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

[greattuna]

"Secure Fright" is a mission type. You can get the research topic by researching a prisoner that gives this topic as a reward.

Yeah, good luck with that. None of the prisoners give that topic.

Re:cat girls: yes, they can scratch you through the armor, but only if you let them (cat paws have low damage, but damage armor). Yes, you can use sense through walls, but most outfits with sense have pretty small distance, so don't rely on it.

[Solarius Scorch]

Guys, supply ships don't auto-end mission... They just explode violently. Stop spreading bullshit info.

[ivandogovich]

Ok, I'll chime in on Catgirls.   
First, they are invisible beyond 5 tiles.  This means that if you are close, you can spot them, and once you spot them they are pretty easy to deal with.  They have minimal armor  (5) and are pretty squishy (30 hp).   They do have decent TUs (90) and Decent reactions (80), so they can get close and slash you up.   Keeping good visibility (looking around as you move, and begin turns) can assist in avoiding ambushes.

Beyond their scratches, they may often be armed with Laspistols.  You may often get sniped from an invisible Catgirl on top of the smuggler ship, which can be annoying.  This is a great reason to set the top of that ship on fire (Firebombs, are great), and keep it blazing. Fire is a nice counter, as they drop morale and that can can disrupt and disarm them, and even drop them over time.  The Catgirls will also path off the edge of the ship and drop to the ground to get into melee, so that is something to watch out for (if you end the turn under a ship, glance back toward the edge at the beginning of your next turn).

So if you keep these things in mind, Catgirls, though a nuisance can be dealt with, without too much trouble.

Also: Bugbears throwing dynamite can be a nasty hazard on smuggler missions too.

[sinisteragent]

Supporting what Ivan said: If in doubt, set everything on fire.

[KiriKaneko]

Problem is, if there's a star god outcast then I might accidentally incinerate him.

Thanks for telling me about the supply ship, I've been skipping them because I cant rush through gauss weapons to take the ship in 20 turns but now I know it hasn't changed I'll go back to doing them and let the ship explode as before, I only want power armor and big laser/gauss guns for parts

Does anyone know which ships have small engines? I want to make shield generators but I already researched to stop targetting civvies and when I shoot down fighters their engines always explode.

[SomeGuy]

Not exactly sure, but what about those Megapol ships? They seem small enough to use small engines, or they use something else, I don't know. Never really pay any attention to what individual ships give, I just loot everything.

[JustTheDude/CABSHEP]

You all know device from original game called in XPiratez as "Ayephone"? This will give your gals ability to sense about 9 titles around despite armor for the cost of about 1/4 AP. It's great way to search for enemies in urban areas.

You said you have 37mm rifles. Power armor guy die or lay wounded after two-three front hits with that so I don't see any problem in taking down them. If you encountered deep ones you should have "doom pipes"(that weaponized instrument). It works like bow, but chem damage do great job in taking down armored enemies. Demon essence or early flask o' acid with skilled thrower can do something to armor also.

Logically, small ships have small engines and chance for them to blow up is random I think. Mayby it have something with overkill damage. I never saw shooted down excavator without working small engine.

[KiriKaneko]

I can confirm megapol ships drop small engines. I hadn't seen any for a month. They're back now and I've never seen them crash with any visible damage so the engine is always salvageable

Just shot down a heavy freighter. I was surprised as it didnt appear on the shipping page or the wiki and was on a secure freighter mission. Anyway I thought it might have similiar damage to a normal freighter and I just finished making 2 small shield generators so I went for it and it went down. Wish me luck!

[KiriKaneko]

OMG what a massacre! So many dead people, they were piling up! Got tons of tech, finished off my gauss tier and even got some nice plasma and a rail rifle tech. More power armor parts, more big lasers and gauss for heavy power cables, and the documentation and flight plan, this is exactly what I needed

[KiriKaneko]

Looking at the wiki the interceptors progression seems odd. You start off with the hunter-killer. 2MS and 2LT, very squishy

Next you have the Barracuda and the Nightmare. Nightmare is a clear upgrade on the hunter-killer, Barracuda loses the 2MS slots but gains 2 LT slots, has a bit less speed and toughness and comes at a time when good missiles are hard to get, meaning you can go with the tough, fast and powerful nightmare or the more easily equipped and cheaper ammo barracuda

Then next you have the Sabre which is like the nightmare, except it's a little bit faster, much squishier and has a tiny shield upgrade. What's the point of this thing? Seems like the Nightmare is the best ship with the Barracuda doing well until better missiles are available and potentially doing much higher damage by the time it runs out of ammo and can equip a light shield generator or a tracker without losing half it's DPS. There's a clear balance between the Nightmare and Barracuda, but the Sabre just seems to be bad by comparison and so much harder to get

[Ethereal_Medic]

A swarm of sabre destroys everything that annoys you.
The sabre's speed and the inbuild shield is a great addition to have, means you can have the full arsenal of the nightmare plus 2 light weapons and 2 rockets.
The sabre is meant to be the ultimate fighter for reasons.

[Marza]

400% repair speed.

Spoiler:

Ask yourself how long it usually takes for a badly damaged craft without such a bonus (like a nightmare) to be fully repaired. Then ask yourself what the typical time delay is for a new wave of shipping to appear on the geoscape. Also keep in mind that during repairs, craft can never be refuelled and rearmed until repairs are complete.

Whilst nightmares are good and can carry the same weapons as sabres, you should find sabres will have far, far, far more utility and strategic use than other interceptors.

Sabres also only need one pilot, making it a bit easier to field a squadron of sabres with 90+ bravery. A nice little feature, but its the ability to
reliably respond to any emergency interception that makes sabres the ultimate fighter.

[KiriKaneko]

So the purpose of sabres is if you want to take down every single shipping? Got it, thanks! Still, the massive loss in toughness seems like a big deal since they'll have to withdraw from the fight so quickly, but I guess if the objective is to clear the skies rather than prioritise targets then it's the best one

I thought of a new way to train bravery. If I equip someone with powers of seduction I can train bravery without losing health (combat drugs). To avoid danger, I'll KO an enemy, drag them into the rape bus, and then wake them up and use powers of seduction on them from a spot where my person can't be shot at. I'd like to get high bravery for my pilots, but I'm also running a VooDoo school and I want to send my top VooDoo power people to capture a reticulan elder. Those missions are a hell of psionic attacks. I've managed to capture most reticulans, even a mechtoid by camping inside the shadowbat and KOing them when they come inside, I keep a known liability (Private Berry) who I know can be easily mind controlled and keep her unarmed in a room where the doors are blocked, that way when the enemy opens a door and sees us and the mind attacks start they target the liability who cant hurt us or escape the room, then I'm free to KO whoever came inside and flee the same turn. I'm very unlikely to capture an elder using this method tho so I really need high psi, psi skill and bravery people to pull this off I think

I'll see how it goes. Are there any other VooDoo abilities that can hit us with morale loss? It would be even more convenient to have something like an ability that transfers morale from one soldier to another since then I don't even need to mess around abducting someone for... training. Also more ethical. Are there any other noteworthy VooDoo abilities anyone can recommend to me?

I'm on a terror mission right now and trying to capture a live cyberdisc, but the ones I hit with a handle don't go down (I assume they have high concussion resistance) and the ones I hit with a tesla coil explode. How do I capture one? I already wrecked one without it exploding so I will have a cyberdisc wreck but I'd like an intact one

[KiriKaneko]

Well I resorted to bashing the last one for 6 turns with handles with all 6 of my people. Eventually everyone was badly injured and we just had to zap it with the tesla coil which killed it, so no capture D:

[KiriKaneko]

I wonder if the 37mm rifle is the best gun in the game. It does higher damage than a sniper gauss with max accuracy, most enemeis dont resist pierce that much and it can even bleed a lobsterman with a front shot. Plasma seems nice too but some of the dangerous enemies like church and star gods resist it, but it seems there is no defense against the awesome power of this weapon. TU cost is low enough to run a few squares, fire and then run back again, and it has a fairly accurate and cheap snapshot. It's heavy as hell so it prohibits use of anything else, but it's power is so high that you really don't need anything else