A thread for little questions

[legionof1]

Not a bug(something not working as intended). It works exactly as it was made too, rerunning LOS on every movement from the mover to infinity, and from every other unit as well. 25 year old design, so brute force in a very tightly constrained space was the way it was done.

Flawed for sure however when mods push the engine well beyond it's previous design. Vanilla had a z limit of 3, Piratez for space and a few other instances uses 30. And because this is three dimensional space, that's a 243% increase in complexity over vanilla.

[Greep]

Does anyone know what demon shrines restricts?  Was wondering what a straight peasants only run could do, but I don't really want to block off red mage quests or fun voodoo stuff.

[legionof1]

loknarr avenger armor, and the Tomes of X(flame, life, ect) that all i can think of.

[username]

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.

Yup, that's what I'm saying, yes. Combined with the long lines of sight effectively to infinity because there are no walls, floors, or other obstacles to block them, and you get every line traced to the end of the map.

[BlorkTheOrk]

Recently I lost 250 million to ninjas, also I got 2 demonic invasions (named in all caps -999mil cost thing) im my storage. So I wonder: can I still lose the game at the very end of my current campaign run?

To be more precise: how much do ninjas able to steal and what do invasions do? 

[username]

Ninjas can steal some sizeable chunk of your surplus wealth, but as far as I know, won't actually drive you into bankruptcy, just prune off money if you have too much of it.

Demonic Incursions are objects that explode and kill everyone near them while spawning Imps during a base defense. Their negative sell cost makes them basically impossible to get rid of short of shipping them to a base and then destroying the entire base. I advise not producing those anymore, there's nothing you can obtain from that which is worth this level of hassle.

[Greep]

Basically ninjas only steal wealth if you're hording cash, it's calced at the beginning of the month I believe whether you meet the thresholds.  The thresholds gets more intense for the amount they steal.  The lowest amount they steal is 1 million, I think they only steal substantial amounts once you pass 20 million, maybe it's 10 million.

Typically a way to get around this is to just buy gold bars (44k buy price, 40k sell price) to keep your money low.  What I do is I make one base called "fort knox" with a ludicrous amount of AA (16 SAMs or lasers or more) and just stuff everything valuable that could get blown up in a base defense there.  There's currently no way to 100% stop a base raid but you can get in the literally 99.999% defense value pretty easily.

Also, I don't think coupons spawn in base defense (could be wrong) and they're great trade goods.

[username]

I find that something about the way I build bases confuses the enemy AI and they just kinda chill out in the hangar bays, too timid to actually advance, leaving only a few stragglers to get stuck in the tunnels somewhere and have to be hunted down with Aye-Phones. Earlier I got raided by mercenaries while my interceptors were out, and I waited like 3 turns for them to actually advance and attack me while I gathered all the random people standing around...and...nothing. Not a single man poked his head out into the corridors. They were all just huddled in the hangar bay.

One guy killed them all with a bloodaxe.

Seriously. Blood Axe. Those things DESTROY mercenaries. You can chop down a merc in one or two hits gaining more TU than it cost to destroy them because they're utterly soft against that damage type, so once the chain reaction starts, it doesn't stop until stimpacking medics can no longer reach the axeman or everyone is dead.

[Nilex]

Why is Neural Whip so ineffective against particular Demons: Pinky, Caco, Spider, Baron?

Their stats clearly show vulnerability to Mind damage but lashing them again and again does noting. Need half a dozen soldiers doing 3 lashes each to put one to sleep. Imp don't have this problem. I accounted for large health pools with most of them so that isn't the issue. Sticking to trusty Shock'a'Fist and punching Baron to sleep with a few quick jabs is far better capture method despite relative tech obsolescence and inferior stats.
As this point Demons are only worth to me alive. Only reason to even do the mission is for Demonic Essence. Was happy when I discovered the Whip method thinking how I outsmarted the game only to be slapped in the face by failure. I just don't get it. Only little bit of silver lining is training totally neglected Throwing skill

Small addendum: also worth mentioning is the hit log always produces just a "hit" when lashing said demons, like some unknown damage reduction is applied. In reality is should be "HIT" with the largest font engine is able to churn out.

[username]

Why is Neural Whip so ineffective against particular Demons: Pinky, Caco, Spider, Baron?

I can't think of any reason or why you'd find them unusually ineffective other than their very large health pools. They seem to be about as susceptible as every other demon, normalized for health.

One thing to keep in mind is that demons don't bleed out. With these large health pool demons, give them a few lashes and then just use your axe. Unless you're like my team, who can slay a Pinky in a single chop regularly. But I wanted them dead anyway for their corpses.

As this point Demons are only worth to me alive.

Heh, for me, they're only worth something dead. Essence is overflowing, but I need their corpses to construct bloodaxes, so if I manage to knock out a Pinky or Baron, I have to pull out my Laspistol and execute it so I get a corpse.

Caco, of course, I haven't found a use for as a corpse.

Only little bit of silver lining is training totally neglected Throwing skill

Well, maybe your terrible throwing skill has an impact? Why is it so bad, though? Isn't the Neutral Whip the primary weapon of choice for taking things alive, and keeping them down? Slaves, you can never have too many slaves. It's practically a relief when you get a mission where nobody is worth anything as a slave and you can open up indiscriminately.

[Greep]

^ (also what he said)

Dunno, although it could be bad luck (0-200% roll vs shock a fists 50-150%)

That said, High HP enemies don't really need super dedicated stun weapons since you only need to make sure "health > 0, stun > health", which is a hard to miss window with a huge health pool. 

If you're looking to speed up the process electropulse is normally super lethal to softies because of the extremely variant quad shock damage, but not to high hp enemies.  In your face Light cannon Epulse should do on average 180 damage + 180 stun per shot for instance and doesn't leave wounds.  Probably too tough for pinkies, though, shiny niner epulse is kinda like a small stun shotgun you could use for them.

[legionof1]

The issue here is that 2x2 units are immune to direct stun damage application unless the weapon has "ignore stun immunity true" property. the whip does not have this property.

They will still take stun from injury level degen and other secondary effects, but anything sourced from "to stun" they are immune.

[Greep]

Hmm.. why do powder bombs always knock out reapers, though?  They don't ignore stun o.O

Edit: Ah nvm, it has the immune to stun: false flag.

[Nilex]

Too meta for me, just gonna electro-fist em in the future. Thank you for feedbacks.

While duking it out with the Demons I finally can answer this:

So can we actually shoot down a Harbinger of Doom, or not just yet? I'd just love a ground combat against its... Crew.

It always blows up as of L6. Although forcing a land battle with the crew is possible with at least 2x Tractor Beams.
Bit more details in short update to my post right after your quoted one.
Oh and HoD ship image comes from Ninja Gaiden boss. The more you know

[Greep]

Well, it's not too meta, electropulse munitions are just shock a fist in a gun xD (same damage characteristics).  It's just electropulse isn't useful for armored enemies since it's generally pepper damage whereas shock a fist is large if your melee is high and it ignores some armor.