Looking for some base management advice

[Ethereal_Medic]

Already using panzerfaust with the stated benefits.
Blastradius indeed spreads extremely hard but it's the last straw I can grab against superior foes.

I can't be the only one having issues with hideout defense and the artificial difficulty spike with overpowered enemy weaponry.

[Solarius Scorch]

Alternate deployments for factions are possible, as long as they use their own craft for attack. If it's a Cruiser, well, then the defence will be against a Cruiser crew, with appropriate equipment.

I can't be the only one having issues with hideout defense and the artificial difficulty spike with overpowered enemy weaponry.

To be honest, I think you are.

Sure, these aren't the easiest missions around, they can be lost when extremely unlucky; but the amount of, let's be honest, whining from you is completely unjustified by the actual difficulty. I think base defence in Piratez is easier than in vanilla.

[Ethereal_Medic]

KK, guess I'll just deal with it.
In regards of vanilla base defense. I found those much easier since it was easier to stack 3-4 hwp's in your base and several rookies for cannon fodder while the weaponry was on mostly equal terms with situations of laser VS plasma or plasma vs plasma.

[legionof1]

I defiantly concede that base defense is a tricky proposition for a much longer time period then vanilla. The gap of time where your floundering about with subpar tech is lengthy. You also never quite achieve parity in all aspects of combat(vision, armor, ect) at once compared to vanilla marginal superiority in all aspects.

Base defense remains a credible threat from start to finish, even if the vocal minority of us here on the boards dismiss the challenge. I don't think my hundreds of hours on this mod over the last year is a common level of experience. Plus fuck knows how many hours with the original/openxcom in the past 22 years(i feel old).

It's like expecting an Olympic marathoner to have a problem with a 2k run. Joe average will struggle while to the Olympian it the morning jog before breakfast. Different frame of reference, different viewpoints with neither necessarily objective.

Hell, there's probably less then 20 people with more then then bare handful of posts to the piratez forum. Vocal minority indeed.           

[tormodino]

Piratez has a lack of predictability, especially for us who haven't played hundreds of hours of it.
This effectively translates into "difficulty".

I think base defence and many of the missions are wildly hard to gauge in terms of loadout and enemy positioning.
This can be fun, but I have to agree with legionof1.
I doubt the impression of veterans really reflect the experience of newbies.

As fun as this mod is, there are some very frustrating elements to it that are not easily adressed.
Things like base defence require a lot of experience to deal with and prepare for, and can set a player back a long time due to the loss of a base.

This doesn't ruin the game, but experience can possibly make it seem like less of a challenge than it actually is.

[Dioxine]

I am aware of that, but despite reductions of difficulty in many places, this mod is aimed at veteran player. These reductions are less about making it more accessible as about making it less tense.

[arbee81]

So after starting this thread and getting all the great advice, I was able to get a better handle on the base management stuff.  Expanded to global coverage, ramped up my manufacturing, shifted gals around to have some experienced ones at each base in case of a crackdown, worked out a standard base defense loadout, actually got it all manufactured and shipped out.

Then after I don't know how many in-game months, I finally got a crackdown.  And they wiped the base out.  LOL.  In my defense, it was the newest of my bases, really just a radar outpost type base.  I hadn't transferred anyone good there, it was just new hands stuck in a dojo and half-trained at that.  Plus it was a stargod crackdown.  At the point I'm at, only my A team could have repelled this attack.  I actually did better than I thought I would, but there were a bunch of cyclops and most of my weapons just tickled them.  In the end all I really lost was a few mil and some time.

I did notice one thing I was curious about.  The base in question was in antarctica, and when they were searching for it I had a ship spawn in Africa, with the crackdown flag, and it literally flew slowly over my African base as it was headed south.  I thought it was actually going to attack the African base and held my breath waiting for the base defense screen, but it just kept moseying south.
 When they're searching for a base, do they wait until they're in the actual area or is it scanning from spawn point to despawn point?

[Ethereal_Medic]

The common crackdown goes like this:
Sentry-class scans the area. A fighter-class scans the area again. A medium to large craft scans the area and the final step is a vessel that does the actual attack against the found hideout.

If a ship with 'crackdown' flag bypasses a region that is not the actual target area, you don't have to worry. That's why the hyperwave decoder is so great. You can read the target area and prepare as needed.

In your example the actual mission was "Antarctica Crackdown" and the enemies started to spawn above africa to fly over to antarctica for the actual mission.
Getting crackdowned by star gods rather early in the game is tough.

A fly-by of a crackdown ship doesn't reveal your hideouts outside the target area.

[arbee81]

A fly-by of a crackdown ship doesn't reveal your hideouts outside the target area.

Well that's a relief.  Now I can move all the crap I hastily transferred out of there back.  haha