Thoughts & feedback so far

[Martin]

My advise:

-don't bother with the airgame, hunter-killers are crap, wait for better ships
-don't build large vaults, armored ones can be reached quite early
-once you have some basic guns, always assault landed ordinators
-get blue codex and go to space, the escape pod or how is ti called is suprisingly durable and can survive being pounded by zombies or shot by lasers

[tylor]

Ordinators have vicious security. With big guns and thick armor. So, if you really want to take on them, use heavy melee.

[Martin]

Govt enforcers aren't that hard to penetrate, I've seen them die to cannonballs. Elite soldier is tough, but there's one, maybe two in each ordinator.

[Ragshak]

Blue Codex?

[Absalom]

You're actually losing money producing and selling Flame Arrows.

What? Access Lift + 2 corridor (a minor addition for later defense  not needed) + barracks + vaults + extractor monthly maintenance is 37k.  Twenty runts (the most an extractor can handle) monthly pay is 100k.  Total monthly cost is 137k.  Twenty runts making flame arrow's all month is 277k income.  Roughly 140k a month.  Unless the net fund field in the manufacturing view is completely wrong.


This leaves you with 5 barracks space, that leaves easy workshop + additional barracks addition for a full workshop + extractor of 50 runts at 697k per month with flame arrows. 
When you get Still's even later on, yada yada.

The ROI on this is obviously garbage, however, it lays groundwork for future expansion into interception bases/stills etc really well and provides a steady influx of income.  Also my interception RNG has been awful lately and this is a sure thing.

[Dioxine]

Ah right, they're produced in packs of 10, I missed that. That actually gives some paltry income

[Slaughter]

Some thoughts:

- X-Grog is a nice cost-coverer, and can help one get back into the game if he loses craft early on.

Research apples as soon as you get a decent stock and manufacturing capacity, then work on making some Chateau. When you are not making Chateau, make Grog. Never leave your runts idle. If they're not making gear, they should be making Grog or Chateau or the like. Other ways of getting apples: Ratman Rodeo, help the Lokk'Nars against Sky Ninjas, Warehouse Wars missions. I have also obtained apples from temple raid missions once or twice, I think it depends on the terrain.

- In my experience, Seagull missiles are too damn expensive to waste on civilian shipping.

- Get Warrior Armor. Junk is cheap. Its the first armor that gives you some real resistances. It slows down a soldier, but a good enough gal can deal with it. It has two niches: Sniper gals (who are not affected by TU and stamina malus because guns use %TU to fire, and get the accuracy bonus) and melee gals who are strong, fast and untiring enough to walk and sprint using Warrior Armor. It also makes Shotguns go from lethal to just annoying, and early on you will fight a lot of dudes with shotties.

- Get yourself some workers and slaves as soon as you can. Your vaults will soon be bursting at the seams. A second base for storage is good too.

- I have a thread on early guns, may help. Early on, if you wanna hurt people, melee is where it, is except if you're fighting Ratmen and Sky Ninjas (they seem to have some innate melee dodge because I have problems hitting them up close), I'm a big enthusiast of the Billhook.

- Cannon seems to be a over-powered weapon early on. Unless you're shambler-hunting or knocking over guild shipping, its not worth bringing to shitfights with bandits, cultists, etc.

[tylor]

Afaik, any mission that has some village or gardens map nets some apples.

[legionof1]

To ratmen and sky ninjas my early answer is hammers and chainsaws. Also really helps getting around in village maps to just go through walls rather then wandering around looking for the right door. Hammers help alot in other early missions too cause lets face it front door is not always viable.

[Vesparco]

Ok so after 4 months the game is much better than the initial one.

The things discovered so far:
- Brainers are a must, otherwise you lack the tech to do anything. Five as soon as possible and 10 as the "sustainable" value (with 50 runts).
- Main base follows the one extractor expansion, some prisoner cells and a second hangar:
 *One additional extractor enables to use the drill inmediately, which helps quite a lot and also opens the research of the next ship.
 *The numbers of X-grog goes down the drain, the main advantage is the increment of Chateau de la morte production, which leaps 800k each 20 runts per month. Mass production gives you income early to spend, if you have the apples, which encourages the rat rodeo & lock'narr help.
 *The prision cells is a fast buffer for live captures, specially for the hunting.
 *If you run out of hellerium, you'll need the manpower to extract the hellerium to feed the Pachyderm with the flamethrower.
- Secondary bases with radar coverage. One of the most isolated receives also an outpost and an aircar. The investment is recovered after 4-5 civilian ships.
- Selective research is a must, the previous one i was researching too many weapons which didn't gives any progress to the tech.
- Pachyderm is vastly superior to the Airturtle, the techs can be reached almost simultaneously. Also is space approved .
- The early oscillator gun from sea missions is perfect for the aircar.
- Several zombie encounters. One was a smuggler ship with combat shotguns. They are perfect for zombie and creature hunting.
- There is a "exploit" of the surrender system, which is throwing a Molotov to the last guy standing. If it goes well is instant capture.

My main armor is warrior armor, before was barbarian as the most cheap-available. Warrior works well to manage most of the initial missions without any deads and many prisoners.
On the weaponry department I suck and quite a lot. Munnitions are scarce so  I rely on sustainable sources such as "cannon/ballista", flintlock rifles and pistols. Close combat is fine (specially with an anomalous lady with 128 melee combat). Now I have upgraded to assault rifles, assault machineguns and combat shotguns as long as the munition can last (I hope I can reach manufacturing by then). I bring the cannon and the blackpowder bombs just I case I find something armored.

BTW, domestic shotgun with rubber slugs is quite crappy. You need to shot at least 2-3 times to a guy to take him down. The TUs and the distance required invites you throw the gun, take the club and go personal.

[tylor]

Brainers is the biggest bottleneck, because they are soft capped at 15 until endgame, so you should aspire to get all 15 them asap.

[KateMicucci]

I don't see the appeal of rubber slug shotguns either, unless you're artistically grinding shooting and reactions against civilians.

Armor values of early game "armor" like Barbarian, Warrior and Scale is low enough that it hardly makes a difference over skin while hurting mobility very badly. With the low stats of early-game girls I'd rather give them stat bonuses. Warrior still gets used for shooter girls, but that's because of the shooting bonus. Its been a couple versions since I played early game, but my most deadly gals were swimsuit chainsaws, archers and javelineers with their choice of rogue/durathread/gym suit, and shotgunners.

Then once you get camo and nighvision the dynamic changes.

The problem with the assault cannon is you need a gal both accurate and strong to use it, and thats a combo you may not have enough of. Even then it is an unreliable weapon.

[Ragshak]

Isnt Camo Paint better than Warrior Armor? Not in terms of protection but overall usefullness.

[RetroJL]

I've played around 50+ hours now and thought I would chime in here. 

X-Grog is a good early game money-maker but my primary income lately is piracy/kidnapping.  The charger laser on a Jetbike and a Seagull on a Speeder can take down most easy pickings combined.  Add to that some cattle prod gals and it's easy pickings.  Shooting down even V Small civvie usually nets around 100K+from ransom and another 150K+ from the loot.  As the prey gets tougher I'll start to focus more on taking only the valuable ones.

Research-wise I'm taking a different approach actually.  Stealing tech from prisoners might be more random but a hell of a lot quicker.  Reserve a few brainers for a few specific paths and the rest going on data discs/almanacs/prisoners/etc.   2 per project and I'm getting a breakthru every day or so.  Also, my understanding is that the Mutant Alliance is a must to research quick.  Not responding gives you -1500 but just showing up and dusting off if it's a lost cause gives the +1000 - the dead civvie penalty.  Anyone confirm?

Does is matter where you build your initial base?  My central Africa base is netting a ton more Reticulan traffic than my previous Siberian base which had more cult traffic.

[tylor]

Camo Paint, Amazon and some looted Tac Vests is how I gear early game.

What traffic you get is highly random game to game. For base placement, most important is how far you can reach with tour Airbus. I have found that Europe is ideal - you can reach everything except south part of South America and Australia, but I think I have never a mission spawning in Australia. Taiwan starting base has way worse reach. I once had 5 missions spawning nearly at the same time at Central America area - all unreachable by bus.