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

[KiriKaneko]

Well I'm now unlocking a lot of tech that needs power armor parts and laser weapon parts, but I haven't been seeing anyone with laser weapons or powered armour. I do get shot at frequently with light cannons, rocket launchers, recoilless rifles (spartans, screw them!), las pistols but no proper military grade las weapons and rarely any power armour guys. Just how am I supposed to find them?

I'm still having problems with my bases. Lost 2 more but it seems like I'm making a bit more money than I'm losing and close to getting hyperwave decoders in every base. Just upgraded to guardian suits and the light cannons have totally replaced shotguns now. I've unlocked Nightmares and I'll start manufacturing them when I have the cash. However the best craft weapon I can produce is lascannon and medusa rockets which I lack the materials to manufacture and the best I can actually make/buy is 50mm cannon and seagull rockets. I'm afraid even if I scrape together the cash for 4 nightmares equipped with 50mm cannons and seagull missiles I won't be able to splash things like crackdown gunships or higher without some kind of tanking support I think

[greattuna]

To get military-grade equipment, assault military-grade ships, duh. Laser weapons are very commonplace at weaker military ships, mutant pogroms and space, and, of course, supply ships.

To get power armor parts: fight traders' guild. The better is (their) ship, the more dudes in power armor you'll get, and if lucky, you might even face a guildmaster! And again, you can raid supply ships, if you're willing to brave the nukes.

Also, power armor is totally unnecessary until the very endgame (I talk about Cydonia, unless you're insane enough to go with mere spacesuits instead. I wasn't). You can do just fine with guardian suits; they hold their own against most threats well.

You won't be able to shoot down all the enemy ships until the lategame, since them scurvy dogs sometimes will send a bomber, destroyer, cruiser or a freaking battleship to sniff you out. You can, however, shoot sentries and fighters and loot top-tier Space Rangers' laser pistols! They're pretty good.

[KiriKaneko]

Thanks! I've been trying guardian and it's pretty amazing, especially love the night and thermal vision. I would like power armor tho since I loved the 57mm rifle and it's a bit too heavy without power armor

[greattuna]

I believe you meant 37mm Rifle, aka the weapon I never use precisely because it's too heavy, lol. I haven't even researched it, and I've already made my first plasma weapons! (as a side-note, plasma blunderbuss is great on space missions, it can one-shot zombies and did one-shot a chryssalid once. Use at close range only, otherwise it loses a lot of damage \ armor damage)

For the purpose of carrying stuff, you could substitute power armor with hover\dragonfly armor. They only have +15 capacity, and have mediocre armor values, buuuut they allow you to carry big guns and fly with them, so it's not all bad.

[SomeGuy]

When I attempted to use the plasma blunderbuss, it couldn't kill anything, or compared to the boom gun and slugthrowers anyway. Or it was against the wrong type of enemies, I don't remember. Though, I did like the 37mm rifle on my grav harness gal, was very useful since I got it early enough in game for it to be useful.

[KiriKaneko]

Thanks, I might get hover armor in the meantime then

Is there a way to force my people to panic? My new pilot has been stuck at 80 bravery for months and I want to level her up. I don't want her running around naked for missions tho she's too valuable to lose, could it be there is an item or armour that can force a panic in her?

[KateMicucci]

Some voodoo items cost morale to use. You can also heal people.

[Mechanique]

Thanks, I might get hover armor in the meantime then

Is there a way to force my people to panic? My new pilot has been stuck at 80 bravery for months and I want to level her up. I don't want her running around naked for missions tho she's too valuable to lose, could it be there is an item or armour that can force a panic in her?

Combat drugs, but make sure she is unarmed. Alternatively, put her on medic duty.

[KiriKaneko]

We don't get hurt very often with our camping strats so I don't need a dedicated medic

I'll try combat drugs, thanks!

Does anyone know which ships specifically have the surgery units? I'm a ways off of splashing big ships, and I won't waste surgery units til I have my training base ready and have a garrison in each base but I'd like to know and can plan accordingly. I'll be getting powered armour before I start the training base since I want small garrison of no more than 10 men to be able to defend a base well, and that means I'll be waiting for that before I start garrisoning and defending bases. Hideout shrouds are enough for chemical production bases since they make more money than they cost before they get trashed, and they don't require anything that is currently in limited supply. The new hyperwave decoders tell me what mission each ship is on and what type it is so I can pick and choose better what to splash, I'm minimising crackdowns and gathering only the things I need to continue progression while my factories make up for the loss of income, I'm treating this like a government policy to get tough on crime, and switching from overt piracy to more subtle manufacturing and distribution of illegal goods to compensate

I just remembered that the barracudas have 4 LT platforms and now they have 4 50mm cannons each, together they can easily splash sentries, escorts and fighters but I'll buy a new reverend after I get power armour (gonna have to buy a lot of marsec bodyguards) and get forcefields for them as well, see if I can splash gunboats with 4 barracudas! Really need heavy power couplings to start getting better craft weapons XD

[KiriKaneko]

I finally research the Dr X Hideout but it hasn't appeared. How do I start the mission?

[SomeGuy]

Usually new missions or anything that changes shipping appearances or other missions come into play next month. Like research "stop attacking civilians" or something and civ ships will still spawn for the remainder of the month and won't appear ever again. I think I had to wait around 3 months or so till it appeared for me.

[KiriKaneko]

Thanks, I got the mission and completed it. Loot was nice but the database didnt unlock anything it seems, just says to be continued

Any advice for spotting cat girls? Does thermal vision work?

[Ethereal_Medic]

Outfits with the ability SPOT or SENSE negate camo to the listed value.
Best bet would be the assassin suit but also a risky due to how far the cats can move and how squishy the armor is.

[KiriKaneko]

Could I have a sense outfit, keep the senser inside the craft behind our line where the cat cant reach them, and then their sense ability will spot the cat girls? The downside here is that the people blocking the doors would be in danger though, can cat girls scratch through powered armor?

I'm having a traders guild month which means lots of powered armor. I've been leaving the progrom fighters alone just for a chance at more powered armor, and now we have our first sets of power armor we can carry 37mm rifles rather than recoilless rifles, meaning a higher fire rate and we don't vaporize the power armor. Graduation is complete so I'm now working towards harbinger and then I'll be upgrading my ships some more. I feel like my situation is very stable right now, we lose a base once every 3 months which is manageable and our progression is slow and steady. My main base surprisingly hasnt been attacked despite multiple crackdowns in the area (It's in the Carthage region and the ships don't seem to linger in that area)

With power armor and 37mm I think we can easily handle them even if they do attack and its a big faction now. Only real concern is if it's academy and they start with the mind screwery, perhaps I'll get VooDoo first, vet my current troops for high VooDoo skills, then send the low VooDoo people over to the training base to defend it and start building that up. Problem is I still don't have a huge income, enough that I don't need to do missions for money but I can't have another 10M in wages every month. The factories I have researched should allow us to vastly increase productivity though, and with well trained and equipped soldiers I can send squads of 10 dojo maxed soldiers in powered armor to defend factory bases which will vastly increase income and let me afford to train more troops and convert more of my cheap manufacturing bases into expensive and well defended factories. The surgery units I got from Dr X bases means I can even make them into medical supply factories for massive profit, and to steamroll towards a situation where I can afford potentially hundreds of troops in guardian or powered armor with 37mm rifles and rocket launchers, maybe pad them out a bit with tanks! Anyway that's the plan for now, very glad I kept pushing forward since just coming up with strategies and clawing my way forward inch by inch felt good

To research activities: commercial it says I need a "secure freight" I've seen ships on this mission but they didn't have a "secure freight" item on board. It seems a fighter appears first and if I don't shoot it down then a big freighter appears that I can't shoot down and doesn't land so I can't raid that one, am I supposed to get to the point where I can shoot one down and raid it to get a "secure freight" item that I can research?

[Ethereal_Medic]

"Secure Fright" is a mission type. You can get the research topic by researching a prisoner that gives this topic as a reward.
At one point you have to shot down a heavy freighter. It's damage output isn't that huge but you've to bring alot of firepower to the table to break the small shield and the huge hull.
If you manage to shoot it down, prepare for a huge squad of defenders to be dealt with.