A thread for little questions

[Rince Wind]

Seductress is very effective against Marsec Bodyguards.
Light Cannon with PS ammo and Auto Cannon work as well, those are my usual heavy guns. Or, of course, the good old hit to the head.
LACCs work as well, if you pack PS ammo, or gauss or xgauss.

Why would there be ammoless gauss weapons? You still shoot projectiles. Similar deal with plasma.

For defense I try to have some plasma on each base, depending on current techlevel it can be the gothic raygun, reticulan plasma, haxxor one or even just a kruger. A kruger saved my ass against mercs once. It wasn't the only thing, of course, but I killed a surprising amount of them with it.
Panzerfaust only has a very limitid explosion radius so you can use it on rather close enemies where the arcing doesn't matter. So once I can buy them they get shipped to each base. Some lasers and some projectiles to round it out. Smartrifles are light, have huge magazin and do very decent damage. Earlier LACC are good for gals that aren't too weak.
Add to that grenades and other explosives. Hellerium grenades are one of the most abundant things on this planet, so once you can use them and regularly defeat enemies that carry them you shouldn't have a shortage of those.
Upgrade as neccessary/possible.
A Fireball Launcher can make things a lot easier if the gal with it starts close to the hangar/lift.

[legionof1]

snip
1) I see that limitless ammo guns are all laser ones, for now. Are there such Plasmas or Gausses?
2) PLS compare for me the Hammermites to Lancers and Sringrays.
3) What is your favorite all around Base Defense weapon?
4) What do you kill a Marsec Bodyguard with? I was firing at them Gyro Autoguns, Advanced Lasguns and EuroSyn Laser Pistols and they each took many hits before they got killed. On an earlier mission, a Hellerium grenade was enough, but hell I didn't use that this time - too many fallen enemies around. I don't destroy some good loot cuz of one walking trashcan - even an ultra fancy one
5) How does a shot from ABOVE count? For example, if a hover gal stands on a high ground and ambushes someone.

1)just nuke lasers
5) a shot from above hits one of the 4 facings. Under armor is only hit by aoe within 3 tiles. All projectiles will hit a facing regardless of vertical orientation.

Is it normal for Space missions to have weird slowdowns? Like, opening a door has a momentary freeze, and AI turns take.. a long time.

Space missions are very intensive on LOS calculations due to the large map volume. And LOS is rechecked on every movement. The code as is takes the same amount of resources for every tile visible, regardless of state. So space huge empty volume is more intensive then just about anything else.

[Ninawindia]

How do I enable the bug hunt mode or debug a map, cause I'm lost on this map, 40 turns in, still haven't found last zombie in crypt of the necromancer. Dunno if he's in a wall or something.

[legionof1]

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Hidden_Features_(OpenXcom)#Debug_mode that for debug. Bughunt is only the last 2-3 assuming nothing is left tht is immune to surrender. Which well zombos dont, so fresh out luck with bug hunt. 

[Alex the KatanaCutlass]

TYVM ALL, PPL:)

For Marsecs, the R-Rifle sounds like a deal to me. I have these in all of my bases and assault ships (with a lot of ammo - mandatory for all weapons in my case) Yao can carry this one and a SuperMagnum or an EuroSyn Laspistol plus grenades and a Shokafist... Yea, this looks nice enough. I suppose that an Autolaser could also be used? Hit from behind? Dunno. I always face them frontally. Dunno why, maybe my tactics is just like that. I could change it no prob - I like changes. Could a Recoilles Rifle also punch through a Merc?, BTW?
The Wand of pain. Yea, now my hover gals have that as a part of their standard issue. We'll see how that works. They have only cca 33 Voodoo skill each, though. Is that enough? You guessed right, I prefer combat. But,  I do have time and am interested in capturing as well - I have 5 prisons - packed. I am not impatient.
Will try seductress as soon as I get that.
Light Cannon? Uhm, didn't try that yet, sold them all - the description says that it has limited acc range. That true? I do prefer striking from quite a distance.
Yea, why there should be an ammoless gauss? Jeez, do I have such doh questions sometimez...
So, plasma for base defense... All of my bases have some I-Guns. Are those enough of plasma?
Vertical pose is just for ambushing, then. For xample, if a gal stands on the roof above the entrance - that's a tile behind the entrance - they will bag an unsuspecting enemy real nice, as the enemy won't see the gal.

The debug mode - Pedia says that it can be toggled on the Geoscape, but can it be toggled on a Battlescape? I don't want to use it unless really necessary, and maybe not even then, but I ask anyway.

[Ninawindia]

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Hidden_Features_(OpenXcom)#Debug_mode that for debug. Bughunt is only the last 2-3 assuming nothing is left tht is immune to surrender. Which well zombos dont, so fresh out luck with bug hunt.

Well, second question now. Since mobile keyboard is a pain in my ass, is there a way to change the CTRL-D for the key for it? Cause my keyboard, despite having ctrl keys, can't fluffing register them for some reason..

[Ashghan]

1) I see that limitless ammo guns are all laser ones, for now. Are there such Plasmas or Gausses?

For ranged options there's the Hellgun, Magma Glove and Future Bow for Plasma, Arena Fireball Launcher for Fire, Tome of Lightning and Hellblade for Warp, Disc o'Death and Shredder for Cutting, Zapper for Electric, Impaler and Cobra Staff for Bio. Other VooDoo weapons (wands etc.) offer different effects, which can also be considered 'limitless'. No projectile (Piercing) weapons with limitless ammo, unless you consider flechette - but that's not really inexhaustible, just no hassle with clips.

[Morrandir]

How do I enable the bug hunt mode or debug a map, cause I'm lost on this map, 40 turns in, still haven't found last zombie in crypt of the necromancer. Dunno if he's in a wall or something.

You probably missed

Spoiler:

the zombie upstairs in the technomancer’s hideout, as you need to destroy some walls to get to it

[Ninawindia]

You probably missed

Spoiler:

the zombie upstairs in the technomancer’s hideout, as you need to destroy some walls to get to it

Yeah, that'd be it. Guess I'll go look for that one! Thanks!

[MemoryTAS]

...Are Hoppers supposed to land anywhere? I remember the bootypedia entry stating they landed in cities out of your reach but this one just landed for me to take it. Not that I mind a free hopper in early game but consistency would be preferred.

[Ashghan]

They do land sometimes - for your sanity you can consider these as "sightseeing cruise". Most of the time they just jump from a city to city though.

And let that be a lesson to you - Bootypedia is like Wikipedia - 99.9% of what you find there is true.

[JamTheDane]

After my 3rd restart, I finally got far enough in the game to get Hover armor, Death Blossom (that is one awesome gun), and the Metallo craft from codex.

Now i just got a few questions. Ever since the old X-Com days, I have loved to try to get my soldiers to max stats, and I was wondering if you got any good tips for that.
My main problem is throwing, it seems hard as hell to increase. I got Javelins, but they take a LOT of energy to use. I got the Shredder, but same issue, lots of stamina, and rarely see a skillup. At the moment, I am waiting for my Boom farms to finish their first run, so i can get Boom Fruits, otherwise I use Black Powder bombs on "easy" missions like animal hunts or Help the Lok'Narr. You got any good tips on levelling Throwing?

And Bravery. Thats a hard one. With the new traning methods, its possible to get up a a bit, though I have still not figured out when someone qualifies from Training, Militia Training or Gladiatorial Training, I just send people to my training base and see who can get what. But after that, I have noticed that a 10 increase in bravery can happen sometimes in missions, but I have not figured out why it happens, and what you should go for to try and get Bravery up.

And last, but not least. There is supposed to be limits on skills, but i see around half my "maxed" girls can get above it, see 121 and 122 shooting, 81 and 91 strength, is there any way to see when they reached their absolute limit?


And I got one freak. Shes nice enough, but are there any way to increase a Freaks stats? She's higher in TU and Stamina, but sub-par in everything else. I had her a while, possible some of her stats have increased, but others seem locked, shes for example stuck at 66 Strength and 85 Reaction.

[Devon_v]

Whips? Hunting bows? Electro lassoes? I find that gals get good in what you have them do pretty much on their own. You can also just throw grenades at people. Hallucinogenic gas grenades are fantastic in general and can be used to kill or capture for the whole early game.

Secondary stats will go up on their own so long as they're collecting experience and aren't capped. Just send them on lots of missions and have them do things. Clubbing civilians is always good for some EXP.

Bravery goes up because the gal passed a panic check and rolled a successful stat gain for bravery.

Skill gains stop at the cap. If a gal is at cap or above, (individual skill gains don't actually respect the cap) she will never gain in that skill again. Effectively every gal's final maximum will be somewhere between cap and cap+5.

[BBHood217]

Bravery goes up because the gal passed a panic check and rolled a successful stat gain for bravery.

I think using healing items also has a chance of training bravery, as well as using a few certain items like ropes.

[Devon_v]

I think using healing items also has a chance of training bravery, as well as using a few certain items like ropes.

You're right, those are OXCE/Pirates changes. Being a medic is good for bravery, and I've never used ropes, but if Bravery is on their training modes list, it will work.

Edit: I realize that you probably don't understand how XCOM stat growth works. Whenever a unit successfully does something on the battlescape using a primary stat like Firing, Throwing, Melee, etc they have a chance to gain 1-6 points in that skill. So long as they are gaining primary skills, they also have a chance to gain secondary skills, like Strength, or Time Units. This is completely separate from Martial Training at a base which works however the modder configured it, or "training" transformations like militia training for peasants which are a completely different mechanic which has no bearing at all on stat growth, it just sets stats to certain levels or adds specific flat bonuses as configured by the modder.

Also the grenade/bomb actually has to hit something. In vanilla just throwing it was sufficient, in OXCE you actually have to hit an enemy (or neutral?) to get EXP. That's what makes the Red Barn simultaneously one of the coolest and lamest missions.