Feedback 0.99I1

[Eddie]

The discussion is:
The game design favors a europe starting base and puts any other location on a disadvantage for a long time.

Do you think this is good or bad?

[Solarius Scorch]

I think some location will always be best. And Eurasia + Africa is the biggest land mass, so no wonder it's attractive to put a base somewhere in the middle of it.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Stuff still happens across the globe but eurasia seems to have alot of cities and high spawn rates for most missions.
A base in europe, where the eurosyndicate is located, you can do their mission almost instantly once it pops up. Since you have your main base in this area as well, it's less likely that the score penalty causes you to lose protection money.

The majority of eurasia is basic green area with only a few mountains here and there. You don't have to fight against cold and heat early on like you would have to do 90% of the time in africa or 100% on any of the poles.

[Ragshak]

It is funny how each individual approaches the game.

I am suprised that there is no entry in the first post about Spear.
As for my play, I tend to rush early for any armor (Scale, Barbarian).
I am somehow addicted to Jellyfish, and hell I really love this craft.

Fistcuffs? Really that good? Never ever bothered to try them out. There is way too much tools of detruction in this game

[Ethereal_Medic]

Spears are neat. The early -20% armor while scaling onto str x0.2 and throw x0.4 mixed with the reaction disrupt almost everyone to hit stuff and with decent damage results.
Even armored cars go boom if you poke them hard enough into the butt. Just watch out for the explosion.

Scale armor kinda needs extra investment to aquire the chitin plates using the 'cave hunt' workshop topic.
It's fine for the rare earth element you can get but takes a while and you simply lose the production power you could use better for x-grog production.
Scale armor might need a secondary shield-version but for an early investment it's less cumbersome in comparision to the warrior armor.
Barbarian armor might be too good of an armor if the -15 stamina changes to -5 or something. Yes it's your first 'melee' outfit and the new savage-version has a niche place but not my favourite and 25 or 30 armor for front only sounds promissing but a foe shooting you in the front can still hit your weak side-armor.

I went jellyfish too. I checked out the hand with the best damage-roll for the arcane ray and let her pilot all missions while I kept 6 hands in guerilla armor around the elevators to do potshots with boarding guns, Assault Rifles or Light Sniper Rifles.

[Eddie]

Regarding spears: If you can melee a foe you might as well use stun weapons to get a live capture and ransom money. Why use a spear when a handle is just as effective? Depends on gal and enemy of course.

Regarding Barbarian outfit: Why would no stamina penalty on Barbarian be overpowered? Barbarian also has the accuracy penalty. Compare Barbarian to Pirate outfit. Pirate outfit gives +15 melee, +5 acc and has no stamina penalty. The +5 HP on Pirate actually increases your stamina regen slightly. And Pirate has the better inventory. What has barbarian compared to that? Just +10 melee and +10 strength. For melee damage output +15 melee is just as effective as +10 melee and +10 str. Melee stat also scales damage and better hit ratio increases your damage output. The only true benefit Barbarian has over Pirate is 25 front armor. This you buy with stamina penalty, accuracy penalty and inventory penalty, which is then not worth it.
Right now, only the shield variant of Barbarian is interesting as you can get a high enough front dodge that most melee enemies can't hit you at all.

[wolfreal]

Well, I like fistcuffs, when I´m short of space for handles, my strong gals should have at least a fistcuffs. They help me when I´m not in "kill´em all" mode, and have an opportunity to capture someone.

I have never use spears. But after reading this, I will try.

For pre - school armors,  I´ve never used barbarian armor, any variant of this. Neither scale. I really don´t know how to use them. Or guerrilla neither. Normally, if I want melee fast gals, bikini or swing suit. even nude in the beginning. Snipers use night operations (On night visions obviously). Hover suit for hunting and for position a fire grenade thrower/spotter. Tac vest for fast gals on exploration duty (with sawed off, of course, and a saber or/and an axe). And chainmail for the tanks, for very trained hands, and for missions where de danger is null with this armor. Sometimes this work, sometimes does not.

And daggers, I like daggers a lot. Every one of then.

But returning to the feedback... I have none right now 

[The Think Tank]

Personally I suggest Fuso Knives or Javelins for throwing, since you get more than one and a good thrower can exceed 100 damage with 'em

[sanyaskillpro]

My early game weapon triumvirate:
Flintlock Rifle - it's basically a sniper rifle made from scrap. The only drawback is 2 ammo per reload and runt-hours manufacturing it. It should't be as accurate, come on, it doesn't even have a scope.
Blunderbuss - the best shotgun. 4 ammo, can full auto, has chem ammo(basic is not bad either). The only drawback is weight.
Hunting bow with flame arrows - a very strong weapon IMO. Maybe not so good on the highest diffuculty because of increased armor(i play on 3rd). Low energy, can reaction fire, can set enemies on fire.
The camping strategy is very strong, i agree. Using shadowbat and these three weapons you can easily beat a nazi\spartan\raider pogrom. I had a bunch of various rifles and machine guns from these, but they feel inferior to these basic weapons.
Come to think of it, i feel like the game doesn't represent an advantage of having an auto weapon.(unless it's a shotgun) Even in the second year my best gals are armed with dragoon rifles, a bolt-action rifle(if i'm correct) that has a good aimed shot, buyable ammo, and scales up to 60 damage. It's not a problem of the mod, rather of a game engine. I also play a global mod for xenonauts(x-div) and in that game rifles and MGs while being inferior at actually dealing damage(compared to sniper rifles and shotguns at their effective range) they have their own niche, that is suppression. Idk if it's possible to realise it on this engine. Maybe if 2x2 enemies were the norm(but not the dangerous ones) and if every faction had some on their ships\missions then there would be a reason to prefer auto guns.
On melee weapons: i agree. However running a full melee gal is too risky imo until you get the chainmail. Amazon with a sword\blowgun is an insane killing machine, but it's a glass cannon. You make a mistake - you lose a gal. I feel like the big two-haders need something to differentiate them and reward you. It's a big weight\inventory investment that you can't just plop on a belt like a handle; that needs support items like booze. Also barbaric ax, barbaric sword and a regular ax could use more differentiation. Due to their scaling, 99% of the time they are 1 hit - 1 kill weapons. Barbaric ax is probably the worst one, it's basically an ax with a bit more damage for the double energy cost. Other oneshot weapons like hammer and anchor have their utility to differentiate them.
Barbarian armor is garbage, you can't afford such penalties so early on when your gals are untrained. Agree that pirate is better.

[Eddie]

Balancing the weapons that have skill scaling is hard. My idea would be to introduce a new damage cap parameter for the skill bonus damage. Then you can have a significant difference between skill 40 and skill 60 whithout skill 120 making the item op.
Balancing melee could then look like this: 1 handed sword is capped at +20 bonus damage, 2 handed sword is capped at +60 bonus damage.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Melee is supposed to be rewarding and reliable with it's 50-150% damage roulette for 99% of the weaponry.
Firefights have to make trade-offs or we have to go back to vanilla xcom where we had heavy plasma rilfes on everyone and send rookies in power-armor into the battlefield to get shit done.

[wolfreal]

I think melee it is not too unbalanced. It is risky, but reliable. I do think that you should have certain reward for reaching those 120 in skill. Maybe yes, normal axe vs barbaric axe vs barbaric axe  needs a re thinking, but I don't think it is too bad.

[sanyaskillpro]

Melee is supposed to be rewarding and reliable with it's 50-150% damage roulette for 99% of the weaponry.
Firefights have to make trade-offs or we have to go back to vanilla xcom where we had heavy plasma rilfes on everyone and send rookies in power-armor into the battlefield to get shit done.

Melee is rewarding enough, the problem is, if all the good early game weapons are also happen to be non-lethal, then the balance is screwed.

[Ethereal_Medic]

At one point the handle can't handle all your problems. The fistycuffs are more lethal than most victims can take.
Spiked maces are slow and unprecise, axes are good since most enemies have poor cutting-resistance.

You still have to get close to your enemies to do serious melee-damage to them. Early on your 20 armor is barely enough to survive most fights and shrug-off low-roll damage if they hit you in the first place. Early melee-tools have to bridge the tech until you can use advanced guns and even your advanced guns will be outshined by the glory of melee-warfare.

Ranged vs Melee is absolutely correct right now and don't want nerfs to a non-existing issue. Try bash a Marsec Bodyguard with your handle, that won't work.

[wolfreal]

I agree totally. Sometimes I end using a combination of melee and tons of explosives. Explosives to reduce health and seed panic (Firebombs, dynamite, grenades) and take care of lesser enemies en mass, and then finish the other guys with melee, and when I assault ships.