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

[nuttycompany]

Well if you happen to be in my situation Basic armor is god sent.

In my 5 game so far, I never see any trader ship. All I have is that damn useless academian 24/7.
Having some poor man tank who can stand in the open and absorb all the fire is a plus in my opinion.

[Arthanor]

I guess we get to the "depends on playthrough" thing that Dioxine mentioned.

Academician security have personal armor parts, which could give you much better armors, and are about as common as the trader security (or even a bit more) for a given UFO.

I spend a few months encountering raiders. Potential for lots of vibroblades and grav harnesses.. but not much more.

[DracoGriffin]

Yes, as my first playthrough has been heavy Govt/Academy. And I don't mind smoke screen bombs; used to the long drawn out fighting from I/I XCOM. Also, I went very slow in breaches; open door, throw smoke, wait turn or two and then open door to see if I can bumrush any stragglers.

I haven't experienced any big ships yet, but by then, I doubt I'd need a Tac Vest. Back to my previous argument, cost is very high ($ can be spent better elsewhere, tbh. and parts can be scarce or best used for other armors.). I haven't had any issues with Warrior/Basic Armor, frankly. I use them as my frontline tanks (military shotguns) with melee pirates behind to bandage/nade/melee targets. I don't mind if they are slow; I'm not trying to rush through skirmishes and lose Gals. I go for the slow n steady and prioritize capturing targets to interrogate/sell (still learning tech tree and interrogations hasn't seemed too useful yet, except Academy).

I haven't unlocked/discovered Leather yet so can't offer much there. But Smokey Ops works amazing for my tactics, however that doesn't mean everyone wants to play that way.

Sidenote: Fistycuffs doesn't scale as well as I had thought, but I don't know what the cap on stats is in Piratez.

[Arthanor]

I/I XCom?

By the time I had seen my first big ships, I had better than Tac Vests, sure, but those armors required Tac Vests to be made (Tac Vests + Parts, actually). Since I was low on parts, buying the Tac Vests to upgrade them was better than trying to build things from scratch. With the bigger ships, even with a big increase in storage (and hiring all 15 brainers), I still had a decent enough budget that buying a few armors wasn't too much of an expense.

Since Extended modifies melee weapons, it is quite possible that the basic armor becomes more useful simply through melee becoming more exhausting, thus leaving more space to shooting. That would be an interesting mean of achieving balance.

[DracoGriffin]

I/I XCom?

Ironman Impossible from XCOM 2012; see Beaglerush Youtube and such.

Although Long War mod is a bit more difficult than I/I in more ways than one... Eh. Anyway.


Dioxine, is it safe to assume Hammer/Chainsaw rely on Melee Accuracy? Further, X-Bow relies on Firing Accuracy or Throwing? Other than special cases, firearms generally rely on Firing Accuracy?

Also, couldn't find it anywhere but is it possible to clarify some of the special effects? (Extra Damage (Lethal), Stun +X%, Extra Pain (X), Armor -X%, Reaction Disrupt, etc) Possibly a Bootypedia entry in the Back to School line could be useful?

Assumptions: Extra Damage (Lethal) - X of stun damage is also applied as health damage
Stun - X of Y type damage is also applied as stun damage (e.g., 50 Concussive, 25 Stun) (Assault Cannon - minimum damage is 40 Concussive [per Bootypedia entry], so Stun damage would be 20?)
Extra Pain - Stun or morale damage? Assuming stun as it pain is more likely to cause unconsciousness than losing morale?
Armor - Ignores X amount of armor, kind of like fire damage (flamethrowers) ?
Reaction Disrupt - Reaction trumps enemy action or soldier action prevents X reactions?

[NuclearStudent]

Just loaded up Piratez yesterday. It's really fun, but I agree with Draco that it takes a little effort to parse the Bootypedia entries. I spent about two hours cross checking the statistics of the various weapons and looking up what you said on the forum about the formatting, for example. I still don't really understand how Molotovs work.

[ivandogovich]

Just loaded up Piratez yesterday. It's really fun, but I agree with Draco that it takes a little effort to parse the Bootypedia entries. I spent about two hours cross checking the statistics of the various weapons and looking up what you said on the forum about the formatting, for example. I still don't really understand how Molotovs work.

Yeah, I did the same thing too.  Made a spreadsheet then a cheat sheet.  The Cheatsheet indicated who the weapon would be good for.  ie. High melee, high strength, etc.

[VodkaBear]

@Dioxine

With new vessels armanent system it's seems that even bonadventure litteraly oblitirate every ship I've met in first 4 months, are enemy vessels been tweaked too or there old versions of them?

@DracoGriffin

I've thought a little, and diceded to hide it under spoiler - there just small things, but maybe you prefer learn it yourself.

Spoiler:

I don't actually understand your problem, as simple tac vest more then enough to play in beggining with your tactics described, and as you said - you played that artifical difficulty longwar mod, so you have to be familiar with high personal rotation from mission to mission. Even small scout landed ship will provide you with 1 engine (200k $) and bunch of other stuff, which more then enough to equip your squad after 1 succesfully mission, so gals wouldn't die even with stupidiest mistakes done. Don't be afraid of selling things, there be lot of them in midgame, also don't forget alcohol manufacturing. And you mentioned "Big ship". Forget it, there no big -> strong, little sizes ships can beat shit from you, while large can be simple cargo freighter with single poor 25mm cannon. You keeping parts for better armors, but here small spoiler - improved armor require it's previous version( leather and metal at least).

[Dioxine]

Assumptions: Extra Damage (Lethal) - X of stun damage is also applied as health damage
Stun - X of Y type damage is also applied as stun damage (e.g., 50 Concussive, 25 Stun) (Assault Cannon - minimum damage is 40 Concussive [per Bootypedia entry], so Stun damage would be 20?)
Extra Pain - Stun or morale damage? Assuming stun as it pain is more likely to cause unconsciousness than losing morale?
Armor - Ignores X amount of armor, kind of like fire damage (flamethrowers) ?
Reaction Disrupt - Reaction trumps enemy action or soldier action prevents X reactions?

- Extra damage is applied only if any damage was dealt. So you still need to penetrate armor with the initial damage.
- Extra stun works a bit more differently than all other types of extra damage. Lethal weapons deal Stun when you inflict Fatal Wounds, this attribute multiplies that Stun damage. That also means that those immune to Fatal Wounds are immune to extra stun.
- Pain is morale damage, since Stun Damage is named Stun Damage Although it is imprecise, since Morale Damage is named Morale Damage elsewhere... I might make pain as Stun+Morale damage
- Armor: yes, it's pretty self-explanatory
- Reaction Disrupt: it just means TU drain, proportional to damage dealt.
- Demolition: extra damage to terrain.

Indeed a Pedia article explaining this should perhaps be added.

Hammer/Chainsaw should rely one melee acc now (unless this was a change added past 0.92 release), but this is cosmetic. You basically cannot miss with these weapons, as a ranged attack from 1 tile away cannot ever miss.

As for the interceptions, reload times were also changed. Not sure how the new balance works yet. Are the enemy ships indeed so easy kill now?

Also, $25k is hardly expensive. If you think it is expensive, you're still in the very early game... ex. advanced armors often have their costs in $100ks or even millions, not even counting the parts and manufacture time.

As for the Bootypedia - so the complaint is too much or too little info because mixed signals here

Also Draco I haven't really understood what's wrong, in your opinion, with armor entry formatting?

[Yankes]

Dioxine didn't you mistaken "stun damage" with "pain damage" in case of fatal wounds? Only "damage" that is done after inflicted fatal wounds is morale lose.

[VodkaBear]

As for the interceptions, reload times were also changed. Not sure how the new balance works yet. Are the enemy ships indeed so easy kill now?

I don't have decoder, but as I can judge ships I've shot were scouts and small fighters, with standard loadout for bonadventura which with game was started. I'll play a little more, and give advanced feedback comparing to older versions. But for sure if you don't increased total HP for ships, it obviously at least twice easier to shot down (2 50mm cannons+ 2 stingray launchers instead only 2 from "vanilla" piratez).

And few ideas:
1. Is it possible to implement "armor" for ships in game? So you can variate vessels weapons not only by damage and range but by armor piercing too, and combinate weapons not just to deal more damage, but be universal or specialized. For example - cool avalanche missiles, long distance, such impact - but little armor on enemie's ship and they got they damaged reduced to funny values. And visa versa - plasteel rotatory aircannon with only little damage but incredible AP, you'll die until you shot down freighter with tons of raw HP, but destroy some little fighters, which weight all gone for armor instead of structure.
2. "Shoc" ammo, which impact action points, so you can immobilize enemies (and they can immobilize your close-fighters). But AI weak and this can be too much exploitable.

[Zharkov]

As for the interceptions, reload times were also changed. Not sure how the new balance works yet. Are the enemy ships indeed so easy kill now?

No, they are not. At first, I thought they might, but it really depends on how you play the game. Chances are quite good, that you win a fight with your starting vessel against a fighter. Before 0.91 this was almost certain death. So, if you reload the game, when you lose your Bonny, there is less reloading to be done. If you play without reloads you just cannot take such a risk, because your reign of plunder could be over in a heartbeat. (Well, at least I have decided for me not to take such a risk as I had to start over two times since 0.91 because of a tiny fighter...)
If anything, the outcomes of interceptions are more uncertain than before.

[Dioxine]

I don't have decoder, but as I can judge ships I've shot were scouts and small fighters, with standard loadout for bonadventura which with game was started. I'll play a little more, and give advanced feedback comparing to older versions. But for sure if you don't increased total HP for ships, it obviously at least twice easier to shot down (2 50mm cannons+ 2 stingray launchers instead only 2 from "vanilla" piratez).

That gives you an increased incentive to build a fighter, since Ventura's 2 cannons + 2 spike launchers are nowhere as effective and very expensive. Also, if you have 2 Stingrays, those 2 cannons on Fighter do not make such a big difference imo. That's why you can further augment fighters either for missile or cannon combat

1. Is it possible to implement "armor" for ships in game? So you can variate vessels weapons not only by damage and range but by armor piercing too, and combinate weapons not just to deal more damage, but be universal or specialized. For example - cool avalanche missiles, long distance, such impact - but little armor on enemie's ship and they got they damaged reduced to funny values. And visa versa - plasteel rotatory aircannon with only little damage but incredible AP, you'll die until you shot down freighter with tons of raw HP, but destroy some little fighters, which weight all gone for armor instead of structure.

Well armor is possible, but AP weapons are not possible, and the armor cannot be % res - it is a DR (damage res). Avalanche does immense damage so it'd pretty much ignore such armor. So it'd work the other way around - heavy & powerful missiles vs. armored fighters that are immune to cannons, and huge-HP freighters that are best pelted with cannons. Not sure if this is such a great idea... It'd be possible to add dodge to fighters, but this, again, would work against cannons which have low accuracy, while not affecting the missiles very much (as missiles have high acc).

2. "Shoc" ammo, which impact action points, so you can immobilize enemies (and they can immobilize your close-fighters). But AI weak and this can be too much exploitable.

Will be implemented although in a very limited fashion (an armor that is pre-equipped with immobilizing weapon AND another non-lethal, non-stun special weapon, probably anti-morale). For AI, this wouldn't make much sense, since such powers can only burn the TU you've reserved for opportunity fire. A player can exploit this by hitting positioned enemies to disable their reactions and then kill them with impunity. A powerful skill so I will make sure it cannot be spammed too much.

Dioxine didn't you mistaken "stun damage" with "pain damage" in case of fatal wounds? Only "damage" that is done after inflicted fatal wounds is morale lose.

No; what I meant that lethal weapons only inflict Stun damage if they inflict Fatal Wounds. Thus I can only increase/decrease this damage. As for extra modded morale damage, it seems to simply depend on the overall damage inflicted.

If anything, the outcomes of interceptions are more uncertain than before.

Perfect.

[DracoGriffin]

- Extra damage is applied only if any damage was dealt. So you still need to penetrate armor with the initial damage.
- Extra stun works a bit more differently than all other types of extra damage. Lethal weapons deal Stun when you inflict Fatal Wounds, this attribute multiplies that Stun damage. That also means that those immune to Fatal Wounds are immune to extra stun.
- Pain is morale damage, since Stun Damage is named Stun Damage Although it is imprecise, since Morale Damage is named Morale Damage elsewhere... I might make pain as Stun+Morale damage
- Armor: yes, it's pretty self-explanatory
- Reaction Disrupt: it just means TU drain, proportional to damage dealt.
- Demolition: extra damage to terrain.

Indeed a Pedia article explaining this should perhaps be added.

Wow, Reaction Disrupt is way more powerful than I thought. I need to start trying that against stronger enemies so they won't be able to attack while I mop up the weaker enemies. So does "Reaction Disrupt (x4)" mean it drains TU by (X damage)*4?

Hammer/Chainsaw should rely one melee acc now (unless this was a change added past 0.92 release), but this is cosmetic. You basically cannot miss with these weapons, as a ranged attack from 1 tile away cannot ever miss.

Ah, I did not realize this. I was making a spreadsheet of the weapons/mechanics so I could determine the optimal weapon for inputted soldier stats and wasn't sure what to enter in the skill section. Does Chainsaw count as 5 different attacks for experience training or just one attack?

As for the interceptions, reload times were also changed. Not sure how the new balance works yet. Are the enemy ships indeed so easy kill now?

  No idea about the reload and such, but I have found engaging is a real crapshoot. Encountered a very small or small ship and it nearly destroyed my Bonaventura. I didn't realize what the lights meant on UFOs until a few months later when I researched the right things.

But as such, some big ships are easy prey, but not all... and small ships can be a EXTREMELY misleading in strength. If you were shooting for uncertainty prior to decoder, you've managed it very well.

Also, $25k is hardly expensive. If you think it is expensive, you're still in the very early game... ex. advanced armors often have their costs in $100ks or even millions, not even counting the parts and manufacture time.

Well, playing blind lends to this as I'm not sure what to sell or what to prioritize researching, etc. I am only in May in my 1st playthrough. Given what I know now though, the price is still awfully high for minimal armor gain that is highly situational, depending on soldier facing and direction of enemy attack. As mentioned earlier, breaching is best use but that's a high investment when you could just spam smoke grenades instead.

As for the Bootypedia - so the complaint is too much or too little info because mixed signals here

Not sure what you mean? I don't think there is too much info in the Bootypedia; could always use more! If anything, it's just hard to know what to research to unlock the informative entries. (After I set up my main base, the second thing I did was scour through the Bootypedia, and Combat 101 was somewhat helpful). Perhaps an initial Bootypedia entry (like Combat 101) with like a "Brainer Report" that gives vague beginner insight to some of the first techs.

Code: [Select]

Oi Cap'n, welcome ta our labratory. We been lookin' around and came up with some ideas for ya.

*Spring Cleaning - Lotsa dis stuff in here doesn't make sense and covered up in debris. Might as well clean it up real nice and see what stuff we can find.

*Our Abilities - We know us Gals are better than purebloods, but don't know much specifics. We could uhh... "interrogate" some of da Gals to learn more. Best not to watch. Or do, if'n ya like, Cap'n.

*Basic Bullet Manufacturing - Bein' piratez don't mean we ain't competi... competa... capable, us Brainers can show them Runts how to make bullets for some weapons you 'n da Gals "acquire" from ya plunders.

*Flintlocks & Bombs - If'n bullets ain't enough, Cap'n, we could figure out how ta cobble some bombs and flint guns together so ya don't have ta scour the Black Market for 'em all the time.

*Primitive Weapons - Da Gals don't always need guns, Cap'n, sometimes ya need a good smash or stab. We got some ideas for the Runts to make, if ya think makin' our own melee weapons be a fine choice.

*Basic Armor - More armor is more better. We can salvage parts of armor from yer heists and let our Gals wear somethin' stronger than cloth or skin.

*Smoke-Ops Gear - We may be mutants, Cap'n, but we choke on smoke just like purebloods do. Makin' some special masks for our Gals will let 'em live in smoke, so ya can seize da booty easier.

*Nuclear Fuel - Not a big priority, but stuff's important, as ya main ship wouldn't get far without it, Cap'n. Lettin' us Brainers mess with some could be useful, 'specially if'n ya get your hands on some smart purebloods for us to "talk to". No, Cap'n, we wouldn't really talk with 'em, that's why I was movin' my fingers.

Also Draco I haven't really understood what's wrong, in your opinion, with armor entry formatting?

Spoiler:

Unarmored - Running around without any armor on has its perks - like being unburdened. Or not having to pay for armor. Or having the greatest potential for creating a fine-looking corpse. Our mutant's skin is almost as tough as body armor anyway!. X-Section: 2. Melee Dodge %: REACTIONS*0.4.

Pirate - Wearing true pirate clothing will increase your soldier's bravery, while protecting their modesty and their skipper's prudence! Wt: 4. X-Section: 2. Melee Dodge %: REACTIONS*0.5.

Runt - This outfit, equipped with many pouches and straps, allows for easy carrying of large loads (carrying capacity +10), however it is somewhat constricting in combat. Best suited for medics, ammo runts and the like. X-Section: 2. Energy Recovery Penalty.

Smokey - Protects eyes and lungs against smoke, allowing for much more prolonged abuse of smoke-screens. The sexy look and armor come at a cost of decreased carrying capacity, though (effective Wt = 9). X-Section: 2. Melee Dodge %: REACTIONS*0.3. NV: 9.

Night Ops - A simple vision enchancement device gives us superior night sight, while the reinforced material allows to blend into the darkness, but the loss of peripheral vision stunts the combat ability a bit. Wt: 3. X-Section: 2. Melee Dodge %: REACTIONS*0.2. NV: 20.

Warrior - Coupled with mutant's inherent toughness, this armor allows to soak up quite a lot of small arms fire, but requires good strength and stamina, and even then, mobility loss is unavoidable. Wt: 12. X-Section: 3. Energy Recovery Penalty.

Guerrila - This combat outfit utilizes the newly discovered camouflage concept, as well as Spartan materials to create a suit that provides an edge in battle while being very practical (eff. weight = 3). However it does incur a mobility loss. Melee Dodge %: REACTIONS*0.3. X-Section: 2.

Tac Vest - This lightweight (Wt: 5), flexible vest made of highly resistant fibres hardly restricts movement, yet easily defeats even repeated hits with low-powered projectiles. X-Section: 2. Melee Dodge %: REACTIONS*0.4.

Although I just now noticed there is no weight comment for the Runt Bootypedia entry either. But as you can see in the spoiler, Guerrila has the "X-Section:" at the end, whereas all other armor entries have it before the Melee Dodge/Other Status Effects. It's totally superficial but just letting you know.

[Searmay]

I'm happy to have found this mod - for something with such silly flavour, the actual game is pretty well balanced. In that spirit I have a few comments

There  are a hell of a lot of items. Particularly weapons. Which isn't necessarily bad, but is bewildering at first. Even with the numbers available it's hard to tell what's actually likely to work well. Bootypedia should probably list item weights and stamina costs to make it a bit easier. And there's no way to know what can get upgraded with better ammo and the like later.

Research is just weird in places. Apart from the vast number of items the dependencies are complicated enough that it's really hard to tell what they are even after satisfying them. And the way you can make and use grog from the start, but it takes research to find out what it does. Or the stone axe, which you learn to make but doesn't get a bootypedia entry.

Manufacture has the annoyance of needing readily available metal, chemicals, and wire. While this makes sense, it's kind of meaningless given that they're only a 24 hour order away. Why not get rid of that management task and just add to the manufacture cost? Limited resources are worth managing, but those aren't. I also have no idea why extracting craft weapon rounds from magazines is a workshop task rather than a transparent part of re-arming the craft.

On craft weapons, I have no idea what I can use where. It's certainly not anything anywhere, but nothing seems to tell me what the limitations are.

Specific weapons: bows are probably too powerful. Ammo-free 90% throwing accuracy indirect fire at 25 tiles, with damage in the 40s for a skilled swabbie? That just seems unfair, if super fun. They seem to train firing accuracy though, which is rather bizarre. Poisoned dagger is frustratingly inaccurate compared to other daggers.

Night vision is a neat idea, giving you the choice between the safety of playing in darkness or the convenience of lights. Except playing in the dark seems pretty much impossible and switching lights is free, so I end up switching them off and on all the time. Which is just daft.