aliens

Author Topic: Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle  (Read 3612405 times)

Offline Delian

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 240
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8400 on: March 29, 2022, 11:29:50 am »
Earliest craft that can shoot down shippings: LITTLE BIRD (Assembling the Bird), on average takes 30 research, which is pretty expensive for an early game topic. The upside is that the craft comes with a built-in weapon, so you don't need to research any. Also, every mission with this craft rewards you up to 12 additional glamour, which is the most of any craft.
Theoretically, if you get lucky with interrogations and hit Shadowmasters, then getting codex craft is faster than getting Little Bird, but don't bet on it. Still, researching a codex can net you a useful craft weapon.
Researching "Contacts: Car Thieves" will allow you to purchase several other craft, some of which can carry weapons, but to actually get weapons is difficult. You would have to get lucky with events or armed crafts landing. Researching weapons, even simple Airballs, is so far down the tech tree that it's best to avoid if you can.
Oh and, if you chose Peasant Revolution!, then obviously HARVESTER, tho again, getting the weapons is the troublesome part.

Expedition craft is too slow, so not really viable unless the mission is right next to your base. Do buy some recon expeditions tho, those are a good investment.

Making money, invest into constructing additional Extractors and fill them with runts. Research Chateau de la Mort ASAP, so that you can craft it from Apples and sell it. Capture most enemies instead of killing them and sell/rob them. Plantation is actually less profitable than building a Hangar, since Hangar gives 10 workspace, and the 10 workspace with 10 runts will (producing wine) make more money per month. Brainers also make money, since researching stuff gives you infamy (each point is worth $333 at the end of the month), they typically pay for themselves. If in March and you still only have 3, it means you fucked up. You get plenty of Castaway Gals through missions, and each of those can be manufactured into a free brainer.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2022, 03:57:42 pm by Delian »

Offline Buck

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8401 on: March 29, 2022, 06:16:40 pm »
Do castaways-turned-brainers still require the $100k/month upkeep?

Offline Iazo

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 275
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8402 on: March 29, 2022, 06:50:08 pm »
Yes, of course.

Offline Buck

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8403 on: March 29, 2022, 07:21:24 pm »
Thank you!  ;D

Offline ontherun

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 296
  • Lazy-ass captain
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8404 on: March 30, 2022, 11:54:28 pm »
[...]
Researching "Contacts: Car Thieves" will allow you to purchase several other craft, some of which can carry weapons, but to actually get weapons is difficult. You would have to get lucky with events or armed crafts landing. Researching weapons, even simple Airballs, is so far down the tech tree that it's best to avoid if you can.
Oh and, if you chose Peasant Revolution!, then obviously HARVESTER, tho again, getting the weapons is the troublesome part.
[...]

So let's hope in the next update gettin aircraft weapons might be some more easy, at least for the light and less powerful, but only for avoiding frustrations >:( ;)

Offline legionof1

  • Moderator
  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 1899
  • Bullets go that way. Money comes this way.
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8405 on: March 31, 2022, 12:19:48 am »
I'm really digging this mod!

I'm still pretty early into the campaign, but I have a couple of questions I can't seem to find answers to elsewhere.

1) What should I tech to in order to obtain craft that can shoot down shipping targets? The Air Bus is limited in terms of fuel and doesn't have the ability to equip craft weapons, which means I have to hope they land within my radar's range.

2) What's the point of expeditions? Are they viable if, say, I lose the Air Bus in the early game? Or is losing the Air Bus pretty much game-over?

3) What's a good way of making money in the early game? I have a plantation and all of my runts dedicated to manufacturing X-Grog, but I'm still operating at a net loss each month (I think I'm in March or April now and am still down to the initial three Brainers I started my campaign with).

1) first thing to head for is "contact: car thieves". After that shadowmasters and codex choice is the next tier, assuming your not doing a reject the power run. There are other routes but there more complicated.

2) "Craft" expeditions are mostly for putting alot of bodies on a mission with minimal tech. Losing the bus very early is a bump in the road but not a game over.

3)your doing the right things and yes you will tend to spend i daresay most of the first year with a net negative, before infamy(score) bonus. iirc: 1 Score=10 cash. But the bookeeping on the balance sheet is almost purely vanilla, with the bonus tacked onto the end in the monthly sheet.

Offline Psyentific

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 107
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8406 on: March 31, 2022, 12:27:32 am »
what i usually do is check the base Logs to see how much its maintenance is, then keep enough Runts cycling grog or whatever on auto-sell to cover that. use the spare Runts for other manufacture projects.

Offline Protagonista

  • Sergeant
  • **
  • Posts: 11
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8407 on: March 31, 2022, 04:21:47 am »
Hey everyone. Last time I played this massive mod was on 2019, and now Im so lost on how are you suppose to deal with the ninja bases on year 1. How much infamy do they take away every month? by end of november im takin -2000 infamy on easy mode, and negative -600 on 2 months in a row is a instant loss. Are this bases suppose to be a time-limit feature?

"Captain, the Sky Ninjas continue to make progress on Moar Bases Project. If we're going to slow them down we'll need to move fast."

Offline Iazo

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 275
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8408 on: March 31, 2022, 10:04:36 am »
The short answer is that you need to do better. I am not sure what you are doing wrong, because by Nov you ahould be firmly out of the danger zone, and established enough to be able to shoot down plenty of their score sucking ships. But even if not, enemy activity rarely exceeds -5000, so for you to land on -2000, you are earning just 3000 points per month at best which is very little for April, let alone Nov.

Tell you what, drop a savegame here, and we'll look into what you did wrong.

Offline Protagonista

  • Sergeant
  • **
  • Posts: 11
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8409 on: April 01, 2022, 01:55:44 am »
Hey, thanks for the help! Heres my terrible save file, right before my failed attemp at the ninja base assalt. No acess to good weapons or aircraft that can fight. Cant even build a hangar. The 8 brainers will bankrupt me, but the research tree of this mod is the true early game boss.

Offline Iazo

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 275
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8410 on: April 01, 2022, 08:53:43 am »
Hey, I will lokk at your save sometime today, but it is a bad omen if you say you only have 8 brainers in Nov.

I'll be honest, this sounds line a chronic mismanagement problem, rather than the fault of ninjas. But never worry, such problems are usually fixable, unfortunately though, not instantly.

Regardless of that, I can start with one specific piece of advice you are not likely regret ever. Full brainers, all the time. I  read your save game
, And it seems the previous month you had a research score of 2300. If you have 8 brainers, that score will just about cover their own maintenance, so you should not be so negative about thir monthly costs, they will almost certainly cover their salaries in infamy bonus!
« Last Edit: April 01, 2022, 09:03:07 am by Iazo »

Offline Protagonista

  • Sergeant
  • **
  • Posts: 11
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8411 on: April 01, 2022, 06:33:31 pm »
I never considered that the brainers would be cost-neutral. its 200k upfront and 100k montly for each, so I though 8 was already too many too soon! Thanks!

Offline legionof1

  • Moderator
  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 1899
  • Bullets go that way. Money comes this way.
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8412 on: April 02, 2022, 12:49:51 am »
Aye all the brains you can buy in the early game. Much of the early topics are pretty quick, 2 for 1s(like first of any prisoner), or otherwise worth more then you would initially assume scores wise. A brain is expensive but only really a drain if they complete no topics in a month.

Offline Delian

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 240
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8413 on: April 02, 2022, 01:09:43 am »
There's one small annoyance with OnlyRunts and that is, it requires too much micromanagement. If you have 100 pillow books and 100 workers, then producing 100x OnlyRunts will complete in 12 hours. So you gotta keep replacing the project over and over, several times per day, and the less pillow books you have, the worse it gets. Compared to Chateau de la Mort, you put in a production for a 100 and you're good for half a month.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2022, 01:12:12 am by Delian »

Offline EleriumWard

  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 62
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - M5 24-Mar-2022 The Five Captains
« Reply #8414 on: April 02, 2022, 11:21:24 am »
So, I would just like to ask a question that just popped into my head recently. Lore-wise, who is responsible for the names of the Ubers? I've wondered why their names are more nonsensical compared to the other soldier classes.