So ... I ran out of stuff to research. What now?

[legionof1]

Pogrom yes though unlikely given number of factions that can spawn them.

I would assume that scorpion hunts stop spawning tho only dioxine knows what stops when.

[Solarius Scorch]

I would assume that scorpion hunts stop spawning tho only dioxine knows what stops when.

Well, Megascorpions are all dead by month 17,

Now we all do

[rezaf]

Well, you might call it railroading what I'm advocating, but I think it's a bit harsh to use that term on it.
I already described what I meant with "impossible to miss", too.

I propagate defining a set of mandatory techs in each phase of the game (such as the one during which there are Megascorpion Hunts) and making sure the game only moves on to the next stage when you have researched all those techs. I.e., you don't have Animal Poison yet? The game can't progress to the phase where, I dunno, Reticulans start appearing or whatever.
The stages of Piratez are much harder to decipher than those in X-Com.
There can be tons of tech that you can permanently miss, but it should always be nice to have stuff, nothing that can stop the game from going on.

If "basically every more or less basic tech is required to finish the game", too many techs are mandatory and you should cut back on that ($0.02).
Why must Schood Graduation require Chateau De La Mort? Why must Advanced Chemistry require Heavy Flamer, Durathread Armor, Smoke-Ops gear and the Contact to Crazy Hanna (plus seven other things)? The tech web is full of such overly complicated relationships.

About complicated recipes, I think I was talking about the Kustom Blunderbuss, which requires like 2 Military Shotguns, a CAWS and a Blunderbuss or something like that.

Regarding bows, throwing is COMPLETELY the wrong skill, since archery should be a different (much harder to train) skill altogether. 
I do understand why the decision has been made as-is, but if - like I - you're heavily relying on bows for like a year or more of ingame time, transitioning to something with more oomph (which likely will be a firearm) will be harder since your gals aren't trained with firearms. It's doable, though - and you have options like the Dojo and stuff, or just using weapons that cause area destruction or fire rapidly.

There's a seperate thread for that, but it's just astonishing how often you can miss a 125% aimed shot with a sniper gun at medium distance while hitting an altar boy your gal can't see herself in the head across all the friggin' map was (and still is when I unpack the old trusty bows) a routine thing in my game. Unless I misread the visibility thing has been changed in the meantime, but I'd rather have seen firearms being made more accurate or something. I always wonder how the AI units do it. The Sectopod has like 50% firearms skill, but boy does he like to one-shot kill crouched rookies in camouflaged armor a footbal yard away on a roof behind a fence in thick smoke. 

[Dioxine]

If "basically every more or less basic tech is required to finish the game", too many techs are mandatory and you should cut back on that ($0.02).
Why must Schood Graduation require Chateau De La Mort? Why must Advanced Chemistry require Heavy Flamer, Durathread Armor, Smoke-Ops gear and the Contact to Crazy Hanna (plus seven other things)? The tech web is full of such overly complicated relationships.

Otherwise most techs would be optional, and what I consider shitty noob traps - like the whole Gauss line in TFTD, wasted research. And I don't like wasted research.

About complicated recipes, I think I was talking about the Kustom Blunderbuss, which requires like 2 Military Shotguns, a CAWS and a Blunderbuss or something like that.

Ah, yeah. But it's hardly a "primitive" weapon, quite the opposite. Also it is the most complicated recipe of all weapons.

Regarding bows, throwing is COMPLETELY the wrong skill, since archery should be a different (much harder to train) skill altogether. 
I do understand why the decision has been made as-is, but if - like I - you're heavily relying on bows for like a year or more of ingame time, transitioning to something with more oomph (which likely will be a firearm) will be harder since your gals aren't trained with firearms. It's doable, though - and you have options like the Dojo and stuff, or just using weapons that cause area destruction or fire rapidly.

So you a) don't like throwing and bows being lumped together, or b) do you feel like your overspecialization lead you into some trouble? Because a) unavoidable, number of skills is strictly limited, b) exactly as intended.

There's a seperate thread for that, but it's just astonishing how often you can miss a 125% aimed shot with a sniper gun at medium distance while hitting an altar boy your gal can't see herself in the head across all the friggin' map was (and still is when I unpack the old trusty bows) a routine thing in my game. Unless I misread the visibility thing has been changed in the meantime, but I'd rather have seen firearms being made more accurate or something. I always wonder how the AI units do it. The Sectopod has like 50% firearms skill, but boy does he like to one-shot kill crouched rookies in camouflaged armor a footbal yard away on a roof behind a fence in thick smoke. 

I can't do anything about OXCom engine being glitchy (because miss at 125% is always caused by a glitch - you'll never miss it if you have a clear line of shot, just sometimes game thinks you have a clear shot, while reality is that you have no possibility of hitting), or about the vagaries of pure randomness.

[rezaf]

Otherwise most techs would be optional, and what I consider shitty noob traps - like the whole Gauss line in TFTD, wasted research. And I don't like wasted research.

Well, obviously you much prefer let players run into dead ends, the only hope of salvation being potentially years of grinding. 
If a line of research leads to the most powerful weapon or armor in the game, extremely potent stunning, a poweful support unit, a great fighter or whatever, can it really be described as a shitty noob trap?

Ah, yeah. But it's hardly a "primitive" weapon, quite the opposite. Also it is the most complicated recipe of all weapons.

I swear I didn't select this on purpose. It's just a weapon I ran across browsing the tech viewer. If this is an unusal outlier, just imagine I hadn't mentioned it. 

So you a) don't like throwing and bows being lumped together, or b) do you feel like your overspecialization lead you into some trouble? Because a) unavoidable, number of skills is strictly limited, b) exactly as intended.

None of the two, actually. As I wrote, it's relatively easy to get out of the "trap" (this ain't the new XCOM) and I fully understand you had to pick a skill and it made sense to pick throwing. No arguing. If anything, I was surprised just how powerful bows were when compared to anything else I could field at the time and for many, many months after.

I can't do anything about OXCom engine being glitchy (because miss at 125% is always caused by a glitch - you'll never miss it if you have a clear line of shot, just sometimes game thinks you have a clear shot, while reality is that you have no possibility of hitting), or about the vagaries of pure randomness.

Yah, I wasn't trying to put the blame on you, it was merely an observation. Even gals that had been using it for a while can only get two or at best three shots with the bow off in a round, and it'll take quite some time before this won't exhaust their stamina post haste. So there's some counterbalancing, no doubt- especially with further improvements to LOS recently made.
Still, it was funny how much I loathed seeing trees on a map during that time, because they'd block the arcs. And still there was nothing like not even leaving the Buenaventura, just climbing on the roof, spotting with parrots and clearing the map with archery fire. Fun times.

[Arthanor]

If you only see the toe of an enemy, the engine will let you fire at it. Since even hits (you made your x% roll) have a bit of deviation (much less than misses, obviously), you can miss the target and hit an obstacle instead. This is especially true given that the engine has a weird way of aiming at the target (closest to unit center instead of aiming for the middle of the exposed area, if I remember my "discussion" with volutar properly).

By opposition, bows often have a direct shot at a target thanks to the arcing trajectory, so they suffer much more rarely from this. It does happen sometimes in forest, when you can get a shot at all. It's a trade-off that means bringing a few of both weapons to support your melee gals is probably best, especially when fighting weaker enemies.

[khade]

Also, the effectiveness of primitive weapons is likely more due to modern armor not really being designed with it in mind, combined with the stated superhuman ability of the ubers, it makes sense that weapons designed to take advantage of their physical strength would be monstrously effective.

Though perhaps the bows bought through the market should have a far lower max capacity, as they are probably not made with uber strength in mind.  We might need two branches of bow tech, those designed around human strength and those designed by and for Ubers.  Crossbows and variants would be a middle ground.  I don't think you're going to find any non pirate uber using a bow, so the second would probably not be found as loot at all.

Tradeoff between human and uber bow tech could be ease of use and energy cost vs raw power.

[rezaf]

I dunno, I'Ve kinda grown to like them as an alternative to firearms.
I still retired them for the most part, mostly because bows are mostly useless against well armored foes.
There are no explosive arrows with dynamite, no stun arrows tipped in tranquilizer, not even fire arrows for bows other than the hunting bow. (Btw., I also thought it was weird that ammo was completely incompatible between bows). The Longbow takes too much TUs compared to it's increased damage (I suppose it has increased damage) already offset by reduced accuracy.
No bows other than the Hunting Bow have a snapshot option, i.e. they have no reaction fire.
And, of course, bows are pretty useless in closed quarters.
Still, with some improvements, they'd remain a viable choice far longer, but I dunno if that is desired or not.

Btw., when I started this topic I had a little less than 20 million in the bank. I just surpassed the 100 million mark with almost twice as much income as costs (8.1m income vs. 4.7m mainenance) - I still pay my brainers for sitting on their hands, and my Runts mostly churn out Grog or (if I have apples) Chateau De La Morte for sale, because they don't have anything better to do with them.
I have now enough power armor parts to build a single loader armor (yay!) and managed to snag some stuff from my first mansion invasion (these things take WAAAAAAAAY too much time for the gain, not going to do another one unless I have to).

[Arthanor]

Well, at some point this is a game set in the future, so shooting pointy sticks at the enemy with a long stick and string ought to get replaced by some decent pew-pew Bows and throwing stuff already lasts quite a while (indeed, probably because uber gals can use very strong bows much more efficiently than humans. There's probably no human bow as a gun would always be better.)

If you're interested in using throwing based weapons for a longer time, try capturing some mercenary captains. They'll tell you about some neat stuff.

[khade]

Arrows have to be made specifically for that type of bow, if your arrow isn't strong enough for the bow, it will shatter instead of fly, too strong may have problems too, different types of bows require different lengths of arrow, different materials, different styles of fletching, there's lots of factors.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, at some point this is a game set in the future

Two words, people:

Spoiler:

future bow.

[Arthanor]

Two words, people:

Spoiler:

future bow.

I went for the spoiler free version:

If you're interested in using throwing based weapons for a longer time, try capturing some mercenary captains. They'll tell you about some neat stuff.

Edit to spoiler Solarius' now spoilered spoiler (?!)

[Solarius Scorch]

I went for the spoiler free version:

Damn, you did... Sorry. Hidden my post behind a spoiler too.

[rezaf]

It's kinda funny how you regulars find convenient excuses explaining the quirks of the mod.

Anyway, I'm content I had to phase out bows, it's fine in the context of the game as-is.
But, as I've outlined earlier, I think it'd be way cooler to focus on different things in a playthrough and on others in another.
Like, you can follow gunpowder weapons and eventually get to the kustom blunderbuss etc., or follow plasma weapons and get to the BFG etc., or follow bows and get explosive and stun arrows.
However, unlike currently, you shouldn't be able to do ALL those things. It just leads to the bloated list of 25 shotgun types you're never going to use and 25 armor types that were outclassed the second you researched them - and having to scroll for 25 pages before you get to the thing you REALLY wanted to produce.

If Dioxine doesn't want to do that it's fine - his mod, his rules. I'm just saying I think it'd be cooler that way.

The only things I really think have to be adressed are the lighting issue (discussed in another thread) and the pacing issue (dead end if you haven't researched the right stuff at the right time).
Everything else is purely a matter of taste/preference to me.

[Arthanor]

The problem with your "follow the path of the amazons/commandos/sci-fi soldier to complete the game in different playthrough" is that there has to be a reason why you can't research guns when you have researched bows (also it's impossible to do without using a convoluted mechanic, but that's a minor thing). Why wouldn't you be able to look at a gun and say "I want one of those"? Because you've used bows until then? That makes no sense. "I like guns with bullets, that plasma gun that can blow up whole buildings means nothing to me, it has no bullets" is even worse. There is just no reason to have something like that, except common "tech tree branching" crap that modern games try to force on us supposedly for replay value. "You can play the whole game again making subpar choices after having completed it with the best choices. Enjoy gimping yourself!" because it is practically impossible to balance all choices to be exactly equally viable, especially when taking into account player preference, play style and aptitudes.

That is quite shallow compared to Piratez's way of making what you encounter variable and the tech dependent on what you encounter, thus forcing you to adapt to different things using different tools. Play once, encounter the guild more and you'll be playing walking tanks because that's what you can learn from the guild. Play the game again, maybe you'll encounter the academy instead of the guild and be spamming MC instead of walking around in power armor. If you wait long enough, yeah you can get it all, but the experience was different since the order you got your tech was so. After 3 in game years, I still don't have MC because I haven't found a Provost, but my gals are all walking in crazy armor because I saw plenty of guild and merc troopers. In a previous game, I had witches MC'ing people within a year because I managed to capture a Provost on a base defense. It was a completely different thing: instead of tanking everything, I was skirmishing, avoiding direct confrontation and taking advantage of MC to scout and disable enemies.

The early game is a bit more uniform and given how it increases the total length of the game, it kinda helps in making things more uniform because you have a lot of time to encounter all factions before being able to really discover the tech that affects gameplay. I'm not entirely convinced by the new early phase of the game (conceptually, I preferred the "you've got muskets, they've got personal armor, have fun!" early game), but I haven't given it a real try yet either.

Also, I'm quite sure not all weapons and armors are pre-reqs to finishing the game, so nothing forces you to research everything if you don't want to. You can limit yourself to a subset should you want to, instead of forcing Dioxine to limit everybody. You have the choice of either rushing to the endgame or taking forever to research everything. I know I prefer the latter, maybe you just need to make the choice yourself and not research some stuff instead of asking Dioxine to implement a required choice.

As for your other things, Dioxine already said he's not aiming to have research traps, and lighting is indeed an ongoing issue.