Stuff I'd love to see in XPiratez!

[niculinux]

@ivanasnchez: intriguing, i like it! Another solution may be to have anyways braiber to be "purchased" but raising up price and salary so rescuing them is more advised by common sense

[Ethereal_Medic]

The option to let brainers and runts fight for you during base defence will cause massive problems in the later stages of the game.
A production-base can hold around 400-500 runts. So 400-500 controlable characters sharing available spawning points with your HWPs AUXs and normal gals AND opposition-spawns.
I call this will make the game crash once the spawn-points run out.

Even if it works, you can just body the intruders with your runt-army now.
Locking Brainers to RNG and somewhere deeper into the mutant-alliance bounty-system (aka even more RNG to screw the unlucky over) will bone the unlucky players.
200k $ is a lot of bucks so just give the player the option to invest loot-money to get research going.

3 brainers is an improvement to the former 2 starting brainers but hard-locking the user behind RNG to get more brainers and RNG to spawn rescue missions is nuts.
On higher difficulties (4+) you'll run out of time before the small scientist staff can do breakthrough for important techs to save your bum against random crackdowns.

[niculinux]

The option to let brainers and runts fight for you during base defence will cause massive problems in the later stages of the game.
A production-base can hold around 400-500 runts. So 400-500 controlable characters sharing available spawning points with your HWPs AUXs and normal gals AND opposition-spawns.
I call this will make the game crash once the spawn-points run out.

Even if it works, you can just body the intruders with your runt-army now.
Locking Brainers to RNG and somewhere deeper into the mutant-alliance bounty-system (aka even more RNG to screw the unlucky over) will bone the unlucky players.
200k $ is a lot of bucks so just give the player the option to invest loot-money to get research going.

3 brainers is an improvement to the former 2 starting brainers but hard-locking the user behind RNG to get more brainers and RNG to spawn rescue missions is nuts.
On higher difficulties (4+) you'll run out of time before the small scientist staff can do breakthrough for important techs to save your bum against random crackdowns.

oh..did not think about it because still not got yet so far in the mod so nevermind, but it msy also depend on playstyle: dont' if having a factory with 400 runts is kinda virtually mandatory.  Although about "brainer value" was discussed here but in the end i personally wouldn't removr them from the market, only make their purchese a less convenient solution

[ivansanchez]

may be also interesting to add an option "brainers and runts fight if base is attached", self explanatory

You mean treating brainers as stackable (as in "they show together in inventory") support units? Hhhmm, might even work. I dunno if the game engine can deal with this in an elegant way, though.

The option to let brainers and 400-500 runts fight for you during base defence will cause massive problems in the later stages of the game.

I must agree with this. Does the game have a way to limit the number of friendly units to spawn in a map?

Locking Brainers to RNG and somewhere deeper into the mutant-alliance bounty-system (aka even more RNG to screw the unlucky over) will bone the unlucky players.

I'm not thinking bounties, I'm thinking plain ol' "research something and you can buy from the black marker" pretty much like unlocking purchasable weapons.

3 brainers is an improvement to the former 2 starting brainers but hard-locking the user behind RNG to get more brainers and RNG to spawn rescue missions is nuts.

I beg to disagree. In my campaign I refused to recruit gals from the market, instead relying on rescues. And while it's slow to build up a set of 15-ish non-wounded gals, it's doable and (IMHO) enjoyable.

And heck, if you don't like RNG to impose a limit on the brainers, another option would be to change the shakeup ceremony so it takes a castaway gal and it spits out a brainer gal. (normal shakeup: your uber hand → escaped lunatic gal; resurrection thing: dead gal → ghost gal; brainer shakeup thing: escaped lunatic gal + money → brainer)

On higher difficulties (4+) you'll run out of time before the small scientist staff can do breakthrough for important techs to save your bum against random crackdowns.

If you excuse me my lack of knowledge of the game internals - are the intensity of the crackdowns defined by time, by score, or by research done? AFAIK research acts as a gateway to bigger enemy ships spawning, so it should be possible to not have big crackdowns until having done mid-game research.

[niculinux]

You mean treating brainers as stackable (as in "they show together in inventory") support units? Hhhmm, might even work. I dunno if the game engine can deal with this in an elegant way, though.

sry, I meant more an option like "wounded fights if base attacked"

I'm not thinking bounties, I'm thinking plain ol' "research something and you can buy from the black marker" pretty much like unlocking purchasable weapons.

i think im in, won't make game even more harder, provided that it is in the rearch topics right of the start of a new game.

I beg to disagree. In my campaign I refused to recruit gals from the market, instead relying on rescues. And while it's slow to build up a set of 15-ish non-wounded gals, it's doable and (IMHO) enjoyable.

don't know, i always sucked at piratez but personally on jack sparrow for me that would make a game virtually impossible!

And heck, if you don't like RNG to impose a limit on the brainers, another option would be to change the shakeup ceremony so it takes a castaway gal and it spits out a brainer gal. (normal shakeup: your uber hand → escaped lunatic gal; resurrection thing: dead gal → ghost gal; brainer shakeup thing: escaped lunatic gal + money → brainer)

i will not go for it, because one is born gifted, otherwise not

If you excuse me my lack of knowledge of the game internals - are the intensity of the crackdowns defined by time, by score, or by research done? AFAIK research acts as a gateway to bigger enemy ships spawning, so it should be possible to not have big crackdowns until having done mid-game research.

diff level affects them, alongside as far as i've seen to the amount of annoy/damage you inflict to a faction. for instance, the more ratnen rodeos you win, more raise the possibility to get a crackdown from these, more academy ships you ground assault more they get angry..i hope om not wrong

edit: also bolas or a lazo would be nice, as an early version of electric lazo

[sanyaskillpro]

Remove brainers from the black market. Then put some missions to rescue brany gals, which one could recruit as brainers in the still.

This would make an early game grind even more mandatory. It's very hard to die to civilian weapons once you get Warrior armor. I'd rather see early missions phase out way more quickly.

[Rince Wind]

And I like them to train newer gals.

[Dioxine]

I don't think one more type of troops is gonna help much.

Actually, I'd like to propose something different:

Remove brainers from the black market. Then put some missions to rescue brany gals, which one could recruit as brainers in the still.
.

Not doable.

I would also like if Dioxine would consider the three starting brainers to be in the airbus from the beginning, even if that means starting with just three combat gals (and a parrot).

I mean, right now the three starting brainers have successfully triangulated an unknown signal, planned a precise de-orbit maneouver, actually piloted a space station through such a maneouver, survived atmospheric reentry without a reentry vehicle.... but they don't have any starting knowledge about hyperwaves, geography, life support systems or flight aerodynamics?? That very specific part of the xpiratez canon seems bogey to me.

1. Yes they had, perhaps it wasn't fully unkown to them? Just another enigma.
2. Who said the station was not equipped for emergency landing? And that does include autopilot and re-entry vehicle.
3. They were trained as high class specialists, so ofc they don't know anything except for a very narrow set of skills (plus what they learned from what passes for social media in the 27th century).

What is certain, tho, they couldn't be a part of the starting crew because these weren't taught any "brainer" skills; it is clarified further in the upcoming version, but Dr. X nurtured them to become warriors, not scientists.

Note that I am not dismissive of your argument, and open for discussion. But I don't see anything that can't be explained here. Also note that the game cannot explain this all in a very detailed manner, because constraints on article length (and no, I don't think these constrainst should be removed).

[cc]

More chances to get Shadow Orbs. The idea to customize your ships with tools is nice, but right now they drop so rarely that it goes pretty unused.
Of course, what would be really sweet is having equipment slots for aircrafts - so instead of taking up a weapon slot, you get a fifth/sixth slot for STC or other equipment. Probably not supported by the engine, though.

And speaking of ship combat - a fast and expensive bullet-sponge would be welcome during mid-game. High HP, high speed, quick repair, and no weapons as trade-off. The more powerful enemy ships tend to be the fastest ones, so it takes forever for a Crab/Kraken (or even a Dragon, for that matter) to catch up — if they manage at all.

[RetroJL]

I had some thought on an alternate research path but unfortunately don't really have the time to prototype it out between college/etc:

Replacing certain techs (spikey smg/etc/the "homemade" stuff) with having other techs unlock prototype runt project builds.  Mechanically speaking it wouldn't be any different from how bounty prizes work.  Even certain techs like "Test Flight" may even be better suited to a high cost/high time runt project thematically.

Example: Gunsmithing would unlock a project for flintlock rifles.  Build a prototype that takes X days and X resources(either raw mats or even multiple lower tier weapons).  Quick research project gives ability to mass produce(ie: the item made unlocks flintlocks via research similar to Prize: items).   

I mean, yeah it's not exactly game changing, but personally I like to run lean on Brainers(early-mid game) and something like this would let me focus my smaller Brainer pool more on long term goals and NOT have every runt constantly grinding out XGrog/Canteens/etc to sell constantly. 

[Ridаn]

More chances to get Shadow Orbs. The idea to customize your ships with tools is nice, but right now they drop so rarely that it goes pretty unused.
Of course, what would be really sweet is having equipment slots for aircrafts - so instead of taking up a weapon slot, you get a fifth/sixth slot for STC or other equipment. Probably not supported by the engine, though.

And speaking of ship combat - a fast and expensive bullet-sponge would be welcome during mid-game. High HP, high speed, quick repair, and no weapons as trade-off. The more powerful enemy ships tend to be the fastest ones, so it takes forever for a Crab/Kraken (or even a Dragon, for that matter) to catch up — if they manage at all.

If you can take on battleship/bombers midgame, than this is not really midgame. Losing 2 out of three fully kitted ships of your own, just to take down dedicated military vessel, would be a sweet spot, imo.
By midgame Im more constricted by engineer hours, rather than money, and it seems fine. Pick your fights, and build up reserves.

[LytaRyta]

More chances to get Shadow Orbs. The idea to customize your ships with tools is nice, but right now they drop so rarely that it goes pretty unused.
Of course, what would be really sweet is having equipment slots for aircrafts - so instead of taking up a weapon slot, you get a fifth/sixth slot for STC or other equipment. Probably not supported by the engine, though.

And speaking of ship combat - a fast and expensive bullet-sponge would be welcome during mid-game. High HP, high speed, quick repair, and no weapons as trade-off. The more powerful enemy ships tend to be the fastest ones, so it takes forever for a Crab/Kraken (or even a Dragon, for that matter) to catch up — if they manage at all.

exactly this!

@dioxine pls would it be possible to increase numbers of those aircraft´s slots ? (*sockets")

from 4 to 6, or even 8 

[cc]

If you can take on battleship/bombers midgame, than this is not really midgame. Losing 2 out of three fully kitted ships of your own, just to take down dedicated military vessel, would be a sweet spot, imo.

Given the replacement cost and time for a fighter, I disagree. Cruisers, Destroyes, Corvettes, Frigates, Bombers, Heavy Gunships - you see dedicated military vessels too often to keep up with replacing your downed fighters at that cost.
Also, Bombers aren't that hard to pop: a Kraken with Railguns (assuming you don't die of old age waiting for it to catch up) moves in to draw fire, then comes a Nightmare with Meteor missiles to finish of the shields and finally two more Nightmares with Avalanches for the hull. The waves are of course very close together since the Avalance missiles take forever to reach - shields tend to be down before they arrive. The small fighters should also have Plasma Spitters and Lascannons for addtional carnage/mopping up. All of that is available before Higher Studies, so midgame. :p
Battleships are another matter entirely, though. Good luck taking them on without some really heavy firepower available to you.

[KZad Bhat]

A production-base can hold around 400-500 runts. So 400-500 controlable characters sharing available spawning points with your HWPs AUXs and normal gals AND opposition-spawns.
I call this will make the game crash once the spawn-points run out.

The engine at least has you covered there. If it runs out of spawn points with more soldiers to place, it just doesn't place them. We're just not likely to see this in effect in XPiratez . . . so far.

[ivansanchez]

2. Who said the station was not equipped for emergency landing? And that does include autopilot and re-entry vehicle.

Hhhmmm.... the fact that none of the space stations in the 0-G missions seem to have any kind of emergency reentry vehicles? 

I must mention that I've been an avid KSP (Kerbal Space Program) player, so I know pretty well that thermal shielding is heavy and thus expensive to put in orbit.

We don't put thermal shielding on everything (much less on ISS modules), so I have my doubts that the traders' guild would make the whole station out of plastasteel as opposed to plain old aluminium. They have to protect their profit margins, you know.


So here's another idea:

The starting brainers were researching a dead, drifting piece of space junk. Suddenly, the STR_MENACING_HULL sparks to life, plots a reentry trajectory, and crash-lands right next to the hideout (probably still attached to parts of the space station/space tug/salvage vehicle they used to reach there). Maybe the brainers were sent into the derelict as guinea pigs.

Cue a scripted mission to rescue the friendly brainers from a tiny band of roving ratmen. This allows to put information in the mission briefing, e.g. "We heard this crash, and the faces of three Uber gals showed up in some of the hideout screens asking for help. They look brainy but not beefy. If we rescue them they might help us understand things around."

Yeah, this would need terrain assets  and I don't know if the game engine can spawh a mission right on top of the hideout  and every new game would need to grind this but this would explain the brainers and the menacing hull much better than a bootypedia article IMHO