Cydonia or Bust! Kiri's question thread. Game complete!

[KiriKaneko]

So I've started a new game in the newest version and playing on top difficulty ironman. Got trashed like 5 times within the first few months so far XD

Play 1) Went quite well initially, I got a lasgun first month for advanced weapon rumours, and I decided to do a ratman village in March for some shooting and reflex training, and give some of my scrubs a chance to level their bravery. Lost 1 person to dogs, like 4 of them came and I killed them. 2 other people were wounded so I moved them into the ship to pass out, I had my low bravery person in there as well. Anyway another dog comes running around a corner, one of my soldiers was waiting with a shotgun but it mustve started its turn from right around the corner as it didn't get reaction fired and killed her. It then ran into the ship and killed one of the wounded. The other wounded then passed out and the low bravery girl panicked and got mangled, then it ran out of the ship and killed my last remaining soldier who I had been pulling back to the ship.

Lesson: Don't do ratman villages til I have enough firepower to remove a large portion of the map without creating smoke so I can shoot dogs at a distance, and enough armor to stand in the open and tank the fire from the ratmen. My strategy of camping corners with shotguns is no good when dogs are in play unless we have enough reactions to always get them

2) Forgot how to handle cold weather, month 1 fail

3) Forgot how to handle hot weather, month 1 fail XD

4) A rather disastrous temple raid in month 1, we won but I lost so many of my initial units I decided to restart. Curiously one of my KO units died for no apparent reason

5) Month 3 fail. I was ship camping in a academy lab raid. Seems the only reliable strategy when I have 6 units against 3 times as many units, I need captives for money and I can't be throwing units away since I have to sack anyone with <30 bravery and bring the 40 bravery ones on at least 1 mission to make them functional. They're just nowhere near as expendable as XCOM and TFTD soldiers who I just threw at the enemy like they are zergs or something. Anyway one of my peeps was wounded so I decided to let them KO rather than waste my refresments keeping her awake. Anyway about 30 turns after she passes out she suddenly dies. No wounds or anything. Searched the forum and found out about the feature where unconscious people die eventually unless periodically woken up :/

So I got mad since I'd just had a few bad runs and this campaign hadn't been going that well (month 3 with only 1 temple raid, lots of deaths, a few from being KOd for too long, no lasgun this time, hardly any research since I kept getting ratmen missions and I'm not touching that lol). I decided to just rush out and get the last 2 guys but they gunned us down with precision headshots in no time

So I rage quit and I've slept since then and now I'm thinking of starting another run but I need to plan this out, the way I see it I have a few options

1) I lower the difficulty. I don't really want to though, but I can't win without cheesing on this difficulty if I fight straight up, and camping inside my ship for 100 turns feels like cheesing and can be pretty boring

2) I just soldier on til I can get armor. I think I need advanced weapon rumours for this though. On my first run I got a lasgun in month 1 but it was from a distress beacon for an academy ship and I have no idea how rare these are. I probably need a lot of interrogation research as well but from what I remember the tac vests are good enough to handle most ballistic tier weapons head on, which I will need since I'm usually outnumbered 3 to 1 on each mission and the maze like levels allow enemies to easily rush up and fire point blank at me.

Main problem here is A), getting the lasgun, B) I'm gonna need to camp my landing craft for months until I get armor, and C) the enemies dying after being KOd will result in severe loss of revenue until then. I think I can probably mitigate this somewhat though with 2 methods. 1) I stop using handles and start using stun rods, this way I cause no HP damage to my victims although it will be harder to KO them, and they won't suffer as much continuous stun damage, or 2) I wake up my victims after I KO them and let them walk away, which would be weird and distracting, and I could easily get shot or melee'd by an enemy I mistook for a previously stunned and disarmed enemy, and why wouldn't they realistically just pick up a weapon and keep fighting? It's weird. I'd probably go with the stun rod method, get them in the ship then wake them up every so often before stunning them again

3) I employ more lethal methods. If I camp the landing craft for a while and keep shooting, then when most enemies are down I get people out and into good cover position kneeling behind rocks I can probably just gun everyone down. Muskets seem to be a rather long range gun compared to what most of the enemies have, and shotguns are lethal in urban environments. Downside here s that like 90% of my income was coming from captures, but if I can just do this til I get armor, or if I can find out how to get shark jetbikes (I forgot) then I can make my money selling civilian ship engines.

I think before I decide what to do, what I need to know most is how much time I have. From what I remember of my previous incomplete run (I was at the point where I was trying to make the spaceship) the low level quests like trader warehouse and church raids disappear eventually, and for me they are the most lucrative of all. I also want to stock up on gun almanachs so I don't want to miss out on the early save a sister and crackhouse raids either. But most of all, I know eventually ships were appearing full of laser and gauss wielding enemies, and the AI were sending out retaliation ships regularly even without provocation.

If time really is a serious factor then I have to either lower the difficulty or cheese it from my ship. If time isn't a problem then I can shoot as many people as I want, focus on capturing only melee enemies, patch up the odd enemy who is bleeding out and just gradually crawl along at a steady pace. This will also lead my soldiers to get good aim so that shooting becomes a more reliable way of dispatching enemies even on reaction fire

So is time an important factor and I have to KO nearly everyone? Or are the things like easy missions disappearing, crackdown ships and gauss enemies unlocked through research progression rather than time? Do you have any advice for me to play without ship camping and have a good chance of progressing on the hardest difficulty with only early game tech available?

I want the game to be difficult, but I also don't wanna lose my campaign because I get bored and stop ship camping, or suddenly the gauss soldiers appear and I'm still running around with muskets because I've been shooting everyone XD

P.s is ship camping frowned upon?

[Yataka Shimaoka]

Lol! Looks like someone had a bad playthrough  of piratez. But even though the playthroug is rough in higher difficulties, I would like to suggest that you must mostly (and only in early game) rely on using melee. Melee is far more lethal than ballistics and lasers, well based on my experience. I only use lasguns when robotic type enemies are around, and shotguns? Don't use them for reaction shots, they are only useful for taking down armored human targets! For reaction fire, I strongly suggest to use automatically rifles or small pistols, and don't camp too much, be aggressive in a tactical way.

[KiriKaneko]

Aggression tends to get me wiped pretty fast. Even 2 remaining enemies can potentially kill all 6 of my people as my last mission demonstrated!

I primarily use melee as it gets me the most money in captives but it seems to be far riskier than shooting or throwing Molotov cocktails. Rushing them in melee is suicidal, but camping doorways is the way to get captives it seems, very boring though. The most reliable way I have found to win a mission is to use muskets at long range (field missions) or shotguns in short range urban environments but then I don't get my captives, don't make any money and will presumeably lose the game when I fail to advance quickly enough

[JustTheDude/CABSHEP]

Bows are good early in game. Gals with bows could easily hit targets over the walls, so six soldiers in airbus with two scouts and four archers are good in ratman and Lok'Nar villages. Ratman are sold for 1k each, so there is no point in capturing them. I get captives primarily from academy (tower, scientific experiments) and church/temple mission. In other missions I rely on opportunity created by the game to capture some prisoners (everyone have handle or stun rod in quickdraw slot) or if there is new kind of opponent to interrogate. Rush for money is not worth death of any gal especially in the beginning where is hard to replace them. You could buy inteceptor and shoot down civilian ships, but sometimes it's not worth it, if you don't have weapon that don't use ammo. Rockets are very expensive.

Rotogun is easy to obtain early and gal with natural maximum accuracy(125), crouching and in range have more than 30% chance to hit. 15 bullets burst mean usually 5 hits that can kill armored targets.

Harpoon gun with stun bolts are frequent loot from academy missions so stunning unarmored targets from a distance is safer and easier.

I think good tactic will be like aggressive-defence. Taking good position with good gals, scout, bite and lure enemies with weaker.     

[Ethereal_Medic]

Aggression tends to get me wiped pretty fast. Even 2 remaining enemies can potentially kill all 6 of my people as my last mission demonstrated!

I primarily use melee as it gets me the most money in captives but it seems to be far riskier than shooting or throwing Molotov cocktails. Rushing them in melee is suicidal, but camping doorways is the way to get captives it seems, very boring though. The most reliable way I have found to win a mission is to use muskets at long range (field missions) or shotguns in short range urban environments but then I don't get my captives, don't make any money and will presumeably lose the game when I fail to advance quickly enough

That's a bit drastic to say. Yes you'll advance less quickly but you're not risking it to be crackdowned by one of the major factions (unless you foil thier shipping plans).
The early game is quite long and you've plenty of time to prepare a longterm plan. Also the "8 have to withdraw to lose the game" rule still applies but it's very very unlikely that factions stop paying the protection money. Just don't bother with the government troopers too much^^

[Yataka Shimaoka]

Aggression tends to get me wiped pretty fast. Even 2 remaining enemies can potentially kill all 6 of my people as my last mission demonstrated!

I primarily use melee as it gets me the most money in captives but it seems to be far riskier than shooting or throwing Molotov cocktails. Rushing them in melee is suicidal, but camping doorways is the way to get captives it seems, very boring though. The most reliable way I have found to win a mission is to use muskets at long range (field missions) or shotguns in short range urban environments but then I don't get my captives, don't make any money and will presumeably lose the game when I fail to advance quickly enough

But in a tactical way
Also consider moving your melee gals to cover rather than the open. Then leave your long range gals in partial cover, it has some advantage, believe me.
Next is, I am not advancing fast enough, but enemies tend to succumb from my MELEE attacks because melee has a chance to pierce through armor( yes, believe me, I am also playing the 5th difficulty) than using explosives and long range guns. I also give specific roles for my gals, one is a sniper, one is for demolition, one as a medic, and finally a suicidal melee one, which is always wearing the TOUGHEST suit i have since melee guys are the frontliners while the others wear armors that grants higher tus and stamina

[KateMicucci]

The damage curve is so wild on 0-200% that the marginal increase in armor from 20 to 30 with scale or warrior doesn't seem worth it for a melee gal compared to the many benefita of the unarmored suits. I like to give melee gals something that increases their TUs and energy so that they can either clear a room or get into cover, instead of trying to tank shots. Gun gals can have TU reducing armor without much drawback because guns use a TU% instead of a flat value.

[sinisteragent]

I always play on the second highest difficulty setting, personally. The main effect of the highest one is to make the game more tedious after a while, as every ship is packed to the gills with enemies to root out. The regular fights become a laborious chore very quickly.

That's not a criticism of the game either, it was true of the original, and I get the impression the top setting is intentionally over the top.

Also once you get past the rough early game underdog status, having so many enemies arguably makes the game easier as you have far more guns, ammo, and captives to use.

[Yataka Shimaoka]

The damage curve is so wild on 0-200% that the marginal increase in armor from 20 to 30 with scale or warrior doesn't seem worth it for a melee gal compared to the many benefita of the unarmored suits. I like to give melee gals something that increases their TUs and energy so that they can either clear a room or get into cover, instead of trying to tank shots. Gun gals can have TU reducing armor without much drawback because guns use a TU% instead of a flat value.

That's ninja style! But I never lost a melee gal anyways in such tactic, I don't go ninja either, the point of giving the melee gals high grade armors so that they can survive reaction shots from their victim. I am playing in the highest difficulty and it is also set on ironman, and I only lost 2 gals in the early waves, not because they are melee.

[greattuna]

Even a marginal increase like 20->30 gives very good protection against shotguns, which are both common and dangerous in early game.

At the start of the game you won't have good long-range options. Muskets have terribad accuracy, and bows require gals with good throwing, which are not common, hence why in my playthrough I went full CQC, and yes, I didn't use bows at all.

Melee starts out great and gets even better as you progress, whether you're using daggers, handles or axes. I recommend axes, though, in trained hands this simple tool can decimate a lot of things. Use cover, sprint around, and strike from behind, but don't get too aggressive, or you'll overextend and lose your hands on enemy turn.

Most of guns aren't that hot in the early game, thankfully, you aren't facing good armor for a couple of months, and even if you do, you have axes. What I'd recommend is shotguns: they have good accuracy to compensate for poor firing skills, they have lotsa pellets (some of them will hit that poor sod), and they come really cheap. My personal favorites are heavy shotgun and military shotgun, former because it has 20 dmg per pellet and gunbutt, latter because of slugs (45 damage) and HEAT ammo (66 damage).

As of tactics, camping your landing craft is not exactly a good idea: you need to strike first and not be afraid of getting hit a few times. Gals are tough! unlike these damned slaves who fold like paper. Once again, you don't have to overextend, and you shouldn't take more risk than you can afford: if that priest is staring for you, shotgun at ready, just shoot him. Gals > money. You don't have to kill everyone though, just enough that trying to capturing the rest won't be lethal for you. Use ranged options too: domestic shotgun has rubber shells, harpoon gun - stun darts, and eventually you'll obtain access to tazogun (do not recommend, kills people way too often), electric lasso (would recommend, it works now!) and tranquilizer darts, which are even better than regular stun darts.

Also have your brainers research something at all times. Research = score = more money at the end of month. Expand your research base too, and don't forget to interrogate people.

[khade]

It's been stated before, and will be again, as this mod is still being worked on, it can be unstable, therefore IRONMAN IS NOT RECOMMENDED.

Something else you can try for is getting enemies to surrender, killing people lowers the morale of those they work with, most humanoid enemies will surrender if they have all panicked.  Stunning doesn't lower morale.  Sometimes it's just a better idea to kill a few enemies as examples.  Also fire works wonders on medium armored enemies.

[legionof1]

If you are playing on maximum difficulty dont worry to much about getting captures. The sheer volume of foes means you'll have lots of opportunities. Defiantly thin the herd with lethal means.   

[Martin]

You can try your luck with bunch of airspeeders against a fighter UFOs if you want advanced weapons early.

They can take it down with a bit of luck.

[KiriKaneko]

Well it's not really ironman but I'm pretending it is XD

Why go for lethal melee weapons over nonlethal? It's not like nonlethal melee weapons are hard to acquire. Are axes better than fuso sword?

So far I've been camping my landing craft and gradually switching towards stun rods. It seems stun rods don't do any health damage, and this means enemies stunned with a stun rod will eventually wake up. If I drag them inside the rape airbus I can just kept smacking them with our rods whenever they wake up and they never die, plus our melee is improving fast while we camp XD

I've had my entire squad decimated by just 2 enemies even while they're in cover, so I think there's no such thing as thinning them enough that they can't beat us, but baiting them into range of my landing craft seems to work well since they usually waste a lot of TU getting there and then we can all mob them together. We do suffer damage after an enemy opens the doors since any other ones in range will start shooting but so far it hasn't been too bad. It's boring but I just have to be very patient, I'll transition into a more aggressive playstyle when I either get better armor or a landing craft that lets me bring at least twice as many people so that when things start to go FUBAR I can definetly bail

I so want to play more aggressive but either my luck with RNG is atrocious or I'm completely playing the game wrong, even 1 dog can decimate my entire squad in a single turn, and 2 enemies can kill like 4 people and leave the survivors a gibbering wreck. We can try to get into hard cover that blocks line of sight but there's so many doorways and trees and stuff, and so many night missions full of NV enemies that we could basically be shot at from any direction at any time it seems like. I played UFO and TFTD with zerg tactics and smoke spam but with 6 soldiers vs 14 and ineffective smoke I can only depend on armor and that's a ways off yet.

I watched this guy doing a playthrough on youtube. I didn't watch the entire thing but he got utterly wrecked in one turn on a smuggler ship right at the start of his run. That's what happens to me when I leave the landing craft. Every time XD. And I play patiently and camp the craft, but as soon as I run out of patience and step outside to deal with the last few enemies I basically get wiped within a few turns by revolver and niner crits XD

I think I'll stick like this for a while, keep taking prisoners and buying more brainers til I get armor. How many brainers is a good amount to have right now? I have 5 so far and I was thinking of saving for shark jetbikes. I don't know if they changed it so that they can only use rockets now but last version I made a killing shooting down civvie crafts with gatling guns, and even tho it said on the screen I was getting negative score I was actually getting like double the usual score from doing that (I'm guessing the infamy score was like 3x the negative score or something)

[KiriKaneko]

BTW thankyou for all the replies so far, it's good info. Sorry for being such a scrub XD