A thread for little questions

[DaEMon]

Guys, how do you catch Powered Armored Gnome? It was very hard to kill her in the first place and I don't have any idea how to get her alive.

Easiest way in my opinion is to use the seductress outfit. A couple of kisses and she falls asleep. By the way, that trick also works well on provosts and guildmasters.

[Yirtimd2]

Guys I just read Stellar Empire Report 004 here - https://www.xpiratez.wtf/en-US##STR_REPORT_004 and they say Star Gods' true goal is to create a God "to unpreside over the Materium in perfect unconsciousness of death" whatever that means.

So... They are just like SEELE from Evangelion who want to kill everyone and "make us whole"? Or maybe they want to create something like Chaos Gods from Warhammer or even Warp itself? And we are just Guinea Pigs for their experiments with souls and other stuff?

P. S.: also thank you guys for tips about seductress outfit, because I never used it before and always thought "wtf is this?"

[legionof1]

I take that entry to mean that they determined that only order/structure and materialism matter, because they could not prove the soul and higher order beings to exist. They, perhaps mistakenly, categorized anything from alternative dimensions as merely material beings with different rules of physics, and any mysticism as the result of the crossover interactions.   

Therefore the only way to persist past death is by the works you leave behind. Ergo they strive to make an artificial undying being/network. A physical god.

The Star Gods are science/materialism culture taken to the extreme. The problem they have is that they fell into the hole of "any sufficiently defined/researched magic is science, " and this universes magic system is a will to power model. They believe that no such mystic jumbo exists so to them it doesn't.

[Yirtimd2]

Wow it is deep...

[Dogbarian]

Is there a mission impact for the "is alarmed" and "is angry" conditions from Guild and Academy?   I have captured a few folks that I noticed if I break them and then research, it triggers those conditions (also, the Marsec powered armor guy leads to that if I research the parts, but I'm not even close to researching a factory, so I wasn't going to do that yet).

I just saw my first pogram from one of the factions (Academy) and was a little surprised at the Cyberdisc - I was prepared to deal with the armored Osiron guys and the drones.  Luckily, a custom shooty gun evidently hits hard enough to take it out (the secondary explosions from the refinery equipment probably did more actual damage, but whatever).  Also luckily, there was only one.  And the captured Esper was a nice bonus, she's the third or fourth one I've "collected".

[Nilex]

"Is Alarmed" instantly unlocks "Is angry" as well, with both having either same impact (split by slightly different triggers) or the latter adding even more impact (which in that case feels unintended since automation instantly increases difficulty without player control). I had the same concern about this so I delayed "Alarmed" as long as possible until I was confident I could control the new air-battle. Maybe until I had a minimum of 4 interceptors armed with at least Gauss Cannons? From my experience all the impact did was add or at least increase spawn rates of larger ships. In hindsight I'd say it wouldn't matter if I research it right away or delay since I don't recall notable increase of complexity and/or difficulty.

If anything I should have unlocked new conditions as soon as they appeared in research because it made new goodies available sooner. Chasing rarer items down the line needlessly prolonged certain stages of the game for me. With that in mind I'll always say just go for it. Difficulty is so well balanced that's it's almost impossible to screw yourself in Geoscape.

[Ragshak]

What is the goal of "A party!" mission? Do I need to stun all those ghost to win? Or grab specific item and flee? Where is exit area?

[Dogbarian]

Well, since I barely have an air force (exactly one HK, and two Snakes, plus the Scorpion and some random air cars), maybe I'll hold off a while. 

I have a lot of things to research anyway, just finished Full Plate Armor, which is the last thing I needed for Industrial Tools.  A second base just got dropped in, so I probably need to try to take one of them out to avoid the escalating score penalty.  This new one is pretty near one of my bases, so I can pop the supply ships.  It appears to be Traders, the first one is Church.  Maybe after I make a couple of sets of plate mail, I'll give it a shot.

Will a convoy slip in under the base's radar?  Or is that even a thing?  Otherwise I'm pretty limited on how many troops I can take in.  It might be time to go ahead and finish the Metallo research and get it built.

[Nilex]

@Ragshak
Goal is to provide a break from serious missions, get some easy prisoners and loot. Not much more to it than that. You win by knocking out everyone. No special items or exit zones to help you. I recall someone complained about Ghosts specifically in this mission because they're resistant to daze so it took forever. At least the dress provides near immunity to their attacks and you'll also get ton of Melee XP.

@Dogbarian
I keep around old milestone saves so I took a look if I can be more specific. Seeing your squadron I think you are pretty safe to unlock "Alarmed/Angry" if you wish. I done it somewhere between Jan-Mar 2602 (as save gap indicates) and had 6 bases with each housing 1 interceptor at the time. All were Shark Jetbikes with 50mm or 30mm cannons. If there was a Predator replacing any of those it received a Plasma Charger (life saver) as well. Never had problems winning air-battles with conditions mentioned. In your place I'd wait until research list thins out a little bit just so it's more manageable, list is only gonna get nastier I can promise you that. Tech from bigger ships isn't the main bottleneck, RNG events/interrogation techs/loot is.
If by undetectable Convoy you mean because it's a ground vehicle (?) - yeah that idea don't fly. Funny enough I though the same. Enemy base radar pings every 10-15 mins or something, so ih your transport can fly the gap faster than that you can sneak in undetected.
Btw, I raided first enemy base in BLOWFISH, 8 WARRIORS inside, with Manstoppers, Cattle Prods, 2 RPGs, and several Landmines. A dumb move on my part with how little I known then (expected bandit camp base tops, got Academy instead). You need some decent gear against Provorst/Guildmaster, and bringing more Soldiers also wouldn't hurt.

[Dogbarian]

Yeah, I'm wrapping up March 2602 now.  It's kind of "gamey", but assuming the enemy base radar pings every 30 minutes like everything else, I can time it and dash in.  I definitely have better ground gear than what you listed.  Although since I haven't seen a provost or guildmaster yet, so that could be interesting.  I'll have to try it this weekend!

[legionof1]

Is there a mission impact for the "is alarmed" and "is angry" conditions from Guild and Academy? 
snip

There is some, it adds more occurrences of some high end ships, as well as heavy freighters for guild, and science ships for academy iirc. And yes the alarmed/angry are linked because of oddities in how things can be triggered. The extra step has something to do with that a 0 cost tech that is granted by just getting all its prerequisites can't be a trigger for mission changes, but it can "get one free" another regular cost that does.

[Yirtimd2]

Guys what are you talking about? What are "angry" and "alarmed" statuses of Guild and Academy? And what are other statuses? Is it some meta knowledge of high level gameplay?

[legionof1]

they are under the hood techs that have no pop ups and are hidden from the player unless you go digging around in the tech viewer. They exists so some parts of game progress can be tied to players progress against certain factions. The engine only allows you to change the mission pool based on either time or techs, so in order to be reactive to player effective progress, a "cheat" tech is used, triggered by researching most of the lower ranked units live state.

The thought is that if your have captured all of these guys you have the capability to handle harder foes, without tethering the change to a single normally researched tech, because well the tech web is an spaghetti monster and who knows where a less experience player might wander.

[Ragshak]

@Ragshak
Goal is to provide a break from serious missions, get some easy prisoners and loot. Not much more to it than that. You win by knocking out everyone. No special items or exit zones to help you. I recall someone complained about Ghosts specifically in this mission because they're resistant to daze so it took forever. At least the dress provides near immunity to their attacks and you'll also get ton of Melee XP.

Thanks. Then I will skip that mission. Have only 3 party dresses at the moment and knocking down 3-4 floors of ghosts would take forever (using bare fists, staff and ballbat found in that tavern)

[Vick]

Old returned player here.. I forgot so many things, that I even had to create a new account.
 
Easy early question. I'm on July-August of 2601

• Mutan Assassination trophy? When this missions are triggered?,
• Earliest aerial weapon? Which is the best chain of research?, I find weird that I could got  already several vessel but no weapons for them.. I feeling that I´m missing all the training targets of early months.
• After Barbarian-Warrior-Chain mail.. Next armour to aim? this month in many missions. I even couldn't leave the vessel with several foes aiming the door. with out being killed
• D.I.L.D.O. Any use in the medium-late game?