A thread for little questions

[JustTheDude/CABSHEP]

Talk about axe to the head being perfect in any scenario more and you will end up with new update that will have end-game cyber-ninja designed to counter melee trough ridiculous melee evasion. Hehe.

[Greep]

Got a question on shields:  I notice the bootypedia entries don't mention choking.  Does this damage type just go right through shields?  Normally I just use HE grenades to capture cardinals and hope they don't bleed out, but I'm kinda wondering if I can just spam hallucinagen grenades on them instead.

[Nilex]

All shield resistances in a small package:
https://discord.com/channels/217792132633591809/217792940267798529/703227139683647568
Your idea should work.

[BBHood217]

I looked up the blood axe, and I see that it restores not just TUs but energy as well.  That certainly will allow a gal to galeforce all over the map.

offhand question the 8000 hours build time for the Advanced Rifle may be a typo? Description says restoring an assault rifle to its former glory but it costs the integrated devices up front. Its not particularly better since it still uses assault rifle ammo. I think 800 is more believable. Custom Lasgun even costs less, like 1500 or somesuch.

I brought that up in the discord and Dio agreed that it was ridiculous.  I think it's gonna be down to 1600 in the next version, but you can edit in that number yourself right now if you know how.  The value of the advanced rifle depends on when you research it; it's great if you can get it early along with plastasteel ammo, not so much once you're able to buy omega rifles from the sectoids.

[username]

Well, mind control is weird because some really powerful enemies are weak to it.  Namely:  Mercs and raiders

Well, Mercs are populated by Uber-Brutes, which, as mentioned in their entry, are particularly weak to voodoo.

although megapol or hilariously weak to it if you just want to screw with them.

Beastmen are also noted as particularly weak to it, yes, and Megapol heavily employs these. Megapol armor is also weak to electricity, which means an effective early encounter-tool is just to cattleprod them.

A plain old savvy girl may have 38 voodoo power (on blackbeard) but a merc soldier has 29, and a raider firebat has 28.

Yeah, and these are all uber-Brutes, which are noted for being psi-weaklings. These aren't so much anomalies as they are explicitly documented in the game.

If for whatever reason you feel like taking on mercs early I guess it's possible with bugs trained on civilian ships. It's mainly more effective on lower difficulties, where voodoo power isn't as high on enemies, and obviously you need to do the whole "panic then MC". Also if you're being a total munchkin, UAC space suits give your bugs +5 voodoo power which actually makes a difference.

The thing is, the number of shots needed to do that, and the high odds that it simply doesn't work at all, makes it much easier to simply introduce them to the sharp blade of my axe. Mercs, incidentally, are weak vs. AXE TO THE HEAD as well, as their armor does not grant any real cutting resistance. Honestly, the biggest threat in an early Merc encounter their hovertanks, against which you will have basically no effective answer. Their shields basically entirely protect them from the usual anti-tank weapons you will have access to at this point. Usually my approach an early merc encounter is to wallop someone who I can interrogate over the head, drag his ass back to the dropship, and jet.

Talk about axe to the head being perfect in any scenario more and you will end up with new update that will have end-game cyber-ninja designed to counter melee trough ridiculous melee evasion. Hehe.

Honestly, I'm surprised there is not such a super-ninja already. There really SHOULD be this one mission that contains just one, single, nigh-invincible ninja, to drive home the counterpart that these are ninjas. Because, as we all know, from the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu, one ninja is an invincible warrior, many ninjas are disposable mooks.

Besides, the excellence of AXE TO THE HEAD is explicitly mentioned in the pinup tips.

[Greep]

All shield resistances in a small package:
https://discord.com/channels/217792132633591809/217792940267798529/703227139683647568
Your idea should work.

Sweet, looks like I've found probably the only use for a rope, too

[username]

I wouldn't consider this a particularly good vulnerability, given that the standard choke damage multiplier is 400% as a baseline, meaning even though the Church suits don't offer full immunity, they still reduce your effective damage to 25%. Gassing them is not terribly effective as a result, and the TU usage on ropes is simply too bad to make this a good tactic, since you'll only get one attack requiring most of your TUs at point blank range.

If you're going to close to melee, you're better off just chopping them until the shield fails and then beating them over the head. Gold shields function, but very poorly, against cutlasses and axes. I advise the cutlass or knife for this, AXE TO THE HEAD is often so strong that it will just blow right through and one-shot anyway.

[Greep]

Well church is 200% instead of 100% I believe, so it's not that bad.  Hallucinogen don't destroy each other and are cheap, compared to a 500k capture, so just tossing 10 of them is fine.  It's less about effectivity and more safety, standard daze or bio as the usual long range stuns doesn't cut it with gold shields.  I was just thinking of safe ways long distance to avoid that shotgun lightning safely.   

In practice probably the most practical is an he grenade followed by one or two choke grenades as a single he is highly unlikely to kill them.

Rope is just in case they get up, since the shields reactivate on wake-up.  Although it's probably fine to just gym suit their butt. 

If I felt like going melee I think a single pipe hit followed up with good lookin' rock is probably what I'd go with since they're concuss with reasonable stun and lowish damage.  But melee just feels really dangerous.  Then again I guess that's what suicidal dogs are for. 

Or maybe I could toss a hallucinagen to make them go insane and dump their reaction TUs, that sounds pretty useful.  Edit: or not, 100 bravery, right.

Actually having tested in quick battle, hallucinagens will also panic even someone with 100 bravery at full morale with one explosion.  I guess an average 4000 morale damage to choking 200% will do that lol.  That seems a bit ridiculously powerful.

Unfortunately, my experience with using Chem is that Chem is very weak, and eats through armor very slowly, delivering decidedly underwhelming performance. It will go straight through blue shields, but then very little seems to come of it afterwards.

Armored car chem flak is pretty terrifying if used pointblank. 4x32x12 will rip any armor and then do hundreds of completely unmitigated shotgun damage.  I tested it out on an academy provost and it didn't even finish one 20% TU autoshot.

TBH that's the only chem weapon I found effective, though.  Toxiguns two tiles away are effective if you fire a few of 'em though.  But finding multiple toxiguns is almost impossible

[username]

Well church is 200% instead of 100% I believe, so it's not that bad.  Hallucinogen don't destroy each other and are cheap, compared to a 500k capture, so just tossing 10 of them is fine.

The problem is that you're now talking about throwing 10 grenades, which probably means at least 10 guys throwing grenades at one guy, and this many guys in such close proximity IS asking for lightning.

But finding multiple toxiguns is almost impossible

Impossible? Surely not, every Snakeman purge gives me more of them than I've ever used, ever. I also get them by the bucket out of Ghoul Town.

[Greep]

So got two questions:

1)  I heard a rumor that damaged missile strikes deal less building damage, is that true?.  If that's true, building 4 OC radars in every base sounds like it'd be good enough for missile defense.  Otherwise probably the only base worth defending is the main base until I get flak cannons, since 5 is just getting a bit ridiculously expensive.

2)  So I had a large wave of medium ships land in May '01, they were tanking my score so I figured I'd at least touch down.  The basic footmen had lasguns so I figured it was way above my level.  Were these worth doing anyways (I heard mediums tended to be impossible)?  It also seemed like I wasn't really stopping the score loss by touching down and evacuating, was I imagining that or do you get a penalty for landing and leaving?

[Nilex]

1) Pretty sure damage to missile is irrelevant but who knows. Radars you meant for baiting or for increased detection? On "Blackbeard" my 1st missile strike arrived late into 2nd game year (may actually be triggered by research) just to give you an idea. By that time 3x Armored Vaults proved defensive enough. But I couldn't intercept a missile not matter what because it's way to fast. I could prevent it by shooting those HK-117 (not easy) before the actually missile shows up on map however. Higher difficulties notably harden the situation so my case may not apply.
Someone smarter than me will probably advise you better on the details but I'll say a good idea for initial base defense is using lots of inexpensive expendable units (dogs, peasants). Glass cannons if you will. Then slowly build up from there or just dot it with defensive facilities to skip the whole thing. My 1st unavoidable (main) hideout defense happened in Sep 2062, delivered by Breaker @ 6250 speed & 900 HP. Mission is relatively easy if you manage to finish it fast (3-5 turns) before the enemy force scattered.

2) Depends on your play style if they're worth it I guess. You can cover losses with money and/or good tactics plus patience. I do it by save scumming to kingdom come (no one dies on my watch since Dune 2 lol). The two main tools which carried my troops were Manstoppers and Scoped Magnums (freeing up a hand for Cattle Prod or whatever). Infantry Laser was the first real breakthrough though.
Enemy ships incur score penalty as they enter zones, depending solely on time passing by. Flying or landed it's all the same so that's why aborting only marginally shortens global penalty as ship flies away from that zone (and starts increasing it in another probably) before disappearing.

[username]

2)  So I had a large wave of medium ships land in May '01, they were tanking my score so I figured I'd at least touch down.  The basic footmen had lasguns so I figured it was way above my level.

Lasguns are actually weaker damagewise compared to bullet-shooting guns. Their main advantage is their arpen, but you probably don't have any armor anyway, so that advantage is mooted.

They are, however, infernally accurate, at least in the player's hands, but this advantage is again lost on the AI, as the AI automatically hits you anyway, regardless of how ludicrously difficult the shot would otherwise have been, so this point is similarly moot.

They're also extra-effective against blue shields (the best shields), but again, you don't have any of these yet, so this advantage is similarly irrelevant.

Put together, lazor-wielding enemies are not really any tougher than their bullet-shooting counterparts early on.

[Solarius Scorch]

Lasguns are actually weaker damagewise compared to bullet-shooting guns.

Yeah right, maybe self-chargers and NERFs. Lasers are pretty strong on the average.

Their main advantage is their arpen, but you probably don't have any armor anyway, so that advantage is mooted.

You think 20 is inconsequential? (Assuming ubers.)

They are, however, infernally accurate, at least in the player's hands, but this advantage is again lost on the AI, as the AI automatically hits you anyway, regardless of how ludicrously difficult the shot would otherwise have been, so this point is similarly moot.

Lol wut?

They're also extra-effective against blue shields (the best shields), but again, you don't have any of these yet, so this advantage is similarly irrelevant.

Indeed.

Put together, lazor-wielding enemies are not really any tougher than their bullet-shooting counterparts early on.
[/quote]

:3

[Greep]

1) Pretty sure damage to missile is irrelevant but who knows. Radars you meant for baiting or for increased detection? On "Blackbeard" my 1st missile strike arrived late into 2nd game year (may actually be triggered by research) just to give you an idea. By that time 3x Armored Vaults proved defensive enough. But I couldn't intercept a missile not matter what because it's way to fast. I could prevent it by shooting those HK-117 (not easy) before the actually missile shows up on map however. Higher difficulties notably harden the situation so my case may not apply.
Someone smarter than me will probably advise you better on the details but I'll say a good idea for initial base defense is using lots of inexpensive expendable units (dogs, peasants). Glass cannons if you will. Then slowly build up from there or just dot it with defensive facilities to skip the whole thing. My 1st unavoidable (main) hideout defense happened in Sep 2062, delivered by Breaker @ 6250 speed & 900 HP. Mission is relatively easy if you manage to finish it fast (3-5 turns) before the enemy force scattered.

2) Depends on your play style if they're worth it I guess. You can cover losses with money and/or good tactics plus patience. I do it by save scumming to kingdom come (no one dies on my watch since Dune 2 lol). The two main tools which carried my troops were Manstoppers and Scoped Magnums (freeing up a hand for Cattle Prod or whatever). Infantry Laser was the first real breakthrough though.
Enemy ships incur score penalty as they enter zones, depending solely on time passing by. Flying or landed it's all the same so that's why aborting only marginally shortens global penalty as ship flies away from that zone (and starts increasing it in another probably) before disappearing.

I figured it was incorrect but someone notable on the forums said it a while back so I figured I'd check. 

Regarding radars:  Overcharged radars are the only defense against missiles really early game unfortunately (they actually damage invading craft) if you bother to try and defend.  Getting the necessary ~8 flak towers would require looting 32 25mm(x2) and 96 cannon rounds... per base by mid-may.  It's probably better to simply not bother and just resign your campaign if your old earth lab gets disconnected, as dumb as that is.  I guess you could outpost spam to bait but at that point your spending so much money you may as well just shoot the things down.

Regarding lasguns, I just meant that whatever else they had at that tech level was what worried me, although massed lasers wouldn't be fun.  It was a church warmaiden, so I'm guessing chrysallids and celatids and tons of matrons.

[legionof1]

The OC thing while sound mechanically, is not always a practical solution due to expense. But playing on Jack sparrow where you get strikes very early, and outside normal research trigger, there is a strong desire to no sell the strikes just so you keep the main base intact. Jack sparrow's punitive balance makes for some odd player behaviors.