Suggestions on how to improve the mod

[AncientSion]

1. Since you are a pirate and are looting freighters, i think that indeed of always findin weapons, ammo and jewerly each once in a while in addition to spare ship parts, most trader vessels should contain actual cargo. For example, bounty should consist of several types of "cargo crates" which basicly hold commercial wares that have only one purpose: fence them.
Im think there should be a few types of cargo crates, called "Merchandise Crate" or "Entertainment Cratess". Depending on the size of the vessel, you can find like 5 to 30 of these cargo crates and they should be the main way to receive "income". This would fit with the whole "Pirates" and "Booty" theme a whole lot better than manufacting a gazillion metric cubes of grog.


Secondly, i dont know if its within the scope of the game engine or can be added as a code mode, but i think it would be very, very nice if the fence market would actually appreciate shortages and overstockages with decreased or appreciated prices. Coming back to the gazillion barrels of grog, even a very simple variable and loop should perhaps be able to decrease the sell value of grog over the course of a game, while increasign the price for more rare commodies.

Im sure there are more good suggestions, but i cant think of any right now.

[Boltgun]

I agree that the recent changes made attacking most ships less of a profit. I did not adapt and now I am spiraling into bankruptcy.

I need to increase alcohol production but it gives the feeling of leading a mafia and not a pirate crew.

[legionof1]

I agree that very few targets that actually feel like good pickings. Most of the early game what you can handle with acceptable risk is limited. Feels more vulture like then pirate. Mid game more targets are within acceptable risk but rather few of those are actually profitable beyond tech acquisitions.

The list of what are actually big scores with acceptable risk to my mind is:

Freighters. Weak crew, lots of goods, a layout that makes multiple captures pretty easy.

Supply Ships. On open maps where sniping is doable the baby nukes are manageable. Large quantities of high value items. Gauss weapons are always present. So guild supply ships can be a quick leg up since you have good weapons on frail GO and Security that you can then turn against the marsec

Bases: Trader and to a lesser extent academy bases. Most the units in these are fairly frail. Besides the faction leader there are few powerful foes. And in the case of the traders those slots can be either marsec BG or guild reps so it is possible to face only the guildmaster for armor. Academy split there high slot between espers or medics neither of which is particular threat to an experienced crew. Again Gauss weapons guaranteed. However the small size of most bases allows the potential to out number and overwhelm.
Other faction bases are however quite hard. Merc units are just beefy from bottom tier to top. Church bases contain multiple terror units as well two types of power armor foes. Star Gods hehe yeah right.

Pogroms: Actually pretty good pickings if you can handle terror units. Humanist and deep ones battles are fairly easy. Guild is also manageable as long no boomasarus. Raiders are also pretty easy since they spawn fewer units then other attacks and have poorer guns(laser instead of plasma/gauss). Dark one attacks have fewer total units but a higher portion of terror units. Bandits are also pretty easy given a stock of grenades for the armored cars.

Gold transports: actual transport is no more threatening then other freighters and an even better internal configuration for captures. And yeah huge pile of gold.

Most everything else seems like either a major challenge due to volume of foes or almost not worth the ammo.

Grog production and later forgery seems almost necessary to keep things flowing smoothly and to cushion bad luck.

[sambojin]

A lot of it does come down to mafia-style grog and gun-running. I don't actually see that as a problem.

Precisely how much hellerium do you need? And why do you have all these sprayguns laying around?

They're called loot at the end of a mission for a reason. You'll never use most of it, and are meant to fence away plenty of it. It keeps it simple. You can use it if you want, but a decent haul of weapons/ammo/random stuff can give you millions in cash from a few decent intercepts or chases 'til landing. Not to mention hostage values (or robbing them) on top of that. And sometimes you get lucky and find something extraordinarily valuable like a cache of apples to turn in Chateu la Mort. Or a good chunk of gold.

Profitability isn't a huge problem in Xpiratez, as long as you don't horde everything, and do enough landed ufos that fuel isn't ever a concern. You can even get by just fencing stuff and buying fuel if you need to.

[legionof1]

Actual funds is not so much the point it is more towards what feels rewarding to do and play and not just runabout/fighter/cutter 234. When you need to do many small crafts over and over every month to keep from losing the game to score, in-between preparing for major targets things become dull. This is unfortunately what alot of the mid game involves as you wait for the right captures to come along to pass bottle necks.     

[AncientSion]

I think it would be better to be able to fence simple, yet elegant loot (namely, crates of various flavours as a big commercial loot) instead of 3 sprayguns, 4 shotgun clips, 2 HE Grenades and 1 Battle Rifle.
It would reduce the clutter, micromanagment and instead add to flavour and atmosphere.

The mod is called PIRATEZ for a reason, its not called Grog-Manufactoring-Simulator 2016.

[legionof1]

The multitude of assorted arms types i actually kinda like early in the game makes it feel more scavengey and edge of of survival. Mid game its a mild hassle to keep things tidy and functional but not to bad. late game is where it starts to take its toll housekeeping and shuffling of equipment to multiple base and in and out of dispersed production lines gets time consuming. the in game bootypedia is full to bursting and is much less useful for reference. The whole game dynamic changes and not in a great way.   

[Dioxine]

housekeeping and shuffling of equipment to multiple base and in and out of dispersed production lines gets time consuming. the in game bootypedia is full to bursting and is much less useful for reference.

Better too much info than not enough info. Also indeed, if you fall into the I-must-control-everything trap, it can get really tedious. Chill out, sit back, and enjoy the journey instead of being obsessed with optimalization and finishing the game. Making that 1000 points a month to keep positive score is really easy.

I think it would be better to be able to fence simple, yet elegant loot (namely, crates of various flavours as a big commercial loot) instead of 3 sprayguns, 4 shotgun clips, 2 HE Grenades and 1 Battle Rifle.
It would reduce the clutter, micromanagment and instead add to flavour and atmosphere.

Illogical. It would actually add to the clutter, since you will have all these 'elegant' (yuck, I hate everything elegant) crates to sell PLUS 3 sprayguns, 4 shotgun clips, 2 HE Grenades and 1 Battle Rifle because the enemies have to be armed with SOMETHING, right? The thing that bothers me here is that cutting enemy ships to pieces still accounts for a major part of the loot. There will be more robbing opportunities added, but OTOH I can't make the weak enemies to go away precisely so you have grind material when you fall on bad times.  And regardless of loot, everyone will still be making tons of grog.

[AncientSion]

So, do you acknowledge the whole grog-making as a problem or not ?
I can say for myself that 80 % of the time im having all my runts on x-grog, which doesnt seem alright to me.
Do you agree, or are you actually with that ?

[ivandogovich]

So, do you acknowledge the whole grog-making as a problem or not ?
I can say for myself that 80 % of the time im having all my runts on x-grog, which doesnt seem alright to me.
Do you agree, or are you actually with that ?

I wouldn't call it a problem, so much as a major part of the operation.  80-90% of the time the majority of your workers will probably be working to support your operation whether its grog or other profitable ventures.

[Dioxine]

What else option there is? Disallow manufacturing for profit altogether? It would make the game much, much harder (and less interesting). So yeah grog is here to stay. As for the % of your runt time spent on for-profit manufacturing? It depends heavily on how many runts you have, how much combat equipment you are  producing, and how bad your financial outlook is. We can discuss these three, if they're properly balanced or not (eg. are items being manufactured too fast? is there enough need to manufacture equipment? are the workshops too cheap? etc) but there's no helping it: it always pays off to build up your industry, and once the industry is strong enough, most of your manufacturing will always be for-profit manufacturing.

EDIT:
And yeah, I absolutely agree that the market should 'heat up' if you're selling too much, leading to a drop of the prices, but it would require new engine code (and not a simple one). Depends if anyone wants to code such a thing.

[AncientSion]

This is what im saying. You need money. You dont make money by attacking aircrafts, but by selling Grog.

Solution: Make attacks more profitable. Add sellable loot. Like....merchandise crates. Slightly decrease sell value of X-Grogs. That way there is an incentive to attack a bit more and manufacture grog a bit less. Fixed.

Long-term prospect: Try to get a slightly flexible market into the game, were sales over time influence prices.

[greattuna]

You dont make money by attacking aircrafts

Do you just keep every single hostage, ship engine, slave AI, plastasteel and hellerium? Do you keep every single weapon and clip, every grenade, every reticulan fusion reactor and metal ore? They're all sellable, sellable well, and give money, just like x-grog. And I get more money from attacks, because workshops are busy making ammo, weapons, armor and ships, and can't make money-selling stuff.

[sabrecat]

No kidding. I haven't made it super far into the game myself, but in my experience thus far, grog manufacturing is good for covering maintenance and day-to-day expenses, but a successful shipping raid provides a surge in funds sufficient to expand bases, hire Brainers, etc.

I'm sure the calculus does change later in the game as manufacturing operations get more elaborate, but you know, that makes sense to me. If you've dumped years and millions into infrastructure, it really would get to be tempting to leave the pirate life behind in favor of your less risky but still profitable ventures. "Cap'n... ye might make me walk th' plank for this, but: we're makin' money hand over fist distillin' rum, and ain't lost a single hand or runt doin' it! Ye think maybe we could... settle down, like?"

[GarlandSP]

I havent had problems with income, a nice tactic is to send the troop carrier to chase the flying target but not intercepting it, as soon as it lands it will prompt for a ground assault.