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

[greattuna]

Lethal weapons are much more reliable than non-lethal options, which either are unreliable (cattle prod w\ highly random damage), are actually lethal (ball bat) or require a lot of overhead to be really effective (handle and it's scaling from bravery of all things). And at the start of the game you can't really afford to capture everyone.

Axes are different from fuso swords, but I prefer them for a few reasons:
1. Ax is one-handed;
2. Ax has decent accuracy;
3. Ax has high base damage, scales strongly with strength, and doesn't have +xx% armor;
4. Ax is available from start, I think you get one right at the beginning.

I didn't like cattle prods the few times I used them. There have been times when my gal ran towards the guy, spent remaining TUs swinging her prod... but he just stood unfazed. If not for contingency plans, I'd lose many gals to bad rolls.

As it stands, I gravitate towards handles, they are small, easy to acquire and really, really effective at right hands. They're standard equipment for me, placed in quick draw slot, so everyone can go capturing when opportunity arises.

I don't know how you manage to lose entire squad to two guys, but maybe inability to capture them would be nice cue for you to kill them instead. Killing is safer, too: lots of options to fire over the cover, or just blow up the cover instead.

Well I don't know how to help you with aggressiveness. The only advice I can give you is to be as much careful as you are aggressive. Scout ahead. Take vantage points. Use cover, stand two tiles away from corner, leave your gals enough TUs for one snap shot so they could react. Stay away from sources of light. Go in groups of 2\3\4, so your gals can cover\heal each other. Have various equipment and be ready to face e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

Also, ratmen missions are generally not worth it. Too much risk for a bunch of low-tech equipment and a money purse.

[sinisteragent]

Lethal melee weapons can cut down enemies like you wouldn't believe, and if you kill enough of the right ones in a short enough period, the rest will surrender. Decapitation strategies are particularly effective if you can locate the leaders early on.

If you're "camping your landing craft", you're basically doing it wrong. This should almost never be necessary as it's plain bad strategy and runs directly counter to how combat works. Morale drops rapidly over time, environmental effects are basically a timer, and striking enemies hard and fast is the best way to cause surrenders (which you'll almost always get even if you go all out to kill everything that moves. If you aim for it, you can get the majority of enemies to surrender by mixing kills in with your stun raids).

Honestly, at least while you're struggling with the early stage, I highly recommend dropping the difficulty a notch. You can always start again, or just edit the save file to raise the difficulty again later (it's very easy, just changing one number).

As for brainers, have as many as you can afford. People with encyclopedic knowledge of the game will probably say you can max them out in a month or something absurd, but 5 is fine early on, you can start bumping them up one or two at a time once your cashflow is reliably 100-200k over what you need to survive for the month.

I think aiming exclusively for captures is probably the biggest thing you're doing wrong, really. Especially on top difficulty, you're basically going up against forces 5 times as numerous as you and trying to punch them all out - of course you're losing. Get some killing in and things should start moving more smoothly.

Also: make sure you have lots of healing items. Even if you go entirely lethal, you'll get enemies who pass out from a combination of pain/smoke/stun, injury, and bleeding, and it's often profitable to patch them up. Musket balls actually have a secondary stunning effect, which makes them more useful than you might think even with the unimpressive accuracy.

[KiriKaneko]

Yeah you're right. I'll unleash my inner homicidal maniac and start killing everything that doesn't surrender, thanks lol XD

p.s 50 bravery is enough to never panic unless something bad happens. I put - signs on the end of a character's name if it has sub 50 bravery and take it off when it gets 50 bravery. Just bringing them on the mission and trapping them in the landing craft while they panic is enough to level their bravery.

Camping does seem highly effective. Aside from one scare where at ana cademy outpost someone kamikaze me with a stun bomb launcher and KO 3 of my 6 people I haven't had any trouble at all. I have discovered that KO with stun rod doesn't necessarily equal survival for my captives and in that academy outpost 10 of the 17 enemies died even though I stunned them, tho 2 were discs. I don't use the cattle prod because it's too big for the quickdraw slot and have been using stun rods, tho it has bad scaling

Usually 2 people cant wipe my whole squad, that was just some bad luck. They got crit insta kills and hit every shot and then the survivors panicked.

I don't think melee weapons would be effective on the open field landed craft missions since I would have to rush out in the open, but bows and molotovs should be effective, and shotguns have a surprising range. Even a glancing blow will cause a bleedout eventually but I probably want to keep the pressure with fast kills to cause a rapid surrender and get some captives

When do you decide to use the handle over the axe? Are there specific times to go for a capture? Has everyone here really had bad experiences with the shotgun or something? It seems to totally wreck face when I use it, I can snipe people at 20 tiles with ol'shotgun and kill 50% of the time with pretty mediocre aim it seems like, and muskets are disc killing machines!

[KiriKaneko]

Hmm, seems this small launcher wont count for advanced weapons rumours, I cant even research it yet

I didn't get it this early last time so no idea when I can or if it ever counts for AWR, guess I'll keep waiting and hope that the mission from before pops up again. Just got a save a sister mission and I've bought a bunch of bows and axes so gonna give it a try and see how this works. A bit worried tho since I remember a lot of handguns and shotguns on this mission, and lots of building with twisty corridors where its easy to get ambushed. Perhaps I should attempt this one at night, surely thugs don't get NV

[sinisteragent]

Generally, handle if you can get 3-5 hits off (they'll often go down with less, but it's best to be sure, and have the option to pull back if it goes badly). Axe if they have decent armour and/or you want them out of the fight asap.

You might be surprised how far a gal can run and still whallop an enemy, especially if they go full berserker (ie: nude). But yeah, if you're out in the open you're probably better off peppering them with arrows. I used to hit everything I saw with molotovs because the panic + light + damage was a great combo.

The best thing though is to keep experimenting and doing what you enjoy, don't pay too much attention to our preferences. Some people only do what is most mathematically efficient, others swear by a weapon that only works well for them because it syncs with something else they do, and others still just plain like a particular weapon for no good reason (I really like a pair of flintlock pistols even though they're among the worst weapons in the game). If you like shotguns and they're working for you, go for it.

I'm no expert with the research tree, but I'm pretty sure you'll be holding onto that small launcher for a very, very long time before you can research it.

Usually 2 people cant wipe my whole squad, that was just some bad luck. They got crit insta kills and hit every shot and then the survivors panicked.

Yeah see, this is why hovering at 50 moral is bad. It puts you one lucky shot away from unravelling your whole team.

[khade]

70 bravery is what you probably want, which you ought to be able to get fairly easily even with 10 bravery gals.

I know we eventually get a bug hunt mode that allows us to see where the last few enemies are, but I'm pretty sure that enemies instinctively know where our gals are long before that starts, if you're camping and get bored, then have people die, I suspect it's because they already know exactly where your gals are by that point.

Shotguns are incredible, early on and against unarmored enemies. Against anything with armor, the early shotguns are likely to be completely worthless, though there are a few really good ones available later.

As I understand it, the stun rod is basically vendor trash, or materials for more useful stuff, its damage is way too low to be useful.  Though it might work against machinery.

Uh, just a note, I play on the third difficulty, but this stuff should still be useful

[KiriKaneko]

The stun rod has a special feature, it doesn't cause any health damage. Good for camping strategy because death while KO occurs at 300% stun when they suffer gradual health damage, and stun rises faster when health is lowered. If an enemy KOs and their stun damage isn't that high and their HP is full they sometimes wake up by themselves. Not always though, I've discovered it's safer to KO them then wake them back up again with refreshments if I want to be sure they survive, although this means there are lots of unarmed people running around and it s very distracting.

On my most recent mission I had a temple one. I decided I could end the mission more quickly if I take the church building. Church mission targets are often poorly equipped with the exception of a Molotov thrower and 2-3 shotgunners so I decided it was risky but not too terribly risky. I made a rush for the church while carrying refreshments and KOd a few enemies at the front door. I then left someone behind to drag them inside and had everyone else run into the church and clear it. We did take a couple of small injuries but we got control of the whole building. I then had 3 people camp the doors, my panic girl go into the confession booth, and the other 2 revived all the unconscious enemies. They then went to stand beside the doors as backup looking away from all the captives.

It seems the enemies become very aggressive with attacking the church, I think because all the unarmed captives could see us, and we kept KOing them and dragging them inside. When we had about 6-7 captives we KOd the captives again (they were crowding the doors) and dragged them into the main room to revive them all again. The second time we did this the bug hunt mode started so we moved quickly to bring down the final target. Overall it only took 30 turns to get 17 captives this way. I think in future I will try to take the main building on these missions if they are close to my landing craft or if there are enough buildings leading towards it, since we can usually advanced slowly between doorways and reaction shot enemies when they open doors (they always do this weird thing where they turn sideways and fire in the wrong direction when they see us after opening a door, then we KO them. This way I can keep all of the captured enemies conscious inside the building and they won't distract us and will probably lure the rest of the enemies

Alternatively I can grab one enemy, bring him into the landing craft and wake him up, and he will presumeably lure lots more enemies and save me time. I won't do this long term but for now there aren't many AoE enemies and it is working very well for getting a lot of money and research. I think I'll switch to a more homicidal method when I'm dealing with low value targets that have no further research value XD

I think in that mission my people definetly panicked because they only had 50 bravery and were on the brink. However, it doesn't take very long for them to drop that far. Killing raises morale but we would need to kill very rapidly to beat the rate of degradation I think, although that's certainly a big power of the homicide route. I really need a source of molotovs, I'm running out since those Molotov guys on church missions scare me and I torch them, and I've been doing those beetle missions to train bravery on my panic girls and use molotovs to get the beetles

[Martin]

How many brainers is a good amount to have right now?

As much as you can afford. 

Don’t think of brainers as something to support your pirating eneterprise. Consider your pirating enterprise as somehting to support your brainers.

R&D department is the difference between you and all the other guys, from lowly ninja gals to mighty star gods.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Axes are different from fuso swords, but I prefer them for a few reasons:
1. Ax is one-handed;
2. Ax has decent accuracy;
3. Ax has high base damage, scales strongly with strength, and doesn't have +xx% armor;
4. Ax is available from start, I think you get one right at the beginning.

Also, ratmen missions are generally not worth it. Too much risk for a bunch of low-tech equipment and a money purse.

I see quite some love for the Ax and your points are true. Also about all melee weapons use 50-150% damage roulette, thus leading to a very 'reliable' damage output especially against poorly armored foes. The Handle does awesome work too in combo with the Ax.

The ratmen rodeo's biggest advantage is a garanteed supply of apples. Those can be brewed to "Chateau de la Morte" and sold for a much bigger bonus than X-Grog.
I do understand the grudge with this mission. Alot of buildings, bad weaponry to take advantage of and also DOGS.
Having 6 hands with no/bad armor and bad guns makes these missions quite dangerous for the potencial loot of apples and a stray money purse.
Since they return every month just like lokk'nar village you can pick your time to strike. Sadly you've to deal with the score-penalty caused by ignoring the missions.

[KiriKaneko]

I didn't know there was a penalty for ignoring the missions >.>

I have HE grenades now so I might nuke everything in the near vicinity of my ship and then pay very close attention til the smoke clears, but I think it's so easy for a dog to rush through the smoke to behind my ship, then rush in and kill everyone next turn, too risky, and if we leave the ship we have to level everything in sight to be sure the dogs cant reach us. Think I'll be leaving ratman til I have armor and heavy shotguns, then we can stand in the open around our ship and just blow away all of the obstacles around us

I did a bordello mission and decided to take the homicide route since their captives are cheap. I got into positions with shotguns since we were in a wide open trainyard and approaching the building to melee would be suicide, it was safer to take a camping position at hard cover and shoot down anyone in the open

So we got into positions and someone ran into the open, took a shot and then they took 2 reaction shots and killed someone. Fortunately the only casualty on my side since we wasted the rest no problem. Quite a few of the enemies surrendered but when they ran out into the open I shot them anyway to try and force the remaining enemies to surrender as well (logic). Well in the end 2 were left, I had to kill the boss guy and then the other surrendered, I got 3 captives (since I KOd in melee one enemy who rushed while we were reloading). Aside from the gun almanac it really wasn't worth it, they didn't surrender anywhere near fast enough. Might've been better with mortars so we could shell the building and keep the casualties racking up faster, maybe some longer range weapon so I could hit enemies visible in windows or on the roof, rather than having to wait for them to enter the open ground. Tried the bow but it's such an energy drain.

[Ethereal_Medic]

X-Piratez is like a lovely surgery. You do it with passion and precision or the results ain't that pretty :3

[legionof1]

Snip
 (they always do this weird thing where they turn sideways and fire in the wrong direction)
Snip

This is the foes failing the close quarters combat check. Attempting to use a gun while adjacent to a foe triggers a (melee+reaction)x weapon melee accuracy vs evasion check. If you fail you are turned away and the shot fires from the new orientation.

Early foes stats are very poor compared to the average gal when it come to reactions and melee skill, so the cqc system is largely in the players favor.   

[KiriKaneko]

Ah so that`s what it was. I had thought it was some strange bug that affected the AI and saved me many times from shotguns lol

Do warehouse wars give guaranteed tac vests? I might research warehouse wars and then just go in with molotovs and shotguns, kill everyone the first few times and get myself some early tac vests

[Yataka Shimaoka]

Hey its OK! Just always try to play tactically and assign appropriate roles for your gals and everything will be OK, and do not be very bothered when it comes to research, all enemies has a weak spot that you can exploit

[KiriKaneko]

tyvm

I`m wondering a lot about camo. Is there a way to tell whether enemies have NV or TV? I`d like to use camo but last campaign I went with camo and got murdered everytime I used it over armor since enemies could see right through it. I could be playing a lot more aggressively if I could get closer to the enemy without being seen, I could then shoot without retaliation fire, get an accurate Molotov, or rush up and axe or stun an enemy