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

[FudgeDragon]

I hadn't seen this post before:Well, although that's true, there is a huge difference in replay value for Piratez. Playing through the first time is like a really long tutorial where you learn the factions, ships and tech, and the second playthrough is very different. The first playthrough actually feels a lot like a tutorial..

That was unexpected. Most people think that the difficulty is high enough, or even too high... But I can ramp it up more if it really feels too much like a tutorial.

I don't think he means that it's like a tutorial because it's easy. I think he means that the first playthrough is a continuous learning experience. A second playthrough is less... overwhelming. You've already read a lot of the BootyPedia articles, you have a better idea of an optimal tech path, who to capture to progress to good techs, which enemies are the most dangerous, which of the starting weapons are helpful and which should be avoided early on.

[Solarius Scorch]

I don't think that the spy glass item would change too much, so it would be okay to have it.

However... if it's a spy glass, then it should have a range of 1. Try exploiting it now!

[Dioxine]

Yeah, now I understand - I was drunk last evening The gist of this - there was a time when it was normal to fail a campaign during first playthrough. I'm following this Dark Souls -style old-school philosophy. The player is expected to lose, but not due to extreme difficulty, but due to lack of knowledge. The player is supposed to get angry. This is called learning curve. There are few more rewarding things in games, in my opinion, than the feeling when you're getting better at a game and it is working. But you can't have that feeling if there is a tutorial that tells you how to play. You can't have that feeling when the game is unrewarding, but also when it is too simple.

@Solar: Hah! Good idea with the range of 1. Although it is not called a Spyglass, it is called a Magnifying Glass then BUT it is possible to grab a Mind Probe in January... Wait my brain is connecting the dots. Contacting the Mutant Alliance would mean you have an access to general knowledge, so it could be opening up a buy option for such an item...

[VodkaBear]

Hi Dioxine! Great thing you still keep developing (I lost number of times I've already said this), and there few things about balance I wanted to mention (yeah, it's already been mentioned before by someone else):
1. Totaly op melee - only disadvantage is get hit from "overwatch" enemy what actual only for mercs (in case you got your troops more or less experienced) and even this easy avoided by smoke and using numerous obstacles (~100 TU more than enough to kill 1-2 mercs with hammer while jumping-out from tree 50 feets away from them), and with advanced melee make thins even easier.
2. Useless ak-47, tompsons, etc compared by damage guns. Actually, if you wanna play only firearms in begining - your only solution is give boarding cannon and hancannon to best marksmans while using others ppl as scouts and molotov-throwers. Not much fun, boring, repetative.
Yeah, I know you resolved this problems by adding flamethrowers, special ammo (still enjoying all this variety of acid/conclussive/etc damage types), but there still a problem for me to play firearms squad at first part of the game. And I hope there be more enemies vulnerable only to one type of damage, so, for example, acid weapons not only temporary solution to increase firepower until you increase it with lasers and so on, but only way to deal with type of enemy. In short it'll be cool if someone like boomsaur will have 95% resistant to all bullets types, 75-85% to explosion and only 5% to acid. It'll make research of captures/killed enemies more vital for survival and make this "magnifying glass" you speaking about totaly suitable for gameplay. Yeah, I see the problem "how should I pass this terror mission full of boomsaurs and my lonely pistol-rifle squad" but it can be solved by calculating when new types of enemies will appear and when average player get tech to resist them.

[Ridаn]

On my 2nd playthrough I got first Mind Probe in 2603 or 2604, I was all like - where the hell is my Annihilator and Assault Suit research?!
I might have sold (or blew up) one from 1st mission though. 
And it doesnt really prove anything, as every playthrough is meant to be different.

[Dioxine]

Well bollocks, mind-probe items don't adhere to maxRange rules, so I've just wasted 30 minutes of work. No Spyglass then.

As for the balance things:
- Many of the weaker guns are there just to arm the enemies.
- 100% gun setup will never be the way to go.
- Melee gets a nerf in the new version - all melee attacks are going to cost Stamina. Relative to weapon's weight. So forget crazy raids with a Hammer Plus the damage is no longer scaling 1:1 with Strength so while the low-end damage on melee stays the same, the high-end is less crazy.
- As for the enemies, well. I'm not doing major overhauls. If such enemies appear naturally through further developement, they will appear. The look and feel has a superior priority to the mechanics when new factions/enemies are introduced. Also notice that enemies who are susceptible to just a single type of damage are a big "fuck you" to those who don't have that type of weapon, not only the newbies. Imagine the moaning and whining such an enemy would cause if it appeared on a regular basis! Even now, with most enemies being killable my most types of damage, people are whining I am not ruling out such enemies but only on rare missions.

[pilot00]

He has a "flare gun" already - a tiny flamethrower . Literal flare ammo, which stays on the ground and gives off light is impossible to make atm.

Missed that.

That was unexpected. Most people think that the difficulty is high enough, or even too high... But I can ramp it up more if it really feels too much like a tutorial.

He didnt mean to say its easy I reckon, what he did mean to say is that durring the first time you barge forward blindly, making a mess of things due to utter knowledge of what to expect. And in the follow up plays you have a certain way of doing things that you wont (most likely) end up doing huge mistakes. Like me having keeping a record of who I broke and still I missed the Rep. Ending up having reached the end game (conqueror ready to launch. anihilators and plasma destroyers) and I didnt have lazers...

- Many of the weaker guns are there just to arm the enemies.

An unexpected parameter you might not have thought of or expected, is that such weapons which come mainly from loot can be used against the weak factions and crews later in the game, when you need to conserve materials and money. I happened to have a cache of shotguns, blunderbushes and ak47 stocked up with looted only ammo, and I was using them against trader crews to ramp up experience for my rookies, while convserving matterials by using the low powered looted ammo (and in rare cases manufacture the special munitions). There is no point of attacking a trader or humanist vessel (even when it is a cruiser), by using anything with costs resources and can be deployed against heavily armed and armored enemies IMHO. OFC one can argue that such considerations are trivial with the advent of your own lazer tech, but not everything can go according to plan. Also such low powered weapons can be used against power armored, mind controlled enemies, for target practice.

[Solarius Scorch]

all melee attacks are going to cost Stamina. Relative to weapon's weight. So forget crazy raids with a Hammer

Wrecking Miley doesn't care!!!

[Arthanor]

Sorry my comment didn't go through the right way at first. I just thought of it this morning and realized it could convey the complete opposite of what I meant.

I indeed meant that one's first playthrough of Piratez is more of a learning experience than actually playing through. Filled with "well, that was a stupid idea.." moments and bad decisions. It is like a tutorial in that it is teaching you about the game. You do it the hard way: letting people jump off cliff to figure out if they can fly instead of holding their hand and telling them they can't.

Certain UFOs will blow you up if you don't know, or gvt ones sink your score but you don't know they're gvt until you encounter one, the different enemy types which are hard to tell apart at first but easy after and the awesome research monster tree that also let's you waste a lot of time if you just research what sounds cool are all examples of things you'll screw up on a first game but never again.

I guess it's different philosophy indeed. I like a game that challenges my thinking abilities, not my endurance or wiki/rules/web research (those are qualities I associate with work).

Piratez has been awesome for that by requiring a lot of thinking. Making melee relevant (a must in one's primitive start but fine after. I mostly use guns now because it's safer to shoot than to charge). By presenting different enemies (high armor, high hp, high value and high mobility), different armors (my squad uses 7 types of armors!) and a huge variety of weapons, you create the need and the tools to make all 22 of my crew relevant and different. Radar coverage changes to zeppelin and tough UFOs  have made the geoscape interesting. Different facility sizes even add challenge to base building! Those are the strengths of Piratez for me, along with the innovative post-apocalyptic story that very much is a reward.

Getting crafts blown up by UFOs, score sunk by a gvt mission or getting owned on the ground by an unknown faction because I didn't know about them from a previous game or reading the ruleset (a big spoiler sin as far as I am concerned) makes it feel the game is tripping me so I spend longer playing it instead of keeping me hooked. A bit of foreshadowing and "general knowledge" and a thing like Ivan's spyglass would help in removing those traps.

About the spyglass, what about starting with one, having it require LoS (losRequired or something is a true false flag, not a range. It will make an item require direct sight of the target so max 20 tiles and unobstructed view.  Ivan used a LoS Required mind probe in his UpClose LP). It could require really high tech from academy, especially explorers, to make more. That seems hardly abusive for something you know for free as soon as you start your 2nd playthrough.

Or better even: a special hwp slave you can make with academy explorers + spyglass (requires fancy academy tech and can't be used by the gals) that has the spyglass (and a.. flare gun? Medikit?) as a built-in weapon. Start with one in your first hideout. You want to spy? Bring the pet lookout. Got it killed? You suck... wait a long time until you can make another.

[ivandogovich]

About the Spy Glass.   

As far as I can see in OXE, it isn't possible right now.  It would require Yankes to externalize the returns from the Mind Probe, and allow you to specify what you can see. 

If we are still pipe dreamin:

1. Spy Glass: Range 15-20, LOS only.  One in the starting base. Only gives race and rank.

2. Somewhere between start and Mind Probe,  a Thermal imager could be made available.  Requires significant Academy loot (scope from Sniper Gauss?, etc), but shows you Race, Rank, and Armor Values Only.  Could be two handed. Unlimited Range, LOS only.

OK.  I'm done now. Back to getting killed by Academy and squandering all this gauss ammo on easy targets.

[Arthanor]

Yeah, you can't control which stats are displayed. It's gotta be everything. Both armor (at least a qualitative no/light/medium/heavy armor) and health (hurt or not) would be visible from looking. And the idea of tying it to an explorer slave is also that the slave himself would recognize what he is looking at, giving you the race and rank.

Nothing says that the spy glass isn't more than it looks either. Could be a high tech gadget that just happens to look like a spyglass

[Yankes]

I hadn't seen this post before:Well, although that's true, there is a huge difference in replay value for Piratez. Playing through the first time is like a really long tutorial where you learn the factions, ships and tech, and the second playthrough is very different. The first playthrough actually feels a lot like a tutorial..
I mean you can set which "alien psi-weapon" they will use. Although the ability is built in, it still calls on a certain item (which you can see modified in the psi-LOS mod).

Removing that item makes the game crash as soon as an alien tries to use it (since it is calling on an item that doesn't exist). To get no psi, you set the TU cost to 999. OXC only uses one psi-weapon, which means any tweak you do will affect all psi-aliens. But OXCE allows you to set which item is referenced by which alien in the armor section so you can actually change which they use.

That would allow a tweaking of psi-capabilities for different aliens, changing the TU cost (and thus ability to use certain powers) of different enemies. You could have certain "intimidating" enemies be able to use panic only, and only in LoS (and maybe with a big range malus, so they are really scary up close but not so much from afar). Weaker psi-enemies who can only affect you in LoS while stronger ones don't need LoS, etc. The only thing I'm not sure is if the AI can use the "special attack" of psi-items to actually deal damage like the player can.

One correction, TU should be set to 0 if you want turn off weapon (Each attack can be turn on/off). Second AI can use special psi-attacks., this was basic feature that I wanted to add.

[Dioxine]

About the spyglass, what about starting with one, having it require LoS (losRequired or something is a true false flag, not a range. It will make an item require direct sight of the target so max 20 tiles and unobstructed view.  Ivan used a LoS Required mind probe in his UpClose LP). It could require really high tech from academy, especially explorers, to make more. That seems hardly abusive for something you know for free as soon as you start your 2nd playthrough.

Or better even: a special hwp slave you can make with academy explorers + spyglass (requires fancy academy tech and can't be used by the gals) that has the spyglass (and a.. flare gun? Medikit?) as a built-in weapon. Start with one in your first hideout. You want to spy? Bring the pet lookout. Got it killed? You suck... wait a long time until you can make another.

Hmm if I can't limit the range to below 20, I'm probably going to use the slave route. It's enough of a burden. Not sure if a player should be starting with one, but I'll make it easy to research so it can be grabbed as soon as January-March. A handheld item of such potency would require getting Aye-Phone first, at least.

[pilot00]

WOOOOOOOOOT!Victory dance! I blew dem aliens to kingdom come

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I0eSW7lqbk

EDIT: I forgot in happy time, to thank you Dioxine for the awesome experience. Whatever small flaws the game has pale in comparison to the experience. An awesome mod for an awesome game.

I would urge you to work a bit on the victory text if you find the time though, and the final mission seemed a bit of breeze. Other than that, well talk about it when the new version is out.

Thanks again.

Wrecking Miley doesn't care!!!

Get that b*^*# back in engineering, we need the hammers dry not moist dammit.

[Arthanor]

Hmm if I can't limit the range to below 20, I'm probably going to use the slave route. It's enough of a burden. Not sure if a player should be starting with one, but I'll make it easy to research so it can be grabbed as soon as January-March. A handheld item of such potency would require getting Aye-Phone first, at least.

Well, range 20 is already pretty inconvenient, considering that it's mostly for information an experienced player would know (armor/rank/title). I like the explorer slave + spyglass avenue though, as it gives slavery an interesting use. Taking various enemies and enslaving them for specific battlefield roles could be a good addition (which is kind of what you are doing with the super-heroes, although that's too cheeky for me). In general, smoke, motion detectors and mind probes are things that work well for slaves since they can be balanced exactly (TU cost + mobility, reach of smoke using maxRange, etc.). They are not actions that give experience any ways, so might as well have a slave do them and let the gals do the thumping!

Maybe we could have the slave early and the handheld item useable by gals come later, as a more high tech item (since the gals themselves aren't well educated enough to immediately ID people, let alone their armor) and require an Aye-Phone to hold the database?