it was much easier to adjust the screen to see what you wanted to see, but LCDs are much worse in this department (in any department actually except for weight and size), and there's not much we can do about it. I know it's not a solution, but I wanted to rant.

[Arthanor]

Bodyguards? Fire damage? Puhleezzz.... Powered Armor is immune to puny weapons like that. Although the Morale impact of fire weapons will be slightly lessened, yeah. Not by much though, the Morale damage is scaled to damage taken, and if someone takes serious fire damage, he's losing like 50 or more Morale.

Sorry, I meant the guys in personal armor. I guess they're security guards? I used flamethrowers a lot to kill these guys, but was looking forward to using molotovs to panic them too. So the morale damage is on hit, not for the continuous damage that being on fire does?

[iciclefox]

Decided to register just to give my opinions on the mod so far and the recent controversy


first and foremost. i have been burning alot of my time with 0.94. the overall array of options you have is quite daunting but overall i quite enjoying the game quite nicely.

considering i am the type of player who restarts his game because im a dumb perfectionist when playing games. ill just say some opinions about the early game.  i played with the reccomended advanced options on difficulty 3 mostly

during the early game. you are basically forced to buy a barracks first and foremost just because your living space is completely full without the possibility of getting a full ship there really is not much variety of choice there. just feels like a newbie trap for no reason. this very same reason is also why the first pogrom will be REALLY hard and is usually better to just skip(another newbie trap) generally put. before the pogrom you generally get to do 1 small ship. which more than likely wounded some of your folk. forcing the first pogrom to be unmanned generally.

base attacks can also end your game really fast if the player is not prepared to face a full plasma weapons and some insanely strong enemies that guns and black powder bombs won't work on.

i almost feel you should provide the the player with 2-3 panzerfausts right at the beginning. possibly dropping the starting money because of this. why panzerfausts? because they are consumable so they won't get abused as hard as something like rpg would with black market bought ammo. it obviously won't help the people that waste em right off the bat. but it will at least give the player a hint on what they shoiuld possibly use to face to stronger opponents.



now for some lack of info to the player

first comes in on the ship interceptions. although mainly because of vanilla. i did not attempt to even try facing large ships first few times because of fear of losing that VERY important ship. then later i found out that cargo ships can be fairly easily taken down with stock weapons.... lets just say that the first few attempts felt so much harder because of this. might have just been my fault considering i read the bootypedia fairly lightly(mostly weapon info to determine loadouts and buildings)

 some Hostages are FAR too rewarding right now. i feel there is something wrong when i believe i should go full stun weapons on a crashed small and just go ham without caring about casualties that much. (1 academian is worth 4 rookies in cash after all) you need to drop the value on some of the easier to catch targets by i think. this could be somewhat compensated by increasing the price for more dangerous targets like the securities.

now on the new stress system..

i feel in its current state its very detrimental to the game. i see it only as an arbitary time limit which can turn some mission VERY frustrating(love those mass 3 story apartment maps already...)
 this kind of system can also cause frustration by causing random factor which unlike the other things randomized in xcom is not in a very controllable example: i can just decide to not take the risk shot and back off. this is not an option with the stress system considering how heavy the penalty is for ignoring it.


so how should this be fixed?

 easiest solution. removing it entirely. in its current state it adds nothing and turns a good game into a frustrating experience for many. but i think you are probably not the type to just take away a hard worked system you made

so how to possibly fix this? you must find ways to make it interactive with the player. 1 of the reasons that can cause frustration ( and in more serious non game cases serious depression) is when player does not have enough control on things. earlier i did see the battle banner mentioning.  you could possibly make a a completely different role of xcom soldier if you truly go all out with this system. soo.. some ideas..

battle banner:

aimed shot(or melee however you want to balance it)  if used on a friendly. provides em a boost in morale. if used on enemy. decreases their morale.

as you can look above. this system could be expanded on enemies too. as an example-.. an enemy which is fairly strong overall but has a fairly low morale. aka you could make certain enemies weak to this type of attack.( although also need to make sure to balance it for capturing)

one step further would be to also create enemies which are focused on controlling the morale of battle. things like morale bombs or just Voodoo attacks unaffected by the usual Voodoo resistances.

it definately would be interesting to see a whole new set of weapons/items wholly based on morale control with em generally getting power from bravery

overall. you need to make the player feel they can control the morale through their actions and choices.. and not feel like they are slaves to it like the current feels right now.


for now i will be playing 0.94 thank you.

feel free to ask more opinions from me. i may not have beaten the game but i probably started like 7-8 games so my early game info is fairly extensive with my current game on sep 1st 2601 with an enemy base destroyed and a landed heavy gunship beaten.  im  at the point that i feel i should just make another game on higher diff because its feeling too easy now.

[Rince Wind]

Security types being worth more would be quite gamey. They are grunts, mostly. They are probably just bought back because it is more complicated to train a new one and maybe for morale (so they don't defect as easily because they know their employer cares for them. A little.)

[Solarius Scorch]

Decided to register just to give my opinions on the mod so far and the recent controversy

If anything, this controversy has indeed drawn several lurkers to the light. Welcome to the forums, Iciclefox!

first and foremost. i have been burning alot of my time with 0.94. the overall array of options you have is quite daunting but overall i quite enjoying the game quite nicely.

considering i am the type of player who restarts his game because im a dumb perfectionist when playing games. ill just say some opinions about the early game.  i played with the reccomended advanced options on difficulty 3 mostly

Ouch. This is a tough game to be a perfectionist. Which doesn't mean I criticize it or anything.

during the early game. you are basically forced to buy a barracks first and foremost just because your living space is completely full without the possibility of getting a full ship there really is not much variety of choice there. just feels like a newbie trap for no reason.

Yeah, I agree actually. It never bothered me because it's the same in vanilla with Alien Containment, but it's less punishing if you don't build one AC straight away.

this very same reason is also why the first pogrom will be REALLY hard and is usually better to just skip(another newbie trap) generally put.

Not necessarily, it depends on luck, and you may also want to go there and steal a few good guns before bailing out. But early pogrom stuff has becomes easier lately, and it'll probably get easier yet in the next release (not telling anything further!).

before the pogrom you generally get to do 1 small ship. which more than likely wounded some of your folk. forcing the first pogrom to be unmanned generally.

Well, yeah... Most of the time anyway.

base attacks can also end your game really fast if the player is not prepared to face a full plasma weapons and some insanely strong enemies that guns and black powder bombs won't work on.

Well, it's similar to vanilla. A bit harder, since you don't have tanks and probably few heavy weapons, plus some enemies are always really tough, but your soldiers are better and you have good melee options. Overall I'd say Piratez is harder in this regard, but not impossible.

i almost feel you should provide the the player with 2-3 panzerfausts right at the beginning. possibly dropping the starting money because of this. why panzerfausts? because they are consumable so they won't get abused as hard as something like rpg would with black market bought ammo. it obviously won't help the people that waste em right off the bat. but it will at least give the player a hint on what they shoiuld possibly use to face to stronger opponents.

I am not opposed to this idea.

now for some lack of info to the player

first comes in on the ship interceptions. although mainly because of vanilla. i did not attempt to even try facing large ships first few times because of fear of losing that VERY important ship. then later i found out that cargo ships can be fairly easily taken down with stock weapons.... lets just say that the first few attempts felt so much harder because of this. might have just been my fault considering i read the bootypedia fairly lightly(mostly weapon info to determine loadouts and buildings)

I understand, but I think it's as designed. This game is supposed to have a steep learning curve (well, relatively to vanilla X-Com; there are much harder games out there). Anything more is risky of giving the player the impression of being spoonfed, and that would be very bad.

some Hostages are FAR too rewarding right now. i feel there is something wrong when i believe i should go full stun weapons on a crashed small and just go ham without caring about casualties that much. (1 academian is worth 4 rookies in cash after all) you need to drop the value on some of the easier to catch targets by i think. this could be somewhat compensated by increasing the price for more dangerous targets like the securities.

I agree with Rince Wind here, and would like to add that prisoners are already really valuable. I think the current prices are reasonable.

As for the stress issue, I don't want to comment, because I've already written a lot and I don't really feel experienced enough to say anything else. I like it so far, but I haven't experienced some of the extreme situations people describe (like the big maze buildings), so I'll abstain from any strong opinions.

[Dioxine]

I think it's meant to give moral to the gal using it no? For the joy of hitting with a stick.

I'm fine with enemies regaining morale faster, panic hit them harder than you because they never pick up their weapon again so this balances things out. (I hope this is fixed one day)

You obviously didn't understand. Someone starts to freak out, hit them with the stick to calm them down Besides, it's impossible to give anything on successful attack; damage of any kind can only be inflicted/recovered on being hit or on using item.

Also, enemies do pick up their weapons, I've seen that happening on several occasions. Even if they have to walk several tiles to do that.

during the early game. you are basically forced to buy a barracks first and foremost just because your living space is completely full without the possibility of getting a full ship there really is not much variety of choice there. just feels like a newbie trap for no reason.

>No free living space
>Not expanding living space

If it's a trap, it's a very obvious one... This is basically to reduce the crew size on the first few missions, and give the player an easy reward in the form of quickly growing capabilities between January 1st - March 1st, from utter dumpster to an efficient (if still underequipped) crew. You need to immediately build new Barracks, but how many? One? Two? Three? It's more of a penalty for those players who don't spend time considering their options before even starting the clock.

this very same reason is also why the first pogrom will be REALLY hard and is usually better to just skip(another newbie trap) generally put. before the pogrom you generally get to do 1 small ship. which more than likely wounded some of your folk. forcing the first pogrom to be unmanned generally.

Yeah, it was mean to be that hard to give you first taste of blood in your mouth. Sorry but this mod was supposed to be hard. At least the Pogroms are not as hard as they used to be. Plus, if you build Barracks straight away, you will have full crew no problem. As for base attacks - yeah you shoot them down, they retaliate. Attack only landed ships to avoid that. This also is to teach the player that he's a boss... not.

i almost feel you should provide the the player with 2-3 panzerfausts right at the beginning. possibly dropping the starting money because of this.

Maybe.

some Hostages are FAR too rewarding right now. i feel there is something wrong when i believe i should go full stun weapons on a crashed small and just go ham without caring about casualties that much. (1 academian is worth 4 rookies in cash after all) you need to drop the value on some of the easier to catch targets by i think. this could be somewhat compensated by increasing the price for more dangerous targets like the securities.

Maybe the GOs and Academicians are a bit too valuable, lore-wise. But game-wise, $40k is pocket money considering the extra risk, and the guaranteed haul of almost $500k on engines, fuel and plastasteel alone, on a small ship. Also the hostages were always meant to be very rewarding. Otherwise why would you even consider catching them in any greater number than a couple guys for interrogation? Just kill 'em all and take their stuff. This would make you more of Exterminators than Pirates.

Also @molotovs vs Security - they do, and will, work in making them panic - albeit unreliably so. They are losing only about 22-45 Morale on a hit, due to their fire resistance.

[iciclefox]

yay  replies! sorry for the shit grammar on the wall of text. i noticed alot of mistakes  now that i read it afterwards..

ok....

on the barracks..

my main issue with it was that it was basically a must have every game first and foremost. kinda turning into a mundane task with no variety.(i like having multiple options).. but after seeing the reasoning behind it i cannot really argue against it that much.

although i still  don't like how the first pogrom is overly hard compared to the 2nd one(you will have the barracks done). just feels like a bit too unfair and artificial to my tastes imo. there is a fine line between hard and just unfair sometimes, although its really not that bad here considering you can just skip it.


and yeah. i consider GO and academicians are a bit too valuable definitely imo. the others i consider fine actually considering the risk/reward.  after thinking dropping em both by 10k would make me quite satisfied with the hostage pricing considering the other fairlyvaluable ones are more dangerous  while some other easy capture targets are far less valuable than these 2 considering they are workers or some unknown no social status creature like ratmen(fuck these guys. always making me disapointed on pogroms).

the other solution to the above would be increasing the value of hands like 15k a gal a little bit to make brainless suicidal rush capture missions less rewarding,although i guess that is a playstyle too and increasing the value of hands might cause bigger problems to the game..
i consider the hostage value mainly an early game problem when a little bit more money is valuable and  encountering academicians and Go's are common


overall though. after hearing the reasonings on all of these things. i can understand why you made the specific choice. and i would def accept no changes to any of the mentioned now too. considering they are just minor nitpicks coming from my own game philosophy(otherwise i would not be enjoying it as much as i am)

[just_dont]

First pogrom difficulty is highly dependent on enemies. Humanists can be deadly (early instructor(s) with laser pistols together with armored mil. police? ohhhh boy...), spartans have high potential to be deadly (one heavy weapon guy walking on your team can do a killing spree in a single turn), but on the other hand, early bandits are a joke, since they are equipped even worse than you and their early units all have bad stats.

As for academicians' captures - well, someone has to be the sectoids of Piratez, and at the moment it's academicians. Although they quickly become much more deadly (but not tougher), so it somewhat mitigates the issue of very easy raids.

[doctor medic]

Also academician's stun launcer's are extremely hard to find.Found 2 which means i can make a shoulder launcer but that was around the first or second month and im at the fourth and i havent found any.

[Dioxine]

Yes it was mean to be very hard to find, because it's such a potent stun weapon - plus you can manufacture ammo at some point.
I was thinking, should I really add some low amounts of high-powered ammo to starting base? To tackle these first Cyberdiscs? I am not sure, since it would be a bit too gamey IMO - even more of a 'noob trap' or for veterans, 'weapon too awesome to use'. Player is supposed to run when he sees Cyberdiscs, or tackle them if he's hardcore; he's supposed to slowly attain parity with such an enemy, not destroy them with a limited supply of magical missiles. Besides, there is no early enemy who cannot be stopped with the use of starting weapons - Cyberdiscs are hardcore in Pogroms, but can be destroyed with fire or mines in base defence...

[ivandogovich]

I have no qualms with Running from a Fight that is too tough.  To me, PirateZ just screams for that.  That said, I'm neither perfectionist nor a great player.  So imo, a few silver bullets at the base may not be the right solution.  Because even with them, as a brand new player, I still wouldn't know what they were worth using on or not.