Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N9.7.7 12-Sep-2024 Second Coming

[Gunner-chan]

It feels like something is still not quite right with the score system, sometimes I do fine and other times I get a huge negative hit out of nowhere that I can't find an explanation for. Either that or I don't know how to find missions with the airbus well enough yet.

[Dioxine]

Large negative scores out of 'nowhere' happen from time to time. I'm not sure what's causing them myself... better to keep eyes peeled.

[Gunner-chan]

I took a peek into my saves, and made more with some exploratory edits. There are huuugee "Alien" scores popping up in north america which I have zero ability to reach, Over 1000 points worth. Weirdly enough I appear to have some points in the region despite not being able to reach it at all. I also noticed I had a -300 in china for some reason, despite china being close enough I actually do a lot there. Something is weird.

[Bloax]

Clearly it's time for a "Score +/- Due to [(Enemy) Mission]" log feature.

oh and


ayy

[Disposable Guardsman]

Huh, for some reason I can't get the Heavy Metal research option to appear. I've got all the pre-requisites, but it's not available to research. Does it require a special facility to be present as well?

[Vesparco]

Hi again,

After one year I can raise back from the dead to play again Xpiratez.
I've been testing extensively the 0.98 and 0.99 versions and I have to say it has amazingly improved from one year ago.

I've reached 1 year+ with last campaign before restarting and I found the following issues due to the huge diversity of missions and the lack of oportunity for certain encounters. I believe the reason is the lack of Trader's guild activity during the periods (basically it was mostly the church vs pirates).

- Toxigun: More scarce than elerium on the crust of earth and disabling one key technology (adv chemistry). Is it really necessary considering that you have also chem munitions as another requirement? In my game I ended erasing the requirement from the code after interrogating 10 guild engineers without success (they can speak about too much stuff).

- Armors: Again blocked due to the lack of armor power parts (and maybe something more). The weapons are not critical as you can salvage gauss weaponry after the first encounter with them but afterwards it becomes a one-shot kill to most of the ladies (which almost encourages guerrilla uniforms to increase the chance of survival). Are all mid/high tier armors dependant on the salvage of enemy in order to manufacture?

-Terror units: same as previously. Haven't seen a reaper/boomsaurus/cyberdisk and so you lack the techs associated to them (when they are relevant).

- Aircraft technologies: Technologies not linked to light weapons. This makes the research rather optional as you salvage the vessels and rearm yourself (I usually use the technique of launching one brick vessel and three others behind to shoot down hard stuff).

For the rest impecable, it's an amazing mod. Never though it could get this better.

[Solarius Scorch]

In my understanding, this mod accepts and relies on randomness to increase replayability. Toxigun is not a necessary technology; sometimes you get it, sometimes you get something else. So I wouldn't consider it a problem. The same about terror units.
Lack of armour parts is a problem, even though it never happened to me, since there are several sources of them; in other words, the chances are pretty small. But there are alternatives: for example in Meridian's LP he never encountered Raiders, a fairly common faction, so he has big problems with metal armours (because no rare earth elements except from sewers hunting). So I suppose you do have some other armours, because you must be fighting somebody.
About the air weapons, I'm not sure what you mean. Is it that you don't have to research simpler weapons? Yeah, it's similar to firearms - you don't really have to research them if you don't want to. I guess it's a playstyle thing.

[Meridian]

In my understanding, this mod accepts and relies on randomness to increase replayability. Toxigun is not a necessary technology; sometimes you get it, sometimes you get something else. So I wouldn't consider it a problem.

Toxigun is a necessary technology, you cannot finish the game without it.

(Toxigun > Advanced Chemistry > School Graduation > Advanced Habitation > Mars Attack Vessel)

EDIT: btw. almost everything is a necessary technology, heck even Slavery is necessary! Only a few guns and some lore is optional afaik.

[Solarius Scorch]

Toxigun is a necessary technology, you cannot finish the game without it.

Oops. Sorry, I should have checked. It just never occurred to me.
Yeah, maybe this needs addressing.

EDIT: btw. almost everything is a necessary technology, heck even Slavery is necessary! Only a few guns and some lore is optional afaik.

Slavery is not necessary, since you can get all the research from pillow books. But it makes the game a little easier thanks to the extra space.
But to answer more fully, I'd have to examine the tech tree, which frankly I'm not willing to do because spoilers.

[Meridian]

Slavery is not necessary, since you can get all the research from pillow books.

You need Slavery for Interrogation Techniques, which you need for basically everything else. No way around it. Not playing much PirateZ, are you?

[Solarius Scorch]

You need Slavery for Interrogation Techniques, which you need for basically everything else. No way around it. Not playing much PirateZ, are you?

Sorry, I meant you don't have to research slaves. The research itself is necessary, but it doesn't force you to enslave people, and it's very accessible.
But yeah, I don't play nearly enough.

[vitto]

Well, it is my first playthrough and I am stuck, ver. 0.99. Year 2606 already, but I saw only once "The Coordinator" in my first encounter of them about few years ago. Of course I killed him. Now, I am finished almost everything: MSDF & Rebels has been done. New (last) year became especially strange: early I saw many raiders driving casual vessels, spartans driving >raider's< vessels, but last thing was the govt forces attacked my base... Weird. I supposed this was a training mission between their and my forces =)

Ok, back to the problem. How to catch that son of b****? I did not saw any ships with Star Gods about 2 years and without their codes looks like it is impossible to finish the game... How many years I should wait? Or this is the end of my playthrough (because I must be careful about research decisions in next time)?

--

Anyway, weird things I saw, IMHO, shortly: cyclops, ghosts and willie pete.
1. Cyclops: no need to create enemies with an armor better than tanks/lobstermen.
2. Ghost armor: the game engine does not understand its mechanic. We, players, can understand why a doorway passage is blocked by "invisible wall", but the game engine does not understand such situations and there is endless loop appears.
3. Invisibility is not described. Well, until I have tested by myself how ghost armor is working I was very very angry about such "innovation" in the game. Hint: try to heal your "ghost gal" with another gal This should be explained in boobspedia.
4. Willie Pete is ultimate. First, it is one-shot killer for cyberdiscs. Second, its side-effect works against power armored units. And third, the damage caused on most units even better than fusion grenade (!).

Also the next items should be nerfed, IMHO:

• Kruger: overpowered, aiming should be lowered. Reticulant Plasma Gun have even worse aiming, but it is a rifle (!)
• XG Chaingun: overpowered, aiming should be lowered. Bio Armor + XG Chaingun are your problem solvers forever. How many guns invented? And still like in 90s (I mean original X-Com): one ultimate armor, one ultimate weapon.
• Ghost dagger: should be removed or nerfed. But. Using it against cyclops does not provide enough pleasure. 2-3 gals trying to kill one cyclop with ghost daggers in their hands and... may be, may be in this turn you will be lucky and you will kill it (how to play with such mechanic in ironman mode?!). I have an idea... remove the possibility to manufacture it as weapon, yep, keep it only as an armor set item
• Microwave Cooker: not funny at all. One-shot killer against Bio Armor. And how I should keep my gals alive in Ironman mode?! No. The problem is... one beam of microwave cooker is even better than shot of sectopod's gun. Does not this looking strange, hmm?
• Seduction versus everything else. The problem is that most knock/stun/stasis/you name it grenades AND all stun items does not working at all!!! Ok, knockout and stun grenades are working as intended, but cattle prod is really sucks. One shot of seduction "spell" and guildmaster/provost/everyone (except demons) will drain floors in your base. And what about cattle prod? Well, may be, may be 10 your gals, each with cattle prod in their hands will put down big bad GM in one turn. But may be he will draw his gun and kill few of yours. Hehe. Not funny. What is the point of cattle prod if its effect a bit, repeat, a bit better than stun rod? Hell, I remember that smoke grenades works even better than all that stuff. Also, there is a problem with random "wake ups". The stun effect of seduction spell is much greater (units will wake up rare). And in compare with airlessness wand... well, this thing is really broken, its work even worse than harpoon, and 7 shots... IMHO, this wand should be reworked: 100% hit guarantee, 100% armor penetration and so on. Hell, 7 shots which may be hit and may be not (even if it hits somebody, this does not mean that unit will be stunned, you should shoot more and more).

Ok, may be I am wrong. But that's my first feelings about X-Piratez Extended. Don't be too angry on me. Ty!

[Rince Wind]

Regarding the Cattle Prod: It is cheap, it is there from the beginning (almost) and it can stun anything without heavy armor quickly. You don't expect the Tommy to be effective against Provosts and their ilk, so why would you do that for the cattle prod? The heavy armor probably works like a Faraday cage.

Also, in Ironman you just accept that some gals die. Yes, it sucks (to loose the armor) but that is the risk of being a pirate. I am fighting mostly mercs in my pogroms at the moment, with Revenant as the standard armor (some heavier stuff and some specialists in lighter armor lke seductresses, medics and blitz armored melee gals) and I usually loose one or two.

[Dioxine]

Very helpful analysis, well except the 'how could I keep my gals alive in Ironman mode'. You cannot, hopefully. Also you're very lucky you've made 6 years in w/o a critical crash. Ironman is unadvised.
Cooker is the counter against super-armors. It's almost a non-issue if you're using fast troops. Also, its effective range is 10 tiles at best, while sectopod can fire all across the map.
In general, I will say it once again, endgame is maybe 50% finished, at best. This doesn't naturally change the fact that your problems (hardly unique) will be hopefully resolved before 1.0.
'Ultimate weapons'. Frankly, I've already read about 2 dozens of 'ultimate weapon sets' proposed by various players, all different. Seductress isn't fully tested yet, it's possibly quite OP. The disadvantages are serious - as in, no armor whatsoever. Maybe not serious enough, I agree.
Evaluations of the Cattle Prod vary from 'ultimate' to 'useless', depending on player

[legionof1]

I find the microwave cooker something more of an environmental hazard then anything. Very few enemy units have the fireing skill to make it threatening anywhere beyond point blank. Since it has a snap shot mode ai will very often take shots well beyond useful range. Usually ashing a few of there buddies in the process. Shotguns that have snap fire mode are just not very dangerous in ai hands. Boom gun is an exception since its seems to have a much tighter grouping.

Seduction while powerful draws on a semi limited resource, a good voodoo score. Most gals don't have the voodoo power/skill to make most voodoo gear worthwhile compared to mundane guns.

kruger is very good for its size but its still a pistol and therefore suffers at long range. I also find that using a side arm on a lethal option with a not great ammo per clip is not a very good use of space for most gals the more your tech advances. Krugers are also somewhat hard to find early game when it could have the largest impact. It doesn't take to long for its plasma damage type to be its only exceptional feature.

Cattle prods are in a kind of weird spot. They are very good stun weapons in terms of base damage but they are clunky in size and time units. Gun butt attacks completely replace them as long as a gal is above a certain str. And if your str is low nuff to make gun butt bad you probably have weight issues anyway and the prod is not particularly light.