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

[ontherun]

yes, actually sectoweed should lead to hybrids, maybe bootypedia should say it's a drug of alien origins

[eharper256]

Also, early on, 50 sectoweed to hire hybrids is A LOT in most cases. You're basically going to have to run a set of plantations to get any kind of reliable recruiting of Hivers which other routes don't have to worry about, just purchase with cash and go.

And running Plantations is a massive faff that I know I couldn't be bothered with; I really think they should just trigger periodic monthly harvest events rather than making us constantly do the deconstruct tango.

[ontherun]

Also, might the 14mm ammos become avaiable a bit more early in the game? These are a fairly low tech things, like the ramshackle and homefront rifle so it could be a good balancing choice, so "contact: ship junkyard" and the workshop might be not needed at all. Or at least workshop should not be needed yo get the junkyard contact, but im not aware of latest research tre changes so it's just my opinion..

And the angry bird should get at least a light machine gun built in, like its (i presume) real counterpart

[eharper256]

I do tend to agree Ship Junkyard contacts is WAY TOO far removed from actually getting your Little Bird, and it's all because of Workshop being implausible to get for six-seven months (and being locked behind guild stapler), whereas you can get a Bird up in Month 2-3. That's a LOOONG time without any ammo re-fills where you can't intercept (even fielding a HMG/Rotogun is implausible, Airbombs require things you might not find easily, and Car Thieves are also useless until you can get ammo).

I'm also still not a fan of gating Bounty Hunting to Rank 2 now. I wouldn't have survived score wise if I didn't have bounties in month 2 so I have no idea what new captains do since I started before that was a thing.

[Ferrosol]

Also, early on, 50 sectoweed to hire hybrids is A LOT in most cases. You're basically going to have to run a set of plantations to get any kind of reliable recruiting of Hivers which other routes don't have to worry about, just purchase with cash and go.

And running Plantations is a massive faff that I know I couldn't be bothered with; I really think they should just trigger periodic monthly harvest events rather than making us constantly do the deconstruct tango.

Yeah pretty much this, it makes the early-mid game much more challenging when you don't have an easy source of recruits and don't have time/resources to set up a plantation economy while also getting all the other early-game techs you need. I'm seriously considering pushing hard for Lok'naars just to have something more reliable than garbage peasant girls to back up my Uber Gals.

[Ultimoos]

I will make some counter arguments here.

I did not play new path yet, so I won't touch that.

Regarding Little bird and 14mm ammo. Little bird is not a starting Interceptor craft. It is a something that let's you boost your early game. That's why your ammo is limited. If you are lucky and get to shoot down a bandit capelin, great! You did something risky and get to keep using that Little bird longer. When ammo runs out you have an option to use sustainable Angry bird with IAE and assault cannons, or rotoguns you managed to loot from all those bandit cars. All the targets you would chase with Little bird can be intercepted by Angry bird. I would strongly suggest to reduce Pilots of Angry bird to 2. Same for Gunwagon. That thing is just too miserable.
I also think the gap you have to endure before getting next interceptor craft is too long. Bukaroo has way too many requirements to meet to be useful. I've only ever made it once and it was only because I really wanted to do a progression campaign. In nearly every time you just get a 25mm gun from landed UFO and even Airvan will make all other interceptors useless. Of course everything you get from Car thieves lacks firepower and endurance of Bukaroo and Tiger, but a good sole pilot will compensate for that and speed is the crucial stat here.
So, I think Bukaroo should be obtainable much earlier.
There is also Battlecab and Racer, but those are way too gimmicky for what they offer and are more like collectibles. Dredevil would only be used if you started in Iron Tribe, otherwise it's nearly impossible to get it before it becomes obsolete.

[eharper256]

Snip

Buckaroo is actually fairly easy to get (research wise) so long as you can find Necroplane Parts and Old Earth Books (usually not a problem before month 5), so I used it for a long time, I actually met the prereqs before I got Car Thieves. You do need to shoot down a couple of bombers for the parts which is another thing, but that's also usually doable. Pirate Radio can take a while after all.

But you are right in that if you do happen to find a 25mm from a Wasp Aircar, and can pop it on an early craft with an LT slot, it's going to be very good. Though it again suffers from needing [Cannon Munitions Preq.] for it's ammo, which is weirdly tied to just Light Cannon or Auto Cannon, VERY rare drops early on to the point where you want to save scum a Gun Almanac for it, but if you do you can make your 25mm rounds probably earlier than you can buy 14mm.

I'd actually be fine with Junkyard: Contacts being tied to Steam Power and Flintlocks & Bombs instead of Workshop, still nearly as many prerequisites: just missing the two BIG offenders of chance, Durathread and Guild Stapler.

Speaking of which, is it time to bring up that elephant in the room: the TIGER is an F-14 (the Macross version, even, in the XPedia picture) but can't use any missiles (lol).

Macross Missile Massacre is a big anime meme lol. Almost as much as I can't stop seeing Illyasviel (Aurora) and wondering where Berserker is, lol. (double NSFW warnings for TVTropes and Yande.re, not specifically for these links as they're safe, but... just in case you go exploring )

[Psyentific]

I actually kinda like the Tiger, at least in concept. It can use missiles, technically even if it doesn't get the good ones. The Tiger's real firepower is going to come from its Divebomb slots tho, which kinda fits in with the IRL tomcat's F-14B 'Bombcat' variant. The only killer is the 900 speed which is just, oof, oof.

[Tamren]

Dive slots would be a lot more useful if ground targets remain common into the midgame. Bandits will be a plague for the first year but I progressed to Boss rank pretty quickly and I only saw 2 couriers before my rank stopped them from spawning. For the same reason I only know ground convoys exist because of the codex entry.

I think "neutral" vehicles like the courier, military convoy and sand crawler should be be more common and persist across more ranks. These people are not your enemy strictly speaking so they wouldn't be cowed the same way bandits are when you get more powerful.

[Psyentific]

Dive slots would be a lot more useful if ground targets remain common into the midgame. Bandits will be a plague for the first year but I progressed to Boss rank pretty quickly and I only saw 2 couriers before my rank stopped them from spawning. For the same reason I only know ground convoys exist because of the codex entry.

I think "neutral" vehicles like the courier, military convoy and sand crawler should be be more common and persist across more ranks. These people are not your enemy strictly speaking so they wouldn't be cowed the same way bandits are when you get more powerful.

Dive weapons are still usable against UFOs and other air targets. Functionally they're like missiles with a longer reload time; high damage per shot, long cooldown, you'll usually only get 1-2 off per intercept.

[eharper256]

Considering they have like 40-50% accuracy, and you'll only get 1-2 shots, you're not going to be downing many UFO's with DV weapons reliably without annoying amounts of damage, though (or you'll nuke the tiny ones like using Avalanche in the original X-COM). I basically ignored them except for pre-reqs in my playthrough.

[Blind Cedrick]

An idea for dive bomb weapons: Rocks. Damage 1.
We have lots of rocks to sling around. Maybe use ten rocks bundled for the craft weapon?

[Tamren]

If they expanded the interception game to include more ground targets that could give dive slots a niche. Zombie horde rampaging across your territory? Send a thunderbolt to drop some napalm canisters on them.

Explosive DV weapons used against ground targets would get damage scaling instead of a hit rate because the damage done depends on how close to the target your attack lands. If you are targeting a group of multiple vehicles or a swarm of creatures you could potentially deal more than 100% damage to represent splash damage.

[eharper256]

An idea for dive bomb weapons: Rocks. Damage 1.
We have lots of rocks to sling around. Maybe use ten rocks bundled for the craft weapon?

Whilst it is Pirate-y to try to completely ignore the laws of Aerodynamics... Good luck getting a chopper to take off if you strap 10 giant rocks to it.

If they expanded the interception game to include more ground targets that could give dive slots a niche. Zombie horde rampaging across your territory? Send a thunderbolt to drop some napalm canisters on them.

Explosive DV weapons used against ground targets would get damage scaling instead of a hit rate because the damage done depends on how close to the target your attack lands. If you are targeting a group of multiple vehicles or a swarm of creatures you could potentially deal more than 100% damage to represent splash damage.

I mean you do already get hordes of ratmen appearing from time to time. I keep my old Thunderbird/Fake A-10 around for those times, since you get to BRRRRRRRTTT them.

Which is kind of the issue, it's still better to have a cannon strafe the ground targets in most cases. Only ground-crawlers and stuff actually require you to bring along the 25mm and bigger.

I'm pretty sure that splash damage cannot be quantified into the fairly simply X-COM intercept interface either.

[ontherun]

I will make some counter arguments here.

I did not play new path yet, so I won't touch that.

Regarding Little bird and 14mm ammo. Little bird is not a starting Interceptor craft. It is a something that let's you boost your early game. That's why your ammo is limited. If you are lucky and get to shoot down a bandit capelin, great! You did something risky and get to keep using that Little bird longer. When ammo runs out you have an option to use sustainable Angry bird with IAE and assault cannons, or rotoguns you managed to loot from all those bandit cars. All the targets you would chase with Little bird can be intercepted by Angry bird. I would strongly suggest to reduce Pilots of Angry bird to 2. Same for Gunwagon. That thing is just too miserable.
I also think the gap you have to endure before getting next interceptor craft is too long. Bukaroo has way too many requirements to meet to be useful. I've only ever made it once and it was only because I really wanted to do a progression campaign. In nearly every time you just get a 25mm gun from landed UFO and even Airvan will make all other interceptors useless. Of course everything you get from Car thieves lacks firepower and endurance of Bukaroo and Tiger, but a good sole pilot will compensate for that and speed is the crucial stat here.
So, I think Bukaroo should be obtainable much earlier.
There is also Battlecab and Racer, but those are way too gimmicky for what they offer and are more like collectibles. Dredevil would only be used if you started in Iron Tribe, otherwise it's nearly impossible to get it before it becomes obsolete.

Fair points, i agree.

I will make some counter arguments here.

I did not play new path yet, so I won't touch that.

Regarding Little bird and 14mm ammo. Little bird is not a starting Interceptor craft. It is a something that let's you boost your early game. That's why your ammo is limited. If you are lucky and get to shoot down a bandit capelin, great! You did something risky and get to keep using that Little bird longer. When ammo runs out you have an option to use sustainable Angry bird with IAE and assault cannons, or rotoguns you managed to loot from all those bandit cars. All the targets you would chase with Little bird can be intercepted by Angry bird. I would strongly suggest to reduce Pilots of Angry bird to 2. Same for Gunwagon. That thing is just too miserable.
I also think the gap you have to endure before getting next interceptor craft is too long. Bukaroo has way too many requirements to meet to be useful. I've only ever made it once and it was only because I really wanted to do a progression campaign. In nearly every time you just get a 25mm gun from landed UFO and even Airvan will make all other interceptors useless. Of course everything you get from Car thieves lacks firepower and endurance of Bukaroo and Tiger, but a good sole pilot will compensate for that and speed is the crucial stat here.
So, I think Bukaroo should be obtainable much earlier.
There is also Battlecab and Racer, but those are way too gimmicky for what they offer and are more like collectibles. Dredevil would only be used if you started in Iron Tribe, otherwise it's nearly impossible to get it before it becomes obsolete.

same also on this one

Again on MAG munitions, besides flintlocks, these might be avaiable also for the  handcannon and kustom handcannon with respectively 3 and 6 round per clip/magazine with damage 65 and 75. flintlock damage might be lowered to 60 both for pistol and musket. (??) These should be also avaiable for the boarding gun, shooty guns and killguns, but all in the small clip format.

Edit: plastasteel munition could be also fo the homefort rifle? with dmg 45 could be a nice upgrade while for the assault and auto rifle might upgraded to 40, clip size reduced, of course.

Naval gun to be some sort of utility should have its range increased a bit, let's say 10 km (?) Barracuda instead if 4xLT might have 3xLT and 1xMs/Dv weapon slots? Multiple compatible slots give more choice to the player, so i think should be more present in the custom build crafts