Author Topic: [OLD] Old OXCE+ discussion thread  (Read 720372 times)

Offline Meridian

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #690 on: July 20, 2016, 10:40:58 pm »
Hmm this takes too many space... and yes, I do have Psi amps with 'use'. Maybe it should list all TU costs in the upper window? With this, descriptions won't fit...

Ehm, moving TU cost will not help, unless I am missing something. It will still be three rows max and descriptions begin only after the table.

Offline Meridian

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #691 on: July 21, 2016, 11:25:35 am »
New version is up.

v2016-07-20
  + Upgraded to OXCE 3.2
  + Added fix for missing bows under certain angles, more info here: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4726.msg66754.html#msg66754
  + Can't sell prisoners in the Debriefing/Loot/Sell window anymore... only later from the Prison
  + CTRL+cancel in "UFO Detected" window will put this UFO on ignore list (=will not be re-detected again, resp. will not pop up again)
  + CTRL+sort in "Equip Crew" and "Soldiers" windows will only show the stat in a dynamic column, without actually sorting the soldiers
  + Physical training stat caps and training speed now moddable, more info: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4581.msg67433.html#msg67433
  + Improved quick search in Inventory (by Stian), now it looks into categories and ammo too, more info: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4520.msg67432.html#msg67432

Please help testing the bows... so that we can ask DEVs to fix it in master too.

Download: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8itkFQbhj-YODZtOFJTVExXMzQ
« Last Edit: July 21, 2016, 11:31:37 am by Meridian »

Offline ivandogovich

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #692 on: July 21, 2016, 03:40:18 pm »
  + Can't sell prisoners in the Debriefing/Loot/Sell window anymore... only later from the Prison

^^
Any chance you can make this an option that could be turned on or off?  Its added back a small bit of micro: enter the base screen, enter the prison, deal with prisoners, that I've been quite happily skipping for quite a while now.  It really shines once you have exhausted prisoner research.  It made chasing down and soloing civilian ships with plate armor, just that bit less onerous. :) "Sell everything, done"

Offline Starving Poet

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #693 on: July 21, 2016, 03:45:59 pm »
Within the lore of the game, you could ransom them for less in the debrief (50% ransom value?):  "Give me everything you have on you, and I'll let you go; otherwise you're coming home with us."

Offline Meridian

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #694 on: July 21, 2016, 03:50:29 pm »
The reason I did this was that when your prison is constantly full (like mine is), you will always get that warning "Not enough free capacity in the prison"... even if you already sold them in the Sell window just a second ago.

The check if the message should come or not is done before the selling... and it is not trivial to move it (although it may look like the easiest of things).

I don't like the idea of having this as option... I will try to think harder how can I allow selling and get rid of that stupid message at the same time... hopefully with next version it will be back, because your use case does make perfect sense.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #695 on: July 21, 2016, 04:05:34 pm »
Yeah, I agree that it's annoying if you are being asked for selling something that was already sold... But then again, it's up to you as a player to deal with this. Prisons are cheap, so it's not terribly hard to have two at least. But if it's about UI, then the player can hardly do something about it.
Still, I agree with you Meridian that being asked about someone you no longer have is pretty bad. Actually I think it deserves to be called a bug, and not really acceptable. So... well, it would be great if you could do something about it.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #696 on: July 21, 2016, 04:14:19 pm »
Well, from my point of view, removing the prisoners from the sell window isn't a good idea - sometimes I sell them from this window, sometimes I'd rather wait for the 'prison is full' message, sometimes I enter the prison and sell them manually. This 'upgrade' removes one of these three options, which is bad. The best would be disabling the 'prison is full' window if you sell enough hostages (stuff is moved to temp 'storage' -> loot sell window -> only then check base capacities). But if it's not possible, I'd rather have stingy players who constantly run at near-100% prison capacity annoyed, than the rest of us bereft of an useful option. Moreover, it makes tracking prison overcrowding much harder to keep, as instead of naturally selling off needless captives immediately, you have to enter the prison manually and check all the stuff by yourself (I'm talking as a player who always aims to have at least 6-7 free space in prison). So players who try to keep prisons half-empty are effectively penalized for their foresight and planning.
Besides, removing prisoners from the initial sell list is very misleading IMO - the player might get confused whom, if any, did he catch.

PS
My designing aim has always been to make building additional prisons a viable option (unlike the OG, where the alien containment you were starting with was enough for the whole game). Annoyed by the constant lack of prison space, build one or two more.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2016, 04:21:02 pm by Dioxine »

Offline Meridian

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #697 on: July 21, 2016, 04:20:05 pm »
Yeah, I agree that it's annoying if you are being asked for selling something that was already sold... But then again, it's up to you as a player to deal with this. Prisons are cheap, so it's not terribly hard to have two at least. But if it's about UI, then the player can hardly do something about it.
Still, I agree with you Meridian that being asked about someone you no longer have is pretty bad. Actually I think it deserves to be called a bug, and not really acceptable. So... well, it would be great if you could do something about it.

Prisons are cheap, but building space is very limited.
I really have no more space in my main base to afford another prison.
Two hangars, 3 barracks, one scientific building each + 5 extra study rooms, radar, prison and two big stores.
Unless I resort to slavery -- and I swear by Cthulhu I never will -- I have no more options.


Well, from my point of view, removing the prisoners from the sell window isn't a good idea - sometimes I sell them from this window, sometimes I'd rather wait for the 'prison is full' message, sometimes I enter the prison and sell them manually. This 'upgrade' removes one of these three options, which is bad. The best would be disabling the 'prison is full' window if you sell enough hostages (stuff is moved to temp 'storage' -> loot sell window -> only then check base capacities). But if it's not possible, I'd rather have stingy players who constantly run at near-100% prison capacity annoyed, than the rest of us bereft of an useful option. Moreover, it makes tracking prison overcrowding much harder to keep, as instead of naturally selling off needless captives immediately, you have to enter the prison manually and check all the stuff by yourself (I'm talking as a player who always aims to have at least 6-7 free space in prison). So players who try to keep prisons half-empty are effectively penalized for their foresight and planning.
Besides, removing prisoners from the initial sell list is very misleading IMO - the player might get confused whom, if any, did he catch.

Yes, I will fix it somehow.
Btw. you can still see who has been captured in the Loot window.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #698 on: July 21, 2016, 04:24:44 pm »
Prisons are cheap, but building space is very limited.
I really have no more space in my main base to afford another prison.
Two hangars, 3 barracks, one scientific building each + 5 extra study rooms, radar, prison and two big stores.
Unless I resort to slavery -- and I swear by Cthulhu I never will -- I have no more options.

You can move a lot of your manufacturing and  scientific capacity to other bases, and keep a tighter hoarding policy. Slavery is an easy way out for hoarders, but not the only way out. You WILL face choices in 'what to build'. Or, even more 'radical' solution, make an interception/loot base with nothing but crew quarters, hangars and stores.

Offline ivandogovich

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #699 on: July 21, 2016, 05:14:17 pm »
You can move a lot of your manufacturing and  scientific capacity to other bases, and keep a tighter hoarding policy. Slavery is an easy way out for hoarders, but not the only way out. You WILL face choices in 'what to build'. Or, even more 'radical' solution, make an interception/loot base with nothing but crew quarters, hangars and stores.

Yeah, I find this is the most effective way to campaign in Piratez too.  I do employ slavery, (love the option, actually), but understand that it is perfectly viable to avoid this. The key problem is that one single base is never really enough to effectively "do it all."

Your starter base is your HQ, and should be. Your best research facility is here, you can intercept from here, and can build up some manufacturing capability here.

My next bases are planned with global coverage in mind, and the first is placed to allow the airbus some more visibility in its limited range, before the Pachyderm allows me to place according to global activity as visible in the charts. 

I tend to make that first base my recon base as well, building out hangars for Pigeons & Zepps for better coverage.  I also build a second prison (for holding interesting captives I want to research/break later), and enough stores to hold my good back load of loot.  I'll say this here too:  I never use the large facilities (stores or barracks).  The future single tile versions are far more efficient, and I'll just upgrade my normal vaults to armored vaults, and regular barracks to luxury barracks when the opportunity presents itself.

After my Stores/Recon base, I start working on building my first Manufacturing base.  This gets more workshops and barracks as I have resources, and is mainly for financial support.  Works on X-Grog, then Lingerie until I can get a Mint up, then counterfeiting becomes a full time operation here.  It has the capacity to grind through ore hauls and loads of apples for faster cash if the materials are available, and also provides greater manufacturing that the HQ (which basically processes loot and makes battlefield equipment like weapons, ammo and armor) to do some special runs of equipment production.  This is also a good place to build craft (so it needs a hangar too).

About the same time I get a grog line up in the Manufacturing base, I start my Lab base.  This can start with just a library and a single brainer.  I put in a prison or two and it becomes my main interrogation base.  There is some micro to move prisoners from the intercept base, but that base has higher brainer capacity and can work on figuring out all the stuff we've captured.  I build this base up as resources allow, with Study Rooms being a key tech to allow me to start plopping down facilities for 2 brainers at a time.  I like early combinations of 4 brainers assigned to research projects as it feels pretty efficient.  Later techs become more demanding and I assign 10 or more at time for more difficult techs.  Eventually this base can outstrip the HQ in research capacity (as in my current campaign, 1.3 years in, I have 20 in my Lab base, and 17 at the HQ).

I've also taken to dedicating a base to crew training as Meridian has done in his series.  This is a great second intercept base for keeping the Pachyderm around once you get the Bonny up, if you so desire.  I feel like 20-40 hands here is a good reserve, and start building out this capacity when Dojos and Voodoo schools start becoming available.  I'll rotate wounded troops out to here when they have long recovery times, and otherwise use this to screen Voodoo, and train rookies into Vets.

All of this is solid infrastructure for the mid-game, but for the end-game, One more base needs to be set up: The Industrial Base designed to handle construction of the Conqueror.  This is will become a huge cash cow when Defense Contracting becomes a thing, and we'll just churn out Battle Tanks and fuel cells while waiting to get all the keys necessary. 

Because of the huge Plastasteel and Hellerium requirements of some of these end game items, converting one or two of the last recon bases into huge storage networks has a certain amount of appeal.  I've not played the endgame, so I don't know how often these might be lost in Crackdowns, and how crippling their losses might be.  The cost-benefit of multiple shrouds becomes an interesting question in these instances.

Edit: Blarg.  Just realized I was thinking I was writing this in the main PirateZ thread.  It kinda feels off topic here. Sorry bout that.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #700 on: July 21, 2016, 05:39:34 pm »
You can easily defend storage bases with an outfit of 25 hands and a host of tanks/auxiliaries (you need a lot of troops to contain enemies on all 3 main levels), provided you have the guns, the patience and 1 space for barracks :) 2 Shrouds are easier to manage but not 100% proof (although crackdown interceptions plus 2-3 good defensive buildings allow to achieve near-100% safety).
« Last Edit: July 21, 2016, 05:41:22 pm by Dioxine »

Offline legionof1

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #701 on: July 21, 2016, 07:10:38 pm »
Base loses are sorta inevitable on bases that can't prevent the landing with defense fire. There are a few spawns of stargods ,ie all true stargods, that are impossible to stop because of invisible+ multiple floors. On the other hand past a certain point everything is expendable so long as you are willing to pay the time.

Offline alinare

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #702 on: July 24, 2016, 12:53:42 pm »
Hello:
A few days ago, I raised a question, because my mods, did not work with version 3.2 exe Meridian. Whether it is solved. It was my fault, of the silliest, ;D when trying to start the exe, no more. I turned off all the mods, and I returned to turn them one by one, -are near nine hundred- and it works. Thank you very much, everyone, for your patience.

Offline Surrealistik

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #703 on: July 25, 2016, 02:15:04 am »
Mininukes do wonders on base defense; every base should have them, + a defensive trap room partitioning the hangars and access lift.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Meridian's resources and mods for X-PirateZ
« Reply #704 on: July 27, 2016, 06:48:38 pm »
I would appreciate some help with debugging... Here's a link to my latest (unofficial) build:
https://www.mediafire.com/download/50ej5hnkqk3u55i/OpenXcom_XPiratez_0_99A.rar
There are 2 saves in there. Both crash upon ending the mission. I suspect there is something wrong with my Commendations. I can provide additional details if needed, but ATM I'm at loss.

BTW. where to get OXCom debugging tools from?
« Last Edit: July 27, 2016, 07:33:44 pm by Dioxine »