A thread for little questions

[JustTheDude/CABSHEP]

What stamina has to do with stunning? When stun damage of unit exceeds HP, then the unit is stunned, no matter if it has 1000 stamina, or 0.

Small 1x1 drones are perfectly and fairly easly capturable, Academy drone for example, requires at best two "hits" with stun prod.

[Nilex]

Oh ups, lol. Yeah I got them mixed up... dayum. Thanks for clearing that up!

Might as well drop in a (last) question:
Do Birthday Cake commendations (debufs due to aging every 6 months) also stop at level 10?
-10 to TU & FRS is tolerable but any more and it becomes a slippery slope to deal with.

[RSSwizard]

Do Birthday Cake commendations (debufs due to aging every 6 months) also stop at level 10?

As per piratez bonuses.rul yes
But there's this other thing called Immortal and it kicks in afterwards. That one also tacks on Stamina loss.
After 20 years I think you have +30HP, -30 Mana, -10 Stamina, and -20 TU

Code: [Select]

STR_MEDAL_IMMORTAL_UFOPEDIA: "Awarded to a gal that has survived 6 years of pirating career, which, in this path of life, is almost equal to being immortal. But the age shows. It will be awarded yearly until the 10th anniversary, then bi-yearly. Maybe it is time to finish the campaign, one way or another?{NEWLINE}{NEWLINE}+2 Health per level{NEWLINE}-2 Freshness, -1 Stamina and -1 TU per level"

[Nilex]

That's some good rule diving, Thanks!

[RSSwizard]

more or less it still continues at the same rate for up to 10 years, its just it only hits (for double) once per year after the 6th year
its not so bad if you keep using them on missions since they get the other commendations

[Nilex]

Is bad when you are using Gray Codex goodies

Won't affect any of my Gals but I disabled IMMORTAL condemnation anyway as soon you showed me what it does. More accurately I delayed it by 100 years coz didn't find a clean way to comment it away (game kept freezing when mission ended). As a rule I hate forced timed negative events in games. This is no exception (same as country pact signing), it's just part of my gaming psychology. Fallout 1 was totally ruined for me when I found out as it was the sole thing I would concentrate on, instead on the story, characters, dialogues, just fun gameplay and exploration, etc. Luckily I learned enough to mod it away in XPZ, along with few other stuff, in effort to improve challenge/fun balance.

[Nilex]

Always wondered if Govt ships caused infamy score reduction because their short lived flybys didn't affect charts enough. From lore and pedia I assumed they are neutral and should be ignored. Well yesterday I got my answer. In the picture - a one of a kind situation for me: a Govt Excavator landed long enough to affect charts in negative way (immediate 300 shipping activity spike). I could probably land & abort to minimize additional penalty but since I never abort I'd have to knock everyone out which would result in slightly more penalty instead letting excavator excavate and fly off.

Is infamy score penalty because of mission type, as in it's not Govt Business type so it's considered hostile activity? Or maybe XPZ already has CIA false flags fully operational?

[RSSwizard]

In Fallout 1 it shows you right up front you have like 150 days before they're toast. I forget whether there's a timer for the game as a whole, but there isnt much content in Fallout 1 to bear that interest. It's pretty easy to get the water chip sorted out in that time, the SM fight at the water pump is the game's first Boss Fight, after that its School Recess. The water merchants in the hub are so well hidden I went through 2 playthroughs before I ran into them.
There's the obvious XP grind at the Boneyard vs the Deathclaws so you can rather quickly get up to Level 20 or 24 to get those elite feats, but you can beat the game at probably level 15-18.
Mostly there's enough content to paint and establish the setting, and some replay value, but large parts of the map have nothing in it (and northeast of necropolis you pick up lots of rads too).

Back to X-P...
Im thinking the Govt Activity is just hardcoded game mechanics, but it also makes sense. Govts reluctantly use your services, and eventually they'd do away with you if they could. Govt Enmity.
Stands to reason if you Act against them you take the hit. But if you dont make things uncomfortable to show you're Assertive they dont respect you as much either.
Solution is probably to do exactly what you said. Land to make them panic and then take off so no damage is done. Could possibly even get positive score if you "mugged" them (knock out, steal items manually, go back to your speeder, and then leave - 0 captures and 0 dead).
My problem is in most of my scenarios the Govt Fusion Cruiser is a cruising all around and I dont think it lands, so it may be racking up protected hidden activity scores.

[Solarius Scorch]

All that Immortal does is give you +2 Health at a cost of 2 Freshness, 1 Stamina and 1 TU. Which IMO is a more or less fair exchange, and even if not, it's completely inconsequential. Presenting it as some kind of timed doom is pretty ridiculous.

[Nilex]

@RSSwizard
Govt Fusion Cruisers are safe to ignore penalty wise. I let them roam free without noticeable penalty, except in single case where used Tractors to make it land and capped a unique Govt Siren for around -800 total. Gotta collect em all!

But these Excavators man... just got another identical one. Can't make sense of them. Last time, capping the crew netted a positive because none of crew gave negative score (both Laborers & mixed Govt). If I don't shoot it down it's gonna land again and reward me with 2nd biggest cumulative score hit since first year. Still negligible in grand scheme of things but annoying nevertheless. If I do shoot it down then besides expected insta-penalty I may get additional Govt crackdown missions that'll breed even more negative points, starting a downward spiral. It'd be hilarious if I suck myself into unwinnable situation on the cusp of year 5! Couldn't foresee this head-scratcher this late into the game for the life of me.
The only penalty-free option is to Tractor it down and kill/cap all crew but if they start appearing so damn much it's gonna become tedious quickly. Hopefully it's just one of those unlucky months and they go away after that. Wonder if "Human-Reticulan Co-op" triggers their spawnage and how nerve wrecking it must be to deal with them before Tractors.

@Solarius Scorch
Got me thinking... as peeps get older their health situation degrades, but their wisdom (mana) increases. So I'll reinstate my Immortal with a few twists. Not gonna affect gameplay since it won't last enough to come into play but it'll make me sleep better.

UPDATE
2nd identical Excavator touched down but score penalty didn't spike +300 as before, just gradually increase as would be expected. Together with no shootdown score penalty (as Dio mentions bellow) this restores their threat to minor nuisance. As of this update and 3 in-game months ahead, no more Govt Excavators showed up.

[legionof1]

unless its alot of excavators the practical chance of a goverment crackdown is low. The base iirc is like 5% per ship rolled individually. And crackdowns handled properly dont generate a spiral. don't engage in the air, and handle it on the ground/with AA. that way the triggers for additional crackdowns are bypassed.

[Dioxine]

Also: shooting down an Excavator never causes any score penalty. If you happen on Govt and don't want the hassle, and have spare fuel, listen to to the man in the hat... touchdown & go. That causes them to takeoff. Repeat, they'll be gone for good.

[RSSwizard]

wait a minute... will Govt Forces do base raids, or does it always just result in raiders, spartans, whoever else?
would be pretty groovy seeing MPs and Govt Enforcers kicking down the door FBI style

[BlorkTheOrk]

wait a minute... will Govt Forces do base raids, or does it always just result in raiders, spartans, whoever else?
would be pretty groovy seeing MPs and Govt Enforcers kicking down the door FBI style

They did it in my playthrough. For some reason they attacked my base at the very end of the campaign. At that point it was totally out of blue. I had maxed out relations(funds) with everyone but Australia.

[Dogbarian]

So in April of my first campaign, I just discovered how tough Zombie Troopers are. Grounded Medium very near my base turns out to be a smuggler (which I only recognized because I’ve been watching Meridian's play through from last year). Figured I would see what was there, and deployed. After 11 turns and some mild save-scumming, only 2 wounded girls and I’ve killed 2 of them, have 2 more downed & sleeping, and have a 3rd peeled out of his armor, and set on fire from a Molotov. There's another one that has been wildly sniping from the top of the UFO with some laser/plaz weapon, and I have 2 gals that have slipped through cover to board out of his firing angles. But I’m about out of “emergency” weapons (got a lucky crate early that had a sniper rifle and a couple of flamethrowers) - most of what I have at this point doesn’t scratch these guys. Including the shotguns I lugged along for Zombie duty. My assault cannon is down to one normal ball, I still have a clip of sniper, and a gothic blaster (with only 1 clip) for extreme emergency, and most of my explosives are used up. Now I see two more (one with another energy gun) to the north, and a Singer Z in the ship!  I haven’t seen most of the map, been fighting along the southern edge the whole time. So I realize there could be even more. But I’m kind of committed at this point to try and retreat (plus there could be some amazing loot here). Put it aside to sleep on it, and today opened the save file for the first time in a text editor.   There are 6 more (counting the Singer)!  One I have nicked, that’s probably the sniper up top, the rest are full health. If I’m figuring out the locations, there one hidden in the ship, but it’s a little confusing to sort through.

The whole armor peeling thing is very cool, kudos to Dioxine or whomever thought of that!  But it makes me more than a little nervous about trying to melee these guys. The blaster is probably good to do one. Should I just try to bail, or even just call it a waste, and go back to the previous general GeoScape save?

Next time I see these guys, I’m just getting back in my ship and bugging out.   At least, until I have much better gear!