xpiratez playthrough

[jcrabbit]

I suspect this will turn out to be more like a live journal than a real LP. But I'm having great fun with xpiratez, so here it goes.

I'm starting this game on John Silver. I'm hoping it won't be too difficult for me. There'll be plenty of savescumming, but I'll try to keep it to a reasonable level.

My first base will be in Central Asia. It will give a different flavor than my ordinary x-com games.

[jcrabbit]

A few interesting starting gals. Obviously, I have to keep one of them alive.

[jcrabbit]

Well, the first mission turned not how I expected. I may have a hard time keeping our VIP gal alive.

[jcrabbit]

The first mutant pogrom mission!

It did not go so well. The mission took place in a factory, which gave my gals plenty of cover to approach and engage enemies in melee. However, the last four were really difficult to reach and often dispatched my gals with their superior accuracy, smg, and shotgun blasts before I can get to them.

At the end of much reloading and 27 turns, I completed the mission with three heavily injured ubers. At this point, five out of my initial six ubers were injured. I reloaded the game and decided to skip this mission. I was simply not ready for it.

[jcrabbit]

Stranded Government Agents

The gals found two government agents passed out next to their van. They were not harmed, just unconscious. What kind of "false flag operation" were they running? Perhaps they're merely incompetent. We'll bring them back to the hideout to learn about how they got themselves into this mess.

Saved scummed on this one. It turns out zombies are best taken down via ranged weapons. They are tough, react to melee attacks, and can kill a pirate in one hit.

[jcrabbit]

Jan 26, 2601

It turns out researching Cunning leads to X-Grog manufacturing! This led me to explore how the research tree works. Cunning unlocks a bunch of things, but as it turns out, some of them require other techs. But X-Grog! Now I can use my runts to make a bit of extra money. Not nearly enough to keep the base afloat, but every dollar helps.

[jcrabbit]

End of month 1

This month went pretty well. The last mission of the month was to rescue a girl from The Red Lanterns. It was a bit of a chore to go through the entire map to find all the enemies. It was, however, in an urban setting with plenty of cover. Most of the opposition were hoes, who were not difficult combatants.

My ubers fielded six shooters, which are great weapons. While not as accurate as bows, the six shooter made a more mobile crew as it requires less TUs for snapshots.

Some notes:

• I was really glad I researched cunning and our culture. They seem like good early game techs.
• Somewhat disappointed at researching hellerium and expedition. They seem pretty useless at this point.
• I researched the Mess Hall but didn't have enough money to build it.
• I initially bought a brainer on day 30. Then I realized I'd be paying an extra $100k for upkeep for 1 additional day of research. I reloaded and waited until Feb to make the purchase instead.
• I hired some peasants. They are quite a waste of living quarters. I may have to sack them soon.

For Feb, I'd like to get another burrow and a mess hall constructed. I'd like to get craft weapons researched so I can start shooting down civilian transports. Which means I'll also need to unlock the tech to recruit more ubers.

[jcrabbit]

End of month 2

I researched Expedition, which, turns out to be not such a great tech. I can create a research expedition for $25k but it takes a long time to complete.

There was a shipwrecked gal mission, but it ended with no new recruit in sight (half way across the world, in North America).
I received a mysterious message from a Col Clemborg. I don't know what it means.
I got really drunk at one point and embarrassed myself (-50 infamy).
The gals kept getting hurt during mission. At one point Boney Bard scored a 57 day wound.

Missions
Temple Raid - Not easy. The enemies were spread all over the map and I had to hunt them down.
Academy Outpost - This was really hard. My gals were out in the open most of the time. I had to really learn to take advantage of darkness to navigate to where I want them to go.
The second Mutant Porgorm mission - Yeah.... passed on this one.
Bandits - This was harder than it should've been. I think I left my crew's personal light on, because the bandits were able to spot them from quite far away, in the dark They are good shots.
Stranded Gov't Agent - Saw a new type of enemy in this mission, the Grav Ballers. This was tricky. They looked like they carried only melee weapons at first, but they'll pull out molotov cocktails and set yours gals on fire if you're careful.

I ended the month doing pretty well off. I've researched the Little Bird, but I still don't have any craft weapons and I'm not sure how to make progress toward the next month. I started off month 2 by hiring two more brainers. I'll be hiring 5 more at the start of month 3.

[Dogbarian]

Quick comment on this one - your gals don't have a personal light.   Later-game armors start adding this, but unless you're carrying a torch or other light source in your hand, or you are standing near a light source, you won't be seen outside of the foe's night vision range.  Most early foes have poor NV, your gals have a NV of 12 and most human foes have a NV of 9 - you can use that 3 tile advantage.   In a few months, you will quickly get out-spotted at night by enemy with either armor or visors that give them better NV than you, so night is no longer your friend (civvys, though, never get good NV).

And peasants are good for extra bodies for base defense, or expendable scouts to keep your gals from suffering wounds.

Recon expeditions can bring back loot and info to research (since you need to research all of the world regions), but yeah, they take a while.  Buy and forget until it shows back up (it does tie up vault space, so better to use these after you have a second base going, I didn't do my recon until a few months in).   The normal expedition gives you the ability to send a large roster to a fight, albeit slowly.  I will admit I never used them.   However, the tech is needed to unlock other stuff.

Researching the guys that look like motorcycle cops (black leather armor with helmets) leads you towards craft weapons.   

The tech viewer in game (press Q from Geoscape) allows you to see what you need to proceed towards different topics, it is your friend!

[jcrabbit]

Thanks Dogbarian! Appreciate the tips!

[jcrabbit]

End of month 3

March was a tough month, I had three Gals wounded for most of the month. I also had to abort two missions that I simply couldn't do without excessive cheating. Um... yeah, I did savescum in every other mission, but I wasn't blatant about them.

The month started off with a morale busting speech. The Commander decided to drunk and embarrass herself in front of the crew. Well, that was bad.

Haunted Forest
This was hard. I don't want to spoil anyone, but I was not ready for this. After a few tries, I reloaded from the Geoscape and let the mission despwan.

Infested Cellar
This was a fun mission and my first chance to try out the recently developed Barbarian Armor. It's a great mission to play with explosives. Even so, one of the Gals got pretty hurt. I accidentally killed a kitty on this mission. Sorry, kitty.

Ratmen Village
I kind of feel bad doing this mission. But I guess it's ok since the Ratmen are the bad guys? But only had 1 injury for three days.

Shambler Hunt
Easy breezy.

Knock Knock
100 infamy for $500. Good deal!

Isolated VIllage
This is yet another mission I had to abort. I had maybe one crew that had enough TU to do something useful.

Academy Outpost
Another easy mission. Though somehow one of the Gals got set on fire. Out for a whopping 32 days!

Recon Expedition and Gambling
Completed my first recon expedition and learned about Gambling. These events made manufacturing quite fun. I quite enjoy them! Finally recruited a new Uber because of it.

Research
Still no luck at getting vehicle crafts. But got a lot of research done. By April, I'll have 13 Brainers the max I can have for now. I'll need to figure out how to add more lab capcity as well.

By now, I am flush with different weapon types and not sure which one to use or not. My current load out looks like

• Rusy Niner
• SMG (and rarely, Bandit SMG)
• Ol' Rifle
• Basebal bat
• Sometimes - Domestic shotgun
• Very rarely - HE grendade

It feels like grenades are rarely worth it. They don't have a large blast radius and takes a ton of TU to use. Maybe they are more useful at higher difficulties, but for now, it is more convenient to simply run up to enemies and melee them to death.