Author Topic: Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle  (Read 3611256 times)

Offline Ethereal_Medic

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 941
  • Pet Lokk'Nar 9,99 $/hour
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5145 on: February 02, 2018, 03:00:44 pm »
Don't use cyberdiscs as an example.  In the first place, 2x2 units can't ever wake up anyway; but more importantly, cyberdiscs explode on death so they have that whole "die even if stunned" thing going for them.

They can still go Zzz if you inflict a certain level of stun-damage to their health-pool and deal regular lethal damage to them in the second attempt.
If the loss of health drops the disk below the amount of stun damage it allready has, the disk is stunned.

Same is true for the strix-zombie. Deal stun first, add actual HP-damage second and this way you can prevent a corpse-explosion.
Dunno about this been bugfixed tho. Last time it wasn't possible to capture an alive speciment due to a stunned strix counting as ded anyway.

Offline BBHood217

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 540
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5146 on: February 02, 2018, 05:20:03 pm »
But as it turns out it's hardcoded into OpenXcom that if something's tagged to explode on death, they get the side effect of immediately dying whenever they end up in a corpse state even if that was achieved by stunning them.  So it's currently impossible to get live cyberdiscs, strixes, and boomosaurs through normal means.  At least the arcane tome can give you the live strix; but as for the other two, mind control (if it's even possible to mind control them) or possibly luring them into your exit area and then aborting the mission are the only ways to get those alive.

Offline ohartenstein23

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 1931
  • Flamethrowers fry cyberdisk circuits
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5147 on: February 02, 2018, 05:27:45 pm »
Ethereal_Medic *is* talking about units that explode on death.  Yes, there is the hardcoded bit that when stunned normally, cyberdiscs die.  But the method described can work to get a live cyberdisc; it's just hard to do.

Offline cc

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 244
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5148 on: February 02, 2018, 06:01:03 pm »
At least the arcane tome can give you the live strix; but as for the other two, mind control (if it's even possible to mind control them) or possibly luring them into your exit area and then aborting the mission are the only ways to get those alive.
Boomosaurus is very easy to mind control. It's my preferred way of taking them out, actually. :p
Cyberdisc can't be mind controlled or panicked because their voodoo strength is too high.
Strix should be possible with Sorceress and maxed mastery, though may require some panicking first. I wouldn't try it, though, since you can research them through the Arcane Tome or simply buy them after getting Saya. Too much risk for too little gain.

Also, thanks for the tip about the Cyberdisc capturing. I'll try to get it to work to finally finish get that project. :D

Offline BBHood217

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 540
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5149 on: February 04, 2018, 05:30:34 am »
I did some quick battle tests, and it still doesn't work.  Whether the stun level goes above the health level or the health level goes below the stun level, it's still the same thing: Units that explode on death immediately die upon entering a corpse state.  So it's absolutely, totally, and completely impossible to capture a live cyberdisc, strix zombie, and boomosaur via stunning.

Offline ohartenstein23

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 1931
  • Flamethrowers fry cyberdisk circuits
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5150 on: February 04, 2018, 05:45:42 am »
Look, the reason that the live cyberdisc research article and disassembly project is in the mod is that somewhere along the line, somebody was able to stun a cyberdisc and complained about not being able to do anything with it. I've been able to stun cyberdiscs in other mods too, notably Drages' S.A
R. mod, which required it at one point to get the new content in the mod. That requirement was removed precisely because it is difficult to stun a cyberdisc. Being able to might have been patched out in an engine update, but I know this was the way to do it previously. Anything that requires a live specimen of a unit that explodes on death is not necessary to the completion of Piratez and should be treated as an easter egg.

Offline Zharkov

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 427
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5151 on: February 04, 2018, 12:12:30 pm »
I did some quick battle tests, and it still doesn't work.  Whether the stun level goes above the health level or the health level goes below the stun level, it's still the same thing: Units that explode on death immediately die upon entering a corpse state.  So it's absolutely, totally, and completely impossible to capture a live cyberdisc, strix zombie, and boomosaur via stunning.

Oh, I did not know that! I am very sorry and will refrain from capturing cyberdiscs that way.

Offline BBHood217

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 540
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5152 on: February 04, 2018, 01:15:51 pm »
It's not like you need a live cyberdisc anyway since you learn how to make your own not from a live one but from a dead one.  And again, arcane tomes can tell you about the strixes.  It's really the boomosaur that's gotten shafted by this; it's bad enough that they're so rare, but now the only sane way to get live ones is with mind control.

Offline Martin

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 438
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5153 on: February 04, 2018, 01:20:45 pm »
How about (bio)drones shut down (effectively surrender) when thier bosses enter surrender more?

Offline Ethereal_Medic

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 941
  • Pet Lokk'Nar 9,99 $/hour
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5154 on: February 07, 2018, 10:18:06 am »
My 2 cents considering recent game experiences:

Siberia Base:
Tornado Rocket Mortar kicks ass! Humanists Supersoldiers are likely to get stunned by the seductress' 'charm'. 80% Thermal Vision is really tough to play around.
Don't rely on smoke cover, hide your units instead. The surface is full with tanks and mortar-launchers. Bring enough 'boom' to get rid of the tanks and super soldiers.

Mansion (Academy):
Novice Robes are a good outfit to 'scan' through walls in all directions. SENSE 3 isn't much but you can spot foes with it quite effectively.
TK Projectors are AWESOME to break multiple layers of walls. It's just a bit tricky to fight with the smokescreen caused by the 'explosion'.
Sadly I got no treasure chest this time. I need alot of those gems if I ever want to use the grey-codex voodoo exclusives.

Offline RSSwizard

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 748
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5155 on: February 07, 2018, 06:03:27 pm »
Also idk what difficulty is the game balanced around? I play on Blackbeard, if there's supposed to a be a strix spawn on the 5th one, then this is irrelevant, at least there would be some challenge to justify the grind.

I always play on Captain Kidd (easiest difficulty) and because of the inherent difficulty of the mod I would suggest that anything more is just you being a daredevil or masochist. Then again I go for 0 fatalities and sometimes 0 injuries per mission as well if it can be avoided. Those self imposed restrictions I suppose do increase the effective difficulty by alot (since frustrating reloads are imposed). Then again I rarely have more than 10 hands per base to avoid the massive salary bonuses, while ive heard of people who've got over 30 including a bunch of slave soldiers.

Its really a matter of picking your poison.

My 2 cents considering recent game experiences:
Siberia Base:
Tornado Rocket Mortar kicks ass! Humanists Supersoldiers are likely to get stunned by the seductress' 'charm'. 80% Thermal Vision is really tough to play around.
Don't rely on smoke cover, hide your units instead.
...
Mansion (Academy):
Novice Robes are a good outfit to 'scan' through walls in all directions. SENSE 3 isn't much but you can spot foes with it quite effectively. TK Projectors are AWESOME to break multiple layers of walls. It's just a bit tricky to fight with the smokescreen caused by the 'explosion'.

Unfortunately ive never made it to having these toys (TK, Tornado) or just never invested in picking them (novice, charm stuff).

I always go in with 8-9 hands all wearing Thief, plus maybe 2 Syns to hunt/kill with.

Ive discovered probably the most effective tactic for mansions is to KILL as many as possible to force the rest into a surrender. Because then you get all the other stuff hidden in the walls that you cant reach or dont have the time for (ahem, nuclear materials).

Your first/last hand always spawns on the roof and use this to your advantage to see where the map blocks have spawned. Unless vertical map block changes have been implemented (I just now realized one reason this feature may have been requested now...) it means that you can predict all the way to elevation 0 where most things will be. Most specifically the Wizard Towers and the Neophyte Shower Rooms (the security map block).

If you're looking for treasure chests you need to look for a 2x2 open courtyard with a garden in it. If its not on the map neither are your treasure chests. Also worth noting that a north balcony room has a bag of cash in it, and there's a gun magazine on the south side.

The Security map block will have big spawn points for mobs on every floor, its an open cieling shower room at the top, then a generator room, then a small bar, and on the ground floor its a kitchen. I send a Syn with a charger laspistol through there to inflict murder and she picks up a bigger weapon like a tommy/shotgun/blackmarch smg when she finds it.


Siberia:
Its meant to be a hard mission that says "nahh, youll need unusual tactics for this one". You should have a plentiful supply of baby nukes gathered from supply ship runs by now, and this is the mission where you want to use them. Its tempting to want to collect as much loot/corpses as possible but on the Surface you're just going to have to destroy. Either that or lots, and lots, and lots of hellerium grenades, and put someone on Mortar duty with plasma mortars.
(tornado rocket mortar does sound ideal for this, but thats a heck of alot of weight and inventory to carry, it can be handled alot more efficiently with smaller items).

If you can find the humanist leader be careful with him because he's got the briefcase you're after.

Get underground as fast as possible, I suggest using force blades so you can tear the supersoldiers up. Ironically I think the biggest danger is the humanist instructors with nuclear lasers, there always seem to be alot of them down there and they come out of nowhere and rape you. I always seem to spend alot of time performing first aid on my hands in those tunnels.

Offline Solarius Scorch

  • Global Moderator
  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 11408
  • WE MUST DISSENT
    • View Profile
    • Nocturmal Productions modding studio website
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5156 on: February 07, 2018, 07:16:15 pm »
Cap'n Kidd is unfair towards the AI, though. (Much like in vanilla X-Com, though not as much.) Primarily because armour values are lower on enemies, which is basically a dirty cheat IMO.
There's no point in going higher difficulty than you feel like, but I suggest choosing at least second lowest level - it won't be unfair, just easy.

Offline sinisteragent

  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 55
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5157 on: February 07, 2018, 10:56:22 pm »
I'm pretty sure any good ufo mod, including this one, is balanced around the middle three difficulty levels. The easiest and hardest ones are basically novelty cheat modes (which is obviously totally fine if you play them, but they're not normal settings).

I particularly recommend against the top setting as the increase in enemy numbers just turns everything into a slog, and not necessarily a challenging one.

Offline Ethereal_Medic

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 941
  • Pet Lokk'Nar 9,99 $/hour
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5158 on: February 07, 2018, 11:04:36 pm »
Difficulty setting also changes the behaviour how fast and how many enemy hideouts will be built across the globe.
Mercenaries and Star Gods show up 16 months into the game meddling around dumping down score while you stick along with primitive laser and plasma weaponry for a while.

Difficult level 3 seems about right and 4 is just a bit more 'challenging' due to more enemy spawns.
Difficult level 5 is the cheat buffing the A.I. for 18-20% bonus armor.

Offline RSSwizard

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 748
    • View Profile
Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99I1 - 26 Dec - Spirit of Christmas
« Reply #5159 on: February 08, 2018, 07:46:29 pm »
Cap'n Kidd is unfair towards the AI, though. (Much like in vanilla X-Com, though not as much.) Primarily because armour values are lower on enemies, which is basically a dirty cheat IMO.
Based on that assessment I think ill hack my save up to the 2nd lowest difficulty. Also because less enemy hideouts honestly result in less rape against the AI, and thus a slightly slower tech progression.

While these lower armor values are nicer to deal with it also means I end up with more fatalities, even if I use stun equipment. So having higher armor on enemies would actually be useful.

It is worth mentioning the stat bonuses on enemy units are something that folks overlook besides the armor/firing effect. Having even one static +4 or +8 bonus on something can make a difference (and with firing accuracy, a static bonus layered with an increased multiplier against it will make enemies quite abit more accurate).