Extended Piratez general FAQ/Strategy Guide

[xcomfan]

ok got it, in the meantime i dressed one of my gals (mistress) with "admiral de corazon" but durina a battle she fell stunned?! Whiy? 

[JustTheDude/CABSHEP]

ok got it, in the meantime i dressed one of my gals (mistress) with "admiral de corazon" but durina a battle she fell stunned?! Whiy? 

Admiral De Corazon drains Readiness very quickly. Low Readiness (I think) gives stun damage to the unit.

[xcomfan]

Admiral De Corazon drains Readiness very quickly. Low Readiness (I think) gives stun damage to the unit.

oh i see i hat almost a stroke (!!!) i lowered the difficulty from "Davy Hones" to "Blackbeard", and managed to capture a ninja gal. Im also thinking to build a secon base, what would be a nice place for it? I got only 1.5$ bilion, may i manage to do that?

[Gremlion]

I was going to say that you are doing well for third month, and then I saw jan 2602.
The same errors like in previous playthrough - not enough brainers (why do you have free lab slots, WHY?!), not enough runts, not enough radar coverage.
You should've covered the world in bases by now.

[xcomfan]

I was going to say that you are doing well for third month, and then I saw jan 2602.
The same errors like in previous playthrough - not enough brainers (why do you have free lab slots, WHY?!), not enough runts, not enough radar coverage.
You should've covered the world in bases by now.

Pheraps because i have a defensive playstyle? Or should use more paesant "cannon fodder" militia? Or even lower difficulty again? (which i don't wanna) 

[vadracas]

Pheraps because i have a defensive playstyle?

Money unspent is money wasted, simple as that, no matter your playstyle. The priorities in xpiratez are money, manufacturing, and research. The best way to make money is research that provides points which lead to your monthly infamy bonus, and manufacturing cash cow products. The best way to expand your research and manufacturing capabilities is money.


Do you see the cycle? Becaue the minute you fall off of that circular cycle of money to money, you start to lose.

[xcomfan]

Money unspent is money wasted, simple as that, no matter your playstyle. The priorities in xpiratez are money, manufacturing, and research. The best way to make money is research that provides points which lead to your monthly infamy bonus, and manufacturing cash cow products. The best way to expand your research and manufacturing capabilities is money.


Do you see the cycle? Becaue the minute you fall off of that circular cycle of money to money, you start to lose.

i see but often before the end of a month i get warned that the future balance will be passive if i do not sell something, probaly i have to rexamuine my financial policy. Any advice also on that?

[vadracas]

The way to not have that problem is have a good score for the month, research gives you a good score. Other advice would have to be-Don't stockpile anything and everything. If you haven't researched it, keep it, but don't keep 30 of it. SHip engines are a good example of this.

[Gremlion]

Or even lower difficulty again? (which i don't wanna)

To my knowledge first difficulty makes the game harder by disabling some researches, second one is intended, then the higher you go, the easier the game becomes because you get more enemies on missions = more exp and loot, but you aren't utilizing money you get well enough at all.

Or should use more paesant "cannon fodder" militia?

You should use more people who tell you about shiny things and more people who can make those shiny things.

Pheraps because i have a defensive playstyle?

I have no idea what you imply under "defensive playstyle". Your base doesn't have antiair defense, your girls don't have personal defense, your ships don't have any means of selfdefense.
You don't have a single veteran girl (ok, I will be fair, 2 almost there),
from my December save:

I have 14 people like that. They literally can punch through tank armor.

You don't have a playstyle, you are losing the game again. You had -4k score, enemies got a base (reading though save it's Mercenaries/Mutons, they have gauss and plasma, you will not be able to assault it, your troops, armor and ships suck), jan 2602 is the month where game starts to generate space missions with penalty for not attending (you don't have space capable ship), enemies start to use plasma, training missions become scarce, simple animal hunts start to contain nomads with dragon rifles (50+ damage) and hunting laser (45) or ninja gals with boarding guns. More and more enemies will have interceptor behavior.
What you could do better:
1. not enough brainers, having empty lab is inexcusable.
2. you have light cannon in your storage, you could buy a simple aircar, strap the cannon and hunt civilians. Civilians can't shoot back(they are green. grey ships can and will shoot back). Every civilian ship is potential 200-300k (100k engine, some even have 2, 60k bag of cash, 2-4 captures for 30k each). For example, in my december save I have 60 downed ships *200k=12 millions. see, where you are missing funds to build bases?
3. you didn't have brainpower to research purchasable aircraft weapon and ammo.
4. your manufacturing sucks.
december, I sold 4200 units of grog alone for 21 million, out of apples for now, but still should be couple hundreds of chateau.

5. you don't take hostages. It's december and you still didn't get priest from church of sirius? Man, his head is 60k for alive one. Sharp guy is 40k. You are burying millions by killing civilians. You don't have handles in your default loadout or stun batons; if you want shooty things, domestic/police shotgun with rubber slugs is great.

[xcomfan]

allright, then i updated my save reaching the end of jan 2602. But it's too late to save the game and have to restart or i still have a chance?

[Gremlion]

  Man, you are so dense. You have 1.5M and you were told to hire brainers. Maybe try to hire brainers? Or, I don't know, hire brainers?
You haven't done anything to salvage the game during january, like hiring brainers.
I used your older save and played Jan myself:
First thing I did is I rummaged through your warehouse (god, it's so empty), sold expedition, bought aircar, bolted 25mm cannon and first vessel crashed.

Aaand I hired brainers
went to some bounty hunt

temple of sirius

One enemy spawned in inacessible location, at least I got experience while searching for it

Some demons visited us with unfriendly intentions:

Anyway, holy crap, man you are pirate, You should take hostages to get booty. Why you didn't take a single hostage in 50 missions FFS?!
Here, proper ships gated behind researching hostages:

Leave you with a proper Boss Gal.

Things I did:
1. Gamble. You should regularly gamble and reclaim coupons. I've won a lottery with a longsword, it's a pretty obscure dependency for tech blade (you will see it already equipped, this baby can slash tank in half)
2. Hiring brainers. As a result in one month I got access to better armors, better melee weapon, purchasable ammo for ship guns, ship gins and ships.
3. Taking hostages. Look at your prison, it is no longer a sandbox for random freak.
4. Invested into buildings. Your base now looks like a base.
5. And populated it.
Things I didn't do:
1. I didn't unlock new mission types. Bounty hunt grade C is in queue, you might do it right away, they aren't much harder than D in most cases.
2. I didn't build a second base.
Things you should prioritize:
1. Build second base with at least 2 hangars. You want to move empty airbus there (there would be a mission where airbus is the best transport, plus nostalgia), and buy shadowbat for your main team. Second hangar should get Golden Hawk. Bolt that funky heavy gun you got from codex into it, should be quite powerful.
2. I'm making spiked maces, it's quite good weapon against armored targets, put them in the main vessel. Next item you will want to make is thermal mesh, which is being researched. It goes into wear slot and helps against plasma damage. Quite good.
3. Get overcharged radar, delete your old one
4. research wise - after medicine rush sickbay (I made sure to leave enough supplies to build one straight away), you will start to recover faster and will be able to hire another brainer. Chew through people, some of them have "metal ore", it's a prerequisite for alchemy (lets you build still in other bases, it's a prerequisite for mess hall, brainer!). Better ships are locked behind "Ship engine" tech. You could've gotten it by now if you didn't kill everyone in "traitors at large" mission, traitor mutants know some cool techs. It might be worth buying one for researching.

[xcomfan]

Very very kind of you, thanks! eh i know i'm not that smart... So to unlock codex related ships once i manufactured it, i have to interrogate proper enmies?

[Rince Wind]

You have to interrogate enemies for a LOT of things. And for a lot more things interrogating them is better then just researching them because you'll get score for the interrogation and the new tech. So if you don't need the information about assault rifles NOW, just wait and hope some prisoner will tell you about it.

[Gremlion]

For your own sake consider that you can't get anywhere without repeated interrogations of every single being.
Construction of any relevant ship is gated behind Shadowmasters (doesn't drop as an item, you get it from interrogations and some rare books) ->Codex crafts-> Shadowtech ->cloaking device-> Interceptor assembly ->everything else.
Take, for example, enemy you should've interrogated in the first month:

"Leads to" is a hard dependency. Because you didn't research him ever you never got 2 missions.
Highway house, iirc - guaranteed spawn of aircraft weapon. You can check gal diaries in my save, in ~40 days I got 7 downed civilian missions (6 done, 1 crash site is ready to go), Imagine if you did the same 7-8 months ago? 50+ ufo with 100k engines...
Bandit business - I think unlocks bandit town mission, very fun as it has like 30+ enemies, it's ton of ransom money, weapons and researches.
"Gives one for free". 13/41 means that you can research him 41 times and it would give additional tech each time, 13 times left (thanks meridian for this counter).
For example, he can tell about smugglers.

And it's the only thing which stops you from getting acquainted with smuggler shop.

I love hallucinogen grenades, they make enemies surrender and panic. Laslock pistol is quite good with admiral outfit, though you already proved that can't read what admiral outfit does.
Smugglers themselves is a dependency for diplomacy and interrogations.

[wolfreal]

Just try again. It took me like three "one year" runs to grasp some of the stuff. And after that, I have done several "Until december 2602" runs to get some of the middle game grasp.

I will attach my current run. It is not perfect, I have made several errors, like chasing for early workshop and struggle to get it because RNG. I'm trying to get shadowmasters now to get better craft, and I'm starting expanding the radar / hangar coverage. And I need to research new missions, 'cause I'm getting a little behind in the getting new stuff department. Getting airballs / 25mm cannon is vital if you want a good progression early. And yes, brainers are absurdly important here. The mod can forgive you lot of stuff, but getting extremely behind in tech is not one of then.  When you start losing the night vision advantage, and does not have the proper equipment, you're scrubbed.