A thread for little questions

[legionof1]

persuadeatron has both terrible accuracy (100% of flat 50) with -4 per tile after 11, and if IIRC this also is its effective power before psi defense cause psi is weird.

theoretical upside is it does not require any voodoo skill or power, any idiot can give it a try.

[username]

Of course, the fact that any idiot can use it and not succeed at it doesn't make it useful, it just makes it a waste of TUs. It hardly matters that anyone can use it if it never works!

[ZoA]

Does anybody else think map on 3rd level of Aurora castle is atrocious buggy mess? There are passable corners that look like they should be impassible, 1 square alcoves that can be entered thru those corners and can hide enemies that are then impossible to attack. General map design is irritating AF, endless dead ends or doors that look like dead ends, and to move your gals in to fog of war areas one often needs to click in to darkens and that often makes them take insane roundabout paths expending all TU and leaving your gals hell knows where. Navigating that mess is so time consuming and annoying it's driving me insane.

I hate that map so much. 

[Nilex]

That's all nice and cute but have you had an exploding robot destroy your main item pile?

As far I know the labyrinth part was intended. What saves it imo is the AI which actively seeks you out. I dreaded when I first saw it but it ended being a rather short ordeal, about 10% of what I expected. Freshness drain was a bit more of a drag but you can just camp certain choke points and let them come to you. If melee'd they don't explode I think? Hollow/fake walls are a pain to sort out design wise but it works to your advantage if you camp as they come sooner. So yeah, let the emotionless and infinitely patient robots deal with it while you just click end turn, lol. When things die out a little you can use door opening sounds to guide you to the last ones faster.

Not the most memorable map I agree but the unique Tome of Life reward is great. All things being equal Space Freighter would be far more treacherous experience but it's not due to full Freshness start. The first stage was pretty great tho so in my eyes everything balanced out.

[RSSwizard]

Of course, the fact that any idiot can use it and not succeed at it doesn't make it useful, it just makes it a waste of TUs. It hardly matters that anyone can use it if it never works!

And more importantly, a waste of $669,000.
Since anyone you could probably use it on you can probably bust over the head.
Mercs are supposedly vulnerable to psi but even they probably got more than a civvie. Plus a berserking merc isnt exactly my idea of fun anyway.

That's probably not the approach I would have chosen because killing them all gets you no slaves, but I wonder if this technique can be adapted. I usually only authorize lethal force on targets that have no slavery value and very little ransom value.

I dont really remember being able to slave megapol guys... but I have a Giant Stack of slaves from extending my Civilian Flights mission (dont select "stop targeting civilian traffic" until the absolute last moment you can muster it).

Mostly I only care about the Small Ship Engines and loot I get from megapol. Lots of plasma pistols and plasma castors, grav packs from the apemen, boom guns from the enforcers. They're also semi-tough sorta missions. Usually anything other than a dropship is done with 2 Tanks or Armored Cars and they're just machinegunned into puree.

Yeah im up into almost Year 3 and still got Civilian Traffic going because:
Easy to shoot down (Gauss or Lascannon usually)
Small Ship Engine 1 or 2 apiece (100k) thats the main reason.
Easy Slaves (usually laborers)
Easy research to eat up the # topics and unlock critical stuff like Pirate Straits and Theban Hive.

Anyone who thought civvie traffic was bad for you is nutty (captures are like +10 pts each not negative).

[username]

Does anybody else think map on 3rd level of Aurora castle is atrocious buggy mess? There are passable corners that look like they should be impassible, 1 square alcoves that can be entered thru those corners and can hide enemies that are then impossible to attack.

That tileset has a few glitches in it, too, like the destroyed walls that don't visibly look destroyed, so you knock them down, and then walk through the apparently still solid wall.

General map design is irritating AF, endless dead ends or doors that look like dead ends

Yeah, I kinda hate those stupid maps in general, where there are a bunch of walls where there's supposed to be doors. I just axe for it to be changed, though.

You should see the resulting path I take through some of these levels, where I've just taken a straight line through it demolishing every obstacle in my path.

[RSSwizard]

Any advice for which missions can be pulled off with this combo?
I just find that 3 units to manage makes things go by alot faster and easier on me the player and adds a dumptruck of experience to them. But im wondering where the cutoff is between what you can manage.
I already know Pogroms are out of the question, you can solve the map but most of the mutants will die before you finish it.

2 Gals + 1 Tank in an airbus
(currently the gals are chromeback and revenant armor)
The map in picture was a standard Freighter which was managed pretty easily.

[MemoryTAS]

I know you explained why you did this, but seeing a tank coming out of an airbus still caused me extreme pain.

[Iazo]

Why the Airbus, and not something worth a damn like a Pachy?

[RSSwizard]

Mainly because ive been putting off my Dr X mission and the airbus is there as a placeholder so I dont fill my hangars with snazzier things before then. Its slow and can delay pogroms until morning just fine. And its cheap.

It has an Aux slot and its got 6 capacity... soo...
Hey I just use the machinegun (and armor) on this tank.

I dont have a Pachy in my cadre, I use interceptor for space and codex for most of everything else. Triton for sea or mansions.

I know you explained why you did this, but seeing a tank coming out of an airbus still caused me extreme pain.

Its not like the thing has a weight limit you know...

[Vasja]

Hi! I have a little question.
"Spotter: -1" parameter in "Piratez_Factions.rul" file - what does it mean?
Infinity spotting?

[Nilex]

To quote Ruleset Reference:

The spotter score. Determines how many turns sniper AI units can act on this unit seeing your troops.

-1 usually means infinite or dependent on some other value. Mostly ends up being a large value either way. It references some number of turns in this case, not spotting range.
The spotter part I'm not sure. I interpret it as the unit in question has unlimited turns to convey player's units position (once it has spotted them) to all other AIs. Pretty nasty trait but only present in strongest high-rank AI units (and pretty much all Mercs, ofc). Buffed version of vanilla Intelligence attribute which governed how many turns AI spotter was aware of spotted player unit position. It's definitely not infinite spotting as the immediately next "Sniper" entry in reference shows. That's pretty much I understood from that. AI may know your position but will probably not fire if: out of LOS, low ACC, or too high TU usage.

[Vasja]

Thank you.

[Vasja]

It turns out that the camouflage is completely disabled until such a "Harry spotter" is neutralized and the player may not even know about it?
Wait in the shelter until the camouflage is restored will not work?

[legionof1]

this is a side effect of how ai location finding works, the AI logs the tile location of the units it sees, and keeps that value stored for a number of turns equal to there intelligence stat. This does mean that a spotter will keep you tagged for all the snipers present for many turns.

Shots taken do still however follow normal rules, if the unit cant see the thing it firse at -50% accuracy.

This is the only way to let the AI have a sembalance of the squadsight the player can pull off