Extended Piratez general FAQ/Strategy Guide

[Gremlion]

I haven't played the original much so don't have baseline to compare. Could you tell me if attached save has some glaring flaws?

You can reread last 2 pages, everything said there can be applied to your save (i.e no brainers, no runts, no additional bases approaching the end of the year). The only difference is that you are doing tactical fights much better.

notably:
I spent a few months with low score cos everyone was wounded.

use backup teams. You want to spread freshness and wounds over multiple groups. You want multiple bases with ship to be able to reach landed ships in time, usually people go for "current dropship capacity"*2 in secondary bases and 3-4 times in the main one (losing the lab is more or less = losing the game).

Freshness you can recover by like 9/day with onsen, which means you can do 9 turns/day. It's 2-3 short missions with godly gals, but once per 2 days for bad ones.
Wounds you can eventually start to recover faster, but you need medicine researched.
Both of those recover options you couldn't get because your research speed is slow - not enough brainers.

I'd like to mass produce platemail but couldnt even find it under research.

Platemail takes ~year to get with 20 brainers, you have 6, you will get in in 3 years.
You were close to getting chainmail, but you still didn't research warehouse wars, mission which gives guild stapler, bottleneck for durathread working ->workshop->chainmail.
!topics! will unlock new missions, new loot and new enemies to interrogate.
You want blowfish ship for underwater ones and at least x-bows.
underground - recruit lokknars.

I know i need to invest in a craft with weapons but no idea what to buy since whenever i tried it craft just died horribly.

You need to focus on interrogations of non-faction people to get "shadowmasters" topic. Experiment victim, Hoes, drifters, savvy girls and sharp guys... you can mouse wheel click and see if a person can give it for free. It will unlock codex crafts, they will be your backbone for a long time.
You got red codex, scorpion will be a great dropship, snake will be fine intercepter - it has shield and can use any weapon you find.
To get weapons you need to interrogate highwayman, it unlocks 2 missions, one of them guarantees aircraft weapon loot. Undersea missions give sonic oscillator, amazing anti-civilian weapon.

To purchase weapons you need to invest into bounty hunting, rockets and 30mm cannon is there. Alternatively, with a snake the fastest gun to get is from "contacts:rogue field warlords", it gives ramjet cannon, you need to get rogue field from interrogation and research slavery.

before engaging check how ship looks - green ones and ambulance can't shoot back, you can down such ships with anything.
You can pile up multiple ships to intercept a single one by intercepting your own ship.

+
which armor to wear against forces of evil? I can kill em just fine but fireball spam kills troop morale.

You need environmentally sealed armors, heavy suit, iirc the first one.

I dont get some of the weapons. I spent so much effort on clockwork gun and its nowhere near spikey smg. Some seems to be clearly superior, which ones to go for?

I'd say clockwork gun is something you take from your belt slot when you are going in melee and accidentally see academy drone 2-3 tiles above the ground.
Personally, I don't see any use for spikey whatsoever, people who die to it can be stunned in one hit.
What guns to go for is sooo subjective... Some people love bows due to arc + huge bonuses from gal stats. Some like shotguns for "never miss" accuracy. Some just want to see the world burn.
My fav training weapon is domestic shotgun with rubber slugs, it leaves victims alive.

like stun baton/handle/ball bat, which one works best?

handles start to kill people when you have moderately trained gals, so usually I start with handles, then switch to batons, and carry cattle prods on missions where I expect guys able to resist top roll of a baton (elite soldiers with 80+ armor don't take damage from 0-60 stun baton)

How exactly bonus xp from gym/sailor suit work?

When you get exp, it makes secondary stats grow faster.

Where can i get some hats?

research luxury fur. oh right, you didn't research monster hunt. Nowhere.

[themeless]

how does freshness work?
after posting the save i had already progressed somewhat going by previous pages.
though i didnt increase brainer amount yet i created a 6 hand (+ some humans to defend while vulnerable) outpost thats going to pump out x-grog and hopefully clear my base off the plantations.
i have a few chainmails, one platemail as high armor options. Its just too good at this point soloing entire prepper camp with platemail+sabre, thats why i wanted to see its research path.

i should have luxury fur. probably from shamblers and probably made ushankas with them already in that save.

I specifically didnt research majority of !!! missions because skipping them would cause me to lose score. I guess thats not the case?

[vadracas]

I specifically didnt research majority of !!! missions because skipping them would cause me to lose score. I guess thats not the case?

Bruh, Going to them gets you 1000 times as much score as skipping one once in a while does. Not directly, mid you, but those missions unlock researches(which give score), new manufacturing projects(money), and money(the ability to expand, do more missions, more research, and more manufacturing). Also, I had 19 brainers mid year 1, I think.

[Gremlion]

Freshness

Warriors can't stay in the fight indefinitely, so we can't be too passive. Every turn, they will lose 1 point of Freshness (unless at very low Morale; letting it all out helps), or more, depending on armor. When they are at high Freshness percentage, they will receive bonuses to Morale, Stamina and Stun recovery. As their Freshness drops to half, these bonuses start to turn into maluses. At very low Freshness, our Hands won't regenerate full TUs and might even receive Stun damage. Freshness is replenished every night at the Hideout. The more luxurious it is, the better. The building with the highest Refreshment rate counts.

It's a system to balance "1 team for every mission" and usage of items like mushroom beer, 40 hp heal which doesn't require wounds. It costs 30 freshness, so average gal can do it twice. Alcohol also costs freshness, so if you run around and chug beer, you will recover longer.

Plate mail is gated behind "back to school" + chainmail. back to school needs library, library needs sci books, sci books is an item you get from 3 sources - mutant alliance (fastest to do, you  need alliance favor bounty reward), doctor X database (gated behind rare interrogations), gnome (it's a mutant you can interrogate repeatedly without losing it, so you WILL get it eventually, but she is pretty rare on her own without going gray codex, which spawns one - it's either a capture in B grade goblin zaxx mission, rare(literally 1% chance) loot from rare smuggler strongbox, rare event)

Chainmail is, well, needs workshop and superconductive wire.

From researchable missions the only one which penalizes score is eurosyndicate deal, i think.
The rest you can unlock freely.
List of missions which deduct score is pretty short, it's "help the lokknars" 2 variants (skim through briefing, it tells enemies) for -150, and pogrom (like -100 without mutant alliance and -1000 after making an alliance).
personally, the only missions I postpone
1. Undersea missions - I get prerequisites for chiller outfit first, then at the start of new month do missions->operations-> produce chillers for a team, so I have everything ready when mission spawns.
2. Mansion invasion - until you get some easy to use wallsmashing instrument like electric lasso or small chainsaw (power tools research, iirc).
3. Organ trafficers - it's a horrible mission which requires good gals to do it fast because environment slowly kills you (and damages armor) and enemies are regenerating bullet  sponges. And enemies use chem weapons, it damages armor, so even power armor eventually gives up. You also want to have some "redecoration" instruments there too

[Rince Wind]

In the lategame there is another mission which gives negative score when you ignore it: mutant suppression.

[Nalca]

3. Organ trafficers - it's a horrible mission which requires good gals to do it fast because environment slowly kills you (and damages armor) and enemies are regenerating bullet  sponges. And enemies use chem weapons, it damages armor, so even power armor eventually gives up. You also want to have some "redecoration" instruments there too

Not so horrible with good strategy and equipment:
Use a team of gals equipped with Combat/Trench shotgun and Smokey armor, and go there during the day.
You can kill everything with the shotgun, and you're protected from the acid rain, the acid weapons and the deadly smoke weapons. Just watch out for the dogs, your gals are dead if they catched without armor.
If you stun a ghoul and you don't need it, shoot it on the ground. They will regenerate otherwise.

Just remember to catch a ghoul scientist AND a regular ghoul (or else you will be blocked in your research later). And keep someone with a cattle prod nearby to watch them.

[vadracas]

Not so horrible with good strategy and equipment:
Use a team of gals equipped with Combat/Trench shotgun and Smokey armor, and go there during the day.
You can kill everything with the shotgun, and you're protected from the acid rain, the acid weapons and the deadly smoke weapons. Just watch out for the dogs, your gals are dead if they catched without armor.
If you stun a ghoul and you don't need it, shoot it on the ground. They will regenerate otherwise.

Just remember to catch a ghoul scientist AND a regular ghoul (or else you will be blocked in your research later). And keep someone with a cattle prod nearby to watch them.

I prefer pikes and barbarian swords for that mission, but otherwise totally agree.

[themeless]

thanks for the info.
I guess I'll keep this run going till it ends up trashed and do the next one properly.

[Gremlion]

Personally, I'd like to get at least chainmails + aye-phones + chem coats for organ grinder so gals will survive stray magnum/blunderbuss shot. Still, doesn't make the mission fun to do.

thanks for the info.
I guess I'll keep this run going till it ends up trashed and do the next one properly.

Don't be so hard on yourself. You are doing good on battlefield, only 2 deaths in a year and full prison. Unless you get random stargods/merc base assault (very unlikely on this difficulty) you should be fine to catch up, there's plenty of easy targets. Just don't research *stop targeting civilian targets* until you feel like they are waste of time.

[xcomfan]

gnome (it's a mutant you can interrogate repeatedly without losing it, so you WILL get it eventually, but she is pretty rare on her own without going gray codex, which spawns one - it's either a capture in B grade goblin zaxx mission, rare(literally 1% chance) loot from rare smuggler strongbox, rare event)

Updated this save and...,damng...i got the gnome with a rare event, but still cannot research it but figures in my inventory. What are the prequisite needed? And i've equipped the hawk with the flamecannon, but what munition fot it are needed? Cannot be bought at the black market but only manufactured?

[Gremlion]

event gives "mad gnome", you need to appease her (manufacture) after researching madness.
Bottleneck for appeasing is chocolate, easiest source is gambling&reclaiming coupons.
Flame cannon shoots hellerium. you can buy or you can distill some, then you will get enough from downed ships.

[xcomfan]

event gives "mad gnome", you need to appease her (manufacture) after researching madness.
Bottleneck for appeasing is chocolate, easiest source is gambling&reclaiming coupons.

oh..i always sold it! dddoohh!!

[Ashghan]

ness.
Flame cannon shoots hellerium. you can buy or you can distill some, then you will get enough from downed ships.

Be aware that it often destroys civilian loot, basically costs 12k/shot (you're burning expensive hellerium), and with a poor accuraccy against small targets - you might need a couple of shots to shoot down anything. Basically - think and calculate before you use it - you might lose more money than you make.

[RolandVasko]

well, just short & simple ~~ UFO-xCom tactical simulation, /strategy games just NOT are for very beginner´players..

..as they are damn hard as hell (even on easier difficulties)

[Rince Wind]

Get some dogs and/or bloodhounds as well. Lokk'Naar make excellent snipers in long corridors where the enemy can't see them if they sit at one end.