Extended Piratez general FAQ/Strategy Guide

[Skybreaker]

Hey guys, looking for some tips. Been playing X-piratez since who knows when, doing 1 playthrough per year. I always go in blind, so I am always behind on the tech curve, and one other gimmick I do is I don't use grenades. Used to do it in OG, and pretty much every game devolved into hot potatoing or just suiciding the strongest grenades / high ex and similar, so I grew to hate it so much I can't stand using them anymore. The patch before ninja bases came was the pinnacle of balance, difficulty and reward to me, but ever since ninjas came I can't make it past early game without using some sort of a gimmick.

Bearing all that in mind I have a few questions.

1. Any tips on air game, aka good ships and loadouts?

I have NEVER managed to properly make use of Kraken or any of the heavy weapons. They either get completely absorbed by armor, or are not strong enough to kill the ones they can penetrate. As for light weapons I used to prefer sonic, but now I'm not sure. Missiles are the only thing that works for me, but they are too expensive to maintain, and in newer versions there is SO MUCH MORE air traffic that I simply can't invest in them. And the skies are so deadly now that I'm lucky I chose Grey codex this time, as I have absolutely no clue how I would manage anything without being undetectable. Even just the clusters of ninja bases are so dense that I couldn't break through even if I had a ton of interceptors. I always have the problem that my ships are either too slow to catch up to something, or those that can are too weak to take it down, so I basically only take down very small ships, occasionaly small, and then only extremely late game manage to make squads to take down the larger ships.

2. Notably good shooty guns I should use?

Currently I am using M-laser. I have access to smart weapons and that whole tier (no Gauss or Plasma atm). The thing is I don't really know what else is above average. I usually go guns + bows into Silver Snake into Laser / Gauss / Plasma. I added Mortars into my arsenal in order to deal with the ninja turrets, as I simply can't find anything else that I can fire without immediately getting reactioned to death. This is definitely not intended as by the time I got mortars there were, at least, 17 spawned bases around the world. My actual go to strat is melee, as that was the only thing I managed to ever use with consistency.

3. How to use voodoo effectively?

This is the first time I am going for Grey codex. Usually my voodoo is limited to bugeyes landing onto a sub and then MCing through walls, that's literally it. I don't know how to effectively use ANY other voodoo ability in the whole game, so tips here would really help.

4. How to actually deal with ninja bases?

I have destroyed 5 - 6 of them, plus an airfield, but I still feel like I'm stumbling like a moron. Jellyfish obviously bypasses their defenses, so that's basically one layer I automatically am not dealing with. Then the turrets, the only way I managed to destroy them without imminent death is by mortars (and they still take 4 or more hits), but since they spawn so early I assume there are many other ways to do it. Specifically the 14mm 4 square ones, the small turrets are not a problem. I even feel like my heavy armor is barely up to scratch for this mission, as plenty of my units survive with slivers of health left.

[legionof1]

1) Air game advice, heavy weapon slots are actaully pretty good against most targets in the early game, very little of early content actually has any armor. The issue is actually accuracy. Heavy slots on craft without an accuracy bonus and/or a good pilot will miss alot, ninja targets in particular have exceptional dodge stat. The kraken is kinda slow but targets don't always just zip around at max speed. There are more opportunists to use it then just what some parameters on paper say. Light slots should be your focus in the early game aside from a gold codex run, there cost efficient and the lowest tier can drop both ammo and additional guns off common targets like megapol. Another point that you may be missing is that you can have up to 4 craft in a battle if you gather them up properly. There is a button to minimize the window of craft that are caught up to the target so the rest can catch up too, you can also assign craft to escort each other so they fight as a group.

2) 17 bases seems like hyperbole to me, even with ninjas. Mind that some of the ninja bases are just outposts and much less challenging to remove. As to dealing with ninja turrets the best tool is emp grenades carried by the ninjas themselves, after that mortar as you have already discovered. Don't try to find one weapon to solve every situation, the mod is expressly designed against a one size fits all approach. You need to look at resists, damage scaling factors and other data points to find what works best for an given encounter. Even what works best for one of your crew might be awful for another. Few weapons are exceptional even for there class/role and those features which do make them good at one thing can make them awful at something else. A sniper is not shotgun. Adapt to what/whom you have and what your enemy is.

3) the way to start iwth voodoo for most users is wands, or in the case of bugeyes terror. You need to build skill before the real tools/MC are likely to be successful. Need to hit to get exp so begin with the baby tools and work up. Voodoo in this mod is more about the specialist effects from the tools or using it against mental midgets like Mercenaries. Vanilla it was all powerful one size solves all end game, here like almost everything else it's just one tool of many in the box.

4) made mention of emp nades above, but most of the trick to engaging a ninja outpost/airfield is to stay out of line of fire of the turrets until you thin the ranks, hopefully garnering some emp nades to use in the process. Turrets you want to engage from either out of line of sight with nades and other arcing attacks, or when they can't see you due to camo/invis. They can't reaction fire something they can't spot. 

[Greep]

Yeah, you're not going to be able to use a kraken on ninja interceptor ships, unfortunately.  Not only do they get a dodge bonus, but small ships get an additional avoid bonus on top of that from being small size.  This basically means heavy weapons aside from beam lasers and 250mm rockets simply will not hit, and 250mm rockets just lack the ammo capacity for most dangerous ninja ships.

Krakens with naval guns are mostly meant to take out light armored fatties like freighters, heavy freighters, ninja land cruisers, science vessels, corvettes, heavy gunships, escorts, that sort of thing.  You can add a beam laser or 3 to take on dodgy fighter class ships, but not the end game ones really.

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Voodoo: Effectiveness also depends a lot on difficulty, since enemy vdef is heavily dependent on stats that get buffed/nerfed.  You honestly might not want to bother on blackbeard or higher unless you're specifically training it for mercs, and only on your absolute highest vpower gals/bugs.

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hunter killers:  Fast ships (worm, pachyderm) are also effective mid-game so you don't need to be grey codex.  I think you're meant to simply give up if you can't defeat the ninjas before they completely swarm the planet.  Not that that's easy, I'm confused with a lot of this version myself :/

[Requiem]

I have ninja problem too and wonder how you guys deal with such things and whats going on for you on the new version.

My trivia:
Things go slow for me since i play on 3 difficulty, just wanted to chill and goof around with some of the new mid/late game content while still wanted that game provide some challenge too me. I went for 2 hangars at the beggining with the harvester and blowfish for no reason. Also rejected the power since wanted to take a look at ninja toys in the lategame. No mutant alliance for now cause i got smart books from the gnome. Unlocked C missions but game gave me first stepler and first nice pile of aquaplastic only at second year so right now i am at april of second year and this month workshop and library will be finished.
 
I have ninja fortress located in blackmarch and it acts wierd. On previous month they spawned 3 "save the general" missions wich gave me -6000 of rating and next month  they just sitted quiete and do nothing. Seems like at first they need to accumulate some points to do such things.
I am just worrying that sky will be swarmed by them soon like some people report or something like that.
So now i wondering what should i do next after construction of library and workshop finishes.

 
Downside of the Harvester is speed 400 and no -SUB-, so i barely can catch anything but ambulances and necroplanes but if i do it just goes down. With mistress or gnome as a pilot i can even handle ninja interceptors 1 on 1. Not sure about outcome tho. Does it worth it to lure them out?
Should i build new base with outpost near ninjas maybe? But i fear that they will strangle this until the base develop enough.
I can buy shark jetbikes but they will cost another 2mill to me.
New base anywhere else just for more profits and hangars?
Sell my blowfish and send pigeon/v8 to spy on ninja? Not sure what it will gives in longterm.
Base siege is not a option i guess. I have mortars but i think losses will be huge anyway.
Anything else?

sorry for the mindflow.
Oh and also i have second base(secret hideout) at the Death Realms, but they out of my reach and dont do rampages too much.

[Greep]

Yeah, hunter killers have always been wonky, don't understand why they've been expanded.  Lost my dutchman and another blowfish in the same month, buhbye 2 million in equipment and ships.  Luckily I'm about to get authorized dealers for a (crazy expensive) pachy, but what's the point in adding interesting slow craft like harvesters and buses if they're just going to poof almost immediately? 

Speaking of which, I sent a v-8 to the vicinity of these jetbike shootdowns and...nothing.  Checked the general area for a few days.  Is base detection not working for outposts via ships or does it just take a really long time?

@ requiem:

Ninjas are highly randomized. Most missions in the game are determined monthly, but ninjas generate missions as a % chance each day.  So you could theoretically get 10 ninja base defense attacks in a single month.

Pigeon doesn't have [undetectable] unforunately, but spy zepellin does.

[Iazo]

You are supposed to anchor the ship for a few hours.

If you keep moving it, you will not get the 3000 miles base detection bonus.

[Requiem]

Greep,
So i guess outpost near them is the only option for me to survive then? Because right now its impossible to get in time on these missions(8hrs) with harvester.

Pigeon doesn't have [undetectable] unforunately, but spy zepellin does.

I dont like baloons. Basic idea was to place pigeon outside of their radar and catch landed supply ships with harvester to cripple them.
But if there is just a pure chance to spawn the mission behind the curtains i guess there is no point to do that.

what's the point in adding interesting slow craft like harvesters and buses if they're just going to poof almost immediately?

Harvesters not poof immediately, they have 360 durability. I think you didn't get me, harvesters not gonna be killed if they get caught, they shred everything to pieces right now with 14m x3. Problem that they cant catch anything with thier speed of 400.

[Greep]

You are supposed to anchor the ship for a few hours.

If you keep moving it, you will not get the 3000 miles base detection bonus.

Well I mean, I left it there for a week.  Either I just got crazy unlucky and two ships got blown up on the east coast america from the west coast outpost, or the detection bonus doesn't work for outposts.  Jetbikes have a pretty small radar so I think it's the latter.

Edit: yup it's broken, I just checked my sav file and there's three outposts in america, one revealed two unrevealed, and the v8 doesn't ever see that one.  That, or the bonus only applies to airfields.

Edit:... oooookay this is a mystery.  The v8 specifically does not detect bases.  I put my blowfish there and both were discovered immediately.  Maybe there's a bug where undetectable ships also can't detect bases?

Edit: mystery solved, low altitude craft don't get the bonus at all, expedition also failed to find them until getting them under radar.  While it makes some kind of sense, I think it'd be nice to know this in https://www.xpiratez.wtf/en-US##STR_NINJA_AIRPOWER

Greep,
So i guess outpost near them is the only option for me to survive then? Because right now its impossible to get in time on these missions(8hrs) with harvester.

I think you'll just need a faster ship TBH.  Ninjas will continue to make bases slowly.  At the very least, a fast ship to bait things to the harvester and maybe do just those missions.

And yeah I pussied out of the peasant run before actually building the harvester lol.  It's kinda hard to do a peasant run with farming bases being so hard to defend.  I think I'll try it out again, though.  I spent like all of my brainer time and money this run getting super early May vehicles only to find I can't really afford them lol.  So I thought I'd try peasants with flamethrowers instead or something.

Btw, does anyone know if there's a minimum chance to hit on aircraft weapons?  I was expecting a harvester would get trashed by a jetbike, but if there's even a 5% minimum chance to hit that wouldn't happen.

[Requiem]

Peasants have not bad stat caps, it is a rough start but if you not lose your main toons too much they go overcap with medals pretty soon and become as useful as ubers. Actually all races have cap for firing 120 and i think it is even possible to turn band of narlocks into little monsters. And still nobody locks you out of using ubers.
Just dont make mistakes like me. I settled in a country wich gives books for voodoo, i choosed the path wich requires grey codex and then just rejected the power and took 2 hangars where 3 is required.
Yep, thats me. 

Btw, does anyone know if there's a minimum chance to hit on aircraft weapons?  I was expecting a harvester would get trashed by a jetbike, but if there's even a 5% minimum chance to hit that wouldn't happen.

It's all about using good pilots.

[legionof1]

There is no floor for how bad your chance to hit can go. Bonuses from both sides are summed out, then you roll the to hit formula for things like weapon accuracy and target size. If the foe has sufficiently greater dodge you will never hit.

Thou practically only ninja bikes have the dodge to do that. And even then only against awful pilots or low accuracy guns.

[Skybreaker]

Thanks for the tips guys! Honestly, I kinda jumped the gun on the questions it seems. Another month in game changed literally everything. Turns out I was so insanely unlucky with my researches that I had most things locked out (like gun emporium locked in 2603 kinda locked, first live ruffian I capped was near the end of 2603 and I pretty much had no access to buyable weapons of any kind outside of prizes, including craft). Another month of disks got me tornado mortars + a loader that can make use of them, shield researches including sear armor, smart magnum bullets which can actually handle most things, laser cannons and a lot of other stuff. No school grad yet tho. I'll invest more into flying squadrons. I was always under the impression that each tier of ships was designed to kill the next enemy ship level, as I thought the 4 ships in a squadron was just an unintended engine feature and not something to play consistently with. Now that I know it's intended I'll actually use multiple ships which should improve my sky game a lot.

Also the bases number was not a hyperbole, I looked at my map state atm and the highest base number I can see is 18 (https://imgur.com/a/SATyl8s), but I'm pretty sure there are a few more out there. With fortuna and the new tech I have been easily clearing the world slowly of the lower tier ninja bases, haven't tested the highest one yet. Have a cluster of 1 big and 3 small ninja bases all within a 100 meters of each other so the jellyfish will have to do as no other ship can get anywhere close due to the number of defensive ships that spawns. Tho maybe I'm just too afraid and should just make a squadron to tackle it.

I suppose I just have difficulties adapting to the way this patch is played, as I'm pretty much a "take heaviest armor and blast them in the face while tanking" outside, then "clear everything in melee" on the inside, and on the geoscape I'm extremely passive while developing plantation bases around the world, and none of those work well vs ninjas.

[Greep]

Well plantation bases work extremely well in L versions and earlier.  TBH it's really difficult getting useful plantation base spam to work against ninja base assaults.  Like, if you have 5 plantations the maintenance is mostly canceled out by your garrison.  So I stopped trying to bother and am just going with 2 bases, with the extra base only because I need some place to have extra hangars and to store more hookers haha.

Btw @requiem,

did you ever get a bandit base defense?  looking at the .ruls that's a thing now if you go the peasant route, but only very early game.  I know bandit pogroms have armored cars, so I was wondering if I need to stock up on crates of violence or if it's just a bunch of ruffians or something.

[Requiem]

Greep,
Yes i had 2 or 3 defences in the first year, but they had just packs of dogs/hounds and some ratman hobo. Not sure how they crawled in, because i shoot down all slow things.


I have different problems now. I killed some ships with Osirons and then Academy become active, i managed to capture a ship with Provost and around 5 cyberdiscs, but they sended 3 ships or so and builded new hideout on my island. I am furious about this. Siege will be.
Also realised that i need to grind for gnomes somehow on "reject the power" path cause seems like it's the only way to get Shadowtech and to build interceptors. Thats frustrating, first it was stepler now this.

Well plantation bases work extremely well in L versions and earlier.

Dont know about plantations but i found that maxed out amount of Runts is extremly useful. They cost like 10k each and 100 of them produce income of 4mil with shateau or 1.4m with grog. So Large quarters instead of hangar is the viable option.

[Greep]

I killed some ships with Osirons

Uh oh.  Academy is a pretty hard base defense from what I hear :/

Luckily you only need 1 gnome, they don't get consumed on research.  Just keep turning these boots in and hope for the best I guess.

There's also raptors, although they won't really take anything down that a harvester can, they're just fast.

According to the .ruls, that was just the ratman base defense which I've had a bunch before.  There's a new one "bandit" in M4, though, which occasionally happens if you go peasant route.  I guess we'll see what happens if I get one.

[Requiem]

I recieved 7 of them from the event in the beggining but wasted all. Can you imagine that? 6 went into brainers and 1 into recruit.
I guess only option for me now is mass produce recon expeditions for old boots.. Also i wonder wich missions give crazed gnomes?

I think Deliverator will solve all my speed problems, i only need to survive till then. If i unlock Thunderhorse somehow(Cloaking Device, yep) then Harvester will become absolete completly.

Academy is a pretty hard base defense from what I hear

Siege will be not for me. For them. 
I will take all RPG's i have with me.