Author Topic: A thread for little questions  (Read 1033640 times)

Offline Devon_v

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1635 on: May 18, 2019, 02:07:27 am »
The grey Xs are just any item on the ground, not just explosives. Note the grey X for the loot pile inside small room in the turtle.

The screenshot is showing off the map devastation. :)

Offline thevideogameraptorboggle

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1636 on: May 18, 2019, 07:16:16 am »
Is there a full list of where all the music was "borrowed" from? I just heard one of the mission briefing tunes in Far Cry 5.

Offline Greep

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1637 on: May 18, 2019, 07:17:24 am »
Gotta admit the air war has me totally confused.  I can down wasps and megapol with seagulls, but they're too expensive.  Spike missiles are even worse considering the accuracy.  And cannons just feel too dangerous, I already derped an aircar and that sucked.  Is hunter killer the first ship I can use to take these on efficiently?  Or am I just doing it wrong? I picked gold codex, so I don't have any craft that that has both high HP and multiple light weapons. 

I'm about to build one anyways, just wondering what I could have been missing out on.  Seems like green codex is not such a bad choice, that worm ship looks like it'd be great for taking down these early bad guys.

Edit: ^ The death screams are the fun ones.  One's from deus ex, one's the hollywood wilhelm scream, there's a few others I recognize from oldschool games.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2019, 07:58:17 am by Greep »

Offline sambojin

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1638 on: May 18, 2019, 08:56:21 am »
Are you using multiple interceptors (and maybe a tank)? Makes things a lot easier.

Hit the little square to close the window until they're all "engaged". Open the tank ship's window first, so it takes the damage by getting in range first. Then send in all the lighter interceptor craft (who will do damage, but not take any). This is why sone ships have fast repair rates. They might not do much damage themselves, but they'll repair very quickly after soaking up the shots fired at them, as the lighter ships pile on the dps without getting a scratch on them.

Offline Greep

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1639 on: May 18, 2019, 09:03:21 am »
Ah, so maybe like, send in a shadowbat with dual airballs and an aircar with cannons?  Yeah that sounds like it'd work.  Hopefully I can solo these guys with a hunter killer, though, the 3k speed looks handy.

Offline Alex the KatanaCutlass

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1640 on: May 18, 2019, 01:34:36 pm »
ATTN Greep,
The air combat is the same as in the Vanilla X-Com. You pick what you want to shoot down, see where it's heading and send your Spitfires to get that Bf-109. If it's a civilian - these are yummy and unarmed and thus yummy - anything with a gun will bring it down.
Here, for you - if you want - and for anyone interested, my take on the air combat and stuff that has something to do with it.
NB: RECOMMENDED AS FOR MY CURRENT TECH LEVEL.
For any bigger target you'll want your Menace Class (and something else) to take care of.
Here's how I've been doing it here:
- when all my crafts are in range (have air combat windows), I maximize them all.
- QUICKSAVE!!!
- Then, I send the toughest in first, (I use aggressive attack ONLY, as this brings us in for rapid fire). That's what the X-Com ppl call the Lead Craft. The Craft leading our attack. It will be your Menace Class for some time, I suppose.
- As soon as the 1st craft and the target start firing at each other, I quickly send in the rest, also in aggressive attack mode.
- Enjoy the KABOOMS with a grinning face:)
- If you don't like the outcome (the pig escaped, ya lost a craft, too much damage, blahblah...), quickload and repeat.
- Maybe you are a night cat, but if you're not, then return to ground party during daytime - they ain't gonna be goin' anywhere:)
***
ABOUT YOUR CRAFT AND CREW:
- If your craft is a single-seater, you'll need a pilot that is good at firing, to add to the weapon's accuracy his own accuracy. Man, my Menace Class Metallo has pilots with Firing, Reactions and Bravery over 100, BUT it took a helluva bloody work and hospital days to reach this. Often, it's only the Metallo that I need to bring that caricature down, really. Bottom line, your ground combat SAS are the best pilots.
-Two or multiseater is another setup, of course. Here, you take some guys that are good at Firing (accuracy), Reactions (dodge enemy fire) and Bravery (the speed of your aggressive approach) and make your crew. LOKNARS can be very good at reactions! They're small, but many of them are full of surprises.

What would I recommend:
As an open-hearted and open-minded friendly, I always gladly share what I can.
So, I use my Metallo with 50mm for light and Naval Guns (those 120mm beasts) for heavy weapons. Why all guns? Well, they DO hit hard, have a lot of ammo and the ammo is easy to make. I dumped the 250mm rockets in favor of naval Guns. Well, I wanted to see what's better and armed a Swordfish with both and as soon as I SAW that the gun does better in combat, I sold all of my 250 mms and their ammo. Plus the BOOM BOOM sound that these make... Hmmmm:) I just loooove the smell of cordite in the mornin'.
My fleet: I have some Predators for intercepting of fast targets. One is armed with 50 mms and Lancers and another with 50 mms and Stingrays. These are in my central base in approx western Mongolia (ingame Turan) from where they can fly equally fast to the rest of the world. My 3rd Predator is Armed with 50s and Spikes and is in North American Base. All these Predators are there just in case that a really fast target appears. Then they shadow it until Swordfishes with Naval Guns arrive and, if possible, the Swordfishes attack it first. As for my Lancer and Stingray armed Predators, they attack with missiles only when necessary (when a big and mean ship appear), because their missiles are not easy nor cheap to make.
The mainstay of my fleet are the Swordfish craft, all armed with the 120s. I find them to be very good in combat, tough, can carry good guns, reasonably fast. Can't carry many ppl, though, so that a Kraken would be better for the secondary assault team. Or a Pachyderm - it can take a tank or other auxiliary. A Kraken IS tough AND can carry 3 120s, but it's so yaaawning S-L-O-W, bah. I had some 4-5 Krakens and replaced them all but one with Swordfishes. That flying rock can come in VERY handy sometimes, and carries my 3rd team (Loknars).

The Bases. Have it as you want, of course. I do, however, find that each base should have 2 combat craft for its own defense against an enemy base assault attempt, Swordfishes being really good at this, as proven so far. Of course, the same craft are to be used for air combat as such.

A Spy Zeppelin. Am serious:) have one parked in a middle of nowhere, the center of Pacific being ideal. When a Pogrom or Help Loknars or another mission of interest spawns, it quite often happens when your best team is returning from action elsewhere, or during night (gah, bah, phew). So, if so, you send your Zeppelin there. It will come there next year, but it's not about that.
AS LONG AS YOUT MISSION TARGET IS BEING APPROACHED BY A CRAFT OF YOURS, IT STAYS ON THE MAP.  ;) ;D
So wait until daylight, or until refuel is complete, or whatever, send your attack craft there and your Zeppelin back to the middle of nowhere. It doesn't spend any fuel when stationary and is as slow as a snail, so it makes it perfect for this kind of job. Someone would maybe say send in a Convoy but how do I do that from Asia to South America?
One more thing. If you sent more than one craft to shoot something down and the first one did it, send other home.
Yea, shoot them down above LAND!
Jungle has most covers of all terrain, BUT is scorching hot.
Desert and snowy terrain have least cover, but are scorching hot/freezing cold - and ideal for sniping.

So it's your choice above what terrain you shoot your targets down. But if you can't, then just shoot it down and win the ground battle somehow.
AA defense. Armored vaults make for a good one. They can't be built over, though. But are better than large Vaults, if you don't plan to overbuild one with an Industrial Printer.

The Hunter Killer is not bad, well, it's the first serious craft for us to use, but get the Predators to do its job as soon as you can.
You can also consider using these Snakes. They are quite tough, can carry many ppl...

So, anywayz,

TALLY HO!
« Last Edit: May 18, 2019, 03:22:26 pm by Alex the KatanaCutlass »

Offline Devon_v

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1641 on: May 18, 2019, 03:01:35 pm »
One note, multiple pilots stats are averaged. You want your three best overall pilots, not your single best in the three stats unless they also have solid scores in the other two. One 100 firing 30 reaction gal teamed with one 100 reaction 30 firing gal isn't getting you much.

Offline Alex the KatanaCutlass

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1642 on: May 18, 2019, 03:19:08 pm »
Yes, Devon, I will correct it right away.
I need some advises:

- What would you pick as a "heir" to Swordfish/Predator?
I have been thinking of building a base that would hold only Barracks, Hyper-wave decoder, some Armored Vaults and the rest only hangars, so that I don't have to exactly dump my good old trusty Swordfishes.

- I definitely need more brainers - what facility do I get?
« Last Edit: May 18, 2019, 03:28:27 pm by Alex the KatanaCutlass »

Offline Greep

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1643 on: May 18, 2019, 03:41:32 pm »
Thanks for all the advice :D

Regarding base design, I've noticed the reverse is rather fun:  Bases with 0 hangars are extremely easy to defend since there's only one entrance.  Just defeated an academy nurse one in three turns with a bunch of suicidal High Explosive doggies :)

Offline Eddie

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1644 on: May 19, 2019, 12:43:19 am »
Gotta admit the air war has me totally confused.  I can down wasps and megapol with seagulls, but they're too expensive.  Spike missiles are even worse considering the accuracy.  And cannons just feel too dangerous, I already derped an aircar and that sucked.  Is hunter killer the first ship I can use to take these on efficiently?  Or am I just doing it wrong? I picked gold codex, so I don't have any craft that that has both high HP and multiple light weapons. 

I'm about to build one anyways, just wondering what I could have been missing out on.  Seems like green codex is not such a bad choice, that worm ship looks like it'd be great for taking down these early bad guys.

Edit: ^ The death screams are the fun ones.  One's from deus ex, one's the hollywood wilhelm scream, there's a few others I recognize from oldschool games.

In air combat, high reaction on the pilots is key to survival. Best use Lokk'Naars, they cap out at 125 reaction.

You have gold codex and a shadowbat, so you must have access to a Golden Hawk, no? Buy that and mount the flame cannon on it that came with the codex. That's your earliest durable fighter, it can shoot down all police and bandit ships. Again, make sure to pilot it with your highest reaction gal.
If you want more Hawks, you need to research quad cannon to have a useful weapon for them. The quad cannon fires the 25mm rounds you loot from the police ships.

The next step up in durability is the shark jetbike. You get it with authorized dealers. The key stat here is the high evasion score of 30. Craft evasion and pilot dodge is not multiplied but added, so you can get to the invulnerable no-hit zone. Most ufos have an accuracy of 70, and then the hit chance is calculated like:
70 -craft evasion -pilot dodge
A max reaction Lokk'Naar has 40+ dodge as a pilot. If you put that guy in a jetbike, all 70 accuracy ufos can't even hit him. Then your only problem is to do enough damage. That is where hunter killers become useful, as they can carry more guns. To get hunter killers up to 70 dodge, you need to put two thrusters on em (each adds 9 dodge for a total of 28 dodge on a hunter killer).
The exception to the 70 accuracy ufos is everything merc, but you wouldn't want to shoot them down anyway because that's a guaranteed retaliation.
Of the shippings you see early game, I think only the mosquito bandit fighter has more than 70 accuracy.
Edit: Wasp 80, Cobra 95, Mosquito 95. Also, police interceptor 90. All can't one shot a jetbike, so you can just disengage if you get damaged. If you pay attention you can't really loose the jetbike.

Regarding multiple interceptors: An ufo only shoots the first of your interceptors that gets into it's weapon range. So what you do is to send in your jetbike first to draw all the fire, then your other interceptors can shoot at the ufo without beeing targeted.

If you can't get a jetbike yet, the piranha airbike you get as a prize from jack also has 30 evasion. Shadowbat has 20 evasion, which is also decent. Hawk has 15.

By the way, I once shot down a bomber with three jetbikes and a Hawk. The bomber has 70 accuracy, so it can't touch the jetbike with max reaction Lokk'Naar pilot. Problem was then to do enough damage. Hawk had the flame cannon, the three jetbikes had two 50mm cannons and one gauss cannon. You hold flame cannon fire until the shields are down, because the bomber has 10 armor and the flame cannon is best to do damage then. You can then barely crash the bomber with like 13 rounds left in the gauss cannon and everything else empty. All pilots had near max accuracy of course.


- What would you pick as a "heir" to Swordfish/Predator?

The swordfish is the fastet ship for heavy weapon slots. Heavy weapons are the ones that do the most damage, so you kinda never replace the swordfish.
For durability, put thrusters on your nightmare and two max reaction Lokk'Naar pilots. That can suvive long enough in any fight. Further upgrades on interceptors are mostly just for better speed.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2019, 01:35:47 am by Eddie »

Offline Greep

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1645 on: May 19, 2019, 01:11:39 am »
Ah, so that's why you can't train reactions in a dojo: it's completely broken in air combat ::)

Interesting.  So I'm better off just training someone to have high reactions than doing any aircraft research at all :/

Regarding the hawk, I was mostly worried about overkill.  That flame cannon does a lot of damage.  The ammo/damage is pretty expensive too, but I guess the hawk's increased accuracy makes up for that.

Offline Eddie

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1646 on: May 19, 2019, 01:27:58 am »
You are right about reaction breaking air combat. My fix would be to make dodge a multiplier, so you can never reach invulnerability. It's gotten better though as more 70+ accuracy ufos are added.

Overkill on the flamecannon is a valid concern. But the quad cannon is pretty low on the research tree, you can get it fairly quickly. You can also use the hawk to draw fire and then send in the aircar to actually do the shooting. Disable weapons in air combat by clicking on them.
Good targets for the flame cannon are freighters and military transports. 95% of freighters you see can't even spawn a retaliation, so are mostly save to shoot down.

Regarding cost of the flame cannon: if you don't buy hellerium but just use hellerium you would otherwise sell, it's actually a bit more cost effective than air balls. Also way more cost effective than seagulls.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2019, 01:38:09 am by Eddie »

Offline Greep

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1647 on: May 19, 2019, 07:39:57 am »
Cool cool.  Btw, I sold my airbus because, looking at the wiki, I can cover other missions using my other ships like mansion missions.   However, I noticed that there's this bounty level C missions for jack that I can't do in a big vehicle.  Do I really have to buy an airvan to do these, or is there some other unlisted ships you can use.

Offline thevideogameraptorboggle

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1648 on: May 19, 2019, 07:48:07 am »
Cool cool.  Btw, I sold my airbus because, looking at the wiki, I can cover other missions using my other ships like mansion missions.   However, I noticed that there's this bounty level C missions for jack that I can't do in a big vehicle.  Do I really have to buy an airvan to do these, or is there some other unlisted ships you can use.

If you attempt a mission with an incompatible vehicle, it will tell you what missions support it, but it does not include ships you have yet to research.

Offline Alex the KatanaCutlass

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Re: A thread for little questions
« Reply #1649 on: May 19, 2019, 12:12:21 pm »
ATTN Eddie.

HEY! ;D

That's so smokin' cool! I'ma get an Airbike right away and will give it those two meeean Tomb Raider Loknars that have helluva reactions. Am really curious what a flight of that Jetbike and 3 Sworfishes will do.
And TYVM for the great news. My Swordfishes - I just kinda love them :D. I'd like to make a scale model of one. Am an aircraft  modeller.
Questions:
- Can I, as a Red Coder, make a Flame Cannon?
- How good are the Airballs?
- Any better Heavy than the Naval Guns? Laser? Plasma? Tesla? An inexhaustible one..? Or a Sonic oscillator?

ATTN Zippicus
You're welcome.
Yes, friend, everyone has a game style, me being a flyer - AND a warrior - to the bone.

Now, if you excuse me, gentlemen, I have a cave to explore.

Oh, yes, you KNOW that you don't argue with your pilot, because...  LOL ;D