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

[Dioxine]

There just doesn't seem to be any type of reward against Mercenaries (which there doesn't have to be; they can essentially just be there to disincentivize the player from expanding too rapidly or intercepting too many ships).

Rewards? Two words. Brute. Armor. I agree that they're there mostly to impede the player, though.

My only concern/question is: shouldn't the larger ships have at least 1 or 2 Life Support Systems? Life Support Systems seem to be added arbitrarily to some ships but not others (although I think it used to be confined to Ordinators but think that was changed a few versions back?). (Suggestions: Cruiser, Destroyer, Envoy, Assault Transport [bootypedia specifically states used in space warfare], and Freighter [due to prevalence and "ease" of raiding; limit to only 1?])

No, not so easy. Probably yes for Assault Transport and Boarding Torpedo. Definitely not for Freighter. Revenant Armor is easy enough to acquire as it is, considering how good it is (and how good its upgrades are).

Honestly, in regards to the being behind in weapon research... not sure what to do about that as there isn't anything really to work towards; advancing research in ballistic weaponry doesn't seem like it should be helpful at all in designing laser/plasma weaponry, whereas reverse engineering laser/plasma weaponry should allow rudimentary blueprints for laser/plasma.

Research seems to be just fine, although I am 1.5 episode behind, so can't say where you are ATM, but afaik you were mostly ignoring Laser research up to this point. Plasma stays locked until you get one of the rare VIPs. You just need to complete your mid-game portfolio to be allowed to go higher (naturally, the late-game techs aren't finished yet, but you still have a ton of good stuff not unlocked yet).

[DracoGriffin]

Rewards? Two words. Brute. Armor. I agree that they're there mostly to impede the player, though.

Ohhh yeah, I know all about the sweet Brute Armor and Annihilator Armor. I captured a second Merc Engineer today, so shouldn't be too much longer before I am fielding a few Brutes (except I lost a ton of Revenant Armor on that Destroyer raid).

No, not so easy. Probably yes for Assault Transport and Boarding Torpedo. Definitely not for Freighter. Revenant Armor is easy enough to acquire as it is, considering how good it is (and how good its upgrades are).

Too bad, I'm down to 2 Life Support Systems and who knows when I'll be able to get more; wish at some point I could purchase them from the Govt at perhaps a significant cost (rather than relying on RNG to attack Ordinators and suffer score loss since you can't grab life support systems and abort a mission)?

Research seems to be just fine, although I am 1.5 episode behind, so can't say where you are ATM, but afaik you were mostly ignoring Laser research up to this point. Plasma stays locked until you get one of the rare VIPs. You just need to complete your mid-game portfolio to be allowed to go higher (naturally, the late-game techs aren't finished yet, but you still have a ton of good stuff not unlocked yet).

I keep forgetting to remind myself to research the "weak" tier weapons (such as Heavy Flamer, Hunting Laser, Small Launcher) and other things.

Looking at the ruleset, I can't believe how many things I'm prevented from getting since I haven't researched them.

[Dioxine]

Ohhh yeah, I know all about the sweet Brute Armor and Annihilator Armor. I captured a second Merc Engineer today, so shouldn't be too much longer before I am fielding a few Brutes (except I lost a ton of Revenant Armor on that Destroyer raid).
Too bad, I'm down to 2 Life Support Systems and who knows when I'll be able to get more; wish at some point I could purchase them from the Govt at perhaps a significant cost (rather than relying on RNG to attack Ordinators and suffer score loss since you can't grab life support systems and abort a mission)?

Sure-fire way to get a lot of LSS's is to raid enemy Hideout. As well as Supply Ships, Shrine Ships, Frigates (I think), Battleships (if you dare). I'll be also adding a mid-to-late game tech that allows you to manufacture these, as well as stasis pods... at a significant cost

[DracoGriffin]

Is repairing armors a thing or going to be thing? That could be somewhat useful.

Early game armors... maybe repair cost could be like 1/3 or 1/2 of the material cost?
Mid-game armors... require at least two "broken/damaged" versions plus a minor resource cost (like scrap metal, plastasteel, maybe the bootys that the player can craft [Church/Academy I think so far?]).
Late-game armors... require at least three "broken/damaged" versions plus a moderate resource cost (scrap/plastasteel/fuel/etc, plus booty, and half/third of the rarer materials)?

I mean, if we're able to salvage stuff from the enemy, we should be able to repair our own stuff in some way?

I can only imagine how Meridian is going to feel once he gets a bit deeper into his campaign; more corpses = more materials, but more enemies = more dead pirates? Also, the limited resources don't increase as difficulty does (mainly ship components), so should be interesting.

[niculinux]

@DracoGriffin: seems in the episode n. 33 of the playthrogh you have 22 or 23 almanacs; i strongly advice to research these, provide inco on various weapons, plus the research is more quicker

So far i managed to research only laser weapins disassembly, and obtained some stuff like laser lenses, still need to figure out hiw to produce lasers

[ivandogovich]

In the meantime, i made a miserable attempt to reconstruct a very tiny paperdoll of the humanist activist, hopefully somebody may want to use it to make a bootypedia image, see the attachment

I finally got around to working on a paper doll.  I'll pop it here if Dioxine wants to use it.


Should the tunic be whiter?  I went with grey-ish because of the colors on the sprites.

Edit:  Heh. My original unprofessional attempt has been supplanted by Bloax's awesome product below.

[niculinux]

Thanks ivan!!! Please Dioxine, would you use it? Hey this evening i found aout that also church priest does not yet hav an image (i barely managed to capture one alive) hope some brave and good will user may make an attempt...on the other hand for others images eventually missing i think it's enough to take a look to the directory which contains the related assets of the mod, to have a whole glimpse of what's missing:) Well..at least we'll  see in jaunary, with next rslases i hope:)

[Bloax]

Oh a KKK man, ok.

[Dioxine]

Oh a KKK man, ok.

Awesome, thx.

Is repairing armors a thing or going to be thing? That could be somewhat useful.

Definitely, but I need to draw them (because I want damaged armor to be wearable :3 ) You'll need:
1. research damaged armor (so you lose the 1st one)
2. heavy resource cost (maybe 2/3rd of what it would cost you to make a new suit), but much less time/cash
3. just a single suit of damaged armor
Or I could make it (for mid-to-late-game stuff), a little less resources but 2 suits.

[ivandogovich]

Oh a KKK man, ok.

Sweet!  Added to the online Bootypedia! 
Care to take a stab a the Church Priest and Church Matron?
Here are the battlefield sprites.


Cheers, Ivan

[DracoGriffin]

@DracoGriffin: seems in the episode n. 33 of the playthrogh you have 22 or 23 almanacs; i strongly advice to research these, provide inco on various weapons, plus the research is more quicker

I'm just a hoarder; I've already researched all the guns those Gun Almanachs could reveal (so essentially, they are useless surplus and I always forget to sell them because I get too focused on other things but I made a note to sell them all). Gun Almanachs are only really useful for the first 1 to 3 months as they are almost all early tech weapons whereas going down the Kustomized Weaponz route instead is a much better pay off.

Sweet!  Added to the online Bootypedia! 
Care to take a stab a the Church Priest and Church Matron?
Here are the battlefield sprites.
Cheers, Ivan

I feel the Bootypedia entries are also really useful due to the amount of detail Bloax provides:

Church Priest

Spoiler:

Priests are Church's field operatives, often not very bright but always fanatical in their fervour and true to their belief. The Church naturally assumes that everyone worships Star Gods, which is sometimes a good thing, and sometimes very bad thing. Be careful, them priests know how to brawl. They are usually former Zealots and might tell us about their trade as well.
I don't know if I am thinking of the same thing as Dioxine, but I wish I could remember the exact name... but I know there's like a pugilist priest in some movie that went around spreading religion. Oh my god, this is going to bug me forever until I somehow figure it out.

Church Matron

Spoiler:

Matrons are universally revered and respected officials and leaders within the Maidens of War order of the Church. Their duties are to run Maiden covens, but also various non-military establishments of the Church, from food handout centres to hospitals. Sometimes they also serve as special envoys for the Church. They're skilled melee fighters, diplomats, lore-keepers and healers. In short, these older women are jaded, sophisticated and kind of creepy so we'd better keep them separated from the rest of our population, who knows what kind of curses and love-magics they possess?
They seem like a mix between Adepta Sororitas with an evil Catholic nun twist; with a touch of Slaanesh Cultism, especially as the Church has some really dark secrets...

[Bloax]

fuck that was hard to do

[Arthanor]

Man that looks good.. now you'll have to do all the enemy paperdolls too! Otherwise they'll look like crappy next to this one

[Bloax]

Naturally, although I'm definitely prioritizing the player dolls first.

[Dioxine]

The priest is hardcore. I love it.