Hi everyone,
this is my strating guide to the Piratez mod, version 0.98. Piratez has a lot of stuff and complicated damage formulas for melee weapons, so this can be quite overwhelming to the new player. Combined with tough enemies, you can have a few nasty surprises. But I am here to help so I can point you in the right direction with your strategy.
This guide is aimed at people who know how to play xcom, so I won't explain things like how important smoke grenades are which I consider basic knowledge.
Where to put the starting base?
The middle of north america is good. Why? Good money from countries and your starting radar covers most of the continent. You won't miss any Shippings in north america (Piratez name for UFOs) with your starting radar (it has 100% detection), so that is one thing less you need to worry about. And the first Shippings are guaranteed to be near your base, just like in vanilla xcom.
What to build first?
Short answer: Barracks (living quarters), then when you have the money vault (stores) and hangars.
Explanation:
Your starting base has 12 hands (soldiers), 10 runts (engineers) and 3 brainers (scientists). You don't have much starting money so what you can do with that is quite limited. Your craft, the bonaventura, can carry 18 hands. And more hands is always useful on missions, so getting more hands should be your first priority. You will also have many wounded hands after missions (they don't die as easily as in vanilla xcom), so prepare in time to have some backup hands and living space if you don't want to sack your wounded gals.
Your living space is maxed out in your starting base, so your first purchase should be a barracks. Build it to the left of your armored vault, this will help make your base more defendable. After you made some cash from missions, the next thing to build is a vault (general stores). Build it to the left of your workshop, again to make base defence easier. You won't loose any loot from a mission if you run out of space. You will get a dialogue where you can choose what to sell to make room for the things you want to keep. Same thing with captured enemies if you run out of prison space.
Next you want to add two hangars, to be built next to your existing one. One hangar is for a pigeon which is a radar craft, the other is for a hunterkiller-interceptor that you will probably build in the second month.
What to research?
Now this depends a bit on your playstyle. I play a capture heavy game, for that I would go first with:
-"Basic armor" The resulting warrior armor is cheap to produce and has quite good protection. 30 all around, plus modifier 80% for piercing (bullets) and cutting and 90% for the rest. It makes your gals slower though (-15 Tu and -15 stamina). It costs 1250 to prduce plus three scrap metal which can be bought for 250 each. The other early armor you get is the tac vest, which can be bought for 25 000. The protection from it is worse than warrior, but you loose less Tu and stamina. Later you can also produce this armor yourself for a lot less money. The required research item is "personal armor parts", and you need these as materials.
-"Contacts: Smugglers" is next on the list. It gives access to cattle prods and fusiontorch clips. Cattle prods will make capturing easier and fusiontorch clips you need to build your first interceptor. Building your own is cheaper than to buy a jetbike.
For more firepower and a leathal playstyle, the important research is:
-"Flintlocks & Bombs". This allows you to manufacture black powder bombs and explosive cannonballs, both very useful and cheap. The assault cannon is pretty useless without the exploding cannonball, as it is not accurate enough for direct hits. Also this research allows you to manufacture the assault cannon and the blunderbuss.
-"Spring cleaning" lets you convert the piles of junk in your vault into scrap metal, chemicals and superconducting wire. The resulting materials take up MORE space than the piles of junk, so only convert when you actually need the materials. Scrap metal and chemicals are needed for weapon and ammo manufactuing. Scrap metal can be bought for cheap, chemicals are a bit more expansive. This research is not really needed, it just gives you cheap access to these materials and frees up your vauls.
After these items, split up your brainers on whatever you like. The research times in the beginning are so fast that you waste brainer time if you have them all on the same project, as they only finish at midnight. Example: something takes 4 man days to research and you put 3 brainers on it. It will complete in 2 days, but you have spent 6 man days on the project, wasting 2 man days. One example of this is decrypted data disk and gun almanach. They research so fast it is a waste to put more than 1 brainer on them. If you find one of these, put 1 brainer on it immediately.
The research options in pirates are so plentiful that I cannot recommend you a specific research sequence. There are however some guidelines. Higher tech is dependent on having all lower tech researched first. For example, you need to research all simple armor to unlock more advanced armor. So if you want better armor, research everything that is related to armor and eventually you unlock the higher tech. If you want craft weapons, research the big weapons that you find. For lasers, you need to research all lasers before you can manufacture ammunition for them. For new interceptors, you need research on enemy ships as well as research on UFO components to advance.
What to manufacture?
To make money make grog. Simple as that. When you find apples, research them. Then you can make even more profit with wine.
What to buy at start?
Assuming you built a barracks, you don't have much money left.
- The tactical vest they sell is quite good armor, but expensive. You can research basic armor right away and that will give you a slightly better armor that costs 2000 with required materials. I would say buy two tac vests and give these to your frontline gals to have some protection until your other armor is ready.
- Next purchase is some hunting bows. These will be your most useful ranged weapon for the early game. Note that they use throwing skill for accuracy. Buy a bow for every gal with a good throwing skill (good beeing >50).
- Next on the list: chainsaw and hammer. A gal that can lift a hammer can kill pretty much every early game enemy in one or two hits. A hammer pretty much always hits because of the game mechanics that it uses (a range 1 shot), so no need for a high melee skill. Chainsaw is the same category, but unlike the hammer can't kill everything (enemy armor is the problem here). It uses the same 1 range shot mechanic as the hammer so won't miss regardless of melee skill. It is also a lot lighter than the hammer. Every gal can effectively use a chainsaw, so give them to gals you don't know what else to give.
- Final items: blowpipe and smokes. Like the bow, the blowpipe uses throwing skill. This is more of a special weapon, as it is short ranged. Use in combination with smoke grenades to get close to the enemy without them spotting you. Half of the damage the blowpipe darts cause is stun, so this will let you capture some enemies alive. The smoke also does some stun damage, not to every enemy though (helmet makes immune to smoke usually). Captured enemies will bring you the most money out of your loot, as the weapons you find don't have much resale value. SPOILER ALERT: the blowpipe is also effective vs the first armored enemies you meet (Osiron security), as they have a weakness to acid. Also, the blowpipe has armor piercing capabilities. END OF SPOILER
A low risk early capture strategy is to throw smokes at spotted enemies and retreat. Next round, have a scout spot the enemies in the smoke and then shoot them with the blowpipe outside of their visual range (to avoid reaction fire). Some might die, some will go down alive. If one goes down, send a gal to check on him for fatal wounds. In Piratez, enemies bleed and a stunned one with fatal wounds might die before the end of battle. Be careful when healing them, they might get back on their feet. (Protip from Arthanor: use vodka to heal wounds as that does not heal health.) Have someone with a stun melee weapon ready to put them back down. Of your starting melee weapons, all that do stun also do health damage. The handle is the one that does least health damage, so preferably use that to put enemies back down after healing. The handle might not work on armored guys though.
What to buy later when you have a bit of money to spare?
- Heavy machinegun. A really good weapon if you have a gal that can lift it. Use it like a sniper rifle. There is no range penalty on the auto shot and with 8 shots at least one shot will always hit, with a good chance for more. Because of the 8 shots, a high firing skill is not that important. With a high firing skill, this becomes your "I kill you" button. It needs 90% of your tu's to shoot, so you cannot really move before shooting. The top of the Bonaventura is always a good place to sit.
- Ol' carbine. Two aimed shots per round, with great accuracy and no range penalty. This is the only early game weapon that has these attributes which makes it actually the best early game long range rifle. The snap is also quite accurate. Damage per bullet is not great, but as you can get two hits where other weapons only get one this more than makes up for it. More hits is also more experience.
- Mortar. This will be your rocket launcher equivalent. You could also buy an RPG which actually is a rocket launcher, but I prefer the mortar for demolition work. The mortar is cheaper and has cheaper ammo. Also, the mortar has an arcing projectile, so it's line of fire is that of a thrown grenade. This means you get the benefit of firing an explosive projectile from above without actually beeing above. Pay attention to the skills needed for accuracy, as it is 50% firing and 50% throwing. WARNING: This weapon can cause overkill, meaning too much damage will compleately destroy a target, leaving no corpse.
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Showstoppers. What will force you to reload or loose?
- Your first terror mission can have armored cars. Yes, more than one, I had three. On superhuman, these need explosives >60 damage to even scratch, the more damage the better. A heavy machine gun can damage them a little bit and they are not immune to fire, so flamethrowers can eventually wear them down. A hammer can also do damage, but they explode on death so melee should only be a last resort measure. Advised weapons are mortar, high explosive, RPG and landmines. These do enough damage to kill in one or two hits, so bring enough.
- Base defence. I had my first base defence at the beginning of month two. They bring plasma weapons and blaster launchers, and if it's the academy then they will also use mind tricks. The ships that search for your base are too strong to shoot down, so once a retaliation mission has spawned you are at the mercy of the RNG if they find you or not. You can avoid the spawning of a retaliation mission by not shooting down ships and only attack those that are landed. There are some ships that can be shot down safely without the risk of retaliation. This is dependent on faction and mission. I did not look at the code yet to figure out exactly which ones these are.
- Hellerium/Elirium/Nuclear fuel. The Bonaventura needs that as fuel. If you don't fly around excessively you will get enough as salvage and it can also be bought. Just watch your supplies and keep enough cash to buy some when you notice you run low. If you research the small ship engine you can dismantle one to get 10 hellerium. This way you can also make more money, as 10 hellerium sell for more than a small ship engine.
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What enemies to expect
Contrary to xcom, you meet hard to kill enemies right from the start. The standard armored enemy is nearly impossible to kill with your starting muskets. Explosives do a good job here. For armored enemies, the direction they are facing is very important as the rear armor is generally much weaker than the front armor. Don't expect to do any damage when you hit the front armor. Some enemies also have resistance to stun, so capture requires several hits with a cattle prod.
Weapon analysis
I will just talk about what you have at the start and what can be bought cheap enough. Most of the weapons you can buy are too expansive to be viable in the beginning. Much cheaper to loot them off enemies. Ammo cost is also a problem.
Good ranged weapons:
- Hunting bow. As stated in the what to buy section, the hunting bow will be your best early ranged weapon. An important factor here the ammo is free.
- Muskets. The musket is actually quite good. It has one fairly accurate aimed shot per round for decent damage. Other rifles you find won't shoot faster ( I'm just talking about long range here), maybe a bit more accurate and for about the same damage.
- Boarding gun. Good damage, but not that accurate and very heavy. Ammo will be a problem though and you only have one. The research needed to manufacture the ammo does not take long and you will have it soon enough.
- Fuso knives and ninja stars. Good damage and low cost, but limited range (8 for knives and 10 for stars). Needs good throwing skill (>50) before they can be used effectively. If you don't depleate the stack you get a full one back after the mission.
- Blackpowder bomb. Limited range, but kills most stuff you throw it at. The research needed to manufacture them, "Flintlocks & Bombs", is available right from the start and finishes quickly.
Not so good ranged weapons:
- Flintlock pistols. Not accurate enough to be useful.
- Handcannon. Good damage, but also not accurate enough. Also quite heavy.
- Assault cannon. Again, not accurate enough. Think of it as a hammer with range three. Once you have researched explosive cannonballs, becomes a bit more useful. Then again, a blackpowder bomb does the same damage as an exploding cannonball and is a lot less heavy. The cannonball just has more range than the blackpowder bomb.
- Molotov. Not enough damage, but will drop the moral of enemies you hit. If they panic and drop their weapon, they are much easier to capture. Can be useful depending on fire resistance of the target, but is not something that will kill.
Good melee weapons
Here I should explain what the descriptions mean.
- Armor +30% (cutlass) means the armor of the enemy is more effective. An armor value of 10 is treated as armor 13 when striking it with a weapon that has +30% armor
- Stun +50% (pipe) means when the weapon does damage, it does additional stun damage. If you hit a target with 10 Armor for 20 damage, then you do 10 damage plus 5 stun damage. The +50% stun damage is calculated from the 10 damage that got past armor. It should be noted that the descriptions are not always correct. The pipe actually has +75% stun damage.
- Armor damage 10% (hammer) means before the damage calculation, armor is reduced by damage*10%. Each hit damages the armor, so with this weapon you can eventually kill everything if you hit it often enough.
If you want more info on melee weapons, scroll to the bottom of this post. There I've attached the spreadsheet that I use to calculate which weapon is best.
For killing:
- Hammer. A gal that can lift it will kill everything in one, sometimes two hits. Nearly always hits regardless of melee skill because of the game mechanic it uses (1 range shot). Can destroy terrain. It also does stun damage, but most things will just die.
- Chainsaw. Same as the hammer, nearly always hits because of game mechanic. Kills most things in one er... swing? Has trouble with armored enemies. Useful for finishing off enemies you tried to stun because of the autoshot. If you did some stun damage to your target before you hit them with the chainsaw, they will most likely become unconcious.
- Plastersteel pipe. Good damage, fast and quite accurate. Useful not because of the best damage (damage output is still very high) but because of all around good attributes. Scales well with strength and does a good amount of stun damage. Good chance to stun and not kill for tougher enemies. Accurate enough to use with low melee skill. Small enough to fit on your belt.
The other melee weapons are not bad, but mostly the chainsaw is simply better because of accuracy. The hammer would be even better but the weight limits it's use to strong gals. Also note that some enemies have dodge and the chainsaw and hammer can't be dodged.
For stunning:
- Handle. Needs decent bravery (>60) to do enough damage. The melee stun weapon that does the least amount of health damage.
- Rope. If your strength and bravery is not abyssmal, will one-shot stun academicians. It gets it's power from enemys vulnerability to smoke damage, so be careful who you use it on as not every enemy has a 400% modifier.
- Fistycuffs. Needs good skills, but then the damage output is awesome. Melee skill >100 recommended as they are not very accurate. For good damage strength >50 recommended. One of the few weapons that do stun damage and have a 0-200% damage range. Because of the damage range will often do too much damage and kill instead of stun.
Not so good for stunning because of too much health damage: ballbat, pipe, shovel and hammer.
What to do with money?
It is tempting to buy more brainers immediately. But be aware of what they cost you each month. Runts are not as critical as they can pay for themselves by making grog. Fill your capacity for brainers and runts at an equal pace. Meaning when you have 20 runts and 40 workshop space (50% capacity), have about 6 or 7 brainers for your 15 lab space.
Research is not that important. All the armor that is better than what you can research right away (warrior) is dependent on loot you find and you don't know when that will happen. Most weapons you find early you can use without research. Also the craft you can research is just a little bit better than what you can build right away. So better to invest in runts first as they can make money with grog and that is always useful.
It is also better to build a hangar and buy a pigeon radar craft than to build overcharged radar (long range radar). They cost about the same, but the pigeon you can move to an area where the graphs show activity. New bases are mostly used to build more hangars and have more pigeons.
Thats about it I think. If I can think of things that are missing I will add them later.
