Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle

[Arthanor]

The AI considers being under fire in its decision to move, IF I remember well. IE for a given trajectory, it might decide to do something different after being interrupted by reaction fire, even if that missed. By giving relatively slow and inaccurate snap shots (less accurate than the autoshot, which implies setting up and aiming, and slower per shot too, since the soldier is trying to readjust his aim) they are a pretty useless option for using during the player turn but still achieve something to make them feel like suppression weapons.

[Ashghan]

Unrelated question - are Zombies supposed to be flying missions? I got a Zombie Military Transport and a Zombie Sentry flying a Crackdown mission. Should I expect a Zombie cruiser knocking on my hideout's gates?

Also - got a Rod of Bliss from a lucky underwater adventure (loving them!) - the 'Use' function costs 100% of your TU's. Is it supposed to be so? Only as a means of keeping stunned enemies stunned? Same goes for Manacles?

[Dioxine]

Yes, since it ignores all armor and resistances (even Manacles don't ignore all resistances); so it would be very OP if useable in battle.

As for Zombies, they shouldn't fly Crackdowns. Only some normal missions (the crew got infected). I'll take a look.

[RSSwizard]

How am I doing:
Just got through the first year. I have two bases (one is an outpost/storage facility). My first power station is about to be completed. Ive got chainmail for most of my hands, researched the tiny drill and got the gray codex with it. Still cant really make any guns, but oddly I can make ammunition for some of them (none of the ones I want to make ammo for really though)

Consistently had 10 Brainers and 30 Runts for most of the year, added Runts up to 50 after the workshop (completed in Sept I think) was built, though I added an Extractor to increase the number of runts prior to that. I could have built another workshop but it just costs too much.

I Make a good deal of money on Chateau De La Mort from the apples collected in the ratmen maps. When that runs out I make X-Grog.

Ive got an aircar thats still using the charger laser I started the game with. I had a turtle and sold it (I bought and sold it when it was ~650 in the previous version, now that its 1.1 mil I wont be buying it again), I can usually do what I need to do with 4 ladies anyway. Only other weapon bearing crafts available are the shark jetbike and the airspeeder. Other than the conversion launcher I got from the gray drill I havent been able to make any other craft weapons, and the seagull launcher/missiles are too pricey to use.

Havent shot down any ships that shoot back yet, only civilian traffic, might have shot down one that fired a few times and missed.

Ive engaged in 2 pogroms, usually crap score, near zero or negative, mutants end up almost completely dead but at least my hands make it out alive (mostly). I completely skipped the one with the doom monsters, I only killed three monsters despite all my efforts so I just reloaded a prior save and let it be. I didnt research Mutant Alliance until about Oct because I had the notion it would force going to pogroms or lose points.

Ive got over 2000 chips combined of the $200 and $1000 variety because the research said it was possible to hack them up to Silver level (5000) but when I took a peek at the research rules it looks like its gonna be a loooong time before that can be done.

Ive continously skipped about 8 or 9 undersea adventures because I have no underwater weapons, and there are man-sharks that kill me instantly. I got undersea adventure sometime early on like march. So I might go there just to look at the scenery but I dont do anything. I can get oxygen tanks but without weapons its not worth it, wherever the treasure is on the map I usually cant find it and there's usually critters guarding it. (whatever ruleset/scripting is used to remove the normal items sounds like a good way to make Land Only use items for TFTD as well, might take notes to deprive soldiers of grenades in tftd).

It seems my most effective weapons right now are Cattle Prods, Harpoon Guns (with stun darts), Boom Fruits, and ive used the Military Shotgun with AP shells to decent effect in the Pogroms. Also the Clockwork Musket pistol, that thing does outrageous damage but its balanced for being unwieldy.

Also most of my ladies are stellar with melee attack and strong as hell, the Saber/Axe/Billhook are able to kill some enemies that guns barely scratch (like the "humongous raider").

Year End: ive got about $6,100,000

Edit: Will also say that the animal hunts generally kill me so I avoid those. I can take down the white shambler no problem now, and I can manage to put down bloodhounds and megascorpions, but I avoid chupacabras like they're chrissys (I just cant kill them, and they make short work of my ladies). As it stands I only kill a few bloodhounds/scorpions and I drag the carcasses back into the ship.

[Arthanor]

So I felt like messing around and decided it was probably time to recompile OXCE+v3.3, upgrade my save and go say hello to the gals. I was going through the "upgrade between versions" topic and found back:

Update to 0.99E.1:
Upgrading on Battlescape unadvised.
> If you have started a campaign pre-0.99E, add STR_CODEX_GREEN to your items.

and then Eddie's post on what each colors/kinds of voodoo can do. I just realized it won't affect me because I had already researched them all, but still:

I understand the idea of giving the player choices that have meaning. At the same time, a Piratez game is a long commitment so being able to experience/use all that's available would be very interesting. Meridian is at 156 episodes, which is probably about 150 hours, and he's not done yet. I don't know how many hours I've put in my campaign, and honestly don't want to know, but I am not likely to go through multiple campaign.

Because of this, I feel like the different kinds of starting ships are a great idea, in that the choice affects initial gameplay but not overall what you can do as any of those ships is likely to be replaced by other crafts eventually. However, the different voodoo kinds all offer interesting new gameplay options during the end game when things are kind of stretching as you hunt for the last VIP (the point where I stopped playing this Summer). Reducing variations at that point, and requiring a player to go through the long early/mid game to experience the variety seems like a very harsh consequence for an early choice. I will likely just keep upgrading my late game save to try things, and maybe occasionally starting a new game to see how the beginning is different.

Researching everything and experiencing everything is one of the "endgame satisfactions" for many, and psi stuff being so important in XCom, and very flavorful in Piratez, it is a significant thing to (partly) lock away but, at the same time, I'm not sure it's enough to warrant replaying the whole campaign (and not choosing the disciplines that best fit your playstyle, in my case destruction and illusion). In my case, it'd be more frustration than incentive.

[KateMicucci]

^I agree, getting locked out of late-game techs sounds awful. Unlocking those techs and then using the new toys is the best part of the game.

I'm going to hack the tech tree if it comes to that point.

[khade]

I'd probably just save right before deciding, then do all of them, but I can see what you mean.  I'd appreciate access to the other codices, albeit with difficulty.  More menace type ship hulls would be nice too, though probably less necessary.

For RSSwizard, you should be able to make guns now, all it needs is that workshop and the right research.  Probably wise to avoid the alliance, as they do require your assistance with pogroms.  I'm not at all an expert on the underwater adventures, as I am still really early in the game and haven't done anything with them, but I understand that the harpoon guns ought to be compatible, logically spears should be as well.  Beyond that, I don't know for sure.

[Arthanor]

I'd probably just save right before deciding, then do all of them, but I can see what you mean.  I'd appreciate access to the other codices, albeit with difficulty.  More menace type ship hulls would be nice too, though probably less necessary.

The problem is that the choice of which codex to pursue happens pretty early in the game, while psi-power tends to be unlocked fairly late since they often depend on rare/difficult captures. Saving right before deciding will save you some time in a replay, but not that much.

I would be happy to have to work really hard to unlock other codices, like doing some crazy academy library mission that is even more twisted than the mansion (an academy library would logically be staffed by high level, psi-capable enemies), since in the later game there's not that much that challenge you while providing you with the incentive to go against it. Mercs and Star Gods are hard, but at the same time you can often ignore them, especially after researching the no-pogrom and no-infiltration techs. Having hard missions that you want to do would be good for the later game too, as a change from trying to trigger retaliations to get VIPs.

[Foxhound634]

^I agree, getting locked out of late-game techs sounds awful. Unlocking those techs and then using the new toys is the best part of the game.

I'm going to hack the tech tree if it comes to that point.

A compromise could be made. I'm not familiar with the tech or its prerequisites, but what if you made all the options available, but harder to research for each consecutive discipline already unlocked?

Example: You research option 3, which takes Y time. Now you research option 1 which takes Y x2 time. Option 4 would take Y x3 and option 3 would take Y x4 time (the order wouldn't matter, only how many of the options that were already unlocked).

I dunno whether or not it's possble to dynamically alter a research topic's time cost ingame on the fly, or if you would have to have hidden duplicate topics for each possible situation.

Example: Option 1A with Y cost is available if no options has been researched yet. Option 1B with cost Y x2 is available if one of the other options has been researched, etc.

[RSSwizard]

A compromise could be made. I'm not familiar with the tech or its prerequisites, but what if you made all the options available, but harder to research for each consecutive discipline already unlocked?

Actually I think it should work 100% the opposite.
The more you know, the easier it is to learn new things.

Farther up the tech tree you go, the longer a tech has remained unresearched the easier it should be to research it. Practically handed to you at the end if you've gone much of the game without touching it.

"All things come to those who wait"

Sidenote: I started the game with a Charger Laser, but now its not in the bootypedia?

[Drasnighta]

New Version doesn't start you with a Charger Laser.

[Foxhound634]

Actually I think it should work 100% the opposite.
The more you know, the easier it is to learn new things.

Farther up the tech tree you go, the longer a tech has remained unresearched the easier it should be to research it. Practically handed to you at the end if you've gone much of the game without touching it.

Yes but my suggestion was a compromise between dioxine's wish to have some tech exclude other tech, and other people's wish to have access to everything. With that solution you can get everything, but it's gonna be much more time consuming, thereby still forcing you to make an initial choice.

[Drasnighta]

Got caught out by this one earlier:



Loader Armor Bootypedia entry states that it is "Spaceworthy"...  And I launched to an Orbital with that...

...  But of course, Pods everywhere, because it doesn't have a "O-G" version, which I checked, of, course, when I got back....


Are Loaders Intended for Zero-G Ops?

[RSSwizard]

New Version doesn't start you with a Charger Laser.

That seriously slows down the game then, if I start any new games im going to hack my saves to add one each time. Spike rockets arent cost effective for shooting down anything you can shoot down with it (the Airbus not having a weapon slot is bad enough as it is, that you have to even get another craft to even be able to shoot at things).

I still havent bought spike rockets, and only a few seagulls for the conversion launcher. Im only going to buy that stuff to take down something heavy (200+ damage capacity).

So the only missions the player would get otherwise are - the random rare ufo that actually lands within radar range (I only had 1 do so per month, at most), or the popup missions like watchtower/ratmen/temple. Just that over and over and over again.

Though I guess it does give the player more time to zip through on the 1 Day time progression just researching every last thing that they can without much input equipment/captures.

You could spend 5 Years ingame doing this, just zipping through time, mining Hellerium, eventually sack your Brainers because you researched everything... getting your hands up to peak stats so that they can take on Pogroms with Chainsaws.

Im sorry but removing the charger laser from startup is g a m e b r e a k i n g.

And the alternative method (expending a bunch of money on spike rockets just to shoot down Civilian Traffic I dont agree with and I wouldnt use, besides it can Destroy those ships rather than make them salvageable).

Also knowing this about the Menacing Hull/Tiny Drill I absolutely would never expend the drill to turn the Hull into the type that gives you a Charger Laser if I didnt already have one. Because by the time you can make that happen you should be getting other craft weapons.

Only reason id Tiny Drill to get the Charger Laser version is so I could equip both of them on a ship to be able to shoot down heavier ships.

[khade]

By the time I tend to get ships capable of using guns, I usually have at least some 25/30/50mm cannons, which are all superior to the charger except in the long term resource requirements.  Based on what I've seen about that laser, it's actually supposed to be an anti missile system, not an offensive weapon at all.

Though I'm not really fast or focused when it comes to research, so others might get better ships faster, and I did base how quickly I expanded my fleet on available craft weaponry.

We are able to get easily crafted weapons really early.

Also, stalking enemy ships even though you can't shoot them down is a thing, sometimes civilians land, and most easy faction shipping are slow enough to follow.

What I want is the ability to buy airbusses again, they suck, but having 6 gal raiding parties ready is very useful early on.