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Author Topic: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?  (Read 35954 times)

Offline Dioxine

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #30 on: August 29, 2016, 09:23:03 pm »
Well, Megascorpions are all dead by month 17, but Bandits can always show up on a Pogrom. I'll add extra venues of getting the animal poison, it didn't cross my mind that 1.5 years could be possibly not enough to catch a live Megascorpion.

Offline Surrealistik

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #31 on: August 29, 2016, 09:25:08 pm »
Well, Megascorpions are all dead by month 17, but Bandits can always show up on a Pogrom. I'll add extra venues of getting the animal poison, it didn't cross my mind that 1.5 years could be possibly not enough to catch a live Megascorpion.

Also mind blind playthroughs where it may not occur to someone that Megascorpions are a crucial capture; that they are isn't exactly intuitive.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #32 on: August 29, 2016, 09:38:26 pm »
Is there such a thing as a non-crucial capture? Who wouldn't want to capture and interrogate everything and everyone? Would that be any kind of proper play? You say strange things.
Also it's a version issue; it so happens that freshly added items can be hard to find due to limited number of places where they appear.

Offline Surrealistik

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #33 on: August 29, 2016, 09:49:21 pm »
Is there such a thing as a non-crucial capture? Who wouldn't want to capture and interrogate everything and everyone? Would that be any kind of proper play? You say strange things.
Also it's a version issue; it so happens that freshly added items can be hard to find due to limited number of places where they appear.

I wouldn't consider most unintelligent beasts to present as crucial captures (for example Reapers, Chryssalids, Celatids, etc), unless there is something that is obviously valuable about them. I don't think your average player starts from a vantage of wanting to play Pokeman and catch em all just cause.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2016, 09:52:16 pm by Surrealistik »

Offline nrafield

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #34 on: August 29, 2016, 10:32:43 pm »
They are all pretty exotic though. The only reason you wouldn't want to capture them is because you have played the original game and know that interrogating aliens that aren't Leaders or Commanders makes no difference in the end so it could be the same thing here.

Offline Surrealistik

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #35 on: August 29, 2016, 10:38:59 pm »
They are all pretty exotic though. The only reason you wouldn't want to capture them is because you have played the original game and know that interrogating aliens that aren't Leaders or Commanders makes no difference in the end so it could be the same thing here.

I mean, metagaming from the original games aside (which indeed compounds the problem), why would you want to capture the Chryssalid for instance? So you can interrogate it about its predilection for mass rape while it snaps its claws at you? I don't doubt that there will be people who capture to satisfy their curiosity, but from a design perspective it makes no sense to rely entirely on players having an unprovoked inquisitive impulse in order for them to proceed with key techs.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #36 on: August 29, 2016, 11:00:48 pm »
I capture everything both due to metagaming from previous Piratez experience (Advanced personal armor used to be a lot more difficult to unlock) as well as the desire to see what Dioxine will have written in the flavor text of each interrogation. My rule for Piratez is if it hasn't been interrogated at least once, it's a VIP and it's coming back. That included a megascorpion even if they first appear more than a year in my game. One issue with those though, is that its pretty easy to kill them so unless you specifically set out to stun one, it's unlikely that you'll catch one. By opposition, ghouls are tough as hell in the early game, and pretty likely to be just stunned and brought back by default.

As an aside, the chryssalid interrogation is pretty neat (and I think there should be a commendation tied to stunning dangerous stuff, like chryssalids and reapers. The gals that bring those back to the base live should get something like "reckless danger" and "Fur lover" commendations, with appropriately comical text. Same as for capturing an armored beastmaster.

Offline Surrealistik

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #37 on: August 29, 2016, 11:04:35 pm »
I'm referring to average players running through the game blind. Yes, if you've played PirateZ before, or otherwise know to interrogate every last thing because key techs hide behind the most obscure, unintuitive and unorthodox stuff (like scorpion interrogations and... costumes) you will do this.

Offline rezaf

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #38 on: August 30, 2016, 12:00:28 am »
Yeah - I obviously went into the game blind as well.
I tend to be a collector in these things, but the Piratez early game is more than a little overwhelming for the new player.
There's tons of new things to discover - in general, but also when it comes to tech. And many familiar things aren't there to rely on.
You usually have like 20 items to research to chose from with no way of knowing that some of them actually belong into a different phase of the game (like when you accidentally run across a Doom, a mercenary or a Star Gods pogrom early on), some are totally useless crap, some can safely be put aside for a while, some lead to absolutely essential discoveries that will otherwise prevent the game from continuing properly etc.
Like I wrote earlier, from a newbie player perspective, I feel that the main game progression tech branch should be impossible to miss.
If you absolutely have to pull off stunts like making an esoteric interrogation mandatory for progression, I'd suggest you only progress from that phase of the game to the next when this mandatory operation has been performed.

Anyway, when it comes to capturing live specimen ... it doesn't help that you don't have reliable access to potent stunning options early in the game.
It took me a good while to get Stun Batons, which aren't reliable enough to make use of unless constantly save-scumming. Same goes for the Cattle Prod. Stasis Grenades are also a mixed bag and are unsuitable for unexpected situations cause they take an eternity or two to prime (I'm ok with that, just saying).
In this phase of the game, I generally used bows - which are also a bit of a newbie trap, as they train the wrong skill (throwing instead of shooting), but are just immensely powerful otherwise.
With many enemies, you end up accidentally stunning someone sooner or later with the bow, but appearently it was always lethal to the Megascorpions.
I was also overly cautious I guess, as I hadn't yet discovered that melee appearently doesn't work at all in the mod. No creature I encountered has ever performed a melee attack.
I even cornered a Chrysallid between a fridge and a door and prodded him with the Stun Baton for like 50 turns in a row (captured him alive in the end too). He never even snapped at me.
Had I known this earlier I'd surely have captured a Megascorpion alive.

Is there such a thing as a non-crucial capture? Who wouldn't want to capture and interrogate everything and everyone? Would that be any kind of proper play? You say strange things.

Btw., the mod even seems to encourage players not to always attack everything. For example, many bootypedia entries suggest to hold back for fear of reprisals (if we shoot one of those down, there will be consequences, we can attack these, but it will seriously hurt our relations etc.) - I never found a way to check such indivdual relations, and I ended up ignoring any such suggestions and just doing all missions whenever possible.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2016, 12:09:26 am by rezaf »

Offline Arthanor

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #39 on: August 30, 2016, 12:08:22 am »
Melee has been fixed now, you should update your game if you want the real experience. Dioxine is(was?) also working on making the early game more manageable. I do agree that there is some trimming to be done in the tech tree though (ex.: I dislike "empty" discoveries that unlock neither buying, making or using anything, even if they lead to something great after.)

Handles and fistycuffs are plenty to perform the occasional capture on most enemies in the game. It's certainly enough to get a megascorpion (although don't try on first turn, the things sting like crazy). Scorpions being so soft, it's easy to get them with a harpoon gun as well, although finding a gal who can fire one halfway straight might be hard in the early game.

Offline rezaf

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #40 on: August 30, 2016, 12:26:30 am »
I'm not sure the tech tree has to be trimmed per se - I love that there's tons of things to discover - but I can only repeat myself, crucial tech should be impossible to miss, no matter your playstyle.
It'd be totally cool for replayability if there'd be entire lines of tech relying on such exotic circumstances, but it's very frustrating when you run out of stuff to do and don't know why.

Maybe also make some stuff mutually exclusive (or failing that almost so by having very time consuming "gate technologies")?

For example, I feel that the entire line of age of sails type gunpowder weapons is nonsensical. The early versions are too weak and inaccurate (especially in the hands of early game rookies) and by the time I got access to the later version stuff I also had access to plain better "modern" weaponry.
And if I thought something sounded like a fun thing to try, it had anti-thematic production requirements (this blunderbuss requires a modern military shotgun and two assault rifles to construct) and/or some extremely rare stuff.
Also, all this crap just fills up lists and makes the game harder to play. More of a good thing isn't always still a good thing.

But if you'd concentrate on ye old gunpowder weapons (and get good ones) OR specialize on more modern firearms OR on energy weapons etc., with maybe some super exotic stuff available only when you run across a rare mission variant or something, that'd be totally great when replaying.

« Last Edit: August 30, 2016, 12:33:13 am by rezaf »

Offline Dioxine

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #41 on: August 30, 2016, 12:50:07 am »
I'm not sure the tech tree has to be trimmed per se - I love that there's tons of things to discover - but I can only repeat myself, crucial tech should be impossible to miss, no matter your playstyle.

In general I agree, but define 'impossible'. If it means railroading, then, no. If it means multiple paths, then, yes - but it's something I'm working at all the time and cannot just conjure. Also it's often not easy to see what's crucial, since basically every more or less basic research is needed to finish the game, with some optional paths only diverging around mid-game- the rest is a matter of order, not choice.

Also it seems you had bad luck with version too - Animal Poison being new and not properly arranged in the tree yet, and Stun Batons and Cattle Prods freshly revamped and accidentally bugged in the process (they will deal proper damage with the next release).

Blunderbuss takes only 4 Scrap Metal to produce, not any Rifles... Also yeah, the flintlocks do suck, but it's hard they wouldn't. You need to catch up to the tech level you consider 'modern' and I feel like there is enough fun and useful stuff dropped there (bombs, flaming arrows, bows, certain melee options) to make it feel at least somewhat rewarding to anyone.

Don't say bows train the 'wrong' skill, after all the coding work that has been done to base their damage AND accuracy on Throwing, finally to be able to grant Throwing experience too :)

Offline khade

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #42 on: August 30, 2016, 01:49:30 am »
I feel that the flintlock tech is mostly for when you have a really bad string of luck, they are effective, but good luck getting more than 9 shots from the normal ones and I don't know how many is reasonable with the rifle.

Seriously, a musket ball is BRUTAL, if it hits.  There's a reason why battlefield medicine largely consisted of removing limbs, and it wasn't that the doctors were hacks.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #43 on: August 30, 2016, 04:30:06 am »
Railroading would be bad, but having various ways to get a given tech is always good, especially if the tech is crucial to later unlock significant (required?) tech. For example, in this specific case, maybe celatids can unlock Animal Poison as well? You can find celatids at any point in the game when fighting the church, so that gets rid of the issue.

Seriously, a musket ball is BRUTAL, if it hits.  There's a reason why battlefield medicine largely consisted of removing limbs, and it wasn't that the doctors were hacks.

Pun intended or so not intended that you yourself missed it? Anyhow, great one :D

I also think musket balls don't stand up to modern personal armor? It's easy to forget, but even a GO's overall are made of Durathread, which is similar to kevlar yet more comfortable. Those guys in goofy coveralls are actually wearing something that can stop bullets, sometimes, let alone musket balls which don't have a hard, pointy tip.

Offline khade

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Re: So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?
« Reply #44 on: August 30, 2016, 06:29:17 am »
Pun most definitely intended :)

Even with crap penetration, those are supposed to hit HARD.  But they are starting weapons, and while better than the other human starting weapons when it comes to damage, they're still low tier.