A thread for little questions

[Brittanicus]

Any idea what is taking up workshop space? Have no manufacturing projects and its at baseline 50/100.

Have wondered what it was before actually as i had 100 runts and 100 workshop space but it suddenly went down to 80/100 available and this latest reduction was after my first base capture, so i assume its an item or something but i can't really tell at a glance.

Edit: Just disregard this, i did have projects queued up or paused but i thought having zero runts assigned meant they weren't using workshop space but that isnt the case.

[legionof1]

Glad you figured it out yourself.

[Timudjun]

Hey, so I'm very new to the game. Didn't even play the original x-com but I did play xenonauts and jagged alliance 2 a lot so I have some grasp on the tactical aspect at least. I'm having trouble in the strategic aspect, especially the research. There is sooooo much stuff to research I have no idea where to start.

Right now its mid-april I believe and although I'm doing ok money and gals wise, there is still and absolute clusterfuck of research to do. I have 11 brainers already and I'm doing interrogations and some firearm research with some of what looks like main researches but I have no idea what to do next or if I'm doing ok here. Do I have enough brainers? Am i going to run out of research and end up in trouble money wise latter? I don't have any ship weapons and didn't research a codex yet, is it going to be a problem? What the hell should I be researching? Should I keep interrogations and weapon research for latter and concentrate on something or other? IDK I have absolutely no idea what to do here guys.

I am starting to meet spartans and ninja gals some guys who don't die as easily to shots from early weapons and I like to research stuff before using it. My best armor is also warrior armor so I can deal with them a little with some manstoppers and decent rifles but I'm not sure whether that is gonna be a problem in the forseable future neither. So what should I research wise?

[sanyaskillpro]

Am i going to run out of research and end up in trouble money wise latter?

lol no, not in xpiratez

Do I have enough brainers?

11 for april is ok, you could have more or less depending on whether you roll the big cash missions(like church raids), just make sure to buy them every month until you're capped

Should I keep interrogations and weapon research for latter and concentrate on something or other?

do not research random weapons unless you plan to buy it or its ammo, or in case it's needed for other tech you plan to research next
interrogations: do at least once to learn their armor\resists and unlock slave\rob if available. repeated interrogations are worth it for low tier trash enemies that have no other use(b boys, ratmen, ruffians) just to exhaust their free topics or if you're trying to unlock a specific tech (i.e. shadowmasters)

I don't have any ship weapons and didn't research a codex yet, is it going to be a problem

my first time playing i didn't build any interceptors for more than a year. missions and landed craft are more than enough, but to be fair back then every other enemy wasn't a hunter killer...
whether you should rush a codex depends on the color. red and green give some very useful items, while grey and gold are more or less initially worthless. it's fine to wait until you unlock shadowmasters so you could claim the first real boon from a codex: codex crafts.

So what should I research wise?

ok, so the absolutely must have stuff is:
-buildings:
mess hall
overcharged radar
sickbay
personal labs
workshop
library < no need to rush it but you will need it eventually to progress past the early game
-missions
basically research all the available missions asap
animal hunts
warehouse wars
bounty hunting
neophyte boot camp
toppling towers
bandit business
bandit (something i've forgot the exact name that unlocks the big camps)
underwater treasures
underground missions
did i miss any?
one thing of note if you play ironman, i would not recommend doing mansion invasions very early in the game
-contacts:
basically all non-country specific contacts. focus on contacting krazy hanna. with the gear she unlocks you can pretty much beat most factions. even the landed ships with gauss rifles, cyberdisks and shit. also unlocks a 25mm cannon if you didn't get any yet.
-weapons and armor
won't mention any weapons as every person seems to have their own preference. there are plenty of primitive weapons which are able to oneshot ninja gals so just make sure to check them all out.
as for the armor research:
warrior: decent for most missions, but has almost no melee dodge
scale: for blocking doors at animal hunts and certain close quarters operations
guerilla: a light camo suit with some protection and a full inventory. good for both rookie gunfighters and experienced archer\throwers who value a big backpack over the bonus energy regen or minor stats
camo paint: for the peasant armor. gives them lots of stats and a decent inventory for an easy research and a laughable price of 2 soylents.
oh yes, and the gas masks. they're just as important as armor when facing certain factions.
-other goals:
interceptor assembly
gambling
chiller sea outfit
large barracks

i probably missed half of the techs as there are hundreds of them, but i've tried to list the ones i consider the most important.
you don't have to research literally everything. do not rush the mutant alliance, but once you feel done with the early game build a library and go back to school.

[Timudjun]

Oh hey I wasn't expecting such a detailed response, thanks a lot. That's gonna be pretty helpful I was just going for random research really, hoping to have less stuff on my screen because that scares me. Is researching missions used for anything? For bounty hunter missions it seems I didn't get any before researching them but for some reason I did get a single animal hunt mission and a couple of bandit camp missions before actually researching them. Although they did seem kinda limited (I just got a couple of white shamblers in the hunt mission and a camp with about 5 or 6 bandits in the camp mission).

How about armor, weapon and squad composition? What do you guys use in the beginning and a bit later? I tend to have a couple of gals in pirate clothing (the experienced ones) and the newbies in sailor moon clothing for the stats and the evasion but I'm not sure whether I should just switch them to actual barbarian and warrior armor and drop the clothing because getting shot kinda hurts as I lose the gal for up to 40 days and that's a pain.

Do people use mostly guns or what? I tend to have gals who can shoot and stab using a melee weapon in their right hand (mostly axes) and a pistol or smg in their left, you know, pirate style, but I'm not sure if that's a good strategy as pistols and smgs seem kinda weak as far as damage and AP goes. Those who can only  shoot get a rifle and those with good throwing get bows or javelins and throwing axes. It seems to work pretty well unless I'm fighting armored enemies, at which point the pistols are basically useless. Also unless they have a rifle, everybody is scouting and looking everywhere and missions end fast, not sure if that's the intent but with morale dropping constantly and the whole glamour rewards that seems to be the intention, although it does lead to more downtime as gals get shot quite often.

[sanyaskillpro]

here's an example of a team i could build around april-june.
this is for when you know it's a tough mission. for something like ratmen rodeo ofc i wouldn't bother customising everyone, just give everyone a shotgun with a medkit and a grenade, not wasting any rare ammo either. +adding non-lethal weapons for capture

go through enough restarts and you'll figure it out. i'm restarting this run as i've just lost 2 crafts and all of those gals died in a little bird accident(is it even good for anything besides shooting ratmen foot patrols? such a noob trap deathtrap imo, i don't even mind losing guns but it got blown to pieces with no survivors)

[Timudjun]

Oh I see. Melee is mostly secondary then. Here I was running around with 4 or 5/6 gals with axes and clubs wondering why half my team is getting shot. I'm not playing on Iron man though I'm trying to learn a little but if I was I would have already lost as my team got wiped by a few strix zombies trying to save a castaway. That was kinda unexpected as I was feeling pretty confident before that bloodbath. I saw a few forum posts about not getting weapons on ships until later in the game but I don't see how, I'm not getting many landed ships, I mean you can survive on missions but sometimes you'll just get dropped by 2-3 ships seemingly out of nowhere.

I have a base in central America and was going for a haunted forest mission in Europe and for some reason my bus got jumped by 3 fighter plane looking bastards that shot it down fast. Couldn't even run away with the shitty speed of that ship, so it seems it has to be changed relatively soon to survive a little. Anyways, thanks for the info man.

[Gremlion]

Oh hey I wasn't expecting such a detailed response, thanks a lot. That's gonna be pretty helpful I was just going for random research really, hoping to have less stuff on my screen because that scares me. Is researching missions used for anything? For bounty hunter missions it seems I didn't get any before researching them but for some reason I did get a single animal hunt mission and a couple of bandit camp missions before actually researching them. Although they did seem kinda limited (I just got a couple of white shamblers in the hunt mission and a camp with about 5 or 6 bandits in the camp mission).

What I do about researches - at the end of the first month press X. All researches become white (seen). At the end of the next month move all white researches into queue, press X. And repeat it until the end of the game. Brainers get assigned to the next research in the queue as soon as they end their current project. There are some exceptions, like I would postpone some researches, like space mission unlock before space suits, or eurosyndicate deal, and some repeatables would be picked over and over again during the month (pillow books, expedition reports, data disks...)
This way there's no chance that you will miss critical importance of that 12 damage peashooter for producing an interceptor. Yep, there's a dependence - guild stapler (said peashooter) is required for making durathread, which is required for workshop, which is required for modern tools...

How about armor, weapon and squad composition? What do you guys use in the beginning and a bit later?

Armor wise having 30 armor is important, it's a cut off for most of civilian weapons (shotguns be deadly) from becoming an oneshot death to damage ignore. Personally, I rush cave hunt-> chitin plates->chitin armor, skip warrior for proper chainmail. Animal hunts are great way to train inexperienced units, put them in armors with exp bonus and let go ham with reaction shots.

Weapons - I'd recommend to experiment yourself. Some people like hails of bullets. Some like to scout and snipe with bows. Some like sniper guns and flying armors. Some like to butcher things in melee. Everything is viable. Personally, I like to rush domestic shotguns. They have both lethal and non-lethal ammo, so I can simply switch between those mid mission. Stunned enemies provide more money when you sell or rob them. Likewise, using your fist to stun enemies works for a lot of enemies. For armored enemies spiked mace is amazing. It has high damage and it damages armor on top. So it can open cans to the point of two-shotting power armor guys.

Do people use mostly guns or what?

I use mostly non-lethal. Handle, stun baton in melee, electric lasso or chackram at range. Take missions where you have more armor than enemy has dakka, walk into melee, stun, walk away with half of a million in slaves. Guns are for the late endgame or when I want to complete mission fast.

I tend to have gals who can shoot and stab using a melee weapon in their right hand (mostly axes) and a pistol or smg in their left, you know, pirate style, but I'm not sure if that's a good strategy as pistols and smgs seem kinda weak as far as damage and AP goes.

SMGs are weapons you use to train reaction on enemies which can't damage you (Kustom gun though... Sexy 44 damage). Pistols for me is something my melee gals carry for a chance of a flying enemy around the corner (academy drones).  There are good pistols which have bonuses to damage depending on your stats (the bottomest line on the bootypedia article), from early pistols silver snake can have like 50 damage

I'm fighting armored enemies, at which point the pistols are basically useless.

Just walk into melee with an armor crushing weapon like a mace.

Oh I see. Melee is mostly secondary then.

It's viable. You will get armors with bonuses to TU and strength, and you will get weapons with strength scaling, and you will have gals which will run half the map and break though tank in one hit in a single turn. If you rob a ninja medic you will get a whole synthmuscle suit.

Here I was running around with 4 or 5/6 gals with axes and clubs wondering why half my team is getting shot. I'm not playing on Iron man though I'm trying to learn a little but if I was I would have already lost as my team got wiped by a few strix zombies trying to save a castaway. That was kinda unexpected as I was feeling pretty confident before that bloodbath.

Zombies is something... Fire damage ignores armor, so it's one of the deadliest damage types there. And it's a heavy moral damage. I would've taken off I found strix thus early. Also, this mission type can spawn catgirls. They are invizible until like 3 tiles close and can shred you like a scratching post. Deep ones might also surprise you, aquatoids and fartbag bagpipes can melt though power armor.

I saw a few forum posts about not getting weapons on ships until later in the game but I don't see how, I'm not getting many landed ships, I mean you can survive on missions but sometimes you'll just get dropped by 2-3 ships seemingly out of nowhere. I have a base in central America and was going for a haunted forest mission in Europe and for some reason my bus got jumped by 3 fighter plane looking bastards that shot it down fast. Couldn't even run away with the shitty speed of that ship, so it seems it has to be changed relatively soon to survive a little. Anyways, thanks for the info man.

Most likely you flew over enemy base. Send hunting party there, search with your radar circle. And don't expect to have an air superiority for a while. While attaining a gun to down unarmed civilians is easy in 6 months, cleaning skies from interceptions takes multiple years. Invest into bases and cover the world in radar circles, you will spot more landed ships.

[RSSwizard]

Is this hinted at anywhere? Curious because it seems like a catastrophic event anyone could accidentally run into.

its described in one of the researched random pinup entries but the problem is used to be the only HK interceptors you had to worry about early on were Ninja Jetbikes and you were actually informed of their arrival with a popup event. This was supposed to carefully inform you its time to stop using the Airbus.

now there's all sorts of HKs that show up possibly right at the beginning (raider barques, mosquito fighters, wasp aircars, megapol interceptors, etc).

this aspect of the game is currently damaged/broken

[legionof1]

Oh I see. Melee is mostly secondary then.
Snip

Melee with the gals is exceptionally powerful but carries a fair amount of risk that shooting does not. Gals have the stats to make even low tech melee options quite lethal, and the TUs and energy to have a pretty large engagement range while sprinting. The down side is closing to melee might expose you to reaction fire from foes you can't see, and if you don't down the target in one hit your at risk from melee reaction from the target, which depending on there equipment might be risky.

just in case you haven't figured it out yet sprint is control+move and only costs 3tu(on normal tiles) in exchange for additional energy, you do ignore enemy spotted so caution is advised but it greatly enchances how far you can get.

[Rince Wind]

I think sprinting is 3 TU instead of the usual 4.

[termidor]

It is intended tha the sky ninjas base can pop up as  early as june 2601? I got it pop up, and the next month two extra bases appear, drooping my Infamy to -3000. I don't know if you are suppose to counter tham with recon expeditions, but it seems rather harsh compare to previous versions. Also is the losing condition having two negative months or having negative score in two months in a row?

[legionof1]

I think sprinting is 3 TU instead of the usual 4.

thanks for catching my typo

It is intended tha the sky ninjas base can pop up as  early as june 2601? I got it pop up, and the next month two extra bases appear, drooping my Infamy to -3000. I don't know if you are suppose to counter tham with recon expeditions, but it seems rather harsh compare to previous versions. Also is the losing condition having two negative months or having negative score in two months in a row?

Yeah an early ninja base is expected, your forced to find a way to either work around it, or bait out the fighters so you can get a team to take it out. The fighters go on cooldown after they return to base so there is a small window to do other thing.

Two consecutive months is the conditional.

[Zharkov]

Is there a way to preset the behavior in air combat? I would like the Kraken to tank and the Brave Whaler to hang back. But I am too slow give the orders in time.

[legionof1]

Not without picking apart the engine to get at the default stance. You can however crank down the speed of air combat which increases the time between combat frames.