A thread for little questions

[Multiheaded]

Many vessels will land somewhere eventually, depending on their mission type - an Academy survey mission or a Raider, well, raid are gonna land, a trade freighter won't.

Try shadowing with faster vessels and/or buying the Aircar if you come across a light gun for it somewhere (2x25mm or better).

Civillian-type Small/V. Small shipping can be shot down even with an aircar given a decent pilot. Avoid anything bigger than that until you have dedicated combat craft. If you have a Seagull Launcher and really need tech/materials from shipping, you can use it on an Airspeeder; just make sure not to send it close up at ramming speed, it's too fragile!

...oh, wait, and are you sure you know how to actually make time pass when an air combat is set to 'shadow'? Click the minimize icon in the upper left of the combat window! It'll collapse the window and actually let the Geoscape clock advance and the enemy fly around/continue to its destination. Same as in vanilla X-Com.

[Erling]

Airbus can't really move a large distance so finding a landed ship is pretty hard, so best bet is to get a new ship that can equip weapons.

The problem is, I can't find any aircraft armaments.

Try shadowing with faster vessels and/or buying the Aircar if you come across a light gun for it somewhere (2x25mm or better).

Where can I obtain aircraft guns aside from looting the aircrafts? I read Air Strategy Guide or something (found that at ufopaedia on the Internet) and it said that aircraft weapons can't be bought.

...oh, wait, and are you sure you know how to actually make time pass when an air combat is set to 'shadow'? Click the minimize icon in the upper left of the combat window! It'll collapse the window and actually let the Geoscape clock advance and the enemy fly around/continue to its destination. Same as in vanilla X-Com.

Yep, that's how I tried that.

[Premier]

Just for reference, not having any significant anti-air power early on is part of the mod's design. In vanilla X-Com, you have interception capability from the get-go; in X-Piratez, you don't, and you're not supposed to.

[Erling]

Yep, and I'm OK with that. But situation is ought to be changed, and I'm looking for ways to do that.

[khade]

Early shipping raids are very luck based, best you can do until you get some ships capable of mounting guns and access to guns is to follow most anything you can track.  Civilian ships aren't actually likely to land in places you can get to, though they do at times, some ships are practically guaranteed to land at some point, such as the runabout, I think, and are very worth following others will never land in a place you can get to.

You can buy aircraft guns or craft them with the right research, but it tends to be easier to find or steal them early on.  Deep sea treasure hunting can find some and faction vessels often have materials for building guns or even completed ones, just a matter of luck and perseverance.

[Erling]

Looks like I'm unlucky in this regard. I've been playing for many hours and NOT A SINGLE SHIP landed while I followed it Maybe bad base placement? It's positioned in Siberia.

[khade]

Possibly, though I've been placed in central Asia and gotten landed craft.  You might want to do sea missions and try to research explosive techs, I know those will lead to a ship weapon type.

[Erling]

I purchased new aircraft (Airspeeder) and also sent an Expedition to Europe. Somehow enemy vessels began to land occasionally. I even managed to plunder Academy ship with some armaments onboard. Maybe landing probability is somehow scripted to be connected to pursuing vessel's speed or class?

[ohartenstein23]

Landing is only determined by the flight path picked in the ruleset for that shipping on that particular mission. Simple RNG here of just what missions spawned and when you were able to detect them.  The only way for you to force a landing is shooting them down or a very particular craft weapon later in the game.

[khade]

The difference is that you have the speed and range to follow them more effectively, so you can get those that land further away from your base.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Looks like I'm unlucky in this regard. I've been playing for many hours and NOT A SINGLE SHIP landed while I followed it Maybe bad base placement? It's positioned in Siberia.

Europe, Asia and North America are the best (and only viable) starting spots to reach missions with the airbus.
These spots also have a lot of non-ocean territory for landing spots. Early on you fight the usual academy nurses with their own airbus to prevent them from finding your base.

Civilian traffic rarely lands and is unarmed. All early (maschine-gun)cannons can down these ships without destroying them.
Problem is, that those are hard to get and require decent research to build/purchace/manufacture the ammo.

You can go for "airballs" and push your luck but you're better with using goblin rokkitz. Problem remains that the early ships have no rocket-slot to mount the launcher. There should be one battery-ship that can equip a rocket launcher tho.

[RSSwizard]

Looks like I'm unlucky in this regard. I've been playing for many hours and NOT A SINGLE SHIP landed while I followed it Maybe bad base placement? It's positioned in Siberia.

Most of the time when I start a new game, first dang thing I do is Sell my Radar so I dont get bothered with so many interceptions that I cant deal with yet. But also mainly because of the (300K?) refund amount for it that gives me vital extra money at the start of the game. I do not even build radar until I get the Overcharged variety (wide scan), and usually by then ive got enough money and loot piling up that I need to build a second base anyway (for storage mainly).

Fact is you have Missions pile on enough to give you things to do and loot to manage. I do just fine with the pink dots on the landscape that pop up (you can net almost 1 million off of each temple raid, and the apples from ratmen raids will keep the chateau wine flowing). At least for the first 4-6 months, after that I gotta start hitting shipping to get essential items.

[khade]

I disagree on selling the radar, though the game can function without it early on.  Just one good early landing ship can be a godsend, and even a runabout qualifies.

[sinisteragent]

It depends on where you are and a bit of luck, too. I once built my first base in Australasia, and it just happened that the Academy had decided to plot a route that passed nearby, and landed within tailing distance just beyond my radar range. I got several landed Extractor missions out of that, which helped me pick off a few early civilian marks too.

[Premier]

I disagree on selling the radar, though the game can function without it early on.  Just one good early landing ship can be a godsend, and even a runabout qualifies.

Just to illustrate that:

Mid-February, first year. I start shadowing a ship and assault it when it lands. They turn out to be Raiders. I happen to land close enough to reach both of the ship's exits in the first turn (or thereabout). Several of my gals are on Bravery training with ropes as weapons, and the Raiders go down like punks at the chokepoints, pun intended.

Best part of the loot? 1 Defender armour, 1 damaged Defender armour, 2 Heavy Suits, 2 or 3 Tac Armours. Maybe a few Tac Vests, I don't remember, and it's not like I can't kit out my entire landing team in something better. In mid-February, year one.