A thread for little questions

[legionof1]

B level bounty hunt "they came from the sea". You defend a little bunker from a 60 odd deep ones/lobstermen/aquamen.

[Alex the KatanaCutlass]

Bombard is one of the greatest reincarnation devices here:) Gotto love it, bro. Got problems with Mercs? Juuust send in the Big Momma:)

And the little bunker thing... Inspired by Alamo?

Goddamn, its past 3 AM and I am still gauss-raping Osiron...

[username]

That little bunker thing triggered a rant in my IRC about "people who put fortifications in games don't understand fortifications". That "bunker" is basically a mess of blind spots and obstructed lines of fire that end up hampering YOU more than the enemy. Pretty much one of the things I do very early on is just to rip the thing apart and hack gunports, passages, and generally explode the place.

Also, for some reason, what appears to be a missile silo in it cannot actually ever fire any of the missiles because there is no way for the missiles to actually launch as it is on the lower floor and there's an entire other floor above it as well as a solid roof. It explodes real nice when I'm remodelling the place, though.

But then I discovered Bombard. The Fort is still terribly designed, but when it's not quite bad enough to stop you from just gassing the entire map. The first time I fired that thing, the game straight up froze briefly and I thought it was about to crash...and then the shrieking started. So much dying. Instantly got like 40 kills in one shot.

And get this: IT HAS 3 MORE ROUNDS. Jesus Christ. With the slow speed of the projectile animation and the YUGE EXPLOSION, it really felt less like a "Bombard" and more like NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED.

[RSSwizard]

(So now it comes out eh?)
I started this playthrough on the easiest difficulty and id already gotten pretty far into it by the time I realized it closed off some options. So I switched it to the next lowest in the save file and played on.

Well I need to repair whatever was cut out now. Ive figured out mostly what was blocked off and fixed it but im still having some issues and im not sure if its something ive missed or if its genuinely misbehaving.

(Sidenote: This should be classified as an Error to Dioxine that, playing on the lowest difficulty needs to put a finished-research topic directly in the bootypedia immediately telling you it cuts content out. So that way you find out right away if you read it - and can avoid any length of play if thats a dealbreaker. When I started playing X-Piratez again I didn't think it was POSSIBLE to remove or disable topics)

Ive removed thread of prophecy and put wasteland priestess back in (which are apparently event driven now?) and switched the research rule from 2 to 1 on those. That allowed getting the magic shoppe options to show up and the start of the Wiz Biz stuff.

However, even though ive researched the magic shoppe, the powerball bat, and voodoo/illusion the manufacturing options for WizBiz Tokens hasnt showed up yet (eg, exchange lingams and liber occulus for tokens). Also ive researched Weirdgal but I cant find any of the Transformation options in the manufacture either (not even the Human Peasant transformation thingy to turn them into night people or whatever thats called, which ive had for well over a game year now).

Maybe Transformations are miscategorized in manufacturing but scrolling through I dont think they're on the list. And this is at the main base where the primary facilities are.

Additionally magic shoppe made purchase items available and even though I obtained a Magma Glove, whatever that is, the Research topic for it hasn't appeared. Neither has the one for the Rod Of Bliss which I picked up almost the same time from a pirate cruise.

Im researching Summoning Circle right now so I don't actually have one of those built yet... if thats whats needed to research. But since the descriptive text for the Powerball Bat mentions wizbiz tokens in it aren't they supposed to show up immediately?

Im wondering if there's anything else janky going on, or if there honestly are additional steps before you become a legit wiz biz customer. I actually have all of the listed pre-requisites but "wiz biz customer" itself is a needsitem research.

[Nilex]

I agree there should be a clear warning in-game when selecting easiest difficulty. But...

From the main thread:

Read the install instructions carefully. No joke. Srsly.

From XPiratez_readme.txt:

ANY TIPS ON HOW TO PLAY?
3. Be prepared for high difficulty level. Lowest difficulty is tutorial only (many features missing).

Lucky for me I grew up in times where it was README.TXT or bust

[legionof1]

Transformations are accessed through hands menu. The same button for training and memorials. thou until you unlock some the options isn't present.

[Alex the KatanaCutlass]

I've been just loving the Bombard - a love on the first shell. Man, nothing opens up a ship like a chem from a Bombie. AND, as you know ,nothing does the gas job like a Bombo. Only more hellish things than a Bombo are the Fairy Daragon, Chinese Dragon and the Retributor and Emperor Nukes. I use my Fairy Dragons regularly to make the enemies surrender, if I don't wanna spend 1 hour+ fighting. Like this. Got a biiig map or a biiig ship that needs taking care of, but ya don't wanna spend too much time on it - gals all maxed out, ya got a date in  an hour...?

A Map

Spoiler:

:
SAVE. Take a flying girl, have her load a Fairy Dragon, fly into a corner of the map (HIGH), !!!QUICKSAVE!!! and fire in the center of the map. Enjoy the BBQ. MANDATORY: Check your ship, you don't wanna Neroize your own or your precious guns n' ammo! Repeat as necessary.

A Ship:
SAVE. Get an AP Lasers equipped Laser Hovertank and make a hole in the enemy ship's hull. You want a hole at the middle level so, as to have a clear shot with the Fairy Dragon. Get the gal as in the Map case, have her line up one level above the hole-in-the-hull level (or else you roast her nice and yummy), !!!QUICKSAVE!!!, aim inside and show 'em why it's... was it good that they haden't the Dark Ones in there before YOU appeared:)

Spoiler:

So, if you don't actually need the loot a/o slaves, cuz you already got tons of thet - there's aaalways good ol' sado with Bombo/Dragons... What's there more to ask for?

Happy roasting:)

AND, as for the Lil Banka, I think that my Bombo's gonna have a job to do...

HEHEHEHEHEH...

[Nilex]

Lol this game has the player getting victimized for so long that when he finally gets the upper hand, all those suppressed vengeance urges get to surface

Just the other day I got that Church training camp after a long time so I brought and lobbed a Baby Nuke in their little courtyard from top of Fortuna. Only a single Neophyte survived, surrounded by nuclear flames and stench of his fellow scorched fanatics. It was such a beautiful sight...
I'm refraining to indiscriminately destroy everything coz I need to collect various goodies I'm still using in manufacture or just selling. But the day will come.

[RSSwizard]

Transformations are accessed through hands menu. The same button for training and memorials. thou until you unlock some the options isn't present.

Cool. I didn't think you could do anything in there except sack and change arnor.

Still I need to know whats all involved in fetting Wiz Biz to work, next step since I seem to have the requirements is indescriminantly adding customer wiz biz to discovered research topics.

@Nilex -
You get UAC Rifles from boot camps and that can be a big benefit early game.
My suggestion is Mortar bombardment. You have baby nukes and a Ballista it seems but a Mortar crew (3x) will probably do the job. Even basic HE munitions. First turn have other hands drop as many shells as possible on the ground tiles the Mortars will operate from.
Thing is in the past few revisions the distribution of critters on the map has gotten much more uniform, maybe it was an engine fix I dunno. But used to be most mobs would be in the Compound. Now... most of them are out in the jungle and the house is all but vacant. That actually makes them much better to be wasted. I use a car or stealthy hand to spot where they're at.
You can snag a Reverend here I think possibly even a Cardinal (?) but hes hot Lightning so watch out. Kinda makes him hard to capture.

Next best thing for explosives is a rocket launcher, or RPG with FAE (red) rockets.

EDIT:
Looks like it worked though ironically the "preq:" topics for some things like lunar ward are in the research menu when they should have a research cost of 0. Its weird but thats a bug with the engine still, itll only take 1 day to solve it though (1 brainer per topic).

[Alex the KatanaCutlass]

Wanna waste/KO 'em real good, eh? Aim for the tree canopies - the blast will reach the ground.

[BlorkTheOrk]

Do I need space missions to finish the game?
I wonder because they are slow on my device and I want to skip them completely(versions of like a year ago, when I started to play the thing).

[Nilex]

I don't know if they are required, if they yield any special research loot. But they are slow in terms of performance, I can confirm. To change that - toggle OFF personal lighting. You'll have to do it every time you reload because it goes ON every time. That increased solder movement speed by 3 times on my system so I suspect lighting was what caused it. Strangely enough on every other type of map performance impact is minimal. Maybe due to special color palette space uses, no idea.

[username]

I'm guessing it's because the space map has no real floor. It's just this completely open map, so when it tries to do personal lighting calculations, it tries to project the light down to the floor...which is all the way "down".

Also, despite it being zero-gravity, bodies of killed opponents and objects immediately plummet to the bottom of the map.

Perhaps the open portions should be filled with invisible "elevator" instead, so the ability to fly and shoot through it is retained, but the behavior of all dropped objects falling to the bottom is suppressed.

[legionof1]

I don't know if they are required, if they yield any special research loot. But they are slow in terms of performance, I can confirm. To change that - toggle OFF personal lighting. You'll have to do it every time you reload because it goes ON every time. That increased solder movement speed by 3 times on my system so I suspect lighting was what caused it. Strangely enough on every other type of map performance impact is minimal. Maybe due to special color palette space uses, no idea.

One story arc is tied to open space missions atm. Skipping space wont stop you from wining the game but you will miss out on some end tier codex armors, and X-plasma guns. Also notably limits your access to nuke batteries, and stasis pods.

Space freighters while less bad on rendering are still huge and slow, but contain a captive that is one of the 2 ways to unlock the gate for craft that can go to mars, the other is a specfic handling of Dr.X when you capture her.

[RSSwizard]

I'm guessing it's because the space map has no real floor. It's just this completely open map, so when it tries to do personal lighting calculations, it tries to project the light down to the floor...which is all the way "down".

Every floor adds to calculations even if it contains empty tiles. Those empty tiles still count even if there's nothing to render. Engine bug which original xcom also shared.