Peasants and armour choices (Feedback and a personal taste suggestion)

[ruinsfate]

So I'm aware peasants are really meant to be a stopgap solution, not viable endgame units, but in my playthrough I ended up quite fond of a couple of them (One of whom somehow ended up really good at voodoo after I put them through school with a mistaken click). I found them useful as support/medic units and scouts, and I kept a few with scavenged pistols and smgs to be extra guns on base defense which feels very thematic.

I'd like to see more armour options available to them to increase their utility - even if only for RP / headcanon reasons, or wanting to stick to the all female theme. I also found Slave Soldiers very underwhelming, although I expect it was RNG messing with me, my peasants seemed to do great while slaves died horrible screamy explodey deaths. (Or maybe since I disliked them I was unwittingly more careless with them, now I think about it)

There's a tonne of armours that'd feel appropriate - the various ones Slave soldiers can use, but also things like the Maid, Novice, Theban, Gravball, Pirate clothing, Bikini should all come in their sizes. Plus maybe adapted human power armour (the oldschool XCOM sprited stuff), security trooper armour, marsec marine armour? (Some of these also apply to Slave Soldiers, for obvious reasons). I like the idea of a more rag-tag, mixed-troops approach for a band of pirates, at least aesthetically, and it'd be nice to see more options for it. The Loader and Stalker suits are a great start in this direction.

[Roxis231]

I've just posted a mod that has some uses for peasants, though its mid and end game.

[Martin]

Peasants are completely useless after first few weeks due to atrocious starting stats. Maybe if they were the only soldier type that could be upgraded to syn...

[Ethereal_Medic]

Peasants sure have poor starting stats across the roster. Early on they serve as additional eyes on the field and bandage-holders at best.
With crappy gear a peasant can't hit the broad side of a plank but with a smartrifle and stalker-suit they can turn dangerous.

Every aux-unit is meant to be inferior to ubers. Lokk'nars are better in comparision to peasants and kinda equal to slave soldiers.
All aux-units ignore the rank-system and are treated as "swabbie". They're great for keeping salaries low and some of them do their best while dying in combat to protect the hideout.
Slave-Soldier with "The Flash" costume carrying a barrel-bomb or something similar devastating can kill a many enemies sitting in the hangar/access-lift on turn 1/2.

[Zippicus]

Slave Soldiers in Doom/Doom 2 armor are respectable, it would be nice to be able to stuff peasants into that stuff too.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Future will tell.

For now, it's an okay replacement, available after only one research topic and cheap.
Lokk'nar and Slaves take alot more to be unlocked.

[Martin]

Lokk’naars have much higher reaction cap, making them superior to ubers as pilots. Sure ubers can reach bravery of 100, but the faster advance is generally not worth much compared to much higher chance to dodge an attack.

[sanyaskillpro]

I guess the main lokknar gimmick is supposed to be their camo, so coupled with their reactions they could make a good scout\assasin.
Of course you'd rather use an uber gal just because she won't die from a random shotgun pellet. If you play a mission perfectly without getting hit a lokknar does her job, so in theory you have a choice, try to play better to save a bit of money or just go with a safe pick(uber).
And peasants have no gimmick at all. They're just worse ubers. But then, what advantage could a regular human have, if ubers are supposed to be a better version of human.

Just an idea, we know that humanists try to develop advanced weaponry, what if they make a breakthrough in weapon\armor development, but they DNA lock their best samples so only pureblood humans can use them...

[ivandogovich]

Peasants are definitely poor units in the beginning.   They do have a few things going for them. 

- They are extremely cheap.
- They don't mess with salary cap.
- They have stats at fully trained that are just a bit below Ubers.
- They have terrific PSI potential.

Given their low cost its, easy to screen them for PSI, get a coven of about 10 witches, and plop them down with Dojos and Voodoo schools and let them train up.   They can often be extra bodies in a distant base garrison that way.

Early on, with their crap accuracy, I find volume of fire is their best hope.  Oharty's gun with niner clips allows them to unload 9 rounds in one burst. 

Camo paint is good, then Runt armor.  Stalker is better.  Reticulan Lasguns and Ol Carbines allow them to snipe and train up.  (AGLs and Light Sniper Guns can be nice too).

They can also be used to pilot tanks etc in the Tanks and Cars mod.

So, they aren't an instant fix.  In my opinion they are best for filling gaps in the crew early on, and can become quite useful in the long run.

[sanyaskillpro]

I actually changed my mind on peasants, the last couple of patches definitely helped them early game(if not made them slightly overpowered in one aspect im going to talk about).
You know, i never actually bothered with early game expeditions before, but since you need to research them now to progress i thought why waste the tech. So i sent a team to a pogrom, i think it was the 2nd one or the 3rd one. Still pretty early game, had a bunch of peasants in camo with grenades and shotties, couple of dedicated medics, and a few gals in pirate\warrior with ol carbines and a pair of treasured assault rifles from a landed ufo.
It was a night mission against spartans, 4th difficulty. The plan was to turtle in the middle with ubers and use peasantry to facecheck everything. And it worked. Sure, it may look like a D-day, with peasants being gunned down with machineguns, medics trying to save them and being gunned themselves, but the point is i'm perfectly happy to trade 5k dolaroes for an exposed(that means dead next turn) enemy unit that has wasted his turn shooting a peasant. And once you thin the enemy numbers you don't need to trade 1 for 1 anymore. 100% worth it for a bunch of military guns and kevlar parts. Even got the positive score, iirc about +250.
Actually that's one thing i like to change. It's like peasant lives don't even matter, a dead peasant is worth as much money and score penalty as a damn dog, and that's a human life we are throwing away. Maybe keep the cost, but the score(reputation) penalty should be as big as losing an uber gal.

[niculinux]

Actually that's one thing i like to change. It's like peasant lives don't even matter, a dead peasant is worth as much money and score penalty as a damn dog, and that's a human life we are throwing away. Maybe keep the cost, but the score(reputation) penalty should be as big as losing an uber gal.

May be intended, since uber in the game world are despused, pesants who serve them are despised even more? Never used them (uner power!), i will look into it the next relase, hopefully

[sanyaskillpro]

May be intended, since uber in the game world are despused, pesants who serve them are despised even more? Never used them (uner power!), i will look into it the next relase, hopefully

Idk, just feels bad to send them into a meatgrinder, but with current early game economics it feels very powerful. 5k vs 50k for an uber, camo paint is very good and its basically no cost. Give them a shotgun or a pair of grenades. Ammunition? Silly peasant, you won't survive until you need to reload, ha-ha. Now move it, enemy lines are that way, comrade. Im basically playing as Stalin, and that's terrifying.

[Sarissofoi]

But its perfectly logical and make sense in the settings. Its a cruel world.
Losing Uber Gals mean that you lose part of your power. Dogs and peasants are easy to come.
Greetings BTW.
I will drop some feedback as I played some of this surprisingly good mod( I definitely didn't expected good lore or settings from mix of xcom, pirates and boobs).
The peasants stats are really low and when I understand their low melee or firing skills they should start with little more strength(maybe) and more Stamina and throwing skills. They start with shepherd clothes and shepherds used to be famous from their slingshots skills. I mean they are women from hard times living hard lives - it would make more sense to make them little more sturdy. I also would like to see some options to recruit some of the enslaved women(like warmaidens) into more trained and skilled version of peasant.
More early armors of clothes would be great too as for long time( I really play slow) I have only basic clothes for them.
The slave soldiers are fine but it would be nice if some enslaved units give Strong Slave that have better starting stats when converted.
I am currently playing with house rule to only employ starting and event recruited gals and peasants, slave soldiers and dogs(also save and hasty retreat) are my best (even if expendable) friends.
Cheers

[Ethereal_Medic]

Adding more HP to the peasants doesn't do much for them.
With paper-like armor values they'll quickly lose the extra HP anyway.
Earlygame is all about alpha-strikes. Use night-missions with ubers only (unless injured) to get the most value out of the improved nightvision.
During day, avoid pistol-duels and go for flanking and loads of buckshot to the face (1-tile free space to avoid close-combat-check).

No honor gained from taking a pistol-bullet to the guts. Only an archivement known as "patient". And those early downtimes can score up to 30+ days of recovery.
The mess hall only reduces so much downtime but with half a dozen hands to start with every missing gal hurts.

[Solarius Scorch]

So you decided to be Stalin and waste a squad of rookies in a human wave assault which was completely optional.

It's fine, but why are you blaming game balance for something you decided?