Extended Piratez general FAQ/Strategy Guide

[Arthanor]

Well, for me the change has taken them from "not really an option" to cool weapon to have. The fact that they use stamina compensates for the extra power and they are still far from worth replacing guns with except on gals that are already good throwers.

[Dioxine]

Well, there are people who say "bow is almost the only weapon you need", as it is a very good artillery. As for knives, maybe they need such a buff, but their power scales really good, quickly outpacing guns.

[Arthanor]

That's true, the scaling favors them like it does melee weapons, with the downside of not training the right skill. It's one reason I support scaling for guns too. I'd have t run the numbers for when bows surpass some key guns.

They certainly are good enough for civilian targets and as artillery type long range support, they might not need the snapshots. I just like the idea of reaction fire instead of doing nothing with your TUs, which is why I gave then a sniper-like obvious bad choice snap shot: it's only useful for reaction.

[Dioxine]

I dunno, they should throw grenades when cannot use their bows :)

EDIT: I've decided to keep the bows as they are, (in reality, to be a Legolas you need a hi-tech gun, not a bow), but with the Knives, to replace Aim with Snap, as it seems to make more sense after all - there are known techniques for quick knife-throwing. However, since they're now a very good Reaction weapon, they had to be nerfed (TU cost 20 -> 22, Energy cost 3 -> 6, damage Throwing*0.9 -> 0.8).

[Arthanor]

That's what I'm doing. Soldiers with good throwing skills get a whole bunch of grenades and a bow. The bow is light enough that they can carry a lot and then if the target is armored, you throw an explosive, if not you fire an arrow.

I agree that it is not reasonable to have too quick of a reaction shots with the bow. Which is why I made it take barely less time than the aimed shot. Conceptually, I see aiming as a non-negligible part of the time spent on aimed shots, especially with a bow where you need to factor in wind and curvature as well. The lack of aiming I think is represented well by the slightly lower TU cost, shorter snapRange (which in fact I have reduced to 10 for bows) and drop in starting accuracy as well. The effort to fire remains the same, or actually could be increased too since you have to do the same work but in less time, which is more tiring.

Looking at numbers:
Bow damage: 0.5 Throwing + 0.1 Str; Max of 0.5*100 + 0.1 * 80 = 58 damage
Longbow damage: 0.5 Throwing + 0.4 Str; Max of 82 damage
Sniper rifle: 30/36+0.25 Firing; Max of 60/66 damage
Reaper rifle: 33+0.4 Firing; Max of 81 damage

I am neglecting accuracy for all of those, since it is easy enough to get decent hit% with all (all have >100 aimed accuracy). In fact it is harder with the bow because of training oddities. They all are good for long range support, with the bow having the advantage of arcing shots but disadvantage of maxRange and using (lots of) stamina (making it much worse with smokey/mesh armor, otherwise great for long range gals). I also haven't seen yet an armor with +Throwing, whereas there are quite a few with +Firing.

Overall, bows seem to keep up with early powerful rifle developments but you can still improve a lot on those rifles (better rifles + possible variations in ammo) and they seem to have better synergy with armors. I think there might be more bows, but I don't know of them yet..

Finally, and that's the main reason for me, the gals are crazy mutants who use heavy weapons as rifles and are stronger/faster/better than humans, so I want the possibility of a "Legolita" and I feel it doesn't unbalance the mod much, if at all. I'm happy to keep the changes to my own Piratez-mod and enjoy the discussion though!

[Dioxine]

Yeah play it the way you like it The only thing I wanted to add is that there are armors that add Throwing, chief amongst them the Amazon armor with a really solid bonus. There are more armors augmenting guns, but guns require tech & ammo (& loads of cash), and not many of them rely on stats for damage, and even if so, to a low extent, the Reaper Rifle being really quite unique.

My reasoning behind the bow is that you cannot realistically keep your bow drawn for more than 30 seconds, maybe 60 if you're a superhuman. Bow Snap Shot should be substantially weaker, not so much less accurate (bow aiming time is generally quite short), but I cannot mod that in. Maybe I should add a 'short bow' which has Snap & Aim, but is bit weaker & with less range...

hehe looks like I've hijacked this thread and made it into 'tell me your OP strategies so I can nerf them'

[Meridian]

EDIT: I've decided to keep the bows as they are, (in reality, to be a Legolas you need a hi-tech gun, not a bow), but with the Knives, to replace Aim with Snap, as it seems to make more sense after all - there are known techniques for quick knife-throwing. However, since they're now a very good Reaction weapon, they had to be nerfed (TU cost 20 -> 22, Energy cost 3 -> 6, damage Throwing*0.9 -> 0..

I don't use reactions at all... can I have the old knives back? ;-)

Nah, just kidding, seems like a nice feature for others, I'll survive.

[Dioxine]

Hehe, I know you don't, I don't rely on Reactions that much either, but I want the game not to favor Turanian tactics you seem to adhere to religiously (act fast, outstretch, use maximum damage in attack, in defence run&cover instead of relying on armor/formation) above all other tactics (yeah I am favoring Turanian tactics too, but not as much as you) Besides, the nerf is rather very slight, and you still cap at 100 Power from that knife (half as much with your current throwing-specialists).

[Arthanor]

@Dioxine: I think discussing strategies here with you is good as you can decide what are and what aren't strategies that should be viable. I know of the Amazon, but haven't discovered it yet :/ The comment was more that the armors tend to favour guns over bows, which makes sense since higher tech stuff should work well together.

As for the snapshot thing: That's why I kept TU cost at 80% of aimed shots, to me it represents pulling the string as well and the 20% TUs that you don't have to spend is the time not spent aiming (which in turn makes the shot less accurate).

So to me the snap shot represents the gal "drawing and shooting without aiming much" in a more reflex fashion (I've seen it done a fair amount in medieval/fantasy re-enactment by good archers, but of course there power is not a worry, but neither are the people professional archers), compared to the aimed shot which is "drawing, shooting and aiming carefully" which is more time consuming, in a way more tiring (you have to keep the bow drawn as you aim) but a lot more accurate.

@Meridian: If you can keep the gals surviving and try to setup in advantageous reaction ways (lots of TUs, should see the enemy from its side so they won't see you, gun with low snap shot cost and ideally still good accuracy), you can get a lot of reaction shots out of the gals. Unlike vanilla XCom, the enemies often have pretty low reaction scores, and the gals can have quite high ones (and can get armor that further boosts it). For my front and midfield gals, I tend to pick guns on their snapshot qualities more than aimed shot, and ~60 reaction is the starting stat where I start considering gals for that kind of duty.

[niculinux]

Hey guys, how the heck i get the infinite symbol oo into the manufacturing screen? And also, what means that question mark and what it does? Screenshot attached!

[Arthanor]

There is no infinity symbol in the font provided by Dioxine, so instead it shows the ?. They are functionally the same. Getting the ? Means the runs are going to produce that forever.

I take it as meaning the runs don't know how many they're going to make and the brainerz haven't figured out the infinity symbol yet.

[niculinux]

There is no infinity symbol in the font provided by Dioxine, so instead it shows the ?. They are functionally the same. Getting the ? Means the runs are going to produce that forever.

I take it as meaning the runs don't know how many they're going to make and the brainerz haven't figured out the infinity symbol yet.

Thanks! Actually i saw it in Meridian's tenth episode fo his let's play x-piratez and was trying figuring out how to have it in my games!!

Edit: attached screenshot from that episode

[Dioxine]

Meridian has disabled the Amiga font I am using with Piratez, that's all.

[Arthanor]

Meridian isn't using the amiga font that Dioxine packaged with Piratez (I'm guessing because he doesn't care for it?). With the normal font, you get the infinity symbol.

As for how to disable the font.. It's probably something straightforward, but I don't know how and a quick glance at the ruleset didn't help.

[niculinux]

Well, and how i may disable these fonts? I picked the hq2x option in the filter tab and those activated automatically...there is somthing i have so set manually? Screenshot attached