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

[pilot00]

Of course if you know the tree, the game is entirely different and you can have set priorities knowing what unlocks what, but then the game becomes "rush the tech tree and bypass lasers to get plasma" vanilla, which gets boring. The main reason I picked Piratez is because I had no idea what it's tree was and it was the most different game out there.

I havent done that either. But after failing three times in a row I came here asking Dioxine what the hell do I need to do to make craft weapons. I made test runs to get to that point though, and lets say I was sorely dissapointed with the results till I resumed my normal game and understood what I must do.

I dont know how to explain it either, its more of a play style. To me what works most is optimising what I already have on hand. If I get a research topic to improve my weapons I do so. If I get one to improve my armor I do so. I dont think that the topics as presented here are too obscure you pretty much understand what you will get most of the time. And there is no such thing as rushing lazers here. The requirements to maintain advanced weapons are not something you can do something about unless their time comes. Expanding your own arsenal through research though, thats something you can do and in my playstyle is a priority that seems to work here.

[Arthanor]

@Dioxine: Thanks for reassuring me

@Pilot: There's a few things you can prioritize to improve your guns, the easiest of which is probably Primitive Weapons -> Poisons -> Acidic Munitions (I think it probably needs a few other things you will research any ways, like rifle bullets manufacturing). That already changes the basic submachine gun into a pretty good gun (and one handed to boot so you can still carry your sword!).

My early game choices gun-wise were based on the belief that I could get larger calibre weapons like heavy and auto-cannons and/or make RPG rockets (to save moneys!) "quickly", since those are basic XCom tech or already buyable. It turned out not to be the case. Similarly researching the laser guns I grabbed from pogroms didn't help me make clips (even with nuclear fuel and ship engines to try to understand energy production). I spent a lot of brainer time researching gun related stuff that did not actually improve my guns. Researching primitive weapons for the barbed dagger and then poisons actually would have been better, and whatever the path to explosive & plastasteel munitions is (just got the explosive one, haven't seen the plastasteel one yet). Not complaining, just saying that although it is possible to get early good guns, it is not obvious.

Armour wise I went the personal armour parts route, thinking at some point I'd get an XCom like personal armour. Also turned out not to be the case. You're probably better off rushing for trader booty -> leather -> metal armour, instead of the tac armors (which are great, but more for already advanced soldiers given the cost in TU/Stam/Reactions, while metal would be great at the beginning). And then there's all the "high tech" stuff like nuclear fuel, ship engine, slave AI (and all the interrogation stuff), most of which does not translate in immediate benefits in the early game but looks "shiny" to new players too.

All that to say: If you know the tech tree and know what is good for you, you can get the improvements much earlier than Ivan or I have, but it is "playing the game" instead of discovering it. I expect starting pirates to be overwhelmed by all the loot they can research but that's fine. In general the stuff you get allows you to at least get by, if not totally dominate (my tac armors/heavy armors gal now laugh at traders and raiders).

My only comment would be on the "Powered Tools" research. When I saw it I expected it would be something to improve my facilities/craft building capabilities (since the runts would get powered tools to build stuff with), but instead I got a chainsaw on steroids for the gals. It might lead to more construction stuff later, I don't know. But if the point of the research is a weapon, maybe "Powered Weapons" would be more accurate?

[Dioxine]

My only comment would be on the "Powered Tools" research. When I saw it I expected it would be something to improve my facilities/craft building capabilities (since the runts would get powered tools to build stuff with), but instead I got a chainsaw on steroids for the gals. It might lead to more construction stuff later, I don't know. But if the point of the research is a weapon, maybe "Powered Weapons" would be more accurate?

The point is to get the powered tools, which unlock further researches into construction stuff. The weapon is just a byproduct. But if you have a bunch of (invisible) powered tools laying around, and no idea what to do with them because you thought EDUKAYSHUN IZ 4 PUSSIEZ... well, you can always weaponize them at least ...Actually, it seems the point of research depends on who's researching. For your gals indeed it was the weapon, but not for everyone it'll be

[Arthanor]

Oh, perfect then!

It is sometimes hard to tell because most projects have multiple dependencies so often you finish a project that doesn't unlock further research, so it leaves you uncertain as to what actually was achieved.. In my case Powered Tools showed me the crazy weapon, so I assumed that was the outcome. I would normally suggest more UFOPedia articles, but there are already a lot in Piratez.

If the runts also got power tools to do more stuff (once we find a project worthy of powered tools!), then the name sounds fine. Too bad the engine doesn't support research reducing manufacturing time or something to represent the their' new toys.

[pilot00]

@Pilot: There's a few things you can prioritize to improve your guns, the easiest of which is probably Primitive Weapons -> Poisons -> Acidic Munitions (I think it probably needs a few other things you will research any ways, like rifle bullets manufacturing). That already changes the basic submachine gun into a pretty good gun (and one handed to boot so you can still carry your sword!).

My early game choices gun-wise were based on the belief that I could get larger calibre weapons like heavy and auto-cannons and/or make RPG rockets (to save moneys!) "quickly", since those are basic XCom tech or already buyable. It turned out not to be the case. Similarly researching the laser guns I grabbed from pogroms didn't help me make clips (even with nuclear fuel and ship engines to try to understand energy production). I spent a lot of brainer time researching gun related stuff that did not actually improve my guns. Researching primitive weapons for the barbed dagger and then poisons actually would have been better, and whatever the path to explosive & plastasteel munitions is (just got the explosive one, haven't seen the plastasteel one yet). Not complaining, just saying that although it is possible to get early good guns, it is not obvious.

Yeah I agree. I dont play smart guy here, I just run into it by a hunch. But the thing is, it is doable. Yes it requires luck but come to thing about it in retrospect, if you immerse yourself in the world of the game it makes perfect sense. I mean you are a rag tag crew what chances are there to get a hold of powefull guns?
And if you do what chances are there you will have enough ammo? Your brainers (amply named me thinks) propose you with stop gap solutions: Primitive guns and poisons to turn your outfit into a querilla warfare. So I was thinking like that. If I were a leader of a rag tag militia what I would do? I dont posses the infrastracture to reverse engineer anything so what can I do? My smart people tell me they can build me poisons and stuff that require no ammo, so lets go through with it. After that the b&!@*s tell you they can make bullets for the small guns. So lets do it, from using cross bows and trying to fling grenades now we will have some range whatever inefective it might be its still range. And then BAM. A+B+C(if you remove cooking by the book, because honestly I thought it was completely irrelevant from munitions) = new munitions for our peeshooters.
The (not so) funny thing? If you progress through the game, some discoveries tell you why your gals are doing this process thinking...
So its not an alien process so to speak and honeslty if I run into it, just by immersing, I believe someone else can run on it too. Researching high end stuff in x-com worked because: You knew you could put them to use immediately, most of the time you could build them and last but not least you had scientists aplenty.
Now you have to move from the small to the big to the huge. If you do it the other way around its gonna stall you.

Armour wise I went the personal armour parts route, thinking at some point I'd get an XCom like personal armour. Also turned out not to be the case.

Same here, I had the girls running in tac vests, and then felt like an idiot when I found out metal. Good thing the vests are....I am talking too much XD.

You're probably better off rushing for trader booty -> leather -> metal armour, instead of the tac armors (which are great, but more for already advanced soldiers given the cost in TU/Stam/Reactions, while metal would be great at the beginning). And then there's all the "high tech" stuff like nuclear fuel, ship engine, slave AI (and all the interrogation stuff), most of which does not translate in immediate benefits in the early game but looks "shiny" to new players too.

And thats the 'trap' laid out by the original game, the sirens are calling XD.

All that to say: If you know the tech tree and know what is good for you, you can get the improvements much earlier than Ivan or I have, but it is "playing the game" instead of discovering it. I expect starting pirates to be overwhelmed by all the loot they can research but that's fine. In general the stuff you get allows you to at least get by, if not totally dominate (my tac armors/heavy armors gal now laugh at traders and raiders).

See my first responce for that. I believe that the whole point is to make the traders your cash cow till you stabalise your feet. With a few researches each month and a 5-6 raid ufo missions you are set on your possitive scores. The whole game actually starts when freighters start to show up.

DISCLAIMER: I dont play the smart guy, the X-com godplayer or the like, I am a casual player and those are my observations. I am known to nag about mechanics and am too eager to find bad implementations, but in this case there is a path to follow. It is a bit obscure yes and it requires to immerse yourself contrary to what your logic says but its there. Maybe the RPG fan in me made it a bit easier on me to perceive it but....IDK it seems there for me. Cheers.

The point is to get the powered tools, which unlock further researches into construction stuff. The weapon is just a byproduct. But if you have a bunch of (invisible) powered tools laying around, and no idea what to do with them because you thought EDUKAYSHUN IZ 4 PUSSIEZ... well, you can always weaponize them at least ...Actually, it seems the point of research depends on who's researching. For your gals indeed it was the weapon, but not for everyone it'll be

The engineering gals are x10 more smexy, that the fighty gals in the artwork. So it might be for PUSSIEZ but at least....Ok I am shuting up now.

If the runts also got power tools to do more stuff (once we find a project worthy of powered tools!), then the name sounds fine. Too bad the engine doesn't support research reducing manufacturing time or something to represent the their' new toys.

There is an article on it already me thinks Ill double check. It tells you its a stepgap for building moar stuff. Plus in our world drills and stuff like that are called power tools too.

EDIT: I might have been wrong on the booty entry, but I cant remember weather it poped the industrial tools entry or it wanted a research on its own.

[Yankes]

Dioxine there is another way to made snipe rifle in OXCE, simple made it suck at accuracy on low level of skill.
Instead of linear relation between skill and accuracy you can made square relation. After that only skilled solders are capable of using it.

[VodkaBear]

Oh, what a great news! That thing, I expected long time ago, as with later versions(80-90+) game obviously stucked in some point, while no any new ways of fight and gameplay at all were added, but new content only(like guns and armor variations). And now, finaly, something new. Great work, It's always cool to see how one person continue his work no matter how much time passed from very start of it.

[Dioxine]

Dioxine there is another way to made snipe rifle in OXCE, simple made it suck at accuracy on low level of skill.
Instead of linear relation between skill and accuracy you can made square relation. After that only skilled solders are capable of using it.

I am weighing my options with this. I'll probably make them less accurate but with dmg bonus dependant on skill. We'll see. As for the squared bonus, it's awesome there's an option for this, but you got to be careful with exponential growth; plus very complex functions might look very nice but they're very hard both to balance and to de-code (so there's this function, now how do my stats translate...? Uhhhmmmm...).

[Arthanor]

How are these functions communicated to the players? Piratez is doing a pretty good job with adding information in the flavour text, but for quadratic functions it is not easy! It would be funny to see:

Sniper Rifle
A weapon for the Hawkeye'd gals, this is better used as a club unless you're already a great shot. With the right hands, you can blow the brains out of those security guards who forgot their helmets!
Snap: 0.45*FAcc+0.005*FAcc^2
Aimed: 1.3*FAcc-0.001*FAcc^2
Damage: 30+0.6*Acc-0.002*Acc^2

Better get a spreadsheet going to tell what this does! ( I actually used matlab and made the plot below if you want to look at the functions, now get that into the Bootypedia and the players will feel like they got "Back to School" too! )

Those actually looks pretty good as a first guess for quadratic functions for a sniper rifle type weapon. Bad at low accuracy but with good decent stats in the 60+ range. Snap = Aimed at 140, which means the best marksman possible can shoot twice as fast. In general your snap shot is about as good as an aimed shot from a soldier ~20 Accuracy lower. 30 damage base, with great improvement with skill at the beginning, and diminishing returns making it reach 65 damage at 80 and slowly level off to 75 by 140 accuracy.

[Yankes]

I must mention one limitation, accuracy from stats is same for all firing modes.

[Dioxine]

As cool as this graph looks, forcing players to solve quadratic functions it's not what I really want to do Low accuracy sniper rifle also is counter-intuitive... I'll probably leave Accuracy linear as it is (Snap nowadays takes almost as long as Aimed anyway), but make the damage governed by diminishing returns. With your example, it'd probably say something like, Bonus Damage for Accuracy (15-45).

[Arthanor]

haha yeah, it is more of a thought experiment! Especially since there is no way to convey the information easily.

I think low accuracy can make sense if you take into account the time cost. If two guys spend the same time (same TU%) aiming, one with lower accuracy should get a much worse result. Otherwise the better shot gets nothing accuracy wise (since 140% to hit doesn't seem to hit much more than 99% to hit).

Factoring in min range and snap range (140% - 40% for firing too close is much better than 99%-40%) helps. Having the damage bonus will make a big difference and probably work better: They both are likely to hit, but the low accuracy guys hits somewhere whereas the high accuracy one gets a shot in a weak spot.

I am very much looking forward to what you do with the ranged weapons. The melee ones are already interesting and very diverse for how few variables there are.

[Dioxine]

The current thing on the list is adding massive Morale damage to all incendiaries (people set on fire shouldn't really be able to do much). However I was caught up with upgrading to the new mod format, and it doesn't seem to be working properly (can't really handle over 1000 objects), which makes progress impossible before this issue is resolved.

[Arthanor]

The incendiary thing is a great idea, and would make molotovs a lot more useful (and flamethrowers rather scary!).

Is morale damage affected by resistance to incendiary? It would be weird for a guy in power armour to panic because you threw him a molotov that can't damage his fireproof suit.

[Dioxine]

Oh it's actually a good system, the Morale loss is directly proportional to HP damage caused, so those with high resistance will be less affected, and those immune to fire (as well as those who have Bravery 110) won't be affected at all. Currently I've made it so the Personal Armor guys can take a single flame hit without panicking... but barely so. GO's are a dead meat. Flamers will be scary indeed, as they are in the real life (their shortcomings are quite a steep price to pay for this). There is a downside - the pirate gals rarely have Bravery on the level of standard enemies (70-80) so they could easily go from 100 to 0 Morale in a single hit.

Also, now finally Yankes added option for the medical objects to be used on oneself. We'll be able to actually down a beer or vodka!